The very useful(cough cough)schiltrom replacement

[LordKhaine]

Works better if you do it against the side or corner of a map, and have archers and perhaps an onager unit. And a couple of cavalry units to mop up the routing enemy..

Not that I use such rather cheap tactics often.. *whistles*

[pezhetairoi]

I use them all the time with the Germans. Massed cavalry in the middle, phalanx ring on the three sides (front facing the enemy and the flanks of that face) and archers dispersed throughout the space. If I have enough spears I cover the fourth side, else I just throw whatever other infantry I have there.

Not a single unit has ever broken before, and never has any unit suffered more than 40 out of 240 dead, even when practically the entire enemy army is piling itself on it, even when I never had archers. Usually the massed cavalry charge through the phalanx when the first units start wavering is enough to set the entire army running. Roman ranged units usually never manage to do me any damage because they usually have time for one salvo, then the heavy infantry are upon me and the scripting automatically stops the ranged attacks for fear of FF.

But this formation is spectacularly useless against phalanx attack. I was doing Germans vs Greek with this formation, and I went off for a cup of tea while the enemy hoplites and militia hoplites shattered themselves on me. I came back to find that the front-facing spear warband had only 80 men left (holy shit) and falling fast, and the others were all in various stages of being mauled. My cavalry had to save the day by charging straight into the weakest militia unit to break it and force a gap to outflank the others. This was without archers, see.

[antisocialmunky]

I wish RTW had an overlap penalty.

[pezhetairoi]

Yeah that would certainly liven things up a bit, wouldn't it? ^_^

[antisocialmunky]

It could make the AI more challenging or alot stupider.