Abandoning the phalanx over time.

[James the Red]

From what I understand, at some point the Seleucids and Ptolemies and other Eastern Greeks who are very pike based at the start of the mods time-frame started to abandon the phalanx and use more Thureophoroi style troops later, correct? If these factions get military reforms in the future versions of EBII, will these reforms lower the limit the recruitment of pike units so that Pikes are more available at the start but get less available over time? I'm not saying it should happen, I'm just asking what people think of it.

On one hand it allows the army to more reflect history as it either causes the player a harder time to field pike based units instead of switching to being Thureophoroi and Thorakitai based. But on the other hand it more limits the players ability to chose how to construct ones armies. And is it even worth doing? That's extra work for the EB team.

Maybe its better as a self-imposed roleplay rather than a feature? Any ideas of what year I should switch If I do this?

[Boriak]

Could easily be a submod feature.

[TheVerySpecialK]

I think it is important to allow the player to make those kinds of decisions: use of heavy-handed methods to force the player to comply with what is "historical" in a game set in an alternate world history doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyways. Maybe the phalanx doesn't get phased out. Maybe phalanx-heavy factions conquer and dominate factions that don't use it, thereby increasing the phalanx's prominence. Maybe Rome never rises (or even falls) early on, and thus never influences any of the other factions to move away from the phalanx by developing legionary-like units.

Like I said, when the game is completely open-ended and actually encourages players to do unhistorical things simply by giving them the freedom to do what they will, adding in restrictions or forced reforms ends up contradicting what the game is all about in the first place. I think your own suggestion at the bottom is the best: Role Play it. In my Seleucid campaign in EB 1, I never eliminated the phalanx in my armies completely: I always found use for them (being as OP as they were RTW 1). Yes, heavier legionary-style infantry did end up taking over most combat roles in my armies, but the phalanx always had a niche.

[Satapatiš]

It could be a submod handled as an optional reform.

If player loses a battle, or more, against a manipular army, then has a choice to build a reform. It not only lowers a recruitment limits for the pikes, but also allows for recruiting more thorakitai and thureophoroi. Maybe even it unlocks some imitation legionnaires units.

However, as nice feature as it could be for a submod, it isn't really necessary.

The same can be achieved by player recruiting thureos bearers insted of phalanxes. I'm playing Parthia and I'm like circa 130 BC and, despite finally having philohellenic satrapies in my grasp, I'm using only thureos bearers as my main go-to infantry solution because they are less cumbersome and much more flexible than any phalanxes. They simply work better with Parthian cavalry.

[Sint]

Maybe even it unlocks some imitation legionnaires units.

Since that never happened?

[Satapatiš]

Since that never happened?

It's very likely that such thing like "imitation legionnaires" never existed in reality and Roman writers were describing thorakitai instead, as their kit already was very similar to the Roman equipment (well, roughly similar, thureos is slightly smaller and built in a different way than scutum, but is close enough).

However, the reform could be enabling either thorakites with slightly larger shields (again, debatable since it's nearly impossible to tell if art of the period is depicting soldiers geared with scutum or with thureos, it's too stylised), or just units with a greater percentage of soldiers wearing chainmail and slightly buffed armor stat.