Dud nations

[Endoperez]

Sombre said:
Yes it is. I think pikes are currently rather underpowered and their seemingly most natural use, versus cavalry, doesn't actually work out. I rarely build pike units when others are available for roughly the same cost, because repel never seems to do much for me. Now if pikes had some other hook, such as flail bonus,... well that would make them rather more interesting. Is there some other bonus that could be given to them to make them more effective against cavalry and other very offensive units? Perhaps a simple defence boost would make sense? I mean it would just be like improving the repel effect - keeping your pikey alive so other units can do more damage.

Improving attack would improve repel, as would improving damage.

#charge would give the pikeneers one stronger attack (although it would be much weaker than a knight's charge).

Oh, and according to the mod manual:
4.24 #flail
The weapon has an attack bonus against shields.

I don't have my Dom3 manual with me, so I can't check if it has the details of the ability... Seeing as I'm misremembering lots of things recently, my earlier post about flail-pike vs knight is probably wrong. #flail doesn't negate the shield, just has a bonus (static? dependent on parry value?) against shielded troops.

Also, it seems repel doesn't AUTOMATICALLY deal that 1 point of damage, but the defender has to overcome the attacker's protection as well. From the Dom:PPP manual:

20.4.9 Repel
If an attacker strikes at an enemy with a longer
weapon he might be repelled and possibly lose
his attack. This is worked out as follows:
A: Attacking , D: Defending
A strikes but D has a longer weapon. D makes
an immediate attack vs A. If it is a miss A will
continue his attack on D. If D hit A with the repelling
attack A is forced to make a morale check
or lose his attack on D.
If A makes the morale check he strikes D even
thoughD has placed his weapon between him and
A. D generates a damage value and A generates
a protection value. If the damage value is greater
then the protection value A takes one hit point of
damage. A can now make his strike.
Repel is most effective against light and cowardly
units. Natural weapons such as claws and
bites have a length of 0 and are easy to repel.