Things you learned from playing vanilla RTW

[Skandinav]

I am not sure about that, since the term phalanx could be used for any reasonably-ordered formation. The specific term for the Hellenistic pike phalanx was IIRC syntagmata, not phalanx.

True, it is only a phalanx-like body of soldiers in close formation that is described and not the hellenistic phalanx specifically but the characteristics I referred to was rather their long pikes and shield-wall together with this, both of which of course weren´t a rare sight on the ancient battle-field in this regard. But Caesar only uses the word twice or so perhaps deliberately meaning that it differed somehow from the other formations used by the celtic and germanic tribes, which are mostly described only as hosts and such, but some of which may have similarly been in tight formation and also, as we know it as a common weapon in those parts, used spears which often prompts a tight formation but without Caesar dubbing them the latin form of the greek word aswell, if that is, these two accounts are not the only occasions where he faced men using this tactic.