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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Age of Muskets] >> Horse and Musket: Volume I, Frederick the Great >> Cavalry Charge Page: [1]
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Cavalry Charge - 7/3/2009 6:46:12 PM   
siRkid


Posts: 6650
Joined: 1/29/2002
From: Orland FL
Status: offline 		I don't get the 4 hex rule on cavalry charges. Why not just move up next to the unit then charge? Do you get a bonus the father away you are? Do you get extra movement point that allows you to move 4 extra hexes?

Also, I charged a unit that did not react and form a square but when I charged with a second unit it did. I think this is wrong. I would have been better off just attacking with the first unit. These forces the player to only charge with one unit or risk the target reacting to the second or third unit. I think if they fail to react to the first charging unit that should be it for the phase.

BTW I’m enjoying the game so far.


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Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.

Post #: 1
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/4/2009 1:04:03 AM   
siRkid


Posts: 6650
Joined: 1/29/2002
From: Orland FL
Status: offline 		I take it everyone took the day off.

_____________________________

Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.


(in reply to siRkid)
Post #: 2
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/4/2009 6:43:26 AM   
DrewMatrix


Posts: 1429
Joined: 7/15/2004
Status: offline 		I'm enjoying it too. Reminds me of playing Charles Grant's rules a very long time ago with miniatures. But I agree the Cavalry need some sprucing up. You not only can walk up to people, then charge, it is advantageous. Because if you are 3 hexes away you move a couple. then remove disorder, then charge right at the end. Also have you noticed you can change facing, then charge?

See my post about infantry walking across the face of formed cavalry, turning then shooting them in the flank!

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Post #: 3
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/4/2009 12:14:55 PM   
siRkid


Posts: 6650
Joined: 1/29/2002
From: Orland FL
Status: offline 		Thanks, I read it and agree.

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Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.


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Post #: 4
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/5/2009 2:40:56 PM   
Sertorius1


Posts: 279
Joined: 5/3/2008
From: Georgia, USA
Status: offline
quote:

I take it everyone took the day off.


Our apologies, but it was Independence Day.

Anyway, to answer your question you don't get an advantage for charging at a longer distance. If anything, the further you launch a charge from, the more likely you will degrade the charging unit(s) via disruptions. The best thing to do with the Cav is to assault at close range. Get your units in position prior to the charge, as to the unit failing to assume a square formation it is due to a moral check failure. If you are the attacker this is what you want. If the infantry unit goes into square formation and the defender has few disruptions and good moral you will lose. If you can flank the defender use that unit to intiate the attack first only after moving all the other units you intend to assault with. This allows you to exploit the formation the unit is presently in, whether that be column or linear.

Keep this in mind. A unit in column has a high probability of going into square if the unit is decent and not rabble.

And this as well. If you can get an infantry unit up there to prep the defender with its second fire you will stand a much better chance of succeeding in your charge. Better yet is if you can hit the defender with an artillery unit in the bombardment phase combined with the infantry unit.

Cavalry charges against units with high moral and little disruption will fail. Against units in the medium range there is a high probability of failing. The best bet of success is against a unit with high disruptions and low morale. If you attempt this, please keep in mind what happened to the Austrian cavalry at Mollwitz.

< Message edited by Sertorius1 -- 7/5/2009 2:43:41 PM >

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Post #: 5
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/5/2009 2:53:29 PM   
siRkid


Posts: 6650
Joined: 1/29/2002
From: Orland FL
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Sertorius1

quote:

I take it everyone took the day off.


Our apologies, but it was Independence Day.



Sorry I did not mean to sound like a jerk.

_____________________________

Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.


(in reply to Sertorius1)
Post #: 6
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/5/2009 2:59:04 PM   
siRkid


Posts: 6650
Joined: 1/29/2002
From: Orland FL
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Sertorius1

quote:

I take it everyone took the day off.


Our apologies, but it was Independence Day.

Anyway, to answer your question you don't get an advantage for charging at a longer distance. If anything, the further you launch a charge from, the more likely you will degrade the charging unit(s) via disruptions. The best thing to do with the Cav is to assault at close range. Get your units in position prior to the charge, as to the unit failing to assume a square formation it is due to a moral check failure. If you are the attacker this is what you want. If the infantry unit goes into square formation and the defender has few disruptions and good moral you will lose. If you can flank the defender use that unit to intiate the attack first only after moving all the other units you intend to assault with. This allows you to exploit the formation the unit is presently in, whether that be column or linear.

Keep this in mind. A unit in column has a high probability of going into square if the unit is decent and not rabble.

And this as well. If you can get an infantry unit up there to prep the defender with its second fire you will stand a much better chance of succeeding in your charge. Better yet is if you can hit the defender with an artillery unit in the bombardment phase combined with the infantry unit.

Cavalry charges against units with high moral and little disruption will fail. Against units in the medium range there is a high probability of failing. The best bet of success is against a unit with high disruptions and low morale. If you attempt this, please keep in mind what happened to the Austrian cavalry at Mollwitz.


Ok thanks, its nice to know that this works as designed. However, I still have one problem. If I charge with the firt cav unit and the defender fails to form a Sq, then it should not be able to form a Sq when chared by a second unit. The way it is now I will not add more cav units if the defender does not form Sq on the first charge because I will worry that additional cav units might allow it to form Sq.

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Post #: 7
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/5/2009 3:17:16 PM   
Sertorius1


Posts: 279
Joined: 5/3/2008
From: Georgia, USA
Status: offline 		Kid,

And to think, I stayed home from church just to answer these questions.

I'm kidding with you.

Should not be able to form a square when being charged by the second unit is something I can't help you with. While I see the point you are making, the game is hardwired to act in this manner. This is why I recommended the course of action above.

The only thing that I can suggest is only charge a unit with cavalry when you have a high chance of success for you are correct. With every unit added to the charge, the probability the defender to form a square goes up.

I know this is a game trick, but this is why I always move the furthest unit in terms of maneuvering to the flank/rear of the defender first and stop in just short of the charge while I bring up the rest of the forces I intend to use on the defender. My rational are these. Launching a assault prior to moving all the units risk the defender going into square and when that happens, you have a ZOC for all six hexes. And this. One cavalry unit (these are actually half regiments) against an infantry unit will probably fail. If I decide on this course of action, I'll through everything against the defender from front, flank(s) and rear because I know there is a chance it will go into square formation.

If you are able to hit an infantry unit from the flank and/or rear that doesn't go into square with a cavalry unit keep in mind you do get a modifier to your advantage.

I suppose it is like the old Clint Eastwood movie line, "do you feel lucky?"

< Message edited by Sertorius1 -- 7/6/2009 8:57:05 PM >

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Post #: 8
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/5/2009 3:19:59 PM   
siRkid


Posts: 6650
Joined: 1/29/2002
From: Orland FL
Status: offline 		Ok thanks

_____________________________

Former War in the Pacific Test Team Manager and Beta Tester for War in the East.


(in reply to Sertorius1)
Post #: 9
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/5/2009 3:24:30 PM   
Sertorius1


Posts: 279
Joined: 5/3/2008
From: Georgia, USA
Status: offline 		You're welcome friend. I hope I answered your questions. Anything else, feel free to ask. Myself and some of the other Beta testers are here for this.

I hope your Independence Day was superb.

Ryan

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Post #: 10
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/6/2009 8:21:29 PM   
Tim Coakley

 

Posts: 457
Joined: 1/28/2005
Status: offline 		Some great info on cavalry use and game mechanics. I will keep these in mind for the future.

Tim

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Post #: 11
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/8/2009 12:05:59 PM   
jackx

 

Posts: 353
Joined: 7/8/2009
From: Germany
Status: offline 		Regarding the initial problem of it being disadvantageous to gang up with several cavalry units on infantry: Undo. It's a bit cheap, but you can just undo/redo the charges after the 1st to make sure the infantry doesn't form square... why you'd want to do that I don't know, though, I'd rather keep as many cavalry units out of a melee (and thus away from morale and disruption checks) - not only because reorganizing spent cavalry is tedious and time-consuming, but because of the activation system, which allows you multiple waves of attackin one turn, which are usually much more devastating than one massive big charge with all your horse (even more so in cavalry battles, where having the last unit of frresh reserves to commit is usually the deciding factor).

Edit: Cavalry also doesn't have to charge infantry to be useful. If you can get behind them/on their flanks and deploy into line, you slow them to a crawl, and with very limited options for getting out of that situation again. So, if you want to use your cavalry to buy time for your infantry/relieve the pressure, just using ZoC can be more effective than charging.

< Message edited by jackx -- 7/8/2009 4:54:12 PM >

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Post #: 12
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/12/2009 8:34:48 PM   
TheGrayMouser

 

Posts: 296
Joined: 7/12/2009
Status: offline 		You do get a combat bonus for charging at greater distance, I believe the default is 100% at 1 hex and 130% at 4 hexes. The caveat is the greater distance the cavalry charges , the more likelyhood of further disruptions....
These values are also editable

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Post #: 13
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/12/2009 9:34:15 PM   
jackx

 

Posts: 353
Joined: 7/8/2009
From: Germany
Status: offline 		The modifiers (as per the manual) are: 1 hex: 1.0, 2 hexes: 1.2, 3 hexes: 1.3, 4 hexes, 1.4.
Disruption adds a -0.1 modifier for every full 10 points. Charging longer distances is thus mostly useless in actual cavalry combat,
the more so if the scenario has a charge disruption modifier, its main purpose is as extra movement points to get at soft targets,
where it doesn't really matter how strong your charge is.


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no truth - no justice
all false belief
blinded by morality
there shall be ... no peace

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Post #: 14
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/12/2009 9:59:23 PM   
TheGrayMouser

 

Posts: 296
Joined: 7/12/2009
Status: offline 		I think that actually pretty cool how that plays out..  The longer the "charge" the more combat power unless the added disruption negates the advantage...  Appears for the best results one should only attempt long charges with higher quality troops (as I think the higher quality the less chance for disruption per hex moved into)
Was it Frederick himself ( or maybe de Saxe) that indicated cavalry that couldnt charge 3000 paces w/o losing order was fit only for rear line duty?

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Post #: 15
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/12/2009 10:07:33 PM   
jackx

 

Posts: 353
Joined: 7/8/2009
From: Germany
Status: offline 		What this of course does not take into account is that horses (and riders) will eventually become tired. Preventing cavalry from becoming "spent" or "blown" seems to have been a major concern for period cavalry commanders. A meaningful pursuit not happening after a battle because the cavalry is too tired/disinclined to do so due to combat stress is a common feature of many battles, and a strong contributing factor to the lack of decisive battles in this time period.

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no truth - no justice
all false belief
blinded by morality
there shall be ... no peace

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Post #: 16
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/12/2009 11:40:50 PM   
TheGrayMouser

 

Posts: 296
Joined: 7/12/2009
Status: offline 		Yes that is true... It would be nice to have a dedicated "fatigue" attribute for individual units,  but i suppose the game handles this via moral and disruption.  What i mean is once a "command" has been in combat for several turns, it becomes increasingly difficult to get the formation back up from disrupted status/moral loss due to the limited rally points each leader has...Eventually the command will fall apart.  In a sense you could look at it as combat fatigue handled in an abstract way.
I would love to see a cavalry "out of control feature" (much like the Great Battles series) , where if  cavalry routs its oponent it basicaly chases it the map out of your control

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Post #: 17
RE: Cavalry Charge - 7/13/2009 12:19:05 AM   
jackx

 

Posts: 353
Joined: 7/8/2009
From: Germany
Status: offline 		Aye, the game handles overal combat stress/attrition very well with the current system. Those cover normal exhaustion etc. very well.
Cavalry, due to its reliance on horses (and due to these usually being scarce, and of poor quality, particularly as wars drag on), can, and did, run into much more of a  problem with sheer physical exhaustion. 
That's why from what I recall, most cavalry commanders tried to keep charges fairly short, not only to maintain cohesion, but also to prevent unnecessary exhaustion, and to be able to retain a semblance of control after the charge. Charging cavalry carreening off to god knows where in pursuit of their opponents was indeed an ever-present problem. Win or lose, cavalry had a tendency to be a one-shot weapon.

The point of all this with regard to the game: A system where longer charge distances are rarely beneficial seems to be quite well-suited to portray 18th century cavalry combat.
The "losing control" aspect could be reinforced, though - it's often annoying enough if cavalry advances just 1 hex after a successful charge, but that distance could be extended, particularly for low quality/ill-disciplined and arrogant elite units too full of themselves (and no, contrary to the infantryman's common perception, the latter does not refer to all cavalry).


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no truth - no justice
all false belief
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there shall be ... no peace

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