State of the Game

**Myth** · 08-07-2014, 15:10

Originally Posted by Sp4

The guys in 300 are hoplites. They are sufficiently invulnerable to arrows and such in the game, especially the heavy armoured, high morale (Spartan) kind although any hoplites are a bad thing to shoot missiles at. As the Scythians, you'll have a lot of fun fighting mainly Greeks because you'll need to research the more ammo tech for your horse archers before you can even hope to do anything against a half decent stack of hoplites + ranged infantry.

Pergamon likes spamming stacks of 19 hoplites and a hoplite general. Gave me a hell of a time to wipe out with HAs. I had to fight, retreat and fight a second battle just to have enough arrows to whittle them down. That was with the Massagetae. Perhaps that high tier Royal Scythian jav-cav will shred them if the javs fly from the back?

**al Roumi** · 08-07-2014, 15:46

Originally Posted by Myth

I had to fight, retreat and fight a second battle just to have enough arrows to whittle them down.

Ugh, and that's why I can't bring myself to play as the nomad factions. I know battles are generaly only 5-10 minutes or so usually but having to fight the same one again and again (and i bet they are longer as you skirmish all day!) sounds like a chore.

**Sp4** · 08-08-2014, 21:35

I started playing a campaign as them but couldn't be bothered after a while. Siege assaults are impossible cause you can't attack with your horse archers and your infantry is the worst in the game (I don't even know why they have any... probably to push battering rams), fighting heavily armoured units is a real pain in the rear. Basically, you want to become friends and not worry about anything Greek from turn one, although I can see factions like the Egyptians and maybe Seleucids not being so terrible cause they don't have quality hoplites.

Still, late game, horse archers aren't that great and you have to combine them with the heavy cav you get as a Nomad faction (they have more or less the same roster) and I think I would try to expand West asap, get into the Celtic regions and recruit an army or two of mercenary Celtic swords and then come back for the hoplite spammers.

**Myth** · 08-11-2014, 13:45

Originally Posted by Sp4

I started playing a campaign as them but couldn't be bothered after a while. Siege assaults are impossible cause you can't attack with your horse archers and your infantry is the worst in the game (I don't even know why they have any... probably to push battering rams), fighting heavily armoured units is a real pain in the rear. Basically, you want to become friends and not worry about anything Greek from turn one, although I can see factions like the Egyptians and maybe Seleucids not being so terrible cause they don't have quality hoplites.

Still, late game, horse archers aren't that great and you have to combine them with the heavy cav you get as a Nomad faction (they have more or less the same roster) and I think I would try to expand West asap, get into the Celtic regions and recruit an army or two of mercenary Celtic swords and then come back for the hoplite spammers.

The Seleucids DO have quality hoplites. They get Shield Bearers which are only a tad weaker than Royal Spartans but you can produce an infinite amount of them (and you can only get 6 Royal Spartans online)

**Slaists** · 08-11-2014, 13:57

Originally Posted by Myth

The Seleucids DO have quality hoplites. They get Shield Bearers which are only a tad weaker than Royal Spartans but you can produce an infinite amount of them (and you can only get 6 Royal Spartans online)

Yes, but he's talking about horse archer faction chances of success against Seleucid AI. As far as the Seleucid AI is concerned, I have yet to see them field anything much higher than desert spearmen... Similar to AI Rome that still fields majority rorarii armies.

**Sp4** · 08-12-2014, 05:44

Yeah I was talking about SP. The AI rarely gets to the point where they will spam their highest quality units, which the exception for certain Celtic factions with their Oathsworn warriors.