Pikemen rank bonuses -- nonexistent?

[Dorkus]

Has anyone noticed that pikemen are seriously underperforming, given their stats?

Even SAPs, who are defensive stalwarts, do NOT kill nearly as much as you'd think they would. With their atk value of 2, plus the supposed 2 bonus to atk and 4 bonus to charge from ranks, they should be 4 atk, 8 chrg units.

Yet if you compare them to gothic knights (equivalent atk stats), they don't kill NEARLY as fast. And this is despite the fact that they're 96 man units!!!

Now I'm not saying SAP are underpowered (particularly compared to other high level units, JHI, Hashishin, etc). But regular pikemen certainly are. And if there's a problem with pike rank bonuses in general, it would be nice to know....

[Papa Bear!]

Well, seeing as how I've finally found some people I know, (and I've gone rather crazy waiting for the official forums to be fixed), I went ahead and registered here finally.

That said, I've done alot of testing with pikemen, and SAP in particular lately.

Well, I just wrote out a long explanation of my testing, but now I've decided that it was pointless. I can't give exact data, so why bother? I will say though that matched against similar unit sizing, (96 SAP to 80-120 of enemy units), the SAP barely killed as many enemy men as they lost, before routing. This is facing AUM, and footknights, etc. They may've been hampered by their numbers, (in some cases slightly outnumbered), but they got to charge down a gentle hill, which, if dorkus is right about that charge bonus, shouldn't obliterated thier enemies. In fact, very few casualties were inflicted due to the charge, (~5) They were spread 5 deep and 4 deep.

And, having just reviewed the patch details today, I don't think anything like this was mentioned. (but it seems like a second patch will be a must, as various things have been left out)

and nice to see 2 names I know from the official totalwar forums.

[andrewt]

Try this. Give feudal sergeants a +1 to attack and have them fight normal pikemen. The W1 feudal sergeants have the same stats but have +1 to charge. The pikemen should come out on top more often than not because their rank bonuses are supposed to be better. If they don't, something is wrong.

[Dorkus]

Nice to see you as well, papa http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/redface.gif

These forums are generally more informative, but the tradeoff is that the general maturity level is significantly lower. Just take a cursory glance over the business with the site admin to see what I'm talking about. (on another note, this also indicates that the official site is not the only one prone to hacking)

Anyhoo, it's nice that someone else has noticed something weird with pikes. But now that I think abou tit, the problem CAN"T be that pikes aren't getting ANY rank bonuses. Because, for example, SP whomp on Byz inf in a head on fight, when they should lose handily if they don't have pike bonuses.

The issue that caused me to bring this up, actually, was someone's mentioning of the fact that valor 2 spearmen can beat SAPs. Now it turns out that was a bit of an exaggeration -- the spearmen lose pretty badly -- but it IS true that valor 2 chiv sergs can beat SAP handily.

The respective stats are:

SAP 4 atk, 9 def, 8 chg
CS 2 atk, 9 def, 7 chg

So I was baffled as to how the SAP were losing with a close to 50% higher kill rate!!! (the effect of 2 more atk).

I thoguht about it a bit more last night, however, and remembering the form of the combat resolution function:

1.9*1.2^DF where DF is the difference between atk and defense, I remembered that, when atk is far less than defense, increases in atk will have a very small increase in kill rate simply because a 50% increase from an initially small kill value is still very small.

As unit attrition commences, the SAP will lose their bonuses more quickly than the chiv sergs -- once they lose about 16 men, their rank bonuses start to take a hit. Chiv sergs need to lose 60 men before they start to lose rank bonuses.

I initially thought that unit attrition should NOT matter much when one unit has the same def and a 50% higher kill rate, but when you're comparing extremely low kill rates, this may no longer hold.

Anyhoo, I'm still highly suspicious of pikemen's charge value, as even KNIGHTs can kill a few chiv sergs in a charge while SAP almost never do. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that valor 2 chiv sergs can crush SAP. *shrug*

I'm still hoping that the devs add rank bonuses to the f1 screen, though http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/redface.gif

[This message has been edited by Dorkus (edited 10-22-2002).]

[Puzz3D]

Dorkus,

Maybe pikemen should be used in a deeper formation for best results. I guess, if the pikes are better than the unit they are engaging, you can set up in a wide formation without concern, but, if they are facing a tough opponent, deeper would be better. However, with a shorter frontage they would be more vulnerable on their flanks.

Two other things crossed my mind concerning pikemen in hold formation:
1) Fatigue level of a unit is the average of the fatigue of all the men in the unit. Many of the men in a pike unit are involved in the combat, so the unit will fatigue faster than a spear unit where less men are actually engaged. In a spear vs pike engagement, the units will usually go though all the stages of fatigue before the combat is resolved since they are both highly defensive statwise. Once you get to very tired, unit wide att/def combat penalties start being applied.

2) I've noticed that a charge by a unit in hold formation is not very effective. It must be because only the men in the front row engage and get the charge bonus. Any unit put in hold formation would suffer from this. Pikemen and spearmen are usually used in hold formation, but, if you want to get the most out of the charge itself, it would probably be better to switch them to engage-at-will. I'm not suggesting this for a unit with a narrow front because most of the men will just pile up behind the first couple of men an loose their charge momentum anyway.

[Kraxis]

Yup, remember that the ranks bonus comes from the rows behind the rows fighting. So for you to get the full bonus from Pikes they need to be in 8 ranks, while spears can stay in 4. Generally it pays off to have half a rank more than this so the unit can take some losses and still get the full bonus.

So a unit of pikes in 4 rows have the basic stats of pikes, while in 8 rows they would have what Dorkus presents.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[longjohn2]

I'm not aware of any problems with pike rank bonuses. However, the rank bonus is not nearly as simple as "this unit is nominally in 5 ranks so it gets 4 ranks worth of bonus". In order for a fighting man to get a bonus, it is necessary for the men supporting him to be closed up behind him, facing the same direction etc. As a fight progresses, these conditions are met less and less frequently, and the pike unit gets less and less bonues. Look at whether or not the back rank guys are doing their fighting anim to tell if they're counting or not.
One thing I've noticed that really screws up a pike unit, is making a turn just before contact, as it disrupts the whole formation. Try to make sure they charge straight.

I've made a couple of adjustments to pikes in the patch, to give them more pushing back power, and to give them an advantage against spears, on the grounds that they have longer weapons, and historically replaced them.

[Papa Bear!]

in my experience the Men not directly engaged in combat don't do a combat animation, even if their in perfect block formation.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but as I recall, your first 1 or 2 ranks engage, and everyone behind them just stands around waiting for things to get interesting. Is there any other way to tell if my men are arrayed properly for a rank bonus, cuss I don't think this is it.

[querulously]

You can see the back rows actually pushing sometimes, rather than standing there as in units without this effect.

[Kraxis]

Quote Originally posted by longjohn2:
Look at whether or not the back rank guys are doing their fighting anim to tell if they're counting or not.[/QUOTE]

Huh? I don't get it. I can get 4 ranks seemingly fighting, is that supporting? Then there is only 3 ranks supporting in reality as the first guys are engaging the enemy.

I thought we were told in another thread a long time ago that 2 Spearmen would engage the enemy and 4 pikemen would engage, on top of that there were the ranks bonus.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[This message has been edited by Kraxis (edited 10-22-2002).]

[querulously]

Well if there is sufficent contact (unlikely in a fixed formation, but presumably possible) you could have the maximum two men engaging the enemy and each of them could have their maximum support, if your formation is deep enough.So the two would be in fighting animation and the rest in pushing animation.

[Dorkus]

Thanks as always longjohn! Nice to know that back rank animations have some significance. I tend to maneuver my pikes quite a bit to get them into a flank/rear, so perhaps that's the problem.

To Kraxis: I'm pretty sure that rank bonuses have nothing to do with the number of men a unit can engage. They simply SIMULATE this by giving the front man defensive/offensive bonuses.

At least I've said as much in a thread and was not corrected when longjohn responded http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/redface.gif

[Papa Bear!]

Quote Originally posted by Kraxis:
Huh? I don't get it. I can get 4 ranks seemingly fighting, is that supporting? Then there is only 3 ranks supporting in reality as the first guys are engaging the enemy.
[/QUOTE]

you use pikes in formations 7 deep? wow.

anyway, I believe it was decided that since there is a maximum of 2 units that can engage any one unit at any 1 time, no more than the first 2 ranks of anything can possibly engage the enemy. Could be mistaken, again, though.

[Puzz3D]

Kraxis,

My understanding of this is that spearmen can claim up to 2 supporting ranks, and pikemen can claim up to 4 supporting ranks. It has nothing to do with how many men can engage an enemy man. As LongJohn said, the supporting men line up behind the man who is fighting, and their animation is synchronized with the front man.

When I see two men independently attacking a single man, they are always attacking from two different angles, and not providing support for one another. Each of those two men could be getting support from men behind them. I think the best support is achieved with the unit in hold formation because the men try harder to maintain the formation. If you have a numerical advantage, the best 2 on 1 chance would be achieved with the unit in engage-at-will. I would say a 2 on 1 would be better than a 1 on 1 with supporting man because the single man can only strike at one of the two men attacking him within each combat cycle while the two men each get a strike.