Pikemen Reclassifications

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

After i've watched this video. It turned out that....

Firaxis seemed to misunderstood warfare and chronology. While in game Pikemen are Anticavalry units that sucks against swordsmen (or if there's a medieval successor of any kind). In truth they actually outclassed swordsmen and equal to foot men at arms (including dismounted knights) and thus fit the definitions of 'Infantry' class (Combined Melee and Anticavalry, also immune to Melee Antispear bonus) better before pike&shot came to be. And about chronology of 'medieval pikemen' as appeared in game. Did they appear in right chronological order??
If not. What are anticavalry choices of Early to High Medieval era that suffers the same disadvantages against swordsmen?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ah, pikemen! If not realistically, they unbalance every gaem they are in . . .

First, they aren't medieval.
The Vulture Stele in Sumer circa 2600 BCE (firmly in the Ancient Era) shows men with long copper-pointed spears held in both hands - so, technically, Pikes, with a second man holding a man-high shield covering both him and the pikeman.

Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander's Pezhetairoi ("Foot Companions") were, of course, Pikemen, as were the main infantry forces of their Successors right down to the Roman conquest of the Middle East just before the beginning of the Principiate/Empire.

In Medieval Europe, right at the beginning of the 14th century, from 1302 to 1315 CE, you get three great PIke Victories: Courtrai, Bannockburn and Morgarten, involving Flemish militia, Scots and Swiss - all distinctly non-noble pike-armed (or half-pike in the case of the Scots, their weapons were only about 12 feet long instead of 18 to 21 feet) infantry massacring armies of knights.

The Medieval successor to the Classical swordsmen were men with Great Weapons - mostly two-handed long hafted Axes like the Saxons as early as the 10th century, but also used for the rest of the Medieval Era from Scandinavia to the continent, a much smaller percentage of two-handed or Great Swordsmen. Both were starting to get replaced by the halbard in the mid-14th century, because that weapon combined the striking power of an axe blade with a spearpoint to ward off mounted troops, all on a 6 foot shaft. This combination of blade and point on a long shaft came in dozens of variations, but had the ultimate disadvantage that it was a better offensive weapon than defensive (once you got past the pike points, the pikeman was essentially holding a long stick and the halbardiers could butcher them). When the primary purpose of pikes became to ward off cavalry while arquebusiers or musketeers shot them to pieces, the halbard, and all other two-handed edged weapons, became obsolete in a hurry. The early Spanish Tercios (1530 CE) included halbardiers among the pikemen and musketmen, but they became pure 'pike and shot' in less than 40 years.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Conclusions Please.
1. When should Pikemen be? given in game graphical representation is very 13th Century. and what should be enabling tech? If Tactics are still chosen techs then I think it should be moved abit late. about in the same stage as Education i think
2. Should Pikemen remains anticav or should be reclassified as 'Infantry' class?
3. What are the names of the 'Classical Era' anticavalry choices and when should it appear? should there be the LATE Classical (to represent Early Medieval Anticavalry choices )?
4. Name a unit with such characteristics please.

The Medieval successor to the Classical swordsmen were men with Great Weapons - mostly two-handed long hafted Axes like the Saxons as early as the 10th century, but also used for the rest of the Medieval Era from Scandinavia to the continent, a much smaller percentage of two-handed or Great Swordsmen. Both were starting to get replaced by the halbard in the mid-14th century, because that weapon combined the striking power of an axe blade with a spearpoint to ward off mounted troops, all on a 6 foot shaft. This combination of blade and point on a long shaft came in dozens of variations, but had the ultimate disadvantage that it was a better offensive weapon than defensive (once you got past the pike points, the pikeman was essentially holding a long stick and the halbardiers could butcher them). When the primary purpose of pikes became to ward off cavalry while arquebusiers or musketeers shot them to pieces, the halbard, and all other two-handed edged weapons, became obsolete in a hurry. The early Spanish Tercios (1530 CE) included halbardiers among the pikemen and musketmen, but they became pure 'pike and shot' in less than 40 years.

If you said they did have Antispear characteristics. Are they really Billmen? Men At Arms (And should they wear the same full armor as Knights?) . Are great axes, bills, and halberds better anti-pike square weapons than greatswords or slayer swords? (and this marked Greatswordsmen or Longswordsmen incorrect antispear melee unit)
http://www.heavenlyswords.com/product.php?productid=17248

 

[mitsho]

Lindybeige on youtube has good videos explaining these questions of warfare and why spear/halberd/longpole/shaft weapons actually were better than the sword. He gets at it by putting you in the shoe of a single soldier and asking you how you would act. Conclusion: Everything we see in Hollywood, Netflix and co is fake. We are so used to stereotypes that we never question how stupid those tropes are. (The no-helmet rule excluded as that one is needed so that the viewer recognizes the main characters).

Having said that, I think it‘s time for the rock-paper-scissor rule of units in 4x to go. Is Anti-Cav really a role that needs filling? Do we need a heavy (costs strategic resources) and a light infantry? Where there really „battalions“ of knights on the battlefield? I think it‘s time to rethink the whole set-up, and that‘s my answer to your question. When and where the pikemen then go exactly is a question for afterwards.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ The only answer is how Civ7 will turns out..

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Lindybeige on youtube has good videos explaining these questions of warfare and why spear/halberd/longpole/shaft weapons actually were better than the sword. He gets at it by putting you in the shoe of a single soldier and asking you how you would act. Conclusion: Everything we see in Hollywood, Netflix and co is fake. We are so used to stereotypes that we never question how stupid those tropes are. (The no-helmet rule excluded as that one is needed so that the viewer recognizes the main characters).

Having said that, I think it‘s time for the rock-paper-scissor rule of units in 4x to go. Is Anti-Cav really a role that needs filling? Do we need a heavy (costs strategic resources) and a light infantry? Where there really „battalions“ of knights on the battlefield? I think it‘s time to rethink the whole set-up, and that‘s my answer to your question. When and where the pikemen then go exactly is a question for afterwards.

The re-enactment groups like the SCA in the USA and the Sealed Knot Society and Society of Ancients in the UK will tell you that there is a HUGE difference between single combat and Unit Combat as to weapons' effectiveness. A well-trained swordsman in single combat can hold his own against just about anything except a firearm (an M1911 .45 ACP at 15 meters trumps every hand weapon ever made), but in a formation against well-handled pole weapons, he needs a major advantage in maneuverability and training (i.e., Roman Legions against the conscript Macedonian phalanx of pikemen) to survive, let alone win.

There are major differences in effectiveness versus other weapons in formations ('Units'), though, and they need to be modeled - specially if Civ VII gets out of the Boardgame Mode of 1UPT and gives us a real Tactical Battle system in the game.
But I agree completely, straightjacketing units into Eternal Classifications is completely inaccurate. Just as an instance, a solid pike formation, well-drilled like Alexander/Philip's Pezhetairoi on level ground, could charge through anything - they did charge through enemy cavalry, spearmen, (Indian) swordsmen, peltasts, Elephants and chariots. To say that they 'only' have an advantage against mounted troops is simply silly.

The Medieval/Renaissance example for pikemen is even more indicative: there is no indication of anybody 'extra' in the pike blocks that butchered knights at Courtrai or Morgarten, but to defend themselves against enemy infantry when they were stopped, pike units started adding Great Swordsmen (the Landsknechts' "Double Pay Men", among others) and Halbardiers. Once they started adding really effective firearms, the halbards and swordsmen also disappeared.
In Civ VI terms, the Pikemen as soon as they face Swordsmen add their own Swordsmen and lose any malus against Melee Units. Then as soon as personal shoulder firearms are available, they get added to the pikes to produce Pike and Shot which have a serious Bonus against any non-firearm infantry or cavalry - you charge them, the pikes skewer you, you stand on defense, the arquebus' shoot holes in your formation and the pikes charge and stomp you into the ground like tent pegs. There's a reason that 'Pike and Shot' was the standard infantry unit for most of Europe for 200 years . . .

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ You didn't draw any conclusions yet. Also Macedonian DLC lacks of Pezhetairoi (too dificult to spell correctly?) which did fit well into 'Infantry' class
But you seems to conclude that Pikemen in Civ6 might be correct if Swordsmen Anti-Spear bonus is toned down and there's 'Great Weapons Infantry' (Proper name again? Greatswords, Greatweapons or Men At Arms or what?) that yields the same Anti-pike square effect (and Pikemen needs to add their own great weapons infantry to even the odds)

 

[Evie]

The important conclusion that's been drawn very clearly is that the entire notion of counter-units is wrong. The questions you're asking are the wrong questions at this point.

But I'll try to give my perspective on them anyway...

1. Pike should probably stay roughly where they are, representing the late medieval Pike Square. While there were pike phalanxes in the Classical Era, in game terms the time scale may not allow for differenciation between spear-armed conscript formations and pike-armed conscript formations (especially as the Classical Era also has to account for more professional units such as the legions as part of the infantry line).

2. Absolutely Infantry.

3. The anticav unit should be any fortified infantry unit or ranged unit, because the moment you have any mean to break, slow or otherwise blunt the charge (ditches, stakes, caltrops etc), melee cavalry is in deep trouble.

4. Spearmen (Fortified), Pikemen (Fortified), Archer (Fortified), Crossbowman (Fortified)...

 

[dagriggstar]

Honestly if they switched the 'era' of spears and swords i think the game would work much better
Ancient/Medieval/Industrial = Warrior/Swordsman/Riflemen
Starter/Classical/Renaissance = Spearman/Pikemen/Pike and Shot

 

[Sirsquier]

Pikemen in real life where so broken that putting them in a game will lead to them being toned down massively.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Pikemen in real life where so broken that putting them in a game will lead to them being toned down massively.

PIkemen were Spears Plus: better against cavalry, crushing in the attack - ironically, wearing less armor was an advantage for pikemen, because, as the Swiss and Alexander's Pezhetairoi did, coming at a run or fast trot the impact of a block of pikes was practically unstoppable. They were the classic example of the human application of Impact = Mass times Velocity Squared - the faster they charged, the deadlier they were.

Until the weapons technology changed.
Gunpowder firearms simply made anybody primarily armed with a hand weapon, no matter how effective, a Big Fat Target who would be shot down before he ever got close enough to use his weapon. The troops knew that, which meant that morale among pikemen was not particularly good by the end of the 17th century - at the Battle of Neerwinden a French officer noted dozens of pikes on the ground and wondered why there were no bodies of the men who had dropped them, until he realized that they had been dropped by pikemen who had managed to pick up a musket from the casualties: any pikemen knew by then that it was a musket that was the effective weapon, not your pike.
One general, in fact, summed it up neatly:

"Any man who shoots a pikeman should be adjudged a murderer, for he killed a poor defenseless fellow who could never hurt anyone with his implement".

The pike from a Knight-Killer of the 14th - 16th centuries had become an implement carried by "poor defenseless fellows' just a hundred years later . . .

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

So then
1. Should pikemen also immune to warriors and swordsman in addition to advanced era outclassings?
2. And then Man At Arms (great weapons infantry, or what are the other names for this unit?) should, not only deadly to spearmen but also pikemen killer but not work against Pike&Shot?
3. Did the battles of Neerwinden an impetus for France to re-train pikemen into Line Infantry? and to equip musketeers with bayonets and train them how to use one? Did pikemen of the final years of 17th century still wear cuirass and helmet of any kind?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

So then
1. Should pikemen also immune to warriors and swordsman in addition to advanced era outclassings?
2. And then Man At Arms (great weapons infantry, or what are the other names for this unit?) should, not only deadly to spearmen but also pikemen killer but not work against Pike&Shot?
3. Did the battles of Neerwinden an impetus for France to re-train pikemen into Line Infantry? and to equip musketeers with bayonets and train them how to use one? Did pikemen of the final years of 17th century still wear cuirass and helmet of any kind?

1. NO. No melee weapon is completely immune to another melee weapon: Roman legions destroyed Macedonian phalanx in the fifth Macedonian War, despite the terror that facing a pike phalanx instilled in the legionaries (we actually have an eye witness account of this from a Roman soldier). Pikes in the attack should have a bonus versus any non-pike melee, but the other side of that is that pikes required the ability to maintain formation, so had a serious malus when trying to fight in, say, forests, rainforests, or marsh.

2. The Man at Arms, I use to refer to the man carrying a two-handed weapon. Most of those depicted from the time (10th - 14th centuries CE) were carrying long-handled axes, so Axeman could be used. The two-handed swords had a lot of individual titles, but generally were referred to as Great Swords, so if you want to depict a two-handed swordsman, Greatswordsman could be his title. Later, as part of the Landsknechts' pike formations, such swordsmen were called Double Pay Men, but that phrase, as far as I know, was never used for swordsmen as a separate group. The long-handled axe was the characteristic weapon of the Saxon Huscarles, but they should probably be reserved for an Anglo-Saxon UU.

3. Neerwinden and similar battles in the 9 Years War definitely influenced the French into doing away with the pike, but the biggest influence was the invention of the bayonet, which allowed a musket-carrying infantryman to do a pike's job as well as shoot. The ring bayonet was adopted in 1697 by German and English armies, both of which banned the pike in their armies in the same year. France adopted the (much better) locking socket bayonet in 1703 and by the following year at the Battle of Blenheim there wasn't a pike on the battlefield in any of the armies, which on that field included French, Bavarian, English, Austrian, Prussian, Danish, and Dutch troops. Since the adoption of the bayonet coincided with the general adoption of the flintlock musket, or fusil, I have suggested frequently that the two developments be combined into one with a new unit, the Fusilier, which has both twice the firepower of a matchlock musket (the 'musketman' of Civ VI, based on the graphic and timing) and also has an Anti-Cav bonus, though possibly not quite as good as a Pikeman's. Both Pikemen and Musketmen should upgrade to Fusiliers, because from that time on the basic infantry were all gun-carriers and should really be a new Category: Firepower class infantry.
This would also neatly allow the game to show the "Revolution in Military Affairs" historians write about for the 17th - 18th centuries.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

2. The Man at Arms, I use to refer to the man carrying a two-handed weapon. Most of those depicted from the time (10th - 14th centuries CE) were carrying long-handled axes, so Axeman could be used. The two-handed swords had a lot of individual titles, but generally were referred to as Great Swords, so if you want to depict a two-handed swordsman, Greatswordsman could be his title. Later, as part of the Landsknechts' pike formations, such swordsmen were called Double Pay Men, but that phrase, as far as I know, was never used for swordsmen as a separate group. The long-handled axe was the characteristic weapon of the Saxon Huscarles, but they should probably be reserved for an Anglo-Saxon UU.

Before handgunners, arquebusiers, and musketeers. Who, between Man at arms (Is this included billmen and halberdier?), or Greatswordsman are better anti-pike square infantrymen?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Before handgunners, arquebusiers, and musketeers. Who, between Man at arms (Is this included billmen and halberdier?), or Greatswordsman are better anti-pike square infantrymen?

Halbards or bills were better weapons against pikes: at Flodden the English billmen managed to chop the points off the Scots pikes and then massacred the pikemen. However, none of them were much good at stopping a pike charge unless, like the Double Pay Men (Great Swordsmen) they were mixed in with their own pikes or, as at Flodden, the pikes were prevented from charging by terrain or a menace to their flanks.
IF a mass of pikemen charged over reasonably clear ground, you either met them with your own pikemen or broke up their formation with firepower or managed to stop the charge with a flank attack of your own (the Roman method) or you died.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

So the pikemen rules that needs revision included stronger on the offensive to represent pike square charges?

 

[Lord Lakely]

To some degree, wouldn't it just be ok to make Pikemen vulnerable to flanking, resistant to front attacks? As opposed to typical Sword&Shield infantry which can quickly respond to flank attacks but need to get up close (effecitvely making them better at defending and raiding than at all-out attacking.)

There are a couple of variables that could be discussed here, but that requires disentangling the various ways attacks and damage in Civ works, and that requires time.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

To some degree, wouldn't it just be ok to make Pikemen vulnerable to flanking, resistant to front attacks? As opposed to typical Sword&Shield infantry which can quickly respond to flank attacks but need to get up close (effecitvely making them better at defending and raiding than at all-out attacking.)

There are a couple of variables that could be discussed here, but that requires disentangling the various ways attacks and damage in Civ works, and that requires time.

Exactly.
And exactly right, that once we start piling up Tactical Bonuses and Maluses we really need to be including them in the context of a purely Tactical Battle on a tactical map of some kind, where the on-battlefield flanking, attacking, defending bonuses can be shown unit by unit and separate modifiers can be applied to each unit and type according to their position on tactical terrain.

This seems to be what Humankind game is doing, and so far (we haven't seen the complexities of 20th century warfare in that game yet) they seem to have managed to keep the total number of modifiers to a minimum - charging knights get a big bonus, almost everybody gets a malus against elephants, archers on top of elephants are hard to get at, archers on foot are really bad at defending themselves against anybody with a stick or a sharp instrument, etc.
I really, really hope that Civ VII takes a hard look at the possibilities for a Tactical Battlefield, but I don't expect any major changes to combat in Civ VI at this point.

 

[AsH2]

..
The long-handled axe was the characteristic weapon of the Saxon Huscarles, but they should probably be reserved for an Anglo-Saxon UU.
..

No, they shouldn't.
Huscarles (housecarls) and long-handled axe are Norse things that Saxon's picked up.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

No, they shouldn't.
Huscarles (housecarls) and long-handled axe are Norse things that Saxon's picked up.

Picked up and perfected. You are absolutely right that the Huscarle was originally Scandinavian, but after hiring Norse/Danish mercenary Huscarles the Saxons adopted both the warrior and the term well before Hastings. The original Scandinavian Huscarles (post 8th century) were armed with sword, long axe or one-handed short-haft axe, while the Saxon Huscarles almost exclusively used the long axe and were generally better armored in longer mail hauberks than the Scandinavians.
The bulk of Norse/Viking armies were Bondi armed with spears, axe or sword, led by Hirdsmen who were practically indistinguishable from the Huscarles, who technically were Paid Men or King's Companions in Scandinavia. In other words, if a Viking with a long axe or sword, mail shirt, helmet, shield came running at you, he was a Hirdsman, not a Huscarle. If a Saxon with a long axe, mail hauberk, helmet, came at you - he was a Huscarle. Back home in Denmark/Sweden the Hirdsmen and Bondi were 'conscripted' like the Saxon Fyrd, so there is a lot of similarity between them.

As an aside, the Berserkers and Ulfhednar ("wolfskin-clad") pagan Scandinavian nutters in the few contemporary depictions from 7th to 11th centuries are all shown with short axe or sword, never the long axe.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that high-born or professional (mercenary) Scandinavian, Saxon, Russian (either Rus or Slav) warriors from about 8th to 11th centuries were very similarly equipped, but because the Saxon Huscarles seem to have always used the long axe, never a sword or short one-handed axe and always formed the hard core of the Saxon army around the king, I think they would be a good pick for a single UU using the Great Weapon in the early Medieval Era.