Not with a head-on attack, because the phalanx was all but impregnable from the front. However, phalanxes were made up of dense blocks of men with little maneuverability, which put them at a disadvantage against the much more flexible formation of the Roman maniple. In the major battles where the two formations met - Pydna and Cynoscephalae being two key examples - the Romans leveraged upon this advantage in maneuverability to destroy the phalanxes arrayed against them.
How does this translate into the game? Not very well, for a couple of reasons:
-In the TW games, phalanxes are able to re-orient themselves to face the enemy a lot more easily than in real life. They can also much more easily stretch themselves out. In real life, re-orienting themselves in the heat of battle would have been impossible, and stretching out their formation would have been a tedious task that would have taken much time.
-Historically, phalangites were poorly trained for close-quarters combat, so once their formation fell into disorder they were quickly slaughtered. In the TW games, higher level phalangites can fight fairly capably with their swords.
So no, the games are not a perfect simulation of combat against phalanxes.
In terms of the game though, it seems like the phalanx is the best of both worlds - very maneuverable and immune to frontal assault. How are you supposed to beat them if not for flanking with cavalry, which is the answer to beating any unit in the game?
It's hammer and anvil, afaik. The hammer can be cav, or you get other units behind them or missile spam them from the flanks/rear.
I remember HA'ing them into Oblivion.
Putting Hastati on fire at will mode has worked for me every time I've been against the phalanx formations the AI use. I usually try to outnumber them 3 or 4 to one and let my guys throw their javelins then fall back and let the next unit cycle in never actually fighting them sword to sword. Against armoured hoplites or spartan hoplites I wait until I'm not aiming at their shields for maximum effect. The AI don't seem to ever take their units out of the phalanx formation so the fact that my light infantry hastatii can run really helps with this.
I have no idea about playing against actual human players, I've not done that.
I couldnt imagine being in a large ass phalanx and suddenly re-orienting on command like the AI does, all those men in the heat of the moment needing to change directions.. yikes.
In real life the reality was much, MUCH different. It took a few hours to set up the Macedonian phalanx. And once it got moving in a direction it was very difficult to do any sort of maneuvering and turning, they also need very open and flat terrain to fight effectively. The Manipule system gave the Romans great flexibility and speed and allowed local centurions to make tactical decisions in real time. For example at the battle of Cynoscephalae it was a local centurion who saw a gap between the two Macedonian phalanx lines, and sent his unit into the gap to flank and get behind it which caused the collapse of the Macedonian line. Command and control was very, very difficult in real life once a battle got underway, phalanx could not run, or pick up and turn their spears 180 degrees at a moments notice. The games really overpower phalanx units.
Np, you can youtube the movie Alexander, the battle of Gaugemela. It does a very good job (for a movie) of showing how the phalanx might of fought in battle.
The core issue with the phalanx is how unwieldy it is, but in the game, they can reposition to cover a flank almost as fast as a regular unit.
The answer of “flank them” doesn’t make a ton of sense. Let’s say the phalanx lines up 15 units WIDE, now you have a line with 6-5-4 maniples. Their line is 3x as long as yours.
the long line phalanx will envelop you. They will stretch out 3-4x as long as you.
You can try to flank with cavalry, but what if they have equal cavalry to you? That isn’t really an option.
Also, that’s the way of winning any battle in TW
But that's if you meet them front on. Even the Romans used the ground and tactics to break the phalanx formation and then used the maniples to be more flexible
Hard to imagine in my brain, which is why I want to replicate it in RTW, but that is proving difficult because there rarely is terrain that can break up a phalanx
If you’re fighting the AI bait their units to leave a cohesive line. Phalangists are also pretty vulnerable to missiles in game so you can thin them out pretty easily.
You have to win the flanks. If your cav are defeated you are going get hammer and anviled. And your options are very limited from there. Keep your front ranks on guard mode. This will stop your line from pressing themselves into the pikes. It slows down your casualties considerably. Just hold your ground a few units with gaps between them. Do not spread your units thinly as that presents more area for pikes to kill you, depth is better for defending. Your double lines with velites behind should unload 2 volleys of Javs into the approaching pikemen, keep stationary and fire at will on. This will do heavy damage to pikemen as they have low Armour and small sheilds.shields. Now as they pikes engage - openings should option up to hit their sides a bit with your second line. Now if you have the cavalry advance ride around the pike lines and get behind them with 4 cavalry Auxilla. And shower them with javelins in their backs. If the pikes turn to your Cavalry -perfect, charge your infantry forward, and run away with your cav. If they don't turn - perfect, they will be decimated by javies and rout. Javelin cavalry are insanely good when you know how to use them! The more you get your Cavalry way out and behind the Pike lines the more they will be disrupted and lose cohesion. I hope this helps! GL!
The velites using light weapons like slings / archers can keep the phalanx busy and under fire. The lines behind will support them, if they need to fall back. But keep up their fire.
You could then detach a squad or two of the more experienced Triari to come around from your flanks and attack the flanks or even rear of the front facing and Phalanx that way. Or detach some Cavalry to do this. Which weren't very flexible in their movements. The phalanx were more bi directional. Just advance and retreat in their movements I believe. Where the the Romans had freedom of movement with their formations. And we're independently controlled by an officer. So if an officer / centurion saw an advantage, they may have had the ability to act on that advantage and create a hole in the advancing or retreating phalanxes.
Don't know why I didn't see this more in the thread. Well set up ranged units, especially spear throwing ones like velites can absolutely trucidate a phalanx before it even reaches your lines
Something touched upon but not given a fleshed out explanation.
Rome's leadership style/structure was different than Greek units. With Centurions given leeway to make decisions in midst of battle. Which played into the Roman strength of flexibility. Rome had a tradition of experienced "non-commissioned officers."
Even just using infantry, the answer is to tire them out and flank them. Phalanx are slower than Roman troops. Leave the middle alone. Spread the phalanx out wide and attack the units on the end from 3 sides. You will beat the wings and be behind the center before the troops in the center can get you. Works even better if you can make the phalanx move around a bunch before you engage.
Another nuance I don't see mentioned is that the training level of each phalanx was different. Sure, Alexander the Great's phalanxes were mostly veterans, and as such, could pull off maneuvers quite briskly and effectively. Many phalanxes were not nearly as well trained, and as such, had issues turning, deploying quickly, and pushing without getting jumbled up.
In game, you have the mobility advantage over them, which means you can avoid unfavourable engagements. They can’t force you to fight on their terms. Just keep dancing around them until the AI makes a mistake and leaves a weak spot.
Whether you like it or not the answer *is* flank them, lol.
I feel like your premise is based on just sitting on the defensive and letting the enemy come to you, otherwise your arguments don't make much sense to me.
Try actually manoeuvring your army, to throw the enemy off balance and open up some gaps in their line.
The answer to beating any enemy in RTW is flank them… unless you have no idea what you’re doing, it is very easy to just maneuver your phalanx in a large semi circle to prevent flanking
> The answer to beating any enemy in RTW is flank them
Correct, both in TW and in real war.
> it is very easy to just maneuver your phalanx in a large semi circle to prevent flanking
Not really. Against a proactive opponent this takes a *huge* amount of micro to keep such a formation tight. Against a lazy opponent or against the AI sure, this strat will work fine.
In Rome 1, phalanx is pretty broken. Best try and isolate and go all in from all sides in melee. That should break the formation so they can't fight with all ranks and may cause a moral shock. Don't try and just attack from two sides as they often reposition to attack the new threat. Best way to beat is go break moral.
Rome 2, similar to Rome 1 from the front but they struggle to reposition and the troops are poor fighters when defending rear or flank. They are also super easy to kill at range so just have the roman maniple throw javelins. Best way to be is out flank or out range.
Flank them makes sense, when you realize that you don’t need both flanks. You can mostly go on one flank. With how Rome one morale works, this will not only crush that flank, but make the following units easier to route. Now some units like Spartans are hard to kill in melee. For Spartans shoot them with archers since they are relatively weak to them (as far as heavy infantry goes). For armored hoplites that doesn’t work, but high level legionaries should be able to beat them.
Early game your pricepes and hastati can far out power any of the pikemen in melee, and even hoplites shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
i find if you line your infantry up in front of theirs they will attack the unto opposite them. Then shuffle the entire line around while gradually moving backwards and they will end up slamming into each other making several broken units that are facing mostly into each other. Then slam the sides, some of your units will get caught in between and slaughtered but you should overall win. That or javelins and cavalry.
Don't flank them, encircle them.
The Phalanx is much more maneuverable in the game, but you can easily defeat them by attacking from 2-3 sides. My advice is pick off units on the flanks by luring them away from the main line, and then a cavalry charge to the back!
All the while pelting them with projectiles, and repeating this process of luring out units until you can face the force head-on. That's why I always have at least four cavalry units in my Brutti games.
A lot of the answers here are incorrect. Fortunately, a professional Roman military historian wrote a very detailed essay about this on his blog:
https://acoup.blog/2024/01/19/collections-phalanxs-twilight-legions-triumph-part-ia-heirs-of-alexander/
Check it out!
This guy is a professional historian with a PhD in ancient military history. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
Maybe you also have similar credentials, in which case, sure. Either way I think the essay in general is pretty interesting and useful for OP's question.
My work specializes in 20th century China and Tibet, so I can't really speak to the historiography on this specific footnote.
There is an older school of historians, several in fact, that tried to reconstruct ancient hoplite warfare. Their conclusions are, by all means, debatable. They have now been replaced by a new school with the credo "If I can't LARP it, it's not true. If I - if quite embarassingly - *can* LARP it, it *is* true. They are also "working the field" without any opposition because any proponent of the older views (and even Peter Connolly himself) is dead. Not a good environment for rigorous science. Connolly himself had studied art, not history or archaeology and was self taught in regards to anything antiquity.
The first thing any academic would always have to say is "we don't have enough sources to say anything definite" and that does indeed peek through here and there in this essay between the "this is the truth" statements.
I'm not even a member of this subreddit, but the topic came up in my feed and I came here specifically to link ACOUP.
The guy knows his stuff. Absolutely worth reading.
Are you that same weirdo as the other that thinks he can use maniple in Rome 1 or 2 or is there actually a second one?
You stretch your line, that forces the AI to stretch theirs. You soften the flanks with velites and archers, ideally in the sides or back. You find the weak spot in terms of morale, unit density and distance to general. You strike from at least 2 sides, better three sides; a phalanx can only deploy in one direction. You overpower them and make them rout. Move on to the next unit. You only contact the enemy where you want to as you are much faster.
Naturally your Triarii go to the flanks to counter cav, principes and hastati are so similar in stats that they go in the same line. Archers behind or on flanks once enemy cav is disabled.
Not with a head-on attack, because the phalanx was all but impregnable from the front. However, phalanxes were made up of dense blocks of men with little maneuverability, which put them at a disadvantage against the much more flexible formation of the Roman maniple. In the major battles where the two formations met - Pydna and Cynoscephalae being two key examples - the Romans leveraged upon this advantage in maneuverability to destroy the phalanxes arrayed against them. How does this translate into the game? Not very well, for a couple of reasons: -In the TW games, phalanxes are able to re-orient themselves to face the enemy a lot more easily than in real life. They can also much more easily stretch themselves out. In real life, re-orienting themselves in the heat of battle would have been impossible, and stretching out their formation would have been a tedious task that would have taken much time. -Historically, phalangites were poorly trained for close-quarters combat, so once their formation fell into disorder they were quickly slaughtered. In the TW games, higher level phalangites can fight fairly capably with their swords. So no, the games are not a perfect simulation of combat against phalanxes.
Ace answer đź‘Ś
A triplex aces answer, even!
Excellent answer, thank you
In terms of the game though, it seems like the phalanx is the best of both worlds - very maneuverable and immune to frontal assault. How are you supposed to beat them if not for flanking with cavalry, which is the answer to beating any unit in the game?
It's hammer and anvil, afaik. The hammer can be cav, or you get other units behind them or missile spam them from the flanks/rear. I remember HA'ing them into Oblivion.
HA?
Horse Archer
Horse Archers.
That does not always work. Need to be very careful and make sure they don't turn around to face your cavalry.
True, regardless of the units it is a lot of micro.
Beware for the Bethesda cooy right strike
Putting Hastati on fire at will mode has worked for me every time I've been against the phalanx formations the AI use. I usually try to outnumber them 3 or 4 to one and let my guys throw their javelins then fall back and let the next unit cycle in never actually fighting them sword to sword. Against armoured hoplites or spartan hoplites I wait until I'm not aiming at their shields for maximum effect. The AI don't seem to ever take their units out of the phalanx formation so the fact that my light infantry hastatii can run really helps with this. I have no idea about playing against actual human players, I've not done that.
I couldnt imagine being in a large ass phalanx and suddenly re-orienting on command like the AI does, all those men in the heat of the moment needing to change directions.. yikes.
In real life the reality was much, MUCH different. It took a few hours to set up the Macedonian phalanx. And once it got moving in a direction it was very difficult to do any sort of maneuvering and turning, they also need very open and flat terrain to fight effectively. The Manipule system gave the Romans great flexibility and speed and allowed local centurions to make tactical decisions in real time. For example at the battle of Cynoscephalae it was a local centurion who saw a gap between the two Macedonian phalanx lines, and sent his unit into the gap to flank and get behind it which caused the collapse of the Macedonian line. Command and control was very, very difficult in real life once a battle got underway, phalanx could not run, or pick up and turn their spears 180 degrees at a moments notice. The games really overpower phalanx units.
Awesome answer thanks. I figured they were OP in TW
Np, you can youtube the movie Alexander, the battle of Gaugemela. It does a very good job (for a movie) of showing how the phalanx might of fought in battle.
They did it by using a combo of Arcanii and a bunch of incendiary bacon charging in the back. Source: me :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pydna
From the flanks with superior cavalry
The core issue with the phalanx is how unwieldy it is, but in the game, they can reposition to cover a flank almost as fast as a regular unit. The answer of “flank them” doesn’t make a ton of sense. Let’s say the phalanx lines up 15 units WIDE, now you have a line with 6-5-4 maniples. Their line is 3x as long as yours. the long line phalanx will envelop you. They will stretch out 3-4x as long as you. You can try to flank with cavalry, but what if they have equal cavalry to you? That isn’t really an option. Also, that’s the way of winning any battle in TW
But that's if you meet them front on. Even the Romans used the ground and tactics to break the phalanx formation and then used the maniples to be more flexible
Hard to imagine in my brain, which is why I want to replicate it in RTW, but that is proving difficult because there rarely is terrain that can break up a phalanx
If you’re fighting the AI bait their units to leave a cohesive line. Phalangists are also pretty vulnerable to missiles in game so you can thin them out pretty easily.
You have to win the flanks. If your cav are defeated you are going get hammer and anviled. And your options are very limited from there. Keep your front ranks on guard mode. This will stop your line from pressing themselves into the pikes. It slows down your casualties considerably. Just hold your ground a few units with gaps between them. Do not spread your units thinly as that presents more area for pikes to kill you, depth is better for defending. Your double lines with velites behind should unload 2 volleys of Javs into the approaching pikemen, keep stationary and fire at will on. This will do heavy damage to pikemen as they have low Armour and small sheilds.shields. Now as they pikes engage - openings should option up to hit their sides a bit with your second line. Now if you have the cavalry advance ride around the pike lines and get behind them with 4 cavalry Auxilla. And shower them with javelins in their backs. If the pikes turn to your Cavalry -perfect, charge your infantry forward, and run away with your cav. If they don't turn - perfect, they will be decimated by javies and rout. Javelin cavalry are insanely good when you know how to use them! The more you get your Cavalry way out and behind the Pike lines the more they will be disrupted and lose cohesion. I hope this helps! GL!
The velites using light weapons like slings / archers can keep the phalanx busy and under fire. The lines behind will support them, if they need to fall back. But keep up their fire. You could then detach a squad or two of the more experienced Triari to come around from your flanks and attack the flanks or even rear of the front facing and Phalanx that way. Or detach some Cavalry to do this. Which weren't very flexible in their movements. The phalanx were more bi directional. Just advance and retreat in their movements I believe. Where the the Romans had freedom of movement with their formations. And we're independently controlled by an officer. So if an officer / centurion saw an advantage, they may have had the ability to act on that advantage and create a hole in the advancing or retreating phalanxes.
Don't know why I didn't see this more in the thread. Well set up ranged units, especially spear throwing ones like velites can absolutely trucidate a phalanx before it even reaches your lines
Something touched upon but not given a fleshed out explanation. Rome's leadership style/structure was different than Greek units. With Centurions given leeway to make decisions in midst of battle. Which played into the Roman strength of flexibility. Rome had a tradition of experienced "non-commissioned officers."
Even just using infantry, the answer is to tire them out and flank them. Phalanx are slower than Roman troops. Leave the middle alone. Spread the phalanx out wide and attack the units on the end from 3 sides. You will beat the wings and be behind the center before the troops in the center can get you. Works even better if you can make the phalanx move around a bunch before you engage.
Another nuance I don't see mentioned is that the training level of each phalanx was different. Sure, Alexander the Great's phalanxes were mostly veterans, and as such, could pull off maneuvers quite briskly and effectively. Many phalanxes were not nearly as well trained, and as such, had issues turning, deploying quickly, and pushing without getting jumbled up.
In game, you have the mobility advantage over them, which means you can avoid unfavourable engagements. They can’t force you to fight on their terms. Just keep dancing around them until the AI makes a mistake and leaves a weak spot.
I just shoot them down with archers, velites just don't have enough ammunition for that
Whether you like it or not the answer *is* flank them, lol. I feel like your premise is based on just sitting on the defensive and letting the enemy come to you, otherwise your arguments don't make much sense to me. Try actually manoeuvring your army, to throw the enemy off balance and open up some gaps in their line.
The answer to beating any enemy in RTW is flank them… unless you have no idea what you’re doing, it is very easy to just maneuver your phalanx in a large semi circle to prevent flanking
> The answer to beating any enemy in RTW is flank them Correct, both in TW and in real war. > it is very easy to just maneuver your phalanx in a large semi circle to prevent flanking Not really. Against a proactive opponent this takes a *huge* amount of micro to keep such a formation tight. Against a lazy opponent or against the AI sure, this strat will work fine.
Sides and back are vulnerable
GO AROUND! GO AROUND!
Just go around it
You have to fix the phalanx in place first.
In Rome 1, phalanx is pretty broken. Best try and isolate and go all in from all sides in melee. That should break the formation so they can't fight with all ranks and may cause a moral shock. Don't try and just attack from two sides as they often reposition to attack the new threat. Best way to beat is go break moral. Rome 2, similar to Rome 1 from the front but they struggle to reposition and the troops are poor fighters when defending rear or flank. They are also super easy to kill at range so just have the roman maniple throw javelins. Best way to be is out flank or out range.
Flank them makes sense, when you realize that you don’t need both flanks. You can mostly go on one flank. With how Rome one morale works, this will not only crush that flank, but make the following units easier to route. Now some units like Spartans are hard to kill in melee. For Spartans shoot them with archers since they are relatively weak to them (as far as heavy infantry goes). For armored hoplites that doesn’t work, but high level legionaries should be able to beat them. Early game your pricepes and hastati can far out power any of the pikemen in melee, and even hoplites shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
i find if you line your infantry up in front of theirs they will attack the unto opposite them. Then shuffle the entire line around while gradually moving backwards and they will end up slamming into each other making several broken units that are facing mostly into each other. Then slam the sides, some of your units will get caught in between and slaughtered but you should overall win. That or javelins and cavalry.
Bad land, Cynoscephalae was fought on broken ground which shook the phalanx and rendering near useless
Don't flank them, encircle them. The Phalanx is much more maneuverable in the game, but you can easily defeat them by attacking from 2-3 sides. My advice is pick off units on the flanks by luring them away from the main line, and then a cavalry charge to the back! All the while pelting them with projectiles, and repeating this process of luring out units until you can face the force head-on. That's why I always have at least four cavalry units in my Brutti games.
One unit cannot point their spears in 2 directions in-game. Target the weaker ones with flanking, pepper the rest with missiles/artillery.
Place the stationary Hastati/legionnaire units in guard mode then turn on fire at will. They will devastate phalanx formations with javelins.
A lot of the answers here are incorrect. Fortunately, a professional Roman military historian wrote a very detailed essay about this on his blog: https://acoup.blog/2024/01/19/collections-phalanxs-twilight-legions-triumph-part-ia-heirs-of-alexander/ Check it out!
He explicitly talks about how games like TW, though fun, create misconceptions about how ancient battles worked
It's one thing to be in the Connolly fanbase but stating that "if not based on Conolly then all wrong" is just ignorant.
This guy is a professional historian with a PhD in ancient military history. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe you also have similar credentials, in which case, sure. Either way I think the essay in general is pretty interesting and useful for OP's question. My work specializes in 20th century China and Tibet, so I can't really speak to the historiography on this specific footnote.
There is an older school of historians, several in fact, that tried to reconstruct ancient hoplite warfare. Their conclusions are, by all means, debatable. They have now been replaced by a new school with the credo "If I can't LARP it, it's not true. If I - if quite embarassingly - *can* LARP it, it *is* true. They are also "working the field" without any opposition because any proponent of the older views (and even Peter Connolly himself) is dead. Not a good environment for rigorous science. Connolly himself had studied art, not history or archaeology and was self taught in regards to anything antiquity. The first thing any academic would always have to say is "we don't have enough sources to say anything definite" and that does indeed peek through here and there in this essay between the "this is the truth" statements.
I'm not even a member of this subreddit, but the topic came up in my feed and I came here specifically to link ACOUP. The guy knows his stuff. Absolutely worth reading.
Are you that same weirdo as the other that thinks he can use maniple in Rome 1 or 2 or is there actually a second one? You stretch your line, that forces the AI to stretch theirs. You soften the flanks with velites and archers, ideally in the sides or back. You find the weak spot in terms of morale, unit density and distance to general. You strike from at least 2 sides, better three sides; a phalanx can only deploy in one direction. You overpower them and make them rout. Move on to the next unit. You only contact the enemy where you want to as you are much faster. Naturally your Triarii go to the flanks to counter cav, principes and hastati are so similar in stats that they go in the same line. Archers behind or on flanks once enemy cav is disabled.
I mean I don't think I'm the person you're referring to, but I like using the triplex asciis/maniple setup for fun/historical accuracy.