Mounted Break-Offs: Hither-Thither-and-Rear Charge!!

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 5:44 pm

Please, could the powers that be look at the mounted break-offs? They do seem to wriggle and wiggle past any sort of enemy front and often end up positioned (with the flip around facing) to rear charge said enemy.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:37 pm

rear charge enemy or standing about in the middle of the enemy army waiting to be killed, break offs really need to be looked at as they are kind of ridiculous at present

cothyso · Post by **cothyso** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:50 am

the best thing one could do is to attack in interlaced waves. Keep half of your mounted chargers in support, 3 hexes away from the enemy, and charge with each odd one of them. the break-off pursuers will cahrge right into these in case they will follow-up or be ordered to.

so, this is manageable, imho. what is really bad about these breakoffs, is the fact that these end up with their rear at the battle, which means I'll need at least an extra turn or two to face them back and can re-enter the fray, which is not fun at all, considering their cost and % in a mounted army list.

Morbio · Post by **Morbio** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 11:37 am

cothyso wrote:...the break-off pursuers will cahrge right into these in case they will follow-up or be ordered to.

Are we talking about the same thing? When a cavalry unit breaks off there are no pursuers.

cothyso wrote:... the fact that these end up with their rear at the battle, which means I'll need at least an extra turn or two to face them back and can re-enter the fray...

Cavalry units that break off always end their turn facing the unit they broke off from.

From what you describe I have a feeling that you are describing the evade situation which is somewhat different.

cothyso · Post by **cothyso** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 11:46 am

pursuers like in troops ordered to pursue in enemy's next turn.

they should, but I'm confident I've noticed lots of cases in which they haven't ended up facing the enemy line.

Morbio · Post by **Morbio** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 11:52 am

cothyso wrote:pursuers like in troops ordered to purseue in enemy's next turn.

they should, but I'm confident I've noticed lots of cases in which they haven't ended up facing the enemy line.

If that's the case then there is a bug. If you see this again then try to take a before and after screenshot to post here for the devs to see. I suspect this will be easier to do from the replay of your opponents move than from your own because there is no way of replaying your own moves.

cothyso · Post by **cothyso** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 12:01 pm

I'll try to reproduce it in a special scenario with the editor.

But now.. Hell it was about time!

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 2:50 am

Are you referring to troops pursuing routing enemy?
Or perhaps you mean troops who charge and their target evades and they chase after it, maybe catching it and maybe not. Break offs and evades by lights and non shock cav are two different things.

Break offs can only be done by mounted, other than elephants and I don't think chariots break off but can't recall, who end their second turn combat in contact with steady infantry will break off, they run away and end facing their original target. What we are seeing now is they wiggle their way past enemy units that were maybe trying to fight them, and they end up in the enemies rear turned to make a rear charge in their next turn.

Lights and non-shock mounted who are charged and if the game decides they will lose the combat will evade. They turn and run away from the charger, ending their turn facing away from the unit that charged them. The charger will pursue them if they have extra movement points left, and if they catch the evaders the evaders are rear charged and drop a level of cohesion.

Hope that helped to clear up the differences between evades and break offs