Phalanx V-formation...exploit?

[runes]

it would be interesting if in the future we were given less control of the units and were left simply to delegating orders. the problem with this of course is i don't think AI technology is quite good enough to support this without alot of bizarre outcomes and "inaccuracies"

[gurakshun]

And to (sorta) get back on topic, no I don't think its an exploit, any commander of the time in the right circumstances, and with the correct knowledge/skill would probably do something simmilar imho (although whether they actually did use "V" formations as opposed to just holding a chokepoint with a wall of spears, I dont know).

Cheers!

So far playing as Pontos all I've had to do to defend my eastern territories (which are only accessible by sea or by a bridge, as there is a river forming a natural barrier). So thats 2 bridges total for 2 settlements that form my border with AS/Ptol - the only way to get to my empire from the east. So far, using the v-formation, the only units i need to defend those 2 bridges are 3 phalanxe units - 2 to make the v, 1 as a reserve (because the phalanxes get buggy in extended fighting). Thats 6 phalanx units total that have massacred thousands and thousands of hapless AS soldiers and killed many tens of stupid AS family members who have foolishly tried to cross the bridge. it has failed only once and thankfully my army was nearby to kick the AS out yet again.

But thats all thats required. just 3 phalanxes that get "heroic victories" nonstop killing over 1000+ enemies AND a usual family member or 2 or even 3 and losing roughly 30 (thats par for course, depends on how many bodyguard/cataphract cavs and archer/slinger units there are). And thats the lowest rung of phalanx too, the pantadapoi phalangitai.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You can try what it is like already. Creat groups, and place them under AI control.

Then switch back to DIY - that yields better results.

[Watchman]

we are graced with the ability to "right click, right click, right click GODDAMMIT RIGHT CLICK"

Aye. Back in the day commanders didn't have the luxury of button-mashing for effect.

[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.

[Olaf The Great]

Yeah V for Gate defence, and Square for Field engagements.

Both "kinda" exploits, but when facing an enemy with missiles of ANY sort, you'll be killed.


BTW, in the case of non phalanx spears, what are the horses afraid of?

Or is just the ease of someone PUSHING you off the horse that causes the "bonus" in that case?


EDIT: Did Greeks or other tight pike formations ever actually "use" the V shape?
Like when defending gates or chokepoints?

Considering that the pikes would be overlapping, its basically a wall.

[Watchman]

BTW, in the case of non phalanx spears, what are the horses afraid of?

Or is just the ease of someone PUSHING you off the horse that causes the "bonus" in that case?

AFAIK horses regard about anything that appears as a solid, unmoving obstacle as something to avoid; being animals evolved to survive danger by running away from it, they're understandably wary about footing and colliding with things.

That aside, long pointy things are generally useful against cavalry simply because they largely negate the height advantage the horsemen have, and potentially allow you to kill the mount before you're even within the striking range of the rider. It of course doesn't particularly hurt that spears also take rather little "elbow room" to employ, allowing the spearmen to form into quite dense blocks horses try to avoid and will have a very hard time breaking in the off chance they can be goaded into even trying. And then there's the possibility of "bracing" the spear on the ground (as explained earlier in the context of pikes - the basic idea works with any decently long spear) to receive a charging horse, in essence turning the same principles of momentum that make lances so effective right against the cavalry.

...and Square for Field engagements.

...which would actually be perfectly legit realistically and historically. The classic "hollow square" formation to avoid cavalry flanking was well known already in Classical Greek times, and phalangites were no worse at employing it when necessary.

[NeoSpartan]

...which would actually be perfectly legit realistically and historically. The classic "hollow square" formation to avoid cavalry flanking was well known already in Classical Greek times, and phalangites were no worse at employing it when necessary.

and it the times of the Napoleonic wars too

[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.

[Leão magno]

Always use the Phalanx in line, do not use semi circles since the Vanillas wars...can you post pictures of your approaches

[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.

[Rodion Romanovich]

hah, you all seem to forget that it would take hell of a lot of power to hold those spears pointed, especially against an armored horse. no one seem to think about broken human arms and twisted shoulders.
and yes, horse were trained. they were trained to the point when the obstacle would not scare them but irritate and desire to tear it apart.

Indeed! If the horse can't be penetrated by the pike, such as when it's heavily armored, the entire momentum comes against the pike, and is transferred to the holder of it. Basically he may have something like 1 second to halt the fast-moving horse/horse corpse, and to turn a momentum of 900*8 into 0 in that time would require an average force of 7200 Newtons over that entire period, which is the same as the force needed to lift 720 kg. Ideally, at least 3-4 spear/pike points would be needed to share this weight between the pikemen, which is why long pikes would be very much desirable. This can be achieved by:
- thinning out the enemy formation before it arrives (by uneven ground, caltrops, and missile weapons), so many pikemen can aim at the same horse simultaneously
- the enemy horse being unarmored, so the horse flesh can be penetrated, which means the entire momentum doesn't have to be stopped in such a short period of time.
- bracing the pike in the ground
- positioning your men on ground that is either difficult for the horse to move fast in (forcing the cavalry to charge at a much slower speed, and thus with much less momentum), or preparing the ground to achieve such an effect
- making sure the horse dies almost at the time of penetration by the pike, so that it falls downwards and ground friction helps slowing down its momentum, before it reaches the first rank of pikemen

However, I also think mounts of the ancient period weighed a lot less than modern horses. The riders must also have weighed a lot less, as they were often shorter in those days. Maybe 900 kg for a horse with rider is too much? Maybe the horse weighed 600, the rider 70, and the armor 30, which gives around 700 kg. And the speed of the horse may in practise also have been reduced a lot by not only the weight of the armor, but also the way it would hit the horse's legs, or move against its skin with friction, in a painful way. Then the force required may have been as low as 3850 Newtons under ideal circumstances (terrain and such), which would require only two pikemen per horse to halt the charge. This is still enough force to break a pike, and indeed, enough to break or crush human bones. Even in this case, the ideal circumstances for a horse would cause a big, damn mess among a pike formation. So, I'm not sure pikeman formations before the era when pikes were supported in the ground could feel that safe against a cavalry charge - short spear formations should probably bulge to a cavalry charge. So if someone would have succeeded in training the horses enough to charge a pike/spear formation, he would probably have been able to use it to quite devastating effect after all. Remember that a lot of early Medieval armies used mostly spears due to the cost of alternative weaponry, and still, in these battles, it's claimed that the cavalry were crucially superior to much of the opposing infantry. I don't think short spear formations should be considered that safe against cavalry. However, of course, horse formations would take huge casualties when charging such a formation, so it would not be practical to hit it except from a flank or rear, but real life formations would always be able to turn part of the formation backwards, so cavalry would most likely often have to face at least a few spear points turned their way. If such a row of spear points isn't dense enough, a well trained horse and rider can make a quick sideways manouver and move in between them, if the line of charging horses isn't overly dense either. In short, I think cavalry warfare is probably a very complex subject, which explains why a lot of historical charges didn't end up as planned, and others managed to surprisingly break an infantry formation in an army that believed it had taken all the necessary precautions.

[Watchman]

The primary defense of an infantry formation against cavalry is, as stated before, psychological; a line that holds solid is nigh-impossible to charge with horse, spears or no (the pointy things just make it that more dangerous to try, and give the infantry confidence). Heck, Parthian and Sassanid catas had some severe problems with shortsword-toting Roman foot, and were heavily dependent on the archers "softening up" the cohorts to the point of being effectively chargeable...

Which is, although in reverse, why much Medieval foot folded so easily before charging knights; most infantry being kinda crap those days, they flat out lacked the confidence and cohesion to stand firm in the face of a massed lance charge. Infantry that could hold steady tended to stump the cavalry there and then, even if otherwise quite lightly equipped.

As for horse armour, given the sheer energy and momentum the charging horse puts against the braced spear-tip I strongly suspect nothing short of monolith steel plate (which is known to have easily enough withstood the forces involved in late-period knights clashing at full tilt) offers reliable defense for the animal (or rider, if he's hit instead). It's basically the whole theoretical impact energy of a couched-lance charge, without any of the factors that limited the amount the mount-saddle-rider complex could maintain behind the weapon (ie. the shaft slipping in the wielder's hands and similar "threshold exceeded" issues); bar the tip being deflected by striking hard armour at a shallow angle or the shaft suffering a catastrophical structural failure of course, but the latter for one is a bit unlikely with well-made spears.

[gurakshun]

I like the standard semi-circle of death more.

the semicircle is actually less effective and less efficient than the v-formation. i have tried and tested both many times...and although it may seem that 3 units instead of 2 is better, it is not the case with the v-formation.

[Rodion Romanovich]

As for horse armour, given the sheer energy and momentum the charging horse puts against the braced spear-tip I strongly suspect nothing short of monolith steel plate (which is known to have easily enough withstood the forces involved in late-period knights clashing at full tilt) offers reliable defense for the animal (or rider, if he's hit instead). It's basically the whole theoretical impact energy of a couched-lance charge, without any of the factors that limited the amount the mount-saddle-rider complex could maintain behind the weapon (ie. the shaft slipping in the wielder's hands and similar "threshold exceeded" issues); bar the tip being deflected by striking hard armour at a shallow angle or the shaft suffering a catastrophical structural failure of course, but the latter for one is a bit unlikely with well-made spears.

It's not just that. Deflection as you mentioned is a major factor for well made armor, but even when there's no clear deflection with steep angles, a lot of armor will, if you try to penetrate it in one spot, create an effect where the parts around the penetration spot are drawn towards the penetration spot and into it, so for a very large part of the thrust you need to actually push not just a sharp, thin spearpoint into the victim, but a thick cylinder of a spearpoint with armor around it, into a hole in the wearer of the armor. In many cases this force could also cause deflection even at not too steep angles, or the victim could have enough time to turn away to limit the force of the thrust or cause it to deflect after only causing a short concussive blow, causing the wearer to fly backwards rather than be penetrated (in many battles in history it has been common for a lot of riders to be thrown out of their saddle rather than being impaled). Horse breastplates make a huge difference to how dangerout a charge is - which is probably why they've been used so much in historical cavalry forces. Bear in mind that the material that spearpoints were made of weren't always significantly harder than what the armor was made of. The deformation forces caused to the spearpoint are also the same as what the spearpoint causes to the armor. Unless the spearpoint is of much higher quality than the armor, the spear will have much greater difficulties penetrating than it might seem at first sight. It's no wonder why maces and other concussive and/or specially designed armor breaking weapons were used a lot in historical battles between heavily armored troops, and why it took so many hours of battle to actually chop your way through armor enough to kill a large enough number of soldiers to rout an army - in many cases it was probably more common to kill by making the opponent lose his breath and be unable to parry any further, exposing weak spots for a penetrative thrust.

The primary defense of an infantry formation against cavalry is, as stated before, psychological; a line that holds solid is nigh-impossible to charge with horse, spears or no

I don't think the romans holding pila in a demoralizing way would have been the most effective weapon they had against well armored eastern cavalry. Rather, I believe the roman anti-cavalry tactics would have relied more on the following two things: tight packing, and careful preparation of the battlefields.

Tight packing and discipline among the infantry does not kill cavalry, nor does it prevent the first ranks from suffering high casualties, but it prevents the infantry formation from breaking, and as a result it's capable of making the cavalry lose momentum. This puts the cavalry in a situation where it must choose between:
- staying in a prolonged melee without momentum, where the cavalry is more vulnerable and very ineffective, and can be destroyed if supporting arms are able to relieve the infantry
- choose to retreat and recharge. The fact that the caths were armored all around would probably make them excellent at this strategy, compared to horses that are only armored at the front. Indeed, the Parthians seem to have been using this (capability of so easily disengaging infantry) to conduct fake charges followed by retreats in order to force infantry formations to switch from their anti-missile formations to melee formations, to be able to increase the effectiveness of the horse archers. These fake charges probably did make contact with the roman line at some times and caused a lot of mayhem and casualties in the front ranks before the cavalry pulled back.

Preparation of battlefields, as well as picking of good existing terrain, obviously decreases the speed of the cavalry too, causing the same effect as the packing, but without the high casualties for the first ranks. The combination of the two is effective, but not if the enemy has nearly unlimited supply of arrows for their horse archers, or the infantry has just a single weak spot in their formation, where the terrain allows the heavy cavalry to repeatedly use their charges to decimate the enemy.

[Renegen]

Hmm interesting. I didn't know about this phalanx formation. Maybe it it an exploit, but the AI in general is beaten by a lot of strategies. Just stop using it! Against a human opponent it's just stupid, he will never charge the middle and your flanks are exposed not to mention your phalanx is out of position and ripe for the killing.

[bovi]

If you were to stop using all the ways the AI can be defeated, you'd have to limit yourself to making a line and walking straight ahead into its line.

[gurakshun]

Hmm interesting. I didn't know about this phalanx formation. Maybe it it an exploit, but the AI in general is beaten by a lot of strategies. Just stop using it! Against a human opponent it's just stupid, he will never charge the middle and your flanks are exposed not to mention your phalanx is out of position and ripe for the killing.

the AI cannot reach your flanks because you only use this v-formation at a gateway/wallbreach or bridge battle - aka hard chokepoints. even a human opponent would be hard pressed to break v-formation phalanxes at the bridge and every other passable area over the river - they are by their very nature extremely tight chokepoints.

[MiniMe]

Screenshot from my KH campaign