Phalanx Bonus Suggestion

[GreatGuardian]

Historically, phalanx were noted for their discipline and tight formations that kept every soldier protected behind the shield wall. In the game, they are depicted carrying a shield. Yet, inexplicably, they are the most vulnerable unit to archers. Now, I understand that this is done for balancing reasons - archers beat phalanx, phalanx beat paladins, paladins beat swords, swords beat archers and so on. However, due to the fact that archers shoot before melee starts, that leaves one troop combination overpowered - paladins + archers. The usual defense against paladins is no longer effective, because most of the phalanx will die before the fight even starts.

Here is my suggestion - before the melee starts, the phalanx have nothing else to defend except the rain of arrows, so their shields would naturally be up and they should not be extra vulnerable to archers. Then, when melee starts, they should be naturally vulnerable to archers since their shields would be pointed forward, not up. You can make that happen in two ways:
- one is to make the phalanx take regular or reduced damage from archers before melee, then increased damage when melee starts;
- the other is to give spearmen their own research (like War Horses for cavalry), such as Shield Discipline - each level reduces the vulnerability of spearmen to arrows when they are not engaged in melee, up to a certain percentage. The max level can either be immunity to non-melee arrows, or simply that arrows deal normal damage.

[DragonMathias]

This is a great idea, well thought out and reasoned. Please look into implementing this in some from as spearmen do seem to be the cannon fodder of this game.