Question about front line density

[BMAXIMUS]

I'm currently ready "Sword in the Storm" by David Gemmel (*** SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT ***)

In the book you have Keltoi ast Stones which are roughly celtic and roman, and I guy explain that the advantage of short swords (used by the Stones i.e. the Romans) vs long swords (barbarians)
is that the Romans can fight side by side whereas barbarians have leave about one meter or two between each other. Therefore, for a given width of terrain you will have 3 times more romans than barbarians on a line
resulting effectively in each barbarian having to fight 3 romans.

So I have two questions, does this reflect the reality (romans vs anythnig else), and if so, how is it modelled in FOG2 ?
It seems to be go against Fog2, where warband actually can pack more men in a unit and even get a bonus for it (deep pikes).

[Nijis]

Generally speaking, the game works on the "top down" principle. That is to say - it doesn't look at the capabilities of different weapons in different formations and try to reconstruct what would happen should they meet in battle. There's just too much we can never know, especially given the chaos of combat. Rather, it bases combat modifiers at what actually happened in specific battles.

Roman infantry and other heavy foot didn't just chew through Gallic or Germanic warbands, as you'd expect would happen if there really was 3:1 odds on the front line. Caesar's string of victories is well-known because it was an exception. The Gauls beat the Romans quite a bit in the 300 years preceding the Roman conquest, and also beat similar heavy foot-based armies in Asia Minor and elsewhere. So, whatever actually happened when a warband slammed into a legion, it probably was *not* simply the scattered Gauls being overwhelmed by tightly-packed Romans.

[rbodleyscott]

Generally speaking, the game works on the "top down" principle. That is to say - it doesn't look at the capabilities of different weapons in different formations and try to reconstruct what would happen should they meet in battle. There's just too much we can never know, especially given the chaos of combat. Rather, it bases combat modifiers at what actually happened in specific battles.

Roman infantry and other heavy foot didn't just chew through Gallic or Germanic warbands, as you'd expect would happen if there really was 3:1 odds on the front line. Caesar's string of victories is well-known because it was an exception. The Gauls beat the Romans quite a bit in the 300 years preceding the Roman conquest, and also beat similar heavy foot-based armies in Asia Minor and elsewhere. So, whatever actually happened when a warband slammed into a legion, it probably was *not* simply the scattered Gauls being overwhelmed by tightly-packed Romans.

This.

[BMAXIMUS]

That makes sense. thanks.