Peasants did rape knights all the time as history teaches us, yes, by surrounding them and picking them off. Dont let your knights get surrounded. You can move them away when engaged and charge again. I charged my units of cavalry up to 12 times in one battle. During the battle of Kirholm Polish cavalry charged swedes 16 times. Thats how it works. They will be single men strangled and poked to death but who cares.
I like how the game represents problems with command during battles, with orders inertia and units unwilling to follow your will. Play Starcraft if you want to just move your dudes and kill other dudes.
''Play X if you want to have your noobish experience''.
No. You can do better than that.
Don't get me started on the cavalry. That is not how it worked. It depended on the conditions, momentum... But if the cavalry succeeded in their charge, they could literally swarm an entire enemy battalion. Because a horse + kinght at high speed = Big weight. And I'm not assuming that from the battle of Minas Tirith.
Funny thing is CA have admitted that their previous unit cohesion system were clunky, meaning your client has already pleaded guilty. THat is why there is a significant difference in soldier behavior between Medieval And Shogun 2. This is also why light cavalry charge in shogun 2 has 5 times more momentum, and a much more realistic penetration than the failure that was medieval 2 cavalry charge ( a well known critiqued point of the game).
As for foot knights, that was retarded. Those fully armored shock troops were not supposed to flank. They were supposed to be shock troops, and were meant to take on multiple enemies. And the peasant picking problem came from the bugged system, where the attack calculations of the knight didn't worked properly, and he would get confused : not attack, move weirdly, periodically lifting his sword to get intently interrupted. And it sometimes happened with only one peasant against him.
''with orders inertia and units unwilling to follow your will.''. No again that's stupid. That's a coding accident from CA. They are trying to fix it in this new rome by allowing you to click repeatedly to issue a quick displacement. Your calvary is just standing there (because it's attack code is almost inexistent), after having charged, letting himself be poked while agitating his sword every 15 seconds. That isn't representing anything at all. All the cavalry men should be willing to be on the move at all time (they should also attack properly), and willingly retreat to charge again.
Soldiers often end up being stuck in their attack stance, spread over the place, and will take 2 minutes to return to their normal positions, one by one (they aren't even fighting).
Combat in cities was an horrible cluster-fuck. THey wouldn't even charge when the streets were to small. They would spread in a glitch way, stop, then 4 or 5 would detach and slowly walk toward the enemy (constipated stance). They would get glitched in the stairs to get to the walls. When 3-4 soldiers were still engaging on the other level, they would wait for them (super realistic) in constipated stance, and mass in front of the stairs, on the other level. No way to make them move from this position. Sometimes I would also order soldiers to get on the wall : they can't rush the stairs, each soldiers slowly detach himself from the ranks, and slowly walks toward the stairs.
Worst was when 2 differents unit had to use a ladder = everybody freeze, 1 soldier every 20 seconds climb the ladder.
Assuming you have to nerf your control over those soldiers because generals couldn't instantly issue order is stupid. Because back then, lords were actually in charge of chunks of the army, and would issue orders themselves. Back then, all soldiers weren't attached to each other by a weird telepathic rope, making them unable to move properly, without being bind by each 99 soldiers telepathic connection.
And back then, when they would charge, they would actually charge. When a general says : ''charge those faggots right in front'' they would charge properly, not creat some sort of tin frontline were 10 soldiers engage in turn based combat, while the others stay behind, seemingly taking a dump.
That's fairly difficult to describe most situation, because it's so convolutedly fucked up that it's difficult to find a pattern or coherence in the glitchyness. Overall the problem came from the unit cohesion coding. Each soldiers of a unit is obviously connected to that unit, with his movement and attack linked to the others. That failed synchronization was what was causing all those issues.
And also the fact that the attacking soldiers were not very active for a bunch of guys fighting for their live.
