Combined tactics.
Urbans can take them down with a numerical advantage. Just be happy Spartans are so expensive that they only appear rarely.

Massed skirmishers. A couple full units of skirmishers can take down a full unit of Spartans without take a single casualty. IIRC, Spartans can beat Urbans both when they [the Spartans] are in phalanx or when they are not. Spartan Hoplites are the best sword fighters of any phalanx unit. But they are extremely expensive and can only be built out of Sparta and Syracuse by the Greek Cities.

use artillery or a combo of infantry and cavalry

Urbans can hold them for sometime...I usually try to get my skirmishers around them to weaken them further, then repeatedly pound them with cavalry.

Scorpions and Ballistas do the trick well, plus skirmishers and Urbans. However, don't use Roman foot skirmishers, use Cavalry Auxilia.

Artillery, overall, is the best counter to Spartans. But skirmishers are avaliable relitively early in the game, and so you are better prepared.

I have yet to notice any difference between Roman velites and the skirmishers of any other nation...

I have noticed that the Velitites are not as good at hand to hand combat as say, the Illyrians, and that they also are prone to rout.

To the Spartan question, If i have no missile weapons, I surround them, force them to use swords instead of spears, and crush them with my superior hand to hand combat ability.

If I have one, that is.

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Hand-to-hand combat, yea, the Velites die off quickly. But in terms of missle power, AFAIK they are on even ground with just about every other skirmisher unit.

Armoured Elephants from behind...and Missle Cav

ALL you need for one or two units of spartans are two units of skirmishers, one unit of skirmisher cavalry, one archer unit.

The spartans are defenseless. The archers shoot at them, and do high damage once the skirmishers break the formation temporarily. If the spartans move toward you, lure them away with skirmisher cavalry and do it over and over again.

[This message has been edited by DarkProph13 (edited 08-24-2005 @ 02:20 AM).]

Sometimes people forget there are other units than the Spartans.

A unit of good archer cav could take any infantry on its own eventually, because the infantry would never ctach up. It is silly people saying 'beat 1 unit of spartans?, oh well send in loads of archers/loads of elephants'. Why would the spartans come alone to a battle like that.

Besides, elephant (not armoured or war though) smashed into my ordinary hoplites once and got hammered. Elephants are useless against spartans unless they foolishly don't turn round, or are engaged.

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I never understood that. Why Syracuse?

Syracuse was at war with Athens in the Peloponnesian War. They got help in the form of a Spartan general.

Even with their cost and limited training facilities, Spartans are VERY dangerous (especially when you're Greek). I had an army with a general, 4 sets of onagers, and 9 units of Spartans (about 900 men on large unit size). I ended up beating a Scipii army of 1600 when they had plenty of legionnaries cohorts and 4 groups of archer auxilia.

Wardogs are very effective. Even if they don't wipe them out, the Spartans spend so long fighting them that you have time to kill off the rest of the army in the intervening time.

I've found that you have to distract them with crap and then surround them. I was playing one game where seven german and gaelic heavy units at half strength with no experience or upgrades managed to eliminate a Spartan Hoplite unit with three gold chevrons and completely upgraded armor and units.

They aren't that hard to counter, I just treat them like normal hoplites. The biggest problem is their 2 HP. Throw a few skirmishers at them, then charge some cavalry into their flanks.

I find Urbans to be much deadlier than the Spartans, unless you are playing money game of course, but that's out of discussion.

Urbans are much cheaper, and they are so cheap for their effectiveness it hurts.

Urbans are good all around, Spartans while being good swordsmen, are still primarily a phalanx unit.

Urbans have pila, and are very resistant to missiles, Spartans have less armor therefore more vulnerable to missiles, but then in particular instances they are vulnerable to AP troops, but that's a lot more circumstantial.

Urbans are just all around better troops for their price. You can safely say urbans are the best infantry in the game. Well can't complain much since Rome dominated the infantry world in their time. I only complain about their cavalry being superior, which is something they did not have.

On a Medium campaign many moons ago, I set a unit of Wardogs on the Greek Spartan unit from the beginning (I was the Brutii). The dogs were all killed, but the Spartans were reduced from 37 to 12, and then routed on contact with Hastati. I went back to the Brutii a week or so later after getting bored with it and tried two units of Wardogs on the Spartans while besieging Sparta. The Spartans were reduced from full strength to one man, who was then chased to the square and killed. The remaining dogs wiped out most of a unit of Militia Hoplites as well before being killed.

Dogs are fantastic against hoplites, but lose against phlangites.

Dogs are devastating to ANY phalanx unit, in my experience, including pikemen; they are just more so against hoplites.

really? I've never used dogs, what are they good for other than killing phalanx?

you can use them to scare enemies faster when you are overwhelming the enemy and want to reduce casualties.
they are also, as their profile says, (I think) good for chasing down fleeing enemies to make sure they rout al the way, they are also good for tying up enemy calvery, so you can charge the enemies already engaged calvery.

[This message has been edited by NA Lord Blaine (edited 08-28-2005 @ 08:12 PM).]

I've found warhounds to be VERY effective in my german campaign. I do the normal pin & flank thing, putting my dogs & cav all together on one wing. When the enemy army sends the one or two units to attack my flankers, they are totally overwhelmed by the combined dogs & horses. The dogs then continue on to the next closest enemy unit, so that they automatically help cause a chain-rout.

They are awesome auxiliary troops. (understand that they will get thrashed if you try to use them on their own.)

GM

[This message has been edited by GMRage (edited 08-29-2005 @ 00:54 AM).]

To take out spartans I've found that an effective tactic is to hit them on the flank with elephants and cavalry on the other simultaneously whilst having phalanx infantry pinning them in place.