The Swiss Cheese Experiment: No More Swordsmen Wannabes

[dopp]

Hmmm... Halberd militia seems to need a boost... They get creamed by Pike Militia when they should realistically win. The smaller unit size and weaker stats are making them basically useless...

Swiss guards get creamed by pike militia too. Swiss guards get creamed by Aztec warriors. Halberds sux.

A few more observations on vanilla settings (without the proposed fix):

On vanilla, pikemen are still pretty strong, but it looks dumb. SWITCH GUARD MODE OFF against infantry, guard mode (and the cool braced position) is almost completely useless against swordsmen.

With guard mode off, the pikes will still stop the initial infantry charge. The pikemen will poke aggressively two or three times and clear the entire front rank of attackers. Looks fantastic, but then the entire unit switches over to swords. Fortunately, they have usually inflicted enough kills to see the enemy off. So the pikes become sort of defensive lances, used just for the initial charge and discarded for the REAL weapons. Something wrong here...

[Musashi]

I think you're smoking something. I just tested Swiss Guard vs. Pike Militia, and it was a massacre...

The Swiss Guard won with 89 men left, vs. 5 pike militia.

[dopp]

I think you're smoking something. I just tested Swiss Guard vs. Pike Militia, and it was a massacre...

The Swiss Guard won with 89 men left, vs. 5 pike militia.

Did you play the Swiss or the Pikes? The AI is hopeless at using pikes, modded or not, it'll just order the pikes to walk through the enemy.

[Musashi]

I played as the Swiss Guard... Turned off guard mode, and accepted the pike charge. I've got the pikes modded so they won't switch to swords. They still got murdered.

[dopp]

I played as the Swiss Guard... Turned off guard mode, and accepted the pike charge. I've got the pikes modded so they won't switch to swords. They still got murdered.

Exactly. Switch and play the pike miltia, they'll chew through the Swiss, guaranteed. You *could* give the same fix to halberds, but then they'll just become pikemen with AP. They won't chop or swing, just poke.

Something interesting playing vanilla pikes in custom battle. You'd think bracing in guard mode helps. It doesn't. French lancers vs pike militia, the militia held against the lancers' formed charge whether braced or not. Switched off spear wall (gulp). The lancers' formed charge *still* failed, but they beat the pikemen to death in melee. In fact, pikemen sux against cav in melee. They switch to swords and get massacred by their betters. Kills are about equal, except that the horsemen run out of people before the pikemen do (80 vs 150). Fun stuff. I think I might report this as a bug now.

[Musashi]

Well, I played Militia Halberds vs AI Militia Pikes, and the Pikes OWNED the halberds. I mean, horrifically destroyed them. So it's not just player influence.

[General Zhukov]

So the pikes become sort of defensive lances, used just for the initial charge and [then] discarded for the REAL weapons.

You have discovered both the utility of the pike, and the digitized desire for survival that causes pikemen to reach for proper hand weapons in close melee!

After the Frecnch Lancers' initial charge in your test, did they attempt to continue poking with their lances as an effective tactic in melee? Had they done so, it might have been reasonable for the pikemen to meet reach with reach. But I suspect the knights, being mounted heavy infantry, switched to swords so that they could force a new paradigm on the pikemen; a paradigm that negates the reach and formation advantages of a phalanx. The digitized desire for survival tells the pikeman that his 18 feet of twig is going to be of little use against the men and horse that are fighting him from inside his own formation...

By the way, how do Scottish Noble Pikes fare in melee with other heavy infantry troops? That is, after the Scots have swished to swords? It would seem that the heavy armor of the Noble Pikemen, combined with their (presumably) increased competency as swordsman, would come closer to your desire for an all purpose unit that can stop chargers dead and also defeat other heavy inf. on the battlefield.

[dopp]

You have discovered both the utility of the pike, and the digitized desire for survival that causes pikemen to reach for proper hand weapons in close melee!

After the Frecnch Lancers' initial charge in your test, did they attempt to continue poking with their lances as an effective tactic in melee? Had they done so, it might have been reasonable for the pikemen to meet reach with reach. But I suspect the knights, being mounted heavy infantry, switched to swords so that they could force a new paradigm on the pikemen; a paradigm that negates the reach and formation advantages of a phalanx. The digitized desire for survival tells the pikeman that his 18 feet of twig is going to be of little use against the men and horse that are fighting him from inside his own formation...

By the way, how do Scottish Noble Pikes fare in melee with other heavy infantry troops? That is, after the Scots have swished to swords? It would seem that the heavy armor of the Noble Pikemen, combined with their (presumably) increased competency as swordsman, would come closer to your desire for an all purpose unit that can stop chargers dead and also defeat other heavy inf. on the battlefield.

All pikemen are inferior swordsmen (not hopeless, just poorer than real swordsmen) because of three main things:

1. Slower sword attack animation (about 2/3 the speed of a real swordsmen).
2. No shield.
3. Lower defense skill.

The whole purpose of the spear wall is to prevent enemies from getting within arm's length. If my enemy wants to be dumb enough to draw a sword when I have 18 feet of reach on him and can bring two weapons to bear (M2TW pikemen attack in 2 ranks, spearmen only 1 rank) to his one, should I really be a gentleman and use my sword to even the odds? That's like fighting Jet Li hand-to-hand when you have an assault rifle.

The all-purpose unit that can stop charges and turn them into mincemeat is the Western Halberd Militia (and elites like Swiss Guard). They form spear wall to break the charge, then switch over to hacking. They actually have two weapons. The primary weapon is a pike (but using the halberd graphics) with all the associated bonuses. The secondary weapon is the halberd proper with hacking animations. Because both primary and secondary weapons use the same graphics, you won't notice that they are actually "switching" weapons after they break the charge.

Pikemen break the charge and switch over to secondary weapons too, but their secondary weapon is the sword, thus it looks a bit dumb and it greatly weakens their combat effectiveness. The weapon switching code seems more optimized for halberdiers than pikemen at the moment.

[Klaus]

Can someone please post this mod up for people who have no idea how to mod. I would greatly appreciate this and it would make my day. Thank You

[tequila]

I've implemented this fix and love it. The pikes are a bit too strong now, with a tad too much ability to "turn" even in formation and fight, but they're not invincible. But now I've managed to have some real tercio vs landsknecht battles, utilizing historical pike & shot tactics. Great find, dopp!

[Spark]

A workaround to vanilla M2TW pikemen that I've found works quite well is to switch the pikemen's "stance" upon impact. What usually happens is as soon as infantry charge into pikemen, they break out of their pike formation and whip out the swords.

So I've been trying stuff out, and it seems if you keep the pikemen out of spearwall formation, they'll still form it, break the charge and start switching to swords. Just as they start lifting the pikes, if you activate spearwall formation, it seems to renew the "hold pike" command and they bring their pikes back down to hold the enemy infantry away. The only infantry that slip through the pikes this way are stray units that slip around the side to the flanks, and any unit that slipped through the pike wall while you do your little reform maneuver right after the charge. Usually one or two pikemen will whip out their swords to take care of said infantry (with some casualties depending on how tough the charging infantry is), while the rest keep their pikes in place. Then you can turn off "defend" mode at your leisure to have the pike wall push forward. It's micromanagement-intensive, but it works.

[dopp]

A workaround to vanilla M2TW pikemen that I've found works quite well is to switch the pikemen's "stance" upon impact. What usually happens is as soon as infantry charge into pikemen, they break out of their pike formation and whip out the swords.

So I've been trying stuff out, and it seems if you keep the pikemen out of spearwall formation, they'll still form it, break the charge and start switching to swords. Just as they start lifting the pikes, if you activate spearwall formation, it seems to renew the "hold pike" command and they bring their pikes back down to hold the enemy infantry away. The only infantry that slip through the pikes this way are stray units that slip around the side to the flanks, and any unit that slipped through the pike wall while you do your little reform maneuver right after the charge. Usually one or two pikemen will whip out their swords to take care of said infantry (with some casualties depending on how tough the charging infantry is), while the rest keep their pikes in place. Then you can turn off "defend" mode at your leisure to have the pike wall push forward. It's micromanagement-intensive, but it works.

Yeah that was the "old" way of doing it. But once again it doesn't always work and the time window is very narrow. Doing that for a whole line of pikemen units when they all get charged at once is very difficult. Considering you have to go through all that just to get the pikemen to do what they are supposed to be doing in the first place (ie use pikes against frontal chargers), I'd say something is wrong with them.

[pike master]

interesting information. i have my own opinions and have developed my own workarounds.

for one when the pike took over the battlefield even polearms had difficulty making it through the spearwall. the swiss originally used halberds but when they experimented with pikes to give them help against heavy horse they decided to try and adapt that old phalanx from ancient times.

turned out they not only emulated it they made it even better. combined with supporting units of halberdiers they could defeat armies without depending on a cavalry arm the way the mecedonians did.

the halberdiers acted as the flexible force that assaulted fortifications exploited breaches in the enemies line or hit an exposed flank. but against the formidable pike wall even hacking and trying to splinter the pikes down would take so long the battle would be over or they would have been pushed off a cliff.

the only sure way to stop pikes was with pikes just like in world war two it was said that the best anti-tank weapon was another tank.against the dead end evolution of the great sword or(processional sword as it was called).the game definetly overdramatizes that weapon. the name itself suggest it eventual duties. it was designed i think to counter the pike wall with the intention to hack and splinter pikes and get into the mass of unarmed pikemen at its center and created carnage.

sadly the examples i have seen at military collectors shows demonstrate their weakness in that they would often break near the secondary quillon a victim of their great length just like the poor irish elk of prehistoric times.it seemed that a wood beam been hit by a long piece of metal would do more damage to the metal than the seasoned wood.

on to the second topic. i have found a workaround for those who either dont mod or who multiplayer and that is what i call the pike column.

heres how it works take at least two pike units and organize them in column but spread them only two deep. in battle order them to attack enemy when they engage the front formation does its well known wooden swords dance but the second formation engages fully this in turn encourages the front formation to pick their pikes back up and start poking again. most enemy units crack so quick that there isnt any time for their comrades to flank you.

organized in 4 unit column blocks they have unusual discipline and ability to resist flank attacks without routing.even though you are engaged with a more flexible foe they just cant seem to understand that while they are awed at your invincible formation you have just dusted half their army with heavy knights and "assault peasants" who bear the awe inspiring pitchfork(bane of the knight).

there is no need to use much missile units if any since you will crush his melee units and slower moving missile and horse archers will run out of arrows because of the new game mechanics.

hail to the mighty pike.

[Dearmad]

So what is the upshot to this thread? Take away their swords or not? Some report it makes no difference others that it is too powerful.

[Zenicetus]

So what is the upshot to this thread? Take away their swords or not? Some report it makes no difference others that it is too powerful.

There are too many variables here. Just try pikes yourself, and see if you think they need "help" with you personal style of play and game settings.

FWIW, I'm happy with vanilla, un-modded pike units (Tercio, in my Spanish campaign), because I never build them until I'm also building lots of musketeers as a combined army, to take down the armored guys before they can reach the pikes and do much damage, or force them into weird fighting modes. Before good armor-piercing gunpowder units are available, I don't mess with pikes. I just use dismounted knights.

[dopp]

It depends on whether you want them to poke or not. It depends on whether you consider them heavy infantry or just lame roadblocks to protect the gunners. I like to think that pikes were formidable in themselves and not simply there to kill knights so that the musketeers can continue to shoot.

To recap, taking away their swords makes them almost invincible from the front. They still remain vulnerable to flank and rear charges, missile fire and other pikes. Any unit that attacks them from the front will take heavy losses. They will use their pikes more. They will actually be able to march up and attack the enemy with pikes properly. They will actually be pikemen and not swordsmen.

[dopp]

It depends on whether you want them to poke or not. It depends on whether you consider them heavy infantry or just lame roadblocks to protect the gunners. I like to think that pikes were formidable in themselves and not simply there to kill knights so that the musketeers can continue to shoot.

To recap, taking away their swords makes them almost invincible from the front. They still remain vulnerable to flank and rear charges, missile fire and other pikes. Any unit that attacks them from the front will take heavy losses. They will use their pikes more. They will actually be able to march up and attack the enemy with pikes properly. They will actually be pikemen and not swordsmen.

[Zenicetus]

It depends on whether you want them to poke or not. It depends on whether you consider them heavy infantry or just lame roadblocks to protect the gunners. I like to think that pikes were formidable in themselves and not simply there to kill knights so that the musketeers can continue to shoot.

Lame roadblocks???

These guys have practically no armor. It doesn't make sense to me, to use them as my primary front line against heavily armored units, until I have a supporting unit like armor-piercing musketeers.

But there are many ways to play the game. I'm certainly not arguing against using them earlier, or unsupported, or whatever works for you. For me, they need support. They work so well with decent support that I don't feel a strong urge to mode them away from vanilla. But that's just me.

[Spark]

Historically speaking, a disciplined pike wall could easily halt and roll over enemy infantry. In fact, I believe the pike was the dominant weapon on the battlefield until the musket started taking over.

In-game pikemen can barely hold off infantry charges unless you fiddle with the controls, and they are atrocious if you try to use them offensively. M2TW seems to portray pikemen as very cheap units (both recruitment & upkeep) that are a shadow of what they realistically should be. It works well for game balance though, since if pikemen performed the way they should, there wouldn't be much use for conventional infantry, and factions with strong pikemen would have a huge advantage over factions with weak/no pike units.

[dopp]

Meh, gimping pikemen so that basic swordsmen can beat them with ease is a little extreme in the other direction. Even peasants can beat them on a good day, especially when they do the elbow maneuver after you issue them an attack order.

[Ciaran]

Historically speaking, a disciplined pike wall could easily halt and roll over enemy infantry. In fact, I believe the pike was the dominant weapon on the battlefield until the musket started taking over.

Yes, that´s how the Swiss started it, a huge mass of men pushing forward, they literally trampled down the opposition.
This tactic was taken over and refined by the Landsknechts, who combined the "Push of the Pike" with shot support, the final result of this development being the Spanish Tercio.

Of course, that´s a bit hard to properly display in the game, since a Swiss or Landsknecht pike formation would have some 5,000 men in it, not just the hundred-odd the game engine provides. Losing a few men to gunfire out of 5000 is likely to have way less of an impact than losing the same amount out of one hundred.

[pike master]

if the game allowed to spread formation and then spearwall they would do well for infantry squares to support musketeers. and although i dont like to be a wikipedia freak they are pretty accurate about some things about pikes that coincide with earlier books i read in the library back in the 80s.

there does appear to be 3 phases of pike use 1) was the flemish and scot method of the pike schiltrom which is not depicted in the game but it sure would be nice.

2)the second phase is the use of the pike block or the use of pike columns which i believe was later copied by nations during the napoleanic era where waves of units attacked as one lost its cohesion the second and third and so forth waves would reinforce the attack with fresh and well organized formations.

this would be evident in the assault column methods deployed by napoleon to smash through the enemies center which was very successful until the british used their artillery better and were able to decimated the advancing columns.

of course thats where i got my idea with the column technique which i described earlier.but there is some evidence that the swiss may have used column of attack as well.in this battle description which i will give in full paragraph from "The Battle Book" by by bryan perrett.

the battle of sempach- the cantonal commanders of lucerne,uri,underwalden, adn schwytz vs. duke leopold iii of austria

leopold led his attack with a formation consisting of dismounted knights adn men at arms fighting as pikemen( note the word attack and pikemen).at first the austrians were successful,then held their own against the pikemen of successive cantons in turn(note the term of successive cantons).according to legend , the deadlock was broken by arnold of winkelreid, who deliberately impaled himself on several enemy spears, enabling the swiss halberdiers to hack their way into the austrian phalanx. once this had broken the remainder of the austrian army fled.

however i do notice that halberdiers were trying to break into the phalanx but were not able to until a man impaled himself on the spear tips. this would suggest that halberdiers had a very difficult time trying to make it through a spearwall but whether halberdiers were in seperate formation or in a rank or column of the swiss phalanx is a mystery since it seems historians do not agree on the matter however any incorporation of other weapons within a phalanx would weaken its greatest strength which is a well organized and formidable wall of pikes. incorporated units might disrupt the formation so it is unclear how the halberdiers were used.

but the point was that pikemen at that time seemed to be used in those two methods phalanx blocks and formations by column.

3)is the supporting role of pikemen supporting musketeers but even then they were used in the offensive role once the infantry engagement ensued and probably using attack by column with the first formation soaking up all the cannon and musket fire leaving the successive waves organized.

after the introduction of the bayonet the new soldier was passed down the same strategy when in the attack. even at bunker hill the british general refused his men to load their muskets when they advanced relying on the old pike assault( with bayoneted muskets of course).of course by that time even the smoothbores carried by the revolutionaries since not many actually had rifles was accurate enough to take out a great number of the slowly advancing british columns until they ran out of ammo.

anyways the column attack does work in the game but the block phalanx should work well too.

i am firmly in belief that the pike units in this game are severely bugged not just slightly. and they should seriously be addressed and it should have been taken care of in the first patch. it wouldnt have taken much effort at all since dopp was able to mod them himself to get them to work better. but since i dont mod units( i mod campaign stuff) im stuck finding ways to make them work.

[Oleander Ardens]

IIRC the Swiss could not break the Pikewall formed by armored knights because they just carried half-pikes and various polearms and wore little armor. It is indeed telling that, according to the writers a heroic deed was needed to find a way through the Pikewall.

Later they switched more and more to the long pike...

[the_mango55]

Well, pikes may need a boost, because you are right that militia pikemen can barely beat peasants...

But pikes barely cost more than peasants. The pikes are pretty well "balanced" right now, as they are not very expensive but they are also super cheap.

If you are going to make them the dominant force on the battlefield, they should be the most expensive force on the battlefield.

[The Stranger]

I don't see why they should... cheap doesnt equals bad, nor does expensive equals good... it is like that a lot of times... but not always... crossbowmen and longbowmen (dunno how cheap they are... not so i thought) were quite cheap... but could still dominate the field... under certain circumstances but that goes for everything...

[katank]

Actually, since they are both melee units (there isn't that much tactical flexibility to give such as archers being given a meatshield), if peasants are cheaper but can break pikes by a headon assault, then something is likely wrong.

If nothing else, it's common sense. This and the fact that cav can often kill pikes makes them practically useless.

While perhaps acceptable for single player, expense -> power is really necessary for balance in multiplayer.

[The Stranger]

yeah... that's right... I already agreed with you and the others its just that good is expensive etc isnt always right... but a game isnt reality and some things should differ from reality... how annoying sometimes it may be...

[dopp]

Pikes may be cheap, but their upkeep cost is around the same as other melee units. Sword and Buckler men have the same stats as Dismounted Chivalric Knights but are cheaper to maintain. Not every unit (in campaign at least) must have a cost that matches its effectiveness.

Even if pikemen are really really cheap, I would rather increase their price than leave them weak and ineffectual. If their only advantage is their cheapness then nobody would build them at all. Peasants are cheap and rather weak too. That's why nobody uses them.

Raw recruitment cost is not the only factor to consider. For a 'tier 5' unit, even militia pikemen are not cheap at all, and elite pikemen can be even more expensive ('tier 6' or more). You can build dismounted feudal knights for half the investment.

[pike master]

sorry for the big document up there got carried away. most here agree that the pikemen need to be fixed and if it increases the cost to balance the game so be it. in the meantime i will be using my column attack method.

[Goofball]

Right, I think that's what CA intended with the game design. Pikemen lack armor, or the shields of classical hoplite units. And so even with the pointy sticks they're a poor choice one-on-one against a unit of dismounted knights, without support. They're designed for the late period, when you have armor-piercing gunpowder units in support.

Heavily armored enemy soldiers (mounted or foot) never get very far into my Tercio pikemen's front line, before they're shredded at close range with musket balls. Maybe that's why I've never noticed this problem with dropping pikes and using swords. But they gotta work together with the muskets. Crossbows and archers aren't that effective against heavily armored units before the gunpowder era, so my front line has to be something heavier like dismounted knights. I never build pikes as early as they're available.... I wait for the guns to back them up.

I've noticed several comments to this effect in this and other threads, and I want to make sure I understand. Are people putting their musketeers directly behind their pike units and having them fire directly forward, or are the musketeers off to the flank somewhere applying enfiladed fire to the attackers? If the former is the case, are the musket balls not decimating the friendly pikemen directly to their front?

I haven't gotten to the gunpowder point in my first game yet, so I'm curious...