What kind of tactics does everybody use when fighting Hoplites?

[Dayve]

Hello again everyone, haven't been here in some months and just downloaded 1.0 which i have to say is excellent, congratulations to everyone who worked on it on a job well done. A mod worthy of Caesar and Alexander themselves.

Anyhow, my question. As everybody knows, early Roman infantry is somewhat weak, especially the Hastati. Being a fan of accuracy, i use my armies as the Romans did, so my hastati always fight first, and it's gotten to a point now where i'm actually scared of high numbers of hoplites in an army... not because i lose, i usually win, but because i'll come out of the battle with no hastati left, 3/4 of my principes dead and likewise for my cavalry because they take massive casualties even when attacking the rear when the hoplites are shaken or wavering.

How do you guys fight your hoplites with Roman infantry? Of course i'm pinning them down and using cavalry to attack the rear, but is there another way? There has to be another way, taking 3/4 losses each battle is a pain. I seem to recall reading somewhere that victorious armies usually took 10-20% casualties whereas losing armies took a hell of a lot more. Well, the losing part is spot on, losing armies are either 70% destroyed or completely wieped out, but my victorious armies are also 50-70% destroyed and have to sit in a fort for 6 turns waiting for reinforcements!

[Long lost Caesar]

my veteran hastati dont normally get cut up bad, so i pin em down with infantry, and get wedged cavalry to smack into the rear. once my cavalry take casualties i un-form the wedge and have them run away, wedge, repeat.

[Sakkura]

You can use some triarii and principes to hold them, then run the hastati around the back of the enemy, make pincushions of them and then charge them from behind. They don't like that a lot.

[Leão magno]

Spread your lines into maniples, allow them to think they are encircling your first lines and then use your second (ussually a heavier one) to encircle them, they will suffer the strike and have real morale problens

[CaesarAugustus]

If I can't encircle them then I definently won't use inexperienced hastati, it is one of those situations when I forego rigidly sticking to historically accurate methods and just bring up the Triarii to destroy them. Javelins in the back also work wonders, as do horses.

[Dayve]

I can't do it the un-historical way though... If i send triarii in first or something similar i just feel dirty after i win. I guess i could try sending principes to hit their flanks then cavalry up the ass, i'm sure that tactic would have been used at some point in history.

Also, is vanilla EB 1.0 the same as other versions in regards to AI factions being able to create wave after wave of stacks even when they only have 3 or 4 cities left? I abandoned a lot of campaigns in other versions because i got tired of fighting 2, 3, 4 or even 5 stacks per turn or Swebos units, even when they had only like 5 cities left.

[EoE]

Obviously, you need to pin and outflank - as you said. But try to use infantry instead of cavalry. And instead of doing a double envelopment, go for one flank instead. With one very strong rear attack at one flank you can easily rout at least one unit, the panic will spread to the neighbouring units, they will rout and then you can roll up their entire line, while keeping the cavalry fresh for the pursuit.

Oh, and don't take historical accuracy too literally. The ancient sources on how early republican legions fought are only snapshots in history. They are not in any way proof that the Romans only fought like that. I'm pretty sure that the better Roman generals adapted to the situation. So be a good Roman general and use your better armoured infantry to pin down the hoplites while the lighter Hastati manouver.

rgds/EoE

[Landwalker]

I generally use the manipular formation; thus, the hastati are on the front lines, and open with their pila. Once they're engaged, I bring in the principes to the rear (pila in the back really hurts both enemy numbers and enemy morale). Barring that, pinning the hoplitai in the front and then repeated heavy cavalry charges in the rear eventually gets the job done.

One thing that might be the problem is that Hastati, with their short swords, have a very small "reach", whereas hoplitai have a much longer one thanks to their considerable spears. You might consider simply letting principes, or even triarii, pin the hoplitai, so that they can compete on an "equal reach" basis. Since my legions usually have a couple of units of Samnite Spearmen, I find that these fellows are excellent for pinning hoplites--perhaps give them a try.

Cheers.

[dominique]

Give ground and sling and sting (sling and javelin) these hoplites bastards to death!

They'll be hesitating when they're down at 40, a good charge on their flank can make them run.

I try to avoid to fight head-on these crazy greeks unless I can stick them back with a phalanx or a triarii.

Once, I foolishly overextended my line and they swarmed my left. Since it was too thin to absorb the hoplite charge, my left crumbled and my front collapsed.

I was able to regroup but I had to sacrifice all my skirmishers to be able to swing the battle back to my advantage. Talk about a pyrrhic victory... It ended my campaign right there. I pulled back that army to my MIC for some R&R. When I was able to put it on the field again, 2 years later, the AI was ready for me. It was a tough one but I went through it like a penitent, telling myself I merited this for my stupidity.

[Bellum]

You need to use your Hastati to hold, and quickly use Principes and cavalry to outflank. Save Triarii (and other spear troops like Rorarii even, who aren't good for much else.) in case the front line threatens to break. Don't wait too long, though. Start using them as soon as things start to look bad, and they'll fix things real quick. You should be able to break them rather quickly, though, if you hit their flanks hard enough.

[Fearless Samnite]

Since your playing as the Romans, i'll answer with a roman solution
im not familar with history or the exact lines or spacing of a manipular formation

i do try to listen or read what other gifted or knowledgable users say about ancient history of armies and battles n such

and i do remember some stating that the roman machine used mercenaries extensively

anyway

what i do is usually have 2 or 4 lines depending on how large my stack is. Some of my strange methods is to have on open ground battles a full stack of all Rorari (or all Ligurian Infantry)with one general......but to mix things up for you or me if i did different it would be

baring in mind with what ever mercenaries i could get......i would put slingers in the front with spearmen right behind and skirmishers to the left and right of the spear men so they could charge through my slingers ranks to intercept the enemies charge from contacting my slingers.....i have a better idea to convey wtf im trying to type

morale is important in troop selection....having low quality troops and not being careful with keeping your general close by to inspire will result in a immediate rout....especially so fighting the naked fanatics or elephants

example min repeat
(front)Line1:
empty/Slingers/empty/Slingers/empty

Line2:
spearmen/skirmishers/spearmen/spearmen/skirmishers/spearmen

Line3:
Footman/Footman/Footman/Footman/Footman/Footman

Line4:
General and calv
-------------------
-------------------
-------------------
OPTIMIZED less stress example min repeat

(front)Line1:
spearmen/Slingers/spearmen//Slingers/spearmen

Line2:
spearmen/skirmishers/Footman/skirmishers/Footman/skirmishers/spearmen

Line3:
General and calv







hold with a strong infantry unit and flank with weaker also use calv to flank if you have them....the charge bonus is useful

[Digby Tatham Warter]

Is it me or are Hoplites much stronger in V1.0?
I have a Mak campaign on the go(and 2 others) playing on medium battle to try out the new stats. In several fights they have fought to the last man and my Companion heavy cav have trouble breaking them with a rear charge, no wonder they chew up your Hastati.

I treat them like any strong unit, if their stuck on my Sarrisas or not I gang up on them, but deal with the flanks first. Although it wasn't perphaps the normal Roman way, look at how the Romans dealt with the Mak pikes at Pynda(I think) they found a gap and went for the rear, can't a good Roman General use his initiative and still be doing things the historical Roman way?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Hello again everyone, haven't been here in some months and just downloaded 1.0 which i have to say is excellent, congratulations to everyone who worked on it on a job well done. A mod worthy of Caesar and Alexander themselves.

Anyhow, my question. As everybody knows, early Roman infantry is somewhat weak, especially the Hastati. Being a fan of accuracy, i use my armies as the Romans did, so my hastati always fight first, and it's gotten to a point now where i'm actually scared of high numbers of hoplites in an army... not because i lose, i usually win, but because i'll come out of the battle with no hastati left, 3/4 of my principes dead and likewise for my cavalry because they take massive casualties even when attacking the rear when the hoplites are shaken or wavering.

How do you guys fight your hoplites with Roman infantry? Of course i'm pinning them down and using cavalry to attack the rear, but is there another way? There has to be another way, taking 3/4 losses each battle is a pain. I seem to recall reading somewhere that victorious armies usually took 10-20% casualties whereas losing armies took a hell of a lot more. Well, the losing part is spot on, losing armies are either 70% destroyed or completely wieped out, but my victorious armies are also 50-70% destroyed and have to sit in a fort for 6 turns waiting for reinforcements!

Make the phalanx split up! Move your skirmishers and light infantry forward while keeping your heavies back, then let them draw the phalanx forward and outwards in a fan-like shape, while you retreat (slowly, keeping almost in contact with them at all times in order to prevent them from turning around and stopping their slow pursuit) to avoid contact in all parts of the line except where you have cavalry behind. Also try hard to use your archers before the battle to kill the enemy general if you want to play on morale for your victory. Another good tip is to, even if you engage the entire hoplite line at the time, occasionally break off the engagement and retreat your infantry to rest. Also try to rout the enemy cavalry before beginning any line to line engagement, if possible. Against Greek cities, this strategy usually gives 1500/30 in kill loss ratio if you have Camillan or Polybian units. Ratios are somewhat worse against Seleucids and other long pike phalanx factions, but usually can be kept below 200 own losses while almost completely obliterating the enemy army. The hard part is routing/killing those first few enemy phalanx units. Once the enemy line starts getting thinner, it gets easier and easier to, by new coordinated manouvers, rout the remainder. A good idea is to also keep at least 1 light cav unit a distance behind the enemy line, to make sure any routed enemy phalanx unit gets hunted down and doesn't return to the battle. A final tip is to hire a few mistophoroi phalangitai to your armies. This allows you to match up these against some of the worst enemy phalangites, which gives you more margin of error in your timing when assaulting the enemy rear. However, casualties for these phalangites can be quite high. When I invaded Asia minor and Egypt as the Romani, I needed to hire 1 or 2 of these guys after each battle to replace the losses. My own infantry was instead used primarily to hit flanks and rear, and losses were typically around 1 unit per 4 major battles. BTW, this is generally a good strategy: to make sure the type of unit you lose most of in the battles is the type of unit you can replace easily locally. It took me a while to fully put this system into use, but I'm using it everywhere now. Cavs and missiles are recruited locally whenever possible (besides, iaosatae due to range and AP, and hippeis due to endurance, in my experience beat equites and accensi anyway), while only legionaries are shipped all the way from home. But then, I have had the marian reforms so there isn't really anything else than infantry I can recruit at home.

[konny]

I can't do it the un-historical way though... If i send triarii in first or something similar i just feel dirty after i win.

That wouldn't be un-historical. Better Roman Generals, like Scipio, often used the Triarii like a counter-phalanx. So, I would either attack them with the Triarii, or, since you like the old school way, send the Hastati and Principes first to weaken them. I usually call a unit of Hastati back when it is down to under 100.

[Leão magno]

If you go for flanks action, choose the non shielded one! they will have morale problens soner!

[Centurion Crastinus]

I just pin them with my hastati, and principes using the manipular formations. Afterwards, I use whatever troops I have left that are not yet involved in the battle like my triari located on the flanks leaving two triari behind the fighting line, samnite infantry, skirmishers and cavalry and hit them on their backside. It works wonders for me, once one enemy unit routes, the res quickly follow.