Phalanx testing--please respond

[Ibrahim]

Hi All,

OK, so myself and QuintusSertorius are working on the phalanx right now (as can be seen in the latest EDU uploaded for testing). We are receiving news that each behaves differently, but we need details, recommendations, etc.

Which units are doing best? what are all of them doing? Some will clearly be "wrong", I am using these as a "control" of sorts, to compare to.

[Saigrin]

Well, I've been playing as Arche Seleukeia, and I've had a funny time watching the Pantodapoi Phalanx crushing units of greek Pehzetairoi, while having minor stats. I have the feeling that the reason for this is the secondary weapon switch:

Pehzetairoi switch weapons like having no trust in their primary weapon, as soon as they face an enemy unit, so they become vulnerable. On the other side, Pantodapoi phalanx don't have this feature "activated", and they never switch weapons; that, in game statistics, give them more survivability, but it looks pretty ridiculous to watch a broken formation with pikes pointing everywhere.

My feeling is that if it where possible to make Pehzetairoi less anxious to switch weapons, the experience would be better. If not possible, i would propose the Pantodapoi option, at least, a pike unit uses pikes.

On other news, I've noted that mercenary phalangites have really minor stats compared to national Pehzetairoi phalanxes.

When I earn more free time to test the game, I'll give more feedback if I think it can be useful, as I intend to be with this.

Keep on fighting, team!

[QuintusSertorius]

There have been a number of comments about the new speed of phalangitai. I know the move_speed_mod of 0.5 before caused problems for the AI, but 0.8 is possibly too fast. Perhaps 0.6 would be more appropriate?

[Tux]

Would suggest to ask this on the TWC forums too, if it hasn't been done already.

[Chap]

Peltephoroi and Pantodapoi have no secondary weapon (or they do not switch) and do well against both scutari spears and secondary enable phalanx.

Machimoi, Pehzetairoi and Mistophoroi fight their battles with the secondary weapon. When defending most of the charging enemy is held back with the second line doing most of the attacking. When held back the front and third lines rarely do anything. This lasts for a few seconds, when a few of the enemy reaches the front line they switch allowing more to pass through which starts a chain reaction until the front line is fighting with their swords.

Against phalanx vs phalanx with secondary weapons it is better to have guard mode off when attacking or defending. This will decrease your deaths. I don't know why but that's how it works.

It is strange when they fight one on one. First they both fight with sarrisa then the front lines all switch. Then all player phalanx switch to secondary while the cpu phalanx has the rest of the unit still with sarrisa. The cpu holding sarrisa face away from the fighting and reverse into the player like truck. This pushes the player away until the whole unit surrounds the cpu phalanx. When they are surrounded the soldiers in the center start to dance the waltz with their sarrisa all in unison. With fighting all around them they take one step in every direction anti clockwise its a nice square dance. Then they scared and run away.

When fighting with other units of phalanx it does not happen too much but the front lines are wavy. Even while defending in guard mode the cpu phalanx is able to push deep into formation. They dont need to reverse they can still push facing the front. When attacking in free mode the lines hold slightly better.

[Chap]

I don't know how to do the spoiler here so ill just give this as an attachment. It is my recordings so you can have a browse.phalanx test.txt
Also how should i continue? what specifically do you want to know?