Beating Spartan Hoplites with Urban Cohorts

Spartan Hoplites are the strongest pikemen in the game. It is has two hit points (same as Generals' Bodyguard), high attack and defence.

I started a Custom Game, I using House of Scipii, went up against an AI controlled Greek Cities on Very Hard difficulty.

I selected one Urban Cohort upgraded to the maximum for my faction and I added one Spartan Hoplites, also upgraded to its best.

I commenced the battle, the Hoplites and the Cohort marched towards each other. I launched a total of 3 javelin strikes against the enemy, whilst pulling back to keep the hoplites from distance. The javelin didn't kill much, only around 20-30. Next, I ordred my troops to form a testudo and pressed towards the Spartans. When the lines clashed, the Hoplites in their Phalanx formation pushed my lines backwards. My soldiers (maybe a bug) were squished backwards all the way to the centurion. Graphically, 160 legionaries were on top of each other - they were all on a single line. During this time, only 1 or 2 legionaries had died. All of a sudden, the testudo erupted, the cohort reformed back to standard and blow a hole in the Spartan line. The hoplites were slowly slaughtered.

I think I had 163 in my unit (including the Captain) and 161 in the other. Around 65 remained on my side and the Spartan Hoplites all died. However, I forget to save the replay.

Instead, I played several more identical battles. Unfortunately I was unable to create those heroics. I had to settle for less glorious victories.

Urban Cohort vs Spartan Hoplite.
http://wyk.edu.hk/~htfung/Urban-Sparta.rpy

Praetorian Cavalry vs Spartan Hoplite.
http://wyk.edu.hk/~htfung/pratcav-Sparta.rpy

spartan hoplites have absolutely terrible armor, and thus are very vulnerable to missile fire.

Note that even though they dont' die in huge numbers, they are still being hugely affected by missiles. Since each hoplite has 2 hp (ie can be hit twice before dying; most other units have only 1 hp), even the men you don't see fall have a good chance to have been essentially cut to half strength.

For a unit with such a glaring weakness, they are far far too expensive.

Yes, I know their weakness against missiles. It would be awesome to challenge the hoplites one on one. (well, one unit melee agianst one unit).

Mmmm, seem to be having a prob with the replays. Ive put em in the temp folder of my main RTW folder as thats where all my saved ones go but when i try to load them none of my replays show up, just a big blank box. Any ideas?

Why would you do testudo against hoplites? It's only against missile attacks and it isn't really good in this game. I tried it once to approach a city I was assaulting and by the time my urban cohorts reached the broken down wall, they were all exhausted. It's actually better to run and take more casualties so they could still melee afterwards.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

Why would you do testudo against hoplites? It's only against missile attacks and it isn't really good in this game. I tried it once to approach a city I was assaulting and by the time my urban cohorts reached the broken down wall, they were all exhausted. It's actually better to run and take more casualties so they could still melee afterwards.

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Actually, I found that you can even get less casualties if you run in... some guys in testudo can still die from arrows. And the time it takes to reach the walls is just SOOOOO long. I reloaded the one time I tried testudo, and never did it again.

I got lower casualties from testudo so I have a different experience. It's hard to get them to form testudo, however. Sometimes, they would start forming and not finish it and go back to normal formation.

Testudo is good for when you're up against the Egyptians or something and just about all of their units are archers....so you can just sit there in testudo until they run out of arrows and then they have to withdraw....

Well, the testudo is compact, however, when you order it to change back, it will expand, thus causing the Hoplite formation to break.

Yeah - which is really awesome because you know how easy it is to break a phalanx when you're moving into position instead of actually attempting to kill the other unit - so much easier. As an added bonus those in teh phalanx will happily allow you to move through their ranks to allow you to get to your spot and then once you're there your troops can gleefully cut, gore and gash their way through the formation they just strolled into.

:rolleyes: