On Playing Scotland...

[Didz]

Ah! another mercenary crossbow fan.

I would suggest that one possible use for the pikes is to keep the enemy cavalry off your crossbowmen. Just use them as a mobile castle wall.

Incidently, one thing I've learnt the hard way is that the 'skirmish' option on mercenary crossbow units doesn't work very well. They usually stand about far to long before scarpering.

I don't bother with it anymore and deploy my crossbowmen forward of the battle line at first so that they can fire straight into the faces of the advancing enemy, then decide for myself when best to conduct a passage of lines to move them to the rear. If you time it right they will kite all the enemies precious cavalry straight into your pikes and spears.

The fact that your battle line has opened ranks to let the crossbowmen through actually seems to increase the level of slaughter amongst the horsemen as they seem to bury themselves right into the middle of your infantry and then end up fighting three or four men each. That seems to work with spearmen anyway, pikemen might be a bit more fragile due to the length of their weapons.