Shopping for Pikemen

[Ruprecht]

Ok this should pretty much be an open and shut case. I am Ireland and did not go to war with scotland and this has proven most usefull as i just discovered. my general was walking through Edinburgh and i clicked on the recruit botton just for the hell of it and to my joy there was 2 units of Highland pikemen available, so i hired them without hesitation.

These pikemen are nutters, earlier in the campaign i must have hired some, but was oblivious to their capability, i had 28 left in the legion and put them into battle. they took a full charge from a general's unit and they dispatched them all. i coulden't believe how effective they are against cavalry.

And now iv'e had a taste, i want more. so my question is how frequently can i hire them from scotlands lands and are they retrainable at a city or castle ?

[Roboute Guilliman]

depends on how many generals you got

and they are retrainable to my knowlage in castles

[Australia]

Aye you can retrain in castles...well in Vanilla you could I haven't used mercs in SS .

[Naked Emperor]

They are retrainable in all settlements in their ZoR (zone of recruitment) like all other mercs.

[Ruprecht]

Hey,

Oh that is good news

But the question still remains how often can i recruit the buggers ?, i have gone back a few times with different general's but the Pikies weren't there.

Oh and i just had possibly the best battle ever, and one pikemen unit killed 175 men which consisted of 2 x general's unit 2 x light cav units and some infantry. .. unbelieveable !!!

It was me 1139 men vs 2568 French, i lost 260 men ! Heroic victory, i will post a few screens when i figure out how to shrink the size of my pictures. but the point to me saying this is Highland Pikemen Rock !!


Thanx much for the feedback.

[Sosobra]

You could just play as scotland or another pike using country . Pikes are quite effective although they require a bit of baby sitting to avoid being flanked.

[Naked Emperor]

Or the best of all worlds, the HRE which gets their Burgher Pikemen quite early. Oh how many french noblemen they have turned into shish-kebabs

[Dane324]

Yes you can, they are retrainable in castles. In SS 5.1 they dont use their secondary weapons (swords) which makes them much more effective.

[Roboute Guilliman]

they are completly overpowered, they can kill a group of dismounted feudal knights easily without problem. i dont think in the middle ages people had the skill and the strength to penetrate with a piece of wood armor

[Quark]

Kyho
dfk will kill pikemen if they attack from side or rear, but if they stand in front then yes they get hurt. Thats the point of having pikes, invulnerable from the FRONT. Of course they have no shields, so you could also just missile them to death, something which you cannot do to dfk.

[Ruprecht]

Well just to let everyone know, i haven't been able to retrain them anywhere.

I marched them through every city and castle there is, and now they are in York which is right next to Edinburgh. so apparently they can't be retrained or i haven't yet found a way.

If there are any prerequisites for retraining them that i should know about, please let me know.

I just really love these guys and i don't want their chevron's to go to waste.


Cheers.

[Grunn]

you are aware that when you retrain a unit it takes soldiers out of the "recruitment pool" so if there are no pikemen for hire in the province because they have been bought you will not be able to retrain pikemen units either.

highland pikemen have a respawn time of between 33 and 11 turns if i understand the files correctly, so it may be a long wait

[Ruprecht]

you are aware that when you retrain a unit it takes soldiers out of the "recruitment pool" so if there are no pikemen for hire in the province because they have been bought you will not be able to retrain pikemen units either.

highland pikemen have a respawn time of between 33 and 11 turns if i understand the files correctly, so it may be a long wait

Well that's a bummer isen't it.

I was under the impression that the pikemen would be recruited via the region in which the city/castle is located, since i am in the Edinburgh region i thought they would be externally recruitable.

perhaps not. thanx for that atleast i know the respawn rates now.

[spanish_emperor]

well pikemen were better than knights i believe....if their wall maintained

[Petavian Belgae]

Look to thoose pikes like the old falanx.
frontal is deadly.
If you catch them in the flank = roll up

[Point Blank]

Most pikemen have an attack of about 1-3, its difficult to reduce it further. An alternative would be to increase their attack delay. Will do some experimenting, that could definitely make a difference. But as Quark said, if you attack them from the front, expect pain.

[Ruprecht]

Most pikemen have an attack of about 1-3, its difficult to reduce it further. An alternative would be to increase their attack delay. Will do some experimenting, that could definitely make a difference. But as Quark said, if you attack them from the front, expect pain.

Hell man, reduce it ? I'm loving it haha.

I just hope KK has made it so pikies can be retrained and recruited more frequently in 6.0.

[Point Blank]

Pikemen formations are also disordered quite easily, especially if not in defense mode. They are then quite easy meat for melee infantry to close in.

Armored pikemen can be very tough, but in later eras are well countered by armor-piercing and armored polearm infantry.

[That_Guy]

I don't think you can reduce their attack delay, as it seems to be tied to the spearwall formation... well thats what all my tests showed at least. At any rate good luck with balancing them properly.

[TheColdTruth]

Damn, nice battle Ruprecht all you see is a wall of dead frenchies.