What's up with the Hoplite?

[Helmling]

Do we know anything about it? The stats in the Features thread says it has the same strength as Spearmen...so, um, what's special about it? Did I miss something?

(I ask because I always play Greek and I want to know what I'm going to be dealing with.)

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Do we know anything about it?...

On Arioch's Civ5 site the Greek Hoplite appears as an over-strength Spearman.

 

[Olleus]

A basic spearman is only 1 strength better than a warrior? Why have they made warriors so powerful in this game? It looks like a warrior rush is an incredibly powerful strategy at the moment.

 

[stealth_nsk]

A basic spearman is only 1 strength better than a warrior? Why have they made warriors so powerful in this game? It looks like a warrior rush is an incredibly powerful strategy at the moment.

But it has bonus against mounted units, which is very helpful.
Also with the ability for cities to defend themselves, warrior rush doesn't look that promising.

 

[dra]

A basic spearman is only 1 strength better than a warrior? Why have they made warriors so powerful in this game? It looks like a warrior rush is an incredibly powerful strategy at the moment.

Cities defend themselves and (i guess with invention of archery) have attack range, add several more units like warriors and perhaps you can defend yourself against a bigger army. But warrior rush seems strategicaly viable enough to try it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Cities defend themselves and (i guess with invention of archery) have attack range, add several more units like warriors and perhaps you can defend yourself against a bigger army. But warrior rush seems strategicaly viable enough to try it.

Cities defending themselves are available without any additional techs. It was also said somewhere what only if barbarian will grow very much, they'll become a real threat for cities. So I expect 1-2 warriors will be not enough to capture a city.

 

[Kid R]

I would think a warrior rush is the first thing 90% of players will try when they start their first game of Civ 5 It would be very surprising if it was a game-winning approach.

 

[Olleus]

Hmm maybe not. But in any case, they seem strong enough to be able to defend you for a very long time. Getting archers/spearman in order to be semi competent at defending yourself seems like it will be a much lower priority than in Civ4.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Archers will be very important because they will allow you to have twice as many units involved in each fight

 

[AriochIV]

Hoplites at strength 9 are practically as good as Swordsmen but require no resources, and still (more than likely) have the +50% bonus against mounted units. Especially when combined with the +1 move, +2 strength Companion Cavalry, that seems to be a pretty formidable early one-two punch.

Early chariot archers on offense are going to be a terror. Early wars should be really fun again.

 

[Schuesseled]

I really like that warriors have a place beyond the first 20 turns, spearmen are better but only slightly, you don't have to go straight for bronze working or iron working in a game, which i think is nice.

 

[Lyoncet]

Sure an early warrior rush may be powerful, but you'll have to cut so many drones that if your opponent gets a bunker up before you can go to town on his SCVs you'll be at a serious economic disadvantage for the next 10-15 minutes until you can saturate your nodes.

Wait…

 

[Schuesseled]

i think "stop" suits that train of thought better.

 

[King Jason]

I really like that warriors have a place beyond the first 20 turns, spearmen are better but only slightly, you don't have to go straight for bronze working or iron working in a game, which i think is nice.

Meh, with the bonus to horses... an army of spears would be superior to an army of warriors even if they had the same strength. Because ultimately they'd be a danger to any mounted unit the enemy decided to put into the field.

The only real drawback is that for every 2 spearmen you produce, you could produce 3 warriors.

But given the choice I'd field solely spearmen at all times. There's no reason not to take advantage of the mounted bonus at all times. With warriors in your army, it'd have weak spots to cavalry. With all spears, your enemy would have trouble breaking past your lines with mounted units.

 

[JonoLith]

Sure an early warrior rush may be powerful, but you'll have to cut so many drones that if your opponent gets a bunker up before you can go to town on his SCVs you'll be at a serious economic disadvantage for the next 10-15 minutes until you can saturate your nodes.

Wait…

And seriously, don't even try it against Terran. They can wall off so effectively that most early pushes will simply be batted away easily.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The only real drawback is that for every 2 spearmen you produce, you could produce 3 warriors.

.

And that you have to research Bronze Working to get them. Sure spears are better long term, but maybe getting bronze won't be such an emergency situation any more.

 

[Lyoncet]

Meh, with the bonus to horses... an army of spears would be superior to an army of warriors even if they had the same strength. Because ultimately they'd be a danger to any mounted unit the enemy decided to put into the field.

The only real drawback is that for every 2 spearmen you produce, you could produce 3 warriors.

But given the choice I'd field solely spearmen at all times. There's no reason not to take advantage of the mounted bonus at all times. With warriors in your army, it'd have weak spots to cavalry. With all spears, your enemy would have trouble breaking past your lines with mounted units.

This is even more true given how CiV handles strategic resources. In CIV, there was about a 50-50 chance that your enemy would have access to horses, so your opponent was either saturated with cavalry (in which case spears were hugely important) or had none (in which case they were utterly useless). Whereas in CiV, since each strategic resource only gives a few units, we can assume that there will be many more SR nodes and therefore pretty much every civ will have access to at least one of every SR. So yeah, you're gonna want those spears.

[edit]And also to chime in to the original post's question: yeah Hoplites are going to be way good IMO. From the spear's 7 strength to 9, so they're almost as powerful as the 11 strength swordsman, which of course you can't field many of because a) they require iron b) the cost more and c) you need that iron for catapults (probably). So not only can you get near swordsman power really quickly, you can just skip swords all together and field cheaper, cavalry-killing, slightly weaker swordsmen and a much larger unit of catapults to make up for the small hit in strength.

 

[Schuesseled]

Meh, with the bonus to horses... an army of spears would be superior to an army of warriors even if they had the same strength. Because ultimately they'd be a danger to any mounted unit the enemy decided to put into the field.

The only real drawback is that for every 2 spearmen you produce, you could produce 3 warriors.

But given the choice I'd field solely spearmen at all times. There's no reason not to take advantage of the mounted bonus at all times. With warriors in your army, it'd have weak spots to cavalry. With all spears, your enemy would have trouble breaking past your lines with mounted units.

im not saying you'd never build spears, im saying warriors will be a little longer lasting, you can go for archerty and horseback riding before going for bronze working as warriors are now tougher, and axemen atrn't in.

 

[Lyoncet]

im not saying you'd never build spears, im saying warriors will be a little longer lasting, you can go for archerty and horseback riding before going for bronze working as warriors are now tougher, and axemen atrn't in.

Sorry for going off-topic, but this is one of the more epic misspellings I've seen on these boards.

 

[Ahriman]

Personally, I really like how Greeks and Romans are going to be classical era conquest machines, and Ottomans will be Renaissance-era conquest machines.

Having era-specific threats helps keep faction variation.