Pike handling in woods

https://img66.imageshack.us/img66/9574/1bp3.jpg

Look at the picture I saw in another thread. It says that pikemen get a bonus when fighting in the woods. I'm no expert by far but that just seems silly to me. Bear with me:

1) The pike is a 5m wooden pole, right. Now imagine wielding this in a forest, you will be lucky if you can rotate more than 90°.

2) Now imagine that you and your 60 or 80 buddies have to form a decent formation under the same circumstances. There is no way that this formation wouldn't be hindered or even broken in some places.

3) Now imagine this formation manoeuvring with their 5m poles in this forest without loosing cohesion (and thus being able to fight to best of the units abilities).

Is my logic wrong? Is it historically correct to place your pikemen in woods as they will fare better there?

Pikes aren't supposed to rotate. The whole idea is to just point them forward so the enemy can't get past them.

I think cavalry in general has problems manouvering and fighting in forests, add pikes to that, and i can imagine it being even worse

Pikes in woods seems a silly idea to me (spears would be fine). Hopefully it will be possible to edit that bonus into a minus.

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Originally Posted by Furious Mental

Pikes aren't supposed to rotate. The whole idea is to just point them forward so the enemy can't get past them.

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I'm aware of that. However that doesn't render my other points invalid. There still has to be a decent formation because disordered pikemen can't hold on to long.

I can imagine that when a decently formed pike formation is immobile, it can still fight almost as good in as outside woods. Certainly against cavalry, which also have problems in forests. But the moment a pike formation starts to move inside woods, all cohesion would be lost due to their clumsy weapon getting stuck in/behind/on trees.

I just don't see the advantage of pikemen in woods against pikemen in the open. I very much doubt that historically pikemen performed better in the woods than in the open.



I would prefer the mechanism of MTW, where spears and pikes got penalties in woods (formation was lost) but they would still win against cav because the cav received bigger penalties when in the woods.

This does seem strange I can understand the defense bonus but not combat , :)

maybe this "bonus" is a negative bonus? It makes no sense that they have a bonus in either snow or wood.

When we saw those bonuses for pikemen in other pre-demo screenshots, I thought maybe it was just a faction-wide bonus for certain Northern European factions, but I didn't give it enough thought to really investigate. But those are French pikemen from the demo, I think, so my earlier hypothesis doesn't make sense anymore. I'm at work so I can't fire up the demo, but I assume that this is not a bonus listed on every French unit, is it? (Or whatever faction that is, if I'm incorrect) Do the HRE pikemen in the Battle of Pavia also have that same bonus, or is it only pikemen from certain factions?

It really doesn't make sense to me for pikemen to have a bonus in the woods or snow. I wonder if it is some kind of sloppy fix for a balancing issue CA might have discovered in their playtesting? Or maybe it's just a mistake and it should be a penalty (I would think snowy ground would make it difficult for pikemen to really dig in and hold up to a charge)?

- DCD

I fail to see pikes should be more penalised in snow then any others. If it is difficult to face a charge in snow it is equally difficult to conduct one, both for cav and inf. Try running in 50 centimetre snow even without being equiped for war and you will come to the same conclusion im sure.

In woods, pikes should not have a positive bonus i agree. In first mtw both cav and pike/spear had a negative bonus in woods i think.

Kalle

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Originally Posted by Kalle

In woods, pikes should not have a positive bonus i agree. In first mtw both cav and pike/spear had a negative bonus in woods i think.

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Pikes and spears in MTW just lost their rank bonuses in woods.


CBR

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Originally Posted by Kalle

I fail to see pikes should be more penalised in snow then any others. If it is difficult to face a charge in snow it is equally difficult to conduct one, both for cav and inf. Try running in 50 centimetre snow even without being equiped for war and you will come to the same conclusion im sure.

In woods, pikes should not have a positive bonus i agree. In first mtw both cav and pike/spear had a negative bonus in woods i think.

Kalle

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Good point.

Since the bonus states both woods and snow, I was just thinking that maybe they were actually both penalties and trying to justify that, it doens't make much sense that one would be a mistake and one would be correct if they were listed together. I guess we'll just have to wait for the full game to see if this was intentional or an early error.

- DCD

I think all infantry probably get a bonus fighting in woods, because cavalry and archers perform much less well in woods.

Look at it as a "we do better in woods than other guys" bonus instead of a "We do better in woods than we do in the clear" bonus.

I mean, some units get a bonus fighting in snow, but obviously, they're not more nimble and agile in 3 feet of snow than they would be in the clear. It's a bonus compared to how everyone *Else* is doing.

Ideally there'd be units that fare badly in forests (cavalry and pikemen), units that are as normal (most units) and some units that are very effective in woods (skirmishers and other irregulars)

MTW handled this pretty well, spearmen didn't get an actual penalty but the trees often got in the way of forming an orderly formation.

Ok, i think i have understood this now, basically all units belonging to factions in the north, including the knights if you have a look, have combat bonuses in woods or snow. And all eastern factions have combat bonuses in desert, i think this is to do with fatigue levels ect for the factions to discourage them into going into deserts or snow.

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

Is my logic wrong? Is it historically correct to place your pikemen in woods as they will fare better there?

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Your logic is ok. The problem is that CA don't create historical correct game which is ok, but it seems they make phisical impossible things.:wall:

Although pikemen might get a bonus that causes them to be more effective in woods than, say, similarly equipped eastern infantry would be (though such a thing does not necessarily exist), keep in mind that the terrain also causes their formation to become disordered, meaning the net effect of placing them in the woods is negative. I see nothing wrong with this. The ability description may be a little misleading, though, since it seems to make people believe that placing the pikemen in the woods would actually make them more effective than if they were in the clear.

Not sure I like the idea of faction-wide bonus, especially for MP balancing terms. So, this is an item to watch in the final evaluation. Pike/Spear losing rank bonus in woods + reduce maneuvrability is expected by me.
Annie

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Originally Posted by dcd111

When we saw those bonuses for pikemen in other pre-demo screenshots, I thought maybe it was just a faction-wide bonus for certain Northern European factions, but I didn't give it enough thought to really investigate. But those are French pikemen from the demo, I think, so my earlier hypothesis doesn't make sense anymore.

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Originally Posted by Azog 150

Ok, i think i have understood this now, basically all units belonging to factions in the north, including the knights if you have a look, have combat bonuses in woods or snow. And all eastern factions have combat bonuses in desert, i think this is to do with fatigue levels ect for the factions to discourage them into going into deserts or snow.

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So my original thought was right, but I'm not sure that makes sense for France, or is that not France in that screenshot? Is France really so snowy that their men should actually receive a bonus from fighting in snow, rather than, say, just not be penalized? I'm no expert on European weather or geography, so I'm really just asking. I know there were some stretches in the middle ages that were cold enough to kill entire harvests in northern Europe and cause mass starvation, so maybe this is legitimate for that time period?

- DCD

It's probably a faction bonus

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So my original thought was right, but I'm not sure that makes sense for France, or is that not France in that screenshot? Is France really so snowy that their men should actually receive a bonus from fighting in snow, rather than, say, just not be penalized? I'm no expert on European weather or geography, so I'm really just asking. I know there were some stretches in the middle ages that were cold enough to kill entire harvests in northern Europe and cause mass starvation, so maybe this is legitimate for that time period?

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Well im not entirely sure with what i said, it was a logical guess :laugh4:

But it would make sense, but then you do bring up a good point, why would france have snow bonuses? Not sure

~:confused:

Don't the blue and white faction colors indicate the Scottish faction?

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

I would prefer the mechanism of MTW, where spears and pikes got penalties in woods (formation was lost) but they would still win against cav because the cav received bigger penalties when in the woods.

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I agree that would make a lot more sense. In MTW, woods didn't confer a bonus to anyone--in terms of penalties, it was infantry> spears/pikes> archers/xbows> cavalry. In other words, infantry received no penalty for fighting in trees, but neither did they receive a bonus. They simply performed the least poorly out of all unit types. ~D I find it rather bizarre that pikes will get a bonus in M2 for fighting in the woods. :inquisitive:

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Originally Posted by Wilhelm The Mediocre

Don't the blue and white faction colors indicate the Scottish faction?

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If it's a white diagonal cross on a blue background, then yes that would be the Scots. ~:)

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Originally Posted by Wilhelm The Mediocre

Don't the blue and white faction colors indicate the Scottish faction?

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That makes a lot more sense, at quick glance I thought the screenshot was from the demo so I made a bad assumption.

Perhaps it's for game balance. IMO woods have never given any great advantage for battle except for the AI, in wich case the player was hindered due to lack of sight. It'd be great to see cavalry getting slaughtered in forest by most infantry for a change.

The bonus is probably so that European factions do better in Europe while West Asian (or Middle Eastern, whatever you want to call them) factions do better in the desert, although I have no verification of the latter. However, if desert bonuses were present on the unit cards of the aforementioned West Asian troops, it would be serve well as a tentative affirmation of my hypothesis.

One thing to keep in mind as stated in various other posts. This is not a finished project, and this demo is quite old (i saw this thing in a gameplay preview of E3, that was may). So i'm sure quite a few things have been tested, updated, etc.

As far the logical part of it. If you can form a line, and hide in woods I guess that'd be more effective. Then again I think most things when hidden are more useful then when not. However there not really hidden so I don't get the bonus. Maybe because they get shade and there armor gets hot :laugh4: Air Conditioning Bonus hehe