lol, spartans

Is it just me or spartan hoplites the most cost-ineffective unit in the game? It says in the description "able to punch a hole through any line", but they lose or lose far too many men against practically anything thats not a peasant-class unit. They come with only 60+(2? or 1?). Their fighting style is miserable and they get KO'd by even thracian peltasts (who are freaking awesome beyond any expectations, by the way). Thracian peltasts...come on. Cannot even mention their performance against Gaesatae or Iberian assault infantry (LOL, these cost around 400 less, carry AP weapons and have 80+2 men) and the Armored Thorakitai-type units. If this is the "best" and most elite that KH has to offer, there really isnt much hope - thereuphorai (sp?) and thorakitai are just cheap ripoffs of better units in other civilizations.

This is not a complaining thread, just wondering whats the use and gameplay style of KH which seems to have to rely on foreign troops to be of any effectiveness and the factional troops to be quite disappointing.

I strongly disagree.

My starting spartan unit often leads assaults (especially on Korinthos on turn 2), and doesn't take too many casualties. I often have that starting unit of Spartans as an elite reserve for several game generations to come.

The KH's other infantry is amongst the finest in the game IMHO. You can't use them like the Romani or Successors. The KH general should focus on pinning with classical hoplitai and flanking with peltastai, light hoplitai, and whatever cavalry is available.

You'll lose out if you don't move quickly. The Mak troops are superior for the most part.

Although the KH general's bodyguard will give any unit in the game, save elephants, a run for their money.

For me, the only thing that I've seen beat spartans is a cavalry charge to the rear from a unit of Hetairoi. What battle difficulty are you playing on, EB is made for M, if you play on H or VH the units become unbalanced.

Even then, if the elephants get bogged down fighting your general they won't last long.

This is true.

Generally, though, non-skirmisher infantry are an elephants field day, as long as they don't stop moving.

I play on M difficulty. It seems to me that the unit of spartans in the beginning is only useful because all the other factions are starting at nearly 0, and i give the spartans at least that much credit that they can crush every other faction's noob units in the beginning. but once the games get going and the AI consolidates its empires, thats tough luck for the greeks.

Bootsiuv, what use are the thereuphorai or the thorakitai in the game plan for KH? and are the classical hoplites preferable to the greek phalanxes? i was a big uer of phalanxes in vanilla, but they really pissed me off with their horrible mobility and combined with the buggy confined spaces movement, i like to stay away from the inflexible phalanxes.

another thing i've noted is that gaining control of thrace (byzantine area) and thessaly is key to any hellenic faction - that way you can recruit the vastly superior thracian peltasts and the very cost-effective thessalian cavalry.

also, should i get BI? so that the hoplites can form shieldwall, and therefore be of some use? i've seen that on screenshots but i'm running off of 1.5.

spartans? bah, no match for a ROMAN army! (although we normally outnumber them 100000:1):beam:

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Originally Posted by gurakshun

I play on M difficulty. It seems to me that the unit of spartans in the beginning is only useful because all the other factions are starting at nearly 0, and i give the spartans at least that much credit that they can crush every other faction's noob units in the beginning. but once the games get going and the AI consolidates its empires, thats tough luck for the greeks.

Bootsiuv, what use are the thereuphorai or the thorakitai in the game plan for KH? and are the classical hoplites preferable to the greek phalanxes? i was a big uer of phalanxes in vanilla, but they really pissed me off with their horrible mobility and combined with the buggy confined spaces movement, i like to stay away from the inflexible phalanxes.

another thing i've noted is that gaining control of thrace (byzantine area) and thessaly is key to any hellenic faction - that way you can recruit the vastly superior thracian peltasts and the very cost-effective thessalian cavalry.

also, should i get BI? so that the hoplites can form shieldwall, and therefore be of some use? i've seen that on screenshots but i'm running off of 1.5.

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Do you have guard mode on?

I use the Thuerophoroi (sp?) as strong flanking troops. They assume the role that my Peltastai cover in the early game.

My flankers usually go as follows.

Early game - Hoplitai Haploi are your main line holders in the beginning, but don't underestimate the 2 units of Classical Hoplites that Athens provides in the beginning of the game. Those, along with your bodyguard and spartans, will be your main heavy infantry for quite a few turns, barring any mercenaries you decide to hire. Peltastai from Sparte come with one experience point, so they're my flankers in the beginning. Akontistai can be used in a pinch, but they're far inferior to the Peltastai.

Mid-Game - By now, Athens should be able to provide you with the light hoplites, and these assume the role of the flankers until the advent of Thuerophoroi.

Once Thuerophoroi and Iphikrates Hoplatai are available, they'll take over from the Peltastai, light hoplite, classical hoplite backbone of your earlier armies.

Thessalonica Cavalry are also excellent flankers. They should become your main cavalry force once Demetrias is subdued.

Krete is also a priority, albeit a fairly low one in the beginning. Toxotai Kretoi are unmatched in that part of the world as far as archers go.

I've taken classical hoplite armies up against polybian romans with varying degrees of success. Once Thuerophoroi become available, things get much more even.

As for Thorikitai, I haven't used them much, so I can't speak much on their behalf. I'm sure they would be a welcome addition, though.

The point is this....The KH units are sufficient to dominate Greece in the early game (although, on a strictly numbers basis, the Mak army is superior), but once new units become available (almost a KH reform of sorts, although not really), you should definitely phase out the classical hoplites, although spartans and bodyguard will be your elites for the entire game.

KH bodyguard seem to have the stats to hang with imperial roman units, so that's not a problem, especially once your smithies are upgrading arms and armor.

IIRC, classical hoplites will hold against a phalanx for a while, but obviously will be beaten due to the length of the pikes. The hoplites increased mobility does help though in the longer battles. Also, IIRC the EB team made there own version of the shield wall, which you can activate by putting your hoplites into guard mode, although I dont know the effectiveness of this as I play using bi myself. Eventhough, bi must be quite cheap now so its up to you, plus you get better slighty better ai on the campaign map.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

Do you have guard mode on?

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No, i was lurking around before and i found a topic saying basically, guard mode is detrimental in 98% of the cases (except maybe if you want a phalanx to hold a city street without moving)

just now i was testing the spartans on custom battles, medium difficulty, and grassy flatland - completely even settings, and then just running the spartans 1 vs 1 against various other units. the results were pretty disappointing.

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Originally Posted by gurakshun

No, i was lurking around before and i found a topic saying basically, guard mode is detrimental in 98% of the cases (except maybe if you want a phalanx to hold a city street without moving)

just now i was testing the spartans on custom battles, medium difficulty, and grassy flatland - completely even settings, and then just running the spartans 1 vs 1 against various other units. the results were pretty disappointing.

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Whoever told you that clearly doesn't know their stuff.

Guard mode on at all times for Hoplites and similar troops. That way they keep their formation and that means every enemy is facing two or more men.

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No, i was lurking around before and i found a topic saying basically, guard mode is detrimental in 98% of the cases (except maybe if you want a phalanx to hold a city street without moving)

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I must disagree with this. If one single unit of hoplites is in guard mode vs another which is not, then obviously the hoplites will get surrounded and beaten. But with several units of hoplites fighting together in guard mode as a phalanx, with good units to protect their flanks, they will beat alot of other units. The main advantage of the hoplite phalanx was that it fought together as a unit, whereas if the unit has guard mode disabled, the men will break off and fight indvidual battles, thus losing the advantage of the phalanx. Plus, coupled with shield wall, the hoplites become an extremely effective fighting force.

Were you using them in attack or defense? They're better in defense IIRC. Slam them into an enemy, then hit backspace (stop order). They should form up a formidable line that most units will have a hard time breaking.

I've had mixed results with the Spartiates/Bodyguards.
They are definitely superior to the Classical Hoplites but not massively so.

What I'm looking forward to before playing KH again is the next EB version where the Epilektoi Hoplitai make a comeback & with an overhand classical style rather than the previous Iphicratid style phalanx.

It's tricky this whole deal, how to properly play the Classical hoplite type units. Most players use them to charge straight into the enemy, wasting the qualities of these troops; Their virtue is mainly defensive and no one will doubt that having the Spartans guarding a narrow spot with guard mode on will make them a very tough adversary. That they also are one of the mod's finest infantry and specifically chew any light infantry and cavalry, and spit them out in ribbons... You need to use them correctly and understand that the KH roster isn't exactly world-conquering material; What they lack in cavalry and in spite of their rather obtuse line-up of very similar, but tactically flexible units, they make up for it in defensive qualities; Make no mistake about it, any invading army will pay dearly against hoplite-based armies intent for defense; You can defeat the Spartans with repeated charges of say Grivpanvar, in an open field, but never in a city street where they are set as sentries; They'll make horse kabobs out of them, unless the Grivpanvar are very seasoned.

Pikemen will be an almost insurmountable enemy, and in certain cases you'll need to two hoplite units for one pike unit to ensure victory; This is where the tactical flexibility of the hoplites will be crucial. The greatest weakness of KH is that in spite of strong infantry, they have very weak support in form of cavalry, and skirmishers.

Which, as we all know by now, is relatively easy to remedy. One need only take the lands surrounding Greece, including Thessalonica, Krete, and the Thracian lands to have access to some of the best of the best in cavalry, archers and skirmishers....

KH are probably too strong, when one really takes a long hard look at them.

But the alternative of having them too weak would be even worse, so what can you do.

wait are we seriously talking about the KH being too strong? because as i understand it(and from playing MP), all of the successor armies field cavalry which are better than Thess. Cav. Hetairoi and cataphracts are well able to defeat the same number of Thess. Cav, and because of their low attack qualities the greek infantry take a good while to kill people, especially in guard mode but even without it it takes a while(as the best attacker, Spartans have an attack of 12 and the unit sizes for KH are small compared to other factions) and the phalanx' the greeks do have are short spears (which is bad news vs pikes). Having a cav that can be easily slaughtered by the other AND no real shock infantry, no infantry charge at above a 6 and only the Greek Classical's do that, almost all their other inf charge at a 1, as well as no long speared inf(unless you want to buy merc Pez). These problems may not be seen much in campaign as the computer rarely uses their cavalry correctly. But in MP these problems really become easy to see, mainly against the successor armies, as they have powerful cav and powerful pike units. The western armies don't fair quite so well against the KH as their cav tend to be a little worse than successor cav.

So in conclusion it's very hard to win facing a successor with good cav support and pike units because if your inf are in fact better than their inf it will take a good while to kill them, and during this good while your cavalry will have gotten dead if they are forced to go toe to toe with any heavy successor cavalry, and i dont have to tell yuo what happens when these heavy cav get finished with the KH cav, but they come charging into the backs of your units, causing big morale problems for any KH units. I've been experimenting with different ways to fight this but have had little luck so far (i'm nowhere near an awesome field commander but i would like to think im not too terrible).

what say you about these accusations against the KH, by a KH lover?

Well, anything I say has nothing to do with MP, I'm sure facing off against a human opponent would be a different story completely.

They're still quite capable of creating a hellenic empire, which Chremonide's League was hardly in a position to do in 272 BC.

Like I said though, the alternative is no better, and probably much worse.

You shouldn't use your cavalry to fight those cavalry. Use them to break the enemy infantry quicker, and use your infantry to hold the cavalry. That's for SP at least. I don't know what you do playing MP. Never tried it.

well, in multiplayer its pretty hard to catch enemy cavalry with infantry as they are a good bit faster(not to say it cant be done, and trying to go after 8-10 inf units with 3 or 4 cav units doesnt work too well either, i dont know i think MP is the best place to see balance in factions units as people will normally use an army to the best of it's abilities while playing the computer is fairly linear(they are very repetitive), I think with a nice heavy cavalry component the KH could be a very respectable army, as pikes can be dealt with but enemy cavalry charging into your backs with pikes in front is much harder to deal with

Fellas in MP KH have a hard time dealing with ANY faction that can field a strong cavarly. Not only because thier cavarly will be outpreformed, but thier infantry is not strong nor numerous. In comparison the Romani in Marian/Imperial reforms have a s***ty cavarly too, even worse than KH's best cavarly. BUT they have a supreme infantry with Elite level stats, good morale, large numbers, AP javelings, and low cost. So they can make up for their lack of cavarly... sometimes.

In MP you WILL have to pit your cavarly against ur opponer's there is no way to avoid it. He/she will either try to kill ur cavarly OR hit ur infantry in the back, so u gotta rush in and stop that. If you try to protect ur rear with infantry 8/10 that doesn't work due to the speed of the cavarly.

That's true. And in that department, AS or Baktria are the best armies... Their cavalry is able to toss everything asside the KH can muster. Also, you have better assault infantry And that makes a diference.


Cheers...

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Originally Posted by The Persian Cataphract

They'll make horse kabobs out of them, unless the Grivpanvar are very seasoned

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Becaue then they will make spicy horse kabobs of them! ~;) Seriously though, those were some very true words. (Although I must disagree with the lack of powerful support troops; that's what regionals & peltastai are for.)

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Originally Posted by Admetos

For me, the only thing that I've seen beat spartans is a cavalry charge to the rear from a unit of Hetairoi. What battle difficulty are you playing on, EB is made for M, if you play on H or VH the units become unbalanced.

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I disagree, EB is excellent on VH/VH :2thumbsup:
It creates a great pressure, as the enemy infantry line will give yours a real beating. I had some very nice battles including having my entire infantry line routed after a long time of fighting while being unable to break their flank and rear guards, and another battle where I had to pull back my infantry line to rest after it had taken quite a beating from the enemy (while using lighter skirmishers to cover the retreat and keep the enemy back for a while), but I still had superior numbers. Especially the latter, is something I've experienced a few times, and it's excellent for realistic gameplay! Usually, previously, I would never ever find myself in a situation where pulling back to rest would come with any benefits. Now, it's a valid and quite useful strategy! :2thumbsup:

Originally I thought VH/VH for EB 0.72(?) was great and I beat it with a great deal of micro and macro management. And then I played it on VH/M and I realized that it is indeed much better and allows you to structure an empire rather than just run troops around with 50 battles a turn.

VH/VH was necessary with the crappy unit balancing and morale of the vanilla armies....it was the only way to get them to stand and fight for longer than 30 seconds.

On EB, both of those issues have been addressed, and I would like to avoid pulling all of my hair out because my better equipped army was destroyed because the gods gave the AI troops steroids....it takes away from much of the strategy as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT: Wow, that was quite the run-on sentence there....I suppose 10 years out of high school will do that to ya?

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Originally Posted by Bootsiuv

VH/VH was necessary with the crappy unit balancing and morale of the vanilla armies....it was the only way to get them to stand and fight for longer than 30 seconds.

On EB, both of those issues have been addressed, and I would like to avoid pulling all of my hair out because my better equipped army was destroyed because the gods gave the AI troops steroids....it takes away from much of the strategy as far as I'm concerned.

EDIT: Wow, that was quite the run-on sentence there....I suppose 10 years out of high school will do that to ya?

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True about vanilla... not 100% accurate on EB.

Here is why. THere are SOME factions you can play in VH/VH and do ok in, such a Makedonia, Epiros, KH (yes its doable), Romani (naturally), Ptolemoi, and Carthage. Maybe Lusonata, but to an extent.

However, the Aedui/Arverni, Sweboz, steppes factions, sabin, and AS too will be much more difficult to succeed. THe thing is they have a LOT of powerful enemies nearby who combined with the cash bonuses and battle bonuses make rended a campain extremely hard. ALSO, the introduction of government buildings and then MIC means that it will take A LONG TIME before u can chuck out quality troops from a conquered province. Unless the enemy faction shares ur MICs (local or factional).

So in EB succeding in a VH/VH will depend on the faction ur playing.

I've never been a fan of giving the AI invisible bonuses that I can't see....at least when its Medium, I can look at the general's traits and ancillaries and the troops arms and armor and have a fairly good idea what I'm going up against.

Units are so balanced IMO, even battles on M are good and challenging....some larger battles I've had on M have lasted 30+ minutes (and that's open field battles, not boring sieges), and those are always the funnest to me.

My main reason for playing VH battles is for the AI to give me higher loss ratios in the average battle, and every now and then also defeat me. With anything lower than VH, most victories become something like 1500-30 in kill/loss ratio. Even on VH as a matter of fact, almost all my Romani vs KH battles ended with 1500-30... It's of course much more challenging and sometimes near impossible when playing factions with weaker starting position or unit roosters, but definitely doable in many cases. And if it isn't doable, a defensive strategy will probably at least (with some effort) make you survive until the faction was historically subjugated, which IMO makes for a great game as well. Without tactical level trouble, there is almost never any strategical level trouble! I played as Arverni in pre 0.8 EB, and managed to defeat the Aedui except for one province, then turned my economy only slightly positive, and thereby got to the turning point of where I would be technically capable of winning. I think both Aedui and Arverni are doable on VH. Lusotanan, definitely, due to their good mercs, Kart Hadast's settlements in the Iberian peninsula being isolated and rushable, and the Lustonanan later units are awesome: scutarii have 100 men per unit and almost beat roman infantry in stats, for example. Saba and Saka are the only factions I truly doubt are possible to win with on VH, but I'll give it a try later, after finishing a few other campaigns I'd like to play first!

And again, I like to point out that the VH bonuses enables you to use very different battle tactics, such as mentioned above: a retreat of your line to rest, while keeping the enemy back with skirmishers. Without VH, a battle is just a matter of clashing all units together with good matches, until either side routs. Disengaging both infantry and cavalry becomes more important with VH. I've also sometimes been forced to fight with a double line or quincunx, to have the first line tire the enemy, then pull it back while sending in the second one. I've never seen this on M! Some high ranked general's units and the likes sometimes feel overpowered in VH, though, but that I usually solve on the strategical level by avoiding battle as long as the army is commanded by a too great commander, or until the army is reduced in strength while keeping the good commander.

This is a insulting! For what %#!@( reason spartans have no swords? Only this "almost-sarissa" noob-spears.

Because if they had swords, they would swap whilst fighting and lose thier advantage as a phalanx.

They have phalanx? It is a just simple spearmen formation, that will surely loose against swords. Sword better than spear without phalanx attribute in EDU! It is a rule.

When I say phalanx, I mean the classical hoplite phalanx as opposed to the macedonian sarissa phalanx. If used properly, with guard mode on, good troops to guard the flanks and shield wall if you've got bi, I'm sure that classical hoplites could beat many sword units.

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Originally Posted by Charge

This is a insulting! For what %#!@( reason spartans have no swords? Only this "almost-sarissa" noob-spears.

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Easy on the X man.

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Originally Posted by Admetos

When I say phalanx, I mean the classical hoplite phalanx as opposed to the macedonian sarissa phalanx. If used properly, with guard mode on, good troops to guard the flanks and shield wall if you've got bi, I'm sure that classical hoplites could beat many sword units.

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That's an imbalance if you use bi and enable shield wall some unit stat tweaking will be necessary in order to stop the hoplites from becoming an unrealistic unbreakable mass.

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Originally Posted by Admetos

When I say phalanx, I mean the classical hoplite phalanx as opposed to the macedonian sarissa phalanx. If used properly, with guard mode on, good troops to guard the flanks and shield wall if you've got bi, I'm sure that classical hoplites could beat many sword units.

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Can you imagine fighting as spearmen with 4-meter spear against swordsmen, who stand in 1 meter in front of you? Spearmen can do no damage to opponent, while he kill him after two stabs. Spear's advantage in distance. But this cannot be emulated by current engine... I'm comletely disagreed with EB unit makers about elite (!) hoplites, which cannot fight with swords.
Also from short time playing as romans I noticed that most powerful roman unit is... Hastati, beginners in warfare beats "veterans" principes and "elite" triarii :laugh4: ...Why? Swords.
BTW, advantages of shield wall/guard mode are very questionable...

It is usually due to the "short spear attribute", which SHOULD NOT BE THERE, so u delet it. This thing gives bonuses vs cavarly but gives a penalty vs infantry which is wrong.

I think it won't be present in the next release.

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Originally Posted by Charge

Can you imagine fighting as spearmen with 4-meter spear against swordsmen, who stand in 1 meter in front of you? Spearmen can do no damage to opponent, while he kill him after two stabs. But this cannot be emulated by current engine... I'm comletely disagreed with EB unit makers about elite (!) hoplites, which cannot fight with swords.

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It's an harcoded problem, not an EB option. Without phalanx attribute ALL units charge with swords and then switch to spear in hand-to-hand combat. That is totally a-historical. Spartans and most hoplites charged with spear, fought in a tight formation with spear and only when the formation was broken would they use their backup sword, the xyphos. So, you can disagree all you can because it won't change a thing. If you want changes go complain to CA.

I have just done some test on hoplites with/without guard mode and shield wall. The units I used were Classical Hoplites and Camillian Hastati and I used the Grassy Flatland. In the first test, hoplites without guard mode or shield wall, it was a close fight, with the hoplites eventualy edging it with 18 men left against the hastati's 13 when the Romans routed. The second and third tests, hoplites with guard mode and with guard mode and shield wall respectivly, the hastati won quite comforatbly, although this I can explain. With guard mode and shield wall the hoplites stay in formation pushing through the center of the hastati, what follows is the hoplites getting surronded and beaten rather easily, kind of what happened at Cannae, this time only with two units. This goes back to what I said oringinally, about using hoplites properly. If you have them in guard mode, with of without shield wall if you consider that that unbalanced the units, with troops to protect the flanks, the hoplites will win, as we can see that they can beat hastati one on one without advantages or disadvantages to either side from the first test. The same is true in city streets, where they can't be flanked. Thus if used properly like described above, hoplites are an extremely effective force.

Charge - As for saying that the hoplite phalanx is ineffective, just look at Thermopylae :2thumbsup:

Eh, they kinda lost Thermopylae you know. I'd rather refer to Marathon or Plataea instead, also because those weren't virtually siege battles.

Anyway, sounds to me like guardmode and/or shieldwall combined with secure flanks simulates the frontal combat proficiency of the hoplite phalanx quite well.

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Eh, they kinda lost Thermopylae you know

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I know but I'm referring to facing a hoplite phalanx front on and in equal numbers, they lost because Xerxes found out the way around the pass to attack them from behind, and they were massivly outnumbered. Im just using Thermopylae as an example of the success of the phalanx, the Persians had no chance of breaking the Greeks from the front.

Granted, so long as they could make use of the geographical chokepoint the hoplites had a relatively smooth sailing. (That pass was apparently pretty popular for really frustrating armies coming in from the north, as the Persian Wars weren't the only instance it was specifically chose as a point of resistance.) Still, they also had the benefit of at least rudimentary fortifications.

Marathon was similarly a favourable battleground for the frontal hoplite tactics (given the surrounding obstacles), but not as grossly so I figured it'd really have been a better example. Plataea was kinda funky, what with the weird shuffling and confusion on both sides when the showdown came, but did AFAIK well demonstrate the ability of the hoplite phalanx to handle frontal assaults even in open country.

True, But I was using Thermopylae as it is the most widely know example, and to be honest, I don't know too much about Marathon and Plataea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plataea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon

In general, judging the strength of historical units is quite difficult. First, there's the problem of estimating the true numbers of the Greeks and Persians. The ancient figures are by modern consensus taken to be extremely incorrect, for instance. After that, even if the general consensus on numbers is accurate, it's difficult to guess how many "troops" on each side that were in fact just more or less inactive support troops, supply train and so on. The things that speak in favor of the spartans being skilled fighers, apart from what archaeology can reveal, are their long training and their battle record in the Peloponnesian war were the estimates on numbers for both sides are probably more accurate than in the wars with the Persians. But it's nearly impossible to, for instance, say with certainty which were better fighters: the gaesatae or the spartan hoplites... Not to mention that EB has to adapt unit stats to the damage model of RTW, which (by necessity) is a simplified model that can't take into account making all possible matches of units 100% correct. Converting historical data to unit stats in a game is not a trivial task, and I think EB has done a great job on this. The way of judging the amount of success should not be to compare unit stats of different units, but to see in practise how they perform in a battle, when used in a (semi-)historical manner.

Just started a KH campaign a few days ago. Those 60 spartans you start with have so far killed somewhere around 400 soldiers(mostly militia hoplites and levy pikemen but still). My spartans have only had 5 casualties.

Don't forget to take Kersonesos. Upgrade the local MIC to get the powerful Skythian Noble cavalry. They are almost on par or better than the hetairoi IMHO.