effect of the short_pike setting?

[Zarax]

What does it exactly do?
I've been trying to find an answer in the forums for hours but there is no definite answer on that.
Other than giving shorter spears are there other effects like a reduced bonus VS cav or not?

[Red Harvest]

It worked in 1.2, but I don't think it is working properly in 1.3. I tried assigning it to Poeni. What I found was that they stayed in the basic phalanx formation even when it was toggled off in game. They did have the shorter spears (more like a true early hoplite length, which is what I was going for), so it is doing something, but it doesn't seem to be the same as before, where they shouldered their pikes.

As to effect in 1.3, while phalanx was toggled on, I found that attacking sword units completely penetrated the "short_pike" spear wall. They went right through it and engaged in sword melee with the phalangites. Very few of the spearmen were able to continue using their pikes. I don't remember it being quite like this in 1.2, but it has been many months since I experimented with it there.

It might have been forgotten when the 1.3 patch was ported.

[Zarax]

I reached more or less the same conclusion, my suspect is that short_pike was an early attempt to BI shield_wall code as the latter looks a lot like phalanx+short_pike when used on RTW hoplite models.

While not really useful. I decided to assign it to the roman triarii as they historically fought in an hoplite-style shield wall, at least until scipio africanus decided that they could have uses other than retreat covers...

[Ciaran]

Have you used short_pike in combination with phalanx in the first place?
I don´t now about 1.3, but it works just fine in 1.2, giving the soldiers in question a shorter spear than the one they get if they only have phalanx ability.

[Zarax]

Yes, i used it with phalanx formation but except for disabling running units behave like they were just in close formation settings with the only difference that they are very likely to switch to their secondary weapon if available...