Better Pikes

Currently, the pikes in RBM have a weapon length of less than 400 (4 meters) because the angle of the pike in the vanilla pike bracing animation is too high to hit enemy cavalry.

This sub-mod for RBM increases the weapon length of the pikes to more than 400 and lowers the angle of the pike in the pike bracing animation in order to hit enemy cavalry. It also increases the damage of the pikes so that pikemen are devastating from the front.

Pikemen use deep shield wall formations that resemble pike formations. These formations are tightly spaced and slow-moving. If you are commanding pikemen and want them to use this formation, you can order them to form a shield wall (F8) and advance (F4).

The idle, walking and running animations while holding a pike have been fixed. Pikes are now held upright instead of sideways, as is the case with the vanilla animations.

Pikemen will ready their pikes when they are 50m away from the enemy by default. The first five ranks will ready their pikes for a thrust. The sixth rank onwards will ready their pikes at an angle.

Enemies will get knocked back if they enter an area behind the pike head. This is to simulate collision for the pikes.

For realism purposes, pikemen cannot block or attack overhead with their pikes by default. This setting as well as others can be configured in the mod options.

Recommended mods: Breakable Polearms - My other mod. This is to ensure that pikemen are not too OP by giving them a nerf: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3080363208 De Re Militari - In the vanilla game the only troops who use pikes are Vlandian Pikemen and DRM adds several other troops who use pikes: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2875168687 Longer and Bigger Crafting Parts with Uniform Scaling - If you want to craft pikes as long as the ones in Better Pikes: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887434433

Known limitations: This mod may not be compatible with other mods that add custom pikes or change combat in certain ways. So use at your own risk.

Take note that this mod requires Realistic Battle Mod's Combat and AI modules. It was intended from the start to be a RBM sub-mod. I will not make a non-RBM version.

Includes a localization template and Chinese localization by default.

If you encounter a crash, always provide the crash report from ButterLib. It makes it much easier for me to troubleshoot it.

It is safe to install and uninstall on an existing save.

Source code is here: https://github.com/OrderWOPower/BetterPikes

Discord server for my mods is here: https://discord.gg/amFNwYA3gB