Anyone know how to correctly use spearmen against cavalry?

[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.