Pikeman sucks in 1v1

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
61

You do realise that pikemen is a defensive unit ? So you don’t need to fight someone which is spamming knight on 1tc but that’s him which does ? So getting like 8 pikes under your tcs which you can get from feudal age on 1 barracks is enough to secure the early castle age, then you can add monks or more barracks later ? Idk how you can think that you need like 20 pikemans vs 8 kts.

how do you make extra tcs? how do you make eco upgrades ? how do you make siege ? how do you make blacksmith upgrades ?
Because with the above very simple stragegy above you will get out boomed and you will not do damages in opening so you need someting else to take advantage vs full pikemen and that’s really hard because you are investing all you weak eco into a unit which will have limited effect.
Spammings kts on 1tc with no notion of combo works only on someone which is blind and don’t see it coming which can happen at any elo but this due to an error to your oponent or else your opponent is taking severes damages from feudal age especially if he is full open.

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62

No it isn’t. Your build order is dictated by your strategy. If you are going crossbow / pike / mangonel and you don’t have enough wood, that means you messed up the build and didn’t put enough villagers on wood.

You don’t use mangonels against knights. They are to take out skirms, buildings and enemy siege if he has any. You defend the mangonels with pikes, monks and crossbow. Nobody leaves mangonels completely unattended vs knights.

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63

Pikes counter Knights. That’s the way it is. Instead of ranting against the unit, learn to play the game.

I mean, one of the arguments out of the myriad you’ve spit, is that if the opponent sends Knights and Scorpions, then you can’t use Pikemen. Well then, why aren’t YOU thinking of a way to fight the Scorpions as well?

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so you are admitting, “overmaking pikes” is a bad play… maybe because they are a BAD UNIT as my OP implies? Imagine now if you have like 18 Skirms vs 25-30 Crossbows, totally different scenario. Because Skirms actually counter Crossbow unlike Pikemen who on top of needing big numbers, can never solve the mobility aspect.

you act like YOU know this stuff and others don’t. I doubt you are 2400+. If you are high rated (all to be proven), you are like your average 2k andy (no offense) that people like Viper and MbL rekt regularly.

Regardless, I judge by playing vs people of my elo. Yes, I don’t understand the game deeply since my elo is ~1400-1500. But you can’t argue that my opponents, also 1500ish have such a deep understanding of the game. They are as bad as me. 70% of games on Runestones and maybe 90% of Arabia I go vs some cavalry civ with a spectacular power spike late Feudal/early Castle (civ pickers): Magyars, Turks, Berbers, Franks, Lithuanians etc.

adding TCs as the Knight player is not that hard. You might be late to Imp but u probably are adding farms as you add Knights and Knights scale INCREDIBLY WELL in Imp. They are the strongest Imperial Age unit if we don’t take into account weird comps like mass Siege, Elite Eagle flood etc.

Such as?

Your post is incredibly flawed and denotes profound lack of understanding of very simple core mechanics of the game such as transitions, YES if it’s post-Imp and you start with 10k resources like in Deathmatch, Halberdier is a full Knight counter, however here we don’t take into account the ease of transitions and the fact that mobility means you can always in theory strike weak parts of the eco and suffer 0 hits back.

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Skirms also cost much closer to the cost of an archer then a pike does to a knight. So your comparison is pretty bad on multiple levels.
If 18 pikes were as effective against 25 to 30 knights as 18 Skirms are to 25 to 30 archers, knights would be a pretty bad unit all around.

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66

the comparison works in your favor though? If I considered equal resources, it would be even more embarrassing for how bad the Pikeman is compared to Skirms since you need VERY few Skirms to fully zone out Crossbow out of your base.

To put it in VERY simple terms:

20 Skirms ~ 20 Crossbows resource wise (Crossbows cost a bit more but I’m just doing a very dumb 10s calculation), rekt Crossbow hard, u lose only like 3-4 Skirms

20 Pikeman ~ 10 Knights, barely wins the fight, and if you attack move into the Knights and you get the “bad pathing bug” you can even lose, and even by winning you lose 60% of Pikeman.

First one seems like a counter unit at work, second one seems basically an even trade.

edit: exact numbers:

20 archers is 1400 resources, now let’s assume gather rate is equal for everything (we know that’s not true but w/e), 1400 resources of Skirms is 23 Skirms.

10 knights is 1350 resources, translated into Pikeman that’s 22.5 Pikemen you can make from those resources.

Archers furthermore need 2 ranges (I count only “additional ranges” since 1st one should always be your opening, so 175w), sometimes 3, they need Bodkin also (300 resources, I will count only Castle Age upgrades btw since you will do fletching in Feudal), and let’s say you do 1st armor also (pros normally skip it but I think it’s fair to do it at lower levels)

so 1400 + 175 + 300 + 100 = 1975 to have 20 Crossbows with reasonable upgrades and ready to punch.

The Skirm transition costs you: 1400 + 175 (you do 2 ranges also even though technically you can get away with 1 that assumes perfect play and you throwing away 0 Skirms which I won’t assume) + 150 of Fletching +300 Bodkin + 100 1st armor + 300 second armor.

So it’s 1400 + 175 + 150 + 300 + 300 = 2325 (a bit higher than Crossbow play but a COMPARABLE NUMBER).

Meanwhile Pikeman is 1350 res (same as Knights), 305 (Pikeman upgrade), 100 Squires and let’s say you do 3 Barracks (350 wood if you exclude starting one) = 2105 resources

Knight player does Bloodlines (250) and +1 armor (150) so 1750 total.

FAZIT: PIKEMAN TRANSITION COSTS MORE THAN SKIRM ONE FOR LOWER RETURN IN THE ACTUAL COMBAT WHERE YOU LOSE MOST OF YOUR ARMY

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First one involves much closer resource investment then the second one.

25 archers cost 1750 resources.
18 skirms cost 1080 resources.

25 knights cost 3375 resources.
18 pikes cost 1080 resources.

So why should 25 knights cost almost twice the resources as 25 archers but 25 knights should be countered by the same resource investment that counters the archers?

Zero logic in your argument.

20 pikes vs 10 knights will result in the pikes laughing at the knights.
Barely win the fight? Assuming full upgrades a knight does 12 damage - 2 armor for 10 damsge a swing abd needs 6 hits to kill 1 pike (just shy of 10 seconds).
Meanwhile the pikes will do 24 damage each (×2) and require only 5 hits to kill a knight. With good control zero pikes should die. (Heck even halfway decent control)

How is that an even trade?

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68

if you read my comment above, I broke down the math for you, in very simple terms and it proves you wrong. I am not sure why you are using the “25 knights” argument, only comparison that matters is resource-wise comparison and it doesn’t look pretty for pikeman.

To recap a tl;dr:

if we consider EQUAL RESOURCES:

20 usable Crossbows = 1975 res
23 usable Skirmishers with the necessary upgrades = 2325 res

10 usable Knights = 1750 total
20 usable Pikemen = 2105 resources

difference in resources working against the defender is called “cost of transition”. The problem is, while after you complete the transition, Skirms rekt Crossbows, Pike vs Knight is a close fight.

The Pikes win but you lose like 8-10 pikes. Test it vs AI idk what to tell you.

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Why do i need 3 barracks if you have 2 stables? Zero logic.
Also funny how you include the 2 extra barracks cost but ignore the cost of two stables.

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Your math has faults.
3 barracks isnt necessary vs 2 stables.
Nor do you account for the stable cost.

Yeah if you a move. Try avtually controlling yiur army.

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because Pikeman is less efficient 1v1 than Knights? …

You are right I forgot Stables, so Knight player spends 1900 total (2 stable knights)

you absolutely need 3 Barracks because you might be wasting units, it’s same as how in theory 1 range skirms counters 2 range crossbows BUT you need to play perfectly, if you don’t you get snowballed when you make a mistake, the same considerations work for 2 Stable vs 3 Barracks.

when even pros use attack move/patrol, you gotta know this comment is trolling. What a boring way to dismiss an interesting case with a “micro better”, Pikeman of all units which is not even a unit you generally micro due to low speed etc.

I didn’t count the starting barracks either.

Have you read my first post?

You know what I’m gonna stop replying. 10/10 trolling. Took the bait.

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I can start making pikes before castle age so thats not an issue.
2 stables only cost 150 resources? So much for honesty.

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You asded 350 for 2 extra barracks but not 350 for 2 extra stables abd im the trolll? Oh wait. Im talking to yhe smurf.

And they still patrol move better thrn losing 8 to 10 pikes… thry might not care if a few pikes die but they arent just going to throw them away either

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74

Troll topic, am I right?

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75

It’s turned into the HealFortress round and round circle, @anon63664082 , is it time to close this? Nothing is happening, it’s getting more and more heated, no change will come of this, and no-one is going to change their opinions. It’s also just 1 person against almost everyone, which is a recipe for an unproductive topic.

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76

Two things to clear up first because lots of people get this wrong (no offense to nastyhigh, I made the same mistake initially).

Since you need a 2nd feudal building to advance to castle age the pike player doesn’t save anything. They will need to build 2 barracks + market while the opponent builds 2 stable + barracks. So unfortunately there’s no savings there.

The other thing:

  • Against bloodlines knights, if a pike unit has 1 less attack upgrade than the knight has armor upgrades the knight survives 1 more hit. If the pike unit has 1 less armor upgrade than the knight the has attack upgrades the pike will die 1 hit sooner. In order to reliably win cost-effectively vs knights with equal blacksmith upgrades pikes need to invest approximately 66% as much as knights. Without equal upgrades (missing 1 attack and 1 armor) you need to invest around 80%. These blacksmith upgrades matter even if initially it is prudent to skip upgrades and make more pikes. Unfortunately this is asymmetric. Pikes can only gain an advantage on knights by 1 more armor upgrade than the knight has attack upgrades. Being ahead in attack does nothing which is important because chain barding is expensive.

So with that out of the way:

At ~55% investment with pikes vs knights it seems to be you have ~ a 50% chance of winning. At around 60% investment you should have a 100% chance to win in theory. However this is still very sensitive to the testing parameters. A stray scorpion bolt, some obstacles, pathing, some monk healing, some noise in the investment on either side else, or anything else could cause problems. 66% gives you effectively a 10% buffer on top of that initial 60%. You’re basically beefing up your army by 10% (equal to 6 percentage-points) to get rid of this sensitivity.

Now if you’re one of the original developers you might set the production rate of pikes at 60% of that of stables making knights because “that’s all you need”. But this ignores the sensitivity that this 100% win probability faces when switching from testing to reality, especially given that knights are more mobile than pikes. The mobility allows all sorts of things to make 60% insufficient. And given the noise of real games, identifying this sensitivity as a cause of problems using data from real games is basically impossible. You have to be aware of the potential causality ahead of time and test for it explicitly.

Now as it turns out the productivity of barracks making pikes is exactly 60% of stables making knights. Stables making knights is 4.5 res/sec and barracks making pikes is 2.7 res/sec. I do not think this is a coincidence. Unfortunately because you will need to remove that sensitivity and give yourself a safety margin when using trash units like pikes you usually can’t get away with N barracks vs N stables. It rarely works out well. Usually you need N+1 unless you’re Aztecs or Vikings or something.

Pikes are also more food-heavy than knights. So for someone making N stable knights they will need 6 farms per stable. The pike player will need 5.3 farms for every stable the enemy is using. So 90% the farming investment to allow for 66% the total investment.

The cost of bloodlines vs pike upgrade, the cost of blacksmith upgrades (or extra pikes if you go that route initially), and the cost of farms all added together is a slight advantage for the pikes. But the need to have 1 more barracks than the enemy basically cancels this out.

Now on the surface this seems fine right? If you and the enemy both invest the same amount of resources into setting up pike and knight production then pikes will properly counter knights.

Unfortunately if the knight player is able to field extra knights (or stronger knights) for the same investment, it’s possible this will break down. The pike player will somehow need to increase their investment, mostly in the form of extra farms to pump out more pikes in order to keep trading as pikes are meant to trade. But this extra investment takes time and can be exploited by the civs making extra or stronger knights. Anecdotally we see pikes get overrun by knights surprisingly often given that it is a hard-counter, especially with civs that fit exactly this description (Franks, Berbers, Teutons, etc) So at the very least we should take seriously the consideration that maybe the discrete nature of production buildings and the choice to make barracks produce at exactly 60% of stables was not perfect.

I had taken a guess earlier that the pike training time should be reduced. This analysis I just did here implies that one might want to at the very least consider reducing pike training time to 19s (15s was overkill). This allows barracks making pikes to have 70% the productivity of stables. Leave everything else the same for now.

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77

I would also like too add another, different angle to the topic and it is one I already tried to explain in an own thread some weaks ago.
This one is that Villagers especially in the midgame go down way too fast to the top tier raiding units. That makes it incredibly hard to use the counters effectively.
Knights just outmanouver the pikes and can kill vills before they are caught. Xbows can just snipe vills while under skirm fire and get a positive value of that play, as skirms have a quite low dps against xbows actually.

For both of this it maybe could be useful to add a or even 2 extra loom-like techs (not exactly like loom, mostly just adding some extra HP to the vills), so the vills don’t go down as fast to raids and therefore the counter units have more time to deal with the raiding units.

This would possibly even result in a less walling meta as then the counters could more reliably “do their job” so you don’t need to rely on hindering enemy army to even get in your eco.

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Actually that wiuld probably make wall and boom even more meta, as you literally dont need to worry about your opponents army.

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Why would you wall if you don’t worry about the opponent army?

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It’s easier than training an army. Why bother fighting if there is no threat? Just boom and use high value units, counters won’t be needed, most games will just become a post imp gold unit spamfest.

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