Swiss pikemen were trained well-enough that they could maintain a wall of pikes while walking, or even at a trot (‘pike charge’, also the name of one of the holding positions for a pike, ‘at charge’). Swiss pikemen would become the last word in European warfare for some 200 years, and their imitators would eventually form the basis of modern professional armies, replacing the ad-hoc retinues of the warrior-caste of European aristocracy.

Meritocracy … good?
Bullshit nobility… bad?

My god, with these strategies, I could control the biggest contiguous land empire the world will ever know!