Hello TWCenter!
So as I was playing Attila yesterday I noticed something I had never noticed before: charging units do no charging attacks. They simply suddenly stop in front of each other and start doing normal melee attacks. No pushes, no swinging, no falling, only stopping. At first I suspected Radious mod that I was using at the time, so naturally I disabled it and ran a simple test. Nope, still the same.
After some time googling on the matter with no particular answers, I stumbled upon a thread praising the charge attack animations of roman legionnaires from Rome 2. The poster told the readers about amazing jumps and shield slams (or something like that) that his legionnaires were doing to their enemies and asked if any other units did cool charges like that. Other posters replied that barbarian units also used such attacks. The thread ended abruptly with the original poster saying that those animations were now gone.
I then did some more testing, now in Rome 2. No matter how many units and factions I tried, none of them had any charging attack animations. The soldiers would just gently bump into each other, stop, and then proceed to clumsily turn around occasionaly stabbing a guy or two (so, again, normal melee mode).
Furious, I then loaded up Shogun 2 (as I remember this feature being there) and did some custom battles with positive results. Yeah, the samurai really slammed into each other swinging their katanas.
Next came Medieval 2, and I didn't even have to test it twice: my english swordsmen jumped into the enemy french line with swords above their heads to a very visceral and fun display (at least, for me).
So, the question still stands: where have the charge attack animations of Attila and Rome 2 gone?
P.S.: Now, mind you, I'm not even sure those were there when the games launched, as I am getting old and forgetful. So I had to rely on the words of others. But it is seriously bugging me. I now feel like some part of the fun from the game was sucked out.