It's come to my attention over the past few months that "Fire on Charge" has become a serious taboo just about everywhere in the North American community. In Europe, FoC would almost never be an issue due to generally larger numbers being that there are simply more people in Europe than there are in North America, and there are more Europeans playing NW than there are North Americans. When European lines would charge and shoot as they charged, defending lines (lines being charged) would often lose a considerable amount of players immediately before melee, but there would still be a considerable number of men left alive to continue the battle in melee. I'll reference an old video from the summer of 2012 of a linebattle between the 91st and 33rd as an example of this:
Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O7SoawWLoA
However, when it comes to North America, it seems that being shot right before melee is considerably less tolerated. North Americans do not like being killed without the opportunity to melee. I guess we might as well not shoot at all, right? That said, there will always be times where people will get shot before melee and they'll just have to live with it. They already do. So why is being shot a little bit prior to melee such a problem?
My personal stance on this issue is this: firing on the charge should be allowed simply because I don't see reasons why it shouldn't, and that said, it also adds some additional spice in engagements. I can understand if the number of rankers per line would influence whether or not two regiments would want to allow fire on the charge during 1v1s, and I can also understand why reloading on a charge is undesirable. However, I don't see why that means it should be taken out of gameplay entirely.
On an added note, I also think that disallowing firing on charges backs up the North American tendency of having smaller regiments--everyone wants a piece at the big-seat and it leads to splits, disbands, failed merges, and so on. It's an indirectly related issue, but the lack of firing in charge on melee makes smaller regiments more "considerable" on the battlefield, when really, it means a lot less average stability in the North American regiments and thus, eventually, a lack of interested and dedicated players in regiments due to a lot of them leaving the game after their previous regiment disbands. However, that is a discussion for another day.
Feel free to discuss either side of this, it's clearly only going to reach philosophical debate level, and not community reform level.
I consider firing in a charge another factor to consider when facing a line. If anything it makes the leader think more thus resulting in a much more stressed match but more fun in general.
It also allows us to live through this moment. Especially when you kill a well known melee player
Spoiler
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzcOCyHDqc[/youtube]