Greek units are too powerful

[Horatio Hornblower]

Seems like hoplites and other greek units are invincible or "die hard"
Massilia has conquered almost all Gallia!! The Gauls has no chance against them!! Even I, playing as Rome, have problems against hoplites and macedonic phalange. I found it pretty strange but I could be wrong...what do you think about it?
I'm playing my campaign hard/very hard.

P.S. I've noticed the same thing with Lugii tribe.

[EpicFrench]

Hi there,

Well first of all this mod is optimised for Normal Battle Difficulty, if you go for an higher difficulty, stats will be higher than usual !

In your battle what is your army composition and your moves ? Hoplites are weak from the flank for example, and misille against them is pretty good !

For example depending on your nation, but if you play greek against greek, try to get some pikes to pin them down and use your swordmens and/or cavalry to charge them from behind, it will be pure slaughter

[KAM 2150]

From the front greek and hellenic units are and will be always strong. Of course with 1.0 this will be hindered with new flanking mechanic that will be a major change in how combat works in Rome 2. For example unit of dacian falxmen will be defeated by hoplites from the front, but if the same falxmen will charge hoplites from the flank or back, then Dacians will slaughter them.

[maxstill]

I have not noticed it seriously, if you play as Rome you can pretty much own the whole map, I have yet to see anything that can deal with my cohorts, I just tank their hoplites with my infantry, and than run my cavalry past them and charge in the back, good old hammer and anvil tactic, the A.I. is too damn stupid to stop you anyway, I use mostly fast cavalry , usually Gallic auxiliar cavalry or mercs( forgot their damn names), almost every time you're enemy is too slow to react and gets routed , after that its just pure slaughter.
Alas, the hellenic factions are OP, when played by us ,I mean just massing phalanxes and some Sarissa armed cavalry with the same hammer and anvil tactic, its brutal.

[Horatio Hornblower]

My strategy is triarii and tarantine hoplites on front, princeps on second line and hastati on third line. Velites on front in skermish mode. Cavalry is my wings. I always surround hoplites on their flanks, and I hit them back with my cavalry. Anyway I guess my problem is playing battles with "very hard" difficulty. Sieges are terrifying, a real slaughter!

[KAM 2150]

Yeah, never play DeI battle on very hard and then expect it to be realistic ;D DeI uses different scale then vanilla or some other mods and AI bonuses for battles are hardcoded. If vanilla unit with attack of 60 gets +7 it does no change that much, but if DeI unit with attack of 13 gets +7 then it is huge change!.

Anyway, bonus for AI on very hard is +7 to attack, defence and morale, so enemy militia units will have attack as high as your heavy infantry. Of course you can change battle difficulty during campaign at any time via game options.

[Avetis]

Hoplites are strong defensively in 1 on 1 heavy infantry battles, but they are poor against any fast flanking units. I think this is fear

[Horatio Hornblower]

Thank you guys!

[son of romans]

Yeah, never play DeI battle on very hard and then expect it to be realistic ;D DeI uses different scale then vanilla or some other mods and AI bonuses for battles are hardcoded. If vanilla unit with attack of 60 gets +7 it does no change that much, but if DeI unit with attack of 13 gets +7 then it is huge change!.

Anyway, bonus for AI on very hard is +7 to attack, defence and morale, so enemy militia units will have attack as high as your heavy infantry. Of course you can change battle difficulty during campaign at any time via game options.

What a huge bonus, always played on very hard, I thought that enemy units have only better morale?

[Faldor]

Alas, the hellenic factions are OP, when played by us ,I mean just massing phalanxes and some Sarissa armed cavalry with the same hammer and anvil tactic, its brutal.

It's an effective (and the only) tactic indeed, but enemy missiles are lethal to your pikemen. And as for me I have yet to fight an army that doesn't field quite a lot of missile units. If you ignore the enemy missiles only for a couple of minutes you will have large gaps in your pike line because whole units will be decimated.

Also you have to realize that pikemen barely kill anyone on their own, you need really strong cavalry to actually carry out the hammer and anvil tactic. After all they not only have to attack the engaged enemy forces in the rear, but also the enemy missiles that are slaughtering your main line.

As for hoplite units (short spear) I agree that these are way too strong, especially compared to how weak hellenic swordsmen are at the moment, but I think that's a known fact to the DeI team and that's being addressed for 1.0. I think what the OP is talking about is an overall balancing issue (that's why balancing is being greatly revised for 1.0) that has not much to do with hellenic factions in particular.

[maxstill]

It's an effective (and the only) tactic indeed, but enemy missiles are lethal to your pikemen. And as for me I have yet to fight an army that doesn't field quite a lot of missile units. If you ignore the enemy missiles only for a couple of minutes you will have large gaps in your pike line because whole units will be decimated.

Also you have to realize that pikemen barely kill anyone on their own, you need really strong cavalry to actually carry out the hammer and anvil tactic. After all they not only have to attack the engaged enemy forces in the rear, but also the enemy missiles that are slaughtering your main line.

As for hoplite units (short spear) I agree that these are way too strong, especially compared to how weak hellenic swordsmen are at the moment, but I think that's a known fact to the DeI team and that's being addressed for 1.0. I think what the OP is talking about is an overall balancing issue (that's why balancing is being greatly revised for 1.0) that has not much to do with hellenic factions in particular.

I use fast cavalry to chase off the skirmishers along with the lancers I use for charges, I did not fully describe my entire army composition since I thought its a given that you run more than just Sarissa Cavalry and phalanxes, I meant the hoplite variation of phalanx, not pikemen, I find them unreliable at the moment, way too easily flanked or killed by missiles.
Usually my army uses large numbers of hoplites, some type of random Lancers, any of them are fine, heavy peltasts to support my units from range and some type of fast melee cavalry to stomp their skirmishers, in case we are talking about a succesor state like say Seleukids, I like to mix in some cataphracts, these things just refuse to die and can kill anything with their charge, as for missiles incoming from the enemy army, my hoplites and cataphracts just laugh at them, you can get trough with all that armor.

[jo the greek]

From the front greek and hellenic units are and will be always strong. Of course with 1.0 this will be hindered with new flanking mechanic that will be a major change in how combat works in Rome 2. For example unit of dacian falxmen will be defeated by hoplites from the front, but if the same falxmen will charge hoplites from the flank or back, then Dacians will slaughter them.

how that mechanics works different bonus?

[KAM 2150]

Units attacked from flanks or rear simply lose their bonus from shield, which on my stats make most of the units melee defence skill and some bonus to armour. Hoplites in phalanx mode from the front have around 130 melee defence and 70 armour, but from the flanks or rear their melee defence is around 10-15 and armour down to 35.

[ostendadler]

I started a new grand campaign with 0.96 (the latest i believe) and I noticed that at first hellenic factions had the upper hand in the first 50 years but are now meeting their match in the balkans versus the germanic tribes. Even Carthage managed to halt the egyptians and take back Carthage. Overhaul it works great ...

[yukishiro1]

It's not hellenic units that are overpowered it's hammer and anvil that's overpowered. Or rather more precisely, it is the only "tactic" that works in the game. And the only tactic that will ever work in the game as long as the game engine doesn't allow troops to push or tactically withdraw after engaging in battle. Without that functionality you can't replicate the most effective tactics of ancient battles aside from the hammer and anvil.

[qlum]

That and the ai does not really keep units in the back to defend against cavalry so usually hammer and anvil goes unopposed.

[TheRazaman]

It's not hellenic units that are overpowered it's hammer and anvil that's overpowered. Or rather more precisely, it is the only "tactic" that works in the game. And the only tactic that will ever work in the game as long as the game engine doesn't allow troops to push or tactically withdraw after engaging in battle. Without that functionality you can't replicate the most effective tactics of ancient battles aside from the hammer and anvil.

Truth. Replicating Cannae is impossible...it's so sad.

[KAM 2150]

It will be in 1.0 with proper manouvering Not perfect, but still possible. Plus pike phalanx push.

[Augustusng]

Truth. Replicating Cannae is impossible...it's so sad.

What do you mean? Every battle is a Cannae with the battle AI. It's worse than two Roman consuls arguing over the command.

Anyway, replicating Cannae is what many commanders since then have tried and failed to do, so not a big deal that it's hard to replicate in-game.

[TheRazaman]

What do you mean? Every battle is a Cannae with the battle AI. It's worse than two Roman consuls arguing over the command.

Anyway, replicating Cannae is what many commanders since then have tried and failed to do, so not a big deal that it's hard to replicate in-game.

Meaning that you can't tactically retreat a unit. So pulling off the convex-to-concave maneuver is impossible.

It will be in 1.0 with proper manouvering Not perfect, but still possible. Plus pike phalanx push.

Really?? That would be amazing! I thought it was just unit stats that were being re-balanced, but if there's a way to make the tactical retreat possible, then the depth of tactics will be greatly improved