A New Take on CFK vs. JHI

[VersusAllOdds]

A long time ago, when I was still able to play battles in M:TW, I discovered a certain paper/rock/scissors infantry triangle. It's members were the Swiss Armoured Pikemen, Janissary Heavy Infantry and Gothic Foot Knights. Can't really remember who could beat who, but you can easily test it.

Did you not add the Swiss into the equation just because the faction isn't playable? I suggest you do.

[FinalLegendZero]

I'll run some calcs, but I have a hard time imagining a pike unit beating JHI, VG, GFK, or even CFK.

[drone]

I would imagine GFK/CFK might have trouble with Swiss Armoured Pikes due to the numbers. SAP are pretty good, but the small frontage due to the ranks hurts them. When an infantry unit wraps around them (like JHI will), I expect the SAP to start taking serious casualties. There might be a sweet spot setting up their formation where the SAP ranks aren't optimal for the pike bonus, but the increased frontage makes up for it.

[FinalLegendZero]

It seems I owe an apology to the SAP; assuming equal fronts, and given a full rank bonus, they beat all four of CFK, GFK, VG, and JHI, though all four win if they have superior fronts. Unfortunately, the numbers for the tests were too sporadic to give even ranges. At least, that's how it was for infantry; with my cavalry tests, even Lancers were considered lucky if they killed even one man of the SAP.

Unless someone can provide a mod that allows me to control two opposing forces simultaneously, I unfortunately cannot test for optimal SAP formation, as the AI always tends to keep the "standard" fronting with all units (at least, in my experience).

[drone]

You can change the unit prod file to change the AI's default rank setting, the SwissArmouredPikemen line has a column with: FORMATIONS_PREFERRED_NUM_ROWS( 5 ). You can change the number to spread the formation out some.

SAP are tough though. 4/2/5/4/6 base stats (charge/attack/defense/armour/morale, no AP though), becomes 4/4/11/4/6 against cavalry, and this is without the rank bonus. With a proper formation, you get 8/4/9/4/6 against infantry and 8/6/15/4/6 against cav (yes, 15 defense!). Properly supported/protected in battle, SAP do very nice work.

[Durango]

SAP are tough though. 4/2/5/4/6 base stats (charge/attack/defense/armour/morale, no AP though), becomes 4/4/11/4/6 against cavalry, and this is without the rank bonus. With a proper formation, you get 8/4/9/4/6 against infantry and 8/6/15/4/6 against cav (yes, 15 defense!). Properly supported/protected in battle, SAP do very nice work.

Still, they are themselves dominated by my own custom Spanish Heavy Pikemen - the ultimate defensive unit, and precursor to the feared Tercio formations of the 16th century. Slower than the Swiss units, but still...

BTW, in my home mod all late era pikes get +20% more men in the unit to enable proper use of their rank bonus. I think it only improves the game, and encourages the disuse of spears as was (somewhat) intended. But between CFKs and JHIs, I'd pick the Turkish "Jenicerli".