Phalanx

[Barbarian]

The way how pikemen move, fight and hold their spears is nowhere close to how phalanx should behave, even if you manage to make them more effective. Phalanx is much more than just a group of pikemen, and during the medieval times, thus also in the game, there is no such formation.
Unless you can get the formation back from RTW, phalanxes will be a great problem.

Everything else looks fine.
Cheers! Keep up the good work!

[MiniMe]

Phalanx is much more than just a group of pikemen, and during the medieval times, thus also in the game, there is no such formation.

=) Good barbrian, please, don't underestimate the Renessainse period pikemen. They were fast, they were manouverable, they've faced foes much more dangerous than persian sparabara and won.
As for the game... vanilla MII is a disaster zone. however I advise everybody to try Point Blank's stats system named Real Combat (implemented is Stainless Steel). Now, his pikemen do act like pikemen and do the job

[Barbarian]

No, that was no what I meant. I never underestimated the Renaissance period pikemen, in fact, I was furious that they are so ineffective in M2: TW.
I also said:

even if you manage to make them more effective

So, I was talking more on the style of their fighting/marching.
Here you can see it clearly: pikemen in spearwall formation in M2:TW



And here, how they march with formation turned on:



Now, compare to the ancient phalanx:



1) The first and the third picture are not the same
2) The second picture should also look similar to the 3rd, because the ancient phalanx could also maintain the formation while marching slowly.

All pictures are correct, though, just the first two show the Renaissance style of fighting. Pikemen's first task was to stop the heavy cavalry, they were famed mostly for the fact that they were the first ones who could actually beat knights, and they only fought infantry when forced to do so.
Ancient phalanxes, however, were meant to be the backbone of many armies, so, they were prepared to fight infantry, especially another phalanx, as much as cavalry.

Now, a fight between 2 units of Renaissance pikemen would be resolved by stabbing each other with pikes, while infantry with short swords and small shields would try to get through the pikes and beat the pikemen in close combat.
This tactic is only close to Macedonian phalanx, as well as to any other phalanx, who wielded sarissa spears, thus using their spears as two-handed weapons.
But most of the other phalanxes also used shields and wielded spears as one-handed weapons. Is there such unit in M2?
Because of this, greek phalanx, for example, didn't work only with their spears. They used their shields and the pushing force from behind, which was created by all the unit working together, to make gaps in opponent phalanxes and gain victory. That means, they slowly moved forward, during the encounter, maintaining their spearwall. This is something that pikemen in M2: TW are not created for. They will only maintain the spearwall, which you see in the first picture, only when standing idly, thus being completely a defensive unit. And this fact has nothing to do with their secondary weapons.

[MidevalLoRd]

I think that there should be multiple forms of the phlanx and sheild wall and testidio ( sorry about spelling errors). There where many types of testido formations, like the wedge form, square form, and line form. That also applies with the phlanx. The sheild wall for the Romans though, should be made so the troops could easly and quickly be made to avoid missle fire when trying to seige a city.

Tell me if it sounds undoable lol.

[antisocialmunky]

One formation per unit.

[Bellum]

You'd think they'd have the sense to change that. It's really a silly limmitation.

I think that's fixed, but battles are over so quickly in M2TW, it is hard to tell.

Will you be able to fix that, even without editable lethality rates?

[mlc82]

IIRC, if you edit out the Pikemens' secondary weapon in MTW2 which takes away the swords they love to drop their pikes and use, they become damn-nearly invincible from the front.

M2 was truly shoddy out of the box, but modders have finally made it worth playing IMO. EB is still my favorite though, along with good old Medieval 1.