The M2TW pikeman is a confused and neglected individual. Despite the effectiveness of his historical counterpart, the M2TW pikeman clearly hates his job. Deep inside each pikeman lurks an aspiring swordsman, just waiting for the right opportunity to manifest himself and take control. This opportunity is first contact with the enemy. Discarding his hated and despised polearm, the pikeman invariably whips out a REAL MAN's weapon, his trusty sword, and proceeds to show off his moves. Unfortunately, he has usually neglected to bring a shield along as well. Combined with his total lack of footwork, this shortens his life-expectancy in melee to considerably less than the average peasant.
Numerous pleas have been made on behalf of the poor pikeman's dilemma, but no help is forthcoming. Many prefer to ignore his existence, considering his inclusion in the game as "ahistorical" and preferring to concentrate on tweaking more characterful units such as axemen and longbows. Others justify his confusion as part of an RPS system where swords beat pikes. Faced with the superiority of swords against his unwieldly pike, they argue, it is not surprising that the pikeman feels insecure and adopts the sword himself. Yet others point out that pike formations invariably lose cohesion or get outflanked in the melee, perhaps overlooking the fact that pikemen often become swordsmen almost immediately after initial contact with any kind of enemy. Finally, some contend that pikemen are only meant to check charges to the front and little else, otherwise they would be too powerful. This is perhaps unfair to the poor pikeman, since a closer observation would reveal that even a charge against braced pikemen forming spear wall will kill as many pikemen on initial contact as chargers.
Stern and ruthless tyrant that I am, I have attempted to correct this confusion by confiscating all swords from my Swiss mercs. No pikeman is to carry anything even remotely resembling a sword, upon pain of prolonged and agonizing death. Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the results are incontestable. Chained to their pikes, my men have no choice but to vent their frustration and shame by poking at the enemy, killing anything that approaches them from the front. Kept at bay by the constantly-stabbing pikes, the enemy has no choice but to try and outflank, as swordsmen working their way past the first few rows of pikes will only claim a few victims before being impaled by those deeper within the formation. Even outflanking is ineffective unless the pikemen are already engaged to the front as the entire formation just turns on the spot to poke in the appropriate direction.
This tweak just replaced the pikemen's secondary weapon entry in the export_descr_unit file with the line from other units that don't have secondary weapons (ironically, I copied and pasted it from the Swordsmen Militia entry). This tricks the pikemen into not using their swords, even though they have the mesh and animations for it.
I am fully convinced that taking this firm and uncompromising stand is the right course of action and encourage all commanders to at least consider doing the same. In conclusion, "No swords for you wannabes! Get back to poking!"
Disclaimer: I am not bashing CA. M2TW is a great game. This quickfix is for those few hardy "ahistorical" souls who feel that M2TW pikemen need some tweaking so they can enjoy using them ingame. I think there are a few such people out there (waves), if I'm wrong then sorry for wasting everyone's time.
Further Disclaimer: If you have mastered the art of pikemen deployment already and think that I just need to learn2playnoob, then good for you. If you have always hated pikemen and want them all dead, then ignore this fix as you would ignore them ingame. If you feel that pikemen are balanced or "historical" already then you can skip this fix too. Please do not assail me with your SCA pike experiences, I just wanted to see my pikemen actually poke something, someplace, sometime.
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