Pikes vs Polearms

[Gilrandir]

Someone liked discussing swords' and axes' vices and virtues. So, here's one more tough choice. Of course, it is senseless to compare vanilla pikemen against JHI (I suggest we leave out discussing the latter as it is quite plain - THE BEST EVER). But I believe some parallels can be drawn between the vanilla pikes and halbs, and between their advanced counterparts (Swiss armoured pikemen vs Swiss halbs/billmen - I'm still in two minds which is better).
As for me, I usually avoid vanilla units of both categories trying to get Switzerland asap. But comparing the advanced ones - it is a poser. I love Swiss AP holding bridges. I remember facing a numerous Mongol crowd at a bridge having a unit of SAP, a unit of chivalric sergeants and a unit of Steppe cavalry (all at 0 valor excepr SAP). And I won! To tell the truth, they didn't have GH heavy cavs, but plenty of other horses and Mongol warriors. They kept pushing across one bridge and I could occasionally send my Steppe cavs to afflict them from the rear from time to time until I ran out of them. So it was the SAP that saved the day. I guess billmen and Swiss halbs are not that good at holding bridges. But what about field battles?
And one more issue: which handles the swords better ?

[drone]

Pikes lose their effectiveness in field battles, mainly due to their frontage. To be truly effective, you need to put your pikes in 5-6 ranks, which makes them vulnerable to the wrap-around and flanking. Somewhere in the Main Hall is a thread that goes into vast detail comparing pikes and Chiv Sergeants and this problem.

Swiss Armoured Pikes are nice though. The standard Swiss Pikemen are better than the vanilla pikes, but more expensive up front.

[gollum]

Pikes lose their effectiveness in field battles, mainly due to their frontage. To be truly effective, you need to put your pikes in 5-6 ranks, which makes them vulnerable to the wrap-around and flanking. Somewhere in the Main Hall is a thread that goes into vast detail comparing pikes and Chiv Sergeants and this problem.

Unless of course you have them in your line with other units protecting their flanks :)

Pikes can be pretty good. Their lack of armor gives me some speed as a trade off. You just need to engage quickly with them, and they can do just that ie rush to the enemy battle line.

The flanking wrap around may be not the case for two reasons;
1. Iirc only in a version fo MTW earlier than VI2.1 the wrap around effect was happening and it was reomoved due to being abused in mp
2. As mentioned you can put your pikes in line with other units aside them.

[Prince Cobra]

Well... when you mean pikemen SAP are not the first that comes to my mind. If I have to choose between the Billmen and vanilla pikes, I will probably hire the billmen. I also tend to produce more Swiss halbs than Swiss pikes. But usually, you can have both polearms and pikes in your army.

Which handles swords better? Polearms are better in that and they can handle weaker swords more successfully. But the work of pikes is to annihilate the enemy cavalry and hold other pikes/spears. Plain halberdiers are bad in holding their own against heavy cavalry, for example. Pikes usually keep the backbone of your army while polearms are used to flank and destroy the enemy.


Swiss Armoured Pikemen are truly great units and probably one of the best infantries along with the Janissary Heavy Infantry and the Varangians. Yet, they are vulnerable to arbalests, and missile cavalry when run by human player (which is one of my favourite ways of removing the Swiss out of the game because they don't usually do cavalry and many foot missiles). Billmen and Swiss halberdiers are vulnerable to any kind of missiles, so in bridge battles they will be probably decimated under a heavy arrow fire. I also avoid sending elite units such as the Varangians (when available) and keep them only if things go very wrong because:

1) it is a waste to lose many of them when this can be avoided

2) where is the challenge?

Best units for bridge battles are probably armoured feudal sergeants, chivalric sergeants with a morale upgrade, armoured pikemen. Add to that some heavy cavalry which should deal with the enemy infantry (chivalric men-at-arms are probably your worst nightmare) and a few elite units as reserves (billmen, Varangians, armoured swiss halb; other heavy infantry is an option). Playing the Byz (you may guess this is my favourite faction) you may have to rely on vanilla spears, which is a great fun. From my experience these guys are often underestimated and not as bad as some people may think.

Hmmm, Steppe cavalry. I don't like this unit. It is too specialised. I prefer Horse Archers (with some morale and possibly other upgrades) for fast cavalry. It practices a wonderful hit-and-run tactics (with a good use of pause button for miscromanagement) and once the enemy is routed, it can capture lots of men. The versatility is the reason I love the Byz cavalry, the Spanish Jinettes, the Bulgarian brigands (with morale upgrade) and Steppe Heavy Cavalry if my strategy includes conquest of the steppes.

[drone]

Yeah, if you can protect the flanks pikes work well, but it shortens the whole line if you have several units worth. I've always felt they worked better on defense, and superbly on bridge or siege battles. On the attack, it's harder to keep the sides protected. They work nicely when charging pinned cav though.

This thread is about pikes vs. polearms, not pikes vs. spears, so I went a little off-topic.

If you have Switzerland, and you have the option of building Swiss pikes or Swiss Halberdiers, build both. The Swiss Armoured Pikes are large, unyielding boulders on a battlefield, but a touch expensive for spamming. Unarmoured Swiss pikes are cheaper, have the same morale, and start with 1 valour due to the province bonus. Keep them without armour upgrades, and they can go to the desert if necessary.

Swiss Halberdiers are good, but more suitable for flanking than front line infantry. They can also survive in the desert, but by far the best place for them is in the trees. If you can suck a spear unit or cavalry into the trees to face off with your Swiss Halbies, that is were they shine. I love doing this against the Horde.

[gollum]

Yeah, if you can protect the flanks pikes work well, but it shortens the whole line if you have several units worth. I've always felt they worked better on defense, and superbly on bridge or siege battles. On the attack, it's harder to keep the sides protected.

One way to make it easier is to move all the melee line at once as a group with the pike units in the middle and otehr units in teh flanks. Then once close to teh enemy you can micro the engagement. Easier said than done of course :) but possible.

They work nicely when charging pinned cav though.

yeah, absolutely

This thread is about pikes vs. polearms

Yes, on-topic; tehy are completely different kind of units and so hard to compare. Pikes are melee line troops, that are to be used as spears basically ie hold the line in melee and give a solid platform for other units to work around them. They are nto as good as spears to absorb missiles because they lack shields. They melee better than spears though as they get more rank bonuses and can also be more aggressive as they have less armor and hence move faster and fatigue less.

Polearms is too generic a term. There is a huge difference between Billmen, Halberdiers, Chiv Foot Knights, Swiss Halbs and Heavy Jannissaries.

Broadly, there is the:
a) "agile and less armored" type that incidentally happens to have always good morale and attack. These are Heavy Janissaries/Billmen/Swiss halbs. These units can work great as flankers as well as frontally against armoured targets bopth mounted and on foot. They are best when their mounted adversaries have been bogged down - then they can really slaughter them.
b) "slow but very strong" see Chiv Foot Knights ie units that are so slow that they can do nothing else but fight on the spot and hence they are vbery strong
and
c) "vanilla halberdiers for laughs" that is a type b) unit only weak and with poor morale :) Avoid them.

[caravel]

This thread is about pikes vs. polearms, not pikes vs. spears, so I went a little off-topic.

It's no big deal really - first differentiating pikes and spears is probably necessary in a thread about pikes.