Is this like cheating?

[Fancy Lad]

So I was besieged by the Spanish and I knew from the start I was going to lose as I was way out numbered however I noticed majority of their army was cavalry, so I took my longbow archers and l deployed stakes right at the gate. The results were hilarious the general and all the other cavalrymen impaled themselves on the stakes causing all cavalry to rout along with all the infantry trying to assail the walls, I won a heroic victory while hardly doing anything . So is using stakes in this way considered cheating or what because the AI just seemed to run itself right into them it didn't seem like a fair fight.

[Silverheart]

No, it´s not cheating.
It´s a very effective strategy used by many Medieval 2 TW players.

[crzyrndm]

Not cheating unless you yourself think so. But it could be classified as an AI exploit

[Fireright]

Not cheating unless you yourself think so. But it could be classified as an AI exploit

I concur Tis not outright cheating ala 'auto win' and all that, merely smart placement of troops to gain advantage. Exploit the foes idiocy.

Know Thy Enemy!

[Re_Minder]

Is this the same as removing those units from a stack? Yes it is. It is an exploit and in some mods it's already being fixed (you can't place stakes at some gates).

Then again, if you want to trick yourself that you're not cheating, it's your own choice. Lying to yourself isn't very productive tho... I know when I cheat and when I don't, and while I do plant the stakes there sometimes, I find it way more fun fighting it out without such abuse of that already poor AI.

[xcorps]

Is this the same as removing those units from a stack? Yes it is. It is an exploit and in some mods it's already being fixed (you can't place stakes at some gates).

Then again, if you want to trick yourself that you're not cheating, it's your own choice. Lying to yourself isn't very productive tho... I know when I cheat and when I don't, and while I do plant the stakes there sometimes, I find it way more fun fighting it out without such abuse of that already poor AI.

So really the only way to play the game fairly is to act as stupidly as the AI and hope the stats of your army give you victory.

[beermugcarl]

i use the really bad ai mod on hardcore setting which removes the ability to place stakes at the gate. i think it is cheating because as a previous person said. it basically removes the cavalry from the army. its clever tactics to use spearmen to take the brunt then surround them with other infantry. or hold with spearmen and use archers...w/e...but using stakes in a seige is an exploit. i do agree however that if an option is in a game..you should use it..but that is why i removed the option

[Re_Minder]

So really the only way to play the game fairly is to act as stupidly as the AI and hope the stats of your army give you victory.

There are many ways to beat cavalry without stakes if you bother to think for a bit, and I don't even mean something like "use pikes!" which appear rather late in the game. So no, be a master strategist all you want, but why not give AI at least a chance of actually using its troops instead of instantly losing them?

If you want AI to lose so badly you may as well auto_win it, cause the enemy general's death (he's usually one of the first to hit the stakes) gives you a major advantage even if the opposing army is not cavalry heavy. Console takes less time and less self-deception.

[tudor93]

also use it against the mongols

[Double A]

It's usually not cheating unless it involves the console or two girlfriends.

[RO Citizen]

Heroic victory is not cheating. The stakes are in-game for a purpose, after all. It was just a stupid AI who couldn't get his assault on the other gate.

[1.21 GW]

haha the Spanish should have dismounted

[Makrell]

how to deploy stakes?

[ChivalrousKiller]

You press the "Deploy stakes" button on specific archer units before starting a battle

[Makrell]

befroe the battle? aka in deployment zone?

[ChivalrousKiller]

Yeah.

[FightInTheShade]

Which archer units have stakes and does the HRE have any?

[crzyrndm]

Which archer units have stakes and does the HRE have any?

HRE has no stakes. All english longbow units get them, jannisary archers and lithuanian archers also do IIRC(if it's not the lithuanians, it's something in that area(hungary/poland))

[Sweger]

I've only seen English archers with stakes so far...

[Double A]

There were actually multiple countemeasures that were used, and should make an appearance, it's just that so far no one has been able to fix the Battle AI or BAI so it can cope with them, let alone stakes. Too bad really as they are all variations of one another.

Caltrops were specially made and inexpensive raised spikes which most often hurt cavalry as they dashed through the fields and came in contact with them.

Caltrops

These are of course not medieval ones, but you get the idea how cheaply a blacksmith could make them.

Stakes

Ditches dug the night before to causes stumbling areas for horses.

The Cheval de frise used up to the civil war and of course replaced by barbed wire and razor wire.

Cheval de frise

I'd like to see a less lethal version of the latter. A special gate could be constructed and this sans stakes could act as a barrier, slowing down cavalry and making them not killed, but vulnerable to spear attacks. That's why I'm testing if rams can do the trick by daisy chaining them prior to battle, lining them up horizontally in the front row prior to a defensive line, and seeing what cavalry do with them.

EDIT: Had to try. Made eight rams and a weak army and attacked the Scots. The Scots were twice as strong in unit values, but I used lots of puny levies and peasants. The Scottish general took the bait, started to charge and then milled around repelled by the quickly thrown together barrier. See the attached pic. The smarter remainder of the Scottish waited inside.

Well, yeah, if anything else happened, I would have been surprised. The pathfinding AI can't deal with chokepoints and charging at the same time.