greek phalanx in mods

[Athanatos]

Salve, everyone.

A quik question about the greek phalanx.

I've tried some of the mods in this forum, and they all seemed to have th greek cities
use the over-head phalanx, as it should be, but its not realy a phalanx. Its more like simple swordless spear units holding their spears over-head.

My question is this, why not give these units phalanx capability and have them hold their
spears over-head? That way they could use swords in closer combat and still keep the phalanx formation. Is there a practical reason for not doing this? Some sort of bug or issue coming from this type of formation? Because I've done this to the greek units in my te 5.1, and haven't had any problems.

[sazabi04]

i dont have an answer for this, but i would like to know how you did that. please?

[Zuwxiv]

Do the other phalanx troops work? I've noticed the same thing, but I thought that their individual range was increased so that they could attack troops in maybe 2-men deep formations.

Also, historically some soldiers used longer spears in a phalanx-like formation but did not have the same style as the sort of phalanx you and I are thinking about. If you have just longer-than-average spears, multiple ranks can fight at once while maintaining order and formation.

I have noticed this before and I'm not sure if it is just a bug in TE, or a change and work around. It might effect how other phalanxes fight, but I'm not sure. Maybe Lusted, (he's in charge of TE) could help you at the TE forum:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=114

And welcome to TWC!

[Panama Red 51]

If you give troops the CA phalanx ability in the EDU and fs_s1_hoplite skeleton in the DMB, the troops will fight in the CA phalanx, but they will be holding the spear very close to the butt end (looks weird).

The only way you can get the troops to hold the spear in the middle while in the CA phalanx mode and overhand spear is to also give them the short_pike ability in the EDU and the fs_javelinman skeleton in the DMB. The only trouble is when these troops engage, they may never lower their spears below 45 degrees. So as they say "there is no free lunch".

There is one other point to take into consideration and that is this, when you read your history books, you will find that only the Spartans could maintain the rigid CA phalanx formation marching into battle. All the other Greeks just charged the enemy line when they got close in an attempt to shove their way throught it.

All of the above is why the mod makers have been going more toward the historical Greek phalanx (which is not the Macadon (CA) phalanx) that does not have the phalanx ability in the EDU , but using the shield_wall in BI if they are using the BI.exe) and using the overhand skeleton in the DMB.

[Trajan]

From what I remember, SigniferOne tried to make the phalanx formation work with his S1 hoplite animation but the hoplite units were holding their spears too high. It was so high that the spears were going over enemy units' heads when in combat. It just didn't work out in the end so he just dropped the phalanx formation all together.

Thread has been moved to the Skins, Objects and Animations sub-forum.

[Lusted]

And Trajan just nicely explained why the hoplites in TE fight in the overhand way without the phalanx formation, all other phalanx troops still fight using the phalanx formation.

[Mayan-Man]

for anyone who dosn't know to give a unit phalanx open export_descr_unit go to the line that says formation and it should say somthing like this
bla bla bla bla, square add the folowing just behind square
, phalanx

[Mayan-Man]

peasents say horde