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Thread: Investigation of the Phalanx formation

  1. #91
    Typing from the Saddle Senior Member Doug-Thompson's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Quote Originally Posted by Simon Appleton
    ... is there any truth in RTW that cavalry does much more damage to your infantry if it is caught "on the run"? For example, if you try to deploy your infantry to a new location and formation by dragging the mouse, and the AI cav catches you before you finish, you seem to get butchered.
    This is definitely one of those things I've seen but can't offer proof or a test. I've seen infantry get truly clobbered just because it raised spears and was in the middle of changing facing, much less moving to a new location or changing its formation.

    It seems to somewhat contradict Doug's point about thin lines - maybe it's just saying you need a close formation, not a deep one.
    Not necessarily -- the infantry needs to be in position and formed up., thick or thin. However, it is true that a long, thin lines take longer to get completely in position than a short, thick one.

    I don't play with spear units much, but I always turn phalanx off and click the run button when repositioning them, even if it's just a change of facing.
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  2. #92
    Member Member Mr Frost's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson
    ...
    The hoplite's stats are 7-6-16 WHEN the hoplites DON'T lose order and drop their spears. With swords, the stats go down to 5-2-16.
    Not in my game they don't : I modded the Hoplite units to have the same sword skill as spear skill {except for the militia hoplites ; I only consider them to be using daggers and they are supposed to suck somewhat} .
    Combined with Vercingetorix' fix they chew up frontal cavalry nicely and don't look so silly when their silly sidestep dance lets an enemy unit wrap their flank .
    I think I'll leave the pike units sword skills alone though .
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  3. #93
    War Story Recorder Senior Member Maltz's Avatar
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    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    Hopefully it is not too late to contribute a few personal experiences after an entire Sunday of struggle. The following suggestions are based on vanilla patch 1.1, VH difficulty and Huge unit size.

    A working phalanx, with their spear sticking out, is undestructable against regular, non-phalanx infantry, no matter how sharp their blades, and how naked and chest-hairless your men are. This is because the enemy soldiers can't even get close enough to you to start their attack animation, so there is no chance for your phalanx to get scratched.

    Of course, things are not always so ideal, so you will lose a few men due to a "temporarily" disrupted formation. This can happen... of couse when you get flanked or backstabbed. There are some not so obvious circumstances, which you obviously want to avoid:

    (1) Enemies' strong charge, head on.

    Usually by cavalry, or some infantry that has a fast running speed and charging bonus. A powerful charge will rush into a phalanx formation, and suddenly all the phalanx spearmen decides to abandon their good spears and switch to tiny softy knives that can't touch anything.

    Actually, every faction uses some cavalry, so it is very likely that some suicide generals will eventually rush and jump into a phalanx line, thus screwing up your phalanx formation entirely (because they all switch to that f* knife!). That's why people don't like to play phalanx on VH. Because of the +7 attack bonus the enemy has, your formation gets disrupted very often, and so your men all prefer their tiny softy knives. You will end up losing more men than the enemy.

    That's also why people complain about Germany spear warband. (or admire, depending on whether you speak German I guess ) These spearmen don't carry a little knife, so they are forced to stick with their spears even if someone rushed into their lines. This disadvantage actually makes them THE MOST USEFUL phalanx in the RTW world, because they always maintain their phalanx formation. Keeping their spears maintain their bonus against charged-in cavalries, holding the majority of them at a distance. At the same time, the rear guys get rid of the disruptors quickly and resume the great spear wall. If you are frustrated with regular phalanx and want to see what kind of damage they are supposed to deliver, definitely give these spear warbands a try. If you don't laugh in your sleep, I guarantee you still laugh in front of your monitor.

    So for regular phalanx that does carry a little knife, there is no way to avoid enemy cavalry charging into your line and distrupt your formation. All you can do is make sure your better phalanx are used against these charges, and make your poorer phalanx against poorer infantry.

    The other source of disruption is, shamefully:

    (2) Our own fault.

    Phalanx requires a few extra care to manuever. I have failed it so many times that I learned a few tips:

    2a. Don't order a phalanx to attack an enemy. Just tell them to walk to a distant line behind the enemy line.

    Most of the time they will deform their lines when hearing the attack command, and some stupid soldiers will go ahead, while others dropped behind. Even worse is the "double right click" charge. You don't need the charge attack bonus at all - because the enemy can't touch you when you have your phalanx formation intact.

    You can group your phalanx, so you can order the entire line walk together at the same time.

    2b. Order your soldiers to stop walking when other units are engaged.

    This way you keep your entire wall as one single line. The AI is sometimes smart enough to detect a gap in your wall, and assign some units to flank from there.

    Don't worry about the engaged unit, as long as they keep the formation, they are safe. If their formation is gone and you can see close-distance combat, they will be dead before your other phalanx turns 90 degrees trying to flank.

    2c. Order your soldiers to stop and continue walking when the engaged unit rout.

    You don't want to chase the routers because you can't catch them, and you don't want your line disrupted when there are other non-routing enemy units nearby. The AI will sense where weakness is, and preferably attack the non-functioning phalanx.

    Guard mode doesn't help at all. One time I had my phalanx on guard mode, and after routing the enemy, they gladly decided to rotate 180 degrees to show their arses to the 2nd wave of charge.

    When I stick to these 3 simple rules my Germania spearwarband are simply invincible on the battlefield. Never did I see any unit like this in VH. Well, difficulty doesn't really matter because they enemy has no chance to start swinging!

    Note: A thing line of phalanx work very well. 3 ranks is all you need against regular infantry. They also extend your wall longer so the enemy is less likely to get any chance to flank you. While against cavalry you will need more ranks. Or you don't need more ranks, because all your men will use knives even if it is 100 ranks!

  4. #94
    Member Member ah_dut's Avatar
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    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    In phalanx battle, head on; you'll find that levy pikes can actually win, due to longer spears. They can also beat Spartans somehow as well...

  5. #95

    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    This may have been posted somewhere else before, but how many of you "double-up" the phalanx?

    During some bridge battles (and to a lesser extent in open battles) I have seen phalanx's completely run through by a cavalry charge. The unit becomes disorganized and while it may kill the "breaking" unit, the follow on units destroy the phalanx.

    To get around this I layer one phalanx on top of another; usually dragging the second into formation so the overlap begins at the second rank. It seems that no matter how "vanilla" the phalanx is this formation will never break...even against successive waves of chariots/cav.
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  6. #96
    War Story Recorder Senior Member Maltz's Avatar
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    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    Yes. During my current Greek campaign I always double up my thin-rank phalanx. The first layer is better phalanx, while behind them is poorer militia hoplite.

    The reason is the tedious tendency of soldiers trying to switch to the little knife as soon as enemy intrudes their rank. Cavalry charge will certainly go through the first player, but they will get stopped at the second.

    Phalanx 1 vs. 1

    The other day I had a fun experience with phalanx - a militia hoplite duel (Greek vs. Rebel), huge unit size, VH.

    Since the difficulty was VH I thought I was going to lose for sure, but just for fun I gave it a try. I set my formation 3-rank deep, instead of 5-rank deep used by AI. I approached the AI phalanx with an angle closing up from the right, meaning my right section will engage the AI's left section first, while some of my guys will be poking their left flank including their captain. I also stationed my men at a slightly higher ground.

    My pikes had a slightly faster kill rate, about a 10-men difference.
    Their captain was poked to the ground a few times, but he managed to stay up right afterwards. I never knew pikes do that. The AI captain along killed a lot of my soldiers.

    My men also shifts to the left for some reason, so finally my exteded right is totally gone. But suddenly the enemy started to rout (probably due to their morale reached a threshold), and a lot of soldiers drop dead instantly. I won the battle with 90 left.

  7. #97

    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    Quote Originally Posted by Red Harvest
    Spears, short phalanx spears, and long phalanx spears/pikes, should all get considerable rank bonuses for depth. I am NOT saying they do. However they should. Part should be defense, part offense, part morale, and part push back. Defense should run deeper than offense, while push back and morale run deeper still.
    Do you know what pushback does? In MTW, it gives 300% increase of chance to kill on the next combat cycle. I remember long threads during MTW v1.0 where people argued that swords should be better vs spears, and that cav should be better vs spears. CA made those changes in MTW v1.1 by giving swords a 40% better attack vs spears and giving cav a chance to pushback a spear. The cav knights were also made 25% cheaper and the spears 15% more expensive. The result was that spears disappeared from MP.

    It seems to me the rank bonus has been removed because the engine is now 3D, and if there is a spear point hitting an enemy man it is included in the combat. This wouldn't be the case with 2D sprites where the man had to come in contact with the enemy in order to fight. I wonder if the phalanx is having trouble because too much frontal penetration is being allowed?

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  8. #98

    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    Another tidbit:

    If you find a phalanx unit switching to swords to fight (usually a bad thing), and want them to go back to swords, hit "Halt" a few times. Often they'll reform a pseudo-phalanx (in some random direction), and kill a bunch of the attackers in the process. Very devastating when it works. Obviously this won't work when fighting atop a wall.

    Another trick I've used is when the phalanx is fighting, but they are pointing the spears the wrong way, I'll order a rotation to get them to face the way I want them to. Very useful when a phalanx unit is intercepted going through a wall breach before they have time to reform. The unit will usually get a bunch of the spears pointing the right way. If the unit draws swords, try the "Halt" trick mentioned above to get them back into spear-mode.

  9. #99

    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    As I understand it, the tendency to drift to the right was inherent to the phalanx, as some men involved attempted to squeeze themselves further under the protection of the shield of the man to the right of them, which resulted in the man to his left having to move right to stay under the original man's shield, and hence a chain reaction on down the line. As a result, the entire formation would often shift to the right (I know the phenomenon was touched on in the course of either Stephen Pressfield's "Gates of Fire" or "Tides of War"--unfortunately, I don't recall which right off hand).

    This wasn't a good quality, however, and the tendency was drilled out of more experienced and disciplined troops. Has anybody tested to see if there's a correlation between the amount of right-shifting and the level of unit experience? If green troops shift to the right a great deal while seasoned troops are far more stable, this might actually be a rather clever depiction of a very real quirk inherent to the phalanx.

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  10. #100
    Member Member Woreczko's Avatar
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    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    Hi

    I have a question for you, phalanx experts :)
    Did you try to experiment with short_spear hoplites (The ones, with only 2 ranks fighting)? I` ve just discovered this attribute and thought, that it could represent classical hoplites a bit better, as they did not have especially long spears (~2m IIRC).

  11. #101
    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    nice thread,

    i've read 'alexander the great' by an itailan scientist and the book claimed that the phalanx units had different spear sizes so they could form a solid wall of spears to the enemy. is this do-able for rtw, to amke spear sizes differnet per unit?
    also, in the alexander book, the macedonians had an elite foot-soldier, the schild-dragers( dutch) wich is free-translated for shield-barer, they had a large shield and a sword.

    alexanders elite unit in wich he rode, called 'the point' ( another free translation) the were cav. and had two throwing spear, a shield and a lance for h2h combat.

    if this were to be duable for an rtw mod, please let me know.

    and a noob-question: how do you put units in deep formation?

    PS: someone posted that deep-formed phalanxes had a lot of pushing power,
    assuming this is true, then why is a phalanx alsways in defence when you start a battle? did anybody find an explenation for why they made it like that?
    it couldn't have been an accident

  12. #102
    Magister Vitae Senior Member Kraxis's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Heh... Finally found something to prove the Macedonain hoplite was indeed there. I knew I had read about them somewhere, this isn't it but it merely substantiates my point.
    Macedonian hoplite marching with Lakedaimonian and Cretan
    This is from Osprey's "Warriors of Ancient Greece. They don't dabble in total speculation and normally back up their images with archeological, written or pictorial evidence. So in this case we might say that he didn't look like that, or that he wasn't there (with the Spartan and Cretan), but he existed, that much I'm sure of.

    By the way, there are quite a few more scans here. You might find them interesting CBR. Lots of Osprey scans.
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  13. #103
    Magister Vitae Senior Member Kraxis's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    If you are climbing up an opposed incline where you occationally need to put down one hand to steady yourself, it becomes rather apparent that pulling along a pike is not optimal. A spear on the other hand is rather more nimble and you can even use it as a walkingstick (not fully but you can use the buttspike more readily than that of the pike). Of course they could have dropped their main weapon entirely, but I don't think so for two reasons. It is not mentioned that they did that (or were even armed different than normal) and since the enemy carried spears it would give them the edge in combat.

    Issus was not won by means of infantry, but their role was important anyway. They needed to keep the Persian infantry occupied while Alexander and his Companions rolled up the Persian flank. In broard terms much the same as Gaugamela (but there are a lot of subtle differences, such as the echelon lineup of the Macdonians).
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  14. #104

    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Quote Originally Posted by Sid_Quibley
    Cav jumping spears/pikes annoyed me so much I tried to fix it by editing out the charge_jump cas in the animations pak.

    Due to my newb technical abillity havent succeeded,but Vercingetorix the master has.

    A small file fix is availiable Here

    pike_jumping_cav_fix

    I tested it using 8 macedonian phalanx units from levy up against 12 gallic cav(cpu attack).In a single line at standard depth the phalanx all used spear except at the flanks where swords were used.They dealt with the cav very easily with only 1 unit sustaining significant losses.

    Definitely worth downloading.
    Ive been suffering from my flax totally failing to stop a cav charge for ages and this fix sounds wonderfull but the link seems out of date is there anyway I can get my hands on it?
    Thanx in advance

  15. #105
    Spends his time on TWC Member Simetrical's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Up-to-date link

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  16. #106
    Magister Vitae Senior Member Kraxis's Avatar
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    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    Quote Originally Posted by jerby
    hi again,
    is phalanx drift specially programmed by CA or did is it a ( historically accuarte) bug?
    in both cases, its needs to be rmoved/fixed. the drift wasn't so much and it decreases gameplay a lot.
    It seems to be deliberate feature and not a bug, but I have not noticed any devs talking about this, so I can't know for sure. And it is most certainly not historically accurate.
    There was a drift, but it was significantly less, didn't seem to depend on depth, only affected hoplites and only happened during the march to battle and never in melee (which has been elaborated on quite few times already in this thread).
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  17. #107
    Member Member Someone Stupid's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    No delete button?

    About phalanx pushing and changing unit mass since it still is about what is covered to some degree in this thread, here's the link to the one it should have wen into in the first place.

    https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...3&postcount=68

  18. #108
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    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    For the problem of hoplites, pikemen, etc. not being able to push through a line, I've found that raising the unit's mass helps (ran 6 trials) just now - V1.2. Spartan vs. Hastati. I wanted a unit that could kill quick on offense along with one that would stand it's ground on defence to take less time. It isn't much of an increase when you first make contact (you'll shove the first two lines into one which makes them die rather quick) and it gives it enough to punch completely through a line. You may have to click attack a couple times during that units battle as once you get severely flanked (since a Hastati line is slightly wider, it will happen), they stop for some reason. While a good deal of the "push" comes from dead soldiers, once you break down an enemy formation into about two lines (Hastati being the tested enemy), you can see the Spartans pushing the formation (minus the flanks of it) back at spear point dramatically - I pushed completely through to the point that I had hastati approx. several ranks behind me - still in gaurd mode. Those that aren't in the front of the line will wind up flanking you without even moving.

    Mass 1.3: Only the last line will show any real movement from being pushed, but there is some going on (Spartans). No real pushing at all (mass 1) (Militia Hoplites)

    Mass 1.99: The last three lines show movement (BARELY), at two it is somewhat noticeable, and by the time you get down to the last line (intact that is), you'll have driven completely through the ranks and you'll have the last line pushed back several lines from it's start, and being pushed back considerably further. (Spartans). Seems a tad better, not much though (Militia Hoplites).

    I had thought the mass variable only effected how calavry charges are absorbed - but going by the admittedly few runs I've made in testing, it doesn't seem to be the case. I'd have to run more trials (or someone else would) before I'd decide to stand behind this as fact. Six runs isn't a large sample size admittedly and I could have been getting some happy math in my favor during this.

    EDIT: It appears there MIGHT be some correllation - just that all it takes is one to bring the whole line to a stop making testing this a pain. One Hastati past the initial spears stops everything - gaurd mode will prevent this though. Also tried with Militia Hoplites - they didn't really push worth a squat regardless of the setting, and by the time they did, they lost so many that they would route 2-3 lines in at half strength. 4 trials were done with militia hoplites each at 1 and 1.99 mass. Anytime I got penetration with them, they started dying VERY quickly and would route 2-3 lines in.

    In the end, I can't truly say if it works or not.

  19. #109
    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    so hwo is guard mode affecting the push?

  20. #110
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Quote Originally Posted by jerby
    so hwo is guard mode affecting the push?
    Gaurd will keep them stabbing a bit longer, sometimes all the way through. It will at least kill more of them before the AI tells them to spread out (like they are taking arrow fire) even if you have a unit which won't make it through. After they spread out, if your using a low morale pike unit, your going to route quickly if the target isn't mostly dead, gaurd mode or not. Base 4-6 morale units don't take to being flanked very well - and pushing through gets you flanked even with a single unit vs. another thanks to how dense a phalnx needs to be to be effective. Do a custom battle with militia hoplites vs. Hastati. You'll get routed nearly every time, but at least with gaurd mode on, you'll have a chance to kill more of them with a lot less supervision. Then try it with any decent unit (8 morale or so). I've played with it a bit more and I really can't discern any effect from raising the mass thanks to an AI bug making timing this impossible wihtout a lot of added runs and patience (I don't have the time or patience). Any unit that falls over then stands up in the pike mass behind the first row of pikes will not be pushed and seemingly doesn't take damage until attack is reclicked or one waits about 5 seconds (sometimes longer). Once that unit in the pikes does anything - it generally will die. That tells me the AI isn't immediately updating or has some built in delay when dealing with individual soldiers. With gaurd mode on, all the pikes will keep stabbing, although quite quickly, nobody will be in range except the stuck unit as they'll die. Without gaurd mode, they'll generally stop stabbing ecept for those pikes around the person standing up in the mass of them. The attacks don't do damage until you click to attack or wait for the AI to resolve the issue itself, but the animation is there. The whole problem with that unit standing up is that he doesn't get pushed at all until he does something. That takes a bit for that to happen due to AI behavior.

    In short if you want pikes to push, it seems the best way of doing it is just to up their attack. If you don't want them to absolutely maul calvary (since they have a bonus or should), adding a negative bonus against calvary would offset that. They'll then just be a bit better at killing troops and as effective as normal against calvary. If you leave the sec stat the same as it normally is, it wouldn't effect flanking and the damage recieved after they drop their pikes from being flanked. Damage matters a lot more than mass. Higher damage means less of a chance of someone "waking up" between the pikes. Rarely happens with Spartans, happens often with Militia Hoplites (even if given the same stats for all but attack - so it is an issue with damage).

  21. #111
    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    If you want pikes to push, you need to increase their mass. Mass = push. Unfortunately, in my attempts to test formation depth, I never found depth directly influencing the push. Kill rate does, but it is not push, it is actually allowing displacement through attrition of the enemy. The last thing the game needs is higher kill rates. Formation type and depth does not seem to determine push. That is why the 1.3 and 1.5 mass units can push 1.0 mass phalanx units back. It is also how cavalry pushes them back. Unfortunately, you can only reduce the ratio with cav, rather than reverse it. However, if you want to make phalanx/hoplite units behave somewhat more realistically use the masses like: militia hops/levy pikes = 1.3 phalanx pike/standard hoplites = 1.6, elites all at 1.8. The one negative is that this carries over into secondary attack, but considering the disadvantages of the phalanx at the moment, it is just compensation.

    Guard mode results in phalangites/hoplites losing more rapidly in most tests I have run and most tests that others have reported. The only use I can find for it is in keeping the unit from pursuing a unit that is routing or to try to reduce formation shift. I doubt that guard mode will result in much push even with higher mass, but I haven't tested it much because guard mode loses.

    Don't use VH for push tests, the kill rates are much too high. Medium is better. If anything, try reducing the lethality entry of the test units (rather than attack), so that you can distinguish better between kills and pushes.
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  22. #112
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    I really didn't think much of the difficulty at the time. I don't intend on testing again since it appears mass does help. I only ran the test as some were wondering how to get them to push. I figured mass would help. Was hard to tell how I was testing (mainly difficulty). Also the random stopping of the majority of the line attacking or the fallen soldier deal made me decide it wasn't worth figuring this out anymore than I had.

    As for raising the push on Militia and Levy, I wouldn't do that - esp for Militia Hoplites as it would cripple the AI immensely since it would only help them get flanked and when they get flanked they route quickly because of their whoopping 4 moral and next to no armor. Anytime you'd get into a battle and the unit doesn't have flanking protection it's gonna route a lot quicker. Most of the time the AI does get sloppy with it's units as it likes to match counter unit to counter unit more so than the unit in the best position to offset the attack. I can't count the times I've seen pikemen go clear across the battlefield in response to me sending an advanced calvary unit to a side to flank when it wouldh ave been better suited to leaving that unit there and responding with a couple less capable cav counters that would have been attacked by the flanking unit anyhow - just they don't let it get behind them.

    Still, the openness of the code for much of the game is something I don't think many appreciate when talking about bugs and such. A lot of minor things can be readily addressed that normally you'd need a patch to fix. Though seeing what is wrong in "code" often makes it more obvious thus more will mention it. At least CA is releasing decent patches. I remember the last games I bought that was somewhat open (Alpha Centauri), I remember actual programmers and the lead of QA (Jeff Morris, Firaxis) even saying that it was our problem, so deal with it. A bug was either non-existant, our fault, or not an issue and we should try to work around it in how we play the game. I remember there was quite a huge group that sent in repeatable problems and they said they couldn't get it to repeat when we could on each others machines. If it was one of the few things which was .txt editable, they'd tell us to fix it. After 4 or 5 patches, it still had issues which the first patch said it fixed, completely broken. That's why I now refuse to buy any product that comes out of Firaxis or BigHugeGames (some dev staff from Firaxis went there). Also MS is known to have held back patches - I remember with AoE 2 there were many bugs which the staff said they had fixed but couldn't release a patch for because MS was against patches at the time (wanted to release only a couple large ones and even then, only after beening pressed on it for a LONG time). MS probably has changed that policy, not to mention they actual seem to provide decent QA for most their releases compared to EA and the like. I mention these only because I did just harp a bit about some rather idiotic bugs and have seen others complain about CA's patches. IMO CA has done fairly well in regards to fixes given the scope of the game and how others handle it. Also they could be hamstrung by the publisher - deals don't just include the game, but also can include who has the rights in regards to patches (and thus publishing them). There is only so much that is easily identifiable and cost effective to fix - CA probably has gotten most of those out the way. Though I'd think the siege reset would be an easy one to fix - then again, I can't look at the entire backend to say. I don't demand a bug free game if it is complex as RTW, though I'd like the bugs minimized - and that is what they've done - even the first release didn't have anything the was truly gamebreaking or truly annoying in my book. Now if I'm playing an FPS, I expect no bugs as there aren't nearly as many AI calculations going on - at least those that are going on are more apparent as to their results. Complexity determines what I expect and CA didn't disapoint.

  23. #113

    Default Re: Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

    I started a selucid campaign last night, and it was mainly my first time using phalanx(never bother with merc units b4, too slow for my taste).

    I admit these units take patience. I tried advice from here and some things work, albeit since I only had poor morale units, its hard to see if its the unit itself or the programming sometimes.

    I have witnessed cavalry charges get stopped but others push there way thru, I have seen my troops use use their spears to punch their way forward, but most of the time any success I have is because I babysit those suckers like crazy. Its bad enough I have crazy Selucid cavalry that HAS to run thru my foots formation when told to stop before hand, but activating/reactivating phalanx,guard mode, is almost making me find a non pike faction to try. But on the plus side I do love watching a phalanx engine goto work when it works right.

    I did notice one thing tho, it seems if they get caught off phalanx mode they do try to correct, and it was cool watching my troops try to force some space ahead of them with the swords and if they got the room the pikes would come out. I had a battle last night with 1 column using their pikes and the other 7 still trying to make room with swords. Bad thing is, with another phalanx unit to fight this is costly.

  24. #114
    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    Quote Originally Posted by Emperor Umeu 1
    yes it was, but they used a trowing spear
    they were climbers right? oh btw, it capitAl

  25. #115

    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    alexanders agrinian troops were from mountain ranges and they were very experienced mountain climbers that did indeed use throwing spears..
    (i know a bit about alexander the great)

  26. #116
    graduated non-expert Member jerby's Avatar
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    Default Re: A thin line of spears

    with how much where they in alexanders army?

  27. #117
    Research Fiend Technical Administrator Tetris Champion, Summer Games Champion, Snakeman Champion, Ms Pacman Champion therother's Avatar
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    Default Re: Investigation of the Phalanx formation

    This thread is a pruned merging of frogbeastegg's Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question, and Doug-Thompson's A thin line of spears. Click the appropriate links to see the originals.
    Nullius addictus iurare in uerba magistri -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus

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  28. #118
    Senior Member Senior Member Jambo's Avatar
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    Default Re: Investigation of the Phalanx formation

    This may seem a little controversial to some, but I reckon phalanx units really ruin the challenge of the siege and city aspects of this game. It's almost impossible to lose a city to the AI when you're defending it with phalanx units. Simply align them in the city plaza at strategic choke points and wait for the AI to launch itself on the units in whatever random and inane order it chooses. I will sometimes lose as little as 1000 when defending cities with phalanx units. I'm not even talking about the top phalanxes either, simply militia hoplites or levy pikemen will do.

    Granted, this is as much to do with the strategy the AI employs for city assaults as it is for the power of a phalanx in tight choke spots. The AI fails to use archers properly once inside the city - instead of firing on stationary units like phalanxes, it will use all archers and skirmishers in melee to get to the city plaza.. In fact, as soon as a city wall is breached or once inside a city, all AI units do is charge in an ill-thought-out manner to the city plaza.

    The trouble is, trying to find a suitable solution to keeping the game challenging when using a nation with phalanx units? In the field I'm aware phalanx units are far more susceptible and major nerfing will impact on this part too much. Does anyone have any ideas?

    So far, what I've decided to do is try reducing the "mass" of phalanx units a little (by 0.2), so that in city fights there will be a greater chance that a massed mob of attackers can disrupt their formations a little more.
    =MizuDoc Otomo=

  29. #119

    Default Re: Investigation of the Phalanx formation

    Quote Originally Posted by Jambo
    Granted, this is as much to do with the strategy the AI employs for city assaults as it is for the power of a phalanx in tight choke spots. The AI fails to use archers properly once inside the city - instead of firing on stationary units like phalanxes, it will use all archers and skirmishers in melee to get to the city plaza.. In fact, as soon as a city wall is breached or once inside a city, all AI units do is charge in an ill-thought-out manner to the city plaza.
    I don't think there's anyway to stop the AI from charging headlong forwards with all their troops if it's written into their siege AI. You could however, try them out using their normal battle AI and see if it has anything other than catastrophic effects.

    I think this could be done by doing the following. Create a normal battle in the battle editor and put a settlement into it. Mark the settlement as ambient so the AI won't think it's fighting a siege battle and the other siege special rules won't apply. Redefine the starting positions to match that of a normal siege battle and put some troops in there and see what happens.

    EDIT: Okay, I did and the AI couldn't handle it. It just stood outside and tried to demolish the town with its onagers and, when they ran out of ammunition, they just stood there. Even when I was taunting them by nipping in and out of the gaping holes in my walls.
    Last edited by Epistolary Richard; 04-10-2005 at 20:55.
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  30. #120

    Default Re: Investigation of the Phalanx formation

    Firstly, sorry - I haven't read through the whole thread, so this might have been mentioned.

    Whilst looking for something else, I found this in the pre-patch readme:
    Unit Linking
    The Rome: Total War manual contains a reference to the unit linking functionality that has been removed from the 3D battle user interface. On page 53 the description of the AI assistance button states "This button replaces the linking button when a group is selected." This linking button has been removed from the game.
    So it looks like it might have been originally planned to have an ability to link units into one long line.

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