Hellenes: you are mistaken on the hoplon thing. Being a historian, I find it interesting that so many people are bitterly divided on this.

To the wargamers, it's a shield. They don't know Greek though, so we can really sort of brush over their opinion.

To a modern Greek and to some non-professional classicists it means 'weapon or weapons'.

In ancient Greek, a Hoplon is a shield. A Hoplite is a hoplon bearer. If he were simply a weapon bearer, why would we have Strateotes, Peltastes, Thureophoros, etc. However, the plural of Hoplon does indeed mean, not only more than one hoplon, but a set of hoplite gear.

The phalanx underwent a radical change in the mid 4th century. The spear was lengthened and used underhand, and the shield was changed to the lighter thureos. The Macedonians used their Sarissae with two hands.

A lot of people, by 270 B.C. had copied the Phalanx formation. It was a damn good formation. Armenia was a hellenized kingdom (not populated by Greeks, but taking a lot of Greek developments and using them).

Nubians might feature in the EB, but were not important at all past the Saite dynasty, far before the start of the game.