Are Pikemen useful?

[animalguy]

How often do find yourself pumping out pikes? I often skip building them purley because they don't upgrade until rifles which I think is odd. Why can't pikes upgrade into musket men as they become quite useless from the mid medieval era, especially seeing as the ai never builds lots of cavalry. What do you guys think about this, do you have any other ideas?

 

[Realyn]

Sadly only against mounted units. against musketman a archer with some upgrades is more usefull ...

 

[buchengshi]

I've only done it as Bismarck, and just because the Landscneckt is really cheap.

Also recently done it in a one-of-a-kind situation. Siam sent several elephants my way. Bought two pikes, upgraded my spearman (initial warrior upgraded at ruins). With them and my two archers, I held him off. (Then used three GS to bulb over to rifling and show him what I thought of him.)

Which makes me realise: If you have a really unlucky start (no iron anywhere nearby), pikes are your only option until gunpowder.

 

[smallfish]

They are nice stopgap meatshields to complement your swords/longswords when you run out of iron to spend and in need of some contemporary units to upgrade rifles.

 

[skyclad]

Yes they are useful since they don't cost a resource... No they aren't amazing lol. If you only have 2 or 4 iron you know what to do. Spend it on catapults and begin the landsknecht/pikeman spam!

 

[snarzberry]

I've only done it as Bismarck, and just because the Landscneckt is really cheap.
.

The bad part is the increased cost to upgrade a Landy to a Rifle, compared to a regular pike. Never could work that one out . It's like, here's your UU - it's cheap! oh p.s. you'll have to pay back the difference later.

Pikes are useful as early defenders that upgrade to rifles after a beeline. The best thing they've got going for them is that they're resource free, so are a back up in case you don't have iron and want a force ready to be upgraded once you hit rifling.

 

[Civologist]

I usually don't waste my time building them, although I tend to go defense during this time period mostly because I'm building wonders like HS, PT, and ND and not units. Although If I find myself next to someone with Elephants or Horse UU I throw a couple out there just in case.

 

[PhilBowles]

How often do find yourself pumping out pikes? I often skip building them purley because they don't upgrade until rifles which I think is odd. Why can't pikes upgrade into musket men as they become quite useless from the mid medieval era, especially seeing as the ai never builds lots of cavalry. What do you guys think about this, do you have any other ideas?

Some AI civs like cavalry, particularly Greece, Egypt and Songhai in my experience, so they can be useful. But the main reason to build them is simply if you don't have enough iron to build Swordsmen/Longswords, and haven't yet reached Muskets. Even in that case, though, I've taken to building Horsemen or Knights instead - they have a high enough strength to be reasonable against cities of the appropriate game stage despite the penalty, are much easier to protect because they can move after attacking, and tear through ranged uinits (which the AI often uses poorly to begin with, making cavalry still more effective).

 

[CoolLizy]

They're my go-to unit in that era of the game. I'm usually just kicking into gear as far as war goes when they show up, and I don't usually have more than a hex or two of iron for longswordsmen (if I'm lucky--the map generator usually hates me), so there's not really any other option until gunpowder. I can usually pump them out pretty quick once I get going, though, so backed up with some crossbowmen they get the job done.

 

[jeffah3539]

As for why they don't upgrade to Muskets it is probably because there was an entire era of warfare known as the Pike-and-Shot era. It lasted from roughly the beginning of the 16th century until the evolution of the bayonet in the late 17th century. Pikemen were used to protect Musketmen from opposing cavalry until the invention of the bayonet allowed the musket to be used as a pike itself.

This is how you should probably use them in CiV as well, however, they aren't very useful if your opponents don't field much cavalry.

The other main issue limiting their effectiveness in CiV is that most wars are siege-based wars where you only really want to build units to capture cities or destroy enemy units which can take your cities. At only 10 base strength in their era they don't present a strong option for those roles.

 

[apocalypse105]

Ask you this question again if you don't have iron Pikeman are a usefull unit to defend if you don't have iron.

The key is to get it as fast as possible so if someone atacks you with swordsman he has to face unitts with 10 strenght and no resource. Combined with archers and after that crosbowman you're basicly untouchable.

 

[Resident Mario]

jeff: As in the Tercio =)

 

[ampmclock]

Yes this is a problem I run into time and time again.


I main Mongolia, and if you're the first to amass your pikemen army, it can be very useful at that moment, even if someone else has collected iron already. Honor + Mongolia + Khan = a very nice Pikemen army, but once you've knocked down the nearest civs with your pikes, you now start working towards, but someone across the water is already at swords men, and your just getting started.
This means for all your trouble, you get tech lagged. From where I'm standing I'm starting to see early war as very stupid, and am planning to do all my warring after I've napped up riflemen.

 

[z220580]

Siam tends to send a lot of elephants and that is when I use pikemen.

 

[skyclad]

Yes this is a problem I run into time and time again.


I main Mongolia, and if you're the first to amass your pikemen army, it can be very useful at that moment, even if someone else has collected iron already. Honor + Mongolia + Khan = a very nice Pikemen army, but once you've knocked down the nearest civs with your pikes, you now start working towards, but someone across the water is already at swords men, and your just getting started.
This means for all your trouble, you get tech lagged. From where I'm standing I'm starting to see early war as very stupid, and am planning to do all my warring after I've napped up riflemen.

Lets hope for you the AI decides to wait as well...

 

[Nevyn]

I build one single pikeman if my warrior does not get to a ruine that makes it into a spearman I can promote.

What I have found is that a pikeman can assert zone of control in an army if my opponent have horses. I have found that the AI is bit more careful when I have a pikeman around.

But I have never built an army of pikes. Doesn't fit my typical research and build path. But I play on standard speed. Maybe on marathon speed, an pike army would have its time in history and be very useful?

 

[n00bxqb]

I usually get open borders with my neighbours, send a scout through, and see what units and resources they have. If they have a lot of horses/horse units, I'll usually put Spearmen/Pikemen adjacent to my cities (I always have a ranged unit in the city).

I actually did a lot of damage with some Pikemen in my last game. One of them had Drill III, Shock I, Formation I, and Blitz before he was upgraded to a Rifleman (Persia kept trying to rush one of my cities with Horsemen and Archers. Didn't stand much of a chance against my Trebuchet and Pikeman despite being heavily outnumbered).

 

[Optional]

I think the main problem with pikes is that the required tech route will lead you to build other things than military.
With a bit of luck, you can make a slingshot at Civil Service with the Great Library, and then you would have a strength 10 unit quite early. You could in theory dominate the map for a while with pikes. But building the Great Library in itself already means you're investing less hammers in military.
And if you get Civil Service early, it's more interesting to follow that up with Education and the build options that opens up. You become a builder that way, more than a warmonger.

A warmonger has better options with the lower tech route. Artillery is there as well. The higher tech route knows very few military units. Apart from the qualities the pike itself has, being almost the only military unit on its tech path makes it almost automatically a unit for occasional defense, not a unit for going on the attack with.

 

[headcase]

They're more useful if you haven't learned other units that far along in the tech tree, or don't have strats.

If you learned crossbows, or have iron, etc, you don't need so many.

 

[apocalypse105]

They're more useful if you haven't learned other units that far along in the tech tree, or don't have strats.

If you learned crossbows, or have iron, etc, you don't need so many.

Its more of a backup unit if you don't have iron you build pikeman in the early medieval late classical era to defend agaisnt swordsman.

As soon as you get crosbowman you don't have to worry about longswordsman.