Pikemen, while useful in general, dramatically underperform against hoplites.

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

This is primarily due to the dreaded clipping issue that has been uneradicable since the introduction of the hoplite phalanx formation -- hoplites will melt/clip right through a line of phalanx pikemen, killing half of them and glitching the entire battle.

Even when this does not happen, the hoplites' janky maneuvering often puts them diagonally positioned to a phalanx line -- I'm seeing rank 4 Chalkaspides get 20-30 kills max against ordinary hoplite units. This leads to the perverse and ironic result that the Macedonian phalanx is most useful against troops like Roman Principes or Gallic swordsmen, the very enemies it struggled most to defeat in real life. While the formation it was specifically designed to defeat massacres it with relative ease.

I'm sure this must drive Kam and the developers crazy hearing about this same issue repeatedly, but it really is an insane obstacle and makes playing my favorite types of faction a great deal less fun. Hoplites functioned much better under the previous Formation Attack system, and I recall my pikemen doing rather well under those circumstances. They should not be losing frontal combats to hoplites with 8-foot spears, especially if they're tier one generic hoplites. Spartans or Sacred Band I could at least understand.

If Alexander and Philip were using the current DeI system, Chaeronea would have been a massive Theban and Athenian victory.

Does this happen to anyone else? I love this most recent version, but there are some warts in this specific instance.

[Tiny]

I get the opposite experience personally. Anytime the enemy fields hoplites, I counter with Pikes and the hoplites then melt into the front of them. That said, Hoplites are so inconsistent in performance; they go from wiping out veteran legionaries to BEING wiped out by the same unit, just because CA's programming tilts their flanks and rear toward my men. Any fight with hoplites heavy forces leads to massive casualties to my legions, even as I outmaneuver them with rear charges. Idk I think It's all a mess.

[KAM 2150]

Honestly I only had reports other way around, same when I was testing all that stuff, my main issue was that hoplites were often unable to even score kills vs pikes.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Principes early will have trouble with peasants . They need to be gold to be better than Hastati.
Managed to lost 75 Triari vs nothing.

Just finished 1vs1 Triari vs Etruscan starting hoplite. Had time to align them and press attack . Yeah they were losing. Charged general to hoplites back. They went trough my line killing 110 Triari , 50 bodyguard and General.
Max number that Chalkaspides can kill is over 400 if you charge General and Principes on their back. 5 Units to crush one Chalkaspides with losses on gamebraking point.

Only way to kill them besides loosing 6000 is to stone them to death. Had to fight 3 full stacks of that with my 2 stacks. Thanks to Accensi I won. Accensi can actually fight and compared to Hastati they are better choice to tire out and break phalanx (50 loses vs 100 loses and rout).
I m hiding my best troops behind lines and fighting with Accensi.

You can defeat Roman troops with town guard. Phalanx in front means run away for 2h minimum. This is from Roman side of problem. Never had that bad heavy Romans in my over 10,000 h of play (All TW series). They can't hold and they can't punch and flanks do not exist after 20 turns on VH.

[Icarus Smicarus]

I'm happy to say that I've found a new appreciation for DEI's combat since trying the new battle pack (Nice work Kam! ) To the point where this is the only issue I have with the battles. It's become bearable to manage but really, I'd prefer just resigning the Hoplites to being tough tightly packed spearmen rather than dealing with this faff.

[Molecularbioguy]

Re: Sonny WiFiHr

Accensi used en masse are incredible, possibly OP. One or two units are totally forgettable but in large numbers they are scary.

I forgot when you get the first reforms you can't recruit them anymore. Sad day. This discovery is what prompted me ask about people's AoR units in another thread (to find other ranged units to replace the Accensi in new armies). Early game city sieges essentially amount to ballista-ing down a tower and the walls around it, and then mowing down any unit cowering behind the broken wall with a hail of stones. No need to spend turns making siege equipment or spending lots of gold/turn on expensive unit upkeep. Sure, more artillery to make a breach and soften up those inside, followed by an assault with infantry through said breach, with ranged units scaling the walls to support is historically accurate... but that army is far pricier and the losses you incur doing that make it an untenable game strategy. It takes so long to muster replacements! Blocking out the sun with stones is cheap and just better in every way.

I don't know that Accensi can actually fight hand-to-hand though. I'm curious what tactical scenario you've been in that it worked. To me they're like the Prince Rupert's Drop of units. Hit things with them the right way (at range, with ideally 6 or more units of them focusing on an unshielded side or rear of a single unit) and they're invincible. But if anything so much as touches them in melee they seem to shatter in seconds.

Does VH affect battle morale or other bonuses, or does it just affect the campaign difficulty (buildings, cash, etc). I'm playing on normal but restricting myself to no trade deals, I don't notice the early Roman principles and hastati being softies. I think they're good but definitely not invincible vs most infantry from my current playthrough (and they're beyond expensive). They only seem to struggle 1-to-1 against formed-up hoplites but they didn't get annihilated either, which seemed appropriate to me. The only pikes I've really been up against were Epirote Chalkadispes or some Massalian pikes, which chewed giant holes in my infantry column until I was able to envelop and/or flank individual units and they broke. Tough buggers. That seemed fairly historical to me, as the Romans didn't really beat the pike phalanx by going head-to-head, but rather by getting the formations disrupted using terrain and then exploiting tactical flanks.

Hoplites beating pike phalanx handily seems odd. I think I'm going to start a Greek campaign and now I'm curious to see what OP described.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Armor stat is not working. High tier phalanx can be decimated fast as low tier. Arrows from front just ignore armor. Difference is minimal and fighting with troops is all about attack / defense. If they have same weapon.
Did managed to raise more than 40 ranged and they do not care about armor. When ranged become silver rank it can kill 400 units per battle. I don't use javelins because with time slinger can do same job. Archers totally replaced javelin role for me. 17 ammo for huge kill ratio (600 vs at best 100 from javelins)

Did put Principes in front line. They become prime target and they are finished fast. Triari in front line - decimated faster than Hastati (almost twice). Accensi in melee should be decimated but I had to fight Italian slingers with Hastati for long time. Roari should not resist swords for long time (Sword town guard Captain) - they handled it better than Hastati .

Big battles are good place to measure your troops. Strange but my retreating Hastati/Accensi can broke phalanx center faster than my heavy flanks defeat low tier spears (4 x General included). After battle report Principes 100 - Accensi 400 . It feels like armor do not exist (Cav excluded).

I did play DeI (pre Roman overhaul) and Triari could take defended wall and hold out any kind of phalanx. Did not even dare to do such thing now.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

@ Molecular . Put hem in front of Phalanx and do not give attack order. Move another behind and charge. Phalanx will turn around. Disengage and charge until they are tired. Then charge from front and back to finish them.
If you can't get behind use Accensi as shield . If cav charge them they will rout but it is OK you just saved 25-50 Hastati for 10-20 Accensi (if they are spread). They will recover while you can charge charging cav with Hastati.

I do not play VH battles. Hard is OK if you know what are you doing. VH campaign means that you will face 2-3 armies on small field where you can't flank. You must break (armor really do not help here and you can't charge with cav for easy wins)

[Geffalrus]

I've watched Bronze Shield pikes struggle vs. Agrianian Assault Infantry (the non-skirmish guys), while melting militia and regular hoplites elsewhere on the field. I've then had other battles where the reverse has been true. Plus, the AI definitely seems to freak out a bit when they see a pike line. They do whole formation reshifts to try and run away from the pikes. Weird and annoying at first, but eventually you figure out how to "exploit" it.

Pikes like that are quite expensive compared to weak militia spears............but you really do get the benefit of superior holding power in most situations. I've watched my Athenian Euzonoi run after a short period of fighting, while my Macedonian Pike Mercs calmly held the line.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Most important stat for inf is holding power. I agree on that. Somehow is now tied to defense more .
Only stat that require attention are Attack/ Defense. There is huge spike for Principes after they reach 60 attack. After that they rock. Did not have time or need to upgrade them to sword . They will die against phalanx from front but they will crush them from back (Accensi are not needed).
Problem is - Hastati are just few stats below and they will have more experience. Add level 1 weapons and Warrior/Tactician perks buffs. You don't need Heavy units anymore. Find good javelins and form line with them (good attack / defense/shield) then your Inf can charge non interrupted and gain quite advantage.

Got good and bad results vs Spears/swords but fighting javelins should be able to break center of heavy phalanx. They have best holding power vs phalanx if you know where and when to retreat. They should not use javelins frontally.

I just installed more heavy units. Will see how much better they are -(and will probably delete weapons buffs - they have high attack anyway)

[antred]

Hmm, in my experience pikemen now utterly annihilate anything, spearmen, swordsmen, it doesn't matter. They all just melt away.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Complete opposite experience for me. Two 160 + turn campaigns as Macedonian and not even shield-bearers can compete with basic front Shield bikeman.

Even my basic Pikeman will regularly get 200 to 300 kills against opposing Infantry.

Facing off against Sparta I didn't even have to worry about heroes of Sparta against my basic Pikeman.

However if their formation is sufficiently disrupted, even from the front they will take quite a few casualties.

I've noticed as I started moving further east than the seleucid Empire my pipes are starting to have more problems because of the larger prevalence of missile troops and skirmisher cavalry.

So I started doing what Alexander did and drop some of my Pikes for Eastern range troops.

Also I noticed all of the short Pike units, even the most elite Pike units available always seem to perform worse than my basic bronze Shield pikemen. They tend to take more casualties on both the offense and defense, and form range troops despite having Superior armor.

[zogg513]

Also I noticed all of the short Pike units, even the most elite Pike units available always seem to perform worse than my basic bronze Shield pikemen. They tend to take more casualties on both the offense and defense, and form range troops despite having Superior armor.

I seem to observe a similar problem.

Agema pikes(any short pikes actually) don't seem to get an armor bonus from their phalanx formation while bronze shields do. The armor bonus is from the pikes in the back line deflecting projectiles I believe. So the short pikes will end up having equal armor with regular pikes while in formation. Maybe the team could consider short pikes getting the same armor bonus? Or maybe even give them health bonus (maybe to 90 for the basilikoi pikes) to signify their role use as shock troops and phalangites? I know there's another unit to represent this but it would allow them to be used more in more general melee situations.

Also, in late game, thorax pikes have higher armor than elite pikes so AI missiles will tend to target them if you don't throw away a low armor javelin unit in the front line to bait projectiles. So you just end up phasing out elite pike units.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Go to submods thread and download more heavy units mod.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Short pipes do seem to perform better during Siege of souls on the walls. Which I suppose is pretty historical considering it was the elite Pike units that would act as the first troop scaling the walls.

But in this respect they are more useful as heavy swordsman then they are as Elite Pike Infantry. That isn't to say they still don't win versus enemy hoplites or Spearman. Because they still certainly are better than either of those. Just not as good as defensive Pikeman.

[Geffalrus]

Interesting. My experience when the new Makedon/Epirus units came out was that Short Pikes would kill much, much faster than Long Pikes. Royal Peltast Pikes in particular became very useful for pushing down streets in siege situations.

Clearly I need to get this Antigonid campaign going to see if anything's changed.................

[Geffalrus]

Notes from the field, Antigonid edition:

1) Everyone hates me and refuses peace at all times. I just want to be nice, but now I need to burn their homes and exile their families.

2) In Pikes We Trust. They cost a pretty penny, but the long and short pikes are worth it so long as you don't get them completely out of position. After many, many battles against hordes of Athenian and Spartan hoplites, the only situation that gave me trouble was facing Spartan Bodyguards. All other hoplites melted in the face of my Bronze Shields and Peltast Pikes. Peltasts DEFINTELY should be kept on one flank and then microed appropriately. They're decently fast and they will rack up casualties faster than the Bronze Shields. They can 1v1 units pretty effectively in my experience. And they're way better at flanking. A Bronze Shield needs 30 solid seconds of double clicking before it finally gets around to molesting an enemy unit from the side. The Bronze Shields really work best when the enemy comes to them. I saw plenty of Hoplite bugs where they rotated in place through my line. But the pikes were so beastly that they still just died.

[Antiochos VII Sidetes]

+1 for the short pikes, Geffalrus. I've just subjugated Hellas with precisely those tactics. The Chalkaspides can and do get murdered by hoplites if they clip through the lines, but if I babysit them and repeatedly push them forward they perform well.

Against the Thracians, however...they're golden. The poor barbarians didn't even have a chance. The heirs of Alexandros Megas are destined to rule the Balkans.

[Ivan_Moscavich]

I kept all short pikes on the left side of my pikeline it just seems like the AI likes to concentrate range fire on that side.
So regardless of their performance they seem to take disproportionate casualties compared to the defensive pikes.

They aren't bad units by any means, they just aren't as reliable in the survival Department as bronze Shield bike then. In my experience.

[Falco]

I haven't experienced anything like the OP, Hoplites melt against pikes in my experience.