Help with Modding Phalanxes

[Pooploop]

Quintus, maybe putting that "spear" property back just for the spearwall-capable units could help a lot in giving pikes an actual effective reach? I mean, seeing that no matter the number of tweaks to either animations or stats, phalanxes WILL still tend to blob or about face in the middle of combat. Also, they still spread out, officers still lag behind, formation gets jumbled up when attacked from slightly intersecting fronts...the list goes on and on. I mean, seeing as these problems are still apparent NOW, allowing the phalanxes to push interlopers out might help, right? Regardless, of whether it will also disrupt cohesion and cause units to push into others, as cohesion is still pretty bad...

[Krampus]

Quintus, maybe putting that "spear" property back just for the spearwall-capable units could help a lot in giving pikes an actual effective reach? I mean, seeing that no matter the number of tweaks to either animations or stats, phalanxes WILL still tend to blob or about face in the middle of combat. Also, they still spread out, officers still lag behind, formation gets jumbled up when attacked from slightly intersecting fronts...the list goes on and on. I mean, seeing as these problems are still apparent NOW, allowing the phalanxes to push interlopers out might help, right? Regardless, of whether it will also disrupt cohesion and cause units to push into others, as cohesion is still pretty bad...

I mean, I seriously doubt QS is going to put it back, he indicated the reasons why he chose to change to light_spear.

But since it's just the edu file, you can def do it for your own game.

I might test it out this weekend and compare on custom battles to see which I like.

[Hellenikon]

I have tested the spear attribute and saw no discernible difference.

However i have found what i think is one of the main culprits: charging entities. When an infantry unit is in charging mode ("attacking" in EB2), the soldiers bypass the sarissa wall with no difficulty at all. When you remove the ability of a unit to charge, in my tests it was marian legionaries, then the sarissa wall will usually hold longer, due to the entities having a harder time rushing forward, they tend to be pinned down for the most part. They will still get across the pike wall, but the attackers won't completely break the phalanx unit formation.

This isn't an ideal solution, and the infiltration issues still persist, but i thought i should mention it.

[Cultist]

After reading this comment by Quintus "Hang on, comparing their casualties to kills is meaningless. They're supposed to be on Guard Mode, which means they won't kill many. They have a low attack stat, which again means they won't get as many kills. Their job is to hold ground while you flank the front line. The kills will be made by other units doing the flanking." i realized that all this time i've been cheating squirming my way into a phalanx victory using them unrealistically.
I think that there is no problem with phalanxes anymore, this is how they were used historically, so get your horses going

[Pooploop]

Cultist, the job of the phalanx in the grand scheme of things may have been to pin a large chunk of the enemy army and to hold them off, but they did that while and BY killing the foe as well. I mean, when you look at a sarissa, how could it NOT been used to attack and cause wounds? What do you guys think "holding ground" means when your only weapon was an 18 foot spear? Prodding at them and whacking them with the wooden shaft and hoping they'll shy away? All 5 front rows of the phalanx would be constantly thrusting and ADVANCING with those giant spears, and killing with them as well. A pike block ALWAYS moves forward, or at least works best when it does, it's not like a shield wall like you see in 300 or something (Exception of course if fighting cavalry as the mounted men will have their momentum used against them if they charge grounded pikes).

Also, even if one were to stick with the idea that the phalanx could only deal really few damage and was just to be used to "hold off the foe" in the sense that they'll just distract them or something (how the heck do you use a pike "defensively" when attacking infantry?), the current phalanx sucks at that as well. A single hoplite unit that numbers less than a 100 to every phalanx can wipe out the pikey opposition in a head on collision. You compare this to the historical phalanx which even at it's lowest quality could hold off and force Roman legions to give ground (when they were attacked or are attacking head on, not when being flanked or fighting on broken ground).

[xHolyCrusader]

Also, even if one were to stick with the idea that the phalanx could only deal really few damage and was just to be used to "hold off the foe" in the sense that they'll just distract them or something (how the heck do you use a pike "defensively" when attacking infantry?), the current phalanx sucks at that as well. A single hoplite unit that numbers less than a 100 to every phalanx can wipe out the pikey opposition in a head on collision. You compare this to the historical phalanx which even at it's lowest quality could hold off and force Roman legions to give ground (when they were attacked or are attacking head on, not when being flanked or fighting on broken ground).

1v1 Phalangitai versus Hoplitai, head on collision (using some cav and hoplitai to pull out his general):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I tested this a few times, on medium and very hard battle difficulty, this one was very hard and the one with most casualties on side of the phalangitai and yet they dont perform as bad as you describe..

[QuintusSertorius]

When you are armed with an 18-foot pike, you are no longer an individual combatant. You can't effectively target any individual opponent, all you can do is threaten a space. Add to that if you're not in the first two ranks, you can't even see who you're "fighting", so no, I think your assessment of how effective a phalanx was offensively is flawed. You have a lot of people fighting blind, a very different situation to a hoplite phalanx where every man in range of the enemy can pick out his opponents.

[Cultist]

QuintusSertorius, is there a file somewhere where i can set a unit permanently to guard mode? Without the player having the possibility to toggle it anymore?

[QuintusSertorius]

QuintusSertorius, is there a file somewhere where i can set a unit permanently to guard mode? Without the player having the possibility to toggle it anymore?

z3n would know, I'm not entirely sure where you can do it. I seem to remember it being an all-or-nothing proposition though, it applies to a broad class of units, not just phalanxes.

[Cultist]

QuintusSertorius how much does guard more reduce the attack of a unit?
And the mechanics for breaking through a unit formation, depends on the formation masses right?
If so, maybe if we can raise the mass of the phalanx, the enemy units will fail to penetrate into it and break it?

Later edit: never mind i found the mass of units, thanks anyway

[Hellenikon]

@xHolyCrusader, those Phalangitai cost 2100 mnai while the Hoplitai cost 1500, therefore the result is logical. Try it with a similarly costed unit, like roman principes, and you'll see how the phalanx formation is completely broken, with enemies inside pushing and destroying any coherency in the ranks.

Historically the phalanx would pin down much greater numbers, keeping them at bay (refused center/flank), while the cavalry would win the combat at the outer reaches, then come around for hitting the pinned enemy. If an enemy tried to withdraw from the phalanx, well they would take lots of casualties, as the sarissa advances forward. That was the alexandrian tactical dogma. Currently it is very hard to pin anything down with phalanxes because their formation gets broken and, due to their low stats, gets slaughtered by most infantry units.

[Cohors_Evocata]

@xHolyCrusader, those Phalangitai cost 2100 mnai while the Hoplitai cost 1500, therefore the result is logical. Try it with a similarly costed unit, like roman principes, and you'll see how the phalanx formation is completely broken, with enemies inside pushing and destroying any coherency in the ranks.

Historically the phalanx would pin down much greater numbers, keeping them at bay (refused center/flank), while the cavalry would win the combat at the outer reaches, then come around for hitting the pinned enemy. If an enemy tried to withdraw from the phalanx, well they would take lots of casualties, as the sarissa advances forward. That was the alexandrian tactical dogma. Currently it is very hard to pin anything down with phalanxes because their formation gets broken and, due to their low stats, gets slaughtered by most infantry units.

As an aside, the cost is so high because you're paying for the 240 men in a unit, the cost formula includes equipment training and numbers.

[IrishHitman]

Then perhaps the phalanx troops need an attack buff or a cost reduction? They seem to die remarkably quickly when their formation is disrupted, perhaps to an ahistorical extent when we're talking about the higher grade ones, but as I said before, the disruption doesn't seem to be any worse than in previous versions. But their pikes seem pretty crap at killing people, that's for sure.

[Cultist]

This is how i've modded my phalanxes. These modifications should only be valid for phalanxes in guard mode.
Open the EDU file (export_descr_unit.txt) with Notepad++
I will give you an example of what the original line looked like and how i modified it for native phalanx.

soldier pantodapoi_phalangitai, 96, 0, 1.5 (original stats)
soldier pantodapoi_phalangitai, 96, 1, 1.5, 0.3, 1.55 (modified stats)

So i've added two numbers to the line, first one corresponding to unit radius the other one corresponding to unit height.
What does it do? low unit radius (default 0.4) increases lethality of the unit but not directly so it will take a long time before they dispatch enemy units.
Unit height (default 1.7) of 1.55 makes your units dodge a little better the enemy hits so it acts by prolonging a units life.
I chose these values after i tested and retested the phalanxes against enemies like hoplites and hypaspistai, enemies that will push into your formation.
I observed that the phalanx formation now tends to hold a little better while in guard mode.
The native phalanxes can win against hoplites but not against hypaspistai.
The agema phalanx can barely beat the hypaspistai with decent (to me) casualties on your side (your casualties are now a bit lower then what they used to, and it seems to be to be good that way ).
These changes were deemed by me to not be game breaking or imbalanced. They still take a lot of time to either break, or break the enemies and casualties on your side are a bit better than they used to.

If only i could get the AI to use phalanxes in guard mode now!

This is the best you can do from the EDU! Phalanxes will still break their formation but it will take a bit longer now with less casualties.
I've opened a lot of other mods that use M2TW and they all work the same in phalanx stats.
The only thing that differ and could actually really make the phalanxes balanced would be from animations not EDU.
I should probably be awarded a nobel prize or something.
Try it out for yourselves and mix and match to your own satisfaction! ​
Enjoy

Later edit: after talking to Quintus i decided to give any peasant phalanx 0.3 radius, normal and merc phalanx 0.25 and agema 0.2.
One very nice side effect of this rebalancing is that unit formation really crumbles at the END of the fight and not the beginning as it used to be.

Also, if you don't want enemies breaking your formations, you need to lower all the other foot units weight to 1.1, 1.2 and above will go through phalanx formation like it's no one's business.
1.1 weight enemy units will actually be kept at pike's length for quite some time..

[QuintusSertorius]

Yep, as Cohors_Evocata says, phalanxes are expensive because they're big. More men means more equipment/wages.

This is how i've modded my phalanxes. These modifications should only be valid for phalanxes in guard mode.
Open the EDU file with Notepad++
I will give you an example of what the original line looked like and how i modified it for native phalanx.

soldier pantodapoi_phalangitai, 96, 0, 1.5 (original stats)
soldier pantodapoi_phalangitai, 96, 1, 1.5, 0.2, 1.55 (modified stats)

So i've added two numbers to the line, first one corresponding to unit radius the other one corresponding to unit height.
What does it do? low unit radius (default 0.4) increases lethality of the unit but not directly so it will take a long time before they dispatch enemy units.
Unit height (default 1.7) of 1.55 makes your units dodge a little better the enemy hits so it acts by prolonging a units life.
I chose these values after i tested and retested the phalanxes against enemies like hoplites and hypaspistai, enemies that will push into your formation.
I observed that the phalanx formation now tends to hold a little better while in guard mode.
The native phalanxes can win against hoplites but not against hypaspistai.
The agema phalanx can barely beat the hypaspistai with decent (to me) casualties on your side (your casualties are now a bit lower then what they used to, and it seems to be to be good that way ).
These changes were deemed by me to not be game breaking or imbalanced. They still take a lot of time to either break, or break the enemies and casualties on your side are a bit better than they used to.

If only i could get the AI to use phalanxes in guard mode now!

This is the best you can do from the EDU! Phalanxes will still break their formation but it will take a bit longer now with less casualties.
I've opened a lot of other mods that use M2TW and they all work the same in phalanx stats.
The only thing that differ and could actually really make the phalanxes balanced would be from animations not EDU.
I should probably be awarded a nobel prize or something.
Try it out for yourselves and mix and match to your own satisfaction! ​
Enjoy

Ah, good point on radii - something that has changed in the EDU since 2.2b is every other unit now has one, whereas we left them off phalanxes. We use 0.3 for most infantry, 0.25 for elites. That 0.2 is too lethal for a levy phalanx, they shouldn't be able to beat a proper unit like Hoplitai, only hold them.

This is a useful find, I'll apply 0.2 to the Agema, 0.25 to Phalangitai/merc phalanxes and 0.3 to the levies.

We haven't applied heights to any units, though. Again I'd be happy to take the better dodging for the Agema/professionals, but not the levies.

[Cultist]

You have a point, the native pontos and egyptian phalanxes are the worse of the worst, ill give any peasant phalanx 0.3 the rest get 0.25 and agema gets 0.2.
One quick point, i can beat the hoplites with the unmodified panto phalanx in guard mode

[QuintusSertorius]

You have a point, the native pontos and egyptian phalanxes are the worse of the worst, ill give any peasant phalanx 0.3 the rest get 0.25 and agema gets 0.2.
One quick point, i can beat the hoplites with the unmodified panto phalanx in guard mode

If that's the case I'd be tempted to give the levies 0.35 then - still better than the default 0.4, but not as good as regular units.

[Cultist]

Tested the new balanced units, and the phalangitai (regular, 0.25, 1.55) still lose to Hypaspistai but with more casualties on the Hypster's side
One very nice side effect of this rebalancing is that unit formation really crumbles at the END of the fight and not the beginning as it used to be.

[QuintusSertorius]

Tested the new balanced units, and the phalangitai (regular, 0.25, 1.55) still lose to Hypaspistai but with more casualties does to Hypsters

How do they fare against Romans?

Don't forget the Illyrioi Peltophoroi - they should have 0.3, 1.55.

[Cultist]

In fact, any unit with 1.3 weight will trample any formation be it made up from 1.7 weight units or lower.
Maybe we need to rethink the whole weight aspect Quintus, maybe we don't.
One thing is certain, lesser weighted units are kept at pike length.. for quite some time.
And when an enemy unit lost 1/4 of its units and charges into your phalanx they won't be able to reach your men for even longer periods. Something to think about.