I second this. Schweetness is really doing some excellent work and should be an inspiration to others to follow that path.SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Tue Apr 21, 2020 11:09 pm One difficulty to allowing the cataphracts to ignore the ZoC of the Bowmen to their right is flank covering. If the Bowmen with their rear facing towards the catas were already engaged in melee, a rear charge would be automatic cohesion drop. This would also be the case for a flank charge; a common way to cover flanks of friendly units is to move another friendly unit up behind, turned at a 45 degree angle to cover the flank of the unit in front. Allowing charging troops to ignore such ZoCs would change all sorts of balance pretty drastically.
How would you overcome this? Let's say you don't want Bowmen to exert ZoC against cavalry, because they would hesitate to charge into melee against such troops. What about Irregular Foot? It's almost as bad an idea for them to charge cataphracts as Bowmen. Should they not exert ZoC either? Should the ability to ignore primary ZoCs if there is another target in front be an ability limited to non light cavalry and elephants? How would that work out in balance terms?
Look, I can see the difficulty you're having with this, but changing these ZoC rules would be anything but simple, and could well lead to less desirable outcomes than we have now.
My suggestion - make a quick mod allowing what you ask, and run some test games. That's what Schweetness is doing with the Pike balance. Start a thread, generate some data, come back with something solid for Richard & co to look at.
My only other two cents on this, is that there have been recent discussions about whether cavalry are under powered compared to infantry. Giving heavy cavalry, or Superior cavalry, or lancer cavalry (broad to specific) the ability to ignore some ZOC would be an interesting buff that would certainly make them more useful in some situations. But as Snuggles said, test it out first.