Slitherine

the claim is this ( not my claim ) : Field of glory 2 is not doing a good job of representing behaviour and reality on the field in the aftermath of a successful or successful enough cavalry charge (charge on infantry).
Their view is that if the spearmen lose the impact phase, they must almost always flee because they got crushed , they lost 20-25 men in a charge and its too much to bear because they are mostly peasnts.

in -game i would take the liberty to translate it as the following : If mounted knights win* the impact* phase , losing infantry battalion (unless superior/elite ) should 1) in 90%+ cases roll a double drop
2) if not , then 100% roll 1 cohesion level drop. 3) have a high chance of breaking completely that turn

So 3 cases, each very bad for infantry



In -game : One enemy offensive spearmen battalion of 250 men stands still . i charge them with my knights and they lose the combat (enemy) resulting in 25 casualties. 20 wounded, 5 dead (thats what is shown in the casualties). i lose couple soldiers.


Real life deconstruction : is it a realistic scenario (but not the only one clearly) that those knights charged those spearmen 2 times , or even 3 times during that 1 turn (in game,however long the turn lasts), perhaps each charge consisting of 50-60 knights while rest stay back (and between each charge the spearmen would fully or partially regroup/fix front ranks) or any combo within the reason, since turns dont last forever? that would mean spearmen on average would get 2 killed/6 wounded each charge approximately (but it doesnt need to be equally split) if there are 3 charges , or 3killed/8 wounded if its 2 charges

so if that is the case, their line did not experience the " 1 big boom and breaking of first row " when cavalry charged them , neceessarily ? (in that 1 game turn)


so my explanation in short is 3 part :
1) sometimes people just fight even tho its difficult to fight (thats for scanrio when they do lose 25 men in 1 big boom)
2) casulaties are 70% wounded 30% killed , not 100% killed (or 80% wounded sometimes)
3) casualties happen mostly over time, not in a single moment of impact usually*
4) Optional: you gotta have some balance in the game even if it means its not 100% reflective of reality

I think i have presented a decent defense of Fog2 take on mounted/inf relations but could RBS or any of you offer something else to help the case further?
Also if anyone agrees with the claim that fog2 does not do it well, you can post your reasons why would that be

Overall, I think Knights are powerful enough but not too OP to make battles boring and frustrating. It really depends on the cohesion check. In my view, this is fine because it balances everything out. Edb1815 charged my fresh spearmen head on with Knights in a game and demolished them in two turns. They became disordered and then routed in the next turn. That is pretty good going.

In other games or at other times Knights will get bogged down. This represents the random factor of battle well.

You also have to consider the quality of the infantry. In my games, Knights have frequently demolished lower grade infantry but had a harder time against more veteran or superior troops. This seems accurate to me.

The way I see it, losses are an abstration. Like, not only of men dead and wounded, but of men stressed, scared, broken equipment, etc, in a way they debilitate the unit. So if knighst charge a 200 man unit, killed 20 and after the charge they continue to be steady, perhaps the unit continues to have 190 living men, but some of them are slightly wounded, have seen their best friend die and dont want to fight anymore, their spear has broken so they have to go to the rear ranks, many are tired, etc. The ranks continue dressed and overwall they retain their discipline, but its effectivity and capacity to withstand other rounds of combat has diminished. If the unit disrupts, on top of that, the men are disorganised and dont retain, as a colective, their discipline. The men that you lost perhaps are not tired, perhaps their horse just died so they have to return to the camp by foot because now they are useless in a cavalry unit.

Aditionally, if the knights win and double drop 90% of the time, they should have a very small chance of winning. The game has to show that many frontal attacks from cavalrymen were repelled.