I was never serious about RTW multiplayer, but always had a lot of fun picking Britannia and letting my opponents assume I was just messing around. 5 minutes later, I'm tucked in behind my ally's infantry and it's bye-bye enemy phalanxes and Urban Cohorts. 😌 Other videos you might enjoy: ▶ House of Scipii Campaign (Complete): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KynzJzdEwM0.html ⚔ Top Ten Barbarian Invasion Units: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T5QZB_VuloA.html
funny thing is i never used spartan hoplites because they were only recruitable from sparta(even though its very accurate and how it should be) plus i didnt care for the late spartan looks i preferred the looks of the armored hoplites with the Corinthian styled helmets plus i only used armored hoplites for foot sloggers as they are much easier to recruit and also the reason u mentioned more resistant to missile damage which means a lot
@@JB-xl2jc that and the cone helmet. The armoured hoplites helmet (is it the Thracian helmet? I can't remember) is, in my opinion, one of the best looking helmet of Antiquity.
@@NobleKorhedron Yep. Though strictly speaking the Legions wouldnt wear that until the 1st century AD it would be Hamata in that period. But the Lorica is Iconic.
@@ajaxtelamonian5134: Yeah, I agree, as do most historians. Some cavalry throughout the centuries would've worn the "lorica squamata", but after circa. 50 - 75 AD or so, the Western Romans continued to use the lorica segmentata, right up to the 3rd C. AD, IIRC. Did the Western Romans ever abandon the lorica; and, if so, when...?
In campaign, sure, but in multiplayer, Urbans are the undisputed king. Really insanely powerful, completely imbalanced against any other faction. They can be countered with armour piercing units, or a pure skirmish army, but then, Rome still has better archers than most factions in the Archer Auxilia. Excellent morale and lethal missile attack just makes them so versatile in addition to their raw best Infantry stats. So I even went as far as to ban Urban Cohorts in my multiplayer games for a long time.
Even facing urbans with spartans and armoured hoplites it's still costly, I managed to win against an urban cohort brutii stack in RTW vanilla greek campaign, but with heavy losses using armoured hoplites, 2 spartans and the rest greek cavalry.... the cavalry charge turned the tide of the battle and my hoplites were decimated, only 1/4 were left alive. Greek cavalry saved the day and routed the reminaing urbans lol
tbh I remember a battle where I destroyed an entire Thracian horde with like 2 hastati (who died 2 seconds into the battle), basic archers, and one Urban cohort lol
Spain's Bull Warriors are very effective against them. While they will eventually lose in hand to hand they'll easily win in Spear tossing trades due to the insane damage the spears that the Bull Warriors toss.
I can see why Praetorians might have worst stamina than legionaries, historically speaking. They were men who guarded the emperor, their stations relatively comfortable, whilst legionaries spent most of the time training for actual war and going on campaigns. Rarely did Praetorians see actual combat, they were glorified guardsmen
@@Ackalan perhaps they are veterans, but as the saying goes, the blade becomes dull.... comfortable stations, no actual battles, no long campaigns, no forced marches carrying legionary equipment - your fitness and strength and fighting skills is only as sharp as you consistently hone it.
@@dragondynastywarrior506 Yes indeed you are correct, I was mostly clarifying that they saw combat before their appointment to the Pretorian Guard so they were not just for show, or a ceremonial appointment. Just in case someone reading the comment was unaware.
I'm pretty sure no one was underrating Legionary cohort. It's probably the bulk of every army of most players in the campaign after the Marian reforms, alongside the Early cohort. Armored hoplites are used pretty commonly as well, but I can see how they may be considered underrated.
I would say the basic slinger is a very underrated unit, mostly because they are a little bit counter intuitive to use, and a lot player might have used them like your typical archer, standing behind your spears and decided that slingers are trash. They do no damage, they cause huge friendly fire, and their short range. In fact they should be used like a short range gun powder unit. They counter heavy infantry, but it's not obvious at all, until you learn how to use them properly
I tend to not use Spartans because there is only two places to recruit and retrain them. So armored hoplites were the elite units of my Greek campaigns
Exactly, are there seriously people who don't use armoured hoplites? Almost no unit that takes two turns to recruit is worth the extra time. The exception being elephants and chariots.
Another bonus for the armoured hoplite is that because they're recruited from a tier 3 barracks, you can retrain them pretty easily when you conquer another settlement.
i once *retrained (correction from recruited) head hurlers in a concquered greek city with a maxed out temple of artemis, which give +3 ranged attack .. pretty imba. *Xagerx10 pointed out correctly that head hurlers are recruited from the sacred grove (britannian temple) which would negate any other temple. so recuiting them in a city with a temple of artemis is impossible. however, i retrained them in such a city to receive +3 ranged attack. i mixed it up with a different campain, where i recruited scythian horse archers in a conquered greek city with a temple of artemis, which gave +2 ranged attack.
You're also lying. You can't build a sacred grove in a city with a temple, and head Hurlers are recruited from the sacred grove of Andrasta. Though, what you suggest would be imbalanced as all get out.
@@Snipergod1024 damn you are right! i totally forgot that! however, i clearly remember having gold attack head hurlers. it was a long time ago, so i think i must have retrained instead of recruited them there.
Back in the day I was a little boy and never used the urban cohort because I thought it was the legionary equivalent to the townguard. Guess I was wrong.
Good description with the exception of #5. I don't consider Legionary Cohorts underrated as they are the mainstay of most Roman campaigns after Marius Reforms. I have noticed that Militia Cavalry (Greek factions) in early game can be devastated if used properly.
Head Hurlers were always a must for me in campaign and multiplayer. As Britannia I always felt that the faster a battle was won the better it was for me so the small ammo supplies were never a huge issue, just wanted to get it all of those heads chucked out as quickly as possible. As a kid I always imagined we had been filling up those heads with lead in order to do so much damage.
In regards to the video: - Early legio cohorts will be far more useful in far flung campaigns as you can replace the normal cohorts and even complement them. If you go for a long term campaign you will not be normally able to retrain legios, but you can build the bottom tier legios to support them. - Spartan hoplites are not there as your main army unit, they are there as a ready to attack elite. If you're keeping S.Hoplites in the open against arrows you are doing something wrong with them. Send them straight onto your opponent's strongest unit and watch the fireworks.
Experience; this does not affect missile damage or reload speed in rome 1. Added experience in r1 only provides; morale + melee attack + melee defence. Attack upgs (max3) adds missile damage and melee damage. Def upgs (max3) adds armor. Also head hurlers, in mp was certainaly pretty well known. A staple *perfectly balanced* mp brit army was 4-6 warlord chariots 0-2 light cav 0-2 chariot archers 6 slingers 6 head hurlers, with some variations araund that depending on ruleset used, if it was 1v1/ teamgame or what faction you went up against. *Most rulesets included like max 8 missile units (max 2 ha/ca), but javelin units (mounted or regular) where not counted towards this. That worked out pretty nicely as it allowed factions without ha/ca/ long range missiles to contest the missile exhange. Indepth rant on brits :D Light barb cav was still added on occasion as while brit warlord chariots are simply the best cav in game; you sometimes needed fast and easier controlled units to harass enemy archer lines + defend your own chariot archers from light cav. S tier faction on 12.5 - 15k in both 1v1 and team games, Generally you kept your headhurlers far back then seeked to draw or even win the missile exhange with slingers + chariot archers and what harassment you could get in on his archer line with light cav/ warlords. But low range slingers are pretty horrible so usually you went for a draw, (focus target half the enemy missiles and let the others run out of ammo). How it went usually depended on how much you could leverage the chariot archers (always capped at 2 due to how op af ha and ca was in cantabrian circle). Then crush his cav with the warlords (tho had to watch out for pikes, and boxed catapracts; but neither of those can actaully attack you, you could literally run circles araund them). Only towards the end safely bring the headhurlers in (with the warlords close if he babysits his cav). Simply flatten his infantry with heads. If neccecary towards the end do a timed charge of the chariots with the headhurlers/remaining slingers (if neccecary even directly into a pike box). Pikes do insta kills chariots, but they where really not a problem for them if controlled well. As chariots really really fed cavalry up. The biggest issues brits had was against strong missile factions, every part of your army was weak to missiles apart fom the chariot archers. The warlords you also had to be careful with; and keep somehwat back if the opponents missiles focused on them. It wasnt a huge issue, you could rotate them/ have them in lose/ keep them moving ect. And the intimidation factor of the warlords was quite potent. Normally it would only take like 3 of your warlords to decimate all of the enemy cav in an open engagement. 1v1 If you did decently enough in the missile exhange you would crush through anything. Only possibly like a greek armored hop box or cartage sacred band (even better) could withstand it.* Paired with a strong missile faction brits where terrifying In team games because of it. *(In 1v1s good carth/greece players would start out wide open protecting their missiles, then when done decently enough with their own missiles and light cav; would box up so thightly that they had shields covering every direction. It wasnt frowned upon either, not like you started boxed up, 90% of the game you played open to protect your missiles. Infact starting boxed up would be so much worse, cant defend your missiles then; the wider missiles are spread the better they will do; and if full inf tardbox well... you would get rolled up pretty easily. The strat worked well against strong chariot/cav or missile factions, not like an auto-win. It came more down to skill.) Granted a really skilled egypt would more or less always rape that carth/greece strat. Regular barb infantry on the other hand didnt see much use, just cost way too much for their effectiveness. Only as meatshields or in the occasional rush would they ever popp up in mp.
The Germanic Spear Warband should be on here tbh. They are recruitable at first barrack, they are cheap, and they will win against for example both Hoplite Militia AND Levy Pikemen that hellenic civilized factions get at 1st and 2nd barrack. Take two stacks of them and you can literally conquer Italy and Greece in 10-20 turns, outperforming all their infantry head-on.
@K true. especially in the early stages of a VH/VH campain it is important to conquer your neighbouring provinces asap to establish a base, before their barracks start mass producing units due to cheating. even in the later games having too many cohorts and spartans can slow you down, especially if you are fighting in less developed areas. for me the retraining drawback is a larger negative than their increased unit quality is a positive. i think this is just a characteristic of the retraining system of RWT. it makes far more sense in shogun 2 to go for more high quality units since they are autoamtically reatrined at the same rate instead of manually where the requirements are the already existing correct buildings and a large enough population pool. i guess the quote of "quantity has a quality of its own" still rings true in RTW.
Wouldn't call Rhodians and Triarii underrated. If you can use them properly they're awesome, like them a lot. Rhodian Slingers have the highest ammo amount afaik from any unit so it's nice for prolonged skirmishes. Arcani are memes.
Triarii and Rhodian Slingers are in fact amazing. Barbarian Mercenaries are trash. Persian Cavalry is fine, just like any other horse archer unit and Arcani, as mentioned before, are memes.
@@kotzpenner The only 'complaint' I ever had toward Triarii in the campaign is that the moment you get a barracks big enough to recruit them it triggers the Marian Reforms... which means you can't recruit them.
@@tigerroar3749 I really love them. In the early game they can be an easy 240 pop boost for villages. They can eat up a lot of arrow fires and are dirt cheap. therefore, they are insanely good for offensive sieges, drawing all the enemy fire and attention on them. Plus with a decent general you can simply swarm the enemies and they can't be easily flanked when deployed in numbers bc of their unit size. The Barbarian calvalry is also veryvery neat in the early game. I love gallic mercenaries :)
I used to only really use regular legionaries and armoured hoplites rather than the more elite options for a subset of your reasons (time for legionaries and locations for armoured hoplites... Being able to retrain in more places is damn useful)
"Use your head to conquer yourself, use someone else's head to conquer the world." Barbarian: "... Ok." "wait wha sto...!" *Chop.* Barbarian: "Wow, this really worked."
A couple of important ones I'd add: Barbarian cavalry have an upkeep of 90, which is less than peasants and half the cost of most early barbarian infantry, can travel further on the campaign map and have really good attack and charge bonuses (the best for their level). I'd say for Germania, whose early units are crazy expensive and are so poor, this unit saved my campaign. militia cavalry can save a campaign as well, especially for the Seleucids who have to fight tonnes of fast moving and lightly armoured enemies. They don't do well at all against armour but being able to chase and catch horse archers whilst also being able to do significant damage to infantry with their javelins is huge. On the subject of legionaries, principes are about 50 upkeep cheaper than early legionaries, for only a few armour points difference. They're worth stocking up on so you have a cost effective army later on.
The reason I use early cohorts is because they are really essential for Julii campaigns because Gaul doesn’t have the towns to retrain the regular ones. But for the Brutii or scipios they are perfect.
the best strategy for any faction is simply to spam skirmish cavalry (or better archer cavalry if available) and surround in battle your enemy (first focusing on their cavalry, archers and skirmishers) then retreating when run out of ammo. you must be careful not to leave the armies without moving points (or they cannot retreat if attacked). you can Mongol your way till Rome
The early legionary first and legionary first cohorts should definitely be part of the discussion. The Eagle units provide a massive morale boost to your troops that are nearby it and since it's going to be in battle it already gives you an upperhand.
I build every stack around the first cohorts. In battle they are at the center of the line and when defending bridges and fords, they are always right behind the main line.
Honestly not a bad idea I was personally always upset that after the reforms it becomes impossible to retrain and recruit the early roman units, In most cases by the time the reforms arrive I end up having really elite early units that with time become depleted and unfortunately useless
People really forget about the armored hoplite? I've always used them as my standard infantry once I get them and the Spartans as an elite spearhead force.
If I had to make a top 7 it would include: Macedon’s Light Lancers Britannia’s Head Hurlers Greece’s Armored Hoplites Armenia’s Cataphract Archers Germany’s Chosen Axemen Warhounds of any type Long Shield Cavalry
hey norovo cool video. learned a lot of things i never knew about, like what makes someone good or bad against missile fire when digging deep in the numbers. have you done a video explaining the difference between light and heavy weapons? for example spartan hoplites use a light weapon where as macedonian phalanxmen have a heavy one?
There is no difference in battle. That difference only matters for the purpose of armory upgrades, and light is usually better than heavy because upgrades to light weapons are generally more accessible.
A video about underrated units, and you didn't even list the warhounds? They are so OP they are, in fact, a game breaker: i think the spiffing brit even made a video on them. They are basically a super-cheap (to upkeep) phoenix unit: the dog may die, but the unit is made of the trainers and so long as you keep them away from the front line, you have a regenerative unit that fight at full strenght fight after fight after fight. In the campaign they are basically an invincibile army.
I'm surprised you didn't list the Macedonian Light Lancers. Strong Tier 1 cavalry unit with a huge attack bonus that can wreck the early Roman armies with just Levy Pikemen.
Armored hoplites are typically the backbone of any Greek States empire I've ever made. Spartans are great, but I don't like sending them abroad as much and they eventually get relegated to just homeland defense. The armored hoplites are powerful enough to best most other infantry head on, and they're much more easily recruited and reorganized.
I'm not a multiplayer guy, and I will talk only in campaign map, but I think 2 turns units are too much rated to what they actually give Having 2 weaker units is overall better because you can cover more map and conquer faster. Also high end barracks will take the time you could invest in economics building to have money or smithing which are kinda more important than troops upgrade. Its even worse with the greek because Armored Hoplite are actually a suepr strong unit. The exception is Roman troop. Legionnary cohort have only normal moral while Urban Cohort are just completly broken. Thats a big nope in multiplayer battle. But again RTW is an easy game and one turn units rule to speedrun the game. Well in personnalized battle high tech units are the best. But I'm thinking campaign map
sure for sheer speed the basic ones are better...but players enjoy quality. i always used armored hoplites mainly because the spartan can barely be recruited anywhere...so it makes no sense. armored are extremely strong and cost effective. way more comfortable to use.
The most op unit in the game is the British general chariot unit. I once had one with gold experience bars in the campaign and sent him alone to face the Romans. Iirc I think it was my faction leader. This one unit would steamroll full stack Roman armies with autoresolve lmao. I don't remember if I manually fought battles with it as well during the steamroll, it's been too long. Still it was actually insane.
It's just wrong by the developers. Spartans should be just like the other Greek hoplites but with better stats since they were considered to be better fighters than the other Greeks.
@@szarekhthesilent2047 Indeed that's a true fact that they were evenly matched with the other Greeks. But there are many other facts that show that Spartans were better fighters with much more strict code of honour than the others. Some examples are the battle of Plataea versus persian army where 10.000 Spartan hoplites almost by themselves destroyed the enemy force which was 7-8 times more in numbers. An other example is that Sparta won the Peloponnesian war against Athens and of course the sacrifice of the 300 in the battle of Thermopylae.
Greek armoured hoplites are very accesible and it is relatively easy to train them with 3 experience early on. They are also very affordable and have a relatively low upkeep cost. I think it is the best unit in the game though. You can faceroll almost any battle, even if it's the only unit you train. The reason being, no one is gonna be able to field anything remotely capable of killing them. Their armour protects them from archers, their phalanx wins them every battle against cavalry and infantry. The only thing that can beat them is similar phalanx (depending on the difficulty) or better phalanx. The problem for the other factions is, they can't field any similar pikes as early as you can pump out 3 experience armoured hoplites. So it's the easiest way to win the campaign imho.
Played a campaign as Brutii and took Syracuse. A single Armoured Hoplite unit attacked the town and I had to sit there for an hour waiting for my tower to shoot them. I only had peasants defending and they had no way of entering the city. It was painful
Spartans are really good with all upgrades but so are armoured then to even tankier thanks for the video tho I didn’t know about these hidden armour piercing units
Ah, the head hurlers! In my first Brittania campaign (more than a decade ago) I found these units, and used them in every one of my armies. I'm ashamed to say I had completely forgotten about them!
When conquering barbarian factions, early legionary cohorts are the best choice. You can retrain them in barbarian barracks so you can keep steamrolling.
I think I would drop the armored hoplites and add dogs to the list. I haven't done a greek cities campaign, but I would think they would be the main line of your late-game armies, so they can't be underrated. Dogs don't seem to get used much and are an amazing source of free kills as long as you can keep the handlers safe. The big thing is that the dogs don't break, so you can use them to pin down enemy generals and then focus all of your archers on them. Plus, they only cost 60 upkeep. They're also great when you're attacking wooden walls. You can send the dogs in first to wear down the defenders and make space for your troops to get in.
I have just discovered Britannia in Rome Total War. The head hurlers are effective against the Germanic Tribes (and their phalanxes) early on. I was shocked to see how effective they actually were. That said, they are on foot which makes them vulnerable to, not only archers, but cavalry inits as well who can easily run them down, especially since they need to be extremely close to the enemy front line to throw their heads at them. But they can route any unit in like 3 head volleys, so I respect your rating, here. I would say, however, after just discovering this about Britannia, that the light Chariots are not totally useless. Yes, under prolonged melee, they do tend to break apart die rather quickly. But they are actually very similar to the eastern horse archers in the game. You can take down an entire Germanic army in the game, or any army that is lacking long range missiles with like 8 units of these troops. They are also very effective in causing unit routes. So even after they have expended all their arrows, you can charge the back of spearman and umit'll probably cause them to route (if any remain). If you are used to using horse archers (of the east) then light chariots are basically the same thing but with an extra shock value.
They are excellent. They form the core of the most important Carthaginian armies with other units like Poeni Infantry, slingers, various mercs and cavalry filling up the rest of the slots. They are important especially for Carthage which doesn't have a ton of great infantry. Really, only Poeni Infantry and Sacred Band fit the bill. Yes, they may take two turns to recruit, but as I said, you don't need a full army of them. Three to five should usually do. The temple requirement isn't that big of a deal since law temples are all-round good buildings to have in any settlement.
Can you do a video on the breakdown of the stats of units? You mentioned how defense skill protects against melee damage so does the shield protect against arrow damage and armor protects against both? Also I see axes and blunt weapons ignore armor which is cool. Is the math one for one? One armor reduces one point of damage?
I mean lets go back in time.. about 2000 - 2300 years. You are a Roman soldier with great gear, a big a** shield, helmet and chest armor out of iron plates and you have to fight against naked painted guys screaming at you, armed with a dagger and some heads. Now you get in to the turtle formation but wait, one head of the babarians just breaks the shield of your brother in arm next to you leaving him on the ground. In his chest sticks a head! Now he has two heads but no one is working because he got killed by it. :D
Falxmen are my favorite underrated unit when playing Thrace. Only being level 2 and they cut through anything. Just keep them attacking and take out archers with aux cav in charge mode.
Never recruited any Spartans in my campaign. It is difficult to reach the level and reinforce the unit when they are damaged. I always used armored hoplites in all the armies
I’m in a VH/VH campaign as Germania right now. The head hunters are taking out my Warband at a rate of 20 kills per volley. And if I’m able to route them, I’m lucky if I can catch up to them with my Barbarian Light Cav. It’s insane.
I only ever used Urban Cohorts for the civil war to take italy against all the lower tier stuff the other families would have also the time requirement is offset because I don't really plan on using them except to just blitz down italy so they can stew in the pot a while.
Imho britannias light chariots are the most underrated. Yes, they are not that easy to recruit, but apart from archers (which you wont face early on) they just shred everything. Even a group of 3-4 of those things can take medium sized armies, sometimes without any losses. Its insane how well they do vs both light infantry and cavalry, even generals get slapped (talking about campains, not PVP).
I also think about legionaries and armored hoplites similar to how you do. I strongly dislike the vulnerability of Spartans to arrows to the extent that I prefer Armored as the backbone of the army. The AH are the most impactful unit in the game as you build one tier of barracks to Sparta and start rolling this top tier unit, on turn 5. You can roll over everything that early.
Um... I have always been under the impression that everyone uses them in campaign. Who wouldn't purchase the best possible one-turn-to-recruit units ? Especially for the Greeks lol since armored hoplite is probably the only decent thing that you can recruit once you leave Greek territories. In fact, I never even bothered with spartans in my Greek campaigns (but I use full stack of spartans for that 50th settlement battle though)
As with all Total War games, you have to balance having superior troops over having an army that can easily be replenished and keep pushing and being retrained. I usually ended up spamming Hastati/Auxilia and relying on cavalry flanks to carry me, as those damned barbarian towns are never developed and having any units beyond them often was unreliable and meant for long protracted wars where I needed to send reinforcements (the one unit per settlement per turn also made this issue more prevalent, thankfully Shogun 2 onwards allowed replenishement over time for all units).
"Underrated units players should use more." Nr 3 Armoured Hoplite. *Me looking at the eight stacks currently being shipped across the sea.* More you say? Hm... Maybe.
I'd as far as to say that, in campaign, Spartan Hoplites are useless. Their stats make them better at one thing only - fighting other phalanx units face to face (fighting other melee units is a non-issue, they won't be able to properly get through the spears anyway). But... that isn't how you are supposed to fight those, and for everything else, Armored hoplites are better. And most importantly, even if we ignore issues with Spratans only training in some places, one of the most important things in campaign is how good your army is at not taking losses. If you win decisively, but take moderate chip damage, you will only be able to fight a few battles in the field before having to retrain, and Spartans will take chip damage from enemy archers. Armored hoplites are really good at not doing that. So, Spartans cost far more, need retraining more often (and have it more limited) and are worse at being a wall of meat, which is the primary hoplite function.
That's why I hate the multiplayer where people just grind down their armies with no regard for losses, and a win is achieved when you have 100 men left out of 5 000, that's not a win, both lost. The one thing I think Spartans are better than Armoured at are clearing walls, but even then it's not cost effective and you can (and should) just move the siege towers/ladder to an undefended section.
Armored Hoplites are a must in any Greek campaign. I don't even bother with the Spartans, because they are a pain to replenish. And the Head throwers are a necessity to, in my eyes, they melt the infantry and can even put a proper fight when the have no ammunition left. You put some proper line infantry to tank the arrows, or use chariots to deal with the archers and you are set. The only problem that the Britans have is the lack of anty cavalry units, because come on, war parties suck ass.
I never used the Spartan hopolites much since they need to be built in Sparta and building only in Sparta slows down your unit production loads. I mean I build spartan hopolites in the cities where they cna be built but I usually spread them out in my armies with the vast majority of the units in my armies being armoured hopolites.
I would like to point out that with the legionairy units, by the time you get to them (if you try to get them legitemately and don't use the money, population and fast build cheats to get yourself the reforms by the second or third turn in the campaign) you usually don't really need to look at cost-effectiveness anymore since you have already conquered most of the world and are essentially just playing around for fun with the units you like the most. Still a very interesting analysis, though I myself mainly use preatorians and urban cohorts because of the previously mentioned reason. Also with pretty much every total war game my strategy is basically: hold the line with superior morale by having both high quality units and early on having generals fight a lot of the smaller battles mostly by themselves with only 1 or 2 other units as backup to get the morale boosting traits. Then just essentially attrition the enemy out of existance by holding my ground while the enemy keeps routing and a large amount of artillery units bombard the routing units to bits to keep them routing/force them to come to me in the first place, meaning most of the units on this list aren't really usefull for that.
I've always though that the Armoured Hoplites looks amazing. The reason why l always spammed them as a kid... and they were really good! The spartans was always "meh..." for me. Looked silly.
Indeed, the armored hoplites are the classic ancient Greek soldier. Spartans should look just the same. The figure on their shields should be the Λ (Greek letter for L) like the icon of Macedon in Rome which is completely wrong for them :P They did fix it in remastered, which is the star of Vergina.
Headhurles I think arent really overlooked its more like javelines in General need a lot more micro than any other unit in the game to be really effective. Cav is king for obvious reasons, archers are your second because they are easily protected, have tons of ammo and will always have a target to fire on. Javelines though (due to their low ammo) need to fire at specific targets to be effective and have short range and ideally want to fire in the back of units so the shields are negated, all of that while beeing defended by infantry and or cav which imo is when done well incredibly strong but also tiring.
Would be cool that head hurlers could get some ammo back for running down fleeing enemies... I just use them to tilt battles in my favor and kill fleeing enemies... you know, the coward chase...
In many cases the elite units are really not necessary to win a campaign. It's not hard to win a campaign using pre-Marian units, for example (the greatest difficulty is being able to recruit enough of them before the reform hits ;o) ). Some factions have it easier than others, though. Carthage's early infantry is quite poor especially considering they face the Romans early on. Even so, their campaign became a lot easier when I noticed the main strength of Carthage lies in their cavalry.
I’m playing as Carthage right now, and yea their infantry is bad, but Libyan spears are not too expensive and work well as an anvil. The key is to bring 3-4 cavalry units and rear charge the line on one flank. I like to have one flank anchored with the more elite peoni or sacred band and then just roll up the other flank with cav or Iberian Infantry.
Armored hoplites are straight up better than Spartans. Cost, time to recruit, not limited to Sparta, better defense which is honestly more important since only ranged units can counter you when you go hoplites. Even LOOKS :). Attack is pretty dope for spartans but i dont think it is anywhere near worth it.
