Thank you and question

[gollum]

Hello AlexandersForlornHope,
halberds in P&M are cheap militia easily/cheaply available IIRC. Pike units on the other hand act as spears+heavy infantry they can melee really well. Halberds can never substitute for pikes, but you cannot maintain (especially early) armies made of pikes only. Best to combine according to what your economy can support and your infrastructure can train. Another important difference is that pikes are immune to frontal charges from cavalry - while halberds will feel some *pain* when charged. Halberds are there to melee supported, while Pikes have generally high morale and wont go down easily. Use the halberds to complement the Pikes - that is say 2 halberd units for every pike unit or something to that effect...

Guns in the early period are less powerful but as you progress become more and more powerful. Cavalry correspondingly starts with heavy armor (gendarmes) and slowly drops armor for speed.

[PershsNhpios]

I played P&M for a few months, although the invisible and faulty units really began to annoy me.

I would suggest playing on the campaign which has the most factions on the map, (Not the Sun King's Ambiton or Religious Turmoil), for then there will be less chance of three major factions destroying everything else right from the beginning.

I really liked the mod for it's progress in technology, but it also had a few faults - I never enjoyed holding of waves of town militia, who were actually just floating, shape-shifting blobs.

But you have only just begun!

I remember the fun I had in my French campaign, in which I swore to protect the meek factions and destroy the Spanish, Ottomans, and Russians.

Please, tell us more here about your future campaigns!

[AlexandersForlornHope]

Well, I jumped right in against better advice and picked a smaller faction to play, the Brandenburgers.
I liked their location relative to rebel factions. I've decided to take the hard road, as a Protestant faction to ally only with fellow Protestants( I know I'm going to pay for this later)
Right off the start all the larger faction jumped on the rebels, and me feeling left out of the scrum decided to invade the rebels in Saxony(although NOT the real Saxon faction).
In my haste, I forgot to notice that our borders were secured by a river...yep river battle! Let me tell you dashing my poor soldiers lives against the enemy's pike regiment holding the bridge was sorrowful.
Long story short the time ran out on the battle, I slunk back to Brandenburg with my tail between my legs, to lick my wounds.
Of all people the Portugese landed a sizable army there next turn(can you believe it ). I said to myself oh no you dont those are my rebels to fight, I have a score to settle with them. I reinvaded, declared war on Portugal and this time despite another bridge battle, I routed them(ha,ha)
The remnants of the rebel scum are holed up in their castle, and it will fall shortly...no mercy will be shown to them.
That's about it for now.
BTW, I've been practicing custom battles and I have to say War Wagon Infantry rock. Next campaign I will definately play a faction that have these outstanding units.
Cheers
Alex

[gollum]

Nice campaign happenings AlexandersForlornHope,
another way to play the game is to remove the timer - so battles will end when soemone wins.

[PershsNhpios]

The Brandenburgers are not too difficult - I found Wuerttemburg to be the worst german faction to play.
Those swiss rebels absolutely destroyed me on the second turn.

Tell me, AlexandersFolornHope, are you witnessing problems with the unit graphics in battle?

Are some of them invisible or very distorted?

My favourite faction was certainly France in that game, where as usually I would play a smaller, discreet faction in other mods.

[AlexandersForlornHope]

Hi Glenn. As far as the unit graphics being invisible or distorted nothing as yet. The only slight blip I noticed was when actually fighting on a bridge some of the AI's units feet were'nt displayed, legs and the rest o.k.
Mind you there is a recent(?) patch I downloaded with this mod that possibly may have fixed some display problems.
In further campaigns I hope I don't encounter any invisible enemy units...I'm having enough trouble defeating the one's I can see!
Cheers
Alex

[gollum]

The problem with P&M for me visually is the lack of bodies - not a gamebreaking problem, but somewhat of an atmosphere breaker nonetheless...