Sparta Army Composition...

[Lord Dakier]

I'm a little curious as to what other Spartan players use in their army setup. I've been chopping and changing a little trying to find a balance, but also looking at specialised forces depending on who I'm fighting.

Anti-Greek = I didn't really get much chance to use this as I defeated the Greeks pretty swiftly. I held most of lower Greece come the 3rd turn without many battles.
1x Spartan General
1x Support general
3x Greek Slingers
3x Spartan Archers
12x Spartan Hoplite

Anti-Macedonian = This army was where I really had to change how I setup. Their phalanx was slaughtering my central force and I couldn't win the surround quick enough due to the long battles on the flanks.
1x Spartan General
1x Support General
2x Greek Slingers
3x Spartan Archers
5x Spartan Phalanx (The best non-elite one)
8x Spartan Hoplite

Anti-Rome = This is where I currently am. Rome, the real enemy of Greeks. I'm still finding a feel against these as they bring a lot of velites.
1x General
2x Greek Slingers
2x Spartan Archers
8x Spartan Hoplite
4x Spartan Phalanx (The best non-elite one)
1x Siege Ballistae
2x Xenophotus? Heavy Cavalry

So as said I am wondering what other people use. Mostly I would like to know how you use Phalanx and Hoplite with Guard mode for either or Shield wall for the Hoplites? Also does anyone know what buildings are needed for the gold weapon upgrades, I've maxed my armoury and barracks.

[Darth Bane1]

First army: 1 General, 6 Heavy Phalanx, 2 Promachoi, 4 Spartan Hoplites, 2 Erytanes Toxotai, 4 Hippeis Xenophontos and 1 Lithobolos.

Secon Army: 1 General, 6 Heavy Phalanx, 2 Spartan Hoplites, 2 Spartan Skiritai, 2 Naupaktos Hoplites, 2 Erytanes Toxotai, 4 Hippeis Xenophontos and 1 Lithobolos

Works really well. I've conquered all of Greece, Macedon, Thrace and today Dalmatia. Now it's time to take on the Romans. They are going on my nervs...

The phalanx always in guard mode and in a strong line. I always let the enemy come to me. Shield Wall works pretty well in those small streets in a siege battle. When they fight hard the streets were full of dead enemies. Hehe.

Well, it's said for gold weapons you'll need to build one of the war temples to a pantheon. But it seems that this not works. I always built the temples to the max level, but I don't get gold weapons. Only gold armor. Lucky, it's get tweaked with the 2.6 Version.

[Grimbold]

The temple doesn't work for weapons, only armor.

As for romans, particulaly imperial legions, the problem is flank units. Regardless of who you choose, they'll always take a beating up agaisnt legions, unless you fill your flanks with promachoi

[Lord Dakier]

Hmmm I tend not to use Phalanx as much... Maybe thats the problem

[Darth Bane1]

Maybe. That's why I have 6 phalanx units. On a good position (lightly hilled or high ground) they are superior to everything. Even those imperial legions don't have a chance. The only thing you'll have to do with the phalanx is to watch them. Don't let them tired. There is an very easy trick. When you see they get tired, press the order stop button. For 3 seconds they will stand still, but after that they take on fighting. The good thing, they get their strength back and kill some of the enemies. Other very usefull trick: Let them raise their sarissas up and when you see the enemy units are coming nearer to them, because they fight, then activate the phalanx formation again. You will kill a lot of enemies, because they're walking or running right into the sarissas.

[Lord Dakier]

I'd say I tried to avoid them for being cowardly, but I usually pepper with a Siege Ballistae lol.

Ok so how about this;
1x General
6x Heavy Phalanx
6x Spartan Hoplite
4x Xenophontos Heavy Cav
1x Spartan Archers
2x Skirmishers

[Hanti]

I tend to use Spartan Marines, as this unit is easily replaceable-retrainable. In every port city it can be re-trained without much infrastructure investment.
So standard army mostly look like this:
General
8xMarines (or a few Thorokitai instead, for anti-cavalry duty)
4x Archers
4x Slingers
2 or 3x Cavalry (Tarentinoi mostly)
something useful (siege, balista whatever)

Tactics is simple: missile troops do the killing, infantry hold the line.
Archers kill enemy missile support, slingers kill heavy infantry/phalanx.
Cavalry cover slingers, when they maneuver to the enemy's backyard.
Shooting them from back is mostly enough to rout them.

[Lord Dakier]

An army without Hoplites or Phalanx is pretty interesting. I was thinking of using 4 of them with 4x phalanx and 4xhoplite.

I mostly have Rome under control now, only the island provinces of Siciliy and Aleria left, but also mainland Ariminium.

Now I'll start looking to tackle the barbarians which will definitely be mostly phalanx based.

[Agapios]

Well, I attached a picture with a table that I used as a reference for recruiting the Spartan armies, but the truth is that I often used different set-ups, because of different opponents or just because I liked to use a wide range of units (for example I remember I had once an army formed only with Taxeis Hoplites, Thureophoroi, Machairaphoroi and Boiotian Cav & Peltasts ).
Cheers!

[Lord Dakier]

An interesting chart there. I actually haven't used any Promachoi. I wanted think I'll use them when I do my Heavy Phalangites setup.

1x General
8x Spartan Heavy Phalangites
4x Spartan Promachoi Hoplite
4x Hippeis Xenophontos Heavy Cav
2x Spartan Archers
1x Siege Ballistae

I think this one will do well for against the barbarian factions, definitely.

EDIT - Can anyone also suggest a route to conquer? I personally was thinking of Establishing land by conquering what is left of the Illyrian lands. claiming the last Roman islands then maybe pushing through Gaul.

[Darth Bane1]

Yes, I often do it in the same way. When you have conquered Massalia, then it's very helpfull to conquer Gaul, because when you build this city completly out, then you are able to produce and retrain your best troops.

[Lord Dakier]

Look's like it's a trip North for us then once I have consolidated my power in Rome.

Can any of the Barbarians get through the Swiss Alps?

[Odesos]

in non-roman game it`s imposible to pass Swiss Alps.It`s that way to stimulate roman AI to go east&west.correct me if i`m wrong

[Darth Bane1]

Not directly a right way through the alps, but a small passage. It's near Taurassia. But otherwise you have to go around the alps.

[Amaru]

When u play with the romans there are several passages through the alps i think......most of them so u can get invaded by thousands of celts that, as we know, are stinky rotten barbarians.

[Lord Dakier]

Ok, easy enough I guess. By the time you've invaded and conquered Italy and Greece how many armies do people generally have? At the minute I'm running only one functional army the others are all in disarray and need retraining, Italy hangs in the balance of me stopping the Romans in Sicily and nothern Italy. Next time I think I'll take Sicily first lol.

[Darth Bane1]

Me, only 2 armies at the moment... The first beats the romans, the other waits to conquer Dacia...

[oOIYvYIOo]

I try to use the same army type against all my foes.
2 to 4 squadrons of light cavalry, 2 to 3 war machines , 4 spartan thorephoroi, 1 general and the rest a balanced 60/40 with exclusevly spartan hoplites and spartan Promachoi .No mercenaries if possible,only pure blood ^^.

[Lord Dakier]

@Darth Bane: I'm surprised you can use only 2 armies. Is that One-Turn? I find with 0-Turn you're constantly pitted against several stacks quite often.

@YvY - I've been looking for that balanced army and I believe it definitely needs to have some heavy swordsmen in their somewhere. When you say war machines do you mean the siege weapons? If so what do you take?

[oOIYvYIOo]

@YvY - I've been looking for that balanced army and I believe it definitely needs to have some heavy swordsmen in their somewhere. When you say war machines do you mean the siege weapons? If so what do you take?

War machines mean war machines mate , any type that can kill Elephants -.- .
Swordsmen ,dont need them ,not that i dont use them , i like to recruit a bit of everything ,but, with Sparta is only hoplites .I like to maintain a bit of realism.
And you can follow my campaigns with RS2 on my channel and check my battles .

YvY only on the MPB comunity people call me YvY... who are you Dakier ?