No.That was just marketing propaganda.This was the original hoplite phalanx in Rome 2:
Yes and yes.
I will just copy/paste an older post of mine:
"
Hoplite phalanx
looks: It looks nothing like a hoplite phalanx.In fact it looks like any generic barbarian unit.No shield walls of interlocking shields.No dorys walls.No dorys pointed towards the enemy.Only the first line gets in battle stance while the rest lines just stand there watching the scenery.While fighting it looks like any generic barbarian unit too.There is no formation,no lines and every hoplite fights individually as if he is not part of a unit.Really poor representation.
function: They engage with only 1 line of dorys,there is no shield wall,they abandon formation when they engage in battle or when ordered to,they deal casualties at a very slow rate and take casualties at a very high rate.But their most stupid and annoying issue is the restriction to the length of their front.This causes them to always be surrounded and easily defeated.It's anti-historical and immersion breaking.
This is how they are supposed to be like: They should engage with 3 lines of dorys,they should form multiple layers of shield walls,they should always fight in formation and never abandon it unless the player orders them to,they should cause casualties at a very high rate (they are attacking with 3 lines of dorys),they should take casualties at a very slow rate (they are protected by a wall of brass/bronze from head to toe,including the armour and the shield wall) and they should definitely be able to widen their front as much as they want,even to the level of 2 men deep.This is how they fought historically in most of the times anyway,with wide front and reasonable depth,not the opposite.
role on the battlefield: In TWR2 they are a defensive unit and a very underpowered one actually.In reality they were an aggressive unit,designed to cause massive casualties to the enemy while taking the minimum casualties possible.Of course they could also operate as a defensive unit,as for example did the Athenian center in Marathon,but the main purpose of the formation was attack and this needs to be fixed in the game.
Sarissa phalanx
It's not as bad as the hoplite phalanx,but it's still quite bad and after the patch changes it's actually even way worse than it used to be on release.
looks: It doesn't look like it's supposed to either.No sarissa walls,huge gaps between the men,huge gaps between the lines,wrong deployment within the unit.It looks quite bad.
function: They only engage with 3 lines of sarissas,there are no sarissa walls as there are huge gaps between them,they cannot hold the enemy at distance,their enemies ignore the sarissas and pass right through,they can run while in formation and they cause casualties at a high rate.
This is how they are supposed to be like: They should engage with 5 lines of sarissas,they should fight in a very tight and dense formation so that there are no gaps between the sarissas and sarissa walls are shaped,they should be able to hold the enemy at a distance and for a very long time actually,their enemies should struggle to get through the sarissa walls,they should not be able to run while in formation and they should cause casualties at a rate according to their level,for example levie pikemen low rate casualties,normal pikemen normal rate casualties,elite pikemen high rate casualties etc.
role on the battlefield: In TWR2 they are an aggressive unit that causes massive casualties to the enemy.While in reality they were a defensive unit that was designed to keep the enemy at distance for a very long time to give the necessary time to the flanks to act.Its role was to pin and delay the enemy for as much as possible and not annihilate the enemy unit as the sarissa phalanx currently is in the game."
After all that said,just keep in mind that I haven't played patch 9 yet,because it made my copy unplayable and I can't test it.All these are true at least until patch 8.1