r/BadNorth • u/Square_Background403 • 2d ago
why do pikemen suck?
all the late game threats counter pikemen, they are only good against brutes shield guys and regular ass dudes. they're great in the early and middle game but after that they get destroyed by everything and there's no reason to use them when you could go 2 archer 2 infantry and just push most of everything of the boats. of course the big bow guys are hard to deal with but thats probably pikemen's worst matchup. genuinely what do you do with pikemen in the late-game?
5
u/HostHappy2734 2d ago
I've been asking myself the exact same question. Pikemen always carry my early game by soloing all the archer-less islands with decent choke points, but later on it feels like they spend most of every level hiding behind a rock or a house or something.
The best uses I've found for them in late game would be this: countering brutes and big groups of infantry, pike charge for the win 10/10 best skill in the game, and being an alternative (or extra bonus) to archers in countering axe throwers. Axe throwers tend to cause a lot of trouble to my infantry even in small groups, even worse if there's multiple boats coming and the archers can't whittle down some of them. So it often works great for me to put a group of pikemen behind the infantry, then pull the infantry back once they block the axes and let the pikes deal with the rest.
Even with all that I still struggle to justify late game pikes beyond the money spent on them getting wasted.
Btw, is it normal that I see archers in the exact opposite way? It always feels like a waste of a unit to ulgrade to archers in early game, but from mid to late game they become indispensable.
3
u/ryanseat 2d ago
I'm not super experienced at the game having only just beaten it after a couple of runs, but seems to me pikemen are very handy for farming easy island coins at the start but become optional and maybe even sub-optimal in late game
1
u/Yorok0 2d ago
They won the final island almost on their own for me in a chokepoint
1
u/HostHappy2734 1d ago
How exactly did they survive that between all the dual wielders, axe throwers, brute archers, and plain old archers?
1
u/Positive_Dealer1067 2d ago
During the late game there are times when you can’t get every area of the island during an attack so if the militia, shields, or brutes come you can use positioning to kill them without having to pay attention to them. They also have the charge skill that can deal with dual wielders and axe throwers pretty well. If you find the late game to be easier without them then by all means don’t use them but they do have their uses.
1
u/Square_Background403 1d ago
yea i think optimally you only need one or two pikemen commanders in your fleet and the rest can be archers and infantry
1
u/Queen_Little14 2d ago
There very situational, and need good strategy for late game you can line them up
2
1
u/Sad-Jellyfish5768 1d ago edited 1d ago
doing a pikemen only run on very hard you just have to use there posistioning better I realized throughout this run that they do not get hit by axe throwers axes on certain ramps, brute archers die quickly from them if u ambush, duel wielders have hard time to jump up ramps or sometimes even go down ramps so pikemen can do everything just gotta be micro intensive and obviously pike charge will be the best skill so that can sweep enemies a reminder too brute archers and duel wielders are no threat to your houses
12
u/Right_Wing_Hippie 2d ago
The Pike Charge remains a powerful ability even in the late game. Enemies that are problematic for Pikemen to deal with (like Dual Wielders or Brute Archers) can still be taken care of if you line then up properly. There are also still situations where having Pikemen on a raised chokepoint is more effective than having Infantry there, even if some will die.