A Wall of Spears?

[Psyco]

I've noticed that although the Peoni were able to form a phalanx, they fail miserably at holding the enemy off. I had a unit of 121 Peoni (in the phalanx formation, standing still, on guard mode) charged by 100 Hastati and.... 1 died at the extended range (the range of the pikes). The rest swarmed forward uninposed, and started hacking at my pikemen, who quickly changed to their swords. It doesn't make sense that they can just waltz through the spear wall, without taking any noticable casualties.

I believe that the phalanx formation should be made better, or pikemen may become useless.


Thoughts?

[Jeanne d'arc]

What is a phalanx formation exactly?

[A.Saturnus]

I don´t know about the demo, but we have seen quite some videos of pikes holding off other units, so I don´t think phalanx is useless

[Psyco]

The problem with the screen shots is that they are all (to my knowledge) vs other phalanxes (what's the plural of phalanx?), which wouldn't try to close the gap.

[ShadesPanther]

I remember the time commanders episode where the Egyptian phalanxes met Seleucid phalanxes. They stood a good way apart and just threw their pikes forward and then pulled them back etc.

Roman infantry are quite armoured though so many probably won't die because their armour and big shield will deflect the spearpoint. Has anyone played the mod where the Gauls replace the Romans at trebia? How did the phalanx do against the armourless swordsmen?

[The_Emperor]

I think the main difference is the length of the pikes and of course the valour level of the units.

Hannibal's strength was not in his Infantry and that much is clear. I wouldn't expect a carthaginian Phalanx to be as good as a Greek or Macedonian one.

[Leet Eriksson]

CA just stated that the game is rock papers siccors fair, so i'm betting sword infantry beat spear just like in the old MTW, i really hope to god i'm friggin wrong on this one.

Spear units are supposed to be powerful overall, i don't see how Poeni(who btw have better stats than Triarii)cannot hold hastatii...

[Dramicus]

Well I had one instance where a unit of 62 triarii faced off against one unit of 53 Sacred band in phalanx. The band walked slowly towards them and at the last moment the triarii charged, they slammed into the pikes and were slaughtered...

They fought for about 30 secs before routing, the sacred band took no casualties....

[Psyco]

CA just stated that the game is rock papers siccors fair, so i'm betting sword infantry beat spear just like in the old MTW, i really hope to god i'm friggin wrong on this one.

Spear units are supposed to be powerful overall, i don't see how Poeni(who btw have better stats than Triarii)cannot hold hastatii...

They didn't lose to the Hastati (although realistically they should have), but they were unable to keep them at any distance for more than half a second.

One trick that I read about in another forum was advancing them slowly, so that might help. I had mine standing still as it seemed like it would be the best defensivly, but apparently not.

[Aelwyn]

They still do what they should do, and thats kill cavalry. I decimated a unit of cavalry within seconds with the poeini.

[CBR]

The upgrades in the Trebia battle:

Poeni: valor 2, armor 1
Hastati: valor 6, weapon 1, armor 2
Princepes: valor 4, armor 1
Triarii: valor 4, armor 1

If we assume that valor (or experience) gives +1 attack and +1 defense then we have the following attack/defense stats adjusted for upgrades

Poeni: 11/21
Hastati: 18/22
Princepes: 15/21
Triarii: 11/22

The Poeni will have something extra for being in Phalanx formation and maybe even some rank bonuses, we dont know. We also have the different difficulty levels that will increase the stats. I assume that medium are default stats with no changes.

But its clear that the upgrades on the Roman units are a lot higher than on the Poeni, and because of that we dont have a clear picture of how strong/weak the units are supposed to be.


CBR

[Psyco]

I'm not talking about unit strength. I'm talking about how phalanxes are unable to hold enemies off. I don't think that their valor would affect that too much.

[Thoros of Myr]

Did you set them on guard mode aswell?

The sacred band infantry (probly just a bit worse then spartans depending on valor) are able to hold a better phalanx against footsoldiers but at the rate they crumble it still makes something like thermopylae seem impossible.

[Red Harvest]

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I've always had the impression that frontal assault against a disciplined phalanx was not going anywhere...it your are heavily armoured you should be able to remain among the living, but you aren't going to do a lot of damage to the phalanx either. Put in its "rock, paper, scissors" form this is rock vs. rock. The problem with the phalanx was it was S-L-O-W and difficult to turn or use on uneven ground. This inflexibility was its downfall. So what you should be looking for attacking a phalanx is to work toward its flank. Hannibal and Alexander relied on their cavalry to overcome the phalanx vulnerability. They used lighter infantry to make this work.

These phalanxes were the heavies of the time. You would not want to go toe-to-toe with them. Hit them from the flank or rear or harrass them with skirmishers. You would march up and engage them from the front to immobilize them, rather than because frontal assault was going to work. I would expect legions to have a very hard time working past the spear wall and suffer some casualties doing so. They would be more effective inside, but getting there is no cake walk. It should be slow and hazardous.

[CBR]

I'm not talking about unit strength. I'm talking about how phalanxes are unable to hold enemies off. I don't think that their valor would affect that too much.

Valor in STW/MTW is everything. One combat point might not mean as much in RTW but in STW/MTW one combat point (one valor gives 2 combat points) difference meant you killed 20% more. In RTW it might be only 10% but not sure.

Valor is what makes peasants able to kill knights and then it doesnt matter if they are peasants. Same thing with phalanx. It might hold at equal valor but against units that have 4 more valor its a different fight.


CBR

[TexRoadkill]

I have to think a lot of the anomalies we're seeing are due to the unit sizes being so small. If each unit had 200 or more men then the lines would be much wider and deeper. This would give the phalanx a much greater advantage. Right now the swordsmen only have to hack through 3 or 4 lines of spear troops to break the formation.

It seems like the RTW engine actually calculates the combat on a man vs man basis rather then just deciding a certain percentage will die on each attack. If you watch the battles closely you can see when a man gets double teamed that he usually drops very quickly. Deeper spear ranks would allow more defenders to get hits on the attacking swordsmen so any attacker would be outnumbered by around 3 to 1 on a frontal assault.

The larger unit sizes should buy you enough time to get some cav or other units on the attackers flank before they wittle down the phalanx formation to a point where it loses it's purpose.

[CBR]

In STW/MTW it was calculated for each soldier fighting and it looks like to be the same in RTW.

There might be some support ranks like we have in MTW and in that case a spear/pike unit would need a few ranks to replace the losses so it keeps getting max support bonuses.

We just dont know if RTW has a system like that nor how many ranks are helping the front.


CBR