German Phalanx Question

[m4rt14n]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this.. but,

I have a question with the German Phalanxes. How accurate are they historically? I mean you would need a lot of heavy drilling to be able to maintain the phalanx formation. IMO, the Chosen Axemen makes more sense historically than this unit.

[Hurin_Rules]

It is a bit odd that they gave the Germans a phalanx. Not completely odd, but a bit odd. Some German tribes did fight in close formations with spears; but the phalanx is usually considered a Greek innovation that spread from them. If you're going to give it to the Germans, there's no real justification for denying it to the Gauls, the Britons or the Romans pre-Marius.

[chemchok]

I think this is the around the eighth time a German phalanx thread has popped up

The German phalanx is the result of an account from Gaius Julius Caesar on them using a phalanx-like formation. I imagine that CA would rather use the Greek formation for the unit rather than coming up with an entirely different triangular formation just for the Germans.

[Watchman]

I think it would properly be termed a "shieldwall", a formation of great and respected history that stayed in use until pikemen eventually replaced it during the Middle Ages. The old Greek hoplite shieldwall (which might've been loaned from the Assyrians whose wall reliefs picture similar formations), although such formations also tend to get referred to as phalanxes, wasn't the Macedonian pike phalanx (which is what RTW means with "phalanx"), but on the other hand it could be argued that Rome's phalanx mechanic with shorter spears and shields (such as encountered with Royal Pikemen and the German Phalanx) is actually a better representation of the shieldwall that MTW's "spearmen in Hold Formation" thing.

But then at least the Triarii should be able to do it too, if you take that approach...

[Nelson]

Despite whatever Caesar might have seen the Germans do (and I agree this is the likely reference), shieldwalls really ought to be distinct from close pike formations like the phalanx. Spears or pikes were not required. The Saxons had a shieldwall at Hastings and they used axes, right? I believe Gauls and Germans both could form shieldwalls. I have no idea how often they did so.

Maybe the shieldwall will appear in the expansion. I'd like to see it.

[Ziu]

I'm not too sure about the historical accuracy of Germanic phalanges but the formation as such goes back as far as the Sumerians.

[lars573]

Having seen a reenactment of a viking shield wall, I can say that it is similar to a phalanx. But different in 1 important aspect, size. A shield wall was between 1 and 3 ranks deep, hence the reason it's called a wall. Where as a phalanx was a square block of a few hundred men who weren't quite as close together as men in a shield wall would be.

[Red Harvest]

Having seen a reenactment of a viking shield wall, I can say that it is similar to a phalanx. But different in 1 important aspect, size. A shield wall was between 1 and 3 ranks deep, hence the reason it's called a wall. Where as a phalanx was a square block of a few hundred men who weren't quite as close together as men in a shield wall would be.

I'll make an attempt at a small clarification, elements of the hoplite phalanx and Macedonian phalanx were square (or even thin rectangles) but the elements were united into a formation commonly employed as a lon line, with depth. (Extreme depth for the Macedonian "double depth" units.)

One unfortunate thing about computer limitations is that while we can see ranks in the game at only slightly reduced scale, we cannot really appreciate the width of big armies (deployed with perhaps 2 miles of frontage vs. several hundred yards in RTW.) Consider that the game scale is about 10:1. So we can have the right number of ranks and lines (or nearly so) but the overall deployment is an order of magnitude too narrow. When you get full stack armies you can start to approximate a legion. But consular armies were often 2 Roman legions, plus two allied legions. Bigger ones might be 4 Roman legions, with as many allied legions.

I think we are hitting the wall with respect to AI's ability to cope. Even when computers and graphics cards can handle full size armies, the AI is unlikely to be sophisticated enough to move so many units with any level of competency. The complexity of everything else increases, but the complexity of the AI stays the same...and to top it off, it has a lot more to manage in a coherent fashion. The AI might be able to move single units properly, but it will always be more difficult to get it to wield an army. That requires much higher level decisions, and programmers are unlikely to have the time/money to build such an AI.

[CBR]

But different in 1 important aspect, size. A shield wall was between 1 and 3 ranks deep, hence the reason it's called a wall.

Maybe because there were not enough reenactors to have more ranks
I doubt any reenactors have created a 16 x 16 men syntagma but would be a great sight no doubt.


CBR

[Spartakus]

It is a bit odd that they gave the Germans a phalanx. Not completely odd, but a bit odd. Some German tribes did fight in close formations with spears; but the phalanx is usually considered a Greek innovation that spread from them. If you're going to give it to the Germans, there's no real justification for denying it to the Gauls, the Britons or the Romans pre-Marius.

Balance. While this game does a great job in re-enacting history, it's still a game. Sometimes the developers must sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of playability.

Now you could argue that the Gaul's troop rooster sucks and needs spearmen capable of forming the phalanx, but that's another discussion.

[Watchman]

At Hastings the Saxon "grunt" troops, the fyrd levy, fought mostly with spears and shields, and formed a shieldwall. By what I've read it had quite a bit of depth, though more in the "throng" than the "rank and file" sense - Harold had, after all, brought every man he could muster. The Saxons' elite troops, the Huscarles, were the ones with the big axes and they naturally enough could neither use shields with them nor form a shieldwall to fight from. Big axes need room and both hands to swing. I've read (and the Bayeux Tapestry seems to suggest) that the Huscarles "teamworked" - every axeman was paired with a guy who wielded a sword and a shield, and protected the axeman as necessary.

For RTW purposes a "shieldwall" phalanx and a "macedonian" phalanx ought to be similar enough to use the same basic mechanic - what mostly separated the "macedonian" phalanx from the older "hoplite" one (at least on the battlefield) was the pikes, and the special considerations they required.

[Colovion]

my German campaign was the fastest completed campaign because the surrounding 'barbarian' nations couldn't stand up to my Phalanxes whatsoever. I think I finished that one about 230BC or so.