special abilities

[Sandor1983]

When I played other mods (and vanilla med 2) i never/rarely used special abilities like shield wall, wedge, spear wall. I would like to ask for help how to use them in battle.
I know the tactics, strategy (rock paper scissors). I just want to what do each abilities do to get out more of them in battle.

My problems are (for example):

1. Shield wall: What do shield wall do? Increases resistance against archers, or other type units? It should be used in defensive or agressive mode?
2. Wedge: Is there any use of wedge in this mode?
3. Spear wall: I see that this ability is more effective in cow than in vanilla med2. But how do you use them? In defensive mode or agressive mode? Standing in a line or advancing?

Thanks

[BigHairyMelon]

Big fan of the shield wall. Its got a lot of uses both offensive and defensive. But in terms of its effects i think it negates the charge of a unit attacking it, not too sure on that though. All i know is that its very effective when you use it defensively with spear men and swords men, you can attack with it as well but your units will spread out a bit which i think is the engines fault. If you have heavy units in shield wall (i.e dwarfs) they can just march through the enemy formation and kill. Spear wall is for pikes i think for most units its better to have it on then not, although sometimes it gets bugged and your unit will present its side to the attacking enemy which is not good.
I really wish i could add shield wall to the elves spear men but when i add it in the edu for some reason it doesn't have any effect.

[Marcus Tullius Cicero]

There was a thread like this in the Stainless Steel forums for the in game unit abilities, I'll try to find it one sec...


-edit

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ight=abilities

[Ichon]

Shield walls gives defensive bonus and more cohesion and mass at expense of some attack. So for units with already high defense it makes them even harder to kill while if they have medium to high attack they can still do some damage. If you charge in shield wall it can be very effective so its both offensive and defensive formation.

Wedge is fairly useless, it helps in maneuvering occasionally but its really rare you ever need to use it.

Spearwall in most mods is mostly defensive but Empire halberdiers can use it offensively in CoW.

[Iguanaonastick]

Plus, your guys are standing so close together every enemy will get stabbed by three or four of your guys. The bottom line, though, is that units with shield-wall on are several times more resilient than those without, unless they're being flanked. I basically never turn it off unless I need to manoeuvre in a hurry.

Likewise for spearwall. It's almost always better to turn it on, or so I've found in the series of one-on-one custom battles I've used.

Interesting tidbit on spearwall: some units, like pikemen, will assume a different and cool-looking formation when you turn on both spearwall and guard-mode. The front rank will kneel and brace and the rear rank will raise their pikes over their heads. However, cool though it may look I've found in my tests it actually tends to be less effective at stopping cavalry charges. So I usually turn guard-mode off.

[Sandor1983]

Thank you for your useful replies. I will read more about this on the linked SS forum. One more thing I wantted to ask:

Do you turn on guard mode when you use spear wall or shield wall? If yes when do you turn it on?

[mr.blonde]

I use guard mode (when spear wall or shield wall are active) only on choke points e.g when i defend the main gate in a siege. That benefits mostly when i have 3-4 units stacked, no flank is possible and they retain formation allowing to defend much better.
Truth be told although using the guard mode with such units may become an exercise to baby sitting them.(reposition them or re-order them etc)

[Sandor1983]

Thank you for your help. Now I going to test what you suggested