Phalanx vs Legion

[marek1978]

What i saw is that phalanx armies tend to be beaten by legion almost all the time.
Don't want to go in to discussion which way of fighting was better as it seems Romans solved that question quite deceisvly.
I wanted to know how in game terms it is represented. I see that phalanx heavy infratry don’t have any offensive / defensive firepower skill. So it represents no-pillum situation for them. Does it mean that it makes much more sense to buy light infratry? They seem to have quite fair assault possibility, protection at the same level and offensive fire. Or maybe there is some general difference between light and heavy infantry in the game terms.
In the history the big advantage Romans posed over their enemies was relative flexibility of their formation and universality of their infantry. Those who beat them were masters in combined arms usage like Pyrrhic or Hannibal. Does it mean that beating roman army by non-roman army requires you to have a proper mix of light units, cavalry ?

[lycortas2]

I was one of the testers for GMT's Alexander and SPQR games, back when that was the only games GMT made.
The answer we came up with was that the Legion provided true sub units. In a 1000-1500 man block of Phalanx every man is part of the unit, they cannot rest, and there is no sub unit to maneuver. The Romans exploited this at Cynoscephalae when individual maniples slipped in through a small gap in one of Phillip's flanks.

I suspect in a head to head fight a Phalanx would outfight a legion, in other words a phalanx's assault should be higher. A legion should have more cohesion and discipline. And a Marian legion was certainly better than a early Republic legion. Remember, Pyrrhus only had 6000 Phalanx men, which is about one legion, at his third battle and Phillip only had, what, 10,000 or 11,000 Phalanx at Cynoscephalae.

[marek1978]

And what about heavy vs light infantry ? Why would any one buy heavy Hellenistic infantry if the light one has almost the same melee fighting skills ?

It seems for me that in the game terms the only real match for the legions is the Spanish infantry?

[lycortas2]

Light infantry, javelinmen etc do about 1/4 the damage that a heavy infantryman does. Medium infantry, pedites, etc will do about 1/2 the damage a heavy does. Honestly, in this game system there is no reason to use anything but heavy infantry, heavy cavalry, archers, slingers or horse archers.

This is not realistic; a Greek 'pedite' with a sword and some armour is going to do just as much damage as a legion soldier, but the pedite will have less armour, less cohesion, less troop quality. But that is not how it is shown in this game. Essentially no unit does as much damage as a Roman legionary, but the heavy protection of the legions is ignored.

I have thought about re-doing the unit values but it would take me about forever to do it alone.

[Jagger2013]

You can make the changes very quickly with the AJE database. Unfortunately, it is not available at the moment. Hopefully at some point, we will see it because I would like to tweak some scenarios. Experimenting with unit values might be rewarding as well.

[marek1978]

And where exactly in the unit characteristic such an information is provided?
I am wondering for the future reference.
Does game design means that any given legion facing any given phalanx – both the same size and quality – will win?

Light infantry, javelinmen etc do about 1/4 the damage that a heavy infantryman does. Medium infantry, pedites, etc will do about 1/2 the damage a heavy does. Honestly, in this game system there is no reason to use anything but heavy infantry, heavy cavalry, archers, slingers or horse archers.

This is not realistic; a Greek 'pedite' with a sword and some armour is going to do just as much damage as a legion soldier, but the pedite will have less armour, less cohesion, less troop quality. But that is not how it is shown in this game. Essentially no unit does as much damage as a Roman legionary, but the heavy protection of the legions is ignored.

I have thought about re-doing the unit values but it would take me about forever to do it alone.

[Jagger2013]

The AGEOD wiki has a section on modding here: http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Articles_and_Tutorials_on_Modding

Explore the modding forums here as well. Also check out the guides by Narwhal on understanding the combat engine and unit values. http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?32870-Game-demo-Guides-Tutorials-Maps-Manuals-and-other-goodies

That should get you started. You can actually do changes without the database but much slower to manually change each unit file.