Halberd/pike militias,useless?

[Keurallis]

Okay,so i've been playing a new campaign as the HRE,and when i got up the tree to the final militia barracks i see that spear/town militias get replaced completely by halberd and pikes,so i figure they must be better..even though their stats are completely terrible (using real combat,but even in vanilla their stats are terrible). So a bit ago i get sieged by Venice,i figure hey this should be simple,i have nearly a whole stack of crossbow/halberd militias there right? I stick some halberds up on the walls since they have towers,and as soon as the tower gets there the enemy sends up Crossbowmen (i dont really know why),and yet,they completely decimated my halberds,in melee.

So how the hell am i supposed to defend my cities with melee militias that lose melee fights with archers,and crossbow militias that cant shoot over the walls of the town they're defending? Sigh..

[Tiwaz]

Okay,so i've been playing a new campaign as the HRE,and when i got up the tree to the final militia barracks i see that spear/town militias get replaced completely by halberd and pikes,so i figure they must be better..even though their stats are completely terrible (using real combat,but even in vanilla their stats are terrible). So a bit ago i get sieged by Venice,i figure hey this should be simple,i have nearly a whole stack of crossbow/halberd militias there right? I stick some halberds up on the walls since they have towers,and as soon as the tower gets there the enemy sends up Crossbowmen (i dont really know why),and yet,they completely decimated my halberds,in melee.

So how the hell am i supposed to defend my cities with melee militias that lose melee fights with archers,and crossbow militias that cant shoot over the walls of the town they're defending? Sigh..

Are your militias fully upgraded? Really elite crossbows with full upgrades can be surprisingly mean opponents

[Keurallis]

If by upgraded you mean having the best possible Blacksmith built there,then yes.

The info the halberd/pike militias says that they can be upgraded to be much better protected but even with an Armour factory their defense is still somewhere around 2-3..

[Taimee Rose]

Don't put them on walls.

[turin-]

he brings up a good annoying point about archers though. i've been noticing this too that roughly half of my archers are actually firing during a siege (if that). the ones behind the teeth of the castle wall do nothing but stand there.

what a waste..

and yeah halberd/pike units are supposedly good if you can use them correctly. unfortunately i don't know how cause when they engage they lose formation very easy and then just break out into sword combat (which they suck at)

[Haqiq]

YEah the only good one is Janissary Heavy but they only got the same weapon. The militia is pretty useless as even my Italian Militia can outdo them.

Maybe sending them to higher terrain could do something bout it.

[johnnyg]

...and when i got up the tree to the final militia barracks i see that spear/town militias get replaced completely by halberd and pikes,so i figure they must be better..

That can't be true. If you look at the Recruitment tab in the city view, over on the far right of where the units are displayed is a small scroll up/down button. Click that down and you should find your spear militias if you can't see them now.

So how the hell am i supposed to defend my cities with melee militias that lose melee fights with archers,and crossbow militias that cant shoot over the walls of the town they're defending? Sigh..

Pike/sword staff militia are designed for gate defense and they do an exceptional job of it if placed & used properly. You can form them up however you want, but the best ways are to form a \/ shape behind the gate:
--- <---gate
\ /<---pikes

Or, you can just have them facing the gate head on:

-------- <---gate
___ ___ <---pikes

BUT: if you have them facing head on, it's best to have some spears/HI covering the small gaps on their flanks. Also, don't tell them to attack, just let them take the charge and the pikes will do what they do best (which is to decimate enemy calvary. They can do alright against infantry too). Just MAKE SURE they're in wall formation (special ability). Remember, they can't move too fast in that formation but when you're defending a gate, they aren't supposed to move.

As for crossbows, there's a bit of a trade-off. You can leave them lined up in a single line with the ones in front of the higher parts of the wall not firing, or you can line them up deep and have most of them shoot in an arc, which goes against the entire principle of using a crossbow. Your decision really.

[cynikai]

Definently do not put pike/halberd units on the walls. They seem to just get demolished by anything thrown against them up there. If all else fails, and you have the gate covered, put the pikes down at the exit from the wall towers. That way when units come down out of the towers, your pike are waiting for them in formation, and they can do their job correctly.

[Saibot]

Yeah I always use pikemen to block the gates in a V or U-formation and halberd or spear militia to block the tower exits. Seems to work well most of the time.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

This is weird actually... I have noticed that the Turkish Halberd militias are quite good (they were in LTC 2.3 anyway), yet the European ones are terrible. Here's my suggestion: don't upgrade your city barracks to the point where you can no longer build spear militia. They are the best of the militia, I believe. If you already have--well I think you can tear down the barracks and end up with them one level down. Save first though in case I'm wrong.

[Ciaran S]

If you tear down the barracks, no matter what level, you´ll have to start over at zero.

Anyways, I´ve got good use out of Halberd militia when they are not in Guard mode and have their phalanx ability deactivated. They act much more aggressively that way.

[cynikai]

You don't get to the point where you can't recruit older types of units. There is a scroll icon on the right hand side of the unit recruitment list that you can use to see the older types. This was mentioned above....

[Queen Annes Revenge]

You don't get to the point where you can't recruit older types of units. There is a scroll icon on the right hand side of the unit recruitment list that you can use to see the older types. This was mentioned above....

Old units disappear in Lands to Conquer, so AI armies would have better units in them. I forgot that this doesn't happen in vanilla.

If you use RC (pikes fixed), use pikes/berds with spear wall ENABLED, and guard mode DISABLED, they would decimate everything infront. I had recently epic Antioch defending versus 5 mongol stacks, each unit of Swiss Guards (60 men) scored 300-350 kills.

Don't look at their stats, once you use fixed version (no secondary weapon) or going to micro hell out of them (vanilla), pikes is most overpowered unit in game

Swiss Guards are possibly the best pikemen in the game. They're way better than the militias. However, I don't use RC, but a version of Darth's battles applied to LTC, so we may be playing slightly different games here.

[gogis]

If you use RC (pikes fixed), use pikes/berds with spear wall ENABLED, and guard mode DISABLED, they would decimate everything infront. I had recently epic Antioch defending versus 5 mongol stacks, each unit of Swiss Guards (60 men) scored 300-350 kills.

Don't look at their stats, once you use fixed version (no secondary weapon) or going to micro hell out of them (vanilla), pikes is most overpowered unit in game

[Point Blank]

If you use RC (pikes fixed), use pikes/berds with spear wall ENABLED, and guard mode DISABLED, they would decimate everything infront. I had recently epic Antioch defending versus 5 mongol stacks, each unit of Swiss Guards (60 men) scored 300-350 kills.

Don't look at their stats, once you use fixed version (no secondary weapon) or going to micro hell out of them (vanilla), pikes is most overpowered unit in game

Might be worth considering adding extra space between pikemen in RC to let opponents attack between the pikes better, a little extra space makes a big difference.

[Heldelance]

The reason they suck badly on the walls is because of the fact that they can't wield their weapons effectively (Try swinging around a 2m long spear on a wall packed with people).

If you use them correctly (as either a line-holder or cavalry killer) then you'll see how useful they are. With respects to ranged enemies, always, ALWAYS keep your general and at least one other heavy cavalry unit to slaughter them.

Here are the tactics I've seen that work.

Lineholder: 4-5 deep, wall formation. Offensive infantry on the flanks and behind the pikes. Pin down melee units with the pikemen and use your other guys to attack from behind.

Cavalry defense: Never go less than 4 deep with the pike/halbs, they'll collapse easily if you do. Wall formation, they'll slaughter any cavalry that decides to crash into them.

Gate defense: in a V formation (Where their spears almost overlap) they'll slaughter anyone trying to break in.

In general, ALWAYS back the pike/halbs with offensive infantry.

[Sher Khan]

Try using Middle Eastern Halberd Militia. Compared to the unarmored European kind, they're boss with their competent armor rating.

They lack the pikewall formation, however. Still, they're excellent heavy armor killers.

[Town Watch]

I just tag team them with some heavy infantry directly in front of the pikes. 3 ranks of pikes to cover your valuable troops from cavalry, and the pikes themselves seem to somewhat slow down an enemy infantry charge as well. I mean usually the enemy infantry just get gets poked constantly and is unable to advance anymore. Some venetian heavy infantry will round 'em up nicely.

[Keurallis]

Yeah i think it must be something to do with LTC,because after further investigation,some of my towns can still recruit spear militia,but not town militia,while others can only recruit halberd/pikes,hmm. I wonder why pikes cant get in their formation on walls,seems like that would be a perfect situation for a spear wall.

[Kalos]

Moved to Battle planning.