holding city gates with pikemen

[SirRobin]

I'm sure I'm not the first to get the idea that holding a city's gates with pikemen should be perfect - forcing the enemy to charge straight at the pikes.

But what happens is that my pikemen drop their pikes as soon as the enemy gets close, drawing swords instead.

How can I make them continue to fight in formation?

I toggled on "defend", should I turn it off ?

[Stolet]

Think this is a bug that is fixed in mods, not sure if it was fixed in patches. Try downloading some mods to get pikemen who use only pikes for melee. Btw this makes pikes fantastic units, very hard to kill with cavalry.

[SirRobin]

Thanks for replying, I tested it in field battles and same thing happens - against both cavalry and infantry. I thought that it might be a special situation due to the "mosh pit" of the city gate, but no ..

[Incomitatus]

Tell your pikes to halt, then toggle off and back on the spearwall formation. They'll take a few moments to resume fighting with pikes, but once they do, they should be okay for a good while.

[KnightOfPortugal]

Kingdoms Grand Campaign mod. Your pikemen will NEVER drop their pikes and thus form a formidable force and backbone to your army.

((You have to wait approx 200 turns, first, but the world map is huge, so you'll get them at a decent moment, I guess ))

[Jec]

Just use archers that can lay stakes. Same idea but the stakes are always there and won't route or take casualties. One campaign, I was England against France. I placed stakes with my Longbows right at the gate a la Skantarios and have them go on top of the gatehouse to soot at the enemy. Gate gets battered down, the chivalry of France comes charging in, only to die like dogs on the stakes or to the +3 gold exp gold armor Levy Spearmen.

Warning, don't do a sally for some premature damage if you don't have a different gate to bring the cavalry you used back into the fort. Tey di just like the enemy on the stakes.

[Paladin94610]

Warning, don't do a sally for some premature damage if you don't have a different gate to bring the cavalry you used back into the fort. Tey di just like the enemy on the stakes.

No if they just walk on the stakes they won't die... if they run they would surely die on the stakes..

[Lennert]

Problem is that archers that can lay stakes are only easy to get for england in vanilla. All other factions will have to wait till somewhere in the 1400´s when merc longbowmen become available. And even then you will only be able to get a couple of units of them.

[Turtle Hammer]

Problem is that archers that can lay stakes are only easy to get for england in vanilla. All other factions will have to wait till somewhere in the 1400´s when merc longbowmen become available. And even then you will only be able to get a couple of units of them.

Actually, I used Poles to check the stakes thing out as I've done England far more and would enjoy it less. Lithuanian archers can be trained in mere castles I think. Very, very useful against Russia. Until I took stakes seriously (having rarely used them until now), I figured that Poland and Russia were pretty much equal on the battlemap in the early game. The dirty stakes trick certaily swings it for Poland, at least for myself anyhow. Some units are far more useful to some than others after all.

[SirRobin]

Actually, I used Poles to check the stakes thing out as I've done England far more and would enjoy it less. Lithuanian archers can be trained in mere castles I think. Very, very useful against Russia. .Until I took stakes seriously (having rarely used them until now), I figured that Poland and Russia were pretty much equal on the battlemap in the early game. The dirty stakes trick certaily swings it for Poland, at least for myself anyhow. Some units are far more useful to some than others after all

Can't plant stakes with archers in the Teutonic campaign (as the teutonic order).. would have been useful.

And using them inside castle gates classifies as a kind of exploit doesn't it I'd probably have done the same just because I'm so fed up with the all-cavalry enemy armies.

[Stolet]

That sucks big time. It would be more logical if say Russians got the stakes, they did wonders with wood throughout history. It's not fair to give only one faction such a great feature and leave others without it. Playing sieges against Mongols is a joke with England.

[SirRobin]

That sucks big time. It would be more logical if say Russians got the stakes, they did wonders with wood throughout history. It's not fair to give only one faction such a great feature and leave others without it. Playing sieges against Mongols is a joke with England.

Yeah it's a bit silly that because longbowmen used stakes in some historical battles, that's interpreted as if they were the only ones to get that idea.

[spH3RiCal]

Yeah but you have the Order Spearmen one of the best spearmen available