Hoplite Strategy Guide

I’ve been dangerously obsessed with the iOS/Android game Hoplite. It’s good, miss-your-streetcar-stop good (right Steve?). All the more impressive given how simple it is. Anyway I would like to channel the obsession into something useful. So here are some pointers for strategy.

General points

You don’t get any points for killing demons. If you can pass them by, do it.

Don’t go chucking your spear every which way. You may find yourself unable to get it back.

Until you have some energy upgrades, don’t jump around too much either. You only have enough juice for two jumps by default.

It’s beyond the scope of this article, but get a sense for the specifics of movement and which types of movement result in attacks. Jumping right at someone: good. Jumping over someone: good. Getting close to a demon in a non-straight line: bad. It’s hard to explain all the ins and outs, but it’s important for you to know.

I tend to go after demons in this order: wizards, archers, footmen, demolitionists. Wizards and archers are dangerous in groups as they can control whole rows, blocking your movement. Demolitionists are unpredictable and can be dangerous, but their bombs are also really handy for bashing into enemies.

VERY IMPORTANT: archers and wizards will not fire through their allies. That means you can use footmen & demolitionists as a screen.

You regain energy (needed for jumps) by +10 “when moving into a tile with an adjacent monster” (per the dev blog). Good to know.

Upgrades

There are some base upgrades, but others are unlocked by getting achievements. The available achievements are listed in a screen off the game’s main menu.

Clearly, not every altar has every upgrade. Certain things are only offered if you have the base upgrade in that category, and other things are only offered at specific altars.

If you do not see an upgrade you want when you go to an altar, get ‘Fortitude’. The best upgrades require sacrifices of health capacity, so bank some early on.

Expand your throw distance early on by getting ‘Greater Throw’. That’s so demons who think they have retreated out of your throw range will still feel the sweet kiss of your spear. I also like ‘deep lunge’ and ‘mighty bash’.

My favourite upgrade by far is ‘agility’. Once you unlock it you will only be offered it on level six, along with two other possible upgrades that depend on killing three turns in a row. With agility, if you get a string of three, you get a free turn. What the description for agility doesn’t express, however, is that if you keep killing you KEEP GETTING FREE TURNS. It’s killtacular. The later levels are so packed with dudes that I’ve managed to massacre everyone on a level, with time stopped, and then exited to the next level WITH TIME STILL STOPPED ready to kill again like a total time-destroying MONSTER. I think you’ll agree that the all-caps passages were ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

UPDATE: the latest version has changed this behaviour. Now you only get one free turn at a time. Perhaps those all caps weren’t necessary after all.

Another great upgrade is “winged sandals”. They increase your jump range. Sounds not that thrilling, but in later levels you will appreciate the huge range of possible moves it opens up. Pair it with increased energy to make hopping quickly to the exit a viable strategy. These are only offered at the level 10 shrine.

I thought ‘teleport’ and ‘recall spear’ were great upgrades but I’m not as sold any more. In practice it often doesn’t work out – either there’s a demon standing on your spear, or you can’t teleport/recall without getting dinged by someone.

I haven’t yet unlocked all the upgrades, so I’m probably missing some good strategies. So far winged sandals plus agility have gotten me to level 27, but I think now I’m just going to try and get all the achievements as some of the others sound pretty neat.