Cavalry charge fatigue from charge movement

[John Roddy]

Version 4.03 introduced a 15 fatigue point movement penalty for each hex traversed by a charging cavalry unit. After repeatedly observing the deleterious ultimate effect this has on play, I am curious if there is something I am missing in what is being simulated by this effect.

Cavalry moves at four basic speeds, walk, canter, trot, and gallop. The normal progression of a charge is to move from a walk to a canter and then a trot when approaching an enemy formation one intends to charge. This movement will vary both as to the distance being covered and the exact timing of the progression from walk to trot, however, the salient point is that that even a brief trot of a few hundred yards does not particularly tire the horse. Get on one and listen to the horse's respiration if you have doubts.

The object of a well conducted cavalry charge was to avoid fatiguing (winding) the horses until as close to the enemy as possible before bringing the horse to a gallop. In practice, this distance was considered to be somewhere between 50 to 200 paces.

The game scale is 110 yards. That distance is more than enough time to bring a horse to a gallop and corresponds well to the 50 to 200 paces distance for the transition to gallop during a charge. Again, until a horse is brought to a gallop, very little fatigue is being accrued.

The effect on the game from the 15 fatigue points penalty has proven noticeable in that it affects tactical decisions, and some of that results in situations that appear historically suspect. A single cavalry charge can now so fatigue a unit that it is of little use until rested for hours. This makes cavalry far less dangerous as one is hesitant to waste it until a critical moment in the battle, not an entirely bad thing but it comes with a side order of having to pass up many opportunities for an attack that no cavalry commander would pass on.

For example, skirmishers need no longer be kept out of range of cavalry that can charge as, as long as they are not just a hex or two from the cavalry, riding them down is not going to be worth the fatigue accrued. Worse, it is now necessary to try to get cavalry to within two or three hexes of an intended charge target the turn before the charge as charging from the full movement distance of the cavalry will result in the cavalry having as much as 90 fatigue points when the charging cavalry melees. Is that even real, is that horse really disadvantaged by 90 fatigue points at the moment of contact? Perhaps after the fact, but at contact?

The thing is, is there really any fatigue to consider except in the hex adjacent to the unit being charged? Is it not generally asserted that fatigue in this game system is not the effect of movement?

I've generally noticed that there is recurring confusion over fatigue not being movement and advocacy of assigning fatigue for all sorts of things involving movement. Assign or not assign 15 fatigue points after the fact for any charging cavalry that actually melees, doesn't matter either way, it won't result in any noticeable effect on the game nor will it result in players learning to modify their play, possibly in a gamey way, for such a minor effect.

And, of course, the inevitable observation, is this really something that should have been better left to the discretion of the players via an optional rule?

[Ashcloud]

I agree that fatigue should not be as an effect of movement but rather combat. In order to model movement fatigue a new unit state should be instituted - perhaps winded? That can be recovered from rather quickly. Something for the future perhaps...

[oz77]

IMHO charging while in combat would put huge stress on both the rider and the horse due to noises, casualties nearby etc. Animals feel the fear with the same physical impact as we do.

Consider a boxer who moves around constantly ready to jab. There would be some distance covered via such movement which would consume triple the energy vs casually covering the same distance by jogging at the same speed but not in combat.

Anyone who did martial arts or experienced combat knows that amount of energy required to cover distance while in combat mode cannot be compared to the same distance covered in marching mode. The mental pressure, the adrenaline, stiffed mussels, the fear - all that contributes to the reduction of combat abilities.

Also, keep in mind that most of the cavalry units are small half squadrons of 50-150. Statistically such small units would rarely achieve high fatigue as they are too small to absorb such losses. The charging fatigue compensates for this to some degree.

Finally, in my experience I can't think of any situation where I hesitated to charge or overrun skirmishes because of fatigue. If the timing is right you do it. Some AAR are to be posted shortly demonstrating the impact of a cavalry charge. Fatigue would be coming as the last consideration on my list.

[John Roddy]

There are several playing styles relating to fatigue. I hail from the fatigue miser side of things and have generally observed that I see little effect from my play style when playing those who pay less attention to accruing fatigue until the point in the game where something of a differential in our relative fatigue levels emerges from repeated combat. At that point my having less fatigue often has profound effects and confers a noticeable advantage to me.

There is another historical aspect to consider. When reading of cavalry combat, there will sometimes be a see saw charge and counter charge battle develop. Running up the fatigue count by adding it on top of the fatigue from melee casualties can put units on maximum fatigue very quickly and render the whole charge counter charge impossible.

Again, as with so many things, there are different ways of looking at the same thing. In these situations, I tend to advocate giving the players the final say between themselves.

[Dion]

While I'm not an expert of the Napoleonic wars nor an expert of the horse cavalry era, though I have rode many horses in my day, I know their four legs gives them more or less perfect balance, which both, decreases physical fatigue and increases strength to such a degree, that they are capable of accomplishing the most arduous tasks. They seem to give 100% effort no matter the situation, over and over again, even if it's impossible to accomplish. I think the only fatigue they should receive should be from combat. And when you consider war horses - they are trained for just this purpose.

It would be different if they didn't have saddles back then, but I'm pretty sure they did, otherwise the riders would get highly fatigued from any kind of movement.

I know charging isn't very fatiguing to horses, but the question should be, is it very fatiguing to the unit as a whole. In my humble opinion make it an optional rule, because you never know in some situations it might have effects, but in most cases I don't think would.

[oz77]

Good point on the fatigue representing unit fatigue as a whole and not individual animal fatigue. Unit's cohesion would not be the same on the second charge and would deteriorate further on the third charge. In game fatigue represents combat fatigue with all mental and stress factors taken in and not the isolated physical state of being tired from the short run.

On the note of cavalry battles being charge and countercharge - indeed historically correct but there is no charging bonus when charging cavalry so simply moving (vs charging) towards enemy cavalry does the job just fine. that way fatigue is accumulated only via melee losses. Yet I am still to see an extremely rare case of a cavalry unit at high fatigue and I play mostly campaign mode where fatigue is often carried forward from battle to battle. Cavalry counters are just not big enough and are likely to be eliminated beforehand.

I am pretty sure WDS mentioned that reducing the number of OR is the way to go going forward so it boils down to priorities what goes in and out. Cavalry charging fatigue may be argued both ways but does not seem like a top candidate for an optional rule. I would say balancing artillery FP and melee is far more critical topic to enforce more historical tactics of fighting in line vs constant melee in columns.

[TheGrayMouser]

Good point on the fatigue representing unit fatigue as a whole and not individual animal fatigue. Unit's cohesion would not be the same on the second charge and would deteriorate further on the third charge. In game fatigue represents combat fatigue with all mental and stress factors taken in and not the isolated physical state of being tired from the short run.

On the note of cavalry battles being charge and countercharge - indeed historically correct but there is no charging bonus when charging cavalry so simply moving (vs charging) towards enemy cavalry does the job just fine. that way fatigue is accumulated only via melee losses. Yet I am still to see an extremely rare case of a cavalry unit at high fatigue and I play mostly campaign mode where fatigue is often carried forward from battle to battle. Cavalry counters are just not big enough and are likely to be eliminated beforehand.

I am pretty sure WDS mentioned that reducing the number of OR is the way to go going forward so it boils down to priorities what goes in and out. Cavalry charging fatigue may be argued both ways but does not seem like a top candidate for an optional rule. I would say balancing artillery FP and melee is far more critical topic to enforce more historical tactics of fighting in line vs constant melee in columns.

Cavalry charging do get a bonus vs other cavalry when they hit them in the flank though, so there is a reason to do so….

If it cannot be an OR I’d like to see it moddable so it can be toned down or up based on a specific title / scenarios / user interest. Either that or have it kick in AFTER x amount of hexes moved using the charge.

[John Roddy]

Cavalry charging cavalry is actually the most effective way to use cavalry against other cavalry in most situations, that is not because of any charge combat value bonus but because of the potential for additional movement from winning the combat! Charging cavalry is very much a part of a charge counter charge process and the players who has more cavalry recover morale fully so as to enable them to execute a charge rather than just a melee alone will often have an advantage.

Not to make too fine a point but perhaps what we are beginning to see emerging from a decision to minimize optional rules is a one size fits all creeping obsolescence of the game series A take it or leave it philosophy that results in a game series you're been playing for perhaps decades no longer playing anything like the game you know and love. A lot of changes have been introduced lately but the proportion of them that are subject to players opting in or out of them via optional rules has declined. Charge movement fatigue is just one example of this.

Optional rules are not programmatically challenging or time consuming to create as the old code and new code need only be branched off from each other in most instances. What could be driving this is a concern about running out of space in the Optional Rules dialog box, a legitimate concern but, again something that can be readily addressed to provide additional space for optional rules. Some sort of implementation of sub dialog boxes based upon appropriate new categorizations such that many players won't need to delve into the sub dialog boxes is a possible solution to that.

For instance, I use a Classic Shell utility on all my Windows 7 and above installations that makes the screen, menus, and folders look just like various older versions of Windows such as XP. I can readily think of a couple of different ways to categorize sets of optional rules such that most players would not need to access sub dialog boxes. This would also have the side benefit of making it easier for many players to specify and negotiate optional rule settings.

So, my point being, there is more than one way forward possible. Not mentioned but at the core of what we are discussing is another more fundamental change, that is, more and more changes being made to the core game engine compared to all that has gone before. Though all changes are made to improve, we are now seeing changes made that significantly alter the way the games play, not just tweaking existing functionality. That is, we are watching an entirely new game system emerging that plays noticeably different that its predecessors. The older changes made the same game play better, we are entering the point of no return whereby we, the players, are being moved incrementally to a new game system since we cannot select out of it via an optional rule setting, yet, we are seeing ominous signs that some of these changes have if not negative consequences, yet certainly unforeseen and perhaps unintended consequences.

Planned obsolescence perhaps?

[oz77]

Cavalry charging do get a bonus vs other cavalry when they hit them in the flank though,

hmm... reading the manual on page 40:

• The defending units must not consist entirely of Mounted Cavalry and Leaders. A melee may occur, but no 3x bonus to the attackers is applied.

So no bonus.
There is another point further on the same page:

• When a defending unit is Charged in flank or rear their strength is reduced by 1/2. So, once disordered they defend at 2/3 strength, and then receive a further 1/2 reduction if attacked in the flank or rear.

But this one does not apply charging bonus either.

[TheGrayMouser]

Cavalry charging do get a bonus vs other cavalry when they hit them in the flank though,

hmm... reading the manual on page 40:

• The defending units must not consist entirely of Mounted Cavalry and Leaders. A melee may occur, but no 3x bonus to the attackers is applied.

So no bonus.
There is another point further on the same page:

• When a defending unit is Charged in flank or rear their strength is reduced by 1/2. So, once disordered they defend at 2/3 strength, and then receive a further 1/2 reduction if attacked in the flank or rear.

But this one does not apply charging bonus either.

The "bonus" is that the defenders strength is reduced by 50% when charged in the rear. Only cavalry get to charge, and the effect applies vs any target... So unless this is a semantics argument, then what I say is true in the spirit as to the in game result,ie you do better charging than not in most cases!