Originally Posted by
tndgu
Lately, I have been playing with a lot of pike factions, but I find pike relied on armies weak if not useless even against AI instead of hoplite phalanx.
First of all, I can't seem to find a way to use them offensively, their formation is not reliable.
Secondly, unless they are the elite of the elite, they route so easily if flanked or rear charged by Cav. In my pontus campaign, I had their medium quality of pikes, and three of my mainline routed because AI accidentally rear charged them with crappy skirmisher cav. They were faced against levy units, probably were winning hard that battle.
They seem to work only in defensive situations, however;
I find DeI pikes get out of formation so often, strange positioning... And a unit of elite spears in phalanx formation can actually push the pike phalanx. Like, half of the pike unit stays in place, the other half goes backwards and do strange positioning because the spear phalanx is pushing them and not dying due to high armor. Well, it makes sense since they have huge shields, but it also breaks my idea of creating an unbreakable wall.
I use Right click or double click depending on the situation, KAM told me that right-clicking once fixing their broken formation, but it doesn't in my case.
How can I use them effectively?
Are elite pikes the only ones that are worthy?