Is The Phalanx a Little Broken?

[Drewski]

Ok here's my example.( V 1.2 btw) Im Rome fighting a counter action against Ptolomy after a sneak attack by them. I have about 2/3 of a very good legion in the Desert and they catch a Machimoi Native Phalanx on his lonesome. I decide to fight the battle (been having some very silly results with a couple of auto resolves).

Right. I wander up to the sole unit with my Army, and they just stand there, of course. So I bait them with Velites, and they start that slow annoting walk. So here's what I did. I got the Phalanx to circle my units, while I individually controlled each one and had them throw pila from the right hand side (no shield) or slightly behind. I even followed them from behind with 2 units of well promoted Archers, controlling their "fire at will".

Thats a heck of a lot of pilae and arrows. And you know what? When every single missile had been
spent, there was still almost half their unit left!! (Of course they then routed instantly when charged).

I know all about hammer and anvil tactics against Long Spears, and they work very well thank you.

But my point is, the 2 units of Archers should have kill just about all of them. I've no complaints about a phalanx being nails tough from the front, but all these missiles were from behind.?! If you are shot in the back with an arrow at point blank range, you are going down. Just because you have a long pointy stick held in the opposite direction, and are walking in close mass in a slow zombie way towards the enemy, doesn't give you magical protection where you have none. Heck, in fact because the men in the unit are packed tight together, they make an even more unmissable target from behind. I've started to wonder if all my Creten Merc Archers are just a fancy, expensive waste of money.

Ah, well still a magnificent game, it's destroyed any sleep pattern I never really had in the last week or so ;)

Comments and thoughts appreciated.

[anubis88]

on what battle difficulty are you playing? Becouse usually in my battles if i hit a phalanx unit in the back, it goes to half a men in let's say 5 volleys?

[Drewski]

on what battle difficulty are you playing? Becouse usually in my battles if i hit a phalanx unit in the back, it goes to half a men in let's say 5 volleys?

Hard Campaign / Medium Battles...seriously I watched as 5 volleys from the archers took precisely no men at all down. If even had the Triarii charge them in the back, repeatedly while they were slowly zombie circling my men, but the Triarii kept charging then pulling up short at the last moment.

It was all very strange. Note that they were never engaged in melee at any time when I was shooting at them.

[Karo]

What kind of archers were you using?

[Slaists]

What kind of archers were you using?

I think, a better question is what kind of phalanx was he facing. Some of the elite phalanxes have ridiculously high armor ratings in EB. OK, sorry, it seems, it was a native desert phalanx unit. Shouldn't have armor that high (I do not have the game on this comp to check). Hmm... weird.

[antisocialmunky]

Could always be that unknown armor modify phalanx mode gives. Though I've managed to kill a decent amount shooting them in the back.

[A Very Super Market]

He's probably using crappy Western Archers, given that he is using the Romani. Is the area perfectly flat? Because the engine will sometimes give ridiculous bonuses for a slight elevation difference.

[Drewski]

Could always be that unknown armor modify phalanx mode gives. Though I've managed to kill a decent amount shooting them in the back.

What's this modifier? I've always suspected something, as when troops go into a phalanx mode, they suddenly all don capes, and I don't have any Kryptonite at hand ;)

He's probably using crappy Western Archers, given that he is using the Romani. Is the area perfectly flat? Because the engine will sometimes give ridiculous bonuses for a slight elevation difference.

To be exact, they were 2 full troops of Toxotes (recruited from Rhegium) one Silver, the other triple bronze. The terrain was undulating sand dunes (really deep in the Libyan Desert). Still, never mind the Archers, all those Pilae in the back should surely cause a lot
more fatalities than they did.

I'll have to try a similar experiment on non-desert terrain, if I get the opportunity.

[A Very Super Market]

Were your troops higher or lower than the phalanx?

[Drewski]

Were your troops higher or lower than the phalanx?

It varied. You must know those sand dune battles (the terrain always looks the same). As I said, the Velites were bait, the Phalanx stuck to walking very slowly towards them like glue. The battle (experiment) lasted 20 minutes, so sometimes below, sometimes level, sometimes above. I'd have to say mostly slightly below.

[A Very Super Market]

Weird stuff.

Perhaps a combination of fatiguq from running up and down plus the uphill bonus for the phalanx resulted in that.

But remember that fire arrows are better in close quarters.

[Macilrille]

I think the fact of the matter is just that in order to simulate the phalanx effectiveness from the front it has been tweaked so much it is ûbermensch.
I get more and more convinced of that the more battles against them I fight. And that is historically incorrect. Determined, flexible and mobile troops, be they Roman legionaires, Spanish Tercios or the Doppelsöldnern of the medieval/renaissance pikeblocks would break up and beat the phalanx/pikeblock (in effect they are almost the same) most of the time.

[Africanvs]

I'm not sure why so many people think the pike phalanx was so inflexible. The only real problem when using the phalanx is if there isn't enough heavy cavalry to support the hammer and anvil tactic, or if the phalanx has vulnerable flanks. As far as this situation I find javelins far more useful against a phalanx than arrows. If I have one unit of phalangites completely outnumbered, I will hold them with one unit of infantry in guard mode. Triarii would be perfect for this. As long as you aren't trying to push through the front of the phalanx, you shouldn't lose many men. Then I would get my velites behind the phalanx and unload on them. If you have hastati or principes as well, you can form them up behind and let loose their pila. If they're still alive, charge in and finish them off, they will rout immediately. A lot of different factors can come into play such as how many chevrons the phalanx has, elevation, etc. Those archers you're using simply don't cut it against heavy infantry. But I try to remember that the engine has limitations, so while I think EB gets as close as they can to realism, it's still restricted by the engine.

[antisocialmunky]

If the velites can get behind the phalanx, they should be dead anyways.

[Tolg]

You were just unlucky.

It happens sometimes when using missile troops if you play eastern factions a lot (like me) you'll eventually get used to it.

Your missiles will slaughter the enemy on 9 out of 10 occasions but the 1 time when they don't, they'll suck. It probably wouldn't happen again if you fought the same battle again. I can only explain it with minor height differences and/or the RTW engine failing. Just live with it.

Oh, and of course using useless wanna-be western archers doesn't help either - and chevron don't have any effect on missile attack at all.

[Africanvs]

Oh, and of course using useless wanna-be western archers doesn't help either - and chevron don't have any effect on missile attack at all.

Really, I thought units gained +1 attack and +1 defense per chevron?

[Tolg]

No. experience raises the missile attack on the unit card only (It does rise melee attack/defense/morale for all units though (+1)), I tested it only a few days ago:

1 Mardian Archers (I) vs 1 Thorakitai (AI)

Thorakitai killed

• Without upgrades: 10
• with gold weapons: 60
• with 3 gold chevrons: 14

(all upgrades for the archers obviously)

Edit: And while we're at it, the number of Thorakitai killed in melee before my Mardians routed were 12/24/49

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah, those were a little baffling. I can vouch for slingers doing noticably damage as they level up though.

[bovi]

Nope. I did the same test with slingers. Gold weapons = massacre. Gold chevrons = hardly noticeable.

[Slaists]

Nope. I did the same test with slingers. Gold weapons = massacre. Gold chevrons = hardly noticeable.

wasn't it true that with chevrons, missile unit accuracy goes noticeably up? or am i confusing things with M2TW now?

[Tolg]

I never heard about it but I think you're confusing it. Such a change would only have any effect at night/when using fire arrows. On the other hand, it would explain why Mardians with gold chevrons inflict 4 more casualties than without. (Though of course it could have just been luck. After all the RTW damage systems works with probabilities rather than with HP reduction.)

[Drewski]

Re Archers and Slingers, Chevrons definitely effect Range, (Well they absolutely did in Vanilla RTW and RTR). I've noticed this many times because I usually set my Archers up in parallel together. If they have same distance to unit, the one with higher chevrons will start firing first, before it comes into range of the other.

[Africanvs]

Thanks Tolg, that's really useful information. I won't worry about having experienced missle troops anymore. :)

[seienchin]

Thats odd, cause in battles my experienced ones always make way more damage than no fresh recruits, but indeed the difference is not even close to the difference of a gold chevron close combat unit and fresh recruits...