What if pikemen had their attack rate halved?

[LetswaveaBook]

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

I think pikemen should behave like the AOE II kamayuk, "Kamayuks are most effective in large groups, as they have a range of one, enabling them to attack from behind one another".

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Kamayuk

[alre]

 

1 minute ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

I think pikemen should behave like the AOE II kamayuk, "Kamayuks are most effective in large groups, as they have a range of one, enabling them to attack from behind one another".

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Kamayuk

love it. I had in mind to try to create a mod like that.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

Great , i had this idead because it would kinda replicate the phalanx without the use of those useless formations and would allow them to retain  worst attack stats then spearmen because more of them could attack at the same time balancing it out.

 

[Yekaterina]

2 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

 

Good point, but you do realise that a pikeman will lose to a spearman in a 1v1 combat. 2 pikeman will lose to 2 spearmen. So I think they are already weak and no need to make them worse. They only use is to absorb pierce attack right now.

[Auron24015]

Yes, but if the pikemen had longer range they could theoretically be stronger than any other military unit in large groups. Not having to move closer to poke the enemy is such a good buff.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

19 minutes ago, Auron24015 said:

Yes, but if the pikemen had longer range they could theoretically be stronger than any other military unit in large groups. Not having to move closer to poke the enemy is such a good buff.

Hence the nerfing of their stats i mentioned. Furthermore even if their stats weren't nerfed a bit , you can bet that large numbers of pikemen would be countered by the godly ranged inf. (which in this case i fully support theirs use) and anti-infantry siege units. So more varied gameplay i think, like aoe2 has the kamayuks and they don't break the game. But i don´t know maybe you are right.

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by PyrrhicVictoryGuy

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

I think pikemen should behave like the AOE II kamayuk, "Kamayuks are most effective in large groups, as they have a range of one, enabling them to attack from behind one another".

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Kamayuk

Fenris Wolves in Age of Mythology have a similar bonus. The bigger the pack, the faster they move for instance. In Delenda Est, phalangites have the "Massed Pikes" aura that improves their combat effectiveness when fighting in groups. Hoplites have their own aura, called "Shield Wall" which improves their armor values when fighting next to each other. 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I'll just say one thing for this hypothetical.  Rams.

1 hour ago, Auron24015 said:

Yes, but if the pikemen had longer range they could theoretically be stronger than any other military unit in large groups. Not having to move closer to poke the enemy is such a good buff.

Pikemen do actually have longer range.  If you have them stand ground, multiple ranks will attack simultaneously.

[Yekaterina]

Pikemen can confuse pathfinding of rams, that I agree. 

But should they have hack attack? Shouldn't it be all pierce?

[alre]

54 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I'll just say one thing for this hypothetical.  Rams.

Pikemen do actually have longer range.  If you have them stand ground, multiple ranks will attack simultaneously.

but that doesn't happen currently. My idea was lowering attack range of other melee to see if it helps it. Maybe with unit pushing if not with a24 engine already.

[Yekaterina]

What about give other units hard counter against pikemen. 

[LetswaveaBook]

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Good point, but you do realise that a pikeman will lose to a spearman in a 1v1 combat. 2 pikeman will lose to 2 spearmen. So I think they are already weak and no need to make them worse. They only use is to absorb pierce attack right now.

The actual point I was trying to make is that ranged units do the most damage and that melee units function more or less as target dummies. The problem is not with the pikeman, but with the ranged units.

1 minute ago, Yekaterina said:

What about give other units hard counter against pikemen. 

I think that reducing the attack of range units, you would also limit the power of a range+pike combination.

Edited May 16, 2021 by LetswaveaBook

[Yekaterina]

The problem is, historically melee units do huge damage. Imagine getting stabbed by a spear or sword.

[LetswaveaBook]

2 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

The problem is, historically melee units do huge damage. Imagine getting stabbed by a spear or sword.

In the game it is in reverse and it is easier to kill someone with a bow at 60m range.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I'll just say one thing for this hypothetical.  Rams.

Pikemen do actually have longer range.  If you have them stand ground, multiple ranks will attack simultaneously.

Yes you are right but how many people you see using stand ground on pikemen? In theory thats what they should do but as you saw in the video they tend just be side by side and when they get behind one another it is barely noticeable to the point It doesnt really matter if they do or not.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Fenris Wolves in Age of Mythology have a similar bonus. The bigger the pack, the faster they move for instance. In Delenda Est, phalangites have the "Massed Pikes" aura that improves their combat effectiveness when fighting in groups. Hoplites have their own aura, called "Shield Wall" which improves their armor values when fighting next to each other. 

I remember those nasty wolves in aom , that and fibulwinter....

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

1 hour ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

Yes you are right but how many people you see using stand ground on pikemen? In theory thats what they should do but as you saw in the video they tend just be side by side and when they get behind one another it is barely noticeable to the point It doesnt really matter if they do or not.

I think that the issue is primarily in unit ai.  For an experiment, I started a singleplayer deathmatch game in which I only trained masses of pikemen.  I then sent these units alone to the enemy base, set them on stand ground, and adjusted their position whenever they needed to advance.  Granted, this was against an ai fielding a mix of ranged and melee units and using no micro.  Overall they performed much better than I had anticipated.  I would say that they could use perhaps a bit more range, but the fact that they cannot coordinate as a formation a more relevant point in my opinion.  Microing a mass of pikemen in stand ground is awkward to say the least.

[ChronA]

Personally I would like it if <default><Clearance> in simulation/data/pathfinder.xml was bumped up to 1.5 from its current value of 0.8. Right now there are an awful lot of units clipping through each other in melee fights. Increasing the unit separation would make fights more readable, increase the importance of concavity, and would make the range differences of the melee unit types much more apparent and significant.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

54 minutes ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I think that the issue is primarily in unit ai.  For an experiment, I started a singleplayer deathmatch game in which I only trained masses of pikemen.  I then sent these units alone to the enemy base, set them on stand ground, and adjusted their position whenever they needed to advance.  Granted, this was against an ai fielding a mix of ranged and melee units and using no micro.  Overall they performed much better than I had anticipated.  I would say that they could use perhaps a bit more range, but the fact that they cannot coordinate as a formation a more relevant point in my opinion.  Microing a mass of pikemen in stand ground is awkward to say the least.

Amém brother

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, ChronA said:

Personally I would like it if <default><Clearance> in simulation/data/pathfinder.xml was bumped up to 1.5 from its current value of 0.8. Right now there are an awful lot of units clipping through each other in melee fights. Increasing the unit separation would make fights more readable, increase the importance of concavity, and would make the range differences of the melee unit types much more apparent and significant.

@wraitii
^

[wraitii]

17 hours ago, ChronA said:

Personally I would like it if <default><Clearance> in simulation/data/pathfinder.xml was bumped up to 1.5 from its current value of 0.8. Right now there are an awful lot of units clipping through each other in melee fights. Increasing the unit separation would make fights more readable, increase the importance of concavity, and would make the range differences of the melee unit types much more apparent and significant.

Anything above 1 would make the units take "2 pathfinding tiles", and would likely make the pathfinding feel completely broken, unfortunately.

In A25 I can try to increase the pushing range (since atm that makes the problem worse).

[ChronA]

3 hours ago, wraitii said:

Anything above 1 would make the units take "2 pathfinding tiles", and would likely make the pathfinding feel completely broken, unfortunately.

In A25 I can try to increase the pushing range (since atm that makes the problem worse).

Drat, I was afraid that might be the case. Based on my experiments, I think "completely broken" is hyperbolic, but I was definitely seeing more problems with units getting stuck on things. I was hoping there was some other parameter that just needed to be tweaked. I guess it is more complicated than that. Sounds like you think there would be performance costs too?

I must say that is disappointing. It's these kinds of unpolished little gameplay details that undermine the appeal of 0 AD to me. Perhaps another solution would be to scale down the models, but with the amount of art assets I'm guessing that would take months of continuous work.

[Stan`]

8 minutes ago, ChronA said:

I must say that is disappointing. It's these kinds of unpolished little gameplay details that undermine the appeal of 0 AD to me. Perhaps another solution would be to scale down the models, but with the amount of art assets I'm guessing that would take months of continuous work.

Indeed. assuming we can scale them all without remaking them (some cannot be imported in blender), which we cannot.