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Thread: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

  1. #1

    Default Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    So first off, obvious is obvious; Phalanxes are basically death itself when hit from the front direct on, let's get that out of the way.

    However, I feel like DEI and related submods make dealing with the Phalanx feel... y, if you feel me. The nature of formations being what they are it can be awkward to get the near perfectly square units of most disciplined armies (and most armies are disciplined after a certain point) around a Phalanx. Now that's fine and all and it's part of what made the reward in Vanilla Rome 2 feel even better; the second you got around the back of a Phalanx and slammed into it with your men it'd essentially melt under the combined weight of its own loss of morale and the slaughter of its own rear units. Either that or it'd immediately click out of the Phalanx formation and, thus, loose all of its buffs to frontal defense and damage.

    The mod, as I've been playing it thus far, seems to lack that sort of punch you tend to get in Vanilla though; it seems like every time I throw some Tier 3 unit into the front to help absorb the Phalanx's assault while I send my Tier 2s and 3s around back that I can completely and totally encircle a phalanx formation... and then it'll just sit there. No major loss of morale, no obvious sudden carving up of soldiers from the back, nada. The phalanx will often just be able to sit there, most of the time without even getting out of its phalanx ability or having its formation broken, and basically tie up all those units or, worse yet, punch a hole out straight through the other side. Even if I take the old stand by and just ram, repeatedly, my cavalry into the back of a phalanx that's been engaged in the front it feels like it still takes several swings through the damn bastards to get them to break. This seems to run true even of Garrison-Tier Phalanx units like the Greek Militia.

    That's if I can get them to properly charge into the back in the first place; due to the more strict sticking of discipline in disciplined units it can feel like such a hassle to actually get them to collapse.

    Is this some re-balancing the mod's done to make the Phalanx a bit more sturdy and, if it is, then how would I go about properly cracking them open if throwing chum into their front and swinging around the back isn't the effective counterplay?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Oh no here we go again...

    Advise: skirmish the hell out of them from the back and then do 1 cav charge. End of the story. DO DIFFERENT TACTICS ffs.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Quote Originally Posted by Tenerife_Boy View Post
    Oh no here we go again...

    Advise: skirmish the hell out of them from the back and then do 1 cav charge. End of the story. DO DIFFERENT TACTICS ffs.
    Which sounds like a great strategy for armies that strongly feature highly mobile skirmisher units like Horse Archers. However, not every faction in the game has ready access to reliable horse archers with a great deal of ammo. Also, as the AI in DEI isn't braindead and tends to keep reserves the old tried and true strategy of engaging the frontline and then having your skirmisher's slip around the back is more likely to end with your skirmisher's engaged by the enemy reserves. Because, you know, the mod developers have done a good job of making the AI smart instead of easily game-able.

    So, how about we try this again. I'll even go ahead and clarify that I'm talking with a non-horse archer army that isn't highly mobile so as to limit us to talking about your more standard armies that'll actually, you know, have problems with Phalanxes.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    They should still suffer more from flanking melee though.

  5. #5
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    They do, they take few times more casualties from flanks and rear than from the front. If you watch fight closely, you will see that almost all dead soldiers on the flank and rear are members of phalanx and not attackerd.

    I will reply more in depth in the evening. Despite how it looks, phalanx are one of the easiest units to rout, especially with this AI.
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  6. #6
    Dead*Man*Wilson's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Like most units, especially infantry, they can be easily routed by heavy cav charges to the flanks and rear. Their lack of mobility make them easy targets in general.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    To be honest, phalanx has been nerfed a lot since the days of it's old and sometimes fantastic glory (in 1.0 i recall them having almost 360 defense bonus ) At the moment however it is not even the best choice to use phalanxes if you have decent heavy shield infantry in the game in general. Phalanx is too slow to make a breach, too easy to flank and needs to much micro to perform its best.

    Only in certain defensive scenarios and cities I would prefer to choose phalanx over heavy sword infantry. Against the AI the phalanx is obviously good but in MPC it really has become more of a specific battle type unit than the general meta to use if you want to win. I am not claiming this to be a bad thing since in my opinion it reflects the roman style infantry superiority and evolving of technicues in military development in the game

  8. #8
    Dago Red's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Seeing the opposite if anything. My phalanx units are underperfoming. They may still punch above their weight to the front but without the classic hypaspist/ekdromoi protection to the flanks they take tons of casualties. And you just can't have a light infantry assigned and available for every phalanx unit in battle. Some must be playing on Hard? (not advised). Before, in siege battles, you could have a unit of phalangites hold a street for 30 minutes. In two recent battles, one unit was shot up so badly by archers and slingers, by the time the melee units, made contact, the phalangites broke in seconds. The other time, they held for a while but their formation became an S-shape within minutes of contact and they were taking casualties from 3 sides.

    @Kam, they seem like a better overall balance from before, when they were too strong. But they take massive amounts of casualties from missiles even from the front. It's not that ranged units are too strong, cause missiles are not OP anymore. Is it possible to give phalanx units an extra frontal defense buff against missiles -- only while in phalanx formation with sarissas up? I believe the idea, historically speaking, was that the hedge of waving sarrissas gave an enormous amount of cover from missiles (also jibes with common sense). Afterall, if they were this vulnerable to missiles, the Persians would have shot the Makedonians to pieces at Gaugamela.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Quote Originally Posted by Dago Red View Post
    Seeing the opposite if anything. My phalanx units are underperfoming. They may still punch above their weight to the front but without the classic hypaspist/ekdromoi protection to the flanks they take tons of casualties. And you just can't have a light infantry assigned and available for every phalanx unit in battle. Some must be playing on Hard? (not advised). Before, in siege battles, you could have a unit of phalangites hold a street for 30 minutes. In two recent battles, one unit was shot up so badly by archers and slingers, by the time the melee units, made contact, the phalangites broke in seconds. The other time, they held for a while but their formation became an S-shape within minutes of contact and they were taking casualties from 3 sides.

    @Kam, they seem like a better overall balance from before, when they were too strong. But they take massive amounts of casualties from missiles even from the front. It's not that ranged units are too strong, cause missiles are not OP anymore. Is it possible to give phalanx units an extra frontal defense buff against missiles -- only while in phalanx formation with sarissas up? I believe the idea, historically speaking, was that the hedge of waving sarrissas gave an enormous amount of cover from missiles (also jibes with common sense). Afterall, if they were this vulnerable to missiles, the Persians would have shot the Makedonians to pieces at Gaugamela.
    They already get a missile block or armor buff when they're in formation I believe.
    Last edited by Dardo21; August 16, 2019 at 12:06 PM.

  10. #10
    Ygraine's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    If you add too much flank/rear maluses via kv_ they become complete garbage on walls where they get flanked automatically (which is a limitation of the engine). It would mean that just by having them on a wall surrounded by two units of plebs would lower their morale to shaken or steady, which is complete nonsense. Summa summarum, you shouldn't increase the impact of flanking even more, because it would gimp hellenic factions a lot in sieges.
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  11. #11

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    I think that the current phalanx balancing is good and the best it has ever been (maybe I would lower slightly the morale of elite phalanxes), but the argument above it's the worst possible one to make a good point.

    Phalanxes do not belong on walls and should suck up there as their equipment is completely unsuited for it. In real life they could be used for that purpose only if they swapped their equipment, an impossible task with the current game limitation

  12. #12
    Ygraine's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Then why even have the option for them to go out of stance? You know you can use it for more than just moving faster. They should be able to destroy levy militias and plebs in hand to hand without the formation activated.
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  13. #13
    KAM 2150's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    So going back to the original post.

    Reason why units are so squishy in vanilla is due to all of them being like that as combat is very fast, phalanx units can destroy eachother in 30 seconds and overall pikes have fastest kill ratio while lowest defence. Which is opposite of how phalanx works.

    In DeI we aim for longer combat. If phalanx units, that are sturdy but slow to kill, would rout after a single rear charge, you would win every single battle against them with just 1 unit of cavalry.

    Other case is that in the end most of troops in phalanx are not some low on income beggers, even when attacked from the back or side they would still put up some resistance, even at Pydna phalanx put up some resistance in close combat after being attacked from nearly all sides, before rout began.

    This is especially true for more elite units, which can be summed up by below video:

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Now in terms of DeI and Rome 2 there are of course some game engine limitations like phalanx units not being affected by terrain, phalanx attack at range ignoring melee defence of targets or weird pivoting.

    Like I said above, phalanx units do get penalties from being attacked in the rear and die faster that way. Sometimes when rear charged game decides to spin phalanx around so unit that attacked them in the rear is now facing their front but there is nothing we can do about it.

    I just did a quick test, two one of the weakest melee units vs one elite hoplite unit. Only order given were frontal charge by one unit and rear charge by other unit, then fast forward until hoplites routed. As screen shows, units that attacked in the rear killed nearly twice as many troops and suffered minimal casualties. If I would try to pull same trick with for example two hastati or principes that have ranged attacks and better stats, result would have been even more one sided. I can't imagine nerfing phalanx even more at this point as it would mean we are back to 3-5 minute battles.

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  14. #14

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Quote Originally Posted by PietrolEremita View Post
    I think that the current phalanx balancing is good and the best it has ever been (maybe I would lower slightly the morale of elite phalanxes), but the argument above it's the worst possible one to make a good point.

    Phalanxes do not belong on walls and should suck up there as their equipment is completely unsuited for it. In real life they could be used for that purpose only if they swapped their equipment, an impossible task with the current game limitation
    You have to bear in mind that the AI doesn't make these considerations, if you made the phalanx even weaker, any AI with a phalanx force would be lambs for the slaughter, making sieges even easier for the player.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Well most siege battles are against garrisons anyway. So maybe change garrison hoplites to something else?

  16. #16

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Quote Originally Posted by Dardo21 View Post
    You have to bear in mind that the AI doesn't make these considerations, if you made the phalanx even weaker, any AI with a phalanx force would be lambs for the slaughter, making sieges even easier for the player.
    That would only apply when defending a siege that you have a realistic chance to win... So basically never.
    I would rather keep the realism of phalanxes being completely unsuited to fighting in walls and accept this rate side effect than the other way around

    @skillfuktree
    Pike phalanxes and hoplites are not the same thing even if their formation is based on the same game engine mechanic
    Last edited by PietrolEremita; August 17, 2019 at 07:42 AM.

  17. #17
    Semisalis
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Honestly i don't find phalanxes to be particularly resilient from rear charges as stated in the OP. It may happen that you take a lot to break an elite phalanx when it starts to shift its front to match your flanking units, messing up entire battle lines in the process. Oddly enough the engine limitations gave the phalanx the ability to rapidly redeploy itself, something it was not famous for in reality. Unfortunately this glitch happens far more often than it is thought, at least for me, and this coupled with phalanxes being the most ubiquitous units in the mod makes fighting them a really annoying and boring prospect.
    Last edited by Goffredo85; August 17, 2019 at 09:44 AM.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Quote Originally Posted by Dago Red View Post
    Seeing the opposite if anything. My phalanx units are underperfoming. They may still punch above their weight to the front but without the classic hypaspist/ekdromoi protection to the flanks they take tons of casualties. And you just can't have a light infantry assigned and available for every phalanx unit in battle. [Snipped part about siege battles]
    I don't think each unit of phalanx infantry should be considered independent on the battlefield. If you line them all up (I use five or six) and keep them in phalanx mode, you can easily provide flank protection for them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dago Red View Post
    @Kam, they seem like a better overall balance from before, when they were too strong. But they take massive amounts of casualties from missiles even from the front. It's not that ranged units are too strong, cause missiles are not OP anymore. Is it possible to give phalanx units an extra frontal defense buff against missiles -- only while in phalanx formation with sarissas up? I believe the idea, historically speaking, was that the hedge of waving sarrissas gave an enormous amount of cover from missiles (also jibes with common sense). Afterall, if they were this vulnerable to missiles, the Persians would have shot the Makedonians to pieces at Gaugamela.
    I know the theory that the pikes were supposed to protect against missiles has been around for a long time, but I seem to recall that later theories have moved away from that idea. I think I read newer theories in Matthews', "An invincible beast".

  19. #19
    Demosthenes26's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    @PietrolErimeta
    I don't know if i see the historical or equipment basis for pike phalanx units being completely unsuited to fighting on walls...their unsuitability only lies in being in formation with a sarissa. Have them drop the pike and go up the ladder and they are medium infantry with a decent sized shield and a sword, without giving them any new equipment.... which is essentially how one can use them in-game as is.....should absolutely be able to handle levies and the like, though obviously shouldn't be as good in this scenario as legionnaires etc, which they aren't.

    @samba_liten
    As for the rear pikes protecting from missiles- I can see mechanically how this could have some impact on breaking up the trajectory of missiles, but maybe not be as effective as say, a raised scutum. Any recollection of what the theories were in An Invincible Beast?

  20. #20

    Default Re: Some Clarification on Phalanx units

    Quote Originally Posted by Demosthenes26 View Post
    @PietrolErimeta
    As for the rear pikes protecting from missiles- I can see mechanically how this could have some impact on breaking up the trajectory of missiles, but maybe not be as effective as say, a raised scutum. Any recollection of what the theories were in An Invincible Beast?
    Sure, arrow/sling-bullet can touch sarissa and loose some of its impact force. It's just mathematically improbable - so no noticeable practical value.

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