Discussion on Pikemen

[Dave Scarface]

Hey guys,

Since the release of KGCM patch 3.4, there has been a lot of talk about the changes that were made to pikemen units. So I think it best we try and keep this discussion to one thread. First of all I would like to point out that pikemen units were broken before these new changes were made. They never worked in battle like they were supposed to do. As in other well known mods this problem has now been fixed! the secondary weapons, swords, were removed entirely.

However there are many players that believe that these units are now to powerful compared to other units. Which they are a bit, and I will need to change their stats slightly. But surely late units in general should be superior to most early units? Also pikemen by no means make other units obsolete when they start to appear. They do have a lot of disadvantages. For a start they are much slower moving than normal units and more vulnerable to missile fire, as most are not too well armoured. And if flanked and attacked from behind will rout almost instantly. They also are no good at attacking walls, and are unable to defend on the wall now. So they do not have it all their own way.

Dave

[Blackader]

Well, I agree, pikemen is an unit which was the bulk of late-medevial and renaissance armies. They were too weak before your changes, even against cavalery they didn't make their job. But they are now a little bit too powerfull against other late-era-units infantery units. I don't think it were a good idea to reverse back your changes. But perhaps giving them a malus against infantery?

[Surgeon]

Dave, you shouldn't have removed the secondary swords entirely. You should just do something like this:

stat_pri 10, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 0.85
stat_sec 7, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, sword, 25, 0.15

Those bolded numbers are weapon preference modifiers. The closer the value is to 1 the more the unit likes to stick to that weapon. Now pikemen will hold on to their pikes until the enemy is just about breathing in their face but they'll still switch to swords for close combat, wall defense, etc.

[bodkin]

I thought that last number was something to do with how fast the skeleton moved during melee or something like that.

In any case I think the second last number should be changed from 25 to more like 250, it slows down the attack rate greatly so you don't have to lower the stats.

I've found they are still very effective on walls.

Just a couple of things to make the AI use them better -

Get rid of phalanx ability so they keep up with the rest of the troops (it dosen't make much difference to the game anyway)

I make them have a 4 depth formation which I prefer to 8.

Cheers.

[Blackader]

Bodkin is right, the last number is skeleton number, it will not change use of secondary weapon.
I agree with bodkin too for the solution: change the attack speed rate. After all, using a pike isn't as easy as using a sword. Slowing the attack rate of pikemen will make a little bit less powerfull, but will keep the general change about those units.

[Surgeon]

Changing those values has always worked for me. Maybe you guys should have some of what I'm smoking and then we will see what's what.

[Blackader]

You sure be right, but the export-descr-unit say that the last number is skeleton number. I think that modding is sometimes an obscure art...

[Dave Scarface]

As said in my mod announcement I am currently taking a break from doing any modding. So if anyone would like to make their own pike changes to the current 3.4 EDU and post them in this thread. You can all test things out and try to come to some agreement. Thats is if any of you would like to present your own changes here of course.

Dave

[Blackader]

Ok, here is my EDU, I put the attack speed of pikemen at 50 instead of 25. I tried 75, but it make them too weak. With 50, dismounted knights can beat militia pikemen, and elite dismounted knights like dismounted english knights or varangian guard can beat medium pikemen. Elite pikemen like tercios or noble scottish pikemen can still crush every opponent but with heavy losses against good heavy infantery.
If you want that dismounted english knights can beat scottish noble pikemen, set the attack speed at 75.

[Germinator]

Ok, here is my EDU, I put the attack speed of pikemen at 50 instead of 25. I tried 75, but it make them too weak. With 50, dismounted knights can beat militia pikemen, and elite dismounted knights like dismounted english knights or varangian guard can beat medium pikemen. Elite pikemen like tercios or noble scottish pikemen can still crush every opponent but with heavy losses against good heavy infantery.
If you want that dismounted english knights can beat scottish noble pikemen, set the attack speed at 75.

would it be possible to set it to like .01? for a funny looking fight?

[bodkin]

Ok, here is my EDU, I put the attack speed of pikemen at 50 instead of 25. I tried 75, but it make them too weak. With 50, dismounted knights can beat militia pikemen, and elite dismounted knights like dismounted english knights or varangian guard can beat medium pikemen. Elite pikemen like tercios or noble scottish pikemen can still crush every opponent but with heavy losses against good heavy infantery.
If you want that dismounted english knights can beat scottish noble pikemen, set the attack speed at 75.

I think for historical accuracy sword and shield units should be able to defeat pikemen, so I recommend the higher number. If anyone needs help in quickly editing this open the file in notepad and search for 'long_pike' you can then change their attack speed, it's the second last number in the stat_pri line.

But don't change the units with 48 as their number of units these are the voulgiers etc who don't actually use long pikes, just change the ones with 60
as the number of men. e.g.

type Highland Pikemen
dictionary Highland_Pikemen ; Highland Pikemen
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Light
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Highland_Pikemen, 60, 0, 3.5
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, pike
formation 1.2, 0, 2.4, 2.4, 8, square, phalanx
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 8, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 150, 1
;stat_pri_ex 0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr spear, long_pike, spear_bonus_8

As you can see this unit has 60 men and I've changed their attack to 150 delay. Yes it's save game compatible!

[Valakov]

a bit off topic, but Bodkin's post has me intrigued.. what exactly creates a Non-save game compatible issue when making changes to files? ie, is there a hard and fast rule on which .txt files / aspects of txt files can be changed without resorting to a restart? ive lost a few campaigns via making what seemingly were trivial changes.

[Blackader]

Finally, I put the attack ratio of pikemen at 75. It's make them still strong, but elite heavy infantery can match them, with heavy losses.

[Dave Scarface]

So then, may I get some feedback on the recruitment side of late armies please? What sort of armies are you seeing the AI build late on? I would like to know if my recruit priority offset settings are working as intended. Do you see pikemen and muskets in use a lot more than before? Screenshots of late armies in the field would be very helpful.

Dave

[Lord Ox]

Sorry I haven't posted on this topic before but I haven't played for awhile, I just found out the hard way how savage pikemen truly are. I was playing as the Irish and attacked Edinburgh and got slaughtered so I ran a quick test on a custom battle test and the only irish infantry unit that could beat one unit of scots pike militia was a unit of muire. Personally I think that's a bit excessive, I'd think that at least the galloglaich should beat them too given that they are professional heavy infantry compared to militia with big sticks, lol.

[Lord de Lyonesse]

Interesting.. i would like to see more pikemen so i could destroy them with my longbows! *evil laugh*

[Dave Scarface]

Interesting.. i would like to see more pikemen so i could destroy them with my longbows! *evil laugh*

Actually I have added pike militia for Ireland for my next patch. They were the only faction in western europe without pikemen before. Should help make things a little more balanced in the late era.

Dave

[Lord Ox]

Adding pike militia to the Irish may assist in balancing the armies from an Irish point of view however in the game that I was playing that I referred to earlier the vast majority of scottish armies at about turn 40 or so were primarily scots pike militia or highland pikemen and they're definitely deadly in as far as a defending siege unit. I've since played a few open battles in that campaign game and yes the pike units are a fair bit easier to defeat in the field. I suppose I'll just need to build a few more mangonels the next time I'm going to take a scottish settlement, even pike units struggle with the issue of being on fire.

[pwf224]

just get a few extra units of archers and rain down death from afar on the pike units. If your playing as england or ireland, you have plenty of good archers available(longbows, gaelic archers, sherwood archers, etc.)

[Dave Scarface]

Adding pike militia to the Irish may assist in balancing the armies from an Irish point of view however in the game that I was playing that I referred to earlier the vast majority of scottish armies at about turn 40 or so were primarily scots pike militia or highland pikemen and they're definitely deadly in as far as a defending siege unit. I've since played a few open battles in that campaign game and yes the pike units are a fair bit easier to defeat in the field. I suppose I'll just need to build a few more mangonels the next time I'm going to take a scottish settlement, even pike units struggle with the issue of being on fire.

Until now I have had no feedback like this about what type of units the AI is training. If my recruitment settings can be better then I will try to get them perfect. This is extremely important to the mod in my view. What armies are the AI building after gunpowder? that is the big question.

Dave