Does Height Advantage Affect Phalanx?

I tried this out after noticing that a lot of my phalanxes kicked ass on a hill, but always got slaughtered when charging uphill.

I did a custom battle, and gave myself 3 silver shield pikemen as the seleucids. I gave the greeks 3 spartan hoplites. All units were at v0. I played on macedonian ruins.

I put my pikemen units 2 deep, and placed one unit on top of another, as was suggested in another thread on pikemen usage. I also had my units on the fairly steep hill on the right. The spartan hoplites attacked headon, and they absolutely got slaughtered. 240+ kills for me, and NO kills for them. The hoplites couldn't get past the pikes ~D

I tried it again but this time put my pikemen on the fairly flat terrain in the center. This time when the hoplites charged me, they killed my pikemen fairly easily, and I ended up killing maybe 10 or so before my line collapsed and routed.

So it seems that at least in phalanx combat height plays a significant role, maybe extending the effective range of the pikes/spears somehow. Has anyone else noticed this?

May work gamewise but historically phalanxes were the most effective on flat or near flat ground.

So on flat ground the Spartans beat the Silver Shields? I've run extensive tests and if it ever happened it was a fluke with the two phalanxes rotating to a position relative to one another where the Spartans were behind the Silver Shields. Otherwise the Silvershields did exactly what they did on your hill test. The spartans couldnt close and were held at bay/slaughtered.

Small exerp:

With the doubled two-rank Levy phalangites I have beaten Chosen Swordsman with 9 experience, and golden swords and armor while taking minimal losses - 20 men - all on even ground.

The big advantage of this system is the reduced shift, or the fact that even when the shift occurs only the first phalanx does so, while the other behind it does remain. This makes gaps far less common during prelonged combat..

Usually also fewer men engage with the swords, making the phalanx more effective on the long run..

One disadvantage with the long pikes and two/three two-ranks is that sometimes units can get pass the pikes and this often equals to lot of casualites if it is a elite one. With two ranks there is a "blind spot" right before the firstline, where the enemy can only get attacked with swords. Berserker for example often jump over the pikes, get there and start to killing on after the other. This results in a spot covered with your men while in other zones nobody get's harmed...


The long pikes give the SSP and the BSP the edge over any other elite phalanx in a direct encounter; The perfect units for holding breaches in street fighting, but rather vulnerable to missileunits...

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I have to confess that I never witnessed a SSP or a BSP get defeated in a direct encounter against the best pumbed up infantry or phalangites. Could you tell us more about the encounter?

OA

I placed my SSP in the middle of the map "Macedonian Ruins", which is slightly downhill. The Spartans had a *very* slight height advantage, but they massacred my SSP, in much the same way I killed them before when I had a height advantage.