A possible explanation why spears lose to anything ?

[Kobal2fr]

Ante Scriptum : I will not be talking about their basic inability to withstand a cav charge. Consider yourselves warned

Reflecting on what Kraxis said to me about them in the Militia vs Trained topic, I watched the way my spearmen fought against other inf (in that case, Spear Militia vs Town Militia + Crossbow Militia, in a city street) a bit more closely and something hit me : the second rank doesn't attack anymore. In fact, with unit cohesion being the way it is, and units slowly spreading themselves around, the second rank *cannot* attack - because the second rank is 3 meters behind the first.

Even in close formation, with the defense toggle on (seems to help cohesion a lot more), the second rank doesn't seem to ever poke through the first.

In past TW games, spears always had weaker stats and made up for those with rank bonuses - two (or was it three ?) ranks for spears, 4 for pikes, so that head on they could pretty much hold their own, even against swords. They had weaker stats, but 2 or 3 times as many attacks, so casualty rates were somewhat evened on both sides. "Swords" (and axes, and other spearmen etc...) beat them by wrapping around the sides of the spear formations and attacking individual spearmen lacking that rank bonus, butchering them since they had weak individual stats - casualties climbed, morale dropped, spearmen ran.

But in M2, they have the same weak stats (and weak spear attribute), only not the ranks. No wonder they lose to any and everything !

I'll try and do some more tests, see if perhaps more professional spearmen actually act like they should on open ground. Just giving you guys a heads up in the meantime.

[Kobal2fr]

Well, a bunch of single tests later, I'm convinced of the uselessness of the spearman as of now.

I've had armored sergeants (540 florins, and all around best spear unit) fight against : european peasants, muslim peasants, Highland peasants, militia billmen (300), polish woodsmen (170), sudanese tribal swordsmen (340). All inferior troops, except maybe the sudanese.

All tests on flat grassland of course, and 0xp on both sides.

Each time I did two tests : one with the AI having the spearmen, one with me. I put the spears in 4 ranks, defensive, the AI used 4 ranks also, free would be my guess. The results were the same in both tests. There always was a double charge going on : neither me nor the AI left our spearmen braced for charge impact.

The spearmen lost every single time, except against the woodsmen that they trounced each time (losing only 20ish men in the process). The fight was also close against the billmen, with numbers dwindling at a very close rate on both sides. The Sudanese were the worst, losing about 5-10 men and totally wiping the spears out.

I've seen very, very few instances of the second spear rank attacking, and only right after a charge when the spacing between ranks is minimal (the second rank is actually still running and bumping into the first). After that, they revert to normal spacing (no more second rank attack), then overtime the melee degenerates into one-on-one fights and the spacing widens even more.

So, considering they can't withstand cav either, my early conclusion would be that until either the spacing/cohesion/anti-blobbing problem is dealt with, or spears are modded to have longer reach... spears are a waste of florin.

[Shahed]

Hey Kobal... Salut ! Can you point me to a thread or source (preferably with a CA post, anyn other is fine too) which states there is a blobbing or unit cohension problem stp. Just wanna catch up on this. Merci.

[JeffBag]

Actually, this issue was already discussed here,
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74065

[Lusted]

Actually spears lose to other infantry because of the spear attribute they have, if you remove it they do much better against sword armed troops, but become even more useless against cav.

[Kobal2fr]

Yes, I've followed that thread too, but you guys focused on individual stats and mechanics (which are still a bit alien to me, TBH), when I really believe weird formation behavior is the key here.

If spear units could consistenly use that second rank like they do right after a charge, and like pikemen do, their lowly individual stats would matter less, wouldn't they ?

spearmen are much tighter in schiltron, aren't they ? Maybe in a schiltron the "inner men" will actually stab through.

Testing...

Hmmm, bit better. They actually held against peasants this time, thrice. Decimated though, 35 spears to 25-30 peasants left. And even though the second, inner circle does stab through in the beginning... the point of contact between schiltron and peasants, the circle's tangent if you like, again quickly degenerates into 1 vs 1 and the formation again does not hold properly :/

@Sinan : I'm not sure I've ever seen an official word from CA on this (not a .com reader myself... There was in the alleged hoax though), but it's generally believed/accepted round here that in order to counteract "blobbing" exploits (*), CA coded in a "buffer zone" around each soldier, with individual soldiers automatically spacing themselves out of each other's buffer zone. (I think I also read that if for some reason two soldiers were forced into sharing their buffer zones, their stats were greatly reduced).
When in melee, this spreading increases overtime because each individual soldier tries to stay out of his comrades" buffer zone + the enemy's buffer zone, pushing each other away all the time. I'm sure you've noticed that melees are much less "orderly" and more confuse than they were in RTW. That's why.

In castles and cities the problem is increased even more because the men also try to space themselves out from the streetwalls... In a cramped street, even unit fighting in close formation can disintegrate into soldiers 10m from each other because of this. There was a thread with a dramatic screenshot a couple of weeks ago, I'll try and find it again if you'd like.

And all of that breaks unit cohesion. And I really believe that while it's not a big problem for swordsmen, axemen etc... who are designed to duke it out one on one in the first place, it's what is really crippling spearmen, and what makes them as shoddy as they are right now : they just can't make their specific, formation-based strength work.

[* : if you don't know (I didn't ), blobbing means deploying 2+ units in the exact same spot, hence having 2+ times as many attacks in a zone 2+ times smaller, very unrealistic and cheesy, as you could beat spartan hoplites with town militia that way ]