Your opinions on Royal Spartans

[Razorblade]

As Epirus, I always found myself being beat because of Sparta's Royal Spartans, so just to test how powerful they are, I sicked my whole army on a general and his band of Royal Spartans. It was a hopeless battle, but the Royal Spartans had pretty much single handedly butchered my army before the rest of the army even showed up. Has anyone else had an experience like this? In my opinion, Royal Spartans are OP, and I mean "300" OP, where a rag-tag band of heroes butchered a million Persians (very historical I might add). Just to reassure people, this isn't a "change it now, 'cause I don't like it' thread, this is more of a "am I terrible at this game?" thread. P.S. I'm more of a CKII kinda guy, I'm just playing this until Charlamagne comes out, so that probably explains the skill level.

[Grand Duke Notaras]

Interesting. There was a thread a few months ago where someone claimed the Spartans where not strong enough.

There are many things historically inaccurate about this game. But im glad it is. For example the Spartans use of Corinthian helmets is unhistorical for this time period but everyone likes them and they are cool.

EDIT: Many of the Greek factions which have been more accurately potrayed such as Macedon and Epirus end up looking very similar to each other. I guess portraying the Spartans a bit different at the expense of historical accuracy adds variety.

What difficulty where you playing on? i dont think your whole army would lose to a single unit of royal spartans. Did you have any skirmishers or missile units?

[Razorblade]

I was playing on hard, with mostly Hoplites, and about three units of Skirmishers (four if you count the Tarantine cavalry. I also had a unit of African War Elephants, which didn't last very long. As I said, my intention was to see if a large force could decimate a skilled unit, which it could not, even though the Spartans were completely surrounded by every kind of horror you could find in Greece (except the Spartans themselves).

[Grand Duke Notaras]

Based on your army's composition, this is what i would have done:

firstly use up the skirmishers & tarantine ammo , then charge with your elephants (and quickly remove them from the fight). Repeatedly charge your elephants until your satisfied with what they have done. This should soften them up enough for your hoplites to beat back.

[General Sherman]

always attack hoplites from the rear or flank. It doesn't really matter if they are Royal Spartan bodyguards, or a bunch of levied peasants, if they are hoplites and are in phalanx formation, only attack from the front to pin them in place for a flanking maneuver.

[Shadow of the SPQR]

Preatorian/oathsworn > Royal spartans.

[Aeternum]

Originally posted by Vasilefs Harry:

Based on your army's composition, this is what i would have done:

firstly use up the skirmishers & tarantine ammo , then charge with your elephants (and quickly remove them from the fight). Repeatedly charge your elephants until your satisfied with what they have done. This should soften them up enough for your hoplites to beat back.

That sounds more like a cooking recipe than a battle strategy.

[lil_tyke]

Flank strong spear units, I don't even tend to use missiles unless there is plenty of time.

[Spec]

As of the newest Beta patch all spear infantry units can fight swords units very well, but are not better than them. Royal Spartans for example can smash any lower tier swordsmen, they also can put up an equal fight with Praetorians and Oathsworn swords.
So Royal Spartans were ok before, but now they are "300"

[Grand Duke Notaras]

Originally posted by Aeternum:

Originally posted by Vasilefs Harry:

Based on your army's composition, this is what i would have done:

firstly use up the skirmishers & tarantine ammo , then charge with your elephants (and quickly remove them from the fight). Repeatedly charge your elephants until your satisfied with what they have done. This should soften them up enough for your hoplites to beat back.

That sounds more like a cooking recipe than a battle strategy.

hehe yeah i realised after i wrote it.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Here's how I approach Royal Spartans:

Artillery.

Seriously, if there was ever a time to have a couple Scorpions, or a couple Ballistas, it's now. Even Scorpions work wonders, because while Scorpions only can realistically hope to damage one unit at a time, the advantage is that Scorpion bolts pretty much kill whatever they hit (aside from Elephants). Just two or three Scorpions firing on Royal Spartans will be enough to whittle the unit down pretty drastically. Ballistas do the job just as well, so long as you rely on standard rounds (exploding rounds have less armor penetration, IIRC).

Without any artillery, the best you can do is to try to hit them with javelins. Slingers aren't worthless, here, but aren't ideal, and archers are not very good either unless you have archers that can use Heavy Shot. If you have javelin-armed horsemen, that works even better since you can run away if the RSs get too close.

But in terms of pure infantry combat, Royal Spartans are incredibly tough defenders. I find that Oathsworn and Praetorians are obvious candidates if need be, but Naked Swords, Painted Ones, and even Gladiators are all effective in decent numbers, because those units all get +20 against infantry rather than the standard +10 bonus that most melee units get against other infantry. However, when using the units I just mentioned, you absolutely cannot charge, because they all have less armor than usual and RSs get a charge-defensive bonus that will make their already high defense into a killing machine for the duration of the charge.

That's my experiences with Royal Spartans. Luckily, they are a pretty rare occurrence because of cost and tech requirements, but they are amazingly versatile, and charging anything into them is not recommended.

[Razorblade]

I just remembered my love of artillery when I originally played the game, my real issue is being pressed into trying to build a bigger army than Sparta (and wasting a lot of money in the process), so they can't conquer me at the beginning of the game, and I have to conquer Sparta early, or else Athens and Rome will join the "murder Epirus" party. Thanks for the advice though.

[Nick Naughty]

Pikemen, unless they have been nerfed in the beta patch.

[NotActuallyACat]

Pin them with a cheap unit from the front, then circle around and hit them from the back with melee infantry/javelins.

Hoplites are strong now but they kill and die slow, leaving you plenty of time to deal with them

[Pumis]

Originally posted by Spec:

they also can put up an equal fight with Praetorians and Oathsworn swords.
So Royal Spartans were ok before, but now they are "300"

Actually this was debunked in the official forums. The guy who made claim that Oathsworn lost was a guy who did use frenzy on Oathsworns before clashing with Royal Spartan. Other people tested without frenzy and noticed that Oathsworns did crush those spartans.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Pumis:

Originally posted by Spec:

they also can put up an equal fight with Praetorians and Oathsworn swords.
So Royal Spartans were ok before, but now they are "300"

Actually this was debunked in the official forums. The guy who made claim that Oathsworn lost was a guy who did use frenzy on Oathsworns before clashing with Royal Spartan. Other people tested without frenzy and noticed that Oathsworns did crush those spartans.

Lol, Wth are you talking about?
I never tried to prove that Royal Spartans could/would beat Oathsworn 1v1, no abilities.

I said they "put up an equal fight"
Which they do in fact in Beta 15, they will kill a lot of Oaths; but they won't win the duel.