Cavalry acting a bit funny....

[Dionysus9]

First off I'm kicking myself that I didn't get the replay, but here's what happened:

I played a couple MP games last night and my opponents were routinely targeting artillery with their cav, so when I played them again I was ready. I had four prussian lancers ready to intercept any incoming cav. I set my arty marching forward to set the trap-- sure enough I see enemy cav start moving. I target each of their 4 incoming light dragoons with one of my 4 lancers and move my entire army forward so that my arty will be protected. I stop my arty and it has two rows of infantry and 4 counter-charging lancers now between it and the incoming enemy cav.

First off, my counter-charging lancers are apparently affraid to hit the light dragoons head on and instead try to come in on their flank. This takes extra time and lets about 1/2 the light dragoons past before the impact of the lancer charge. This is the first thing I've noticed-- charging cavalry appears to automatically attempts to charge around the side of its target instead of head on. Most of the time I want a head on charge, but my cav is not cooperating.

So then these light dragoons, who should be pretty beat up from a lancer charge, start ploughing through my skirmishers and line troops (which are admittedly on the move themselves, still falking forward). My lancers are lagging far behind, now, even though they should have stop the light dragoons dead in their tracks.... but the light dragoons keep coming, and they are not getting "hung up" on the Lancers, or on any of my other units, either. Normally an enemy unit will stop and fight whatever unit it comes in contact with.

Now, after charging through my entire army to get at my arty, these un-upgraded light dragoons (british) hit and destroy my two howitzers, despite having been targeted by 4 lancers even before they left enemy lines... they are still being fought and pursued by lancers... and now I set two infantry on them too...

Finally, after polishing off my artillery, the light dragoons (still not under any morale pressure, by the way, despite having been countercharged by lancers and having to wade through an entire army) pass out through the back of my army and carry on toward my allies arty! My 4 lancers are still in pursuit, each attempting to target one of the 4 light dragoons, but they are not catching up. This might be a speed issue, but again it looks like instead of targeting the center of the enemy formation, they are trying to flank-- which allows the fast moving enemy cav to keep moving forward and not get hit...

... so eventually I instead decide I better just send my lancers directly to my ally's artillery and stop trying to target these enemy dragoons because its obviously not working.... once I do that my lancers finally seemed to catch up with the enemy and "tie them down" in combat.

It looks to me like this is really 2 problems:
1) the old "click behind" bug that allows cavalry to bypass the "stickiness" of enemy units and run through/past them like butter, and
2) some new cav charging behavior (at least new to me) that the cavalry does not charge directly at a target, but instead swerves a bit trying to hit their flank.

I've also noticed cavalry is fighting awfully well in the trees (used to die fast in the trees)...

I can probably re-enact this tonight with the same opponents and come back with a working replay...I'll try...

If his dragoons had been highly upgraded with experience, it would make some sense-- but these were stock-dragoons, no upgrades.