Dud nations

[Sombre]

Endoperez said:
Repel is just 1 point of damage, even though it's armor-negating. If Pike had the actual #flail ability (which it doesn't, according to Edi's list), pikes would have surprising offensive uses against e.g. knights. It's the difference of (att 10 against parry 12 [prot 18+shield 18]) or (att 10 against defense 7 [prot 18]) or so. They'd be even better against infantry using heavy shields, like Ermorian/Pythian legionnaires and, to a lesser extent, the various Hoplites. It's an interesting idea.

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.