How to turn off default guard mode for phalangites (USED BY THE AI)?

[Pooploop]

This is so that the ai I fight have phalangites (or any other pike using unit) that actually go on the attack rather than just sit there like meatshields. I don't want to ask this for the next version or whatever because I recall the mind-numbing work the devs put in just to get around the inherently buggy mess that is an m2tw spear wall. Also, a lot of people are fine with how things are already. I just want this for my personal playthrough.

Now, for those very, very few who wonder why even bother - here are my reasons:

Gameplay-wise

Currently, phalanxes are subpar in the one role they're supposed to perform. It's not to "hold off" large number of enemies, no, no. That's just the supposed (not right now with the guard mode on) side effect of their fighting style. It's to PIN the enemy in place. However, a unit in guard mode by definition just stands at one point with his pike hanging out. There's no threat generated, they DON'T push forward, and they don't damage retreating units. This means it is the easiest thing in the world for the human player (or even the AI actually - witnessed it myself) to peel off his/her own infantry units (ludicrous because this should be a cavalry feat) ALREADY in contact with the FRONT of the enemy phalangites, quietly shuffle them to the side, and envelop the enemies flank. This maneuver should only be doable by the most elite soldiers, yet because guard mode phalanxes just...stand there....it suddenly becomes extremely easy to perform. Try doing that against, say, any other infantry WITH infantry and you KNOW there's a large chance that your retreating units will suffer higher casualties and rout.

Historically/Realistically (in my not so important opinion)

Please people, just picture being told to fight defensively with a pike against other infantry. Against cavalry, sure, that makes sense - brace for impact, right? But against other infantry, what exactly are you going to do? Whip the pikes up to try to block incoming strikes? Try to cover yourself with a long 18-foot pole? I mean you could, but it's not going to be as effective as a soldier equipped with a big (bigger than yours) shield or a more maneuverable weapon. You can't even depend on your fellow phalangites to cover you (that much) because he is also using the same unwieldy longspear. This also means you are all crowded in beside each other and can't use your magnificent pike-fu to defend your sides, as you can only attack frontally. Thus, you are left with a general three step plan as a hellenistic sarissa-wielder in the front ranks that you have to do if you wanna win, and that's it, besides dropping your pike and fleeing. First step, as you all start in a sort of "fencing" position (body turned sideways), you may tuck your head partially under the little round shield strapped to your shoulder as you raise that shoulder a bit higher. Second step, march where the enemy is. Third step, thrust, thrust, and thrust! Combine steps two and three in varying intensity as you PRESS FORWARD in a stabby wall of death. Also, pray your flank doesn't get taken because if it does, you are fudged.

As my juvenile imagining above portrays, to me, tactically, the great "defensive" power of the Macedonian phalanx (and its counterparts) is the THREAT of an unrelenting (albeit slow) direct assault. Pikes can't block that much, and a lone phalangite is worse than useless, but put him with likewise armed men in a massed frontal attack and suddenly they become something the enemy can't ignore. From memory, the main gripes with guard mode turned off is that it "ruins the pike blocks" and it "lets enemies through". To me it is actually MORE historical that there be chances for your pike block to turn into a scrambled mess (ESPECIALLY IF IT GETS FLANKED) and that occasionally, crazily brave or well-armored warriors get through. What isn't historical is picture perfect, static, non-forward pressing phalanxes, with soldiers like non-responsive tin dolls.

In conclusion

Again, just my thoughts. I don't want to force the devs to change their vision of EB2. I just want to know how to apply my vision by modifying the game files.

[Pooploop]

Uhm, devs...I guess my post above was too long-winded? To summarize, how do you modify the game files to once again set GUARD MODE OFF as the default for all pike-bearing units? I wish for the ai to also use phalanxes with no guard mode on.

[QuintusSertorius]

I was busy yesterday, I think it's in the battle scripts towards the bottom of the campaign_script, if I'm remembering correctly.

We had to add battle scripts to all the Historical Battles with phalanx units in them for this very reason (to put them in both phalanx mode and guard mode).

There's a section that looks like this:

	if I_UnitFormation A1_1 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_1 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_2 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_2 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_3 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_3 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_4 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_4 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_5 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_5 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_6 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_6 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_7 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_7 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_8 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_8 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_9 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_9 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_10 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_10 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_11 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_11 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_12 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_12 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_13 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_13 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_14 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_14 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_15 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_15 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_16 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_16 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_17 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_17 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_18 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_18 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_19 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_19 on
	end_if
	if I_UnitFormation A1_20 = phalanx
		unit_set_guard_mode A1_20 on
	end_if

You'd need to delete them all.

[Pooploop]

Oh nice. This also will apply to phalangite "imitations" right? Such as that suebi longspear unit, or the illyrian one...

[Sar1n]

Oh nice. This also will apply to phalangite "imitations" right? Such as that suebi longspear unit, or the illyrian one...

Yes for Illyrian, dunno about Suebi...are they using spear wall? I think I remember them using shield wall, in which case it won't apply to them.

[Aleksander the Average]

Oh nice. This also will apply to phalangite "imitations" right? Such as that suebi longspear unit, or the illyrian one...

Can you come back and give us your impression of how this affects the AI?
If it works out well, it might be worth throwing up a submod for anyone (like me) who would prefer to play against AI armies with more aggressive phalanxes.

[Pooploop]

Aleksander, I'm actually waiting for R2 to come out, before I try it out with the ai. If I get too hyped up NOW while just using custom battles to feed the urge...I'll just immediately crash into depression after realizing the main campaign I can play isn't the most complete version of EB2. However, I can give you my two cents when playing WITH phalangites that have their guard mode turned off.

Used custom battles, went with three phalanxes vs 4 Gallic units (arkhoi, the naked dudes, and 2 batoroi). So with guard mode turned on (the default now), it became a sad slog. Ended up losing, I think, after AGES (definitely 20+ minutes or more) and the phalanxes could only roughly give as good as they got. So one phalanx would kill like 80 or so and lose 80 or so. That was when the battle line was still straight for both sides. But when the AI got its arkhoi to do a half flanking angled attack on the leftmost phalanx (so that half of those gallic nobles ended up hugging the left side of the phalanx)..well the phalanx started losing WAY more men. To be fair, guard mode did what it was meant to do during the whole sad process. You had three picture-perfect, albeit shrinking, blocks of of phalanxes. No gauls came bursting through from the front into the rear. To me who prefers more realistic bloodbaths of melees, it looked like something out of an outdated textbook.

Now, on to the more exciting battle with phalanxes that had no guard mode on. My side won. Like the end result was a fifth of my men lost (or less) for the destruction of at least 70% of the gallic forces. The surprising thing was that most of the kills were in the frontal close combat, when both sides were unrouted. I resolved to not use any flanking tricks and just kept a straight (kinda) battle line that was roughly equal to the gallic one (when their arkhoi did their weird half angled attack on the left again, their battle line was technically slightly longer than mine). Before anyone cries out that the phalanxes are TOO OP, take note this battle took over half an hour, or more (I sped up the latter half, it got really boring), and that the infantry I chose to fight were "upper middle-weight" in the EB2 roster as a whole. If I fought the Greek elites...shudder...like the picked band or the spartiates, things could have turned out differently. Now, as for the battle itself, it devolved into a half-beautiful, half-ugly scramble. My battle line turned into this slightly crooked (think of somewhat straight zigzag, the dips being where there were, initially, slight spaces between the three phalanxes), constantly thrusting, SLOWLY ADVANCING wonder. Occasionally, a few brave or mad individual gauls broke through and turned to attack my rear, but they were overwhelmed by a flurry of pokes from the rear-rankers. In the front, it was one forest of thrusting sarissas and slashing swords. If before, guard mode just uhh magically made the phalangites look and fight like stone statues, and the gauls couldn't break through because of some unseen boundary, now in the unguarded mode they couldn't break through because the phalangites were stopping them with their own sarissa thrusts. Like a real fight. The gallic attacks looked like randomly scattered "arrowheads" if you will, where one lucky or more skilled gaul was in slashing range of the front phalangites, and his comrades were "staggered" a rank behind him on either side. On my left, it turned into a mess as my phalanx there turned more into a blob than a rectangle, as the arkoi looped to their side and started slashing. Not surprisingly, that phalanx took the heaviest losses. In the middle, the gauls were kept at...uhh...sarissa's reach, and on the right, where the agema was, the batoroi were very slowly (like I said, around half an hour or more) being pushed back and slain by a flurry of constant pokes.

In short, this looked like a real fight, and their performance actually justified why Phillip of Macedon even came up with this whole fighting style in the first place. I can't wait (by the time R2 comes) to fight other phalanxes in long epic lines of thrusting melee, while mad back and forths will develop on the flanks to see whose side can get their cavalry/light infantry through to take the opposing phalanxes side or rear.

[QuintusSertorius]

Philip's phalanxes aren't like ours, though. His were dual-trained professionals, not colonists who muster out to do a couple of seasons in the phalanx, then go back to their farms.

That pattern only became moreso as time went on in our timeframe.

[Pooploop]

Quintus, that's very true. However, the secret of the pike, from the Macedonians, to the Chinese (since the warring states right?), to the Flemish, to the Scots, to the Swiss, to the Japanese, and the rest of Renaissance-era European armies, is that pike usage is very simple and direct, with enormous advantages if used properly. You could take a bunch of hill/mountain bred, uncultured, poor(and therefore relatively lightly armored) peasants and put them against heavily armored "knights" (any man-at-arms from any era owning quite a bit of property and therefore access to armor, good arms, and the free time to train) and have those peasants come out on top. Yes, Phillip's phalangites BECAME superb professionals (like how chinese conscripts would end up becoming elite retinues due to all constant re-recruitment in the warring states), but they didn't start out as such right? I have a suspicion that Phillip deliberately went a step further than Epaminondas in his reforms, and made those spears extra long, precisely because he knew, initially, his Macedonian peasants would never have had the years of personal close-combat training and resources to access and get accustomed to decent armor. Years of gymnasium training and military dances and armor by those fancy southern greeks in their shining hoplite phalanxes could be equal or surpassed (in direct frontal combat) by a bunch of rude hillbilly's with really long spears. I mean reach is king in weapons, yes?

[QuintusSertorius]

Professionalism was the secret of Philip's phalanx, they served all year round because of the money from the mines at Aigai discovered in his reign.

They stopped being hillybilly highlanders deployed in a mob, which is what Makedonia's citizen levy was before Philip.

[Aleksander the Average]

In short, this looked like a real fight, and their performance actually justified why Phillip of Macedon even came up with this whole fighting style in the first place. I can't wait (by the time R2 comes) to fight other phalanxes in long epic lines of thrusting melee, while mad back and forths will develop on the flanks to see whose side can get their cavalry/light infantry through to take the opposing phalanxes side or rear.

I can certainly see what you're excited about.

Philip's phalanxes aren't like ours, though. His were dual-trained professionals, not colonists who muster out to do a couple of seasons in the phalanx, then go back to their farms.

That pattern only became moreso as time went on in our timeframe.

I could certainly expect Pantodapoi Phalangitai or Machimoi Phalangitai to be told just to stand there with their pikes on the day of battle and poke whatever comes too close, but don't you think the proper Phalangitai of our era were capable of a little more... aggression?

If not... it's unfortunate that only the human player will be capable of making them so. Alas, there are obviously many limitations with the engine, and I'm not sure if disabling guard mode as standard would really be a better option in the long run.

It definitely looks cooler though.

[Pooploop]

Quintus, I don't mean to dispute your point, but rather to complement it. I'll give you an analogy: what happens when a professional archer with years of military training suddenly gets closed in by a part time levy soldier with a spear/sword and a shield? No matter how good he is, it doesn't get around the lag time between that archer switching from bow to his sidearm, a lag time in which he could be killed. Another point: what happens when a roman legionnaire gets hit by the weight of a charging steed? No matter how many years of drill he got, it won't get around the fact that the horse is heavier than him and the roman legionnaire will most likely get knocked of his feet, regardless of whether the rider was some tribal shepherd with ok-riding skills.

So what happens when a fully armed and armored hoplite with a 9-foot doru fights against a phalangite with a smaller shield, lighter armor, and a 16 foot sarissa? Let's say the phalangite holds his pike with 6 feet or more behind him to provide a counterbalance to the 10 or so feet in front of him. The hoplite holds his spear roughly in the middle. No matter how...Spartan...the hoplite is, his spearhead 5 feet away of him will never reach that phalangite unless he closes in! So he tries, but then is met with more rows of thrusting sarissa's, up to 4 as he goes closer. His comrades beside him can help cover him with their shields, but are met with the same danger, while the guys behind him are even more useless because they definitely can't reach the phalangites at all, they can only push him into the spear hedge before him. The phalangites on the other hand, can keep thrusting with impunity as they know they are out of danger, and in the long run of the melee will probably score more kills because their weapons' length allows more of them to bring their thrusts home (5 ranks of sarissas that can do damage to just the 1-2 rank of hoplites that "might" be able to reach them).

In conclusion, am I saying that pike squares are so technologically superior that they can obliterate any other melee type in front of them? NO! It most certainly does not have the same disparity as british riflemen vs the zulu is south africa. Also, no amount of weapon reach will cover up bad morale, bad synergy, or bad leadership, which will destroy any army. However, the length of the pike gives pikemen literal breathing room, to temporarily (as long as the opposing side can't close in en-masse) kill and hold the enemy at bay from the front. So, where a bunch of rude peasants armed likewise as hoplites with buckler and short spear/sword would go up against their better trained and armored counterparts and be minced, those same bunch of peasants armed with long pikes can actually form a battle line and SCORE KILLS(not easily and not if they get taken in the flank). Now take those same rude peasants, give them a regular salary, drill them relentlessly, and you've got a force that once could only do...passable...in melee (e.g phalangitai deuteroi) to something that can obliterate any enemy from the front (e.g. regular phalangitai) given enough time, the fact that their enemies don't have longer weapons than them, untouched flanks or rear, and they aren't being pelted by concentrated arrow-fire/stones/javelins.

P.S. Pikemen can get as effective as other line infantry in the SPECIFIC task of fighting directly from the front even if said pikemen has less armor and comparatively less training. Give them that same professionalism and drill time and they are better than any other melee line infantry with shorter weapons, with the huge trade-offs being that they are only useful facing forward, and they are absolutely fudged when any competent enemy takes their flanks. Also, past a certain number of men, pikemen become useless as their unit becomes too small, because their one-on-one fighting ability is absolutely terrible.

[Hellenikon]

This topic has been discussed a lot. The phalanxes of this period were nothing like the ones of the diadochi (eumenes, antigonos, etc.), the last one of those military minded rulers was Pyrrhus. In EB2 the phalanx is quite decent at what it is supposed to do, I don't know what people are disccusing here. The specifics of how guard mode works are hardcoded and there is little the team can do about it. The current implementation is the best the team has come up so far. Could it be better? Certainly, but you presume that every possible thing in the game is moddable. Lots of things like unit behaviour and guard mode are hardcoded.

[Pooploop]

Haha, Hellenikon, the reason I'm so enthusiastically continuing discussing this is because I want to convince the devs of my tweak. However, that's just a bonus, they already provided me with what I was seeking for: knowledge on how to make the guard mode turned off the default for all phalangites and likewise armed units (so that the ai can also use it when fighting against us human players in custom battles/campaigns). I strongly believe that that last tweak is essential to finally making phalangites fight they way they did historically - guard mode on makes them too rigid to the point they are like statues and not living, breathing warriors. Unless fighting cavalry (so they brace), pike usage throughout history (in varying degrees of speed, synergy, elan, and fervor) are an ADVANCING mass of thrusting spears. Once they stop, they're like sharks, they die. With everything said, if the devs don't want to do this, they have every right to do so. I kinda want to get my point across, that's all.

[QuintusSertorius]

Sorry, we're not changing it. The AI is terrible enough with phalanxes as it is, making them "aggressive" means they'll be even more terrible at doing their primary job of holding a place in the line.

The AI doesn't switch modes ever, so if we have to choose one, Guard Mode on is it.

[Pooploop]

Quintus, I respect that man. But....hahah the reason why I specifically asked how to make it default guard mode off across the board is GAMEPLAY-WISE, dude, you are nerfing the ai when they use phalanxes. I mean I could just let all this be and only use aggressive phalanxes myself for units I only control. As you stated, only the player can toggle the modes on and off. But let's say 1 unit of phalangites vs 1 unit of hoplites, no tricks, just a frontal assault. The phalanx with guard mode off will do absolutely better. Especially in PINNING the enemy because if said hoplites retreat, they get stabbed in the back by an advancing forest of spears. I seriously consider fighting phalanxes with guard mode on child's play even for the ai because it is SO easy to disengage infantry even if head to head against phalanxes. This is one thing I consider fact regarding EB2 as portrayed by m2tw's engine unless I have a hacked, weird version (never touched unit stats or anything else in the game files as of now really). Pike walls with guard mode off score more kills in the long run. More kills, mean less of the enemy of the fight. Less of the enemy of the fight means less chances for the phalangites to die. Meaning to say the losses to kill disparity is way greater with guard mode off, which despite their unit not holding in a close to perfect rectangle (a blobbish oval actually), means they can actually hold off and even rout more numerous opponents. From the front. Like I said devs, unless I've been...in a less of a sober state while playing EB2 right now, phalangites with guard mode off perform FAR better. If you played it yourself with phalanxes vs any other line infantry, head to head, no tricks, the numbers of your victory screen at the end will back me up. No question.

[Sarkiss]

Quintus, I respect that man. But....hahah the reason why I specifically asked how to make it default guard mode off across the board is GAMEPLAY-WISE, dude, you are nerfing the ai when they use phalanxes. I mean I could just let all this be and only use aggressive phalanxes myself for units I only control. As you stated, only the player can toggle the modes on and off. But let's say 1 unit of phalangites vs 1 unit of hoplites, no tricks, just a frontal assault. The phalanx with guard mode off will do absolutely better. Especially in PINNING the enemy because if said hoplites retreat, they get stabbed in the back by an advancing forest of spears. I seriously consider fighting phalanxes with guard mode on child's play even for the ai because it is SO easy to disengage infantry even if head to head against phalanxes. This is one thing I consider fact regarding EB2 as portrayed by m2tw's engine unless I have a hacked, weird version (never touched unit stats or anything else in the game files as of now really). Pike walls with guard mode off score more kills in the long run. More kills, mean less of the enemy of the fight. Less of the enemy of the fight means less chances for the phalangites to die. Meaning to say the losses to kill disparity is way greater with guard mode off, which despite their unit not holding in a close to perfect rectangle (a blobbish oval actually), means they can actually hold off and even rout more numerous opponents. From the front. Like I said devs, unless I've been...in a less of a sober state while playing EB2 right now, phalangites with guard mode off perform FAR better. If you played it yourself with phalanxes vs any other line infantry, head to head, no tricks, the numbers of your victory screen at the end will back me up. No question.

thanks for sharing your thoughts, a very interesting discussion. in search for better pikes ive looked at numerous M2TW mods but havent found one as of yet. the best evidence would be a visual one. if you could record their performance with guard off and share it with us that would be the best prove that would speak louder than words.

[Pooploop]

Ok, and I pray this will be viewed by the whole dev team...can't believe I did this....

Here's a series of images documenting a custom battle of three Macedonian phalanxes vs six koinon hellenon units. Tried to act as a...standard...m2tw ai. So no tricks, only initially made a straight battle line with the three. The order of battle has the captain's phalanx on the far left.



Dispositions of the two sides...

[Pooploop]

First time doing this...bear with the clunkiness....

[Pooploop]

Rule of this battle, fight like the ai...so now my right flank is enveloped...



View of the left wing of battle (where captain is located)



View of the right wing of battle (flank is enveloped)