pike and shot formation and fire_by_rank attribute

[wngpooniii]

There is an attribute to all gun powder infantry in this game that is not really accurate: fire_by_rank. what this does is, it lets the first row of soldiers fire, and then this row will go rotate to the last row and let the next rank fire. this rotation method, i believe, was first used in Japan in the 16th century. Europeans mostly had to defend against the old heavy cav charges. since infantries, especially ranged ones, are very vulnerable to such charge attacks, they employed this formation called "pike and shot", in which they mix up a unit of pike men with their pikes sticking out far in front of the gun men, and the gun men will fire in the safety of the pike walls.

the problem with fire_by_rank is, it prevents such formation from being effective. since gun men have to rotate, it becomes harder to move when it is mixed in in a tight formation with the pikemen. by removing this attribbute fire_by_rank, gun men will now shoot, duck to reload while the second row shoot, and first row shoot again and so on.

[Putch]

it depends on the formation you use for the gunners... if you use a formation rows of only 3 men (making a lot of colums) they will not rotate, simply the first row fires, and while recharding, the second row fires.... if you use a formation with less rows and more colums (say 5 rows), the first row fires then rotates to the back of the formation to recharge, and so on....

[Dave Scarface]

@wngpooniii,

Check out the thread useless gun powder units, I have already removed the fire by rank attribute and have improved pike formations slightly as well.

Dave

[Emporor Antonius Anubi Sextus]

I know this is an old thread but the History channel had a great special about the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. They actually had the actual equiptment used by the Hospitellers in the seige. n I aint meanin replicas.

They said the Knights of St John and the Ottomans had the most advanced guns of the day adn they showed a small formation of pikemen and gunners, no mention of rotation. They said the pikemen fought off any enemy whilst the gunners reloaded.

They also covered a host of other wonderful siege weapons, like the little ceramic pots, about the size of a Naval Orange, full of gun powder. They had poles with bundles on the end packed with pitch and sulfur that made a 5 minute flame thrower for defending breeches in the wall. Apparently guys who wear flowing robes light on fire real good like

700 Knights of St John held out for 4 months against 60 cannons, including a 2 peice monster that fired 150lbs balls, and 40,000 Ottomans. They fired 170,000 cannon balls until they ran out of ammo and went home My favorite part was deffinantly when they beheaded the muslim prisoners and fired their heads out of cannons back at the turks omg ROFLCOPTER

It was definantly worth watching for any1 interested in medieval seiges.