All the problems with phalanxes...

[Kraxis]

Yes this is a thread all about all that you or I consider wrong with phalanxes. Be this gameplay, historical or just feel. But mind you some issues were attempted but cut by CA.

What I hate:
The phalanx drift... I hate to see a unit bunched into a wall or drown ina river because of this. Especially if they are expensive Silver Shields. But there are many other reason as to why I hate it.
The impossiblity to attack properly... I can't simply rightclick on an enemy to send my phalanx to attack them. They will just end up standing there shufling about, sometimes not even moving. GAH!
When the hoplites/phalangites lift their spears/pikes in the last instance... Given we more or less have to march the unit through the enemy formation I often suffer from my phalanx dropping its weapons. Would they just keep their pikes/spears if they are not exactly in danger of a guy stabbing them? Of course I press halt, but sometimes it is too late.
That the phalanx is very much beatable by heavy cavalry to the front... Those jumping horses! GAH!
That a long thin phalanx is the best way to set them up... Needs little explaination.

What I dislike:
That both hoplites and phalangite fight the same way. But it has at least been explained by a dev.
That the phalangites don't get any protection out of their pikes into the air (if they did it would perhapd warrent a deeper formation), neither against missiles nor jumping horses.

And that is it.
These are still my most beloved troops in the game, but they could be so much better.

[Fridge]

Mine too, and yes, they could!

As for the jumping horses, Vercingetorix's patch works fine, though since it stops horses jumping full stop, it works for all infantry units, not just phalanxes. If you're playing as the Seleucids, it's almost mandatory, considering you'll be facing the cavalry heavy factions in the north and east. I found I could barely defend a siege against cataphracts before I stopped the horses playing leapfrog with my phalanxes;now those pointy hedges are almost impassable to all but the very best cav.

[frogbeastegg]

The impossiblity to attack properly... I can't simply rightclick on an enemy to send my phalanx to attack them. They will just end up standing there shufling about, sometimes not even moving. GAH!

Have you tried taking the unit off guard mode? That does help considerably; I tested it with Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe in MP and we found this was the most reliable way of getting phalanxes to engage properly. You can find the results here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38342&page=1&pp=30) somewhere ... end of the last page, beginning of the second. I forget; it was a while ago. It's still too unreliable for my happiness, but some improvement.

Otherwise good list; I agree with it. I do prefer other troop types to phalanx though.

[Proletariat]

My battle lines always go all to hell whenever I use phalanx units. I'll have three or four phalanx units in the center, and usually one unit of whatever other infantry is available on each side to protect the phalanx's flank.

I give the order to attack and my units on the sides are off to the races while the phalanx units are suffering from the old 'hey, someone tied all of our shoe-laces together' trick.

Is there any way to keep my line synchronized?

I've thought of
1) sending all my phalanx units out to attack maybe 45 seconds before the other quicker units and hope they are at about the right position when the initial clash occurs,
2)smashing my monitor with a hammer out of frustration.


Without being a historian I do understand that a phalanx formation would probably be pretty slow, when advancing forward... But why the hell would the units that are supposed to be covering their flanks just charge off?

I can imagine what they must be saying during all of this.


Silver Shield Pikeman in center: Where the hell are they off to? Are those Head Hunting Maidens far to our left?

Silver Shield Legionaries that were supposed be guarding the flank: Christ, these Pikemen characters are slower than molasses in winter. C'mon boys, let's show 'em how a real son of Seleuca wins a foot race!


I hope I'm not the only one having this problem, but it's coming to the point where I truly hate offensive battles. The phalanx units are great in defense, of course. To clarify, I'm single clicking so it's not a question of the flank units charging... :help:

[Zorn]

Shuffeling is really absurd - I have seen a unit shuffeling off the city square. Of course, once it was off, it imedeately routed I had won.
But I read a very easy way to stop shuffeling here in this forum: When a Phalanx starts to move to the right, hit stop. They will sthen just stand still and fight as they should. It needs to be done only once per fight.
I have forgoten who has posted it first, so I cannot give him proper credits, but it works like a charm.

[Spino]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. CA should remove the phalanx shuffle step. It's more of a nuisance than a welcome feature.

[Kraxis]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. CA should remove the phalanx shuffle step. It's more of a nuisance than a welcome feature.
Yes... It becomes more tedious to control phalanxes than it ever to control Horse Archers in STW and MTW. I don't know about MP, but if I find it harder in SP I can't believe it is easier in MP.

I always have my phalanxes out of Guard. But almost everytime I set them to attack normally they break formation (a big NO-NO) or simply stop in front of the enemy never really engaging (having perhaps two or three men engaging).
Guard off certainly helps with the drift, but it doesn't eleminate it, and I still find my Levy Pikemen smashed up into walls.
The worst almost always happens at squares. When I try to take one with my pikes, it usually ends up in disaster. They form up nice outside the square (great care must be taken here) but when I try to move them in they drop the pikes and formation, then the enemy comes charging as I desperately tries to get them back in formation and Phalanx. I nearly lost an entire unit of Silver Shields to a lousy unit of Militia Hoplites... That can't be right. I can't believe that they can't keep their formation when taking a square.

All in all I think the phalanx is too brittle.

And I forgot one thing I dislike:
I can't use the pike's chargebonus... The phalanx can only walk, and slowly. Thus the quite hefty chargebonus that some pikemen and hoplites have is completely lost. And no, charging with the swords only gives you the sword's bonus, which is 2, which in turn is added to the much weaker swordattack.

[Red Harvest]

The odd thing about phalanx units is that they are so extreme in the game. On hard levels they are extremely brittle even from the front. The smaller unit size ones suffer tremendously from *any* casualties. However, when you get to use the larger sized units, they can be quite effective. The German spear warband is a pleasure to use for example. When I've modded other smaller phalanx units up to the same size they became much too powerful! I've had to start reducing attack ratings for these phalanx units when increasing size.

So despite brittleness at other times they are too hardy! There are times when engaging units are slaughtered much too rapidly at the end of the hoplite spears/phalanx pikes. I guess I imagine the kills coming more slowly with a few folks penetrating the pike wall gradually to strike direct blows. Contrast with the demo where I was miffed by the fact that there was no effective spear wall. In the demo contact with swords against the shield's of the Poeni was being made almost instantly and the Poeni infantry were falling as rapidly as hastati. It looks like it was overcorrected to some degree in the full version. It would be interesting to see high quality sword infantry slowly work into and disorder a moderate level phalanx, slowly disordering its frontage while taking casualties (on the sword side) while inflicting few to the hoplites/phalangites. Then suddenly a schism would open and the phalanx would break so that the swords would have a clear upper hand.

The square issue is a very substantial one for phalangites. It afflicts cav and others as well. It appears that the coding of the plaza results in some sort of "funnel" path through the geometric center whenever you try to cross it (sort of like the lane at the gates.) Why we can't march across in order with any unit is beyond my understanding, but I do understand that it is fatal to a phalanx. "All roads lead to Rome" and all paths across the plaza go through the flagpole at the center. It really does resemble a blackhole since there is a sort of "tidal" stretch as units get sucked in.

The pause to lower spears/pikes just before contact is maddening!!! It reminds me of the 'pila pause' and the javelin cav/horse archer/chariot archer pause when charging. Other infantry does it at times too about 30 yards from my line. It's like they are charging and at the last minute the officer yells, "Charge!" in a screechy voice and they all stop in their tracks to look at him to see what is wrong...then resume the charge.

With the spear warband I find the "march through" with guard off works pretty well in open field battles. I rarely order attacks because of the problem you mention, but I do issue short range march throughs around the field. As a tactic doesn't suffer as much from the "phalanx shuffle." That's why the phalanx shuffle doesn't bother me much. When the shuffle does happen it is overdone. So my big complaint with it is that it is overdone. If it was tied to experience or attack level (lower level = more shuffle) then it might be more logical.

Heavy cav and jumping horses...you know how I feel about that already. Cav should find it very difficult to break up close order spears/pike frontally. (Of course, cav seems to get bonuses when charging elephants and infantry too...again this flies in the face of reason. It's not too hard to visualize a fix--simply dropping the charge bonus when engaging counter units this way.) The jumping animation could easily be dropped by CA when horsies charge a spearwall--even if they keep it elsewhere.

[Kraxis]

The odd thing about phalanx units is that they are so extreme in the game. On hard levels they are extremely brittle even from the front. The smaller unit size ones suffer tremendously from *any* casualties. However, when you get to use the larger sized units, they can be quite effective. The German spear warband is a pleasure to use for example. When I've modded other smaller phalanx units up to the same size they became much too powerful! I've had to start reducing attack ratings for these phalanx units when increasing size.

Well, I have noticed that Hoplites and Armoured Hoplites tend to stay together a lot better than most phalangites, so I guess those are the ones you are talking about. I find that while the Hoplites can't at times behave very oddly, they never aproach that of the phalangites, and Armoured Hoplites are in fact almost perfect. That the AH doesn't seem to have all he problems I take to be because they actually defeat those that breach the wall of points, and then they go back to the pure killing.
The Spear Warband are so good because they never change their weapon, so they never really lose their good attack, and add to that that they have have a nice attack of 9 and we get a quite serious killer.


So despite brittleness at other times they are too hardy! There are times when engaging units are slaughtered much too rapidly at the end of the hoplite spears/phalanx pikes. I guess I imagine the kills coming more slowly with a few folks penetrating the pike wall gradually to strike direct blows. Contrast with the demo where I was miffed by the fact that there was no effective spear wall. In the demo contact with swords against the shield's of the Poeni was being made almost instantly and the Poeni infantry were falling as rapidly as hastati. It looks like it was overcorrected to some degree in the full version. It would be interesting to see high quality sword infantry slowly work into and disorder a moderate level phalanx, slowly disordering its frontage while taking casualties (on the sword side) while inflicting few to the hoplites/phalangites. Then suddenly a schism would open and the phalanx would break so that the swords would have a clear upper hand.

It would be lovely to see Principes slowly creep into a unit of Levy Pikemen, or even Legionaries with Phalanx Pikemen. That way either sid would be satisfied. The pikemen would hold for a serious time so that other troops could flank, and the swordsmen would eventually win fairly comfortably.


The square issue is a very substantial one for phalangites. It afflicts cav and others as well. It appears that the coding of the plaza results in some sort of "funnel" path through the geometric center whenever you try to cross it (sort of like the lane at the gates.) Why we can't march across in order with any unit is beyond my understanding, but I do understand that it is fatal to a phalanx. "All roads lead to Rome" and all paths across the plaza go through the flagpole at the center. It really does resemble a blackhole since there is a sort of "tidal" stretch as units get sucked in.

Aha... Never knew it affected everyone, but I guess I should have guessed it, I guess. ~D
But since this is a set thing it disheartens me a bit. I had hoped I was doing something wrong so that I could correct it, but now it seems I would have to suffer huge losses to any unit that holds the square if I'm the Seleucids or Macedonians.


The pause to lower spears/pikes just before contact is maddening!!! It reminds me of the 'pila pause' and the javelin cav/horse archer/chariot archer pause when charging. Other infantry does it at times too about 30 yards from my line. It's like they are charging and at the last minute the officer yells, "Charge!" in a screechy voice and they all stop in their tracks to look at him to see what is wrong...then resume the charge.

You took the words out of my mouth. It just looks plainly wrong that a unit comes running and then we hear "charge", they stop, then resume. What was that?
But I have found that pressing halt for the Phalanx helps, just too bad that this limits the speed of the already quite slow phalanx.


With the spear warband I find the "march through" with guard off works pretty well in open field battles. I rarely order attacks because of the problem you mention, but I do issue short range march throughs around the field. As a tactic doesn't suffer as much from the "phalanx shuffle." That's why the phalanx shuffle doesn't bother me much. When the shuffle does happen it is overdone. So my big complaint with it is that it is overdone. If it was tied to experience or attack level (lower level = more shuffle) then it might be more logical.

No, I would rather see it tied to level of the troops. Militia Hoplites and Levy Pikemen would drift as we see now, Phalanx Pikemen and Hoplites would do it slightly, Silver Shields, Armoured Hoplites, Spartans and Bronze Shields would NOT. But then again, for some reason the pikemen are not considered even Superior, so their actual level is the same as that of Militia Hoplites.
That too should change, MH and LP = normal, PP and H = Superior and SSP and BSP = Elite.


Heavy cav and jumping horses...you know how I feel about that already. Cav should find it very difficult to break up close order spears/pike frontally. (Of course, cav seems to get bonuses when charging elephants and infantry too...again this flies in the face of reason. It's not too hard to visualize a fix--simply dropping the charge bonus when engaging counter units this way.) The jumping animation could easily be dropped by CA when horsies charge a spearwall--even if they keep it elsewhere.
Ah yes... If only they could keep it somehow. I find the animation rather cool and quite pleasing to watch, unless of course it is ripping a Phalanx apart.
I hope that this is fixed in the patch, but you know, there are so many problems with te phalanx that they can't all be fixed, I don't think so.

[Parmenio]

From reading about battles I had always assumed that phalanx right drift was something that happened in the advance to connact, not actual combat itself.