[House rules] Tell us about yours

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Having just tried shield wall in a siege defense for the first time (yeah, I'm a little late to the party!), I might need to ban it. It seems... unfair.

Shield wall turned the battle from the usual tense "will they push me back far enough to disrupt my formations and end up as a slogging match" to something of a joke. I mean, two infantry units routed a legion. Seems unfair to the AI

I think the historical way to use shieldwall is as an entirely defensive formation. That's what it was used for.

Which means not combining shieldwall with attack orders. Shieldwall is not for attacking and killing the enemy troops - it's for blocking them and stopping the enemy's advance. Then when the enemy are tired and worn down, you break out of the shieldwall and finish them off.

The way to use shieldwall is to put your unit where you want it, turn shieldwall on, and then just leave the unit alone. Don't tell it to attack the enemy. Just leave the unit standing there doing nothing, and let the enemy just run into it. The unit's men will still defend themselves very effectively when attacked, they will take very few losses thanks to the shieldwall defence bonus, and they won't get tired either. It's the enemy who will get tired out beating futilely on your interlocked shields.

When you want to attack the exhausted enemy, turn shieldwall off first, then attack. Since your men will still be Fresh at that point, you'll slaughter the enemy easily.

Combining shieldwall with attack is really an exploit against the AI, giving your unit defensive bonuses it doesn't deserve in an attacking situation.