Use expendable troops to hold them in the front. Basically just throw some meat into the grinder, then hit them from the flank or rear with cavalry or strong reliable troops. Once a phalanx breaks formation they're toast.

If playing online, Smart Phalanx user will turn his spears to incoming cavalry/good infantry, shitty meatshield dont make any good damage to quality phalanx, even when phalanx is turned.

In my mind the best way to defeat the phalanxes is to make them keep changing direction until you expose their flanks, then rush in for the kill. 'Meatgrinder' units are more helpful to them than they are to you; slaughtering an enemy unit is always helpful to morale, and when those units begin routing, it brings the morale down of your better troops.

I like using Skirmishers, not sure if they are effective though.

The bribe button is by far the most effective way to defeat phalanxes

Javelins are good on phalanxes but not enough ammo.

Romans have a magnificent tendency to worm and wriggle their way into a phalanx and cut them to pieces.

The pila are deadly to phalanx units. Bring your legionairs close to the phalanx and let them throw every last pila they got (set units to auto fire). The reduced phalanx units will break very fast (except Spartans). A final cavalry charge from the flank will do the trick.

Friesian

Chances are if he relied so much on his plananx so much he would probally have lost the cavalry and initial skirmish. If availbe use all your archer on him then your pilla but save some archers to use fire. Then try to single out one pikemen at a time to reduce facing massed spears.

I gotta reiterate using ranged units. Yes, archers can take forever. They're just a great softening up force. When you start closing in, use javelin skirmishers, if you're using Roman troops, don't charge in first - throw the pila. And if at all possible, get slingers! As long as they have a free area behind them to escape, slingers will chew up anything advancing in city streets.

Between softening them up with missiles and presenting superior numbers up front, you should be able to rout them with hardly any meatgrinding.

Out in the field, don't even worry about phalanxes. Use missiles on them and let your cavalry outflank them and attack the more vulnerable units.

Edit: Also, if you DO have to charge up for melee combat, spread your unit out to be longer than the phalanx so you get a lot of people spilling around the edges and attacking vulnerable flanks.

[This message has been edited by inkdrinker (edited 12-03-2005 @ 10:24 PM).]

Velites are perfect for it, and Hastati are good too.

Basically, since you're playing a faction with phalanxes they, by default, have very bad cav. This is perfect, as they will have no cav to attack your Velites or Hastati.

Bring up the Velites and start peppering them with volleys. Once they have run out of ammo get the Hastati up close. Bring your cav to the flanks and prepare to attack either the phalanxes or supporting archers.

When the Hastati are there bring them up close, let them fire a volley, but don't let them charge.

Now throw your poor Velites into the phalanx, on the flanks if possible. Now manouvre the Hastati and fire the last volley, and let them charge.

Now your cav has mopped up the last of the enemies archers and skirmishers bring them back. Group them into one massive group and charge them into the rear of 1 phalanx. As soon as it breaks don't botther chasing, but do the same to the phalanx next to it.

Continue doing that untill they are all broken. You'll lose alot of Velites and a reasonable amount of Hastati, but you'll win.

Yeah, I gotta reiterate the point that in an even match, you're just going to have to accept that you're going to lose some men.

One of the biggest strengths of a Greek army is that they can make you pay in blood for every victory you earn. In city sieges, you might pay dearly.

But in exchange for that strength is the fact that they're very difficult to adapt to new threats and fundamentally reactionary on the field. Greek units are great, but the ball is usually in the other guy's court when you have them.

Hence why Greek phalanxes are called meat grinders, and why I personally love armoured hoplites.

Big shields, lots of armour and decent attack. The perfect combination, if somewhat inflexible.