whos better?
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whos better?
Personally, I prefer pikemen, mainly because they come in units of 120 on the normal unit size setting. This gives me more men per stack, and sometimes numbers DO matter. Led by a good general, I have had plain old Levy Pikemen fight on with 75% losses or more, which still left me with 30 or so men in the unit. Even a desperately weakened pike formation is still dangerous, especially to opposing cavalry. Furthermore, enemy infantry many times cannot get inside the sarissa's reach, or at least not effectively. However, the 12-18 foot sarissas are much more cumbersome than the normal 9-foot hoplon, and it APPEARS (to me anyway) that the hoplites are much quicker about changing from shoulder-arms marching formation to the "set" phalanx formation. This allows the hoplites to change front quicker (though by no means "quickly"), making them less vulnerable to flanking attacks. The pike phalanx is about as subtle as a sledgehammer; but I prefer the staying power and sheer weight of the pikemen, especially when coupled with strong cavalry on the flanks.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the hoplon the shield and not the spear of the hoplite?
Anyway, in my opinion it depends on the stats of the unit. I'll take a unit of spartan hoplites over any pike unit every time of the day, but the simplest pikemen often perform better than militia hoplites due to sheer weight of numbers. But like one of the quotes from the loadin screen says, numbers aren´t everything. But in my experience hoplites mostly have better stats than pikemen, put the shorter lenght of their weapon is a slight handicap when hoplites fight against pikemen. against any other unit it doesn´t matter much really.
So to sum it all up, i don´t think you can pick a "best" in this case. Both have their uses, hoplites are more manouvrable but pikes have more units. Just pick whatever matches your stile.
You are right of course, tokai: the hoplon IS the shield, not the 9-footer. A brain spasm of the first order. Thank you for correcting me!Quote:
Originally Posted by the tokai
The hoplite spear is called the xyston (SP). As for which is better I'm firmly on the fence on this one (as uncomfortable as that is). But I can say from experience that militia hoplites are as good to have around compared to levy pikes. Now granted I'm still learning the finer points of phalanx warfare.
Pikemen.
I'll take Levy Pikmen over Militia Hoplites anyday. Levy Pikemen also make great garrison units because of their 120 man size on Large unit settings. 120 men keep order better than 80 and you can use Levy Pikemen without it becoming a 'gamey' tactic like using similarly sized Peasant units for garrison duties. Pikemen are also extraordinarily effective when defending gates, wall breaches and narrow city streets.
I've found that Pikemen, unlike the various Hoplites, are entirely dependant upon their phalanx formation. They can put a lot of bodies behind it, and have a bigger spear. Hoplites aren't as good in the phalanx formation, but can still get stuck in without the spears if you want them to. They're more flexible as a result.
Against equivalent level units I find the various pikemen get utterly chewed up if they find themselves engaged anyplace except at the end of their spear. Hoplites, especially Armoured and Spartan, can be real brutes no matter how they get attacked. They're surviveable, don't run easy, and can still hit plenty hard enough to make your day a misery.
It depends what you're looking to do with them. Pikemen? Very specialised. Every man is largely mediocre, but there's a lot of them and it's gonna be hell of the enemy has to go through 'em via the front. But that's all they're good for. Hoplites? Standard line infantry who have a phalanx formation thrown in as a bonus. They can defend or attack a wall, fight on the field and still make it sting if you try walking through the front of them.
I guess I'm slightly leaning towards the pikemen. Their numbers and long reach is unbeatable in comparable situations. A solid line of pikes are simply not something anyone can get through, even Spartans will eventually fall against Levy Pikemen if they can't get the Levy to lift the pikes just long enough (which happens all too frequently).
But I do not agree that pikemen are all bad individually, Silver Shields are still capable swordsmen, not great or anything like that, but capable. Time and again when I have tried to take citysquares it has come down to their skills with swords (somehow they just don't like to march or attack onto squares without disrupting the formation greatly, how I wish for an 'advance' button).
How much I love pikes I have yet to see a battle where the battleline hasn't broken down within seconds... They simply can't be held in a line. Hoplites are much better there. And there is of course the issue of armour and shields. Missiles really rip pikes apart (the pikes themselves doesn't seem to add anything to armour), not so with just normal hoplites. So even as the Seleucids I continually hire Hoplite Mercenaries for their ruggedness and ability to fight outside the phalanx. And the phalanxdrift is much worse with the pikes than the hoplites (because they are often in much deeper formations).
I guess it all comes down to what situation you prefer to fight under. I love setpiece battles, where two lines meet and slug it out while cavalry roll up flanks and such. Ambushes and lots of infantrymaneuvering if of course fun and effective but the classical line of ancient battles simply can't be beaten for viewingpleasure. But that is just me. ~:cool:
I have to agree with the need for an 'advance button'. The AI is so poor that if you order men forward every man, for some reason, decides he wants to be in a different place in the formation....and annihilates the formation.
Nope, the shield is not a hoplon. IIRC it's an aspis: "hoplon" just means arms in general.Quote:
Originally Posted by Count Belisarius
A very common mistake, which has only recently been revealed. Try googling - I think Goldsworthy or someone published something a few years ago.
Cheers,
Pell.R.
Someone said something about stupid AI. I agree.
Anyways, i thought the Pikeman and Hoplite were pretty much the same thing, just different name. I dunno. Now i get the impression the Hoplite is a more elite and flexible troop only lacking in number compared to the pikemen.
If this is so, am i right in saying that pikemen are more defensive?
Secondly, something about the word "Hoplite". Ironically, it means "Heavygear".
Isn't that because hoplites have a +5 bonus from their shield and pikemen only have +2?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
I use both, but prefer pikemen. Although hoplites seem to have more staying power.
Hoplites have an Armour Defence rating of 16
Royal Pikemen has 17.
Armoured Hoplites have 22
Spartan Hoplites on 17
Silver Shields/Bronze Shields: 14
Phalanx Pikemen: 13
When it comes to armour, the hoplites have more, and as you can see the elite pikemen have less armour than regular Hoplites. The Royal Pikemen have more due to their large shield.
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I like having a massive line of phalanxes advance towards the enemy, although the formations & line quickly break up, as Kraxis said.
I thought that the classical Greek hoplite shield was the hoplon and the smaller Macedonian pikeman shield was the aspis (hence "argyraspides" for silver shield pikemen)? VDH refers to the shield as a hoplon. I could be wrong though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pellinor
Apparently, my Military History Quarterly magazine is out of date!Quote:
Originally Posted by Pellinor
http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...crateswar1.htm
Well, Levy Pikes will beat Militia Hoplites because they're a better unit (doh!) - as Seluecia they are the second infantry unit you can build after the bog-standard MH.
Don't know which generic is better - i've beaten hoplites with my pikemen, but i have to say i've a lot of respect for the likes of Armoured Hoplites - they take a lot of damn beating! (they also look mean, which helps... ~;) ).
Stats you have posted, are total defence ratings, they consist of armour, shield and defensive skill.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krusader
Moreover armour of phalanx units (especially pikemen) is mainly imortant if they come under fire. Properly deployed phalanx relies on the lenght and attack rating of it`s spears, when it comes to defence and needs nothing more.
Terminology note: the phalangite pike is called sarissa. Xyston is the Macedonian double-headed cavalry lance, as used by the Companions and the Light Lancers (who'd have been called podromoi in Alexander's army, AFAIK). Double-headed just so that the horseman would have a spare spearhead in the case the shaft broke...
Exactly... The point I was making is that the Macedonian phalanx got quite a lot of protection out of their pikes in the air. Apparently even the roman pila volleys hads little impact on them, while hoplite armies would have suffered greatly from them. In RTW it is the other way around.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baiae
[QUOTE=Kraxis]I guess I'm slightly leaning towards the pikemen. Their numbers and long reach is unbeatable in comparable situations. A solid line of pikes are simply not something anyone can get through, even Spartans will eventually fall against Levy Pikemen if they can't get the Levy to lift the pikes just long enough (which happens all too frequently).
[QUOTE]
I just tried it and the Spartans clearly had the upper hand, they lost three men before the pikemen routed, I didn't see anyone lifting his pike either.
to be more precies it means the Heavy ArmedQuote:
Originally Posted by Count Belisarius
hoplites for sure, love them..my armys are usualy hoplites and 2-3 peltasts for flanking im not using archers or cav in my gcs campaign now and its fun
Yes, the more I consider it the more I can see how the intentionally wobbled sarissa to do a good job of knocking about long "slow" missiles like javelin and pila about. It's not intuitively obvious, but it does make sense. I suspect that it wasn't that the javelin/pilum wouldn't penetrate through the pikes, as much as the shaft would be deflected by a sideways tap, so that the head eventually struck at an angle and failed to penetrate whatever it struck. And if it is deflected much by one tap by one sarissa, then it might run afoul of the field of sarissaQuote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
doc bean, are you sure the Spartans didn't flank the pikemen at the ends? Or that the strange actions by two phalanxes meeting resulted in letting the Spartans in under the pikes?
I have tested this too with the Pikemen in 5 ranks like the Spartans. The Spartans simply couldn't get at the Pikemen properly. Once in a while they did get a few shots in and those were lethal but it wasn't enough.
Red, not only pila were inefficient, the Persian arrows also seems to have had negliable effect. The losses the phalanxes suffered in the movie Alexander to archery is extremely high. Waggling pikes would indeed offer good protection here too, as they would then offer a much larger area the arrows could hit. A whole forest of such waggling pikes would most certainly make a great cover. Those arrows that did make it through would be too few to be dangerous to the unit (to an individual they were stil dangerous).
I play with huge units, and pikemen are better than hoplites.
A solid wall of pikemen can stop anything. Roman armies flounder on it and leave their dead in neat lines without killing anyone. Some cavalry to mop them up is useful though.
The vast unit size (240 to a unit) means that you can practically form a wall in the battlefield.
Remember, phalangites farther back than the second or third rank aren't going to see a thing. They'll be as blind as bats. If archers are firing arrows at the formation, they'll first know it when arrows start getting tangled up among the oike-shafts and sliding onto their helmets. The Romans observed that when they outflanked the phalanxes and started taking them apart, most of the phalangites did not seem to realize something was wrong before someone poked a gladius into their side...
Anyway, the phalangites aren't really going to have any idea when they should be waggling their pikes arend to deflect missiles and when not, and such playing around would really just serve to sap their strenght and, if they got unlucky, get the pikes tangled together and start messing up the ranks.
I've gotten the impression that flatter-trajectory projectiles, such as slingstones and javelins from fairly close range, generally got through fairly well - the front ranks held their spears level, offering little obstruction to incoming projectiles, and while the ones immediately behind them did keep theirs at an angle to create a "roof" over them that wasn't really all that useful in the circumstances.
This would undoubtly have been addressed as pikemen always have done - the next guy steps over the casualty to fill the gap.
A phalanx under fire from archers close enough to also be shooting at practically flat trajectories is probably in a bit of trouble, though. For one it's kind of slow moving, and if the archers are willing to give ground and not get reduced to shreds in the spear-tips...
Now those are fine arguments, but historical accounts say otherwise.
The Romans knew that a proper volley of pila would create a lot of disruption and the most carnage. Thus it would have been apparent when they would throw the pila, the first-rankers could easily let those behind know.
The waggling needed not have been much as the formation was rather dense, and it is not that hard to train, just march the new recruits out and set them up in formation and tell them to waggle, they will soon learn how much to waggle without getting the pikes knock into each other. And if you have ever waggled a long stick you will know that very soon you need not apply much strength to it to keep it going. Not really a strengthsapper, about as much as it takes to throw a heavy javelin like a pilum.
You seem to underestimate the need for formation to the phalanx and how a dying or dead man would disrupt it. I'm quite certain I read that one of the biggest problems for the phalanx was keeping the formation when they had to step over dead foes (bodies are soft and slippery), now add to the fact that the man was in your unit and his pike fell and knocked over a few men... The disruption suddenly becomes rather big.
So when the pilum had no apparent effect on marching phalangites it is safe to bet that they simply didn't cause many casualties or disruption.
Don't forget that both Phillip and Alexander beat the Thriacians, who loved to pelt their enemies with javelins, with little effort. The same weapon that had caused a good deal of problems for the hoplites a deal of times.
Lastly, archery might have been a problem, but it would take a long time for the archers to do anything important, a horribly long time in front of the pikes. Arrows were simply not very deadly, most missing their mark, most of those that struck didn't cause much damage and those that did would to a great extent be easily pulled out (barbed arrows were for some reason not all that popular). And then the problem is that when the archers have to fire in streight line they can't fire in several ranks, cutting back on the number of arrows they could have let go into the phalanx. So we are talking about hours, perhaps, before it would get problematic.
Seems a simple verbal/other call by the officer is all that would be needed for proper defensive actions that have been drilled. Typical phalanx/hoplite formations were what, 256 men per "unit" on a fairly tight frontage? Archer attack is going to happen before the lines clash, so local commands should still be audible. Again this assumes they are drilled. These are the sort of things that low level command should be handling at unit tactical level. This is not something that would need micromanagement from higher command.
Now, when flanked things would be trickier, because there is no "good response" to having a unit tearing at a phalanx/hoplite flank. And the officer on that flank would be the most likely to bite it in the first few seconds. I'm not sure what command could be used to respond to it even if he saw it coming. A corner that is already engaged can't turn so they are utterly screwed. The rear ranks on a flank might be able to coordinated some sort of defense, but it would have to be well drilled since it would be disruptive to the rest of the phalanx. The frontage would be small, morale low, and disorder high so they would probably be overwhelmed rapidly on that flank. However, one of my gripes about the speed of combat/routing to flank attack is that the rout of the entire unit happens so soon, before those in the middle or other end would have any idea that they were doomed. It would make more sense to see the unit as a whole fight on but the flank begin running away so that the unit melts from one end to the other.
Humorous thought. Imagine this scene
General: "I want you to train our phalangites to respond properly to flank attacks."
Subordinate Officer: "Errr...okay, but aren't we screwed if our phalanx is flanked?" ~:confused:
General: "Let me be the judge of that, we need to be prepared for the unexpected." :charge:
later...
Subordinate Officer to his troops: "Okay, the general wants us to practice being flanked, and turning to face the challenge." :embarassed:
Soldier 1: "Is he daft? If we are flanked, it's game over. What kind of bloody fool would let his phalanx get flanked?" :angry:
Soldier 2: "Yeah, just what the heck is he planning to do with us?" :uhoh:
Subordinate Officer: "Now see here you two! I've 'ad about enough of this. He wants us to practice getting flanked, so we are going to bloody well do it!" :wry:
that evening...Soldier 1 is seen doing sprints after a grueling unit drill session.
Soldier 2: "Didn't you get enough of that earlier? What the heck are you doing?"
Soldier 1: "I'm doing my own preparations for when we get flanked."
Soldier 2: "hhhmmm...mind if I join you?"
Soldier 1: "Not at all, mate."
I did it again, I controlled the spartans, kept in original formation, guard mode off, double right click on the enemy and watched the carnage. Again a victory for the spartans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
I also tried silver shield pikemen against armoured hoplites (I played the pikemen) and the pikemen won, but it was a long battle where the shuffling resulted in flanking (and counterflanking since I shuffled behind them)