concern when fighting the phlananx

[Julian the apostate]

As that romans spawn Triarii armies, when they attack it is purely phlanax. This can be good but often for me means that after the units on the ram get beat phlananx units don't do anything. EB is a fantastic game and i know killing the Triarii spawning (i think thats gonna happen in .8) will help but its makes sieges draw on. All and all, i'm wondering whether or not its worth buying MTW2 until the first bit of EB2 comes out because you add so much more depth to the game

[Tellos Athenaios]

:inquisitive: Odd, but I've never experiencend an assault in EB. I always relieved my garrison or sallied forth. Have you tried to move some of your forces actually out of the settlement - maybe that incites those Triarii to give fight? :juggle:

[Julian the apostate]

i have but they won't go up ladders or into the siege towers even then because of the formation. albiet this ignores the bigger problem of the +7s the AI gets on walls which is somewhat insane. Nothing like the sacred band getting cut down like peasants on their own walls

[Kralizec]

Are you playing on VH battle difficulty? Don't be surprised in that case.

It's completely ridiculous. CA decided that a simple way to make battles more difficult and wich didn't require them to do much effort was to imbue the AI units with massive attack bonuses. An AI unit of peasant spearmen can and will defeat your own most elite units in melee.
:wall:
I'm glad MTW2 doesn't follow this approach, or so I've read.

As for phalanx units on walls, generally they do rather poorly. There are some phalanx units with decent secondary attacks but they're still not at their best. The easiest way to defend your cities is to let the enemy take the walls and position your phalanxes in the streets. It's arguably an exploit because the AI can't cope with this tactic, allthough I did lose a couple of times when I was seriously outnumbered.

[Dram]

taking stonewall+ towns is just bloody annoying...

"arrows from the north tower!, men- capture it immidiately!" :whip:

*soldiers very slowly shuffle towards tower entry*

:wall:

*stop for 5 seconds while attempting to form a perfectly straight line, all the while having arrows pumped into them*

:wall:

*eventually form a line*

:wall:

*wait another 5 seconds for good measure*

:wall:

*slowly walk into the tower*

20% of unit already dead from arrows...

:wall:

*newly captured tower proceeds to shoot into the backs of my own men as they fight the enemy on the ground, since it cant aim over their heads properly*

:wall:

[Tellos Athenaios]

And then you haven't even tried to move multiple units that can form a phalanx on the walls and into the enemy streets yet... :evil:

It works like this:

select your units, tell them to use standard formation, make them move onto the walls via siege towers, then make them leave the walls via captured towers, 'enjoy' their new pathfinding system... it's completely screwed up.

Units now move towards seemingly random directions, except for the destination you had in mind. Oh, yeah, even if you don't tell them to move afterwards, they'll do the random direction dance. :wall:

[Tuuvi]

To sum this thread up in one sentence: Siege battles SUCK.

[Julian the apostate]

that seems a fair summary hopefully they get better. the phlananx kills bridge battles too. albiet horse archers can return the fun