The Swiss Cheese Experiment: No More Swordsmen Wannabes

**Ludivico Sforza** · 12-22-2006, 13:21

Thanks for this, indespensible for my personal Pike and Musket mod.

**Kraxis** · 12-22-2006, 15:34

I find it fair enough that militia pikes have a problem at maintaining formation, they are after all just above rabble with long sticks. It does look stupid though.

However Swiss Pikemen and perhaps Flemish as well, would be far more disciplined, and wuld not draw their swords until the very last moment. So perhaps they, the Landsknechts, Scottish Noble Pikes and Tercios should be the only ones to not have swords?
The would make them viable on the offensive, while the lesser pikes would be strong defensive units, there mainly to hold the frontlines while cavalry or strong infantry flank.

**dopp** · 12-22-2006, 16:17

Originally Posted by Kraxis

I find it fair enough that militia pikes have a problem at maintaining formation, they are after all just above rabble with long sticks. It does look stupid though.

Hardly cheap rabble though, considering the expense of that militia barracks you need to get them. Militia pikes performed much poorer on tests than the professionals, losing over twice as many men and breaking easily when the swordsmen spilled over onto their flanks. They only have morale 3 compared to 9-11 for elite pikes, and their formation-keeping is only trained instead of highly_trained.

**Kraxis** · 12-23-2006, 00:59

Originally Posted by dopp

Hardly cheap rabble though, considering the expense of that militia barracks you need to get them. Militia pikes performed much poorer on tests than the professionals, losing over twice as many men and breaking easily when the swordsmen spilled over onto their flanks. They only have morale 3 compared to 9-11 for elite pikes, and their formation-keeping is only trained instead of highly_trained.

Ah yes, but it is the thinking behind the pikes that is the expensive part. It still demands a good deal to figure that out (apparently), and it requires a certain degree of local logistics (in terms of weapons and trainers) to get it going.
Also you have to consider the fact that without a 'Marius event' there is little to limit the pikes, other than relatively high tech. So that you get pikes at an appropriate age... I don't think it is fair to coldly look at the costs needed to get to pikes. Their techlevel is a limit on their appearance in time, not a realistic guage as to how effective the troops are at killing.

But you yourself argued that pikes are far too strong now that they have no swords. So I argued that the strong pikes should not get swords as they are more than anything underpowered in 1v1, compared to their cost and the historical records.

**dopp** · 12-23-2006, 03:05

Originally Posted by Kraxis

But you yourself argued that pikes are far too strong now that they have no swords. So I argued that the strong pikes should not get swords as they are more than anything underpowered in 1v1, compared to their cost and the historical records.

I think it's okay for militia pikes to have no swords as well in that case, since they are far more fragile than the professionals. You even stand a chance of beating them frontally if you throw something hard enough at them. It's the professionals I'm a little concerned about, it's no fun for a Turkish or Byzantine player to throw Janissaries and Varangians and watch them go splat against Swiss or something.

Note: Pikemen can still be beaten easily if you flank or rear them. A cavalry charge to the rear will destroy them as easily as any other unit. A swordsmen unit that overlaps the flanks will also trounce them handily. It's to the front that they are almost invincible as their kill rate is unbelievably fast. Once again, achieving this kill rate *is* possible in vanilla, I just made it possible anytime, all the time.

**Kobal2fr** · 12-23-2006, 17:42

I wonder how halberds fare against you buffed-up pikes... If I'm not mistaken, they were invented to beat them in the first place weren't they ? Break the pike, then chop up the pikeman, sort of thing ?

But I'd say a push of pike wouldn't have very fast killing rates. Invincible from the front, perhaps, probably even, but killing knights by the wagon, by the second ? Hardly. Slow but steady would be my uninformed guess. Maybe giving them the same "lethality" as spears would do the trick ? Then again I seem to remember that the lethality stat from Rome is now used for something else alltogether, so that might not work :/

**dopp** · 12-24-2006, 03:38

Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

I wonder how halberds fare against you buffed-up pikes... If I'm not mistaken, they were invented to beat them in the first place weren't they ? Break the pike, then chop up the pikeman, sort of thing ?

But I'd say a push of pike wouldn't have very fast killing rates. Invincible from the front, perhaps, probably even, but killing knights by the wagon, by the second ? Hardly. Slow but steady would be my uninformed guess. Maybe giving them the same "lethality" as spears would do the trick ? Then again I seem to remember that the lethality stat from Rome is now used for something else alltogether, so that might not work :/

Refer to the test I did with JHI. No contest, instant death after the charge. That's what concerns me the most, the way halberds (and very good halberds at that) lose to the pikes now, since some factions only get high-level halberds/bills instead of pikes as their ultimate heavy infantry, ie they should be roughly equivalent in performance. Right now the halberds lose too easily, which leaves half the factions without heavy infantry to match the pikes. But if you use vanilla settings, then it's the halberds who chop the pikes into tiny pieces without breaking a sweat, which leaves half the factions without heavy infantry to match the halberds.

Part of the problem, of course, is that I doubt you would see either pure pikes or pure halberd formations historically, but the game doesn't have mixed formations like that.

I'm not sure about halberds beating pikes (or legions beating phalanxes, or 2-handers breaking pike formations, or sword-and-bucklers poking pikemen to death). The pike appears to have remained in use whereas the supposed counters quickly disappeared, something that cannot be attributed solely to the use of musketeers in combination with the pikemen. I doubt carrying a pike makes a person any more bulletproof than carrying a sword, yet pikemen are used in large numbers until the invention of the bayonet allows them to carry muskets and shoot as well. Pikemen were aggressively used as heavy infantry as well and often decided battles in the center, so the idea that they were meant solely to protect the gunners against cavalry doesn't hold water either.

Their kill rate is ridiculously fast, but then again the general melee kill rate in M2TW is pretty high as well. The pikeman attack animation is not very fast by itself, but the formation means 4 pikemen are poking at every attacker. Maybe reducing their attack to spearmen level (right now it's somewhere around swordsmen level) would suffice to lower the lethality a little. Good pikemen average attack 10, while Swiss are 14. 5 and 7 might be better values.

If CA would just let them use their pikes a little longer it would solve things a lot better than all this tweaking. I want to see my pikemen poke, RPS balance is a poor excuse for making them switch to swords any time they are attacked by something other than cavalry (if that is indeed the reason). Even against cavalry they switch to swords after the charge, it's just that with +8 attack vs horse the horsemen are so decimated by the impact that they run almost immediately. Say what you want about finding bug where there are none, but as things stand now, pikemen don't deliver.