pikemen too strong ???

[rōns]

Last week I was defending an encampment as macedon in hard difficulty and one of my pikemen units was protecting one gate alone, using the pike phalanx.
Started with 80 man (100%).
Until now, everything is fine.
BUT, at the end of the battle I saw this unit statistics (I even pressed F12) and my pikemen killed 609 and lost only 43 (~50%).
This isn't the first time I saw pikemen unit killing more than 300 man (with pike phalanx), and I think there should be a way to non-pikemen units to go trough these pikes without losing the entire unit.
And some time they kill an entire unit without losing more than 10 men.
I think there's something wrong with this unit, the only way to effectively kill it is to surround it with at least 2 units or use other pikemen with phalanx.

[Катя Мяу <3]

Well, Pikes are supposed to be OP when attacking from the front. History has proven their strengh (Alexander the great for example). But they have 2 weak point. They are slow and they cant use shields. So either you outrun them with cavalry or you shoot them with ranged weapons (I recommend javelins, because they are armor-piecing)

[OwedEvil]

Pikes do have shields, but the best way to break a phalanx (I believe this is how the Romans did it historically, too) is to engage the pike unit from the front with an armoured unit then rain down missiles. The length of the pikes keep your units out of the missile trajectory and the pikes cannot use their shields and the pikes at teh same time and they literally drop like flies. The battle AI is, of course, too dumb to accomplish this and therefor is slaughtered. Divide et Impera is a overhaul mod that makes pikes far less OP, in fact some would argue underpowered.

[clementi]

On the contrary, pikes are quite awful in Rome 2. They work well against the AI because the AI charges them from the front without bothering to shoot them with missles. Pikes are easily outflanked, shot to death, and are horrible offensively. They won't get kills unless in pike phalanx, not being shot, being charged from the front, all while standing still.

[Berserk Belta]

Stand good Macedonian pikes in a chokepoint on good ground, formed up with no serious attempt made to budge them from their position, kill them from afar or flank them and yes they will kill and kill and kill. The perfect storm of defeat in detail, enjoy it.

This is far from terribly wrong, really - even though the game's time frame features better armour than earlier days, neither the armoured troops of the day, or the cavalry of the day can be relied upon to charge onto pike points in a confined space and break through.

[MrLiability]

A pike is an 18 foot long pointed stick. A phalanx or pikewall is a bristling wall of pointy sticks (ideally with the pointy end towards the enemy). It is designed to keep the enemy at a safe distance while other units get into position. Breaking the line from the front involves getting past 4 or 5 layers of pointyness.

But yeah, pikes get far too many kills. If there was a 'push' dynamic where they held the enemy without killing them, that would make more sense to me. In a chokepoint they are OP, but any time you can flank them or pour on missile fire they fall apart pretty fast.

[Herr Robert]

They may be strong in singleplayer against the stupid AI, but play against a human player and he will easily finish them off with projectiles.

[Salty Nobody]

As has been said the AI is too dumb to do anything but suicide into the front of pikes. As has also been said most people can't use pikes well against a human opponent.

However, I will contest that if you know what you are doing pikes can be quite effective against a human opponent, even good human opponents, as long as you don't have more pikes in your army than you can micro effectively. (So around six or so for me personally.) I will even contest that if you really know what you are doing they can be useful out of phalanx for getting places faster and for getting right in the face of enemies before deploying.

[MrLiability]

Originally posted by Tactician:

As has been said the AI is too dumb to do anything but suicide into the front of pikes. As has also been said most people can't use pikes well against a human opponent.

However, I will contest that if you know what you are doing pikes can be quite effective against a human opponent, even good human opponents, as long as you don't have more pikes in your army than you can micro effectively. (So around six or so for me personally.) I will even contest that if you really know what you are doing they can be useful out of phalanx for getting places faster and for getting right in the face of enemies before deploying.

I'm with this guy. I don't play a lot of multiplayer, but I have had success deploying at the last moment and laughing maniacally as entire units impale themselves. The trick is to go into pikewall just after the enemy throws javs (if they've got them) but before they go into the charge animation.
Or, in attack, get them to get close to the enemy without charging (try clicking behind the target for this) and deploying just before impact.

Its not easy, but it is effective.

[Smugass Braixen-Chan]

Does the enemy AI still do the thing where it will suicide an entire unit of cavalry into the impenetrable phalanx wall?

[MrLiability]

Originally posted by Pinkamena Diane Pyro:

Does the enemy AI still do the thing where it will suicide an entire unit of cavalry into the impenetrable phalanx wall?

Yes and no... sometimes a few manage to run away. Mostly the AI suicides infantry into the wall and charges the cavalry through the infantry