Quote Originally Posted by Surprise
Historically, the greek phalanx was undefeated against frontal assualts...
It's the same in RTW... Don't let any units get behind or on the side of your phalanx and you'll be doing real well.
Easier said than done on turbo "normal" game speed.

And even if you do keep them from flanking you can still get odd results: I just had a roman general's cav unit knock out two phalanx side by side...with a head on charge. They had taken about 1/4 casualties getting to the plaza and were winded but were in phalanx formation and resting--they were not exhausted, and I had a 3 star general vs. 2 star one. One sacred band, one poeni infantry--charged frontally by a single heavy cav unit and destroyed. He enveloped both of them from the head on charge. Granted, he was fresh and this was on very hard, and he was faction leader so it was a big unit. But he wasn't taking casualties from charging the spears. He then knocked off a tired Libyan spearman that was coming in to back them up, just for kicks I suppose. And my other non-tired sacred band got whipped by triarii at the wall. They were taking a bit of fire from the towers, but they were not tired and they were backed by other units (while the triarii was alone.)

In the same battle I did wipe out his entire relief force (mostly triarii) with light cavalry though...before the sappers finished their work. The cav really tore up those triarii despite being outnumbered.

Of course the cav was annihilated when they followed otherworldly paths around the walls rather than entering the holes I ordered them in to. This was the worst siege battle I've had.

Back to cav armies...at least now I get Sacred Band cavalry.