Phalanxes in version 1.1

[Watchman]

The phalangites are actually armoured entirely WYSIWYG - if the troopers wear the same kit as say the Thureophoroi, they get the same armour value. Basta. It's the shield, defense skill and weapon attack values (and to a degree the mass score) where special modifiers apply to all phalanx units.

We have units fighting unhistorically, Hoplites included.

The Hops and other "standard" shieldwall types work well enough with the combination of relatively high mass values, very dense formation and judicious application of the guardmode which makes them actually *keep* that damn formation. And when it gets down to it, they're just spear- and swordsmen only in particularly close order, and should be treated accordingly.

The issue here is the "pseudo-phalanx" units that in essence were proto-pikemen. The phalanx special formation, which indeed did perform appropriately enough in straight combat, however also made them far too tactically cumbersome (dare we say "sitting ducks" ? I've myself made mincemeat out of AI Mori Gaesum with quite humble troops by exploiting that clumsiness) in a quite inappropriate fashion, especially when steered by the hapless AI.
Ergo, bye bye phalanx formation.
This restored the appropriate tactical maneuverability and flexibility, but duly created the current problem of how to represent their "spearwall" tactics and its certain benefits.

Anyway, to return to the "radius" issue, reducing it from 0.4 to 0.2 would seem like a potentially rather major modification - 50%, after all. But, on the other hand, would the effects of 0.3 be too subtle to be meaningful ?

I've also been doing some hard staring at the modifiers that used to be applied to these "spear phalanxes" before they lost that formation. Without going into excessive detail, they used to have a more noticeable bonus to the attack score and a higher lethality than regular spears gave, and OTOH added rather a lot more noticeably to the unit cost too. Something could probably be made out of that, but how exactly to do it without doing something indecent to unit balance is another question.

And then there's the issue of secondary weapons. Not a big deal with the xiphos/sica guys (whose sec weapons can be deleted out of hand and only good things can come out of it - the same was done with the short swords of the Speutagardaz, and the result was found good), but the longsword/axe types are a bit bigger headache. Then again, it's the engine; you just have to live with its quirks.