Best way to fight against phalanx?

[Mr.Freud]

Playing as Rome am facing a lot of enemy phalanx units. I'm using one unit in tight formation for frontal attack and when possible flanking with another from behind. Now frontal one takes causalities as expected but the flanking one is not as effective as I expect it to be - they kill very slow and take causalities too. I'm often see BOTH units take 50% or more causalities when they are done and sometimes they flee. Any tips on how to improve efficiency against phalanx?
p.s. I'm playing Very Hard campaign and Normal battle difficulty but it feels like enemy units buffed by hard or very hard bonuses.

[PrimoTw]

I think the campaign difficulty is bugged. Playing N/N and phalanx just crumbles when flanked and are very good defensive units but got low killing power even at front, except against charging cavalry of course.
Many are reporting situations like yours when playing higher difficulties.

[Mr.Freud]

I think the campaign difficulty is bugged. Playing N/N and phalanx just crumbles when flanked and are very good defensive units but got low killing power even at front, except against charging cavalry of course.
Many are reporting situations like yours when playing higher difficulties.

It certainly feels that way! I just unsubscribed from steam and downloaded 2 parts here, maybe steam upload was corrupted?

[MeiguoJinjang]

I did a lot of custom battles legion vs phalanx.

I was using both of KAM's phalanx submods.

I found them very hard to kill with fix and flank tactics.

What worked for me was turning on DISCIPLINED and DEFENSIVE. HOLD THE LINE.

This will fix them with you legionaries holding for a long time. If you have some shock cavalry, which can then hit the phalanx line in the rear, you should be able to take them out. It still will be a very costly fight.

Finally, remember there are many ways to improve your units. Experience, general retinue and properties, veteran retinue and properties, research, some buildings I think, and in battle invocations.

[Mr.Freud]

I did a lot of custom battles legion vs phalanx.

I was using both of KAM's phalanx submods.

I found them very hard to kill with fix and flank tactics.

What worked for me was turning on DISCIPLINED and DEFENSIVE. HOLD THE LINE.

This will fix them with you legionaries holding for a long time. If you have some shock cavalry, which can then hit the phalanx line in the rear, you should be able to take them out. It still will be a very costly fight.

Finally, remember there are many ways to improve your units. Experience, general retinue and properties, veteran retinue and properties, research, some buildings I think, and in battle invocations.

Is it better to use disciplined formation or default formation for unit that flanks from behind?

[PrimoTw]

My suggestion would be try N/N. Test battles with phalanx units and against them, you'll see they work exactly as they should.

[KAM 2150]

Don't use disciplined formation vs phalanx ever. It is even stated in description. It will force them to hold ground and just let pikes get free kills. If you put even regular sword hastati on the back of elite phalanx, they will slowly grind them down, considering they fight elite after all.

Most important thing, you dont need to leave units in melee against phalanx. Due to how game engine works, phalanx attacks are NOT counted as melee so they fully ignore fatigue. Romans would pepper them with ranged weapons and they engage & disengage. This is why phalanx units are easiest to beat from heavy infantry units. Also pila at short range will cause phalanx to be disrupted, alowing you to charge in. Phalanx units are also only units in the game that actually get heavy armour penalty when flanked, on top of high melee defence penalty. What I think most people miss is that they just say "phalanx" but do not refer what exact unit they have in mind. For example regular Athenian hoplites in phalanx will go toe to toe or lose to Polybian Principes frontally.

I might just record a video on how to deal with phalanx with medium tier units to show how to do it even vs elites.

[Mr.Freud]

Don't use disciplined formation vs phalanx ever. It is even stated in description. It will force them to hold ground and just let pikes get free kills.

Do you mean - don't use formation for engaging them/holding them off with frontal attack or for the flanking one? or both?
thx for the tips! Now I will use pila smarter.

[KAM 2150]

Both.Against phalanx is it better to just let you soldiers close in as when they trigger regular melee combat, they will die slower since up close phalanx is not able to use pike/spear at a distance and during combat calculation it means that your swordsman attack is more likely to replace attack that phalanx soldier would do.

And like I said above, it is very important to specify what units you have in mind because saying phalanx can equally mean levy hoplites, regular hoplites, heavy elite hoplites, pike phalanx, elite pike phalanx etc.

[Mr.Freud]

Both.Against phalanx is it better to just let you soldiers close in as when they trigger regular melee combat, they will die slower since up close phalanx is not able to use pike/spear at a distance and during combat calculation it means that your swordsman attack is more likely to replace attack that phalanx soldier would do.

And like I said above, it is very important to specify what units you have in mind because saying phalanx can equally mean levy hoplites, regular hoplites, heavy elite hoplites, pike phalanx, elite pike phalanx etc.

Last battle I was fighting Arverni. Its pretty early in campaign (turn ~80 if im not mistaken). They had Kingetoi (early). I engaged them with Leukanoi Hoplitai with frontal attack with phalanx formation ON and used Principes (late) to flank them from behind or sides. Also used Principes with formation on for frontal attack couple of times. In both cases suffered a lot of causalities for both frontal and flanking units. But that was before I made OP. I will try what you suggested now.

[KAM 2150]

I did a couple of tests but I was able to deal serious damage to Kingetoi with basic sword Hastati.

Check these two tests.

In this I only send Hastati frontally without any manouvering or hit and run. Hastati were winning for the most part but eventually fatigue caught up with them and they lost by a small margain, which seams fine as they are slightly more expensive but were attacking them frontally.

https://imgur.com/a/jy5hakE

In this test I used two units of Hastati, one to attack frontally and other to throw pila at their backs and then charge in. Unit routed right away. As you can see on the pictures, pila at point blank range really messed up Kingetoi formation, allowing for very strong charge from Hastati and them going into the gaps before enemy could reform properly.

https://imgur.com/a/XhDgQTq

[Mr.Freud]

I did a couple of tests but I was able to deal serious damage to Kingetoi with basic sword Hastati.

Check these two tests.

In this I only send Hastati frontally without any manouvering or hit and run. Hastati were winning for the most part but eventually fatigue caught up with them and they lost by a small margain, which seams fine as they are slightly more expensive but were attacking them frontally.

https://imgur.com/a/jy5hakE

In this test I used two units of Hastati, one to attack frontally and other to throw pila at their backs and then charge in. Unit routed right away. As you can see on the pictures, pila at point blank range really messed up Kingetoi formation, allowing for very strong charge from Hastati and them going into the gaps before enemy could reform properly.

https://imgur.com/a/XhDgQTq

Thank you! I tried it myself and it worked wonders

[KAM 2150]

Cool

Like I said, it is more about doing specific tactical stuff rather than just sending units onto them and hoping for the best. Once you learn how to deal with them, you will notice that phalanx is probably much easier to fight against than non phalanx

[Mr.Freud]

Cool

Like I said, it is more about doing specific tactical stuff rather than just sending units onto them and hoping for the best. Once you learn how to deal with them, you will notice that phalanx is probably much easier to fight against than non phalanx

Yes, but the problem is that in campaign battles one also has to deal with other enemy units too. By the time I get to deal with enemy phalanx my units are fatigued much more than phalanx and not as effective. Whats the best thing to do then? should I rotate them and wait for them to rest a little?

[KAM 2150]

Yes, rotate and for the most part dont even engage phalanx until you have to, since they are slow. Also try to take individual units out of position. Even so, most of at least medium armoured units should be able to pin them in place for good amount of time before casualties build up, giving you a chance to flank them with missiles and other stuff.

Also flanking with missiles is not cheese, that is valid ancient tactic, just hard to pull of when enemy flanks are secure. For example Onasander in his Strategikos said that once lines are close, missile troops need to move to flanks and having ranged units behind your main line is waste of their potential.

It is short bug a good read!

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer...sander/H*.html

[Mr.Freud]

Yes, rotate and for the most part dont even engage phalanx until you have to, since they are slow. Also try to take individual units out of position. Even so, most of at least medium armoured units should be able to pin them in place for good amount of time before casualties build up, giving you a chance to flank them with missiles and other stuff.

Also flanking with missiles is not cheese, that is valid ancient tactic, just hard to pull of when enemy flanks are secure. For example Onasander in his Strategikos said that once lines are close, missile troops need to move to flanks and having ranged units behind your main line is waste of their potential.

It is short bug a good read!

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer...sander/H*.html

Thank you!

[Gongo80]

do you suggest KAM' mod?

[Ashantus]

How to kill Phalanx:
Option 1: hit em early with siege engines, Catapults or even better automatic bolt throwers. Especially Rome does well here.
Option 2: Flank em with horse archers. Depending on situation you can do this early or in mid of battle. You may even find a way of getting regular archers on their flank.
Option 3: Slowest way at mid or end of battle: Have yourself some good defensive infantry and bind the enemy phalanx, for controlling the battle. So you avoid the phalanx issue at all, and win the battle by managing our other troops. If it comes up you send other units in their back.
You may push phalanx mid game, if you have superiority of heavy horses.

[Goffredo85]

One of the things that really bothers me about how the engine manages phalanxes is the fact that they do not get fatigue through combat. This fact is single handedly responsible for many of this "unbalanced" situations, like having elite phalanxes units hold while the rest of the army is already routed. Having done a fair bit of crowd control training in my life i can assure you that just moving in tightly packed formations is extremely tiring. Constantly managing your pace and taking the next step with the left foot together with the others in order to not break formation, constantly applying force to make sure your shield is overlapped with the one on the right, walking hunched behind the shield to maximise protection. Add to this fairly heavier bronze/steel equipment and units should be exhausted just by walking several hundred meters in formation. Not to mention actual combat. @KAM2150 can something be done about this? Maybe give phalanx ability a debuff to fatigue once activated?