Shieldwall

[Cheetah]

I miss the shieldwall ability that many sword units had in BI. I think that it would be a good special formation to make troops more resistent to cav charges (both for historical reasons -Hastings- and for reasons discussed in other threads) and in fact to any charges (for example vs two handed axe charges).

Of course troops could move only very slowly in such formation (if at all). IMHO it would be more useful/better (and perhaps more historical) if most spears would have this special ability instead of schiltron (which function, as far as a I see, is never used anyway).

I am thinking about mainly early era sword/axe units (norse swordsmen, dismounted huscarls, varangian guards, etc) and better trained spearmen (armoured spearmen, italian spearmen, etc)

Comments?

[Monarch]

I miss the shieldwall ability that many sword units had in BI.

I agree, they put it in BI so they could simply export it into M2. I don't see a reason not to have it. Its kinda a "well might as well..." kinda thing. However I'm not really too bothered.

if most spears would have this special ability instead of schiltron (which function, as far as a I see, is never used anyway).

Ye I've not seen it used too much. I'm surprised I've not seen any BI-Goth Spearmen schiltron type armies yet that were so often used in BI. However I did see a Hungary army very similiar that focused on HAs/Cav with just some pavise spearmen schriltrons to hold. Seemed to work ok

Of course it depends what they want to do for an expansion. If they redo VI then I assume they'll be saving shield wall so they can add it as "an all new special ability".

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Hmm - this is where my historical knowledge fails me - were shield-walls used by armoured infantry after the 11th c? - i've always associated them with vikings/saxons period.

[Cheetah]

To be honest I don't know. In fact if someone asks me I can only mention Hastings as an example. However, since the game starts in the 11th century it could be justified to give some inf units shield wall ability.

On the other hand, I am the first to admit that I had a gameplay point of view when I made this suggestion. This would give the inf player a tactical tool to decrease the horrendous losses of the cav charge.

Also that fact that shieldwall tactics dissapeared after the 11th century nakes me wonder why? Was it because of the stronger archery or perhaps even because of the stronger cavalry?
Does anyone have an idea about it? Does anyone know a battle in which the shieldwall was defeated by superior tactics? (other then Hastings, and even Hastings is arguable)

[Sparkythefly]

as a quick guess i would say shield wall was defeated by the lack of quality troops trained in the technique, after all the best infantry in europe up until swiss pikemen were actually dismounted knights. knights themselves wouldn't use this formation (knights honored single man combat, shield wall is a collective defensive formation, knights were single man and aggressive for the most part)

while you might think why didn't some peasents or something come up with the idea at one time or another, the use of shield wall requires a paid standing army, thats because the equipment has to be fairly well uniform, at least the shields have to all pretty well be similar large shields, that means goverment issued shields, which means paid standing army, again knights were the paid standing army, infantry probably came with whatever they could find lying around, many possibly coming with leather armour and a spear and thats it, no shields at all.

later on as knights put on more and more body armour, shields lost favour because for the most part there whole body was already shielded.

thats my explanation for the lack of shield walls from a historical perspective.

now from a gameplay perspective, this game is about REWRITING history.

i'd actually like to see the ability to create custom units, or in single player to choose throughout the game the direction you'd like your faction to take, if you'd like to take swiss through the game as a pike nation thats fine, but it might be cool to say you'd like to focus on swords and infantry, and have the swiss armoured swordsmen be the finest infantry in the game you play :P

well back to what actually has a chance of happening :P

i found shield wall to be pretty well pointless anyways, its way to easy to flank anyways, so once someone won the calvary war they'd just hit you anyways, and if they didn't win the calvary war then they lost it and you don't have to worry about enemy calvary.