My number crunching expertise lies with other MMOs, but I thought I'd use my meager talents to see if I could solve for some or all, the long standing question of what's "better" The SG or the Hoplite.

Ultimately based on Alleycat's research (check link below), I'd say hoplites.

With almost everything being relatively equal, (According to the brilliant Alleycat see thread Hit Points) I think ultimately the deal breaker is the cost of upkeep and how much more bang for your buck you get when selecting hops over steams.

For example with normal numbers.... ("normal" being roughly a 80k point player)

Domestic Defense (Your OWN towns no garrison\attacking cost doubles)

70 SGs on a front line would cost 840
210 Phalanx on a front line would cost 630

More realisticly let's assume the average player who has the ability to create steam giants has roughly 5 towns and a capital. For the purpose of this number crunch let's assume each town has just enough units to fill a metropolis defense (7 front line, etc etc.)

70 SGs on a front line in all cities would cost 5040/hour
210 Phalanx on a front line in all cities would cost 3780/hour

Now the difference between 5040 and 3780 is 1260. Savings of 30240 gold per day.

With 1260 more gold to toss around you are able to support 420 more hoplites for the same cost as having just the 420 SGs.

That's a total of 1680 Hoplites for the same price (in gold) as 420 SGs.

Combined with the fact that Hoplites can benefit from doctors, this clearly makes Hoplites superior. You have morale benefits to consider from having a greater amount of units, the fact that because of the smaller size of hoplites, they don't get wiped out by mortars as quickly. With that in mind also you lose fewer resources when the mortars one shot your precious SGs.

In case you're not convinced here's what one of those oldschool maxed out Alpha players number's would be like if they chose one over the other. Let's assume the tip of the top dog has 11 towns and the 1 capital (maximum currently possible) And they have enough for the front line and then two more full replacements for them (420 more hops, 140 more SGs)

2520 Steam Giants costing 30240 gold/hour
7560 Hoplites costing 22680 gold/hour

Do the same math as before and you've got the possibility of 2520 MORE hoplites for the same cost as just 2520 SGs.

10080 Hoplites @ 30240\hour
2520 SGs @ 30240\hour

And just think. These numbers apply when the said units are posted in your own cities. They DOUBLE when on the move\occupying\in garrison\attacking.

*Please note that all numbers posted here are made without any consideration for the cost-reducing technologies one will have had to research in order to gain access to Steam Giants. Also not that no Military Future Techs are considered either.

I included a link to an archived thread regarding this topic. Scroll down to Alleycat's post. It's the basis for my theory on which is 'better'

@OverlordMMM...

I thank you for the addendum! I should have included a purpose of theory however to cover exactly what it was I was getting at. The main idea I am promoting is unit cost\upkeep in gold. All other points have been covered elsewhere. I encourage you to refer to the link entitled "Hit Points" (it's hidden to an error on my part; I should have made it bold) in the third block of text on my original post. Were I inspired, I guess I should get a mod to help me change that

In essence I suppose I would consider this an addendum to Alleycat's post. She\He did all the hard parts that determined that Phalanx and SGs are roughly equal when fielded. The deal breaker for me is the cost. I can have 10000 hoplites for the same price as 2500 SGs. With all other factors being roughly equal the math speaks for itself. Add to that the fact that Hoplites can benefit from Doctors, and you've got a win.

The main idea here is that Hoplites are considered "better" based solely upon the cost of the unit in gold to maintain both defensively and offensively whilst taking into consideration the points that Alleycat discussed regarding strength, armor, HP etc. etc..

It all depends on the situation. When facing enemy hoplites, SGs are better by far. Using proper battle tactics, you can kill a huge number of hoplites without losing many SGs. I personally have faced 1k hoplites and didn't lose a SG against them. If the enemy has hoplites and no mortars, then SGs are the way to go. If the enemy does have mortars on the defensive, then hoplites may be the better choice. There are many factors in a battle, so it is unclear whether one is better than the other.

If I understand what I am reading you are just looking for a cheap way to maintain a high military score in hopes to deter attackers. You can have 10000 hoplites but how many actually have an impact in your battle? your 10k (plus all your other units) will push the garrison and make you fight outside of the walls thus causing you a ton of damage.

Another factor you should think about is the cost to replace them. You will be taking massive loses during battle. which means you will have to replace them. if you only worry about the current upkeep cost of your army you will forgot the money you will be loosing by replacing them and then getting your population back up. It takes more time to fully replace a high number of hoplites verses a lower number of more powerful SG's

:facepalm: I thought we've been through this!


Flawless, with respect, I think about the only thing I agree with in your post is that hoplites are better when facing artillery, since artillery doesn't seem to work properly and only makes direct hits. They are cannon-fodder, or I should say mortar-fodder, best used in your front wave with your air units and wall breakers until artillery attacks are fixed. From then on it's SG's all the way, every time.

Not to mention when artillery is corrected and can spread hit, hoplites will become obsolete if they stay the way they are now. Here's why:

Hoplites look a lot better when you only look at stats, and upfront costs, it's their functionality that disproves this when looking at large battles. A HUGE factor you left out of your post is the SG has triple the armor of a Hoplite, and that armor applies to every single hit that unit takes in a round, so it's benefit is cumulative.

Most of the damage that occurs in large battles comes from the ranged units, air units and artillery, not from the front line. With Hoplites' crappy armor and low hit points, they drop like flies vrs. a full compliment enemy.

Also, when you are using doctors as a factor in deciding to use hoplites, don't forget to figure that cost in as well.


If you'd like to see the most current examples of large-scale warfare using hoplites, feel free to visit our recent war CR thread: Cr's Only EVW vs nexus C'sR only and scroll down to the color CR reports. You'll see gross amounts of dead hoplites with ridiculous losses, when facing SG's in full battles. Though on paper we won almost all of the significant battles, our overuse of hoplites cost us a ton in damage and replacement units.

Flawless, I have done the number crunching myself and had the same opinion as you did on things at first; however, through field experience I have learnt that simply calculating the stats isn't a good method to solving this issue. Sure you have alot of pretty numbers, but the credibility of your post is very low as you have not displayed any signs of field testing. (Last I saw you post you stated you were tucked away in a corner of Iota). Atleast take a look at the ongoing wars and the CR's alliances have produced. There's plenty of evidence that Hoplites are garbage compared to Steam Giants. I recommend you do more testing next time before saying you've actually "solved" something, because by your post, you are very, very far from it.

Surprisingly I must agree with Flawless that hoplites are superior not because of any number crunching but through simple observations. In the kind of massive battles my alliance is involved in we tend to win most of them and even the few we do not win we still win when looking at damages lost. Maestro has a point though that SG's are better once enemy artillery has been taken care of but in really big battles that's something that wont happen, there are too many hundreds of mortars for that to be an issue.

But then again, maybe I'm just indoctrinated in the Red Army tradition of preferring quantity over quality

Well I still stand by my numbers, as they are heh Flawless. But taking into account these other factors, I can see that the points I originally sought to illustrate have either been omitted by me due to my horrible writing skill (implementation, pre-planning; I write this stuff on whims) or have been added to the discussion by those basing their arguments on material not submitted by this author, but by other members seeking to find the truth as well.

I will take some time to consider each point submitted by each individual here and work to present a clearer picture of what I am saying. It seems most of this discussion is based on what everyone else is saying, whether that is their fault or my own, I must say it is mine for not implementing my theory correctly.

I request that this thread be CLOSED.

I'll redo this whole shabang once I have some time to sit down and cover ALL the points.

Don't forget the factor of Defense and the Walls, the SG go give you less numbers behind the walls and some people can hide behind those walls for 3 rounds which is a full hour.

It helps to think of SG as Elite troops, once 2-3 hours in the battle goes by and mortars finally die out, the SG take over.

(Plus if you want to be selfish, when your friends back you up with hoplites, your troops don't get hit.)

Maestro wrote:

Flawless, with respect, I think about the only thing I agree with in your post is that hoplites are better when facing artillery, since artillery doesn't seem to work properly and only makes direct hits. They are cannon-fodder, or I should say mortar-fodder, best used in your front wave with your air units and wall breakers until artillery attacks are fixed. From then on it's SG's all the way, every time.

Not to mention when artillery is corrected and can spread hit, hoplites will become obsolete if they stay the way they are now. Here's why:

Hoplites look a lot better when you only look at stats, and upfront costs, it's their functionality that disproves this when looking at large battles. A HUGE factor you left out of your post is the SG has triple the armor of a Hoplite, and that armor applies to every single hit that unit takes in a round, so it's benefit is cumulative.

Most of the damage that occurs in large battles comes from the ranged units, air units and artillery, not from the front line. With Hoplites' crappy armor and low hit points, they drop like flies vrs. a full compliment enemy.

Also, when you are using doctors as a factor in deciding to use hoplites, don't forget to figure that cost in as well.


If you'd like to see the most current examples of large-scale warfare using hoplites, feel free to visit our recent war CR thread: Cr's Only EVW vs nexus C'sR only and scroll down to the color CR reports. You'll see gross amounts of dead hoplites with ridiculous losses, when facing SG's in full battles. Though on paper we won almost all of the significant battles, our overuse of hoplites cost us a ton in damage and replacement units.

First of all, you neglect Maestro that you would obviously have doctors anyway to help with swordsmen. So when using hops or steams you would have them anyway.

And what isn't calculated into all this is losing steams compared to losing hops and the cost of this. Steams are much more expensive on resources and take longer to build. During war we all know how sulfur stash can get low if you are working hard so steams sometimes can be hard to keep filled to your amount that you feel competetive with. Granted, hops do take more people from your towns so that is also a negative.

Typhoon wrote:

Flawless, I have done the number crunching myself and had the same opinion as you did on things at first; however, through field experience I have learnt that simply calculating the stats isn't a good method to solving this issue. Sure you have alot of pretty numbers, but the credibility of your post is very low as you have not displayed any signs of field testing. (Last I saw you post you stated you were tucked away in a corner of Iota). Atleast take a look at the ongoing wars and the CR's alliances have produced. There's plenty of evidence that Hoplites are garbage compared to Steam Giants. I recommend you do more testing next time before saying you've actually "solved" something, because by your post, you are very, very far from it.

Typhoon, i have tested this vastly on Iota and Eta, and on Eta i prefer hops but iota i prefer steams. But on both worlds i do use a combination of both. i wouldn't say hops are garbage, because i find them quite handy as mortar-foder. Also the damage ratio of a battle stays low. People who have green CR's and declare them selves the winner with out looking at the damage need to step back and take another look. One battle in Eta i noticed that an alliance said they won when the damage was 2:1 against them, just cause they had a green CR. So hops do help with low construction costs and quick output of a descent army.

In the end i find both hops and steams equivalent, if used properly. But as i'm sure you know typhoon, most enemies we come across don't use them properly But the best bet i believe is to use a combination of the two.

Yak_Yak wrote:

Maestro wrote:

Also, when you are using doctors as a factor in deciding to use hoplites, don't forget to figure that cost in as well.

First of all, you neglect Maestro that you would obviously have doctors anyway to help with swordsmen. So when using hops or steams you would have them anyway.

And what isn't calculated into all this is losing steams compared to losing hops and the cost of this. Steams are much more expensive on resources and take longer to build. During war we all know how sulfur stash can get low if you are working hard so steams sometimes can be hard to keep filled to your amount that you feel competetive with. Granted, hops do take more people from your towns so that is also a negative.

Help me to understand this YakYak, are you saying that you'd use the same amount of doctors for swordsmen as you would if you were fielding swordsmen AND hoplites?

Since we are talking about employing hoplites full time, not only do they cost more in citizens, they cost more in resources because you have to replace more, and in the long run, more gold because of the citizen cost + the unit replacement citizen cost. Again, we fail to mention that armor is cumulative, and every time the SG takes a hit it extends it's hit point advantage over the hoplite.

Yak_Yak wrote:

Typhoon, i have tested this vastly on Iota and Eta, and on Eta i prefer hops but iota i prefer steams. But on both worlds i do use a combination of both. i wouldn't say hops are garbage, because i find them quite handy as mortar-foder. Also the damage ratio of a battle stays low. People who have green CR's and declare them selves the winner with out looking at the damage need to step back and take another look. One battle in Eta i noticed that an alliance said they won when the damage was 2:1 against them, just cause they had a green CR.

LOL so it depends on which world you play on which unit to use?

And your comment about winning, when the game says "Winner", that is not the winner? When an objective (to pillage/occupy) is failed, that is still a win if you do more damage?

Even if you want to proclaim who the winner by the stat you choose to highlight, you must further support SG's due to the FACT they cause more damage even on a small scale, and a LOT more damage on a large scale.



Here you go, to illustrate WHY SG's are better then Hoplites, let's break down a full stack of Hoplites vrs SG's. I know we're not factoring doctors, because of their limited function since the new version and extra costs, so I'm just going to examine only the units vrs units.

BATTLE BEGINS

30 Hoplites

vrs

10 Steam Giants


Round 1


1 stack of 30 hoplites do a combined 540 damage in 30 separate attacks, 90 of which is absorbed by SG armor= 450 damage

SG stack total hp's 1840 - 450 damage is a potential of about 2.5 dead SG's

1 stack of SG's do 420 damage to hoplites - 10 for Hoplite armor= 410 damage

Hoplite stack total hp's 1680 - 410 damage is a potential of about 7.3 dead hoplites

22.7 hoplites left

7.5 SG's left


Round 2


1 stack of 22.7 hoplites do a combined 414 damage in 23 separate attacks, 69 of which is absorbed by SG armor= 345 damage

SG stack of 7.5 total hp's 1380 - 345 damage is a potential of about 1.875 dead SG's

1 stack of 7.5 SG's do 336 damage to hoplites - 8 for Hoplite armor= 328 damage

Hoplite stack total hp's 1271 - 336 damage is a potential of about 6 dead hoplites

At the end of round 2 TOTALS:

16.7 Hoplites

5.625 SG's


Round 3


16.7 Hoplites do 306 damage - 51 for sg armor= 255 damage or 1.385 dead sg's

5.625 SG's 252 damage - 6 for hoplite armor= 246 damage or 4.39 dead hoplites

12.31 hops

4.24 sg's


Round 4


12.31 Hoplites do 234 damage - 39 for sg armor= 195 damage or 1.06 dead sg's

4.24 SG's 210 damage - 5 for hoplite armor= 205 damage or 3.66 dead hoplites

8.65 hops

3.18 sg's


Round 5


8.65 Hoplites do 162 damage - 27 for sg armor= 135 damage or .733 dead sg's

3.18 SG's 168 damage - 4 for hoplite armor= 164 damage or 2.93 dead hoplites

5.72 hops

2.45 sg's


Round 6


5.72 Hoplites do 108 damage - 18 for sg armor= 90 damage or .49 dead sg's

2.45 SG's 126 damage - 3 for hoplite armor= 123 damage or 2.2 dead hoplites

3.52 hops

1.96 sg's


Round 7


3.52 Hoplites do 72 damage - 12 for sg armor= 60 damage or .33 dead sg's

1.96 SG's 84 damage - 2 for hoplite armor= 82 damage or 1.46 dead hoplites

2.06 hops

1.63 sg's


Round 8


2.06 Hoplites do 54 damage - 9 for sg armor= 45 damage or .24 dead sg's

1.63 SG's 84 damage - 2 for hoplite armor= 82 damage or 1.46 dead hoplites

.6 hops

1.39 sg's


Round 9


.6 hoplites do 18 damage - 3 for sg armor= 15 damage or .08 dead sg's

1.39 SG's do 84 damage - 2 for hoplite armor= 82 damage or 1.46 dead hoplites

BATTLE ENDS

1.31 SG's survive and do 33.6 damage to kill the last hoplite and 50.4 unnecessary end-of-debate damage points




Winner
1.31 Steam Giants (-8.69)

Loser
0 Hoplites (-30)


Hoplites did 1590 damage

SG's did 1722 damage

and even YakYak and I will agree that is a win



EDIT: I maintain that Hoplites are good for Mortar/Wall fodder, since those only do direct hits and will almost always obliterate any 1 unit they hit unless we are talking about an extremely low level wall, or for farming due to the wall or possible mortars.

yes, while the numbers you have just stated all seem to be correct, you are not factoring the other units into account. Are they facing mortars or cats? archers or guns? Every unit comes into play. If they have mortars, why would you waste SG?? throw phalanx in there to take the hits until your bombs kill off their mortars or they're out of ammo. If they're fielding catapults, put your SG in as their added armor and HP will hold up better. If they're fielding archers, then again, SG armor/HP will help you out. It all depends on the battle going on. and what you're fighting the battle for (pillaging/killing troops/occupying) There's no one answer to this.

(and when he was talking about the worlds, I'm guessing he means in Eta, everyone has mortars, so hops are needed to keep the damage ratio on your side down. On Iota, Only the top 700 or so people have mortars, so SG are still very useful for the players who have mostly catapults.)

Sorry, I forgot to include the resource angle, I really tried to do everything I could for the poor Hoplite:


RESOURCE COST OF THE ABOVE EXAMPLE:


For SG's we spent..

2480 resources

16 citizens


For Hoplites we spent..

2100 resources

30 citizens



So in the specific case of 1 stack vrs 1 stack, the SG's cost about 380 more resources on the surface. Though when factoring in healing after the battle, you kept 20% of your SG stack alive.

To replace 20% of a hoplite stack and make the forces equal again... additional 420 resources 13 citizens required.

With those SG's you net 27 more citizens and gained 40 resources since you didn't have to rebuild your 2 SG's :cheers2: and though this is only 1 stack vrs 1 stack, it gets better and better in favor of the SG's every time you rebuild and the larger the battle.



To further illustrate why SG's are better, here's a cut and paste of a CR from our war thread, technically, if all you care about is damage, we LOST this battle oO and our opponent even ran away!


What's even worse is that the Hoplite will jump in front of the SG to fill the front line, so if you have a lot of players, you're almost guaranteed to have suicidal Hoplites racking up your damage while your opponents' SG's deflect their own damage.


551 Units with SG's, 1 player only

vrs.

15,058 Units with lots of Hoplites and 19 different players


─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Slinger................................0
Slinger..............67(-0)....

Swordsman............200(-0)
Swordsman...........2297(-0)


Hoplite................................0
Hoplite.............1892(-157)


Archer................................0
Archer...............401(-0)


Sulphur Carabineer....70(-0)
Sulphur Carabineer..4303(-0)


Gyrocopter............60(-0)
Gyrocopter..........1435(-0)


Steam Giant...........87(-13)
Steam Giant.........3082(-0)


Balloon-Bombardier....42(-18)
Balloon-Bombardier...179(-15)


Battering ram................................0
Battering ram..........3(-0)

Catapult................................0
Catapult..............25(-0)

Mortar................32(-7)
Mortar...............173(-12)

Doctor................30(-0)
Doctor...............522(-0)

Cook..................30(-0)
Cook.................604(-0)

Spearmen................................0
Spearmen..............75(-0)
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Generals....................-402 - Generals....................-678
Damage Received...........20,100 - Damage Received...........33,940
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────


If you look at our war, the only war since 3.2 began in Eta, you'll see that in 9 out of 10 battles where one side's SG's took the field before the other exhausted their Hoplites, they produced more WAY more damage, almost regardless of the odds.... even with 500+ doctors on the hoplite side.

The only situation it didn't is when we had Swordsmen AND Bombardiers in the battle earlier then our enemy, and we barely edged them out in damage.



There is an end to the debate as the TS promised!



For large battles:

Steam Giants > Hoplites



(with exception of the primary wave, end of battle reinforcements if you have no SG's, and farming)


But don't let me talk you out of making Hoplites... if you're on Eta

Well, as I've stated, I'm going to get into this a bit more when I have some more time and a more full-spectrum approach. I went into this half-cocked and the point I originally intended to drive home was lost in everyone else's counterpoints and my own failure to fully illustrate my own point. I am not incorrect in stating that Hoplites are better than SGs, but with the information I have posted I might as well say that the sky is purple and that cats will one day rule the world with sporks that shoot lasers.

I'll be back with a more fully prepared argument in a brand new thread. Meanwhile, peace!

-Entropy- wrote:

yes, while the numbers you have just stated all seem to be correct, you are not factoring the other units into account. Are they facing mortars or cats? archers or guns? Every unit comes into play. If they have mortars, why would you waste SG??

Maestro wrote:

...I maintain that Hoplites are good for Mortar/Wall fodder, since those only do direct hits and will almost always obliterate any 1 unit they hit unless we are talking about an extremely low level wall...

In every other case, SG is better then Hoplite, vrs. every other unit type, in both damage inflicted and cost. The difference is we are considering ARMOR, that comes into play with every single attack made against them, and even if an injured SG remains it will inflict it's full 42 damage each round vs the Hoplite's 18 (so SG's really gain the most ground on the hoplites at the "end" of the stack).

-Entropy- wrote:

There's no one answer to this.

Not meaning any offense Entropy, there is no simple answer to this.

I provided a real answer by isolating the debate to large battles, since if any of you made it through a thread like this you are probably are an advanced player ... and I have 8 large-scale post 3.2 CR's as data to back up that answer. The only "if" is if they are fielding a large amount of Mortars, though in a battle like that your other units will certainly make them pay a ton for doing so since Mortars are the best unit to kill. I think Catapults are better for battle, mortars for the wall, though with this I have not done as extensive of in-game analysis with yet.

SG's > Hoplite, the only exception is when facing a decent Wall, or a Mortar.

Flawless wrote:

Well, as I've stated, I'm going to get into this a bit more when I have some more time and a more full-spectrum approach. I went into this half-cocked and the point I originally intended to drive home was lost in everyone else's counterpoints and my own failure to fully illustrate my own point. I am not incorrect in stating that Hoplites are better than SGs, but with the information I have posted I might as well say that the sky is purple and that cats will one day rule the world with sporks that shoot lasers.

I'll be back with a more fully prepared argument in a brand new thread. Meanwhile, peace!

After you get fully-cocked, I really do hope you do repost what your personal in-game findings are... even if you must digress.

you guys must remember.
Steam giants may be more popular cause they dont die first hand.
If you fighting with allies and such, hoplites are the first one to go down to the last man, THEN its steamgiants.
So players may build steamgiants to save the resources.

If anything.. this thread shold be showing how close the "balance" is between these units..

I'm not a fan of Maestro's "calculations" in the previous posts, and the "empirical" evidence presented so far is also "suspect" due to all the "variables" involved (having lots of players can actually WORSEN combat as reinforcement can tend to only fill "partial" slots, and thus lower combat effectiveness).. If presented round by round, it would be much easier to see how things went down.

As for the "math".. it is filled with rounding errors and doesn't take into account many combat variables including "overkill".. Also the "rounding" get's out of hand.. it's hard to claim that the Hoplites only do 22.7 units worth of damage, but must "suffer" 23 units worth of Armour.. same can be said on the Steam Giant side, but the effect is 1/3 as much here.. Even using "simple" math like this that doesn't "round, it shows SG V Hoplite pretty even against each other.. A "better" view is to "assume" armor as part of damage.. a Hoplite does 18 base damage to a Steam Giant's 3 armor.. so EACH Hoplite does a "net" of 15 damage to a steam giant.. conversely, w/ a Steam Giant's 42 attack against a Hoplite's 1 armor, this is a net of 41 damage for EACH Steam Giant.. note that since you are doing things on a unit by unit basis, you can avoid some of the rounding issues.

Doing this you will get a chart more like this:
While the display is rounded to 2 decimals, the math is still all "floating point".. so it is accurate.. notice this shows that things are pretty even, so this along cannot really answer the question.

One can also try to look at it from another perspective and try to include "overkill".. basically any damage applied from a unit above and beyond what it takes to kill the unit is wasted. If you look at it this way, it takes 13 Hoplite "hits" to kill a Steam Giant (13*(18-3) = 195), but it still takes 2 Steam Giant hits to kill a Hoplite! (42-1 = 41 isn't enough to kill one, but 2*41 = 82 is), so looked at it this way, a stack of Steam Giants should only kill 5 Hoplite (not 7.5) and the stack of Hoplite should get 2 Steam Giants with 4 "hits" on the 3rd. Let's look at a "chart" this way..
The Hop+ and SG+ column are to keep track of additional "hits" above what was there to kill units.. T Hop+ and T SG+ are used to show where these extra hits might have gone with an assumption taht they would always go on the strongest unit.. Unfortunately, this idea actually overstates Hoplites effectiveness...

So let's move on to "empirical" examples.. when 3.2 was on the test server, some scenarios where run out here: SG v Hoplite Tests in 3.2 The tests showed that with Marksmen in the "mix", SG can do much better than Hoplite, but this was back before 3.2.2 and the Marksmen actually started filling in "empty" frontline slots and getting slaughtered by SG.. no test was run with more SG/Hoplite to keep the lines full, nor was it run later when the Marmsken didn't fill the line.. But ALSO shown was that when Mortars were added to the "mix" the Hoplites came out ahead!! Also show was that even at 30 Hoplite v 10 SG, the battle was "dead even".. with the battled ending round 4 due to morale (not tested in 3.2.2 w/ cooks).. but here the results were Hoplite 12 (-18 ) and SG 4 (-6) or a dead even fight.

So again, SG v Hoplite is SITUATIONAL at best.. Hoplite are great to take large damage from Artillery and/or walls, and they also work great to DEAL more damage to the enemy.. SG are great to conserve loss after the "big guns" have gone away.. ESPECIALLY if you can "cycle" waves in and out so the "extra" damage can be "healed". Hoplites have the advantage that they are cheaper to replace and have long term.. while Steam Giant armor can make them brutal against units with low damage output.

Others have shown that the "best" use is to use your Hoplite to be a "damage sponge" against high damage units like walls and artillery, and then use Steam Giants as "cleanup" once the big threats are gone.. I would not go as far as saying SG are "better" than Hoplite in ALL other cases.. SG v Hoplite is pretty "even", and against Catapults, the higher costs of the SG might edge out Hoplite.. Also, while true that the high HP of SG starts becoming more beneficial as the unit count gets low "reserve" units can keep the stacks "full", and as Hoplites do MORE DAMAGE than a SG in ALL cases (minus walls 3-11 ), they are actually better to make the stacks get "small" quicker

Another factor is that as damage "spreads", the Steam Giant's high HP allows it to survive round after round.. let's say there is 7000 damage done out there in 28 point "chunks" (consider this damage past armor) , this is 250 "hits"... now seeing as there are only 210 Hoplite, even in the best case, 40 hits would hit a Hoplite for a 2nd time thus killing 40 Hoplite.. For SG, this could mean 3 hits on 30 SG and 4 on 40.. and since even 112 Damage will not kill a SG, they ALL survive.. OTOH, if that 7000 damage came in 35 x 200 point "chunks", this would mean 35 dead Hoplite or 35 dead Steam Giants.. so here (due to "big damage chunks") Hoplite fair better. Since "chunks" > 185 are "rare" (Mortars/walls) in practice, this can favor SG much of the time.. but when damage *can* be "focused".. Hoplite are superior.

I've said it before elsewhere.. Hoplite "win" by killing the enemy (and getting themselves killed in the process!) SG "win" by outlasting the opponent.. if your victory is ensured already (as it usually is), then you will find SG can help reduce loss and therefor cost.. but only at the expense of a higher upkeep.. but if you want to inflict "maximum damage" in the shortest amount of time, and/or have "fodder" against high damage units.. Hoplite can get you there.

added note: Things like this "debate" goes a long way to showing *when* things are balanced.. notice this type of "debate" doesn't occur for many other cases (flameship v PWR at best?) , thus indicates that unit balance is still pretty far off..