swords infantry vs. polearms infantry [Archive]

Mrlin

06-05-2005, 02:24

I always wonder why using swordsmen when I can use polearms, if both have pretty much comparable unit stats??

Swordsmen and polearms share same advantages. Same unit size, no need for formation like spears. Yes swords against spear have +1 attack, but polearms have armour piercing effect, which often gives more than 1 attack bonus in High and Late eras.

Also, swords are weak against cavalry, which is said to "always push back swordsmen"... As we know, pushing back gives enormous attack bonus to next attack. I read that from one of the guides from official medieval total war.

So why should I bother with swords when similar polearms are available??

ps: I read also from official mtw, that because polearms like spear are long weapons, soldiers at the 3th and 4th rank could still attack the enemy. If this is true, I wonder if it is still wise to have polearms in 2 ranks, as recommended by frogbeastegg in his Total Unit Guide. I said this is because, after 1.01 version, cavalry can now push back even spears, pikes and polearms.

I don't know if what I have read are true. So please someone correct me.

m52nickerson

06-05-2005, 04:17

Swordmen have better moral then most polearms. They also can take on armored and nonarmored units, were as polearms will have problems with unarmored units (lower attack).

danielrech

06-05-2005, 04:56

I'm not a big fan of the vanilla halberdiers, but the other enhanced versions (billmen, chivalric foot knights, janissary heavy infantry and swiss halberdiers) are easily better than most (if not all) sword units.

Of course it also depends on the type of troops you re facing. Against light armoured muslim troops, the swords MAY be a better option.

The_678

06-05-2005, 05:05

Nothing still beats those Viking Huscarls. If you can have those upgraded to gold armour and weapon in Sweden, I'll take on anything with that in the early era.

Still I never used polearms much. I just have a love for the sword units. The morale and armour is what I love about the sword units and most polearms are militia units, which I incline not to use much. Except of Swiss ARmoured Pikemen. That unit totally kicks ass.

Patron

06-05-2005, 07:21

I've never seen pole arms used by rear ranks before. I don't think the units in mtw have a range concerning their lances, pikes and long handled axes.

Swordsmen without an armour piercing ability are obsolete in the high and late eras. However if you can build elite swordsmen with an armour piercing ability, then you will find them extremely useful in killing off polearms aswell as enemy swordsmen, peasants and cavalry in woods. I don't know many of these units though. Gallowglasses are good but can only be built in Ireland. Huscarles, vikings, landsmenn and swabian swordsmen are excellent, but can only be built in the early era. Ghazi infantry die too quick, though giving them an armour bonus helps.

If you can't build and armour piercing swordsmen, then you will have to use spearmen with a high defense (ordinary spearmen and feudal seargants won't do) to pin them and then flank them. If it is a large battle and you may not be able to flank them then you will just have to use polearms of your own. Chivalric seargants can do some damage to polearms when they charge and keep their formation intact for quite a long time. It might be worth using spearmen and cavarly to kill halberdiers, as odd as it might sound.

Ironside

06-05-2005, 08:24

The polearms are weaker to ranged fire than the swordsmen.

I don't give much to regular halbs, as they are slow, and got low morale. BUt I admit that they can be good fighters though (been on both sides of the coin). Arbs, javs (thanks to the slow speed), MS and flanking are the best counters for those.

But otherwise, the only unit that can really replace swordsmen is billmen and only the English can build those. And as mentioned, than will give you bigger losses vs arrow/boltfire. I still use all halb units as complements, but they don't fully replace swordmen.

Budwise

06-05-2005, 11:19

Yeah, I use Billmen exclusively as I have mentioned a few times in the past and I can honestly say that they take both the Spear and Swords out of the match. I'm totally convinced that a line 3/4 billmen and the rest calv and bow will truly kick even the armies of todays back to the tankyards. Imagine the bonuses for anti armor to lets say the armor of a tank.

Well, its 3:00 am and I can't sleep, maybe I'm wrong.

antisocialmunky

06-05-2005, 13:00

The Swiss Halberdiers are better than the Billmen as they're more powerful and no one can get an armor bonus when attacking them. If you can get billman to valor 1, gold sword, and gold shield, you have a unit of Chivalric Footknights. Then there's JHI which makes even Chivalric Knights evaporate like peasants.

The only better infantry(1 v 1) in the game are Gothic Foot Knights(try 2 JHI vs 3 GFK and you'll see). Gothic Foot Knights have giant Armor Piercing Swords making them the best swordsman in the brute force stat wise.

Byzantine Infantry is still my favorite swordsman. You have to love these guys unless they mass rout on you and you have to take a 20 stack with your 14 star Jedi General. They're the only swordsman unit that can take cavalry out since they outnumber them 2-3 times. Just get them moral and attack upgrades and they'll be good throughout the ages.

Mrlin

06-06-2005, 02:27

Thanx to all the replies. they are certainly insightful.

So according to all answers, swords are still better b/c they have higher attack and moral stats.

However, I must ask why are polearms weaker against ranged missiles??

Also, people seem to forget polearms, spears and pikes generally have higher charge stats than swords. You can see this when comparing cavalry with sword and cavalry with spear...(the latter one always has higher charge stats)

This means polearms and spears combination could be more effective than swords and spear combination. I mean using 100 spearmen to pin enemy, especially cavalry, and charging polearms toward enemy flank (since polearms don't care about the cohension of their formation)

The reason I said "especially cavalry" is because I love killing enemy cavalry. They are a big threat with their high attack and charge stats, incuring enormous damage as long as they exist. Also, the general and king, and princes are usually cavalry, and when u destroy them, well, u are about winning the battle.
Not to mention, polearms are number one killing unit against cavalry

I guess I am saying in high and late eras, I am willing to use polearms instead of swords, because the benefits of killing cavalry and other armoured units from polearms' higher charge and A-P bonus, are greater than the benefits of swordsmen's higher attack and moral stats.
(this is of course the attack and moral stats are not too much higher)

I hope this makes sense.

ps: I am playing XL mod, and I think the author has readjusted most of polearms' moral stats, so they are higher in XL than in orignial version.

Productivity

06-06-2005, 05:28

Most polearms don't have shields right? That would be why they are weaker against missiles.

antisocialmunky

06-06-2005, 12:47

Spears aren't exactly sued for charging, more like standing there and dying as slowly as possible. If you can get another unit that can last just as long and cover the same span, there's no point in spears anymore.

tigger_on_vrb

06-06-2005, 13:07

In the campaign Billmen can seem even better than they are because of the bonus in Mercia. If you build a master spearmaker they get another bonus. Any decent troop with +2 valour to start is going to kick ass.
Even after saying that, Billmen still kick ass if you use them in custom etc - the high morale helps hugely.
The reason I go for polearms over swords in my campaign armies is not how they do one on one with other swords, but they are more versatile as they also kill cavalry very well.

antisocialmunky

06-06-2005, 13:41

You can also use Longbows to back them up since they have an armor piercing mace or hammer to kill those pesky french knights. Go England!

BAD

06-06-2005, 14:33

I think the one thing you are not taking into consideration is the cost. Polearm units are normally more expensive than their sword wielding counterparts. Especially if you are using the XL Mod where you cannot ge an extortionate amount of cash from trade (and when you impose restraints on trade on yourself like I do a lot of the time :dizzy2: ).

(using the Gnome Editor) A choice for the english:-

For example Feudal Men at Arms cost is 175 with support factor of 6

Billmen cost is 300 with a support factor of 5

Gallowglasses cost is 200 with a support of 3

You can make of the support difference what you will. Often depends with people what teh troops arew doing to justify big or low support costs. Prefereably I like lower ones. ;) As you can see in high I would much rather have two units of Feudal Men at Arms/Gallowglasses than one unit of Billmen. Of course then there are the valour bonus's but you get my drift. Plus Gallowglasses get the AP bonus and a massive charge also.

For French:-

French Men at Arms cost is 225 and support factor of 7

Swiss Halbediers cost is 375 and support factor of 9

As you can see cost is definately an issue.

However for nations that don't really get any really strong sword units pole-arms are the only way to go. The Turks spring to mind here. When you hit High Jannissary Heavies would be my main line Infantry unit. ~D

Of course a mix of units is the best kind of army. Then you can adapt to whatever the enemy is.

Kommodus

06-06-2005, 14:36

I'm actually a big fan of polearms over sword infantry, mainly because they're more well-rounded. Sword infantry often has slightly better melee stats, but has one glaring weakness: cavalry, which you tend to encounter a lot of. Polearms, on the other hand, have no serious weaknesses.

Polearms may have lower morale, but this only matters if they get flanked or otherwise in a very tight spot - but this rarely happens with my armies, so the point is usually moot. And BTW, even vanilla halberdiers will chew up almost all swordsmen in a head-on fight, including CMAA and Byzantine infantry. Polearms don't actually have a weaker attack against lightly armoured troops - they just get less of a bonus, while their own armour-piercing weapon helps them deal with swordsmen, spearmen, and cavalry effectively.

Don't get me wrong here - I like swordsmen as well, and make sure to keep some of them in my armies. The real question for me is this: why spears? I know their theoretical use - pinning the enemy, especially cavalry, while something else flanks. But how well does this work in practice? Spears are good against cavalry, as long as they keep formation and don't get flanked, but if they encounter swordsmen or polearms, they fold quickly. They even have problems against some weaker units, like militia sergeants. What's more, I've seen them lose formation even in head-on fights, and once this happens, they die very quickly. Besides, how likely is it really that you'll be able to catch enemy cavalry with your slow-moving spearmen, when the enemy will more likely use his cavalry to target more vulnerable units, like swordsmen and archers? You can more easily meet cavalry head-on with polearm troops - you may lose a few more men to the charge, but you'll destroy the cavalry more quickly and still win quite easily.

I like polearms, swordsmen, and axemen, but spearmen have fallen out of favor with me. Anything with as many weaknesses as spearmen is not worth the investment.

antisocialmunky

06-06-2005, 17:13

Besides, how likely is it really that you'll be able to catch enemy cavalry with your slow-moving spearmen, when the enemy will more likely use his cavalry to target more vulnerable units, like swordsmen and archers?

Corner Camp.

Zarax

06-06-2005, 17:14

Well, Italian Infantry, Almughavars and Dismounted Nobles are quite able to care for themselves imho...
The problem with polearms is that they are vulnerable to non cavalry units, especially light armoured ones.
Gallowglasses will tear apart vanilla halbs with ease and you can kill any type of halbs with two of them...

Kommodus

06-06-2005, 18:31

The problem with polearms is that they are vulnerable to non cavalry units, especially light armoured ones.
Gallowglasses will tear apart vanilla halbs with ease and you can kill any type of halbs with two of them...

It's true, there are a few units that polearms are vulnerable to. But how many are there, really? Let's see:

1. Elite units, such as JHI, VG, GFK, and huscarles. But what's not vulnerable to these? They're elite for a reason, and you don't see many of them.

2. Certain armor-piercing, barbarian-type units, including gallowglasses, Ghazi infantry, and vikings. But once again, anything will suffer some casualties when charged by these, and polearms aren't particularly bad against them - spearmen and swordsmen will take casualties too, although maybe not quite as many. I've tested vanilla halbs against vikings, and it came out about even.

That's about it (BTW, it takes more than a lack of armor and no horse to defeat polearms). The majority of unmounted, unarmoured units will fall quickly to polearms. Units with an armour-piercing attack are not at all weaker against unarmoured units; they simply don't get as much of an attack bonus (see below).

Now let's see what swordsmen/axemen, including the barbarian types mentioned above, are vulnerable to:

1. Cavalry, cavalry, and more cavalry. These show up often and in abundance, in various shapes and sizes, and they mangle many types of infantry not suited to deal with them.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I'm so fond of polearms. They tear apart the enemy's best units - MHC, all varieties of knights and other cavalry, swordsmen, spearmen, etc. As long as I keep them away from the few units they can't deal with, they put up a fine showing.

Of course, much depends on national choice, tactical style, and personal preference. We fight with the weapons we have.

Appendix: How armour-piercing bonuses work (or so I've read):

Let's say a unit of billmen has a base attack value of 2, and an armour-piercing bonus. Consider these two examples:

1. They are fighting a unit of knights with an armour value of 4. Half of the armour value is added to the billmen's attack, for a total of 2+2=4. Thus, the armour still provides some protection for the knights, but not as much.

2. They are fighting a unit of peasants with no armour. The billmen receive no bonus, so their attack value remains at 2. However, keep in mind that the peasants have no protection, so the billmen still have a greater advantage here than they did against the knights.

So you see that the armour-piercing bonus does not make a unit weaker against unarmoured units. Soldiers wearing armour do, in fact, receive some benefit from their armour, even against armour-piercing weapons. The armour-piercing bonus simply helps negate the advantage of armour.

manbaps

06-06-2005, 18:57

I never use spears for attacking only polearms to make the battle line. Then flank with swords either side with cavalry going round the back.

Spears are only useful for making defenceive formations so in the campagin map they are used in my border armies. I mainly play catholic factions so i use the half hexagon defence wall, this only works with spears effectively. Pikes are even better for this. Never use spears for attack.

Polearms should make up the bulk of an army with swords supporting. Unless your byzantine of course.

Procrustes

06-06-2005, 20:23

Polearms are extremely cost effective - no argument there. But what I have found is that their low moral makes their effectiveness a little unpredictable. Try some small custom battles - crash some halbs into some CMA head on. The results aren't always predictable - sometimes your halbs will just waver and quickly route - other times they will fight and win. If you really want to route some halbs just flank them - doesn't matter that they have such impressive attack stats and armor then.

Personally, I like a mix of units - I take some polearms when I can, but I also like to throw in some other foot infantry, including spears. Makes the game more fun.

littlebktruck

06-06-2005, 20:49

I don't know about swords vs. polearms, but I do prefer polearms over spears. I'm very bad at managing spears; when I'm attacking, I can't keep them in a good formation. They also have a bit too much trouble with units like militia sergeants. They wall holds fine on the defensive, but the enemy tends to ignore them and go after the men at arms and knights on my flanks. They defend the archers well, and little more.

Kommodus

06-06-2005, 21:28

They wall holds fine on the defensive, but the enemy tends to ignore them and go after the men at arms and knights on my flanks.

Actually, this brings up an interesting use for spears, which I have tried occasionally. Knowing that the enemy will send cavalry to the flanks, I place my spearmen on the flanks, with more flexible infantry (polearms, swordsmen, or axemen) in the center, instead of the more traditional spearwall-in-the-center formation. If it works, the cavalry are intercepted by my spearmen as they try to get around the flanks. My own cavalry, which I've kept in reserve behind the infantry, is then free to flank the enemy cavalry and cause the collapse of his army.

Of course, I still think that polearms work even better on the flanks. I've seen my center collapse, only to trap the enemy in a vise when my victorious billmen charge in from the flanks and win the battle. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

Shambles

06-06-2005, 22:17

I always thought sword men beat pole arms and pole arms beat horses.
Both vulnerable to missiles and horses beat missiles.
But im a stw veteran, so I still use the same style of play in MTW.

But those viking huskerales or what ever there called are Like invincable or something,
but there ya go
thats my oppinion
ShambleS
:bow:

Mrlin

06-07-2005, 00:10

I have to say that I totally agree with all of three replies that Kommodus gave.

In regards to battle formation, I never place swordsmen on the flanks. the best way is putting spearmen to intercept cavalry's flanking/charging. But i don't mind put A-P units on the flanks too.

One great adavantage is, lets say when I am attacking with spearmen on the flanks, as I slowly approach defending army, the flanking cavalry has 3 options, when seeing my spearmen drawing closer.

First, they charge into my spearmen, which would be stupid and almost never, becuase AI doesn't do that.

Second, they withdraw to the back of army, and waiting. I see all the time, that AI cavalry does nothing but standing and watching both side engaged in heated battle. then my spearmen would close on the cavalry and also on enemy ranged units.

Third, cavalry charged into the centre units, mostly likely swordmen. Yeah it is true my swordmen would suffer enormous loss, but not for long, quickly my spearmen flank the cavalry, as the cavalry flank my swordmen.

Also, I always put my cavalry on the side, so when my spearmen are dealing with enemy cavalry, my cavalry is free to flank and charge, without worrying about being flanked by enemy cavalry.

If i dont have spear on my flank, then I use A-P units the same way. This could even be better. Because the enemy cavalry are more likely to attack these A-P units than spearmen. As they engaged in battle, I would send my cavalry around to charge into enemy cavalry.

The way that A-P works means that with light-armoured units with armour from 3-4 , polearms would incur +1 attack bonus. Armour from 5-6 would incur +2 attack bonus, and so forth. The calculation of A-P does not include the armour of shields and horses. However, when u look at unit guides and unit comparative tool, the authors do not include shields and horse armour to unit's armour.

I think almost all units have armour euqal to or higher than 3.

This means that when polearms beat light-armoured units/swordmen, it is due light-armoured units/swordmen's higher defense, and shields, it is NOT however due to higher attack stats.

Spearmen are still very useful....yes they are vulnerable, but they have 100 men per unit. To overcome the formation problem, let your spearmen march close enough for enemy to lauch an attack, then pause and wait for them to come, as your spearmen regroup.

You can always upgrade units' moral by constructing buildings. I think military acedemy gives a discipline status to all units. It would not however as effective as regular discpline status that u see on parchment, and it would not appear on unit's discription.

m52nickerson

06-07-2005, 04:22

1. They are fighting a unit of knights with an armour value of 4. Half of the armour value is added to the billmen's attack, for a total of 2+2=4. Thus, the armour still provides some protection for the knights, but not as much.

2. They are fighting a unit of peasants with no armour. The billmen receive no bonus, so their attack value remains at 2. However, keep in mind that the peasants have no protection, so the billmen still have a greater advantage here than they did against the knights.

So you see that the armour-piercing bonus does not make a unit weaker against unarmoured units. Soldiers wearing armour do, in fact, receive some benefit from their armour, even against armour-piercing weapons. The armour-piercing bonus simply helps negate the advantage of armour.

Yes, but Chivalric men at arms have an attack value of 4, so against unarmored troops the sword is still better. Hell, even against the knights the billsmen's modified value of 4 equals the unmodified value of the men at arms.

Patron

06-07-2005, 05:56

They get a bonus vs cavalry, so they are better vs knights than chivalric men at arms.

ichi

06-07-2005, 06:13

I was going to post a lot of stats comparing poles with swords, but the real difference is based on which version one is playing and the playing style each person prefers.

Over time the MP community came to employ a swords/cav/pav combo that was tested and found to be more powerful than other combos. This was in vanilla MTW and VI, so those results do not really apply to XL or other mods.

I found that swords would beat polearms, and that swords can beat spears. Since I use cav to counter cav, I would occassionally use spears or poles to aid them. This can be really effective. Swords, placed on Hold/Hold, can do quite well against cav.

Since the AI doesn't attack nearly as efficiently as a human can, the units one uses are not nearly so critical in an SP campaign as they are online.

In Catholic campaigns I prefer armies with 1/4 missiles (archers, xbows, arbs, guns), 1/2 infantry (mostly Men-at-Arms with a few poles and axes), 1/4 cav (mostly heavy cav). With Muslims I use a lot of hybrids.

The morale of the General makes a huge difference. A high star gen can really boost the stats of poles up to where they are brutal, but using poles at V0 can be tricky.

The one case where a player should try to get poles is JHI. These guys can make or break a Turkish empire.

ichi :bow:

littlebktruck

06-07-2005, 06:59

Do cavalry actually have a bonus vs. swords, or are they undesirable against cavalry just because they don't have any bonuses (as polearms and spears do)?

Mrlin

06-07-2005, 20:09

Appendix 4: Armour piercing formula
Again this section is with help from Kraxis.

The formula for working out the armour piercing bonus against a specific target is as follows:
(target armour - 1)/2 = bonus added to attack.

That means that AP gives a bonus of +1 to attack at enemy armour of 3-4, +2 at 5-6 and so on. Upgraded armour is affected by this, effectively making added armour only half again as effective as it was supposed to.

The target armour does not include the armour bonus from shields and horses.
As we know small shields give +1 to defense and armour, large shields give +2 to defense and armour.

However, if u look at unit guides and comparative tool, the authors do not include these bonuses to units' stats. So when it says 4 under armour, you do not have to deduct it's armour bonuses, if there are, from 4, when u are calculating A-P.

Sorry for repeating some of the points, just trying to make this important subject clearer to people.

Geezer57

06-07-2005, 22:48

Do cavalry actually have a bonus vs. swords, or are they undesirable against cavalry just because they don't have any bonuses (as polearms and spears do)?

I found this in the Numerology thread over at the Total War forum - it seems to clarify things somewhat:

==========================================================
5) Cavalry vs infantry
longjohn2 - Programmer
UK Posted: Oct. 02 2002,19:28
-----------------------------------------------
One point that none of you mention is that Medieval knights routinely got off their horses to fight on foot. Surely a foolish strategy if infantry can be bowled over as easily as some of you suggest.

I've modelled the game on the assumption that cavalry cannot break into a close packed infantry force, provided that the infantry keep their nerve. Therefore when cavalry first hit infantry, the infantry recieves a big morale minus, and will often break immediately. If this doesn't happen then it depends on the relative quality of the cavalry and infantry, whether or not the cavalry can force their way into the formation. If they do, it's likely they'll win as the infantry unit will continue to get large morale penalties for losing to cavalry.
If they don't break in, the cavalry and break off, and have another go.

The game depicts spear pikes and polearms as being extra effective against cavalry, but this is largely a game simplification for the wider market. In reality I don't think it mattered that much what the infantry were armed with. Greek hoplites, Roman Legionaries, and Saxon huscarles could all defeat cavalry charges.

In terms of momentum, cavalry will always force back non spear infantry, unless the infantry are able to make a succesful strike on the cavalry. Thus it's the quality of the infantry that's the deciding factor. You could rationalise this saying that it's the bold stance ( or lack of ) of the infantry that determines how much the cavalryman really goes for the charge, and how much he pulls up at the last moment.
==========================================================

So it would appear there's an initial bonus against any infantry, but nothing specific against swords - they (swords) just don't get any bonus back against the cav.

ichi

06-08-2005, 01:19

exactly, and from lots of testing Men-at-Arms (FMAA or CMAA) that are morale 8 or higher (V3 or better) set on Hold/Hold can survive that initial charge then they usually win, I think it has to do with the fact that there are 60 men in an FMAA unit as opposed to 40 in a cav troop.

ichi :bow:

Mrlin

06-08-2005, 20:36

-6 Morale if both flanks or a flank and the rear is threatened
-4 Morale if charged on a flank
-6 Morale additional if infantry is charged on a flank by Cavalry
(from "Medieval:TotalWar Numerology")

Pushback:
In an attack, the striker has a chance of pushing back his opponent which gives him a strong combat bonus on the next strike. Factors affecting the chance of pushback are: kill chance, advantage in supporting ranks, mounted vs foot. Charging cavalry always pushes back any foot soldier who is not facing him with a spear, pike or polearm. (Note: v1.1 patch altered spear, pike and polearm pushback so that charging cavalry has a chance to pushback these men even when they are facing the charging cavalryman.)
(from "the Strategy Guide")