pike v musket

[searriagh]

Excellent mod.
Have been playing for the past two days, What I have noticed is that musket units seem to be a bit useless, either with the AI or when I control them.
Its possible to set a unit of pikemen straight at a unit of muskets, and the pikemen will win every time.
Is this realistic? where muskets that useless or is it the limits of the game engine?

[General A. Skywalker]

Excellent mod.
Have been playing for the past two days, What I have noticed is that musket units seem to be a bit useless, either with the AI or when I control them.
Its possible to set a unit of pikemen straight at a unit of muskets, and the pikemen will win every time.
Is this realistic? where muskets that useless or is it the limits of the game engine?

No, that's not exactly realistic.

The thing is: This mod lacks a system of depicting casualties inflicted by musketry in a historically realistic way. When you fire a volley at maximum range (a few hundred yards!) in the mod, you see a good number of men fall, which is not realistic, in reality casualties for long range fire would be negligent.

BUT: In reality medium range fire (100 yards and less) and especially low range fire (less than 40 yards) was very dangerous and often one single low range volley completely stopped an attack, wiping out whole ranks of enemies.

This is missing in FKoC. There isn't much difference here between long range and low range musketry, meaning long range fire is too effective, while low range fire is far too ineffective!

And exactly therefore pikemen have a good chance of overwhelming musketeers in this mod. In reality the musketeers would fire one volley at long/medium range at them and then hold their fire back until the pikemen are in extreme close range. Then they would deliver a murderous volley at them which probably would stop the attack.

However, using this tactic isn't possible in FKoC, for the reasons I've already stated.

[phoen!x]

Perhaps it would be good to reduce the fire range and increse the damge.

[General A. Skywalker]

Perhaps it would be good to reduce the fire range and increse the damge.

Well, it's important to have at least 3 different zones of effectiveness (long, medium, low range), in order to force the player to think about when opening fire makes most sense, depending on each situation of course.

Just reducing the range and increasing the damage might be a start, but on the other hand it would depict the musket as a mere close range weapon, which would be wrong again... You always have the choice: Opening fire at longer range with less enemy casualties but on the other hand you can fire several volleys that way before they get close or simply count on the one deadly close range volley.
This is what makes that era interesting.

[Redcoat69]

pikes dont always beat muskets. lets just say a line of pikes are aproaching my enormous army of muskets. in about 4-5 vollies(guessing), theyll be runing away, allowing my cavalry to mow them down. thats my strategy. take the high ground with musketmen on top and pikemen defending the bottom of the hill.oh and cavalry behind the pikemen, allowing to snipe the assaulting enemy with their pistols

[General A. Skywalker]

pikes dont always beat muskets. lets just say a line of pikes are aproaching my enormous army of muskets. in about 4-5 vollies(guessing), theyll be runing away, allowing my cavalry to mow them down. thats my strategy. take the high ground with musketmen on top and pikemen defending the bottom of the hill.oh and cavalry behind the pikemen, allowing to snipe the assaulting enemy with their pistols

Yepp, but he was probably talking about situations were pikemen and musketeers are approximately the same in number.
In these situations it would be extremely helpful to be able to deliver a very effective close range volley.

[Point Blank]

Wait for upcoming patch, combat system has been updated with a special focus on missile combat. In a typical battle, muskets are now often causing the most casualties, and they do better against cavalry too. At close range they are very lethal. For a sample of the files, go to the Unit Stats Discussion thread, though AD may have made some further changes for the patch.

[searriagh]

Yepp, but he was probably talking about situations were pikemen and musketeers are approximately the same in number.
In these situations it would be extremely helpful to be able to deliver a very effective close range volley.

Thats exactly what I was meaning.
I found in the campaign that recruiting much more pike than musket paid enormous dividends in the battles.

If there had been a way to implement the effectiveness of close range musketry it would have vastly improved the battles.

Obviously I am not criticising the mod, I fully realise you are limited with what you can do within the game.

[searriagh]

Wait for upcoming patch, combat system has been updated with a special focus on missile combat. In a typical battle, muskets are now often causing the most casualties, and they do better against cavalry too. At close range they are very lethal. For a sample of the files, go to the Unit Stats Discussion thread, though AD may have made some further changes for the patch.

Excellent news.

[wjotner]

One problem i've also found with musketeers in this mod is that they run away too late when they're set to skirmish. So they get caught out even by slow marching pikeman coming towards them.

So i never have them set to skirmish. I tend to prefer to have them at least stand their ground when faced by cavalry so that they don't get obliterated while turning and running, and then at least they might stand long enough for their pikemen to back them up.

They're also feeble in melee. Would it be possible to have they're charge bonus increased? After all charging in with those heavy muskets weiled like clubs would have been quite brutal i would have thought. At the moment, musketeers are way under powered on the battle field. And the dragoons are almost useless.

[JaM]

Another thing which might help is adding range to muskets with leaving accuracy at the same value - it looks like those two values dont depend on each other so musket with acc 0.4 and range 100 would do same/similar amount of casaulties at rng 100 as musket with range 200 and acc 0.4

[Ciaran S]

I really cannot say I agree with that, to me, the system as it is feels fine. Muskets are a support weapon. Engage an enemy unit with your pikes and the combat will, in a lot of instances, last until one side is completely killed off, the pikes don´t kill fast enough to inflict casualties fast enough. But run a unit of musketeers to the flanks or rear of the engaged enemy and let them fire into the melee, and you´ll see a rout pretty quickly. The way it is, an army with an equal number in pikes and muskets does perform pretty well, in my opinion. I am no historian, though, nor do I have any ambition to become one.

[Odovacar]

Unfortunately the game engine limits the modders possibilites in creating a historically correct warfare.

[General A. Skywalker]

I really cannot say I agree with that, to me, the system as it is feels fine. Muskets are a support weapon. Engage an enemy unit with your pikes and the combat will, in a lot of instances, last until one side is completely killed off, the pikes don´t kill fast enough to inflict casualties fast enough. But run a unit of musketeers to the flanks or rear of the engaged enemy and let them fire into the melee, and you´ll see a rout pretty quickly. The way it is, an army with an equal number in pikes and muskets does perform pretty well, in my opinion. I am no historian, though, nor do I have any ambition to become one.

BUT:

I've played with the attachments installed now but the problem hasn't been solved.

It was a siege and the firefight took place in narrow streets, so the formations were very deep, meaning only like 10 to 15 men could fire at the same time.
However, volleys fired from approx. 5 (!) yards distance made 1 to 2 men fall while those fired from maximum range made 5 to 7 men fall.

Don't you other guys experience this??