Pike and Shot tactics

How to effectively use pikemen, arquebusiers (musketeers) in formations

Intro

Shoot your enemies to death with black powder or, if you prefer, poke them to death with long sticks while the other guy shoots them with black powder.

This guide will hopefully teach you how to effectively field Pike and shot armies in medieval 2.

Slight disclaimer: I will refer to the unit groupings as Tercios for ease.

Problems with Med2s pike and shot gameplay

Medieval 2's pikemen and gunpowder units are quite controversial to say the least, with many newer players using them sparingly.


Pike militia and derivatives.
Pike units have been problematic for many players due to them immediately breaking formation and engaging with swords. This problem can be fixed easily by simply stacking pikemen on top of each other in the deployment phase and then grouping them which is demonstrated in the pike section.



Gunpowder Infantry and derivatives
Gunpowder infantry on its own is inferior to bows and crossbows in every way except for morale damage and armor piercing. Gunpowder weapons are slow to reload and slow to position and fire, they are best used for defensive play styles.

Army Template

Before we get into making a pike and shot army effective we need to discuss what is actually in the army.

I have personally found that the most versatile template is 1 General, 10 Pike Units, 5 Gunners (either arquebusiers or musketeers) and 4 random units that are up to your discretion which can help balance the shortcomings of the army. I usually go with cannons and an extra tercio formation.

Follow this template and you will ideally have 5 Tercios (2 pikes 1 gun grouped together in formation)

Also I HIGHLY recommend that you get armourers and blacksmiths for the units as that will both

A: Make them look hella cool
B: Make them Less vulnerable to literally everything.

No seriously, get these guys good armour and better guns and pikes.

Below is a picture of what you would want as any country with access to these units.

Dark red stars are Generals
Light red squares are pike units.
Light red stars are Gunpowder infantry.
Green stars are personal choice (random) units



I made it in MS paint plz be nice :)

How to make those Damn Pikes work!

To make the pikemen do their job you just have to double stack them. As shown Below.



There are 2 units of pikemen on top of each other, this allows them to cover each other and prevent them from breaking formation unless they are flanked.

This is such an easy fix I'm surprised not more people know about it.

The pikes themselves block enemy movement and hence protect the gunners. The pikes also do good damage.

How to make those Damn Guns work!

Gunner units in medieval 2 have the absolutely bumpheaded Fire by rank ability which makes them rotate after each rank fires, leading them to move around and out of the protection of the pikes. This can be fixed somewhat by having them skirmish but that just makes them run away.

To fix this simply make the gunpowder infantry 2 ranks deep. This will prevent them from moving around and keep them in one place. Alternatively you could unpack the game files and delete the tag fire_by_rank like I did but that takes a while.

This is shown below

How to make tercios

Now onto the good stuff. Now that you know how to use these units effectively on their own, it's time to learn how to make the Tercios.

To make a Tercio simply follow these instructions:

A: Take the gunner unit and stretch it out to 2 ranks deep.
B: Grab a unit of pikemen and stretch them so they cover the gunners, make them very very close, sometimes pikemen will block the second rank, this is fine.
C: grab the other unit of pikes and do the same, stretch them out over the pikes so they cover eachother.
D: Make all units guard and disable skirmishing
E: Group the units together for the ability to move them as one.

The end result should look like this after you end deployment phase

Why even bother with this?

You might be thinking why even bother if i have to do all these steps to get the units to even work.

Here are your reasons:

It's very cost effective. This army can wipe out knights and heavy infantry armies with no problem for a fraction of the cost. The most expensive units are the gunners.

Very flexible. You can use this for both attacking an enemy army in the field and defending.

Amazing in defending siege battles. Deploy these units in streets and they will wipe out any army.

Can take on armies twice it's size. The pikemen never tire of holding their pikes and the Gunners never tire after shooting unlike bows and crossbows. This means they can take on armies twice their size without tiring as quickly.

You don't even have to make armies. You can just make single Tercios for your existing forces. The average Tercio costs around 760 gold. For comparison the average dismounted knight unit costs 540.

Weaknesses of this army.

Shown below: Dead Tercio infantrymen


The army shown in its default state is, although powerful, vulnerable to the following but not limited to:
Mass Missile Army (Fixed with cavalry being chosen as your free units, using musketeers, or by giving your guys armor)

Mass Elephant Army (Very rare in game, mostly Timurids, don't fight Timurids with pike and shot)

Mass Artillery Army, (Rare but does happen from time to time, fixed with extra cavalry)

Attacking in Sieges (slightly fixed with extra Heavy Infantry, don't storm cities with this army)

Mass Missile Cavalry Army (Mongols, you wont have access to gun units at this time anyways)

Other Pike and Shot Armies (Not a problem as AI won't use guns and pikes effectively)

All of these problems can be lessened by giving your guys armour and better gun and pikes.

(Seriously I cannot stretch this enough, build blacksmiths and the buildings that upgrade the respective weapons and armour before you even consider making a single army, it will improve their performance tenfold.)

How the units complement each other during battle.

Pikes block the enemy units so they can't melee the gunners to death and the gunners shoot everybody causing them to rout. The enemy army will regroup multiple times during a battle until you kill the General. You can fix this by running them down with light cavalry.

Outro

Have fun with this, here are some battle pics cause i took way too many at 3 a.m

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The casualties were pretty bad cause the enemy caught a unit that was moving.
You can improve the K/D ratio with armour and better guns

Let me know in the comments if you have any problems

[Double Irony Weeb]

I don't suggest this formation because

1-Stacked units sucks badly when redeploying and will break formation.
2-Your guns will get into melee.

Instead, use a checkerboard formation. It will be much more flexible.

[ettore.ven]

Some other things you might consider changing:
- Remove the secondary weapon from Musketeers to stop them from meleeing. Might also do this for the Arquebusiers, but likely not the Hand Cannoneers. imo, your Muskets and Arquebusiers are dead anyway if they ever get in a situation where they have to melee and you're better off trying to make them flee.
- Adjust the phalanx spacing of the pikemen. This might allow you to form a Tercio with one pike unit and one musket unit if combined with the pike fix.

[ettore.ven]

Insane necro from me, but if you're willing to mod the game to make the Tercio more consistent, implement the changes in these videos by To Nerd is to Human TNH:
- Modding guns & Improving Musketeers
- Fixing Pikes

The Tercio feels a bit OP with both changes, but they're still weak to the same things they're weak to irl.

With those changes, line up your muskets in two ranks as before, then ensure that the front rank (the kneeling rank) is your front-most line.

In particular, removing the "fire_by_rank" tag and adjusting the unit spacing makes this incredibly consistent. The thing that messed up my Tercios before was the shuffle they did when fire_by_rank was enabled. Eventually they'd shuffle all the way behind the pikemen and stop firing to avoid friendly fire. This is also realistic within the context of a Tercio. As noted in the video "Pike and Shot Warfare" by SandRhoman History, rank firing was done by the shot garrisons flanking the Tercio, but not by the Tercio itself.

[Stryker1510]

I don't recall at this point, but I think I did.
I'll double check

[Juwebles (72nd)]

Stryker did you put the muskets on guard mode?

[Stryker1510]

Yes but the issue isn't the pikes, it's the muskets. When the enemy reaches the pikes my muskets draw swords and charge forwards even though they're protected by the pikes still.

[Mischief]

are you aware that you can disable the secondary weapon of pikes so that they won't break formation? It's advised to lower their attack when this is done however because otherwise they become absolute monsters

[Stryker1510]

Very interesting concept with a lot of potential. Unfortunately I can't get it to work as described, as soon as the pikes engage the muskets switch to swords and stop firing. Other than that it's working decently. Any idea why muskets get sucked into the melee?

[Blitzcraig]

The pikemen will use swords even if braced, due to enemies breaking through the pikes, having them double stacked prevents this 9/10 times and is just reliable

[Astrylan]

Yall know that Guard mode on Pikes makes them "Brace" which prevent the need for the double stacking, right?