Why are Theurophoroi so weak?

[Victor1234]

Do you actually use them to pin down Phalanxes, as well as flanking them? What are your casualties?

It depends. I use them as line infantry if I have nothing else, there they can do well enough on their own and rout any early unit the Ptolemies field with about 25% losses, if unsupported. Usually I fire with the missle troops until their ammo runs out and then use them as flankers, but otherwise, repeated charges with the family member calvary and Prodromoi into the flank or rear of the enemy unit while the Thureophoroi engage the unit from the front will end up with a quickly routed unit and maybe 5-10% losses for the Thureophoroi, which will be further reduced by the healed losses.

If I have a bit more money, I usually buy some mercenary infantry and they become the cannon fodder to pin down the front units while the rest of my guys circle around and hit them from the rear or flank. In these situations, the Thureophoroi take very few losses since the mercs are doing the dirty work, though sometimes if the enemy has calvary I haven't been able to engage and they'll flank my flankers in a charge.

I'm playing on medium battle difficulty, as apparantely, anything higher will disrupt the delicate balance of values that the EB guys have built up.

[Mediolanicus]

I'm playing on medium battle difficulty, as apparantely, anything higher will disrupt the delicate balance of values that the EB guys have built up.

If you'd play on a higher difficulty, you'd just get frustrated seeing your fullstack of elites getting slaughtered by 2 units of akontistai.
And after that some people come complaining here about how unbalanced EB is...

[woirble]

I've used them extensively in a Makedonia campaign. I usually had 3 or 4 units on one wing to flank and hold off cavalry and I thought they did a good job.

They can pepper the flanks and rear of heavy units moving to engage your pike line and then charge in from behind once those heavy units have engaged your pike units.

I liked them. I though them much more useful than peltasti.

[QuintusSertorius]

Meh, I've got Thracian peltasts with their AP swords and more javelins for flanking, or any number of other troops better-suited for the job. Perhaps because I don't use any phalanxes I don't get the same value out of them I might. Invariably I've got more than enough cavalry to drive off anti-flanking cavalry anyway. The AI doesn't seem to recruit more than three or four units in any one stack, and I've usually got five in a full one.