04-02-2001 05:43									#1
	The phalanx and the legion Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Did anyone ever know that the phalanx was actually a defensive position used by legions? Why not instead of a phalanx have a 'bronze age legion'? it would be 3/2. also, because the b.a. legion now equals the archer, i also think that archers should be more defensiv (2/3) brcause they were more of a defense and not an offense anyway.

	04-02-2001 06:37									#2
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A phalanx was a group of 20 soldiers started by the Greeks that were used for attack.

In the Hellenistic age the phalanx 20 solider groups clumped together and were not an effective formation.

In the Roman age it was used as a defensive position in the same way the Greeks had used it for offensive.

-So it was used for many things over many years...

	04-02-2001 09:23									#3
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Archers were excellent defense if the enemy couldn't get to them very easily; breastworks or castle walls kept the knights away long enough that the archers could do their damage without being slaughtered. In a stand-up battle the archers were terrible at defense; the knights would ride them down in one charge.

In other words archers were practically useless if not in a fortress or behind city walls, or if there wasn't any infantry to stand in front of the archers and slow down the charging knights.

One of the old suggestions from the list was that archers have a range of 2. If the enemy was at range 2, that's great; the archers could only be hit by long-range fire from the enemy, but could fire on the enemy to their heart's content. If the enemy closed on the archers, then they would be slaughtered.

	04-02-2001 12:16									#4
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then why not have it that a fortified archer is a given a bigger defense bonus than normal? ie. a 100% defense and a 50% offense?

	04-02-2001 12:48									#5
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I'm always in favor off more realism than less realism. For example, a solution would be "Archers are 2/3 when behind city walls or in fortresses, or when paired with a non-archer unit. Otherwise they are 2/1." Or alternatively, "Archers are 2/3 when behind a city walls or in fortresses or when paired with an infantry unit. They are 2/1 when paired with a mounted unit if attacked by a mounted unit, otherwise they are 2/3 when paired with a mounted unit. If they are not paired with an infantry or mounted unit then they are 2/1." The penalty incurred when attacked by a mounted unit is due to the possibility of being flanked, a penalty which does not exist if there is a pike square around the archers. Rules such as these allow the archer to function similarly to how they would function in a real battle without adding the element of tactical combat (which I assume and hope will not make it into Civ III).

	04-02-2001 14:13									#6
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Thanks, technophile, for giving me a soapbox to stand on so I can preach to those who haven't known me as long as you have.

The Archer unit isn't solely guys with bows. You'd be hard pressed to find any historical examples of units composed of archers only, exactly for the reason technophile put forth.

Cavalry aren't the only units that can flank in battle. It isn't as though only pikemen can break a cavalry charge, nor even that they have a 2:1 advantage over heavy infantry at breaking the charge. It isn't that archers were always pansies in melee.

Such considerations are tactical in nature rather than strategic. I have always been in favor of heavy strategic generalization for civ 3. So when the general art and science of warfare is advanced the unit gets better A/D values and the "roll of the dice" represents the tactical resolution.

"Ranged" attack? Nothing before the V-1 and V-2 missiles had a range greater than "1" at the strategic scale of civ 2 (50-100 mile wide tiles). IIRC even the monster rail guns of WWI didn't fire much farther than fifty miles.

Both the rail guns and the V missiles were ineffective because they couldn't aim at targets of value. It takes a guided missile to deliver stand-off attack over those ranges, and the target has to be a strategic target, e.g., a factory or a ship. We don't use long range missiles against infantry or even armor.

What else can I preach about while I'm up on the soapbox? Oh, yeah: Small Integer Syndrome. It is harder to make subtle differences between units when fixated on using small integers for the A/D stats. Were horsemen really double the attack of light infantry, or archers triple, or Legion quadruple?

OTOH how can one possibly have the modern rifle unit only marginally stronger than the Legion? We don't have swordsmen, archers, and horse cavalry because modern guns are at least an order of magnitude more powerful. No wonder we see "Phalanx defeats Armor" in civ 2… the scale of unit strength is messed up.

	04-02-2001 15:15									#7
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Phalanx:
'in military science, tactical formation consisting of a block of heavily armed infantry standing shoulder to shoulder in files several ranks deep. Fully developed by the ancient Greeks, it survived in modified form into the gunpowder era and is viewed today as the beginning of European military development.

The ancient Sumerian army fielded a standard six-man-deep phalanx; the first line went into battle carrying large, rectangular shields, and the troops bore heavy pikes and battle axes. During the 7th century BC the Greek city-states adopted a phalanx eight men deep. The Greek hoplite, the heavy-armed infantryman who manned the phalanx, was equipped with a round shield, a heavy corselet of leather and metal, greaves (shin armour), an 8-foot pike for thrusting, and a 2-foot double-edged sword. Since the phalanx held in solid ranks and was divided only into the centre and wings, there was generally little need for an officer corps; the whole line advanced in step to the sound of the flute. Such a formation encouraged cohesion among advancing troops and presented a frightening spectacle to the enemy, but it was difficult to maneuver and, if penetrated by enemy formations, became little more than a mob.

From the founding of their city-state until the close of the 2nd century BC, the Romans found the Greek-style phalanx suitable for fighting in the plains of Latium. The basic weapon for this formation was a thrusting spear called the hasta; from this the heavy infantry derived its name, hastati, retaining it even after Rome abandoned the phalanx for the more flexible legion.

'Phalanx' is a Greek work, meaning 'battle array', nothing more!

2500BC first bronze spears and daggers in Mesopotamia
1700BC first bronze body armour in the Near East
1400BC heavy bronze slashing swords in Europe and the Near East
(source: 'Times Atlas of World Archaeology',1988)

'The Stele of the Vultures, dated ~2500BC, depicts Eannatum of Lagash leading his troops into battle, the hero at the head of his army, yet the infantry behind him is extraordinary indeed. Packed shoulder to shoulder, advancing behind a barrier of locked rectangular shields reinforced with bronze disks, and presenting a hedgehog of spearheads protruding from several rows back, this mass constitutes a full-fledged phalanx.(!) This is an important distinction since there is a decided tendency to overlook or discount the significance of this Sumerian development.

It is incredibly out of context, coming almost two thousand years before the "advanced" Greeks took up the formation. Moreover, rather than being the product of a sustained technical evolution, it appears to have burst virtually full-blown upon the scene. Why this is so is suggested by the behaviour of Gilgamesh's men. They are clearly people with a stake in society, the very types necessary for a style of warfare which demands that the participants both fight at close range and face danger in a cooperative fashion. Such qualities are impossible to bring out in any but highly motivated troops. Therefore, although the phalanx was clearly an innovation in the technical sense, it is perhaps better thought of as a sort of limited military option, available for those with the right kind of government but otherwise unusable. This type of absolute constraint, whether politically, economically, or sociologically based, would appear to have been a significant factor in the diffusion and development of weapons up to modern times.

So my conclusion is that the phalanx is first of all a tactical formation, and its use closely related to the social and political conditions in a given society. In fact the Greek phalanx was nothing new at all! Another argument for some sort of recruitment system related to domestic politics.

(source: '***TECH TREE***: General Discussion' )

	04-02-2001 21:07									#8
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Check out the Covert Action Rule thread. It looks like most of this is going to be moot; it looks like Civ III is going to be scaled DOWN from Civ II, so special reuls for archers would probably be beyond the scope of the game, while tactical combat will almost certainly be beyond the scope of the game.