Repels and the pike square

[Taqwus]

Units don't get a repel benefit from being in the same square as a unit with a long weapon, correct? The manual at least seems to indicate that it's only the target's weapon that matters, not anybody else's.

For instance, if one mixed pikes and crossbows in the same squad, and a knight attacks one of the crossbowmen who shares the square with two pikemen -- the pikes do not repel the knight?

[Teraswaerto]

I believe so, and repel would not be useful against knights in any case, since they have so high morale.

[Endoperez]

Even a 15 morale gives 18% chance of not attacking...

But yes, only the defender's weapon matters.

[Dedas]

But the defender also needs to attack/repel the attacker and score a hit before the attacker must pass a morale check. So units with low attack and long weapons against units with high defense and shorter weapons is not very effective. And if they also have high morale they are almost never repelled. They do take a one HP damage though (protection counting) if they pass the morale check and the defender succesfully hits them with their repel attempt. All this according to the manual.

[Wauthan]

I'm curious if anyone someone feel that pikeneers (odd word) are tactically viable as a unit. As far as my own testing shows it's a lot better a few burly high protection units with shields at the front, than a whole regiment of pikemen.

ME Tien'Chi is a good example of this. The pikemen have just barely better survival rate then a common militia. His shield and sword wielding "brother" however tends to actually survive half of the time.

Perhaps I'm not using them right? Based on the mechanics of the game what is the best use of these kind of units?

[Horst F. JENS]

Pikemen should have an defense & attack bonus against mounted units

[Endoperez]

Dedas said:
But the defender also needs to attack/repel the attacker and score a hit before the attacker must pass a morale check. So units with low attack and long weapons against units with high defense and shorter weapons is not very effective. And if they also have high morale they are almost never repelled. They do take a one HP damage though (protection counting) if they pass the morale check and the defender succesfully hits them with their repel attempt. All this according to the manual.

1) repeller must hit the attacker
2) attacker must succeed in morale or abort his attacks. 3) only happens if attacker passes the morale check.

3) damage for repeller vs attacker is generated; if repeller would deal any damage to attacker, 1 point of damage is dealt

A hit is enough. Shield's don't help when you want to avoid getting hit... they only make it harder to get that 1 point of damage.

Knights of MA Man have:
morale 14
base defence 12: +3 mounted, +1 weapons, -6 armor+shield
parry: +6

Knights of MA Man have defence 10 before shield parry. That's not hard to hit, thanks to Pikes having att value of 1.
One note: I'm not 100% sure about shield parry being ignored. I think it is ignored, but haven't tested it in any way.

Hm in my Dom2 TienChi games pikemen worked well against heavy cav. Though i see them more as chaff with increased effectiveness against cav, than as real cav killers. They're worth the extra cost overstandard militia imo, though of course i'd prefer gladiators for the task.
They don't perform so well vs. artillery, but that's what the footmen with towershields are good for.
But i agree that Dom3 could use some real anti-cav units. Maybe instead of improving the pikemen, add another better (consequently more expensive) pikeman to the nations that have them, with enough stats to actuall get that repel working reliably. (say, 30-40% of the time against heavy cav, less against knights obviously)
I see a possible balancing problem, since they'd also be quite effective at repelling other infantry, which shouldn't be the case with pikes, but then, without shields they'd be quite weak against artillery, and high morale can at least make the attacks connect.
Hmm, maybe (for TienChi) something comparable to the heavy glaive troops, 14 protection, 7 defense, but 13 attack and 15 or 16 gold costs (and 18 ressources). And a pike obviously.

Or as an alternate route, maybe change the pike's stats from 1 att -1 def to +4/-4. Will not exactly increase the pikemen's survivability, but make them chaff that actually hurts heavy cav while taking away their charge bonus. Heck that's even more realistic. While pikemen could skewer charing cavalry, those 1000kg of horse, rider and armor didn't stop dead just because there were a few pieces of wood stuck in them. And a horse rolling over you hurts.

[Dedas]

A question about retarius (gladiator with net and trident): what exactly does the net do? It seems terrible effective against big units.

[Wauthan]

Hmmm... Good idea Dhaeron. A high attack/low defence might be a good representation of a pike. I'll put into a test mod to see what happens.