Pike / deep pike PoA

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Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Froz »

I have recently realized how terribly vulnerable pikes are to light units. You don't need to disrupt phalanx, you just need to hit it a couple times and immediately it losses some of its PoA. This effect is way different to all other units, as far as i can tell, as for most units losing 5% men won't matter at all. For Phalanx it makes a noticeable difference, similar to fighting uphill.

Is this working as designed?

This and the opposite mechanic for morale seem weird to me. I'm talking about this one:
very deep units such
as pike phalanxes will be deemed to have suffered 10% or 16% casualties
when the overall % losses are somewhat lower - the logic being that beyond
a certain depth, extra ranks do nothing much to counteract the morale effect
of casualties on the front rank.
I would expect the main effect of having more ranks of men to be purely psychological, so that it would make the unit less likely to disrupt and flee the battle, simply because people feel safer when there are more friends around.

On the other hand, I don't think rear rows of phalanx could really affect the fight physically.

Please note that I'm not arguing that pike units need a buff because they are underperforming (although there was recently a thread with people arguing they are too weak). It's more that it doesn't seem to be a correct behaviour, or at least it feels unintuitive.

If I understand manual correctly, the base pike +100 PoA is for 3 ranks of soldiers and the deep pike PoA (another +100) is for 4 ranks. Would it be possible to make it for example 3 and a half ranks for deep pike? Or maybe make the base pike +150 and deep pike +50, so that the initial losses matter less?
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by General Shapur »

If you are facing a classical phalanx head on, you see a wall of shields that covers all the hoplites from the tops of their knees to the bottom of their faces. Above the shields rim you see a bronze helmet. Below it, bronze grwaves. If the phalanx is holding formation correctly, there is almost no exposed flesh that isnt covered by metal. Done right, its impregnable. But the moment cohesion breaks, gaps appear in the line - ribs, neck and thigh are exposed and it all goes to hell in a hand cart. Everything depended on keeping shields locked, moving together and presenting no gaps to the enemy. I guess theres a reason it was a formation eventually dropped.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MVP7 »

General Shapur wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:49 pm If you are facing a classical phalanx head on, you see a wall of shields that covers all the hoplites from the tops of their knees to the bottom of their faces. Above the shields rim you see a bronze helmet. Below it, bronze grwaves. If the phalanx is holding formation correctly, there is almost no exposed flesh that isnt covered by metal. Done right, its impregnable. But the moment cohesion breaks, gaps appear in the line - ribs, neck and thigh are exposed and it all goes to hell in a hand cart. Everything depended on keeping shields locked, moving together and presenting no gaps to the enemy. I guess theres a reason it was a formation eventually dropped.
Shield played a bit less important role in pike phalanx than classic Hoplite phalanx, I don't think it would be that sensitive to small disruptions especially if the foe can't get even close to the first rank. There's also a reason for why pikes were reintroduced to European warfare in late medieval period and remained in use until better firearms and bayonets made them redundant few centuries later.

I would really like to see FoG2 pikes overhauled some day. The easily lost 'deep pike POA' is one of the reasons why pikes really don't feel as reliable as one would expect for the price. The high price and hence the low number of units has a band synergy with inmaneuverability. At the same time the square formation and very strong melee performance against even slightly cheaper units makes it impossible to lower their price.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Geffalrus »

Physically, there should not be a deep pike POA, because most of the 16 ranks in a syntagma don't directly contribute to the impact or melee in a real fight. Even the contribution of ranks 2-5 is somewhat unclear because those ranks have less vision than rank 1 and their sarissa points have less reach than rank 1. There is also no push effect because of how the human body holds a sarissa and fits within a phalanx. The diagonal rotation of the shoulder blades makes any force coming from behind the phalangite more likely to knock over in an angle, than it is to propel him forward.

Personally, I think it's unlikely that the phalanx was designed to fight at 16 ranks deep. Such a super deep formation is extremely wasteful in terms of manpower, as all of us notice when trying to match width with any army list with cheap infantry. I highly doubt that extra men were needed to prop up morale, because the phalangite already had the confidence of wielding the longest ranged melee weapon on the battlefield. It's also not that easy to have men step forward to replace a dead phalangite due to the already crowded nature of the syntagma. You'd be literally standing on his dead body.

Having 8 ranks is already a deep formation compared to the maniple. Having 16 ranks essentially requires you to have double the amount of phalangites to match the width of a normal Roman infantry line. And considering the clear demographic challenges the Diadochi faced, that seems unlikely.

My opinion is that the 16x16 syntagma was an organizational device that changed width and depth while marching. And when melee was joined, it had condensed down to 8 ranks deep. This would preserve horizontal coverage, while the range advantage of the sarissa would preserve the holding ability of the unit. Those combined would allow the formation to pin the enemy infantry while the king and his elite troops maneuvered for the decisive blow.

-------

If I was going to suggest any change, I would redesign the pike units into smaller and cheaper units. In turn, those units would have a high POA for Impact, but a much lower POA against many troop types for Melee. Utilizing the highest effective Impact POA, they would have little trouble slamming into most units on open ground. However, unlike now, they would have a weaker Melee POA, which would allow them to fall apart during an extended melee. This would increase the need for the Hellenistic player to have flanking cavalry/elephant/Thureophoroi forces ready to deliver a rear charge, because if you did not, then you'd have a Pydna on your hands. Currently, pikes regularly win via extended melee slugfests unless they get impact disrupted by warbands or cohorts. I seem to rarely have time to flank with my cavalry because either the pikes win too quickly (or die), or the cavalry are stuck doing flank protection duty because the pikes are horribly outnumbered.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MikeC_81 »

Froz wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:12 pm If I understand manual correctly, the base pike +100 PoA is for 3 ranks of soldiers and the deep pike PoA (another +100) is for 4 ranks. Would it be possible to make it for example 3 and a half ranks for deep pike? Or maybe make the base pike +150 and deep pike +50, so that the initial losses matter less?
Pike and Deep pike both suffer from continual casualty degradation. The 4th rank supplies +100 while the first 3 ranks also supply +100. If you chip away past the 4th rank and start killing models in the 3rd rank, Pikes continue to fall in efficacy. This is countered by the fact that their will almost always have full Combat Strength of 480 for the purposes of that calculation which is arguably as valuable as Deep Pike.

Part of the task of the Pike player is to ensure that his Pikes are well covered by skirmishers to minimize damage. Though realistically even if they shave off some Deep Pikes, 150~180 PoA in Melee is still insane. No one gets that kind of melee PoA. While they haven't lit up the tournament scene, Pike armies haven't done poorly either. They are actually doing better than Romans at the moment in the FoG2DL.
Geffalrus wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:59 pm If I was going to suggest any change, I would redesign the pike units into smaller and cheaper units. In turn, those units would have a high POA for Impact, but a much lower POA against many troop types for Melee. Utilizing the highest effective Impact POA, they would have little trouble slamming into most units on open ground. However, unlike now, they would have a weaker Melee POA, which would allow them to fall apart during an extended melee. This would increase the need for the Hellenistic player to have flanking cavalry/elephant/Thureophoroi forces ready to deliver a rear charge, because if you did not, then you'd have a Pydna on your hands. Currently, pikes regularly win via extended melee slugfests unless they get impact disrupted by warbands or cohorts. I seem to rarely have time to flank with my cavalry because either the pikes win too quickly (or die), or the cavalry are stuck doing flank protection duty because the pikes are horribly outnumbered.
This would have the opposite effect of what they were meant to do. Phalangites were always the fixing force for Macedonian Heavy Cav and Hypnanists are the main punch.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Geffalrus »

MikeC_81 wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 2:23 am This would have the opposite effect of what they were meant to do. Phalangites were always the fixing force for Macedonian Heavy Cav and Hypnanists are the main punch.
I'm gonna look back over my recent DL matches. My gut feeling is that pikes are too expensive, rare, and powerful to actually be operating as fixing units - they're useful, but they're more like mighty hammers than a fixing force. Then again, I have felt like I've pulled off some decent Hellenistic tactics, so maybe it's working correctly after all. But when it comes to holding a large enemy army in place frontally, I've seen more of that happen in my Breton games where I have cheap infantry to pair with my cavalry.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Froz »

MikeC_81 wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 2:23 am
Froz wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:12 pm If I understand manual correctly, the base pike +100 PoA is for 3 ranks of soldiers and the deep pike PoA (another +100) is for 4 ranks. Would it be possible to make it for example 3 and a half ranks for deep pike? Or maybe make the base pike +150 and deep pike +50, so that the initial losses matter less?
Pike and Deep pike both suffer from continual casualty degradation. The 4th rank supplies +100 while the first 3 ranks also supply +100. If you chip away past the 4th rank and start killing models in the 3rd rank, Pikes continue to fall in efficacy. This is countered by the fact that their will almost always have full Combat Strength of 480 for the purposes of that calculation which is arguably as valuable as Deep Pike.
Yes, this is what does not feel correct to me. And again, I'm not arguing whether the unit is balanced (especially in multiplayer, as I don't play multiplayer) or not. It is just very weird to me that pikes are the only unit that are affected basically by even just one skirmishers attack, especially as it would seem to me the gigantic reserve they have would make them less vulnerable to initial losses.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by SnuggleBunnies »

Almost every unit is weakened by skirmish attacks, due to the -size modifier for units at less than full strength, which pikes don't suffer from due to large unit size.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Geffalrus »

SnuggleBunnies wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:38 pm Almost every unit is weakened by skirmish attacks, due to the -size modifier for units at less than full strength, which pikes don't suffer from due to large unit size.
Except for Warbands and such that start larger than 480, but not as large as pikes.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MikeC_81 »

Even Warbands are affected. Their own version of deep ranks bonus is eroded as the 3 rank is stripped
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MVP7 »

How exactly do the various POAs erode? The 3rd rank POA is lost gradually with the third rank if I have understood correctly but is the deep pike POA lost entirely with the 4th rank and does the general casualty penalty grow linearly right from the first casualties or does it only start from standard 480 strength even for units that have more men to start up with? The manual is a bit unclear on these.
Last edited by MVP7 on Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MikeC_81 »

RBS will have to give us the exact formula, but from my early classical anti days in FoG2DL I remember having to grind down Pike units with PoAs as low as the 70s. Given that units auto break at around 50% I can only guess it is more than just the 3rd rank giving the PoA.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by TheGrayMouser »

RBS addressed this in a post back in October (sorry can’t link it right now) but 10% causulties will reduce the 4th rank bonus by 40%. Or another way of looking at it: as the unit strength is reduce from 100-75%, the 4th rank poa drops from 100 to 0. Presumably the third rank poa drops from 100 to 0 as the strength drops from 75 to 50%
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Froz »

SnuggleBunnies wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:38 pm Almost every unit is weakened by skirmish attacks, due to the -size modifier for units at less than full strength, which pikes don't suffer from due to large unit size.
Hmm, this is harder to compare, but my feeling is that it's not nearly as big effect. How does the size modifier work exactly?
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MVP7 »

Isn't the 3rd rank POA bonus only 10 POA rather than 100?

edit. never mind, that's for non-pike units.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Paul59 »

It's interesting that no one has picked up on the fact that the Pikes are unique, in that their POA for their weapon is totally dependent upon the depth of their formation.

If their formation is only two ranks deep, ie; through casualties or if you create a half strength Pike unit for a mod, they get nothing. Maybe they should get a base POA for the weapon, and then extra for the ranks (but that extra POA would be less than what they get currently)?

I am playing Devils Advocate here, as I am reasonably happy with how pikes are currently represented. Although I was slightly disappointed, when I created some half strength Pike units for a new scenario, to find they had zero POA for the weapon. Historically Pike phalanxes were occasionally deployed at half depth, for instance to increase the frontage of an outnumbered army.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by TheGrayMouser »

Paul59 wrote: Sun Mar 03, 2019 1:31 pm It's interesting that no one has picked up on the fact that the Pikes are unique, in that their POA for their weapon is totally dependent upon the depth of their formation.

If their formation is only two ranks deep, ie; through casualties or if you create a half strength Pike unit for a mod, they get nothing. Maybe they should get a base POA for the weapon, and then extra for the ranks (but that extra POA would be less than what they get currently)?

I am playing Devils Advocate here, as I am reasonably happy with how pikes are currently represented. Although I was slightly disappointed, when I created some half strength Pike units for a new scenario, to find they had zero POA for the weapon. Historically Pike phalanxes were occasionally deployed at half depth, for instance to increase the frontage of an outnumbered army.

I think people are aware of it and deem it an anomaly that needs to be straigtened out :) ( Not me, I like how pikes are represented, except the square which is a little to easy to use)

BTW Paul, what controls "rank" in game terms? Is it the unit size or is it the "mancount" entry? Pikes have 16 mancount.... What if you reduced the unit size to half, and changed the mancount to 12? Would that represent a 480 man unit with three ranks reasoablly wel? ( ie the pike would at least get a pike poa of 100?)
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by rbodleyscott »

TheGrayMouser wrote: Sun Mar 03, 2019 5:14 pm What if you reduced the unit size to half, and changed the mancount to 12? Would that represent a 480 man unit with three ranks reasoablly wel? ( ie the pike would at least get a pike poa of 100?)
No, because the "depth" calculations are in fact based on UnitSize.

I suppose for scenario purposes, the simplest thing to do for the half depth pike units would be to change them to 480 TotalMen, 600 UnitSize, 8 ManCount, and change their combat capability from pike to offensive spearmen. (This is how Medieval troops armed with 15 foot pikes but in shallower than 16-rank deep formations will be treated in the game).
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by Paul59 »

rbodleyscott wrote: Sun Mar 03, 2019 7:04 pm
TheGrayMouser wrote: Sun Mar 03, 2019 5:14 pm What if you reduced the unit size to half, and changed the mancount to 12? Would that represent a 480 man unit with three ranks reasoablly wel? ( ie the pike would at least get a pike poa of 100?)
No, because the "depth" calculations are in fact based on UnitSize.

I suppose for scenario purposes, the simplest thing to do for the half depth pike units would be to change them to 480 TotalMen, 600 UnitSize, 8 ManCount, and change their combat capability from pike to offensive spearmen. (This is how Medieval troops armed with 15 foot pikes but in shallower than 16-rank deep formations will be treated in the game).
Yes, I was thinking that might be a better alternative.
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Re: Pike / deep pike PoA

Post by MVP7 »

I feel that pikes in general are inconsistent with other units in the game and not in a good way. Here's my current personal understanding/opinion of what pikes historically were, currently are in the game and what they could be in the game. Just to be clear, I don't think the pikes in their current form are badly balanced or severely unhistorical (especially after the push-back changes), just rather underwhelming and a bit mischaracterized and I think they could be more authentic and enjoyable to play with and against. I know pikes are a particularly divisive subject when it comes to how they actually fought and performed and I know some would suggest almost opposite capabilities for pikes with some valid arguments.

My impression of pike phalanx is that they were arguably used primarily as an anvil of Macedonian army (even though they were not defensive or passive by their nature) rather than shock troops or the decisive element of the military. Given their weapons, formations and track record I think it's reasonable to assume that their biggest strengths were staying-power and being highly reliable in frontal combat on good terrain. Their greatest tactical weaknesses were their susceptibility to bad terrain and attacks from unexpected directions (aka getting flanked).

The way the pikes are currently done in FoG2 makes them very sensitive to damage even though they should arguably have a lot of redundancy with at least 11 ranks (or around 70% of the formation) that can't actively contribute to the fighting of full strength unit. FoG2 also makes pikes very deadly and decisive in melee which makes their price very high. The high value of their core capability (pike) leaves the pikes with relatively low armour and veterancy levels when compared to other units of similar price, which makes them even more susceptible to ranged damage and cohesion checks. This together with the quickly diminishing POA values makes them relatively vulnerable to both frontal impact and missile weapons, which seems to go against historical accounts of pikemen.

Another tricky aspect of balancing pikes is the (historically correct) Square/Orb formation. The formation mitigates the effect of flanking (otherwise a great weakness of pikes) which is another factor that keeps their unit price high. I'm going to argue that, in terms of the top down design philosophy, the ability is not that realistic or healthy for the game balance.

Firstly, the pikes are hardly the only unit type that could technically resist flanking: Warbands (and cavalry) often used a wedge-formation which would (even in standard FoG2 unit scale) make flanking harder and less effective (see picture below).

Secondly, with some time to react (and pikes too need time to change their formation) pretty much any unit in the game would realistically be able to reorganize to better respond to flanking attack. One of the best examples could be the Roman manipular formation (together with their discipline and flexibility) which would have plenty of internal reserves who could re-position themselves in a pinch to better resist the impending flank attack.

Thirdly, the existence of square formation in FoG2 is inconsistent when you consider the absence of all other possible formations and tactics that could just as well be in the game but were deemed unnecessary and abstracted. The closest equivalent of Square in terms of gameplay impact would probably be Roman Testudo formation. When under heavy missile fire the Romans could form a testudo to protect themselves extremely effectively but they lack the capability in the game*.

So, would square formation really have such a relatively massive effect when compared to other unit types' answers to flanking? Is the square formation really that important, unique and characteristic for pikes? I think square is too strong counter against flanking, the effect of which is probably already overemphasized against many unit types for the sake of better gameplay (a decisions I completely agree with). I don't think the square formation is really needed for depicting the most important characteristics of pike formations any more than testudo is needed for depicting the characteristics of Legionaries.


The main characteristics I would expect from pikes in the game are maintaining cohesion on impact; having consistent performance in a prolonged melee; being resilient to losses; being vulnerable to flanking and being very vulnerable to bad terrain (and obviously repelling cavalry with ease).

A very rough example of a pike overhaul could be something like:

- Have 100 impact and melee POA 'against any' either static or only starts reducing from over 50% casualties.
- Reduce the "deep pike" POA for impact and melee to 50 or 66 points that reduces linearly from 0% to 50% casualties.
- Remove the Square ability (or add significant POA reductions to better match the overemphasized effect of flanking that affects other units.)
- Make pikes severely disordered on rough ground.
- Reduce Impact Foot POA against Pikes to 100 or give pikes additional cohesion test bonus when receiving non-flanking charge.

Changes like these would make pikes more reliable in the open, more vulnerable when flanked or when in bad terrain and less destructive especially in melee which I believe would be more accurate to historical pikes. This would also allow for the unit price of pikes to be reduced which would let them match the frontage of their opponent a little better than they currently do, which would help with the bad synergy the in-maneuverability has with low numbers.

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* This isn't really relevant to this discussion but since I know someone will otherwise point it out I'll respond in advance: The argument that is used to dismiss having testudo in the game is that "It was mainly a siege formation". However, I think the obvious reason for why testudo was mainly used in sieges is that siege was the most common example of a situation where legionaries would face heavy missile fire that the supporting cavalry and light infantry could not deal with. For example the Battle of Carrhae saw Roman heavy infantry in a similar situation (heavy missile fire that the friendly cavalry and light troops could not deal with) in open field and their response was to form testudo. After that disaster the Romans would either strategically avoid or be better prepared for missile heavy opponents by having more cavalry and missile units (especially noticeable with Late Roman and Byzantine organization) and as a result there would be less situations to use the testudo on the field. It's not mostly used in sieges because of it being a siege formation but because of sieges being the most common situation where it's useful.

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