Battle of Sparta

[SPARTAN VI]

I was playing this historic battle against my buddy last night, me being Sparta of course and him the Selucids. I couldn't help but notice how much trouble he was having.

My first move was to withdraw the spartans and peltasts at the entrances a few meters back and put them up against the buildings in a thin line for shelter from onager fire. I then took the excess units from the far ends of the city and put them to the center to distribute them as he engages approaches certain openings.

His first move was of course onager fire, burning down the buildings shielding my men and destroying half a spartan unit. I withdrew to the nearest buildings and continued to use them for cover.

His second move was moving up his skirmishers, peltasts, and archers to get a angle on the sheltered units. The only thing protecting his missile troops were levy pikemen in phalanx formation. Although they were in front of his missile troops, there was enough space for me to maneuver around them and shake up his slingers and archers then retreat back to the safety of my spartans. The slow clumsy phalanx couldn't react in time to get a single kill. He moved half of his army to this location to rain hell on a unit of spent peltasts. Then I saw his elephants approaching, so I moved another unit of spartans to reinforce the entrance along with light auxilia to counter the elephants. Elephants died in the alley, almost immediately, and clogged up the roads. His men filtered inside in twos and threes for some easy kills. After poking around at other entrances, he found an exposed peltast unit circling around outside and attacked with his general. They routed and he pursued them. I circled my mititia hoplites around to the entrance to cut off escape and sent 4 units of spent peltasts to intercept his general. His general was trapped on the small street, died, and I won.

Planning on doing this battle again, but as the Selucids. I can imagine it would be much more difficult. How would you take Sparta?

[Erwin Rommel]

Get the spartans first before movin!!

[Lavastein]

you gotaa hit them with everything you got. I say move your pikemen close to the city, and your peltests and archers close behind in un skirmish mode. if you can engae the spartans quickly you have time to take the city before reinforcments come. i hit the spartans with everything i had and won.

[SPARTAN VI]

you gotaa hit them with everything you got. I say move your pikemen close to the city, and your peltests and archers close behind in un skirmish mode. if you can engae the spartans quickly you have time to take the city before reinforcments come. i hit the spartans with everything i had and won.

Now were you playing against the AI? As the Spartans, I fought for every inch. When he started pushing on one entrance enough, I withdrew back a buildings to give reinforcements less distance to run.

When he started to circle around to the other entrances, I found it advantageous to withdraw all units to the central plaza, but set up road blocks at each of the entrances so I can redistribute troops as threats approach the entrances.

The AI probably would just throw all units at one entrance if you distract them enough, allowing you to circle reserve troops around exploit a weaker opening.

After watching the replay, I noticed he threw all of his Companion Cavalry at a double line of Spartans. They're probably the most valuable unit in that battle and it threw them at a forward facing phalanx of Spartans..