DIVIDE ET IMPERA 10 ESSENTIAL BATTLE TIPS! - Total War: Rome 2 DEI Guide

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

Overall absolutely beast tips. All good tips to practice.

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.

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

Best battletips: get elephants

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?

What exactly are the differences between the hoplite phalanx and shieldwall formations?

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

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

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.

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.

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

"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.

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)

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

Would you say the way battles function in DEI is better/ more fun/ more realistic than vanilla?

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.

Wish I'd seen this earlier - im playing as Rome, new to DEI and im on turn 182 and im still dealing with Carthage -.-

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.

my light spearman run away as soon as battle begins:D
flanking does not help much and the General seems unbeatable on hard

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.

Me watching this in the middle of my Sparta campaign with entire armies of Spartan hoplites: 😬

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.

What version is this ? The units look amazing

As a Greek faction what would you recommend for army comp since they are hoplite and pike heavy

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.

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

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.

Ye against ai you can flank easy but when using pikes against ai its insanely strong

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

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.

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.

Does DEI play well with other mods

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.

which graphical mods do you use? especially the smokes and dusts?

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?

gj

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.

as a greek faction you have to rely on pikes and hoplites and i find them really strong as long as used correctly.

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!

Awesome tips bro, thanks!!

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.

so.. if I am a pike and hoplite liver... am I doomed?

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

superb video, great tips

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!

and make sure the battle difficulty is on normal, otherwise your triarii would lose to barbarian spear levies.

The fighting method is not strong in this game ، shogun 2 the best

Elephants are a Cheat code