wedge formation

**slayer92** · April 25, 2011, 09:33 AM

I think that everyone knows that wedge formation ,an important formation group,which is supposed to be able to breaking through an enemy line,divide them into 2 parts and causing morale drop works horrible in m2tw even in SS.For example one of the impediment is that units with high charge are charging to late which makes this formation useless..So my question is could you make it better or is something hardcoded?

**Resurrection** · April 25, 2011, 02:46 PM

Afraid not. The wedge formation is apparently a left-over from the old MTW where it actually worked properly but not because the cavalry would charge better but because in MTW breaking the formation had an impact on the unit's fighting capability (particularly the spearmen) since they received a bonus from the supporting ranks. Such feature is not present in M2TW and wedge formation simply makes your cavalry easier to slay since it gets wrapped in the broken unit and slaughtered instead of delivering morale impact and routing it. Sad but true and there is nothing we can do about it but disabling the wedge formation button in the first place.

**Liandro** · April 26, 2011, 10:37 AM

How do you disable it, I'd rather be able to use the Rally horn instead of Wedge which does nothing.

**Sergeant Matt** · June 01, 2011, 08:47 PM

Wedge does have one purpose, which is breaking through enemy lines. Say the enemy general is behind a line of infantry, if you put your cav into wedge formation and tell them to charge the general they'll usually run through the lines pretty easily. But yeah, it's a lot weaker in M2TW than it was even in Rome.

**sumskilz** · June 01, 2011, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by Liandro

How do you disable it.

Don't give it to any of the units.

**Admiral Piett** · June 02, 2011, 06:51 AM

I really wish it did work, it would be so useful in my unfulfillable plans with the use of cavalry breaking someone's flank, instead you have to advance all the way around an enemy flank where they can easily intercept you with a reserve unit of spears and get charged by their general. But Resurrection speaks the truth, its absolutely worthless.

**slayer92** · June 02, 2011, 08:30 AM

if its worthless it could be replaced with another formation(who knows maybe with your original formations if there are ) or with rally button

**Admiral Piett** · June 03, 2011, 01:47 AM

I don't think there are any other cavalry formations, apart from cantabrian circle.

**Prince Valiant** · June 07, 2011, 04:28 AM

Actually I don’t find it quite so useless, it seems to help in frontal cavalry on cavalry fights.

**Mighty_Matt** · July 13, 2011, 02:54 PM

If you charge the front then manually tell them to run on through, like what seargent matt said, you can actually get cav on the rear and sides of units in the middle of the line and this can rout them like it's supposed to.

But you still take more losses than you ought =(

tbh i always charge in broad lines and i wouldn't mind seeing the il-functioning wedge be removed compeltely

**Dago Red** · July 21, 2011, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Such feature is not present in M2TW and wedge formation simply makes your cavalry easier to slay since it gets wrapped in the broken unit and slaughtered instead of delivering morale impact and routing it. Sad but true and there is nothing we can do about it but disabling the wedge formation button in the first place.

However, you can instead increase the mass of the horse can't you? Meaning you can arrange for say, heavy horse to cause other units to be pushed aside by them easier. And/or fiddle with charging dynamics and damage in order to find the sweet spot.

Wedge works sometimes in BC, for example, since some changes in the EDU were made. IIRC gamegeek mentioned tweaking the horses' mass variable. If the horse is heavy enough it will break through and you cut the enemy unit apart. Then you can simply ride all the way through with a second double click getting all your horse from the rear to safety, wheel around for another shot.

You may also want to look at seeing if you can give the elephant attribute of bowling foot units over (but not killing them) to the heaviest mounts.... it's far more realistic than the magic charging-in-place thing that happens instead sometimes.

**Resurrection** · July 21, 2011, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Dago Red

However, you can instead increase the mass of the horse can't you? Meaning you can arrange for say, heavy horse to cause other units to be pushed aside by them easier. And/or fiddle with charging dynamics and damage in order to find the sweet spot.

Wedge works sometimes in BC, for example, since some changes in the EDU were made. IIRC gamegeek mentioned tweaking the horses' mass variable. If the horse is heavy enough it will break through and you cut the enemy unit apart. Then you can simply ride all the way through with a second double click getting all your horse from the rear to safety, wheel around for another shot.

You may also want to look at seeing if you can give the elephant attribute of bowling foot units over (but not killing them) to the heaviest mounts.... it's far more realistic than the magic charging-in-place thing that happens instead sometimes.

Not sure if we even have elephant units. I seem to remember Sumskilz said something like that they were not used in battle in our map span and timeframe at all. But I may be wrong on this one.

As for the wedge increasing the mass won't help. The problem with it would remain as the cavalry would break the enemy easier (it does so already easy enough) but would still be wrapped in and slaughtered. The trick with charging again behind the unit to get the cavalry out is good exploit for the player but no go for the AI. I simply don't see a way how to mod the wedge feature sensibly enough because the main effect - breaking the unit - does exactly nothing in M2TW save getting your cavalry killed easier.

**Dago Red** · July 21, 2011, 12:10 PM

Whether you have elephants or not, what I meant was seeing if you can give the elephant attribute to heavy horses. Elephants have no trouble shoving through infantry when they charge -- the infantry all get knocked down out of the way so the elephants can cut a path through them (though the infantry don't all die so it's not overpowered).

But I still think you can get the wedge to work well enough to include just using the normal horse tools at your disposal. Perhaps consulting gamegeek on this will help clarify. I'm no expert on this, but between the mass variable and the charge distance, you can get a unit of horse to break right through a full unit of infantry.

True, they may not keep going another 30 meters past their target, and some my fall, but all it takes is another move order to get them to do that. It's not an exploit or unfair advantage to the AI, the AI does this itself all the time. In fact, the AI maneuvers it's horse better than I do, half the time. Afterall, I can only micromanage 1 unit at a time. The AI can move all it's units at once. And a issuing another move order is fair to both.

**Admiral Piett** · July 21, 2011, 05:52 PM

Horses really didn't completely toss a mass of people aside the same way elephants did in antiquity.

**Dago Red** · July 21, 2011, 06:00 PM

It may be a slightly gratuitous effect, but heavy horse did indeed toss people aside, rode them down, and generally dominated battlefields for hundreds of years.

If I had to choose between two results of a charge:

1. The common running-in-place phenomenon when a unit of horse meets enemy infantry
or
2. Tossing them aside as they plow through with lance and the weight of heavy armor

I'd choose the latter, even if slightly extreme.

But it's just an idea, do with it what you will. Maybe someone can come up with a great combination of variables to get a desired effect.

ps.Elephants were used well beyond antiquity, in the middle ages by eastern and Indian 'factions'.

**Resurrection** · July 22, 2011, 12:33 AM

Dominant heavy cavalry in Middle Ages is often a misconception. Dominant in this meaning is a measure of importance and not battle efficiency. Cavalry had to dismount half the time it was deployed because of terrain and successful head-on charge was a rare sight. Nevertheless due to knights' superior equipment they were the most important part of the knight era battles (most of our timeframe) and were those who was winning the battles but not thanks to the cavalry charge.

Beside defeating the enemy knights the most important role of heavy cavalry was to disrupt enemy formations usually on flanks to cause panic and routing. Very realistic effect in this regard was achieved by Darth but he also found out in M2TW (unlike MTW) disrupting formations has no effect if it does not kill enough soldiers (his cav penetrated formations but did not kill much). He solved it by giving heavy cavalry insane endurance in melee so they caused the casualties in the end too but only in regular combat. That again was somewhat unrealistic because the cavalry units were small and those separated demi-gods seemed unkillable. If the infantry withstood the charge (which was unlikely) they would have slaughtered such surrounded guys easily...

Anyway that only prove my original point. We want to be realistic about battles and breaking enemy formation gives you absolutely nothing in M2TW unfortunately. Therefore we will have to find a work-around somehow when we get to battle balancing. One thing I have in mind which could work is to make the cavalry similar to Darth's (penetrating, less direct charge casualties, high endurance) but to prevent the ridiculous surrounded guys slaughtering dozens of enemies lowering infantry morale across the board so only relatively low amount of casualties could trigger the route. That would allow us to lower the knights' endurance a bit and thus allow for cavalry to actually dying if they did not manage to break the enemy unit... One bonus of this would be that you could not use your cavalry again and again and again quickly in consecutive charges which is known player's exploit and the way to easy win against seemingly impossible odds. But we'll yet to see how this approach will fare.

**Mighty_Matt** · July 24, 2011, 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Anyway that only prove my original point. We want to be realistic about battles and breaking enemy formation gives you absolutely nothing in M2TW unfortunately. Therefore we will have to find a work-around somehow when we get to battle balancing. One thing I have in mind which could work is to make the cavalry similar to Darth's (penetrating, less direct charge casualties, high endurance) but to prevent the ridiculous surrounded guys slaughtering dozens of enemies lowering infantry morale across the board so only relatively low amount of casualties could trigger the route. That would allow us to lower the knights' endurance a bit and thus allow for cavalry to actually dying if they did not manage to break the enemy unit... One bonus of this would be that you could not use your cavalry again and again and again quickly in consecutive charges which is known player's exploit and the way to easy win against seemingly impossible odds. But we'll yet to see how this approach will fare.

This is a promising idea but i worry it would upset the balance of other tactics,

i always employ a 'hammer and anvil' approach with my cav, charging engaged infantry in the side or rear, in SS this routs most infantry(all non-professional and more) pretty easily, if the morale accross the board was lowered this tactic would turn into an exploit!