The fact remains that most (if not all) halberd units are one tier lower than even basic Pike Militia on the building tree, which means a) 12000 less population required to build them, b) 9600 less florins to build them, and c) 5 less turns to build them. Per city. That's got to count for something. And elite French pikemen are even higher on the tech tree, requiring 12000 more florins for an Army Barracks and 6 more turns. It's just like if Musketeers cost 27000 more florins to build per city than other missile troops (which they do), they had better be the best missile troops.
The problem with that is that it isn't true of Denmark, It isn't true of Poland, it isn't true of the Papal States it isn't true of Hungary. All rely on Halberd equipped unit to provide either their last tier city or castle troops, (I'll hold my hand up and admit I got Papal States wrong, they do have Pike Militia when I double checked). That leaves no doubt in my mind they where meant to be powerful effective troops. In addition, since they occupy a late tech tree position in Poland and Hungary's Tech Tree, (and are much more expensive than Pike Militia), I'm of the opinion that Halberd Militia SHOULD be competitive with last tier melee units from other factions, (within the constraints that Hungary and Poland aren't totally infantry focused, and should have weaker infantry than those factions which are).

Lastly, not everyone sees these as unimportant SP additions. In that enviroment, the only availability difference between Halberds and Pikes is Cost, the Halberds Cost more. Thus all things considered they sure as hell had better be outperforming Pike Militia. Upkeep, Recruitment Pools Size and Replenish Rte and Position in the Tech tree in SP are methods to create differentiation between factions with similar unit rosters in the Campaign, they ARE NOT the primary means of balance for me, (although i do consider them to a degree when balancing as they are still important). They are more a secondary means to help balance out the complexities of campaign play and other campaign specific factors. The primary means of balance however is base Price, Faction Play style, and Custom Battle tech level, (which is simply a broader version of the SP tech levels). They are the bits that matter to me as I know they will be balanced in Custom, and experience playing other games tells me that a balanced custom mode almost always equals balanced campaigns too. The only Campaign specif thing I constantly worry about is Auto-Calc as thats such a big thing and effects battle odds too.

On the flip side, I don't believe that Halberds should beat Pikes head on, I'll go into that in more detail in a moment though.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean here. Pikemen that draw swords in vanilla lose their advantage of reach and will fight as swordsmen until the combat is concluded. Taking away their swords fixes the problem where they abandon their pikes almost instantly after contact, but this gives them a huge reach advantage all the time, even when their formation has been penetrated and they should be at a disadvantage.
My point is Dopp that their formation is penetrated when they are unfixed BECAUSE they switch to swords, not IN SPITE of it.

What Do I mean in more detail:

1. What Happens without the Pike Fix: The Swords Charge in, most actually get slowed down by the Pikes. A few swords get through the pikes and make it to melee however. The whole Pike unit then switches to swords and those slowed down are now free to speed up and the pikes get hit en-mass at melee range, resulting in the formation being compromised totally.

2. What Happens with the Pike Fix: The swords hit, most get slowed down, a few make it to melee. Those Pikes engaged in melee now put all their attacks against hose engaging them in melee as do the ranks behind them that arn';t in range of those who where slowed down. Those pikes who are not engaged in melee and who are in range will continue to attack those slowed down and force them out before they make it to melee. The few swords that have made melee then get ripped to pieces and the whole formation now focuses on the other swords who are now held at bay.

3. What Should Happen if the Switchover Code was Working Right: The swords hit, most get slowed down, a few make it to melee. Those Pikes engaged in melee now switch to swords and put all their attacks against those engaging them in melee. The ranks behind them that aren't in range of those who where slowed down attack them with their Pikes too. Those pikes who are not engaged in melee and who are in range will continue to attack those slowed down and force them out before they make it to melee. The few swords that have made melee then get ripped to pieces and the whole formation now focuses on the other swords who are now held at bay.

The difference between 2 and 3? Those swords that do make melee range will do more damage as the Sword attacks are worse than the Pikes by some margin, but they will still have 2 ranks of Pikes prodding them plus 2 or 3 swordsmen pikes attacking them. If they fix the Switchover code the Pikes will still be nearly impossible to compromise on a large scale, but will suffer more losses from small scale compromising of the formation.

To be honest, I'm not sure how you would make halberds competitive with pikes using the tools we have at our disposal, unless you either buff their stats sky-high (especially their defense) or turn them into pikemen as well by removing their secondary 'weapon', leaving them free to poke (no hacking). Their tactic of taking the charge and then switching over to normal melee puts them at a disadvantage, because they are neither as well armed or as well protected as the elite swordsmen that are the only units currently able to survive a head-on confrontation with pikemen.
I've actually been trying to make them work as a kind of 2-Hander/Spear cross ATM with some success. Basically they have Spear Wall formation removed along with their secondary weapon and the Long_Pike Attribute for the Primary Weapon. They keep the Spear Attribute for their Primary Weapon.

As i said, Limited Success however, so I'll give you the news in 3 Portions, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.


THE UGLY

Like all Spear units, they need a good basic defense to be able to survive Late era Cav charges, I was thus forced, (to make Halberd Militia useful), to raise their total defense by some 14 points. 10 Armour, 4 Defense Skill


THE GOOD

Removing the Phalanx and Long_Pike Abilities has greatly increased their speed making them much more maneuverable and thus useful on both attack and defense.

The Spear attribute seems to keep their kill rate under control by and large, and thus they ain't Uber, (more in a moment on specifics).

Their Missile resistance is raised, whilst a bit Uber in some cases, (see "THE BAD" in a moment), it's generally a Little less than what working Shields would have but a bit better than what most 2-handers have. A bit of a mix really.

More specific on kills, generally they will beat S&S with a 3:2 or 1:1 kill rate, and the same for Late Cav. They tend to be beaten by 2-handers, with the 2-Handers managing a 3:2/2:1 kill rate against them. Spears I haven't tested, but I'd expect a general massacre s with all other infantry.

In other words they don't tend to beat any non-Cav unit decisively, but they don't tend to get beaten decisively either. Even when they lose they take most of the enemy with them and when they win they lose most of the unit. However they are good all rounders. In effect you don't really expect them to beat anything as well as another unit in your army would, but they won't get beaten by anything as bad as some units i your army would. (i.e. 2-Handers might beat S&S better than Halberds would, but the halberds will do better when faced with missile or cav).


THE BAD

Auto-Calc doesn't take account of animations and they rely somewhat on having worse animations than proper 2-handers to keep the balance between them and proper 2-Handers.

Their missile defense is just a touch too good. They are currently closer to S&S than 2-Handers.

They are a bit too good vs. pikes because they have such a long weapon and such good defense. As a result they are pretty much the only unit that can strike at a Pikeman without having 5 or so attacks directed at him every round of attacks. Voulgiers for example get beaten by Noble Pikes by a 3:2 kill ratio in the Pikes favor, considering the quality of Scottish infantry and the tech levels, (big enough to mater to me here), this IS too low a kill rate, it should be more 2:1/3:1 IMHO.

The REALLY BAD news, Swiss Guard and Obaushear's are to good ATM, I'll deal with each separately:

Swiss Guard aren't too OTT, but they are a bit. 17 Armour is far too good a missile defense and their total of 26 defense all round is so good that all non-AP units struggle to hurt them. They tend to get 1:1 kill rates against 2-Handers and 3:1/4:1 against S&S, they are also impossible for pikes to deal with. Their only real balancing point is that they are Papal States only and that the Papal States don't get many other good melee units (Halberd Militia, Pike Militia and DFK are their best ones besides Swiss Guard). If they where the only problem I'd let them slide as 2 units of any S&S/2-Hander/Pike will beat 1 unit of Swiss Guard.

Obaushear's are the real issue, with an even higher total defense of 31 and an Armour value of 23 they are just are TOO good. No non-AP missile unit could touch them, (thats daft, my HA dislike or not, it's too much), and even some AP units will struggle. Don't get me wrong, with the Danish Infantry typically being poorly defended vs. missile fire, having a Halberdier that is above average wouldn't bother me, but when they are virtually immune it's just not fair. They make Swiss Guard look daft as they can beat any Pike or S&S unit with less than 5 dead. Although strangely DGK can still beat them so it's defiantly Armour related. Cav also don't do much worse for some reason. Whilst I could have accepted Swiss Guard, these are simply too much.


Despite all that doom and gloom I'm generally happy with Halberds, they feel unique from both Pikes and 2-Handers and are worth their money, it's just the high end ones that are proving OTT and much of this problem is stemming from how poor the defense skill of Halberd Militia is at Vanilla settings. We have to raise it s much to make it competitive that it's pushing even Volouge Militia to the limits of balanced and Voulougiers/Swordstaff militia to the limit.


The real problem with balancing Halberds is that they (in vanilla), suffer from the switchover bug, the Animation bug and are fairly underpowered in vanilla for their price on top of everything else. So where not only having to kill the effects of 2 bugs, but where also having to do CA's job and actually balance them properly in the first place.

I'm going to experiment and see if can't fin the point at which Obaushear's become OK balance wise and then see how that effects the rest of the Halberds in compression.