Spear formations vs Swords

[Simovek]

As we all know in MTW against spear units you use swordsman which cut through them fairly quickly. In MP this makes Spearman kind of obsolete, it seems no one uses them, anti cav duties can be put to your own cav. I am wondering if this is rightly so? Spears are useful against cavalry because of course, no horse and rider wants to charge full speed into a wall of spears. I am wondering if a footman would want to charge fullspeed into this same wall of spears also? I don't know for sure as I've (obviously) never been in that situation. What do you guys think about it?

[Medieval Assassin]

I would think the swordsmen could probably chop the spear up, they probably wernt made of metal ( correct me if you want) I still wouldnt want to charge.

[Sociopsychoactive]

It's more that a man is quite alot smaller than a man on horseback, and more is put into the charge of a horse. the spearwall formation, when correctly used, eliminates the charge. Swordsmen can hapily walk up, chop the spear out of the way to get in, and then engage in proper melee. Horsemen cannot, as the spear would be aimed at the horses underbelly. Thats primarily why spear get alot more of a bonus to defence against sword, the range of a spear gets you out of range of the rider when in melee, and the charge, which is the horsemans primary offensive is nullified by the spearwall.

Thats why charging into the flank or rear of spears is so darned effective, you still get your charge to ram home and when you have them out of formation horses will fare reasonably well, though not as well as sword still because of the spears range.

If charging in, especially with high attack/low defense/high charge swordsmen (highland clansmen, gallowglasses, beserker style units) then you will still lose several in the initial charge to the spearwall, and your charge bonus is all but nullified, but the next line of men can then engage the spearsmen in melee, the next line of horsemen can't as horses, no matter how well trained, are reluctant to charge into spearwalls.

[Simovek]

Hmm, yes that makes sense. I however would be walking up to the spears as I tend to become very clumsy when running, wouldn't want to trip and meet the wrong end of a spear ;)

[English assassin]

I'm not sure because vanilla infantry of almost all periods seem to have been spear armed. (including pikes and eventually muskets with bayonets) The only western exception I can immediately think of is Roman (not counting undrilled infantry such as the vikings or germanic tribes).

That suggests to me there is a pretty big advantage to a spear over a sword as a battlefield weapon. It could be cost, or ease of manufacture or use, but I suspect its that the assumption that cavalry will take on anti-cavalry duties isn't correct in fact. First that would tie your cavalry very closely to your infantry, negating the tactical advantage of speed, second, in the British army anyway, cavalry tended to be a lot "posher" than infantry and probably couldn't be trusted to keep an eye on them and hang around to protect them.

Also I suspect that although in principle swordsmen can cut the heads of spears/pikes and work their way into a formation, when you actually tried to do it against drilled spearmen busily counterattacking it would not be that easy.

[Simovek]

Well yes that was what I was thinking in my original post. The spear seemed to be a common weapon. Maybe it was just cheaper, much easier to train a group of guys to "stand here, point your spear in this direction" where as swordsmanship is something you have to put alot of time into training and what not.

[Oaty]

Well I do'nt know exactly how it works but spearmen can kill a charge. I'm sure there are quite a few of you out there that have seen a head on charge into spearman only to see it get repulsed. I'll explain in detail, A sword unit charges at spears you see the sword unit stopped dead at the spearpoints and nothing happens for 5- 10 secs. I see it happen quite often when I use muwahids. Noone dies while the block is going on but can be funny to watch. How I used this tactic to my advantage as the Almohods was I'd line them all in front and put missle units behind them. Worked extremely well on the Frenchies as there FMAA would charge in get pelted by 2 or 3 rounds fallback and try to charge again. The only thing is you ca'nt move your spearmen while they are getting charged if you counter charge you will not hold them back and they will break the spearwall. So when I attacked I'd halt the spearmen before getting charged so they would be in stable formation.

[The_Emperor]

Swordsmen are in fact overpowered in MTW and Spearmen are underpowered.

Check the stats and costs for FMAA and CMAA in custom battles and multiplayer and you will see why, spearmen cost far too much to power up just to make them effective against Chiv Knights. Whereas Militia Sgts and other AP Troops seem to cut up cav units a lot more effectively than spearmen and are a lot cheaper.

Even a unit of MAA can stand up to some knights fairly well in melee.

When it comes down to it spearmen have terrible morale, terrible stats and are generally not very good even for their designated anti-cav role.

AP units seem to be better anti cav than anything else.

Let us hope that in RTW the spear is given the power it should have.

[CBR]

Most medieval soldiers except poor quality militia (mostly non armoured) would have a sword as a backup weapon. Primary weapons were spear/pikes or halberd-like weapons.

So swordsmen wouldnt really have any special advantage against spearmen and the number of sword units in MTW is IMO pure fantasy. Not that they shouldnt have a role in the game but it should have been more in a support role working on the flanks/holes of an enemy line.

MTW 1.0 had too good spears but were weakened too much in 1.1 and a lot of us multiplayers did ask for a cost reduction for VI but unfortunately nothing was changed.

Another thing is of course the ability to upgrade units in MP and that means most heavy cavalry are fighting against swords that has 2-3 valor more. That does change the power of the swords a lot and the need for spears/polearms is not there. Spears/polearms also cost more because of their anticav stats so the current gameplay favors the "pure" infantry units that are cheaper and therefore can have more upgrades.

MTW has 3 different infantry types: spears, polearms and swords. The typical spearunits of 100 men should have been the main line unit while the smaller sword/polearm units would be flankers or exploiting holes.

Edit: and MTW/VI doesnt have many polearm units compared to history. IMO it is a good example of how "fantasy" means gameplay is made worse.


CBR

[Sociopsychoactive]

But your forgetting, as I said, the main role of spears. the spear wall, to negate the charge of other units, primarily cavalry. If kept in tight 4 deep formation then spears qwill win against ANY cavalry unit that charges into the front, except possibly jedi generals. Even chivilric knights or spanish lancers will not win unles valour is hugely in their favour because the cavalries most effective weapon is their charge, once they get into melee, and this goes for almost all cav, they are'nt half as good, and the bonusses to spear will even them out.

For MP you rarely see this because it;s never cav charging straight into a spearwall with no backup, very few people are that dumb, but that is the whole point of spear. While AP axe units may chew through cavalry pretty well, they have NO defence agaisnt the cavalry charge, which with a good cav unit and valour not on the axe units side will cause the axe unit to instantly rout.

Up untill the battle against william wallaces scottish forces (I forget the year and the name of the battle but I'm sure it's in the historicals) the english fielded primarily mounted armies purely because the heavy cavalry would ride straight over the enemies swordsmen, polearms, militia and archers without stopping. The infantry was there mostly to attack spearmen to prevent the cav having to charge a spear wall. These tactics worked brilliantly for them for several hundred years all because the charge of a heavy cavalry unit is near unstoppable by anything other than a spear or pike wall, or pre-built defenses like wooden palisades.

The english used this against the french hugely well, along with the longbow of course. The function of the spear is simple, negate the charge and therefore disable the cavalries primary offense. Swordsmen do a range of tasks, but spearmen and pikemen have just that one duty on the battlefield.

Using cav as anti cav in MP may work, but again it's all down to the charge, have your cav go at full speed into theirs, even into the front, and usually you have won that fight already thanks to the instant deaths caused by the charge but spear will, if they can catch the cav that is, stop the cavalry being a threat to anything. Cav against sword in melee and the sword or especially polearm may well win, but if the cav charges in at full speed then up to half the sword unit will die there and then, more often than not causing an instant rout.

[CBR]

Spears only negate the cavalry charge. That is a hardcoded part of the Total war series so far but not against other infantry units.

You dont see many people send in cavalry against swords as the high valor on swords makes such attacks suicidal. So as you say: "Swordsmen do a range of tasks, but spearmen and pikemen have just that one duty on the battlefield" that duty is simply not enough to justify buying them.

"but if the cav charges in at full speed then up to half the sword unit will die there and then, more often than not causing an instant rout" And thats not what I see when v0 chiv knights charge v3 FMAA.

Historically the long spear, also called pike, became the dominant infantry weapon. The Swiss is the prime example of that: In the 13th-14th century they had about 2/3 halberds 1/3 pikes but that was slowly changed during the 15th century.

After the battle of Arbedo in 1422 they wanted 1/3 halberds 2/3 pikes but that took several decades to change. By the early 16th century the halberd were even less than 1/3.

At both Arbedo and earlier battles it was the dismounted knights using lances that caused the Swiss the biggest problems and was the cause for these changes as halberds were not as good as pikes for main line work.

Same changes can be seen for the Flemish Militias that went from the longspears/pikes, godendags and a few swords (as in battle of Courtrai 1302) to mainly pikes.


CBR

[Sociopsychoactive]

V0 vs V3 is hardly a matched battle, and the charge will still kill several, and depending on other factors will still often cause an instant rout. If charging a milita unit, or poor moral unit, then even with a valour disadvantage the charge will cause a rout, the same for high attack/low defence sword or axe units, but if the sword or axe unit charge the cavalry without the cavalry charging itself, then the fight will go completely the other way.

With all cav losing one unit is alot more of an impact than losing one sworsman due to small unit sizes. Bearing in mind I play mostly SP I use spear heavy armies right the way through the ages. Usually my 4 spear units will trap any cav the enemy have, and pin but not kill any weak infantry, allowing my 2 sword and 2 axe units to flank and kill the pinned units, while my own 4 cavalry go after archers and any hangers on.

Spears are not underpowered if used correctly, they fulfill their precise role well, but do not do so well when asked to perform other tasks.

Also bear in mind th accross the board +2 moral for multiplayer, if not plaing expert then my cav charge into sword or axe will rout them more often because of that.

[Simovek]

Yes I see what your saying about the spears being mainly used to hold the enemy. Unfortunatly in MP it seems to be more beneficial to not get the spears and instead replace them with another unit who will actually kill the enemy. :|

[katank]

that's true. in multiplayer, the swords are waaay too cheap, especially high valor swordsmen.

a bit of analysis will show that to get to a full unit of v4 swords in the campaign, it will cost a lot more than what it cost for buying a v4 sword in MP. this is part of the reason for the spears being obsolete as cost effective infantry.

[CBR]

You are absolutely correct that v0 chiv knight v v3 FMMA is not a fait matchup but that is actually very common in MP for 10k florins per player. And it doesnt change much if florins are increased to 15k or 20k as some are playing with.

Most infantry used is v3 FMAA, v2 CMAA, v3 Mil. sgts and for those who want to spend the money they will have a couple of v3 CMAA or v4 Mil. sgts.

Cavalry is mostly v0 chiv knights or equivalent to that combat power.

And that is simply the best units/upgrades for the money. Most armies will be 3-4 missile 6-7 swords(including axes) and 6-7 cav.

I havent played much SP but the few times I have played I normally use chiv sgts with success. But the problem is that you dont face an AI that can optimise its army like a player can in MP. In SP you also have upkeep cost to worry more about than production cost. In MP its only the production cost plus you can buy individual upgrades for units.

If say Chiv sgts were only 250 florins it wouldnt matter much for SP but a lot for MP but the upgrading system still ruins the gamebalance because the swords can become very good for their cost.

I have seen singleplayers come online for the first time, and they definitely had the correct intentions about tactics and proper armies but got slaughtered because of the silly upgrades and the dominance of swords over other infantry


CBR

[Puzz3D]

Another problem is that in multiplayer morale is tied to valor upgrades. Most multiplayer games are played at 10k florins or more so that the morale of melee units can be high. If you don't have high morale, the outnumbered penalty turns team games into nothing but gang rushing where the army which is outnumbered breaks immediately. Unfortunately, lots of florins allows mismatched upgrades such as v3 fmaa vs v0 chiv knights to occur. You can't take v3 chiv knights because they would cost 3316 florins each. There is also the problem that ranged units are too expensive in low florin games, and upgrades turn them into melee units in high florin games rather than improving their ranged fire effectiveness. What you see in VI v2.01 multiplayer today is what has been found to work best over the past year given the way the upgrade system works. From what I've seen, the upgrade system is going to work the same way in RTW in that morale appears to be tied to the valor upgrade, and, given that longjohn believes a player should loose when his first unit routs, I think we'll once again see low morale at low money in RTW multiplayer. That will cause players to want lots of money which will break the RTW multiplayer game just as it now breaks the MTW/VI multiplayer game. And, you can forget about using a mod to fix multiplayer gameplay because 90% of the players won't use a mod.

[Nerouin]

Spears are relatively useless, yes- they are also pretty inexpensive, no?

Polearms are the best against cav.. their polearms can function as spears, but they can also unhorse cavalry.

Halberds are also quite good.

They are both much more expensive than spearmen. Personally I find spearmen the best at simply "holding the line," i.e. doing absolutely nothing but delaying the enemy so I may flank him with something or destroy him with projectiles.

[Puzz3D]

Spears are not inexpensive. The best sword (not considering Byz Inf which is a special case of imbalance) cmaa (250 florins) beats the best spear order foot (400 florins). For this game to work in a rock, paper, scissors fashion, the spear should be the cheapest, the sword which beats the spear more expensive and the cav which beats the sword the most expensive. The cheap spear then beats the cav.

In MTW v1.0, the fmaa and cmaa sword units beat comparably priced spear and pike units. For example, fmaa (150 florins) beat spearmen (125 florins) and cmaa (275 florins) beat chiv sgts (250 florins). I quote myself from a post I made after conducting some tests on Sept 22, 2002 responding to Michael the Great who was complaining about weak swords:

"The Feudal MAA kill spearmen at a rate of about 3 to 1, and they kill pikemen at a rate of about 2 to 1. I don't see any problem here. The 60 swords beat the 100 spears and pikes in frontal assault without wrapping around. This is the most favorable situation for the spears and pikes. A clue that the spears and pikes are inferior to the Feudal MAA is that the AI hesitates to frontally assault the Feudal MAA. The AI does not hesitate to frontally assault the spear or pike with the Feudal MAA."

The cmaa (275) did loose to order foot (350), but the order foot were more expensive. In MTW v1.1, the spear units were all increased in cost while the cmaa became less expensive. The relationship now is cmaa (250) beats order foot (400) because all swords got a hidden +1 attack vs spears and pikes. The fmaa cost was increased from 150 to 175 which tracked the increase cost of spears, but the +1 attack vs spears still makes it better than it was in v1.0. So, now in multiplayer when you pump to equal florins we have a sword dominated game because swords don't simply beat spears, they massacre them.

You might think this isn't relevent to RTW, but it is. CA has demonstrated that they don't know how to balance multiplayer. These same problems are going to show up in RTW multiplayer.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Spears are relatively useless, yes- they are also pretty inexpensive, no?

Polearms are the best against cav.. their polearms can function as spears, but they can also unhorse cavalry.

Halberds are also quite good.

They are both much more expensive than spearmen. Personally I find spearmen the best at simply "holding the line," i.e. doing absolutely nothing but delaying the enemy so I may flank him with something or destroy him with projectiles.

1. Unlike STW, spears (and pikes) in MTW do not negate the charge bonus of cavalry when frontally charged. In addition, spears have a +1 atk and +4 def against cavalry. For pikes its +2 atk, +6 def.

2. Poles have +3 atk +1 def bonus against cavalry. They do not have any spear class rank bonus. Low valour halbs would break and run when successfully charged at by cavalry.

[CBR]

1. Unlike STW, spears (and pikes) in MTW do not negate the charge bonus of cavalry when frontally charged.

Spears and pikes do negate the cavalry charge completely when charged frontally. Polearm units dont do that which is why is why you should have both working together in combined arms. At least thats the intention of the developers but swords comes in as a third infantry type and ruins it, especially for MP.


CBR

[ShadesPanther]

I think I reember in a time commanders episode. when the Egyptians fought the Selucids when the two hoplites met they had the battle with the spears and then charged with swords when the spear broke. I hope that is right and in RTW.

[Puzz3D]

The swords and pikes do negate the cavalry charge. However, in MTW v1.1 a change was made to the combat engine which increases the probability that cavalry will push back a spearmen and pikemen. When that pushback occurs, the cavalryman gets a +6 attack bonus in the next combat round. This change was instigated by a couple of long threads in which single play campaign players argued, citing historical references, that cavalry should be more effective vs spears and penetrate the spear formations.

The changes in v1.1: increased cost of spears, +1 attack for swords vs spears and the cavalry pushback weakend spears considerably in multiplayer. The increased cost of valor upgrade from 50% to 70% caused most players to move from the 10k used in v1.0 to 15k in v1.1 to maintain the morale. The +2 morale to all units in VI was not really helpfull because it reduced the effectiveness of flanking tactics, and many multiplayers went back to using 10k florins to bring back the flanking effectiveness. What would have helped spears in VI was +2 morale to spears, not to every unit. If that had been done, we could have continued playing at 15k, although, I had a problem with certain ranged units becoming very strong melee units at that level. Some multiplayers and whole clans did continue playing at 15k in VI which split the community somewhat.

The thing is that somehow our requests to improve spears in multiplayer got swamped in the noise of differing opinions. In the end we got a +2 morale to everything, but nobody had asked for that. I guess what came across to longjohn was that most players felt that units didn't fight long enough. I don't know how the weakness of the spears and the suggestions for fixing them was lost, but those things were there in the longjohn's VI suggestion thread prior to VI's release. My specific suggestion was to put the cost of spears back to what they were in v1.0. A cost change has a minimal effect on the single player campaign. MTW v1.0 spears costs are probably not optimal for VI and we had no way of determining what was optimal, but it was a modest change in the right direction and I'm still at a loss why the suggestion was rejected.

[Maeda Toshiie]

The swords and pikes do negate the cavalry charge. However, in MTW v1.1 a change was made to the combat engine which increases the probability that cavalry will push back a spearmen and pikemen. When that pushback occurs, the cavalryman gets a +6 attack bonus in the next combat round. This change was instigated by a couple of long threads in which single play campaign players argued, citing historical references, that cavalry should be more effective vs spears and penetrate the spear formations.

Thanks for the correction. I played MTW with VI and the pushback effect gave me the false impression that cavalry maintain their charge bonus when charging frotally. Not surprising actually, since medieval lances were certainly longer than 1 hand spears. I believe only 2 handed pikes can outmatch lances in terms of length.

As for RTW, I guess we all have to wait and see.