I finally got noble pikemen to work in an assault on a fortress. I had 2 untis of them attack the townne centre where the general bodyguards and some mercenary spears were having tea and crumpets whist awaiting their doom. They marched up close, lowered pikes and started poking. Soon they switched to swords so I switched spear wall off and then on. They stuck it to both the spearmen and the bodyguard. I think one unit of pikes killed as many bodyguard as they lost and those were most all killed while they had swords out. Such micromanagement is not my idea of fun and is one bug I will soon try to modify by changing the formation spacing as has been suggested on some forum.