Hoplites beat cavalry....

Well they do when using this little tactic, I don't know if anyone has posted this before, if they have I apologise for repeating it. You know the problem with cavalry jumping over pikes into the middle of the formation and screwing it up? Well I have found a way playing as the Greek City states to basically nullify that totally, and the answer is.....Heavy Peltasts. They are kind of hard to get, but you often see them as brigands, so bribe them. I usually position them in a thin, long line about two ranks deep just in front of my pikes, take off skirmish mode. The cavalry charges, scatters them...then runs right into the pikes. They have already used most of their charge momentum to pierce the thin line of skirmishers, so wont jump the pikes they then run into. Your peltasts will suffer heavy causalities, but they're not there to kill, they are there to take the charge. They might even get off a few volleys of missiles first to whittle down numbers. They also usually flee through the Hoplites, the cavalry then pursues them straight into the Pikes. As it is not counted as charging, once again the cavalry doesn't jump. Heavy Peltasts are actually pretty good, normal skirmishers are very fragile and break easily I find, while their heavier cousins stay around a bit and can actually beat off lighter infantry units/not route instantly. I don't know if this works well with regular skirmishers, they may be too fragile, but with GCS the cavalry problem is solved. Of course it would still be nice to have cavalry get slaughtered when they charge pikes head on, but this will do for the time being.

It's great when skirmishers can fulfill their historical roles and succeed!

I'll have to try getting it to work myself.

Of course you could just have a second line of Hoplites, just in case. ~;)

Much less Evil than sacrificing some skirmishers between a cav charge that forces them onto your own wall of pikes! (Ouch!)

I guess you could just have another line of hoplites, but the reason I use skirmishers is they move significantly faster than hoplites, so can run back a lot easier, and also lap around cavalry that you have lured onto the pikes. This helps to stop them withdrawing and re-charging. Much better for chasing down routers too than hoplites, plus if you are facing infantry you can easily get one or two missile volleys off. Of course this is all singleplayer. In multiplayer, it probably wouldn't work too good, and hoplites would do better.

Its a shame that peasants come in a big bunch now rather than in lines as they would be perfect and appropriate for this tactic... ~D

As for the cavalry "jumping"....

why don't they take casualties from the second row of pike points? I mean that's why they are angled up like that isn't it????

LMAO thats so cruel. I didnt even think of that its so mean. I usually just spread a really thin 3 man deep line of hoplites VERY close across the rear of my main line, then when they charged any that somehow miraculously (read: almost all) charged all the way through my guys and then come up BEHIND a 10 man thick phalanx (yay super horsys!) they simple run into my second line of spear tips slaughtering them.

Took a while to master phalanx units, when you use them right you´ll propably never have any problems with almost any unit heh..

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Originally Posted by Basileus

Took a while to master phalanx units, when you use them right you´ll propably never have any problems with almost any unit heh..

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Personally I was surprized at how effective my Hoplite Mercenaries where against Elephants!!!

Almost more effective than against cavalry as the elephants did not attempt to jump the spears and land in the middle of the unit...

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

Personally I was surprized at how effective my Hoplite Mercenaries where against Elephants!!!

Almost more effective than against cavalry as the elephants did not attempt to jump the spears and land in the middle of the unit...

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Indeed if they are protected from the rear and the sides they are a meat grinder
~D

They're pretty effective vs elephants. I found that one out the hard way. However, Elephants are one of the few units I've found that can survive a close encounter with Chariots ... :)