About "pike" weapons.

[neoseh98]

I may not be the most suuitable to talk about the game, since I don't even own it. This is mostly about LA Arcoscephale (Which almost means Bearhead, a t is missing to make Arcos -> Arctos). They use phalangites based upon those used by Alexander the Great, and it later spread to all the other Greek people, though I have heard that the phalangites were not an inovation but rather the natural evolution of the Greek Hoplite. The reason they were used was that more lines could enter the fight, with how long the pike is. Would this a a special rule for certain nations, or even most nations with long enough spears brake the game?

Thus why this isn't posted on wishlist. Just wanted to ask.

[Chacal]

Being an old DBM player I wish that the numerous ranks of pikes would somewhat add to attack. Unfortunatly it's not actually the case in Dominions series... there is no true manoevring even if you can outflank...
Actually hoplites and other very long weapons still may have an advantage through repelling shorter weapons bearer. But multi ranks won't really bebefit. Mayby one time Illwinter will add something like this.

[Mormacil]

In Dom4 multiple pikes in the same square had a better repel chance. This was removed/reversed in Dom5.

[neoseh98]

Oh, I know about repelling, while I do not play I have watched as much as there is available on the net. I am not without any knowledge.

[Uncle Al]

The mechanical change required could be fairly simple to design (but that's no guarantee they'd be easy to implement), something like 'melee weapons can attack at a range in squares = length -1'. The balance impact of that would be monumental though.

Attacks per square are a really important factor in combat, and allowing ranks behind the front to hit in melee with a really conservative basic design (only pike length weapons and only the second rank can hit) would increase the combat power of such weapons astronomically.

Admittedly there are more limited approaches with a more complicated design (10% chance per weapon length over 1 to make an attack at a range of one square, say) that might allow the feel of phalanxes without turning pike squares into vanheres on crack. Even so, any such change would be adding a relationship to the game that currently doesn't exist (weapon length to number of attacks per square when fighting in any significant numbers) so it's going to have major balance implications unless it's utterly cosmetic (and if it is then what's the point?).

[terve886]

The new formation fighter trait allows more units per square and most arcosephale units have that trait. So in a way it is taken into account.

This is also most likely the reason the repelling was reversed compared to dom4.

[Chacal]

Originally posted by Uncle Al:

Attacks per square are a really important factor in combat, and allowing ranks behind the front to hit in melee with a really conservative basic design (only pike length weapons and only the second rank can hit) would increase the combat power of such weapons astronomically.

I would imagine a rank would add a bonus to attack and evend defense. It wouldn't be true attack but a way to support first rank. Only for formation units in line with lenght 4 weapons for exemple.

[Felius]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

In Dom4 multiple pikes in the same square had a better repel chance. This was removed/reversed in Dom5.

It was? So units in the same square can't repel for each other anymore?

Well, there goes my hobsburg pikemen strategy...

[Mormacil]

Yup that no longer works. Has some upsides though but I have no idea how the meta will shake out in relation to repel.