I feel that pikes in general are inconsistent with other units in the game and not in a good way. Here's my current personal understanding/opinion of what pikes historically were, currently are in the game and what they could be in the game. Just to be clear, I don't think the pikes in their current form are badly balanced or severely unhistorical (especially after the push-back changes), just rather underwhelming and a bit mischaracterized and I think they could be more authentic and enjoyable to play with and against. I know pikes are a particularly divisive subject when it comes to how they actually fought and performed and I know some would suggest almost opposite capabilities for pikes with some valid arguments.
My impression of pike phalanx is that they were arguably used primarily as an anvil of Macedonian army (even though they were not defensive or passive by their nature) rather than shock troops or the decisive element of the military. Given their weapons, formations and track record I think it's reasonable to assume that their biggest strengths were staying-power and being highly reliable in frontal combat on good terrain. Their greatest tactical weaknesses were their susceptibility to bad terrain and attacks from unexpected directions (aka getting flanked).
The way the pikes are currently done in FoG2 makes them very sensitive to damage even though they should arguably have a lot of redundancy with at least 11 ranks (or around 70% of the formation) that can't actively contribute to the fighting of full strength unit. FoG2 also makes pikes very deadly and decisive in melee which makes their price very high. The high value of their core capability (pike) leaves the pikes with relatively low armour and veterancy levels when compared to other units of similar price, which makes them even more susceptible to ranged damage and cohesion checks. This together with the quickly diminishing POA values makes them relatively vulnerable to both frontal impact and missile weapons, which seems to go against historical accounts of pikemen.
Another tricky aspect of balancing pikes is the (historically correct) Square/Orb formation. The formation mitigates the effect of flanking (otherwise a great weakness of pikes) which is another factor that keeps their unit price high. I'm going to argue that, in terms of the top down design philosophy, the ability is not that realistic or healthy for the game balance.
Firstly, the pikes are hardly the only unit type that could technically resist flanking: Warbands (and cavalry) often used a wedge-formation which would (even in standard FoG2 unit scale) make flanking harder and less effective (see picture below).
Secondly, with some time to react (and pikes too need time to change their formation) pretty much any unit in the game would realistically be able to reorganize to better respond to flanking attack. One of the best examples could be the Roman manipular formation (together with their discipline and flexibility) which would have plenty of internal reserves who could re-position themselves in a pinch to better resist the impending flank attack.
Thirdly, the existence of square formation in FoG2 is inconsistent when you consider the absence of all other possible formations and tactics that could just as well be in the game but were deemed unnecessary and abstracted. The closest equivalent of Square in terms of gameplay impact would probably be Roman Testudo formation. When under heavy missile fire the Romans could form a testudo to protect themselves extremely effectively but they lack the capability in the game*.
So, would square formation really have such a relatively massive effect when compared to other unit types' answers to flanking? Is the square formation really that important, unique and characteristic for pikes? I think square is too strong counter against flanking, the effect of which is probably already overemphasized against many unit types for the sake of better gameplay (a decisions I completely agree with). I don't think the square formation is really needed for depicting the most important characteristics of pike formations any more than testudo is needed for depicting the characteristics of Legionaries.
The main characteristics I would expect from pikes in the game are maintaining cohesion on impact; having consistent performance in a prolonged melee; being resilient to losses; being vulnerable to flanking and being very vulnerable to bad terrain (and obviously repelling cavalry with ease).
A very rough example of a pike overhaul could be something like:
- Have 100 impact and melee POA 'against any' either static or only starts reducing from over 50% casualties.
- Reduce the "deep pike" POA for impact and melee to 50 or 66 points that reduces linearly from 0% to 50% casualties.
- Remove the Square ability (or add significant POA reductions to better match the overemphasized effect of flanking that affects other units.)
- Make pikes severely disordered on rough ground.
- Reduce Impact Foot POA against Pikes to 100 or give pikes additional cohesion test bonus when receiving non-flanking charge.
Changes like these would make pikes more reliable in the open, more vulnerable when flanked or when in bad terrain and less destructive especially in melee which I believe would be more accurate to historical pikes. This would also allow for the unit price of pikes to be reduced which would let them match the frontage of their opponent a little better than they currently do, which would help with the bad synergy the in-maneuverability has with low numbers.
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* This isn't really relevant to this discussion but since I know someone will otherwise point it out I'll respond in advance: The argument that is used to dismiss having testudo in the game is that "It was mainly a siege formation". However, I think the obvious reason for why testudo was mainly used in sieges is that siege was the most common example of a situation where legionaries would face heavy missile fire that the supporting cavalry and light infantry could not deal with. For example the Battle of Carrhae saw Roman heavy infantry in a similar situation (heavy missile fire that the friendly cavalry and light troops could not deal with) in open field and their response was to form testudo. After that disaster the Romans would either strategically avoid or be better prepared for missile heavy opponents by having more cavalry and missile units (especially noticeable with Late Roman and Byzantine organization) and as a result there would be less situations to use the testudo on the field. It's not mostly used in sieges because of it being a siege formation but because of sieges being the most common situation where it's useful.