Hellenic over advantage?!?

**Cute Wolf** · 07-12-2009, 17:20

Can someone explain to me... why all the Phalanx has 120 men inside... well, it hasn't anything to do with unit costs and upkeep, but that gives a phalanx based faction more opportunity to outnumber their enemies in the field... especially against Barbarians or "before MOT KH"... well, actually it wasn't a problem for me... but what do you think if the Phalangitai unit size, especially Argyraspidai... lowered to 100 men per group, 120 men was something too much...

**Skullheadhq** · 07-12-2009, 17:21

Noes!! Silver shields FTW!

**Macilrille** · 07-12-2009, 17:46

The more Graeculi you group together, the more you can kill at one time. Sorry Hellene-lovers ;-)

Anyway, I do not mind and I suspect all the changes that has been mentioned here lately will have unforeseen consequences, possibly unbalancing.

Edited to add, if you have problems facing the Hellenes with Sweboz (and probably Getai and gauls as well), remember that part of your strength and tactic lies in scaring the opponent. 242 routing men from Wargozes are 242 sheep to slaughter.

**Cute Wolf** · 07-12-2009, 17:57

Ohh... I know that to rout 1 argyraspidai at a time, we just need 1 Spearmen to keep them busy on a front, and charge their back with Drapanai / Bastarnizka / Gaesatae... no Gaesatae is too strong, maybe Neitos is better on terms...

I just a bit annoyed, when I face 1 stack of AS with:
1 Somatophylakes Strategou and 19 Argyraspidai...... WTF?!?

NB: I play as KH... and don't know, why AI retrain all Argyraspidai army (I didn't manually create them, they just poped up from Pergamon... never think that fullstack was totally 122 men argyraspidai each, some with experience...)

*) luckily i only see them with spy... and because of that, not intended to involve myself in Mikhra Asia problems...

**teh1337tim** · 07-12-2009, 18:02

considering on huge units phalanx units has 240 men which is 16 men short of a true syntagma (spell check), its the bes the developers can do. And if they outnumber you then your in luck, a 3-4 deep hoplite phalanx in guard mode can hold them forever and any light troops charging into their rear will cause turmoil within the phalanx...

thats how the romans defeated the macedonian phalanx...... flanking...

But nothing a good strategos cannot stop with proper theurophia/hoplite/peltastai and allied galli troops :)

**Watchman** · 07-12-2009, 19:43

I know I've played quite enough Hayasdan to not have overmuch trouble ripping apart 242-man phalanxes with levy spearmen, archers and slinger plus FamiCav...

Not much that can be done about the AI's bad habit of spamming full-elite stacks on you. Except go and torch its barracks. And I'd still actually rather fight an FM plus 19 pike Silvershields à 242 men than an FM plus 19 TABs à 120+ men...

**fleaza** · 07-13-2009, 13:37

Originally Posted by teh1337tim

considering on huge units phalanx units has 240 men which is 16 men short of a true syntagma (spell check), its the bes the developers can do. And if they outnumber you then your in luck, a 3-4 deep hoplite phalanx in guard mode can hold them forever and any light troops charging into their rear will cause turmoil within the phalanx...

thats how the romans defeated the macedonian phalanx...... flanking...

But nothing a good strategos cannot stop with proper theurophia/hoplite/peltastai and allied galli troops :)

i disagree, the phalanx are probably the best line holders in the game and because they have more men you can spread them out more and make a longer line. allowing your flanks to surround them more easily.

its always better to have more men.

**Tellos Athenaios** · 07-13-2009, 18:29

The main reason why 240 (excluding officers) men is an nice figure to have for the phalanx is that it fits the Hellenic military organization which emphasized a base 16 system: 240 is divisible by 16. (And as implied, a proper phalanx unit would consist of 16 * 16 = 256 men.) So what the phalanx is here is a slightly crippled version at 16 * 15 = 240.

**antisocialmunky** · 07-13-2009, 18:39

Except no one forms up in 240 man squares though and EB is like 1:16(? correct me please):-p

This problem isn't really too noticable in single player but it does gimp Gauls/German factions in multiplayer since they get poked apart by phalangite heavy armies up to 10% larger. The levy/militia unit size should bumped up one notch. 240 rather than 200 and 200 rather than some 160s IMHO for an across the board unit size increase for non-professional(or semi-profession IE Legionaires) troops. It would be a somewhat more balanced against the massive cavalry unit sizes in EB.

The player should be able to handle anything that the AI can throw at him/her in the campaign so its not a real issue there.

**Xurr** · 07-13-2009, 20:28

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Except no one forms up in 240 man squares though and EB is like 1:16(? correct me please):-p

This problem isn't really too noticable in single player but it does gimp Gauls/German factions in multiplayer since they get poked apart by phalangite heavy armies up to 10% larger. The levy/militia unit size should bumped up one notch. 240 rather than 200 and 200 rather than some 160s IMHO for an across the board unit size increase for non-professional(or semi-profession IE Legionaires) troops. It would be a somewhat more balanced against the massive cavalry unit sizes in EB.

The player should be able to handle anything that the AI can throw at him/her in the campaign so its not a real issue there.

Um so basically most other troops should be "bumped up in size"? Wouldn't it just be easier to just reduce the phalanx to 208(13 x 16) or 52 base size? Sure it would not be as historically accurate but then Hellens running around in armies that outnumber all their opponents is also historically inaccurate.

**Parallel Pain** · 07-13-2009, 20:42

I'd rather they keep their unit size, or maybe go up to 256, if the team can somehow stop the phalanx's ability to just turn their pikes to face a new threat like they were very short spears. I'm sure you've all seen them, those that doesn't even raise the pikes but just keep them horizontal and swing them around 180 degrees to fight off a rear attack as if the poles are not there at all.

But as for unit sizes, they really should be on the same ratio, like say 1:10, of their real life counterpart.

If historically an army of 30k phalaxes faced an army of 30k principes was a common enough occurrence to be taken as a standard, then principes and phalanxes should have the same unit size because in real life the opposing army were equal.
Technically principes should be half the size of a phalanx or less, but as in the game an army is two units max, one unit of principes have to be counted as 2 maniples.

**Foot** · 07-13-2009, 22:07

The reason is that the smaller the unit sizes for phalangitais the more penalties are associated with their formation. Larger unit sizes offer a large front, while still maintaining enough ranks to maintain enough mass to push against the enemy. Smaller sizes lead to exponentially more problems.

And because there are 20 unit slots in an army is not reason enough to max them out. 240 phalangitai costs comparatively more than 200 phalangitai would (we calculate cost by men), and to represent a successor army you would need less units than a roman army would need (raising a question of balance in recruitment, but we can't have it all now can we?). That you can have 20 units to an army, it does not follow that you should.

Foot