why are pike so good?

[Raymond]

You unlock these guys way too early, they cost so cheap and they can destroy every early to mid game armies. It took the badess, most expensive army to actually the pikewall but then your pike would be leveled high enough to fight those units on the same page even if they got through the pikewall and you would have armies after armies of them and AI can only have a few of them.
I won ridiculous battles that i should have disengaged at first glance, and get away with it with only 1/400 death/kill ratio. I only bought this game yesterday and played on hard with Sparta, they literally overshadowed every other melee units in my roster. I only trained some royal hoplites to watch the flank, but really, a longer pikewall is still way better than the hoplites.

They should have been made them late game units like in medieval 2 or nerfed them down like shogun 2.

[Wraith]

welcome to how pike dominated this time period only a good flank well ever take out a pike formations

[Stevcorp]

Pikes are OP and just in the game for variety.

In real life, they were obsolete against infantry with shields and swords. A legionnare would just use his shield to get under the line of pikes and bam, the pikeman gets a gladius in the chest.

Back in the early days, Rome 2 treated the pikes accordingly. They were good against cavalry, but all they did against infantry was keep them at bay for a short while. Eventually the infantry would get through the pike line, the pikemen would have to switch to swords and then they get wiped out.

But people didn't like that, because they remembered how awsome pikes were in Rome 1. So they patched the pikes and made them far more lethal. Now, pikes are guaranteed to wipe out anything that hits them from the front - even top tier infantry.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

its not that easy to defeat a pike line..........also the romans out mounovered pike lines they didn't try to brute force their way through the front. why would there of been so much emphesis on leading the pikes into rough terrain to break up their formation during their war with Macedon if the romans could just brute force through the front of a pike formation? roman strategy revolved around flexability

[CptZhu]

Roman legionary cohort vs Pikes. Roman legionary stands 1m from the pikes, throw all their pila -> Bye bye pikes

[rincewind]

As the Never-Chosen said, when the legions and pikes fought the former won because they were able to flank them. Not because they were able to win head to head.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

the weakness to pikes btw is their speed plus vulnerability to missile units, you will find those longer pike walls are not better then hoplites when they start throwing javelins at you. hoplites are much more immune to ranged damage due to their shields over pikes. when fighting pikes just make a hole in the line with ranged fire then flank them through that hole and the formation will collapse pretty fast.

[Raymond]

rincewind の投稿を引用：

As the Never-Chosen said, when the legions and pikes fought the former won because they were able to flank them. Not because they were able to win head to head.

what happen if i had a long line of pike, accompany with good inf to guard the flank and slingers to pick off the skirmishers? they just work too great against the AI, they can only send a few army to the flank.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

the AI is bad with dealing with pikes but thats more due to its incompetance with dealing with it then pikes being too strong, i also can easily shred the AI with just only hoplite armies with 120 melee defense and 70 melee attack. since greeks can stack a ♥♥♥♥ ton of bonuses on hoplites

[Salty Nobody]

Pikes are good against the AI because the AI is stupid and marches right into them. The AI rarely flanks or takes the time to shoot the pikes.

Players are an entirely different story. Any reasonably competent player will do everything in their power to NOT engage the pikes from the front, and will shoot all or most of the ammo in their army at the pikes before engaging if they cannot easily flank. This includes the precursor javelins and pilla that many melee and spear units get. Very few players can pull off using pikes effectively in field battles because of this.

YariMurai の投稿を引用：

what happen if i had a long line of pike, accompany with good inf to guard the flank and slingers to pick off the skirmishers? they just work too great against the AI, they can only send a few army to the flank.

This would work great against the AI, though you can wreck an entire AI stack with as little as three or four pike units in the center of your army as the AI really is that bad. Again, players are a different story though. That would only work against the inexperienced ones.

[123]

Play any multiplayer battle, pikes are almost useless, unless its nearing the end of the battle and no ranged units are left.

[Salty Nobody]

Thunder Thighs の投稿を引用：

Play any multiplayer battle, pikes are almost useless, unless its nearing the end of the battle and no ranged units are left.

That isn't true, it is just most people don't know how to use them effectively within the game.
Having the pikes sit there in a line deployed waiting for the other player to charge into them, only to slowly advance (possibly haphazardly, creating flanking unit sized holes in the line) when they come under heavy fire is not a good use of pikes, but the vast majority of pike users play them like that anyway because real life that is similar to how it was supposed to work.

I do use pikes as a micro intensive killing force in multiplayer to good effect, but It takes the entire rest of my army supporting and protecting the things for it to work well and so I limit it to no more than three pike units per army that uses them. That way even if they fail in some way it hopefully isn't the end of the battle for me as the other 17 units still have a chance to win their respective engagements.

[SnusHead]

Stevcorp の投稿を引用：

Pikes are OP and just in the game for variety.

In real life, they were obsolete against infantry with shields and swords. A legionnare would just use his shield to get under the line of pikes and bam, the pikeman gets a gladius in the chest.

Back in the early days, Rome 2 treated the pikes accordingly. They were good against cavalry, but all they did against infantry was keep them at bay for a short while. Eventually the infantry would get through the pike line, the pikemen would have to switch to swords and then they get wiped out.

But people didn't like that, because they remembered how awsome pikes were in Rome 1. So they patched the pikes and made them far more lethal. Now, pikes are guaranteed to wipe out anything that hits them from the front - even top tier infantry.

That is complete non-sense don't know where you heard that.

The macedonian phalanx was practically unbeatable from the front.
Why else would have greeks and persians lost against them? Their soldiers had shields aswell.

The romans only won against the greeks and their pikes because they were more mobile thanks to their "checker board formation" which allowed them to flank the pike formations.

Also the greeks were busy with the persians in the east and couldn't send reinforcements to deal with the romans.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

the persians in the east didn't really exist anymore that was just more successor states which were ruled by greeks thanks to alexander. Macedon just got ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cause it was outmounovered and all the greeks hated them as well. unless you mean parthia which the selucides had beside them not Macedon.

[Pintaar]

The legions got roflstomped when they first fought pikes, they attacked head on. But they learnt pretty fast how to outflank them. Then the era of pikes were gone, and soon pikes left most armies.

[Ashina]

Pintaar の投稿を引用：

The legions got roflstomped when they first fought pikes, they attacked head on. But they learnt pretty fast how to outflank them. Then the era of pikes were gone, and soon pikes left most armies.

And then pikes 2.0 in the Renaissance era.

Macedon and most of Alexander states loses because their leader was too heroic with their cavalry, often leaving the army to do a cavalry charge, leaving the pikes to fend for them self.

In the other hand, Roman general are more strategic, staying in the army and directing commanding the troops, their captains are also more flexible due to the manipular system, allowing them to do what they can to achieve victory.