Wedge Formation - Useless?

[Curtis13]

After reading a few threads regarding the cavalry charge system, I thought I'd experiment a bit with some custom battles. After having great success with both single and double click charges (Lancers broke Jannissarry Heavy Infantry instantly both times on VH), i decided to have a bit of fun with the wedge formation.

However, in all of my attempts it was absolutely rubbish. First of all, I put them in wedge and single click engaged the enemy. Sure enough, 20 meters or so away, they paused, closed rank, and charged. The general, the tip of the wedge, impaced, and so did row 2 and 3. Then... nothing. The unit stopped, the general, fighting on his own, was bogged down and killed in melee, as were rows one and two, and the whole rest of the damn unit were just standing, still in wedge formation, 10 meters away.

Take 2 - I charged from all the way across the field. Slightly more impact, but still the same thing. The general is halted mid unit and bogged down and killed in melee while the rest of this wedged unit stand by and wait meters behind.

Take 3 - Forget charging, I'll order them to run straight through the enemy formation. After all the purpose of the wedge was to split the formation apart, right? So I tell the wedged cavalry to run to point 20 meters behind the enemy formation and... you guessed it... no change. They got bogged down and killed, the general didn't even make it through 4 ranks of infantry, and the back ranks of the cavalry never even got near them.

Is the wedge bugged and utterly useless, or am I just using it badly? What I fool I must be to think that a wedge of 100+ heavy cavalry could penetrate an infantry formation (not pikes) in a charge.

Any thoughts?

[ZiRo]

It's useless because once a unit has 1 man engaged, it stops which is stupid.

It's best to just hit them full on, at least you get more bang for your buck.

[Valiant.x]

It is quite useless.

[Curtis13]

Well that's a shame considering how effective it was in reality. Is there any possibilty of this being fixed in the up-coming, or indeed any future patch? What about the cavalry charges on the whole, are they being addressed?

[Lusted]

This is how i use the wedge formation: i charge in my cavalry in the formation, and as soon as they engage i disable wedge formation. This way there is a break developing in the middle of the enemy unit, and the rest of the cavalry unit(preferably supported by infantry) moves into engage. It is best used on the rear of an enemy unit.

[SigniferOne]

I don't know why people think the wedge formation was used literally as a physical wedge, to "break up" a formation. This is not a solid object, only a formation, and the horse at the tip of the "spear" is not somehow magically stronger, heavier, and more powerful, than it would have been otherwise. The horses behind it are not pushing on it and this is not a phalanx charge (if the horses behind it were trying to add mass by pushing aganst it, the horse would collapse and formation would fall apart). No, the horse and the rider must be left totally alone if the formation is to work, but this means they are not any more powerful than they would be regularly.

So then what the heck's the purpose of wedge formation? Let's ask the man who became the master of it, Alex the great. Having to deal with reality and not a video game he understood the physics of what's involved here, and that using the wedge as somehow a "spear" to "crush" the enemy formation would result in suicide for his men. So what was his use for it? BETWEEN fomations. The strength of wedge is not that it is a physical object and can break something up, but that it is narrow at the tip and gets progressively wider and wider. This can be used to strategically target cracks in enemy formations and launch a heavy horse strike between units of the enemy. This is how Alex won Gaugamela, 40,000 men vs 300,000.

I don't know how it works n M2TW a I haven't tested it yet (not really a huge heavy cavalry person, myself). But I know that a cavalry wedge should in no way act like a physical object, and the guy at the tip of it should not get magical bonuses to strength and power.

[Cadmium77]

I've nevef thought much of the wedge formation even in the original MTW.

This is not a solid object, only a formation, and the horse at the tip of the "spear" is not somehow magically stronger, heavier, and more powerful, than it would have been otherwise. The horses behind it are not pushing on it and this is not a phalanx charge (if the horses behind it were trying to add mass by pushing aganst it, the horse would collapse and formation would fall apart). No, the horse and the rider must be left totally alone if the formation is to work, but this means they are not any more powerful than they would be regularly.

That is exactly how I felt about it in MTW...I stopped using it after about a month or so..

[Roman-Warrior]

I don't know why people think the wedge formation was used literally as a physical wedge, to "break up" a formation. This is not a solid object, only a formation, and the horse at the tip of the "spear" is not somehow magically stronger, heavier, and more powerful, than it would have been otherwise. The horses behind it are not pushing on it and this is not a phalanx charge (if the horses behind it were trying to add mass by pushing aganst it, the horse would collapse and formation would fall apart). No, the horse and the rider must be left totally alone if the formation is to work, but this means they are not any more powerful than they would be regularly.

So then what the heck's the purpose of wedge formation? Let's ask the man who became the master of it, Alex the great. Having to deal with reality and not a video game he understood the physics of what's involved here, and that using the wedge as somehow a "spear" to "crush" the enemy formation would result in suicide for his men. So what was his use for it? BETWEEN fomations. The strength of wedge is not that it is a physical object and can break something up, but that it is narrow at the tip and gets progressively wider and wider. This can be used to strategically target cracks in enemy formations and launch a heavy horse strike between units of the enemy. This is how Alex won Gaugamela, 40,000 men vs 300,000.

I don't know how it works n M2TW a I haven't tested it yet (not really a huge heavy cavalry person, myself). But I know that a cavalry wedge should in no way act like a physical object, and the guy at the tip of it should not get magical bonuses to strength and power.

I had no idea, that was indeed a very good history lesson.

-Wes

[sabremookie]

I don't know why people think the wedge formation was used literally as a physical wedge, to "break up" a formation. This is not a solid object, only a formation, and the horse at the tip of the "spear" is not somehow magically stronger, heavier, and more powerful, than it would have been otherwise. The horses behind it are not pushing on it and this is not a phalanx charge (if the horses behind it were trying to add mass by pushing aganst it, the horse would collapse and formation would fall apart). No, the horse and the rider must be left totally alone if the formation is to work, but this means they are not any more powerful than they would be regularly.

So then what the heck's the purpose of wedge formation? Let's ask the man who became the master of it, Alex the great. Having to deal with reality and not a video game he understood the physics of what's involved here, and that using the wedge as somehow a "spear" to "crush" the enemy formation would result in suicide for his men. So what was his use for it? BETWEEN fomations. The strength of wedge is not that it is a physical object and can break something up, but that it is narrow at the tip and gets progressively wider and wider. This can be used to strategically target cracks in enemy formations and launch a heavy horse strike between units of the enemy. This is how Alex won Gaugamela, 40,000 men vs 300,000.

I don't know how it works n M2TW a I haven't tested it yet (not really a huge heavy cavalry person, myself). But I know that a cavalry wedge should in no way act like a physical object, and the guy at the tip of it should not get magical bonuses to strength and power.

This makes a lot more sense, and so I will try to start using the wedge like this. Great explanation, you should be writing for Modders!!

[scottn72]

I thought that the wedge formation in the game was to help cavalry get through an enemy unit in order to attack another behind it, believe I read something like that in the manual. And I haven't tested this theory out so I could be completely way off the mark here.

[Metellus]

I always used wedge with my cav in RTW, worked very well. But I have also found its useless in M2 for the same sort of reason as above. I use a 'torpedo', so to speak, a rectangle with the short side facing the front. I reckon if I widen the formation too much, it won't drive through properly. Not sure though as I haven't tested it really. But the rectangle works well.

[Cawyn]

Wedge formation (if used frontally, so the unit actually charges instead of drawing swords and slowing down) can split a foor unit in 2-3 ranks deep line-formation in two parts and cause a moral breakdown.

The thing is, if you hit the same unit (line formation, 2-3 ranks of men) with a frontal charge instead of a "wedged" charge, you will get the same moral breakdown and kill most of their men as well. So, as in all the previous TW titles, wedge formation remains pretty much eyecandy.

[GODzilla]

Wedge formation (if used frontally, so the unit actually charges instead of drawing swords and slowing down) can split a foor unit in 2-3 ranks deep line-formation in two parts and cause a moral breakdown.

The thing is, if you hit the same unit (line formation, 2-3 ranks of men) with a frontal charge instead of a "wedged" charge, you will get the same moral breakdown and kill most of their men as well. So, as in all the previous TW titles, wedge formation remains pretty much eyecandy.

I think you missed post #6 of this topic.

@Signifer: Thanks again for the history lesson. I was of the same opinion as the topic starter and never really thought about it, but it makes absolutely sense what you said. I will try to use them as you said, but I guess it will be quite difficult, as the AI reacts quite quickly to your movements...

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Wedge Formation - Useless?

Calvary being used in direct combat - Useless.. when you consider they can't kill anything unless its either routing or NOT a spear unit. (I've attacked spear units from behind like they tell you to in RTW, IT DOESNT WORK IN M2TW! they die pretty much the same as if you attacked them from the front, but if you have enough calvary then technically the initial charge alone can kill the entire unit. But other than that they are totally useless in actual combat, when you consider that they even loose to Archers and Peasants!)

I wish that calvary charged through units and not into units. Cause they seem to just stand their and die, which is not how calvary work! they're more useful hitting and running, which you can't do due to the unit pausing cohesion bugs.

The wedge formation in my opinion works a lot better as the pausing happens much less and that you can kill a lot of routers using it over the standard formation.

[Cawyn]

I think you missed post #6 of this topic.

@Signifer: Thanks again for the history lesson. I was of the same opinion as the topic starter and never really thought about it, but it makes absolutely sense what you said. I will try to use them as you said, but I guess it will be quite difficult, as the AI reacts quite quickly to your movements...

O rly? Yeah, maybe I missed that part about "history lesson meets Total War game engine". You can't technically order a cavalry unit to charge at the gap between 2 units. Of course you can try to "crack open a weak spot" of the enemy battle line by ordering them to run behind that gap.

a) They get stuck, surrounded and subsequently killed by the 2 target units.
b) The 2 target units at the gap are too weak for scenario a) and the cavalry breaks up the battle line. In this case, a full frontal charge would have led to the same result + more enemy casualties, but you feel good because you just avoided unnecessary violence. Have a cookie.

I'm not saying that wedge formations didn't make sense in historical RL battles, but with the TW game engine charging head-on will lead to the same or better results, thanks to the charge bonus.

[NinjaCool]

As we heard earlier Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia and one of the most successful military commanders in history, perfected the wedge formation in its use. By waiting for a small hole to appear in his enemies lines, a quick heavy cavalry charge in wedge formation between 2 formations would widen the gap as the infantry unlucky to be in the way, would try and avoid it or be trampled to death. Alexanders infantry then started pouring through the now broken lines, and engaged the enemies center at the front and flank simultaneously.

[Mihail]

more then half the time my horsemen don't use their lances, nor do they charge properly be in wedge formation or not, so while I'd love to scrap using them all together, my french army is mainly focused around them.

[GODzilla]

more then half the time my horsemen don't use their lances, nor do they charge properly be in wedge formation or not, so while I'd love to scrap using them all together, my french army is mainly focused around them.

You need to read this: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=69689

That will make your horsemen use their spear most of the time, if not always.

[mandar]

the problem with wedge is that once the first guy or general engages the enemy enitre unit stops charging and stand doing nothing till the rank in front of them are dead. i think its a bug on CA's part.
SigniferOne: you are right Alexander used the wedge to break infantry but game cant handle the wedge formation it was used in real life.

[SigniferOne]

the problem with wedge is that once the first guy or general engages the enemy enitre unit stops charging and stand doing nothing till the rank in front of them are dead. i think its a bug on CA's part.
SigniferOne: you are right Alexander used the wedge to break infantry but game cant handle the wedge formation it was used in real life.

sigh