pikes not being able to raise or lower their angle is a bug and when asked if CA was going to address the uphill downhill bug for patch 1.2 they said they would not be able to this time around. but there was an admission it was a bug.

halberds in v1.1 can easily beat many infantry units but in v1.2 are easily beaten by shield and sword knights especially dfk. and im not even going to begin to imagine what varangian guard could do to them. with militia halberdier this is not anything of concern to me but when swiss guard are being slaughtered by dfk then im very disappointed.swiss guard should be one of the toughest if not the toughest unit in the game.

pikes will hold up longer than most spearmen when attacked by dfk etc. even better spear infantry dont last very long versus dfk types. pikes will hold up long enough for help to arrive. with militia pikes that is barely in time.

however i am beginning to appreciate how certian kinds of shock infantry can hack their way into pikes. it does give some purpose to all those units and it is possible however my big disappointment is when swiss pikemen and landsneckts are so easily destroyed.

one way for halberds to take out pikemen is a technique i developed not too long ago post 1.2 patch. form your halberds into a column and order them to attack while in spearwall. they will wedge themselves through the pike units center and once past the pikewall they get the advantage and begin to spread out with the flanks turning to the secondary animation [swinging] while the center keeps prodding and poking. i can defeat pikemen everytime with this technique. however against swiss pikemen and landsneckts it would take swiss guard or obundashear to make it work.

pikes are at their best if given the weapon upgrade. this adds 6 attack and gives them the chance to inflict massive casualties at start of melee before an enemy bust through the spearwall.

some of this may not be completely realistic or historical but its the game mechanics so we make do with what has been dealt to us. and even though it is not exactly effecient the arrangement of thin lines of pikemen in column can emulate a true phalanx style fighting arrangement. therefore so long as i am able to have a way to "fix" it temporarily im satisfied.

ive learned to start using other types of units and discovering their strengths. i especially like "better spear units" i will form them up tight or in schiltrom and get them packed up tight against the enemy infantry or cav and once the front is stabilized i turn off schiltrom or guard mode [depending on which formation i decided to use and command them to attack]. they begin pushing like those guys in "300" and shove the enemy back and usually score some good kills that way especially against horses.a lot of this is in cities where their flanks are protected.

in the open field if you place guard mode on and do not move your spearmen cavalry will hardly have any effect on the charge and then after the charge is depleted take guard mode off and attack and kill uber cav. when cav pulls back to launch another charge rush your spearmen back into formation and hit guard mode again and they can usually defeat cav almost as good as pikemen and definetly better than halberds can. being halberds are so pathetic i oftentimes wondered if CA should give them a larger unit so they can have enough facing to hold the cav flanks better when absorbing charges.

im impressed with the shorter polearm units like varangian guard ;). now if only halberdiers and two handed sword units can be rebalanced to match two hand axemen we will have a nice game. although i do believe some shield infantry such as dfk are just a little overpowered. i can accept possibly late plate armored chivalric being uber but dfk are supposed to be obsolete in the later era but they ususally own most "better" infantry from my experience.