Attacking with pikemen

[{Don}_Sky{Mh}]

Pikemen are only truely effective against cavalry. You can click on them to attack, but make sure that your line is wider than the cavaly's so that way you don't get cav to your side or back. It will most likely kill the general on contact and then rout.

[Carl]

Taking them of Guard Mode will help, but TBH you need the Pike Fix for pikes to work in any usful way beyond being uber spearmen.

[Psyco]

I haven't had the same bad experience with pikemen that most have. If you single-click attack they lower their pikes and march at the enemy. As long as you avoid cities, where pathing issues interfere with their formation, they destroy anything in front of them.

Speaking of single click attacking, is it well known that this works for infantry? I was quite surprised when I realized that it works. As a plus, the men hold their formation better, as well as using a rather cool charge animation. If not, it might be worth creating a thread, as this is a good fix for people's issues with formations when charging.

[Sheogorath]

They can be fairly effective attackers provided you use the no-swords fix. If you dont they tend to switch to their swords, which they suck with. While they have their pikes out they can keep a lot of enemies out of contact range.

[pike master]

he he he

[antisocialmunky]

You could try the old hoplite tactic of walking your line of infantry up to the enemy line and sit there. Formation units have a nasty habit of turning to face the centers of enemy units and getting slammed on the sides. Just a thought when fighting with a line of phalanx type units.

[Carl]

The problem with them has more to do with the fact that if the pikemen arn't actually attacking an individual model, it can freely walk straight through the pikes as if they arn't their. Without the Pike Fix, if more than a couple of enemy models do that the entire unit drops it's pikes and pulls out it's swords. Most pikemen would be beaten by Armoured Sarges in melee without their pikes, so it kills the pikemen badly.

Some people seem to be able to get them to work without the Pike fix in vanillia, but in general they simply won't attack infantry with their pikes for most people in vanillia.