Charge by a fragmented unit in pursuit

[kraff]

In one of my games I fragmented my opponent's cavalry unit with my horse archer unit. Both units stayed in melee. However, next turn my opponent's fragmented unit was saved from certain destruction by his elephants charging my horse archer unit. My ha unit was broken and fled. My opponent's fragmented cav unit got in pursue mode and subsequently smashed into the flank of my heavy infantry unit, disrupting it - a feat that would be impossible to perform under normal circumstances. A nasty bug, in my opinion. Certainly for anyone whose unit will get disrupted by a charging fragmented unit.

[rbodleyscott]

This is not a bug, it is working as intended. Although the FRAGMENTED unit is highly disorganised, and would not be permitted to make a charge "in cold blood", the defeat of the enemy unit has given them a temporary burst of enthusiasm, enough to charge into the flank of an enemy unit met in the pursuit.

This is not the only way that pursuing units behave differently from unengaged units, because they are so focused on the immediate situation - for example they also ignore enemy ZOCs.

[kraff]

This is not a bug, it is working as intended. Although the FRAGMENTED unit is highly disorganised, and would not be permitted to make a charge "in cold blood", the defeat of the enemy unit has given them a temporary burst of enthusiasm, enough to charge into the flank of an enemy unit met in the pursuit.

This is not the only way that pursuing units behave differently from unengaged units, because they are so focused on the immediate situation - for example they also ignore enemy ZOCs.

But it doesn't make any sense. It really looks like an edge-case scenario that wasn't originally covered in the ruleset. I can understand that, given that this game is complex. I haven't found in the manual a single mention of "a temporary burst of enthusiasm". If state of a unit cohesion is represented by certain markers on the unit's flag, then there really shouldn't be any exception to that. Otherwise it is misleading and incoherent, the whole thing. My steady elite heavy infantry unit got auto-disrupted by fragmented cavalry unit while in melee with another fragmented unit. So who was charging? The whole cavalry unit? Well, if it's fragmented, then it couldn't be the whole unit. If so, then it shouldn't have the same impact as a normal cavalry charge. If it's not fragmented, on the other hand, then its state of cohesion should be appropriately represented. If anything that should be treated as non-disruptive flank/rear charge, similar to that of a light cavalry.

[SimonLancaster]

In this game pursuit changes things and overrides the standard rules. Overall, I think that is a good thing because it makes battles more dynamic, unpredictable and thus exciting.

I have seen my troops miss rear charges as they go on pursuit but then thunder through ZOCs to give me an advantage.