High end milita units, usefull or useless?

[TheFluff]

I was looking at various units in the custom battles section and i notice that there are quite a few units in every faction i've played that have some very cool milita units that can be upgraded and are ment to be used to the end of the end game. These units include pike and halberd milita ( or varents of) and some sword and sheild types. So the question is, do you guys use these units? do you find them usefull or useless? Some have spearwall ability, do you find that helpfull or a factor in your decion to recruit them?

In theroy these units are actually pretty good, able to beat equivlant spear formations and even do ok vrs armor and sometimes cavalry. I was wondering if actually they are designed to phase out all milita spear units and armored sergents because spear units are upgradeable only to mail, while halberd, pikes and others (swordstaff, vouge, swordsmen) are upgrade able from mail to half plate and often full plate. Plus there entrance into the tech tree with huge citys sort of exemplifies this. That and there price is usually the same as spear units, showing that they are ment as a rank and file unit.

Also, while your at it, throw in your opinion of some high-late (infantry only, tired of hearing about only cav units) and how you feel about them in reguards to cost, effectiveness and how they scale into your game, being used in every army, or specialized. Personally i find the imperial german units to be stronger then there chivlric counterparts, and i tend to like 2h'd swords to break up pike and spear formations because oddly enough chivlric knights dont do this as well.



So what do you think?

[JeffBag]

I've been using alot of upgraded Pike militia and halberd militia in my campaigns, and i really like them alot since they are so cheap. Only bad thing is that Pike militia are among the fastest moving footmen, while halberd militia are among the slowest moving, so my army tends to split apart after a march. Halberd militia really slaughter anything though, and i tend to put them behind my line of pike militia, who are cheaper and more numerous and therefore more suited to be taking those cavalry charges.

The stats for Zweihanders and halberds and any other units that use this same attack animation seem really weak, but that doesn't seem to be the case when you do watch them rip apart anything; they are shockingly good. Zweihanders with stats of only 14-14 defeat Chivalric foot knights with stats of 13-21 or something like that. I too use Forlorn Hope or Zweihanders to rip apart those pike or spear walls since they appear to attack very quickly, and with all those pike/spear units having such low defense ratings, they really get beaten up.

[Furious Mental]

I find militia with the spear wall ability to be useful for defence. I've used unupgraded halberd militia in field battles and they won going toe to toe with feudal foot knights, although it isn't very far into the game. I don't know how much armour they can get from the armouries. However I try not to use militia since I'm the HRE and my militia really aren't a match for those of my Italian enemies.

[TheFluff]

Well after doing a quick look on wiki it seems indeed pikes and halberds are ment to complment each other, useing pikes to attack and halberds to react to holes and counter charges (spearmen work for this also though). I'll defently have to try to incorprate them alot more.

@ Furious , it depends what faction but most can be upgraded to either partial plate or full plate. Some like the denish sword staff (same thing as halberds mostly) come in partial plate. Its kinda unclear how much upgades effect stats (i ignore most unit stats anyway, i think there misprinted) but from trial and error, upgradeing armor WILL make a difference in combat, and to some extent archers.

[Lochar]

I try to upgrade mine when I can but since I have certain towns with the armories it sometimes becomes a logistic nightmare, plus hate losing them to rebels.

But cities allow for free upkeep with militia so I tend to have them maxxed for the freebies.

[FrauGloer]

I have used Scot Armored Pike Militia only once, and never again! I was fighting a siege battle and blocked a street with that unit - or so I thought. The enemy general charged the braced pikes head-on and killed all but 35 of the 112 men! I was like - huh? He would have slaughtered them all if I hadn't had some swordsmen in reserve. And the pikes had full weapons and armor upgrades, too!

I still use them as garrison troops, though, but never more than the upkeep-free limit of the city, because 200+ is too high for pure garrison troops.

[Kobal2fr]

Frau : that's because street "walls" (that is, the invisible walls delineating where your men can go) clip with the soldiers next to them and disrupt their formations/combat efficiency, which is I believe one if not THE reason why unit cohesion is non-existent in cities and why there tends to be that much space between soldiers when they fight in city streets.

I think that's because when they brush against the wall, whatever "anti-blobbing" effect or code is in M2TW kicks in and they get the same combat penalty as if there were two units in one place (if you don't know, "blobbing" in RTW was deploying two, three, even four units in the same space, meaning you had 2/3/4 times as many attacks as the defender without penalty, meaning you could pretty much kill the most elite units in the game with blobbed town guard... Of course, blobbed elites were as cheesy as Switzerland.)

I have found that when fighting in narrow streets, it's best not to make formations tighter than what they are seemingly allowed to be, not to make the formation wide "wall to wall", in other words. They seem to do better when they're not right against the street wall. Of course, the space between unit and wall will allow for flanking, but since would-be flankers will have that antiblob penalty, it doesn't matter much.

[geala]

I am currently in the year 1424 and my standard end game armies (which mayrepresent a time around 1500) consist of a core of pikemen (4 + units), two or three halberd militia, two or three Zweihänder (as I play as HRE), two Gothic Knights, one Reiter, one mounted crossbowmen, some arquebusiers and pavese crossbowmen as well as two or more artillery pieces (mostly Basilisks). All have the best armor.

Apart from the fact that my Gothic Knights frequently have to run away from chasing peasants or spear militias because of the charge bug (or feature), I'm really satisfied. I could not imagine to play without pikemen or halberds. I could imagine to play without Gothic Knights.

[Darius]

When you're playing any of the Italian nations, you'll find that its often far easier to field large and effective armies of almost strictly militia based armies that can compete with most anything anyone throws at you.

[TheFluff]

The only thing im not sure to use is guard mode and spear wall for some units, (guardmode for pike/halberd, spearwall for halberd) since one can debate some of these units fight better with them off on offence and perhaps even defence?


But i still think CA wanted us to not use exclusivly spearmen only armys and start useing a more historical spear/pike AND halberd armys but like i said earler, i think they missprinted the stats because some units are listed as extreamly low defence even though they are wearing plate armor!

[JeffBag]

Spear wall should be on, but
Guard mode should be on, when stationary, AND awaiting a cavarly charge.
Against infantry or while moving/attacking, guard mode should be turned off.