Phalanxes in version 1.1

[Watchman]

Eh, the Classicals are tough enough already if you ask me. Damn tough. *They* don't need tweaking with the radius, unlike the Artist Formerly Known As Phalanx lot.

[Novellus]

Eh, the Classicals are tough enough already if you ask me. Damn tough. *They* don't need tweaking with the radius, unlike the Artist Formerly Known As Phalanx lot.

Hey Watchman, what are your thoughts on how the units should be represented? I can't seem to find anything on the Iphikratous Hoplitai when it comes to how they actually fought. The only thing a bunch of us here in this thread could do was speculate.

[Phalanx300]

Eh, the Classicals are tough enough already if you ask me. Damn tough. *They* don't need tweaking with the radius, unlike the Artist Formerly Known As Phalanx lot.

Their strenght can be tweaked, I find their formation more important then the fear of making the Hoplites a bit stronger which can easilly be tweaked.

[Watchman]

As the guy whose job has been to check the unit stats actually adhere to the statting system used, I have some objections to that "easily tweaked"...

Moreover, if you start making such changes to the Classical Hoplites... where are you going to stop ? Because consistency is important and they're anything but the sole "shieldwall" troops around; heck, pretty much hald the Sweboz roster is shieldwalls.

Hence, best stick to the units that actually require such attention, ie. the Formerly Phalanx ones that appear to be underperforming a bit.

[Phalanx300]

As the guy whose job has been to check the unit stats actually adhere to the statting system used, I have some objections to that "easily tweaked"...

Moreover, if you start making such changes to the Classical Hoplites... where are you going to stop ? Because consistency is important and they're anything but the sole "shieldwall" troops around; heck, pretty much hald the Sweboz roster is shieldwalls.

Hence, best stick to the units that actually require such attention, ie. the Formerly Phalanx ones that appear to be underperforming a bit.

Units that actually require attention? We have units fighting unhistorically, Hoplites included. Now we have the means to change that for the biggest part and to make EB even better then it already is.

I don't really see why anyone would object to that to be honest.

[NeoSpartan]

'cause if you start twicking some units your going to throw them off compared to the the other units in the game.

One thing about EB is that great care has been taking into the stats of units, if you pay attention to it (ei check out the unit cards in you folder) you will see what I mean. So if you "tweak" hoplites to make them fight "better", as in they can kill other guys faster, now u've given them an advantage when compared to the other units in the game. So now u got hoplites doing some unreal amount of ass kicking.
--you gotta understand the current stats given to hoplites reflect the way they fight in EB. For example, if you look at Pike units, they have a high shild value when compared to other other unit, but their armor is kinda low. Why? because phalanxes where historically weak on the rear, so by making their shield value stronger they are now stronger in the center, but weaker in the rear. It ain't perfect, but its the best that can be done with the RTW engine.

Then you gotta address similar units. Like watchman said, 1/2 of the Sweboz units fought in a shildwall/phalanx formation, and so did many other units.

[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.

[Phalanx300]

Guard mode is far from a good solution.

It makes your units fight worse then that they are supposed though, I tested it quite alot. Without it I always got better results, its only good for letting your men be alive a little longer, however its just a matter of time before they loose.

And what is even more annoying is that only a part of the army is using Guardmode . Using radius will also make a end to that problem, and it makes the units fight better and more realistic then in guard mode. Guard mode are just static blocks of men, far from a shieldwall formation.

And may I remind you, Hoplites aren't just ordinary spear or sword units. Shieldwall is quite a different formation the usual individual combat. Its like saying the Phalangites are just ordinary spearmen as well. They weren't and didn't fight as such.

And if Hoplites get stronger if given a smaller radius(which is Historical since the second row could strike at the front, it wasn't just the first soldier on its own against a enemy) then it doesn't mean all other units have to be changed, the Hoplites can be given a weaker attack or a lower morale.



Also, any news on a future change on the lenght of the Hoplite spear(half of the units have the wrong lenght)?