Hmm... I've never had problems with Halberdiers' morale... I mean even if I did, exactly who am I supposed to replace them with?

:S this sounds absolutely impossible!! Pics?

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Good question - if Halberdiers are that bad, then what units are best for flanking pinned cavalry units? Forget Swiss Halberdiers, if you don't happen to control Switzerland, they're not an option.

Personally I favour CFK, dismounted from either CK or crusading order Knights, but if those are not available I make do with the significantly cheaper Militia Sergeants. Faster and better in the desert as well (I also seem to remember that they have better morale?).

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IIRC they have also 0 morale, its just that they have much less armor and fatigue accumulates much slower on them (fatigue affects morale).

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The more important question is, what are you going to pin them with in the first place?

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Eeerm... spears?

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Chivalric Sergeants, Saracen Infantry,Feudal Sergeants (and Fyrdmen and Italian Infantry for the English and Italians respectively) are some of the best and readily available spearmen at your disposal. All spears have a large anti cavalry defence bonus. Polearms such as JHI, Halbs and CFK have a larger anti cavalry attack bonus. The trick is getting this to work in harmony and not wasting your expensive units by duelling it out on the field. This is especially important for those long drawn out battles where you have fatigue and enemy reinforcements to consider.

Spears fight best if simply placed in lines about 3 or 4 ranks deep (I tend to go deeper depending on how many units I have in a given battle - and to make their formation a bit tougher) on hold formation.

The trick is not to actually attack but leave the spears in place and let them do their work. Once the enemy becomes engaged with the spears, flanking units can be brought in to make short work of their opponents. This has a few advantages:

- Spears are usually cheaper than other units such as CFK or JHI and take fewer losses in this situation/role.

- The spears defend your missile units (and cavalry) from harm.

- This frees up your flanking units to do what they do best: destroying and breaking the enemy, which means they are not actually duelling with the enemy and can be pulled out once the enemy rout and directed at another target.

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Are we talking desert only now, or do you suggest that fatigue is caused by armor even in non-desert climates?

Personally I have no worries about sacrificing my halbs against flanking cavalry. MS are faster and make for better flankers, granted, but halbs are flank cover, not flankers. Better than MS for that role, but not versatile at all. Depends on what kind of battle you want wether you go MS or halb.

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Fatigue is caused indeed by armor in any terrain type, but at different rates. Desert rates are faster while in other terrains slower. However in any case after 25 minutes (or was it 20?) of battle all units drop to 2 bars (from 4) and return to that after having lost some. This impacts even more, in terms of fatigue induced morale penalties, heavily armored units with low morale in very long battles, like halberdiers against the horde.

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Sorry for the late reply Vantek, but because you didnt quote me i missed the question. Its actually very easy, and although i have not the game installed at the moment to make example screenshots i'll try to describe and demonstrate diagramatically with a plan (top down) perspective:


As the enemy approaches you can engage him and rotate the spears for a few degrees either way (just prior or just after engagement); this will make them "turn" the enemy in such a way that they'll expose their flank to your arbalesters.

If you are afraid that the rotation will make your spear units vulnerable to rear charges in turn, you can use them in pairs, like so:



and do reverse rotations with each spear so that they protect their partners back while exposing the enemy's rear/flank to arbalester fire.

This formation works with decent/good morale spears against heavy cavalry heavy enemies and particularly well against the horde, especially in those instances that a lot of Mongol heavy cavalry enters the scene at once. Obviously its a bad idea against sword heavy armies as your spears will be routed.

Although it works in flat ground too, it works even better if the ground slopes in your favor, say from the top of the page towadrs the bottom in the above diagrams.

Buildings or clusters of building or forests can aid such a deployment as you can anchor the end of your battle line (that make it easier to guard against flanking or picking up your line progressively from there), or even deploy a bit behind them if you are facing heavy cavalry armies with sword and bow armies; this will slow down the enemy in order to reach you giving your bows and swords a fighting chance. If no such features are available you might want to choose a slope that is adjacent to the side edge of the map, and so this will provide a natural guard against flanking from that direction.



PS The gap between spears in the first diagram is about the width of 2 full units, while the arbalesters should be space staggered with the spears and with a clear view to the gaps that form between them. Naturally you may want to seek to actively engage the incoming cavalry with your spears, seeking to protect the arbs and pin them in place, and let the bolts do the killing. Also dont neglect to have some distance between the arbs and the spears, if too close the heavy cavalry willpartially engage the missiles and if too far the arbs wont get enough punch and clear shot to deal lots of casualties as they should.

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That's absolutely crazy. I cannot imagine how it's possible to use that in the middle of an actual chaotic battle...

I guess what I have been getting at this whole time is how everyone is saying Halberdiers are expensive and have poor morale, yet the only reasonable alternative - Chivalric Sergeants - have similar cost, have the exact same morale, and all in all similar melee performance.

Whenever I've used spearmen I have been disappointed. Spearmen might last a little longer in melee, but they also lack killing power completely. I already find MTW battles often a bit too long, so out of two rouhgly equal options, I will go for the one that die faster but kill faster.

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