Quote Originally Posted by AeroAgg06 View Post
Phrax don't allow you to use pikes as easily since they will hit the phrax in round 3 as archer shoot them. For a lvl 12 u can overcome this by using 4k pike for a layer, but not sure the amount will be effective in a 14+ just for one more round
Interesting point. The point at battle which you seem to be speaking is in the post-archer clearing phase. In this situation, we have the phract respawn and the archer respawn hitting the pike layer on the same round. The real question is how close the hits are to one another. If it is just a few seconds, there should be no problem with a 4k pike layer. Anything more than that and you're right, you lose the effectiveness of the layer.

Of course, merely adding a phract layer stops the opposing phracts at 2950 on round 3, which preserves the pikes.

The AT at the historical cities are not numerous, so another option is beefing up your sword layer so it can take one shot from the AT before blocking the warriors at 2000 on turn 6. This has the same effect as the Pike+sword layer. I've gotten an extra round with as little as 2k sword, so it doesn't take much.