spartans do not ask how many, only where the enemy are

[gaiusjulii]

Ok so we have all undoublty heard of leonidas and his 300, right? any ways i recently replied to a message in another thread and it got me thinking, are spartan hoplites the most over powered unit in the RTW 1.5 Vanilla game? as it was pointed out to me they are almost impossible to budge even surrounded and out numbered (300 anyone), I do have a method to disrupt and destroy(most of the time) 2 maximum of 3 units on huge size M/M but any more than that are a major headache. so two questions.

1. are they to overpowered and CA went a little overboard on the strength of this unit.

2. good tactics on dealing with the red devils of greece.

cheers in advance guys.

G

[Subedei]

On q. 2: Experienced catapults may do the job....

[rvg]

Ok so we have all undoublty heard of leonidas and his 300, right? any ways i recently replied to a message in another thread and it got me thinking, are spartan hoplites the most over powered unit in the RTW 1.5 Vanilla game? as it was pointed out to me they are almost impossible to budge even surrounded and out numbered (300 anyone), I do have a method to disrupt and destroy(most of the time) 2 maximum of 3 units on huge size M/M but any more than that are a major headache. so two questions.

1. are they to overpowered and CA went a little overboard on the strength of this unit.

2. good tactics on dealing with the red devils of greece.

cheers in advance guys.

G

I don't think they are overpowered, if you consider their weaknesses:

1. Only recruitable in 2 cities and take 2 turns to produce
2. Vulnerable to missiles

In other words, there won't be an endless wave of spartans flooding the map, and horse archers will (eventually) make short work of them. But yeah, other than that they are beasts on the battlefield.

[Benandorf]

They have about 6 shield, I believe, so they aren't THAT vunlerable to missiles. I've had a whole lot of enemies shooting at them, and they took minimal casualties (about 5 spartans for every volley from about 1000 decent archers).

Their main weakness is that they are only recruitable in Sparta and Syracuse, and even though both of these cities are PERFECT for doing nothing but churning out these red devils, and are very centric on the map, that means it's hard to put many stacks of them.

As for large numbers of them, they are unkillable. Barring 20 units of archers, you can't kill a decent number of spartans (like, 6+ units). Put them in Phalanx and put them in a circle, and there's nothing that can touch them. I've had first Cohorts and Urban Cohorts, lots of archers, horse archers (they run out of arrows while there are still too many Spartans), cav, anything under the sun. If you eliminate their one weakness (flanking attacks), they are unbeatable.

That said, the AI doesn't put them in the Baseball Diamond of Doom, so you may not have to worry about it. If you hit them from behind or the side, they are very much killable. It may take you a couple Cohorts, but they will go down. Eventually. Or, alternatively, charge them from behind with cav. On M/M at least, they can actually break after a few charges like that, if you outnumber them and have them pretty much surrounded.

But just be glad of them as Greek Cities, and be glad that there aren't a lot of them as anyone else. Spartans are truly the best that the ancient world has to offer.

[sirnoob]

actually the diamond is super vulnerable if you aim archers at the units not facing you also roman javelins do a bit of damage.

[Celt Centurion]

I have beaten them with Urban Cohorts, but that was by engaging them from their front, and hitting them from the flanks or behind with another.

Also, toward the end of a battle after they are somewhat exhausted and their numbers depleted, you can rout them with a fresh unit of Legionary Cohorts.

Keep in mind though, that when I build; blacksmiths, armorers and foundries have a high priority. Retraining to upgraded armor and weapons is also a high priority. I even will shift an army from one city to another to maximize the overall weapons and armor of the entire army, not just fragments here and there.

I don't know if the AI actually retrains units, but by the fact that they will send depleted units at me with copper weapons and no upgraded armor when they have a large city with an armorer nearby would be an indication to me that it does not.

Playing as Greeks last night, the Egyptians attacked me several times with full stacks with minimal armor and inferior weapons. My silver/gold armor and weapons made quick work of them with very few casualties. Then, to my unbelief, they sent another stack with 19 units but they were only half strength or less. Most of them did not even have copper armor. They just got dead!

I really must emphasize that weapons and armor upgrades are worth the cost, even against Spartan Hoplites.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Guyus Germanicus]

I don't think, for purposes of the game itself, that the Spartans are over-powered. When you think about it, the Greek faction has lousy cavalry. And Heavy Peltasts do not make up for the lack of same. The strength of the Greek faction is in its hoplites - the armored and the spartans. If it didn't have these, they would be a pushover for almost any faction. Macedonians have lots of cav options. And the Roman equites are about the best 'basic' non-elite cavalry unit in the game. So my guess is - the game designers, to give the Greeks a fighting chance, idealized/romanticized the hoplite units a bit for the sake of competitiveness.

Both the strength and the weakness of any hoplite based army is the phalanx itself. Attack it from its side or rear, and you will break it. So without the Spartans, the Greeks don't have much to compensate for them.

It behooves players of all non-Roman factions to wipe the Romans off the board before the Marius event. Once the Romans start getting serious legionaries and Praetorians, the Spartans lose some of their competitive edge.

That said, Spartans are ahistorical in this time frame of the game. Sparta was long past its prime by 280 BC. They had been decisively whipped by the Thebans even before the rise of Alexander. Philip II, Alexander's father, had studied his opponents and made real improvements and adaptations in both infantry and cavalry warfare. The Macedonian phalanx was supposed to be an improvement on hoplite warfare with the longer pike/sarissa. But that's not reflected in the game. Silver shields are not as good as spartans or armoured hoplites. And, while I'm not positive about this from a historical standpoint, my guess is - the Greek armies of the Aeolian league, during the time of the rise of Roman power, probably had some moral equivalent to companion cavalry. I'll have to do some reading there.

Extended Greek Mod tries to incorporate some of these more historical elements in their design of Greek units and armies. But they didn't necessarily make their spartan hoplite more historical for the actual time frame of the game's time frame.

Chime in at this point you experts out there.

I would love to see a verion of Total War that starts, say, in 500 BC, goes through the Persian invasion period and/or the Peloponesian War period, pre-Alexander, and lets you play a faction from that setting. Or, even before that time frame. But there's a lot of conceptualization work that needs to be done for that to happen.

Games like TW are designed so that you have factions that are both diverse in their make up but competitively matched so that they each have a chance for victory in the game. That means that strict adherence to 'historicity' is not really possible.

And THAT said . . . I love Spartans.

[Celt Centurion]

I would love to see a verion of Total War that starts, say, in 500 BC, goes through the Persian invasion period and/or the Peloponesian War period, pre-Alexander, and lets you play a faction from that setting. Or, even before that time frame. But there's a lot of conceptualization work that needs to be done for that to happen.

:

That is an awesome idea! That said, in the XGM, it would be good for Sparta alone to be able to start as a huge city with an urban barracks to train the Spartan Hoplites available there.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Benandorf]

I like that idea. I'd play it.

Maybe when/if R2TW comes out, there will be an earlier campaign, along with the Imperial one. CA could just name the game "Ancient: Total War".

I know I'd buy it.

[gaiusjulii]

[QUOTE=Guyus Germanicus]I would love to see a verion of Total War that starts, say, in 500 BC, goes through the Persian invasion period and/or the Peloponesian War period, pre-Alexander, and lets you play a faction from that setting. Or, even before that time frame. But there's a lot of conceptualization work that needs to be done for that to happen. QUOTE]

Unfortunately CA wouldnt Bother as there are so many mods doing this for them already. I dont think we'd even get an expansion pack of this now. sucks. cool thing is though you can start the dates from as early as you want and give every faction only one province and very little money and see what happens, could be interesting and rename the rebel factions to the names of civilisations of that era, of course you couldn't play them all but its a small start.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Guyus Germanicus,
Perhaps this mod will interest you. I am quite sure that it covers the period which you are interested in.
Hope this helps, cheers!
_________________________

Are Spartans overpowered. That is a very difficult question, although my automatic reaction is to say yes. Then again though, after playing M:TW, I have recently realised that every unit is overpowered or underpowered for one reason or another. I also find the battles go at light speed, and the game is rather easy, although they are topics to be discussed on another day.

The first point I wish to make is that every unit doesn't beat something. Yes, you should have your useless peasant sword fodder as a distraction, but above that, everything ought to work on a solid rock-paper-scissors mechanism. This was shown in M:TW - cavalry beat infantry, spearmen beat cavalry and infantry beat spearmen, but this is not displayed in R:TW. It's all about elitism - in other words, the best units can annihilate everything. This removes the purpose of many units, rendering them almost useless once the better units have been reached on the tech-tree.

In M:TW, the monetary balance was also almost perfectly optimised. The powerful knights were impossible to afford stacks and stacks of, even with a large empire. This forced the player to turn to the weaker units preventing him or her from steamrollering across the map. In R:TW, this isn't true - the elites can be pumped out stack after stack by any empire with more than six provinces. This is less if the faction holds more wealthy regions.

Combine these two factors, and the player gains full stacks of invincible warriors. Once gained, steam rolling will commence and the game might as well be over for your foes.

[Benandorf]

Hi Guyus Germanicus,
Perhaps this mod will interest you. I am quite sure that it covers the period which you are interested in.
Hope this helps, cheers!
_________________________

Are Spartans overpowered. That is a very difficult question, although my automatic reaction is to say yes. Then again though, after playing M:TW, I have recently realised that every unit is overpowered or underpowered for one reason or another. I also find the battles go at light speed, and the game is rather easy, although they are topics to be discussed on another day.

The first point I wish to make is that every unit doesn't beat something. Yes, you should have your useless peasant sword fodder as a distraction, but above that, everything ought to work on a solid rock-paper-scissors mechanism. This was shown in M:TW - cavalry beat infantry, spearmen beat cavalry and infantry beat spearmen, but this is not displayed in R:TW. It's all about elitism - in other words, the best units can annihilate everything. This removes the purpose of many units, rendering them almost useless once the better units have been reached on the tech-tree.

In M:TW, the monetary balance was also almost perfectly optimised. The powerful knights were impossible to afford stacks and stacks of, even with a large empire. This forced the player to turn to the weaker units preventing him or her from steamrollering across the map. In R:TW, this isn't true - the elites can be pumped out stack after stack by any empire with more than six provinces. This is less if the faction holds more wealthy regions.

Combine these two factors, and the player gains full stacks of invincible warriors. Once gained, steam rolling will commence and the game might as well be over for your foes.

I could kiss you for that link. I won't, but I'm very tempted. We'll see how well Persia does against Sparta this time around.

I agree on your points in the other parts of your post. Once you get to a certain point, none of the low units are worth it. And this is sort of true for M2:TW as well (though to a lesser extent, since, for instance, phalanx doesn't beat every other unit like in RTW). The money is too high in RTW so you can afford to keep pumping out spartans and urban cohorts like they're going out of style, while at the same time accumulating enough to keep all your family members with corrupted vices.

That said, I don't think it should have been so every unit has its place. Some early units need to be made obsolete. Not to the extent of TGC's entire tech tree, but I know that I'm always happy to get some new better unit. And then take a stack of them and sack the world.

Back to Spartans, I think what makes them so powerful is the fact that not only are they extremely good (only downfall is lack of armor), but they have normal numbers. They aren't half numbers like certain elite troops. You get 80 spartans on large just like you would get 80 Hastatii or Armored Hoplites or any basic troop. And those 80 spartans have twice as many hitpoints, and can do a LOT more damage in any role.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Hi Guyus Germanicus,
Perhaps this mod will interest you. I am quite sure that it covers the period which you are interested in.
Hope this helps, cheers!

Thanks for the tip, Omanes. I'm downloading now.

[Benandorf]

Watch out, it does replace some RTW files. So be sure to back up the game/make a new folder with it if you want to play vanilla.