On pikemen and on upgrades of units !

[PROMETHEUS]

Look at this screenshot , as you see the ones in the photo have no armour , while the ones in game have full plate .... may be this is anothe rsort of mistake or instead we are infront of the so called upgraded units visible on field ? Is possible that this is the upgraded armour version of the pikemen we see in the picture? I really hope so :)

https://img66.imageshack.us/img66/9574/1bp3.jpg

[Furious Mental]

I think you are probably right and I think the same is true of other units. For instance the description of the halberd militia says that the basic unit is pretty much unarmoured but that they can be upgraded to be very heavily armoured. I'd be surprised if that only meant an extra three points of armour.

[PROMETHEUS]

I love this feature ^L^ ....

[Bob the Insane]

Well the units do have Bronze Armour Upgrades in that battle I think...

[CBR]

Well I must admit Im more concerned about how pikes operate in the game...and right now they are more or less forced to use their special formation to fight properly. Which IMO stinks.


CBR

[Azog 150]

In lots of tha faction previews on ign it says many units can have upgraded armour. For example at the bottom of the unit description it often says it can be upgraded to 'half plate armour' ect

The one that sticks in my mind is the armoured HRE general, it says they have full plate armour but can be upgraded to have the armour of the gothic knights.

[Furious Mental]

Why does it stink that pikemen have to fight in a hedge in order to fight properly? That's how pikemen fought.

[Tempiic]

Well I must admit Im more concerned about how pikes operate in the game...and right now they are more or less forced to use their special formation to fight properly. Which IMO stinks.


CBR

Umm why? Phalanx in RTW needed to be in their special formation too (and with guard put off) to fight properly.

[CBR]

Because:

A) The Pikes in Ancient times used a more dense formation with only 3 feet per ranks so they could get the 4-5 first ranks to level their pikes. Even then its highly debatable that the formation only can do a walk while every other unit freely can run around 2.5+ times faster.

B) The "hedgehog" formation is an anti cav formation and for that matter would be precisely the same that spears would use. There are special abilities like schiltrom that are supposed to handle that.

C) As it is now I cant even see if a unit is using the spearwall formation or not whereas in RTW I could see if they were in phalanx mode. So I have to actually select the unit and see if its turned on.

D)At least the halberdiers, who also has spearwall ability BTW, appears to always use the halberd. The pikes appears to only use the pike when standing still to recieve an enemy attack. Only when using spearwall can they attack with their pikes.

I find the way pikes works now to be neither historical nor satisfactory from a gameplay POV.


CBR

[TB666]

Well the pikemen atleast the landknechters(sp??) are ok in the close combat outside their formation.
Sure they are by no means zweihanders but they can take out those scots guard pretty easy.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Odd they got no Armour in that Pic..



I do hope they Have the Swiss Armourded Pikeman Unit,like they had in the First MTW..

[Puzz3D]

Isn't it also strange that halberds get no anti-cav bonus? They did in MTW.

[hoom]

I really like the visible upgrades, thats going to be awesome :)
Seems to me that its part of why there is only the one 'era' in the game, if armouries get sufficiently high requirements, you can get to upgrade units to later models at roughly the right time in the game.

I see Rome period mods where eg you only ever have one unit type each for Hastati Principes & Triarii but they will last you the whole way through from Camilian period to Marius with quite different armament/armour depending on the upgrade

[econ21]

Isn't it also strange that halberds get no anti-cav bonus? They did in MTW.

It is strange. At least halberdiers get a special formation that they start with at Pavia that I assume is anti-cav (or is it just defensive?). The British poleaxe knights at Agincourt don't (poleaxe = halberd in MTW). I guess their anti-armour bonus means they perform better against knights than their French sword armed equivalents.

[Zatoichi]

It is strange. At least halberdiers get a special formation that they start with at Pavia that I assume is anti-cav (or is it just defensive?). The British poleaxe knights at Agincourt don't (poleaxe = halberd in MTW). I guess their anti-armour bonus means they perform better against knights than their French sword armed equivalents.

Yeah, and the Billmen (that were visible in the screens at the Polish site briefly) also did not have anti-cav, but had anti-armour. I thought they would also get the the halberdier formation, but they didn't. I know the screens I'm basing this off were pre-beta, but I won't be surprised if the billmen stay the same.

[hoom]

MTW Bills had anti cav and armour piercing (& bigger weapons!)

[Puzz3D]

I could see the 3D engine eventually progressing to the point where a numeric anti-cav bonus wouldn't be necessary for pikes, spead or polearms. The anti-cav factor would result directly from the 3D combat and the weapon's geometry.

[Furious Mental]

It should be pretty simple modding to give halberdiers an anti-cavalry bonus or make billmen fight in a spear wall. So it's not much of a concern for me.

[Bob the Insane]

I could see the 3D engine eventually progressing to the point where a numeric anti-cav bonus wouldn't be necessary for pikes, spead or polearms. The anti-cav factor would result directly from the 3D combat and the weapon's geometry.

Totally agree, I feel the same way about morale vs combat combat penalties for formations attacked in the rear. The game is sufficiently detailed to not require that level of abstraction (combat penalties that is)...

As of cavalry and pikes, your pikes do just fine in Pavia. The only cavalry issue they have is with the French King and he is of course an uber general unit with the 2 hps that allows his cavalry to survive any initial impact and start breaking up any formation, I would say the issue is with the 2hp's rather than the pikes...

[Zatoichi]

It should be pretty simple modding to give halberdiers an anti-cavalry bonus or make billmen fight in a spear wall. So it's not much of a concern for me.

Yes, I imagine a couple of edits in the relevant text file will do the trick. However, I presume they've done it this way as a balance issue, so I'll try it out in a few games their way first before I make any changes.

It's a shame we can't get into the demo and do some experimenting now, but it's only another month to go now...

[ProudNerd]

sorry for bumpign this but how did the original poser do that? Can yyou access the unit info scroll in battle now?

[Lusted]

Yes. Just pause the game and right click on the unit card.

[ProudNerd]

Thnaks i ahd no idea about tha.Ill bet it will come in handy sometime.

[TheImp]

Totally agree, I feel the same way about morale vs combat combat penalties for formations attacked in the rear. The game is sufficiently detailed to not require that level of abstraction (combat penalties that is)...

As of cavalry and pikes, your pikes do just fine in Pavia. The only cavalry issue they have is with the French King and he is of course an uber general unit with the 2 hps that allows his cavalry to survive any initial impact and start breaking up any formation, I would say the issue is with the 2hp's rather than the pikes...

I just hope the final AI won't do that. Cause i think if the 3 cavalry units were better scripted they would try to round up the hill and take the pikemen to the rear which would probably result in having the arquebusiers being flanked as well. Fingers crossed.

As for the upgrade, it's a nice feature to have some visible changes appearing on the men fighting on the field.

[SirRethcir]

@ProudNerd
And double left click on units of other factions to get their description rolls. ;)

BTW: Look at the Zweihander scroll! You'll see that they have a weapon upgrade.

[Ciaran]

I wonder why the Pikemen and Halberdiers can´t charge (I already wondered the same about the palanx in RTW), they don´t have to be able to run while in Phalanx mode, but at least they should be able to charge, which is, as I understand it, the way pikes and halberds were used on the offensive.
In MTW I a properly coordinated pike charge is almost as deadly as a cavalry charge, but the coordination is way more tricky.

[Comrade Alexeo]

I've sorta noticed that too, and the impression I'm getting is that they don't charge because they're trying to maintain their formation.

This is a good thing to have, obviously, because that's how pikemen and halberdiers fought - in dense blocks en masse. But the block as a whole should still probably be able to charge, so my guess is that this is a quirk in the build's AI, and it might be fixed with the first patch after release that Palamedes said would fix some AI issues.

[Ciaran]

Yes, taking the Halberdiers off guard mode they can charge, the pikemen, however, can not
And I wasn´t precisely refering to individual men charging into battle, but a massive, coordinated charge of a solid block of pikemen (if Wikipedia is correct that´s how pikes fought on the offensive).

[ProudNerd]

Yes, taking the Halberdiers off guard mode they can charge, the pikemen, however, can not
And I wasn´t precisely refering to individual men charging into battle, but a massive, coordinated charge of a solid block of pikemen (if Wikipedia is correct that´s how pikes fought on the offensive).

that would be stupid if they charged into a unit of infantry they would be surrounded in seconds in their tight narrow block.