phalanx/anti-phalanx

**jerby** · 12-22-2004, 21:30

i'm loving the phalnx. untill i had to play against them with the brutii.
are there any advanced strategies against phalanxes?. just flanking wont do it ( princepes vs armoured hoplites)
also... can anybody reskin the spartan hoplite to a more nobel unit.
the red robe just doesn't cut it. how bout making them with teh same helmets the generals have? and maybe a black/red shield...

i found one thing in city's against phalanxes.
wait with infantry on a corner. when the enemy phalanx turns: they lift their spears. if you time it right your units can get in between and make the phalnxuntis use their swords: genious!

**Rurik the Chieftain** · 12-22-2004, 22:06

Phalanxes don't move terribly fast, so try to charge them from behind, or more than one side at once. You can also try to tie them up with an expendable unit, and have lots of archers and skirmishers rain projectiles on them. Use cavalry flanking to disrupt their formation, as a messed-up phalanx is no good.

**jerby** · 12-22-2004, 22:35

ok, thanks

now i'm playing als bruttii pre-maruis, rome total realism. i ahve very limited resources: only hastati, princepes and triarii slingers velites and equites( terrible in h2h). so its quite hard against those superior armoured hoplites: it takes me two flankings of horses/infantry one unit of velites and a disposable unit in front of the phalanx just to take down three arnmoured hoplites.
so their is not much i can do against a full army and therefore i ask for tips

**Ptah** · 12-23-2004, 04:58

Deploy your lines in an echelon formation, and start attack from one corner first. Never deploy it parallel to the enemy lines and have all your men start attacking/defending at the same time.

This is because as a single unit the armoured hoplites are one of the most reliable and cost-efficient units in the game, and they will rarely break when fighting against just one or two hastati or principes, even if you got them locally surrounded.

Assuming both the Greeks and Romans have 10 units each, to quickly rout powerful hoplites in defensive posture you need to pit at least 3~4 hastati/principes against one of their armoured hoplites all at once. However, if you try to flank the enemy from both left and right sides, that will effectively take 50% of your total units. That leaves only about 5~6 of your Roman units to defend the center against 8 hoplite units.

What typically happens is your center is shattered before your flanking forces get their job done. So your center routs, then each of your flanking forces are isolated and destroyed.

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So, if you want to avoid that and strengthen the center so they will hold long enough, that means you have less number of units to use to flank the hoplites - which of course, means that it's not gonna work at all.

Besides, even if you stregthen the center it's still about the same number of hoplite units vs Roman units. Pre-marian Roman infantry has no chance against hoplites from the front, so eventually, the center is gonna rout anyway.

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Therefore, this dilemma is solved by deploying your units in an echelon formation, where the wing that is protruded at front(forward wing) is stronger than the other wing that falls back(rear wing).

Advance to the enemy in that formation, and use all of your strongest units in the forward wing to hit one corner of the enemy first. The rear wing needs to be prepared to counter the movement of the rest of the phalange.

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* If the hoplites army breaks its battle line to go save that corner which is under attack from your forward wing, disengage your forward wing a little bit and form a new battle line there. At the same time, quickly move your rear wing, isolate the phalanx unit at the rear end, and hunt it down one by one.

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* If the hoplite army chooses to advance, retreat your rear wing so they avoid combat, and buy more time for your forward wing. Keep retreating, so that your battle line always stays in an echelon against their lines.

Since in this case the phalange chose to advance, the units consisting their right wing are now dissipated and routing. Reposition your forward wing units so they repeat the same attack again.

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* If the hoplite army chooses to respond in orderly fashion, retreat your forward wing and form a new battle line. Your Forward wing now becomes the new rear wing, and redeploy your rear wing so it becomes a new forward wing. In other words, the roles between forward and rear wings switch.

These series of tactics are known to be developed by Epaminondas. Since your troops aren't strong enough to to face all of the enemy troops at the same time, form an echelon, and always secure a local but huge numbers advantage over the enemy at one side, and "cut the corners" off one by one.

The problem is that TR mods are heavily influenced by "infantries are turtles" school of opinion among RTW gamers, and uses an overly penalizing unit terrain speed modifiers. So in TR mods where the units are all put in slow motion (so that ham-fisted people can meddle around during battle to make pretty formations and lines and think they are doing something 'tactical', instead of instantly react and respond to whatever is thrown to them on a dynamic scale) it is pretty hard to flank anything in the first place.

So personally, I recommend you restore your original "descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt" file to use with TR4.0(it's possible). It makes a good experience with all the wonderful changes and kill rate reduction TR4.0 has to offer, combined with the dynamic tactical approach of original RTW.

**Red Harvest** · 12-23-2004, 07:29

While the echelon description is on, the ham-fisted comments are way off the mark. Last I checked it took more than a second or two to order a mass charge or completely reorder a line in real life. In fact, the actual front was often a mile or two or three across. It took hours just to deploy battle lines for major battles. Such battles would not be decided in seconds as in RTW. It took time for battles to play out, partially because of the distance (that and armed and armoured men in formation don't usually subdue one another in 3 seconds...but that's another matter.) Command lag was much, much longer, but units were more likely to follow some general group type commands such as advance/hold/flank/wheel. They wouldn't have to wait for micromanaging orders from the field commander before following some basic maneuvers.