really hope pike phalanxes arn't as op as they were in rome 1

**blace** · August 19, 2013, 03:40 AM

seriously it was practically game breaking. and as barbarian factions you had nothing that hope to go toe to toe. i think in rome 2 elite heavy units like oathsword, druidic nobles, evocati, etc should at least possibly be able to cut their way through. thoughs?

**Vantaa** · August 19, 2013, 03:46 AM

Fact is that phalanxes were REALLY hard to beat toe to toe.
What good is your armour and sword if they've got 8 foot long spears pointing at you? Phalanxes were perfectly beatable in RTW. Just don't charge them head on, which is pretty obvious. What tactics do you use against them?

*18 feet

**blace** · August 19, 2013, 03:53 AM

well i would flank them but they could always just magically change the direction of thier spears and be almost impossible to crack. then theres the square and unless you have really strong missle troops theres nothing you could do playing barbarians. its not that i dont think they should be a tough nut to crack i just dont think they should be able to endlessly mow down hordes of infantry without taking any casualties. in history they were more to pin the enemy in place while the companion cavalry smashed into the flanks. they were the shield in the army not the sword. against well equiped and armoured warriors like roman legionaires or heavy celtic mercenaries like those from galatia employed by ptolemaic egypt eventually they would crack as the full body shields would protect the soldiers from the pikes as they chopped off the ends of the sarrissa and then closed for the kill

**Holger Danske** · August 19, 2013, 03:53 AM

Offensive remarks deleted ~LestaT

**General Vangelis** · August 19, 2013, 04:10 AM

Blace, no a Phalanx wasn't only used as something to pin down the enemy, they also had offensive roles too ( right wing of the phalanx at the battle of Gaugamela). In every battle with the Romans the legions would only retreat and fall back when attacked from the front and any attempt to chop the end of the sarissa was futile ( see the failure of the Romans at the battle of Pydna). There is no chance attacking the phalanx in a frontal assault in even terrain and achieve victory. The Romans couldn't even do it to the classical Greek phalanx, as it was indicated in the battle of Corinth where again they won due to their capability to achieve flanking attacks. So hopefully such a stupidity won't be implemented in the game.

**Smiling Hetairoi** · August 19, 2013, 04:41 AM

You're a really bad player if you had problems beating the phalanx in Rome 1.

**Archilles** · August 19, 2013, 05:19 AM

Originally Posted by Smiling Hetairoi

You're a really bad player if you had problems beating the phalanx in Rome 1.

So friendly at the beginning of the week???

Cmon we all know that the pgalanx is very hard to beat - they turn very fast and so on... i mean everyone knows how to attack

**blace** · August 19, 2013, 05:07 AM

bullcrap. if you play any barbarian faction you will have a really hard time against phalanx online in rome 1 and if they can just spam stacks against you and guard there flanks well theres not much you can do. even if you beat their flanking cavalry they will just wall up and its impossible to flank a phalanx line unless you pin it from the front which mean sacrificing units since not even chosen swordsmen will last long from the frontand in the end they are just a bit rediculous. you can argue about me being a bad player but in the end theres a reason practically no one plays britons or gauls online and its because they cant do much against phalanx spam unless the player using the phalanx really sucks.

**He111** · August 19, 2013, 05:27 AM

Well to be honest, Phalanx maybe hard to beat on the Front, but they break as easily from the Side7Bakc as every other Infantry, flank them - charge them - see them run.
A Sarissa Formation is meant to be "Op" from the front, sure in Rome I you could easily turn them 180° in one Second, but Ca already said it will take notable longer.

**Dan113112** · August 19, 2013, 05:29 AM

Originally Posted by He111

Well to be honest, Phalanx maybe hard to beat on the Front, but they break as easily from the Side7Bakc as every other Infantry, flank them - charge them - see them run.
A Sarissa Formation is meant to be "Op" from the front, sure in Rome I you could easily turn them 180° in one Second, but Ca already said it will take notable longer.

Even when a pike phalanx formation could turn quickly you could still flank them easily enough once they were engaged by infantry from the front.

**111289** · August 19, 2013, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by He111

Well to be honest, Phalanx maybe hard to beat on the Front, but they break as easily from the Side7Bakc as every other Infantry, flank them - charge them - see them run.
A Sarissa Formation is meant to be "Op" from the front, sure in Rome I you could easily turn them 180° in one Second, but Ca already said it will take notable longer.

A 180 will be fast in rome 2 actually. The ''J'' key I believe makes your units turn around but anything other than that they should raise their spears and be vunerable for some time.

**blace** · August 19, 2013, 05:36 AM

well what ca has said so far is encouraging, that they will stop them for a while but eventually they will get through. i just hope that they dont go back on that idea because of people on the forum whining that they should be invincible from the front which would ruin the game in my opinion

**Dan113112** · August 19, 2013, 05:39 AM

Originally Posted by blace

well what ca has said so far is encouraging, that they will stop them for a while but eventually they will get through. i just hope that they dont go back on that idea because of people on the forum whining that they should be invincible from the front which would ruin the game in my opinion

I think they mean that some soldiers will get through. Not that you will win by engaging a pike unit from the front with heavy infantry. In RTW, some soldiers did make it past the pikes as well.

**BunnyPoopCereal** · August 19, 2013, 08:12 AM

Originally Posted by blace

well what ca has said so far is encouraging, that they will stop them for a while but eventually they will get through. i just hope that they dont go back on that idea because of people on the forum whining that they should be invincible from the front which would ruin the game in my opinion

So they'll hold out for about six seconds. Then they break through at 7 seconds and the entire unit is decimated in 12 seconds. 2 minute games yay fun.

**nameless** · August 19, 2013, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by BunnyPoopCereal

So they'll hold out for about six seconds. Then they break through at 7 seconds and the entire unit is decimated in 12 seconds. 2 minute games yay fun.

Is it seriously that hard to watch a video? Just watch it.

Anyone who watches the video can tell you that CA showed a levy(weakest unit in the game) as a demonstration so clearly they would have low stats and wouldn't last long in a fight if they get flanked or go against an actual elite unit. Not to mention the whole thing was sped up because not everyone is going to be interested in watching a 10 minute pushing match.

Why is that so hard to understand?

We've seen elite hoplite units hold out longer than 5 - 10 minutes against Roman legions so why should the Phalanx be any different?

In any case though we've seen Pikes get beaten when attacked in the rear which is how it happened anyways. The Pike's main weakeness was it's inflexbility.

If you got issues with people forming pike circles then do what the English did to the Scottish, use archers.

**Smiling Hetairoi** · August 19, 2013, 05:38 AM

Bring more skirmishers next time.

**blace** · August 19, 2013, 05:41 AM

i dont mean that they said it will be easy. i just mean that they said it wont be impossible

phalanxes in street fighting city battles or holding bridges comes to mind

**alex_shields** · August 19, 2013, 05:54 AM

Shouldn't be impossible to breach them from the front- but it should be very costly. As stated already, they need to be slow and immobile without the ability of individual soldiers to turn. They need to be "locked" into formation facing forward. Turning should result in a disrupted formation or just take a long time.

BUT, I do think the phalanx should be devastating to troops or cavalry or chariots charging en masse. It was historically devastatingly effective against 'barbarian' tactics of charging straight into it. Blace, charging your barbarian swordsman into a phalanx shouldn't ever work - you'll have to bring it to your forests and ambush it. If that doesn't work, it's because the AI is broken, not the phalanx.

**Paranoid Android** · August 19, 2013, 05:58 AM

They should be really tough, but that doesn't make them 'OP'! There's plenty of examples in history of the phalanx's prowess. At the battle of Heraclea, for example, the Romans legionaries, despite their (slightly) superior numbers, could not crack Pyrrhus's phalangites.

**blace** · August 19, 2013, 05:59 AM

well i think heavy barbarian infantry should stand just as good a chance as roman infantry as they are more or less similarly equiped (full body shields, heavy chain armour, swords) if persians with wicker shields could put enough pressure onto a phalanx to require alexander to divert his cav from chasing down the persian king to rescue them from routing then i think a heavy enough furious barbarian assualt, while costly, should eventually be able to break through. especially if its made by heavily armored infantry.

barbarians on the whole did pretty well against hoplite phalanxes, battle of the allia comes to mind. i dont know of any battles where they directly charged pike phalanxes but i know kingdoms like epeiros prized elite barbarian mercenary warriors as shock troops so they must not have been useless

i mean lets be honest. just because they are barbarians doesn't mean that they are going to voluntarily impale themselves rather then try to use their big shields and swords to work their way through