Illyric Heavy Hoplites

Summary
Heavy Hoplites are a heavy infantry brigade available to the Illyric faction group, and are the strongest infantry available to Illyric factions without progressing in the military skill tree. They are slow, defensive spearmen, with the ability to enter phalanx formation to further boost their defenses in pitched battles.

"Better equipped and trained than regular hoplites, Heavy hoplites wear formidable bronze armour and carry their namesake hoplon shield. While slow to move on the battlefield, once in position a heavy hoplite battleline can withstand all but the strongest enemy charge."

- In-game Description

History
Archaeological evidence reveals that the Illyrians imported weapons, armour and tactics from the Greeks, and wealthier Illyrian warriors may have fought in a manner similar to hoplites. However, exact details about Illyric army compositions tend to be lacking, and the amount of Greek tactics and equipment used may have varied depending on the tribe's economic prosperity and proximity to the Greek world, with certain Illyric tribes being more renowned for their piracy and guerilla tactics as opposed to rigid phalanx warfare.

Tactics
Heavy Hoplites will be the main Illyric infantry brigade in the mid-game for both pitched battles as well as sieges, until they can be supplemented with the more flexible Light and Heavy Swordsmen. Even in the late-game, Illyric Heavy Hoplites can remain competitive thanks to their higher than usual melee damage, performing better than Heavy Swordsmen if the phalanx formation holds and being only slightly worse than them if it doesn't.

With the highest missile resistance of any infantry in-game and a solid defense stat, Heavy Hoplites are very good at tanking missile damage and very good at maintaining sieges as a result. In pitched battles, they can benefit greatly from the phalanx formation, which provides a great increase to defenses and charge block but only so long as the formation holds.

Illyric Heavy Hoplites are one of the best heavy hoplite brigades in-game thanks to their melee damage, which is higher than that of the heavy hoplites of other groups. This allows them to defeat most other heavy hoplites in an even fight and go toe-to-toe against Greek and Sicilian Heavy Hoplites, who have higher defenses than normal. Unlike Greeks and Sicilians they do require a level 2 barracks rather than the basic version, and the Greek and Sicilian Hoplites are better in situations where melee damage doesn't matter such as during sieges.