Units In Square Formation?

[Prodigal]

I been using square formation against those egypt's down south for a long while now. Works a treat, get them to attack you, & form a square with phalanxs' forming the sides, archers & the general in the middle & you're laughing.

Shame there's no way to form it automatically with select units though

[KyodaiSteeleye]

That formation sounds quite effective - not sure how historical it is though - weren't square formations a napoleonic invention?

[Watchman]

Naw. Far as I know the formation (in post-medieval European use anyway) dates back to Late Middle Ages pikemen, who formed into huge dense blocks with the missile troops forming an outer layer. The practice was for the missile troops to take cove under the leveled pikes when beset by cavalry and fire point-blank, or move out of the way and provide support fire when clashing with other infantry. Such a formation could at least in principle fight simultaneously in every direction. The core of the square was where the halberds and two-handed swords went into (true greatswords went into the front ranks to hack up the enemy pike-wall), who moved in to exploit any breaches in the opposite formation and countered any breaches in their own ranks.

The later hollow square was a defensive anti-cavalry formation which utilized volley fire and bayonets (plus flanking fire from the regimental guns, which went into the corners) to keep the horsemen at bay and deny outflanking, formed out of the thin firing lines the infantry normally fought in. It was apparently extremely effective in its primary purpose, but apparently horribly vulnerable to enemy artillery and AFAIK none too good against infantry, and thus only adopted if there was a pressing need to.

[Siris]

I dont know, but in my first Greek campaign, I was out numbered around 3,00o vs. 800 give or take a few units on large settings, so would bel ike 3,000 of mine vs. around 10,000 of theirs or more on Huge.

I put my guys in a square, with two reserve units to move into any nearly breaking point, some to protect flank, and two thick lines to defend the front of phalanx Hoplites.

The Romans hit me hard, battle lasted around 30 minutes. The Hastati's & Principes & Triarii's died in waves but were still making it through.

Reserve enemy army shows up from the rear with four heavy calvery units, which crashed into the air hitting my rear defence line, broke it, hit my General, but ran & all were massacred.

Enemy army curved around, fighting on all three sides |-| I lost 400 men in the end from the archers, peltasts, & hordes of Romans, but 2,600+ enemies lie dead on the field & I had won! So the Square is a nice tactic. I think I posted about it here after that battle, but those SS's are long since deleted from my hosting so can re-post them. But I was the first to use them in RTW that I had sceen.

[Siris]

I've perfected this with the Greeks, I use in my squares:

1 General Unit
6 Cretan Archer Units (or regular Archers, preferably Cretan)
1 Heavy or Regular Onager
12 Spartan or Armoured Hoplites

Two or three units on the front, backed by two or three more, two or three on the right & left, two or one in the rear, all of the archers & General & onager in the center.

Why an onager? It is perfect in MP for taking out Roman testudo formations which they enjoy doing whenever your cretan or regular archers spray their butts. My onagers in MP have taken out nearly 1,000 men in testudo's, very very effective.

Btw, I play as Aaron in MP during the weekends, may see me & Torque around, hes a guy I know. I'm the strategist, always tellnig him what to get, & where to put them... we havent lost a battle yet!

[Kraxis]

Actually the Spartans used a massive hollow square when on the march to make certain that they could always present a wall of men to an ambush. Seems sensible enough and sounds very Spartan.

[Siris]

They fight to the death I'll tell ya, well, at least "most" of the time. I've had one unit in Large settings (81 men per unit) route when surrounded by the Senate Imperial army in the Roman province fields, when only 17 of them were left.

But then in MP, I had a unit of Spartans fight to the last map against 1,000 enemies in the streets of a city. When only two remained, still not routing, they were pressed on their backs against a wall, me & Torque watched them cheering them on, (though they cannot hear us or anything), and they killed a count of 13 more enemy Roman legionaries by themselves, and then were both killed.... pressed against a wall with back facing it... 500 eemies left alive infront of them pressing them up against the wall... 159 fellow men in armies dead (the rest of their unit)... and they still fought to the death!

Me & Torque bring those two fella's up everyday that we get on to play that, lol! Talk about being remembered!

I think that when the enemy MP player saw this, he knew he would not win that fight.