Help with Modding Phalanxes

[Pooploop]

Guys, did something change with the phalanx since 2.2b (yeah, duh, I guess) for the worse? Like...why is it that the phalanx fares poorly against every other type of close combat infantry? Whether the phalanx is in guard mode or not, whether they receive foes statically or while advancing, the enemy infantry just zip past the wall of spears like it's not there and go in close for the kill. When the other side is done charging and both sides are drawn up in ranks thrusting at each other, it's like the phalangites forget to keep a tight formation and that their pointy ends are like 10+ feet away from their hands. Enemy infantry sidestep those pointy ends coming at them from all angles like they're ballerinas. When the one phalangite fights one enemy infantry (despite the phalangite having both comrades alive on both his sides) the enemy fights him a foot away and the phalangite is thrusting him with a weapon whose point is already BEHIND the foe in front of him. He's basically whacking him with the shaft. In one on one unit simulations against hoplites, the first 3 minutes of combat yield 60+ dead for only 20 slain...The Agema phalangites are fine (against spartans they get slightly more casualties, 2 or 3), the mercenary phalangites are ok, but normal phalangites (not the levy, the normal standard phalangites) are pathetic. They perform poorly against all close combat infantry with shorter melee weapons. I know the EB2 team probably has a ton of reasons why they decided it to be so, so may I ask for some help for personal tweaks? I want something approaching (NOT EXACTLY LIKE, but going there) how pikemen fought melee units with shorter weapons in vanilla MTW2. You know when the enemy infantry with shorter weapons were kept at a DISTANCE. Note, all my simulations were head on, front-side collisions; I know flanking is supposed to cause massive casualties to tightly packed phalangites. However, 60 deaths for only 20 kills if put up against classical hoplites in a direct engagement, no maneuvering involved? The heck then happened in Chaeronea, the shafts the sarissas were made of solid iron, so despite the hoplites getting past the surprisingly (who knew! It seems phalanxes can't keep a tight formation!) sketchy and wide gaps in the spearwall, the phalangites bludgeoned them to death?

P.S. The poor performance of phalanxes can be improved by shaping them into a deeper square formation. But, not so much for standard phalangites, they're just slightly less pathetic. This still is a problem because it takes a player to think this up. The ai get the default rectangular formation for all their phalangites, so they're still easy to repulse...even when attacking from the front. So all the phalanx reliant ai factions are so much easier to defeat.

P.P.S. I actually liked how phalanxes were in 2.2b. Invulnerable defense from the front (not because phalangites were supermen, but because a WALL of sharp points is really hard to get past and defend from) but were slow and easily enveloped and turned into a scattered mess when attacked from multiple sides. I guess you guys made the phalanx like so now in 2.3 because back in 2.2b they were so tight that even charging them from the rear meant heavy casualties. However, 60 deaths for 20 kills against regular hoplites attacking from the front...c'mon. Again maybe mitigated with a deeper formation, but the ai is stupid so they'll never reform their phalanxes like that. I repeat, though, I tested this with phalanxes attacking, defending, with or without guard mode on (spearwall was always on).

P.P.P.S So, on personal tweaking, is it something I'll have to change in the unit.txt? I have NO PROBLEM with the STATS and I bow to EB2's better judgement on that. I just want a wall of spears to keep enemies at a DISTANCE for once, and make it rare for them slip through when attacking from the FRONT. Is there something, some value I have to increase like unit tightness or reach of weapon, or anything? This is my personal opinion on phalanx warfare I'd like to see in EB2, but I don't want to force it on the release as a whole, that's why I'm asking for help in personal tweaking. Thanks for any advice.

[QuintusSertorius]

We didn't touch the stats of phalanxes between 2.2b and 2.3, all the changes are to the animations.

Phalanxes shouldn't be offensively dangerous, but they should be able to hold anything in front of them, ie be the anvil. The idea is that if you put them on Guard Mode (which they should stay on) nothing should get through from the front.

However, no matter what we did with the animations, it never seemed to reach that point. Looking at vanilla phalanxes, it seems they always devolve into a mob. We couldn't stop infiltration from the front, either.

I'm surprised merc phalanxes turn out better than regular ones, given the latter has better stats. They should be using identical animations.

[Mamlaz]

Phalanxes shouldn't be offensively dangerous

I still do not understand this sentiment.

A pike formation can push forward and a pikeman can still stab with his pike as if it was a heavier spear.

I am not arguing that they should be as renaissance pikemen, smashing into the fray, but they should not be inept either.

[QuintusSertorius]

I still do not understand this sentiment.

A pike formation can push forward and a pikeman can still stab with his pike as if it was a heavier spear.

I am not arguing that they should be as renaissance pikemen, smashing into the fray, but they should not be inept either.

Men in the third and subsequent ranks can't even see what they're "attacking", they're doing nothing more than threatening against a space.

More to the point, as already mentioned, the quality of pikemen was in steady decline from Phillip's day. Denser blocks (so even more men who aren't active participants in the back ranks), longer spears (so less control even for those in the front two ranks who can see what they're doing), heavier armour (to compensate for less offensive skill and give more durability for the other elements to do their job)

[myarta]

I haven't played vanilla in forever, but I seem to recall the Fountain Guard spearmen from TATW were able to keep their pike formation and the enemy's bodies were mostly near the spear points, not all mixed up in them, if you did a guard mode / spear wall static line defense to receive a charge.

I don't know much about animations, though, so maybe it has something to do with that, or is it possible our charging infantry are more massive than in other mods, and they disturb the formation and end up close?

I'm used to them having low kills but also low deaths since they mostly hold the enemy at point's distance, until the enemy can be flanked with missile, shock infantry, or cavalry.

[Hellenikon]

The only advice i can give you is that low mass soldiers tend to have more difficulties penetrating the sarissa wall than heavy armoured, high mass infantry. The best example are roman legionaries which simply walk over phalanxes and destroy their formation like they weren't even there.

[Pooploop]

QuintusSertorius, I don't want the phalanx to be some sort of human meat-grinder, and should they get a sizable number of kills it should be over a period of time. My issue is that myarta's statement is wrong on the latter end. The phalanxes get slaughtered, especially when receiving the initial charge of...infantry *facepalms*. The enemy infantry kinda ...pause...for a second when coming in contact with the spear points, then zip right past them and kill the phalangites up close. Unless it is my nostalgia screwing things up, I'm SURE I had nooooo issues whatsoever with 2.2b phalangites. I'm only pointing this out NOW because of how bad their performance is in 2.3. When using a default rectangular formation, a sizable chunk of enemy infantry just dance past a hedge of sarissa points and inflict something like 60 kills and only get 20 casualties. The agema and mercenary phalangites also get infiltrated regularly, but because of the former's higher stats and the latter's uhm, "mercenary grit"(?), they get a more even casualty to kills rate. I repeat, all tests were front to front collisions, and even with guard mode on, the phalangites still get slaughtered (mainly because the enemy infantry bat aside the spear points with ease!).

Myarta, nice thing mentioning Third Age. QuintusSertorius, I don't know what the EB2 team is looking for in its phalangites but in that mod and its submods (Divide and Conquer), Uruk-Hai pikemen, Gondor Fountain Guard spearmen, or the Rhun pikemen are the lumbering spearwalls that are an example to all TW mods of how it should be done. Those guys keep formation and are still fighting even when getting attacked or inflitrated by Mountain Trolls! Also, they keep hordes of enemy infantry AWAY from (via their longer weapons *taps head knowingly*) them as long as they attack from the front. Maybe their team has the One Ring or something, but whatever magic they have can it be applied to the poor and sad phalangites of EB2?

Hellenikon, thanks for mentioning that example, as I've seen it as well. Close combat infantry just zip past the spearwall. I don't want the phalangites to heave death sticks in which they touch enemy infantry once and explode them but they should keep those guys AWAY from them right? So, going back on personal tweaking, there's nothing I can do? No such thing as unit tightness, or increasing the reach of weapons, or anything? I really wanted to play 2.3, but seeing the phalangites...I HAVE to at least fix them for my game.

P.S. If it has something to do with mass, what are the rules for tweaking this value? Can I make phalangites have greater mass in game? Or must I tweak all other infantry to have less mass? Anyone help?

[Krampus]

Is there any way to change the weapon properties so that they cause more hits but less casualties? Like knocking units down as opposed to killing them?

I remember how EBI used the lethality system in the EDU to that effect.

Are there any save game compatible changes we can make to improve the anvil capabilities of pikes?

[Mr. Blob]

If it is animation, you can put the old one back, I think.

In EDU file, see for phalanx units what are their models called, it is after "soldier" entry.

Then in "battle_model_db" file search for the name of the phalanx model. After model's name there are pathways to model for every faction which is allowed to have such model in its roster, then after that are pathways for their appropriate skins for every faction, at the end is the name of the animation which model uses. You do this too for uruk high pikemen in Third age and see the name of their animation, if EB team hasn't deleted the old animation just put the name of uruk's one. Take care that in "battle_model_db" file preceding number denotes the number of characters that will follow, if there is a mismatch than game will CTD.

[Krampus]

If it is animation, you can put the old one back, I think.

In EDU file, see for phalanx units what are their models called, it is after "soldier" entry.

Then in "battle_model_db" file search for the name of the phalanx model. After model's name there are pathways to model for every faction which is allowed to have such model in its roster, then after that are pathways for their appropriate skins for every faction, at the end is the name of the animation which model uses. You do this too for uruk high pikemen in Third age and see the name of their animation, if EB team hasn't deleted the old animation just put the name of uruk's one. Take care that in "battle_model_db" file preceding number denotes the number of characters that will follow, if there is a mismatch than game will CTD.

When you say "if EB team hasn't deleted the old animation just put the name of uruk's one." are you implying that the two mods use a set group of animations?

Does EB use its own set of custom animations, or does it just assign existing attack animations from the base M2TW game?

Does TATW?

EDIT: QS answered above

[QuintusSertorius]

The performance difference of the mercenary variant compared to regular makes no sense whatsoever. They use identical animations, and the Phalangitai have better stats than the mercs. Are you sure you're not comparing them to the Deuteroi phalanx?

M2TW doesn't have a weapon-specific lethality system like RTW did. This is an example of a downgrade in functionality across engines. There are no other effects we can use.

We aren't using the vanilla pike animations, but our own EB_Phalanx animation. That is the only thing that has changed meaningfully, I just looked back at the old stats, the formation was slightly different but not enough to account for what is being observed.

[Krampus]

Pardon my lack of familiarity with modding, but it looks like there is not a discrete file for "EB_Phalanx", and that the animations are all lumped together in a .dat file.

Is there a way to revert back to the old 2.2b phalangite animations?

If I copy pasted the old 2.2b animations files would bad things happen to my game?

It just so happens that I saved the old data files for 2.2b...

[QuintusSertorius]

You can't revert; we're using animations in 2.3 that didn't exist in 2.2b, like those for camels and elephants. You'll get a battle-crash as soon as you have one featuring those units.

[Pooploop]

Quintus, on mercenary phalangites being better than regular, I may have only used too few custom battles to test that conclusion out. However, I think it's evident, and I hope to others who have noticed, that phalangites, in general, really suck compared to how they were in 2.2b. On the offensive note, historically, I really can't understand how sarissas are not lethal. It's a razor sharp giant spear-head powered by two hands arrayed five ranks deep and constantly thrusting at the foe. It's basically a short sword on a long stick. The phalangites may not have broken out into a dead run charge on the offense (like the Swiss), but their tightly serried ranks steadily marching towards the foe, bringing their pointy wall of death IS an aggressive, killing array. When in the meat grind of the melee, imagine being on the opposing side and that no matter where you turn (and that's limited because you have comrades jostling behind you and beside you) you've got at least five spear points directed toward you. Sure you can swat aside one and try to barge in, but that's only inviting yourself to get skewered by more giant spearheads. Maybe you can try to kill the bearers of the sarissas with your 2 foot sword, but they're like 10+ feet away, stabbing at you, with their comrades resting behind just waiting for someone to get closer so they can get those reserve spearheads down and thrusting. Polybius did not say the Macedonian phalanx was terrifying to attack from the front for nothing you know.

However, back to the reality of the game engine. For me, if in the first 10 minutes of a direct front-to-front melee with hoplites, the phalangites get to only kill 20+, that's FINE. However, in those 10 minutes, I would wish that the phalangites would only have 5+ casualties not a whopping 60+ and rising (like how it is now in 2.3)!! Because, you know, they're an anvil, not a squishy meatshield bait. And, as I keep on saying, they have the LOONGGER weapons arrayed in a deep formation designed to keep hoplites AWAAAYYY.

On personal tweaks,is there a way to unpack the animation data and replace the one specifically for phalangites then edit the edu text? Or should I wait for the...next release (sobs in Macedonian campaign dreams squashed to nothing)?

[Hellenikon]

In my experience phalangites have always had issues, even in 2.2b, for me the new (current) animations are roughly equal or a slight improvement over the old ones. The problem with soldiers bypassing the sarissa wall persists.

About the offensive capabilities of phalanxes, in this time period the trend was quantity over quality, with longer sarissas and minimal training. The pezhetairoi of Philipp II were far more drilled and flexible than most of these successor phalangites. The exception were the agema corps, as seen with the argyraspidai on magnesia. EB2 already represents this by making agema phalangitai more offensively capable, so they have the flexibility of being more than just the anvil. Basic phalangites would not be drilled enough to pull off complex maneouvres.

[Pooploop]

Hellenikon, on the historical basis that the average successor phalanx was quite unwieldy, I will not contest you on that. What I will persist in complaining about and asking for help in fixing is the current performance of EB2 2.3 standard phalangites. 20 kills but 60 deaths against average hoplites that attacked them from the front, and rising (casualties)? C'mon, 2.2b phalanxes were not that bad or I would have made a rant. 100% sure on my recall of how it was like to fight with them back in that old release.

On the other hand, you have mods like Third Age and its submod DaC having a variety of pike units that hold formation and keep enemies AWAY from them (not necessarily killing them, sometimes barely injuring the foe, but at least the pikemen don't die like flies) despite throwing Mountain Trolls, Oliphaunts and heaven knows what else at them. That's kinda why I'm asking how to replace the animations of 2.3 (just for the phalanxes).

P.S. Or maybe other stats are at play, like unit mass of enemy infantry or of the phalanx, or "tightness" of the formation of spearwalls, or reach (I don't know anymore, anything that'll help) of the spears. Basically whatever can be fixed to get EB2 phalanxes to keep formation, keep enemies away and at sarissa point and not die (the phalanx) like flies, I'm game.

[Sar1n]

Indeed, something must have changed. Maybe the mass of other units was adjusted? For some reason even Polybian Hastati could penetrate the spear wall at walking pace in my test and force the formation to cave in.

By the way, on what difficulty are you playing? EB is designed with medium or hard in mind, and in my test on hard, regular Phalangitai were able to hold the line, even if deformed, against Polybian troops for a long time while taking 30-40 casualties per unit. They didn't cause much damage, but then...they didn't have to.

[QuintusSertorius]

Nothing has changed with regards mass or even formation. It's all animations. CA decided, in their ultimate wisdom, that not only would they remove the weapon-specific lethality that RTW had, but that they'd also make what you see have a mechanical impact in the battle system. Thus a "good" animation is an efficient one with as few movements before getting to the action, and a "bad" one is an inefficient one that is slow.

You can't take the animation-set from 2.2b; not only is it missing several used in 2.3, but it has a whole host of bugs and errors we've corrected since, like swordsmen being inefficient and thus outclassed by spearmen, sword-armed cavalry missing a whole set of attacks and countless other things. Even the phalanx animations had bugs in 2.2b, they didn't actually have an attack for example.

[Geffalrus]

Gotta disagree with the idea of the phalanx declining from Phillip's day. Change it certainly did, but that is not the same as declining. There's no evidence that the pike blocks became denser and that's mostly because of the limitations of the written record and the number of sources we do (and do not) have. The longer sarissa spears evolved to give the phalanx a range advantage over another phalanx. The primary purpose of the phalanx was to hold enemy infantry in place........and a longer spear still fulfilled that role. As far as heavier armor is concerned, it should be remembered that the Macedonians of later times were probably richer than those who made up the phalanx in Phillip's day. Either they were military settlers occupying rich land in Syria or Egypt, or they were in Macedonia where emigration left fewer people competing for land and status.

[QuintusSertorius]

Gotta disagree with the idea of the phalanx declining from Phillip's day. Change it certainly did, but that is not the same as declining. There's no evidence that the pike blocks became denser and that's mostly because of the limitations of the written record and the number of sources we do (and do not) have. The longer sarissa spears evolved to give the phalanx a range advantage over another phalanx. The primary purpose of the phalanx was to hold enemy infantry in place........and a longer spear still fulfilled that role. As far as heavier armor is concerned, it should be remembered that the Macedonians of later times were probably richer than those who made up the phalanx in Phillip's day. Either they were military settlers occupying rich land in Syria or Egypt, or they were in Macedonia where emigration left fewer people competing for land and status.

They declined in quality. Phillip's men were full-time professionals, able to dual-role as skirmishers, and capable of tactical flexibility on the field that's impossible with denser blocks with less handy weapons. The later settlers were part-time soldiers who might be richer and have better equipment, but weren't anywhere near as well-drilled. The changes in the phalanx were to counteract the loss of capability and make better use of what they did have: money and numbers.