Late period Macedonian composition and tactics

[AlphaDelta]

What is the recommended army composition and tactics for a late period Macedonian army?

The easy availability of heavy cavalry makes me want to keep rolling phalanxes. Even levy pikemen can hold a Roman army long enough to bring the hammer down on the rear of their army. The Roman style units (machairaphoroi/machairaphoroi elite and thorakitai) seem to be incapable of fighting 1:1 Roman, Iberian or Celtic units. Most of the descriptions mention these units being used to cover the flanks of phalanxes but they don't seem to kill fast enough to do much covering.

Slingers seem to have disappeared from my barracks though I liked them I was never convinced they did much more than harass.

Thureophoroi seem to be useless everywhere. Though I have noticed they can outrun the enemy (off the map).

Cheers

[ur-Lord Tedric]

What is the recommended army composition and tactics for a late period Macedonian army?

The easy availability of heavy cavalry ....

<ULT makes a note to add this evidence in for his discussion with the Team>

To be fair, the general standard tactics didn't change much. If things were 'perfect' (and we could get the battles realistic) then your army should be a mix of:

Phalanx core around which the rest operate;
Screened with a skirmish element;
Supported on its flanks (where the Phalanx is vulnerable) by Peltast/pseudo-Roman types who are more manoeuvrable;
Some couple of Light Cav each wing for skirmishing and harassing, let alone run down enemy troops;
& finally some of those heavy cavalry for the classic Macedonian/Successor sucker-punch.

[Sertorio]

Super punch wich by the way the macedonians lacked post-Alexander. The macedonian cavalry never again shined like in his era.
Polibius describes the composition that Tedric is refering too. Combination of phalanx, suport troops and cavalry. Thoug i have not played Macedon, while playing with Sparta phalanxs i liked having non-phalanx units, specially for hilly terrains.
Here you hve a good AAR by TheJim where i think he describes his army composition among other aspects.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=462701

PS: Reason of the cavalry low cost is balancing the AI. AI will not have cavalry in its armies otherwise.

[RafoutRoud]

Balearic slingers, nuff said.

[AlphaDelta]

I should mention that I'm running the older version not the latest beta so things might be different 'now'. I'm also not entirely sure that everything is running correctly as I installed RS II into a rather messy RTW directory. Naughty naughty.

Anyhow I've attached a screenshot of the type of armies I've been recruiting for the past 20 or 30 turns. They are much more fun to fight with than the phalanx pike wall, but unfortunately they seem to take more losses in the process. The javs they throw don't seem to be anywhere near as good as the pilum or javs the Iberians chuck.

There's a screenshot of my Macedonian empire in 602 auc. It took some serious sim city-ing to get those ex-Roman possessions to behave. I didn't even want them but Rome just wouldn't stop it's incessant poking.

I think that I'll do a fresh install and play as the Romans rather than pretend to be them.

Cheers

[Sertorio]

With that kind of stack i would definitly go for a manipular or double line. Still those 3 units of macedonian cav seem menacing enough. I would not try a simple line phalanx formation.

[Pe Ell]

I tried a legion system with those Machiraphorois and it works ok. It's flexible and they are decently strong, albeit weaker than their roman counterparts by far. With stacks like that you count on winning by tactic rather than raw strenght. Personally I prefer using pike phalanx as the base of my macedonian armies, seems more right to me.

I love macedon too, been my favourite nation since vanilla. Those light lancers... And here they have some cool cavarly stuff like Thessalians. I just love Thessalians. I've won complete victories with two nations (taken the whole map): Rome and Macedon. Late game in that Macedonian campaign I had two basic army layouts, one for fighting cavarly based armies (Parthia, Sarmatia and to some extent Scythia) and one for fighting infantry based armies (everyone else).

My anti-cavarly stack looked something like this: 6 units of Agema pikes, 2 units of Hypaspists, 3-4 units of Thessalians and Companions, 1 general. Then the rest as Eyrytanes Toxotai. Basic tactic was this: Agemas form a line with Hypaspists on the flanks. Cavarly flanking further behind them, held back but ready to intercept and ward of attacks. Lines of archers in the middle protected by my pikes and cavarly. Then I push towards the enemy, using my archers to pick of their HA's and cavarly. Pikes stop them from charging over me, cavarly and Hypaspists keep me from being flanked. Archers kill everything.

The other type of stack was more varied, looking something like: 6 Agema, 2 Hypaspists, 2 Basilkoi Peltastai, 2 Bastarnae, 2 Agrianians, 2 Companians, 1 Thessalian, 1 Archer, 1 Ballista and a general. Again a phalanx line with hypaspist on the outside, Agrianians to lock down light enemy elements or loose troops. Companians and Thessalians to counter their cavarly and clean the flanks. Archer and Ballista for range support, also good for city assault so I don't have to wait. Royal peltasts as reserves where needed and Bastarnae to run around the back, charge and kill everything when it gets tangled up.

Those were the two basic ideas I used late game Macedon.

[LoGaL]

To me you just spam elite units in most of the cases but it's a matter of style so i won't argue with you
6 agems are a bit unrealistic

[menawati]

Those Agrianians are great at sides of the phalanx - their 2ndary attack is AP I think so they really murder enemy troops caught at the edge of the phalanx.
I think I always had 1 at each side when I played Macedon.

[Pe Ell]

To me you just spam elite units in most of the cases but it's a matter of style so i won't argue with you
6 agems are a bit unrealistic

And I wont argue because you are right, my late game basicly is to spam elites. I do however have to point out that late game to me is when you get to about 50 cities, at which point money ceases to be an issue. Since I prefer 0 turns I'll be walking around with 10-15 stacks no problem. So the tactics becomes logistic issues, how can I get the right number of troops in the right place to overrun this enemy. To that end my late game play becomes to design as strong stacks as possible and get enough of them in the right place. I do enjoy this a lot, streamlining your massive empire to hammer down on the world bit by bit. But I know that not everyone share my view, or take pleaure from the same things.

If I wanted to simplify it further I could say I am using the good old tactic of throwing money at my problems.

I do use a lot more diverse stacks in the early to mid game with plenty of levies, skirmishers and mid range troops. But that wasn't the question here.

Cheers!