Carl's BugFixer (V1.1)

I thought it was agreed that pikes have unnaturally low recruitment costs to begin with (around the cost of peasants), so the idea that halberds have to beat them simply because they cost more goes out the window. You should just bump the costs of pikemen up to match their abilities, rather than attempt mathematical gymnastics trying to make performance match cost.

The cheaper cost of pikes is offset by a MUCH greater investment to build them in the first place, plus they have an upkeep cost competitive with most other units. It's only the recruitment cost that is anomalous, so I suggest you try and balance that rather than unit stats.

I have no problem with halberds being competitive with pikes, but to make them beat pikes senseless? That's more than a little counter-intuitive. You say it's not fair for Poland and Hungary etc to have their last-tier infantry so weak, but what about all the other factions that have to scrape to get pikes, only to see them defeated by a lower-tier unit with superhuman stats? They are both infantry equipped with long weapons, there's no call for one type to be very hardy, have more armor than DGK and higher defense skill than virtually any other spear-equipped unit in the game, plus having an AP attack comparable to 2handed swordsmen.

The radical changes required to make any unit even survive against fixed pikes from the front just confirms my view that pikes are really unsuitable as a unit type to be balanced against in the first place, always assuming that they are not meant to be the ultimate heavy infantry (with significant drawbacks such as speed and facing to limit their effectiveness). Jacking up a lower-tier, hybrid unit specifically to mash them, just to benefit two factions whose advantage isn't even in infantry to begin with, may be a little too much.

Realistically though, halberds should be pikes +1.

My personal opinion is that they should be at or above pikemen tier.

My preference is entirely the opposite. Pikes are halberds +1 (as a formation, not as a weapon).

I completely disagree... Halberds are equally effective as a spearwall, with the added benefit of being able to hook men and get them on the ground.

There's nothing pikemen can do that halberdiers can't.

Pikes have reach, which seems to have been valued more than the added utility of halberds. In that sense, they were just lengthened halberds, to the point where the blade part was dropped altogether. Historically, pikes just kept getting longer to beat the other fellows and push them back. That doesn't sound like they were too concerned about unwieldy at close quarters.

Well sure, why would they be concerned with being unwieldy at close quarters? The whole POINT is to keep the other guys far enough away that it never becomes close quarters. If you can poke the heck out of some poor bastard 18 feet away from you, then the ability to swing your weapon at a man standing closer than that is irrelevant. Besides, if a few men do get closer, there are rows of pikes right behind you that are then in range.

I'm not sure which (if any) I think should be better though, but I'm beginning not to care. Maybe they should be about the same since they're both weapons with longer than normal reach and pointy things on the end to hurt people with.

@Carl: Hah. I just assumed we somehow could control the speed of the units. Upon further examination, I too cannot find it. I did try changing their weight classification from heavy to light, which seemed to have no discernable effect. What a silly thing to leave out of the unit specifications file! I'm guessing it must be tied to the animations since you said they seem to move like pikes when you change them to using pike animations. I'm thinking the game may actually move the unit across the map at a speed relative to its footfall frequency (i.e. length of its walking animation). If it is tied to the animations, then obviously nothing short of using different ones will make a bit of difference in the unit's speed.

Btw, all this debate about pikes and halberds has me nearly convinced that neither should be better than the other: they should both be made into pony-riding monkeys who fling poop. And laugh at you. Can't forget that. Surely monkeys did that already in medieval times. They would of course need totally uber stats...

@Dopp: Erm, many halbs were just as long as the longest pikes.

If the concern is that Halberds have no real strengths (i.e. there's always a unit that can do it better) but no real weaknesses (i.e they're not as vulnerable to flank and missile as pike, Cav as 2H, 2H as S&S. pile as cav)doesn't that make them unique and useful?

They're your perfect all rounder? Take Halberds as "utility troops" and bulk up the army with the specialists. They may not be as good against armies a, b and C as specially crafted stacks built to fight them but they can fight either A or B or C and still win. Whereas your specialist stacks can slaughter A, but lose to B and C. Or Slaughter B but lost to A and C etc.


So you use Halberds as your base Garrison troops because they'll help against anything, then use your recruitment to add in the unit required for that situation.

That seems to give them a "unique niche" without making them too weak or too uber.

No?

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thought it was agreed that pikes have unnaturally low recruitment costs to begin with (around the cost of peasants), so the idea that halberds have to beat them simply because they cost more goes out the window. You should just bump the costs of pikemen up to match their abilities, rather than attempt mathematical gymnastics trying to make performance match cost.

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Realistically though, halberds should be pikes +1.

My personal opinion is that they should be at or above pikemen tier.

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My preference is entirely the opposite. Pikes are halberds +1 (as a formation, not as a weapon).

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Pikes have reach, which seems to have been valued more than the added utility of halberds. In that sense, they were just lengthened halberds, to the point where the blade part was dropped altogether. Historically, pikes just kept getting longer to beat the other fellows and push them back. That doesn't sound like they were too concerned about unwieldy at close quarters.

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Well sure, why would they be concerned with being unwieldy at close quarters? The whole POINT is to keep the other guys far enough away that it never becomes close quarters. If you can poke the heck out of some poor bastard 18 feet away from you, then the ability to swing your weapon at a man standing closer than that is irrelevant. Besides, if a few men do get closer, there are rows of pikes right behind you that are then in range.

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I agree with Foz and Dopp on history. However thats ISN'T how CA have represented them in game. In game they've extended Halberds to the point where they are much longer than they really where. Thus in game they are meant to function as AP armored Pikes until engaged in general melee, at which point they switch over to a 2-Handed Axe attack.

They have 3 things on pikemen of a similar era generally:

1. Better Armour (Late Scot's Pikes aside).

2. Better Attack.

3. AP weaponry.

To me it's quite clear that CA intended them to be Pikemen with none of the Pikemen's normal weaknesses, (as the 2-Handed attack would eliminate their general melee weakness (and thus Flank/Rear weaknesses)).

Thus whilst I agree pikes are too cheap ATM, I also believe the price difference between Halberds and Pikes as it stands is Representative of where they should be relative to each other.

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The radical changes required to make any unit even survive against fixed pikes from the front just confirms my view that pikes are really unsuitable as a unit type to be balanced against in the first place, always assuming that they are not meant to be the ultimate heavy infantry (with significant drawbacks such as speed and facing to limit their effectiveness). Jacking up a lower-tier, hybrid unit specifically to mash them, just to benefit two factions whose advantage isn't even in infantry to begin with, may be a little too much.

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I'm actually Jacking them up for 2 reasons.

1. Everyone needs a Late tier counter late tier heavy Cav infantry unit. Without that no other infantry is useful as late Cav can just sweep it all aside. Thus Poland and Hungary need Halberd Militia to be good against Cav, yet their price indicates they should still be competitive with Pike Militia, the problem is that both units are very under-priced.

2. Papal States and Denmark are both very infantry reliant. Papal States are totally reliant on Halberds, Pike Militia, and DFK for their general Melee Infantry. Likewise, Denmark is reliant on Halberds for it's last tier infantry. Both really need those powerful halberds, (unlike Poland and Hungary).

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I have no problem with halberds being competitive with pikes, but to make them beat pikes senseless? That's more than a little counter-intuitive. You say it's not fair for Poland and Hungary etc to have their last-tier infantry so weak, but what about all the other factions that have to scrape to get pikes, only to see them defeated by a lower-tier unit with superhuman stats?

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First I'd note that Halberd Militia WON'T beat pro pikes, I don't even think they'll beat Pike Militia as the Pike problems are related to the Defense and Halberd Militia are at least 7 points lower than EVERY OTHER HALBERD in the game and at least 2 points lower on attack. This difference raises to 11 Points of defense and 7 points of attack compared to papal Guard, and 16 points of defense and 4 points of attack compared to Obudshaer's. Noble Swordsmen will still beat Halberd Militia with a 2:1 kill rate, even with the Halberds having +10 Armour and +4 defense skill.

Second, even as uber AP pikemen you won't see Halberd Militia beating top level Pikes, they will beat the lower end stuff but thats it.

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They are both infantry equipped with long weapons, there's no call for one type to be very hardy, have more armor than DGK and higher defense skill than virtually any other spear-equipped unit in the game, plus having an AP attack comparable to 2-Handed swordsmen.

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Well the Version with the improved defense stats only has a minor reach advantage now as they only fight in 1 Rank, they also don't have an AP attack anywhere near that of a 2-Hander, (once you take the penalty applied by the Spear attribute into account), and lastly their defense is only 15 points. The problem is that the changes necessary to raise Halberd Militia to a competitive level without using the "turn them into Pikemen fix" totally IMBA the rest of the Halberds. I can get round that in my re-balance mod with individual unit changes, but in my BugFixer I'm trying to limit myself to Class wide changes with no price alterations. That just doesn't work well with Halberds because of the disparity in power between the top and bottom ends of the scale.

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@Carl: Hah. I just assumed we somehow could control the speed of the units. Upon further examination, I too cannot find it. I did try changing their weight classification from heavy to light, which seemed to have no discernible effect. What a silly thing to leave out of the unit specifications file! I'm guessing it must be tied to the animations since you said they seem to move like pikes when you change them to using pike animations. I'm thinking the game may actually move the unit across the map at a speed relative to its footfall frequency (i.e. length of its walking animation). If it is tied to the animations, then obviously nothing short of using different ones will make a bit of difference in the unit's speed.

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No worries Foz, I thought I couldn't find it, but I thought I'd ask. It is rather daft i agree~:(.

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I'm not sure which (if any) I think should be better though, but I'm beginning not to care. Maybe they should be about the same since they're both weapons with longer than normal reach and pointy things on the end to hurt people with.

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Join the Club Foz~:mecry:. It's quite clear to me that halberds where meant to be better than pikemen in game, (despite how stupid that is historically), however doing so is seriously crazy IMHO, (although it's what I'm going to try in V1.12 of my BugFixer, I'll take it from their then), as it makes them totally unbeatable front on by anything, and seriously difficult from the sides.

That's why I decided to try something different. Unfortunately, they might work as AP Spears, but it's nearly impossible to get them all balanced properly.

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That If the concern is that Halberds have no real strengths (i.e. there's always a unit that can do it better) but no real weaknesses (i.e they're not as vulnerable to flank and missile as pike, Cav as 2H, 2H as S&S. pile as Cav)doesn't that make them unique and useful?

They're your perfect all rounder? Take Halberds as "utility troops" and bulk up the army with the specialists. They may not be as good against armies a, b and C as specially crafted stacks built to fight them but they can fight either A or B or C and still win. Whereas your specialist stacks can slaughter A, but lose to B and C. Or Slaughter B but lost to A and C etc.


So you use Halberds as your base Garrison troops because they'll help against anything, then use your recruitment to add in the unit required for that situation.

That seems to give them a "unique niche" without making them too weak or too uber.

No?

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Thats what i was aiming for but with the added point of them being too expensive to mass, and thus impossibbile to use as total replacments for the specelists. Jack-of-All trades, but Master-of-None.



Anyway, lets move this discussion over to the re-balance thread as thats where this belongs now, (unless you have some other BugFixer suggestions of course).

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Originally Posted by Musashi

@Dopp: Erm, many halbs were just as long as the longest pikes.

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Sorry, but you simply do not have truth. Halberds were 2m+ , while pikes easily 4m+. You cannot control such long weapon and do other attack moves than stab. And it will be wery difficult to fight with 4m+ long polearm with massive blade on it´s end, because of balance.

As I and Dopp wrote, halberds were used before pikes (I wrote in medieval times, I know pikes were used in ancient times, of course) and halberds ceased to be used while pikes survived to 17. century. The argument that pikes are easier to use for not-so-well trained people is true, but the same applies with halberds. At the end, it was all about reach. So pikes are better in formation because of theirs length. And because they survived much longer than halberds, we simply have truth they were more useful.

I think halberd (or any other polearm) is of course better in individual combat than pike, because of broader scale of combat maneuvers you can do with it, but here we talk about unit vs. unit combat and here the pike prevail.
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Now one more thing:

I read your post somewhere about no fencing style with sword uses it´s blade for blocking. It is nonsence. All european fencing schools have this basic defence move in their repertoire. Italian, French, Spanish, Germans, they all used their blade to block. This moves are illustrated and described in a lot of works from medieval fencing masters.
I do not have much experience with oriental fighting styles other than Serrada Escrima, but even there is the plain basic block with the blade.

It was not used much when the S+S fighting style was dominant because in medieval dark ages the steel was not so high quality and there was danger of broking the blade and shield was much better in blocking. And sword was valuable possesion. But personally, I think that in moment of truth when it is matter of life or death, everybody can use and used basic block when there is no other option because of situation.
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Why I wrote It? Because I think you sometimes post such things that are wrong and misleading. This is not forum about historical fighting, but about computer game, of course, so the post above is probably spam:shame:
Do not take it personally please (I know how far can such discussion on net lead and I do not want flame war of any sort). If you do not agree with me, then, please, check some books and wrote your opinion afterwards. I did it. And If you are interested in such discussion, we can create topic about it somewhere else.

I do not mean this all as insult.

Rev

Carl: sorry for spam, back to the game :laugh4:

Don't worry, i don't mind, i've bumped the Re-Balance discussion and moved the Halberd Issue over their.

if anyone has any idea on how to create balanced working Halberds through just across the board changes to Halberds as a whole then post them here, but honestly I think some individual rebalancing of Halberds will be necessery to get them to work ATM, as anything but AP pikes.

Well Carl, I don't want to come across sounding so negative about all your proposed changes, since you're the one doing all the work in the first place. I do, however, want to clarify that my comment about the surprisingly cheap costs of pikemen is a gameplay observation, rather than a historical one. I also pointed out that pikemen are not as cheap as they appear to be anyway, once you factor in infrastructure costs and upkeep. I don't think the inference that CA intended halberds to be super AP pikemen necessarily follows. In fact, it seems to be a rather puzzling inference to me. The price argument doesn't seem like a good starting point to work from if the prices themselves are suspect.

@Dopp: The price is the final nail in the coffin. not the basis. the basis of the argument is that their primary weapon is an AP pike, and thet their ssecondery weapon is a basic 2-hander weapon. Unlike Pikes they won't really care is somthing does compromise their formation, but they have the advantages of AP and better secondery weapon over pikes (to mention nothing of armour). Their isn't any way they COULD be worse than pikes if they had comparable animations, (which they have to have for Auto-Calc to work), and the same switchover code.

Assumming the same switchover code and the same power animations even Voulgiers should beat Avetours. They have slightly worse attack, but also have AP, same armour, and thus as long as the Pikes keep poking, so will the halberds. With their AP and similar atacks the alberds will win. Add on the fact that if some of the Halbediers make melee they will tottally outperform the Pikemen in general melee it should be a close but definte victory for the Halberds. Same with Pike Militia and Halberds. same defence and attack and animations power, but one has AP and better general melee abilities, it's no real contest as to who will win. The price simply seals it for me. Plus as I say i think ALL spear wall units are too cheap, so if i raised Pike prices i'd also raise Halberd Prices by the same amount.

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Well Carl, I don't want to come across sounding so negative about all your proposed changes, since you're the one doing all the work in the first place. I do, however, want to clarify that my comment about the surprisingly cheap costs of pikemen is a gameplay observation, rather than a historical one.

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No you don't sound negetive, TBH it's a good observation, but I belive it's an observation thats true of all Spear Wal units equally.

It's also worth noting that I wasn't very clear about a lot of things last night, mainly because was littrially doing a round of tests, then coming out of the game, editing my EDU file, posting some basic data on whats happening and then going back to testing so many of my statments may seem contradictory, thats because i'm constantly changing the paramaters, somtimes i'm not very clear on this I think. It makes me look a bit mad jumping here their and everywher.

When testing the Halberds I actually tried +4 armour, tehn +6 armour, then +6 armour and +4 defence skill then +10 armour and +4 defence skill. But you got its and peices of the results from each and not the full story on each.

I actually appreciate your comments by and large, no matter how negetive as you can help keep me in check.

Whilst the anwser to this really belongs in the re-balance thread, how much do you think pikes are too cheap by, how much should be added to their price in your opinion? +25%, +50%, +100% or somthing else...

I'm thinking +75% to their price but i'd like extra opinions TBH.

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Originally Posted by Carl

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I'm thinking +75% to their price but i'd like extra opinions TBH.

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Noooooooooooo!!!! :sweatdrop:

You'll ruin my 150 florin (yes, 150 florin) Scottish Pike Militia third tier barracks Soviet Army infantry steamroller!!!!

hang on...+75%... Uber heavy infantry tanks (as long as you guard flanks and slaughter enemy archers) for 275 fl....Hmmm. I could live with that.

Knights. Pah! Expensive shiny battlefield ornaments to my army of can openers....... :laugh4:

(Not even mentioning the Armoured Heavy Pike Militia...)

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Originally Posted by Carl

@Dopp: The price is the final nail in the coffin. not the basis. the basis of the argument is that their primary weapon is an AP pike, and thet their ssecondery weapon is a basic 2-hander weapon. Unlike Pikes they won't really care is somthing does compromise their formation, but they have the advantages of AP and better secondery weapon over pikes (to mention nothing of armour). Their isn't any way they COULD be worse than pikes if they had comparable animations, (which they have to have for Auto-Calc to work), and the same switchover code.

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Yup, I agree with all that. It seems to me that we are approaching this from different viewpoints, so it's time for a long explanatory post again:

Both halberds and pikes take the charge at spearpoint and then switch over to melee. Halberds are obviously a whole lot better at melee. But this is where the similarity ends.

I felt that halberds were working as intended animation-wise because they are actually using the same weapon; the switch code just marks the point where they wade in hacking. Pikemen, on the other hand, become swordsmen too easily, which I felt was a mistake, because the sword is only a secondary weapon for them when things get pretty bad (ie the formation is broken). In other words, halberds are MEANT to switch to melee, whereas pikes should not switch unless they get into serious trouble. The animation set and weaponswitch code should NOT be the same for both.

I concluded that since halberds were meant to switch over like that as a matter of course, and since halberds are generally less vulnerable in melee than pikes, and since halberds were lower-ranked than pikes on the build tree, that they represented a hybrid unit that was more flexible than pikes, but less powerful from the front. Trying to make them otherwise seemed unrealistic from both a historical, and a modding perspective.

I thus proposed getting rid of the swords so that the pikemen hold formation better, but left the halberds as they are animation-wise. This allowed the pikes to use their greater reach to keep troops with shorter weapons at bay, which included halberds. This felt more true to history, and kept in with halberds being consistently lower-ranked on the tech tree than pikes.

The cost of pikes caused me some pause, but I realized that they were the only troop line that was undercosted like that, yet they were also the melee infantry line with the highest tech requirements (huge city + militia barracks or military academy), and their upkeep cost is comparable to that of most halberds (and higher for elites). Therefore, Militia Pikes should be increased in price, rather than be rebalanced around their pathetic cost.

Edit: The halberds as depicted in the game are much shorter than the pikes, so I felt that pikes should have reach advantage over them.

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In other words, halberds are MEANT to switch to melee, whereas pikes should not switch unless they get into serious trouble. The animation set and weaponswitch code should NOT be the same for both.

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That helps explain things nicely. I would like to ask something though:

Do you honestly think it's sensible for Halberds to stop poking when they are not close enough to the enemy to hack at them?

Because unless you have the switch to Hacking as soon as the enemy stops counting as charging, the nature of Pikes will mean that the Halberds will keep poking, (because they will be kept far enough away by the Pikes that they never enter melee range). Thus the only way your actually going to get pikes to beat halberds is to artificially gimp them by preventing them from poking like a pike except when charged, (so they are Cav resistant). The seems a bit dumb from a common sense point of view.

The real problem is that halberds should never have got Spear Wall or such long reach in the first place. Historically they where (as i understand it), a cross between a medium Spear, a Quarterstaff, an Axe, a Hammer, and most had Spear Points on both ends, plus some had hooks for dragging people off horses. Halberd weren't even as long as long spears in reality as far as I'm aware. Their real advantage was their ability to combined many different weapon into one giving the wielder a multitude of attack options that no melee fighter could equal.

Overall, I agree from a history point of view that Halberds are already illogically in game, but without illogical gimping them in game I can't see how they are going to NOT be able to beat pikes.

Whats needed is a total redesign of how they work IMHO. Spear Wall simply isn't an appropriate thing for them.


My final concern with Pikes beating Spear wall Halberds is that even with their better flanking resistance, you can't put them on the edges of your formation, as a result your going to be forced into a head on confrontation with Pikes anyway, add tot hat their slower speed and it's a serious issue for me as it's going to leave those armies with access to them totally dependent on bating the enemy Pikes Flank Guards if they want to win the fight.

Last but not least, I'm not really treating Upkeep as such a big balance consideration (for my re-balance mod). Let me explain:

Here's my concerns and views on Noble Pikemen vs. Obudshaer's, Voulgeirs, and Swiss Guard.

vs. Voulgeirs: They are the same tech point, (Late), both cost about the same. The Noble Pikemen are part of an army with poor Cav and Missile support, but very good infantry support. The Voulgeirs are part of an army with lots of Cav missile and infantry support and even have other Pikes Backing them up.

Overall the Voulgeirs should lose, but not by a landslide, about 4:3/3:2 kill rates in the Noble Pikemens favor.

Swiss Guard vs. Noble Pikemen:

The swiss guard cost more than half again as much, are the same tech era, and are part of an army with worse swords, no 2-handers, no AP S&S units and their missile are about the same, (better shooting, but slower reload and no fire arrows plus much worse melee). Overall I'd honestly be worried if the Swiss Guard didn't administer a 3:2/2:1 win against the Noble Pikes, the sheer cost difference and Papal States army weaknesses really hurt them.


Noble Pikemen vs. Obudshaer's:

Again the Obudshaer's are a half again as expensive as the Pikes and are part of an army with similar missile. they get better S&S units and about as good 2-handers, but pay for it in having very poor missile defense on these units. they do have semi-decent Cav back-up though too. Overall I'd still expect a win for the Obudshaer's, but not a big one, 4:3/3:2 would be about right, with a longer fight to give the flankers more time to get into position.

Thus the problem thats worrying me is that unless we intend to increase all pikes costs significantly they really shouldn't be able to beat the best halberds on that kind of comparison.

Worse still, the nature of a working Push of pike is that unless the pikes formation is badly compromised they tend to beat their foes with few losses. So unless the Halberds can actually get past all those pike points, they don't really have much of a chance of doing any good. And if they do get back the nature of a disrupted pike formation will probably mean they get annihilated with few losses to the enemy. I'm worried where going to end up with situations where units are beating units they shouldn't just to keep other units in check. If Halberds weren't limited to engaging pikes head on (due to their speed), this wouldn't be an issue TBH.

I have to go out now so I'll finish off and tidy up the spell when I get back.

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Originally Posted by Carl

I agree with Foz and Dopp on history. However thats ISN'T how CA have represented them in game. In game they've extended Halberds to the point where they are much longer than they really where. Thus in game they are meant to function as AP armored Pikes until engaged in general melee, at which point they switch over to a 2-Handed Axe attack.

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Like Dopp, I fail to see how you infer that CA have represented halberds as superior to pikes. The fact that people are crying foul that they are not effective enough does not mean that CA intended them to be more effective, nor does their higher cost than pikes - it could as easily be intended to balance factions, to influence the army composition of factions that have halberds instead of pikes, or to represent the actual cost of the crap they require to be kitted out for battle! (more on that in a moment) They DO perform less effectively than pikes, and therefore I think it is an err in judgment to suggest that CA intended them to do anything except underperform pikes - that is to say, short of proving a bug, you can't really suggest that CA intended units to perform in any way other than they actually do. I suggest that the 3 things you point out below are intended to compensate for their otherwise (due to animations likely?) compromised situation regarding pikes:

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They have 3 things on pikemen of a similar era generally:

1. Better Armour (Late Scot's Pikes aside).

2. Better Attack.

3. AP weaponry.

To me it's quite clear that CA intended them to be Pikemen with none of the Pikemen's normal weaknesses, (as the 2-Handed attack would eliminate their general melee weakness (and thus Flank/Rear weaknesses)).

Thus whilst I agree pikes are too cheap ATM, I also believe the price difference between Halberds and Pikes as it stands is Representative of where they should be relative to each other.

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Again judging from how they actually perform, I think they are intended not to have the Pikemen's normal weaknesses, but also not to perform as effectively from the front as pikes (without jacking them up). I think it's more than adequate compensation for halberds to maintain a lot of the pike advantage from the front and then strip away the pikes major weaknesses (like getting cut to ribbons by missile fire).

As for prices, aren't the pike prices historically correct? (relative to other unit costs, I mean) I seem to recall discussion somewhere that halberds are in fact expensive to make, as they require the expertise of a swordsmith, where the pike has a simple end that even an apprentice blacksmith in some backwater town could easily make. Carl already pointed out that halberds wear a lot more armor too, so it seems entirely justified that men fitted with good armor and high quality weapons should cost a LOT more than men wearing very light armor (most pike units wear none at all) and carrying simple weapons.

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Originally Posted by dopp

I felt that halberds were working as intended animation-wise because they are actually using the same weapon; the switch code just marks the point where they wade in hacking. Pikemen, on the other hand, become swordsmen too easily, which I felt was a mistake, because the sword is only a secondary weapon for them when things get pretty bad (ie the formation is broken). In other words, halberds are MEANT to switch to melee, whereas pikes should not switch unless they get into serious trouble. The animation set and weaponswitch code should NOT be the same for both.

I concluded that since halberds were meant to switch over like that as a matter of course, and since halberds are generally less vulnerable in melee than pikes, and since halberds were lower-ranked than pikes on the build tree, that they represented a hybrid unit that was more flexible than pikes, but less powerful from the front. Trying to make them otherwise seemed unrealistic from both a historical, and a modding perspective.

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Exactly my feelings as well. CA represents them as more rounded pikemen who give up some of their frontal advantage in exchange for removing their various weaknesses.

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The cost of pikes caused me some pause, but I realized that they were the only troop line that was undercosted like that, yet they were also the melee infantry line with the highest tech requirements (huge city + militia barracks or military academy), and their upkeep cost is comparable to that of most halberds (and higher for elites). Therefore, Militia Pikes should be increased in price, rather than be rebalanced around their pathetic cost.

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I actually don't think anything should be done about their costs. As I just mentioned above, the field equipment of a pike unit is absolutely cheap to produce, being mostly just the cost of a pike per man as they typically don't wear any armor. Recruitment costs are FAR outweighed by upkeep costs anyway, and so their low cost in no way makes them broken... Especially since a few missile units will easily decimate them before they are near enough to do anything. It's not like they're some kind of unbeatable unit - they die to missiles and to attacks from anywhere that isn't the front.

Anwser to Foz here

Hopefully the discussion will now move their where I think it belongs TBH.

a question about launching this mod/fix.

The shortcut launches a DOS command:
medieval2.exe --io.file_first

If i simply alter the original game shortcut to look like the DOS command:-
from
TARGET:
"E:\Medieval II Total War\medieval2.exe"

to
TARGET
"E:\Medieval II Total War\medieval2.exe --io.file_first"

would the fix still work?

I'm not sure TBH, i'm just following the readme that comes with the Unpacker with regards to getting it working.

You'd have to try it and see i'm afraid.

Allthough if it does work i'd be grateful to hear it.

It should work, however you won't be able to play vanilla without changing it back. Letting it continue with the batch file would probably be better from that standpoint.

I can't check right at the moment (about to head to work) but perhaps there might be a way to make pikes viable with out the meatgrinder "fix"?

Undertandably their secondary animations are, uhhhh, welll, basically really poor. What would happen if you gave them halberd anims and reinstituted a secondary weapon (perhaps of a spear variety assuming those get the melee handicaps from RTW)? At the very least you would probably not get the "Wanna be swordsmen" effect I think, as Halberds do seem to do a pretty fair amount of poking anyways IIRC.

I think the problem is that certain "Fixes" out there have made things worse from a balance perspectice really. Taking a unit that was cost balanced down (and perhaps anim balanced as well), hacking out a significant portion of it's code, and taking the resulting abomination as a "fix" smacks of munchkinism to me.

Short answer: it can't be done. Giving pikes a secondary weapon line other than zero enables the sword, regardless of the characteristics assigned to it.

'Fixed' pikes are an abomination. I've acknowledged that many times. But unfixed pikes are, well, lame, which is worse in my book. As I have stated before, the primary aim of the 'fix' was to get the pikes to, well, actually use their pikes. Balancing and all that were purely secondary concerns. Munchkinism? Who cares? Don't like it, don't use it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dopp

Short answer: it can't be done. Giving pikes a secondary weapon line other than zero enables the sword, regardless of the characteristics assigned to it.

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You missed the point Dopp. He said to give the pikes other animations via the soldier line (like maybe halberd animations b/c they do a good amount of poking) and THEN set the secondary weapon back to something. If they have halberd animations, they should theoretically display a sword on the character, but use it exactly like the halberds use a halberd (if they have that animation). I'm not sure if the weapon displayed on the unit will in fact matter at all, and it may look quite weird for them to move swords about as if they were halberds, but it SHOULD remove the completely ineffective sword animation which I thought was the real problem. It also may affect their weapon switching, and make them switch like halberds do (which would be totally awesome). At the least it's worth someone giving it a shot (won't be me until 5, I'm at work).

I'd be intrested in the results, but as noted elsewhere I think pikes should poke if able to and should activlly avoid getting so close they pulll swords, as well as switching to swords on an individual rather than unit wide basis. That kind of big change would still need re-balancing though.

The real issue is that pikes don't really perform in a sensibile way ATM. They where and should be the equivelent of Phalanx's from Rome. These where powerful formations, but not unbetable and very vulnrable to flank attacks. the M2TW Pikes are very diffrent having a more dispersed formation and switching to swords far more easilly.

I wonder though. Would tightining their formation help at all. i think i'm going to experiment you know.

Nah, I understand what he means, but I hate to see them waving swords around so much. Even if you set their pike attack to 1 and gave them an ultra-fast 30 sword attack with armor-piercing and body-piercing properties, I'd still confiscate their swords until CA teaches them to use their pikes more. The best Medieval 2 Total War experience for me was seeing a line of Tercio pikemen, perfectly placed, push back a massed charge of Dismounted Norman Knights just outside Milan. Imagine the disappointment when immediately afterwards the entire line whipped out swords and started dying. Nobody will EVER convince me that this is the way it should be. I will bend both space and time to my will (ie mod the game files) before I allow such lame nonsense to exist in my campaign.

Quote:

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Even if you set their pike attack to 1 and gave them an ultra-fast 30 sword attack with armor-piercing and body-piercing properties, I'd still confiscate their swords until CA teaches them to use their pikes more.

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:laugh4:

I agree they should use their pikes more than they do, it's really siliy in vanillia, littrially every 5 seconds they draw swords and when they do you've got to flick them into guard mode, flick spear wall off, then flick spear wall back on and then take them out of guard mode. Doing that every 5 seconds to make them work is silly AND it prevents you from doing ANYTHING else whatsoever with your non-pike units.

can this be right.. dismounted conquistadores vs venetian heavy inf. we both charged each other, DC i got 28 kills include there general and the broke and ran.. 1 sec fighting and i won.!?!? next try we both charged each other.. on the charge DC got around 22-26 kills and killed the general after around 4-6 sec and the ran again.. i tryed to just stand still and let VHI charge.. well DC lost 60 out of 61 and killed 40 VHI lost 34 out iof 61 and killed 60.. dunno why it says enemys killed 40 but 34 lost but thats not the point.. it is just that can this be the meaning? seems unbalanced to me..

I'll take a quick look as that second result sounds odd.

(For what it's worth a charge will ushually result in the front ranks of both units being wiped out, thats about 25-33% of the unit, thats a big Morale shock, add a dead general and you'll probably get a rout from one side no matter what, it's one of those annoying things I can't do much about TBH as Morale is allready pretty high to begin with).

Just ran a test and even at 3 times speed they where fighting for a good 10 seconds before eithier side brok and ran and losses where 43VHI to 39DC with the DC winning and beuing under my control, we charged each other.

Bear in mind though that VHI are AP and thus perform much better than their stats suggest. I'm not getting such short combat times though.

Is anyone else getting them?