Phalanx shuffle?

(this post is for the Guild)

I havn't played RTW in a while and with all these new patches out I was wondering if any of them has fixed the phalanx shuddle (i.e. when the phalanx is in battle the suffle to the right) Thanks guys. :2thumbsup: :book:

YES!

Too bad the AI still rarely uses them effectively on the battlefield. Much better than it used to though.

As long as I can use them without that military version of the electric slide then ill be happy!!

EDIT: Im reading a book, World History of Warfare and they said that phalanxs actually did shift to the right alot because the soliders wanted their spear arm protected by the shield of the guy next to him. So it is historically accurate but its rather annoying.

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Originally Posted by Shottie

EDIT: Im reading a book, World History of Warfare and they said that phalanxs actually did shift to the right alot because the soliders wanted their spear arm protected by the shield of the guy next to him. So it is historically accurate but its rather annoying.

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Yes thats true, but in real life Phalanx units weren't neatly divided into groups of 80/120 (on large settings). Hence, the shuffling effect could may not have resulted in the same odd situation that used to occur in the game. Anyhow, we must still commend CA for programming this little and historically accurate feature in the phalanx units. Unfortunately gameplay requires that we do without it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shottie

EDIT: Im reading a book, World History of Warfare and they said that phalanxs actually did shift to the right alot because the soliders wanted their spear arm protected by the shield of the guy next to him. So it is historically accurate but its rather annoying.

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This was indeed observed with classical Greek hoplites, as they used very large circular shields, but during the advance. The did not march towards the enemy, stop just out of spear-range and start a sideways dance. Also, the sarrisa wielding Macedonian phalanx did not have large shields, so they didn't "shuffle" in real life either.

Sufficiently trained professionals (like the Spartans) didn't "shuffle" either, being too well drilled and disciplined. AFAIK the RTW period is well past the time everyone (who now used such troops to begin with) learned to fix that little shortcoming in their training.

'Course, half the RTW phalanxes are pikemen anyway. To my knowledge those fellows never suffered from that habit to begin with - maneuvering with pikes without getting tangled up probably required enough drill that such issues were dealt with on the side by default.