some units too hard to kill?

[mcantu]

so basically ur saying i just double click to attack and then leave it alone?

With cavalry, alt-right click from outside their charge distance. They will line up, charge with spear/lances, then switch to swords

[Watchman]

More like "with cavalry*, always Alt-right click anyway" since you sometimes have to pull of a nasty, hasty, disordered charge (say, against incoming enemy horse).

*- that has secondary melee weapons to begin with; the ones with missiles need Alt in any case

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

My advice would be: don't use cavalry against skirmishers unless you know they are going to break. Their loose formation prevents the charge from landing as hard and their numbers mean that they can easily surround your horses.

[econ21]

My advice would be: don't use cavalry against skirmishers unless you know they are going to break. Their loose formation prevents the charge from landing as hard and their numbers mean that they can easily surround your horses.

That's been my experience with the realism mods like EB and RTR. I think it is the vanilla RTW engine that is at fault - there seems to be some weird thing where cavalry loses its charge bonus when pursuing retreating troops - but you only notice it in realism mods where cavalry is more fragile. And in such mods, cavalry is often so expensive that you want to reserve it for battle winning charges, not driving off some skirmishers.

In realism mods, I find slingers or other ranged units are good counters to skirmishers. In such mods, ranged units often struggle against heavily armoured infantry from the front, but do well against lightly armoured skirmishers without large shields.

[Watchman]

My advice would be: don't use cavalry against skirmishers unless you know they are going to break. Their loose formation prevents the charge from landing as hard and their numbers mean that they can easily surround your horses.

Oh yeah, the RTW engine did have this annoying thing going. I remember some pretty surreal mounted archer-chases. More than little annoying too, given that IRL light open-order troops were normally dead period if caught in the open by horse.

Still, decently armoured cavalry can usually just ride right through the formation, killing some people, turning around and repeating until the hapless skirmishers break - which is usually soon enough.

Can't vouch for the 1.0 ones with spears of course...