MTW2 and run through bug

Anyone with any knowledge about countering the run through bug as used by people like Kobe? I played Ocean last night, as well as Kobe months ago, and lost miserably. This was not due to tactical browess but to what seems to be a manipulation of a game bug. Its frustrating when light cav beats upgraded Polish Knights or War Clarics who should totally OWN light cav in a head-to-head charge. This is the only draw back of MTW2. Any solutions?

As an after thought, why is it that exploiting bugs in virtually all other gaming communities is looked down upon but not in MTW2?

What is "run through"? I may be doing it but I don't know what you are talking about.

I have seen it done and occasionally done it on a small scale by accident. Basically, you must first outnumber your opponent at the point of attack. This seems to be done by "stacking" units together. Then you walk your troops through your opposition's units and then attack them 1/2 way through. It also happens after being engaged for a while and then running through them. I have done the latter when I need my cav disengaged. This seems to cause an immediate break in morale and a rout occurs almost immediately. This is kind of rediculous... imagine being in hand-to-hand combat and you (and your entire unit) stroll past an army filled with sword swinging heathen. After having this little walk, you turn on them and they run away in fright. NOT! Everyone walking by the vermin infested wretches would be slaughtered.

I have seen 2 HA rout a unit of knights by running through it. If my memory serves correctly, they fixed this partially with the last MTW2 patch. I sincerely hope this will be corrected in Empires. It was not an issue in RTW.

I lost in the semi finals (might have been the round before the semi finals) of the Tournament Central 1v1 MTW2 because of this very thing.

Well what I do is, I just charge them with cav if they do that. It doesn't happen to me to often, I just keep moving and don't stay in one place very long.

So basically just clump all my units together and hit them at the same time... I guess its the only thing to do it Its not the move counter move but one big mess in the middle... That kind of takes the fun out of the game.

Its too bad MTW2 is like that because it has such a nice mix of units with varying strengths and weaknesses. It could have been superior to RTW, but in my opinion RTW is the better game because of this one reason.

You are right though, it doesn't happen too often. the only people I remember doing it is Kobe, Foehammer, and now Ocean.

Ok josephus, if your playing people like Ocean and Kobe (both really good and respected players) and they are using the walkthrough, then really the only suitable counter is for you to use the walkthrough as well. In that situation your cavalry will win no matter what. If thats not something you are interested in then you could use your infantry inside your cavalry to fight it out.

ok, so the secret is to pack all the units together. I will not use the walk through because i think its unethical.

anyway, i respect ocean a lot. i cannot say the same for kobe due to his abusive personality. i refuse to be in a game with him.

this, by the way, touches on the second part of my opening statement; how can people who exploit a bug have the respect of the MTW2 community when virtually all other communities see it as a form of cheating?

I know jose, its the same with me I respect Ocean alot (I trained him for a long while) but along with that I will not fight Kobe unless its a clan match. Also with the respect even though they exploit a bug it is more of a matter of everyone in that community either knows the trick and exploits it (with a few noble exceptions) or if they are not players from the "pre-rage" days then they do not know the trick and therefore have no idea that light cav is supposed to lose to heavy cav all the time as they have been raised in a community where typical cavalry rules do not apply. I for one feel sorry for those poor saps who have been raised like that.

Imperator_Josephus wrote:

ok, so the secret is to pack all the units together. I will not use the walk through because i think its unethical.

anyway, i respect ocean a lot. i cannot say the same for kobe due to his abusive personality. i refuse to be in a game with him.

this, by the way, touches on the second part of my opening statement; how can people who exploit a bug have the respect of the MTW2 community when virtually all other communities see it as a form of cheating?

hehe I can beat kobe... He is annoying.. One thing though, sometimes I don't even notice if a player is using the bug or not, I just play.

Its was Foehammer, Arcturus and I who did bunch of single unit walk through test. What we found was timeing was everything as some walk throughs can actualy cause you to loose extra. What you need to do is charge and as soon as you see the enemies casaulties slow down and youre hand weapons get pulled thats when you take off running to do the "run through" which is the walk through method. The best way to counter a walk through is with a walkthrough no doubt, and he who times it better wins. The other thing is that a cavalrys 3 to 4 row formation is better at walk throughs and a 2 row is better vs inf.
I wouldnt stack units because if you have a unit in the mix with other units, the front units negate the back units charge bonus.

hmmm maybe that is what I have been doing the whole time... I dunno. I played my first battles in Medieval II today, I am only a little rusty and I have long forgotten my armies.

Yeah, I was rusty too when I played last week. It didn't take long to get remember the army builds though.

Correct me if I am wrong, did they fix the run through bug in Kingdom's? It seems it doesn't work in Stainless Steel.

Maybe I am making a big deal out of this... but I don't think so. It isn't part of what the game is designed to do. Really, there is little difference between playing someone who hacked the game to give them an advantage and someone who uses a game flaw. The net result is the same...

I didn't know this is a bug. I occasionally use it when i outnumber the enemy especially with an infantry battle. The result is that not only the ones in front are hitting enemies but more of my men.
About the enemy routing at that time doesn't seem to be strange, they will be fighting in the middle of a greater amount of enemy soldiers, completely surrounded. It's like a wave that's too much for them.

About the light cav i didn't know. Only one clan referred to a unit of "bug cav". Is that supposed to be light cav?

I would assume that it is what they are referring to. It is a bug because it is not part of the design of the game nor is it a realistic portrayal of edged weapon combat. Too many men packed into a small area would produce disaster in most circumstances. This would be especially true against well trained and disciplined units. The bug causes elite infantry to break quickly.

The other part of this is the "walk through" part. Once the armies engage the charge bonus should not be attainable unless the unit is disengaged and charges again.

Finally, the bug removes the best part of playing total war; a very good simulation of ancient/medieval warfare. No longer is it a game of clash and flanking but simply who can get a charge bonus more repeatedly then his opponent without manuver.

it still is a matter of flanking and menuervering, i know i botched that, just its harder now

Let me rephrase: it is not a game of manuver if one of the players refuses to use a bug, which is standard ethics for virtually all other video games. All the tournaments for other games that I have come across call for an automatic disqualification of the player/players who use a bug, even accidently using an unknown bug.

Can you do this with 20 light cav vs lets say 15 very heavy cav?

If the light cavs are upgraded and the heavys are not. Light cavs with the same $$ spent on them as a base unit of heavy cavs have resulted in the light cavs being victorious. I used to always get super Sgt Cavs and Mailed knights with upgrades, they can hold there own vs super cavs(w/out ups), the main problem is the morale issues of lesser units.

Next time we catch each other online we should try some more specific test.

Yeh would be good Boru

hahaha thats funny actually. Josephus made this topic to find a way to counter it, but now Boru and Rais are testing it to find out results? Irony... or am I the only one that found that funny?

I believe so!!

But at least I won't have to worry about it.

Mace

Know your enemy.

I think it's important to know all about this. Especially because i think it was used against me in a fight vs another clan. And i hear stories from players who say 1 light cav can beat 1 heavy cav, and the clan whom i played referred themselves to light cav as "bug-cav".
I feel pretty confident with my game a.t.m. but when theres a new threat i think i want to know what it is and how you can counter it.
If it is well known and regarded as cheating then i would be able to say something about it.

And if i know all about it and play Josephus.....

(knowledge is power). The best way to counter an attack is to know everything about that attack and see what problems you encounter when useing that attack.

The best way to counter a bug is not to use it and call it what it is... a form of cheating. The problem is the total war community is just about the only gaming group that hasn't got the memo on bugs. As a result, I was hoping to find a way of countering the bug without using the bug. Which bugs the heck out of me... Sorry for the bad pun.