cannot charge

[romainpek]

I'm playing a multiplayer game at the moment, my opponent is 17th century Swedish and I'm an unknown nationality catholic (i did not set up the challenge)

Here's the situation, a bunch of Swedish Veteran horse units are scaring away some of my light troops and pursue them parallel to my line of tercios. They thus show their flanks to my tercio units.

I want to charge them of course. My first nearby unit is a veteran Later Tercio. The charge symbol is greyed out: "cannot charge this type of troops". WHAT?? I click on the next unit, a simple Later Tercio (not veteran). This one is allowed to charge. As my line was 50% veteran and 50% normal, I checked that all my veteran were forbidden to charge, all my normal could.

It's obviously a bug that should be fixed, but anyway way too many troops are forbidden to fight each other in this game.

I had once a fight deep in the forest between 2 cavalries. It took me forever to send a light infantry unit around then behind the enemy cav. When finally I'm in position, the dreaded line shows again: cannot charge that troop type. Even in the back, hidden by trees, my infantry is scared to attack this cavalry.

[rbodleyscott]

It is nothing to do with whether they are veteran or avarage but whether the unit has more than 1000 men.

It is more of a feature than a bug and will be corrected in the first patch which should go live next week. Of foot, only keils can attack cavalry. later Tercios are not intended to count as keils, but because of the way the keil code was written, they do when they have 1000 or more men. So only before they suffer any significant casualties.

The patch will ensure that no Later tercios count as keils even when they are full strength. This of course means that they will not be able to charge cavalry.

This is what is intended and is based on historical behaviour. With the exception of pike keils, which did occasionally attack cavalry, infantry in this period did not break formation and run amok because they saw the flank/rear of an enemy cavalry unit. Instead, they shot at them.

[romainpek]

Say that the enemy cavalry is fighting instead of pursuing but still showing its flank to my Tercio. After the new patch is installed, the Tercio will be able to do nothing, nor charging (fixed by the patch) nor shooting (because the cavalry is in melee).

Is that realistic?

[rbodleyscott]

Say that the enemy cavalry is fighting instead of pursuing but still showing its flank to my Tercio. After the new patch is installed, the Tercio will be able to do nothing, nor charging (fixed by the patch) nor shooting (because the cavalry is in melee).

Is that realistic?

Yes. Sorry, but it is. It isn't the "common sense" behaviour, but it is the historical behaviour. It was too important to maintain an anti-cavalry formation when enemy cavalry were about to break that formation for a possibly transient advantage.

(If you disagree with our interpretation of history, this aspect is in fact extremely easy to mod, by altering the ChargePermitted() function in CombatTools.BSF)

[KateMicucci]

Infantry being unable to charge cavalry makes sense to me. I'm more bothered that keils CAN charge cavalry (especially since in the missions the enemy is usually the one with kiels). Glad at least later tercios are being fixed.

Maybe kiels should only be able to charge cavalry who are already in melee? I'm not familiar with what battles pikes charged cav so I don't know what would be correct historically. Can you name some examples of pikes charging cavalry?

[edb1815]

Is foot still precluded from charging mounted in rough or difficult going? What about if the mounted unit is Fragmented?

Sorry I don't have the manual or FOGR rules at hand to check this one.

Thanks

[rbodleyscott]

Can you name some examples of pikes charging cavalry?

They certainly did on occasion - e.g. Pfeiffer's Swiss at Moncontour.

Gendarmes were unable to indefinitely halt the advance of pike keils without fighting, so from a game design point of view the keils have to be able to charge the gendarmes or the gendarmes could block them indefinitely without fighting, and the pikes (lacking missile weapons) could do nothing about it. We therefore let the pikes charge the horse (at very poor POAs), and then allow the horse to break off immediately after the impact combat.

[rbodleyscott]

Is foot still precluded from charging mounted in rough or difficult going? What about if the mounted unit is Fragmented?

Yes, but their shooting should be sufficient to finish the cavalry off, and historically would be the preferred option.

[KateMicucci]

That's sensible reasoning.

Since Early Tercios have shot, can they be prevented from charging cavalry?

[rbodleyscott]

That's sensible reasoning.

I should also mention that the POA system assumes that the gendarmes are in fact charging when the pikes hit them (hence the poor POAs for the pike), so what this really represents is a controlled charge by the gendarmes to slow the advance of the pikes.

Since Early Tercios have shot, can they be prevented from charging cavalry?

It would be easy enough to program if we deemed it appropriate. However, early tercios did have very large blocks of pikes, so it does not seem unreasonable that they should be able to do what very large pike blocks do. However, as they are giving away 200 POA by charging the enemy cavalry, the sensible thing to do in game is usually to shoot the cavalry rather than to charge.