Beware the butt spike!

[Red Harvest]

I've seen this posted about before, but it has never happened to me until now. In my 2nd campaign after the 1.5 patch I lost an excellent Carthaginian general in a siege sally to my own merc hoplite phalanx. I was charging through the back of it to attack some light cav that was charging my slingers. For some reason that killed my general/family member and eventually resulted in the loss of Caralis (in a later battle...since I needed that large bodyguard unit to help fight the Roman hordes and their bodyguards.)

Anyway, my future warning cry to generals will be, BEWARE THE BUTT SPIKE!

And yes, I'm 100% certain that it was due to the phalanx...there were no enemy within 20 meters yet and no ranged units firing at me (nor any FF as my slingers were in front.)

This may be related to the oddity of having large numbers of cavalry killed when slamming into the *back* of a phalanx in a charge. I almost wonder if the cav are charging through and getting hit by the "reflection" effect of the charge on the other side? It doesn't work quite the way one would expect.

[GFX707]

Yes, this happened to me in 1.3 when I was playing the BI campaign....very strange.

[Kaldhore]

I RPed riding my Gen Unit down the battleline of my Greek Armoured Hoplites as a kind of morale thing and the edge of the gen unit hit the Phalanx and I lost 8 horsies....

Happens to me alot - you'd think I'd learn to stay away?

[Zatoichi]

Ha ha, yeah this has happened to me too - in fact I reported this back in October 2004, so it's been here from the very start.

For historical reference buffs, here's the post:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=614482#post614482

It certainly is an expensive lesson to learn though!

[A.Saturnus]

Well, riding horses through a phalanx in full canter ought to be problematic.

[InsaneApache]

I'll say ................it didn't half make me jump when I lost my Selucid King the same way.....it's what we in the UK call a bugger :san_wink:

[Pode]

Ahhha. Now I don't feel quite so incompetent as a leader after losing half a unit of Macedonian cav to a militia hoplite unit. I thought I was using good Macedonian tactics, pin with phalanx and then charge with cav, and couldn't figure out why I was losing so many cav to a poor unit in a rear charge. Forgot about the butt spike. So I guess the lesson is to flank phalanxes from the unshielded right, then the left, and avoid rear charges as well as frontal. Good thing to learn early in a Macedonian campaign.

[Servius]

@ Kaldhore: Well, you said your troops were Greek... Impaling male buttocks was a common occurance in anciet Greece.

[hellenes]

@ Kaldhore: Well, you said your troops were Greek... Impaling male buttocks was a common occurance in anciet Greece.

As it is in modern England if we go by false imposed stereotypes...
The horses get killed only if they pass through the phalanx and get at the area of effect of the pikes...

Hellenes

[Catiline]

Let's keep the sexual proclivities of our various nations out of it please lads

[AquaLurker]

Its been around since 1.1 and 1.2, just difficult to notice till its very obvious.

[Ironside]

AFAIK it disappears when the pikes is engaged with a unit in front of them. Then your cav can hit them in the back with no problems.

But I'm not certain, haven't explored this bug that much. It could be that enganging the pikes from both sides prevents them from turning thier pikes.

Although I've never lost generals by charging thruogh my own units, but by hitting enemy pikes in the back = occational immidiate dead general.

[Red Harvest]

No, even when the unit is engaged in front cav still suffers considerable casualties from charging in rear attack on the unit (not like frontal, but more than one would expect.) I'm not sure why that would be unless it is soldiers penetrating through to the kill zone. It might also just be that the spear bonus applies to both front and rear all the time. I haven't had a chance to play around with the stats to diagnose it.