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.

[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

[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

[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.

[PROMETHEUS]

I love this feature ^L^ ....

[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.

[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).