units performaces and difficulty level

[carburo]

Do the units perform different for human players and the AI according to the difficulty level?
I'am playing on marshall level, and winning the battles mainly because of the artillery, but have tried some tests with the other units and the results are rather odd.
1. Infantry unit in line formation, full strength, fresh, shooting from the rear, in a hill... all the advantages; shot at a shaken infantry and barely got an even damage result. I have tried this several times with the same results.
2. Cavalry charging from the rear in line formation and inflicting less damage than what they receive.
Can somebody tell me what I am doing wrong? I can't get my infantry or cavalry to get good results consistently, even if I win because of the arty superiority. I considered all the factors I could think of when performing the tests: terrain, morale, unit strength, generals, supply.
Another question: How does the rally concept work? I've had units charging in the first few turn of a battle and more than 10 rest turns later, general attached included, they are still at 10% of chance to reform. Cavalry especially seems like a one-shot unit. One charge and they are done for the rest of the battle. Or am I doing something wrong?
Great game by the way, even with the opaque economic system, and the phantom reinforcements I never seem to get. I hope it's made more clear in the patch.

[marc420]

Don't know the mechanics, but it seems like some units reach a point where they've just had enough and won't really rally again. Those are the ones that have the 0% or 10% chance of getting to column. I think the quality of the unit varies how much they can take before they get to that point. I know I've had cavalry charge more than once. Usually get disordered, but recover and can charge again. But I know I've had some I've had to just put back as supply train guards 'cause they don't want to fight no more.

[Alaric_31]

greetings, i think 10% is not that worse, think that by odds, one of each ten rolls will reform the unit, this is at max, 10 turns of battle,
not is a dissapointing focus, i think if you don´t move the unit some turns will get better % of reform, but not tested enough at this time
to be sure about it,

with regards,

Alaric

[donkuchi19]

Alaric is correct. If you leave a unit alone, it should begin to improve the chances for a rally. It may take several turns but it does work. I usually wait for a 50% chance and then try to change formation to rally.

[carburo]

Thanks for the answers.
I would have liked cavalry to be a little more useful against disordered/shaken units. I agree that charging head-on against ordered or fresh units shouldn't be succesful, but after a charge against a weak and disordered unit the cavalry should be able to rally faster.
As it is, I don't see the point in having more than 1 or 2 cavalry units. Even in pursuit, you can only hunt one enemy unit, charge it, and that's it.

[Ralegh]

a) cavalry will always get disorganised if you charge an organised enemy - but not always if you charge a disorganised enemy - and there is an upgrade to help. I reserve my cav for charging disorganised enemies (and artillery).

b) chance to reform is influenced by upgrades, type of unit, terrain you are sitting on, turns resting since the charge, distance to nearest friendly disordered unit, and whether you are in enemy line of sight as well as a number of other factors. All of these influence the chance, none are 'binary' - so:

- move the unit out of enemy LOS, and preferably more than 5 hexes from the nearest friendly disorganised unit [I don't know but I suspect that enemy disorganised units affect this too, so I get away from them as well!]
- get into a hex of 'open' - not city, not wooded
- IMHO the chance of 10% working is about 1% - I don't even try if the button for column says 10%.
- if you move the unit at all, you might as well hit the 10% button - resting the rest of your movement points won't do anything [resting is an all-or-nothing thing]
- I may be wrong about this, but my perception is that leaders don't actually help very much with cavalry reforming after a charge, although they do help lots with units changing formation usually. Move the leaders to somewhere more interesting while the horses recover
- Just let the horses sleep at night - in the morning their chance to reform will go up HEAPS: they are used to starting work first thing in the morning.


Even with these notes, irregular cavalary with low morale usually only get one charge per day. But Lancers tend to be OK to go again after only a couple of turns.