The Swiss Cheese Experiment: No More Swordsmen Wannabes

[Whacker]

Nono, they do this already with my 'fix' in place. Pikeman stabbing in all directions, isolated stragglers hurrying back to their fellows, heaps of dead... good stuff. Doesn't help them much, of course, since their formation is completely gone.

OK now I follow. I never had the "last stand" formation happen because with your fix in place, the pikes are so damn powerful that they rarely ever lose more than 1/3 of their number in melee. I had them go up against 2 units of DCK's and they ripped em to shreds. HAs still give them a decent beating though, but when you run out of ammo the best thing is to just flee, because any kind of charge period with even a few of them remaining is suicidal. Still think it'd be an interesting idea to give them schiltron to see what happens.

[dopp]

Actually, pikemen are now much *too* powerful from the front, but it's hard to say whether vanilla settings were working as intended either with all that sword nonsense. Ah well, at least they use their pikes more, and they can actually attack the enemy somewhat, rather than just being a roadblock. I'd settle for uber RTW hedgehogs of death over wannabe swordsmen any day.

Some testing reveals that properly braced pikemen are now almost completely invincible from the front. In fact, testing reveals that pikemen are now invincible from the front, regardless of whether they are braced or not (they can still get demolished by a good cavalry charge if they are stupid enough not to brace). I can't link images here for some reason, so I can't illustrate my points with screenies. They are still very weak from the rear and sides, but no more so than before. They don't seem to have any more difficulty poking at flankers with pikes rather than swords, but of course are total trash either way.

On vanilla settings:

With guard mode on, the pikemen brace and receive the charge. Many of them will die if the attackers are swordsmen. The pikemen stab once or twice, killing those attackers who make it past the first rank of pikes, then freeze in position. Only the occasional stab is made after that. The attackers are then unable to close with the pikemen and a staring contest begins, except on the flanks where the swordsmen are happily butchering the hapless wannabes who have drawn their own swords. This happens about 50% of the time, depending on how motivated the pikemen are feeling that day (they hate their job, remember?).

The other 50% of the time, large numbers of swordsmen will penetrate the formation in the intial charge. The pikemen draw swords and the formation collapses. Even if they kill their immediate targets, the pikemen will continue to fight as swordsmen from then on.

Switching off guard mode, or ordering the pikemen to advance to the attack, the front rank pikemen will attempt to march through the enemy ranks and get butchered. It's like their attack distance is not taking the reach of the pike into account. Those pikemen who survive will naturally switch to swords since they are now intermingled with the enemy. The rear rankers, on the other hand, start poking at the correct distance, but eventually give it up and switch over to swords too.

Using "no swords for you" fix/tweak/cheat:

With guard mode on, the pikemen brace and receive the charge. Many of them will die if the attackers are swordsmen. The pikemen stab once or twice, killing those attackers who make it past the first rank of pikes, then freeze in position. Only the occasional stab is made after that. The attackers are then unable to close with the pikemen and a staring contest begins, except on the flanks where the swordsmen are happily butchering the hapless wannabes who are poking back with their pikes (it's still a massacre on the flanks). This happens about 50% of the time.

The other 50% of the time, large numbers of swordsmen will penetrate the formation in the intial charge. The pikemen then proceed to slaughter the fools, constantly trying to maintain formation. Once all the swordsmen that have penetrated the formation are dead, the pikemen freeze up and hold the rest at bay in a staring contest.

Switching off guard mode, or ordering the pikemen to advance to the attack, the entire formation will start pushing with their pikes. Individual retards will still try to march past the enemy, but will usually realize their mistake and fall back into formation. Enemy is completely slaughtered with few pikemen deaths.

Never tried to charge with them, or put them on walls. Will try and see what happens.

[Whacker]

I'll check this tomorrow, but I'm going on vacation for a week or more so won't be much use until Jan. If you get this in time, give me some exact matchups between specific units and I'll do the same. I always play on huge unit sizes, medium most of the time, on that grassy flat map to even stuff out. I say we do huge (if your box can handle that, mine seems ok...), medium diff, grassy map with no weather to eliminate as many variables as possible. Open to other options. Also be sure and post unit stats if you "fix" the pikes so I can use the same thing.