Need help! Greek cities vanilla vs thrace

[Kmarray]

I am currently playing greek cities on vanilla RTW and am doing pretty well about 10-15 yrs in (top territory and overall power). I have destroyed macedon, taken territory off brutii and taken the entire greek peninsula.

However I have ran into a fairly large problem when taking on Thrace. Falxmen. They seem to mow down my armoured hoplites (which are experienced due to temples of nike) no problem, even when charging them head on. At the moment the only archer-like unit i can produce is horse archers, which i have been doing (3-4 units per full stack) but the AI is using so many falxmen (with 2 pike units, some peltasts and multiple generals to back up) that they are unable to make much difference, and i have hired all the mercenary archers I can.

How should i go about defeating them? I have managed to reduce Thrace to 2 cities, but it has cost me 4 or 5 full stacks of troops in dead vs 1 stack of theirs, which is unsustainable in the long run.

[Basil II the B.S]

Deploy your line of hoplites in a way that there are no small gaps (thus manually one by one) and make sure your line is longer than theirs. This makes sure they can't try to surround your unit and gain the upper hand. If forced to fight frontally, they'll lose.
Toggle/untoggle the phalanx formation to trick them into charging frontally.
Have a couple of hoplite units as backups to close any gap due to repositioning/casualties.
Have 3-4 units of greek cavalry attacking from behind the falxmen whenever they are engaged by your phalanx.

If it's not enough, position yourself on hill tops with archers and hoplites and let them charge up the hill.

That should be enough even for the hardest difficulties.

[warhawk77]

Just to add a little to Basil info.

You secure one flank with some item on the map like large rocks or even the edge of the map(yes it is a little gamey but it will work). This way they can't turn your flank. In my Greek game I didn't have a issue with the Thrace they where simple to plow over but having played as them I know the Falxmen are a good unit. The key will be attack them head on where your hoplites in phalanx are king.

Having a few units to flank with once the enemy has engaged your hoplites will make them break pretty quick. I normally pick a flank and just go down the whole line don't try to do both sides it can bog down and that is never fun.

[BullWarrior]

If you haven't already "annexed" the Scythians, I would suggest allying with them to aid with your conquests. Besides that, I would suggest trying to lure their armies out of their cities, and then striking them with a small force of Hoplites with siege weapons. It doesn't matter if you lose a few units while luring the enemy out, it will pay off if they lose all of their regions.