How to fight a pike phalanx without another phalanx? Help!!!

[chenkai11]

Bodyguards of Hai can crush those phalanx alone. Playing as Hayasdan must use cavalry and HA although it has some good infantry.

[king of thracia]

1. Refuse contact
2. Isolate phalanx
3. Pour javelins and arrows into the back
4. Simultaneous destruction

[fleaza]

you cowards! pluck up some courage and smash those phalanx from the front! i swear, the hai bodyguards are so incredibly powerful. sometimes i feel like charging the phalanx from the front. when i do do it i take more damage obviously but its still quite heroic.

[Weebeast]

I have to ask though, how about when your outnumbered or even matched with full stacks?

I don't deploy my men into one line trying to match their length and look all tough. Instead I bunch up my units and I pour them to one of their wings and hope that side routs before the other side can get to me. I rarely see them do it but if they turn off phalanx mode to flank me then half of my job is done. EDIT: Darius beat me to it.

I have yet to find a good strategy other than spreading them out, but it seems so unrealistic, and just taking way to much advantage of stupid ai, where a real army would never do so. Are there any good strategies for fighting a phalanx army when they outnumber you?

You sure? If you were a general in real life and I pepper you with arrows, rocks and javelins (given that they hurt you), you're not gonna detach some troops to chase me? I can do it all day and while you stay still I send some of my men to burn your town, loot and steal your women.

[Knight of Ne]

you cowards! pluck up some courage and smash those phalanx from the front! i swear, the hai bodyguards are so incredibly powerful. sometimes i feel like charging the phalanx from the front. when i do do it i take more damage obviously but its still quite heroic.

I tend to find that this strategy, although heroic, tends to get my FM's killed very quickly. (And sods law dictates that it will be your good FM's that bite the dust.)

I tend to find that fast moving infantry are good for fighting phalanxes, if you can get a phalanx to chase them you can turn a phalanx and expose those juicy rears to cavalry or archers. Albeit this does depend on getting the stupid ai to chase you.

When outnumbered i try to outmanouvre the phalanx and engage all but the phalanxes, which (if all goes well) will leave the phalanxes with no support and vulnerable to flank and rear charges.

p.s. None of these tactics are garenteed to work well, if at all sometimes.
Knight of Ne

[Dunadd]

My method is to engage them to the front with some kind of close combat infantry, then get some skirmishers round behind the phalanx and put them on 'fire at will'. Javelin fire from behind seems to break phalanxes far better than charges do (As historically inaccurate as that is). Phalanxes are pretty much invulnerable to javelins from the front, but from the back they're very vulnerable. (In reality they should be vulnerable to any kind of attack to their rear or flank but in RTW they're not - they were great at fighting enemy to their front as long as they had flat ground that allowed them to maintain formation, but if they were hit in the flank or rear or their formation was broken up by rough ground they collapsed

Alternatively put some foot or mounted skirmishers (not on fire at will) in front of them and more behind them. Whenever the phalanx turns towards one, hit them in the back with javelins with the other.

Always use javelins - arrows and sling shot dont seem nearly as effective even from behind the phalanx.

[Ibrahim]

well, I have many a solution, depending on the situation.

red letters= enemy. black is me

M=missile C=cavalry L=line troops

1-equal sized armies, head on:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

a)

--------------------P P P P P P

----------------------CC MMM L L L L L L MMM CC

b)
---------------------------------------CCCC
------------------MMMP P P P P PMMM
----------------------------------L L L L L L (they attack obliquely)

examples I used it in: battle of Cynocephalae (RTW vanilla), battle of cannae (272 BC, in EB)

2-I'm outnumbered

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

a)
---------------------------- P P P P P P P P P P

------------------------------CC MMM L L L L L L MMM CC (retreat)

b)

-------------------------LPL---------p------p
------------------------MM---------P--------MM--P----P-------P
--------------------------LL---P---[LL]-----P----------------P

bring my men among them and break them up piecemeal, thereby allowing me to achieve local superiority.

c-if I outnumber them: I just send some men at them in a human tidal wave, and while they re being cut down, just use the rest of the men to hit the phalanx in the rear

[Dunadd]

Ah but what do you do if the enemy army has phalangites, archers/slingers and cavalry?

(well i suppose the obvious answer is you try to use light cavalry to draw out their cavalry and destroy them, then try to separate the archers/slingers from the phalanxes and wipe them out, then get round the phalanxes' backs/sides and hit them with javelins, slingshot etc)

[Ibrahim]

Ah but what do you do if the enemy army has phalangites, archers/slingers and cavalry?

(well i suppose the obvious answer is you try to use light cavalry to draw out their cavalry and destroy them, then try to separate the archers/slingers from the phalanxes and wipe them out, then get round the phalanxes' backs/sides and hit them with javelins, slingshot etc)

they're no problem-I usually neutralize those in no time.

then I apply the tactics described.

[fleaza]

i find light cavalry very effective against other cavalry for some reason. i usually have equal numbers of light and heavy cavalry in my army. infantry helps alot but i prefer cavalry only armies for the greater mobility on the battlefield.

[Flavius_Belisarius]

I only can agree. If used correctly lighter cavalry can be superior against heavy cavalry. I manged to defeat cataphracts or hetairo with quite light and medium cavalry. The heavy one isn't able to catch them so they get exhausted and widespread and you can pick one and one heavy cavalry regmint with concentrated charges.

[Ibrahim]

I only can agree. If used correctly lighter cavalry can be superior against heavy cavalry. I manged to defeat cataphracts or hetairo with quite light and medium cavalry. The heavy one isn't able to catch them so they get exhausted and widespread and you can pick one and one heavy cavalry regmint with concentrated charges.

that's how I fight in IBFD III.

lakhmids have a wide selection of light and medium cavalry indeed

[vartan]

I have to ask though, how about when your outnumbered or even matched with full stacks?

I have yet to find a good strategy other than spreading them out, but it seems so unrealistic, and just taking way to much advantage of stupid ai, where a real army would never do so. Are there any good strategies for fighting a phalanx army when they outnumber you?

I remember during the tourney, people would just avoid the phalanx, and aim for your flanks. Your phalanxes would be useless. They only engaged your phalanx with their own phalanx, if they had it.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I apply the same basic strategy to all my battles.

Priority 1: Kill enemy cavalry.
Priority 2: Kill enemy missile troops.
Priority 3: Kill enemy heavy infantry.

Isolate the phalangites, then kill them (after you've killed everything else.)

[Macilrille]

Yeps, notice that this thread deals mostly with online MP battles. But the principle is the same Vs the AI. Probably easier as the opponent has a brain...

[Dutchhoplite]

But how would you fight a allmost full stack of pikes formed up in a double line and partially hidden by a treeline??

Like this:

ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

I faced (me being the attacking side) them with a KH army army of some pike, hoplites, some light troops and limited cavalry.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

As the attacker or as the defender?

As KH, I'd hesitate to attack a full (Macedonian?) stack like that unless I had a full stack myself. 18 units of phalanxes is a lot - that's 4320 men on Huge unit size. Not to be taken lightly by 'little' KH.

As the defender, it's easier - stand on a hill and let them tire themselves out reaching your position before outflanking them.

[Dutchhoplite]

Well, in units we were about even so i decided to take them on but i did'nt expect to stumble across a Seleucid stack consisting only of pikes :D

[Andy1984]

As a defender, my Romans seem to be mostly capable to frontally charge and break the Epeirote falanxes. (Leves behind the principes, preferably partially hidden.) Try to aim for a massed route.

Elite phalanx units, and especially defending elite phalanx units, are a different matter however.

[anubis88]

Heh, the ptolies in my campaing have the abnoxious habit of puting phalanxes in phalanxes if you understand what i'm saying.... They look like one phalanx, but actually there are 2 of them using the same area one would. Those phalanxes are pretty tough to beat :D; i dunno if it would work if the human player applied the same strategy

[Macilrille]

It does, it was ruled a cheat in the online tournament.

[Intranetusa]

The defense skill of most sarissa phalanx units is about as good as your basic levy. When engaged in close quarter combat, sarissa units gets slaughtered pretty fast.

[Marcus Darkstar]

I dunno about others but I usually isolate, pin the phalanx with a group of heavy infantry in the front and use reserve troops to flank them so their decimated. Before hand if i have horse missile units i usually distrubt their formation with them or at least weaken them before pinning them down.

Facing Phalanx stacks with no supporting units is absurdly easy like it should be. I've never encountered a Phalax that has reversed its phalanx if its been engaded in the front already. And unless their heavily armored elite troops with excellent moral flanking them typically decimates them (otherwise its a meat grinder with the elites fighting to the death or when they get reduced to 3-1 units). I've had medium phalanx groups route using the tactic when there were still 100+ men in the group.

Then again my favorite tactic if I have Elephants is charging them into the flanks of Phalanxes when their already pinned down in the front... Nothing can withstand it usually takes out half the phalanx then and there...