Empire Realism 5.0 - Design changes explained

[JaM]

Design changes in Empire Realism 5.0

Experience and Unit Stats:

- ER 5.0 brings different take on unit experience. Game covers large period of time 1700-1799, therefore it doesn't make sense for units to keep its experience over time. Soldiers would serve at most for 15-20 years, which means in those 100 years, unit would have all men replaced at least 5 times or more. Therefore it doesn't make sense for units in ETW to keep their experience bonuses over entire campaign. Yet, Empire TW doesn't allow handling this in any better way, therefore i have decided to adapt new approach to this issue. Experience stat now represent unit's Battle Honors, which on its own doesn't have any impact on unit performance (melee, defense, reload or accuracy), only thing it improves is units morale, simulating higher "Esprit du Corps" these famous units has. So even if new recruits were taken into ranks, they still kept the higher morale due to being a part of famous unit. Rate at which "experience" is gained is much slower now, and it wont be improved by simply taking casualties. Units will gain these levels only through fighting battles and causing casualties.
Of course, this doesn't mean units will stay the same entire game. Instead, certain stats can be improved by technology research, where certain research can enable bonuses that will greatly improve unit effectivity. Like for example having bayonets researched, will give units high melee bonus, making them extremely lethal in close combat, or researching better and lighter muskets which will make your infantry reload faster, concentrate their firepower better (increased accuracy) or simply making them march faster (bonuses to movement on campaign map).

- Unit stats in ER 5.0 were completely overhauled. Now are based on troop body type, where height of men plays main role. Units like Grenadiers which were usually formed of tall and strong men have better defense and melee than light infantry units formed of shorter men. At the same time, because experience bonuses are gone now, units will have their stats adjusted based on their actual quality. For example with Line infantry, reloading skill will be one of main stats defining unit quality, where elite units will be able to reload muskets a lot faster than less trained men. (Guard units will easily out-shoot ordinary line infantry 2:1 or more) Accuracy rating will be similar, as line infantry was not trained to aim their fire at specific targets, therefore in this area, difference will be minimal.
At the other end, units trained for skirmishing will focus on accuracy, yet their reloading will be secondary. In prolonged shootout, skirmishers might not fare that well against Line Infantry, they will be better used at long range musket exchanges. Skirmishers will be a lot weaker in melee, therefore using them with skirmish mode enabled will be a best practice, as they move a lot faster than Line infantry and therefore can evade any possible charges quite easily. Overall, skirmishers will be a great screening force in attack and defense.
Eastern infantry will be mostly melee oriented, with decent melee ratings, and relatively good accuracy, as eastern armies focused more on long range accuracy, than fast reloading. They typically used old style matchlock or firelock muskets with long barrels firing tightly fitted musket balls with improved accuracy (over typical western flintlock musket). At the same time, eastern infantry would often still use body armor or even shields, increasing their defense rating considerably, but sacrificing their overall speed of movement and maneuverability on the battlefield.
Cavalry as well will have stats completely reworked. All three stats (armor, defense, shield) will be used to simulate the cavalry typical effectivity in combat. Armor will still represent cavalrymen body protection, yet melee defense will now represent horse quality, where heavier horses will provide better defense. Shield rating will now represent actual melee defense skill from horseback. This way, there will be clear distinct roles for different cavalry types. Where heavy cavalry will be able to punch through enemy infantry and defeat them in melee, Light cavalry will be better used at sudden charges from flanks or rear, or at chasing fleeing enemy. Sending Light cavalry in frontal charge against line infantry will usually end up in disaster for cavalry.
Artillery units will also be adjusted, with clear difference in crew quality visible based on artillery technology type. Reloading is their main stats, while accuracy is more about gun caliber. Later guns will fire a lot faster than early ones, besides being a lot faster to move around battlefields. At the same time, early artillery crews were typically still composed of non-combat troops, therefore these crews will be easy to rout and very weak in melee.

Musketry overhaul:

I've spent some time investigating actual historical data about musket use while working on NER 5.0. Same design philosophy is applied with ER now. My goal was to make sure first salvo was most destructive, with effectivity falling down with each concurrent shot fired. Only way how to do this is through penalties assigned to fatigue/disorder stats, yet the way its done in v5 is a bit different from setup used before. Instead of using -100% accuracy penalties for disordered units, i have halved actual musket accuracy, and instead set all penalties to -50%. Main problem with previous version was that those penalties practically made skirmishers completely ineffective once their cohesion fall down, which they didn't care about in reality.. Instead, in new version, their accuracy will fall down to 50% of maximum, but due to having a lot more accurate weapons than line infantry, they will still be effective, and that 50% reduction can simulate actual smoke obscuring the area making targeting a bit tricky. But for Line infantry with their limited accuracy - average Line infantry with accuracy rating 25, using musket with -10 accuracy penalty, giving it effective accuracy 15, 50% reduction means a big impact to overall accuracy, especially at longer ranges.
Because unit stats are now not improving with experience gained, i have created customized projectiles for different unit quality. these separate "weapons" now differentiate between unit type quality, prolonging the accuracy effect between units, but also creating nation based differences, to better simulate different drill approaches of certain countries, or even different mechanical construction of muskets. Prussian infantry for example will have higher rate of fire than any other counterpart, while Russian infantry will suffer from lower gunpowder and musket quality, where only elite infantry units will get better equipment. Similarly, differences are made between unit classes, where muskets used by skirmishers are more accurate and slower to reload.
Ballistics will also follow these changes, where bullet caliber and bullet types are adjusted based on what these countries used in reality. For example French muskets will fire smaller caliber bullets at higher velocity, giving them slightly flatter trajectory than British muskets have, while Eastern matchlocks which fired heavier bullets will have lower velocity and therefore more curved trajectory at longer ranges.

Cohesion and Morale changes:

As before, former fatigue is representing unit cohesion, yet ER 5.0 brings some changes to this system, which were first used in NER 5.0. Infantry units now don't get disordered by marching or running. Instead, unit speed was reduced to speed these units are supposed to have to be able to keep their formation intact. So instead of having unit able to sprint but get tired fast and end up being disordered when facing enemy, you will now never get unit disordered by moving, but units will get into position slower. This chance was mostly implemented because of AI, which is not coded to actually take unit fatigue into account and was always running with own units,ending up disordered and easily defeated by player. Instead, AI will get to you slower, but units will be at full combat potential at the combat start. Anyway to not make walking completely irrelevant, instead, walking now restores the cohesion (at 50% rate of being idle), where running has 0 impact on it. Which means if your unit is already disordered, walking it slowly will improve order, while hurrying it will not. Which means you can slowly advance toward enemy and restore own cohesion before charging. (disordered units will actually get movement speed bonus, so they will be able to run away from enemy)
Yet, cohesion is not gone, instead, penalties for firing or melee are much higher now, therefore unit in combat will get disordered a lot faster than before, effectively reducing own combat effectivity. disordered units will be easy to break by determined charges. This change also allowed me to increase morale penalties for being disordered but also various tactical situations, which further improves battlefield tactics player can use. Outflanking the enemy will have higher impact than before, which if done right might cause enemy to break, well executed outflanking maneuvers will be decisive especially due to reduced unit speed which will make it harder for enemy to respond in time. Fighting spread out to single line is now very dangerous, as it allows enemy to concentrate on single point, and defeat the part of battle line, before other units can come to help. at the same time, keeping proper reserves means you will have ability to respond on enemy flanking attempts.
Of course, these cohesion changes are implemented only for infantry, cavalry at the other side will get disordered if ordered to run. Light cavalry will be less impacted by this, making it excellent outflanking force, or reserve force that can respond on enemy attempts to outflank your position. Heavy cavalry is better used at direct charges, as it has much higher staying power.
Overall, these changes remove big weak-point of Battle AI, reduce amount of unit micromanagement, while at the same time put larger focus on battlefield maneuvers and more aggressive combat style. Playing passively will be lot less effective now, as having units in constant musketry exchange will reduce their effectivity and will make them much easier to break by enemy charges.

[JaM]

Overall battle design:

Important feature of ER 5.0 is how battlefield tactics differs between different factions and different areas. Overall focus was to portray combat tactics of very different factions, yet not make anybody insanely superior to the point game would be impossible to play with other factions.

Western military doctrine is simplified, and unit formations are modeled on systems commonly used during Seven Years war. All infantry is placed in three rank formation, which was something eventually adopted by all European factions. Yet because game doesn't allow to simply upgrade units like in Rome 2, this is necessary compromise, yet player can still deploy his units in deeper formations if he wants.
Western armies are fighting in linear order, where musketry exchanges and bayonet charges decide the battle. Cavalry plays mostly supporting role, while artillery effectivity is limited by available technology, therefore slowly improves as more advanced artillery types get available. Overall, nobody can out-shoot Western infantry, while charging line infantry with fitted bayonets is formidable force capable breaking through most infantry units.
Light infantry units will be trained more towards shooting, therefore having firepower advantage over Line units, yet will be a lot less effective in close combat. Some Light Infantry units will not even have bayonets. Yet, Light infantry was always trained to perform battlefield drills at faster pace than ordinary infantry, therefore they will be faster to move and maneuver, which makes them ideal units for flying columns usable as fast response force that can quickly march long distances (usually ideal force against any possible raiding parties), or as flanking force on battlefield. Eventually with some research, Western armies start to field specialized skirmishing units, which will move even faster than light infantry, while being able to fight from open order. Skirmishers will always move at jog, making them practically untouchable by other infantry, which will allow them to perform proper skirmish duty within skirmish chain.

Eastern armies are more focused on melee combat, while their use of muskets is mostly secondary. They fire a lot slower, but with slightly higher accuracy, and are initially superior in melee to
western infantry, until they fully adopt socket bayonet. At that point, only well armored (and therefore very costly) eastern units can hope to survive, and only if they can get into melee fast, because due to all that armor they are much slower and therefore end up longer as a target for musket salvos. Where Eastern factions shine is cavalry, even though various irregular light cavalry units are more suited for harassment than direct combat. Eastern armies also have access to large irregular force, which sometimes might be quite effective in a "small war" or as a skirmish screen for own melee units.

Where things get very different is North America. Native warriors are excellent in close combat, yet are moving a lot faster than western infantry as they don't rely on own formation. This of course reduces their overall morale a bit, but certain Elite Native warriors can overcome such deficiencies and deliver extremely effective charges. Having own detachments of allied natives is important, as they can catch the initial impact and give your infantry time to form up and shoot enemy to pieces. Contrary to vanilla ETW, North American Natives wont have any cavalry units available, these will be restricted only to Plain nations further west.
Having some regular units with bayonets will be also quite effective, especially against lower quality natives. Yet typical western militias are very vulnerable at close range as they lack the bayonets, and only rely on own numbers and not that effective firepower. Battles in North America will be a lot more fast paced, where proper scouting is extremely important as Natives can hide quite well and can jump your lonely units and wipe them out.
French in North America are now a lot more dangerous, due to their better relations with Natives, which allows them to deploy much larger number of allied native units.French North America army composition was always influenced by much smaller pool of French colonists (around 80.000 vs 1.5 million of British), therefore French always had to keep good relations with Natives to overcome British manpower superiority. (resulting for example in massacre of Braddock expedition in 1755 where 250 French and 640 Natives wiped out 2100 British regulars and militia)

Another important change in ER 5.0 is the way how terrain is penalizing the unit movement. Infantry is usually unobstructed by hard terrain (max penalty to movement speed is 10-15%) which gives infantry important edge in broken terrain. Cavalry is more impacted by incorrect terrain, where penalties might sometimes get to 50% reduction of speed (for example wooded areas) which means placing own infantry in woods gives defender some protection against cavalry charges which will be delivered slower and therefore cavalry will be under musket fire longer. It will also allow skirmishers to run into safety if chased by cavalry through woods (cavalry penalty reduces their speed below running speed of skirmishers)
But most impacted is artillery. sending artillery into woods means such unit might take a lot of time to get through. Therefore its advised to use way-points when plotting the movement path for artillery to avoid any broken terrain. moving artillery on road will give your slow artillery speed bonus, allowing you getting your artillery in position faster, therefore you should use roads as much as possible. Road bonus applies to all units.

Overall, in new combat model, artillery is a bit of a niche weapon. It can be very destructive, if it can be at the right place at the right time. Yet usually artillery is slow to move and deploy, and is limited to small number of guns per battery resulting in limited firepower. Artillery uses improved accuracy model, therefore its usually extremely accurate at 1/3 of its maximum range, where you can expect cannon shot to hit exact place you aim at with pinpoint accuracy. yet, as range increases, fire dispersion gets linearly worse, and any shots fired at max range will be very random and far from each other. You no longer can snipe enemy cavalry or general with the first salvo at the start of battle. At the same time, rate of fire is reduced, as due to unlimited ammo for artillery, i have decided to model reload rates on sustained rate of fire, instead of maximum theoretical rate of fire. Rate of fire is practically based on typical amount of shots available per gun, vs average length of battles in 18.century. So if certain artillery had 100 rounds per gun, while typical battle took about 5 hours, such units will have rate of fire restricted to 1 shot every 3 minutes. (which means 60 in game scale 3:1)
Canister(both light and heavy) were considered to be emergency rounds used to defend the guns, and therefore fired as fast as possible. Technically speaking, artillery can be used both in offense and defense, while its effect on target is not just to kill enemy soldiers but most importantly to reduce their morale. Any hit scored on enemy unit decreased it morale quite dramatically, making such unit easier to break by musketry or melee. This effect has about 1 minute timeout, therefore its sometimes better to concentrate two units on same target and fire these guns with some time apart, to make sure shots hit the unit every 30 seconds to keep enemy morale down as long as possible. This is also the best way how to support own infantry in an attack agaisnt well defended enemy position. concentrating your fire and attacking same place with infantry charge.
Howitzers have similar limitations to their rate of fire, yet similarly to guns, they have good effect on enemy morale, therefore are effective at suppressing enemy. Howitzers can lay fire even against enemy units that are obstructed by some terrain, yet their dispersion is higher than with normal guns. This makes them easier to use but with less actual damage on target. Yet howitzers are excellent at firing canister, which makes them superior artillery type in defense.
Best artillery type comes last, most versatile and usable artillery type is Horse Artillery. These units can get anywhere a lot faster, therefore are ideal in meeting engagements, where both sides are advancing. Horse artillery can get to good position faster and start firing and slowing down approaching enemy. Probably the most effective use of Horse artillery is to use it together with flanking force and setup the enfilade fire and bombard enemy line through its length. Horse artillery usually uses light calibers, therefore has much higher rate of fire than ordinary batteries, and its only weak-point is its higher vulnerability to enemy fire due to overall bigger size due to more horses present.

Eastern Artillery is technologically behind the western artillery, as Eastern rulers seen artillery as a siege weapon, not the field battle weapon. They preferred larger calibers which made them very unwieldy and quite problematic to get into battle. Anyway, eventually Eastern armies started to use smaller field pieces in larger numbers, but never caught up to western artillery in term of mobility. Yet sometimes they came with very unique ways how to solve the mobility problem, and deployed unusual units like for example Zamburak guns, swivel mounted 1-lber guns in camel saddle. These could provide limited artillery support while being quite mobile, yet were very vulnerable to enemy fire
Artillery was removed from Natives in North America, as they really didn't had any and were even unable to handle such weapon properly, besides their gunpowder supply was limited and therefore would not even able to use artillery in any effective way.

As mentioned before, Cavalry design is reworked with completely new stats. Overall battlefield role is impacted by the change, creating clear distinctions between cavalry classes. Heavy cavalry is the only cavalry type capable of frontal charges. They usually have high morale, good charge and high defense to survive in melee combat against masses of enemy infantry. yet, even Heavy cavalry can be stopped by concentrated firepower, or by forming squares. Heavy cavalry will have a hard time defeating properly formed square, therefore player will need to use heavy cavalry at the right moment to make sure enemy cannot respond effectively. Heavy cavalry can of course smash enemy cavalry frontally, yet should always keep flanks protected from enemy counter-charge.
Overall, best practical use of cavalry in attack is by using echelon formation with multiple cavalry units in echelon formation attacking single enemy position one after another. First unit charges in, either breaking enemy or being repelled. If enemy holds, second unit in echelon charges already spent enemy unit and breaks through, at which point remaining units in echelon follow through and charge nearby units from rear. This way, only unit that is attacking is effected by enemy fire, while rest of units in echelon stays out of range. attacking same spot means your fresh unit hits disordered enemy, which is practically impossible to resist, while remaining units in echelon follow through, or react on any possible enemy counteractions. While same thing can be done also in column formation, echelon formation is a lot less vulnerable to enemy artillery fire.
Last units in echelon could be of light cavalry, as they can better react on enemy attempts to outflank the echelon, or can chase routing enemy when breakthrough results in rout. Yet not all light cavalry units are suitable for this role, Hussars or Lancers are best in particular.

Light cavalry alone, should not do the frontal charges, and instead stay in reserve so it could be used to chase down routed enemy units. Own infantry will never be able to catch routed enemy infantry, so the only way how to prevent these from rallying and returning to fight is to send own light cavalry hunting them down and shattering them. Light cavalry kept in reserve can be also used to stop any possible enemy flanking maneuvers or even to outflank the enemy on its own, yet they should be not relied upon to fight in prolonged melee with other cavalry or infantry equipped with bayonets. Light cavalry role historically was not in actual battles, but was much more important on strategical level, where it could chase down retreating enemy armies (this can be done in ER by simply detaching light cavalry units from main stack and engage enemy retreating army while own army is still nearby to reinforce even if its out of movement points) or raiding enemy territory (For example as Ottomans, you need to convert population to own religion to occupy the province without major rebellion every turn. Only way how to do it, is by sabotaging enemy religion buildings in province, yet enemy will repair them constantly, therefore sending own light cavalry to raid these buildings is more effective, as enemy cannot repair a building with enemy unit in it.. this way they lose religion conversion bonuses these buildings provide and province is easier to convert by own clerics. Plus, if enemy attacks, light cavalry can retreat, and return next turn)

[JaM]

Campaign Design changes:

Overall main focus in ER 5.0 was economy. Economy buildings now provide linear GDP bonuses,which increase region wealth. This wealth is then taxed by the set percentage as before. Main change is in fact, that economy buildings now don't provide wealth growth bonus, which is now strictly a function of tax rate, government type, culture and technology. This means city wealth doesn't grow exponentially, and is much more subtle and more dependent on overall tax rate. Because of this, player will have less money than before, his wealth will grow slower, therefore later game wont be as easy as before.
Another very important change came with government themselves. As they are coded in the game, Absolutist Monarchy has a quite advantage in ability to chose ministers from pool of available men. Both Constitutional monarchy and Republic are limited to group that resulted of elections every 10 turns. Yet historically, Absolutist monarchies were not the most effective in term of management. Therefore in ER 5.0, i have introduced certain bonuses and penalties which counterbalance the Republican and Constitutional Monarchies Minister skills. So technically, Absolutist Minister has to be a lot better to provide same amount of bonuses as Minister in Republic. Better those ministers get, higher bonus they give, yet maximum achievable bonus in Absolutist monarchy is much smaller than same maximum bonus in Republic or Constitutional Monarchy. (example: 3 star Minister of finance in Republic will increase the taxation bonus to the same level as 6 star Minister of Finance in Absolutist monarchy)
This change also means that you can have pretty decent indirect taxation even with setting minimal public taxes and having people happier in the process.

Second source of income is represented by trade. Amount of commodities in ER 5.0 was slightly adjusted, yet main difference now is in colonial trade. Trading ability was taken away from all normal ships, and only ships capable of securing colonial goods are Armed Merchantman and Armed Indiaman, which are quite restricted in numbers. To counterbalance it, amount of resources per ship was increased back to 20 (10 in ER 4.92), while overall background supply was decreased, therefore price per unit will be higher than before. This will make trade routes very profitable source of income. Yet due to new Naval design (will be fully described later), enemy navy now has much higher priority at raiding trade routes, therefore sea trade will be much harder to keep unhindered. Practically, it will require decent combat fleet that will be able to engage any possible enemy fleets trying to raid your trade, while raiding enemy trade, will be a lot more profitable as well.

This brings me to third type of income, which is now drastically reduced. Custom income bonus was reduced to 500 for all factions, no matter what size they are, instead of 2500 gold per turn for large faction and 500 for smaller ones. Overall, it means everybody now relies on economy buildings to provide income. Damage those buildings and you effectively cut enemy income. Nobody is getting (significant amount of) free money anymore, and even AI income is more vulnerable to enemy actions. You can now effectively tear apart enemy economy during war causing unrest and eventually even enemy asking for peace for being unable to continue with the war.

Diplomacy was of course also adjusted, with certain actions playing much bigger role, creating much clearer lines between friends and enemies. Being at war with someones ally will have much higher negative impact than before, and these impacts wont go away over time, until you end up that war. Certain diplomacy actions will have short term life, like for example State Gifts which will improve relations and degrade to zero in 3-4 turns. This gives you option to use gifts to influence certain actions you want to make with diplomacy. Assassinations and sabotages will have short lived negative effect, yet chain these each turn and you manage to anger enemy very quickly. Overall, game should have slightly more "normal" diplomacy with common sense logic behind it. (yet don't expect some random behaviors to never occur anymore.. AI might still surprise you)

CAI behavior changes mostly aimed at improving AI behavior towards protecting own assets, AI might keep own fleets in ports to protect them more often, or keep own armies near own towns or cities, and chase down raiders. Overall, AI should focus on economy development more than before, which should give AI decent income and ability to recruit lots of units. AI now doesn't get any free money per say, yet it got GDP bonus, therefore it earns more money from economy buildings than player, but it also means AI can be cut short by raiding and blockades. Certain changes were made to unit composition, where eastern factions will recruit more cavalry than infantry, while naval distribution was increased, so AI will rather keep more numerous fleets than single big one, as this allows AI to perform more duties at once, than doing single one that won that particular turn ("all or nothing" behavior)

All playable factions in ER 5.0 are fully playable, with variable difficulty. Certain are suitable for skilled players (specifically Ottomans), while some are relatively easy (Britain, France). Standard campaign got rid of former barbary pirates, as having common enemy for all factions does impact diplomacy in a bit incorrect way (two enemy factions having common enemy bonus). Its quite possible normal pirates will have to be dealt the same way probably, yet they are kept intact for now, so player has something to do in Caribbean. One important change was done to Mughal Empire, as it now shares same personality as Maratha, therefore effectively counterbalancing their aggressiveness, effectively creating a stalemate in India with neither side having upper hand too quickly.

And as mentioned before, Agents are now only capped by number of buildings, therefore player might have a lot more agents now. Assassins/Rakes are now able to assassinate, even though player agents (and generals) now have some bonus to survive such attempts.

Generals are another big change ER 5.0 brings. Instead of small group of cavalrymen, Generals are now accompanied by Grenadier Battalion. This effectively means that General unit is now combat capable and very effective unit, yet recruiting the general is now much costlier than before, and unit has much higher upkeep than other infantry units. General unit is only active if General is alive, which means throwing such a unit into battle fray is not always a good idea as your general is in front rank.. Anyway, because Grenadiers were usually very rare unit, Grenadiers are now not recruitable separately. Exception are some specialized units from factions that actually formed independent Grenadier Battalions on permanent basis (Prussia, Russia)

[JaM]

Machanics of the Charge:

ER 5.0 comes with very different mechanics in terms of combat cohesion effects and their impact on actual performance of units in battle. These changes turn the combat around, giving advantage to offensive actions and penalizing passive defense.

As mentioned earlier, Infantry units wont get disordered from marching or running, yet musketry or melee have its effects increased considerably. What this means for player?

If your enemy is on defense and you need to march to him and engage, you will still have to march through his musket volleys. Anyway, more he fires, more his formation gets disordered, and his accuracy impacted, Yet still, if you are his only target, and you are marching right at him, you will take casualties by the share volume of fire. Best approach how to charge enemy positions is to commit multiple units engaging single enemy unit.If you deploy your battalions in line, 4 rank deep formation will allow you to put more men per frontage. This would allow you to have one battalion stop at maximum range and exchange musket fire, while second one, preferably flank battalion, would wait out of range and only advance when enemy formation starts falling into disorder. At that point, best thing you could do is to march as close as possible, until enemy tries to switch targets. At that point, you have a choice. You either charge without firing, which means you will enter melee in good order vs disordered enemy, or you will fire single salvo and charge. Close range salvo is always devastating, but it will also disorder your troops, reducing their morale for the charge a bit.
If you manage to break the enemy, it is not advised to instantly trying to charge another enemy unit. Unit that just charged is disordered from it, and therefore can be broken a lot easier.Therefore its a lot better to have the battalion that was committed to fire support initially, to march forward, and go for bayonet charge against any possible counterattack, while your men restore order.
Overall, counter-charges are extremely effective and are able to break even strongest units. Even most elite unit with high morale will be a lot less effective once it gets into melee combat, while it will be not able to recover from it, unless it stays out of contact for at least brief time, which means that in defense, having reserves that can counter-charge, is even more important than having a solid line that can fire at enemy.

Yet, its not all made against unit firepower. If you end up in defense against superior enemy, you can rely on your firepower if you use it properly. Engaging enemy at long range is not the best move you can make, leave that to own artillery preferably switched to canister. even if out of effective range, light canister can still cause morale penalties on enemy infantry, therefore its preferable to use canister at medium ranges. Line infantry in defense should not fire at enemy until it gets close. You can do it by counter-marching towards the enemy while he is approaching, this way, you can shorten the range to half of usual engagement range. Other possibility is to march backwards, and force enemy to march closer to your original position, then order your men to march forward into previous position and open fire.

But back to charging. One of important changes for charges is the way unit speed is modeled. Because units no longer lose cohesion by moving, overall movement speed is reduced for units that relied on formation. Speed of movement is adjusted, so normal walk represents standard march, and running represents quick march, which was also commonly used during any formation changes, and is also used for charge speed.
Charge distance for infantry depends on military doctrine. European infantry has charge distance shorter, typically around 15 distance units (15 * mod scale 3:1 = 45m). This means that if you start your charge at the maximum musket range, you need to march 45 distance units to get into charging range.
Grenadiers, which were specialists on charging have charge distance longer than ordinary infantry. Their charge distance is 20 distance units. (1/3 of musket range). At the same time, Grenadiers charge at slightly higher speed, therefore can close in faster than ordinary infantry, while their charge bonus is a lot greater, making them extremely effective at breaking enemy infantry. Of course, with General bodyguard unit being formed of Grenadiers, it also means you would usually have to commit your general for such charges, and risk losing him, so more likely player will use his general only at decisive attacks that are absolutely necessary. (AI also keeps own general out of harms way most of the time)

Eastern Infantry, which is a lot more melee oriented, while not as disciplined, has charge distances a lot longer, therefore will lock into charge at much longer ranges than Western units. Yet of course, Eastern infantry is usually also using armor,or shields, therefore overall movement speed is reduced and so is charge speed.

Natives are similar in effect to eastern infantry, but they are all light, therefore they are capable of fast irresistible charges. Their only disadvantage is in fact that their tomahawks cannot compare to bayonet equipped infantry which has longer reach, yet they are still very deadly in close combat, especially against units without bayonets. Charge distances are again longer, while natives are charging at full run, therefore will get to you fastest. Plus, their overall setup is oriented towards short period of ranged combat, followed by charges.

Cavalry charges are completely different. Similarly to infantry, how cavalry charges, depends on military doctrine, where Western cavalry will charge more organized and at slower speed in tighter ranks. Eastern cavalry will charge at longer distances and at faster speeds, yet is impacted by lack of cohesion at the impact.
Heavy cavalry will have slowest charging speed, yet their charge distance starts outside of musket range, which means heavy cavalry will most likely start charging only after defending infantry fired its initial salvo (unless they are forming a square). Cavalry stats design is very "charge oriented" as melee attack stat alone is relatively small. Cavalry main killing power comes from its charge value, which combines with melee stat at the impact. Where heavy cavalry might have charge stats around 10-12, medium cavalry is usually around 6-8, while light cavalry stays at 4-6, with exception of lancers which have the highest charge rating of 14-18,but usually have lower melee attack.

Where cavalry differs from infantry is in fact that cavalry movement is still affecting their cohesion. So having cavalry running around will have impact on their combat effectiveness and will impact their charge. For that reason, its not advised to run your heavy cavalry prior to charge as it will decrease their overall charge power. Plus, same as infantry, cavalry gets completely disordered once it enters melee, which makes it instantly vulnerable to counter-charges.

Important thing to know with cavalry is that cavalry cohesion rating directly influences melee stat and charge stats. unit that is completely disordered, will have its charge bonus completely removed, therefore attempting to charge with such a unit will be completely ineffective. At the same time, melee stats are decreased to 50%, which makes disordered units less likely to score hits on enemy. Morale impact is as well important, adding big -12 to morale for disordered unit, which might prove to be decisive in many situations.

Entire cavalry combat is now impacted by this. You can have elite heavy cavalry protected by plate armor riding strong horses charging enemy cavalry and win the initial impact, but if such unit gets counter-charged by another enemy cavalry unit, there is a very high chance it will break your elites. Therefore most important aspect of cavalry vs cavalry is to keep reserve squadron that can react on enemy movement and in case first unit wont break the enemy, your second unit can finish the job. Shock capable Light cavalry like for example Hussars are best for this role, Lancers even better.
Cavalry in overall is a lot less maneuverable than before, therefore its possible enemy might catch you and charge you from flank. committing to such charge is not a good idea as flanking charges will deal more damage, therefore it might be a good idea to turn your unit and run other way, while enemy is counter-charged by your reserve cavalry unit. This way, you can turn the first unit around and use it as reserve again, and counter-charge..
Similarly to infantry, cavalry will take some time to regain cohesion, therefore chaining charges is practically impossible. Cavalry morale is intentionally reduced to the level it usually wont be able to cope with cohesion drop morale penalties combined with some losses, therefore best tactics is to withdraw your cavalry from contact with enemy and let fresh cavalry unit to exploit the breakthrough.