Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec
Btw, how is the EB team depicting hoplites in their 1.5 build? I've played a bit of RTR Platinum before I had to deinstall everything to keep myself studying for my exams, and I recall that hoplites had a phalanx like formation by default, related to the new short_pike attribute. It didn't give them a range advantage like the old RTW phalanx, but it kept them nicely close together even outside of guard mode. I think it's perfect for classical hoplites.
Well, long ago we experimented with that formation and overhand animation but it keeps the inflexibility of the RTW macedonian style phalanx and that was not so in ancient times. The classical hoplite phalanx was quite a lot more articulate, manouverable and not as vulnerable from the sides as the macedonian phalanx. Additionaly, the way the spear positioning is hard-codded in RTW makes the spear placement look odd - horizontal with horizontal thrust and with the hoplite's hand at the back of the spear which is totally innacurate. Also hit-boxes are affected by the fact the horizontal manouver of the spear aims for the head only. We have a different implementation. To use the classical hoplite phalanx (a shieldwall effectivelly) in EB, you need to keep them in guard mode and alt+attack to change to spears whenever they start fighting with swords. That way you get a flexible phalanx that can make quite an effective shieldwall.

Classical phalanx:


EB tests of classical phalanx using hard-codded RTW phalanx:


Current EB implementation - both units use it but Hypaspists are in non-Guard mode and Baktrioi Agema in Guard mode:


I hope this sheds some light...