The Phalanx and Moral

[Ca Putt]

well he certainly was good at avoiding enemies fighting to the death :D

engaging a phalanx head on is already rewarded with loosing your units(and then they flee) and it's not like it's part of any abusing tactic to charge leives into a phalanx head on. off course people(and animals) want to avoid running into a wall of pointy sticks but so do Generals. most generals try to win with the smallest possible casualties thus only very few qwould actually try to charge non elite troops into a phalanx head on. it's a bit like damageing troops over time that stand at a stupid location or texturing a large bullseye on city walls to indicate where to attack, thus extra effort to avoid players(and the AI) acting stupid which have unwanted side effects.

Edit: ok pinning phalanxes with Haploi or the like is sort of abuseing but it's not like they kill the phalanx they rather stand there and attract agression^^. standing in front of a phalanx and trying not to get killed(provided you have a large shield) does take much less courage than actually trying to kill them.

I think we all agree with you that Phalanxes are scary yet imho this would have more negative side effects than It would make gameplay or accuracy better.