Phalanxes in version 1.1

[PraetorFigus]

*casts Animate Thread*

Say Figus, you mentioned the 0.3 radius didn't have meaningful effects when it came to battle results, but how about unit behaviour ? The way the soldiers keep spreading out more or less regardless of the formation density values when not in guardmode is pretty annoying, and I was wondering if that value could be used to at least lessen the effect even if it doesn't have much "mechanical" effect - altering the behaviour but not the performance, if you see what I mean.

I need to run more tests, but it could have an effect on unit cohesion. I was also testing .25 along with .3 before RL and sickness kicked me in the bud

from what I observed those two values are not as dramatic as 0.2 which also helps a unit when flanked to stay closer together. when surrounded morale level, discipline and level of training are still very important for how long a unit lasts before routing from what I saw.
so instead of continually flattening out against the enemy, the units seemed to retain a bit more rank depth and get a lot more kills,

Here are a few examples, but I need to do more testing and get screenshots!

in a siege battle against defending gauls with no time limit, the rorarii, tested with 0.2, were more effective but still routed with 30-40 troops left, the difference in my tests is that they actually killed some gauls before routing with 0.2 radius, they kept their ranks without guardmode better

in another siege battle this time against Germans no time limit again, I had a single stack of Polybian Principes defeat three full stacks of German mixed units of spearmen, I don't know the names of individual German units. I barely lost 4 troops per Principe unit which was shocking to me, I expected a crushing defeat, but got a Heroic Victory.

in another one-on-one test, the ekodromoi still surround a real phalanx head-on but seemed to take less losses and inflict more on the phalanx, but the unit was phalangitai deuteroi that I was testing against.

the good news is that the radius should do what your talking about Watchman with the units, but to what extent needs more testing.

has anyone else done testing with unit radius to confirm or deny that a smaller radius will keep units from spreading out?

I've finally figured out how to get screenshots online so once I get a way to take multiple screen shots I will post more definitive findings!

[mcantu]

unit cohesion is the sole reason i am including this in RTR; but only for hoplite and phalangite units

[Watchman]

Why ?

[mcantu]

because those are the units for which propper employment depends the most on maintaining unit cohesion

[Watchman]

And that's different from other shieldwalls how ?