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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
@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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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:
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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 -).
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
Tnx for the tip I'll try :yes:
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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).
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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
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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
Actually i use the term nerf to mean "reducing the power of something that is overpowered to something more balanced".
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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".
Exactly tnx Lusted
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
Thats waht i've been trying to say too Foz TBH.
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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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Re: How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?
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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.
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).
