First, let me say what an amazing mod this is. It really got me back into RTW after messing around with M2TW and Broken Crescent. For the most part, the units look beautiful and are balanced.
However, I do have one complaint. Why do all phalanxes have insane attack (16+?) and .17 lethality? Combined with their ridiculous reach, they massacre everything one on one. When I use them, every battle I have against the AI turns into a heroic victory, just because nothing kills them besides more phalanxes.
I recently started a game with the Romans, and the AI uses some truly brain dead tactics with their phalanxes, exposing their flanks constantly. Still, when I try to flank them with principes, the phalanxes just turn to face the flankers, sweeping their sarissas around like a baseball bat and swatting everyone unlucky enough to be in the way. Often, even when I have basic phalanxes outnumbered and surrounded, they still inflict horrific casualties on the one unit they are poking (assuming they don't rout).
When I fight against hoplite units (without phalanx) and surround them, my casulties are far far lower.
My question is, wasn't the historical weakness of phalanxes the fact that they collapse quickly when flanked? Why is it that flanked phalanxes can still hold out much better than Roman legions that are flanked? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Maybe the morale for the phalanxes can be lowered?
It really makes fighting as the successor states too easy (at least playing as Egypt), since oftentimes you don't even need to guard your flanks with other units. For the time being, I'm just playing as the Romans for some decent challenging battles.
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