Pike vs Cavalry

[Evil Dave]

Dedas got it right: the lack of any notion of formation is a key problem for modeling a bunch of things. One knight charging into a bunch of infantry will kill a bunch before he gets killed or forced to retreat. A line of knights, charging stirrup to stirrup, may cause the guys standing in front of them to rout before the charge hits home. That's even true of pike charges as well, at least against low-morale infantry.

[chrispedersen]

Alexander the greats father, Phillip of Macedon (??) developed the first real pike/long spear 24-26feet long, as I recall and had enormous success on the battlefield with it.

They were enormously susceptible to terrain, to archer fire, etc - but contrary to popular opinion face changing was relatively quick. They would point the spears up, turn, point the spears down.

However, as in another persons post, they really are not effective against cavalry. Cavalry have high prot and high morale - so a, the pikes don't tend to get through protection - and when they do the cav just make their morale check anyway.

The cav then proceed to hit you with that devestating first lance hit.