Deadly but fun army of Pikes

[7Bear7Bottom]

This was an experiment with the Bro Clan and I. In many circles it is believed the strongest attack is a flank attack, but in this replay I will prove an extremely strong center will also win in a 3 vrs 3. I'm in the center with nothing but pikes, rear line of pikes have 3 cheverons plus to prevent a rout from a head on attack. Both my allies on right and left flank are committed to protecting my pike box and any flank happening. I do not ram the pike down the center of the attack but march the pikes right to their infentry line and drop the pike wall so the tips of the ends of my pikes lands in the enemy formation causing defensive melee. First line of pikes get obliterated by arrows and melee as the other lines move slowly inward and to the flanks increasing an overwelming sea of pikes. In the end the accumulated effect is too much for the defenders and they collapse.

Extremely effective attack and fun to play with, give it a try. BTW this was a 10k army of pikes in high era. Here's the replay.

http://www.hawk.igs.net/~cgazey/pikewar.rpy

[ElmarkOFear]

Yup bottom, even in the late/all era, pikes can be devastating in a team game, but you have to have your teammates stay back and cover your flanks, until you begin to gain the upper advantage. If one of your teammates goes in first and gets his flank rolled, you would be in big trouble. :) I know, I am normally the one who's flank gets rolled and my poor teammates must deal with it. hehe

Also, good point about stopping before contact with the enemy frontline, and lowering your pikes in "spearwall" formation. It makes a big difference, and also keeps the pikes safe from cav charges. If you just send your pikes in for hand-to-hand, they will most likely lose. Plus, keeping a second line of Pikes behind your first is a good idea. They stay fresh and are ready to take over, if things go badly for your 1st row.

I will watch the replay tonight after work. Thanks for posting it.

PS: Tell Kuma I am looking forward to the day when we will both be on at the same time and can play against or with each other. :)

[pike master]

man that seems like a novel stategy what do you think elmo?

[ElmarkOFear]

LOL Madcat. I may have seen something similar from a certain teammate of mine awhile back. :yes: Though I will have to watch the replay to see which of the two appear to have it mastered. ~:thumb:

The best thing about the above army, is it can be tailored to fit in with your team's strategy as well as your opponent's playing style. Though it isn't the fastest moving thing.

Now I can't wait to see the replay when I get home from work. :)

I will have to play this army and post the replay so everyone will have a good "Bad" example of how NOT to use it. They say you learn more from mistakes than successes.

ELMO WONDERS IF PIKEMEN CAN BE PLACED IN SKIRMISH MODE BWAHAHAHAHA!

[7Bear7Bottom]

When we did the game we were all laughing at my army (me included) we didn't think it would work. The acronym is Yellow Mellon as my ally (FYI). But this is where the some of my Shogun years came in as we use to play this stratagy in Shogun.

7Bear7Polar would go all yari Spears, 7Bear7Dej would go all cav and I would go 0 val Monks. Using spear wall to block, monks to attack and all cav army to flank.

The pike army reminds me alot of the all Yari army Polar use to take.

And yes, you will see Elmo that I went in first with my allies following up the flanks after me.

P.S. I will have to rip Kuma from Kal.:laugh4:

When I get a chance I will post a stratagy that did fail on me, and I was sent routing to the hills.:laugh4:

[ElmarkOFear]

My problem with the Pike army is, I forget to stop before getting too close to my opponent, and lowering my pike in spearwall formation before I move forward. They get slaughtered quickly if I make that mistake.

Yup, I remember you, Dej, and Polar doing just that thing. It takes a lot of coordination to pull it off to, so you knew if you won, you played very well. :)

Tell Kuma, I'm callin' him out! hehe

I keep forgetting to save my darn games at the end. They need a big pop-up that says; "Elmo do you want to save this loss for the .org replay section?" Maybe I can talk CA into adding that in with the next patch.

[KrooK]

We had similar opponents into css but we coped.
We divided ourselves into 2 battle groups, pavs and some cav were connecting them. We were fighting on flanks of pikes with supporting inf and cav when our pavs were shooting pikes. In the end almost nothing left into our armies, exept - cav and pavs :) So we used cav against opponents archers and then our archers took down their pikes/foot knights.

[RTKBarrett]

Indeed having a strong and reliable centre to work from is vital in 3v3s, Being heavy on pikes has the ability to turn the game in ure favour, however many experienced clans im sure u would agree Bottom would be able to rotate, skirmish and attempt to leave one of ure allies vulnerable/stranded to a full on attack, Pikes are great but not on the move :-( The player using the build in question would have to be a very gd reader of the game at hand :-)

[pike master]

problem is they are too unreliable and either be a good weapon or a hole in the teams line. it needs constant micro managment and they can be isolated and encircled easily in the heat of battle.

the best way to beat pikes is a massed and densely packed assault by your infantry. it usually brings victory every time ;)

[ElmarkOFear]

Pikes are very slow, so if they aren't in the middle, they can be vulnerable to being left behind, while the enemy concentrates on the opposite team flank. You can speed them up a bit by taking off the spear wall ability. They will run, but they fatigue fairly quickly and tend to get out of line, which isn't a good thing for that unit.

[7Bear7Bottom]

This stratagy works great, but, it's what I call the "Ace in the Hole" stratagy. It's something you have to play as a surprise tactic, you can't play this stratagy all the time. Once a week is good to unleash this surprise tactic. You see people play multiplayer games one after another, you get confortable playing same styles of games and same types of armies. When this stratagy is good, is when when nobody expects it.:laugh4:

The result is usually, your unprepared, didn't select enough infentry, too many cav etc. etc.. Any army is beatable, if you know what's coming at you. It's the unknown that can take you off balance.

What you want in the end, is a multitude of stratagies to pool from. Many clans since Shogun use a multitude of stratagies to use and this is what makes them hard to beat at times. So if we decide to use the "Bear Claw" (which I have affectionly called it) more than likely we have not used it in awhile and our combatants won't be ready for it.:2thumbsup:

[ElmarkOFear]

Yup. Surprise is your biggest advantage in many team games. :) Especially if the team you are playing relies only on one or two strategies and cannot adapt to such surprises.

[RTKBarrett]

Tried it with Melon earlier to great effect against two CGOS players, will find the replay for tomorrow :-)

[pike master]

i dont know about all this new tactics stuff. i believe i will stick with the one that works for me. werent pikes just for protecting muskets historically. they shouldnt be able to be used offensively in the game if ca finds out they will have to fix it. it will break the paper rock scissors aspect of the game. and we dont want that to happen. :|

[ElmarkOFear]

If you watch the replay, you can see that bottom may have moved to the enemy, but he didn't really attack them. He stopped right before them and planted his pikes. It was more of a defensive effort after that, as the enemy tried to bring their cav around to flank. Sort of an offensive defensive move. :laugh4:

[YellowMelon]

lol, I was cursing at Bottom on Vent for doing this, now I see the light. Me and Barrett ran similar tests and had great success doing this! We have yet to try our Aztec/Pike combo, where we bring all inf and just INFBALL the enemy to death :)

[ElmarkOFear]

LOL I want to see that replay when you do. :) I like the ole rush'n Aztecs.

[RTKBarrett]

Heres the replay for mels pike ball of destruction with a lil help from me :D
Stay tuned and watch this space for Aztec/Scot ball of fury...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1C3786G5

[Callahan9119]

do you guys use pikes like how we used to use inf in mtw1, march them right in from of the enemy and halt?

i am curious, when i make them attack shinnanigins ensue

[7Bear7Bottom]

He
res the replay for mels pike ball of destruction with a lil help from me :D
Stay tuned and watch this space for Aztec/Scot ball of fury...

Very good, I enjoyed that, but it's called the "Bear Claw" (c)tm:laugh4:

[YellowMelon]

Bottom stamped rights on it lol

[ElmarkOFear]

Actually I posted one like this a few weeks back at the .com when somebody wanted to know a good late/all era anti-cav/anti-musket army.

https://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m52/UglyElmo/ElmosAntiCavAntiMusketarmy.jpg


and since you guys can't decide which name to use, just call it:

Elmo's Lawyer Sues Bottom For Copywrite Infringement: Pike Army Of Doom. :laugh4:

Hey Barrett. I FINALLY figured out how to get the darn download. I looked and looked for that figure they were talking about putting in the box by the DOWNLOAD button. It was right next to the box! DOH!

**DONE IN THE BEST HOMER SIMPSON VOICE ELMO CAN DO**

I am getting ready to watch it now. :)

[7Bear7Bottom]

Elmo's Lawyer Sues Bottom For Copywrite Infringement: Pike Army Of Doom.

Ha! Doesn't even look like my army so my lawyers will let you have that one.:laugh4:

The "Bear Claw" is 10k high and consists of all pikes, "No substitutes".:whip:

Though if you continue with this action Elmo, I will have to call Jim Henson Inc. about your name.:laugh4:

[Demok]

Elmo, you have no archers... what happens when the muskets march up and just shoot you and force you to attack? bottom's tactic was almost as noob as the stake box from england...

[pike master]

its possible with a pure pike army to aborb all of the enemies arrows and still have a viable force if he uses all horse army and you stay on defensive. when someone uses a horse army they should by default be the attacker since it would be pointless to go after them. as i have learned my self when playing with high infantry armies.

[Demok]

noob. that's the best way to go after horse archer armies.... attack them ASAP and chase them tot he back of the map.

[Stig]

There's an enormous amount of hostility in your posts, that amount is allowed everywhere ... maybe consider being nice to eachother

[Zeph]

Muskets will rout a unit of pikes in 3-5 volleys from my experience. And considering their sizable ammo reserveses this army does seem pretty noob. Stig grow up, do you want everyone to hold hand and sing songs or something?

[RTKBarrett]

Heres the replay for mels pike ball of destruction with a lil help from me :D
Stay tuned and watch this space for Aztec/Scot ball of fury...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1C3786G5

I give u, the aztec/scot pike ball of fury in action!!! :laugh4:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=28D65LIW

[Stig]

Stig grow up, do you want everyone to hold hand and sing songs or something?
For example

[ElmarkOFear]

Demok: I have had good luck using the four fast cav units to get behind the enemy and chase down the pesky muskets and archers, or at least keep them busy until my pikes have moved up into position. The two heavy cav I use to hold the flank, while I bring up a pike unit or two to help out.

In the games I have used it, I have been able to hold the middle, for a fairly good amount of time, while resting the second row of pikes until they are needed to either cover any routed frontline troops or to try and maneuver to the flank.


Considering my lack of time online -- I work 7, 12-hour days, so sleep has been a much greater priority in my life (A commodity more precious than gold!) -- I haven't used it against any of the current top players or clans, just in a few pick-up games. Plus, most of the top players do not play in that era. If you see me in the lobby this weekend I would love to play it against you, just to see how it would be picked apart by someone who knows what they are doing.

The biggest weakness of that mostly-pike army is, of course, its speed and its fatigue, later in the game. If my fast cav cannot take down the enemy missile units, this army will not be able to chase them down later in the game and will end up losing after being shot to death. Plus, the HA cav could wreak havoc on it as well.

I could see where it could be used in 3v3 and 4v4s to good effect, as long as your teammates brought cav heavy armies and possibly a few muskets or HA cav and stayed near your army's flanks. I haven't tested this, since most clan games I have played in are always high era. I also wouldn't recommend that army if I was on a far right or far left flank in a 4v4, once again due to its lack of speed.

However, come patch time, if the power of cav is reduced, thus making mostly-cav armies less effective, this army could easily come into its own, but I would probably take away two pike units and substitute in a few swords then. It will depend on how much sword units are improved.

The reason I made this army was, a new player asked me (at the .com) if there might be any LATE/ALL era army which could win against a cav/musket army. He was having problems winning vs. these type of armies. He has had good luck using it, so it has served its purpose. I figure, since he is new, and since he is playing against players who are also fairly new themselves, this army would work for him. That is also why I originally made the Longbow Circle of Doom army.

Oh BTW: Thanks for the replay in the Longbow thread showing how to beat the Circle. I am in the process of downloading it now. I would have thanked you in that thread, but it has digressed into nothing but a flamewar. :)

[Zeph]

Elmark the biggest problem i can see is you consider your enemy will engage all your army at the same time. And yours bottom is that you don't seem to see that players will ignore your slow moving pikes and engage your teammates before you can get your pikes there to help.

[ElmarkOFear]

What exactly do you mean that it assumes the enemy will "engage all the army at the same time"? Do you mean, I am thinking the enemy will commit his entire army against the front of this formation? I would never expect the enemy to do that.

I imagine the enemy would commit a few foot unit matchups, one for each of my frontline pike units. The rest would be kept back or be used to go for a flanking maneuver.

My second row of pikes would be used to cover the flanks or any weakened units in the frontline. If I could not get to the enemy missile units with my fast cav, I would have to try to push my second row of pikes either through the center or around the flank to get at them.

If this isn't what you meant, please explain.

Thanks

[7Bear7Bottom]

Zeph, if you would be so kind as to watch the replay, the opposing team didn't know we were going to do this. The army of pikes were brought up the middle and the right and left flanks stayed back, the opposing team started to close in on the pike because it looked like an easy rout. Then my allies came up my flanks and also defended the pike position.

So in order for you to get my team m8's first, you would have had to go through the pikes, and as the replay shows the opposing team had no time to do this as both of my allies were stuck on my rear flanks like velcrow.

I could have stayed there all game and let them shoot me, and they wouldn't have had enough arrows to cut the pike army in half.:laugh4:

This is a 3 vrs 3 ofcourse and would only work if allies work together. The plan was to move pikes up first and flanks to merge with it in the rear. This is a very well know maneuver and has been used in many modern and old armies in the past. Though there are examples of falures as well as victories in this maneuver.

As for muskets, I have not tried anything in late yet, since Elmo is doing stuff there, I'll let him explain his tactics and experiments. It's his baby now.:beam:

[pike master]

bottoms theory is similiar to a battle i witnessed one time where the enemy team attempted to triple a guys pikes with missile and melee cav only to weaken their armies and lost the battle. the other teammates took advantage of the enemies obsession of trying to rout the pike army that they werent watching their main army enough to stop the allied attack.

they attempted go behind tactics but mysteriously it didnt work right.

[Demok]

you see, the problem with when you guys play each other is that you take noob armies & you're playing vs noobs so therefor you think your noob army is good... Personally I think anyone with a brain in their head will be able to stop your cav charge with their cav while their muskets still rape everything in your army.

[-Silent-Someguy]

Bottom, your army is going to get shot up, and even if, as u say they "dont even kill half of them" thats still going to cause massive problems. I dont think you have an idea of how much ammo archers actually have... Firstly it will create gaps, second a smart person will FF on a few of ur units and shred them completly. Putting holes in your formation allowing for flanking and ur whole thing is going to get owned with ease.

As for the late army, they can just plonk their muskets behind their inf and ur cav wont do anything, you only have what 6 cav other than ur gen? and 4 of them are light, so if the player has 6-8 good cav you arent going to be able to free up any cav to get a smart players muskets, and they will rip ur pikes and rout them with ease.

[Grey_Fox]

Children, it's just a possibility, there is no such thing as a perfect army, there is always a counterstrategy, and Bottom and Elmo realise that.

[Stig]

Shall I post a screenie in which 3 Silent members are being beaten by 3 random n00bs?

[pike master]

what is a screeny? can you post that one so can see what one looks like?

:|

[Zeph]

Shall I post a screenie in which 3 Silent members are being beaten by 3 random n00bs?
Please. We don't win every game we play as we try different stuff, but i can assure you we win the vast and i do mean vast majority of games we play. Can you say the same?

[RTKBarrett]

Please. We don't win every game we play as we try different stuff, but i can assure you we win the vast and i do mean vast majority of games we play. Can you say the same?

Can we say if we care or not? :egypt:

[Stig]

we try different stuff
GOTCHA!!!!

You say we can't try different stuff, but you do yourselves

*dances*
hypocrits, hypocrits, nahnahnah :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

[Zeph]

GOTCHA!!!!

You say we can't try different stuff, but you do yourselves

*dances*
hypocrits, hypocrits, nahnahnah :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: Theres trying different stuff and trying stuff that you know and have seen to {censored}.

[Grey_Fox]

Oh, wow, you uh sure showed him err yeah...

[RTKBarrett]

Zeph knows all

[`-Silent-FireBlade]

Zeph knows all


He knows how 2 win....Thats a tried and tested theory, u no that Bar ;o)

[Demok]

:daisy: Pike armies are easy to beat.

[Zeph]

Oh, wow, you uh sure showed him err yeah... Yeah he sure showed me with that screenshot. :daisy:

[RTKBarrett]

SA why keep coming back? just out of curiosity?

[pike master]

i could be wrong which i almost am but never do that i am. i think it could be that they do not approve of this subforum and are attemting to undermine it because they depend more on mechanical exploits rather than actual skill.

of course i could be wrong but never am that i know to know.

[`-Silent-FireBlade]

My my Barrett, u do have a grudge vs SA, that makes our CCS games alot more interesting ;)

[RTKBarrett]

A grudge? no i dnt hold a grudge with anyone... i simply dont like ppl who bash others trying to enjoy the game for what it is, a game...

[`-Silent-FireBlade]

A grudge? no i dnt hold a grudge with anyone... i simply dont like ppl who bash others trying to enjoy the game for what it is, a game...


I no where ur comin from, but i gotta be honest, if i was new at this game and wanted 2 get half skilled at it, reading these tactics would hinder my progress.

I'm all 4 havin fun, but no matter wot u think of SA, no one can ever deny that we are very very good at this game and no wot works and wot doesnt, and these tactics just wont work if u wanna win a game vs a half decent playa!

[pike master]

with ccs rules i really have trouble understanding why someone thinks that an all cav army would have such an advantage over a pike army when you are limited to 4 ha. usually what im seeing is people getting 8 + ha in ex ccs games.

however in a no art or ele game its more in favor of the cav but then again if it aint practice for clan games why have rules?and late era infantry armies would wreak havoc on horse only armies regardless of how many ha you have.

thats why tourneys should be based on late era to balance the game.

[Cheetah]

Heres the replay for mels pike ball of destruction with a lil help from me :D
Stay tuned and watch this space for Aztec/Scot ball of fury...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1C3786G5

I only get a "download the megaupload toolbar" option. Shall I proceed with that? ~:confused:

[RTKBarrett]

I only get a "download the megaupload toolbar" option. Shall I proceed with that? ~:confused:

Click the link mate, then look top right, u will see an empty box where u are required to enter a 3 letter/digit code, once u do that u can proceed to the download screen :egypt:

[Titan of Gaul]

Baz, do you really think Aztecs would work against a skilled player lol?

[pike master]

on grassy flatland no. but on other maps they could.

[Monarch]

with ccs rules i really have trouble understanding why someone thinks that an all cav army would have such an advantage over a pike army when you are limited to 4 ha. usually what im seeing is people getting 8 + ha in ex ccs games.

however in a no art or ele game its more in favor of the cav but then again if it aint practice for clan games why have rules?and late era infantry armies would wreak havoc on horse only armies regardless of how many ha you have.

thats why tourneys should be based on late era to balance the game.

Your not limited to 4 ha your limited to 12 ha.

[pike master]

:embarassed:

sorry i meant 4 per individual. 12 per team.:surrender:

[Sirex1]

Read and learn about the fomrations you use, and about the power of the Tercio :). If i understand you correctly you use swiss typ pike squares/blocks to attack? This was beatin in history with Tercio formation and should be beaten by this in game.


This is a post i made in totalwar.com forum when they were discussing why knights phased out and conclduded that it was musket use. And i dont have the energi to edit it for this thread so bare with me. But here you can see the effectivnes of the diffrent formations had irl.


I was in the school library the outher day, and found a book named History around the thirty years war, made by multiple historians but edidted by Göran Rystad, swed.

In the book there is a episode that adress the tactics, and coer the tactics from medieval to the time in quiestion of the book.

Basicly what you guys have been ignoring while discusisong these thing here and in the med2 forum is that people don't always behave rationnally and that the firearms were part of a system, were the pike played a Large role. And that neither bows or firearms were responsibel for phasing out heavy cavalry, most victoryes won by longbow armies was becouse the outher general advanced his army first in bad terrain, and then attacked playing right in to the hands of the english. And how could anyone think that those guns that they have at the time could stop a cavalry charge soly, i mean they would only have one shoot at them to stop infinity much heavy cavalry coming right for them at high speed.

At first in the 1400 you got knight armies that can dominate infantry. Then the swiss developed the offensive use of the pike. The pike allows infantry to protect themselves against heavy cavalry and also allows them to make devestating charges, and gradually made knights (heavy cavalry) obslolete. Which means that non pike mele infantry came to a none existance. Thus the role of cavalry changed, sence its lance could not outrange or outfight the 18 foot pike and they were not that succefull against longbowmen either, becouse when the pistol was invented the cavalry gladly adopted it. The tactics was to slowly march to the enemy and then have one line fire their pistols and then roll back to the rear and then the next line did the same thing, this really didn't work becouse often the charge was neglected. So they were only good at ritual fight outher cavalry. Note that i'm taking this information from a history book.

And then we have the infantry, the swiss made the infantry powerfull and the queen of the battle field again (between 1470-1520 were the swiss way of fighting the norm), but then the Tercio with composed of a block of pike flanked by four blocks of firearms troops at its corners. It consisted of 1500-3000 men and was slow and cumbersome, inefficent use of men, but made it selfefficend it needn't support from outher units and could protect it self from flank attacks easy. But it was the first seriosly atempt to make a mutally support fomration between pike and gun troops but a notoriously bad one. Sence they could shoot down big blocks of pike units (read swiss type unit), close-combat was distanced and thus the increase of firearms armed troops increased. In the begining of 1600 the ration was 2 musket armed men against one pike armed. And with this tactic they didn't advance at each outher, only shoot mostly.

Now in 1580 the book says that by the influence of firearms it had managed to lead warfare in to two stops. It is the demoralisation of cavalry which i stated and the second the increase of firearms amred troops, and thus the lack of suffient numbers and use of pike tropps. This is bad sence you need melle to win a battle (The word he used was "avgörande" which litteraly means like "a desisive" like in you need melle to make a desisive, the translation to english make it sound bad), i'm still reading from the book.
Yust gathering Expensive mercenary trops to have them fire at each outher in a battle of exhaustion is a waste of resoureses.

But on the conratry thier was a great increase in effiency in siege battles, there the gun powerd had made a real change.

Which logically, althoug a false conclustion, meant that field battle became extinct, only a bad,low thought of and failed commander whould want a field battle. The strategie became to occupy territory, favoring the mercenaries sence now they could get longer contract, compeared to a field battle that changed the course of the war in one stroke.
So now in around 1590 warfare had come to a stand still, neither cavalry or infantry or general wanted a desisive close-combat battle. The Tercio was hard to manuevar in battle and slow, and its organic compostion of troops made smaller units self conflicting, note that a field army could compose of only three of these things making battle tactics sink down to a primitive level.

But in 1600 the dutch Morits made a new system, which compsed of units of 550 men, organised in shallow lines with 10 men deep and lines instead of collums. This meant great tactically manouverbillity and good use of troops and avaylabillity of tactical units, and also good reservs. In a 12000 men army, the Tercio system would have 4 tactically units, while the dutch would have 24. But the system was only good at defence, it had to small units. Later on the swedish king Gusta Adolf made the true change that revolutionaiced warfare. He made the lines only 6 lines deep, and the musket armed troops was for the first time in history orderd to fire in salvos, which greatly increased the impact. But while reloading they were very vonrable, the standard tactic was to use the pikemen as a barbed wire. But Gustav increased the numbers of pikemen and had them charged in after the first salvo had been shoot, and when they had realoaded the pikemen retreated to allow the to fire and the cycle reperated it. And this solved the proplem how both pikemen and musketmen could both be used best, a proplem wich military men had wrestled with for 200 years. But the real change was that he order them not to fire before "Seing the enemys whites in the eyses" (Bad translation) but that to only fire at a close range, and then follow up with the pike attak cycle that i said. This is the real gem, salvo fire at close range, it widly increas the numbers of bullets that hits and gives a nice morale damage.

He also changed the unit structures. The basic unit was the sqvadron with 500 men, wich then was organsied in a wedge formation of four sqvadrons this was called a brigade. And the sqvadron in the back acted a a reserv. Every regiment, two sqvadrons, was also issued thier own light artillery which could be hand moved.

The cavalry was orderd to charge in and fire the pistols in close combat, then draw swords. But also he gave up thier speed, he had musket armed troops follow them in the flanks to open up a hole before the cavalry charged; this was later solved with draggons, mounted musket men.

[pike master]

8)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=je-c81wwrpA