Pike and Shot II: Total War mod

If you don't have powerful PC lower or disable your graphic settings, such as SSAO/HDR, vignette, distortion effect, depth of field, water quality, vertical synchronization, lower Anti-Analising.

Texture quality, shaders model, unit details and texture filtering is better to set on ultra.

Units in mod are mostly divided on 3 decades of Thirty Years' War: 1610s, 1630s and 1640s, with their own features. Units from different periods usually have different armour, regiment size and statistics, so it's recommended to agree on one period before starting a match. Units without years in names may fit for every period.

It's important to remember, that this is Pike and Shot warfare, so you need to combine different types of units and use them together in a way, how it was in 17th century. Charges are pretty dangerous for attackers, so you need to first exhaust enemy by your musketeers, and then use melee units if needed. Same is about cavalry, their main weapon at early stage is carbine/pistol, not sword (for swedish, french and most of 1640s cavalry it's sword). DO NOT USE PIKEMEN OR MUSKETEERS SEPARATELY! Musketeers have very low morale and effective only if they are near pikemen, while pikemen are vulnerable on flanks and will rout without protection from musketeers.

Use charges very carefully and ONLY with "charge" button! Firearms is your main weapon, charges are very costly and risky - once you charge, try to fall back and regroup as quickly as possible, otherwise your units will start to lose morale and may rout.

There is obvious division on pike and shot units, swordsmen, light infantry, carbine cavalry, pistol cavalry and lancers. Most of them are understandable, so we will stop on few.

1. Battalion Commanders. This is very important unit that inspires units nearby and gives small bonuses to them. choose one officer staff unit per 2-3 battalions (1 pikemen and 2 musketeers units), and attach officers to them (see in FORMATIONS). Always keep units in brigade close to officers.

2. Dragoons. They are mounted musketeers, main purpose - to quickly ride, dismount, use firepower where needed and ride back. In melee dragoons will lose both to cavalry and infantry, use dragoons only as skirmishers!

3. Calivermen. This is light infantry, use it as skirmishers. Same is with Jaegers and Vuuroer (for Dutch).

4. Sappers. Special unit, main purpose is build fortifications and throw grenades. Use them as support on difficult places, to storm positions or to defend fortifications, not as infantry.

5. Dragoon Pikemen. They are mounted pikemen, main purpose - to support dragoons or quickly ride, dismount and strike in the weak place. On horses dragoon pikemen are very weak, use them only as infantry!

To better distinguish between units, we made different background colours for their unit cards: yellow is for light infantry, light brown is ranged infantry, dark brown is melee infantry, red is missile cavalry, dark red is melee cavalry, orange is dragoons. (edited)

Unit abilities are important part of mod, some of them are experimental.

1. Pike wall. This is very useful ability, use it before engaging in melee.
2. Range effect. It allows to fire on longer ranges, but in cost of less accuracy and damage.
3. Charge. It adds huge bonus to charge and bonus to speed for a short period of time. Use this button EVERY TIME when you're going to charge the enemy by cavalry and DON'T charge without this button, otherwise your charge will fail. After you charged, try to leave battle and wait until button is active again.
4. Encourage. Available for battalion commanders, it gives bonuses for ranged units and morale boost for units within range. One commander can encourage up to 6 units. ENABLE IT AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF BATTLE and it will be active all the time.

The best formation to build is one pikemen unit and 2 musketeers units. Build 4-5 such formations and attach battalion commanders unit to them.

There are custom formations, but they are for small brigades, don't use them to build whole army! Select several units (1 pikemen, 2 musketeers, 1 officer staff), click on group formation and on the left you will see different variations of formations.

Only "Spear Point" is currently implemented. Click on the "Spear Point" icon, which will form the selected units as a tercio-like brigade. You can repeat the process to create multiple brigades.