Medieval 2 Total War: secret of rapid cycling cavalry charge

Good day to you all,

this is the first addition to my steem channel, which for now will be primarily focused on gaming tips from the games I happen to play. We will start with what I would call a true gem. I`ll use Stainless Steel 6.4 mod for demonstration because of how distinct the difference between proper and failed charge is there compared to vanilla.
First the all too familiar sight, the first glorious charge of the day levelling everything in front flat.

Two units wiped out, the third heavily reduced in numbers, all in all somewhere around 350 men – here. the aftermath.

Putting some distance between our horsemen and the enemy, getting ready to charge again.

And getting in for one more glorious shot.

Getting sort of this result, where there ought to be nothing left alive on an acre of the land.

Keep in mind that this scenario is graciously forgiving, but had this been a unit meant to actually harm, like AP/anti-cav halberdiers (and generally any unit, apart from simple peasants in terms of any other M2TW iterations), probably half of these lancers would already hit the dust, paying for themselves particularly miserably. Another shot for comparison, casualties of the first run vs the second.

And the way to turn these failures into repeating lawnmowers is pretty simple, though not as obvious. Holding ALT before right clicking to charge might have a visual and sound output – lances, horns, galloping horses and all that, but the actual charge bonus doesn’t seem to be applied. (failed charge above was performed this way)

Nevertheless, there is a simple fix for that. Now for a demonstration, second test, this time one lancers unit vs. 8 different greatsword units.

Aftermath of the first charge, a little screwed up, as it went in at an angle.

And here is a little secret revealed: Pressing BACKSPACE at roughly this distance makes charge bonus regenerate itself. It is crucial to do this, once unit is clear off contact with the enemy, BUT still in fair proximity of him, distance demonstrated here might be considered the upper safe limit. Visually, the retreating unit, still wielding secondary will switch to lances in this scenario and you know you are able to deliver another charge with full force.

Here casualties caused by consequent charges for comparison.

And here once again, the proper moment to stop a unit for a little while, until they get their lances back, after which you are good to carry on retreating.

And another one, almost wiping out one unit and chipping the corner of the second with lancers getting clear exit route straight ahead.

And so on, until finish.

Given the capabilities of cavalry charge in this mod, such a result is nothing remarkable, nevertheless, even here, getting the job done, using one unit of lancers unit to kill 8 infantry units in 6 charges in a span of 7-8 minutes is quite a feat. And in vanilla, where every charge automatically takes huge toll on a remaining number of men in a unit, if charged frontally means more efficient trading of casualties overall and being able to use single unit to rear charge whole army in quick succession dealing massive casualties literally every few seconds might be the tipping point of a battle. (Keep in mind, most of the time was wasted on running away from pursuing enemy and angling properly for another charge to catch as many units as possible, retreating from pinned enemy, pressing backspace, retreating a little more and then charging in would only take a few seconds)

So that’s it, hope it helps and let me apologize, if you find this post unnecessarily dilated and delaying the point. :-D

Have a nice day for now.