Pikemen, we laugh atchoo

[Morkilus]

I think pikemen are only good at negating the first attack with the lance, since they have a chance at cancelling the attack with the long weapon. They don't get "first strike", or anything; they just cancel the attack if their attack modifier beats the calvary charge (which isn't very likely anyway...) Then it's just their wimpy damage vs heavy armor, which isn't nice...

I started using Ulmian pikemen, but then just moved to the Zweihanders, which are just as expensive if slower to produce. you can always throw some Vine Men or militia in front of the cavalry to waste their lance attacks!

Theoretically, pikemen should be good at Barbarians, who have awesome damage, but normal attack... and no armor.

[Ironhawk]

Pikes are longer than lances so pikemen will get a repel attempt vs the devastating initial lance attack of cavalary. And its not perfect either - I think there is a morale check to see if you can repel - so the pikers will take some hits.

IIRC the pike does only 5 dam. So, Morkilus is correct, in that once the lance attack is over you are basically pitting what amounts to light infantry (average attack skill & avg. dam) vs. heavy cavalry (good defense skill & good dam). So you probably arent going to win.

Most players just use a screen of throwaway units to absorb the lance attack of the incoming cav. Then you can kill them with something that does good damage. I use about 2/3 throwaway units of the number of cavalry I expect to fight. Watch out for archer/cav combos, cause the archers could kill or rout your throwaway unit screen before the cav can use up thier lance attack on them.

[Morkilus]

I like the flavor of heavy infantry. That heavy armor can take some hits, and their morale keeps getting better after each battle (well, the non-battle-fright-wounded ones, at least.) But one matchup against R'lyeh or sniper-mages with Mind Blast and such will kill your commanders and they will look pretty stupid tromping around in all that gear. I just won my first game vs 5 AI's set on easy using heavy infantry, but I don't think I'll be trying that again. The compys don't seem to be that aggressive, even when I'm the biggest pretender on the block.

[Arralen]

Actually, the pike has a damage of 5+STR = 15, while the lance has 16+charge, but is usuable only once. After that, most knights and HC use Morning Stars now with 6+STR.
So DAM isn't that much different.

Repell wouldn't work, though, as mounted units have high morale and thus are likely to pass the moral test. They do get 1 HP (8-10%) damage if they attack, what triggers more moral checks for units and squad.

By the way, LI uses spears, which are only DAM 3, length 4 .. therefore much inferior.

All in all, Pikemen are best against lots of low-morale, lighty armored foes. Or mindless/berserked units with low armor, which keep impaling themselves to death by repel...