Problems riding down fleeing troops

[duncan.gill]

One of the things that I really enjoy doing is using my cavalry to ride down troops once they are broken.

I have noticed however that sometimes the cavalry does not perform well - i.e. rather that engaging with the troops they are pursuing they ride after them, catch up, then wait for the troops to run off a bit more then catch up to them again etc etc - this results in a very slow rate of kills (usually the fleeing troops run off the map before there is more than one or two kills).

Has anyone else encountered this problem (or knows how to fix it)?

[Kham]

As far as I know, a pursuing unit goes for the weighted middle-point of the unit. Usually some members of the fleeing unit get knocked down but survive. They get up and follow their brethren in a considerable distance. Then it might happen that this middle-point is between the main group and the laggards. Your pursuing unit rushes to this point, has nobody to fight, slows down until the middle-point has moved, rushes to it's new location, stops,.....
This is often the case for stretched out/scattered or almost completely killed units.

I don't think that this can be modded easily, but with some micro-managment you can circumvent the problem. Just move your pursuing unit to a point way in front of the fleeing unit. They will rush to it, passing through the unit and killing some of its members. Once your unit is clear, turn around. Now you have all of them in front of you, with the middle point behind the mass of men. Charge and watch the slaughter.

[Gugus]

I like to do it also and have the same problem - especially in siege battles cavalry sometimes even stops pursuing fleeing soldiers (out of its own - sudden influx of mercy??). mostly the problem is becouse when one unit attacks another it aims at its middle so when the fleeing unit is scattered over the cavs get a little confused who to run after. Extreme example is when you have a unit of two fleeing soldiers, far apart one from another, your pursuing cavs will stay in the middle between those two guys running, unable to decide who to kill first. I think it is hardcoded.
A way to go around this is to stop or advance your cavs to another position during their chase and a bit later order them again to pursue routing unit (so they attack from behind\front of the routing unit and get some kills on their way to the middle of the routing unit). At the end of a battle, when I have a lot of routing enemy units i often switch my pursuing cavs between them to get a lot of kills fast.
G

[Thaatu]

I've found out that putting the chasers in guard mode helps. They are almost trying to run through the enemy.

[geala]

You can easily wipe out fleeing units with repeating attacks or with more than one cavalry unit. Although I, being a very bad guy, normally do this it results in rediculously high casualty rates. It is true that ancient and medieval armies suffered by far the most when they broke and fled but the near extinction which is usual in RTW and EB is a little exaggerated. Of course, when fighting against AS, the Romans or Sweboz I'm very happy about it.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

If those troops that are routing are troops that sallied out from a city, then I think there are real problems in trying to get your guys to follow them. I don't know if this is the only situation like that, but there are some buggy RTW effects in that situation.

[Hooahguy]

If those troops that are routing are troops that sallied out from a city, then I think there are real problems in trying to get your guys to follow them. I don't know if this is the only situation like that, but there are some buggy RTW effects in that situation.

i never try to chase down troops which have sallied or i get in range of their towers.... once in RTW, a unit of mine somehow followed an enemy unit back in their city without me knowing and got slaughtered. i wasn't able to do anything b/c the enemy gates closed and i had no siege equipment. too bad that unit had 2 silver chevrons too.