Hi there, just a comment on the phalanx defense since I've seen you mention it twice now. It will very seldom be used these days since its main use is for forts with unbuilt towers and walls. It should win if you have some buildings to stand on and around one third of the attacking force is offline or very unorganized.
A phalanx defense in a fully built fort is just giving the fort away to your enemy if they are online, and probably a bad idea even with the unbuilt fort if your enemy is close to 100% online. Moving will be required, and not just rotating with each other in the courtyard.
The only time I would advise a phalanx defense is for offliners in badly built forts, and then mainly when the time for the fight is at an inconvenient time such as during working hours. Otherwise it's best to adapt, onliners should probably at least in the first round start on a wall, tower or built up house to get one shot in, and then could move to a wall where no enemy can shoot and wait for some to show up before jumping down.
I'm glad that the fort bonuses work now, but in times past it did have quite good use unless you were dealing with very organized attackers.