How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?

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Originally Posted by Carl

I won't go throught the AP argument again. but here are some tests that show archers are doing more damage aainst sheild units than against units with the sheild in armopur. in the one of mine I'm linking to they where defintly shooting head on at the enemy, so the sheild should have been in effect.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=115

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=118

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Yet testing shows that shielded units do better than unshielded units... Why are you assuming that shield value should have an equal effect to armor value?

CA's intentions are easy enough to read in this case. Knights are not meant for flanking and casing down routers. Why spend thousands on something that cheap light cavalry can do far better? They didn't design a whole new charge system just to use after the battle is essentially won, and knights in a game based on the age of chivalry aren't going to be used mainly for hitting people from behind.

There’s nothing subtle about what CA was trying to do, here. Knights are your fist, and massed charges are how you drive it into the enemy's face. Simple.

So, why should they fall in droves to the weakest, cheapest units in the game?

Just checked those results. If you check the second set they show what i was talking about but the first set disagrees. odd???

And I assume they are the same because thats how it's SUPPOSED to work.

I'll run some more sheild vs. armour tests later and see what happens this time. Maybe i got fluky results in mine...

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So, why should they fall in droves to the weakest, cheapest units in the game?

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For the last time, because thats how it SUPPOSED to work. Pav's comments to lusted, the effects of the bug fixing and the in game advisor text ALL say that spears should beat cav but be beaten by everything else except maybe some missile units and peasents. it's the only thing they do in the game at all.

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Originally Posted by General Zhukov

Cool, thanks. Plans may indeed be in motion to pare back heavy cavalry.

While I was mulling these issues, another thought occured: if spearmen are strengthened to the point that they can repel charges and defeat knights without support, why even bother building pikes? Why have pikes in the game at all?

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The obvious reason is that Pikes in fact do not perform ONLY that role in an army. Pikes when working correctly (i.e. not behaving as they do in vanilla as pansies with swords) are a formidable foe to almost any unit that exists in the game, making especially good center-of-the-line troops. Whatever it is that's in front of the pike unit, two things are for certain: it is getting poked full of holes, and it it not typically getting close to the pikes. The same cannot even remotely be said of spears, which are intentionally neutered in combat against infantry of all sorts in order to represent their narrow band of usefulness on the battlefield. Thus pikemen are in no way undermined by having spear units function as decent cavalry stoppers. Your suggestion that no one should trade in spear units for pikes is in fact like saying you already have a cheap paring knife so you find no use for a swiss army knife. In reality, the swiss army knife is far more useful as it is multi-functional, and likely to also be a better knife than your cheap paring knife. So it is with spears and pikes.

How do you know it's supposed to work that way. Perhaps armor and shield values are applied in different ways.

Because they are ALL contrbuters to the DEFENCE value against attacks. thats all thats considered in the calculations as far as we know. defence vs attack. so if the defence is the same via sheild+armour as armour alone it should produce EXACTLY the same results as it's exactly the same numbers going into the calculation.

We don't know that for certain however.

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Originally Posted by General Zhukov

While I was mulling these issues, another thought occured: if spearmen are strengthened to the point that they can repel charges and defeat knights without support, why even bother building pikes? Why have pikes in the game at all?

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For the same reason as why you want better missile or cavalry units in the game. They will be doing their job even better.

Pike units in the game should reflect not only having a longer weapon but also the fact that such troops in general had better training. They should defeat spear units and cause lots of trouble even against high quality non spear units.

Early 14th century Flemish and Swiss infantry could defeat cavalry although they didnt use the long pikes that we see being used in late 15th century.

Italian city militias could also defeat cavalry charges and they didnt use long pikes.

Throughout the middleages getting good quality infantry and getting enough of them was not easy. And its the main reason why we see English or French armies using their men-at-arms both mounted and dismounted.

But anyway...

Not only are spears too weak but cavalry might also be too easy to recruit. It doesnt seem like its that difficult to build up large armies of high quality cavalry. The recruitment system of M2TW seems like it could use a tweak or two IMO.


CBR

Yep CBR, like possibly removing the ease at which one can recruit top quality units from just the castle wall upgrades and instead making them recruitable only from the barracks or stables buildings.

What happens if pikes are given a mass of 3, 4, or 5 instead of 1.2? Could that help them retain their formation better without having to remove their secondary weapon altogether? I'm loathe to remove the secondary weapon since it just appears to make them uber units in only the hands of the human...

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Originally Posted by Jambo

What happens if pikes are given a mass of 3, 4, or 5 instead of 1.2?

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Just a small chip-in:
In my experience, it's always better to reduce the mass of mounts than to increase the mass of infantry. I realize that you probably had pikes vs. infantry situations in mind here as well, but in that case I think it's also better to not make the mass of infantry too high and work on other solutions.

Btw, increasing the mass of infantry brings to mind the scenes from Asterix comics, when the Gauls storm through the Roman legions and the legionnaires are being flung in the air by their charge... ~D

No argument for the effectiveness of pikes should rely on using a modded version of said unit. If buffed spearmen are able to resist charges and thrash knights all by themselves, it will be pointless to upgrade to vanilla pikemen, since vanilla pikemen are really only good at breaking cavalry charges. Which is of course what makes pikes unique among foot troops. I think a lot of this stuff is about certain folks wanting a really good infantry counter for cav, but not wanting to wait and get it in the proper unit that is already designed for the purpose. I don't want to see McPikemen running around in the early periods.

@Zurkov: it isn't people wanting a good counter to cav early on. It's them wanting ANY counter early on. Right now one dosen't exist that isn't other cav. It's also worth noting that High End Knights will still kill more than half a spear unit even if they lose. Pikes lose almost no-one if you don't cheat. (Somthing else the Pike fix deals with BTW).

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Originally Posted by General Zhukov

No argument for the effectiveness of pikes should rely on using a modded version of said unit. If buffed spearmen are able to resist charges and thrash knights all by themselves, it will be pointless to upgrade to vanilla pikemen, since vanilla pikemen are really only good at breaking cavalry charges. Which is of course what makes pikes unique among foot troops. I think a lot of this stuff is about certain folks wanting a really good infantry counter for cav, but not wanting to wait and get it in the proper unit that is already designed for the purpose. I don't want to see McPikemen running around in the early periods.

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Bingo! I see a lot of this discussion happening in a vacuum; comparing units abstracted in custom battles that have nothing to do with the progression in which these units are actually available in the long campaign game. I think spears are supposed to be crappy in the early game, and you're forced to work with that. It's the classic "stick with it, you'll get better stuff later on" dynamic that applies to most game types... all the way from FPS games (better guns) to RPG's (better player stats) to RTS and strategy games (better units in the late game).

I've played several full campaigns with different factions now, all around the map, and I've never lost the campaign game because I couldn't handle the early spear units I had available. The way some people talk about cheap/early spear units here, it's like you can't win the game at all, if you use them... that they're just pure cav fodder. That's not been my experience, playing the actual campaign game instead of running endless 1 v. 1 unit matchups in custom battles.

In addition, any "fix" that means you can't use a 100% horse army for a faction where that's historically appropriate, is taking a lot of fun out of the game. At least in my personal opinion (as always... I know people have different views on this).

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Originally Posted by General Zhukov

No argument for the effectiveness of pikes should rely on using a modded version of said unit. If buffed spearmen are able to resist charges and thrash knights all by themselves, it will be pointless to upgrade to vanilla pikemen, since vanilla pikemen are really only good at breaking cavalry charges. Which is of course what makes pikes unique among foot troops. I think a lot of this stuff is about certain folks wanting a really good infantry counter for cav, but not wanting to wait and get it in the proper unit that is already designed for the purpose. I don't want to see McPikemen running around in the early periods.

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No argument should rely on using the modded version of the unit? Sure it should. The reason is that pikemen in the vanilla game are clearly dysfunctional in every sense of the word, and on top of that are nothing even REMOTELY like pikemen in real actual history. In the computer's hands, or those of a player that doesn't know to take them off guard mode, they are not even effective at beating cavalry, which leaves them utterly useless by default. Zhukov, even you with no training at all could be given a pike and use it better than vanilla pikemen do - therefore to have any useful discussion of pikemen at all in this game, it is vitally necessary to assume that they are supposed to be better than spears against cavalry and other units as well, as they historically are.

It is an utterly obvious fact that the horribly borked vanilla pikemen might as well not be in the game, regardless of whether or not spears can be used in an anti-cavalry capacity, and to refuse to discuss the unit in a sense of how it SHOULD be working is to say that it is and should remain worthless. Since it is included in the game, I am forced to assume that it should in fact be good for something, and so will ignore your flawed logic regarding fixes to make the unit work.

It is additionally worth noting that I haven't heard anyone yet denounce the pikemen fix as doing anything horrible or historically inaccurate, including you Zhukov - therefore it seems that everyone agrees it is good for the game in both senses, and given that kind of consensus it is actually wrong to talk about pikeman in any light other than what people typically agree they should be in the game. The fact that everyone wants pikemen to be fixed and largely has fixed them makes your position irrelevant, as I'm sure even you will not suggest that pikemen should exist in the game as they are in vanilla, and therefore it is absolutely pointless to continue acting like vanilla pikemen are in any way important to any discussions.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Ah they wont be that strong, no spear unit would be able to stand up to the later heavy cavalry like gendarmes, lancers, or even chivalric knights. So you would need pikes against them.

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Did you talk about melee or about charge? I hope charge will be reduced in any case, 'cause it's really really too strong at the moment. I think that no 32 cav unit can completely destroy (=kill, not route) a 76 men unit with a single charge. I hope this is going to be fixed for late heavy cav too.

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it isn't people wanting a good counter to cav early on. It's them wanting ANY counter early on. Right now one dosen't exist that isn't other cav.

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And whats wrong with using cav as a early form of prevention against cav? I hate to say it yet again but thats the way they did it in the good ole real world. Every western nation in the game gets at least mailed knights, even scotland.

Best early game tactic is to 'catch' a enemy unit of cav with yours, even if yours is inferior, and then march a unit of spears into the melee. Two inferior units gank and defeat the expensive unit of knights pretty quickly, and move on to beat other things.

Later on, you have your Pikes, Halberds and whatnot to repulse charges. I love the way this game accurately reflects warfare in each epoch of the middle ages.

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Originally Posted by Carl

@Vistor: The bit you quoted was a description of what happens when you apply the sheild fix. NOT vanillia. In Vanillia even mailed knights WILl sweep through spears causing 90% kills for no more losses to themselves than if they where charging 2-Handers and did the same. When I said a unit of spears, i meant a much weaker unit of spears. Spear Militia will get swept away by Chivalric Knights.

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I don't like this to happen also in the shield-fixed game. I understand your point, but I think that no cav unit has to instantly kill THE DOUBLE of the men (even if they are peasants) with A CHARGE. Even Gothic Knights during a flank charge.

IMO charge has to first lower morale and break unit's formation, then to kill 32/N men knight have charged into, not 32xN.

Oh I agree cav charges are OTT ATM Vistor. I was just saying that it is different in the shield fix game to unfixed.

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And whats wrong with using cav as a early form of prevention against cav?

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2 reasons:

1. MP balance, we might not play it but others do and it would be totally unfair not to consider them. They are limited to just one stack and sometimes play with limits that prevent them getting better than spear militia. This means that you WOULDN'T be ABLE to have support spears to back up your inferior cav. this becomes an even bigger issue later on when spears start to disappear and are replaced by Pikes. You still need to do the same to stop the enemy running round the rear of your Pikes and rear charging you, yet many MP armies now won't have much in the way of spears, (some only have Pikes and Spear Militia), and will be even more outclassed than before.

2. Fun, I and many others play this as a game and as such do so for fun. where not interested in an historical simulator. I've played a game in which all you had to do to win was spam your best units (knights in your case), it wasn't really that fun and I actually spent more time learning modding on it than playing. I aren’t interested in a game like that, and most RTS players aren’t judging by their reactions to it.

3. It isn't even historically accurate as you claim. NO, I’m not saying knights didn't dominate when faced with undisciplined infantry who wouldn't stand their ground when they saw knights charging towards them. They did. However, on the rare occasions they encountered disciplined enemy infantry who would hold their ground and formation when charged. They would have lost badly, I’ve even shown you what happens when a modern horse hits something a solid as an ordinary human in simple padding. People forming a shield wall, wearing armour and equipped with a long pointy stick, (~;p), would have had an even worse effect. And that’s the key point here, CA has included virtually no units that aren’t disciplined and trained enough to hold their ground under a charge. They've actually made cav more powerful than they where historically in allowing them to beat any units in the game that do hold their ground.

DISCLAMER: I admit that in history the knights would have outnumbered the disciplined infantry quite heavily. That isn't how things are in game however, and expecting knights to run roughshod over disciplined infantry is both boring, IMBA, and un-historical.

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Did you talk about melee or about charge? I hope charge will be reduced in any case, 'cause it's really really too strong at the moment. I think that no 32 cav unit can completely destroy (=kill, not route) a 76 men unit with a single charge. I hope this is going to be fixed for late heavy cav too.

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Well with the shield fix they will not wipe out units in one go, but they will take out a lot and then kill the rest in the melee.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Well with the shield fix they will not wipe out units in one go, but they will take out a lot and then kill the rest in the melee.

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To be honest I tried the game with the shield fix, but with or without it, in the first charge Mailed Knights (the AI) drop the Billmen (me) down to 10 men remainig (then 32 knigts killed almost 90% of the army with one charge - I repeat 2 men killed per knight in a flash -).

I agree with Carl the charge is odd in this game and has to be seriously fixed (tweaking unit's mass I don't know how), this is why I'm saying you to underline this to the devs :help:

It HAS to be spear units. 2-handers get mullered by cav, with or without the fix. Thats they way the game is balanced ATM. Try armoured Seargents vs. fuedal knights with the fix, it's fairly decisive.

p.s. bills are NOT considered to be spears by the game BTW.

Billmen have a defense of 1 or something, they are a very weak unit in terms of defending against a cav charge. They will lose a lot to the charge.

I remenber they have def 3. BTW they are not naked and a charge simply can't be so powerfull IMO, as if EVERY knight of 32 have pierced an average of 2 men in a time like a skewer (and if someone have pierced one man, someone else have pierced 3 men then).

Thats one of the ways the game is balanced(with shield fix and even with reduced charge values in my mod). 2 handers like billmen will be hit hard by charges, spearmen can hold cav and sometimes beat them, swordsmen can hold cav but will lose.

I agree it's OTT, but remeber, charging Mailed Knights have 16 attack. As I say, try thm vs. spearmen, or Dimouunted Fuedals and it changes things a LOT. You need at least 15 defence/spears to slow down Mailed Knights. 3 is nowhere near enough. ANd a sheild (regardless of the actual defence of the unit), sems to help a lot too.

Also what Lusted said.

I agree and I'm happy that fixes and balancing are making things going in the right direction.
I only underlined that cav charge doesn't respect logic, but I'm very happy if this is going to be seriously nerfed.

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Originally Posted by Vinsitor

To be honest I tried the game with the shield fix, but with or without it, in the first charge Mailed Knights (the AI) drop the Billmen (me) down to 10 men remainig (then 32 knigts killed almost 90% of the army with one charge - I repeat 2 men killed per knight in a flash -).

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If you decrease the mass of the mounts, you don't need to lower the charge values, and therefore you can keep the diversity of charge values intact for the whole spectrum of cavalry units instead of making one look too much like the other. Put the mass of the mounts around 2.5 - 3 and see if this works for you to blunt the charge to a satisfying level - for me, it does just that.

I don't think it's over the top at all. Billmen might have been good against cavalry historically, but I doubt it would have been when standing up to a full frontal charge. Maybe more likely if cavalry were caught up in a more prolonged melee with the billmen and that is already the case in M2TW. Plus, heavy billmen are an altogether different prospect.

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Originally Posted by hrvojej

If you decrease the mass of the mounts, you don't need to lower the charge values, and therefore you can keep the diversity of charge values intact for the whole spectrum of cavalry units instead of making one look too much like the other. Put the mass of the mounts around 2.5 - 3 and see if this works for you to blunt the charge to a satisfying level - for me, it does just that.

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Tnx for the tip I'll try :yes:

superimpose multiple spearmen on top of each other for single player and make them cheaper for multiplayer so you can upgrade them more. problem solved.

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Originally Posted by Vinsitor

I remenber they have def 3. BTW they are not naked and a charge simply can't be so powerfull IMO, as if EVERY knight of 32 have pierced an average of 2 men in a time like a skewer (and if someone have pierced one man, someone else have pierced 3 men then).

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I don't think this actually represents multiple people being skewered on any given lance. Rather, it is supposed to simulate the combined effects of the charge. Men being trampled by horses, thrown into the next rank by the force of the impact, hit with high-speed horses and riders that have died during the charge. People die from a great deal more than simply lances during a full-on heavy cavalry charge.

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Originally Posted by the_foz_4

I don't think this actually represents multiple people being skewered on any given lance. Rather, it is supposed to simulate the combined effects of the charge. Men being trampled by horses, thrown into the next rank by the force of the impact, hit with high-speed horses and riders that have died during the charge. People die from a great deal more than simply lances during a full-on heavy cavalry charge.

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Horses aren't stones. They can be hurt, theyr legs can be broken, knights can be thrown away after the impact and die. If so at least half the cav unit must die in the game.

I think that the effect of a charge isn't the one you explained, or at least not so wide to cause the instant death to 60 men by 32 knights (still alive). IMO that's not logic.

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However, on the rare occasions they encountered disciplined enemy infantry who would hold their ground and formation when charged. They would have lost badly

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What are you talking about? I was talking about the fact that in the dark ages after the fall of rome, the best unit to stop a mounted knight with was another mounted knight. There were no professional armys in the dark ages. ..don't you understand that?? The only nations that had anything close to professional army in 1100AD were Byzantium(and it wasn't a spear based army either), maybe egypt, and england was begining to develop their yeomanry.

I know this changes later on with the formation of true nation-states. However I feel that the early militia units should stay as they are;trash.

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but I'm very happy if this is going to be seriously nerfed.

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Thanks, we love you too. At least your brave enough to come out in the open and state your real feelings.

If they do 'nerf' cavalry in the upcoming patch, I believe it would be in order to have a boycott of it.

btw, just to clarify, the term nerf means; A overreaction to a aspect of a game thats considered 'too strong' which turns said aspect into something that is generally useless. IE, going from one extreme to the other.

EDIT: While not the most verifiable source, I did some reading on the Wikipedia regarding medieval warfare at this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warfare. It seems to indicate that it was a combination of massed pikes and good archers that countered knights. No mention of 'spearmen' anywhere.

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btw, just to clarify, the term nerf means; A overreaction to a aspect of a game thats considered 'too strong' which turns said aspect into something that is generally useless. IE, going from one extreme to the other.

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Actually i use the term nerf to mean "reducing the power of something that is overpowered to something more balanced".

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What are you talking about? I was talking about the fact that in the dark ages after the fall of rome, the best unit to stop a mounted knight with was another mounted knight. There were no professional armys in the dark ages. ..don't you understand that?? The only nations that had anything close to professional army in 1100AD were Byzantium(and it wasn't a spear based army either), maybe egypt, and england was begining to develop their yeomanry.

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pleases re-read the disclaimer at the bottom of my post.

I actually stated that in reality their would be few professional foots troops, (what where Huscarls anyway, if not pro infantry, their was SOME, but not much), but those that their where COULD beat knights.

However, this ISN'T how CA have made it in M2TW. Let me emphasise the meaning of this:

THE ONLY CHEAP TRASH UNITS IN THE GAME ARE TOWN MILITIA. EVERYTHING FROM SPEAR MILITIA UP REPRESENTS GOOD QUALITY TROOPS.

Yes good quality troops didn't really exist outside household bodyguards and a few other instances back then. But that NOT HOW IT IS IN GAME. In game EVERYTHING is good quality troops with the exception of Town Militia and Peasant units.

As to your Pike question. It's pretty easy, pikes where better than spears, so people never used spears when they had pikes. Also, in REALITY, professional spear units where nearly non-existent for most of the period M2TW represents, (as far as I know).

HOWEVER, the game IS NOT REALITY. In game ALL spears units are PROFESSIONAL or SEMI-PROFESSIONAL troops who in the rare cases they turned up in real history, WOULD have taken cav charges successfully.

Now that that’s out of the way, (p.s. I was using caps for emphasis, not shouting), I want to ask you a question:

Do YOU honestly believe a unit in history that DID hold ground and formation against a cav charge would not have killed most of the knights, even if it was simply because the knights horses tripped and fell upon running into them?

Because if you honestly believe that charging knights could historically smash through shield walls then we have much bigger problems than what you think is historical vs. what I think the game represents.

Simply put if a horse TODAY in REAL LIFE can trip and fatally injure itself and rider on a fallen rider lying on the ground, I can see no way the same wouldn't have happened if they tried to charge home at high speed into shield walls. heirs more of the shield wall to trip over as it where.

EDIT: No offence intended with this, just getting a bit frustrated.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Actually i use the term nerf to mean "reducing the power of something that is overpowered to something more balanced".

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Exactly tnx Lusted

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Originally Posted by Vinsitor

Horses aren't stones. They can be hurt, theyr legs can be broken, knights can be thrown away after the impact and die. If so at least half the cav unit must die in the game.

I think that the effect of a charge isn't the one you explained, or at least not so wide to cause the instant death to 60 men by 32 knights (still alive). IMO that's not logic.

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Agreed. I didn't actually mean to argue that the knights should be able to completely destroy a unit with a charge, or that they should charge with impunity. I was only trying to dispel the idea that the deaths were due just to getting skewered on lances. I actually feel that if the knights follow through and charge into braced spears, what you said should be the case: half the cav fall over dead. But likewise a rank or 2 of spears should mostly drop over dead from lances/horses/bodies and what-have-you. This is exactly the reason I've always felt charges into braced spears should cause MAD for the involved combatants. You'd have to be nuts in real life to do this, and so you should pay for deciding to do it in the game.

Thats waht i've been trying to say too Foz TBH.

Militia spearmen should be the first professional spear unit, and function however effectively we think such a unit should function.

They should not be a rabble of peasants with no training and bad equipment, we already have such a unit: they are called peasants.

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They should not be a rabble of peasants with no training and bad equipment, we already have such a unit: they are called peasants.

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Actually it's Town Militia Ulstan. However, yes, that’s been my point all along. Spear Militia represent semi-pro spears. The thing is they really didn't exist historically and thus a lot of the history buffs are treating them as cheap trash peasants with spears. When in fact they represent something else entirely that was rarer than gold dust in real history, but is quite common in game. (It's this commonness that leads many to label them as cheap trash units I think, they don't expect pro solders to be numerous, especially that early on in the timeline, when in fact they actually are).

i might be mistaken but i thought i remember someone who tested spearmen in loose formation and were taking on knights better. i think it had something to do with the knights not getting that initial busting up the first ranks bonus.it was somewhere in the forum but i cant remember where.

to be truthful i dont know what to do about except something from the past. in mtw knight units had 40/ halberdiers and sword axe units 60/ and spearmen and pikemen 100.

maybe thats the trick maybe ca can increase the number of spearmen and pikemen to 100 like in the original.maybe that was a figure they didnt add in when they were developing the units someone didnt give them the larger number.

60 is as big as it gets and you can't get much smaller than current cav units. he sizes are at the biggest extremes they;ll go to. But yes, if it was 100 sopearmen oper unit vs 40 knights things would work a lot better.

Also, the loose formation thing is the stupidest thing about formed charges IMHO. Theirs no way it should help if the charge was historiclly accurrate.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Actually it's Town Militia Ulstan. However, yes, that’s been my point all along. Spear Militia represent semi-pro spears.

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I don't know why you keep saying this, Carl. If you look at the stats and the position in the tech tree, the only reasonable interpretation is that town militia and spear militia are the same thing - low grade militia. The only functional difference is one has a longer spear. I gather you are a Warhammer player, yes? Well, to put it in GW terms - you seem to be too swayed by the "fluff" (the unit descriptions); all that matters from a game design point of view are the cold hard stats (and animations, in the case of M2TW, of course!)

The spear sergeants, mercenary sergeants and armoured sergeants are the "semi-pro spears".

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Actually it's Town Militia Ulstan. However, yes, that’s been my point all along. Spear Militia represent semi-pro spears. The thing is they really didn't exist historically and thus a lot of the history buffs are treating them as cheap trash peasants with spears.

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I agree. They get hung up on the term 'militia'. I don't deny that it's a poor label, but think about it:

We have a unit to represent rabble peasants with no training: peasants.
We have a unit to represent rabble peasants with spears and a bit of training: town militia

Spear militia then, should not be considered yet *another* example of rabble peasants.

To compare to MTW - I consider spear militia to be the spearmen of MTW. The first 'regular' spear unit you can build.

@Econ: I don't agree with you. The descriptions to m,e represent what CA intended. Compare them to a lot of the Eastern Sopears with similar stats. Would you really call tribesmen cheap trash?

Unlike GW, CA writes the background based on their veiw of what the unit is which will be based on what they decide it ahould be like, which will be based on their veiw of history. With GW the background and stats have so littile relation to each other that the background is meaningless.

Miltia is applied to a lot of units that i would not consider militia, it just seems to be CAs way of differentiating them and indicating they are city produced units that can have free upkeep. None of the militia units after town militia really qualify for the "peasent with wepaons" term.

Spear militia. Who knew they were the great unsung heroes of the Middle Ages?

The worst example of the militia title is italian Spear militia. Their background says they are CONSCRIPTS that serve full time for a YEAR or MORE. I don't call people who serve as full time soildiers, (even for just a year), Militia.

@Zurkov: I get the sarcasam, but like I said, the reality is that units similar to what Spear Militia Represent where EXTREMLY RARE in REAL history. In game however they are very common. The reality is that their might be 10 units of Knigts to 1 unit of Spear Militia equivilents in the real world. However, thats not haw CA has done it in game.

History part (completely unrelated to actual gameplay): The real ratio might have been even lower than that, since anyone decent enough to be semi-professional would often be mounted himself. Only the rich could afford to fight in the Middle Ages, and the rich preferred to ride (merchant cavalry militia). The entire feudal and manorial system was devoted to feeding and equipping the small fighting class of men-at-arms and knights, most of whom at least rode to battle even if they fought dismounted. Massed infantry armies require a revival of urban life or centralized control and taxation, which is why only the Italians, Byzantines and English get large numbers professional infantry to start with in the game. The knights didn't ride down the infantry just because they were 1337, they rode them down because the only fighting men that could have resisted them on foot were often riding horses themselves.

A CA developer working on the original MTW made a remark on cavalry charges which I rather agree with. He claimed that it didn't really matter what weapons the infantry were armed with as long as they stood their ground in the face of charging cavalry. Saxons with shields and axes, legionnaires with short swords or javelins, pikemen, spearmen, halberds, 2handers, musketeers with bayonets; all proved able to resist the cavalry of their time. The real battle is moral and not physical. Spearmen that break and run before the charge hits are just as likely to get massacred as swordsmen who break and run. Swordsmen who stand firm are just as likely to spook the cavalry into aborting the charge as spearmen. A horse that hits a man flattens him, but no horse charges at an impenetrable obstacle like a wall of men, even allowing for specific battle training to 'charge home'. Cavalry charges that succeed usually do so because most of the enemy unit has already run off before they hit, so it becomes a matter of bowling over or by-passing a few die-hards and then running down the more cowardly ones. Similarly, a few horsemen might nerve themselves to charge in against a steady unit of infantry and cause great damage doing so, but the remainer of the unit will pull up short and wade in like sensible people, or split up and gallop around to get at the flanks.

If you think simply standing your ground is too easy a way of defeating cavalry, then perhaps you underestimate the difficulties involved in getting soldiers just to stick around in battle. Even modern armies with small-unit cohesion, medals, patriotism, battle police and other tools of coercion and enticement, are hard pressed to get a majority of their soldiers to fight once the rounds start flying. In any computer game, players get soldiers that operate like automatons and only run away when their morale hits zero. In real life, it's an uphill battle just to get them to fight and men are constantly running away, freaking out, hanging back, getting confused or finding places to hide.

Game stuff: With the astounding discovery of the shield bug, I would suggest that the vanilla game is more balanced than people give it credit for (ie CA did a good job balancing it) except that a few major bugs are skewing everything inside out. I've decided to wait for the shield issue to be patched before tweaking cavalry charges, spear bonuses, 2hand attack values etc.

I agree with most people who want spears to be at least competitive against cavalry, even if the cavalry wins in the end. I do not agree with uber hedghogs of death, because this would make cavalry only good for chasing routers and archers. There should also be a distinction between the different types of cavalry. Light cavalry should suffer against even swordsmen if they are foolish enough to tackle them head on, while heavy cavalry should prove a tough challenge for anything short of pikes. It's not completely historical (light cavalry just meant less armor, they could charge and kill just as well if they had lances) but it makes for better gameplay.

Spear bonus is uniformly fixed at 4 for spears and halberds and 8 for pikes. The only major exception (that I have come across) is the Muslim spear units getting a bonus of 8 as well. Must be the hidden naptha projectors built into the shaft.

Spears in MTW fought in two ranks if stationary, but now their longer weapons only give them a bonus against cavalry. Pikes fought in four ranks but now only in two. This is possibly a good move, since more fighting ranks usually means you need more men in the unit to have the same frontage compared to a unit that only fought in one rank. I remember that in MTW pikemen were actually considered weaker than spears because they needed to stay in about 6 ranks to fight well (4 fighting ranks plus a replacement rank or two) while the spearmen could get away with 4 and thus overlap the pikemen. Swordsmen could of course deploy in two ranks and overlap everyone. That was how they beat spears and pikes in MTW, not because they got some uber +10 attack from their swords vs spears. And of course they were usually better trained and armored in general.

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Originally Posted by dopp

The real battle is moral and not physical. Spearmen that break and run before the charge hits are just as likely to get massacred as swordsmen who break and run. Swordsmen who stand firm are just as likely to spook the cavalry into aborting the charge as spearmen. A horse that hits a man flattens him, but no horse charges at an impenetrable obstacle like a wall of men, even allowing for specific battle training to 'charge home'. Cavalry charges that succeed usually do so because most of the enemy unit has already run off before they hit, so it becomes a matter of bowling over or by-passing a few die-hards and then running down the more cowardly ones. Similarly, a few horsemen might nerve themselves to charge in against a steady unit of infantry and cause great damage doing so, but the remainer of the unit will pull up short and wade in like sensible people, or split up and gallop around to get at the flanks.

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Agreed 100%
This is the historical point of view I tried to explain :yes: charge is linked to morale and unit cohesion, no matter the tipe of the weapon (that matters melee and training instead).
The big difference for the cav is the mobility and capability to flank.
Heavy cav deatly charge over infantry has been idealized in the middle age.

And to put this point in the gameplay, you have to absolutely nerf the cavalry charge (maybe tweaking cavalry mass as people suggested) and look to morale and cohesion a charge has to lower.

I may add to your excellent summary about The real battle is moral and not physical that good equipment and long weapons help for sure to raise the moral. If I'm clad in a decent suit of armour, protected by a big shield and wield a long spear I'm more confident to stand up to the in charging cavalry..

Cheers
OA

Talking about game balance, IMO you may add to shields a bonus against charge (or simply subtract the shield value to the charge value) and to spears a bonus in melee against cav, so cav vs trained spears that hold the formation can be not very usefull and lose many expensive knights, but knights can easily route less trained troops with a good charge (without killing 90% of the unit of corse).

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Originally Posted by Ulstan

To compare to MTW - I consider spear militia to be the spearmen of MTW. The first 'regular' spear unit you can build.

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I agree that "MTW spear militia/lvey = MTW spearmen", but MTW spearmen were of "poor" quality. This was explicit in the file that CA produced an excel file showing how the stats were derived.

Historically, I think this means that they were usually not "regulars" in the modern sense. They are men that a feudal lord or a city would put together to fight should a war break out. They might have some training and carry out some guard duties, but they would be part time soldiers. That's what I understand the term militia to mean. They are not the "semi-professionals" in the sense of men who make living as fighters, either as permanent retainers of a lord and/or fighting as mercenaries. They would have less training and have personal characteristics less suited to combat.

In MTW, the "feudal sergeants" are the "average" quality spearmen. In M2TW, you have armoured sergeants, mercenary sergeants and spearmen sergeants that correspond to these.

Some militias may be of "average" quality too, able to be match the semi-professionals - the Italians being an example of this.

In game terms, I would like to see low quality spearmen often crumble in the face of a charge by knights. They should not be relied upon to hold. Average quality spearmen should be able to hold them off frontally, at a cost to both.

@ECON21: plenty of good points, however I would like to raise a few points myself.

First, the Italian stuff isn't really militia at all, it's a full time army really, it's just given the militia titles.

Second, to me CA have represented Spear Militia as ABOVE Town Militia (who are weak useless spears), and BELOW Armoured Sergeants. I place them as roughly the equivalent of Greek Militia, (historically). i.e. commoners who have been drafted into a militia and are a kind of standing militia that lives and works as ordinary citizens, but also trains part time, and is thus reasonably well disciplined and trained, without being anywhere near as good as a full time solider. To help you out here's my progression of where spear units sit in my mind:

Town Militia: Trash Peasants with short spears and a few days training in how to use them.

Spear Militia: Semi-Pro Militia units, they're a standing militia as apposed to something drafted from peasants and train a littlie in their spare time. Decent units, able to fight well an effectively. But still a long way of a full time soldier.

Italian Militia: Conscript soldiers who are effectively full time pro-spear units. However, since they only serve short term (a year or so according to the description), they lack the vetrancy and experience of the long term solders, and thus aren’t quite as good in spite of full time training and very good equipment.

Armoured Sergeants: Full time long term pro-spear units, they have the equipment, full time training, and experience to be really good spears and can hold medium cav easily, whilst giving heavy cav a stiff challenge.

Papal Guard: The Crème De La Crème of the pro-spear units, they possess the best equipment, training, and experience possible and are quite capable of equalling most pike units when faced with enemy cav.

DISCLAIMER: I'm pretty sure the representation of spear militia I believe CA has given is A-Historical. I very much doubt most countries DID have a standing militia back then. Indeed I’ve always been led to believe that historically the units in an army where normally all full times soldiers or recently drafted peasants. However, as noted, I don't believe this game is remotely historical it simply uses the time period and the units of the setting as a basis, not as hard fast facts.


Third point, Balance. Okay I understand you history buffs don't like this, and I understand that, but even though I only play SP, I have the decency to think of the people who mostly play MP. The game HAS to be balanced for them or where being selfish. (Please don't take that last lot offensively, that’s not intended, I’m just pointing things out). Spear Militia, both in MP and SP are the earliest available unit that is marked as anti-cav and that comes out around the same time as/just before mailed knights. Armoured Sergeants won't be along for a while in SP, thus they are all you have to beat them with in SP for at least a short while. In MP some armies only get spear militia and pikes. Pikes alone can't stop flanking cav, (too slow), something else is needed here. For some factions the only option is earthier other cav or Spear Militia. Spear Militia thus really need to be able to stop mailed, (and preferably), Feudal Knights. Knights that are better than this are so expensive that the enemy either has to sacrifice infantry/foot archers to get them, or take less cav. This helps balance it out nicely.


@dopp: I agree 100% with what you said and it was actually what I was trying to say all along. their is a minor error in your post though. All units with the Spear attribute get Spear_Bounus_8. This includes Spear militia, Armoured Sergeants, Papal Guard, Italian Militia, Italian Spear Militia, and a few others besides.

Remember that I also run a shield fix ATM and thus have an idea of how the mechanics work with Militia Spears able to challenge Mailed Knights, (they don’t quite beat them if you use the vanilla fix, but they do okay).

i did test against papal guard with heavy cavalry they bowled them over without having to mount a second charge. its funny when you spread spearmen out it takes knights 3 charges to win but thats if they survive.

some of it too is that i did one test where i kept the generals out of the fight and the spearmen fared a lot better against heavy cavalry. i will try to do this with spearmen in schiltrom to see if this helps schiltrom. maybe the general in the cavalry unit makes it fight better or stay in melee longer without routing or his own contribution since mounted generals do a lot better than foot generals.

heard a guy do this when testing infantry on .com.

The gen has a big effect and has actually won a LOT of fights for some cav units in 1 v 1 tests on me as he adds extra formed charge kills, keeps them from rounting and fights as well as 5 or 6 ordinary horsemen vs. spears.

Well part of all of this needs to hinge on the relationship between Peasants and spearmen.

The question should be, lacking charge for either side, in a melee beat down what units should the first spear unit available be able to best?

Town Militia > Peasants, Peasant Archers, Peasant/Militia Crossbowmen, initial light cavalry. And equal to initial heavy cavalry (mailed knights).

However, given a good charge the mailed knights should probably be able to route them with minor losses, and with the Town Militia majority still alive (if running). A good charge on them by light cavalry should be a near stalemate when it's all over.

And it should be similar at each level of development.

And of course, good late pikemen should pretty much wreck any cav you throw at them, if they are braced from the right angle.

But my thinking has been that a successful charge maybe shouldn't kill as many people as it does now, but should really wreck the target's moral and route many units. The morale effect should be more like gunpowder really.

But the Town Militia should be able to best some units at the same approximate level in melee. And Peasants should really be good only for garrisons and missile sponges.

But these peasant level units should mostly be good at holding and slowing things down long enough for important units to do their jobs... dying in place of the more worthy. After all, being but peasants, they should feel honored to be allowed to die for their king. ~;)

Actually Town Militia should just evaporate under all but light cav charges IMHO, (Border horse, Hobladiers, HA e.t.c.), they represent a much weaker unit that Spear Militia and they, (Town Militia), don't get half the Anti-cav bounuses that Spear Militia do.

Not Town Militia, you mean Spear Militia I think. Town Militia are supposed to be horrible. Those are guys who signed up two days before the battle because the town is besieged and everyone is going to die anyway. Spear (and crossbow) militia are fellows who actually spend two weeks every year training together. Sword militia are the fellows in big towns that can afford better equipment and a semi-regular defense force, training on
Sundays with compensation, pensions and medicare. Pike and halberd militia are just one step below professionals (supposedly, although their stats are still pretty bad). The 'militia' just means they have free upkeep and is not strictly a measure of their fighting worth. Same with peasants, the country cousins of the militia, who are counted as half their value in keeping public order in towns and thus have the 'peasant' tag to their names. You're meant to raise peasants just for the battle and disband them afterwards, rather than expect them to garrison towns. The peasant status is not a reflection of their fighting prowess at all (although it usually means they sux). You can armor peasants in light mail, btw, so they can actually look pretty formidable.

yeah town militia should be fodder and since peasants can be trained in castles and have no shield but an effective weapon they should be superior to town militia but not to other units. the town militia would have a benefit of protection from arrows ie the shield but since the peasant has the longer weapon and more agility they should be able to take town militia down. but as far as spear militia they shouldnt have a chance.

and i have noticed that most units arnt routing from a cav charge until they are down to a few units and some dont at all just die. so horse dread isnt very high like it is in previous versions.

i think high end knights should be able to roll over spearmen. note i said high end knights the ones with 8 charge. but light cavalry and militia cavalry shouldnt have much of an effect against spearmen unless they later on give mounted seargents a longer lance. long lance cavalry should be able to crack spearmen but other cavalry such as light, merchant and horse archers shouldnt have a prayer of doing it.

the high end knights couldnt be stopped effectively until they started using pikes.

No peasants really should get trashed by Town Militia. Hands down. Town Militia is the entry level of trained melee units.

They have some training, and are equipped to a degree. Peasants? Those guys are grabbed from the field and told they have to fight.

And look at the price. You're saying a 110 fl unit should beat a 290 fl unit? Town Militia cost more than twice as much, almost 3 times as much. Part of that price is extra tricks, but still, in a straight up melee Town Militia should be the winners.

They, (Twon Militia vs. Peseants), actually are winning as they have Light_Spears and so don't suffer melee penalties vs. peseants. Spear Militia Is another matter entierly and I find buffing all sheild units defence skill by 2 points really has big knock on effects against 2-handers and cav charges, as well as peasents and other stuff. but even with vanillia sheild fixes they don't do bad IMHO.

I think you like spearmen too much if you want them winning vs. two handers...

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I agree with most people who want spears to be at least competitive against cavalry, even if the cavalry wins in the end. I do not agree with uber hedghogs of death, because this would make cavalry only good for chasing routers and archers.

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I agree. Knights *should* crush a single unit of unsupported spears. It might take time, it might take repeated charges, and the knights might take losses, but if nothing else, the knights could simply walk their horses up to the spear men and start hacking them down.

What should not happen is a single flying charge just wipes the spearmen off the face of the earth. I expect the spearmen to die, I just want it to take a little while :D

Part of the problem is we really don't have the 'men at arms' unit - Professional soldiers who were not knights, but were more than grunts with spears or swords.

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I agree that "MTW spear militia/lvey = MTW spearmen", but MTW spearmen were of "poor" quality.

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That's fine, but it seems like MTW spears were way better against cavalry than MTW2 spear militia. Of course, a lot of this might be the shield bug: absolutely no stat tweaking should be done till this is fixed.

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Those are guys who signed up two days before the battle because the town is besieged and everyone is going to die anyway. Spear (and crossbow) militia are fellows who actually spend two weeks every year training together.

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Actually, the first group is plain old peasants. The guys that are not regulars that train every now and then would be the town militia. Spear milita would be 'regular soldiers' the same way that spearmen in MTW were. The 'militia' title is misleading.

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I think you like spearmen too much if you want them winning vs. two handers...

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I never said that Musashi. What I meant, (wasn't clear I admit), was that it changes 2-handers from rippining through Sword and Sheild infantry with few losses, to rippining through them with a few losses, (less that 50% normally but still pretty good, about 30-40% depending on the units).

i think there was a mistake in the game as far as the lower end units. i think peasants were given the wrong name i believe they were to call them gladiators :P

town militia are cavalry fodder used to soak up a charge or stop bullets.:P

spear militia should not be able to stop a knight charge unsupported but armored spearmen and papal guard should. but of course none of the spear units are stopping them but just like its been mentioned if they could stop knights then no one would have started using pikes.

Well here's the question regarding cav vs spears... does the cav have lances? A cav charge with lances should wreck spears, but one with just swords and spears of their own shouldn't work out too well unless from a flank.

i agree with that. its pretty lame when you see mounted crossbowmen bowl over a unit of spearmen.

Personally I think the balance works. Spears are slightly better against Cavalry but can't handle a full knight charge. Pikes can (I've tested it. Even the cheapest scots pike militia can take out mailed knights charging with not even 50% losses - at less than 25% the cost!)

The entire medieval arms race was "how to stop knights?" Pikes was the answer. That's why the scots, who were too poor for cavalry had 14' long spears at Bannockburn (their first battle switching to proper pikes was a disaster as they were still untrained). If a 4-8' spear could cut it, they would have used them.

Seems fair to me BOTH for gaming and history.

MP - RPS - Pikes stop cav. Swords kill pikes. Cav kills swords.

SP - Play Scotland. They're the best nation in the game. Ha!! Better you never expected to hear that.....

If you don't get pikes, use your own cav (or HA).

Fair enough to put in the shield fix, but after that Spears are on their own. As the RTW quote says "sucks to be infantry"


Oh Flower of Scoooootlaaaand.....:laugh4:

Except thats not how it works in game. Cav can just go round the rear of pikes, and swords against fixed pikes can win, but not without heavy losses and not against the better types of pikes.

Forcing your enemy round the rear of your pikes IS a tactic and your dictating when and where the fight will take place which is really oood military doctarine. All this goes to waste however if you don't have an anti-cav unit that can turn quickly and absorb cav charges. Pies just can't do that in my expiriance. Thats a large part of why i feel spears should be able to stop cav of a similar era without upgrades. they don't quite manage it under the vanillia sheild fix. But they hurt the cav in doing so. It's my opinion they just don't quite perform well enough, but it's subjective at this stage.

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If a 4-8' spear could cut it, they would have used them.

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Peasents with knives would cut it if they stood their ground. the problem was that without a pike you could garuntee the unit reciving the charge would take heavy losses. Pikes on the other hand could inflict injury on the knights BEFORE they actually slammed into the formation.

In general the nature of this game absolutly requires an anti cav unit thats mobile enought to turn to gface flanking cav quickly and that ISN'T other cav, (as not everyone has equally good cav). Considering all the bounuses they get vs. cav and their utter uslessness at taking on anything else, spears look to be the unit for the job to me.

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Originally Posted by Carl

Except thats not how it works in game. Cav can just go round the rear of pikes, and swords against fixed pikes can win, but not without heavy losses and not against the better types of pikes.

Forcing your enemy round the rear of your pikes IS a tactic and your dictating when and where the fight will take place which is really oood military doctarine. All this goes to waste however if you don't have an anti-cav unit that can turn quickly and absorb cav charges. Pies just can't do that in my expiriance.

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Erm. Sorry if I'm being really thick here but is that not accurate? Wielding 18' long sticks is unwieldy. If your enemy has cav then you need to use terrain etc to counter them. You try to catch them on your pikes, they try to avoid them (and lose when they don't - like Bannockburn. And win when they do - most of the others!)

If Pikes were mobile (or spears were as effective) then your 680 fl+ cav would get nixed by 150 fl pike/spearmen. Then you'd get the opposite problem but the same rants (it's broken etc).

As to Pikes being good in melee against swords - I thought they weren't? They switched to their swords and got slaughtered. So that's why there's a pike fix (which I'm using in my scottish game - courtesy of you! Ta!:2thumbsup: ) which stops them. So are they too good against inf now?

Not trying to be difficult, my head's just spinning here. :dizzy2: Are we not essentially talking personal bias here. If you're a pike fan - take pike fix. Cav/HA fan - ignore fixes. Inf fan - shield fix. Axe fan - 2h fix. Longbow fan - change ROF for longbows. :juggle2:


It seems to be (perhaps wrongly) that it just keeps going round in circles. That the pro-cav lobby argues aginst fixes, the pro-inf lobby for but noone can agree on "balance" because it always means some units are better than others. But it always will, won't it? :wall:

I don't see it that way... the spear on your flanks only has to live long enough for the nearest pike unit to turn... They don't have to win.

@Moah: Youll get an anwser, but it's probably going to take a while as i'm going to have to explain how I see various diffrent units interacting with each other and thus where everything sits in my mind.

Expect it in 20=40 minutes, and i even have an anwser for Musashi~;p.

pikemen who were immobile during the renaissance were not that way for themselves but because they found themselves needed more for protecting arquebusiers and musketeers but when a general advance was ordered they would form up and attack in their phalanxes.

the scots because they were of low training and could not use well ordered drills would use the pike schiltrom(love to see it in the game, suggest it on page 56 under special unit abilities of the instruction manual.)

the swiss and landsnechts were so well drilled and disciplined that it would have been suicide to attack them with cavalry from any direction.

so if

you use them as stationary protectors for your missile troops you need a loose formation in spearwall to aid in enmeshing them in the line.

but if you think they are more offensive which i believe than they need improvement and above all i think both can be achieved by a fix and make everyone happy. i think ca will tweak them some in the future.

It's taking longer than I though. the backing up's eatinga lot of time and patience ATM.

About 1/3rd through.