Testing: Phalanx vs. Roman Infantry

[Red Harvest]

Ok, I've been doing some testing with mods to the demo, to see how low level Carthaginian Phalanx compare to the Hastati, Princeps, and Triarii. Method: Set generals to 0 experience, get rid of general units and all others--so the general becomes part of one of the base infantry units, not suicidal cavalry. Use relatively barren winter map from the mods, get rid of scripting. Use three units of phalanx vs. three of Roman (AI). Set each to 1 experience, and 1 armour, 0 weapons. Use 6-7 deep Phalanx formations of 100 men vs. 100 man Roman units. Try all Hastati, Princeps, and Triarii in successive battles. Then switch to Roman side and try Hastati and Princeps as Romans (more on this in a minute.) I ran my phalanxes around a bit to make sure they were near the same level of fatigue of the Roman units, then met in single line battle. All fighting was initially head-to-head. I did not attempt flanking or try to win, I only tried to keep the lines reasonably dressed. All testing performed on "medium.

Results:
1. The Phalanx bested each of the Roman units in every test.
2. The Hastati seemed to hold out a bit longer than the Princeps (I tried a couple of combined H, P, T tests.) But both were soundly beaten, though neither were "crushed." Kill rate was about 1.75 to 1 vs. these units.
3. The Triarii put up a very good fight. Kill rate was about 1.25 to 1 vs. them. Still, they lost as I would expect going head-to-head.
4. The AI failed to use the pila. Even though I held the phalanx still near closure. The AI charged every time (and tried to charge when I was controlling the Roman units and trying to throw pila!) This gets back to the serious defects in the AI's skirmisher/javelin routine. The difference between the charge/attack threshhold and the missile range are insufficient for practical use--certainly for proper AI use. It doesn't make sense for hastati to charge a stationary phalanx until their pila are exhausted.
5. When I used the pila I was able to do considerable damage (10 -20% casualties). Still, my Roman units lost in melee afterwards.
6. For the phalanx I could not tell that "guard" had any effect at all. I saw the same movement and relative kill rates.
7. The Roman units did work some men in the seams and behind. They would wedge between phalanxes. With follow on units this would be devastating to the Carthaginians.
8. When the AI Romans charged the spear wall of the phalanx they rarely suffered more than one or two casualties before slamming into the shields--often the phalanx suffered as many or more casualties taking the charge. It is my strong opinion that attacker casualties should be much higher for the initial push/charge into the front of a spear wall. This should better balance the phalanx strengths with its weaknesses (lack of mobility.)
9. The speed of the engagement was much more reasonable than in the demo. The high valour units (and generals) are probably having a big effect on kill rates--overdone.
10. The AI did a terrible job with the phalanx. It would not form them into a contiguous line, nor did it make them reasonable depth (I had a range of depths set at the start and it would not alter the shallow one.) I had to be careful to engage them individually and head-on for a decent comparison.

Cool stuff:
The graphics are pretty entertaining during this kind of fight where you have plenty of time to spectate. I watched a number of Carthaginians get "healed." They would get knocked to the dirt, then arise a few seconds later. This happened mainly to swordsmen on the flanks.

[hundurinn]

Good to know at least in the demo the phalanx is better but I agree the casualties should be higher for the attacker. I suggest to you that you DO NOT make a post about this on the .com forum ~:p . That will cause hawock.

[The_Emperor]

Come on post it... You know it will finally put an end to that Phalanx vs Legions thread! ~:joker:

[hundurinn]

NO, do it for US don't post it. It would rase uncountable ammount of posts about how thats not true. Many more about historical accuracy. ~:joker: The admins wouldn't be able to close them and they would just give up and then the horror would begin. New posts about blood, flaming arrows, pigs and ELEPHANTS, NOOOOOOOOOO

[Dimeola]

If I remember Cynocephalae (sp?) the macedonian phalanxes were transiting rough terrain and broke up some allowing the romans to hold their front while another Roman unit turned the flank after defeating an aux unit. have you tried this in rough terrain. Does a phalanx break up and/or lose effectiveness when not on level ground?
D

[Lonewarrior]

attacker casualties should be much higher for the initial push/charge into the front of a spear wall.

Agreed :smug:

[Red Harvest]

If I remember Cynocephalae (sp?) the macedonian phalanxes were transiting rough terrain and broke up some allowing the romans to hold their front while another Roman unit turned the flank after defeating an aux unit. have you tried this in rough terrain. Does a phalanx break up and/or lose effectiveness when not on level ground?
D

I haven't tried rough terrain. I would expect them to suffer as you have stated. I've not tried any terrain mods. CA is usually pretty good about stuff like that.

I also need to see what happens with two or three ranks. The phalanx should suffer in offense and defense and should have some gaps and perhaps morale issues. I think CA has really missed something in the initial clash of spears/shields though. The Hastati and Principes should take a bit of a beating getting through (and/or it should take longer, during which time they would take casualties, but be unable to inflict many/any.) On balance though, the Principes and Hastati don't throw their pila...so there is some compensation at the moment.

I want to play with elephants and cav some though first...

The problem in the demo has to be the super high experience Hastati. They could shred the phalanx one-on-one. I think I'll retry it with more typical unit stats (and bigger phalanxes.)

[Aelwyn]

Well thats good. See I said that we didn't know about morale at (I assume you used) valour 0. Maybe its not as bad as we thought.

Still, the 'special' functions kinda bother me.

[Steppe Merc]

I don't know about anyone else, but does it really bother you that your phanlax draws swords? I mean, use your pikes, not your stupid knives!

[DemonArchangel]

the phalanx will draw their swords, when soldiers get beyond the spearpoints.

[Oleander Ardens]

Very nice info

I'm right now on a public comp. and have a question. How many supporting ranks has the Phalanx? 4 like in MTW or more? Would love to see +6 supporting ranks, as it simulates ancient combat so much better and it gives you the ability to use some of your Pikeunits as "spearheads"...

Cheers

OA

[Red Harvest]

Very nice info

I'm right now on a public comp. and have a question. How many supporting ranks has the Phalanx? 4 like in MTW or more? Would love to see +6 supporting ranks, as it simulates ancient combat so much better and it gives you the ability to use some of your Pikeunits as "spearheads"...

Cheers

OA

I'm not sure. I've been putting them about 6 deep to be on the safe side as they take casualties. From what I've read the 5th rank of the phalanx was the last whose spear made up part of the spear wall.

[Oleander Ardens]

Thanks Red Harvest :bow:

[Colovion]

Very good testing. I love threads like this.

About the initial charge casualties:

I did some testing with some Roman light cav vs some Sacred Band Phalanx. The cav charges and it seems like they actually break the lines in some places, but take significant amounts of causalties on the initial charge. The cav usually routs after a few seconds of melee because of the high casualties. With 5 Cav vs 5 Phalanx the AI controlled Roman cav would charge into the phalanx, almost buckle the formation, and then rout with about 80 casualties in 5 seconds, the Sacred Band getting away with under 10 casualties most of the time.

So with Cav there is a significant bonus for phalanx in fixed position (as there should) so maybe the infantry just doesn't have quite the same negative effects (which they should I think, but probably only 1/3 or 1/4 of those casualty numbers.

[Red Harvest]

Yep, I've been doing some more reading in the old Great Battles of Hannibal, Alexander and Julius Caesar series. I just came across the following in Hannibal. It was set up so that when units approached a phalanx and initiated combat the attacker was handicapped for the initial combat. On subsequent turns of combat after they were faced up, they did not incur a penalty.

Quoting from the game's help:

"In any shock resolution in which a non-phalanx unit moves and shock attacks a phalanx (PH) frontally, the unit going against a PH will have its effectiveness drastically reduced. This applies only to moving attacks, not to attacks in which the attacking unit started adjacent to the phalanx unit and stayed in that hex to shock. It does not apply to flank/rear attacks, nor to when all of the attacking units are also PH's.

Design Note: This reflects the remarkable defensive capabilities that this wall of sarissa (16 to 18 foot long spears) had, especially against the initial charge by the enemy. Once inside the sarissa, the attackers stood a better chance of cracking the phalanx. The reduced effect for HI reflects the fact that they were spear-armed, too."

This is the effect I think we are lacking in RTW demo. I was also reading through the battle descriptions (history of what happened.) In most cases the phalanx was clearly more powerful and turned or drove back facing units, but in the losses it was outflanked. It was flanking that was beating them, not the face-to-face combat.

I also remember reading about various weak phalanx formed by rebelling slaves, and weak powers in the past--not necessarily facing Romans. They performed very poorly, but that is not much of a surprise and hardly a reflection of the basic strength or weakness of any unit.

[Angadil]

Hmmm.... Actually, what I recall is that several of those "poor man" phalanxes did not perform that badly. Mithradates of Pontus formed a phalanx of ex-slaves and the comments in the sources is rather that they performed quite better than expected. Mind you, the Pontic army was still defeated and mostly slaughtered, but it seems it was not because of the slave phalanx. Similarly, the Egyptian Ptolemies formed a phalanx of some 20.000 native Egyptians (a rare occassion) for the campaign that would eventually lead to the battle of Raphia. Here, the Egyptian phalangites gave a very good account of themselves.

Caveats: 1) those slaves of the Pontic phalanx, might have come from Macedonian/Greek settlers in Asia Minor recently reduced to slavery by the abusive Roman taxes that spread poverty in the region and built much resentment towards Rome and support for Mithradates. Therefore, they might have had more military experience/training than one usually associates with "slaves". 2) The native Egyptians at Raphia probably fought "in the Macedonian manner", but this is not 100 % certain (Polybius, the main source, is not explicit) and they *might* have been more similar to late Hellenistic hoplites or thureophoroi. Also, it seems they had time for some serious training, so it may be questioned to what extent their performance can be considered representative of the "imitation phalanxes".

Cheers
A.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

16 units of Cretan archers and Velites with fire arrows will kill off any phalanx (I've done me own testing on the matter)
-Capo

[Oleander Ardens]

Good points Angadil

Point two is interesting indeed, given that according to Herodotos (7.89.3) at least some of them were used to long spears: "They wore woven helmets and carried convex shields with broad rims, and spears for sea-fighting (dorata te naumacha), and great poleaxes. Most of them wore corselets and carried long swords (machairas de megalas)". [Taken from Ueda-Sarsons Essay]

Greeks settled IIRC since the Lybian domination in the Nil Delta and may also have influenced "Egypt" Regional Warfare, intermixing with the "Egyptian" way of war.

In any case it is a possibility, although I still think that they were trained in "Macedonian" manner..

Cheers

OA

[Angadil]

Oh yes, I agree OA, the more likely option for the native Egyptian contingent at Raphia is pezhetairoi-style phalangites. I just wanted to point out, that the evidence for this is not clear cut.

Cheers
A.