Strongest faction to defend with? (WOODEN WALLS)

[jakobh94]

What is the strongest faction to defend with against a superior army? Is it the Macedonians that can field Pikes in the narrow streets? Or is it the romans, with their lethal javelins?

I would like you to vote, but also explain why.
Remember, it is about wooden walls defending.

I would choose Macedonians, even some Deutorois can hold of triarii and the sacred band. Just place them in narrow streets, with supporting infantry in the lines or peltasts at the back.

[Andy1984]

Any decent (= rich) pike-faction when it has V-shaped pike-defenses at the point where the enemy breaches your walls. Macedonia or TSE would both perform really fine.

[RedFox]

The thing is that in reality the pike should push forward all the time, otherwise they are useless and easy to break through, thus making city defense with phalanx pretty much pointless. Unfortunately that can't really be simulated with the RTW engine, so we're stuck with overpowered pikemen in cities. Might need to find a way to fix that.

[jakobh94]

giving them some sort of pushing ability, the question is just, how?
Sheildwall pushes, but it cant be used with the phalanx, which is sad. God damn it why does RTW have to be so hard to make realistic.

[RedFox]

I'm tweaking the stats to see what will work. The best option would be to increase the mass of the troops, but that can give unwanted results, but give the desired push effect. I also increased all phalanx-hoplite type unit defense skill significantly, while lowering their attack stats. This will make phalanx troops very strong, but they won't win the battle without cavalry. And if they get flanked, they will easily die.

Hopefully this will make it harder to defend cities with Phalanx, while still leaving it very strong from the front like it should. It will also force the player to adapt more anvil and hammer tactics, instead of just steamrolling the enemy.

[aznflea]

what about in the beginning where you have almost no cavalry

[jakobh94]

Beginning, huh?

[Cal20]

Usually when I defend a city with pikemen the enemy usually gets around the sides of my first line unit and they always need reinforcing. Eventually when they do get around they slaughter my pikemen so imo I think its okay, not like the stupidly unbreakable ones in vanilla.
Don't they push with guard mode off? They seem to push but pivot sometimes as well which can be quite annoying.

[aznflea]

use pezhetairoi or any elite phalanx to defend choke points. stack them on top of each other.

use agema hypapists to defend walls.

macedon win.

[jakobh94]

Anvil and Hammer is an option, put your men long back in the street (all phalangites you have) then move your more flexible units around the houses and attack the enemies from behind, but do this first after fighting for a while, or else they wont break.

[Andy1984]

That reminds me of a pretty heroical battle I once had as the Seleucid, I only won because I managed to get my war elephants behind the gigantic Ptolemean army (mostly consisting of pikes). Since my own phalanxes were completely overrun as well as exhausted (I considered charging their pike army with militia cavalry!), all my hope depended on my elephants not routing when facing this massive army. Ptolemees decided to run first.

[Cal20]

use pezhetairoi or any elite phalanx to defend choke points. stack them on top of each other.


macedon win.

That's all well and good but usually don't have many of them, esp to defend cities with.

That usually is the best way to win an outnumbered city battle, get as much cav to charge the rear of the units against your phalanx usually an amazing rout and slaughter.
I also like when they attack with elephants and they are heading down a street first infront of the main bulk of the army - Peltasts + archers and they run amok and charge back up the street ruining their own army, absolutely love it.