I have found that you can really mess up a Dutch player with raids. Generally, he won't send vils in Age 2, so for the first few mins in colonial he will still have less than 20 vils. If he loses a couple, it really hurts. To that end, I have found that the 8 pike card is a very nice touch for mid-colonial, post-FB battle situations. It gives you enough pikes to scare or beat any colonial cav raid. I think it is a great home defense card in team games. As a raider myself, I know I can usually take out a small batch of pikes without too much worry. But 8 pikes will generally cause too much damage for an attack to be worth it.
In a team game, it will depend on the circumstances whether to send 8 pikes. If you don't foresee too much nasty raiding (ie, no Sioux, French or Germans on the other team), you likely won't need it. But if raiding might be an issue, it is a great insurance policy. In most cases, I send bank wagon as my first colonial card, followed by 700 wood. Depending on the situation, you could send 8 pikes for home defense, or 600 more wood if you feel safe. After that, send in the infantry boost cards (these rank among my favorite cards in the game...pimped fast halbs and skirms can just pwn in fortress).
I didn't play much Dutch 1v1, but I found the 8 pike card very helpful there, too. If I wanted to semi-FF against a raiding civ, 8 pikes was a must, along with an early rax and skirms. A lot of people use hussars early game to do the same thing, but skirm/pike is a great defense force, too. The only issue is that if you lose the pikes, you are in trouble. And against archer attacks, pike/skirm is never a good idea.
Everyone loves hussars, but I never feel at home using them with the Dutch. I want food for more banks, not horses.
It seems whenever I do Dutch hussars, I'm stuck on 2 banks for much too long for my liking.
