What about the phalanx?

**Revolting Friendship** · 09-16-2005, 22:37

Excuse me beforehand if this has already been brought up and covered in another post, I've skimmed through this sub-forum but found nothing handling the subject.

To the point. There are a few issues in RTW that seriously ruins the feeling of it all, one of the major buggers is the phalanx, mainly it's mechanics, but also the AI's inability to operate or fight it in a decent manner. I don't know how and if this can be resolved in any way, one issue of it all is how troops don't deliberately try to break through the phalanx to it's front, the only way this will happen is either if you order your troops to run straight through the phalanx and then order them to engage again when they have slipped in between the pikes. Another way is to apply preasure with cavalry, in which case your troops will be forced in beyond the pikes by the sheer mass. I think you all know that when it comes to attacking phalanxes from the front, cavalry is redicoulosly enough more effective than infantry, since they litterally fly over the pikes to engage in close quarter, while their mass also forces the phalanx formation to break.

Can issues such as these be adressed to fix the phalanx? Because if not, I just won't be able to play factions using phalanx units, since if used properly they are way too overpowering against the AI. When playing a human opponent or AI using phalanx units yourself, you can as beforementioned force your units into the phalanx and thus break it up, but the AI simply does not do this, and fighting them with phalanxes is just frustrating to watch.

Well, not to mention what I call the smorgasbord-formation often employed by the AI, where it dips the flank of it's phalanxes into your lines to get slaugthered, even if they are not engaging another unit in their frontal direction. Such scenes and many other phalanx-related are a frequent cause for cutting a game-session short with immidate effect. Therefore I very much hope not to see any of the sort in EB, since I'm much looking forward to a great gaming-experience with this mod, freed from the shortcomings of the original game.

Thank you for reading.

**Reverend Joe** · 09-16-2005, 22:45

No. I can tell you now, even without an EB response, those are hardcoded.

**Revolting Friendship** · 09-16-2005, 23:37

That is really a shame, because this is really one of those things that completely pushes the game around in the mud. I guess it was a budget thing but sometimes I can't help but ask myself what CA was thinking when they implemented the phalanx formation in it's current state....

Oh well, I had loved to play with the greeks or the macedonians, but now I guess it will be all about persians and sarmatians. :\

**Oaty** · 09-17-2005, 08:41

Actually IMO EB should have phalanxes working much better than vanilla. If Rome Total Realism has them working much better, I'm sure EB has done the same.

Now the only cheese factor might be you still can stack to break a phalanx. But that's all on how you play, now if the A.I. does that to you that just means you should have enough time to keep those units pinned and do some nasty tricks on the A.I.

In RTR a head on into phalanx is suicidal and usually cavalry route before they even break the formation of a phalanx. Now if the phalanx is pinned, cavalry are pretty nasty wich is how it should work. Also hitting a pinned phalanx with a loser unit does magic too.

Now EB and RTR are 2 completely different mods. But I'm sure some things will be similar and others completely differnent.

**Geoffrey S** · 09-17-2005, 10:28

The phlanx in RTW is horrible, agreed. Quite where along the line the phalanx system got screwed up in a game about a period in which phalanxes were widespread is anyone's guess. The phalanxes themselves are badly balanced, and the AI simply can't keep a solid line.
Hopefully EB can do something about the balancing, but unfortunately getting the AI to use them properly is probably out of bounds.

**Wishazu** · 09-17-2005, 12:18

I believe they Stated in a Q&A session about the forthcoming BI that all these Phalanx issues have been dealt with. heres hoping...

**Aymar de Bois Mauri** · 09-17-2005, 20:56

Originally Posted by TomteOfDoom

Excuse me beforehand if this has already been brought up and covered in another post, I've skimmed through this sub-forum but found nothing handling the subject.

To the point. There are a few issues in RTW that seriously ruins the feeling of it all, one of the major buggers is the phalanx, mainly it's mechanics, but also the AI's inability to operate or fight it in a decent manner. I don't know how and if this can be resolved in any way, one issue of it all is how troops don't deliberately try to break through the phalanx to it's front, the only way this will happen is either if you order your troops to run straight through the phalanx and then order them to engage again when they have slipped in between the pikes. Another way is to apply preasure with cavalry, in which case your troops will be forced in beyond the pikes by the sheer mass. I think you all know that when it comes to attacking phalanxes from the front, cavalry is redicoulosly enough more effective than infantry, since they litterally fly over the pikes to engage in close quarter, while their mass also forces the phalanx formation to break.

Can issues such as these be adressed to fix the phalanx? Because if not, I just won't be able to play factions using phalanx units, since if used properly they are way too overpowering against the AI. When playing a human opponent or AI using phalanx units yourself, you can as beforementioned force your units into the phalanx and thus break it up, but the AI simply does not do this, and fighting them with phalanxes is just frustrating to watch.

Well, not to mention what I call the smorgasbord-formation often employed by the AI, where it dips the flank of it's phalanxes into your lines to get slaugthered, even if they are not engaging another unit in their frontal direction. Such scenes and many other phalanx-related are a frequent cause for cutting a game-session short with immidate effect. Therefore I very much hope not to see any of the sort in EB, since I'm much looking forward to a great gaming-experience with this mod, freed from the shortcomings of the original game.

Thank you for reading.

I can assure you that the phalanxes will be realistic in regard to their behaviour in battle.

However, in regard to the AI and it's less than stellar behaviour, even with our improvements of formations (that make most of the times the AI be a tighter less cahotic opponent) it will be very impossible to simulate a human player in battle and it's tactical inteligence, so you cannot expect a solution to the problem. Call it a band aid...

**Revolting Friendship** · 09-17-2005, 21:31

Aymar:

Thank you for the anwser, I feel a bit comforted and look forward to experience these improvements personally.

**Reverend Joe** · 09-18-2005, 03:58

By "less than stellar behavior", do you mean the Phalanxes still break their lines, but they perform better individually? Or what? This is interesting.

**QwertyMIDX** · 09-18-2005, 04:36

The AI seems to be using them better in groups thanks to our new formations, but it still doesn't handle them in a way that maximizes their effectiveness...but it least the formations seem to be helping the AI support it's phalanx units with other phalanx and its more flexible infantry.