I know you missed me

Anyway I read encyclopaedia some more and noticed one, very odd, thing. Pikemen and get ATTACK bonus versus cavalry. Shouldn't they also get DEFENSIVE bonus? Pike formation was especially useful in defence after all. Actually I propose that pikemen and landsknechts got defensive bonuses all around and only be vulnerable to ranged units, while getting penalties in forests, mountains and especially swamps.

Why are landsknechts represented as warriors with swords? They should wield halabards IMO and be slower but better pikemen.

BTW landsknechts are misspelled in encyclopaedia as Landsknecths.

I should imagine the attack bonus means superior retaliation as well. The defensive bonus could be added by granting knights and scouts a penalty to attack when assaulting pikemen, but it's not really different from the current retaliation bonus.

Landsknechts already do have a penalty in mountains, while knights have a penalty in both mountains and woods. Not sure how swamps should be treated. In general, any irregular terrain is easier to defend than plains.

As for Landsknechts, they did carry zweihanders. While Landsknechts in TB do not have a special bonus against pikemen, they are one of the most efficient units to be used against them simply because of the stats. I don't think more anti-cavalry units with special bonuses are needed, it's better to have something a little more complex than rock-paper-scissors mechanics.

Actually, I suppose Landsknechts could be renamed into Zweihanders altogether: http://m2tw.warlore.org/units/Zweihander

But we already have swordsmen as heavy infantry, if lansknechts should be the defensive infantry they should get some defensive bonuses, that's obvious for me. Unless I am wrong somewhere and retaliation happens after the attack and not simultaneously then indeed giving attack penalty would work. Or perhaps greater efficiency when in defensive stance? That would work too.

And rougher terrain penalizes more units that rely on formations to be effective in battle. This includes landsknechts and pikemen, who fought usually in tighter formations.

Finally as a historical note landsknechts were developed as a counter/replacement for swiss pikemen and pikes were their weapon of choice. Yes, they fought with zweihanders but only veteran soldiers and it was not their trademark.

Landsknechts are very hard to kill. Especially if they're positioned on the mountains. Almost impossible if they have 4th level shields and golden armors, used Health potion and covered by some 3-4th lvl runes. TB is not about unit-antiunit killing each other in spherical vacuum. Good tactician uses defense mode and magic. The main idea is to find a balance with some units guarding dispositions, and some attacking.