Boy, those phalanxes are tough - even the levy ones. I'd like some tips on dealing with them. It isn't that I'm losing or anything - I dominate any game I play. But I certainly find either going against them, or using them myself, difficult.

An example of going against them, I'm currently playing a Koinon Hellenon campaign. Since it's very early in the campaign with Macedonia all over me like white on rice, I figured the only way to survive was to group all my generals into a single stack and abuse the crap out of them, since they are good units (I'm guessing?), and also regenerate. At any rate, I find that a pike phalanx isolated and completely surrounded by Spartan hoplites will not only continue to fight, it will continue to last a long time, and even take down the numbers of Spartans. I have to severely micromange this combat also, i.e. run the Spartans away who are getting hit by pikes, then when the phalanx turns around to get the ones in the back, charge his back with the ones I just pulled away, and do that over and over again for like forever (this while Spartans are hitting from the sides too). Spartan hoplites are good units... right?

So am I doing this right? Should I be using their secondary weapons (if they have any)? Any tips?

As an example of trying to use pikes myself, in a different campaign (Carthage, Pontos, whoever) I will have a battle line of pikemen standing there, and I find that the enemy simply will not engage them (except with pikemen of their own). They simply go around the pikemen and attack my other units. Even if my other units are elephants, they will attack those other units instead of the pikemen. They just leave pikemen to stand there, and the pikemen never get used. And it isn't as if pikemen can force an engagement by running down enemy units.

How do you force the enemy to engage pikes?

Thanks.