Pikemen...

**Shadow888** · January 07, 2012, 09:43 PM

Please someone tell me they have found a way to fix the pikemen???

Im tired of seeing my pike column drop their spears and try to kill DFK with their crappy swords.
And i think taking away their secondary weapon and making it so the dudes can turn a around with a 10 foot pike and start poking flankers is ridiculous.

I thought perhaps making their formation tighter would work better, but after going into the unit strat and putting 0.0 as their unit spacing, it does nothing and they stay as loosely packed as originally.

I want to make it so that only super heavily armoured men can cross the pikewall, or maybe only hugely massed units (im thinking having to cram three units of lighter armed units on top of each other to bypass pikes head on)
It really ticks me off to see LEVY SPEARMEN or MILITIA SPEARMEN run right trhough the ranks. its

man.

I know the rome phalnxes would be 'historically inaccurate' but i think that having those would be a million times better gamewise as pikes would actually be worth something then.

basically its like this. I want pikes to be neigh unbeatable from the front, because its a freaking mass of spears for gods sakes. Only heavily armoured men (dfk's, sweighanders, armoured swords, ect) should be able to bypass pikes and only after suffering a few casualties.
Basically, exactly like the ROME TW phalanxes, except even weaker to flank attacks as the dudes are completely unarmored and have little to no training with their swords.

**CavalryCmdr** · January 07, 2012, 10:01 PM

Remove thier secondary weapon, then lower thier attack speed.

Code:

stat_pri         9, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1

to

Code:

 stat_pri         9, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 300, 1

Charging them is still suicide, and frontal attacks are of limited effectiveness (not uber like you want, but still tough for all but the most elite) because you still have all those pike pushing you back. But once they are engaged they are quite vulnerable to flanking attacks.
They can still turn way too quickly for a flank attack to be very effective if they are not already engaged, but it's the best I can offer atm. Aditionally they are not very effective at killing except on first contact, so anyone fighting them from the front is in for a long fight, so your not going to be able to just spam a line of pikes and crush your enemy in a full frontal assault (like you could in Rome) but with proper support they are very effective at holding a line and keeping enemies occupied.

Also, personally I remove the 'phalanx' formation as well.

Now that I think of it, I have not really played with Vanilla stats in a LONG time, it looks like you may need to lower thier attack some too.

**PrestigeX** · January 07, 2012, 11:00 PM

Pikemen are a lot better in kingdoms - do you have the expansion? It feels 'right' and they preform a lot better.

removing their secondary weapons (the swords) it takes all the fun out of the game, because then you end up with God Mode infantry. And I know people will go on and on about historical this, or historical that, blah blah -- once you remove the secondaries, you will see it becomes impossible to enjoy the game (assuming you're a player who likes strategy, challenge, and tactics).

Nothing can touch the pikemen with no secondary, they poke and prod in all directions, and litterally nothing will touch them -- maybe just 1 or 2 casualties while they're reforming and thats from the top tier Heavy Infantry.

It is okay with a mod that takes place is Pike & Shot time period, where all the infantry is either musket or pike,,, but for Vanilla or Mods, just don't do it.

kinda like the difference between Doom 2 on U.V. , and Doom 2 when you use 'iddqd' and 'idkfa' . there's no satisfaction in cheating.

**Aeratus** · January 08, 2012, 12:29 AM

Pikemen with secondary weapons are by no means overpowered. The overpoweredness of pikemen when their swords are removed is a myth that has been propagated here. They become unbalanced only in vanilla. When stats are accordingly adjusted for, swordless pikemen become perfectly balanced.

SS, for example, has well balanced pikemen with secondary weapons removed. Even the swiss pikemen in SS 6.4, which will always fight to the last man, is balanced. (Keep in mind that SS has a different stat system, with high defense and low attack. For example, the polish guard has 5 attack and 30 defense).

**Shadow888** · January 08, 2012, 03:25 AM

Yes i have kingdoms. they still suck. as I said freaking LEVY SPEARMEN run through the pikes. thats just wrong man.
is there any way to cluster them closer maybe? because thats what i see the main problem is, infantry run through the gaps.
Also, i did some play tests, and it seems that pikemen WALK INTO THE ENEMY. seriously, watch them fight. instead of holding position and poking whatever poor wretch crosses their path, they keep WALKING INTO THE enemy formation. as if they WANT to get into range to use their swords, instead of wanting to keep ranks and hold the column. its infuriating. playing the italian factions just doesnt feel right without being able to be pike oriented towards the endgame

**Nessy** · January 08, 2012, 05:53 AM

LEVY SPEARMEN run through the pikes

Put a melee unit in front of your pikes. I usually have one stack of heavy infantry in guard mode to take the blows and prevent the enemy from just walking through the pikes.

pikemen WALK INTO THE ENEMY

Guard mode. The only reason the are walking into the enemy like that is because they aren't in guard mode. A good way to use guard mode and the "walking into the enemy" is to have two stacks switch back and forth with it. Like above, put a stack of infantry or another pike on top and in front of them. When the enemy gets too far from the back pikes, disable guard mode and let them "walk" into the the line poking away with their pikes. When they get too unorganized or too close, put them back into guard mode and either let the next row of pikes do the same or wait for the heavy infantry to stable out and repeat.

This is, of course, inside city walls. On the battle field, I mostly leave them in guard mode with a stack of heavy infantry on top of them and leave it at that. The pikes prevent cavalry charges (or any kind of charge, really) to the front. You can do the same "guard mode micro", but it is on a bigger scale and with the flanks to worry about.

**Aeratus** · January 08, 2012, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Shadow888

Yes i have kingdoms. they still suck. as I said freaking LEVY SPEARMEN run through the pikes. thats just wrong man.
is there any way to cluster them closer maybe? because thats what i see the main problem is, infantry run through the gaps.
Also, i did some play tests, and it seems that pikemen WALK INTO THE ENEMY. seriously, watch them fight. instead of holding position and poking whatever poor wretch crosses their path, they keep WALKING INTO THE enemy formation. as if they WANT to get into range to use their swords, instead of wanting to keep ranks and hold the column. its infuriating. playing the italian factions just doesnt feel right without being able to be pike oriented towards the endgame

Kingdoms doesn't have Italian factions in it. If you're playing the Grand Campaign, that campaign has none of the benefits that Kingdoms has, because the Grand Campaign uses pure vanilla mechanics regardless of whether Kingdoms is installed or not.

Still, even in Kingdoms, pikemen are underpowered. Therefore, I suggest downloading mods like SS, which has proper pikemen with their swords removed and yet still well balanced.

**Shadow888** · January 08, 2012, 05:32 PM

I use the retrofit mod to get the goodies from kingdoms into med 2

speaking of kingdoms itself though, the pike bug infuriates me even more. thats one of the things that turned me off to my favorite campaign which is Americas. not being able to rely on shot and pike as the Spanish sucks.

Its like i said before, i know RTW phalanxes were unrealistic, but game wise they worked. Seeing pikemen beat by peasant levies from the front isnt right.

also, sorry to reapeat myself, but is there a way to reduce the pikes spacing? Because if they could be shoulder to shoulder, ala RTW, they would function just like them i think. Ive gone into the unit strat and reduced unit spacing to 0.0 but it doesnt do anything. how would i go about modding the 'spear wall' formation itself? maybe that would allow me to pack the pikemen shoulder to shoulder???

**Shadow888** · January 08, 2012, 10:09 PM

actually, is there a way to reduce unit spacing AND make it so that 4 ranks use their pikes instead of just 2?
basically as i said, make them into RTW phalanxes?

**PrestigeX** · January 08, 2012, 11:02 PM

Well, I think we'll all have different views. But I feel for you, because for a long time I would look for Mods that had rebalanced stats / particularly with Pike units (or mods where secondary is removed).

I'd even done my own changes in the EDU, to try and affect spacing, prices/upkeep -- difficulty in recruitment in EDB file... even trying things like... phalanx formation, but with Halberdier animation and no secondary...

put secondaries back in, but drastically increase all values -- pike attack, sword attack, defense skill, morale.. etc etc.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that it was a choice between what I felt were Way overpowered pike units (no secondary) or, rather mediocre pike units (vanilla / with secondary). I have sided with prefering the 'mediocre' pike units, and really they aren't that bad as some people say -- even pretty good, just depends on the use - and the quality / support units.

**Aeratus** · January 09, 2012, 02:43 AM

What do you think of pikemen in SS (which have secondary weapons removed)? Do you consider them to be balanced enough?

As you can see, the pikes are using pikes even in close combat, even though their formation has already been broken up by the infantry.

Here, the AI is using the late tercio pikemen, which is one of the most expensive pike units you can build (1445 florins in custom battle; in contrast, the cheapest pikemen is around 400 florins I think). However, the muslim axemen unit shown above beat them cleanly.

also, sorry to reapeat myself, but is there a way to reduce the pikes spacing? Because if they could be shoulder to shoulder, ala RTW, they would function just like them i think. Ive gone into the unit strat and reduced unit spacing to 0.0 but it doesnt do anything. how would i go about modding the 'spear wall' formation itself? maybe that would allow me to pack the pikemen shoulder to shoulder???

Not sure, but I think the pikemen are already at the closest you can get them to be.

**Shadow888** · January 09, 2012, 10:18 PM

just used pikes in SS...

freaking amazing. they act just like I thought they should. I actually started a campaign as scotland after trying them out in custom battle.

now if there was only a way to increase recruitment speed to allow for truly epic armies to be created...

**Shadow888** · January 09, 2012, 10:20 PM

thanks to all of you for you input!

**Winterwolf00** · January 11, 2012, 01:11 AM

Everytime I try to unpack the game I screw something up.

**GNU07** · January 11, 2012, 04:12 AM

I've done some tests with pikemen and the formation fix seems to be the best (and only) solution for those who don't want to remove secondary weapons, including me. Simply setting the man 2 man spacing to 0.1 and the row 2 row spacing to 1.8 makes pikes actually very good from the front.

Tercios and landsknecht beat DFKs with usually 40-50 men remaining and they also beat Dism Chivalrics marginally. Aventuros destroy everything in the game including Dismounted Ritterbruders taking only 20 casualties. They beat DFks taking 8 - 12 casualties. Pike Militia with gold armor (which is very easy to get stand their ground vs DFKs). Flemish Pikes and Burger Pikes beat DFKs with 30 men left most of the time. The only downside is that 2handers who should beat pikes, are a joke, mainly because they don't have shields. Tercios beat Dismounted Gothics, Zweihanders, Varangians with 20 casualties most of the time.

They are a bit OP in open battles but it compensates for the fact that pikemen cannot be used in siege and bridge battles, fragile from the flanks and because they are so micro-intensive.

As for levy spearmen running through pikes, this is true and it's unfortunately a bug that causes ALL spearmen to phase through pikes. AFAIK it has no solution.

Also i should mention that i play Retrofit + GUAM. Changing the formation spaces in vanilla will not work. It works only in Kingdoms campaings and Kingdoms based mods.