I’m not talking about the Attack Move command!
Recently, the addition of snare was brought up and that reminded me of something I wanted to bring to everybody’s attention, having melee units attack while moving, when chasing enemies.
For those who don’t know, snare is a mechanic, present in AoE3, that makes units attacked in melee move much slower for a while, making it harder for them to escape. Although it was made for balance reasons, it has some shortcomings, like slowing down whole formations and then requiring micro to “unsnare” the other units. I got used to the mechanic but it’s not the best.
What’s better than snare is units attacking on the move. That’s a much more elegant solution the problem of ever-kiting ranged units (would still be possible but less effective) and remove the current runaway advantage, making over-extension more dangerous. Right now chasing cavalry is pointless, if they didn’t have to stop every time Horsemen would look a whole lot better at chases, but infantry can get away too. Light melee units would get buffed in that regard!
And anyway, isn’t it just ugly seeing dudes stop to take a swing in the air and then start running again?
Do you, fellow members, think this topic deserves more attention? Could it make the game better, both gameplay wise and visually? 
3 Likes
Ranged vs melee is a delicate dance to balance.
If they were to allow units in AOE4 to attack on the move, they would probably have to re balance everything. Pretty big game play update, and most likely alienate a large portion of the current player base.
To have attack on the move melee needs the whole game designed around it first.
Just my thoughts.
I think unit composition will change. People that go a lot of ranged units will have more melee units as a frontline. Melee units attacking while moving would have a greater effect on raiding. The villagers will have trouble getting away if the act of attacking does not slow the raider down. Players will probably build more outposts and walls so that their economy units don’t get caught out.
Did you know attacking units actually move faster because of a charge mecanic?
This is to compensate the fact that they stop when attacking.
Devs would need to add a bunch of new animations if attacking while moving and could create tons of issues of units looking like they are floating.
Would also make the game look a bit weird as retreating units wouldn’t be able to attack while moving but why the attacking ones can?
So would be basically impossible to kite with archer.
Would cause tons of problems when the game already has a mecanic to compensate for that.