Re: Densepack and friendly fire.
My first attempt to create massive friendly fire casualties by piling dense squares of cavalry archers on top of each other was a dismal failure.
Eight Parthian HA were put into "squares," which were then put into a very dense, overlapping mass. I then assigned them all to attack one of three Greek hoplite units, then let autopilot take over. I used three hoplites because I didn't want the little experiment to end too quickly.
The HA lost 17 out of 433, all from friendly fire. Three of those healed up after the battle. Those 17 represent 3.9 percent of the HA engaged.
Most of the casualties were in the first few volleys. Squares "scatter" much more quickly than long lines of HA. A little movement during skirmishing and two squares will completely break contact, eliminating the overlap and the friendly fire problem. As discussed, it appears that "friendly fire" comes from having different units in each other's way, not from having one unit in a deep formation.
I have absolutely no idea whether any of this applies to foot archers, slingers or javelinmen.
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The vast improvements in skirmishing, compared to M:TW, also seem to favor squares for HA.
Skirmishing and all HA movement was very dependent on the unit leader in M:TW. For instance, if a unit skirmished away from another unit, the moving unit would "wait" until the leader/flagbearer got out in front and the rest of the unit would then follow behind him.
Now, skirmishing HA seem to move whenever an enemy is getting close to any member of the unit anywhere, and they all move at once.
I suspect, but can't prove, that skirmishing in M:TW was triggered by the distance of the target unit (unit leader?) from the skirmishing group's leader, and that the trigger in R:TW is the distance of ANY unit from ANY member of the skirmishing group.
One of the advantages of having a long, thin line of HA in M:TW was that it allowed the leader to get out in "front" of a thin formation by turning around and moving a very short distance. Then the whole formation would do a quick about-face and skirmish away. However, the ends of a drawn-out formation were quite vulnerable. This is not a problem any more. The HA will skirmish as a body in R:TW. If the leader is in the middle of a a dense mass and can't work his way to the front quickly, there's still no problem.
Beyond that, HA now seem to fire equally well in all directions. At least with Parthians, facing doesn't seem to matter any more.
Unless "squares" are much more vulnerable to foot archers, I can't think of a good reason not to put HA units in squares with a little distance between each unit. Even if "densepack" does make them more vulnerable to foot archers, you can hit cantabrian circle.
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