Spearmen in DotS?

[AnthoniusII]

About spears.
In the decline of the Roman Empire infantry started to equip the soldiers with short (2m)spears known in 5th century as lance (the soldiers were called Lancarii).
Maurice's reform added a longer spear (3m) to his line infantrymen (scutati/contarati) to give them a better chance to stand against cavalry charges.
A longer spear means:
Cavalry also uses same legth lances/spears ..
Infantry needs a morale boosting factor to stay in position.
In western europe the most common spears that used from 6th to 10th centuries were about 2.5m long for both cavalry and infantry.
Exeption was the lances of Lombard "cataphracts"!
It is true that scildron was not used until 13th century and IT WAS an scotish tactic made by the need to withstand against the fearsome english knights.
In the rest of western europe infantry (spearmen or not) was very weak against cavalry charges exept when some tribes (anglosaxons.franks) used massive infantry blocks with shieldwall!
In the east were the light and range cavalry was side by side with the heavy charging one against infantry other solutions had to be made!
1st :
Trivoloi :those(iron made) 4 parts nails were spread out around camps or infront of infantry formations that were NOT ment to moove farwards. Their task was to hurt horses feet!
2nd : Syntaxis formation. That formation looked similar to shield wall. With shields close to one to other and with the spears apearing 2m ahead this formation gave the infantry the needed morale to stand ground!
3rd : Menaulion or kontarion makron.
There is a long dispute for the accurate presentation of those weapons that for some historians are one and the same weapon.
Never the less spear was the tool to kill the horseman but infantry had to place cavalry in to a position to be exterminated.
a) Kontarion makron.
Nikephorus Phokas saw that even the 3m spears were not enough to persuade his half trained/militia infantry to stand against cavalry charges!
So 1st time after many centuries a 4,5m long spear apeared for the 1st ranks of the infantry formations.
That "forest" of long spears worked as a huge fear against the horses survival instict.
b)Menaulion.
Here we have a totaly diferend solution. A short thick spear that was ment to penetrate armors inside infantry formations gaps that there was no room for cavalry to maneuvre.
Some historians insist that Menaulati places wooden sticks in front of infantry formations before battle begins.

3rd) Ranged or lancer counter cavalry units.
This was the ultimate counter weapon against enemy cavalry!

But no matter the spear solutions what remained to infantry men was their training and their courage against the cavalry charges.
If a soldier had the courage to stand at his ground then no matter how long was his spear this weapon was enough to kill any kind of cavalryman!

[Mihajlo]

Yeah, that's about all true AnthoniusII
Schiltrons was first time used in battle of Falkirk (at least the first time it is mentioned in history), and morale of those foot troops was key to stand n hold lines against charge.
Taking all into account, spear (with shield) remains as the best tool for infantry to hold line against charging cavalry.

[RollingWave]

Also the heavy cavalry always tended to charge of their own accord i.e. not ordered by the emperor, which is another thing they were pretty famous for doing. Perhaps if they were more co-ordinated with the attacks then it wouldn't have been that way. I guess thats what happens if you have several batallions in an army all led by seperate mini generals.

Yes, this was the primary issue, particularly with the French, the Battle of Nicopolis is probably the prime example of French recklessness even compare to other Knights.

I think the primary problem probably lied in the social system though, you look at other places and it wasn't like knights everywhere were charging recklessly all the time.

[VINC.XXIII]

Battle of Courtrai, the first big defeat of the french nobility against a majority of non-experienced miliatiamen, evolving in very close formation.
As the scots at Stirling, the flemish used the swamps to their advantage against the french barons. After, it was very easy to kill them when the barons were bogged down.
After the Battle of Cassel(1328AD), the sons of the french barons recovered the father's spurs exposed in some church.

"French recklessness"
this caused many victories, and many defeats.

[Mihajlo]

Yup, French nobility had huge problems in understanding importance of other companions to a battlefield. Infantry protecting them from arrows for example. Crusaders learned that, but even there knight tend to rush in charge much before they should. Epilogue: fascinating defeats
In early periods of medieval warfare (9th-11th ad) surrounding mounted opponent so you can drag him of his horse was the easiest (and key factor for many generals) how to repel HC and defeat them with less casualties. So called knights in that period didnt use heavy lance for charge, like many people already state here.
Role of the spear troops was important here, specially professional type. Problem is big gap in time of "evolution" from basic spear units up to those pro troops that could stand and hold lines against heaviest cavalryman.

[Hengest]

Caltrops would be a nice special ability to units

[TaronQuinn]

Haha brain-wave: make caltrops a version of stakes. What would it require? Changing the model of wooden stakes into tiny metal asterisks? Unfortunately, they would be next to impossible to see from a distance, and would therefore have to be extremely limited in what units could deploy them; otherwise no one would ever launch a cavalry charge for fear of running into the caltrops.
This might go back to the main theme of this thread, that cavalry charges are under-/over-powered. I have no opinion, for the simple fact that anything I say has likely been said; in short, the M2:TW oversimplification of military armaments into "categories" of spearmen, missile, cavalry, etc., does not reflect the historical diversity of training, tactics, equipment, and deployment that defined the medieval battlefield. Variations in discipline, morale, motivation, equipment, leadership, among both infantry AND cavalry forces, refute any attempt to state that heavy cavalry dominated the Middle Ages. When discussing such issues, specificity matters, as it is somewhat true that Norman/Frankish heavy cavalry enjoyed significant success in the eastern Mediterranean during the 11th and 12th centuries against Byzantines and Islamic forces, as and when they were able to achieve the proper circumstances; i.e., under the right conditions, a charge of heavy cavalry can be a devastating force. In contrast, Western European infantry gained greater experience with such charges over time, and therefore developed suitable tactics and training to properly prepare themselves against such attacks, typically after suffering losses in previous battles. However, we should not see warfare as one of only progress, but also of vacillation between different schools of thought, tactics being abandoned and reasserted many times across many nations and centuries.

My apologies for being pedantic or long-winded.

TQ

[RollingWave]

Here's a pic of my own submodding pitting what I view is the two primary different spearmen style during most of the medieval era against each other...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

on the one side you have a professional warrior with the spear / shield style and having swords as side arms (sword part depend on realtive wealth of course). while the other you have a real spear formation with long twohanded spears (not nearly as long as pike and shot era pikes, but they are also less restricted in manuveres.

If the former type have any formation it will be shieldwall formation, if the later have formation it'll be schiltrom formation.

(in testing the 2H spear formation is signifcantly better if they just attack each other head on and quality of the two side is similar), but it's obviously much more at risk from arrows and if its formation mess up for some reason it's screwed. very close to reflecting historical reality.)

[Prince Valiant]

on the one side you have a professional warrior with the spear / shield style and having swords as side arms (sword part depend on realtive wealth of course).

Do they switch between two weapons in your mod? How is that working out?

[RollingWave]

Do they switch between two weapons in your mod? How is that working out?

from limited testing at least it seems they do switch between two weapon, players can force switch by using alt-attack and if you just do normal attack at least so far it seems the behavior is like the picture I posted, after the initial charge some guys at the very front will use sword and most will use spear. (that picture was taken basically by two units just strait attacking into each other and after about engaging for at least 20-30 seconds)


All I did was add the

in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0

lines typically found in HR_Spear HR_Lance line to the foot spear line and it seem to be having this effect (before adding it basically never changes except when you alt-attack). though I just figured that out recently and havn't had much REAL (aka in campaign battle involving a lot of units) battle test to see how much this works in that term.

[mynameisowen]

from limited testing at least it seems they do switch between two weapon, players can force switch by using alt-attack and if you just do normal attack at least so far it seems the behavior is like the picture I posted, after the initial charge some guys at the very front will use sword and most will use spear. (that picture was taken basically by two units just strait attacking into each other and after about engaging for at least 20-30 seconds)

Thats awesome if you've maaged to get it to work

[Hengest]

overarm spear techniques were common in Europe and you never see that in mods

[AnthoniusII]

Here's a pic of my own submodding pitting what I view is the two primary different spearmen style during most of the medieval era against each other...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

on the one side you have a professional warrior with the spear / shield style and having swords as side arms (sword part depend on realtive wealth of course). while the other you have a real spear formation with long twohanded spears (not nearly as long as pike and shot era pikes, but they are also less restricted in manuveres.

If the former type have any formation it will be shieldwall formation, if the later have formation it'll be schiltrom formation.

(in testing the 2H spear formation is signifcantly better if they just attack each other head on and quality of the two side is similar), but it's obviously much more at risk from arrows and if its formation mess up for some reason it's screwed. very close to reflecting historical reality.)

CBUR had made a lot of testing in this "LaCa's" form of units.
But this made infantry extremely easy target for cavalry.
Also BC mod that 1st used such a unit did not act well against cavalry..
What improvements did you make in order to delay the change from spear to sword and in order to choose spear against cavalry when they are under AI control?

[RollingWave]

in my testing so far:

they're not particuarly good vs cavalry in prolong melee yes, but the same unit with just a sword is very very noticablly worse against a cavalry charge (but that's mostly due to light_spear attribute I guess). I'm mostly testing with my sergeants and the setting is mostly following SS's Real Combat guideline, my testing so far suggest.

(all 1v1 on flat plan just strait out charge and fight to death)

Mounted Sergeant vs Swordsmen Sergeant (just sword ) = massive slaughter, the initial charge basically wiped out the Swordsmen

Mounted Sergeant vs Spearmen Sergeants (just spear ) = Mounted will lose but spearmen also take a lot of casualty. spearmen does a ton better in abosorbing charge (and since swords were basically all dead following the charge it's hard to really see the difference in melee capacity).

Mounted Sergeants vs Experimental segeants = mounted will win but not nearly as ridiculasly as it does against swordsmen, the absorb charge effect seems similar to spear, and the victory in the insueing melee seem mostly because I removed their bonus vs mount horse tag.


But further testings are needed, I'm no expert in animation to be hoenst but somehow my formula so far sees them mostly remaining spear and only some on the front line switch to sword.

[AnthoniusII]

Then try to add to the ex-mounted sergeants of yours the shieldwall abillity.
Then press BOTH shieldwall abillity button plus the stand ground one.
Observe any changes in their warfare "behaviur".

[Heathen Storm]

Then try to add to the ex-mounted sergeants of yours the shieldwall abillity.
Then press BOTH shieldwall abillity button plus the stand ground one.
Observe any changes in their warfare "behaviur".

^This. You'll be amazed by the changes.