The Inevitable.

[Malaclypse]

tl;dr A diverse army that works together fares better than a specialized force.

Though you should read it, because Canary is a swell, articulate fella.

Also, the point that long weapons have always been top choices in Strategus is waaay valid. In some of the first, peasant battles of this strat, looting a LIGHT LANCE was a coveted glory.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

I'll forgive you your use of the word synergy...

But lets all be nice, hell this thread is mostly in response to how impressed I've been with your pike squarish formation, its been working really well.

I think that a variant of the pike square is going to become the dominant formation and the factions that learn that and train are the ones that will win. Now to wait for the market prices on pikes and pole arms to sky rocket lol.

[Visconti]

Agree with everything canary said, and this isnt a new thing to strat, back in last strat they were just as popular, in our wars alongside the FCC longspears/pikes made up a huge part of our strategy. And even before that, there have always been a ton of pikemen in the cRPG battle servers. Like Canary said, the pike is strong, but not unbeatable. If you have good teamwork and a diverse composition of infantry, its easy to isolate and kill the pikemen, just need to be careful about how you do it. I know that I, as a 2her with a longsword, have had no problem fighting pikemen in strat, its just a matter of patience, Situational Awareness, and knowing when to attack, as opposed to zoning in on that 1 guy in front of you and trying to attack him, resulting in you getting stabbed by his fellow pikemen because you werent paying attention.

[Jarlek]

(click to show/hide)

This is incorrect. There's always been a reach escalation in the game, the longest weapons available have always been popular. There's a reason why the long voulge lost its sideswings, for example. The pike has been nerfed so many times I severely doubt the "devs pay no attention" to it.

Actually, yes, we have been in these battles. Your archers are more effective than you give them credit for, they can shut down certain avenues of attack simply by being able to shoot at them. A shield on a teammate can only protect so far around him, let alone people behind him, particularly when projectiles are coming from above.

Yes, pikemen have teammates with them.

So, it's you, then, that hasn't been in these battles and doesn't know what you're talking about? We've never fielded steel picks. But to your point...

Right, so since you guys have mainly one type of melee fighter and we use multiple kinds of melee classes in conjunction, one component of the synergy from our variety of playstyles we use together is broken and too strong. You keep saying that since the pikemen are near their teammates, they're impossible to attack. You're essentially arguing that teamwork is overpowered, and you know, that's true. Work as a team and you'll come out on top. You can't complain that our teamplay is overpowered simply because you're not as diverse, that is an issue you can deal with!

And you can't expect to have a group of entirely shielders and beat a group comprised of shielders and pikemen. This is obviously a simplified example, as both sides have multiple different kinds melee weaponry being fielded.

Realism, as well, is just not an argument that works. Addressing things from a balance angle, things like jump attacks, is a fair discussion to have, but from a balance point of view, there is a reason (balance and game engine limitations) why these weapons stab through teammates and can spin while thrusting to hit people close to them. One major example is that you can walk through the shaft of a pike when it isn't thrust out in an attack. Instead of having to go around or knock the weapon out of the way, you just downblock and walk right through it, or are close enough that it glances and move straight through a physical object to reach the guy using the weapon. This is a double edged sword, you see: goes through teammates, enemies go through it. It's an intangible object in the game, whereas in reality it would be a solid pole made of wood with a sharp metal point at the tip.

Long spears and pikes have always been prevalent in strategus and will continue to do so, we aren't an isolated incident of one strategy being overpowered; obviously if it truly was overpowered it would surely be ubiquitous. But wait! A lot of clans have pikemen. The fact that one group is deficient in the use of them doesn't mean implicitly that the pike is an overpowered weapon. It's a similar situation to the old days of strat before the slew of archery nerfs, when the escalation was tilted towards domination based on the amount of ranged players on one side. If you can't cope, or can't get closer to parity with the amount of archers you can field, you get shot up. The difference nowadays is that there are far more counters to pikemen than their are to archers, the pike has a lot of disadvantages ranged weapons do not have and can't do well on their own like they can.

And without addressing any "historical evidence" you brought up in that other thread, this is a game and a fantasy world. It creates its own history.

Pikes are strong, but not unbeatable.

Damn. That's a bloody good read!

[Oberyn]

Longspears (and after, pikes) have always been one of the most effective weapons in Strat. It's not new, it's not a single clan's specific tactic.

From a realism perspective saying that scottish highlanders were the only ones who ever used pike formations is just retarded. It's something that was used since at least ancient bronze age warfare. The spanish tercio, landsknecht, swiss pike formation are prob the closest contemporary (for the period Warband mirrors) examples. And even then, having a long polearm in the second rank stabbing/attacking over a frontline of shielders is a no-brainer. You know what, just read this, it's wiki i know, but cba to look up other sources for obvious stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_%28weapon%29

[CrazyCracka420]

In all the battles ive been in almost all of our infantry was sheild infantry, we form a sheild wall and attack their mob of infantry infront of us, getting close does absolutely nothing. As i said the second you drop your shield your open to being attacked by almost anyone on their team given they mostly have pikes. Not only that the guys in the front have sheids. So basically you open up and hit someoens sheild, only to be simultaneously stabbed to death by 5-6 people. If pikers couldnt stab thru team mates or stab people who are 5ft infront of them with  a 30 ft weapon it would be better but w/e.

As soon as the shield drops you get stabbed, even if as you say you're 2 feet away and the weapon is 10 feet long.  Also, having maulers doesn't help, you can downblock the long spear in front of you, but the long spear on either of your sides can stab you. 

Canary mentioned it, and I've said it before (as others have), it would be nice if weapons were static objects.  Even if it's not being thrusted, if I ride my horse into a pike, it should be reared.  That would also make it so that if I'm 2 feet away on foot, that pike is useless.

The answer is ranged in crpg/warband.  Every time we've went up against a big group of pikemen we didn't have enough ranged, and we didn't have enough focused on the areas we needed to.  Also we'd need more pikes in a shield wall than 3. 

[Lemmy_Winks]

From a realism perspective saying that scottish highlanders were the only ones who ever used pike formations is just retarded. It's something that was used since at least ancient bronze age warfare. The spanish tercio, landsknecht, swiss pike formation are prob the closest contemporary (for the period Warband mirrors) examples. And even then, having a long polearm in the second rank stabbing/attacking over a frontline of shielders is a no-brainer. You know what, just read this, it's wiki i know, but cba to look up other sources for obvious stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_%28weapon%29

When did i say pikes were only used by scottish highlanders, look at my thread in balance to get my full history take. At any rate i meant highland or mountain warfare, you mentioned the scotts and the swiss, which means you agree with me. You also mention bronze age warfare, yes i know about that, and its really my whole point in the history part of my nerf thread. Pike walls are a bronze age tactic that were rendered useless by the advent of professional armies (the Romans) using sword and sheild infantry who could get in close and render the pikes useless.

I even posted links to some of these battles between the roman legions and these pike wall or phalanx formations, the Romans won basically all of these battles and in two of them had kill to death ratios of 25:1 and 50:1 despite being outnumbered (these were very large battles too). I took this historical evidence and provided a rationale for why pikes were not effective to prove why they should not be so effective here. Some of the biggest defeats in military history have come from pitting an army of pikes/phalanx against sword and shield infantry and yet doing that wins you battles in strategous? Its the same thing as if the game was messed up so badly that an army of cavalry could destroy an army of pikemen effortlessly.

As far as the other comments about game play. The way i see it, its a bunch of people (the ones who mass pikes) saying that pikes are not OP and are easy to stop (which is why they use them), and they would know that pikes are easy to stop seeing as the people they fight against do not use pikes. Wait what?

Pikes and other weapons are not static objects and thats unfortunate, but you can still adjust the minimum attack range in the code, that needs to be done. You can also slow down the movement speed of those who use pikes, it has been done to a very small extent, it needs to be done more. The lawl-stabbing needs to be doen away with on all weapons, everyone seems to agree with that. The bunny hopping needs to be disabled when using a pike, and it can be done (i would want this done on alot of other weapons too, but pikers seem to be the only ones who do it). If you want to agrue agaisnt these changes read my rationale for them in my nerf thread. At any rate, when it comes to making a weapon balanced instead of realistic or historically accurate, this changes would make the pike balanced.

A pike is a weapon that was designed in an extreme way to do one job, and do it very well, that being to stop cavalry. Balance is not taking a weapon meant to do one thing, and changeing it in all kind of absurd ways so that it can do EVERYTHING well. With that kind of thought why dont we take throwing rocks, which suck, and "balance" them by filling them with gunpowder so that they function as gernades. That way rocks wont suck anymore. If something like a pike does one thing SO well as it does stopping cavalry, its already balanced, its aptitude of stopping cavalry offsets how much it SHOULD suck against infantry.

And if you say "balanced" armies win battles, i would think you all would be for this. I would not consider a "balanced" and "diverse" army as you describe it, to be an army made of two different unit types. With these changes, you would still have some pikes for stopping cav, its just not 80% of your infantry would have them. This opens the door for other unit types to replace those pikers making your army truly diverse and balanced. At any rate now that the Knights of new and TKOV have gotten into the action, its 4 vs 1 in strat now, you dont need OP pikes anymore.

And remember, if something (the pike) gets nerfed over, and over, and over, and over again, then its probably OP.

Why pikes should not be so good:

Pikes were so long and heavy pike men/phalanx moved extremely slow.
If infantry got past the spear points and in close to the pikers, the pikes were useless, they had to drop their pikes and fight with their side sword, if they had one.
Pikes were so long and heavy that when flanked they could not turn to their left or right to face their attackers, they had to drop their pikes and use their side sword, if they had one.
Pikes were so long and heavy that when flanked from behind they could not turn around face their attackers, they had to drop their pikes and use their side sword, if they had one.
Pikes had no maneuverability or flexibility as soldiers/a military unit.
All of this was made worse by the fact that they typically wore very light armor because of how heavy the pikes themselves were, the very most elite pikemen could wear heavier armor, but the vast majority could not.

Pike walls were only useful in exactly one scenario, if the enemy was in front of them and they were able to keep them at bay, meaning the enemy did not have shields, or did not have the discipline to advance whole heartily into the pike wall. Yes some may be stabbed or even killed while doing so, but that's what professional soldiers do, and when they get in they slaughter the pikers.

[Tanken]

When did i say pikes were only used by scottish highlanders, look at my thread in balance to get my full history take. At any rate i meant highland or mountain warfare, you mentioned the scotts and the swiss, which means you agree with me. You also mention bronze age warfare, yes i know about that, and its really my whole point in the history part of my nerf thread. Pike walls are a bronze age tactic that were rendered useless by the advent of professional armies (the Romans) using sword and sheild infantry who could get in close and render the pikes useless.

I even posted links to some of these battles between the roman legions and these pike wall or phalanx formations, the Romans won basically all of these battles and in two of them had kill to death ratios of 25:1 and 50:1 despite being outnumbered (these were very large battles too). I took this historical evidence and provided a rationale for why pikes were not effective to prove why they should not be so effective here. Some of the biggest defeats in military history have come from pitting an army of pikes/phalanx against sword and shield infantry and yet doing that wins you battles in strategous? Its the same thing as if the game was messed up so badly that an army of cavalry could destroy an army of pikemen effortlessly.

As far as the other comments about game play. The way i see it, its a bunch of people (the ones who mass pikes) saying that pikes are not OP and are easy to stop (which is why they use them), and they would know that pikes are easy to stop seeing as the people they fight against do not use pikes. Wait what?

Pikes and other weapons are not static objects and thats unfortunate, but you can still adjust the minimum attack range in the code, that needs to be done. You can also slow down the movement speed of those who use pikes, it has been done to a very small extent, it needs to be done more. The lawl-stabbing needs to be doen away with on all weapons, everyone seems to agree with that. The bunny hopping needs to be disabled when using a pike, and it can be done (i would want this done on alot of other weapons too, but pikers seem to be the only ones who do it). If you want to agrue agaisnt these changes read my rationale for them in my nerf thread. At any rate, when it comes to making a weapon balanced instead of realistic or historically accurate, this changes would make the pike balanced.

A pike is a weapon that was designed in an extreme way to do one job, and do it very well, that being to stop cavalry. Balance is not taking a weapon meant to do one thing, and changeing it in all kind of absurd ways so that it can do EVERYTHING well. With that kind of thought why dont we take throwing rocks, which suck, and "balance" them by filling them with gunpowder so that they function as gernades. That way rocks wont suck anymore. If something like a pike does one thing SO well as it does stopping cavalry, its already balanced, its aptitude of stopping cavalry offsets how much it SHOULD suck against infantry.

And if you say "balanced" armies win battles, i would think you all would be for this. I would not consider a "balanced" and "diverse" army as you describe it, to be an army made of two different unit types. With these changes, you would still have some pikes for stopping cav, its just not 80% of your infantry would have them. This opens the door for other unit types to replace those pikers making your army truly diverse and balanced. At any rate now that the Knights of new and TKOV have gotten into the action, its 4 vs 1 in strat now, you dont need OP pikes anymore.

And remember, if something (the pike) gets nerfed over, and over, and over, and over again, then its probably OP.

Why pikes should not be so good:

Pikes were so long and heavy pike men/phalanx moved extremely slow.
If infantry got past the spear points and in close to the pikers, the pikes were useless, they had to drop their pikes and fight with their side sword, if they had one.
Pikes were so long and heavy that when flanked they could not turn to their left or right to face their attackers, they had to drop their pikes and use their side sword, if they had one.
Pikes were so long and heavy that when flanked from behind they could not turn around face their attackers, they had to drop their pikes and use their side sword, if they had one.
Pikes had no maneuverability or flexibility as soldiers/a military unit.
All of this was made worse by the fact that they typically wore very light armor because of how heavy the pikes themselves were, the very most elite pikemen could wear heavier armor, but the vast majority could not.

Pike walls were only useful in exactly one scenario, if the enemy was in front of them and they were able to keep them at bay, meaning the enemy did not have shields, or did not have the discipline to advance whole heartily into the pike wall. Yes some may be stabbed or even killed while doing so, but that's what professional soldiers do, and when they get in they slaughter the pikers.

Due to game mechanics, all your fantastical beliefs about the Pike (that are mostly false) will not and cannot be implemented. So suck it up buttercup, the Pike is here to stay. It's already extremely slow, it weighs the carrier down to the point we have to stack two additional athletics skills on top of what we'd normally use IN ORDER to compensate for the lack of speed. If you're going to start judging one weapon because of its popularity (which really isn't all that vast, since 90% of the users don't know what the hell they're doing with it) then you minaswell start judging every weapon. Hell, make a new game engine that can support all of these claims. I think Canary summed it up quite nicely, go read his post.


"As far as the other comments about game play. The way i see it, its a bunch of people (the ones who mass pikes) saying that pikes are not OP and are easy to stop (which is why they use them), and they would know that pikes are easy to stop seeing as the people they fight against do not use pikes. Wait what?"

We know their weaknesses, and we've tried educating you all on how to overcome a Pike. About 40% of the decent population has figured it out, and pikes are extremely difficult to use against them. Going against Pike users is easy, they're typically very bad and not familiar with the weapon. Let's address your Morning Star horse build. How can it hit a target directly underneath the horse and you can swing through your horse, without injury to it, to strike an individual who is otherwise out of your reach? Yeah, let's not get into the fantasy world of that Lemmy, even though it's unfortunately true.

Pikes are fine as is, stop bitching. Down block, or train more pikemen for strategus. You guys already seem to love using our pikes, it's just a matter of using it correctly. Pike is not hard to counter at all. Situational awareness, downblocking, and patience are all key in overcoming a Pikeman.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

Now, now brown cows, lets all settle petal.

Everyone is simultaneous correct and incorrect. This is what we have it isn't perfect but its pretty good. The way to respond to awesome use of pikes is a mixture of pike and shot/xbow/bow and to try and use it just as well.

Personally I'm digging what is going on because it means that team work has to be stepped up and if that happens then may I get lead a shield band huzzah! Strat is going to be so much more fun as a result.

Also I think what we have right now is a pretty good example of the power of pikes. I can't wait to see how the Hellenic League starts using them with a Hopolite line it could be damned sexy.

[CrazyCracka420]

Totally agree frank.  As with most weapons and playstyles there are always counters to them (not withstanding that you can always counter weapons/playstyle with the same weapons/playstyle).

Hopefully the dev's stop worrying about trying to fine tune balance items (they are good enough) and get back to making a multiplayer game based off the single player game...you have a fucking gold mine at your feet...

[Lemmy_Winks]

Tanken, like most of your posts i didnt read it, but are you and KUTT going to ask for Usulum back when TKOV recaptures it tonight? Your part of the green faction i would think your entitled to it.

[Tanken]

Unlike the Hospitallers, the Green Faction's armies claim fiefs for ourselves. We don't let one super-power take all the glory and then sanction off fiefs to others, lmfao.


When is Hospitaller going to let ATS, or LL lead one of their armies that they keep funding and single-handedly take a Fief for themselves? They won't.

[Malaclypse]

While this isn't every player you guys employ, Lemmy, what I've noticed about your ranged is somewhat bad target prioritizing, along with awful tunnel vision. One Hospitaller archer who I won't name shot at me, a Crossbowman, for five minutes after he landed one shot on me! It is never, ever wise to chase a kill to that extent when there are more important targets (infantry). You don't win the "ranged war" by shooting their ranged with your ranged, you win it by being better at shooting their infantry!

Also, in the case of Pikes, good throwers are probably the most effective answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD-MPoqmt_M

[Tanken]

Also, in the case of Pikes, good throwers are probably the most effective answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD-MPoqmt_M

Best.

Video.

Ever.


Lololol. Yeah, that was pretty fun. I told Brunch Lady to upload it cuz I cracked up so hard.

[Jarlek]

Also, in the case of Pikes, good throwers are probably the most effective answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD-MPoqmt_M

So many throwers! I feel so lonely in EU. Please come visit!