Originally Posted by
Pooploop
Quintus, maybe I based my claim on merc phalangites being better than regulars with too small a sample of battles. However, focusing purely on the game/program/system/engine (on the historical debate on whether phalanxes were also offensively effective, can we place that in another thread?), is there no way to revert things to how it was in EB2 2.2b? Also, before anything else, I know this (it really is) is probably verging on too much, but is it alright if any of the team, or player of EB2 like confirms to the rest of the devs that phalangites have really dropped performance wise? Like screenshots from 2.2b of the results of a number of phalanx battles (one on one head-on clashes with hoplites) vs screenshots from 2.3? I mean, aside from myself, you agree yes, that phalangites NOW are crappier than phalangites BEFORE, yes?
This probably disparages all the mind-numbing trials of you guys to fix and overhaul pike blocks in MTW2 in general, but I really believe that vanilla pike blocks actually had it alright already. I mean, in the initial clashes against other infantry, the pikes actually kept them AWAY from the front rankers. Charges of heavy infantry did not zip past the line of spearpoints but were stopped, momentum spent (well most of them). Combine the vanilla pike blocks with no secondary weapons (so they don't drop pikes), you've got something like a working phalanx! (All the tweaks you guys did to prevent the shuffling, the blobbing, the breaking, in 2.3 it STILL happens)
Quintus, you said that phalanxes that push and break formation get slaughtered back in 2.1b (no secondary weapons). I AGREE. However, the phalanxes NOW despite being in guard mode, and receiving the charges of enemy infantry in perfect defensive formation, STILL GET SLAUGHTERED. To put it simply, even when on spearwall mode, it's as if there is no spearwall. The pike blocks of 2.3 are like living walls of meat, they just stand there and get killed. That's it...
Finally, somebody on the dev team has played and can play Third Age or DaC right? Maybe one of you guys can test the pike blocks there? You guys want pike blocks that hold formation, keep enemies away, and don't drop their pikes right? I'm pretty sure Third Age has done that quite well already...