How do pikes/sarrissa/spears work?

[QuintusSertorius]

I wonder whether there was an extent to which soldiers fighting under the Macedonian system had softened somewhat since the days of Alexander? After all there were a lot of mercenaries and a lot of avoidance of serious battles, defection and mutiny. Could they simply have been less well-prepared for a real fight where your opponent doesn't surrender (or accept surrender) when things look tight?

[bobbin]

Not at all, the preceding period before the Celtic invasion was one of the bloodiest in the entire history of the Successors. Lysimachos' empire had just been crushed and there would have still been old veterans kicking about from Antigonos' wars too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Diadochi