Anyone know how to correctly use spearmen against cavalry?

[The Spartan (Returns)]

see when cavalry charge into spearmen they usually destroy the entire unit even if in schiltrom. i dont know how to use them against charging cavalry. what should i do? and shouldnt Billmen have bonuses fighting cavalry?

[TevashSzat]

You will always have to sacrifice a unit to recieve the brunt of the charge since most cavalry will destroy anything they touch during a charge. Put one unit in schiltrom right in front of where the cavalry is gonna charge. The enemy will charge that unit and it will get massacred, but their charge is broken.

[Skott]

Yeah, its best to layer your lines if you can. Ever notice how the AI will sometimes set your infantry in two lines one behind another when first entering the battle map? Thats what you need to do if you got enough units. In RTW a single unit could hold pretty good against a charge but in MTW2 cavalry are more powerful and can plough thru a 3 rank deep unit. Heck, the way the game is they often can walk through it. So shorten your front line and make a second line behind the first if the enemy has alot of cavalry units. Especially on the end/flanks.

I've noticed cavalry tend to prefer to charge your end/flank units more often than the center units. Alot of times when I dont have enough units to make a double front line I'll just put a extra unit on each end to back up the unit in the front row on those ends. They can also guard against those 'end run' flanking manuevers cavalry like to try now and again.

I havent tried the schiltrom in front yet. I usually just make layers. I'll have to give that a try and see how it works.

[Foz]

Yeah that's pretty much correct in the vanilla game, X. Units do not stand up to cavalry at all b/c of the shield bug. Shield-fixed spears actually do not get raped by cavalry as they do in vanilla, and armored sergeants prove enough to give most cavalry a good fight. Being deprived of 12 points of defense by the bug (shields subtract from melee defense instead of adding) makes almost everyone in the unit die from the charge, where the defense boost from the fix allows shield troops to mostly absorb the initial charge. You still lose a lot of the front rank or 2, but there's none of this nonsense where one knight can kill 15 spearmen and come out the other side of the unit smelling like a rose. If that sounds like it might be something you want changed (lord knows I was happy to have shield units finally put up a fight) then check my sig for the link.

[TevashSzat]

Yep, lets put it this way, i have killed about 2 units of jaguar warriors i think on large unit sizes with only 3 fully upgraded mongol horse archers (not sure which one, but the best one) people. Not three units, but three people within a unit by charging the warriors and then have them charge through the other side and keep on running away without giving the jaguar warriors a chance to retaliate

[Slaists]

see when cavalry charge into spearmen they usually destroy the entire unit even if in schiltrom. i dont know how to use them against charging cavalry. what should i do? and shouldnt Billmen have bonuses fighting cavalry?

1. apply the shield fix (fox has a nice program to do that). in the vanilla, shield defense value actually gets subtracted (or so it seems) from the defense rating of the unit in combat. fox's fix get's rid of the problem (half of shield's value into armor/half into defense).

2. apply the pike fix (look around in the forums for that, basically, remove the secondary weapon from pikes).

3. apply zhiang's 2hander fix.

and your spearmen (all kinds of them) will be potent against cavalry again.

[pike master]

something not many people know these days that has been forgotten is that horses seem to prefer spears over the whole pickle variety but it is not known exactly why since the knowledge has been lost over the generations.

[Bearclaw]

There are a few ways to beat enemy heavy cavalry. Either you can bring along some infantry units that can deal with a cavalry charge, like pikemen (depending on faction), or throw a line of peasants in front of your army to stop the charge. You can also use sharpened stakes if you're England or The Turks. You can also counteract a charge with your own heavy cavalry-they have sufficient mass that they don't get destroyed in a charge. You can also use the environment-trees, the ruins and farmhouses that sometimes appear on the battlemap, etc. can all break or prevent a charge.

In my current English campaign, I'm using the stakes method and keeping about 3-4 heavy cavalry units in my army to guard my flanks. I would say using your own cavalry is the best way to do it, possibly along with using a line of peasants. Using your own cavalry would definitely be the best way (if you lack stakes), but sometimes enemy cavalry charges out of their own army and it's impossible to isolate and destroy them. Pikes are good but I hear they switch to secondary weapon (sword) too easily.

[TevashSzat]

If you read the one thread started by Lusted regarding his chat with devlopers, one gets the impression that the shield bug as well as other major bugs will be fixed in the next patch

[Foz]

If you read the one thread started by Lusted regarding his chat with devlopers, one gets the impression that the shield bug as well as other major bugs will be fixed in the next patch

Count on it. While he obviously isn't at liberty to say what is fixed and what is not, he indicated that they are making vast improvements to unit balance, which they would not take the time to do if they had not fixed something that was making it broken, and likely ALL the things they currently know about that were making it broken.

So while Lusted isn't at liberty to say... he's given us more than enough info to draw conclusions from

[General Zhukov]

A comment on how spearmen can be, and have been, effectively used since the game's release:

Spearmen are in the business of killing cavalry, but there is a trick to it. Their anti-cavalry function does not mean they can absorb the tremendous force of a cavalry charge, (of course they cannot) instead they excel at attacking engaged, entangled, restricted, or confined horse troops.

As such, their best performance is to be had when fighting cavalry in woods, inside settlement gates, in tight spaces like city streets, or in battle situations where the horses can be surrounded or flanked.

Try this tactic in an open field battle: intercept a charging unit of knights with any of your own cavalry units, then move in to attack the engaged knights with some spearmen. At the least, the knights will have to withdraw. In fact, without the advantage of the charge, knights can be readily beaten with normal sword troops or spearmen, except the latter are cheaper, more abundant, available earlier, and available from cities. Already a strong unit without buffs.

[sapi]

Take your missile troops off skirmish and use them to absorb the charge, then charge in with infantry.

Merc crossbowmen are dime to a dozen anyway

[Ciaran]

Or place some expendable unit in front of your spears, archers or peasant crossbows are great, since the cavalry likes to target missile units. They´ll charge into them and will then, when their charge is exhausted, slam into the spears. If you time it right, you can give the spears the order to countercharge the cavalry, they´ll get a tiny bonus for that as well.

[sapi]

Sounds like we think alike - you posted pretty much the same thing as me a few minutes later in the excom thread too :)

[Doug-Thompson]

The shield bug will be fixed. Why? Because it is the most embarrasing, basic and — hopefully — easily corrected mistake in the game. I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice it until it was pointed out.

[econ21]

I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice it until it was pointed out.

I agree it will be fixed. But I'm not sure how you would notice it. The main effect seems to be nerfing spearmen, but I assumed that was a modelling decision about the power of knights rather than anything to do with shields. The various sword and shield units seemed to do ok at what they were supposed to do (beat up spears). Peasants were too strong but without lots of other unshielded melee units it was hard to see a pattern relating to the absence of a shield as a factor. Maybe some glitches with 2H units contributed to this.

I'm more embarassed that I did not notice the 2H bug. Then again, my billmen still died horribly against cav in the demo when they were not bugged, so I excuse myself of even that failing.

[Carl]

The 2-Hander bug was defintly a big part of why no one picked up on it before. Look at JHI, they have terribbile stats compared to most 2-Handers in the Game with most of the english Bill units and the DEK/DNK/DPK all being MUCH better, and a fair numbetr of others being similar or just slightly less. yet look at how Uber the JHI where considered to be. The fact that the 2-Handers wern't working hid the sheild bug from us because we'd nothing that could beat S&S units that wasn't another S&S unit with the exceptionm of JHI.

[King Azzole]

something not many people know these days that has been forgotten is that horses seem to prefer spears over the whole pickle variety but it is not known exactly why since the knowledge has been lost over the generations.

At first I was like Then I was like Then finally I

[Carl]

Wel could you explain it to me, because I can't figure it out...

[Foz]

Wel could you explain it to me, because I can't figure it out...

Pickles, Carl, pickles. He's saying horses prefer spears over whole pickles. Don't think too hard

[Lord Fluffy]

I haven't tried this, but whenever I charged a line of archers, the archers would retreat just seconds before the hit. At that point the cavalry will always switch from charge mode to pursuit mode. Has anyone tried retreating the spearmen and then engaging the cavalry after it's out of charge mode?

[pike master]

if the unit is quick enough in retreating the cav will actually stop cold and take a few seconds to start maneuvring again. ive noticed this if they dont retreat fast enough the cav usually do a good job of killing them.

but what you are observing is something in between. i suppose proper spacing between skirmishers and spearmen could seriously mess a cav units charge up. but a lot of people are now not worrying so much about the cav charging spears as they are the bug where the cav can ignore disruptor units and run through them without getting hurt.

i think at the very least that a heavy cav charge into a schiltrom should be a M.A.D. affair.

[TevashSzat]

Even better than having a cheap unit absorbing the charge i guess is if you have your own cavalry intercept and charge the charging enemy cavalry since you will be given an advantage of not being charged against and also, the unit that the enemy cav was charging at could charge at the cav melee and surround the enemy cav

[The Spartan (Returns)]

thanks i take all your suggestions into great consideration, for of course its effective. but what are all these bugs?? shield bug, 2-hander bug, pike bug? tell please.
(been absent for almost 2 months)

[JCoyote]

Many 2-Hand axe/halbeard/bill type units cannot attack cavalry at all. (Animation issue.)

Shields are bugged, the battlefield engine code when you fight it yourself subtracts shield values from melee defense... but treats it as positive for missiles. Hence, until the game engine is overhauled by CA there isn't a way to work around it... every solution we create causes a new imbalance.

Pikes aren't exactly bugged, but they don't work very well. They'll stop a charge, but then immediately they drop the pikes and go into melee... which they aren't terribly good at. While they should be good against horses, once the charge stops they immediately start to get stomped on...

[Foz]

I've worked most with the shield bug personally, and while it's true that we don't have a perfect solution, we've arrived at what everyone seems to agree is the best possible. Because the shields work backwards in melee, my fix sets them to zero to prevent that from happening, then puts the shield points half into armor and half into defense skill. The result is that shield units are at the correct melee defense from the front now, while being off a few points frontally against missiles (slightly lower than should be). Any given flank is typically a few points higher or lower than it ought to be against missiles or melee attacks, too. On the whole though, most people agree this is infinitely better than shield units operating at typically -12 from intended melee defense in the front. In particular it makes shield units reasonably good fighting units, and able to actually take hits from cavalry now (the game was in desperate need of something to keep cavalry from just rolling through everything as this thread has been noting they do). A few other units (mainly the 2-handers that weren't animation-bugged to begin with like JHI and 2-hand sword units) are left underpowered as a result of shield units having much more defense, though this is still way less of a problem than the things the fix puts back into working order.

[Lord Fluffy]

Haha, it works!! I did this in custom battle. One unit of mongol heavy lancers vs Spanish spear militia. On a successful charge the mongols would wipe out all but 2 or 3 militiamen. But when I have the militia retreat right after the mongols enter full gallop, the mongol charge is broken and they enter pursuit mode. I managed to eventually beat the mongols with spear militias, that is after they retreat and re charge multiple times.