In Real Life Halberdiers vs Two-Handed Swordsmen?

Literally “Peter Man”.
The portuguese superhero of the 16th century!
:yum:

His kriptonyte was cannon fire.

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How shameful that human beings engaged in such brutal combat everywhere in the world. :cry:

You do realize this is a wargame, and you have to kill people and raze towns, do you not?

I remember Halbs have been added to the game. Pikes should have been the end of the spear line and they added Halbs because they were actually some kind of further development.
Whilst most polearms are more designed for slays, the halberd is more a thrusting weapon., like the pike. So it fits most. But it is for sure a not optimal continuation for the line, because spears and pikes are no polearmes at all, which excel in close combat against all other weaponry.
Whilst the Halberd is an all-purpose weapon, capable of fighting almost all other weaponry, other polearms are either designed to fight special other weaponry. The bill is for fighting cavalry, the luzern hammer for fighting other polearms. The Pollaxe is a duelist weapon which allows many maneuvers you can’t execute in a battlefield.
So If there had do be a continuation i would actually prefer the Bill to the halberd, but that’s just my personal opinion. Bills and pikes were quite similar in their usage, to protect other troops from cavalry.
Halberds were more stand-alone units often mixed in Pike formations to protect them from their weaknesses. But ther were also elite pure halberd formations which could defeat almost every other weaponry.

I’d like to see this represented in the game. But atm the halberd is just used as a better pike, which is irritating, indeed. Of course elite Halberds excelled in defeating cavalry of all kind - but they did the same with almost all other weaponry. For that reason, well trained halbs were paid much better than most others.

They added Halberdiers because Pikemen could not beat Paladin, and that made Paladin civs too dominant in AoK.

Because they could not just buff Pikeman, as it would skew it’s interaction with Knights and Light Cavalry too much, they decided to add another upgrade, and the Halberd is essentially a Polearm that showed up later than the Pike, in History.

Spears and Pikes are classified as Polearms. Their business end sits on the top of a pole shaft, which is what makes them Polearms.

The Pikeman unit already has a bill, they should have called it the Billman, and called thw Imp Age upgrade ith extra Range, the Pikeman, while introducing a proper Pikeman model.

Very fitting with the rest of the Imperial Age troops.

Halberds were indeed Heavy Infantry, all-purpose weapons, that took much training to master, and were indeed paid more than Pikemen, which could just be drilled Peasants.

The game’s current situation does no justice to either Pikes nor Halberds.

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Pikemen weren’t rewarded so shabbily themselves though. In pike and shot times the pikemen were paid more than the musketeers and when during peacetime the armies were sized down the first order of business was to have each company sack some musketeers while the full pikeman numbers were retained. Pikemen have only one job, standing still while stuff comes at them, but it is absolutely vital that when push comes to shove they do it. You can always hire more musketeers in a hurry, they often even bring their own gun, but a good pikeman is a keeper.

Also, a funny detail the picture in the post above makes me think of: compared to ordinary citizens the pay of soldiers and especially mercenaries was quite good. They risk their lives for that money after all. So they were relatively rich. Their money was usually quite well guarded, being surrounded by soldiers. But there was one time that was perfect for robbing them: during a battle. When the army was on the field, thieves could flock to their camp, now populated only with some servants, priests and various kinds of entertainers, and rob the whole place blind. That is why the soldiers would often carry all the valuables they could carry into battle. They would show up on the field of slaughter dressed in their finest clothes, underneath or in addition to any armor of course. So yes, any pictures you have seen of gentlemanly soldiers with broad rimmed feathered hats or a nice pair of fancy shoes like the pikeman above has are absolutely based in reality.

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It depends, from the persepective of usage a polearm should be able to scythe and thrust. And a Pike or Spear is just for thrusting. Therefore they are often classified as an own weaponry type, together with the phalanx and lances.
But let’s not debate about these peanuts.

I would like this - as well as I know the pike was invented before the bill, but from the usage and game design perspective it might be better like this. There could also be two different type of development in the imperial age. One to the pikeman with extra range + higher sustain. One with the bill with a much higher attack + bonus against cavalry. Most Civs only get access to either one of this upgrades, like britons only get billmen and teutons only pikes.
I only wonder what the real “pikeman” would mean to the kamayuk, maybe the kamayuk needs a slight rework then.
And the unit in castle age could just be a Longspear Man.

This would open the Halberdier as an elite pop efficient infantry unit for the imperial age, which is currently completely missing in the game. If they don’t want to use the same name, they could use any other like Pollaxer or Bardichier, aswell they were not that predominant as the halberd.

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Mostly because Pikemen had to frontline for the rest of the army, which was considerably more dangerous than being a Musketeer, and incurred a high death toll on Pikeman units.

More danger means better pay, unless you want your Pike lines to break rank or go rogue.

Ideally, there would be 3 Infantry lines:
-Militia, all the way to Champ
-Spearman into Longspear, into Pikeman
-Billman/Voulger/Glaiveman into Halberdier.

The new unit could have had bonus damage vs Infantry and cavalry, and be more armoured than the Spear line, have less bonus vs Cavalry than the Spear line, while costing Gold and still not be as beefy as the Champion.
This would have actually been a more historically accurate unit lineup, specially for American and Asian civs, many of which never had Pikemen, but had Longspears and other Polearms.

And even if you did introduce Pikes to the Mayans, for example, a Pike is a much more logical technology for a meso-american evolution of warfare, than a Halberd is, since only the Incas used Halberds in the entire continent.

Arabs, for example, never adopted the Pike, and Turks only did so after entering Europe, but both had other Polearms that were meant to stop Cavalry while retaining anti-Infantry value for the individual soldier (while Pikes are wholly dependant on formation warfare to stand a chance against Infantry).

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Starting from Castle age, after you researched it => knight powerspike would still be available. This is an Important key element of the game, which should be kept.

Aswell as they should have a bonus against infantry, I would prefer a more rounded unit with just a slight bonus against cav, but quite high defences. This would fit better into the game. A bit slower than militia to give archers the chance to outmicro the well protected elite unit.

Something like this:

Cost: 80 F (60 F with supplies) / 50 G
HP: 80 (100)
Armour: 3(5) / 2(3) P
ROF: 2
DMG: 11 (14) Melee
Bonus: 3 (4) vs cavalry
1 (1) vs camel
4 (5) vs elephants
Speed: .85
Training Time: 36 seconds (quite long in comparison, but reflecting their combat potential)

So it would be a all purpose infantry unit, just a bit faster than the TK, to wich it would lose heavily btw.

The matchups between it and the other “power units” would be almost even in ressources, it would just generally win against cav, which should avoid it. Archers could outmanouver it (but takes time) and it would trade pop efficient but not res efficient against the militia line.
So an “all purpose pop efficient” infantry unit, which can actually win a game for you when paired with p.e. some siege, also for civs which might not be considered typical “infantry” civs. But you have to be carefull against opponents with inf counters (yeah HC ftw!). Also siege and defences are a big threat, like to all infantry and the low mobility makes it vulnerable, too.
It should excel in protecting your high valuable ranged units + siege against most threats your oponent can throw at you.

The upgrade in Imp should be quite expensive, more than the champion upgrade.

Also many of the Infantry Bonusses should not or only partially apply to it, otherwise some of them might be broken (malians p.e.).

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80 is a lot for a Castle Age unit, Longswords only have 60.

This is also a lot, it would replace the Militia line entirely.

I would go for something like this:

Billman/Halberdier:
-50 Food, 15 Gold
-55/65 HP
-1/2 Melee Armour, 0/1 Pierce Armour
-8/10 Damage, +2/+3 vs Infantry, +3/+5 Vs Cavalry, +2 vs Camel, +3 vs Elephant
-0.9 Speed
-3.05/3.00 Rate of Fire
-32 seconds training time
-Infantry Armour Class

This way, it would have an advantage in Pierce Armour over Champions, but still lack their HP and not be as general purpose as the Militia line.
It would, however, with 13 damage vs Infantry (10 + 3 bonus) be a decent counter to Mass Infantry, while not being as strong as Pikes (which would be an Imperial unit) against Cavalry.

I would not have Supplies apply to it, since Supplies is in the agme specifically to boost the viability of Militia line units.

Then again, I would give Pikes +1 Range too, besides making them an Imperial unit, and making Longspears a copy of what Pikemen are now (the stats are quite solid).

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Yes, but it also costs 110 Ressources, longswords cost only 65 with supplies, so the hp/cost is less.
I wanted to create a more pop efficient elite infantry unit.

No, the militia line still has it’s benefits. P.e. in countering trash, but also costs significantly less gold, has bonus against buildings and counters eagles.
For some of the infantry civs like goths it might be just better to stick with militia just because of the reduced gold cost.

This is actually very similar to the militia line. Except for the rof, which is much too low, unless you give the unit 1 range (which you implied later). I would like to see a bigger difference to the militia line.
Of course you can argue that infantry should be vulnerable to archer fire, but I think that’s the biggest reason why we rarely see any infantry played atm, because archers just stomp them.

So if there should be invented a new infantry class it needs to be a bit more resistant to archer fire. Not to counter archers, that would be absurd, but just not feeding them.

I’d like to see how your unit would look like if you make it more pop efficient (“elite”) - and also a higher gold cost to show it is an Elite Unit, suited for the battlefield.

I chose this because I though: OK, some of the infantry powerhouses don’t get supplies - so they can keep their bonusses. Also it allows these civs a more smooth transition to the late power unit.

This i totally agree. I just wonder why you wrote “too” here.

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Because not only would I make the Pikeman an Imp Age upgrade to the Spear line, I would also give them +1 Range.

That was the purpose, a unit that is not quite teh Militia line, but is more of a Counter to it and some Cavalry.

While Militia would remain the counter to Eagles and Trash, Halbs would be a counter to Militia, and more resistant to Archers.

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Yes, this was exactly what I read from you before - and agreed ;). Just though about the kamayuk role then.

I don’t think we need any militia counter atm. It’s one of the weakest lines, even with supplies. Just a few special infantry civs can make them work. I would go the opposite way. Make it weaker to militia but stronger against the other power units. So it would fill the gap of a missing pop efficient late game infantry unit.

Especially in team games, almost every infantry civ becomes bottom tier - which is understandable given the unlimited availability of gold. The main reason why infantry actually works in 1v1 is because opponents will run out of gold at some point. This doesn’t happen often in Team games - and if its because of raiding, where infantry isn’t best in.

So, infantry becomes almost useless unless you can surprise your still booming opponent. This also rarely occurs.

So there is actually a need for good pop effficient infantry. That’s what I wanted to address.
In 1v1 the militia line would - until the lategame - for infantry still be the way to go. Because it is so gold efficient. Then it might be good to transition, but a bit expensive to do so ;).
But maybe some not general infantry civs would sometimes like to make the transition (in castle age already) if they face power cav civs with open trees like the franks. This would open some interesting new playstiles. Atm many civs can’t counter them really. They have too many weapons, not just their Paladins. Just becaus many civs have besides the spear line no counter, literally no, against their famous knight line. Which makes the matchup completely predictable for the franks player and if he doesn’t blunder, he can just stay in the driver’s seat.

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Kamayuks would still be a better Pikeman, all things considered.
They would not be so unique, but as a Gold unit they would be more powerful.

The issue is, the only other Power units are Knights and Archers.
If Billmen/Halbs became too strong vs Knights, they would eclipse the Spearman line. On the other hand, I already would give them 2 PA in the Halberdier upgrade (1/2 PA) so they would be better against Archers.

Franks are the opposite of an open Tech Tree, all they have is Paladins and Infantry, they even lack Hussar, and have a terrible Archery Range and Siege Workshop.

They get everything you need to dictate the game. That’s what I mean. There are also some other civs quite similar where certain civs have no answer against, like the berbers or huns. Their tech tree offers even less than franks do. Of course power civs don’t get an very open tree, but the franks tree is surprisingly open compared to goths or indians for example.

Not really, Franks lose Trash Wars badly.
Their onlr real option all throughout the game is Knights. Their Scouts and Crossbows have no Imperial Transition, their HCs are the worst in the game (they are supposed to never be used, actually, you are supposed to use Throwing Axemen instead), their Siege Workshop is quite bad with BBC but no Siege Engineers, and their Infantry has no bonus.

Their whole game plan is Knights, and their bonii only enforce Knights.

Franks only dictate games where they are allowed to field Knights fast and plentifully. Against Camel civs, Franks have huge trouble, Indians being a great counter to them, for example, since Franks cannot even capitalize on the fact that Indians lack the last Cavalry Armour upgrade.

If you can actually punish Franks for their Knights, they will have no other options.

Huns and Berbers at least have good Cavalry Archers and Hussars, and Huns has good Trebuchets while Berbers has very efficient Cavalry all around.

Sure, but i balanced them in a way they can just match knight line 1v1 with a few less ressoureces spent. The spear line is far superior to that - when fighting knight line. Also spears cost no gold.

It needs to be a bit surperior to knight line (from ressource perspective), because knights can force the battle, which bills can’t. Otherwise it would just become strictly useless - the knights would just take the battles and continoulsy win - in the end even gold efficient.

The Unit shall not replace any lines, just opens the endgame for aggressive Infantry plays without having necessarily the gold advantage. With spear line you might trade better against cav but you can’t get agressive with spears. That’s when bills could be usefull, to use the momentum you get from a winning fight, not to win the fight more easy. I would actually try to mix spears and bills, using the spears as initiator and the bills then.

It wouldn’t replace the spear line, it would add to their utility because you could actually get agressive after a winning fight with your spear line.

I won many games with franks with archers into pike / sword / TA. Nobody expects this and it is ridiculously strong. The TA is one of the best UUs. If the oponnent tries mass archers => add knights and see him suffering.
The Franks have many more options than you think.

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Maybe it should be the slowest Infantry, so it absolutely cannot force fights, but wins if it gets into them. Perhaps 0.75 speed.
This would also help justify the 2 PA from the Halberdier upgrade, since it is slow, it would need protection from Archers, or it would be really bad.

I won many games as Goths with Cav Archers, because no one expects them, but they still will not win in a true competitive environment.
I too, have tried Franks Infantry build (though i never make Archers, I make Feudal Scouts to raid and bait in Spears, and then go for Longswords + TA in Castle), but if the opponent goes for pike + Crossbow, you run out of option fast. Specially if you are playing against a civ that gets Arbalest in Imp, where you really need those Knights/Cavaliers to carry fights, because your Archery Range becomes irrelevant.

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Yeah that’s why i prefer archers: It’s very unlikely to see somebody transition into spears when you opened archers into infantry ;).

They usually think: “What a noob, plays archers with franks.” And go to one of the power units themselves, forget about prepairing for the cav. This is my experience.

But for sure, the pike+archer build agains franks is usually quite strong - but also not very proactive and gives the franks player the opportunity to use his mobility.

Also, to the TA you can add some siege, aswell at is not easy to outmicro the pike/archer combo this way, but for sure easier than facing other cav.

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Here my opinion how they could be:
Imp Pikeman upgrade compared to act pikeman:
HP: 50 (-5)
Range 1 (+1)
Atk: 5 (+1)
ROF: 3.2 (+.15)
Bonus: +20 vs War Elephant (-5)

  • 20 vs cavalry (-2)
  • 15 vs camel (-3)
  • 9 vs mamaluke (-2)
  • 12 vs ships (-4)
  • 1 vs eagle
  • 1 vs standard building

This would make them comparable to kamayuks (equal ressources) in fights vs cavalry, but much worse against everything else. The Pikeman would be quite strong if massed but significantly weaker in smaller groups than the actual halberdier, which to become the billman then. Also the imp pikeman would be more vulnerable to arrowfire and other unit types than cavalry. So it would be more micro-intensive, but also more revarding if microed correctly, because it is more likely to actually be able to hit the designated target in messi fights.

A single pikeman could deal a cavalier 69 damage, compared to 108 damage a billman can inflict (in 1v1 a cavalier would trade even res efficient). But the pikeman hits earlier and can be deadly if massed, considering many cavaliers might be killed before they can even hit once - or shortly after that.

It’s important certain civs don’t get the imp pike. P.E. Malians or Goths. Both have insane bonusses which would make mass imp pikes a too strong unit to mass, even if countered heavily by champs and siege, because they would be insanely strong or cheap compared to all other trash.

It would certainly help other civs which are weak vs cav civs like viatnemese, portuguese or turks. They could get both upgrades to decide if they want smaller numbers of billmen or heavily invest in more pikemen if the opponent overextends into cavalry.