The odd thing about phalanx units is that they are so extreme in the game. On hard levels they are extremely brittle even from the front. The smaller unit size ones suffer tremendously from *any* casualties. However, when you get to use the larger sized units, they can be quite effective. The German spear warband is a pleasure to use for example. When I've modded other smaller phalanx units up to the same size they became much too powerful! I've had to start reducing attack ratings for these phalanx units when increasing size.

So despite brittleness at other times they are too hardy! There are times when engaging units are slaughtered much too rapidly at the end of the hoplite spears/phalanx pikes. I guess I imagine the kills coming more slowly with a few folks penetrating the pike wall gradually to strike direct blows. Contrast with the demo where I was miffed by the fact that there was no effective spear wall. In the demo contact with swords against the shield's of the Poeni was being made almost instantly and the Poeni infantry were falling as rapidly as hastati. It looks like it was overcorrected to some degree in the full version. It would be interesting to see high quality sword infantry slowly work into and disorder a moderate level phalanx, slowly disordering its frontage while taking casualties (on the sword side) while inflicting few to the hoplites/phalangites. Then suddenly a schism would open and the phalanx would break so that the swords would have a clear upper hand.

The square issue is a very substantial one for phalangites. It afflicts cav and others as well. It appears that the coding of the plaza results in some sort of "funnel" path through the geometric center whenever you try to cross it (sort of like the lane at the gates.) Why we can't march across in order with any unit is beyond my understanding, but I do understand that it is fatal to a phalanx. "All roads lead to Rome" and all paths across the plaza go through the flagpole at the center. It really does resemble a blackhole since there is a sort of "tidal" stretch as units get sucked in.

The pause to lower spears/pikes just before contact is maddening!!! It reminds me of the 'pila pause' and the javelin cav/horse archer/chariot archer pause when charging. Other infantry does it at times too about 30 yards from my line. It's like they are charging and at the last minute the officer yells, "Charge!" in a screechy voice and they all stop in their tracks to look at him to see what is wrong...then resume the charge.

With the spear warband I find the "march through" with guard off works pretty well in open field battles. I rarely order attacks because of the problem you mention, but I do issue short range march throughs around the field. As a tactic doesn't suffer as much from the "phalanx shuffle." That's why the phalanx shuffle doesn't bother me much. When the shuffle does happen it is overdone. So my big complaint with it is that it is overdone. If it was tied to experience or attack level (lower level = more shuffle) then it might be more logical.

Heavy cav and jumping horses...you know how I feel about that already. Cav should find it very difficult to break up close order spears/pike frontally. (Of course, cav seems to get bonuses when charging elephants and infantry too...again this flies in the face of reason. It's not too hard to visualize a fix--simply dropping the charge bonus when engaging counter units this way.) The jumping animation could easily be dropped by CA when horsies charge a spearwall--even if they keep it elsewhere.