Defeating Phalanxes as Rome

[Auggie]

Hey everybody,

Personally I believe that in RTW vanilla, phalanxes are overpowered. The greek phalanxes have absurdly long spears and can pretty much destroy any unit with ease.The moment phalanxes lower their spears, unless you have another phalanx yourself in order to fix them you're pretty much screwed. All you can do is throw your non phalanx units at them or their flanks and hope they break, but you risk suffering massive casualties.

This problem became very big for me playing as the Brutii. I suffered heavy casualties and could rarely break even militia hoplite phalanxes. The pila help, but what else can I do as Rome to defeat phalanxes?

Thanks,
Auggie

[Antelope]

Well that is Historically Accurate. Pike were tremendously difficult to attack form the front unless the ground was difficult, the Romans tired to come up with techniques like throwing their Pilum to specific areas of the Greek phalanx individual units so as to the create a gap for their troops to enter.

But according to the game I disagree Vanilla phalanxes were difficult to attack form the front quite right so but will break easily when attacked from the rear, especially with multiple charges. (except Sparta)

[Auggie]

I might be wrong, but I believe the Greek cities fought with a shorter dory spear not a sarissa. I agree that phalanxes are easier to break from the flank, but my question is how would you fix the phalanxes with your infantry when you are at a disadvantage without a phalanx so you can flank them later?

[Antelope]

Battle Leuctria gives an idea of how to break phalanxes when the opponent is absurdly better than you are providing that your weaker infantry are of the same quality or better than the opponents weaker Infantry overloading a side ofthe toops so that sheer mass break the stronger troops on their side of the battle field.

Also if you on a rocky battle field or uneven battle field look for gaps in the line especially when they are on the march. Also remember barbarian force do not need a battle line make them guess when you are going to hit them get your cavalry in behind and if possible take out the enemy missile troops when the opportune moment comes fix them in place and hit them with the cavalry.

I rember seeing a guy on Yourtube Sadly cannot find the vid but he was gaul and he fixed greek cavalry out on the far wings and with the Infantry move up stopped war cried then elongated the infantry unit on the far left efused a flank, all other units moved and attacked the unit to the right of them. leaving two uits free to weep in behind. the chosen were in the middle and this meant he was able to roll down his right the enamies left flank.

of corse you could try the Cannie Encirclement but expect heavy losses.

[Blopwerth III]

Some tactics I've found:
Throw everything at one phalanx to it is overwhelmed.
Send a large force at the pikes, then have your cavalry come around behind it and charge home. The phalanx should hang on for a few seconds but soon after some deaths it'll dissolve and begin routing. Cue massacre.

[Morshu9001]

[Heaven]Biscuits has a tutorial on doing this: If you have units that can form testudos, you can put them into testudo formation while in guard mode and walk straight through a phalanx, losing only a few men. When you're in the middle of the phalanx, take them out of testudo formation and out of guard mode, and they'll explode in a little spot and rout the phalanx unit quickly. But that requires lots of micromanagement.

The easier solution is to just have plenty of archers, being sure to hit them from the back or right only. For some reason, whenever I charge the back or side of a phalanx with cavalry, I always lose lots of horsemen. I consider phalanx units in this game overpowered, so I don't play as Rome since they have none. They're "nerfed" in Europa Barbarorum.

[ImperatorAndreas]

When I play as the Brutii, what I usually do is to recruit equites before any battle and then recruit as many mercenary peltasts and Illyrians as I can, also usually two hoplite mercs that I stretch a lot and then put the hastati,... on the flanks, you have to be quick or the hoplite mercs will rout. The equites are more powerful than the Greek and Macedonian cav (at the begining) so you shouldn't have any problem with that.

[segoch]

At the beginning of the battle, kill as much of the non phalanx units as you can using your general and cavalry. Micro to avoid the phalanxes. This also splits up the phalanxes when they try to chase the cavalry. Phalanx are slow and bad at turning, so you should never have to engage an organised formation of phalanx.

Then gank them with 2 units hastati + cavalry. Have one hastati engage as lightly as possible from the front (single right click or walk slightly into the spears). Run another up the side and then double right click attack. Finally generals charge to the back should rout, especially if they are militia or levy. The better the timing and lower the delay between the 3 hits, the less men you will lose on the front. Run your other units around to avoid pointlessly engaging 1v1, and to spread the phalanxes out. Pila to the side can also serve as a morale hit, but is more difficult to time and sometimes the ing hastati just won't throw, even if you backspace right click.

Make sure you alt-attack your general after the initial charge. If your general unit is running low, hit F before the charge to put him in the rear. This way you can lose like 20 bodyguard in every battle. As Brutii you should be able to blitz all of mainland Greece and most Macedonia with your starting units (especially on medium). Bring your faction leader and heir for their oversized bodyguards. Preserve your Equites, they shouldn't have to fight melee infantry for more than a few seconds.

To kill enemy warlords charge them with your general, hit F and alt attack after the charge hits. It is impossible to lose your general before theirs if you do this. For some reason when you alt-attack after a charge, ~8 enemy bodyguard will die instantly. Maybe the secondary attack does not share cooldowns with the primary, so you get two attacks with charge bonus on the same individual men? dunno.

For town squares, try to lure them off so they can be routed. If not, circle the town square with your hastati while throwing pila into their backs. Then just surround them and send in your general with F-alt.

General bodyguard is ing dumb. It's an oversized (esp for faction leader and heir) unit of heavy cavalry with 2 HP that heals itself in the field for free while gaining EXP.

[NobleNix]

In addition to other good advice I've seen:

1) Bring lots of cavalry to the battle.

2) Try to pick hilly terrain and GET ATTACKED (instead of attacking) to force the enemy to have to chase you down in order to win.

If you do both 1 and 2, and are decent at micro -managing, you have a win in the can. Use the terrain and cav to tire out the spears and supporting units (enemy cav and ranged units) by making them chase you all over the battlefield. Get enemy cav and archers separated from the spears and crunch them with your locally superior cav force, then let the naked spears chase you uphill to meet your rested infantry. Finally, make sure that cav runs around and busts the exhausted spear units in the back as soon as they make contact with your infantry.

I used to get my jollies plowing through multiple stacks of armored hoplites on VH/VH difficulty using ONLY a half-stack of cav. It can be done even with Gaul's crummy cav. The hardest thing about this is not destroying the spears, but getting the supporting enemy ranged and cav units separated from the spears and destroyed. It can be done. Good Roman cav will work nicely.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Use "bait units" to separate single phalanxes from the herd,
then counter the Phalanxes weakness' {lack of speed & mobility} by peppering it with javlins and arrows to the sides and back. Once shaken, then close from multiple sides to destroy it.

Remove the fire at will, from your pilas, and use them on the sides and back for maximum effect. Play an eastern faction such as Parthia, and you'll quickly become an expert at using this tactic...

[neep]

Use "bait units" to separate single phalanxes from the herd,
then counter the Phalanxes weakness' {lack of speed & mobility} by peppering it with javlins and arrows to the sides and back. Once shaken, then close from multiple sides to destroy it.

Remove the fire at will, from your pilas, and use them on the sides and back for maximum effect. Play an eastern faction such as Parthia, and you'll quickly become an expert at using this tactic...

+This

Engage with your line of Hastati to hold them in place, just hold - don't try to brute force them into submission.
Send archers around one flank and focus on the phalanx at the end of the line.
Since they have no flanking support they will be a little worried, and then start to get cut down by your archers.
An additional cavalry charge, or an extra Hastati attack, will make them route after a while.
While your cavalry chases down the stragglers, take the freed up Hastati and start to work on the next phalanx in the line.
Gradually move your way down the line as the ripple effect of routing friends, poor morale, and arrows in the back do their job.

When it works, it's a beautiful sight to see your troops work their way down the line.

[nhinhonhinho]

Basic method

- Throw every missile at them
- Flank with Equites and generals. Group your cavalry together to form large mobs and strike from many directions. You should use these mobs as primary force. But never stay in melee with pikeman.
- Try to get some cavalry auxilia and as much mercenary as you can
- Infantry can be use for flank attack, generally 2 hastati (or princep) vs 1 phalanx (any phalanx except the strongest once like Spartan, Silvershield...)

I personally enjoy fighting again phalanx and considered it as a trail of RTW. The tactic again phalanx can be use again other infantry base factions (Barbarians) with double effect

[Sir Adrian]

Mercenary slingers usually destroy phalaxes. Balistae are also very good against them.

[Blopwerth III]

the key is to use phalanx tactics against the phalanxes. The phalanxes are great for defending as well as holding units in place so the cavalry can come along and flank (and of course massacre) them. I've found the most important weapon against a phalanx is...wait for it....cavalry.

You may be thinking: "eh....wat?"

Well, what I like to do is charge the phalanx(es) with my best units. I send the weaker ones to flank the phalanx(es) whilst my cavalry wheels around behind them. I wait until the phalanx(es) are suffering losses and morale shocks and then I rush them in their arses with the cav. Their pikes are pointing in the opposite direction, so they have to fight the cavalry off with swords, which doesn't provide as much of the "bonus against cavalry". The best part is, if the phalanx doesn't begin fighting to the death, it will break right into the cavalry forces.

This does not work at all in Rome 2. Since it's based on stats and not circumstances, if you try hitting ANY spear unit with cav, it'll fall apart and take devastating losses. And when they do rout, since Warscape makes it so that your cavalry have to do kill animations in order to kill a retreating soldier, it has to be lined up perfectly and it'll still look surreal.

[Antelope]

Watch out when playing Humen players who 'refuse the flank' (turning one or more units on wither flank so as to prevent the enemy from attacking the rear.)

[alex86]

Massed, massed archers. In all my time of playing SP only it never occurred to me to bring more than a couple archers units to complement an infantry-heavy army. After playing MP, I did a Macedon SP campaign on VH/VH and found infantry units almost superfluous. Archers will take down enemy cavalry (provided you have some of your own). Archers can't be caught by the phalanxes. They can run around and decimate the best of them.

Playing as early Rome, I'd probably get as many pila and javelins as I can and wait for the phalanx to come hit me (so a lot of velites behind your infantry line). That should thin their ranks considerably and if not, wheel the velites around and hit them from behind while they engage your infantry.

Against human players in MP, pikes will get hammered if you can flank them. This is true for non-pike infantry, too, such as urbans. Most of the early battle I think tends to be fought for the right to hammer and anvil (assuming you're dealing with infantry). If they have so much infantry you can't flank them, probably best to not take them on right away and use your almost inevitably resulting missile or cav superiority to make sure infantry is all they have left, at which point they're sitting ducks.

Although if they can box up at that point, hopefully you've still got some missile units in store.

[adamgerd123]

You need to be extremely good at micromanagement, but there is a method, which is possible, if you have 0 units of missile. Cavalry!
1. Use 3 cavalry units to attack all sides, except the front
2. Just after impact, once the charge is delivered. Retreat ASAP. If you're just a bit late, it will fail
3. Repeat

This is how I defeated greek phalanxes, before I finally bought missile units

[eugenioso]

Hey everybody,

Personally I believe that in RTW vanilla, phalanxes are overpowered. The greek phalanxes have absurdly long spears and can pretty much destroy any unit with ease.The moment phalanxes lower their spears, unless you have another phalanx yourself in order to fix them you're pretty much screwed. All you can do is throw your non phalanx units at them or their flanks and hope they break, but you risk suffering massive casualties.

This problem became very big for me playing as the Brutii. I suffered heavy casualties and could rarely break even militia hoplite phalanxes. The pila help, but what else can I do as Rome to defeat phalanxes?

Thanks,
Auggie

Simple math is the answer. Hoplite units (if i recall correctly) had a slighty higher upkeep than even hastati or principes. As such, what you can do with little trouble is to use a bait unit like velites in skirmish mode to fix them to the front, while your Hastati or principes run to the rear and deliver a devastating barrage of pila. The main advantage of fighting the greeks is their slow as molasses maneuverability, and a combination of velites and hastati can decimate their forces. Never think of the enemy's greatest strength as an asset, see it as a weakness.

[James_Northstar]

One word: Cavalry. Greek hoplites (and especially phalanxes) are extremely vulnerable from the flanks and rear, though nearly invincible from the front (this is both balanced and historically realistic).

To defeat a Greek (hoplite) or Macedonian (pikeman) phalanx, simply hold them at the front while your cavalry wheel around their flanks to crush the enemy. If they turn to face your cavalry, they expose their flanks or rear to your center and you can hit them with infantry instead...

That's the simplest type of flanking maneuver, and it requires substantial cavalry superiority. Thankfully, Equites are better-equipped for a prolonged melee with other horsemen than are Greek Cavalry, and the Roman infantry are sufficiently maneuverable that you can (and should) also send a small force of infantry to accompany your cavalry in their flanking maneuver if you face substantial numbers of enemy horse. Cavalry are extremely powerful in Rome Total War, and Roman ones in particular tend to be well armored and better-suited for prolonged melee with enemy horsemen.

You don't need cavalry for a flanking maneuver, however. You can even place groups of heavy infantry out to your flanks an march them ahead of the rest of your line in a sort of concave crescent formation. As long as your line is longer than the enemy's, you should be able to move around the flanks of the phalanx and encircle some of their units, leading them to break and run...


Phalanxes have so many vulnerabilities that they're actually kind of worthless except in the hands of an extremely skilled commander... They're vulnerable to missile infantry. To missile cavalry even more so. To melee cavalry of most any sort so long as you perform a hammer-and-anvil maneuver. To siege weapons (you don't even want to think about what a well-aimed Ballista shot can do to the closely-packed masses of a phalanx). Even to heavier infantry who simply push through the pikes by continuing to try to charge *through* their lines until they get into killing range with their swords (although doing this with light infantry like Hastati this is basically throwing your infantry away- your men will get slaughtered in large numbers long before they can push through the front of any decently-armed phalanx...)

The only way a Greek or Macedonian commander can really even hope for victory against an equal foe is through superior skill, or a flat and unbroken battlefield they can charge their phalanxes across in good order before their enemy has time to thin their ranks too much with missile fire or initiate any of the trickier sorts of flanking maneuvers (even then, lots of supporting cavalry or non-phalanx infantry are necessary to hold the flanks- these troops should hold back as reserves and meet any enemy attempts at a flanking maneuver, or seek out and destroy the enemy cavalry if an opportunity presents itself to safely do so...)



Hoplite spears were quite long by the way- and the hoplites in-game aren't carrying sarissae, they're indeed carrying dory spears as they should: which were shorter than the sarrisae, but at 2.4-4.5 meters (7.9-14.9 feet) were still much longer than the spears carried by less organized spearmen who fought in loose formation rather than forming a shield-wall... (typical spearmen of other nations usually only carried short spears of 1.5-2.1 meters in length- a long spear like the dory would have been completely impractical in a more loose and disorganized battle-line where enemies could get in close...) I think you are under-estimating how long the spears of a typical hoplite formation were (Macedonain phalanxes carried even longer spears, so long in fact that they had counterweights near the butt of the spear to prevent them from tipping point-first into the ground, but this was mainly so they could bring even more spears to bear against the enemy- enough that, unlike Greek phalanxes, they might hope to prevent the enemy to even reaching the shield-wall in the first place, which also enabled phalanx pikemen to survive battles with much smaller shields than hoplites, although this left them even more vulnerable to enemy missile troops or being outflanked... Some phalanx pikemen still carried large shields as well as sarrisae though- which is modeled in-game with units like the Royal Pikemen of the Macedonians or whatever the game calls them...)

- Northstar

[Anthropoid]

I'll assume I've got what I consider an "ideal" early polybian Roman army (roughly). 1 General, 2 Equite, 4 archers, 2 velites (skirmishers), 3 triarii, 8 hastati or principe (I play with Roma Surrectum mod so I've already sort of forgotten vanilla units, but you get the idea).

The archers are the backbone of the formation. But them in a single line with each unit of archers about 4 rows deep. Place the Triarii also in one line immediately in front of them. Place a hastati/principe on either side of the triarii. Place the velites on either side of these guys (this is different than versus a non-pike force, normally I'd have the velites either in front or behind the triarii). Now take the remaining six early legionaries, put 3 on each side and angle them outward so they are ideally situated to run ahead and to their respectively flank of the formation. General and horsemen go just in front of these guys and set to wide spacing. Get this formation nice and formed up and lock it in. You'll use this formation to approach the enemy but then once you get close enough you'll start "breaking off" subunits by pausing, selecting and regrouping.

Turn auto-fire off of all units, turn the runaway off the skirmishers and archers, and turn hold your ground on all (the last part not essential but I like to be consistent, so either all on or all off, and I find ON is better as it leads to less untended units chasing a weak unit right smack into a death trap).

The key to playing singleplayer RTW is to use the pause button and speed up buttons to make the play flow at a resonable pace and to be able to make quick decisions on the battlefield.

The tactics in short form: approach the enemy formation head on or at a slightly oblique angle, get to within at least bow range if not javelin range, send cavalry to disperse enemy ranged units/skirmishers (as much as possible). As someone said above use bait to pull the pike's away from their core formation, send javelin using troops to their sides (preferably their right side) turn on fire at will (or use one click to tell a unit to throw its pila . . .but if you do that you have to babysit them cause they will only throw one then charge.

Your goal is to keep peltering all the heavy units with missiles, avoiding melee with ANY units (save cavalry chasing down enemy missile) until such time as ALL missiles are expended. This requires simply micro-managing and lots and lots of pausing and scanning the field, moving this hastati this way, moving that cavalry unit that way . . . basically do NOT fit in a line, send your light infantry and skirmishers constantly this way and that always trying to flank and/or get behind pike units; and when they do unleash missiles. Once you have a few light infantry that have expended all their missiles you can use them primarily as 'bait.'

By the time all your missiles are expended, the equites will have taken pretty heavy casualties, maybe 50 to 50%, the general maybe 20%, and perhaps one or two light infantry will be pretty badly banged up because they got caught. But even if you've had one or two units rout, you have spared the majority of your other units any harm at all, though they are probably pretty winded. The enemy on the other hand has been badly hurt, with many of his strongest units down 50% or so and getting pretty near to breaking. Engage one or more of them with the triarii from in front, then charge their flanks and backs with other units.