Step two three, shuffle two three, dance two three : the big phalanx question

[Accounting Troll]

When I am using phalanxes, I order each individual phalanx to attack a particular enemy unit rather than grouping them and giving orders to the group as a whole. They only break formation and engage with swords if they get flanked, so I usually have some cavalry on standby to prevent my phalanxes from being flanked.

I have only noticed the shuffle when I have about half a dozen phalanxes attacking a lone enemy unit, so some of my men have to budge up to make room for their comrades.

City streets often don't have enough room for attackers to stay in formation, so I disable phalanx mode when my pikemen are storming a city.

Phalanxes are supposed to engage the entire enemy infantry line simultaneously, but if you group your units and give them orders to attack as a group, the game thinks you want all your units to attack a particular enemy unit, so your men end up breaking formation. You definatly need to be a fan of micromanaging your battles to get the best out of phalanxes.

[Doug-Thompson]

This is too bizarre.

Attacking something should not be this difficult.

I guess it's too early to ask if there's anything similar to a rank bonus as there is in M:TW, etc.

Also, maybe RTW just isn't like MTW. Maybe guard mode should be left off, period.

My experience with RTW spear units is extremely limited, but trying MTW-type tactics of staying together in four ranks didn't work at all for me. Eastern Infantry may be the worst spear unit in the game, but getting beat by an equal number of peasants was embarrassing.

[Ulstan]

Phalanxes are implemented amazingly poorly in RTW.

As frog and many of the rest of you discovered, simply clicking (or double clicking) on the target involves the phalanx marching up, lowering their spears well short of the enemy, and then simply refusing to advance for the longest time while they blindly all shuffle off to buffalo in happy oblivion. The only way you get any action is if the enemy is foolish enough to throw themselves on your spears.

To get my phalanxes to attack, I have to click beyond the enemy (and from enough distance away from the enemy). Naturally, this is very micromanagemnt intensive if the enemy rearranges his battlelines.

And the phalanx sidestep is NOT historical and moreover, is NOT good gameplay. It's beyond foolish. The 'phalanx drift' occured predominantly as the men were marching or charging towards the enemy under a hail of arrows. It occured much less frequently once the phalanx was locked in combat, for the simple reason you didn't *have* freedom of lateral movement without corresponding forward movement, because of the mass of men pushing in from behind. The way it's depicted in game, with the entire phalanx taking a step to the side every, second, is ridiculous.

This also illustrates how absolutely silly a phalanx looks attacking when they creep up. Stop, then all lower their sticks and gingerly poke away while shuffling away from the fight as if they wish they were elswhere.. No, no, NO. Phalanxes smashed their enemies using their weight and momentum. Stopping just before the final collision would be unheard of. They should charge into the enemy headfirst.

The lateral drift also wreaks absolute havoc with gameplay. I had a unit of spartan hoplites attacking a unit of my archers. The hoplites came up, attacked the archers in the center, and then slowly driftted off to the side. The unengaged archers of course, are shooting them the entire time. They eventually kill off the 1/2 of the archers on their side, drift faaaaaar away, and finally go through all kinds of contortions to turn around and get back into action - getting shot in back by the archers the whole time. It completely destroys any belief you are watching a real battle.

An additional match up was sacred band vs early legion or something. The sacred band drifted and drifted and drifted and drifted until - the entire phalanx was facing *nothing* but thin air, and the only man in the unit fighting was the man on the extreme right who had his sword out and was fighting a swarm of very bemused legionares watching the phalanx slowly sidestap away perpendicularly to their own line. Naturally this poor right flank sacred band fellow was quickly cut down and replaced by the man behind him, as the sacred band continued their mad shuffle leftwards.

To sum up : the lateral drift is far too pronounced to be even remotely historical, and is far to disruptive to good gameplay to leave in.

[Osbot]

I totally agree. Everything i've ever read about the Phalanx was that it was a highly aggressive forward moving shock unit with severely limited mobility. The Phalanx portrayed in this game is a tentative fickle defensive unit. Let me clearify myself. Elite phalanx units were very aggressive adept at utterly shattering the enemies battle line, conscripted/levy phalanxes were more defensive. I don't mind if militia hoplites and levy phalanxes behave sort of the way they do in this game. However, when I unleash silvershields/spartans/royalpikes/bronzeshields I FULLY expect them to absolutely dominate anything that comes at them head on, moreover I expect them to blow that section of the line out allowing me to flood cavalry through said gap.

The current situation is not only unhistorical its highly frustrating >

[SwordsMaster]

Well, unless "unleash hell" is intended to describe the phalanx losing cohesion and shuffling to its doom.

LOL Never heard that one so far....

[Red Harvest]

I still think the key is to move your phalanx arm as a continuous line past the enemy line as Ulstan suggests This is the only way I've found to get them to behave as a unit/line. I am leaving them in the default guard mode that the German Spear Warband comes in. This keeps them from fracturing as soon as enemy units rout. I do change orders when they actually engage to get them to match up better and I'll pull them out of phalanx sometimes to reface once they rout the guy in front of them.

As barocca mentioned, I use 4 rank depth to give width to the 121 man German phalanx. The 80 man phalanx units are too small. I don't know what CA was thinking, but they don't work well at that unit size. If you could "weld" the phalanx units it would be different although they would still suffer inordinately from the loss of individual soldiers.

Kraxis doubts the historical shuffle to the right when engaged. I'm sitting on the fence, since I liked his arguments, but I've seen a lot that says otherwise. (Plus I think the position of the spear and placement of the feet would tend to produce some "pull" in combat.) I will say this regardless of the historical accuracy, with the multitude of problems phalanx units face in RTW, the shuffle is a "bridge too far" and should be removed.

I'm going to have to watch more to see what I'm doing...I'm having very good luck with them vs. the Gauls, Dacians, and Britons...but I'm allied with Rome so I'm not facing heavyweights. I swore off infantry as Carthage after finding the phalanx units unusable on vh/vh, but I lacked the availability of cav as Germania early on...and large phalanx units readily available as Germania.

One thing is certain. Phalanx armies need cav, else the army you just whipped will escape off the map to fight you again next turn. When I'm down to scraps of two cav units in each army as Germania, I feel this deficiency in the worst possible way. I'm about three turns from Gaul, Briton, and Dacia running out of money to pump out full stacks every turn (been watching their finances as they gang up on me...oh, there will be a RECKONING!)

[barocca]

Here are my recommendations for using the phalanx capable units for greece, macedon and selucid as they appear in the game,

Phalanx units are not fast moving, they wont blitz through the enemy line in a heart beat (they are heavy troops, not shock cavalry),
But they will decimate most anything that gets in their way.

Phalanx Troops were a Steam Roller, they did punch through enemy lines, but they did not do it quickly.


To Get the Most out of Phalanx Units
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Turn Guard Mode off,
Phalanx units will never persue routing troops very far at all anyway, even in aggressive mode. IF you want them to persue a routing unit take them out of phalanx and order them to chase.

Keep your phalanx units in a cohesive line (open field battles)

If you take a unit out of phalanx to move/redeploy quickly, Then give them a few seconds to reform before attacking

Pick your targets and double-click

Protect the flanks
Protect the End of the line with cavalry and heavy infantry
Protect any Gaps that may appear between Phalanx units with nimble troops, they need to be able to move quickly to guard the flanks of your Phalanx,
You dont need to try to engage anything, just stand in the gap so nothing can get at the flanks.

IF Your army leader is in a Phalanx unit be very carefull, watch where The Actual Leader Figure is standing and try to keep him out of a Phalanx/Phalanx confrontation
- he only has a sword,
- he will try to charge the wall of spears,
- he will wind up poisoning the carrion birds...

Avoid Terrain Obstacles where possible, they will disrupt formation and disrupt cohesion of a line of phalanx units.
IF you must pass through a terrain obstacle pre-order your line to stop immediately after the obstacle to allow your line to remain "solid".

I pin the enemy main line with my Phalanx units, knowing they will hold long enough for me to go round the flanks and deal with skirmishers and missile troops, then to fall uon the rear of the units the phalanx troops have pinned.

I also use Phalanx units in City Assaults,
I make 3 breaches in the wall, I time them so the first breach is the gate and make one additional breach EACH side of the gate some 15 to 30 seconds later.
I push a Phalanx into the Gate to attract and pin enemy troops, then push something else through the breaches to either side and sandwich the units pinned by my Phalanx.
Then I use my Phalanx units to guard the gate area, and everything else moves into the city.


How to deal with an enemy Phalanx.
Simple, use a reasonable defensive unit as a "pin" on guard mode to engage the Phalanx, and hit the Phalanx from the sides and rear with cavalry.

_________________________________________________________________
What can go wrong

If you leave Guard Mode On for Greece, Macedon and Selucids the Phalanx units become dancing fools.
You can enhance and prolong dancing fool mode by clicking behind the enemy line rather than a direct attack on a unit.

PLEASE NOTE results Cannot be guaranteed if you have installed ANY mods that you yourself did not make, You have NO guarantee what the mod-maker may have tweaked and forgotten to mention.
and if YOU made a mod make sure you did not tweak or alter ANY units.

[Doug-Thompson]

[Edited note: barocca's post and mine "passed in the ether." This reply is not a reply to barocca's.]

As barocca mentioned, I use 4 rank depth to give width to the 121 man German phalanx.

... The 80 man phalanx units are too small. I don't know what CA was thinking, but they don't work well at that unit size. If you could "weld" the phalanx units it would be different although they would still suffer inordinately from the loss of individual soldiers.

Well, if you infantry pros would tolerate some guesses from an enemy (cavalry) player ...

Having a formation only two ranks deep seems to relieve the deadly "friendly fire" problem quite a bit when a friendly missile unit is behind you. I think (guess?) that the 80-man phalanx units are meant to work in very close conjunction with missile units.

Although a triarii is not a phalanx unit, I tried some experiments tonight with the triarii and hastati (sp?). There is no triarii rank bonus. However, there is quite a charge bonus. Stretching the triarii into a thin, 2-rank line put the maximum number of spear points on the front line, maximizing that charge bonus. The hastati were behind the spears and threw their javelins over the heads of the triarii without killing their friends in front. After a couple of throws, the hastati charged and finished off the Carthaginian Long-Shields unit.

The cavalry fought to the end, losing their general just before the whole unit was destroyed, leaving two routing survivors. The infantry had no height advantage. The test was run a couple of times on grassy flatlands, with the AI obligingly charging right in. I still had only 20 triarii and 55 hastati left, but destroyed a very good cavalry unit.

I suspect that a long, thin phalanx (which I admit is an oxymoron) backed by slingers or archers would be very deadly.

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As for big phalanx units, it seems that phalanx combat is not very satisfying but it is effective. A phalanx unit four ranks deep cuts down hastati, leaving three survivors and losing only eight men. It took time, however -- which was interesting, considering all the complaints the forum has had about kill rates.

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I never thought a spear unit would need more micro than horse archers, but it does appear that big phalanx units can be manuevered effectively by keeping one finger between the phalanx and "run" buttons, and switching between the two a lot. The facing buttons help a lot, too.

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As for the crushing advance of a charging phalanx and historical accuracy, I'm -- just going to stop now.