How Effective Do You Think Militia Spearmen, and Spearmen In General Should Be?

[Carl]

That explains it. I use the sheild Fix, (I thought i'd stated that). When this happens:

1. The cav charges in and badly damages out the front rank of spearmen but they also suffer heavy damage to their own front rank. The second rank of knights then hits and wipes out the remnants of the front rank and badly damages the second rank whilst suffers moderate damage, (charge effects have dropped off by this point so the reflect charge seems less deadly). After this about half the knights and half the spearmen are dead. The spearmen then massacre the remaining knights.

The effect of the cav contacting the spearmen looks very similar to that of cav contacting braced Pikes with the exception that the cav take most of the front row of Spearmen with them. Spea vs. cav fights are over VERY quickly if you apply it.

[Musashi]

Carl: My point is that the cavalry, even when they took significant losses in the charge, will generally win in the melee that follows. Spearmen suck in protracted melee. But they live long enough to allow me to flank.

[Carl]

I never could get cav to suffer significant losses when charging spearmen in vanillia myself. Although i did allways use uard Mode back then.

With the sheild fix the Spears will even win in protracted melee. Hell the adviser even says it's a bad idea to frontal charge spearmen and that attacking engaged cav with spearmen is a good idea. If the spearmen arn't likliy to beat the cav, why say that. Thats a good indicator of where CA wanted them to be IMO. Namely that the adviser really dosen't think you should get cav in any kind of fight with spears.

[Musashi]

That's gonna be a fairly hefty neutering for cavalry, if even weak spears become death for them. It's a bit too much, IMHO.

I really don't think spears should be good for killing much of anything. They should be a defensive line troop.

[Carl]

They arn't death to everything with the fix. But Militia Spearmen can beat Maileds with heavy losses, and fuedals the same with silver armour. So high end cav can beat weak spears. But spears of a given era will typicly beat cav of the same era. Or cav an era upwards if they have enough upgrades.


Of course, I had 8 gold armour Spera Militia units and 4 1 Bronze Chevron, 1 weapon and bronze armour Armoured Sarghes take on and defeat a 20 stack army of french cav (8 knightly Orders, 8 Chivalric/noble knights and some lancers). However it needed close grouping of units in Schiltrom formation to pull it off. A single missile unit would have had a feild day.

[Musashi]

My point is that I just don't like the idea of spearmen having a good kill rate. I don't think they should be good on the offense.

[pike master]

i think they should be made as cheap as pike units since they arnt much better than peasants. i have no problem with a company of knights (40) rolling over (75) men but at least if they are cheaper you can link and block them together or you can form super schiltroms of superimposed spearmen units that would make 150 vs 40 horse which is more believable of what would be needed to stop heavy cavalry.

[Temujin]

My point is that I just don't like the idea of spearmen having a good kill rate. I don't think they should be good on the offense.

I completely agree.

I have been reading up on some battle-accounts from the spanish Reconquista, and there's a lot of cav vs. spear going on there, with the quality of the cav ranging from the lightest jinetes and arab auxiliaries to the heavier late-era spanish knights and their granadine counterparts, and the quality of the spears ranging from unwilling and hastily levied peasants to the superb Lamtuna berbers and sergeants of the Order of Santiago.

One pattern that I often see is the repeated, and sometimes futile, attempts of heavy cavalry to break spearwalls, having little effect on either side. Spearmen of sufficient morale and discipline could certainly resist cavalry attacks, almost regardless of the skill of the cavalry, but they were also unable to damage the cavalry enough to render squadrons combat-ineffective, allowing them to keep retreating, regrouping and charging back in. This could keep on for hours at times.

Thus, the desired results, would be for a cavalry charge to either succeed (against poor spears) with the spears being routed on contact, or fail (against good spears, like dismounted MAA) with the cavalry having the option of fighting it out or retreating, but suffering little-to-no damage on the initial charge. If the cavalry chose to retreat, they should need a period of regrouping and rest during which they are vulnerable to counter-attack by enemy cavalry. This would, IMO, mirror the historical interactions between these unit-types.

"But if spears can't kill cavalry, what are they good for? What's the counter for cavalry, then?!?"
Medieval tactics didn't follow simple RPS mechanics; the counter for cavalry, at least in the early period, was your own cavalry. The function of infantry was not to be anti-anything, but to aid in sieges and fighting in bad terrain. The Moors, who actually had decent spearmen in the early period, used their spearmen as a moving fortress on the battlefield, creating an area where their own cavalry could rest and regroup between offensive action. Their spearmen were valuable to their tactics, even if they didn't kill anything on their own. Similarly, crusaders in the levant used their sergeants to protect their cavalry from missiles until they were ready to charge. I doubt the spearwall at Dorylaeum killed very many turkish horsearchers, but they were still instrumental in the defeat of the turkish army. Without them, the first crusade would have ended right there. And so on. The role of the medieval infantryman was not glorious, but they weren't useless either, as evidenced by their usage.

As for balancing: Insisting on unit-to-unit balance seems rather myopic to me. Playing as the Turks, I don't care that I don't have effective spears, because their historical tactics of wearing down the opposing heavy cavalry with cheap HAs before meeting them with their own heavies, actually work. Playing as the Danes, I don't care that I don't have good spears, as this is made up for by my much better melee infantry, and using archers and terrain I can still achieve victory against cavalry-heavy foes.
Balance is, IMO, achieved when no single faction has a massive blind-side that can be exploited for easy victory, and sufficient options to deal with or work around all situations they might encounter.
There's more to tactics than simply meeting scissors with rocks.