Skirmishers run toooooo fast

[Jamesk2]

After the massive nerf to shock cavalry in the previous patch, skirmishers have lost their natural predator and now being just straight up a pain in the *ss to deal with. The most frustrating thing is that they run almost as fast as cavalry ALL THE TIME, ON ALL TERRAIN without using any condition. Even catching them on open field with shock cavalry only deal a minor amount of damage until they got to the nearest wood and then the table turn. Like seriously, can those people who always scream "history" out of their throat all the time explain to me how is that possible, huh?

Edited March 16, 2017 by Jamesk2

[The Soldier]

I just want skirmishers to have a melee penalty for just being skirmishers.  Open formation, no supporting guys behind them, and more often than not no bayonets (depending on the rifle issued).  Also; slight speed nerf to skirmishers or slight speed buff to cavalry (however, do note that cavalry lose no stamina while mounted) would be more than welcome to help kill the buggers.

[DeRuyter]

20 minutes ago, Jamesk2 said:

After the massive nerf to shock cavalry in the previous patch, skirmishers have lost their natural predator and now being just straight up a pain in the *ss to deal with. The most frustrating thing is that they run almost as fast as cavalry ALL THE TIME, ON ALL TERRAIN without using any condition. Even catching them on open field with shock cavalry only deal a minor amount of damage until they got to the nearest wood and then the table turn. Like seriously, can those people who always scream "history" out of their throat all the time explain to me how is that possible, huh?

Didn't the massive nerf only apply to melee combat in woods? (or other terrain).

I was able to run down and kill or capture several skirmish units yesterday with melee cavalry in the open.

[The Soldier]

4 minutes ago, DeRuyter said:

Didn't the massive nerf only apply to melee combat in woods? (or other terrain).

I was able to run down and kill or capture several skirmish units yesterday with melee cavalry in the open.

Yea, but more often than not the AI is smart enough (when I face them) to shove them in forest unless I chase them out first.

However, currently there's a bug where you can just Dismount Shock Cavalry with the shortcut key for Dismounting (usually M), throw them into forest, and have them slice stuff up as foot soldiers and have no melee nerf applied to them.  Sooo....yea.

Edited March 16, 2017 by The Soldier

[Wright29]

Detach your own skirmishers to counter the OP AI skirmishers. To be fair to the devs, it cuts both ways. Actually it's really in favor of the player because the computer doesn't detach skirmishers and doesn't use them as efficiently as the player can. 
And as bad as the nerf was for the player's melee cav, the AI has absolutely no idea how to use cav and you can regularly skirmish with them profitably now. 

[JaM]

regarding unit speeds, typical movement of CW soldiers in formation was about 90-100 paces per minute, while double speed was 120 paces/min. Yet skirmishers would be not keeping formations, they would move freely, which means they would easily outpace close order infantry.. they could simply use light jog on short distances, which means they would be at least 2x faster than ordinary infantry...

[A. P. Hill]

Lets not forget that if the AI is falling back / retreating they never seem to become exhausted as fast as my troops chasing them.  I can't keep up with them for any reason.  This allows a broken AI brigade to outrun the player, to a safe distance and possibly reform before the player can find it to damage the AI any further.  Exhaustion should work on AI the same as it does for the player.

[The Soldier]

1 minute ago, A. P. Hill said:

Lets not forget that if the AI is falling back / retreating they never seem to become exhausted as fast as my troops chasing them.  I can't keep up with them for any reason.  This allows a broken AI brigade to outrun the player, to a safe distance and possibly reform before the player can find it to damage the AI any further.  Exhaustion should work on AI the same as it does for the player.

I think all units, player and AI, Rout at the same maximum speed.

[Draluigi]

Rather than the speed buff, I think the stupidest (sorry devs don't mean to hurt no one) is that their condition goes down so little. They should get a marching and running speed, marching being as fast as  marching line infantry, running being faster than running infantry, and condition going down as fast or almost as fast as running infantry.

The soldier is right about nerfing their melee. Also, it seems to me that the game gives a big premium in melee to the number of formations involved, rather than number of men. I feel like two 500-man infantry brigade systematically beat a single 1000-man brigade, and that 900 line infantry with 100 skirms will beat 1000 line infantry. That is a problem. Detaching skirms should hurt a birgade's melee ability, not enhance it.

[Aetius]

20 hours ago, The Soldier said:

I think all units, player and AI, Rout at the same maximum speed.

*And* they use no Condition while routing. I've abused manual routing several times in Legendary to drain stamina from enemy units that are pursuing mine.

8 hours ago, Draluigi said:

Also, it seems to me that the game gives a big premium in melee to the number of formations involved, rather than number of men. I feel like two 500-man infantry brigade systematically beat a single 1000-man brigade, and that 900 line infantry with 100 skirms will beat 1000 line infantry. That is a problem. Detaching skirms should hurt a birgade's melee ability, not enhance it.

I believe this is because Condition matters so much in melee combat. It appears to me that units lose Condition equally, even though they are different sizes. For example, if you attack a unit in melee with one unit, wait a bit, and then hit it with another unit, the defenders will run out of Condition and either flee or surrender.

[Draluigi]

Maybe, but then skirms, since they don't have to run to go places, have a huge condition buff.