Charge bonus for missile attack?

[Byg]

Hi, does anyone here know why there is a charge bonus for the primary attack when the primary attack is a missile? Is it redundant or does it mean something else?

EDIT: it's redundant according to this, except for the description card.

[charge] : Charge bonus of the primary weapon, added to the unit's attack when charging. As charge is slowed down and unit gets into 'proper' melee, the bonus stops being applied. Min value is 1 and max charge bonus value is 63, as everything higher will be considered 63. Missile units should have this equal to their desired secondary weapon charge bonus, as to not confuse players, since the charge bonus used by the engine will be the one of the melee weapon, while the one displayed on the unit card will be the missile weapon's.

[Ichon]

So they should just match to make sense on unit card is what I always assumed. I couldn't see any time it would really matter for melee so it always matches there as well or should. Though I have noticed some errors in EDU where some units that do very well have much higher 2nd bonus so maybe there is a difference.

[Maltacus]

What happens when missile cavalry charge infantry while shooting? Are the melee stats applied at once even if the soldiers keep using their missile weapons when hitting?

[Byg]

You can't charge while in shooting mode. You can run into them by accident or run through them and at the point of contact they usually switch to 2nd weapon, defensively.

[Maltacus]

Well, that is a matter of definition. Missile cavalry ordered to charge with fire at will active will get their little tooltip box saying "charging" rather than "marching" or something else and the horses seem to run the same way as when properly charging. So in that way they can obviously be said to charge.

They do however not seem to do any damage by charging like they would when they charge without fire at will, so in that sense they can't charge or can charge but their charge becomes harmless when fire at will is active.

EDIT: There is also the interesting case where they are ordered to charge with fire at will active and you disable it before they reach the enemy infantry, so the missile cavalry reach them without fire at will but with bows in their hands and firing arrows. Does the game consider that to be a charge with missile or melee weapons?

Missile cavalry with heavy mounts (heavy as in having high mass) actually seem to be able to do some damage when they charge infantry lines because due to the mass they keep going long enough for their riders to switch to melee weapons before the charge ends and use a bit of the momentum, but not nearly as much as if they would charge without fire at will from the start..

[Ichon]

Hmm... as far as I can tell HA are able to charge while firing. Maybe not as effectively but usually HA don't have as coherent a formation as charging lancers so when the first part of the HA formation enters melee the rest drop their bows and with their impact there is some shock from the charge. I've broken and destroyed numerous armies with HA charging enemy HC while loosing arrows and killing 7-8 before the charge hits where the shock kills another 3-4 though the HA also lose 5-6 in the collision. If the HC already took half casualties from afar that charge is usually enough to break them. HA even when not firing arrows though HA don't have the same effect as higher mass and shock cavalry.

It is an interesting question though so I might try playing with the values a bit for HA see if there is much difference. If HA shock charge remains effective while firing primary missile weapon then that charge value should probably be lowered or made 0 since HA are already quite powerful.

[Byg]

Well, put it up to 63 and see if anything seems different.

[k/t]

Ah, crap, I have some EDUs to review then. I've wondered what the missile "charge" did, but never asked. I assumed they were random numbers.

Ok, I won't have to, since it's not true.

I turned on BC and I took a look at a few units. Georgian Horse Archers have 6 Charge for both missile and melee attacks, so it wasn't conclusive, but the Royal Monaspa Guard has 9 melee Charge and 6 missile Charge with the unit card showing 9 and the Karakalpak Nobles card showed a 8 for the Charge while the EDU says 8 melee Charge and 13 missile Charge. The game is apparently smart enough to tell the difference.