Slitherine

I have been playing with mainly successor style armies / romans / Carthaginians , for about 50 battles or so , What I find so frustrating for a successor player is the lack of "punch " with the pike units . Two units both steady on even ground and the first attacker is penalized big time so much so it makes the armies just stand their skirmishing for ever to get the luck D hit (BORING ) pike units are supposed to be the best in game frontally ,I find they are great at defense , using LI to trick a charge , But If you want to charge with pike you had better have every advantage because that 47% win percentage is BS , I have never once won that fist combat ( I still don't understand why all things being equal the unit that attacks first only gets 47% but what ever) The problem I really see with FOG is for me its combat system isn't --------intuitive------- . I am a fan of the era ,play a lot of games , I am ok with skirmishers defeating knights once in a great while . I cannot get the hang the combat maths to make a reasonable judgment call . I do think the pc version is better than the TT version . I find impact troops are easier to understand but pike armies in this game are the worst , lol they are Boring , brittle and truly the most non aggressive army don't get me started with the glass hammers of elephants half the time the computer just charges mine with ....... wait for it ....... Cavalry light spear protected average cav in prolonged locked combat (not withdrawing to charge again) and routs them , I can go with MI ,LI , and HI doing this but Cav WTF that one is a real stinker . in large amounts they are ok cannon fodder , but they really are not worth the points and I would only take one for the flavor , The disordering effect on ALL cav is just plain stupid and really worthless in game .anyway just some venting from a newbie . really wanted something to enjoy the Hellenistic era with the great flavor of armies ( glad the Carthaginians are a good army Sad when the armies you love Suck . I suppose its par for the course though after years of Successors being highly rated I now know what it feels like being a Carthaginian player when the set was WRG 7th or 6th ED

Pike armies are the most powerful non-shooty armies in the game. Read the wiki for tips or ask a veteran to play some freindly games with you. You're not handling these troops properly, I think.

Deeter

I guess not i have read the wiki several times , Maybee its the style of play the pike armies have but i will keep playing . No offense intended

pyrrhus17 wrote:I guess not i have read the wiki several times , Maybee its the style of play the pike armies have but i will keep playing . No offense intended

Pikes will pretty much be UP a POA , possibly two vs almost every troop type in melee And Impact ( except when you attack lance cavalry) Of course then they lose strength, are disordered etc they can crack very quickly
Not all pike armies are equal , but I remember when ROR came out EVERYONE took Selecids to battle

The only units pikes are worse when attacking vs defending against are lancers. Against all other units they are equally good in attack and defense, unless I am greatly mistaken.

Have you taken terrain into consideration? Pikes are HF, which means they're terrible in terrain, especially when they're fragmented(they don't get any of their pike bonuses then).

If you get pikes into melee against an enemy and the pike is steady, the terrain is open, then the pike is at an advantage against every single unit in the game except armored heavy weapons units(or units that have a better experience level).

The seeming weakness of elephants is because they are average, and so a single bad roll on a morale check can be their doom. They are great if used correctly, but terrible if not.

Both elephants and pikes are very weak against ranged units.

Also, it seems to me that you do not understand the combat system completely, or at least that's the idea I got from reading your post. If it shows a 47% chance for win for your pikes, then it likely means the opponent only has an 23 percent chance to win, or something around that. Which means the likelyhood of a draw is around 40%. Thus you are twice as likely to win as your opponent.


Most units aren't penalized for attacking vs defending, the big exception being lancer units versus spear type units, and most foot units attacking lancers. So if you're charging catapracts with pikes, then yes, you are at a huge disadvantage as opposed to if you didn't charge(though less so than if you used offensive spears).

Whether pikes are offensive or defensive on nature depends entirely on the map. If the enemy is hiding in hard terrain, then yes, they are useless. If the map is open, then pikes are the most offensive unit in the game, since all-around they have the least penalties to charging other units(lancers are poor against spears, every other foot except pikes are poor against lancers).

So here is my experience tonight , I am playing Cynoscephalae in one example I have an average pike up hill from an average Triarii ( smooth hill) this is not impact combat this is melee (impact the romans took 3% loss I took 3%) this time I take 12% and he takes 4% so a yeah I think its not me its the game .

What actually happens does not matter, what matters is the chances of things happening. That something is unlikely does not mean it's impossible. Suppose you have a 6% chance of losing a battle. That means roughly one in sixteen such battles results in your loss.
Furthermore, what you must understand is that there are hundreds of people playing the game, yet only some people notice that the system is "broken". This is mathemathically as it should be. If one percent of the players see results that are absurd and report about it, but 99% do not, then the game is not broken. It is just that they are the one who "won" the lottery.

In other words, look at the big picture, do not concentrate on small single events. If you have plenty of pikes who win but one loses, then there's nothing wrong.

Thanks for the advice ,

The important thing to note about pikes is that cohesion is everything; "Keep your pikes undisrupted as long as possible" - this is a quote from the Wiki that has been written by one of the games best players... and has had contributions from other great players. So, use commanders wisely because once one of the line becomes disrupted, then it is significantly weaker and will lose quicker, which ultimately results in a rout which potentially disrupts others. The key thing is to ensure that commanders minimise loss of cohesion and also rally any that aren't steady ASAP.

See here for some hints and tips how to use pikes http://fog-pc-wiki.wikispaces.com/Using+pikes