I actually use the mentioned Swordstaff Militia and it is working great for me.
I never use them for attack since danish have Norse Axemen and Norse Swordmen to do that. But in defence I usually have 2 Archer/Crossbow Militia, 2 Spear Militia and 2 Swordstaff Militia.
I put them on both sides of road where city centrum and the road from gate comes. Then I put the spear militia in the middle in schildrom and the archers/crosbowmen behind them.
Looks like little this: (A=archer, P=swordstaff, S=spear, []=building corners)
[ ]
P S S P
A A
I rarely move them, In some cases I move them back and reform them and let them take on the cavarly that comes around and between the spears. Archers are doing most of the killing and spears are not really doing much else than "turtling" in the middle.
If theres an opening I charge forward with spears and archers. Then reform the pikes and run back behind them. Or just scildrom the spears again to the point where i am and then move the pikes to poke the ones going to backside of the spears.
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I agree that historically there was a lot of pikes but I dont think there where so much pure pike units. I would guess there might have been mixed units of pikes with some traditional melee fighters. That way the melee fighters could go to frontline and pikes would support from behind them. And when cavarly charges they switch places. I also read somewhere that there was two handed swordsmen in pike units to cut the enemy pike units pikes.
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