>approaches your army
How do you beat this shit?
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>approaches your army
How do you beat this shit?
Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
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Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
fire cannonballs or something
catapulta
Same thing but with longer sticks
Horse archers
Based and alexanderpilled
Phillip II, you historylet
What if they run off and grab even longer sticks?
Soon they will make stick so long it will destroy them all !
bros, it's time for the aoe1 phalanx rush
unbreakable logic
The only true solution to the phalanx problem is to outphalanx them.
Gunpowder
cast an aoe spell
>use magic notebook
>Friendly ridable black hole
>ride my black hole onto them
>they all get eaten by my black hole
>i win
>Sentient Maxwell's Notebook
>throw it in the middle of their unit
walk around to the left with some of your boys while the rest of them walk around to the right
flank with bows
A gigantic frickload of archers, the frick did you think? Also, send some morons to charge at them to confuse the enemy a bit.
apparently the mass of pikes actually did pretty good as an arrow screen, probably less effective from head-on but from angles into the unit the interior troops were actually well covered. I'd guess you'd actually want to intentionally fire at the outermost soldiers.
Summon a bunch of rats underneath them
Rags + oil + fire
Do what the Romans did at Cynoscephalae, flank them.
Get pwnd u fkn h4x0r!11 Imagine spawning peltasts out of now where and still getting fkn rekt! Git gud f4gl0rd scrub!11
Nerf elephants
>Cynoscephalae
That was pure luck. Rome was already losing on a head on clash, Nicarnor just wasn't able to mobilize into formation up the hill fast enough because of the fog and Phillip's impatience
>When you start winning so hard you lose
Fricking kek, Romans actually had God on their size. That entire campaign was a shitshow.
And then there is the Second Punic War, it is a thing of wonder how the Romans could keep fighting even after suffering losses so devastating it would cripple any other nation.
It's not like running out of people has ever been a problem. Just pick up the weapons and armor dropped by the dead and hand it over to some new suckers.
China, or at the very least the kingdoms there, were throwing numbers near equivalent to Rome's entire population every single war.
So what?
It helps that the citizen levy and allied levy system resulted in them having an original xbox hueg supply of manpower. Great for fighting never ending wars on your home turf. Less effective at maintaining an extensive overseas empire though.
Spain practically invented the Tercios and proved that a volunteer army works better than levies and even mercenaries.
If you think about it, a bullet fired from a gun is a longer stick.
Brother, the Hellenic successor armies were professional and look how that turned out. On the flip side, the French armies during the Revolutionary era were levies. It's not always so simple.
yeah but what if you don't have enough volunteers gay
Uh, just pay them more? That's the noble's job.
>just walk into each other and win
epic strategic genius at work here guys
Unlike RTS players looking down from above and mind-controlling their men, ancient generals where just guys on horses who couldn't even see the whole battle at once and were mainly shouting at people to shout at other people to shout at other people to do a thing.
Battles lasted a looooong time, they generally had plenty of time to issue orders. The biggest danger was the higher officers dying at some point which can lead real fricking disasters like Cannae.
They could certainly influence the battle at the location they were themselves at and (with good subordinates) could try and risk a pivot during the battle, but for the most part armies followed the battle plan which was discussed, finished and given to the relevant officers before the battle even began. And unless you're decently certain how the battle is going to happen you're going to pick a fairly safe battle planm which is what the soldiers are going to be most trained for anyway.
The well-known battles tend to be the exceptions to the rule, of course.
No. Battle plans needed to be flexible. At least since Cannae that's been the standard. If we're still talking phalanxes then yes, Alexander was flying by the seat of his pants.
Though his army composition remained relatively the same, Alexander took great pains to make sure that it was never threatened or made sure the battle and even terrain was conducive to it.
*Crosses a river because the enemy is on the other side of it*
*Almost gets killed 3 times but don't worry, I'm the son of zeus you guys*
Keyword is almost 😉
Yeah he lived a long life.
A dense life. Plus it's not as if he died in battle
His war killed him, he was a gallant, lucky fool and Philip is the true MVP.
>Philip
>gets assassinated by his frickboy because he married a woman whose uncle raped him.
>t. Parmenion
I don't think we're in disagreement there; of course you can give out a few if-else rules to follow and give signals with a pre-determined meaning during the battle. My original point was that "walk into each other" was a good strategy to start out with.
that's cheeky
you can't solve EVERYTHING with flanking anon.
When flanking fails, surround them
Excellent work
Anon wins the battle
>place back to wall/impassable terrain
>literally invincible????
Hold in place with infantry them flank with cavalry in the sides and rear.
Theyre doing the same thing to your ranks anon
>use heavy infantry to engage from the front (not too aggressively)
>use more infantry/cavalry to flank around the sides
nooooooooo
>no shields
ditches and bows
are you blind?
Yeah 🙁
They have shields and the walls of pikes themselves help to deflect certain arrows.
You need to look closer, they have shields.
fire
Lure them into unfavorable, uneven terrain where they cannot stay in formation effectively. Other than that your only choice is to outflank them by having faster moving troops.
Horse archers
With same era tech? Flame arrows I suppose? Gotta cause them to cause panic/break rank then go in for the kill with fast moving cavalry.
Start chucking really big rocks
>casts web-of-holding
I explain to them the error of their ways and convince them to join me
maniples and rough terrian = gg ez
I cast pic related
I don't think you're casting anything today, friend.
You cast child tummy erotic?
Bold strategy.
(ToT)
Archers, and flanking tactics with cavalry. Gg, no re.
Can't you just use a gun? Is Ganker really this moronic?
they have shields bro
Literally never understood why no army created something like this.
Literally a simple ball. On slopes to destroy enemy phalanx and barricades.
The speed and gravity alone on one could crush hundreds of men alone.
And they could be universal, balls of fire tumbling down, balls of rock, balls of marble, balls of steel, brass balls, graphine balls.
never look up what a catapult is
what if you made really tiny balls that were small enough for troops to carry lots of, but made some kind of tube or something that could launch them super fast so they did lots of damage to people anyway?
what if you made a pair of huge balls, take them out of my pants and into your mouth?
how does that help destroy a phalanx
then either he's your father or you are ballless
sounds like it would be really hard to make, take a lot of resources, and could be totally useless if the enemy just doesn't stand in formation in one specific spot.
>if the enemy just doesn't stand in formation
So the phalanx is broken. CHAAAAAAAAARGE
A: They did use rolling fire balls both in ancient rome and japan, at least
B: A massive orb of stone or metal or whatever would be logistically annoying as shit to take on campaign
C: It literally only works if you are camping uphill. it is useless as an offensive weapon, unless enemy is downhill for some dumbass reason. and it can be dodged because everyone can see it coming, so you're not even guaranteed to kill anyone with it
Otherwise yes massive stones that can crush a man could be rolled down a hill
pretty sure I remember an example of alexander facing a similar tactic where the enemy sent their empty supply wagons rolling downhill into al's forces, but they jumped down and put their shields over their heads and got away with minimal injuries.
>Comparing wagons to a fricking crushing rock
Anon do you have any fricking idea how expensive a giant metal ball would have been?
spheres are a recent (less than 1000 years) invention
If you've ever seen a rock fall down a hill you would know that it moves erratically. Even if you try to aim that shit you'd never hit what you're aiming for. Also from ehat would you build that shit? If you made it out of stone it would weight tons, if you made it out of metal it would cost more than a house, if you made it out of wood it would shatter along the way when it hits a tree or a rock going downhill.
Imagine asking a stonemason to polish a boulder into such a perfect sphere just to roll it down a hill which may be effective around 5% of time and that's only if conditions are perfect and you've made alot of them.
There's this weird-ass pinball game called Odama that is literally about using a ball like this to destroy armies
People drop boulders from cliffs all the time.
Just pour a huge bag of marbles downhill and the enemy army will fall on their asses full Looney Tunes style.
banana peels
Infiltrate their cultures and subvert them by introducing women's rights, porn, atheism, fiat currency, and poisoning their food supplies.
A 105mm howitzer will do the trick.
summon my imported chinese general who is able to effortlessly destroy thousands of men by himself
just use a gun, and if that's not allowed you could probably frick them over with superior mobility by surrounding them with horses and lances
>approaches your wall
How do you beat this shit?
>But fire arrows
Didn't do shit
pour oil and set it on fire
>pour oil
only on movies
and in your house
also why not
How the frick are you gonna pour oil on the tower?
>get a bucket of oil
>splash it onto the tower
Woah that was hard
Build a taller tower on your wall.
I cast enemy soldiers at top of wall to kill people coming out of tower in a funnel
trenches/moat, and an incline on the other side
even a slight incline would make it a pain in the ass to use siege towers
frickin poofta
very nice
yea, they'd never think to fill in a hole
if you are going to fill it in, you may as well just build a ramp rather than use towers
take this with a grain of salt but i think some roman general one time built a giant ramp when they were trying to assault israelite land to get a siege tower by the wall. but the israelites had already fled when they got up there, or something
This, they'd siege for weeks or months sometimes, that's more than enough time to fill it in with something.
aim at the trolls
>But fire arrows
>Didn't do shit
Just cover it in oil first
build a second wall
shoot counterweighted ballista bolts at it and pull it over
>wait them to arrive
>massive load of arrows
>send though guys to clean
>block the stair with lancers
>build time to burn that shit
Siege Towers were mainly used as elevated platforms for ranged weapons to be able to hit the guys which the walls protect against shots from below - driving a siege tower right up to the wall to start a melee on top of the wall was fairly uncommon. Even if you overcome all the obstacles, your attack is predictable and you're vulnerable from three sides.
They mostly built ramps and bridges and stuff for scaling walls. They even took Masada like that. Does this look like a fun fortification to take?
>all these morons saying use a gun
lmao, you c**ts realize how easy it would be for the medieval people to just develop multi-cylinder engines, wings, and bombs to take out just about any modern marvel? You guys are dumb, gg no re
Chinese had them in the medieval period.
>jobs to horse archers errytime
archers
Literally no counterplay.
I hate metahomosexual shit like this.
Big shields javelins and swords
Piktish Knights and Spanish Tercios were both beaten doing the exact same thing:
Attack the front and two sides at the same time.
the Phalanx does not work without cavalry to support it's flanks
nothin personnel
they ahve shields that would block the bullets, dummy
>Conquers your land
Nothin' personel, kid
is that a... shield... wall.....
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HORSEARCHERSSAVEMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
man this miniboss was too hard, how did the devs even intend you to beat it if you didn't max out archery skills or cheesed it in different ways?
>Throw a big fricking rock at you
>Throw shits at you
>Pour oil on you
Nothin' personel, kid
>Pour oil on you
how?
why use one big pot of oil when you can throw a lot of smaller pots of oil all over the place then throw a flame
I'll bite and treat you seriously for a minute.
Romans - and ancient people in general - weren't stupid and you're not some sort of genius who just came up with great tactics.
1. Any person with a pot full of expensive flammable oil was a good target for actual ranged units. Bows could probably kill hundreds of your pot-throwers before they come close enough to throw a pot.
2. What's more important - Romans weren't stupid and the centurion would give spread order the moment he decides your pot throwers are too close.
3. Finally, setting people on fire won't do much in open field, especially when your enemy knows how to do manuevers.
from a hose like at the gas stations
Well if the oil thing fails, at the very least he can lead them up a slanted walkway and roll the pot down onto them
Or even better - take a dip in the oil pot, then set himself on fire and then run into their formation
>continuously loses against a few hundred germBlack folk without armor despite having a million strong army
To be fair, Germania was way out there, at great distance from the Roman power base. And there really wasn't anything important to conquer.
The German tribes on the other hand were literally migrating into Roman lands, so they always had their power base with them.
In the end it was immigration that killed the Roman empire, and it's immigration that's killing Europe today.
>there really wasn't anything important to conquer
Sour grapes. Germania's soil was full of resources and its land arable.
>Germania's soil was full of resources and its land arable.
Germania was heavily forested at the time.
And look at the map of the Roman empire, it spans in roughly equal measure to all corners of the map.
Obviously with some bias towards the east because of the pre-existing urbanization in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Egypt.
That was the extent of Roman force projection, and Germania was pretty much at the limit.
>was heavily forested
I noticed a lot of people don't know this detail for ancient europe
>Germania's soil was full of resources and its land arable.
Not really. Britain was, however.
Britain has very long history of being farmed, contrary to legends of coast-to-coast forests.
And Dacia. Honestly, Western and "Central" Europe was pretty shit, full of nothing but poor angry people.
Why do problems always stay mostly the same, what the hell is this endless cycle.
I can't stand the saying "Strong men create good times", it sound like a self fulfilling prophecy. A " Well, what can ya do"
How about strong men, creating strong men. No matter what point of history I look at in Rome, it always feels the same.
A bunch of servile c**ts just going with the motion, while few do what they want and shape the world. It is maddening, I hate it. Why is everyone so servile, I could scream.
Civilization is a lie, only few are even worthy of being called human.
It's always been like this, but the average person sure is a lot more coddled in modern times.
He said, on a video game forum.
no offense bro but you give off real strong daddy's lil breedable bawd vibes right now
huh
Your idea of a worthy life is the problem. Why shouldn't life be about having your own bit of the land, living off of it, raising a family, and enjoying the little things?
Why do you need force others to call you superior? Why do you need to see far flung regions? Why do you need to 'make a mark on history'?
It is you bastards who cause all the problems.
Glory is always going to be at the back of every man's mind, haunting him forever for not reaching at it
So is wondering what your own shit tastes like.
You don't know how your shit tastes?
Now you know why pride is a sin. Let your glory be your family, your ability to provide for them, and the land that you call home.
Stop coveting what others have and ruining everything.
strong men end up getting unhealthy egos, develop a superhero complex, and start listening to women complain so they can feel morally superior
then the israeli lizard demons poison the women with self destructive ideologies, and the men eat them up because they're naige cucks
>some israelite told my wife that mass immigration was good, we should try it!
>look at how good of a guy i am! i listen to women!
cucks
They wore pants, anon.
Asterisk and Obelisk did all the work.
by doing this
one castle moat
Borzi
can these guys even close their mouths properly?
What is achieved by the upwards facing spears in the back? What would have been coming down on them from above that would be stopped by a spear? That won't stop arrows or catapults. Did they have enemy soldiers falling on them from the sky to worry about?
it's to stop people from sitting like those anti homeless benches
probably keeps your arm less tired
raised spears did help block arrows
They still have to hold the spears and there's people around them so they hold them up plus any arrows coming coming from that could absolutely be knocked away with a spear
>What is achieved by the upwards facing spears in the back?
They do have a finite length. Not going to do much good shoving it up the arse of the guy several rows in front.
heavy cavalry and scorpions
Take the high ground.
Longer spears
Water
*steps to the side*
Pee in their path as they approach so if they want to attack, they have to wade through my pee.
>wade
That's some nice volume you're putting out. Truly a weapon to surpass metal gear
>surpass
>not surpiss
What happens if you attack that thing from the side or the back?
Nothing, it's just a clone of the regular infantry unit but with a little less attack, a little more defense, and anti large. Just blob them up with your lord and have the artillery frick them up
Frick you and your sticks
>Billion dollar boondoggle destroyed by a single infantryman and a fricking ninja
>Immediately made irrelevant by liveleak user Shakalaka
>Designs were actually crude copies of the work of famous and extremely handsome Soviet scientist with great footwear.
Just kidding I love REX in a way I'll never love any other mech. It's just the right balance of thick, chonky miltary-looking and anime stupid mech lunacy. Plus, I mean it fricking roars.
Saddam style
1. Lure into marsh/wetland
2. Apply electric cables
4. ???
5. Profit
Maniple system or Cav that can maneuver around the back.
Phalanx is busted by any maneuverable formation tbh, it was only good in the era when warfare consisted of massing unarmored conscripts and throwing them at the enemy in a big line.
Exploit their janky AI pathfinding ofc
>decimates your army
gg ez
>upgrades stick by ONE (1) level
What now, cavgay?
>if only you knew how good things really are
your move, dickhead
>Only killing 10% of the enemy's army
How to kill 97% of the enemy's army with 1 simple trick - Click here to find out!
>dude, just have 50% more units in your army
great strategy, truly
step aside white boi
No
>use 10 times as many men
>use human waves
>use guns that are only a generation behind Martini-Henrys
>win (kinda sorta) one battle
>OMFG what a fricking genius!!
Its genius compared to the garbage that the other tribes had. Had the zulus done this 200 years before they would have been the first proper empire of the region.
If wishes were fishes etc.
Goood morning Vietnam!
So had overwhelming numbers and out-flanked in an epic tribal-tattoo shape
Incredible
>just use arrows bro
NOT SO FAST
I wait for them to fully deploy their stupid overlapping spear line shit, then I have a bunch of light quick units run around them and flank them and while they're trying to lift the stupid spears back up I pincer them and kill them all.
>ROMA INVICT-ACK!
Pure propaganda. The Persians actually had a force of 100k and lost 90k in the fighting
This entire battle was a giant nightmare if you were on the roman side.
They were completely immobilized and just had to stand in their squares for hours and hours, feebly holding up their shields and praying that an arrow doesn't sneak through a gap or hit the shield at the right angle.
Wait them out. Tire them.
every problem can be solved with enough oil
I have an idea
flanking elephants that shoot flaming oil everywhere
the perfect strategy
A weapon to surpass metal gear
TUCK TUCK TUCK
Roman sisters our response?
Give them money so that they leave you alone and they go sack the other half of the empire.
Give them money to kick start a civil war after assassination of local Khan you mean?
maneuverability and well disciplined troops
>leads the strongest troops in the entire under empire
>can kill anyone in one on one combat
>receives council from every foe he defeats
How do you beat him?
call in the giant rat that makes all of the rules
just get a really big cat anon.
Get Thanquol on his side and wait for the inevitable
More elephants. With enough elephants, you can solve any problem.
Until someone figures out roasting live pigs defeats elephants.
Horse archers were the real overpowered tech of the pre-gunpowder era.
But you need to have the right type of society/social class to have good horse archers, it's fascinating how the nomad/steppe lifestyle created these gods of the battlefield who could conquer most highly populated urban civilizations, but when they settle down on these areas they lose their horse archer abilities within 2 generations without deliberately going out of their to try and preserve the skills and culture of being a nomad.
cover the field in these bad boys the night before
Fall back to the local forest.
With a bomb.
food poisoning, propaganda, crises of faith, goading of nobility, racemixing
n00bs really think that physical warfare has anything on the politcal warfare meta
drone with frag grenades
>approaches your army
How do you beat this shit?
Literally arrow.
They are such a huge target it's ridiculous.
Anything you hit is a weak point.
You hit the men? Good.
You hit the horse? Great.
Never understood why people have troubles with riders.
Because riders were unpredictable and impossible to harass since they have no real supply lines and operate off the land.
That's why they only tended to exist where there was grass and why Arabs and such never got to meet them.
Without a base camp nor a supply caravan to burn, you can only respond to their attacks and they both outrange and outmanuveur you en masse.
Dude, it's not that hard.
Just flank them.
>bro just flank the fastest riders the world has ever seen up until that point
>Arabs and such never got to meet them
this isn't even slightly correct
>why Arabs and such never got to meet them.
What is the siege of Baghdad(1258) for 800 Alex?
Muslims and Arabs are still butthurt about it to this day.
they're fricking fast and incredibly mobile. that's like their entire thing.
caesar, easily.
>Never understood why people have troubles with riders.
Mass horse archers were completely incompatible with the last millennia of European military doctrine and weapons technology when they showed up. Generally speaking most set piece battles in Europe followed a blueprint:
>Both sides feint around one another until both decide an area is good for battle, and then set up.
>Skirmishers engage until both run out of ammo or one side routs
>Infantry lines engage
>Armored melee cavalry engages armored melee cavalry until one side routs, the victorious side crashes into the opposing infantry
Horse archers shit all over this, for starters you can't really feint around or flank them due to their superior mobility, so where they rock up is where you're fighting them even if it's a horrible position for you. If you try to deploy lightly armored skirmishers against them they just harass them to death. If you try to deploy your infantry line or cavalry against them they just feint retreat until you're tired and then swing around and shoot you to death.
That's not to say horse archers were some kind of OP super weapon, it's just the Mongols at their height hit the Europeans when they didn't really have experience in how to deal with them and it took a while to build up the technology and doctrine.
You're forgetting the most important part of horse archer tactics: they don't have to fight you right now. They don't have to fight you today, or tomorrow either. They can threaten battle for days and if you try to walk away they can harass your rear. Horse archers were ideally opportunists.
Europeans would fight until the enemy ran, then go home, celebrate and get drunk while the mongols surrounded their camp and slaughtered them all.
This guy is right. If you shoot enough arrows at them, you're going to hit something.
Force a battle literally anywhere besides a flat, unobstructed plain that allows for a phalanx formation. Even some light hills hugely hampers their effectiveness.
Unironically just have more archers. Bonus points for armored crossbowmen.
That spurdo allways makes me laugh.
Just to let you know that the Pope didn't just try to ban crossbows but missile weaponry in general because it made war even more bloody and more removed from humanity. An arrow in flight cannot stay its hand for mercy.
No way anyone would ever listen to that, but even if they did, that would only accelerate the re-developement of the phalanx.
Fortified positions and shoot back at them, ideally if you can fight them with a terrain advantage on your side, you stand a much better chance.
By themselves horse archers are still threatening but if they have a huge army backing them up, it's incredibly difficult. The Mongols excelled because they had a great logistical network that let them move their entire army easily and everyone else was basically fighting each other or were in a bad spot. They had the advantage of being in their "Golden Age" of sorts while everyone else was dealing massive issuse at home.
turn the area into a deathtrap first
It seems that bows meant to be used on horses will have a very limited size and power, so I just need a big shield, pavise, and a better bow or crossbow.
a recurve bow isn't that weak.
It will be relative to what you can have on the ground and it can't penetrate shields, horse archers can kite forever, but they can't hold ground.
the mongolian shortbow was famously OP
They were composite bows, very strong for the size.
>Strong for the size
But still weaker than recurve or crossbow designs of the time. The biggest strength of horse archers is mobility- they can choose to just not fight you if they don't think they can win.
That being said, I think it's possible for a wily commander to lure them into terrain that doesn't suit them (across a bridge or ford that can be blocked, into a swamp or forest, etc) and actually win that way but that requires arrogance and overconfidence on the part of the horsemen. Fortifications, even just trenches, seem to me like good ways to hem horse archers in and keep them from being able to leverage maneuverability while being able to leverage the superior range of full-size bows.
>very limited size and power
equal to or stronger than English longbows
you drew them for twice the length
>How do you beat this shit?
Most never did.
Also it depends on what you mean by "beat", in an open field they're virtually invincible, but if they're attacking and you're defending, you can wait them out.
Malta is probably as close as you can, it has a history or repelling invasions against absolutely absurd odds.
big wall
That's a lie and you know it.
Uh oh, defensisters.
I think we got too wienery
How does the horse climb up it?
>send all the troops over the wall
>glue horse to the base of the ladder
>rest of the troops drag the ladder up the wall along with the horse
>apply glue to top of the ladder
>turn horse into more glue if needed
Hey, you didn't say we could use glue
>repurpose oil pourers as glue pourers
>horse archers get stuck
>frick them up with regular archers
>>turn horse into more glue if needed
now you done it
gl with that
they just dont make screen savers like they used to.
beat THIS
Whats stopping them from using the same strategy with straight walls? you cant drop rocks on someone whos on a ladder?
in bannerlord its better to completely abandon the walls and put ur archers on the ground behind it and have them focus down anyone that comes up the ladder one at a time
>the slant makes it impossible to set up a ladder
What the frick is this brainlet talking about?
A bit hard to get enough friction at the bottom end of the ladder when the ground level is curved.
That's true.
If only there's a bunch of men just happened to be around, and are strong enough to hold the ladder.
If only.
Those men are too busy trying to climb the wall
God forbidd the sloped ground is even a bit slippery, because you aren't going to hold down shit in that case, because once the first guy is at the top and jerking the ladder left and right, that homie is tumbling down.
what if you get a bunch of horses and just jump that b***h in a chariot?
Group lift a giant brickwall and advance.
Lances with either:
break against the wall
go upward and be useless
downward into the dirt and be useless
Suppose, then, that someone makes a curved spear that arches over the brick wall.
taller brick wall
>downward into the dirt and be useless
>he isn't pole vaulting into the enemy formation
shiggy diggy
flank it
Move my cavalry elsewhere and my infantry to our new objective. Enjoy your slow-moving rod-handling gay platoon, I'll be partaking in your nearby towns and ambushing you at night.
Why are they poking the sky?
What's gonna come from the sky?
which general is most known for "doing stupid shit that shouldn't have worked but due to being extremely lucky or just the right circumstances they won anyway"
Literally Caesar.
Gaius Julius Caesar. Especially his decisive battle with Pompey Magnus, that shit was wack. Keeping in mind that Pompey is the more experienced general, had more fighting men, had the higher ground and had massively better logistics and actually already won multiple times against Caesar in the battles beforehand.
Coward.
Explain the battle to a leman like me.
A what?
*Layman
To sum it up, after Caesar was branded an enemy of Rome for not disbanding his legions and giving up his lands he turned his loyal and hardened legions towards Rome thus starting a civil war. Pompey, seeing as how Rome is undefended and needed time to muster his legions, fled to Greece which Caesar would eventually give chase. After a series of battle of remaining Pompeians and a struggle crossing the Adriatic sea, Caesar managed to land on Macedonia (which was then part of Greece) but had difficulty transporting his food across it as Pompeians have dealt a severe blow during the battle. To make up for this, Caesar aimed to capture a nearby city of Dyrrachium which was a logistical hub that supplied Pompey's army. Pompey managed to defeat him there, even with Caesar's weird inclination of building fortified lines around you which Pompey just marched his armies through, making Caesar retreat to Thessaly, sacking the city of Gomphi for his much needed supplies instead which was odd for Caesar because he usually granted clemency for his enemies. It showed that he was desperate. Pompey was now pressured to finish Caesar once and for all by his Roman allies, further emboldened by Scipio Nasica's legions arrival from Syria.
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(2/3)
A pitched battle would be forced into the plains of Pharsalus with Pompey at the much more favourable position. Both armies repeatedly redeployed their formations to confuse their opponent on how to proceed but Caesar with lesser men had the disadvantage of thinning out his ranks just to match Pompey's lines and much better cavalry. Both of the sides wouldn't move against the other for days until Pompey marched down the hill in hopes to goad Caesar into a confrontation (Caesar was known to be an general that employed an aggressive rapid advance, which was one of the reasons why he lost previously) with the river covering his right flank which meant it would be virtually unflankable so he put a major brunt of his force on the left for one massive push. Caesar then did as he would do and gave the order to charge against Pompey. Now any lesser army would've been exhausted as the distance was pretty large between the two but the Caesarian army had the the cohesive discipline to charge IN FORMATION and stopping mid way to not only recompose themselves but also take a breather and some pila throws which were of little effect against Pompey's disciplined army as well. The two finally clashed and it was clear that Pompeian army was winning from the get go so Labenius (the Pompeian officer that was in charge of the cavalry) ordered the left-wing cavalry to charge the much weaker Caesarian cavalry with great effect, causing them to retreat and starting the push I mentioned earlier.
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(3/3)
The Pompeian cavalry gave chase to properly finish off any chance of the cavalry re-entering the battle but as they did Caesar actually used his weaker cavalry to screen an entire line of infantry legion away from the Pompeian army and battle. The hidden Caesarian army then came upon the cavalry, with orders of using their pila as anti-cavalry spears which worked tremendously. A successful feigned retreat that Caesar gambled and pulled off against a much older and experienced general (six years his senior). With the help of the Caesarian cavalry and the ambushing infantry, the Pompeian cavalry suffered heavy losses and retreated completely back into the hills to reform which meant it left Pompey's left flank exposed as they were pushing. Caesar then ordered his last line (which composed of veterans) to push towards the battle with everything they've got and also to make sure the main line held as the reformed Caesarian cavalry and the hidden infantry are now committed to the exposed left flank. Caesar even ordered his fricking reserves to charge so they could take advantage of the momentum. The Pompeian army dominoed, starting on their left flank. The routing left-wing Pompeians was such a shameful display that Pompey left the battle before it even concluded and left the centre and right armies to fend off for themselves as he headed back to camp to collect his belongings, discarding his general cloak to the dirt as he fled. The Pompeian army, now leaderless was pretty much done for so Caesar ordered some of his men to proceed towards their camp to finally end the battle. In my opinion this was Caesar's greatest victory ever in his military career which in all accounts should've lost.
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based, thanks for the info
By the way, Pompey had previously defeated Caesar and refued to finish him off because he didn't think he posed much of a threat. One of history's many stupid turning points.
The other Brutus was a deeper betrayal in many ways, because Caesar's will had named him an heir in the second degree. Like, the guy who murdered him was in his will. That must've upset a few.
Where did you learn about this? Do you read books on it or watch documentaries?
Both and more. Many surviving works from the era remain and have been translated if you like reading, or you can watch historia civilis for more easily digestible cliffnotes.
Also why the frick aren't more cuneiform tablets being translated? Lazy buttholes.
>dickyform tablets
>so Labenius (the Pompeian officer that was in charge of the cavalry) ordered the left-wing cavalry to charge the much weaker Caesarian cavalry with great effect
What's interesting is that Labienus was Caesar's second in command and responsible for like 80% of Caesar's successes in his conquest of Gaul.
Caesar was a traitor, anon. I think it was a given he would be killing fellow Romans when he marched to Rome. The senators was absolutely right when they claimed that Caesar was practically raising his own armies that were loyal to him than Rome herself that could one day be used against them.
No arguments here, just pointing out how insane it is for Caesar and Labienus to find themselves at opposite sides of the battlefield.
Together they successfully carried out one of the greatest adventures in human history.
Nah, they were both doing the same thing. Rome had created a cutthroat system of personal glory at the expense of reason. They were just playing the game that had been set up prior to their births.
It wasn't as dire as you may think.
Even in the immediate aftermath of Caesar's ass-ass-ination, Caesar being profoundly shocked by seeing his beloved Brutus among his assassins struck a chord with Romans of the time.
They very much understood this kind of theme.
Which Brutus? Don't conflate history with Shakespeare.
Most likely Marcus Junius Brutus; the Brutus referenced by Cassius Dio and Plutarch.
But it does not matter; what matters is that the theme of being shocked at such a betrayal by a close personal associate was a very vivid one at the time.
>"I am an ear smeller"
Maneuver with complete freedom, projectile weapons, rough terrain.
What military games have a huge emphasis on logistics? Like actually managing supply lines and making sure you have a pipeline of resources actually being used properly?
bannerlord
Gary Grigsby's War in the (East, East 2, and West). Also Hearts of Iron 3 and to a lesser extent 4. Ultimate General: Civil War also has logistics in the sense of you buying the weaponry for your men and choosing how many men to bring, but doesn't really simulate the "food and bullets" part of logistics.
hegemony gold
Has there ever been a fortification/castle that was completely impenetrable? Constantinople, that one israeli fort, it took some effort but they all eventually fell.
Your virginity.
Does anyone have the one where they ate 20,000 civilians?
This one?
How does this even happen?
misclick
China is the biggest disaster in human history and this has been an ongoing truth since before the time of the pharaohs.
>but muh toilet paper and gunpowder!
yeah ok
Sieged for quite a while and no food
is this the one where they lit a bunch of troop transports on fire?
Imagine how many of them there would be in today's world if they didn't keep killing each other by the millions every year
Is total war really the only game that does formations battling? Is there anyone making a successor? I'll take anything
bannerlord
knights of honor 2, hegemony gold
>knights of honor 2
Holy shit, it's actually true! KoH 2 is real! Why isn't anybody talking about this?
Caesar 3 does this, technically. But it's a city builder game.
just go around
hmph!
GOD DAMMIT CRASSUS GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS
shit wait, i fixed it
why not take the war to the mongols? offense is the best defense.
>Moves location
>developed nations struggling with hobos
>have hobos
>the people fear becoming one and keep grinding away at their jobs
>have nomads
>you can't tax nomads easily, the nomads don't live a life of drudgery, so the people all want to be a nomad
Hobos are working as intended.
Afaik there's many places in the US that are struggling with hobos right now
>Hungary
>developed at any point
Lmfao
The answer to anything is artillery, always.
Roman testudo formation
>see this
wat do?
Good sized hole at the top of the front, shooting arrows will probably hit them
*charges at your archers and oneshots them*
nothin personnel, rangecuck
How do you deal with this? You can't.
Longbows. Get fricked weak ass crosscuck
>muh longbow made from yew folded a thousand times
You can't get through the pavise.
Euro crossbows were legitimately inferior to how the Chinese made them.
nothin personell kid
>crossbow
It's a gun, you blind moron.
You're the moron with the wrong file name.
read the filename, you blind moron
stratego is real?!
>yeah can you spend 40 hours painting a cool knight on my cover that will almost immediately get ruined by the enemy attacks and weather, thanks
How did they convince the first guy to climb up the ladder during sieges?
were they prisoners?
or did they really go "yeah bro we got you we're right behind you just go in swinging"
I think that about the guys in the front of the boat landings on d-day. Did they draw the short straw or something? you had to know it was instant death.
Well they were also the first ones out to seek cover, you'd feel bad being the guy who wasn't able to move out of the way first.
well, the intention wasnt for them to get slaughtered like that. only one beach was like that.
The movie and the games are wrong, that's not how machineguns are set up, you get shot after you disembark and move up the beach.
it helps if you use mostly 14 year old conscripts
There was one guy on the boat who's job it was to shoot anyone who refused to disembark.
>Having a Commissar behind you and machine guns in front of you
Brutal
bunkers were supposed to have been basically neutralised by bombs and naval bombardment.
The only thing you need to do to convince an Anglo to give up their life is tell them they're fighting to make the world safe for israelites and blacks.
those morons back then would actually lie about their age just to enlist to fight the Right Cause™, they were eager to throw themselves onto machinegun fire
Most likely ballot.
and if you don't do it, they will kill you anyway.
That's also why forming some kind of brotherhood in an army is so important, because you are more willing to self sacrifice to protect your brothers in arm.
There were multiple ladders usually going up so there were multiple "first guys" but also defenders were usually outnumbered in a proper siege so you just had to not die on first contact for help to start pouring in
if you die to get to sleep.
They knew that if they died they wouldn't have to live in a medieval shithole anymore.
The forlorn hope was usually either convicts or very ambitious soldiers. If you volunteered and survived you'd probably be much better off than you were before. Risk = reward, as it does everywhere.
By glory and better pay. Usually the first guy who climbs through gets a special reward. See: the Mural Crown given to Roman Legionnaires as the first man to step into enemy fortifications and also plant their standard on it. Suddenly it makes sense as a man yourself to go first now does it?
you can go up the ladder and maybe live or you can stay at the bottom of the wall and get killed by rocks or crushing. the base of a wall during a siege will almost never be organized
ladders weren't that common anyway, most sieges just wait for people to start dying of starvation, dehydration, or disease to force surrender or turncoats
Simple. You convince them that living is not the goal of life. A warrior culture that honors death on the battlefield or a religion that promises reward for a moral life is all it takes to convince people to go up the ladder.
Anon, the answer was this
>"Whoever gets inside the castle gates first gets 10,000 gold pieces."
I wanted to know this but for
Isn't the whole phalanx strategy:
>if the frontline dies they can easily be replaced
wtf??
why the frick would u ever want to be on the front in a strategy entirely dependent on you dying
The phalanx strategy is to create a body of men that is essentially a wall of overwhelming spikes to drive through your enemy's lines.
>Isn't the whole phalanx strategy:
>>if the frontline dies they can easily be replaced
That's the strategy employed in every large formation
The model wasn't dependent on the first line dying, although the fact that they could be easily replaced did contribute to the effectiveness of the unit.
you get paid more if you go in first
I choose gun.
flamethrower, mustard gas, airborne HIV, nuke, orbital glassing, singularity bomb, ontological weapons...
war just gets uglier and uglier, i miss just getting my head lobbed off with a claymore...
Horse archers. There's a reason the Mongols were unbeatable during their reign.
Except when they were routinely humiliated by the Mamluks who were a slave caste (usually Euro/ Eurasian Christians) turned into soldiers by their Muslim lords. The trick was to use ambush tactics AND heavy cavalry charges
>routinely humiliated by the Mamluks
Routinely? I'm pretty sure they only have like 1 battle.
Also they were 6,600km from their ancestral homeland, I'd say if you go that far before you're finally defeated in open battle you're as close to the best as you can get.
Arrows. Cut off their supplies.
I feel like molotov wienertails would shit all over the majority of medieval formations and war tactics
Was there a reason why nobody really put the idea together sooner or what, it doesn't seem like technology or lack of it would have been an issue
glass is expensive bro
You still have to get close to use them and it's not every single person will be on fire, they'll still be rushing you. That and probably a lack of resources, they needed alcohol to drink and fuel to survive the winter.
Because molotov wienertails in the heat of battle would most likely get you burned because small lighters didn't exist back then so you'd have to bring a match of sorts. AND THEN light it and hope it catches in fire. AND THEN hope the liquid doesn't flow out when you throw it.
Aren't molotov wienertail made out of petrol originally?
Even if they used the "whatever fire" that nobody can figure out what it was, if I had to guess, no glass or lighters really.
Molotovs used by Finns and Francoists were not meant to be even thrown like a grenade. They were dropped into Soviet tanks to either burn out the vehicle parts that were not metal and choke out the crew inside of it. Then once the crew would try to vacate they would shoot at them. Molotovs fricking suck against anything else.
they used similar tactics usually with boiling oil. they didnt have gasoline so hand thrown molotovs werent very affective with the flammables they did have
There were quite a few weapons like molotovs back then - Greek fire was probably the most famous. The problem is that you'd basically have to premake the clay (no way in hell are you wasting glass) and then carry that with you for a campaigning season. Also you can't really hold onto this shit once its lit, so you have to have an ignition source with you.
All this meant some armies had specialized fire troops, but nothing on a grand scale.
They had firepots, most of this was animal fats and not nearly as effective as modern fuels
>enemy charges at you
>throw fire at the enemy
>enemy on fire is still charging you
Can any history bros explain why everything the Romans built is so hearty and strong? Like buildings that are millennia old are still pretty intact while anything else would have eroded into a pile of nothing by now.
Roman concrete was exceptionally durable. Also, a lot of Roman buildings still standing were maintained by the Church, state, or other parties over the years.
part of it was that their concrete was of a higher quality than even modern day concrete, if I understand correctly, it would become more dense as time went on, strengthening it, unlike modern concrete which eventually cracks and falls apart.
Why don't we use it today? I don't really know, part of it is that it'd be more expensive than using bottom tier burger concrete
I heard it was lost technology. I mean, no-one seems to know how exactly to make Greek fire either.
not really
Romans didn't use rebar. From what I understand, the modern concrete is destroyed from the inside out when rebar is exposed to the weather and starts rusting.
Another factor is overengineering. Basically they built the things with more internal supports and shit than they needed.
This. Buildings and machines today are built way closer to their structural limits because we can calculate those limits more accurately. And for cost reasons obviously.
>Legion flanks you
heh, nihil personas, hedum
Caltrops and slingers.
the most effective counter to this in AoEII would probably be onagers or ballista supported by cavalry archers.
field artillery wasn't a thing back then
Gentlemen, the handgonne.
named because it often made your hand gone?
Because it was a gonne (gun) you could wield with your hand
You retreat on uneven ground, penetrate the gaps and slaughter everyone with your gladius.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pydna
flank with calvery
simple as
>flank
Are you pretending that they didn't figure that out? I'm pretty sure some generals back then thought that too until they actually faced them.
Pincer attack
Oh yeah, how do you deal with this?
wtf how did they know?!?
weak center ruse,
your move
slings, arrows, javelins, etc
walk slower with your shields up and move their sticks out of the way. they're lumbering toothpicks, not spears
BLAST IT WITH PISS
>be young erusean officers
>the war is nearly lost, but you have one last opportunity to turn the tides of battle
>notice bogeys rapidly approaching from the horizon
>one is miles ahead of the others
What do?
WE GAAN
<<Get a grip, Gene, you've got to take over the command!>>
Grab em by the pussy
Crossbows
just go around it lol the romans already countered this ~2 thousand years ago
Mounted archers rape every military pre-firearms.
That's not entirely the case, the mongols also employed heavy cav. And the Euros would often lose to them because they would feign retreat something the Mamluk's used against the Mongols which gave them victories. Ergo, a successful feigned retreat = practically victory.
>Ergo, a successful feigned retreat = practically victory.
Even if you successfully bait one unit of Mongols, the best you can do is reduce the numbers of the horde a little bit. Mongols can't be routed, they're too mobile, and you can't cut off their supplies because each soldier has multiple horses that can graze on the land to feed them milk, or in the event of injury be slaughtered for meat. They're like locusts in human form, an absolute plague set upon mankind.
The real way to fight mongols (aside from losing and waiting for them to realise being a nomad sucks and picking up your bad habits, which is basically what happened every time) is to not actually fight them at all, but find their camp and hamstring the fricking horses. Those goddamn fricking horses were the mechanized division to a bunch of insurgents of their era. Don't fight the tank head on, wait until its parked and blow it the frick up. If it's firing at you you've already screwed up.
steppe horse archers
The Romans did it with flexible, heavily armored missile troops.
How they supposedly closed the distance through the forest of spears, I have no idea.
Nah they did it because of decline in quality (or competency of command pic related) Macedonian cavalry and that their formations were more flexible on rougher terrain. They never broken a pike phalanx from the front. Typically, the phalanx broke apart, was flanked, or it won.
But surely at some point during the battle, Roman troops had to hold the line against the phalanx.
Also, I remember hearing that the Roman gladius somehow played a role in countering the phalanx, but that seems like a load of bs to me now.
At Pydna the Romans just gave constant ground since every frontal assault failed. Eventually the retreated far enough that the ground become uneven and the pursuing Phalanx became disorganised.
At both Heraclea and Asculum the Romans couldn't break the Phalanx and were eventually defeated by the other elements of Pyrrhus's army (at cost). Pike phalanxs are just stupidly hard to break from the front if you don't have your own pikes, which is why they would continue to be used basically until the invention of the bayonet. As for the gladius, the Macedonian troops only had glorified knives for their sidearm, and less armor than their Roman counterparts. So if it ever got to hand to hand fighting the Romans would typically win.
Reports from the Napoleonic War suggest that infantry charges rarely resulted in hand to hand combat unless the terrain was forested or urban. Typically, one side would charge and either the charge would falter and break before contact, or the defending side would panic and run before the melee began. Don't know how much baring it has on ancient combat, but it's something to consider.
I heard that when two Phalanx formations fought one another that it basically became a pushing match.
Another thing that I was told is that battle was usually short. Two armies meet, exchange shouts and screams, throw a few missiles, stones. If that didn't work lines clashed, a few died they others ran.
I have nothing to back this up, ones I heard how the French were dumbfounded when the Americans told them that they don't follow volleys up with a bayonet charge. Instead they just shoot until one side is dead oe out of ammo
>I heard that when two Phalanx formations fought one another that it basically became a pushing match.
That was more hoplites, their spears were much shorter so they could close the distance and push against each other with their shields, trying to poke through holes in the shield wall.
Phalanxes worked a little differently due to the greater distance created by the much longer sarissa spears.
Balista and catapults. Canons if they exist.
I realize that 'progress' and 'evolution' in the end leads nowhere except the acceleration of the heat death of the universe. And in a questionable attempt to prolong the time of which we, and life as a whole, exists, if only for just a day, I decide to fall on my sword and die instead of challenging the status quo.
Napalm
>flaming liquid plastic
This shit is horrifying. Apparently in prisons they use something called "prison napalm" where they boil pots of water and sugar and dump the mixture on people
throw an atomic bomb at them
come at them from the side, their sticks are only at the front
why is it when 20-something year old men say they're into history 90% of the time what they actually mean is they're into military history (usually 20th century military history but sometimes also ancient greek/roman)?
No idea. Humanity is cool. I love reading about different cultures that existed, what happened to them and what their societies were like, helps me understand who we are better. Military is a part of that, it's not all that is.
war thunder and rome total war
>war thunder
.Officialchannel.
Any single plane or tank in War thunder can destroy every army in Total War. lol
It's like spaceships against aborigines.
because Black folk and bugs are fricking lame and I dont care about the flavor of animal shit and piss they consumed in their mudhuts.
Mongols were sucks to be honest. Russians genocide them out of existence.
No, Mongols died in civil wars and Chinese finished the rest of them.
that's one cringe inducing picture
Do you have personal grievances with Tutankhamon? Because I do.
why? he was a fricking nobody
Frick that guy. He stole my blueberry yogurt once.
Gregor will break their formation.
Oh nonono spearbros...
What's our cope?
The phalanx coming back in the Middle Ages was really something else especially in places where they had to "figure it out" themselves since history books, especially about ancient Greek warfare were scarce to learn from.
how do you counter this
you don't have a "lu bu" commander for these situations?
Ask your buddies to point their pikes towards him, he can't hold them all.
OH N—
It's fiction, don't believe an illustration like that.
Is this fiction too?
On what terrain?
wait it out, their arms get tired eventually
Romans won with relative ease by throwing pilums at them. I'd do the same.
burning pigs!
That last earthquake totalled a roman fort that has been standing for 1700 years. What shoddy craftmanship.
Harangue with skirmishers, smash the flank with cavalry and quickly engage with infrantry
If this isn't possible, accept losses
From the sideS, you moron.
That's like saying that the way to counter guns is to simply dodge the small bullet, bro.
Bulletproof chest > smaller bullets, so it makes sense
So /h/istory bros, what was the real answer to this? Never fight them head-on like with the mongols? Just win the economical war? Why wasn't Macedonia the roman empire then if the phalanx is so op.
The phalanx was just a phase. Countless other seemingly unstoppable military strategies have been developed, reigned and turned impotent. The phalanx was slow and can barely turn; that alone is a death sentence.
The pikes returned in some parts of the the Middle Ages then honed into its most peak usefulness into Early Modern warfare. Pike warfare is literally a modified phalanx. Add in firearms to the mix then you get a very strong European army.
Adding to this, it also refuted the notion that pikes were made completely obsolete after Cynoscephalae. It just needed some adjustments.
There are key differences, that's like saying the companion cavalry and parthian archers were the same because they both employed horses. The square formation for one eliminated the phalanx's biggest weakness. It was also much smaller, like 100 men.
The weapons itself wouldn't be considered obsolete then. Bows were practically obsolete when crossbows came and virtually when firearms entered the battle. Changing formation didn't change much how pike warfare even fought since there was still the "push of pike" involved in both Greek phalanxes and Modern European pikemen.
Which weapon wasn't made obsolete eventually? Firearms were actually a lot worse than bows and crossbows early on, since muskets were so inaccurte, but they were much easier to use so they dominated the battlefield anyway. Rifles made them fully obsolete.
>since muskets were so inaccurte
Muskets was about splash damage.
Or getting so close to the enemy that you literally can't miss while they're busy reloading their one shot.
Doesn't makes sense reload takes a minute. Only shotguns were a real deal.
It makes perfect sense. Instead of both sides taking inaccurate shots at each other from a distance, your side rushes right into the enemy's inaccurate fire, fires one salvo from a few meters away and then just drop their guns for sabres. The other side's shitting their pants because they weren't expecting melee combat and thought they'd have time to make another shot. Musket warfare lasted a comparatively short period of time but gave birth to some interesting strategies.
That only works on ship battles.
Pre-rifled matchlocks were still good. The problem with archery was that you would need someone to be practicing archery their whole entire life to be competent. Hence other Europeans not even bothering with them as time went on and just fielded them from English mercenaries that still practiced them. see: the White Company (which actually served as the inspiration for Kentaro Miura in his kooky picture book about a band of mercenaries).
the romans countered them with these guys and the effectiveness of the phalanx was subject to the terrain so any competent strategist would always do their best to engage them in uneven terrain where skirmishers have an advantage and the phalanx has a disadvantage
>turn up for war
>toss three spears
>go home
>go home
How lmao, at best you're going back to your designated javelin pile to throw more or joining in the melee.
>sneaks into your castle
>opens the gate
pssssssh nothin personnel kid
The same, but with cubes of pineapple and cheese on the sticks.
Close Air Support.
Why didn't anyone just make like a huge wooden wedge? Just have a few soldiers keep two large pieces of wood nailed together, and have them walk into the phalanx - bam, formation broken and ripe for picking.
And then what? Be surrounded by a phalanx?
Are you stupid? Obviously the wedge is big enough to protect you.
No, have other units destroy the broken formation - the wedge isn't doing the fighting.
What other units? You've dedicated possibly a hundred men to carrying a giant fricking wedge. If you already outnumber the enemy, why bother with the wedge?
No, the point is the wedge protects the people inside, you don't need to use too many to drive it in. And a broken formation would fold to smaller units that held their formation. A numerical adventage isn't necessary.
also actually, getting surrounded wouldn't even be that much of an issue, the phalanx soldiers have massive long pikes that are virtually useless without a formation, it's not like they can poke the people inside. They'd need to drop them to engage with whatever side weapon they have, which would just make them vulnerable to anyone outside.
A phalanx can open up to "receive you" then close to surround you for the other men to chop you down, anon. That's how they dealt with chariots and such.
t. anon that wants his men slaughtered for encirclement for the lulz
they did, except instead of wooden planks they used lines of human soldiers instead.
wedge formation is broken
Magic
molotov wienertails(or the medieval equivalent) to disrupt formation, horse archers to pick them off while they disperse, then send on the goon squad to clean up the rest
Ever heard of UGM-133A Trident II, son?
In Field of Glory II, I found that a late English army works well against these. I did pretty poorly using knightly armies against Seleucids and their infantry gets completely rolled by falangites while the knights Rely too much on RNG for my taste.
>builds a ramp to your impenetrable fortress
What now?
Gather our most cowardly soldiers and make them slick the ramp with their nervous liquid shit
Jesus how horrifying. Did no one stop them from building a hihgway in front of their noses?
who can exactly stop them
Them.
The city that they're sieging?
The israelites inside the fortress actually comitted sudoku when they saw they had no chance.
That was one narrative of a israeli historian but some archeologists found out that some if not more still fought but it didn't matter because Romans were fricking furious. The suicide angle was made to make the israeli rebels look more heroic.
That ramp took about three years to build with Romans taking great care to surround the entire place as it was the last place all the rebels gathered. So unless the israelites can magically fly out of there, they aren't going anywhere since Romans issued to kill them all on-sight.
>three years
Two months*
They built the ramp during the israeli revolt, so the phrase would be right under their noses.
>Me in the middle of the formation letting out the nastiest stinkiest fart
So to close it out, Caesar defeating Pompey is one of the best examples on how logistics doesn't exactly win you wars since the latter was a master at it.