Help With Burgher Pikemen

[RMSN NIKE]

I need some advice on using this unit. When I used them before, they always get killed by cavalry when they switch to their swords. But one time, after a third were killed, I canceled all orders and left them in formation. The enemy cavalry started to die when they got near the pikes. So for the future, should I just leave them in formation and orderless, or someone has a better way to use them.

P.S. I know the Scottish Noble Pikemen and Heavy Pike Militias will attack in formation, with pikes when giving an order. I tried them in custom.

[roy34543]

Pikemen need time to "brace" from cavalry to use the animation that stop cavalry from reaching them. so you know , disabling and quickly renabling the spearwall formation thingy causes them to take pikes out again when they use swords (has its advantages and disadvantages)
I would suggest using guard mode when cavalry are charging towards you and to remove it when they get to the pikes (and then attack the cavalry and destroy them!)

[RMSN NIKE]

I left them in guard mode and spearwall on, and standing still when they charged. And I forgot to mention, it was general bodyguards I was fighting. But when I ordered them to attack, the unit lift up the pikes and started to march forward. When they got too close, swords came out. When I attacked with guard mode off and with pikes, I read about the disengage spearwall trick before, I guess it did not work that time was due to fact that my formation was already broken by the cavalry, so the sword came back out. I will try it next time right after the initial charge, with guard mode off.

It would be nice if people continue posting other ways of using them.

Also thank you for responding so soon.

[Old Geezer]

Pikes need to be micromanaged so much that the only reasonable way to use them in field battles seems to be to change the spacing of the lines as has been suggested in the discussion in the threads in this forum.

[Pyrebound]

After the charge, remove the guard mode so they spend more time fighting than fixing their formation. That might be the cause of the problem

[Harry Lime]

Moved to Strategies and battle planning.

[Grunn]

i find the best way is to deploy them and toggle defend if you expect cav to attack and dont use it you are going to hold off infantry (when defending the front rank kneels down so you get 3 rows of pikes rather than 2, but the front rank doesnt seem be able to hit infantry very well when kneeling, so they tend to stand up, the back ranks move and the enemy infantry have broken your formation. ) For best results always have pikemen stationary and recieve charges, you dont want to meet charging units while moving (either infantry or cavalry) if you are being forced to attack use pikemen as a 2nd wave or to guard flanks, moving them in to attack units you have already engaged with your non-pike infantry.

after your pikemen have reached a melee the real work begins i find the best way to keep the pikes out and the swords sheathed (short of modding the swords out) is to toggle off either defend or spear wall, issue an attack order and toggle defend/spear wall back on, sometimes takes a couple of tries, but your pikemen should reform. i may just be getting supersticious but i've found taking defend off right away in a melee (even vs cavalry) and toggleing spearwall on and off is the best way to preserve the formation.

for the last step, realise your pikemen had a terrible kills/deaths ratio, cost far more than they should have and in the time you spent messing about making sure they were using pikes you lost 2 archer units to enemy cavalry.

[Internazionale]

Why does the Burgher Pikemen remind me of Hamburgers? Oh, it must be in the name.
I found them quite ok as a tool to nuke the cavalrymen.

[jehanzeb]

I used them while playing Teutonic and they did a great job. I didnt use any defend on or off, they came as it is as when the war started. All I did was to march them towards the heavy cavalary and in no time the cavalary was finito. Not sure how I did it though (as the same people died doing the same thing in the next battle against a general).

[schmidy]

I tend to use Burgher Pikemen if I am wanting to fight a defensive battle! I also use them quite often to defend my missle troops or leave them be on my flanks. If I am not interested in a defensive battle I just don't use them.

[homefry]

There's only 2 ways/stances they should be.

Pike ability AND guard mode ON. Or pike ability AND guard mode OFF.

When you attack the enemy with their abilities on, their walk forward with their pikes lower than if their abilities were turned off.

Just like real life, if the line breaks and 1 of them gets attacked from the side, they crumble and are worthless. As long as their flanks are covered, they PWN.

[jo_dus]

Just leave them inside walled cities and watch the enemies fall at their feet.

[Surgeon]

I found pikemen to be more effective vs cavalry when they're on the move. When my pikes are in spearwall formation and cavalry charge up, the horses just sit there at the ends of the pikes until kingdom come and the pikemen don't even do anything. With spearwall ON and marching forward, they seem to lower their pikes when the cavalry charge them and send the riders flying. Makes them vulnerable to attacks from the side though.

[homefry]

I found pikemen to be more effective vs cavalry when they're on the move. When my pikes are in spearwall formation and cavalry charge up, the horses just sit there at the ends of the pikes until kingdom come and the pikemen don't even do anything. With spearwall ON and marching forward, they seem to lower their pikes when the cavalry charge them and send the riders flying. Makes them vulnerable to attacks from the side though.

That's when you order them to attack. This is the ideal situation to be in.

If 1 guy loses his pike wall and collapses, they all collapse.

[SSJPabs]

Alter the spacing. Change the numbers in the EDU from 1.2, 1.2 to 0.8, 1.8.

This means they now stand closer together in terms of rows, but farther back in turms of columns. This makes it harder for the enemy to sneak into their formation and break up the spear wall, but that even if they do break in, the second and third rows still have their spears down and they continue pikin' away. It also makes facing enemy pikes in a city street a nightmare, but that's how it should be!

This was developed by Valiant Champion over at the official boards. This improves all pikemen and halberdiers without making them too powerful. It's amazing when a tiny change like that can make pikemen not suck. Too bad this wasn't in the patch.

[homefry]

Does that work... if 1 man takes out his sword I found it to be inevitable that they all would take out their swords.

Kind of how if 1 archer starts fighting in melee... the rear arhcers will fire arrows for a 1-2 volleys before also taking out their melee weapons.

[SSJPabs]

It works. I can state with absolute certainty that if the front line draw their blades with the 0.8, 1.8 spacing the second line is usually far enough away to keep the pikes going. Actually a lot of times I ended with a "V" shape, in that there is a V in the pike formation that has swords but around and at the tip of the V the pikes are still down so it becomes very very hard to force your way through pike from the front. It can be done by high-level light infantry but if you layer an infantry unit of your own over the pikes anyone that sneaks through runs into that unit.

It makes them absolutely murderous in towns and against cavalry at all times.

[Hieronymos]

Haven't looked at the EDU stats for the Scottish pike units, but the 2 types of armored pikemen perform extremely well in combat against all troop types, so long as they're ordered and with flanks covered before combat starts. The pike militia and highlander pikemen, on the other hand, while useful against static mobs of cavalry, break formation too easily, and often end up with 50-70% casualties against even mid-level sword infantry opponents--that would at most take out 5-10% armored pikemen.

So changing the row spacing from 1.2, 1.2 could make Scottish armored and noble pikemen too powerful. Definitely something worth playtesting.

[WarriorMusician]

It is also possible to just remove the secondary weapon in the export_desc_unit file. This file is found in the Data folder for the Kingdoms Expansion. Just find the unit you want to modify and look for the line that says "stat_sec". Then just replace it with this:

stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1

I hope this helps!

[SaintOfTheSword]

The best way to use pikemen against infantry or cavalry charges, and trust me in that, I'm a pikemen fan and play with them alot, is this:

Against infantry: Remove the stand ground button, keep the spear wall up and attack the enemy. If they're not pike militia or other semi-useless pikemen (highland pikemen aren't that good either) they will try to punch right through the enemy formation.

Against cavalry: Move them in pike formation against the cavalry. When the cavalry charges (and make sure you keep some safety distance because setting up takes up some seconds) then have them stop walking, and press the stand ground button. They'll form a static spear wall that will kill several horses when they charge. After that, however, if you keep the defensive spear wall you will start losing men because some horses will be attacking from the sides. So then you unpress the stand ground button and order them to attack with spear wall. They will kill the enemy cavalry with impressive speed for being such cheap units.

Actually pikemen, even though great against cavalry, they are poor again infantry. If you want a more balanced force (slightly worse against cavalry although still good enough, and much better against infantry) use halberdiers with the same cavalry tactics, but I would suggest attacking without spear wall with halberdiers, use them as axemen.