The Greek Cities

[frogbeastegg]

Guide.

[The_Emperor]

Ok the Greek cities have it tough, but here is what i did in the opening stages.

In Sicily your city will be attacked by Carthage on almost the first turn, but can be defeated in a sally if you lure them to your defences.

You will need to train up as many men as you can here, because once Carthage is done, the Scipii will also be on your case as well, and they are tougher in my experience.

But all of this is a distraction from the main event, which is to take back Greece from the Macedonians, so develop up in Sparta with yet more Hoplites and then send out an army to that narrow strip of land just North of Athens and slap down a fort there, this will cut off any Macedonian reinforcements to the city north of Sparta you should besiege and capture... From then on you should move on to liberate Athens and a good portion of mainland Greece from Macedonian rule.

Sicily will be a major battleground for many years, but should you take Messana from the Scipii, you will seriously weaken Rome's efforts against you there. The Carthaginian side of the island should also be easily taken after that. (just remember to keep an army away from Etna)

If you have any cash bribe the rebel army near Rhodes into your faction and take the city and get a trade agreement going with the Selucids.

While the Romans will keep on comming at you (they are lovely like that) they will eventually run out of steam in their invasions. Especially once you have Sicily and you manage to kick the Brutii out of your area... Also do not underestimate the positive effects of a momentary ceasefire with Macedon.

After humiliating their armies time and again I was able to get trade rights from them... This combined with the Temples/Shrines of Hermes and markets produces a real cash cow in some cities.

[Cennyan]

My tactics where slightly different.

My first move was to send my Sicilian diplomat towards the Scipii and forge a trade agreement (They'll still attack you in a turn or four). Then did the same to Carthage. I tried bribing both but was unsuccessful. I built a dock, built a ship, then sacked the city and moved my troops out abandoning the provence. (You are going to lose this provence unless you spend a good portion of your resources on it in the first 10 - 15 turns).

Once I had my armies safely on the Greece penisula I went to work claiming Corova and Athens. At the same time, my Rhodes army was building up for five turns or so and was then sent to take the rebel controlled cities on the main contenant. Exterminate the macedonian population. You will end up with almost no revolts for the next 100 years or so provided you keep decent generals and 3-4 troops in each settlement and with such high morale, you're able to tax at very high and each settlement will be a gold mine. You want to get Corinth, Athens, Sparta, Halicarnassus, Rhodes, and Pergamum. Leave Larissa alone for the time being, you'll need the troops elsewhere very soon...

Eventually the Brutti will be tasked by the Senate to invade Thermon and Apolloinia...You need to have an army in nearby Corinth (or an army you can move) for this phase. Without forces, the Romans will have four - five cities from which to build troops and will make your life much more difficult. I immediately struck out and took Thermon, I also took Apollonia but simply sacked and abandoned it (just wasn't worth keeping really). The goal here when you fight these battles is to kill off the Roman generals. They're going to send one of there best and brightest (I had to fight a 6 star faction heir). Kill him off and their faction is majorly weakend. Within the next five or six turns (if you didn't already), you should have spy's in Croton and Tarentum, and as soon as you see the troop sizes are small, invade the romans. I did this around Turn 20 or so. If you're lucky (as I was) you'll be able to wipe out their faction completely at this point.

Sack both cities completely, exterminate the population and destroy every building (after you've retrained all your troops), teaching those dirty romans to stay on their side of the sea. You'll see the Scippii will remove some of their attention from Carthage and point it at these cities. By the time they do, you need to have both cities sacked and on a boat back to Greece. The Scippii will have to battle the rebels which will weaken them...after they take one or both cities, bring you're army back and lay the smackdown on the Scipii troops to. Once you do this, the two cities will be controlled by rebels for several turns.

At this point I turned my attention to the north...finishing off the Macedonians in Larissa and Thessalonica (Those guys had the plague :( ). By this time, the Thracians and The Secluded Empire will begin getting froggy. Defeating them will require a large navy, so focus on shipyards. Once you clean out the macedonians and Scipii, you really wont have too many enemies so focus on building that navy instead of building troops. Keep two medium - large armies...one in Larissa / Thessalonica and one in Halicarnassus or Pergamum. While clearing the oceans lay the smackdown in Sardis (Secluded Empire) and Clear out the Thraceians up to Byzantium. You don't have to wipe them out, choice is yours. I made peace and eventually got them to turn on Darcia by giving them back Byzantium after I began my move on the other roman cities. Make friends with the Parthians so that you have you're flanks covered by an ally. Try and keep good relations with them for as long as possible.

At this point, sit and build...build build build. Try to keep your military as low as possible without sacrificing too much defense. Roman troops are particullarly tough compared to Greecians in the early game, however after the Roman Reformation event, you should be spouting some huge cities and pumping out upgraded troops which will do nicely against the romans.

You'll find that the romans, in their effort to effectively build their empire, have left their backdoor open to invasion. Their biggest cities will be virtually unprotected, you want to take them out as quickly as possible, crippling their economy and troop building abilitiy. I recomend taking Sicily first, exterminating the populace, then take Rome and the Julii starting cities. I kept pushing the Julli out till I got to the mountain choke point in Arretium and left two armies there in ambush. From there, I moved my Sicilian armies (aftering repairing the city, retraining troops, and four turns of troop building) to the Carthage Theatre.

A lot of people will have objections to exterminating, however there's one thing that plays an important role here. When you disperse the population of a settlement, those in their home cities / territories are more likely to revolt than those sent to foreign cities. While once or twice will have no effect, you're going to be taking over about 10 Roman Cities in 10 turns. If you enslaved, you're looking at roughly 1000 + romans in every roman city and that is not good. You'll have to spend far too many resources trying to keep the peace in this region....The only good Roman is a Dead Roman.

From this point it's up to you...continue taking on the Julii in the former gaul territories and / or the Scipii in Africa, or focus on Darcia to get your 50. Darcia will be less likely to revolt as it will be closer to you're capitol, but it's just soo much fun killing romans.

[Cennyan]

One other note....

The hardest thing about playing this faction is going to be winning the early battles. Sadly, the Greeks don't get any decent cavalry in the early game. Our first cavalry are skirmishers. As a result, we have to rely mainly on very slow moving pikemen and archers to do most of the damage. My biggest problem in the early game was losing sieges and battles because the time ran out. I ended up making an archer heavy army and just pelting the general from outside the city, then rushing en masse on the city square, skirmishing back towards the pikemen moving up.

[Colovion]

The biggest thing I can suggest when you go up against Macedon is to form your Phalanx units in DEEP formation - at least 5 or 6 deep. Make sure you have your flanks/rear covered as well because you haven't many good cav units. I took over the entire Greek Penninsula with mainly Hoplite units only boltered by some Cretian archer mercs (which are indespensible in the early game) and perhaps some Militia Cav. Sometimes by the time you get to Larissa or anywhere north of that area you will encounter the plague. Build Sewers and Public baths ASAP in all northern provinces to counteract the spread of it - losing a couple family members totally cripples your Family Tree if you dont' watch out.

-Try to make nice with the Selucids and Pontus as well as all of the eastern powers until you can consolidate yourself to the Greek penninsula. An alliance with the Selucids is a great buffer zone between yourself and any possible enemies in the east.
-make sure to have naval supremacy - you're surrounded by water and every province you have is a naval port - use it!
- use your naval supremacy to subdue the Egyptians if they get too out of control (they will). If you can get an alliance that is better unless you're geared on Conquoring that incredibly rich area ;)

[Armchair Athlete]

For your cavalry needs the province east of Pergamun (Galatia, city of Ancyra) has mercenary Sarmatian Cavalry. They have very good charge (15) and reasonable attack and defense values. They are about on a par with Macedonian cavalry. The rebels in this area are quite weak, (2 naked fanatics and one peasant) and Pontus usually ignore this city to go for Nicomedia. Take your family member from Pergamun and hire some mercenaries along the way (in your province you can hire cretan archers, rhodian slingers, mercenary peltasts and merc hoplites) and take this city. It has a very small population, but you're there for the mercenaries mainly (you can also hire some exp 2 barbarian infantry). Its reasonable for money making too (about 500 per turn) however you cannot build a port so it misses out on the big bucks.

EDIT - The Sarmatians dont appear very often, so take good care of them when they are available for hire. barbarian cavalry mercenaries appear much more frequently near Ancyra, but are not as good (still better than Greek cavalry though). Sarmatians also appear in the Pontic provinces and I think Armenia.

[Sir Moody]

Personally as the Greeks i follow 3 Simple Rules
1) i let the enemy come to me - the Greek army is inheriently Defensive so if you dont make any agreesive attacks and instead intice enemy armies to attack you - your on the road to victory
2) Present a Solid Front - you dont want a single gap in your lines and if you cant defend you flanks with cav or mercs bend the hoplites into a horse shoe - this in itself is devestating during defences as the enemy has nowhere he can slip in behind you and will alwayse be facing at least one unit
3) If under seige dont wait Sally forth - the Greeks lack a solid wall defence so unless you can destroy all the ladders and towers before they reach the wall (highly unlikely) your gonna need to hit them before they hit you - with the Romans this works even better as they rush to the walls torepulse your attack.... before you make it which puts them in a world of hurt and you can sit inside the walls until ure archers run out of ammo then move on out

On the Campaign map there are again some simple stratgies to Greek Domination (the Greeks have the potential to outstrip the Egytions in power in the early game so if you can keep it going the momentum will rush you to end game)
1) unite Greece and Smash the Macedonians - this is relativly easy if you move fast and take Athens and Corinth before they know whats happening
2) once Greece is behind you comes the next stage and this is where you can split and take your own path - your choices are simple you can move to the rich east where pickings are easy and ull make even more than u allready are (with all of Greece im making a mere 15k a turn which is great for the early game) OR and this is the choice i urge - you deal with those Irksome Romans before they get the marius reforms. If you Counter the incoming Romans and then push your way back round the North of itally and down you can smash them one battle at a time - so long as you arnt overly agressive this should be easy (remmber Defensive is the Way to victory move into positions where the Romans have to attack you)
3) Once you either control the majority of the East or have crushed Rome then how you procede is up to you - personally i went for egypt but the Northan barbarians are probably a good choice too

Army makeups are easy
1) Build hoplites as you main Assualting (well i meen if you follow the defensive stratagy like myself the armies that move on the campaign map) they seem to be better in the open battles than the Armoured relatives
2) For every 4 hoplites build 1 Archer (remmeber when using them to stop them shooting once the enemy is at ure wall of spears)
3) for every 2 archers build one Cav (this is optional most my armies dont have anything like that much cav(some none at all))
4) for Cities defences build armoured hoplites - while they seem to be worse than hoplites in the field they are MUCH better on the walls
5) Make extreme use of mercs - the Greek army lacks the agressive power of the other nations so you need a god solid attack force from time to time use any barbarian Merc you come across

if you follow these rules you can emulate Alexander in no time

[Colovion]

I find an interesting way to succeed as the Greeks is to not stretch yourself thin trying to combine your provinces too early. Wait and build up your troops in each of your cities. This is much more difficult to defeat for the computer as they will have huge armies in a few cities instead of many cities with only a few troops per. Start by building up Sparta and advance on Macedon through Corinth, Athens, Larissa etc... Thermon may be tough to hold onto because it is kind of blowing in the wind. Build up a large amount of phalanx units to bolster all of those skirmishers. If you can use the Skirmishers as a "hit and run" tactic on the enemy as they appoach - every bit helps.

[Tibilus]

Ok I must have lost my brain?? But I cant seem to pick anything else other than, Julii, Brutii, scipii, Gaul, Bitrs, Carth, Germans????

Thanks for any help on that?

[Lord_Winter]

For some reason I had huge amounts of money a few turns into the game say mabye five six or so and I bought Athens and recommend everyone else to do the same...since it spares a lot of time and perhaps more then a few soldiers to the real war with the macedonians...

[sapi]

you can only play as factions that you dealt a killing blow to in a previous campaign. Just kill the greeks and they will become playable

[Raizen]

I don't know if that's always the case, sapi. I only knocked off Brittania, Dacia, and some others, but I can still play as the Gauls, Germania, etc.

[Sinner]

If you win the whole campaign you unlock all the playable factions, not just those you actually destroyed.

[Devastatin Dave]

I'm playing the Greeks right now and LOVING IT!!! Those Spartan Hopilites are the shiznit. Can the Greeks get elephant units? Just wondering considering the Greeks in history did have elephant units.

[The_Emperor]

No Elephants for the Greeks Dave, and their Cavalry isn't much cop really (though Militia Cav is really useful, just like Numidians or Auxiliary cav)

If you want Elephants I think you need to be Parthia, Carthage, or the Selucids. or have many family members running around the Elephant lands hopling to get a unit of Merc Elephants.

[Shottie]

I hate to get off topic but I can only play as 3 factions. How can I get other factions to play? Im used to MTW where I can pick what faction I want to play.

[eeyoredragon]

Click the link below to download the All Factions Mod (or you can complete the campaign with one of the Roman Factions):

Clickety-click

[Young Belisarius]

i never lost syracuse, despite it's isolation. in fact syracuse was like my impregnable castle, despite carthage and scipii attacking me. all i did was put save my archers, and hastened my way to build a range so i could build more.then the rest is just making more hoplites. and my city was never conquered.

[TN[ KrAzY!]

ive never lost syracuse either, let the romans and carthaginians attack you then when theyve wiped themselves out on your defences move out of the city and capture their 2 towns. My biggest problem with the greeks has been diplomacy, absolutley no1 will ally with me at all even if im winning most of my battles or offer them REDMAN CHEWloads of cash still no1 will ally, i get plenty of trade aggreements, even factions like the pontus who im continually wiping the floor with will not even accept a ceasefire, any suggestions?

[Jeanne d'arc]

ive never lost syracuse either, let the romans and carthaginians attack you then when theyve wiped themselves out on your defences move out of the city and capture their 2 towns. My biggest problem with the greeks has been diplomacy, absolutley no1 will ally with me at all even if im winning most of my battles or offer them REDMAN CHEWloads of cash still no1 will ally, i get plenty of trade aggreements, even factions like the pontus who im continually wiping the floor with will not even accept a ceasefire, any suggestions?

Make alliances with factions that have common enemies as u have.Make sure u watch them closely and if they send troops in to your teritory then they are going to attack u, use diplomats to cement the alliance with bribes.
Best chanche on a succesfull alliance :
-faction u want alliance with is at war with one of your enemies
-faction u want alliance with is far away from your borders

[D. Boon's Ghost]

Make alliances with factions that have common enemies as u have...

Right; this is how I survived the initial attacks. Macedon allied itself with two Roman factions, Thrace, and Parthia before starting in on taking over Greece. As I was too busy defending Syracuse from the Scipii and Carthage factions, I needed to get my natural enemies off of my back; mainly Macedon, Thrace, and Brutii. I managed this by becoming allies with Parthia, which immediately caused Macedon and Thrace to make peace with me.

I ended up never having to worry about Macedon, as they headed North to take part in the land-grab up there while I weathered the Scipii storm in Sicily.
If it were not for that initial deft diplomacy in Asia Minor, I would have been doomed.

[HopAlongBunny]

I think I have to second the "no one will ever ally with me" comment.

Played a short campaign and the only alliance I ever got was with Egypt...about 2 turns from the finish.

Syracuse? I didn't even realize it was mine until Scipii invaded I pretty much handed it over and concentrated on building Greece; kudos to those who manage that trick, I bet it shortens Rome's lifespan a great deal

Sacking Brutii cities in the south was a great help; they never recover and the fleet/army you build to do it will keep Rome off your back for a long time. One unexpected result was a long solid alliance between Carthage and the Romans

Thank you for all the helpful pointers here; made things much easier

[D. Boon's Ghost]

... I bet it shortens Rome's lifespan a great deal...

Perhaps not all of Rome, but the Scipii never had a chance. It seems like their entire strategy consists of storming Sicily in general, and Syracuse in particular. If the player can hold onto their slice of the island, it seriously hampers the Blue Ones to the point where they can do nothing but wait for their demise.
I do admit, though, that it was the hardest thing I've gone through with this game (so far). If I had not made peace with Macedon and Thrace, I would have been unable to focus on the defense of Syracuse.

[The_Emperor]

Ok my Greek campaign is really rocking now...

The greeks get a massive amount of income from Temples of Hermes and all those lovely provinces in mainland Greece. Also build temples of Nike in Syracuse and Sparta to give your Spartan Hoplites Air Max running shoes and a healthy experience bonus, which will make them awesome!

Taking Sicily is devastating to Rome, the loss of Messana cripples the Scipii, who annoyingly land forces turn after turn to try and recapture it. Sicily makes for a great naval base allowing you sink Rome's fleets with impunity.

I allied with Thrace and we double-teamed Macedon into the ground. After plonking down a few forts to defend the mountain passes I made two massive invasion forces and crossed into Italy. I was able to bully the Brutii into giving me a massive wad of money and a temporary ceasefire with an "accept or we will attack" demand with a huge army standing outside their Capital, which was garissoned by a puny force.

A second army attacked the Scipii, but ended up dealing with SPQR arriving to try to break the Siege of Caupa.

Following the defeat of the Scipii, they took Rome without a fight after eliminating the Senate's main army. The Julii will be more of a problem, they will send numerous forces to try to recapture Rome.

Interestingly Thrace have now broken our alliance, so now I have to deal with the Julii as a last Roman remnant and then turn my attention to Thrace.

[sapi]

In my campaign the roman factions just wouldn't go away, so i landed a full army stack in italy and, 3 turns later, owened the brutii territory. about 5 turns after that, the brutii and scipii are dead. The romans just don't keep enough armies in italy:)

[Xaron288]

In my campaign the roman factions just wouldn't go away, so i landed a full army stack in italy and, 3 turns later, owened the brutii territory. about 5 turns after that, the brutii and scipii are dead. The romans just don't keep enough armies in italy:)

The same thing happened in my campaign. I destroyed the Brutii fleets, so they were unable to quickly send troops to reinforce Croton and Tarentum, which I conquered easily in a few turns. Pre-Marius Roman units just don't compare to Greek armored hoplites.

[eeyoredragon]

One short note on defending your cities (of course I'm talking about stone walls ye nitwits ):

ARCHERS!!!

With 1-3 of these lovely guys you are "practically unbeatable" (but when I think about it, you are unbeatable...) as the enemy will stand with their nose in their arse just outside the walls and becoming sitting ducks. My archers are killing 200-400/assault. Take 3 units of optional hoplite unit, and get ready to kick some serious roman butt!

[Maltz]

Greek cities are a little like Carthage that its starting territory are scattered around the sea. War with multiple enemies are unavoidable, but the strong economy should make things easy. While there are certainly better approaches, this is what I did at the beginning 3 years:

1. Merge Macedon early on

I combined troops from Sparta & Thermon, plus some bribery to get rid off Macedon early on. This way, I can concentrate on the Romans as soon as possible. In my VH/VH game Macedon was gone on turn 6 and I believe it is possible to make it in 5. By the way, all Macedon towns are greeks, so there is no cultural penalty.

One good thing about playing Greek is that "Greek culture" is very popular in the era, making the conquest easier with lower cultural penalty in new conquered cities, as well as actually bribing Greek units into our military pool from our friendly or unfriendly neighbors.

2. Romans & others

Romans come very soon. Brutii landed close to Thermon and Scipii launches attack to Syracuse. I managed to sneak attack the Scipii town, but soon faced more Scipii army from the mainland.

Since Macedon is gone, I can call back my first army to face Brutii invasion. At the same time, I could slowly eating up Scipii and Carthage in Sicily.

On the east, just north of Rhode island there is a rebel province. The rebel AI constantly pull out the garrison to stand outside the town in my other games. This half stack contains some very good range units such as Crete archers ad Rhode slinger - and when you bribe this army they all will join you! I used this army to defeat the Selucid town. This becomes my 3rd army.

***

I am still learning how to use phalanx. So far I find them die too easily (even charged on the spears). If you play a lot of VH, you should know a rule of thumb: 1 vs. 1 = you always lose. A wall of pike means nothing if it is just a series of 1 vs. 1. You always lose.

So if you have an army with tons of hoptile, you don't get a lot of chance of flanking, and you will lose in all of the 1 vs. 1 throughout the line.

Hastati easily eat phalanx because they run 2 times faster than hoplites lowering their spears. I feel that I am constantly dodging field battles. I actually expand not through phalanx, but through bribing money and Crete archers / Rhode slingers shooting down whatever on the street.

If you enjoy "exicting battlefield" I would recommend to try Carthage or the barbarians, or lower the difficulty down so the phalanax are not just for good look.

[sapi]

It is a known fact that phalanxes are bugged on vh battle settings - the enemy can defeat them with a frontal charge!

[Zorn]

Just a couple of thoughts from my recent game (vh/vh):
Keep Syracuse. 6 Stacks of Archers on the wall can beat anything the scipii can send at it.
Usually they attack with 2 ladders, a ram and tower. It takes two archers to burn down a tower. It comes down to luck. Sometimes it burns down far away from your walls, sometimes some romans can climb up. Don`t get nevous, that means just that a lot of romans will die in the collabing tower, the half dozened that made it to the wall can be beaten even by archers.
Leave the ram alone. Usually your towers will destroy it - if not, just the better. Form all your hoplite units in a killing circle behind the gate. If the romans pour through, they will be stalled in a ring of spears, with burning oil raining on top of them. That should kill and/or break them. I write should, because in so far 5 sieges the romans only once managedto break the gate. A single unit of princeps stood the before the gate, facing said ring of spears and burning oil and arrows from above... they routed right before entering the atehouse. well, who can blame them?
The only problem are ladders. They are very quick, and because of the dead angle at the feet of the walls the are safer for te attacker than siegetowers. So every archer unit that doesn`t try to light a tower has to concentrate on units carrying ladders. In my games, usually a dozened Romans made in on my walls. I had some Peltast up there. In such close quarters they fight as well as hoplites, but are better because they can kill at least a little from afar.
Let the scipii bleed out in sicily.
Now, that was the easy part, defending your western colony.
Defending your eastern homelands is tougher.
I was attacked by the bruti (expected) the macedons (expected) bur on top of that, the julii were obviously bored an decided to join in too. So in turn 5 my first city was attacked by a huge bruti force backed up by a large juli force. I had put my faction leader in and my starting unit of spartan hoplites. The romans just carged in. I decided not to try to defend the gates. Well, actually I did. I really tried, but those peltast drove my nuts. of my 5 units, only 2 were atually able to fire over the walls. the othes would just stand there, or make an attempt to walk right out of the gate. At the same time, the enemy velites would fire over the wall all the time, mocking my incompetent troops. After 3 reloads I decided to change my strategy and concentrated on holding the street to the central square. My Spartans killed aone bruti genral unit, kiled every one exept the general of the second, and killed the juli general. the cretan archers fired volley over volley in that incredibly crowded alley - inflicting horrible casualties too. hwever, my other units sucked, and the romand outnumbered me 3:1 , so I finally lost the square, my faction leader and every unit exept my cretan archers, wich I tried to evacuate. While the winning countdown was running, a single man attacked the archers while they were sneaking away - the sole surviving bruti general. His courage was enormous, but even he couldn`t defeat an hole unit.
After all, I lost my leader and killed 3 roman family members (I suspect 2 of them to have been leaders too). A nice tradeoff for losing a city you can`t hold anyway.
But now, macedons, brutii and julii combined forces and besieged Sparta.
The Macedons attacked twice. Again I decided not to defend the walls, but hold the street to the center.
I put a Phalanx, so that it copletely blocked the street. Than I pu a second on the exact same spot. then a third and a forth. Four Phalanxes i each other - a forrest of spears. The battle in short: 6 full units of light lanciers and a general unit charged right in. You cannot believe the slaughter. there was a mountain of dead horses. Both times.
Well, the Julii finally got troubles with the gaul and called their army back, and the Brutii just waited long enough with their attack until I had my stone wall build. Then they suffered the same fate as the scipii.
Now, after years and years of defending, the enemies are weak enough that I can slowly claim back hellas.

So actually, the main advice I can give you for sieges with greeks: If you have stone walls, don`t worry. Let your archers do the job.
If you have wooden walls don`t try to defend them, just concentrate on blocking the street. Put multiple Phalanxes in each other if you do so ( that might be a bug or at least an exploit. But after I have seen a general unit cripple a Phalanx in a frontal assault I am more than willing to give the AI a taste of it`s own medicine).