Horse and man: two diferent creatures...

[Ozy]

I would love to see in ETW, for the first time ever, men falling of the horses, or horses getting killed and the rider going down to the floor, then maybe standing up and fighting on his feet. If the man dies, maybe the horse could continue running, or a man on the ground could grab it and use it to fight...that would make the game so much better.

[Miraj]

I always wanted this in M2TW too. I hope they do something about it for ETW. Hope.

[akd]

Furthermore, the ability to dismount and mount a unit on the battlemap would be a big step forward in realistic tactics.

[Axeman]

Yeah, ownage!

Imagine taking your entire army, including artillery pulled by horses, on horseback and moving at massive speed across deserts and plains.

Perhaps the ability to buy "mount horses" whose sole purpose is to move your army on horseback but not in battle??

[DisgruntledGoat]

Thats asking A LOT. Having the rider being able to fight both on foot and on horse in the same battle would near impossible. You might as well ask them to have foot soldiers grab mounts and take over the horse. Yes they should have the option to dismount before deployment (aka before battle). Simple thing to do. But to have them operating as two separate entities. Yikes! You would have to redesign how all units operated. What happens to a mounted unit that goes into battle takes a volley and only one horse gets shot. The rider lives. Now the programing has to be able to not screw up unit cohesion. Think of what the AI would have to deal with a situation like this. No, this is one of those ideas that just doesn't have any real world expectations behind it.

[Gary88]

the dismount/mount option at the start of the battle (or maybe as soons as you saw the enemy troops) yes
the ability for men to fall from their horses yes
once they fall from their horse though they should be dead, how would you control the horsed units and the fallen guys at once though, its too much

[Ozy]

the dismount/mount option at the start of the battle (or maybe as soons as you saw the enemy troops) yes
the ability for men to fall from their horses yes
once they fall from their horse though they should be dead, how would you control the horsed units and the fallen guys at once though, its too much

Yeah i know the fallen horseman still fighting is a bit too much to ask...but dreaming is free ...

I think that if a horseman gets shot, he could die and his horse continue running randomly, that would be enough to make me happy, and i think mounting or dismounting at the beginning should be something easy to do.

[The Walrus]

I think overall, that would take too much resources and time(which wouldn't be good, we want the AI to get helped more

However, mounted or dismounted before a battle should be in. If I recall correctly, it was in Medieval Total War(the original)

[Chilly5]

I disagree, your cavalry should be able to dismount during battle (the idea of mounted infantry such as dragoons would need this).

But...as for what the horses would do once dismounted...what would normally happen in battle? Are they just like tied around a grazing area? Maybe they should roam free?

[DickVanDyke]

Well, it's a totally different engine.

Soooo, you never know......

[Mithradates]

When a cavallry man loose his horse but he survives he could become a "zombie" soldier, not part of any unit and the player has no controll over him, he could try to follow the commander maybe and when an infantry unit suffer casualties the "zombie" run there, when arrives he become the part of that unit, like in rome when the commander unit was an archer but the commander as a person on the left wielded just sword and only engaged combat in melee, this way a dismounted sabre-cavallry man could stay around a musket infantry unit, cursing the enemy and such while the others shot and when/if the unit goes to melee only then he joins the fight.

Dismounting a unit during the battle is ok, the unit becoma an infantry unit and the horses automatically run out from the field.
Remounting, now thats harder, the unit must stay stationary so the they could remount their horses or only 75% of the cavallry unit become foot soldiers and the rest 25% will lead the horses after them?

New engine, new possibilities, lets hope for the best!

[Scorch]

Thats asking A LOT. Having the rider being able to fight both on foot and on horse in the same battle would near impossible. You might as well ask them to have foot soldiers grab mounts and take over the horse. Yes they should have the option to dismount before deployment (aka before battle). Simple thing to do. But to have them operating as two separate entities. Yikes! You would have to redesign how all units operated. What happens to a mounted unit that goes into battle takes a volley and only one horse gets shot. The rider lives. Now the programing has to be able to not screw up unit cohesion. Think of what the AI would have to deal with a situation like this. No, this is one of those ideas that just doesn't have any real world expectations behind it.

Different game engine, remember? Never say never.

[AlphaDelta]

I'm not sure that it would be that difficult to implement. CA would simply need to make any unhorsed units form a new unit group.

Dismounting before battle should definitely be possible, it was in MTW and I'd love to see it in Empire.

Cheers

[Empress Meg]

I would rather see horse drawn-arty then men and horse dying at diferent angles. To me, the ability to have faster mobile arty is far more important then the dying animations. I don't really pay much attention to them in battle.

Devoirs The Empress

[removeduser_487563287433]

The PC Gamer article this month mentioned that should you instruct your riflemen to fire too late in the face of a cavalry charge then they could expect to be crushed by airborn equitarians.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Sometimes when you die, some horses should just run about and flee the battle.

[Azog 150]

Yeah, an extended death animation would be enough for me, guy falls and dies from his horse, horse runs away scared. Then the horse either dies or flees the field, remeber the dogs or pigs from rome, once you let them loose you couldnt control them again.


If a horse dies, and a man falls, have him stand back up and some how die or get wounded (didnt they say wounded soilders were more important in Empire?)

[Solar]

Yes, I guess having the owner of a dead mount stay down in the field, wounded, is a good compromise solution that wouldn't be too hard to implement. Make sure he screams for a medic, reaches out with his hands in the air, and rolls around in pain. Yes, that should be quite appropriate.

Ah, and should the poor fellow be lying in the path where a cavalry unit happens to move through in hasty gallop... Well that'd be bad for him, I suppose.

[LuciusCato]

Its a nice idea, it would be very useful for people who (like me) like Dragoons, Ride around the flanks, dismount, fire from cover and ride off again. Or use them to circle the enemy and cut off retreat, i wonder if troops will surrender properly, rather than just "dying" and being added to the little number in the corner.

[akd]

Simple thing to do. But to have them operating as two separate entities. Yikes! You would have to redesign how all units operated. What happens to a mounted unit that goes into battle takes a volley and only one horse gets shot. The rider lives. Now the programing has to be able to not screw up unit cohesion. Think of what the AI would have to deal with a situation like this. No, this is one of those ideas that just doesn't have any real world expectations behind it.

Oh my god! They might have to think out of the box and not regurgitate the same limiting design they used in previous games! They might have to come up with a way for portions of a unit to detach, a game mechanic that has only been done in countless previous wargames! Ahh!!!

I'm sorry, but treating men on horses like centaurs has been one of the fundamental weaknesses of the TW system for years now. They designed themselves into a hole with their choices on how to handle that, resulting in such absurdities as recruiting knights on horse and foot separately, and having armies that must either move by foot and fight by foot or vice versa. A horse is first and foremost a means of transportation that has very deep effects on the strategic and tactical battlefield.

Bear in mind the implications of this claim that it is impossible. That would mean that the new TW engine would be incapable of depicting the movements of ANYTHING around the tactical battlefied by an alternate means of transportation: artillery could not be repositioned by horse, men could not embark on boats to cross a river, officers could not be mounted if their unit is on foot, etc. Furthermore, it would mean that the TW engine could never be used to depict a more modern scenario involving motorized/armored infantry and cavalry.