How to make Phalanx more lethal

[Deafening Milk]

How can I change the stats so the Phalanx is more lethal? Im sick of having to wait for about half an hour to win when im blocking a street using the phalanx as they kill so incredably slowly, even the elite phalanx units are pretty slow at it I hate watching a wall of enemies stood at the end of the spears seemingly not being hit and when they are they fall over get up fall over get up sometimes up to 5 times before they will actually die, It makes battles far to slow while in vanilla they kill about 4 times faster. How to I modify so they have a higher lethality? its not like it would ruin the game for me seeing how units dont get through my phalanx anyway to dish out damage.

Yes I know, crap use of punctuation but as I write this I am very sleep deprived.

thanks

[Revan The Great]

Before you modify the EDU, try a few tricks to more effectively utilize a phalanx. I'll give you a few tips which, in my experience, really make phalanxes some of the most effective infantry in EB.

When defending using a phalanx, try to flank the attacking enemy with heavy cavalry. This will 'push' the enemy soldiers into your soldier's pikes, drastically increasing their killing power. This is a pretty spot-on in terms of historical accuracy. One other thing you can do is tell your men to raise their pikes for a few seconds, allowing the enemy to come closer, before lowering them again to kill those who were stupid enough to close in.

When attacking using a phalanx, click 'behind' your enemy rather than right clicking on the unit you want your phalanx to attack. Usually you need to click a second time because your pikemen will stop to engage whatever they first walk into, but after an additional click you'll be able to get your phalanx to advance, battering their way through your enemy, sarissas plugging away. This is a VERY effective tactic, just make sure to manage your soldiers well because if you send them too far into the enemy, they will take heavier losses than necessary.

[Cyclops]

Look I think the EB modded phalanx is a "best fit" the team could manage with the engine. Its hardly a game breaker,despite the fact they're not efficient street sweepers. RL assaulting walls is hardly the combat role for mass pikes. Break them down and use them as light swordsmen, city fighting is ragged high casualty stuff.

Before you modify the EDU, try a few tricks to more effectively utilize a phalanx. I'll give you a few tips which, in my experience, really make phalanxes some of the most effective infantry in EB...snipped good advice...

Couldn't have put it better myself.

There is one other tweak, not sure if its real or just my own imagination but I if I need to grind more quickly with phalanxes I set up at a slight angle to the enemy unit (tricky in street fights as you're often squeezed for width anyway and going oblique cuts your frontage sharply). The engine seems to try to engage units at a point in their middles so the enemy unit pushes men into the projecting corner of your phalanx. Make sure the end of your line overlaps the end of their line (tricky in streets): my impression is I take casualites faster too, so its a way to speed up a winning fight rather than an exploit.

[Thuycidides]

Look I think the EB modded phalanx is a "best fit" the team could manage with the engine. Its hardly a game breaker,despite the fact they're not efficient street sweepers. RL assaulting walls is hardly the combat role for mass pikes.

If you want to get technical, I don't think any of our units did much wall assaulting. Assaults against a city always meant a long, long siege to starve out the defenders, or to entice someone inside the walls to betray his countrymen. What we do is merely for the sake of expediency in a video game.

[HUtH]

on Alex.exe with Jirisis Mod pack, phalanxes push forward quite effectively, though breaking their formation isn't really good...

[The Kybrothilian]

The idea is to have the phalanx pin down the enemy, while some other unit (cavalry or another type of infantry) flanks the enemy.

Another choice is to deactivate the phalanx formation and make your phalangites fight with their swords.

[Thuycidides]

I thought the whole point of EB and similar mods was to extend battles to a duration longer than 5 minutes. Anyway, the pike phalanxes are already ridiculous in EB (impervious to missiles from the forward hemisphere). Asking for them to be more lethal is hilarious.

[Boriak]

If all you want is to shorten the time it takes the phalanx to clean up a clogged street, increase the speed of the game. There are speed modifiers at the bottom left: pause, normal, 2× and 3× the normal speed.

[BroskiDerpman]

I actually find that phalanxes kill fast, even more fast when I have another unit come from behind.

[torongill]

Phalanxes in unmodified EB are ridicuously strong. They have an incredibly high attack value, normal lethality, hilariously big shields and of course a formation making them impervious to frontal attack. The only tactic is to hit them from behind, in which case they either wheel about in the infamous sarissa scythe or lift their pikes and deploy them against those who attacked them in the rear. And one more thing - the exceptionally high soldier mass means that even when outflanked and forced to fight with swords, the phalangites will push their enemy back. I'll just mention one example, when a unit of pezhetairoi poured from a siege tower, surrounded front and rear by two of my units and proceeded to push half of them off the wall just by pushing.
And when the silver fever starts throwing full stacks at you, half of which is a phalanx, it gets even more funny.

The only effective way of defeating phalanxes I have encountered is basically cheating - a heavy unit capable of "shieldwall", deployed in a square twelve across and ten deep attacks the phalangites head-on, while I outflank them with a unit with high lethality - thracian mercs or allied elite thracian infantry. That way the phalanx unit suffers a lot of casualties rapidly and can be routed. The unit attacking them head-on will suffer grievous casualties, but will prevent them from turning around and hitting your butchers with their magic pikes. Most of the times.

And you want to make those bastards even stronger?

[Entropy Judge]

The only effective way of defeating phalanxes I have encountered is basically cheating - a heavy unit capable of "shieldwall", deployed in a square twelve across and ten deep attacks the phalangites head-on, while I outflank them with a unit with high lethality - thracian mercs or allied elite thracian infantry. That way the phalanx unit suffers a lot of casualties rapidly and can be routed. The unit attacking them head-on will suffer grievous casualties, but will prevent them from turning around and hitting your butchers with their magic pikes. Most of the times.

Run-through cheese can break up their formation enough to allow for a frontal assault with infantry, but it's still fairly bloody unless you've got a qualitative edge over the pikes.

[torongill]

Run-through cheese

What exactly is that?

[Thuycidides]

And what about the fantasy that the typical pike phalanx carried effective secondary weapons for melee combat? A knife would be a realistic sidearm for most units. Instead we have pike phalanxes that can hold their own after they are flanked, and long after the rest of the enemy units have routed, they fight on. I wonder how this was considered to be an acceptable result when 1.2 was devised? The rest of the mod is fantastic, but pikemen are the one thing that make no sense.

[Boriak]

You can change it yourself. It's not that hard.

[Entropy Judge]

What exactly is that?

The basic answer is "exactly what it sounds like" - instead of clicking on the unit to attack it, you click *past* it so your troops run through it. You'll take some damage, but for some reason the engine doesn't handle it well, and most of your troops will get past the spearpoints of a single phalanx ... letting you *then* engage the phalanx, which:
* Forces them to drop their pikes and engage with swords,
* Disrupts and pushes their formation, so more troops can close with them,
* Is cheesy as hell.

http://beta.xfire.com/video/427cad/

Skip ahead to ~2:00 to see it. It is vanilla Rome, but the mechanics work pretty much the same. The other two 'tests' aren't related to the runthrough.
*Edit*: Also, in the interest of full disclosure, the defending hoplites are three units stacked in loose formation (which makes runthroughs easier) although it's still plenty doable in tight formation.

[HUtH]

is this what phalanx is(or should be)?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Slaists]

Phalanxes in unmodified EB are ridicuously strong. They have an incredibly high attack value, normal lethality, hilariously big shields and of course a formation making them impervious to frontal attack. The only tactic is to hit them from behind, in which case they either wheel about in the infamous sarissa scythe or lift their pikes and deploy them against those who attacked them in the rear. And one more thing - the exceptionally high soldier mass means that even when outflanked and forced to fight with swords, the phalangites will push their enemy back. I'll just mention one example, when a unit of pezhetairoi poured from a siege tower, surrounded front and rear by two of my units and proceeded to push half of them off the wall just by pushing.
And when the silver fever starts throwing full stacks at you, half of which is a phalanx, it gets even more funny.

The only effective way of defeating phalanxes I have encountered is basically cheating - a heavy unit capable of "shieldwall", deployed in a square twelve across and ten deep attacks the phalangites head-on, while I outflank them with a unit with high lethality - thracian mercs or allied elite thracian infantry. That way the phalanx unit suffers a lot of casualties rapidly and can be routed. The unit attacking them head-on will suffer grievous casualties, but will prevent them from turning around and hitting your butchers with their magic pikes. Most of the times.

And you want to make those bastards even stronger?

Hmm... What battle difficulty are you playing on? The effects you describe sound much like what I observe on VH battle difficulty. On Medium: the AI's phalanxes work just as intended (on the rare occasion the AI knows how to use them). Charging engaged phalanxes from the rear seems to always work well

[HUtH]

AS throws at me(Bactria) multiple stacks of Argyraspides and Klerouchoi - they are really dangerous only when led by decent FM, well, klerouchoi not so much, but Argyraspides with that high morale, mass and armour, can just stand and fight surrounded for a looong time...(they are like Swiss Armoured Pikemen from first Medieval ). But generally my eastern axemen and skirmishers with help of some spearman/phalanx are enough effective. Ah and slingers are very important.
BTW it's funny how my tactics against AS change through time, first I fought them macedon/diadochi style, mainly phalanxes and cavalry as hammer, but because I sent such army to conquer India, on the west I've been using only eastern and persian units - used in proper "eastern" way, they are superb And now I have a dilemma, because finally I get access to high tier Bactrian and Indian units, but because of poor availability at front, probably I won't use them... well, maybe if I make army for assaulting cities

[BroskiDerpman]

You don't need to make "3d changes" it's in the text file if you installed trivial script; what ever drive you installed it>RTW folder>EB> sp game backup/(If you play Custom battle)mp game back up>export_descr_unit

If you didn't install trivial script then;what ever drive you installed it>RTW folder>EB>Data>export_descr_unit



EDIT: here's a link for what to do when you get there: http://rtw.heavengames.com/rtw/mods/...it/index.shtml

It tells you what the lines mean, make sure to scroll down to the unit that's going to be edited.

[BroskiDerpman]

What phalangites are those?