Anyway, my Question is this:
If everyone expects a Poseidon player to go hipps, then why would he ever go hipps, at least right away?
Why not mass hoplites?
If you think about it its not a terrible idea, at least not in my opinion. It probably wouldn't stand up in the higher ratings, but I've been trying it out amoungst my fellow beginners and it seems to work with some effectiveness.
Look at it this way:
The enemy expects either hipps, or, if they suspect you of being a sly devil, tox's, or a mix of the two. Therefore, he will probably be producing anti cav/archers, which will probably take the image of infantry and a little cav himself. SO, why not go Hoplites? The worst case scenerio should be your infantry vs. thiers, because no sane person would really go archers vs. Poseidon. Just give them the hack armor upgrade at the armory, pierce armor if you have the extra resources, and they should stand up just fine.
To keep up a little deception, reinforce thier suspicions of a cav attack, I usually grab Hermes going classic, because his tech is Spirited Charge, a cav upgrade, so they should conclude that I would logically go cavalry. Also, that way I am able to use some of my extra wood on a few cents, as I'm not using much of it elsewhere. You could also concievably go Ares, as Pestilance is VERY nice when attacking thier forward/main base.
Anyway, after the initial shock of getting hit with ~20 Hoplites early classic, they should start pumping archers and other anti infantry, which is when i finally throw up a few cheap stables and spam the hipps, keeping in some infantry for a bit of a mix.
So my question, once again, is whether or not this might be a workable strat...
[This message has been edited by Tireseas (edited 05-08-2004 @ 01:10 AM).]