Nice guide. Definitely have to disagree about hoplites and phalanxes being weak, however - it is true that they are harder to learn and less versatile than heavy sword infantry, who are overall more adaptable, but they excel in the role for which they are intended. Calling them weak for the reason you give is a bit like saying that cavalry are weak because they're easily countered by spears, or never to use elephants in case the opponent masses javelins. Any unit is weak if it's countered or used poorly. You have to fight as the Diadochi did, essentially using hammer and anvil tactics (which is similar to what you describe). The hoplites or phalanx are the anvil to pin the enemy, and a few lighter troops guarding the flank, while the strong cavalry options available are the hammer, both protecting the flanks in a wider sense and hitting the pinned enemy in the flank and rear. Fold up the enemy's weaker side, start bending the line around and repeat the cavalry on the other side. It's certainly slower and more methodical than the charge focused heavy infantry style, but it's a different faction roster, stronger on the defensive than the offensive in battle, but paired with more tools like heavier cavalry, elephants and often better ranged units as their part in the 'combined arms' of the army, while the hoplites and phalanxes perform their role of holding ground and pinning the enemy while taking fewer losses than comparable melee units. I *will* say that an army consisting entirely of hoplites or phalanxes is pretty terrible compared to an army of entirely heavy melee infantry, though. In isolation the latter's much greater mobility will win out.
Well said. You can't think of phalangitai (pikemen) as a meat grinder like in vanilla, you have to look at them as a wall keeping the enemy fixed while you flank with companions (heavy shock cav) Hammer and anvil 101
I just started my first dei campaign with Massalia. My phalanx have held up particularly well against the sword armed celts I've been fighting. I'm at war with about 4 factions and I've only been gaining ground.
I agree they are not weak as such but besides just being harder to learn how to use effectively they offer absolutely abysmal results if you fail to cover the flanks or keep the battle line intact.
finally got a hang of how to play DEI. I was terrified of the phalanx for initially as they were impossible to rout and they even destroyed my principes in the long run. even when surrounded, the higher quality phalanx troops really hold out. over the period of playing, i favor certain cheesy ways to defend towns and you can just leave a phalanx town guards in a tight alley and they will do huge damage as the AI charge their cavalry HQ ahead of everyone else.
Well said, but even if I mostly play diadochi, I try to build my armies after that of Alexander the Great, as that force was more flexibel in the reserve. The diadochi relied to much on the phalanx. Alexander's lighter units like thracians were able to close gabs in the phalanx and he even had units for mountain warfare. Unlike the diadochi who were defeated because of that by the romans who used rough terrain to charge into the gabs. I also use the Taxis and Lochos unit combination of the alexandrian army. Always two chalkaspides units together in a Lochos and always three of these Lochoi in a Taxis. A front of 6 chalkaspides protected by hypaspistai and peltasts, will break every charge. But you can't be defensive as your units would be shot to tartaros. You have to go agressive against the enemy with your entire line, get them into melee as quickly as possible. At the end, the hetairoi and thessalians, sometimes also the sarissaphoroi will win the day and destroy the enemy. I love the diadochi armies.
I really don't understand why the most succesful mods (other than DEI) are made for Attila, when Rome 2 has a better engine and it is more polished and optimized.
@@FilipMoncrief Didn't know that. Then I have another question, why they released better modding tools for Attila when Rome 2 is bigger and more popular. :D
It's also a case of Attila had a lot more features that Rome 2 lacked which drew some of the modding community away from Rome. Praise the gods for DEI though!
The most successful mod is Radious then Wars of the Gods (most popular Rome 2 mod on Moddb)_ then DEI then Para Bellum. Attila does not have enough players although Medieval Kingdoms is very successful on Attila.
Armies: 1st Use always two armies together, so you will have more different units at hand. 2nd Have a levied army behind your two advancing armies to control the conquered land and to destroy rebellions. On missiles: 1st, slingers and archers have to be positioned after the initial skirmish behind the left flank to shoot at the exposed right of the enemy. 2nd Javelinmen, Bellybows and dart throwers have to be on the right flank, because of their high damage against shields. 3rd use them if possible to flank the enemy, peltasts can also be used to charge after they ran out of javelins. On melee infantry: 1st have a core of professionals. 2nd try and use historical battle tactics and unit formations. For example the pikes not in a line but in the square syntagma, as that will ensure that their morale will hold longer. Also use always 6 syntagmas as one large Taxis unit and never let a syntagma alone, always two of them in a Lochos, than a small gab for lighter units to charge through. Ensure that your pike phalanx is protected at the flanks by hoblites, the more elite the better. Have always light melee infantry as a second line to charge into positions of need. 3rd adopt historical tactic of your enemies if they are more effective. 4th use elite units at the left. The enemy will use theirs on the right. So you can counter their elite with your own. Cavalry: Always have melee or shock and missile cavalry. Use the missile cavalry on the left to defend your flank and destroy your enemy at the right with a massive charge of all your melee cavalry. Than flank, rout the skirmishers and destroy the entire enemy line from the back. Artillery: have always a unit of artillery with you. They lure the enemy into an assault. The AI will charge if you have artillery.
My roman legion composition in the core game is 4 x 3 x 4 acies formation (eagle cohort + 1 cohort = Historical double strength 1st cohort) w lines of scorpions and ballistae. 2 auxiliary cav on left, praetorian cavalry protecting Legatus on the right. Formation works perfectly w 2 legions combined into this pattern. Charging the first two lines breaks up formations well (e.g. phalanx walls) w the experienced cohorts to the rear and the Eagle in testudo (love that Eagle). A first line of 4 praetorian guards for the Emperor's legion w guard mode on and formation attack off is savage backed by formations of defensive armoured legionaries and results in what happened to the rebelling Britons at Watling (?) Street Attack, for Rome!
@@JoJoRogain sounds effective. I use 1 eagle cohort with 9 legionary cohorts as a core, when playing as rome. They also get 1 legionary cavalry as a standard unit. Than of course the legatus. The other 8 units are various artillery and auxiliary units.
in my current rome campaign I went for defeating enemies by working towards making heavy infantry focused units primarily hastati and principes, triarii are too expensive to maintain and require the hardest to acquire population. My armies are primarily hastati and principes with at least 4-5 velites as a skirmishing/flanking troop because Velites can also be used to supplement a frontline unit in melee combat. To fill in the gaps on the armies I will usually use whatever auxiliary troops are available from the region or I hire low rank units from italy and then replenish them using local populations. I use almost no cavalry because disciplined formation is OP ASF against low level enemy spear stack armies, who smash against your tight shield formations but ultimately fail to actually do any main impacts. I'm at war against carthage and I have not lost a single army using this strategy
That's an awesome strategy mate thanks for sharing! I'll be doing a Rome faction guide in the next few weeks so I'll be sure to mention you and this strategy if you're happy for me to! I think a couple of cavs couldn't hurt anyway though as it's always good fun to harass and draw enemy units from the main fight but that's just me :)
No probs man if you wanna include it I would be honored for that, Main reason why I dont run equites as well is for the same reason as the Triarii, they are expensive to maintain if they suffer casualties, and early rome is pressed for it's nobility and funding at first
I can't help myself from trying to make historical armies whenever I can, 4 hastati 4 prinipes 3 triarii 2 equites 3 velites and w/e merc I feel is needed for the current situation is my standard tactics early on. Later on it's always 9x legionary cohorts normally a mix between veterans and regulars and 1x first cohort making it a legion.
Def true about hoplites and pikeman. Playing a Sparta campaign and gotta use them wisely with fast moving sword and skirmisher units protecting the flanks and rear. I'm so use to playing as Suebi which is totally different style.
They are not weak, you have to use them as a shield. Block the enemy and kill them either slowly or by flanking them with lighter units or cavalry. Just make sure to present a closed line of hoblitai. Also, a charge of a flanking hoblite unit is extremely dangerous for any enemy. Use an agressive tactic while being in a defensiv formation. It's difficult but very effective.
It's like.... you knew I just downloaded the mod a couple days ago and was looking for this exact video. I searched for this like 2 days ago trying to figure out good army compositions in DEI and couldn't find what I wanted but here it is as if you knew it was needed.
The pincer manouver can also be used with full horse archers after depleting your ammo and will be the most effective way to do it rather than infantry
I did find out that changing the campaign by making armies have a max of 41 units in stead of 20 and reduce the max amounts of armies by half, this way even with a large empire (as i had with sparta owning everything from sparta to denmark) you will have limited armies (4 for me) and while they might be powerfull, if the enemy attacks with 2 armies you'll be outnumbered severely by thousands, battles will be more decisive, which can make the game easier and harder at different times. I love playing the game with DEI like this though
Playing as Rome the first battle you usually have is against Epyrus. I tried to recruit more soldiers but they managed to reach me just in time. I used my General to bait some of their soldiers which 3 of them followed me out of formation; a unit of javelin, heavy spears and a cav unit. That whole maneuver caused them to loose formation and some of his units charged my main force. Having placed a unit of heavy spearmen in the woods they remained hidden and pounced on their lighter foes. What preceded was like the battle of Cannae, not only did I encircle his army and killed 90% of his forces i also killed the General while I only lost 100 men.
I always build my diadoch armies around pikes. But I use historical tactics. The pikes have to be the center of your force, on the flanks defended by hoblites and the second line has to be light to medium sword infantry. Thracians are good for that. The left flank has to have stronger infantry protection than the right, as the right will field 4-6 shock cavalry units. Those will destroy almost every enemy cavalry in seconds and after that they are free to destroy the enemy army that was charged by the pike and hoblite line. The sword infantry meanwhile charges into openings in the phalanx line to protect them. Skirmishers are in this army more important for sieges.
Thank you !!!!was waiting for it..subscribers will definitely rise for this channel as you seriously work for your fan base..#best total war videos channel for me
I would also suggest to defend in your territory at the edge of enemies zone of control when outnumbered. Sometimes you can lose a battle while retreating your most important troops and then hit replenishment, which makes your defeated army stronger than remainants of the enemy on the next turn if they attack you.
In my last campaign, I used a relatively expensive but highly effective strategy when you have the resources to do it. It maintains a full stack but is divided into two armies. One with the infantry and archers, about 8 and 4 and the other composed only with 5 or 6 melee cavalry units to reinforce and, if possible, in an ambush mode. Once your first army is in melee combat, you charge from behind with the reinforcement, which is not expected in most cases by the AI. This works amazing, especially used by Barbarians against more organized armies like Romans or Greeks. Of course, separating the armies is risky, making them an easy target. This risk can be reduced by adding a couple of cavalry to the main force. The cavalry-only army normally can escape if attacked individually.
Can you please make a guide on the finer mechanics of using thureos spears and swords? What's the difference between having Thureos spears at the edges of your hoplite line vs thureos swords? As for army composition I prefer to go for a "generalist" approach. When playing as Makedon, I use 6 pikemen, 4 archers, 4 Greek Infantry, 2 citizen cavalry, 1 sarissa lancers, and two dart slingers. It's a combination that served me well, in battle I try to cinvce the enemy to charge into my phalanx wall, using my archers (whose range I make sure to buff to the point of outranging slingers with their base stats) to kill their javelinmen before they can come within range, and I also try to sue them to kill the cavalry and general units, the archers truly are a godsend when it coems tod ealing with skirmisher cavalry. When the army does come within attacking range, I use the Dart slingers shoot the more powerful units, and once they make contact with my pikemen, I manuever my cavalry carefully to either destroy the enemy cavalry, or if there is none, annihilate the ranged units that are left behind to shoot at me during the assault, I also often charge them while spear units are close by. When the units charges to the rescue of the archers and slingers, it's a tense moment of me waiting as long as possible to pull out to inflict maximum damage, if need be I use my ranged units to hold the enemy in place while I charge my cavalry behind them to finish them off. The archers are also incredibly useful for burning fortification walls and the arrow towers to cinders, it's a satisfying feeling making a wooden box go from four walls to three and removing all of their arrow towers too! Pikemen and Hoplites are absolutely overpowered, when they have backup and don't have any holes in their line. Pikemen are man mulchers, especially after the first minute of engaging a unit frontally with no gaps in the line, the enemy's armor stat just gives out and they take losses rapidly. Later on when one of my archers bit the bullet I replaced them with war dogs...they were way more chaotic on the field than anticipated, they were excellent for chasing down routing enemies but they just went everywhere!
@@TheTerminatorGaming I also just got artillery in my recent Makedon campaign, however before I truly enjoy it DeI just updated a few days ago, and in order to enjoy my campaign without a shocking drop in research rate I need to wait for the author of DeI halved research time mod to update his mod to the new version. That one always gets screwed over by DeI's updates, but thankfully he always makes sure to update and catch up.
And play the war intermittant pausing or slow motion. Because in normal life army divisions can decide what to do but in the game if you dont give movement your soldiers they stand and look around under attack.
I'm new to Total War in general and cant help but play with DEI so this is great content for me, informative and concise, I subscribed! I'm not sure if youre looking for suggestions but id watch the hell out of an Arverni faction guide. Love me some Gauls but have been in a little over my head while playing, i think, lol
Thanks for watching and for subscribing! 🙏 I’d love to mate! and welcome to Total War!! So excited for you dude there’s so much that’s good about these games 🍻
I usually follow a 10:5:5 ratio rule with civilized factions e.g Roma. 10 Infantry, 5 cav, 5 ranged. 5 heavy infantry units to hold the center, 5 light or medium units to hold the flanks and exploit openings in the enemy line. 2 missile cav to scout and harass targets of opportunity and assist heavy cav with anti cav manuvers and flanking manuvers, 2 heavy cav + general for anti cav and flanking. 2 jav units for anti heavy infantry and elephant roles as well as melee flanking. 1 to 3 archer units for fire arrows or 1 archer and 2 slingers. This comp works pretty well against anything you throw at it. Also for phalanx users you definitely want to support your flanks with some strong infantry that can hold out long enough for your cav to defeat enemy cav and get those rear charges in. I find light hoplites ideal for this role but the the trick with them is to have them hang back slightly so that enemy ranged units dont focus on them, move them into position right as your line meets theirs.
Good stuff. I agree hoplites and phalangites are vulnerable to flanks even more, which is as it should be. Historically, if they were flanked they almost immediately retreated or surrendered to avoid unnecessary casualties. Thing is, that’s the entire point of the rest of the Hellenic infantry roster. Thureos spears and swords are specifically supposed to be mobile and guard the flanks of the phalanx. Same with their “light hoplites” which you’ll notice don’t have the phalanx ability. For Greeks cavalry should be your flankers and the sword armed infantry or even light infantry like the peltasts (who often do better than expected in melee against light and medium troops) guard those flanks. Another tactic I see almost no total war players use is to refuse the line. That’s pretty basic since it was devised by Megos Alexandros. Excellent example of this tactic is in the film Gettysburg when Col. Chamberlain uses it defending little round top, he even specifically names it for his officers.
Letting newer players know which this guide failed to mention, with phalanx/hoplite units engaged with enemy units you can double click the enemy unit your hoplite/phalanx unit is engaged with and have your troops push into them killing them at a higher rate then sitting statically whilst they advance forwards, this is called the push of pikes and is micro management intensive when you're in a big battle. It can however lead to you pushing too far into the enemy lines and thus be out of position leading to the enemy attacking your sides and causing more injury then advancing was worth or even making them buckle and break. Tactically, this can be used to break weaker units in the enemy front line or other wise force the enemy line to suffer extensive causalities whilst engaged with your pike frontline. A pro tip; if your archer/missile unit has focus fire in where they can focus on a certain area that you designate, use that in conjunction with a push of pikes double click to break units and thus open a hole in the enemy front line for exploitation.
Well I finished the game at legendary diff using massivley pikeman, 2 hoplites, 2 heavy inf, 3 archers, 4 heavy cav inc general and a siege unit. Pike phalanx is the best!
I find a trick in dei,i dont know if this a trick or exploit When you besieged in a walled settlement,in battle place you defensive unit(like spear,hoplite,anything that have fix formation)stack them in one gate they attack(if you manage to destroy the ladder and siege tower) When the AI broke the gates they will always committed all they froces in that one breach Now here the trick,when you stack like 5 or 6 unit with fix formation ability when the AI mass charge all their unit,due to the tight gate way,the AI unit pathfinding is always squeeze much as they can,when contact you fix formation (such hoplite wall) the somehow can't do attack animation,and due to the narrow gate,this trigerred the attacking unit to always in moving formation,in the middle of mass melee,this resulting the unit suffer rear damage,and could be a killing ground I did this in my sparta campaign when besieged at the city of athen by rome,only suffer 300 so losses while rome lose the entire 2000s army
Im playing as the romans and using 5 units of the k-9 handlers to counter the ridiculous amount of carthiginian cavalry. Its going pretty good so far because i use the dogs to buckle them down and use my equites or crappy rorarii to finish them. The dogs are excellent agaisnt missle cav
Another thing about hoplites & pikes is that they are a way to just say 'no' to an enemy being in a certain area. They simply can't be attacked profitably from the front, which is their strength. Any army that is relying on a frontal charge against them just loses, and if you try to envelop as a pincer then you've split your army in 2. Pikes or hoplites alone with no support are bad, but so are heavy infantry, just slightly less bad. I think the point of the game is combined arms, any unit type with no support isn't really achieving its potential.
thank you so much, with COVID raging in my country, i have more time at home, and just found DEI as a way to kill time. and just at this time your guide vid just appears on my YT page
Subbed! I would love a Atropatkan guide, but as you have a campaign with them I got what I want and hope it drags on for a little while :) So my request would be Getae or Ardiaei 🏺
Welcome to TERMI-NATION! (Something I'm playing around with) thanks for the sub mate! Yep I'm planning on continuing the Media campaign just got lot's going on. I will absolutely have a look at either Getae or Ardiaei for you!
@@TheTerminatorGaming nice to hear and very nice wordplay ^^ Media is just such a versatile and cool faction, but with the Getae campaign is always hard. But the team changed their reforms so it should be a little easier :) Ardiaei are always hard because of Rome (considering I play on very hard), they always seem to declare war after or during destroying Epeiros.
One thing, in my DEI campagn with Rome, Carthage never accepted peace treaty, I dont know why. I beat them out of sicily and corsica, then out of Iberia, then I'm invading Africa, this in 100 turns or more, they never accepted peace, its like having all 3 Punic Wars in 1. It was a bit strange, i think they should have the AI to be more lenient when it comes to making peace after losing a few battles.
Carthage finally decides to sue of peace when all they are left with is half of spain with nearly no army or navy left. Of course naturally by this point I refuse the peace offer as I'm so close to crushing them. Even their erstwhile allies turned on them and allied with me (Rome).
I disagree about the quantity beats quality part I have had multiple battles where I was outnumbered but won because my hoplite, galatian and sparbara line ended up holding infantry lines double the size and just allowing my cav and peltasts to rampage On the other hand I have had multiple roman infantry units that I pinned, charged with heavy cav from behind and peppered with missiles and still they didn't go down. And the melee troops were themselves heavy and elite
Disagree, 3 principes, 5 hastati, 4 slingers (switch to 2 slinger 2 archer when available) 2 peltasts, 4 cav start with Equites and then get Gaulic heavy cav or Greek shock cav, and 2 axe infantry Principes up front, hastati behind, in checker board pattern, have gaps between each principe that a unit of hastati can squeeze through. Pick a side before the battle even begins that will be your hammer, peltasts behind your axe infantry with all cav on to the left to right of them. Slingers on the outskirts of your formation behind your furthest out hastati (allows for quick positions to shoot the flanks of enemy formations, turn off auto fire and choose targets carefully Send cav out immediately and quickly to the left or right so they will be at the sides of the battle, and boom, win every early engagement
Any army will crumble when getting flanked not just pikes/spears. At least with pikes you're almost guaranteed to hold your front line, something that you can't rely on with with med or heavy inf unless your opponent has a weak front line. if your army is getting flanked then you goofed up big time and the rest of your army probably isnt doing their job properly, dont blame pikes and spears for that as they're most likely doing their job well.
Hmmm not sure i agree- my favorite comp would go smth like this- general if possible shock cav, if not then the heaviest infantry available, then 4-6 cav units, if you go for 4 then go shock cav, if you go for 6 do 4 heavy cav and 2 light with good speed stat especially to chase skirmishers. If possible go for 8 to 10 hoplites and phalangites, phalanx is preferable as it is more resilient, though it doesn t get the kills a hoplite unit gets. Phalangites seem to be more resilient vs missiles too. Then the rest I would go sword or axe infantry, preferably good melee stats and speed. Would never recommend skirmishers, would rather spend on melee troops or even some molossian war dogs. With this kind of comp you can beat armies that outnumber you even 3 to 1 easily, though that depends on the way the AI behaves, where their reinforcements are coming from etc. If you play a barbarian faction I would be very careful about the fights I pick, you don t want to be outnumbered to heavily- no shock cav for the most part and infantry that is comparable to the AI s. Edit- elephants are indeed really useful, especially when flanking. when dealing with them remember that a hoplite unit in phalanx has a 19 bonus vs elephats, no need for the javelins. A hoplite unit that doesnt get outflanked will last good minutes before it breaks in prolonged combat, a javelin unit is good for 6 volleys and then they re done
Pike and holplies are definitely not week. Yes you can flank them in the field. But good luck taking forts and citys whit hoplites supported whit archers or slingers
ROME 2 DEI is a great mod where more in depth for politics, population, supplies for army, weather factor etc where wish was more indepth for these factors. however for me doesn't address two of the most fundamental issues in the grand campaign. this being the lack of towns and cities in the grand campaign map. there are keys towns and cities that need to be added. they are in certain campaigns like caser and gaul, rise of the republic and wrath of Sparta/ Greece but this those campaigns only deal with a small part of the known world. i know what the response going to be that the game only allows a certain amount of town and cities but still it needs to be sorted. the other factors that ties into the amount of town and cities is the deck of units in each army. where can only recruit 20 units in a pack. with the pack being in effect a legion and we all know how big a legion was. the standard thing is to increase the amount in each unit but with that you lose maneuver, there is a mod i used a while ago where you could increase the units from 20 to 70 units or more in a pack but with that due to the lack of cities and towns you cant support multiple legions that size.
Best tactic: infantry (usually spears of some sort) hold the enemy in place while cav flank and kill archer before charging the rear. Works with almost any faction, even with crappy cavaly. If enemy have better cav than you, then sprinkle in some lighter spearmen with your cavalry.
Cool, thanks for tips! Do you know how to turn back your unit quickly? Lets say your pike unit is in melee with opponent unit and you see that some cavalry unit is about to charge this unit from behind, how to turn this pike/spear unit so that it doesn't lose its formation and meets cav face to face?
Hi mate, pikes, spears and hoplites when in their formation are too slow to turn around and face a cavalry charge that’s their primary weakness. So my advice is don’t let them get flanked from the rear 🍻
@@TheTerminatorGaming Yeah, I kinda know that, I actually dont like playing with phalanxes or pikes. To make you understand better that's why I used pikes as a exempel. What I'm looking for is one move wich is posible in vanilla I know that for sure, because HeirofCarthage mentioned it long time ago, and Im wondering if its posible to do in DEI with any type of unit, just change direction of unit instantly, or it only applies to vanilla..
U can’t , u should maybe switch out of pike formation so it can still do some little damage to the cav. If u are using a pike faction u should have really good shock cav. U always need to have more cav than the enemy so u should hammer and Anvil
You dont know how bad i needed this video, because the longevity of spearmen on the battle field in the begining is ridiculous along with the fact ranged units dont do shit
how do you get missile cavs as rome? fighting Carthage is a massive pain since their Numidian missile cav constantly harass my battle line. furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.
No army is better than 4 cavlary and 8 phalanx and 8 archers so you hold the enemy by the phalanx and move your archers to be at the back of the enemy front who is holded by phalanx then focus fire on 1 unit from their back till they are finished or till they flee the battle then focus on another unit and so on till you kill most and flee the rest of the enemy army with least losses and you can also chase the fleeing army with cavlary to maximise enemy casualties ( dont forget to clear the archers way before moving them and kill all ranged or reserve units of the enemy so that your archers are not troubled by melee attack and do it only when you have cavlary superiority so that you are not countred by enemy cavlary so make sure to finish enemy cavlary first ) Tell me do you think this is good tactic or no and why?
Hi mate thanks! If you look at my Rome 2 Graphics guide I generally play around with various different combinations of the mods I use there. I always use Orbis Terarrium, Orbis Aqua, Better Cities and Ancient colours for reskins :)
Question?: The Terminator are you part of the developing team for the DEI mod? Cause it seems most of all of your Rome 2 stuff is devoted to DEI mod. If you are then it explains it. If not then how about covering some other mods for Rome 2 like Wars of the Gods, Para Bellum, Hellenika, etc.
Hello mate! I am not part of the team I just love DEI and making videos about it :) I will start expanding out more though and make videos about the mods you’ve mentioned and more!
If players insist on using pike units, use the Royal Peltast pikemen. They are much faster and very aggressive. They can literally kill faster than most Pike-armed infantry. The one thing though, is that they're only found in few factions. Mainly Hellenistic ones like Antigonid Macedon or Ptolemaic Egypt. You won't able to find them elsewhere nor be able to recruit them in your own faction other than the ones said. The other con is they are very micromanageable. Use them charge an enemy unit. But at a given moment you have to turn on their pike formation to be fully effective. Link for more information on the Macedonian Peltast Pikemen m.ua-cam.com/video/hQYwpnfwdxY/v-deo.html&t=
"Quantity over quality". definitely not. had a battle with 3600 Romans vs ~8000 Veneti. they had more and better cav, but their infantry was dog water. i won with like 1600 casualties, 4000+ on their end. the determining factor was that higher quality units are disciplined and stay even after your general die, their entire force practically crumbled after their general died. it was an awesome battle.
Did you get flanked? Enveloped? What I mean by quantity vs quality is DEI has massive morale penalties for flanking so against superior numbers an army will usually always lose simply because it will get surrounded. Unless of course AI is being stupid, the smaller army corner camps or.. what is there something you did in particular?
@@TheTerminatorGaming my infantry line was shaped like a set of stairs to make it longer without overextending it. kind of like Alexander at Gaugamela. i put my weakest infantry, notably the "Pezoi Brettioi" which don't have disciplined or a defensive formation, in the center where they'd be less likely to be flanked. Principes on the far flanks, Triarii in there as well. cavalry split evenly on the flanks with skirmishers on the left. eventually their general got behind my lines, which allowed me to kill him. my general also died but because of the disciplined trait (except the Pezoi) it didn't really matter. eventually my cavalry was wiped out but not before reducing their cav to 1 unit, and breaking their right flank. after that i just rolled up their line. I've found that as long as your infantry are in the "Defensive Formation" stance they can withstand a lot of punishment. a LOT, of punishment.
I've been playing medieval kingdoms 1212 ad, trying to get a campaign going as trebizond and man, is it difficult haha! The seljuks just rush me Everytime with a nearly full stack and they just spam out horse archers... How do you deal with this...
Hey man I love MK 1212!! Horse Archers generally get taken down with your own archers. Have some heavy armour infantry soaking up the shots and use your ranged infantry to pick them off 🙌 I could absolutely do some MK 1212 guides if people are interested 👀
@@TheTerminatorGaming Awesome! thank you for the reply and the advice and that would be cool as! Medieval kingdoms definitely doesn't get enough attention, would love to see you do some guides for it, in the future :)
Yup chariots seem really bad in DEI. Only unit I have seen that approaches being decent is the Iceni Noble chariots, and even then their cost and upkeep is prohibitive.
Your advice against hoplites is incredibly misleading. Hoplites in phalanx formation are incredible if used correctly especially against the AI which is dumb as a rock. Winning a battle that's stacked against you is often a game of baiting a large amount of the enemy force to get stuck fighting a small amount of yours while you use your main force to isolate and kill the stragglers and hoplites are insanely good at doing this. If done right you can have 2 hoplites in phalanx holding down 5 or 6 enemy units for a huge amount of time while you deal with the rest of their army. Hoplites are also incredibly good offensively as you can charge an enemy, get the charge bonus and then turn on phalanx. Also as an aside the most important thing I wished you mentioned is figuring out the enemy army composition and where you have superiority. Knowing whether you have cav, missile, or infantry superiority is the most important factor in how you should plan your battle and theres a different way to plan for every scenario.
Hello mate! 1. I actually do say at the start that army composition is probably one of the most important things to figure out. My advice was specifically to analyse what the enemy generally fields in battle and adapt your army composition to it. That generally translates to strategy in the battle itself which I could’ve said but I think that’s implied. No 2 battles are ever going to be the same anyway. With any total war. 2. The Hoplites point is personal opinion. I did say ‘by all means use them to hold a line’ but they’re slow rate of turning and weakness to flanking make them not as reliable as other units that can do that and more. Also in an open field hoplites absolutely cannot hold 6 units that’s definitely wrong. Stacked backed to back in phalanx and they have their sides exposed. Either way mate this is my essential tip, if you don’t agree with it then no worries.
Fair enough i actually missed the bit at the start about analyzing the enemy army to build your army though i would probably add that AI army compositions can be varied and it's still important to check before each battle. The way 2 hoplites hold 5 or 6 enemies at bay is you can get the ai to do stupid things like frontally charging your hoplites with a bunch of units especially when you confuse them by microing your cav all over the place.
@@Yargasblarg1 True, but that's because the AI can't use Hoplites properly haha & you're totally right I tried to say at the start that using your missile cavs to harass the enemy from far can do you wonders but I should have made it it's own point. Cav play generally fools the AI into doing tons of silly things :)
@@TheTerminatorGaming if you flank a hastati or principe unit, they will rout. They will exactly do the same as a pike unit. But, here comes the but, if your phalanx is flanked, you have done a grave mistake before that and lost your own flanks. And at that point the battle is already lost. I have never seen a battle where the phalanx, hoblitai or phalangitai, were routed before the flanking units. They are the ones who hold out longer than all the others.
Another great vid -- I didn't realize Hoplites were so bad in general (flanked of course they are fooked). And me having just bought all the Hoplites I could find from conquered Epirius regions in my current DEI (1st) runthrough! Ah well, they shall go the way of the Bonzai soon enough then hahah. (edit: Just read the comments on Hops under mine and...well...hmmm)
The Pinger attack is completely stupid because you are using 2 groups to take down one so even you are pike or a legionnaire you are fuck up 2vs1 and the pike is cheaper.
Hoplites and pikemen are not supposed to be exposed on flanks. The greeks had special units to not let that happen. You emphasize way too much that. I don't agree. Exposing them is like exposing any other unit. A good ai or player will secure them. They are great units. Other than that good tips
I finally mastered macedon after 6 years. Aha. Pikes at the wall stairs at castles murders everything with minimum loss. When defending small settlements with no walls. I just disperse the garrison force to the edges of the map and set battle limit to 20 minutes and play at 3x speed while i close tab and watch youtube.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Nice guide. Definitely have to disagree about hoplites and phalanxes being weak, however - it is true that they are harder to learn and less versatile than heavy sword infantry, who are overall more adaptable, but they excel in the role for which they are intended. Calling them weak for the reason you give is a bit like saying that cavalry are weak because they're easily countered by spears, or never to use elephants in case the opponent masses javelins. Any unit is weak if it's countered or used poorly.
You have to fight as the Diadochi did, essentially using hammer and anvil tactics (which is similar to what you describe). The hoplites or phalanx are the anvil to pin the enemy, and a few lighter troops guarding the flank, while the strong cavalry options available are the hammer, both protecting the flanks in a wider sense and hitting the pinned enemy in the flank and rear. Fold up the enemy's weaker side, start bending the line around and repeat the cavalry on the other side.
It's certainly slower and more methodical than the charge focused heavy infantry style, but it's a different faction roster, stronger on the defensive than the offensive in battle, but paired with more tools like heavier cavalry, elephants and often better ranged units as their part in the 'combined arms' of the army, while the hoplites and phalanxes perform their role of holding ground and pinning the enemy while taking fewer losses than comparable melee units.
I *will* say that an army consisting entirely of hoplites or phalanxes is pretty terrible compared to an army of entirely heavy melee infantry, though. In isolation the latter's much greater mobility will win out.
Well said. You can't think of phalangitai (pikemen) as a meat grinder like in vanilla, you have to look at them as a wall keeping the enemy fixed while you flank with companions (heavy shock cav)
Hammer and anvil 101
I just started my first dei campaign with Massalia. My phalanx have held up particularly well against the sword armed celts I've been fighting. I'm at war with about 4 factions and I've only been gaining ground.
I agree they are not weak as such but besides just being harder to learn how to use effectively they offer absolutely abysmal results if you fail to cover the flanks or keep the battle line intact.
finally got a hang of how to play DEI. I was terrified of the phalanx for initially as they were impossible to rout and they even destroyed my principes in the long run. even when surrounded, the higher quality phalanx troops really hold out.
over the period of playing, i favor certain cheesy ways to defend towns and you can just leave a phalanx town guards in a tight alley and they will do huge damage as the AI charge their cavalry HQ ahead of everyone else.
Well said, but even if I mostly play diadochi, I try to build my armies after that of Alexander the Great, as that force was more flexibel in the reserve. The diadochi relied to much on the phalanx. Alexander's lighter units like thracians were able to close gabs in the phalanx and he even had units for mountain warfare.
Unlike the diadochi who were defeated because of that by the romans who used rough terrain to charge into the gabs.
I also use the Taxis and Lochos unit combination of the alexandrian army. Always two chalkaspides units together in a Lochos and always three of these Lochoi in a Taxis.
A front of 6 chalkaspides protected by hypaspistai and peltasts, will break every charge.
But you can't be defensive as your units would be shot to tartaros. You have to go agressive against the enemy with your entire line, get them into melee as quickly as possible.
At the end, the hetairoi and thessalians, sometimes also the sarissaphoroi will win the day and destroy the enemy.
I love the diadochi armies.
I really don't understand why the most succesful mods (other than DEI) are made for Attila, when Rome 2 has a better engine and it is more polished and optimized.
I believe Attila has better modding tools. But otherwise you’re totally right
@@FilipMoncrief Didn't know that.
Then I have another question, why they released better modding tools for Attila when Rome 2 is bigger and more popular. :D
It's also a case of Attila had a lot more features that Rome 2 lacked which drew some of the modding community away from Rome. Praise the gods for DEI though!
The most successful mod is Radious then Wars of the Gods (most popular Rome 2 mod on Moddb)_ then DEI then Para Bellum. Attila does not have enough players although Medieval Kingdoms is very successful on Attila.
The family tree and administrative system makes me prefer ancient empires but I always come back for dei’s population and unit diversity.
Armies: 1st Use always two armies together, so you will have more different units at hand.
2nd Have a levied army behind your two advancing armies to control the conquered land and to destroy rebellions.
On missiles: 1st, slingers and archers have to be positioned after the initial skirmish behind the left flank to shoot at the exposed right of the enemy.
2nd Javelinmen, Bellybows and dart throwers have to be on the right flank, because of their high damage against shields.
3rd use them if possible to flank the enemy, peltasts can also be used to charge after they ran out of javelins.
On melee infantry: 1st have a core of professionals.
2nd try and use historical battle tactics and unit formations. For example the pikes not in a line but in the square syntagma, as that will ensure that their morale will hold longer. Also use always 6 syntagmas as one large Taxis unit and never let a syntagma alone, always two of them in a Lochos, than a small gab for lighter units to charge through.
Ensure that your pike phalanx is protected at the flanks by hoblites, the more elite the better.
Have always light melee infantry as a second line to charge into positions of need.
3rd adopt historical tactic of your enemies if they are more effective.
4th use elite units at the left. The enemy will use theirs on the right. So you can counter their elite with your own.
Cavalry: Always have melee or shock and missile cavalry. Use the missile cavalry on the left to defend your flank and destroy your enemy at the right with a massive charge of all your melee cavalry. Than flank, rout the skirmishers and destroy the entire enemy line from the back.
Artillery: have always a unit of artillery with you. They lure the enemy into an assault. The AI will charge if you have artillery.
My roman legion composition in the core game is 4 x 3 x 4 acies formation (eagle cohort + 1 cohort = Historical double strength 1st cohort) w lines of scorpions and ballistae. 2 auxiliary cav on left, praetorian cavalry protecting Legatus on the right. Formation works perfectly w 2 legions combined into this pattern. Charging the first two lines breaks up formations well (e.g. phalanx walls) w the experienced cohorts to the rear and the Eagle in testudo (love that Eagle).
A first line of 4 praetorian guards for the Emperor's legion w guard mode on and formation attack off is savage backed by formations of defensive armoured legionaries and results in what happened to the rebelling Britons at Watling (?) Street
Attack, for Rome!
@@JoJoRogain sounds effective. I use 1 eagle cohort with 9 legionary cohorts as a core, when playing as rome. They also get 1 legionary cavalry as a standard unit. Than of course the legatus. The other 8 units are various artillery and auxiliary units.
in my current rome campaign I went for defeating enemies by working towards making heavy infantry focused units primarily hastati and principes, triarii are too expensive to maintain and require the hardest to acquire population. My armies are primarily hastati and principes with at least 4-5 velites as a skirmishing/flanking troop because Velites can also be used to supplement a frontline unit in melee combat. To fill in the gaps on the armies I will usually use whatever auxiliary troops are available from the region or I hire low rank units from italy and then replenish them using local populations.
I use almost no cavalry because disciplined formation is OP ASF against low level enemy spear stack armies, who smash against your tight shield formations but ultimately fail to actually do any main impacts. I'm at war against carthage and I have not lost a single army using this strategy
That's an awesome strategy mate thanks for sharing! I'll be doing a Rome faction guide in the next few weeks so I'll be sure to mention you and this strategy if you're happy for me to! I think a couple of cavs couldn't hurt anyway though as it's always good fun to harass and draw enemy units from the main fight but that's just me :)
No probs man if you wanna include it I would be honored for that, Main reason why I dont run equites as well is for the same reason as the Triarii, they are expensive to maintain if they suffer casualties, and early rome is pressed for it's nobility and funding at first
I can't help myself from trying to make historical armies whenever I can, 4 hastati 4 prinipes 3 triarii 2 equites 3 velites and w/e merc I feel is needed for the current situation is my standard tactics early on.
Later on it's always 9x legionary cohorts normally a mix between veterans and regulars and 1x first cohort making it a legion.
Def true about hoplites and pikeman. Playing a Sparta campaign and gotta use them wisely with fast moving sword and skirmisher units protecting the flanks and rear. I'm so use to playing as Suebi which is totally different style.
They are not weak, you have to use them as a shield. Block the enemy and kill them either slowly or by flanking them with lighter units or cavalry. Just make sure to present a closed line of hoblitai.
Also, a charge of a flanking hoblite unit is extremely dangerous for any enemy.
Use an agressive tactic while being in a defensiv formation. It's difficult but very effective.
It's like.... you knew I just downloaded the mod a couple days ago and was looking for this exact video.
I searched for this like 2 days ago trying to figure out good army compositions in DEI and couldn't find what I wanted but here it is as if you knew it was needed.
You are very welcome my man! Hope you enjoyed it and these tips work for you :)
The pincer manouver can also be used with full horse archers after depleting your ammo and will be the most effective way to do it rather than infantry
Good point mate!
@@TheTerminatorGaming Also whenever you can field 1 or 2 units of artillery
The faction guides are gonna be fire 🔥
Yes they are Filip, yes they are 🍻
I did find out that changing the campaign by making armies have a max of 41 units in stead of 20 and reduce the max amounts of armies by half, this way even with a large empire (as i had with sparta owning everything from sparta to denmark) you will have limited armies (4 for me) and while they might be powerfull, if the enemy attacks with 2 armies you'll be outnumbered severely by thousands, battles will be more decisive, which can make the game easier and harder at different times. I love playing the game with DEI like this though
How do you make 41 size armies???
Playing as Rome the first battle you usually have is against Epyrus. I tried to recruit more soldiers but they managed to reach me just in time. I used my General to bait some of their soldiers which 3 of them followed me out of formation; a unit of javelin, heavy spears and a cav unit. That whole maneuver caused them to loose formation and some of his units charged my main force. Having placed a unit of heavy spearmen in the woods they remained hidden and pounced on their lighter foes. What preceded was like the battle of Cannae, not only did I encircle his army and killed 90% of his forces i also killed the General while I only lost 100 men.
I always build my diadoch armies around pikes. But I use historical tactics.
The pikes have to be the center of your force, on the flanks defended by hoblites and the second line has to be light to medium sword infantry. Thracians are good for that.
The left flank has to have stronger infantry protection than the right, as the right will field 4-6 shock cavalry units. Those will destroy almost every enemy cavalry in seconds and after that they are free to destroy the enemy army that was charged by the pike and hoblite line. The sword infantry meanwhile charges into openings in the phalanx line to protect them.
Skirmishers are in this army more important for sieges.
Thank you !!!!was waiting for it..subscribers will definitely rise for this channel as you seriously work for your fan base..#best total war videos channel for me
Wow dude thank you for the feedback really appreciate! I’m pretty much still starting up but loads more to come mate! 🙌
Wish I'd seen this earlier - im playing as Rome, new to DEI and im on turn 182 and im still dealing with Carthage -.-
That s just DEI in general man, end turn simulator😅😅😅
I would also suggest to defend in your territory at the edge of enemies zone of control when outnumbered. Sometimes you can lose a battle while retreating your most important troops and then hit replenishment, which makes your defeated army stronger than remainants of the enemy on the next turn if they attack you.
In my last campaign, I used a relatively expensive but highly effective strategy when you have the resources to do it. It maintains a full stack but is divided into two armies. One with the infantry and archers, about 8 and 4 and the other composed only with 5 or 6 melee cavalry units to reinforce and, if possible, in an ambush mode. Once your first army is in melee combat, you charge from behind with the reinforcement, which is not expected in most cases by the AI. This works amazing, especially used by Barbarians against more organized armies like Romans or Greeks. Of course, separating the armies is risky, making them an easy target. This risk can be reduced by adding a couple of cavalry to the main force. The cavalry-only army normally can escape if attacked individually.
I’m looking forward to the Athens faction guide, but maybe wait for the rework that the DEI team has coming in the pipeline.
Good thinking mate thanks :)
Can you please make a guide on the finer mechanics of using thureos spears and swords? What's the difference between having Thureos spears at the edges of your hoplite line vs thureos swords?
As for army composition I prefer to go for a "generalist" approach. When playing as Makedon, I use 6 pikemen, 4 archers, 4 Greek Infantry, 2 citizen cavalry, 1 sarissa lancers, and two dart slingers.
It's a combination that served me well, in battle I try to cinvce the enemy to charge into my phalanx wall, using my archers (whose range I make sure to buff to the point of outranging slingers with their base stats) to kill their javelinmen before they can come within range, and I also try to sue them to kill the cavalry and general units, the archers truly are a godsend when it coems tod ealing with skirmisher cavalry. When the army does come within attacking range, I use the Dart slingers shoot the more powerful units, and once they make contact with my pikemen, I manuever my cavalry carefully to either destroy the enemy cavalry, or if there is none, annihilate the ranged units that are left behind to shoot at me during the assault, I also often charge them while spear units are close by. When the units charges to the rescue of the archers and slingers, it's a tense moment of me waiting as long as possible to pull out to inflict maximum damage, if need be I use my ranged units to hold the enemy in place while I charge my cavalry behind them to finish them off.
The archers are also incredibly useful for burning fortification walls and the arrow towers to cinders, it's a satisfying feeling making a wooden box go from four walls to three and removing all of their arrow towers too! Pikemen and Hoplites are absolutely overpowered, when they have backup and don't have any holes in their line. Pikemen are man mulchers, especially after the first minute of engaging a unit frontally with no gaps in the line, the enemy's armor stat just gives out and they take losses rapidly.
Later on when one of my archers bit the bullet I replaced them with war dogs...they were way more chaotic on the field than anticipated, they were excellent for chasing down routing enemies but they just went everywhere!
I'd love to mate :) I'll have a look! and yeah I mean this is the combo that works for me but each to their own :)
@@TheTerminatorGaming I also just got artillery in my recent Makedon campaign, however before I truly enjoy it DeI just updated a few days ago, and in order to enjoy my campaign without a shocking drop in research rate I need to wait for the author of DeI halved research time mod to update his mod to the new version.
That one always gets screwed over by DeI's updates, but thankfully he always makes sure to update and catch up.
Redownloaded the mod because of your videos and I'm enjoying the mod alot again
Hell yeah man! Glad to hear you’re back into it :) hope you enjoyed the video!
And play the war intermittant pausing or slow motion. Because in normal life army divisions can decide what to do but in the game if you dont give movement your soldiers they stand and look around under attack.
I'm new to Total War in general and cant help but play with DEI so this is great content for me, informative and concise, I subscribed! I'm not sure if youre looking for suggestions but id watch the hell out of an Arverni faction guide. Love me some Gauls but have been in a little over my head while playing, i think, lol
Thanks for watching and for subscribing! 🙏 I’d love to mate! and welcome to Total War!! So excited for you dude there’s so much that’s good about these games 🍻
I usually follow a 10:5:5 ratio rule with civilized factions e.g Roma. 10 Infantry, 5 cav, 5 ranged. 5 heavy infantry units to hold the center, 5 light or medium units to hold the flanks and exploit openings in the enemy line. 2 missile cav to scout and harass targets of opportunity and assist heavy cav with anti cav manuvers and flanking manuvers, 2 heavy cav + general for anti cav and flanking. 2 jav units for anti heavy infantry and elephant roles as well as melee flanking. 1 to 3 archer units for fire arrows or 1 archer and 2 slingers. This comp works pretty well against anything you throw at it. Also for phalanx users you definitely want to support your flanks with some strong infantry that can hold out long enough for your cav to defeat enemy cav and get those rear charges in. I find light hoplites ideal for this role but the the trick with them is to have them hang back slightly so that enemy ranged units dont focus on them, move them into position right as your line meets theirs.
Overall absolutely beast tips. All good tips to practice.
Good stuff. I agree hoplites and phalangites are vulnerable to flanks even more, which is as it should be. Historically, if they were flanked they almost immediately retreated or surrendered to avoid unnecessary casualties. Thing is, that’s the entire point of the rest of the Hellenic infantry roster. Thureos spears and swords are specifically supposed to be mobile and guard the flanks of the phalanx. Same with their “light hoplites” which you’ll notice don’t have the phalanx ability. For Greeks cavalry should be your flankers and the sword armed infantry or even light infantry like the peltasts (who often do better than expected in melee against light and medium troops) guard those flanks.
Another tactic I see almost no total war players use is to refuse the line. That’s pretty basic since it was devised by Megos Alexandros. Excellent example of this tactic is in the film Gettysburg when Col. Chamberlain uses it defending little round top, he even specifically names it for his officers.
Letting newer players know which this guide failed to mention, with phalanx/hoplite units engaged with enemy units you can double click the enemy unit your hoplite/phalanx unit is engaged with and have your troops push into them killing them at a higher rate then sitting statically whilst they advance forwards, this is called the push of pikes and is micro management intensive when you're in a big battle. It can however lead to you pushing too far into the enemy lines and thus be out of position leading to the enemy attacking your sides and causing more injury then advancing was worth or even making them buckle and break.
Tactically, this can be used to break weaker units in the enemy front line or other wise force the enemy line to suffer extensive causalities whilst engaged with your pike frontline. A pro tip; if your archer/missile unit has focus fire in where they can focus on a certain area that you designate, use that in conjunction with a push of pikes double click to break units and thus open a hole in the enemy front line for exploitation.
Well I finished the game at legendary diff using massivley pikeman, 2 hoplites, 2 heavy inf, 3 archers, 4 heavy cav inc general and a siege unit. Pike phalanx is the best!
Chalkaspides! Argyraspides!
I find a trick in dei,i dont know if this a trick or exploit
When you besieged in a walled settlement,in battle place you defensive unit(like spear,hoplite,anything that have fix formation)stack them in one gate they attack(if you manage to destroy the ladder and siege tower)
When the AI broke the gates they will always committed all they froces in that one breach
Now here the trick,when you stack like 5 or 6 unit with fix formation ability when the AI mass charge all their unit,due to the tight gate way,the AI unit pathfinding is always squeeze much as they can,when contact you fix formation (such hoplite wall) the somehow can't do attack animation,and due to the narrow gate,this trigerred the attacking unit to always in moving formation,in the middle of mass melee,this resulting the unit suffer rear damage,and could be a killing ground
I did this in my sparta campaign when besieged at the city of athen by rome,only suffer 300 so losses while rome lose the entire 2000s army
That was really educational. as im new total war player. Awesome work dude keep it up.
Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful 🙏
Im playing as the romans and using 5 units of the k-9 handlers to counter the ridiculous amount of carthiginian cavalry. Its going pretty good so far because i use the dogs to buckle them down and use my equites or crappy rorarii to finish them. The dogs are excellent agaisnt missle cav
Hoplites are weak when used by the AI, but they can be absolutely excellent if the player uses them and doesn't let them get outflanked
Awesome tips bro, thanks!!
Another thing about hoplites & pikes is that they are a way to just say 'no' to an enemy being in a certain area. They simply can't be attacked profitably from the front, which is their strength.
Any army that is relying on a frontal charge against them just loses, and if you try to envelop as a pincer then you've split your army in 2. Pikes or hoplites alone with no support are bad, but so are heavy infantry, just slightly less bad. I think the point of the game is combined arms, any unit type with no support isn't really achieving its potential.
thank you so much, with COVID raging in my country, i have more time at home, and just found DEI as a way to kill time. and just at this time your guide vid just appears on my YT page
Aww thanks dude! Glad to have helped :)
Subbed!
I would love a Atropatkan guide, but as you have a campaign with them I got what I want and hope it drags on for a little while :)
So my request would be Getae or Ardiaei 🏺
Welcome to TERMI-NATION! (Something I'm playing around with) thanks for the sub mate! Yep I'm planning on continuing the Media campaign just got lot's going on. I will absolutely have a look at either Getae or Ardiaei for you!
@@TheTerminatorGaming nice to hear and very nice wordplay ^^
Media is just such a versatile and cool faction, but with the Getae campaign is always hard. But the team changed their reforms so it should be a little easier :)
Ardiaei are always hard because of Rome (considering I play on very hard), they always seem to declare war after or during destroying Epeiros.
Yeah I love Media ❤️ I can definitely see Ardiaei being difficult. Bloody Romans! I’ll be sure to put a cool guide together for you 🙌
One thing, in my DEI campagn with Rome, Carthage never accepted peace treaty, I dont know why.
I beat them out of sicily and corsica, then out of Iberia, then I'm invading Africa, this in 100 turns or more, they never accepted peace, its like having all 3 Punic Wars in 1.
It was a bit strange, i think they should have the AI to be more lenient when it comes to making peace after losing a few battles.
Carthage finally decides to sue of peace when all they are left with is half of spain with nearly no army or navy left. Of course naturally by this point I refuse the peace offer as I'm so close to crushing them. Even their erstwhile allies turned on them and allied with me (Rome).
I disagree about the quantity beats quality part
I have had multiple battles where I was outnumbered but won because my hoplite, galatian and sparbara line ended up holding infantry lines double the size and just allowing my cav and peltasts to rampage
On the other hand I have had multiple roman infantry units that I pinned, charged with heavy cav from behind and peppered with missiles and still they didn't go down. And the melee troops were themselves heavy and elite
Great video!
superb video, great tips
Thanks bud!
Disagree, 3 principes, 5 hastati, 4 slingers (switch to 2 slinger 2 archer when available) 2 peltasts, 4 cav start with Equites and then get Gaulic heavy cav or Greek shock cav, and 2 axe infantry
Principes up front, hastati behind, in checker board pattern, have gaps between each principe that a unit of hastati can squeeze through.
Pick a side before the battle even begins that will be your hammer, peltasts behind your axe infantry with all cav on to the left to right of them. Slingers on the outskirts of your formation behind your furthest out hastati (allows for quick positions to shoot the flanks of enemy formations, turn off auto fire and choose targets carefully
Send cav out immediately and quickly to the left or right so they will be at the sides of the battle, and boom, win every early engagement
Any army will crumble when getting flanked not just pikes/spears. At least with pikes you're almost guaranteed to hold your front line, something that you can't rely on with with med or heavy inf unless your opponent has a weak front line. if your army is getting flanked then you goofed up big time and the rest of your army probably isnt doing their job properly, dont blame pikes and spears for that as they're most likely doing their job well.
Hmmm not sure i agree- my favorite comp would go smth like this- general if possible shock cav, if not then the heaviest infantry available, then 4-6 cav units, if you go for 4 then go shock cav, if you go for 6 do 4 heavy cav and 2 light with good speed stat especially to chase skirmishers. If possible go for 8 to 10 hoplites and phalangites, phalanx is preferable as it is more resilient, though it doesn t get the kills a hoplite unit gets. Phalangites seem to be more resilient vs missiles too. Then the rest I would go sword or axe infantry, preferably good melee stats and speed. Would never recommend skirmishers, would rather spend on melee troops or even some molossian war dogs. With this kind of comp you can beat armies that outnumber you even 3 to 1 easily, though that depends on the way the AI behaves, where their reinforcements are coming from etc. If you play a barbarian faction I would be very careful about the fights I pick, you don t want to be outnumbered to heavily- no shock cav for the most part and infantry that is comparable to the AI s.
Edit- elephants are indeed really useful, especially when flanking. when dealing with them remember that a hoplite unit in phalanx has a 19 bonus vs elephats, no need for the javelins. A hoplite unit that doesnt get outflanked will last good minutes before it breaks in prolonged combat, a javelin unit is good for 6 volleys and then they re done
I find playing mauyra is extremely easy if you can recruit elephants you can make short work out of every single AI army with 3-4 units of elephant
my light spearman run away as soon as battle begins:D
flanking does not help much and the General seems unbeatable on hard
Pike and holplies are definitely not week. Yes you can flank them in the field. But good luck taking forts and citys whit hoplites supported whit archers or slingers
Great job!
Thanks!
What exactly are the differences between the hoplite phalanx and shieldwall formations?
ROME 2 DEI is a great mod where more in depth for politics, population, supplies for army, weather factor etc where wish was more indepth for these factors. however for me doesn't address two of the most fundamental issues in the grand campaign. this being the lack of towns and cities in the grand campaign map. there are keys towns and cities that need to be added. they are in certain campaigns like caser and gaul, rise of the republic and wrath of Sparta/ Greece but this those campaigns only deal with a small part of the known world. i know what the response going to be that the game only allows a certain amount of town and cities but still it needs to be sorted. the other factors that ties into the amount of town and cities is the deck of units in each army. where can only recruit 20 units in a pack. with the pack being in effect a legion and we all know how big a legion was. the standard thing is to increase the amount in each unit but with that you lose maneuver, there is a mod i used a while ago where you could increase the units from 20 to 70 units or more in a pack but with that due to the lack of cities and towns you cant support multiple legions that size.
What version is this ? The units look amazing
Best tactic: infantry (usually spears of some sort) hold the enemy in place while cav flank and kill archer before charging the rear.
Works with almost any faction, even with crappy cavaly. If enemy have better cav than you, then sprinkle in some lighter spearmen with your cavalry.
Cool, thanks for tips!
Do you know how to turn back your unit quickly? Lets say your pike unit is in melee with opponent unit and you see that some cavalry unit is about to charge this unit from behind, how to turn this pike/spear unit so that it doesn't lose its formation and meets cav face to face?
Hi mate, pikes, spears and hoplites when in their formation are too slow to turn around and face a cavalry charge that’s their primary weakness. So my advice is don’t let them get flanked from the rear 🍻
@@TheTerminatorGaming Yeah, I kinda know that, I actually dont like playing with phalanxes or pikes. To make you understand better that's why I used pikes as a exempel. What I'm looking for is one move wich is posible in vanilla I know that for sure, because HeirofCarthage mentioned it long time ago, and Im wondering if its posible to do in DEI with any type of unit, just change direction of unit instantly, or it only applies to vanilla..
U can’t , u should maybe switch out of pike formation so it can still do some little damage to the cav. If u are using a pike faction u should have really good shock cav. U always need to have more cav than the enemy so u should hammer and Anvil
Just have a second line of hoblitai behind your pikes. They will do quick work with any flanking cavalry.
Me watching this in the middle of my Sparta campaign with entire armies of Spartan hoplites: 😬
😂😂
@@TheTerminatorGaming They can't flank you if you have enough to make a giant square!
You dont know how bad i needed this video, because the longevity of spearmen on the battle field in the begining is ridiculous along with the fact ranged units dont do shit
What if my cavelries are fewer than the enemies's archers, and if they have reinforced them with two medium spear infantry let's say?
Wait until the spearmen are away and charge. Or charge directly into the archers and retreat as fast as you can.
Being mad helps a lot in battle.
As a Greek faction what would you recommend for army comp since they are hoplite and pike heavy
how do you get missile cavs as rome? fighting Carthage is a massive pain since their Numidian missile cav constantly harass my battle line. furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.
You can get campanian cav in southern italy, but against numidians you are probably better off using slingers
Shut up Cato! XD
No army is better than 4 cavlary and 8 phalanx and 8 archers so you hold the enemy by the phalanx and move your archers to be at the back of the enemy front who is holded by phalanx then focus fire on 1 unit from their back till they are finished or till they flee the battle then focus on another unit and so on till you kill most and flee the rest of the enemy army with least losses and you can also chase the fleeing army with cavlary to maximise enemy casualties ( dont forget to clear the archers way before moving them and kill all ranged or reserve units of the enemy so that your archers are not troubled by melee attack and do it only when you have cavlary superiority so that you are not countred by enemy cavlary so make sure to finish enemy cavlary first )
Tell me do you think this is good tactic or no and why?
Would you say the way battles function in DEI is better/ more fun/ more realistic than vanilla?
which graphical mods do you use? especially the smokes and dusts?
Awesome as always. Which visual mods you use, Terminator?
Hi mate thanks! If you look at my Rome 2 Graphics guide I generally play around with various different combinations of the mods I use there. I always use Orbis Terarrium, Orbis Aqua, Better Cities and Ancient colours for reskins :)
Great video. Can I kindly ask what graphic mods are you using?
Hi mate 👋 of course! Check out this guide for what I use - ua-cam.com/video/CetfOLnzmw4/v-deo.html
Question?: The Terminator are you part of the developing team for the DEI mod? Cause it seems most of all of your Rome 2 stuff is devoted to DEI mod. If you are then it explains it. If not then how about covering some other mods for Rome 2 like Wars of the Gods, Para Bellum, Hellenika, etc.
Hello mate! I am not part of the team I just love DEI and making videos about it :) I will start expanding out more though and make videos about the mods you’ve mentioned and more!
and make sure the battle difficulty is on normal, otherwise your triarii would lose to barbarian spear levies.
^^
If players insist on using pike units, use the Royal Peltast pikemen. They are much faster and very aggressive. They can literally kill faster than most Pike-armed infantry.
The one thing though, is that they're only found in few factions. Mainly Hellenistic ones like Antigonid Macedon or Ptolemaic Egypt. You won't able to find them elsewhere nor be able to recruit them in your own faction other than the ones said.
The other con is they are very micromanageable. Use them charge an enemy unit. But at a given moment you have to turn on their pike formation to be fully effective.
Link for more information on the Macedonian Peltast Pikemen m.ua-cam.com/video/hQYwpnfwdxY/v-deo.html&t=
They are noble troops, way to expensive. I use chalkaspides. They do well enough.
Nice!
"Quantity over quality". definitely not. had a battle with 3600 Romans vs ~8000 Veneti. they had more and better cav, but their infantry was dog water. i won with like 1600 casualties, 4000+ on their end. the determining factor was that higher quality units are disciplined and stay even after your general die, their entire force practically crumbled after their general died. it was an awesome battle.
Did you get flanked? Enveloped? What I mean by quantity vs quality is DEI has massive morale penalties for flanking so against superior numbers an army will usually always lose simply because it will get surrounded. Unless of course AI is being stupid, the smaller army corner camps or.. what is there something you did in particular?
@@TheTerminatorGaming my infantry line was shaped like a set of stairs to make it longer without overextending it. kind of like Alexander at Gaugamela. i put my weakest infantry, notably the "Pezoi Brettioi" which don't have disciplined or a defensive formation, in the center where they'd be less likely to be flanked. Principes on the far flanks, Triarii in there as well. cavalry split evenly on the flanks with skirmishers on the left. eventually their general got behind my lines, which allowed me to kill him. my general also died but because of the disciplined trait (except the Pezoi) it didn't really matter. eventually my cavalry was wiped out but not before reducing their cav to 1 unit, and breaking their right flank. after that i just rolled up their line. I've found that as long as your infantry are in the "Defensive Formation" stance they can withstand a lot of punishment. a LOT, of punishment.
Fair enough :)
I've been playing medieval kingdoms 1212 ad, trying to get a campaign going as trebizond and man, is it difficult haha! The seljuks just rush me Everytime with a nearly full stack and they just spam out horse archers... How do you deal with this...
Hey man I love MK 1212!! Horse Archers generally get taken down with your own archers. Have some heavy armour infantry soaking up the shots and use your ranged infantry to pick them off 🙌
I could absolutely do some MK 1212 guides if people are interested 👀
@@TheTerminatorGaming Awesome! thank you for the reply and the advice and that would be cool as! Medieval kingdoms definitely doesn't get enough attention, would love to see you do some guides for it, in the future :)
Yup chariots seem really bad in DEI. Only unit I have seen that approaches being decent is the Iceni Noble chariots, and even then their cost and upkeep is prohibitive.
so.. if I am a pike and hoplite liver... am I doomed?
8:40 Sparta disagrees
Your advice against hoplites is incredibly misleading. Hoplites in phalanx formation are incredible if used correctly especially against the AI which is dumb as a rock. Winning a battle that's stacked against you is often a game of baiting a large amount of the enemy force to get stuck fighting a small amount of yours while you use your main force to isolate and kill the stragglers and hoplites are insanely good at doing this. If done right you can have 2 hoplites in phalanx holding down 5 or 6 enemy units for a huge amount of time while you deal with the rest of their army. Hoplites are also incredibly good offensively as you can charge an enemy, get the charge bonus and then turn on phalanx. Also as an aside the most important thing I wished you mentioned is figuring out the enemy army composition and where you have superiority. Knowing whether you have cav, missile, or infantry superiority is the most important factor in how you should plan your battle and theres a different way to plan for every scenario.
Hello mate!
1. I actually do say at the start that army composition is probably one of the most important things to figure out. My advice was specifically to analyse what the enemy generally fields in battle and adapt your army composition to it. That generally translates to strategy in the battle itself which I could’ve said but I think that’s implied. No 2 battles are ever going to be the same anyway. With any total war.
2. The Hoplites point is personal opinion. I did say ‘by all means use them to hold a line’ but they’re slow rate of turning and weakness to flanking make them not as reliable as other units that can do that and more.
Also in an open field hoplites absolutely cannot hold 6 units that’s definitely wrong. Stacked backed to back in phalanx and they have their sides exposed.
Either way mate this is my essential tip, if you don’t agree with it then no worries.
Fair enough i actually missed the bit at the start about analyzing the enemy army to build your army though i would probably add that AI army compositions can be varied and it's still important to check before each battle. The way 2 hoplites hold 5 or 6 enemies at bay is you can get the ai to do stupid things like frontally charging your hoplites with a bunch of units especially when you confuse them by microing your cav all over the place.
@@Yargasblarg1 True, but that's because the AI can't use Hoplites properly haha & you're totally right I tried to say at the start that using your missile cavs to harass the enemy from far can do you wonders but I should have made it it's own point. Cav play generally fools the AI into doing tons of silly things :)
@@TheTerminatorGaming if you flank a hastati or principe unit, they will rout. They will exactly do the same as a pike unit. But, here comes the but, if your phalanx is flanked, you have done a grave mistake before that and lost your own flanks. And at that point the battle is already lost.
I have never seen a battle where the phalanx, hoblitai or phalangitai, were routed before the flanking units.
They are the ones who hold out longer than all the others.
Good vid mate. Just a fyi it's pronounced "hop-le-tea" not "hop light" or "hop lite" Drives me nuts no one ever says it right.
Another great vid -- I didn't realize Hoplites were so bad in general (flanked of course they are fooked). And me having just bought all the Hoplites I could find from conquered Epirius regions in my current DEI (1st) runthrough! Ah well, they shall go the way of the Bonzai soon enough then hahah. (edit: Just read the comments on Hops under mine and...well...hmmm)
Ye against ai you can flank easy but when using pikes against ai its insanely strong
The general in like every battle against ai run in first and gets himself killed.
True :D But this is just in case that doesn't happen, also applicable to MP games
Best battletips: get elephants
The Pinger attack is completely stupid because you are using 2 groups to take down one so even you are pike or a legionnaire you are fuck up 2vs1 and the pike is cheaper.
Hoplites and pikemen are not supposed to be exposed on flanks. The greeks had special units to not let that happen.
You emphasize way too much that. I don't agree. Exposing them is like exposing any other unit. A good ai or player will secure them. They are great units.
Other than that good tips
Yes
I never use archers. I just use 5 horses and all heavy infantry
Fair enough mate :) Early DEI you can’t afford that really though :/ and thats what the guide is about :)
I finally mastered macedon after 6 years. Aha. Pikes at the wall stairs at castles murders everything with minimum loss. When defending small settlements with no walls. I just disperse the garrison force to the edges of the map and set battle limit to 20 minutes and play at 3x speed while i close tab and watch youtube.
Also fortifications allows me to take on 4 stacks with just one stack of pikemen and horses. Super effective
Cant lose because small settlements dont have victory points.
I used to get swamped by 4 to 6 enemy stacks as macedon and lose. But now I basically cant lose.
gj
The fighting method is not strong in this game ، shogun 2 the best