Spearmen/Pikemen/etc. BADLY need reworking. They're near-useless. Most of the time they keep their polearms on their backs and roll in with their shortswords and no shield. We badly badly badly need a spearwall formation option. We have a shield wall, but no spear wall. Hell even if the shield wall formation allowed spearmen to support people with shields in front of them it'd be better but as it is now the AI does nearly nothing with them. I worked hard to build up a battalion of voulgiers and pikemen to support my archers and they do not help nearly as much as even lower-tier units with shields.
What we need is for units with polearms but no shields to be able to set stationary spears in a two-deep spearwall against charging units, especially cavalry. Similar to couched lances for charging cavalry. But as it is now spearmen don't even target horses in melee, shieldless units get wrecked by archers and throwing weapons, and there's really there's no reason not to have every unit you have carry shields.
While we're on the subject, cavalry could use some love too. Cavalry charges aren't nearly as devastating as they really should be. They don't charge in any kind of formation half the time, and I don't even think they couch spears properly. We need at least tier 5 and up cavalry to be able to charge in a wedge and mow through dudes, UNLESS they have spears. (Though apparently the 1.4 addresses the charging in formation issue)
Medieval combat was a rock>paper>scissors of cavalry>archer>pike and right now the game is just "shields in front of a ****-ton of arrows for everyone!" Which gets repetitive fast. Never boring, but repetitive.
What we need is for units with polearms but no shields to be able to set stationary spears in a two-deep spearwall against charging units, especially cavalry. Similar to couched lances for charging cavalry. But as it is now spearmen don't even target horses in melee, shieldless units get wrecked by archers and throwing weapons, and there's really there's no reason not to have every unit you have carry shields.
While we're on the subject, cavalry could use some love too. Cavalry charges aren't nearly as devastating as they really should be. They don't charge in any kind of formation half the time, and I don't even think they couch spears properly. We need at least tier 5 and up cavalry to be able to charge in a wedge and mow through dudes, UNLESS they have spears. (Though apparently the 1.4 addresses the charging in formation issue)
Medieval combat was a rock>paper>scissors of cavalry>archer>pike and right now the game is just "shields in front of a ****-ton of arrows for everyone!" Which gets repetitive fast. Never boring, but repetitive.