The pike issue

[O'Hea]

So, as we all know, pike units in this game leave something to be desired. Unmodded, they throw down their spears almost immediately after making contact, making the spears useless except for receiving the enemy's initial charge. This can be avoided by removing their secondary sword, but this has the side effect of making their spearwall impenetrable.

I had a thought today. What would be the result of removing the secondary weapon AND the ability to form spearwall? Has this been tried before? If it hasn't, I'll gladly test it out myself.

[Nemesis_GR]

Hm you use pikes for offence?
At defence from my experience they are really good.Eg.First line is your archers second line pikes-Mongol heavy lancers charge u retreat your archers and cavalry charge on the spearwall and all die with really low casualties at the pikemen...Especially portugals pikemen are reaaaaaly deadly...

The whole point is that pikemen are counter to cavalry if facing top heavy infantry they get massacred...

And about the modding thing i dont think it can work.Since when the pikemen fight at close range-sword range,how the hell would be realistic to use this extremly long spear???!

[Seabourch]

Pike are meant for defence only. It'll be easy to use them for offence only after they break the cavalry charge.

[Quickening]

Can someone explain to me how to use pikemen? I see the AI pikemen levelling their pikes to receive a cavalry charge but I can never get my own to do that. When charged they simply receive it with pikes held upwards before switching to single hand weapons.

[MasterPhantom]

Plus, if your enemy moves in gun troops, your pikes are going to be killed. They are needed for cavarly charge breakers and for defense in sieges, but that about it.

[benadin]

Can someone explain to me how to use pikemen? I see the AI pikemen levelling their pikes to receive a cavalry charge but I can never get my own to do that. When charged they simply receive it with pikes held upwards before switching to single hand weapons.

Click the "Stop" order button.

[Old Geezer]

Pikes are great on defense, especially at defending the gate or wall breaches. However, when used properly they can be almost as astonishingly effective on offense, if their secondary weapon is removed. About the most effective exploit that I have seen is to use spies to open the gates and send in pikemen (inexperienced militia will do fine) straight to the town center - or even a citadel center. Unless there are hordes of good defending archers on the walls and you have no swordsmen with which to rush and engage the archers, the pikemen just macerate every living thing in their way. The best general bodyguard units hold out slightly longer than most but only by a few seconds. If you try this without a general and the enemy has a dreadful general your militia may route. If the enemy is defending a citadel with his level 10 king and nothing else (as sometimes happens) you can take the citadel with Scots pike militia with almost no losses.

The most astounding thing to watch is a unit of Timurid elephants charge into some Scots Noble Pikemen. I saw 5 elephants just fall over immediately upon impacting the pike line. The rest of the elephants were killed off in moments. Usually the AI won't charge pikes with elephants and they have to be pinned down to allow the pikes to get to them. Pikes attacking the elephants from the rear is a good show. For some reason Varangian Guards do much better against pikemen and can defeat the lower morale and armored ones.

Pikemen do not do well attacking across a bridge against the Mongols.

Does anyone have experience in multiplayer using pikemen with their secondary weapons reomved? I imagine that they would not seem to be so overpowering.

[IncubusDragon]

I thought I'd try them out to see what "all the fuss" is about, so I set up a custom game... and if I'm being honest about it, they work fine on my "Vanilla" set-up (no mods, just the official game update patches). I understand from earlier posts that before the update patches folk said pikes were too strong, but with all the latest update patches, they seem to be nicely balanced in my book... I don't wish to sound patronising in any way, but maybe a quick recap of how pikes were used on the medieval battlefield might help to give a fuller understanding of how to use them in the game.

So long as you understand the strategy of "sword & shield" also called the "hammer and anvil", then pikes are awesome. If you save this to your replays folder, you'll see what I mean http://www.mediafire.com/file/mdq01yzvzhz/Pike Fight.rpy
(Replays would normally be found in ProgramFiles/Sega/Medieval II Total War/replays)
To give you an idea, these are both 10K armies and none of the units have received any upgrades (no valour, weapons etc), they're just "straight out of the tin". No other settings were adjusted, so "guard mode" was left on, as was "spear wall" (or whatever they called it).

Alright, so I'm still a bit rusty, but you get the idea... use pikes to hold the enemy unit and then use cavalry and/or other infantry units to flank the unit being held by the pikes. If you have to, move in close and stop - the enemy will be suckered into charging you, but make sure your timing is right to ensure your pike units have stopped and braced for impact.

At the end of the day, a disciplined unit of pikes is the most formidable formation to meet face-to-face in a head-on meatgrinder of a fight... That's why the Scots used them to such great effect against both cavalry and infantry. Given their cost to effectiveness ratio, it was a no-brainer to develop the use of the pike... ultimately being the last hand-to-hand infantry units to be disbanded in European armies, hence the term "pike and musket" for the armies of the 17th Century.

[IncubusDragon]

Sorry if it seems I'm flooding the thread, but I can't edit my posts yet...

Anyway, I thought I'd try a couple more custom battles with an emphasis on pikes. As stated in previous post, I have a "vanilla" set-up with all the official update patches installed. In this first replay, I set up two almost identical armies to slug it out...
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mniri2tgnkt/Pike vs Pike.rpy

In this second replay, I used the Scottish pike army from the first replay as the opposition, but this time I chose my "normal" 10K Hungarian army with which to fight it...
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mmnyv5jndgj/Hungarian vs Pike.rpy

*** *** ***

If there's a point at all, it would be that you don't use a spanner to change a lightbulb... umm... I mean, you got to learn the how-when-where of deploying units and to use the right unit for the job - there isn't any one military unit that will magically win your battles for you, but if you understand the function of each unit, then you can maximise your own abilities and exploit the weaknesses of your foe.

Pikes are typical of non-elite infantry... if you leave them unsupported against an elite infantry unit and/or they get flanked, then they're gonna run sooner than elite units... BUT... if you keep them supported, they'll stand fast long enough for you to achieve local superiority on the battlefield, and that wins battles.

e.g. imagine you got a unit of pikes facing some dismounted men-at-arms with their swords, shields and armour. Your pikes will inflict a fair number of casualties whilst the units are a pike-length apart... but once the men-at-arms have fought until they are nose-to-nose with the front line of your pikes, then your pike front line has no choice but to switch to their secondary weapons (albeit the second/third rows in your pike unit still press forward with their pikes until they too are nose-to-nose with the enemy).

So now you got the situation that without their pikes, they're just a light infantry unit barely much better than archers trying to go toe-to-toe with the creme-de-la-creme of the enemy's army. So they'll fight for a short while, but if they don't have any support going their way, then they'll turn tail and run... BUT... if they get extra support from another unit, then suddenly it's two to one i.e. local superiority has been achieved and so there is a much higher chance of defeating that elite enemy unit. Sometimes that still won't be enough, but they'll keep holding long enough for you to flank that enemy elite unit and give it a good pounding from behind and before you know it, you can watch all that nice shiny armour and weaponry get routed right off the field.

The secret is to keep your units working together rather than unsupported. Of course, you can deliberately leave units unsupported on purpose (imagine it a bit like a sacrifice move in chess) in order to disrupt the enemy's formation and/or enable you to obtain a local superiority on a more critical part of the battlefield, but that, as they say, is a whole different ballgame.

[IncubusDragon]

I finally learned how to make a movie (well, simply by installing FRAPS actually)... and here's a wee clip of how effective pikes can be in a "vanilla" set-up when combined with melee troops in support. Once the initial charge was received, "Guard Mode" was switched off to allow the pikemen to press forward "meatgrinder" style.

I had to sacrifice my cavalry in order to induce the English to charge my line, so it took a while to mop up the English after I broke them. The following clip is not the full battle, it's just the English charge on my line and then being broken. The supporting line of melee troops comprised of three units of Highland Nobles and my general fighting on foot as a unit of Noble Swordsmen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYmgIEWPZPA

Obviously, my comments at the end are intended to be a wee bit of banter, and not trying to offend any English members!

[Zild]

(This is intended for various posters, but certainly not the preceding poster.)

What pikes are supposed to be:
Good at defending, especially against cavalry.

What pikes are not supposed to be:
Good at attacking.
Good at chasing routed cavalry.
Good at soaking up missile fire.
Good at demolishing walls.

As IncubusDragon was saying, use the right tool for the job. If you want a good attacker, use knights (mounted or dismounted, depending on opponent). If you want to chase routed cavalry, use light cavalry. If you want to soak up missile fire, use peasants. If you want to demolish walls, use artillery.

Yes, you can mod pikes to make them good at something they are not supposed to be, but what would be the point? Whilst you're at it, why not give them higher stats, horses, shields and shoulder-mounted culverin? Because they're not supposed to have them, that's why. If they did, no other units would be required.

Use pikes for what they are - a good defence that needs balanced support from other units capable of performing other functions.

Why else do you think pikes have been "bugged" in this way since RTW?

[gardibolt]

Nice work, Incubus Dragon. On the YouTube video, am I understanding correctly the pikemen were initially on Guard, and then you shut it off after the initial charge? Pretty effective how they instantly routed the initial cavalry charge.