Hoplites and Phalangites

[Calamari]

I'm asking here because the people on this section of the forum probably know more about Greek armies than anyone else. My question is this:

In the Greek mod the hoplites act as normal spearmen where as phalangites fight in a phalanx. I thought that hoplites fought in a phalanx with the xyston. How come they don't in this mod?

Is the only differens between a hoplite and a phalangite the spear and shield that they carry or was it fighting style too (for example hoplites fight overarm phalangites under arm)?

Ive never quite got the differences between these two types of troops, before playing RTW I thought a hoplite was a hoplite lol.

Thanks in advance

[Kara Kolyo]

Both greek and macedon fighting stiles employed phalanx warfare, but the two were quite different. Obviously the greek phalanx was first. Gamewise the greek phalanx fought like the hoplites in XGM in shieldwall formation. They were in deeper formation though. There are disputes whether the hoplites fought overarm all the time, but all in all the XGM hoplites represent the greek tradition. the hoplites used a spear called Dori, or something like this, wich was shorter than the xiston. The macedonian phalanx is the formation that in RTW everybody uses. the macedonian phalangites fought under arm since they needed both their hands to operate the lon sarrissa. After them all hellenistic states started to use the macedonian phalanx, but as far as i know the greek tradition was still in use in some places.
Hope that helps.

[RedFox]

As far as I know, the Greeks also used shorter pikes than the Macedonians.. there is also dispute whether Philip actually copied and advanced the Greek pike type phalanx developed by Epaminondas...

All interesting ideas, but traditional hoplites fought with short spears and didn't have the advantage like the medium length pikes, but the long pikes were on the other hand with a weaker punch due to how heavy and difficult it was to manage..
That's why in medieval times (and also in ancient china), the main striking force were medium length pike infantry.

[Archbaker]

From what I understand, 'hoplite' was a social class in large parts of Hellas, similar to the 'knight' or 'samurai' classes in other cultures.

'Traditional hoplite warfare' in this mod refers to the original Greek phalanx which is represented by the Shield Wall special ability. 'Phalanx warfare' refers to the Macedonian style which is represented by the Phalanx special ability.

However, I believe members of elite Greek phalanx units (like Spartan Phalangites or Heavy Phalangites) could still belong to the Hoplite class even though they didn't fight in the traditional hoplite manner.

As for how long hoplite warfare continued, I think DBH mentioned that mercenaries continued to use the traditional hoplite formation.

[Calamari]

I know a bit about the social classes, the hoplites were land owners who worked on farms in most polises. But Sparta had to be different lol, they had helots which were state owned slaves then some middles class (hoplites?) and then the Spartiates who were men and women who went through the agoge and were the only true citizens of the city-state. Although when most of the Spartiate men were wiped out in a battle, Sparta was messed up badly because they had only a few hundred citizens left.

Thats my understanding of it, did I go wrong anywhere?

[Ephialtes The Dog]

Sparta didn't have any middle class hoplites, they were all elite. They however had the best of the best which was the Spartiates or Royal Gaurd.

[Balikedes]

The only people who could participate in the Spartiates were citizens, and out of those men the Royal Guard were chosen.

[RedFox]

Don't forget the Perioeki - citizens from nearby 'poleis' that were under Sparta's domain and fought as regular hoplites for the Spartans.

[Deiphobos]

There is a Greek "saying" that Hoplites is an anagram Polites. The second means citizen. Hoplites were originally and in most towns citizen who could afford themselves their arms and most importantly their armor.

Phalanx signifies nothing more but the formation of the unit. Square, some lines deep with high pressure at the front.

Spartans did originally only use citizens for their armies. In the time RTW is set perioikoi were also recruited and I believe they even got their arms directly from the state, so they didn't have to provide them themselves. This was probably why the Lamda shields became necessary. It seems in Sparta this was already happening in the time of Xenophon as he mentions the Lamda shields in his Anabasis. Other cities did the same. Thebes used the T, Mantineia the M and so forth. Sparta did also have individualized shields, probably before the Lamda shields were widely used. Plutarch mentions a Spartan with a fly painted on his shield.

[Calamari]

Back on topic lol.

I know 300 is about as historicaly accurate of a kid's drawing of a castle with a dragon on top but do the fight scenes (while they are in the phalanx) pretty much sum up a pre-macadonian fighting style where the first rank pushes the enemy away whilst the next two stab them?

[Archbaker]

The pre-Macedonian fighting style has been debated over many, many pages in another thread, so this is a bit of a mine field, but what you describe seems like a reasonable way to fight in close formation with spears and shields. I have not actually read 300, though.

[Calamari]

Could you link me to that thread? I'm quite interested in all this stuff and I want to learn more lol.

[Kara Kolyo]

Here's the one in XGM sub forum http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=123930
There was one in the Hegemonia mod sub forum too. It's in BI mods section and there was one in the Vestigia Vetuwhatever. Just use the search function.