Greek Heavy Hoplites

Summary
Heavy Hoplites are a heavy infantry brigade available to the Greek and Sicilian faction groups. They are slow, extremely 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
The Greeks were historically the first to fight in hoplite fashion, starting in the 7th Century BC at the latest, with the Etruscans and Latins probably adopting the fighting style over the course of the following century. The Greeks continued to improve the hoplite panoply such as with the development of the muscle cuirass in the early 5th Century BC, which features prominently on the Heavy Hoplite model in-game.

The Greeks also retained this fighting style the longest, while other cultures abandoned the hoplite in favour of more flexible heavy infantry in the 4th and 3rd Centuries BC. Though the Greeks did over time begin to augment the hoplite phalanx with lighter infantry such as peltasts, and the larger kingdoms on the Greek periphery such as Macedonia would eventually replace the hoplite with phalangites in the 4th Century BC, many Greek city-states didn't totally abandon hoplite warfare until they lost their independence to Rome.

Tactics
For the Greeks, Heavy Hoplites will be one of the main infantry brigades in the mid-game for both pitched battles as well as sieges, but can eventually be supplemented and replaced with Hypaspists and, later, Phalangites. Even in the late-game, Heavy Hoplites can be useful to keep around for certain purposes such as sieging, due to their slightly higher missile resistance than Hypaspists.

For the Sicilians, who lack Hypaspists, Heavy Hoplites are the heaviest infantry type available. They can be supplemented with the more flexible Light and Heavy Pilum Swordsmen later on, but the Greek type of Heavy Hoplites are stronger than either as long as their phalanx formation holds.

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.

Greek/Sicilian Heavy Hoplites are one of the best heavy hoplite brigades in-game thanks to their defenses, which are 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 Illyric Heavy Hoplites, who have higher attack than normal. Greeks and Sicilians also have slightly earlier access to heavy hoplites, only requiring a basic barracks to recruit them whereas other faction groups require its level 2 upgrade.

Greek Heavy Hoplites have one of the highest defenses in the game, tied with Hypaspists and Etruscan Heavy Swordsmen and only exceeded by Triarii and War Elephants. Heavy Swordsmen and Triarii do not have access to the phalanx formation though, which allows Hypaspists and Heavy Hoplites to further raise their defenses and exceed those of the Triarii.