Phalanx V-formation...exploit?

[gurakshun]

The one I'm talking about is a tactic I've seen on youtube and later fully optimized it for my own usage (optimal physical position of the phalanxes, optimal angle to keep them, etc.)


If you're not familiar with it, it kind of remembles this :
iiiii
\i/
Where "i" represents walkable areas, and the slashes represents where the phalanxes are places - basically you use them at chokepoints like bridges and gateways/wall breaches.

The enemy that walks in gets almost instantly killed because they are getting stabbed from 2 directions at the same time, and the "vertex" of the formation is virtually unbreakable because the pikes are crossed and there is virtually nothing but pike points in that area.

It's been really effective, you can use it with any units that are able to phalanx. It does get broken however...due to a couple of reasons
1) enemy missle units that fire up on your now exposed flanks
2) medium amounts of bodyguard cav/cataphract level cavs are able to push past the pike points and can stay significantly longer than any infantry.
3) the enemy sometimes DOES flank you by crossing at another location (it even happened to me once in a bridge battle, I was so impressed i gave them the victory)

I was undecided whether this was actually an exploit or just a good formation to use in bridge/city battles, because I have a hard time believing that V-formations werent used in history by significantly outnumbered defenders of narrow chokepoints like thermopylae, city walls, or other areas - with proper flank and missle fire, it is unbreakable.

[The Internet]

Thats the thing that annoys me about cav in this mod, they seem to be able to push right through spearmen and units in a phalanx and stand their ground for ages instead of being run through like kebabs.

[fallen851]

And 1000 lbs of horse and rider moving at 20+ mph is simply going to stop dead when a few men put some flimsy spears in front it? I don't think so.

[Conradus]

Horses stop dead most of the time when they're storming towards a wall-like object. After all the animals don't have any intention of breaking their bones when running into walls. A phalanx or schildtromformation resembles such a wall, so I doubt that many horses actually charged right into such formations.

[Moros]

Unless specifically trained?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Yeah, I wish the game would make it where the horses just wouldn't charge in on spears from the front - they'd shy and turn or halt just before they hit or veer off. That would be pretty awesome if it would do that, but it'll never happen.

[blank]

Unless specifically trained?

if you charge at a wall of spear points with your horse then your horse is going to go down awfully fast

[overweightninja]

Unless specifically trained?

As blank said even if you could train a horse not to brick it when it saw a wall of spears, it would still just be turning itself into a kebab.

[Gazius]

The one I'm talking about is a tactic I've seen on youtube and later fully optimized it for my own usage (optimal physical position of the phalanxes, optimal angle to keep them, etc.)


If you're not familiar with it, it kind of remembles this :
iiiii
\i/
Where "i" represents walkable areas, and the slashes represents where the phalanxes are places - basically you use them at chokepoints like bridges and gateways/wall breaches.

The enemy that walks in gets almost instantly killed because they are getting stabbed from 2 directions at the same time, and the "vertex" of the formation is virtually unbreakable because the pikes are crossed and there is virtually nothing but pike points in that area.

It's been really effective, you can use it with any units that are able to phalanx. It does get broken however...due to a couple of reasons
1) enemy missle units that fire up on your now exposed flanks
2) medium amounts of bodyguard cav/cataphract level cavs are able to push past the pike points and can stay significantly longer than any infantry.
3) the enemy sometimes DOES flank you by crossing at another location (it even happened to me once in a bridge battle, I was so impressed i gave them the victory)

I was undecided whether this was actually an exploit or just a good formation to use in bridge/city battles, because I have a hard time believing that V-formations werent used in history by significantly outnumbered defenders of narrow chokepoints like thermopylae, city walls, or other areas - with proper flank and missle fire, it is unbreakable.

As long as it doesn't specifically exploit limitations of the RTW engine, then as far as I'm concerned nothing is gamey. And yes, it is an effective formation. When I play MP with my friends set of rules [border skirmish that escalates into a full out war - very fun] until I can afford a full out phalanx, I'll take a couple, march them to the enemy like usual, then swing them into a concentrated triangle. I make sure to pick the best armored ones and then missle fire is essentially worthless, so all they can do, if they brought calvary is charge, but otherwise run himself on my pikes. If he tries to imitate I'll force a unit to use it's secondary weapon while his phalanx tries to penetrate my triangle/kite.

[dominique]

I was undecided whether this was actually an exploit or just a good formation to use in bridge/city battles, because I have a hard time believing that V-formations werent used in history by significantly outnumbered defenders of narrow chokepoints like thermopylae, city walls, or other areas - with proper flank and missle fire, it is unbreakable.

In my opinion, it's no exploit, since it's breakable.

It wouldn't be an exploit to put 2 MG nests with overlapping fields of fire in a modern game in a defile for the same reason.

Was it done that way back then?

I don't know if they precisely used Phalanxes in that way, but I do know that several generals were fans of echelon formations (see the battles of Leuctra, Cannae, Ilipa) and of exploiting angular attacks to confuse the ennemy lines.

However, if two blank Pantodapoi Phalangitai with no chevrons and no blacksmith upgrades are able to destroy an entire Post-Marian reform army, I would feel there's an exploit there!

[gurakshun]

However, if two blank Pantodapoi Phalangitai with no chevrons and no blacksmith upgrades are able to destroy an entire Post-Marian reform army, I would feel there's an exploit there!

It is certainly possible in the game (IF it is a bridge battle, anything else is guaranteed loss) if you position the 2 units right and micromanage very carefully because the phalanxes tend to "slip" while fighting.....

...I have destroyed worse AS armies using just 3 Pantodapoi Phalangitai...among the dead were
-a full unit of hellenic cataphracts
-the general and his bodyguard
-2 or 3 units of hellenic medium phalanx
-1 unit of levy phalanx
-1 or 2 units of peltasts, and some other regional skirmisher type.
- a full unit of tindanotae mercs.

SOoooooo.......

[Folgore]

I tried this V-formation today in my Makedonia campaign in a bridge battle near Antiocheia.

My army had taken Sidon by storm and taken very heavy casualties in the process, about 50% of my army was killed. The next turn, as by some sign of the gods, a horrible plague spreads to the city, killing half of the remaining troops. During the quarantaine the city was also besieged for a year, killing some more soldiers. Finally after the disasters were over I moved what was left of my army north of Antocheia to guard a bridge. Not less than a year later my 500 troops were under attack by a 2000+ men strong army from the Ptolemaioi. Fortunately 4 of my army's formations consisted of the elite Argyraspides, each formation having about 80 men left (out of the 240 men who left from Pella several years earlier). The enemy army consisted mainly of Galatian heavy swordsmen, but also had phalanx troops and a General's bodyguard.

The thing is, when you put your phalanx in a V-formation the sarrisas do not point straight at the enemy. When your spears do point straight at the enemy, some troops will manage to clear the initial line of sarissas by passing trough the small space between them and they will engange your soldiers in hand to hand combat. When you have your sarrisas pointing sideways the enemy soldiers cannot get closer, because the poles of the sarrisas are blocking them. This way no enemy soldiers can pass the first sarrisas to get within range of your soldiers. See illustration:


After the battle was over my Argyraspides had not lost more than 40 men in total (mostly caused by enemy arrows), while they killed over 1600 enemy soldiers. It wasn't until noon the next day that the bridge had been cleared of bodies and traffic could resume.

[dominique]

It is certainly possible in the game (IF it is a bridge battle, anything else is guaranteed loss) if you position the 2 units right and micromanage very carefully because the phalanxes tend to "slip" while fighting.....

...I have destroyed worse AS armies using just 3 Pantodapoi Phalangitai...among the dead were
-a full unit of hellenic cataphracts
-the general and his bodyguard
-2 or 3 units of hellenic medium phalanx
-1 unit of levy phalanx
-1 or 2 units of peltasts, and some other regional skirmisher type.
- a full unit of tindanotae mercs.

SOoooooo.......

Well, I didn't account for personal skill in my post. Being sharp and skilled in a game isn't an exploit! It's an achievement.



(I bow before you! And I will reap you off in my games, if you don't mind!)

I will reformulate a bit. If a AI army attacks 2 AI Phalanxes in that formation and always lose, there's a problem!

The thing is, when you put your phalanx in a V-formation the sarrisas do not point straight at the enemy. When your spears do point straight at the enemy, some troops will manage to clear the initial line of sarissas by passing trough the small space between them and they will engange your soldiers in hand to hand combat. When you have your sarrisas pointing sideways the enemy soldiers cannot get closer, because the poles of the sarrisas are blocking them. This way no enemy soldiers can pass the first sarrisas to get within range of your soldiers. See illustration:

Nice explanation!

(I think though that if we play with the BI version of the game, this tactic is less usefull since the battle maps have less bottlenecks.)


In my games however, AI seems reluctant to engage my armies if they are at a bridge... Anybody had that too?

[bovi]

The V-phalanx seems really unwieldy. The intercrossing spears would make it very hard to use the spear, there would be 5-6 others blocking movement in any direction but thrust and recoil.

[antisocialmunky]

I like the standard semi-circle of death more.

[MiniMe]

Screenshot from my KH campaign

[Rodion Romanovich]

The one I'm talking about is a tactic I've seen on youtube and later fully optimized it for my own usage (optimal physical position of the phalanxes, optimal angle to keep them, etc.)


If you're not familiar with it, it kind of remembles this :
iiiii
\i/
Where "i" represents walkable areas, and the slashes represents where the phalanxes are places - basically you use them at chokepoints like bridges and gateways/wall breaches.

The enemy that walks in gets almost instantly killed because they are getting stabbed from 2 directions at the same time, and the "vertex" of the formation is virtually unbreakable because the pikes are crossed and there is virtually nothing but pike points in that area.

It's been really effective, you can use it with any units that are able to phalanx. It does get broken however...due to a couple of reasons
1) enemy missle units that fire up on your now exposed flanks
2) medium amounts of bodyguard cav/cataphract level cavs are able to push past the pike points and can stay significantly longer than any infantry.
3) the enemy sometimes DOES flank you by crossing at another location (it even happened to me once in a bridge battle, I was so impressed i gave them the victory)

I was undecided whether this was actually an exploit or just a good formation to use in bridge/city battles, because I have a hard time believing that V-formations werent used in history by significantly outnumbered defenders of narrow chokepoints like thermopylae, city walls, or other areas - with proper flank and missle fire, it is unbreakable.

The strategy to form up your men in such a manner past a river crossing, a bridge or a ford, has been used historically at several occasions. Hannibal probably used it at Trebia, and the battle of Stirling bridge in the Medieval period used it. However, in both those cases, the defender would let the attacker cross the bridge with a large portion of the army before closing such a half circle around the attacker. No attacker in his right mind would even think of crossing the river if that formation was visible from the beginning, but a lot of overly eager and undisciplined commanders have made the mistake of crossing a river when the enemy has been a little distance a way (even if visible), or partly hidden.