Shuffling Hoplite problem....

[Mikeus Caesar]

...i know many people have adressed this in the past, about how the hoplites shuffle to the right when fighting, but recently on my game this was taken too far: I had let syracuse rebel so i could exterminate the population, i set my spartans on some militia hoplites, i come back a minute later and.....there's about 100 meters between them. They had a large gap in between them, and they were poking thin air.

[Krusader]

That is an annyoing bug/feature.

I decided to test a unit of Silver Shield Pikemen VS Sacred Band Infantry, and they ended up with a big gap...

Some unknown rule of phalanx warfare?

[Ldvs]

Yes this was reported at the very beginning. I encountered it though not to that extent.

[Didz]

I suspect that this is the result of some amazing historical research which proves that in battle the hoplites constant pressure to dress right and close the gaps in their ranks caused the entire unit to drift right during battle.

I first noticed it during a bridge battle where my Nubian spearmen began to shuffle right and expose the bridge threshold. The trick is not to try and correct the movement otherwise you disrupt unit cohesion.

I just move a reserve phalanx into the gap and let the Nubians shuffle themselves out of action.

[Zorn]

It would make at least a little sense if the phalanx would bend and wrap itself around the enemy unit if it reaches its left end. That way they could attack the enemies left flank. It exposes their own flank too, however, so it won`t help that much.
But since the frontline remains completely straight, the whole manouver is just retarded. I have lost cities because my hoplites, that were perfectly aligned to hold a crucial road push themself against a wall to their right, thus creating a gaping hole to their left in wich countless enemies flood which then quickliy surround and destroy my foolish phalanx.

I would be very very glad if this "feature" would be removed.

[Zorn]

It would make at least a little sense if the phalanx would bend and wrap itself around the enemy unit if it reaches its left end. That way they could attack the enemies left flank. It exposes their own flank too, however, so it won`t help that much.
But since the frontline remains completely straight, the whole manouver is just retarded. I have lost cities because my hoplites, that were perfectly aligned to hold a crucial road push themself against a wall to their right, thus creating a gaping hole to their left in wich countless enemies flood which then quickliy surround and destroy my foolish phalanx.

I would be very very glad if this "feature" would be removed.

[hoof]

It's actually quite simple.

Phalanx units start out in "guard" mode, and "guard" mode forces the unit to maintain facing. This is designed so that you can maintain a spear wall among multiple units without fear of a unit rotating during combat and exposing it's flank (turning sideways to the intended multi-unit spearwall).

The solution is to turn "guard" mode off. The units will still shuffle right, but they will automatically rotate their unit to keep the enemy in the middle of the wall of spears. They do this without doing the "raise pikes, turn, lower" technique too. As an extra bonus, they will actually close range with the enemy rather than simply keeping them at spearpoint, which dramatically increases their killing power.

One of the problems with spearmen in MTW was that unless a unit attacked them square-on, they would rotate as a unit to face the enemy, exposing their flanks. "Guard" mode fixes this problem, at the expense of the problem mentioned by the poster. I suspect that "Guard" mode was put on by default so that those unfamiliar with the guard mode capabilities wouldn't get frustrated when setting up phalanx spearwalls with phalanxes that rotate and expose their line when the player wanted the spearwall to keep a particular direction.

[hoof]

BTW, if you want to see what I'm talking about in action, set up a hoplite-vs-hoplite (or pikemen-vs-pikemen) custom battle on level terrain. The AI keeps its unit in "guard" mode, so if you take yours off of "guard" mode, you should see two things:

1) Your guys close so that actual combat takes place (with both units on "guard" mode, the unit's speartips are in contact but nothing else)

2) As your guys shuffle, they rotate as a unit. It's quite pleasant to see them shuffle to the enemy's flank, and end up spearpoints-into-flank slaughtering them.

[Byzantine Prince]

Why is this such a problem gor you guys? All you have to do is press stop and the hoplites will focus. Trust me it works.

[Ziu]

If you are protecting wooden wall breaches then guard mode on is best.
On way to counter the shuffle is to overlay a standard phalanx formation with a two rank phalanx formation. Phalanges set into a long two rank formation will oddly enough shuffle left. The standard shuffles right. So if you overlay the two units they will counter each others shuffle and stay put. You also get the added effect of more density of spears.

[Mikemyers64]

turn off 'guard' mode and they will push forward which is even more historically acurrate because the idea of the phalanx was to push forward with a wall of spears

[The_Emperor]

turn off 'guard' mode and they will push forward which is even more historically acurrate because the idea of the phalanx was to push forward with a wall of spears

With regard to the Hoplite Phalanx that is very true (hoplites would literally push through the enemy, relying on the collective strength of their formation). But Alexander and his father didn't intend the Macedonian Pike Phalanx to be the deciding arm of the army... They were used more as a pinning force to tie up the enemy with minimal casualties (protected by the sheer length of their Sarissa Pikes) while the Cav flanked.

Sadly though the Successors of Alexander later used them more like a Hoplite Phalanx to push through to victory rather than relying on his combined arms Tactics. But as everyone else was using the same tactics the inherant flaws of doing so were not apparant until Rome arrived.

[Mikeus Caesar]

turn off 'guard' mode and they will push forward which is even more historically acurrate because the idea of the phalanx was to push forward with a wall of spears

Hehe, i did that once. I've never seen so many people get killed by one hoplite unit. They really are like steam rollers, if you get them to attack a unit at the back of the enemy army. They just walk straight through, impaling peasants as they go.

[The_Emperor]

Hehe, i did that once. I've never seen so many people get killed by one hoplite unit. They really are like steam rollers, if you get them to attack a unit at the back of the enemy army. They just walk straight through, impaling peasants as they go.

Yeah it works a treat. You should have seen one of my city assaults against Rome as the Greeks... The Romans had a great many men (pre-marius), I sent my V2 Fully upgraded Spartans up the streets first followed closely by Armoured Hoplites, the Spartans mauled pretty much 80% of the Roman army, the few that got past the Armoured Hoplites killed.

The Spartans only lost 30 guys and had slain hundreds!!

[Gith]

I did a quick scenario....Armoured hoplites vs heavy spearmen from Armenia. I started off as normal, guard mode on...they danced around and no one died. I put guard mode off on my armoured hoplites, and they began advancing. However, the heavy spearmen began to swiftly massacre my hoplites. Anything I did wrong?

[Spino]

I know its been discussed ad nauseum and I know what I'm about to write has been said countless times before but only spear formations that relied on an overlapping shield wall (i.e. hoplites) suffered from the 'phalanx shuffle'. Furthermore one could take the argument one step further and say that well trained, experienced hoplite units were probably less likely to suffer from the shuffle step because of said experience and training.

There is no evidence to support that the Macedonian style phalanx suffered from this phenomenon. It wouldn't make much sense because the interlocking shield wall had been transformed into a wall of spears thanks to the introduction of the two handed sarissa and the deeper rank formation which allowed more spears to be brought to bear on the enemy. Phalangites stood farther apart from the other men in their row and each man in the formation relied exclusively on his own armor and smaller sized, shoulder slung shield for protection. If the first four or five ranks of a Macedonian phalanx drifted to the right the whole formation would begin to warp or 'snake' to the right with the rear ranks noticeably lagging behind the ones in front. With a hoplite phalanx the front ranks 'steer' the formation right because they instinctively seek the protection of their comrade's overlapping shield to their right. Since the rear ranks were actually pushing the ones in front of them forward you can see how the whole formation could develop a slow inexorable drift to the right.

CA should turn the phalanx shuffle OFF!

[The_Emperor]

CA should turn the phalanx shuffle OFF!

Well at least for the Sarissa Pike Phalanx and other pahalnx that do not require overlapping of big shields.

Hoplites should keep it though.

[aw89]

to a certain extent of course...