Phalanxes in version 1.1

[antisocialmunky]

I'm under the impression the issue is hardly cut and dried, and that there are quite a few theories and interpretations around. I'm really just parroting the one given here (I've seen the roughly same reasoning elsewhere too, for what that matters), which seemed to me to be making a pretty good and lucid case.

Well, all I'm saying is that the EB description seems to give the impression that it is a in between a hoplite and a phalangite and can serve in the main line. However, this doesn't work in practice and doesn't seem to match up all that well with history of being light hoplites on the cheap. Its jsut a little knit pick. I guess it would make sense to use them as flak guards against cavalry. :-\

[Watchman]

Well, all I'm saying is that the EB description seems to give the impression that it is a in between a hoplite and a phalangite and can serve in the main line. However, this doesn't work in practice and doesn't seem to match up all that well with history of being light hoplites on the cheap. Its jsut a little knit pick. I guess it would make sense to use them as flak guards against cavalry. :-\

Well, if one goes with the evolutionary arc Ueda-Sarson describes they indeed *are* a transitional type between the classic shieldwall hoplite and the Macedonian pikeman - as phases of developement go. And they serve well enough in the main line, depending on the opposition as usual with the lighter troop types; it's probably worth recalling that around the time the pattern developed hoplites didn't usually wear body armour (for the sake of mobility and tactical flexibility, and quite possibly also to expand the available manpower pool by reducing the expense of the required kit), being defended by their shields and helmets. So there wasn't originally much of a "weight" difference between the newfangled peltast-hoplites and the classic type; armour again became vogue thereafter, so...

It's really just the usual tradeoff between armour and mobility, really. The Iphikrateans are more mobile, the classicals more heavily armed and hence better suited for a straight-up slugging match. (Granted, the Ekdromoi are even faster and have the same total defense score as the Iphikrateans, but their formation is also looser and mass lighter.)

The idea of messing around with the soldier radius attribute that PraetorFigus floated has IIRC been occasionally offered up before, although nothing ever came out of it. Could be worth looking into if someone's willing to test different values and how they work out, if now only as an unofficial mod, as there's a fair number of such Artist Formerly Possessing Phalanx units that could use a bit of a tweak to bring their actual performance more in line with what it says on the tin and is supposed to be. (Iphikrateans, the Getic spearmen, the Celtic and Alpine quasi-phalanxes incl. the Arjos, the Indogreek hoplites, the Germanic elite spear-guys...)
Mind you, except for the ones with longswords or AP weapons the lot don't actually need their secondary weapons now that they don't have the phalanx formation; there's not much real performance difference between the xiphos/sica and the spear (save for the cavalry-related junk), and it just screws stuff up when they charge plus drives up the price...