Not s single major bug will be fixed in the incoming patch?

**Quickening** · 03-06-2007, 04:01

Originally Posted by Whacker

No it's actually different. The issue with pikemen is they don't keep poking long enough, once the formation loses any bit of cohesion, they invariably whip out their swords which and go at it, and get slaughtered in the process. If they could hold formation a bit better and switch to swords much later than they do right now, they'd last a heck of a lot longer. If you want an example, go mod out their sword secondary weapon so all they have is pikes, then run some tests. They'll kill just about anything in short order when melee starts.

Thanks for the information. But is that definately a bug or just something that a lot of people dislike?

**Whacker** · 03-06-2007, 04:05

Originally Posted by Quickening

Thanks for the information. But is that definitely a bug or just something that a lot of people dislike?

Honest answer is we can't know for sure if it's a bug, but the general consensus (with very few dissenters) is that it's unintended/abnormal behavior, hence a bug. Aside from one or two folks who've posted to the contrary, everyone wants this fixed. Carl's Problemfixer addresses it, but IIRC pikes became so overpowered when you remove their secondary weapon that he had to nerf the primary attack way the heck down to compensate for it. He may be able to tell us more if he sees this.

**Foz** · 03-06-2007, 06:14

Yeah, it just seems... odd, really. You'd think that the men near enough to engage the one enemy guy who has gotten in among the unit would switch to swords to dispatch him (leaving those out of sword range still to poke others/him), then go back to poking if possible. So then it seems a bit far fetched to have that one enemy guy trigger pretty much everyone busting out swords and keeping them out for the duration of the fight. We all sorta agreed that pikes are supposed to poke poke poke all day long, so at the very least their vanilla behavior is extremely undesirable, even if not a bug. Take into account that they have at least one other bug (one where when ordered to attack they simply march through the enemy unit, never lowering the pikes to try to attack) and it seems even more likely that the sword thing is not their intended behavior either.

**Whacker** · 03-06-2007, 06:41

Originally Posted by Foz

Yeah, it just seems... odd, really. You'd think that the men near enough to engage the one enemy guy who has gotten in among the unit would switch to swords to dispatch him (leaving those out of sword range still to poke others/him), then go back to poking if possible. So then it seems a bit far fetched to have that one enemy guy trigger pretty much everyone busting out swords and keeping them out for the duration of the fight. We all sorta agreed that pikes are supposed to poke poke poke all day long, so at the very least their vanilla behavior is extremely undesirable, even if not a bug. Take into account that they have at least one other bug (one where when ordered to attack they simply march through the enemy unit, never lowering the pikes to try to attack) and it seems even more likely that the sword thing is not their intended behavior either.

You know what's even screwier, I seem to recall that in RTW, when a cohort was tossing pila anyone engaged up front would stay fighting melee, people in the back would throw then draw. Am I the only one who remembers this? As such it doesn't seem to me like it'd be very hard to work out something that allows for one or two guys to pull swords and stabby stab with them while everyone else pokes. I'd also completely forgotten about the "march through" bug. /shrug

**Lorenzo_H** · 03-06-2007, 10:19

Excuse me, but what were/are the "Shield bug" and the "two handed bug?" I never noticed anything awry with either, but I wasn't looking for anything at that.

**JCoyote** · 03-06-2007, 10:35

Originally Posted by diablodelmar

Excuse me, but what were/are the "Shield bug" and the "two handed bug?" I never noticed anything awry with either, but I wasn't looking for anything at that.

2h is where some units that are supposed to be good against cavalry can't hurt them at all. It's an animation error. Bills are supposed to be superb against cavalry; if you've ever seen a team of them flail helplessly at guys on horses that's why.

Shield bug is where shield values subtract from a unit's defense in melee. It's why some units get trashed by "lesser" units. It's why units like Militia Spears can have a hard time against peasants.