militia hoplites vs levy pikemen

[professorspatula]

They both have the same morale: 2. It took me a while to find a backup of the original RTW unit files. Wow, I forgot how low morale is set as default. Even Spartans only have 14 morale. I find units with 8 morale can break instantly under a heavy pila barrage. Whatever were CA thinking with their insta-rout battles?

[mightilyoats]

So, the only real advantage that levy pikes have is in numbers... Maybe we should test it in a custom battle. Let them duke it out and see who wins. Maybe make their numbers the same. Or, let them fight Hastati (which seems to be the benchmark unit) I will try it tonight (at home) and will come back here tomorrow if there is anything worth telling.

[professorspatula]

On level ground the levy pikemen should win every time against milita hoplites. Providing you're playing as the pikemen. The key to pikemen victories against hoplites (even superior ones) is to have them sit there on guard mode and be defensive. That way they don't advance and that helps keep the enemy units at bay. If you elect to attack, the pikemen close in on the enemy, the phalanx becomes messy and you've really lost your advantage of having longer spears. I don't know how much 1 on 1 battles have changed for hoplite units in 1.5, but before Silver Shield Pikemen could beat Spartans every time just by sitting there.

Against hastati, I think the levy pikemen could win. It's sometimes hard to test 1 on 1 battles because the AI often loves to try and flank your unit, which means you have to constantly turn your phalanx unit to face them and when you do clash, your phalanx is out of position. Sometimes having another unit or two far beyond the unit you're testing helps. The hastati unit will then probably just walk in a straight line towards the unit you're testing.

[mightilyoats]

I did a quick test last night. I played battles on medium difficulty. Large unit size.

Militia hoplites vs. Hastati: (formation: 4 deep)
Placed the hoplites in 4 deep formation, phalanx, defend. I simply let the Hastati attack. No intervention from me. The Hastati kicked their butts. This happened because the hastati spilled around the edges and basically flanked the hoplites.

Militia Hoplites vs. Hastati (Formation: 2 deep)
Placed Militia same as before, except the formation was only two rows deep. Thus the longest possible battle line. The hoplites won by a very big margin. **Heroic victory!!**

Militia Hoplites vs. Levy Pikemen: (I control Pike men: Formation: 4 deep)
Pikemen set as above with a 4 deep formation. Pikes kicked hoplite butts by big margin. (probably because of longer pikes). It was a real slaughter. No contest.

Levy Pikes vs. Hastati: (Formation: 4 deep)
Levy pikes win by big margin. The only real casualties was from the pila thrown by the Hastati before the charge. Very few casualties after that.

I was satisfied by this. I prefer Levy Pikes from here on. The lack in armor is offset by the number of men in the unit as well as the length of the pikes.

Levy Pikes pwn Militia Hoplites! Thats why you can only get them if you have a militia baracks.

[Poulp']

try to pit 2 units of Levy pikemen versus 1 of spartan hoplites

as long as the spartans do not switch to hand to hand fighting, your levy pikemen stand a fair chance.

[rs2k2]

Sweet, that means that I did the right thing in upgrading my militia hoplites to levy pikemen.

[mightilyoats]

Yep, that's what I would have done. Militia hoplites are the best militia units in the game (imo), but that doesn't mean I want them in my army...