Etruscan Heavy Hoplites

Summary
Heavy Hoplites are a heavy infantry brigade available to the Etruscan faction group, and are the strongest infantry available to Etruscan factions without progressing in the military skill tree. 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
Few details of Etruscan warfare are known, with most of our knowledge coming from inferences based on circumstantial archaeological evidence, such as surviving pieces of weapons and armour or depictions of soldiers in murals or sculptures found in Etruscan tombs.

The archaeological record makes it clear that the Etruscans adopted the usage of Greek armour and weapons early on and equipped themselves as hoplites, though it is often suggested that they fought with much less cohesion than the Greeks, owing to their less egalitarian social structure.

Tactics
Heavy Hoplites will likely be the main Etruscan infantry brigade in the mid-game for pitched battles and sieges, until they can be replaced with Light and Heavy Swordsmen. However, their smaller than usual brigade size might make it tempting to keep including regular Etruscan Hoplites as well, and Axemen will remain useful for flanking maneuvers at this point in the game.

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.

Etruscan Heavy Hoplites have a higher defense but lower damage compared to the Heavy Hoplites of other faction groups, though their defenses are outmatched by those of the Greek and Sicilian Heavy Hoplites who do not take a penalty to damage in return. Additionally, Etruscan Heavy Hoplites have a strongly reduced brigade size while costing the same amount of gold upkeep overall. As such, they are by far the least cost-effective among the different Heavy Hoplites of the various faction groups, and Etruscan players would probably benefit by recruiting Heavy Hoplites from conquered cities of other faction groups instead.