Macedon

[frogbeastegg]

This faction must be unlocked with game editing before you can play.

[Accounting Troll]

The Macedonians are one of the minor factions, so they are not unlocked when you win the game as one of the Roman factions. However, they are perfectly playable and it is simple to edit the game to unlock them.

Go to the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign

Open up the text file entitled descr_strat

At the beginning of the file, it lists which factions are unlocked, which factions can be unlocked and which factions cannot be unlocked. Change this section so it looks like the following:

campaign imperial_campaign
playable
romans_julii
romans_brutii
romans_scipii
egypt
seleucid
carthage
parthia
gauls
germans
greek_cities
romans_senate
macedon
pontus
armenia
dacia
scythia
spain
thrace
numidia
britons
end
unlockable

end
nonplayable

slave
end

It is a good idea to back up this text file before you edit it in case you make a mistake. When you have edited and saved it, load up the game and start a new campaign. All 16 factions will be playable, but you might experience some peculiar side effects if you lead the senate. I owe a beer to the person who figured the above out.

BUILDINGS

The buildings technology tree for the Macedonians is similar to that of the Romans, however Macedonians cannot build highways and level five farms. Also, being Greeks, they prefer to watch a play or a poetry reading rather than the chariot racing and circus games favoured by the Romans.

Macedonian cities have a choice of four gods to dedicate their temples to. Demeter increases food production, Zeus improves law and order, Artemis upgrades missile weapons and Ares improves troop experience. Temples devoted to Artemis and Ares are going to be vital in your struggle against the Romans, particularly after the Marian reforms.


MILITARY UNITS AND BATTLE TACTICS

The military units available to the Macedonians will look a little dated as the game progresses, which is what makes them a challenging faction to play. Unlike the Romans and the southern Greek cities, the Macedonians have a long tradition of using cavalry in warfare and they get a good selection of cavalry, although they lack missile cavalry. Nearly a century before the game begins, Philip of Macedon devised pike phalanxes as an improvement on Greek hoplites, and so the Macedonians get three pike units as well as militia hoplites. In gameplay terms, pikemen are the same as hoplites, although you get 50% more men in a unit.

Unfortunately, the Macedonians don’t get much else. They get peltasts, basic archers and standard artillery weapons. Their ships are the standard for a civilised Mediterranean faction. You will probably need to beef up your armies by hiring the light swordsmen and skirmishers plying their trade in the Balkans.

Pikemen cannot run when they are in phalanx formation, and they are highly vulnerable to flank and rear attacks. They are also easy prey for enemy skirmishers. Compensating for their weaknesses is vital when you build your armies and send them into battle. For a twenty unit army, I prefer the following combination:

One member of the royal family to serve as a general.
Nine units of the most heavily armoured pikemen I can build.
Four units of archers – Cretan mercenaries for preference.
Six units of cavalry - two light and four heavy for preference.

The pikemen stay in a line in deep formation. Don’t let them separate when enemy troops begin to rout – your pikemen are too slow moving to catch them and they will leave themselves exposed to a counterattack.

The cavalry protect the pikemen from flank and rear attacks, chase down enemy routers and skirmishers, and launch flank and rear attacks of their own when the pikemen engage the enemy. Keep at least one cavalry unit in reserve in case the enemy break through your pike phalanxes.

The archers go in front of the pikemen. They cause heavy casualties and demoralise the enemy before the pikemen get involved. They can often goad the enemy cavalry, including the general, to charge them down; get them to flee behind the pikemen so the enemy cavalry finds itself committed to a head on charge into massed pikemen. Archers have another function – the chances are that the enemy has some archers and javelinmen. They have the potential to wreak havoc on your densely packed pikemen, but only if they don’t use their ammunition up in a duel with your archers.

Even after the Marian reforms, Roman legionaries were trained to hide behind their shields and use their short swords to thrust into an opponent’s belly in a melee. If you can keep them from outflanking your phalanxes, they will suffer terrible casualties because they will get impaled before they can reach your pikemen. And don’t worry about the testudo formation – thanks to modern writers and filmmakers it is the most overrated military tactic in history. Form your heavy cavalry into a wedge and hit it in the flank or rear.

Siege assaults are tricky because pikemen and hoplites can’t use siege towers because their spears are cumbersome. Peltasts and archers are poor at hand to hand combat if the city walls are defended. If you use sappers or rams, the city wall towers will inflict heavy casualties on your pikemen. I find it best to recruit mercenaries to use siege towers to capture the city gates and walls. The good news is that pikemen will perform well in the street fighting as you push towards the central plaza. Get your cavalry to nip down a different street and hit the defenders in the rear.


EARLY GAME CAMPAIGN PLAN

The very first thing you should do is to change your capital from Thessalonica to one of your other cities. This is because there will be a plague outbreak in Thessalonica around turn 25. There is nothing you can do to prevent it without modding the game as CA programmed it to happen. Keep your generals, agents and as many men as possible out of the city. Changing your capital will prevent a member of your royal family from growing up and coming of age in a plague ridden city. When the plague happens, don’t let any unit to enter or leave the city in order to prevent it from spreading. It will then burn itself out in a few turns.

Build paved roads as soon as you can. They will encourage trade and allow you to quickly move your armies around. Construct shrines devoted to Artemis and Ares in your cities – when you upgrade them, they will provide military benefits. You will also need to build barracks and practice ranges so you can turn out plenty of militia hoplites, levy pikemen and peltasts for the fighting ahead.

Your first campaign should be to capture the rebel held city of Athens as soon as you can to gain an extra troop producing centre and end the isolation of Corinth. When you have stormed Athens, choose to merely occupy the city and don’t enslave or exterminate the population. The Athenians are fellow Greeks, so you get no culture penalty to worry about and you don’t need the cash boost as you start with a relatively high income anyway. You benevolent policy gains you a prosperous and loyal small city ready to build lots of soldiers for your armies.

It will not be long before the Greek cities attack you, assuming you are prepared to wait. I prefer to send my field army towards Sparta and I send a diplomat to the area around Thermon ready to bribe any House of Brutii armies planning an invasion. The city of Sparta starts with some armoured hoplites and a unit of Spartan hoplites. You will need to wear these units down with your peltasts and archers because they will rout militia hoplites and levy pikemen in a melee. When Sparta falls, don’t enslave or exterminate the population as you have no need to. Divert your field army to the easier task of taking Thermon. When you have taken Thermon, get a ceasefire and trade agreement out of the surviving Greek cities – they will probably be delighted to end a war that they are losing and it save you from being harassed by their navy.

By this time you will have encountered the House of Brutii, who always take Apollonia in the first few turns. Although they are your biggest threat, you should befriend them and get an alliance if you can; they will usually see this to their advantage so they can build up their strength before attacking you. Historically, the Macedonians and Greeks were conquered because they failed to cooperate with each other against Roman ambitions. You can only beat the Romans if you control the Balkans and your other frontiers are secure. A few well placed bribes will buy you time.

Your next threat will be the Thracians. You need to either destroy them or drive them across the Danube. I prefer the latter, so my young generals can gain experience by fighting their field armies at a later date. The Danube is between the provinces of Thrace and Tribus Getae, and it can only be crossed in one place. Build a fort there and then march on Tylis.

Secure your northern border by building forts in the other places where the Danube can be crossed and get a trade agreement out of the Dacians. You don’t need a large garrison in your border forts as their job is to hold invaders or brigands until you can assemble a field army. A unit of peasants reduced to quarter strength in battle is ideal as you won’t have high maintenance costs. Befriend the Gauls and try to get an alliance and military access rights treaty out of them. The Gauls will prevent a Roman army from taking the land route into Macedonian territory.

You are now ready to take on the House of Brutii. March on Apollonia and launch a simultaneous attack on Salona if they have taken it. Remember that you are rich enough to bribe their armies into dispersing.

To defeat the Brutii, you are going to have to cross the Adriatic while dodging the Brutii, Scipii, Julii and Senate fleets. Bribe their field armies and storm Tarentum and Croton. This time you must slaughter the population and destroy as many buildings as you can and then retreat before the other Romans launch a counterattack. The Brutii will be either destroyed or at least set back by a generation, and the Julii and Scipii are still busy fighting other enemies. You have checked Roman ambitions in the east for now and you are now free to consolidate your hold in the Balkans by taking Byzantium and Segestica if you haven’t already done so.

[Maltz]

Hi: I just played Macedon in the "very hard" level these days. The above guide is certainlly well-written, and here are just a few things to add:

[Open Game]

1) The Brutii never agreed to ally with me; I had a few restarts. These men in green usually sent their faction heir's army to my territory in the first 5 turns. So, I declared war to the Brutii and tried to ally with the Greek (but I betrayed them later to get Sparta).

Although the Brutii army isn't huge, this first battle vs. Roman is not very easy. I guess it is because of the "very hard" setting - the Macedonian hoptiles in the phalanx formation still melt before everything: hastati, equity... whatever. Then, hastati kills our cavalry hard, too. Then, our missle units fire too slowly, and kill as many friendly units as the enemy. It is a completely different experience apart from playing as Romans.

I had to attack out of a stone castle (not besieged is fine), with all of my missle units on the wall. My general lured the Brutii enemy to charge close to the gate. (all other units stay inside or they won't be able to get back in time. I tried with my hotiles in formation holding outside, and they still get massacred like sheep) Then, when the green dudes came close, all of the archers rain hell from above. Note: Chetain mercentary archer is so effective! You gotta try it. After a few failed attempts, the entire Brutii retreated back to their fleet. They never come back.

2) Starting with only 2 cities, the Brutii, or even the entire Roman alliance is actually managable by the power-start Macedonians in the early game. It was about only 10 years into the game - I sent one group of army, and eliminated Brutii in 3 rounds.

[Poised]

On H/H.

Nice and informative so far, I like to start out just a tad more aggressive though :P

On turn 1, pull the Larissa archer down towards Sparta, Sparta should be hit on turn 2, there is a spartan hoplite unit in there that need to die, and the city will be a major archer factory extremely fast.

Build the usual roads, trade, ports, and then a city barack for Thessalonica, phalanx pikemen are good in cities!

On turn 2, pull everything out of Corinth and hit Sparta, the Greeks should have set up an ambush outside of town, leaving only the spartan hoplites to defend the city core, run your archers to the city square, and pepper the hoplites with arrows from just outside the square, while you arrange your own hoplites with the back to the square, facing the oncomming reinforcements, use your general to kill anything that routs, they will rout through your phalanx and run for the city square, so have your horses clean them up, if they reach the square they will automatically rally.

You dont need to exterminate or enslave the greek or rebel cities of Sparta and Athens, just occupy them, then build practice range and archer range FAST in Sparta, tear down any alien temple after you have the archers, then build 3 temples to Artemis, in the year 261bc I had my first gold weapon archers from Sparta, these saw use when I opened up against the Brutii :)

Your back is now free of those pesky Greek, and there is no Rush to get Athens since it is rebel, just take it whenever you can, its an easy town to get with 2 hoplites on ladders, then 1 hoplite and an archer to get to the square after the gate falls.

There is no rush in getting Thermon either, on turn 2 Thermon will send out a small unit, kill them with your Larissa General and they wont bother you again, and they will serve as a nice buffer between you and Brutii till you get gold archers.

By this time you have Phalanx pikemen comming out of Thessalonica, and light horses comming from everywhere, you dont need to rush to get heavy cavalry from Thessalonica, the light horses are brilliant because they are cheap and ready from turn 1, and you can repair your army in almost any city and move on, with heavy horses you are much less mobile.

Ally yourself with Gaul, if only to spite those Romans :)

The Thracians will be on you almost from the start, they have even landed parties near Larissa by boat, so have an army consisting of only light horses and your general on the move, you can always pull some spears and bows out of a nearby town for an attack, and put them back home after the battle.

After you have conquered Thermon and Apollonia, you should be about to have a nice plaque in Thessalonica, so build market then public baths before that happens, to get Thessalonica back on its feet nice and safe.

By now you have Good horses, great archers, and good phalanx, potentially excellent economy, and only 3 borders, Apollonia, Thessalonica and Bylazora, the stage is set for greatness :)

(edit) Do remember to train your Cretan archers in Sparta too.
And build temples of Ares in all other big troop producing cities, +3 experience and +1 morale is nice, the Artemis temple eventuallly gives +5 to missiles.

[belac]

I concur with the above posts - but I have some advice with regards to Thrace and Greek Cities. Hit them early and hard and don't let up.

Force either into ceasefires and high tributes early - if you can you've got the cash to build your army and navy for the upcoming fight - the Romans.

The Brutii made an alliance with me, but invaded shortly after. Just a side note - build lots of watch towers in W Greece, near Larissa. Same with Bylazora (sp?). This way you can anticipate the invasion from Thrace and the Brutii.

The invasion from the Brutii means war with the every Roman faction. You'll need your army to fight the Brutii, but a strong navy to repel the Scipii and Julii.

Is it me or do the Julii have navies everywhere? The Brutii and Scipii have their respected navies concentrated in their spheres of control and war, but it seams the Julii have a vast naval network. Destroy them all.

I really really enjoy the challenge of Macedonia - you've got three potential enemies early on which means if you can win - you become STRONG fast. I love the cavalry/phalanx combo - deadly to Roman legions if you can pin with spears and cavalry charge from flanks and rear.

Hope this helps ~D

[alexanderthegreat]

hi i m playing macedonia now but i use cheats so you guys are why better then me.

[Slon]

Macedon is fairly simple faction to play as (medium/medium). They have excellent phalanxes, artillery, normal archers and good cavalry. Their only weakness is their lack of sword infantry, but that's alright because their pikemen are pretty good at sword-fighting, too.

You should concentrate on the Greek Cities early on because they control very profitable land. Here are some basic tips before moving on:

For garrisons: Keep 5 units of levy pikemen and 4 units of archers (and the rest peasants if you have trouble keeping peace). Once you get heavy onagers, add those to the garrison equation.

For armies: I recommend avoiding companion cavalry and royal pikemen (at least at first). Companion cavalry isn't that much better than Macedonian Cavalry, and phalanx pikemen are more cost-effective and almost as powerful as royal pikemen. Don't bother with milita hoplites. If you do the math, they cost as much cash-per-soldier as levy pikemen, and the levy pikemen weapon is heavy. So, 6-8 phalanx pikemen, 4-5 archers, 3-4 macedonian cavalry and 4 heavy onagers (once you get them).

The Southern Front:

Once you have a basic army of phalanx pikemen and archers, take Thermon to keep the romans from getting it (you don't want the war to start too early). Then, build the aforementioned garrison (making sure to include archers, as this settlements may be beseiged soon). Then, take your amy and attack Athens and Sparta. In this sector, you should then proceed to attacking Crete and Rhodes, as these settlements will produce large amounts of income and will be awsome if you start growing them out early (it may be a good idea to set taxes to low or medium to increase growth, as small towns don't produce much taxes, anyway). In Cyrene, you probably won't see much action, so just make sure you have the aforementioned garrison. Then, just watch Numidia and Egypt duke it out for control of a worthless settlement. Oh, and try to ally yourself with Egypt and get a trade agreement with both Egypt and Numidia. Also, keep in mind that you should get heavy onagers to this settlement ASAP in case Egypt attacks.

The Northern Front:

In the north, Thrace and Dacia will be attacking Bylazora continuously. I suggest keeping a fairly powerful garrison in Bylazora and also a Diplomat to bribe away armies/family members before they attack. Take Byzantium ASAP to get some more income.

Edit: It IS possible to get Alexandria, Memphis and Thebes to revolt and become rebel provinces. I managed to do this with a handful of spies and starting from Thebes and working my way North. The Egyptians became so weakened that their land attacks stopped as they were gathering all their forces to try and retake the settlements.
The Western Front: Brutii will most-likely be throwing everything they have at you. The settlements in danger are Macedonia (your Capitol), Bylazora and Thermon. Make sure they have good garrisons. Once you fight off a few waves of Romans, the Brutii will start to calm down because their losses will start getting to them (remember, the first profitable settlement that the Brutii are supposed to capture is Thermon, and it is in your hands). Take the settlement bordering Thermon when you can. once you have another army at this front. (Note: you should have a powerful army at each of the mentioned fronts). Once you're ready, board a ship and transfer your main army, 3-4 family members and some spies/diplomats, and move unload them in the Brutii capitol in one turn (to avoid being sunk by the powerful roman fleets). Immediately beseige the Capitol and build some siege equipment. If you see that the garrison is exeptionally weak, it may be easier to just assault the settlement rather than waiting for a few years. If they have a good garrison/good defenses, don't bother attacking. You might even attract a powerful roman army into attacking your phalanxes. Once done, build a garrison and attack the last remaining roman settlement. Meanwhile, if the Brutii still have a settlement near Thermon, take it with a small army, too. That way, you take the Brutii out of the game in a few quick and decisive turns.

Now slow down, build up your garrisons and retrain your armies. Once you are ready (having bribed all of the Brutii generals that became rebels), attack Capua to take Scipii out of Italy. If it isn't too much trouble, start building up another large army to attack Sicily. If you take Capua and your other army gets to Sicily, you will either completely destroy Scipii or at least greatly weaken them (to an irreperable state). Once you are ready, beseige Rome itself! If you see that the bulk of SPQR's army is walking around with a bribeable general or no general at all, bribe them and leave Rome with a tiny garrison. From here, it should be pretty easy to defeat Julii as they will be fighting wars with the Northern barbarians and with you on their southern front at the same time. They are basically screwed, as their undeveloped settlements won't allow them to afford battles on too many fronts.

Note: I managed to take Brutii out of the game without the use of royal pikemen, heavy onagers or companion cavalry. They are overrated.

Spies in Egypt:

While your northern wars rage on, it is a good idea to gets LOTS and LOTS of spies/assassins into egypt and start using them to start rebellions/damage buildings. A few years of this will make it difficult for Egypt to fight off Numidia and will delay their eventual attack on Cyrene. While you fight the Romans, you should start constructing a powerful army to take Egypt. You might even want to consider making a super army (BEST units like Royal pikemen and companion cavalry + heavy onager support). Personally, I recommend avoiding war with Egypt altogether until you weaken them. If they DO attack (probably in Cyrene), make sure you have two huge super armies ready to beseige Alexandria and Memphis.

The rest of the game is fairly easy since Egypt usually isn't ready for an attack on their capitol late in the game. If you get lucky, you will be able to avoid war with Egypt on your armies finally land in Alexandria and beseige their two most important settlements (Memphis and Alexandria). If this happens, they will most likely be completely unprepared with their large armies north-east of Jerusalem and west of Lybia.

Once you defeat these guys, the rest of the game is easy, as your enemies simply won't be able to outspend you.

[MoROmeTe]

I quite like the MAcedonians because of the phalanx/cav combo mntioned. Although I never finished a game I've started wih them I do have a few ideas about the early game. I need to mention that i'm playng RTR 4.1, not vanila Rome.
The first couple of turns I think the Greeks should be left alone. the Brutii will (it always happened to be) try and assault Corinth, but a few coordinated sallies will take out their army. Athens should be left alone, as the Greeeks will skirmish with it and take out some of the defenders. It makes it easier for you to deal with it later.
What I did in my game was take the 3 Copanion Cav you start with, along with the 3 Phalanx Pikemen units and 3 Light Lancers and go taking neutral setlements in the north west, like Delminium, Segestica. I once managed to get Apollonia before the Brutii but it was undefendable. Another idea would be to leave the neutrals alone and go for Byzantium and then for the whole of Thrace. But I've found that going for the neutral towns comes home with some profit, gives a nice base for expansion and a few troop producing centers without much work. The drawack is hat yo will be spread pretty thin and Dacia, Thracia, the Greeks and the Brutii might decide to attack you all at once, making your life very much miserable.
After this early stage I also go for Athens, Sparta, sometimes Kydonia and Rhodes. Then I usually beggin fighting the Romans in the peninsula but coming from the north, from my Segestica base, not by water.

[Johnny Blaze]

Hello Everyone,

Just though I would mention a few of the things I have noticed about the Macedonians. First of all, Militia Hoplites and Levy Pikeman are for all intensive purposes COMPLETELY useless. Therefore, if you are the type of commander who enjoys seeing a long line of gleaming pikes, I suggest that you upgrade your barracks ASAP before engaging in any conflict with the Romans or Greeks. There is nothing more frustrating in my opinion that outnumbering your opponent, lining up your levy pikeman against his infantry line, swinging your calvary around to the rear of his army and then just as you are about to delover the decisive blow...having your entire line break and flee for seemingly no reason. Often the morale of these buggers is so poor that even with a very expeienced general and superior numbers the infantry of your line will flee almost before they lose a man.

Which brings me to my second point... dont use Macedonian infantry early on in the game, use their calvary instead! It is quite possible to win battle after battle after battle with a large stack of just light lancers and a decent general.. why would you risk losing by adding any levy pikeman? Now dont get me wrong, I am a HUGE fan of the combined arms approach.. in fact if your are not playing an eastern faction it is almost essential for survival in the middle and late game. But lets face it... light lancers have one of the best charge bonuses in the game, and the infantry of the Greeks and Romans can be out maneuvered time and time again. Just run around them till they break apart from their battle line, then hit isolated units in the rear hard! Withdraw immediately and repeat the process to take advantage of the high charge bonus! Use your general's calvary (preferably the backup general(s)) to deal with enemy heavy calvary (practically non-existant with the romans and greeks), and the light lancers can deal with any inf or missle troops no problem. Another point which validates this theory is that in RTW calvary are sooo overpowered compared to other troops that you must take advantage of this to win battles with minimal losses. I do not have the new patch 1.2 myself, but I have heard that it increases calvary strength even more (what were they thinking??).

Remeber, this advice applies mainly to the early game on VH/VH setting. On easier settings your inf may or may not have better morale (I have never played on the easier settings myself as I find the battles easy enough as it is once you get a feel for the AI and the units).

[mrcow88]

what ive done for my vh/m campaign is go all out to get the greek cities of the greek peninsula. first turn, empty all the men you can out of ur cities while still keeping the taxes as high as possible and train peseants in all the cities but corinth where u should train a diplomat to sell an atm package to the greeks. plus u dont need to move the corinth units anyway because its right next to the first target, sparta. send ur starting diplomat up past bylazora to the thracian capital, often a dacian army will come down to this area and u can sell an atm package and/or bribe a really sweet general, continuing to thrace to sell another atm package later on. next turn, use the diplomat in south greece to bribe the army that comes from thermon, u will get these units and send them right back where they came from, all the defense thats left is a general and militia hoplites. also, when the next coming of age comes around, send him to that city to get experience witht the seige. at the end of turn 2 u should have massed all the troops u started with right next to sparta, easier to do if u use the boats provided at thessolonica. turn 3 attack sparta and the army nearby, it will be any easy fight with all those troops u started with, plus the faction leader usually suicide charges in the battle, making it really easy to rout the remaining units. just occupy sparta and build temples to ares as high as the tech tree allows, then stables. now, ur probably wondering why ive left out the brutii. 2 things will happen with them, 1 they will land at apollonia and take that and start there (not as much in my game) or 2 they will suprise land at corinth the turn after u start ur seige on athens or so (80% of the time). every time its been the faction heirs army too, so u cant bribe it, fight it with ur spartan army. this can be a tough fight with the good general for the romans, but to ease the fight, train lancers every turn where u can after the first turn of peasants and send them to south greece, just flank them and rout em. and its not just limited to the brutii, ive had the julii give up on gauls and come after me at corinth too, witht their faction leader. the scipii r usually busy on syracuse but after 15 yrs theyll knock at ur door too if u havent made it to the italian peninsula by then. jsut keep repelling these roman armies until u can take ur main army to tarentum and croton and finish the brutii off. the whole plan ive laid out is a massive blitzkrieg and having cavalry trained at the exterior while infantry is trained in the interior allows for fast movement. with the spartan army go to athens and take that. that same turn you should take thermon to get the greeks of the area. also, u should get a few rebel armies and thracian armies wandering through ur area, bribe them and add them to the bribed dacian generals army. with taht army, if u have enought troops, try to beat thrace to byzantium, if u dont go to their capital and seige that, but make sure u have a diplomat to bribe everything u can for more troops, u should have the money by now. with tylis gone, thrace is screwed and its only a matter of time. i went to byzantium next, took that, built a full stack army and then went to finish off the greeks in asia minor. always keep building troops in most of the cities because teh more armies u have the faster u can expand, i have 4 armies right now, one in italy, one is asia minor, one in thrace and one going to crete then rhodes then asia minor. even though this seems bad as it hinders populatin growth and costs a bit to maintain, u dont want to stockpile money in this game, at a treasury of 50k or so ur general lose their management abilities and become crappy governors, in one of my scipii games, all my governors were so and so the wrathful with a 700k treasury. the point is always spend ur money to expand faster. now with the brutii gone, feel free to take an army up to apollonia then salona, if the gauls own salona, take it anyways and keep going to segestica. this is bout where i am now and its workin quite well, but that senate army looks like a pain compared to my lancer heavy force

[ajgundam5]

First 5 Turns - Ally with Greek Cities and when they lay siege upon Athens go and build siege weapons yourself, then assault the city and the Greeks will even help you out :-).
From then on try to wipe out the Greeks from Greece and then move north up until you wipe out thrace. If you prevented the Julii from getting any territory outside of Italy they should be your first choice to hit. Then continuously produce units in the major 3 greek cities and ship them over every chance you get nd keep making troops in italy until you control it all. I hunted down all the italian factions so they wouldn't bother me. Then I moved into Asia Minor. Then I just kept expanding.

[Svean]

Macedonians starts really powerfull so - use it!
First of all I took Athens - you willa have many benefits of that - a lot of cash and producting center for most of the game.

In the north you should send a diplomat to birbe incoming Dacian army. It's worth about 6000 (maybe less - I don't remember) but you will take one of the best leaders (in my game he became fraction heir). Of course before that try to sell to Dacians yor map and offer to attack Rebels (same with Greek Cities).

In south build and send to Greeks a diplomat (see above) and after taking Athens send that armies to Sparta. Most of the times Greek units hide near the city living there only Spartan hoplites. In that case attack the city - spartans will defend the city while you could deal with the rest of the army and THEN kill as many of spatans with arrows/javelins as you can. This unit has 2 lives (my cat is better - has 7 ;)) and great stats so after using all missiles charge them with everything you have.

That's the very beginning.
After that take Thermon and go north - Dacians and Thracians will try to take Bylazora soon. Birbe them or kill in battle. And go for their cities ;)
Thacian cieties don't get culture penalty so you don't need to enslave them but you can if you want yor main cities bigger.

During that prepare for Brutti. I couldn't ever ally with them but even allied they always attack. In my game they go for Tessalonica but they were easily defeted with garrison from Byzalora and Larissa (with the help from the besieged too :))

Then you can take Appolonia or/and invade Asia Minor/Crete/Rhodos.

[cunobelinus]

i enjoyed these there spearmen are there strong point there royal pikemen are my favoutrite spearmen and phalanx even if the arent the strongest type.i went fro greece and wiped them out first then there is the romans they are really annoying.i never completed my campaign with them

[Imperator]

Campaign-
When playing Macedon you must remember you can't use their phalanxes exacly like Greek ones because they aren't as good against missile troops. On the Campaign map try to get alliance and trade rights with both Dacia and Thrace to secure you back. If they do attack, which they might, be ready! what I did was take Athens before the Greeks and then I took Thermon and blockaded Sparta to destroy trade then I bribed their huge army and use it to take Sparta. Now you have a really good production area from Sparta, Athens, Corinth, Thermon, and Larissa. If the Brutii haven't attacked yet attack them! They have Appolonia and possiby Salona. Now try to get a ceasfire with Greece and take Crete. Now you have a good invasion point to Italy, sail over two bg armies and quickly take Tarentum and Croton before the Romans can do anything. Slowly work your way up to Rome and defeat the huge army. This will probably destroy you army so have a reseve army. Now might be a good time to attack Thrace because they probably have some good cities, adn Dacia because they can't stand up to Macedons phalanxes. Once you take all of Italy you might have to fight Gaul but you can beat their hoards with you cavalry alone! You can choose to go into Sically (Syracuse is Awsome!) or you can march on the final Greek settlements with will eventually bring you to fight the People of Pontus and later Egypt. By now if you haven't attacked Thrace, attack! you can get phalanx pikemen from bribing and their cities and Dacian ones will give you the possibility of two fronts with European barbarians. From here your on your own.
Infantry-
At the beginning your arny isn't very good militia will rout on contact with the enemy and levy will rout if not helped. Once you get to phalanx pikemen your fine, but they aren't very good against missiles. Royal pikemen are awsome, they're just like aroured execpt with more men. I always put either mercenary hoplites or royal pikemen on the flanks because the can move faster with their shorter spears.
Cavalry-
Macedon starts out with a few light lancers and two of macedonian cavalry. Macedons cavaly is made for one purpose, while your infantry hold the go around back and charge. Remeber until you get to macedonian cavaly don't let your cavalry get fully engaged by infantry, they will be slautered. In you armies you should have at least 4 cavalry. Don't underestimate light lancers because of their armour and defence because their charge bonus is 15! Companion cavalry is unnessecary but is awsome because they are just like legionary cavalry.
Missile-
Macedon has two kinds of missile troops: skirmishers and archers. Personally I like archers more because they can sit safe behind your battle line and peg enemy troops. Skirmishers though can be useful against other phalanxes and can put a charge in a desperate situation.
Mercenaries-
In Greece you find three different mercenries hoplite, cretean archers, and skirmishers. To me only the archers are really worth your money. In Turkey you get barbarian cavalry and infantry, hopites, cretean archers, slingers, thracian and bastarnae, samaration cavalry, and eastern infantry. All except the easrtern infantry and Barbarians good. In Italy there are hoplites, barbairians, and sammnite mercenries. Sammnites are only watered down triarii.
Temples-
Macedon has 4 temples: Zeus, Ares, Artemis, and Demeater. Zeus gives public order and happiness, Ares gives public happiness and experiance. Artemis give public law and better missile weapons, and Demeater gives public happiness and increases farm output.

[Aimar78]

To make things a little more interesting with Macedonia try to walk in the steps of Alexander the great, in the first few turns gather up all your armies and generals jump in your ship and sail straight to nicomedia, take it and give all your cities in mainland greece to your greek brothers in exchange for pergamum, now you can conquer asia and the Greek cities should be strong enough to keep the brutii off your back untill the conquest of asia & egypt is complete, and then you can set your sights on rome and fight on your own terms.

[Norxis]

Heres a little something I found helpful during my game with the Macedons.
The first thing you need to do I think at least is reunite Greece as quickly as possible and grab as many rebel provinces as you can. This was extremely easy I thought, i just left a skeleton garrison at Thessolonica and then filled up a ship with my king and army and captured: 1) byzantium, 2) Crete (+ stocked up army with as many mercs as i could afford), 3) Hallicarnasus, 4) Rhodes. Capturing Hallicarnasus early is important because its got a wonder and it will immediately assist you in undermining Pontus before it gets to powerful! I did capture Sardis soon after that in one game, and if you do that, you have to reinforce the garrison because the selucids will counter-attack with a big army of militia hoplites, but if you can stick 1 or 2 units of phalanx pikemen in garrison there, you should have no big problems.

Here's a little tip that I kinda exploited to get Rome off my back. Eventually I sent a biggish army over to Tarentum and Croton. I sacked and destroyed Croton, enslaved Tarentum. All I did to keep the Romans off my back was build a stone wall in Tarentum, maintain a relatively strong garrison, with the gates always destroyed (thats very important, leave the gates destroyed!!!!). The Romans would always stupidly rush into the city, 5 units of archers on the wall and 2 ballistas on the ground would decimate them before they ever got to the phalanx defences (this was on Hard/Hard). The ones that would get to the unit of phalanx pikemen would always flee the moment they hit the wall of spears. Always battles with massive Roman losses and only a few of your own troops dead. This way, the Romans only try to invade Tarentum, hence they're off your back for good, you can build up your generals to legendary status rapidly (and then ship them off for other campaigns) and continue to conquer Asia Minor and the East before invading the rest of Italy at your own leisure!

The position of the Macedonians, possibility of rapidly making tons of cash and a relatively strong army (especially they're cavalry) make the Macedonians a great faction to play!

[pezhetairoi]

Well, I think my Macedonian campaign is certainly an interesting one, like yours :-) I took Athens at Turn 3 after picking up all spare units in Thessalonica and Larissa. Meanwhile, I'd built a militia barracks in Thessalonica (the only one that could do so) and trained 3 units of levy pikemen (crappy, but no matter what they have 5 rows of sharp pointy sticks compared to 2, as well as more men), loaded them into my navy and sent them south to land in Laconia, Turn 6. Meanwhile my Athens army came up with reinforcements from Corinth and besieged Sparta. Turn 7, I merged my Levy Pikemen with it, assaulted and took it while a secondary army trashed Thermon and moved for Apollonia, taken another 2 turns later.

I am sure that it differs, but sometimes as late as turn 8, Sparta is still unwalled. In my case Sparta was unwalled until Turn 5 (damn) then they had it walled so I had to go in the gate with guns blazing. Or spears glittering, as it were.

In my case, anyway, Greece was united by turn 8, and by turn 13 I had an invasion of Italy and Thrace going on at the same time. After my levy pikemen taught the Brutii 20-stacks some lessons (who ever said they sucked? Their morale only crashes to the ground if a) you leave them unsupported for too long, or b) you let them take all the pressure.) I captured Brutia-in-Italy, while Thrace was annihilated in 7-8 turns flat (or 9, i cannot remember, mostly spent in movement) By turn 20 I was island-hopping from Crete to Rhodes to Halicarnassus, which I simply bribed away, then north to Sardis (then Seleucid, they caused some serious problems with their chariot archers, but nothing my light lancers couldn't handle), and finally, Pergamum. A good core in Asia minor, then I bribed Pontus. Asia Minor was a study in bribe success... I managed to pay for Ancyra, Nicomedia, Mazaka, Tarsus, Halicarnassus, without a fight. Oh, not to mention all the Seleucid, Pointic and Egyptian armies I bought off.

Now here's an interesting thing: Macedon vs Scythia makes for Alexandrian tactics. When Alexander fought the Scythian horse archers, in central Asia, he had a balanced army with phalanxes etc as well. But he didn't get cut to pieces. On the contrary, he managed to trap the Scythians and trash them. How? He advanced the phalanx as bait, and when the horse archers began circling around the phalanx, shooting, he moved up his light troops and cavalry wide to the flanks, herding a portion of them into between them and the phalanx's rear, and followed up with a powerful charge of his companion cavalry straight into that mass of horse archers, after which he pursued the remnants of the Scythians that had not fallen into the trap. It works in RTW. Especially when you can repeat ad infinitum because the -stupid- AI doesn't know better than to repeat their same circling tactics again. Light Lancers are enough to trap the HA. of course, you need quite a few units, and they have to do some hard riding to come around and behind the HA flanks to herd them into Companion/General's/Greek cavalry range. But it works. Very well, too. You probably wouldn't have this problem in your game since the HA will probably run out of ammo and charge into your spears, but for me, I'm playing on unlimited ammo (my rationale being that Surena could bring up new supplies of arrows during Carrhae, and so could the Romans whenever they fought).

There. Just my two cents' worth. Oh, I was playing on M/M. More realistic than VH/VH with their stupid morale bonuses.

[Craterus]

What sort of infantry (not spearmen) does Macedon get?

[Accounting Troll]

As well as the militia hoplites and various pike units, the Macedonians can build peasants, peltasts (unarmoured javelin throwers) and basic archers. Try hiring mercenaries as Cretan archers and mercenary peltasts are better than your archers and peltasts, and their wages are only slightly greater.

[Craterus]

I've found out that they have no infantry units (not including spearmen) ... I'll have to get used to fighting with spearmen, usually there my last resort.. ~D

[pezhetairoi]

Hahaha, Craterus, it's highly ironic that you haven't yet gotten used to fighting with the phalanxes you're given, because your historical namesake under Alexander was a commander of a pezhetairoi phalanx division ^_^ He was supposed to be GOOD at it, lol.

But, yeah, I find pikemen a little unwieldy in reinforcement battles (where the enemy has another army coming in at 90 degrees to your main front), so my Macedonian armies always have a generous complement of barbarian infantry/bastarnae/thracians/any other infantry I can get my family member on, as well as Cretan archers. Like Alexander's army, only about half of every one of my armies were of Macedonian origin, mainly in the form of light lancers and family members.

I rarely take more than 6 units of pikemen with any army in any campaign. In fact, 6 was a high-point i used in Italia, nowhere else. Elsewhere it was rarely more than 4.

[Craterus]

Hahaha, Craterus, it's highly ironic that you haven't yet gotten used to fighting with the phalanxes you're given, because your historical namesake under Alexander was a commander of a pezhetairoi phalanx division ^_^ He was supposed to be GOOD at it, lol.

But, yeah, I find pikemen a little unwieldy in reinforcement battles (where the enemy has another army coming in at 90 degrees to your main front), so my Macedonian armies always have a generous complement of barbarian infantry/bastarnae/thracians/any other infantry I can get my family member on, as well as Cretan archers. Like Alexander's army, only about half of every one of my armies were of Macedonian origin, mainly in the form of light lancers and family members.

I rarely take more than 6 units of pikemen with any army in any campaign. In fact, 6 was a high-point i used in Italia, nowhere else. Elsewhere it was rarely more than 4.

Craterus went on to command Alexander's left flank of cavalry. Maybe you have yet to hear of my legendary cavalry commanding. Check out the Spain thread, I posted a description of a heroic victory vs. 1000-something Romans using only 2 generals..

After the assassination of Parmenion, Craterus was promoted to command the left flank. Before this was Parmenion's responsibility.

[cunobelinus]

dont say anything about craterus pezhetairoi because he is a great commander of cavalry and at least he has a descent name.if u wanna do an online fight with him or our clan is up for a fight

[Craterus]

Hey littlegannon, he was just stating the irony that Craterus did indeed start his military career commanding a phalanx battalion. As I have stated in this thread, my skill when commanding phalanx units is far from good.

Of course, pezehetaroi if you would like a battle online, I'm up for it (as long as I'm not playing Macedon/Greece), if you would like a clabattle, that is also welcome. If you are not in a clan, you are welcome to join ours, but enough advertising here, visit Campus Martius for MP info.

[pezhetairoi]

Umm, well, I've never fought online before, I don't think my skills are good enough yet to toe up with true masters like you all... Besides, there's the slight problem in that I don't have internet access at home, and I have to use the computers in school to post on the forums. So. :-( But oh, no, I've been posting on the Spain thread too, remember? I have heard all too often about your cavalry commanding skills, and am justifiably wary of them :-) If I ever join a clan battle, it will be on your side. :-P The day I get internet access at home, I'll take you up on your offer to join Leo Honorius. (what am I getting myself into? *potters off to read Campus Martius*)

Littlegannon, chill :-P Nice to see you're so protective of Craterus, though ^_^ *remarks to Craterus* The Clan Spirit is strong in this one. :-P

Ahaha, sorry, I'm feeling a little crazy today.

[Craterus]

Lol, me and littlegannon are good friends.

Good to see you would join the clan if you could..

Nice to see you are aware of my cavalry talent.. It's more my lack of infantry talent that puts me off Macedon and Greek Cities..

[pezhetairoi]

Yeah... but as I suggested in some other RTW guide thread (why didn't I post in this one?) you could milk Macedon purely for its cavalry.

[Craterus]

I could but I think I will try to learn about using phalanxes and balancing my skills..
That way I could play with a bit more variety.. :grin:

[katank]

As I said in other threads, turning off phalanx to move them into position is essential and makes them far less frustrating.

If you can get a phalanx to rear attack the enemy, it's truly beautiful. The phalanx sandwich is probably the most deadly situation an enemy unit can face.

[Craterus]

Have you seen the screenshot of two men completely surrounded by phalanxes? They're doomed.. ~D I know about phalanx standard formation but they are quite vulnerable to cavlry in this formation so I don't like to use it if cavalry is near.

[katank]

With the jumping horsies, even in phalanx mode, they can be a bit vulnerable. I personally like to escort pikers or hoplites not in phalanx with cav. COunter charge enemy cav with mine and move up the pikers and then activate phalanx=enemy horsie kebob

[pezhetairoi]

mmm, i don't see why everyone's so afraid about being caught out of phalanx. Well, just me, at least :-P In small battles the standard-formation phalanx is always in my line of sight so I can smell a cavalry charge coming a mile away and be ready for it by then, and in big battles I usually open the battle with phalanx contact rather than outflanking actions by cavalry, so I'm also always watching my line. Cavalry shouldn't be able to come close to your phalanx without you noticing... I always put my phalanx into phalanx the instant enemy horsemen come within bowshot range.

[katank]

Sometimes the spear bonuses that phalanx units enjoy makes them decent against cav even without phalanx. Tip is to hit stop before attempting to form a phalanx as it helps to get them back in line faster.

I can indeed usually see the enemy from far off too and get time to turn phalanx back on.

[pezhetairoi]

wait, you mean they can face cavalry even with phalanx turned off? I thought they were mincemeat if their pointy sticks were facing up when the horsies came.

[katank]

Only if very massed. Phalanx pikers and royal ones can stand a chance with pikes up and being massed. Levies will die.

What I usually have is my cav near the pikers escorting. Even if my cav is inferior, I will countercharge the enemy cav and try to stop them near my pikes. Then I rush the pikes in and let them melee, turning on phalanx. Nothing wrong with them meleeing for a while out of phalanx. It's the charge that really hurts.

[pezhetairoi]

I see. It can get annoying in the cities, I'll give you that. My phalanxmen for some strage reason simply CANNOT remain in phalanx formation once they begin the town-square phase of the battle.

[katank]

Have you tried to turn it off and then back on after you finished moving? I find that turning it off actually helps. When phalanxes hit a building corner or something, stuff gets screwy.

[pezhetairoi]

Problem is, I need to leave it back on because they are already at the town square and are about to wheel and engage, for example, falxmen. So once I turn it off (and the units are really too close for comfort, the falxmen may charge) I get the shivers. But when the phalanx joins combat, have you seen that annoying part where their spears all disappear and they spread out to fight? It's DAMNEDLY annoying, because my infantry backbone was levy pikemen, which are useless in melee. They don't engage the enemy with their pikes where they would win for sure.

[katank]

That's why you need to park the phalanxes just out of the town square. This way, the enemy wouldn't charge you immediately. You have time to arrange a nice wall of steel.

Then you provoke them into charging this wall of death by either firing at them with missile in patch 1.2. Or, you can charge cav slightly into the square and quickly out through your phalanx.

When the enemy is under fire or has threat in the town sqaure, they will charge in that direction. Result, they pitch themselves to their death upon thy spears.

[pezhetairoi]

...Ah, well. I just realised I'd been playing hoplite factions before 1.2. I shall try it on 1.2 and see. Is there absolutely NO way I can join battle with the town square guard in offence and still maintain my phalanx? I'm not really the defensive kind of hoplite player, unless I'm way outnumbered or I don't have the mood to manoeuvre that day.

[Deus ret.]

Then you provoke them into charging this wall of death by either firing at them with missile in patch 1.2. Or, you can charge cav slightly into the square and quickly out through your phalanx.


Bringing cavalry out through your phalanx, especially when they are stacked? Admittedly I never tried this in town battles...but on the open field I tried to pull back my ranged attackers through the phalanxes before the enemy cav could catch them. Well, the result of it was that the cav charged into my phalanx, just as desired....if there hadn't still been so many archers between them. Two units of Cretans decimated to one damnit! Since that day, I put up my phalanx units not in a single line, but every second one some what more to the back to give the archers, but not the cavalry room to slip through.
Well, in my experience it takes any unit AGES to pull back through phalanx units behind them. Or did I miss something?

[pezhetairoi]

No you didn't. The phalanx was historically tightly packed so it's quite miraculous as is that units can pull back -through- them. But yeah, cavalry lures are wonderful. Though most often, playing hoplite factions I go defensive, and let the enemy (assuming they're not hoplites) attack me. That way I don't even have to bother about lures, since the enemy will jolly well charge himself without invitation into my lines of spears. I can score victories like the one where my combined starter Germanic army (15 units, 9 of them phalanxes) won an annihilation victory over a combined full-stack Senate and full-stack Julii army attacking at once. Annihilation = no enemy left standing at the end of the battle.

[Deus ret.]

Impressing! so the AI is even more stupid than I thought it to be. sounds good, I'll try it that way.

[katank]

In that case, you try to have light nimble cav that can run around.

Besides, that's assuming you don't get cav chasing you. Cav will not give any other cav sufficient time to run through or around a phalanx.

The idea is to lure infantry onto your spears. Missile cav is likely the best for this.

[pezhetairoi]

When playing defensive, I just form a circle with my phalanx with double thickness protecting the side directly facing the direction of enemy advance, and some protecting the flanks. The rear is either protected by phalanxes, melee infantry, or my cavalry, which take up all the space within the circle that isn't ranged infantry. I do not need any light cav running about--the enemy does the running for me, tiring himself out to face my fresh troops.

When the battle opens all I do is turn on guard mode and wait, on double speed. The shock troops, cavalry AND infantry both, will attack, including the general's cavalry, and because your own general is right in the centre of the circle with Rally Troops turned on, equidistant from all troops, your phalanxes will NEVER break, even if they be levy pikemen who face five units of generals' cavalry at once. (Which was what happened to me, but alright, it was two double-thickness units facing the five, not one, and about twenty made it through to be slaughtered by my patiently waiting bodyguard cav)

Not only are your reserve infantry/cavalry ready to charge into any breach in your lines, or slaughter whatever makes it through your phalanx, the enemy is guaranteed to keep charging into your pikes/spears until they die or rout. Once they are whittled down, routing or once they have only ranged units left (ignore them, they won't be able to shoot long enough to cause our phalanxes much damage), then it's your cavalry's turn to play. Charge them out from behind your phalanxes and run amok to complete the pursuit phase of the battle.

Your cavalry will not have anything to worry about since velites and archers are pretty useless without the shock infantry to screen them, the enemy cavalry is already long since dead, and if you are playing on limited ammo mode (unlike me), they will eventually have to charge into you, or rout upon which you charge into them anyway. Voila. Phalanxes are impregnable.

Crucial, though, is the fact that you mut overlap phalanxes in deployment. Without that you will take rather heavy losses as each unit gets rolled up from the flanks. Sure you'll still win, but you lose way more men than normal. In this case, though, watch out for the rightward phalanx movement and be prepared to charge troops into the left flank once it is exposed (and it WILL be given the length of the battle). On guard mode, as you may have noticed, units tend to move -forward- instead of to the right, and that too is dangerous since they expose their flanks. You must watch the battle and protect your flanks with sufficient reserves.

[Craterus]

Hello! I just started my Macedonian campaign this evening. It (closely) beat Greek Cities.

Anywho, I took Athens, shamefully, to great losses. And that's about it so far. I'm about to take Crete, it will be a nice little moneymaker and an attractive asset alongside my already growing empire.

Where next though? Should I aid my Greek Allies in fending off the Brutii and then advance up that coast to the top of the Italian peninsular, in preparation to take Rome early. Or should I re-trace Alexander's footsteps? It will definitely be hard to do that because the Romans will grow strong if left unattended. I could even do both, although I don't have the army to do this at the moment. Your thoughts please...

[IliaDN]

As far as I remember I started my Macedonian campaign with blietzcrieg against greeks and romans.In my opinion the best option is to unite Greece under one empire and then turn all avaliable forces against romans and first of all their expansion on Balkans.

[Craterus]

I've taken a slightly different route.

I've taken Sparta but left the Greeks with Rhodes, Pergamum, Thermon and Syracuse. They have sent their only ok army off to aid Syracuse against Scipii. I sunk half of the fleet which they were taking the men on, so I don't even know if they will get there without sinking.

I've now settled for an alliance with the Greeks and terminated my alliance with Brutii. I thought I'd stick up for my hellenic brothers.

I've got a brilliant full-stack in a fort, ready to protect Thermon for the Greeks, and annihalate the Brutii's Balkans army. Then I will take back Epirus and Dalmatia. Then follow up that route and enter Italy from the top, getting the Julii and also conquer from the "heel" of the "boot", attacking Tarentum and Croton. Implode the Romans, if you like.

[pezhetairoi]

Mine is (was), again, drastically different. I went 'to hell with alliances', and concentrated all my armies for a strike south. Turn 7 saw me in possession of unwalled Sparta, Spartan hoplites notwithstanding, Turn 8 saw Thermon being stormed. Athens was also taken in Turn 4. I made sure, though, to build up my levy pikemen first, hence Turn 7, or else it could have been Turn 3, or 5. Pikemen are the advantage of the macedonians. Don't conquer the world with militia hoplites when you can build levies. In short, by turn 15 I had annihilated the Brutii and was driving on to Capua. By turn 25 I had all of western Asia Minor. By turn 35 I controlled the Balkans. By Turn 45 I was fighting those two amazing Macedonian victories against Scythian horse archers. Still strikes me as a miracle, those battles. Then, at turn 52 I got sick of the campaign (too slow) and I switched to Scythia.

Strategically speaking I find it much safer to clear your backyard of possible threats, because the AI Greek playing style is to build up full stacks in Sparta. Sooner or later they will come for Corinth, so better to get rid of them now. And the Brutii? They won't even have a chance to move on Thermon if you move fast enough. Advancing north up the Adriatic coast does not benefit you economically since the rebels there are not built up, and it's a waste of time since they are roadless and there're only two possible settlements you can take along the way. And besides, don't make the Gauls nervous with your army in close proximity when they will ally with once you make contact with them. That's what happened in both my game and my friend's. Go from the south instead, it's closer within mutual supporting distance, and one ship can easily make the crossing. In my case the moment Sparta was conquered, I sent my Thessalonica fleet around the Peloponnesus, arriving just in time to pick up the Italian invasion army, fresh from storming Apollonia, and besiege Tarentum, all in one turn.

Just my thoughts. I don't like making alliances early in the game, so my playing style, I think, reflects that :-)

[Craterus]

Mine is (was), again, drastically different. I went 'to hell with alliances', and concentrated all my armies for a strike south. Turn 7 saw me in possession of unwalled Sparta, Spartan hoplites notwithstanding, Turn 8 saw Thermon being stormed. Athens was also taken in Turn 4. I made sure, though, to build up my levy pikemen first, hence Turn 7, or else it could have been Turn 3, or 5. Pikemen are the advantage of the macedonians. Don't conquer the world with militia hoplites when you can build levies. In short, by turn 15 I had annihilated the Brutii and was driving on to Capua. By turn 25 I had all of western Asia Minor. By turn 35 I controlled the Balkans. By Turn 45 I was fighting those two amazing Macedonian victories against Scythian horse archers. Still strikes me as a miracle, those battles. Then, at turn 52 I got sick of the campaign (too slow) and I switched to Scythia.

Strategically speaking I find it much safer to clear your backyard of possible threats, because the AI Greek playing style is to build up full stacks in Sparta. Sooner or later they will come for Corinth, so better to get rid of them now. And the Brutii? They won't even have a chance to move on Thermon if you move fast enough. Advancing north up the Adriatic coast does not benefit you economically since the rebels there are not built up, and it's a waste of time since they are roadless and there're only two possible settlements you can take along the way. And besides, don't make the Gauls nervous with your army in close proximity when they will ally with once you make contact with them. That's what happened in both my game and my friend's. Go from the south instead, it's closer within mutual supporting distance, and one ship can easily make the crossing. In my case the moment Sparta was conquered, I sent my Thessalonica fleet around the Peloponnesus, arriving just in time to pick up the Italian invasion army, fresh from storming Apollonia, and besiege Tarentum, all in one turn.

Just my thoughts. I don't like making alliances early in the game, so my playing style, I think, reflects that :-)

I've taken Sparta, no backyard surprise attacks coming from there.

The Greeks seem preoccupied in Sicily, probably trying to save Syracuse, their only Spartan building city left (there's no way in hell they are taking Sparta back).

I think I'll go through the heel and the north as planned. I might bypass the Gallic (allies) towns and sail straight towards Julii. Hopefully, Greeks will hold off Scipii on Sicily so I can attack Brutii and Julii. Then the Roman factions can't help each other out.

[katank]

I went a similar route to Pez. I brought down the archers ASAP to kill off the unit of Spartans. A defensive battle shattered the rest of the Greek army outside Sparta.

I killed Thermon quickly too. I also managed to take Apollonia before the Brutii even had a wall up.

A quick transport over then saw me in possession of the heel of the Italian boot. I simply marched up and built my 2 archers to 2 silver chevrons by the time I reached Rome. They shot up those foolish Romans running like idiots inside their walls in sieges.

[pezhetairoi]

haha, I didn't even need to storm Rome, because the Senate army met me in grand battle outside its walls (idiots.) So when push came to shove before the Walls of Rome, all they had to defend it was one unit of hastati and their faction leader. Easy-peasy.

[Craterus]

Brutii don't have a wall up at Appolonia yet. I'll strike before it's too late. Then I'll take my nice, half-stack fleet to transport me over. It's the Scipii I'm worried about the most. They have a good defensive position and could halt my advance on Rome, giving Julii (and Senate, for that matter) time to prepare. Hopefully, Greeks can hold them off.

[pezhetairoi]

When I besieged Tarentum en route to Rome in my campaign the Scipii managed to send a full stack or hastati, generals and principes at me to attempt to relieve the siege. You might want to beware of that. Oh, but once you break those full stacks you've more or less broken the Scipii back.

[Craterus]

Thanks. Well I've got it all planned out, now I just have to put it into action.

Unfortunately, my brother is doing his A levels soon and he needs to use the computer to revise.

I won't be playing Rome much this week, so no updates and definitely no Roman-killing...

until the weekend

Should I take Thermon from the Greeks or just leave them with it? I don't want any surprise attacks but I don't want war with them until I have beaten the Romans. I need them to hold off Scipii for me.

[orcorama]

maybe you could bribe it?
i dont know your financial situation but usually greece/macedon has a lot of money

[Craterus]

If you bribe and they reject, don't they wage war with you? Or even if they accept? After all, I'm wiping them off their homeland leaving them with just Rhodes, Syracuse and Pergamum.

[Viking]

If they reject: no war
If they accept: transgression

But it`s very expensive, and you are early in your campaign.

[Craterus]

I have 10,000 stashed away, I'm making almost 10,000 a turn anyway, and their garrison is very low. They have sent all their available men to help out in Sicily.

[orcorama]

it depends how big the city is and how many guys they have and the general if any and how happy they are
if the town is small which thermon is a large town i think
and you say there is only a small army
and if you put spys into the settlements the happyines level goes down

[Viking]

Ah.
So happiness have something to say about the price for bribing?

Thanks for the tip, orcorama!

[Craterus]

it depends how big the city is and how many guys they have and the general if any and how happy they are
if the town is small which thermon is a large town i think
and you say there is only a small army
and if you put spys into the settlements the happyines level goes down

I think they have a general in there and some skirmishers.
Oh well, I will just bribe it, hopefully, they will stay in Sicily, Pergamum and Rhodes. A surprise attack from Asia Minor would not be good for me.

[orcorama]

@viking- I believe so though im not positive
@craterus- good luck with the campaign and if you succeed with bribing you'll get another family member

[pezhetairoi]

I'm the aggressive one and I say stuff it, besiege Thermon! Don't leave any enemies in your rear. Besides, once you take them down they're down.They won't try to reconquer it, as long as you watch Sparta closely.

[Craterus]

I took Sparta on the first turn. They haven't touched it in 8 turns. I'm not very far in, as you can see, I hope to play tonight.

[katank]

Taking it on the first turn is nice. I suppose you make abundant use of the archer against the Spartan?

[Craterus]

Yes. It was a tough battle, but Sparta has made me a lot of money so far, I'm glad I took it.

Taking Sparta immediately made sure that I got Athens.

[amazon77]

Well, i took the North approach against the Romans, as i wanted to capture Salona and Segestica along the way, i think the Brutii had Salona apart from Apollonia.

It's year 254 and have gained 22 regions, while Rome is besieged and they'll prolly attack me next turn and loose it, its 7 turns to fall from siegeing.

I also have 4 armies in asia minor which will soon go after Egypt and the Seleucids, they've only lost Antioch from egypt.

The picture is: i've united Greece (under me of course ~;) ), took Crete and Rhodes, eliminated the Thracians and got Byzantium too, got Bosphorous (the Crimea), as i've already said captured salona and segestica, while capturing asia minor eliminating pontus in the process. Tarsus is the last city in asia minor (seleucids) i need to get. I'll then go for the Egyptians, leaving the Sel's for now, but blocking the bridge in Syria with some pikes. Btw, when you block a bridge with pikemen/hoplites, put 2 or more (but 2 is enough) units as a " V " with a little overlapping. If they charge that formation (and they will) they get killed instantly. Egypt got Libya and Bostra apart from Antioch. I can't wait to deal with that ovepowered scum!

On the Italian front i have eliminated the Julls (well, they have Sardinia left) and also got Segesta. After SPQR is done with, i'll kill Bruts and Scips.

Unfortunately, the gauls attacked me, not my actuall invading forces, just some family members i brought a lilttle later. Sadly i had to bribe their huge army :embarassed: :furious3: as i was busy fighting the romans. Actually i got overconfident and thus i'm not sure i can win the Rome siege battle. One of my armies garrisons Ariminum and is full of merc's apart from 19 Phalanx pikemen (+1exp +1 waep ~D ) They are Illyrian peltasts, merc hopl, samnites, and barb merc. Really crap, appart from the Illyrians. My rome siege army, has 2 phalanx+1.5 levy+1militia, 1 merc hopl, some merc pelts and cretans, almost 2 of my archers and 3 greek cav. My general has 42 guys of 5 exp tho ~:) .

After dealing with the romans and egypt, i'll maybe take the rest of the sels, but i'll leave armenia and partia/dacia/scythia alone. Instead i'll go for carthage + spain. Sardinia of course is included in the anti-roman campaign and cyprus in the anti-egypt camp. Sicily too, as 1 roman town there + the last of greeks. Carthage will come first (they have a town in sicily) and then spain. I'll also have to send more troops to italy so as 1 or 2 armies kill the romans, another take patavium and mediolanum and then march west to capture south france and invade spain. The roman killing armies, i'll land them in africa to deal with carthage.

Well, what i like about the Macedonians is:

1) COOL colour! i just love it, only the red Julii can rival it. But black+orange is better anyway.
2) Great gods. IMHO the best god set in the game.
3) Excellent strategic map position. Just take athens (via siege is ok, or lure them to fight by sieging with a small force so they think they'll win and attack) and you've won the game.
4) Very usefull cav! I'm talking about Light Lancers, they are great working with your phalanx. While they pin the enemy, the lancers charge the back. 15 charge is the same as Cataphracts+ they are fast for the needed flanking. Much better than the expensive 2 turn build, hi-tech behemoths. Also they can hunt down militia cav greeks get.
5) Tons of money after you take greece and the west shores of asia minor.

I could go on, but i'll stop here. Imho Macedonia is the most balanced faction in the game, no uber-units(romans)+elephant factions, no overpowered (egyptians), no machine-gun archers (gauls).

Btw, your archers even trained as exp3 and then +5missile, will go to 15 missile attack, the normal forester attack. But they'll still lack the long range of these units. Also u need really developed cities to achieve ares+3exp and artemis +5 missile (large city and huge city respectively), so these are certainly late game troops, when you have already built your empire, while the gauls can simply capture a 6,000 roman (minor) city and start building foresters.

[pezhetairoi]

well, one weakness is the lack of melee infantry except phalanx troops. Never got over that, I think, but the rest, it's all good.

[Craterus]

The Greeks lack infantry too...

But they have the ultimate spearmen (?) or are they pikemen. I'm talking about Spartans. I do agree though and there should be some infantry available, even if it is only basic.

Then again, you are farely close to Thrace, so you could just recruit some Thracian Mercs, or better - BASTARNAE! They are great infantry. Brilliant flankers, that's for sure.

[katank]

They are infantry. Take em out of phalanx and use em as swordsmen. Hoplites are 5/16 and not so bad swordsmen. Of course, their 7/16 spear attack with phalanx is superior.

Spartans are also terrific swordsmen. I don't know what anyone is complaining about. Learn to turn phalanx mode off, run into place and turn it back on. Phalanxes can flank as well as anything else. All except the latency for pursuit that switching out of phalanx would entail.

[pezhetairoi]

haha it just seems...blasphemous...to use phalanx troops out of phalanx xP But yeah, of course you could use them as swordsmen. But we're purists, heh. You should've seen my Spartans storming the walls. No 2 units of levy pikemen can stand against them--they just kept advancing and the pikemen were dropping like flies, and they only lost one man. Impressive.

[katank]

To say that Macedon has no infantry is justifiable early on.

Using Levy pikes out of phalanx is horrible.

I assaulted Rome with 2 siege towers and 6 units of levies. There was only 1 unit of 3xp hastati on the wall. Even with a constant stream of all my levy pikes onto the walls and sandwiching the hastati, I lost about 5 units taking that wall.

Not ethat my levies were 1 xp also.

It was truly horrible.

However, Spartans are quite capable of acting as good swordsmen. I believe they can take legionary cohorts in swordplay.

[pezhetairoi]

I've tested it, and 2 out of 5 times, as long as they outflank the enemy by some, they've also beaten praetorians.

[Craterus]

I agree, it just feels wrong using phalanxes out of phalanx mode.

I have used them to flank before though. After I've shamefully wasted my cav.

[pezhetairoi]

*gasp* Craterus! you're losing your cavalry touch ;-)

[katank]

Adjusting to new situations and strats is always good.

[pezhetairoi]

Yeah, but losing the skills of the old is always worrying :) I've had to shift my Germanic playing style from defensive to aggressive cos with my battering rams of armies no one ever wants to play with me anymore :( except the Senate! yay! the Senate wants to play with me! Oh no, where'd the Senate go? *ahem*

[Craterus]

It's not that I've lost my touch. I'm just out of practice. At least, I hope I'm just out of practice. I'm playing online later (20:00 BST) so we'll soon see if I've still got it.

[Craterus]

Damn save/load bug has meant that the Greeks have sailed back to Thermon. There is a full stack there, planning invasion. They also have fleets filled with units. Should I betray the alliance and sink these fleets before it's too late?

I think I will, and then I'll take Thermon. This will save an unwanted attack in the homeland. After this, if I beat them hard enough, I could force them into protectorate status.

[Garvanko]

Macedon is fun.

[pezhetairoi]

The greeks like to camp in their territories and amass huge armies. Sink those fleets. Fast. You should've annihilated them a long time ago...now they're a major pain in the posterior because of their AI personality...

[katank]

They do. In my Seleucid game, by blazing into Greece and taking the isthmus etc., I left Rhodes alone for a few turns. Now it's 265 and Rhodes has a huge stack of various hoplites which might require a half-decent army to whip.

Luckily, Sparta, Athens, Thermon, and all of the former Macedonian cities are mine in addition to all of Egypt and the Parthian cities of Arsakia and Susa.

Being the preeminent power makes it easy. I think I might start turtling now.

[Craterus]

Ok. I just got the Brutii as my protectorate for 4000 denarii. Which I thought was some good bargaining.

Anyway, the next turn they declared war on the Greeks (allies of mine) and the Gaul (also allies of mine). Do you think I should hold my protector and drop my allies? Or hold my allies and drop the protector?

I've decided that I will annihalate the Greeks so they are out of the Aegean, but leave them with Rhodes (at which point, they will become my protectorate), but I need the Gaul for my master plan.

Please Help. :help:

[Ziaelas]

and this master plan is?

also keep romans, valuable ally they are.

[Craterus]

The master plan is to take the Romans out...

Basically, I go through the "heel" of Italy and through the Julii.

I also need some tactics for fighting the Romans.

[Ziaelas]

Then go wipe out the Romans, and keep Gaul.

[Craterus]

Hmmmm, it's a shame I just wasted 4000... Oh well, I guess that is the thing I have to do.

[katank]

Don't worry about it. Things happen. Stick to your plan and don't waste the money.

Otherwise, consider abandoning the plan and just farm the Romans to become a big empire and then crush them.

[Craterus]

It's ok. The Brutii are down to two cities and have about 10 units to protect them. I'm about to knock them out.Then, I might take Sicily; or take Capua, then Rome.

[katank]

Go for Rome first. Getting Royal Pikemen is good.

[crazybastard]

Will the Thraicans turn on you first? Because they attacked Balayzora and I got pissed so I sent my best general and take Bzytanium from those treacherous bastards.

[Deus ret.]

Will the Thraicans turn on you first?

They are likely to. When the AI plays alone in Greece, the Thracians usually go after the Macedonians and often cripple them by taking at least their two northernmost cities. Which makes the way for the Brutii even easier because there are now 3 warring factions in Greece. If you are playing Macedon, the Thracians are VERY likely to attack you rather sooner than later. This leaves you two options.
1) Do a nice blitz and conquer Greece's mainland ASAP. Afterwards you can march your armies north where the Thracians should now be about to attack. Maybe you will lose Byzalora but you can hold them off at Thessaloniki. This option has the advantage of having a free back and a full war chest.
2) You instantly go for Thrace. Taking Tylis and pushing them back over the Danube river should be sufficient to neutralize them. With Campus Getae alone, they are not much of a threat. This way, you get a nice trade province early on without too great an effort (Byzantium) but you have to watch for the Greeks who will eagerly fall into your back if you leave them alone for too long. Myself, I provoked this and had a few nice exciting battles, especially for Corinth.

[Craterus]

Thrace attacked me once. I expected this attack and they ran right into my ambushing army. I pounded them and they were practically begging me for an alliance. And now they haven't attacked since. Too busy going at Dacia... and losing!

[orcorama]

i suggest blitzing sparta then trying to get peace with greek cities whle you neutralize thrace then you can attack thermon and prepare for the brutii

[katank]

Total expansion in all directions can work well.

You have enough forces to beat up Greece and Thrace simultaneously while holding off Dacia (which isn't worth fighting for).

I also once managed to get Appolonia before the Brutii even while doing this.

[Franconicus]

Total expansion in all directions can work well.

You have enough forces to beat up Greece and Thrace simultaneously while holding off Dacia (which isn't worth fighting for).

I also once managed to get Appolonia before the Brutii even while doing this.

I think you can expand in all directions. But this is not the pure 'blitz' strategy.
:book:
It says that you should concentrate on one target at a time and kill it with all your forces.

[antisocialmunky]

:juggle2:

But isn't your final objective everything?

[katank]

But that is multi direction blitz.

Blitz is more about speed and force capable of crushing your enemy than anything else.

I call it the octopus strategy in which you strike out in all directions.

[Franconicus]

Sure!
But Blitzkrieg is really focusing on one target at a time. Find the weakest point in the defence of the enemy (or the enemies) and attack with everything you have.

Well, this is from TW WW2.
Campaign against Poland,
campaign against Denmark and Norway
campaign against Benelux and France

After that things began to become more and more decentralised. And the problems began. Campaign against Yugoslawia and Greece; campaign against USSR, campaign against Egypt while Britain was not beaten.

Of course you can win if you fight at several frontiers. USA did in WW 2 figjting simultaniously in the Pacific and European theatre. But that was not Blitz

[roguester]

Well, I just started playing. This is my third campaign. (The other two were Brutii and Gaul)

I started by taking Athens in my first three turns. The greeks attacked my that same turn and I took Thermon then Sparta.

I was immediately set upon by the Brutii, and I had to chase them from the east side of the Adriatic, taking Apollonia, Salona and Segestica. This brought me face to face with a powerful Julii, as the Gauls had gone down early. They gave me some trouble, and while this was going on, my Thracian allies stabbed me in the back.

I set seige to Byzantium and the Thracians sued for peace, which I granted as I was still dealing with the Julii. Once they were taken care of, Thrace attacked me again and I wiped them out.

A word about my tactics. I typically used two large cavalry wings anchored on a centre composed of phalanxes and missile troops. I used mercenaries extensively while I built up my cavalry, then a lot of phalanx pikemen for garrison dutias well as my centre. An army thus composed can shred a Roman army twice it's size taking very few casualties.

I also haven't started a single war so far.

After I took Campus Getae, puting an end to the Thracians, I sent my forces south to end the Greek naval menace. While they were en route, Dacia attacked and took Campus Getae, so I returned to the north.

About this time, I managed to bribe a Roman general. I landed him with a single unit of cavalry on Crete, raised a mercenary army, and took Kydonia. He then sailed to Rhodes, hired more mercenaries, met up with a bribed greek army, and took that city. He then took Pergamum as well, all with bought troops.

And I was immediately attacked by an uber Egypt who had swallowed the Selucids whole. They have given my the first real challenge. I have so far taken four cities from them; two bribed, two conquered. The sands of central Anatolia are red with Greek and Egyptian blood, yet my spies that return alive tell me that Tarsus teems with troops, and an endless stream of chariots flows over the passes.

On the plus side, there can be no more surprises, I am at war with everyone around me except my allies in Scythia and Pontus and I'm ready for them as well. The Romans are well contained, as is Dacia.

[Franconicus]

Well done!
And welcome in the org ~:cheers:

[Deus ret.]

And I was immediately attacked by an uber Egypt who had swallowed the Selucids whole. They have given my the first real challenge. I have so far taken four cities from them; two bribed, two conquered. The sands of central Anatolia are red with Greek and Egyptian blood, yet my spies that return alive tell me that Tarsus teems with troops, and an endless stream of chariots flows over the passes.


If you go for the Eggies, and you should since they'll come for you otherwise, consider a naval landing far in their back (Sidon, Jerusalem or even Alexandria) rather than taking Tarsus. This way you are likely to encounter very little defence, and it will split the Eggies' forces as well as hurt him...maybe use a suicide squad for this and destroy everything you can get a hand on.
If you advance in Turkey, you will most likely get backstabbed by those treacherous Pontics. Who, when they overcome their crappy starting line-up (especially the early infantry), can and will be a real pain in the ass.

[Franconicus]

If you go for the Eggies, and you should since they'll come for you otherwise, consider a naval landing far in their back (Sidon, Jerusalem or even Alexandria) rather than taking Tarsus.
If you do so (very good idea) then try to get Memphis first. You get the pyramids and the Egyptian people will be happy to be ruled from you. And you can take a trip to Graceland ~:cool:

[roguester]

If you go for the Eggies, and you should since they'll come for you otherwise, consider a naval landing far in their back (Sidon, Jerusalem or even Alexandria) rather than taking Tarsus. This way you are likely to encounter very little defence, and it will split the Eggies' forces as well as hurt him...maybe use a suicide squad for this and destroy everything you can get a hand on.
If you advance in Turkey, you will most likely get backstabbed by those treacherous Pontics. Who, when they overcome their crappy starting line-up (especially the early infantry), can and will be a real pain in the ass.


A sound idea. I'm not sure I'll go with it though as my armies are already at the gates of Tarsus. I've finally found a way to deal with the chariots, and it has cost me a lot in blood. Tarsus will make a good defensive position, and since Cyprus is lightly defended and blockaded, I'll take that next. Then complete the naval blockade of the eastern Med and see what it looks like from there.

[katank]

Your straight on plan is more fun in the number of battles you will fight.

However, the landng idea is easier gamewise.

You can frequently cause Eggy armies to march and countermarch on the coast while you take cities in one direction and then another.

[Craterus]

Guess which superpower is evolving in the east? Nope, not Egpyt.

It is, in fact, Parthia! They have taken land from Seleucids and Egypt, and this campaign was started before I modded starting money. I really want them to knock Egypt out, but they have sent the brunt of their armies up to Seleucid settlements, which is a shame, because they currently have Egypt on the back foot.

Brutii bribed my city from me, but haven't put any men in there yet.

When assaulting Tarentum, I fought the worst battle I have ever fought. My faction leader died, I lost 500 men, and the enemy only deployed 200 men. This has completely halted my advance, because I need to retrain my entire army.

I've had a look at the Senate army, which I will no doubt face within 10 turns. 4 generals!!!!! And all the units are upgraded. I think I will need reinforcements..

Any tips for taking on these Roman stacks.

[Deus ret.]

Guess which superpower is evolving in the east? Nope, not Egpyt.
It is, in fact, Parthia!

congratulations! myself, I've never seen them becoming anything in the direction of dangerous if controlled by the AI. Well, some more colour in the game...and be it purple!


I've had a look at the Senate army, which I will no doubt face within 10 turns. 4 generals!!!!! And all the units are upgraded. I think I will need reinforcements..
Any tips for taking on these Roman stacks.

Since you're Macedonian, it's not too dificult provided you have somewhat advanced troops. Just gather a throng of your best phalanx units (that is, royal pikes if possible but phalanx pikemen should also do), some archers to lure the family and add in several cav units...Greek bodyguards suck, though....and you should be able to defeat them as long as
(a) you keep your phalanxes together and prevent enemy flank attacks and
(b) you watch out for their cav. Your aim should be to let them charge frontally into your spears in pursuit of your archers (or general). If you succeed in nailing them in melee you've basically won. Use your own cav for relief charges against those Principes etc. if they hurt your pikes too much ...which they are likely to, not least because of their pila.

Katank has suggested to throw some peasants in front of the pikes just to absorb the pila. See also the Greek cities thread.

When I played Greece and finally attacked the Senate, they had 7 family members in their army, with the faction leader aged 82 supporting the attack from another direction (wonder why he still killed quite a few of my men instead of collapsing from his armor's weight)....I lost half my army but in the end I won. Even without Spartans. Thus, you can do it!

[Craterus]

I'm not sure about wasting precious roster space for a couple of peasant units. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

I've been keeping up with the Greek thread because the tactics used for GC are very similar for the tactics that are applicable to Macedon.

[Dead Knight of the Living]

I played Macedonia on RTR 5.4. I couldn't bribe anybody. I took out the Greeks quick. I allied with Thrace and Germany and left Dacia alone as they were at war with both of them. Not to mention the threat of Rome. I left Dacia as a buffer for Rome.

Immediately after the Greeks, I went after Pontus where my allies the Egyptians declared war on me. All 3 of us took turns conquering one of the western towns in Asia Minor. Smyrna I think it was. That city changed hands a few times. I destroyed to fully stacked Pontic armies and they were done in the field. Egypt remained however. They didn't have a significant military presence in Asia Minor after I knocked out their first couple of armies. Once I conquered out to Antioch that changed completely. I conquered the Pontics fairly easily. But now Egypt would show me their real power.

They took Antioch from me twice and seriously threatened it a third time. Some mercenary recruiting along with some phalanxes finally secured it for me. My buddies the Parthians declared war on Egypt's Seleucid Allies. No worries there. Armenia and Sarmatia (Scythia in RTW 1.2 I think) left me alone. They were way too weak to do anything.

I spent a good 15 years or so just conquering from Antioch down to Bostra. It was a long gruelling war. Meanwhile, I was building up three armies in the vicinity of Sparta. When ready, I invaded Egypt proper, landing west of Alexandria. I took the entire Nile River area in about 5 turns. They had no troops there. When that happened, Egypt caved. It was all over but the crying.

I was quite proud of myself. I conquered the Eastern Med. I was at peace. Who would be next. Dacia volunteered themselves first. And wouldn't you know after I took the first Dacian town, Rome ante'd up against me. I transferred quite a few armies from Egypt and the Eastern Med provinces to the west coast of Greece.

I was very successful in conquering the central Dacian provinces. BUt they along with the Romans stopped me like a brick wall along the Adriatic coast. I'd win like 3 or 4 battles in a row and they'd finally beat me because they'd wore down my army. Eventually I had a steady flow of replacements flowing to plug the holes after each battle. I managed to get within eye shot of Segestica at which point I launched 3 full armies around the south of Italy and landed them in Rome by sea. Rome fell with a very bloody battle. My 3 armies vs 2 of theirs. All full stacks. And then about 4 units in the Roman garrison. I didn't want to let the AI control my other two armies, but it was too good to pass up. It was awesume.

I never took Segestica. I actually initiated a battle with a Roman Army south of the city before I initiated the battle for Rome. My army south of Segestica got crushed due to my losing track of what my Macedonian Cavalry was doing. By the time I got back to them they were routing. And then, their cohorts engaged my main line on the left flank and routed the extreme left phalanx. I threw theruoprodroi (spelling?) at the left flank as it was all I had to get there. My ballistas were blasting away, but were quickly over run by the enemy cavalry chasing my routers. That was it. The theuroprodroi put up a good fight routing one cohort, but that was because they flanked them. When the next big daddy cohort marched up it was done. I moved the next left phalanx into them and they got flanked and the Cavalry that finished off my ballistas took me in the rear. I had 3 units of Macedonian cavalry left, but they were too far away to get back and help. My line crumbled.

But like I said, I took Rome afterwards, and with my 51st province won the game. Good thing too, because the Romans had like 5 fully stacked armies coming down from northeast Italy to smack me down. After the disaster of Segestica, I only had two fully stacked armies defending the Adriatic Coast. I'd have been able to bring some more in from central Dacia, but that would have left me open for an attack by Sarmatia or Thrace. It was an awesume campaign.

[Garvanko]

Take one region from thrace and they'll never bother you again. As someone said earlier, don't bother with Dacia till much much later when (if!) they ever tech up.

Macedon is an easy and enjoyable faction to play, mainly due to their fantastic Pikemen and Light Lancers. Beat the Greeks and Brutii early, then you can have fun with the other Roman factions, but watch out for the threat from Pontus.

[Dead Knight of the Living]

I left Thrace alone on purpose. I was trying something new. I actually paid them some tribute to see if they would expand into DAcian territory. I gave them a lot of money. They managed to successfully defend their territory from Dacia and make some incursions into Dacian land even besieging a couple of cities, but they never took a Dacian City. Thrace and Dacia were at war the entire game I played. I also paid Germany a tribute. They took some of the northern rebel provinces that Dacia had conquered early in the game, but they never went into the Dacian homeland. They used my money to stomp Gaul and Briton into the ground. Germany got huge in this last Macedonian campaign. I never had to fight them. It would've been a great war I imagine.

[katank]

Going after Thrace isn't too productive.

Trying to take Byzantium before they do is quite worthwhile though.

In vanilla, in a few turns, Pontus invariably lands a full stack next to Tylis and this keeps the Thracians entertained provided you kept the peace with them until then.

[Garvanko]

In my current Macedon campaign i let Thrace take Byzantium, then took from them. Then I took Tylis, and they seemed to get the hint. Dacia left me alone for about 50 years, they they attacked Bylazora... I think they'll regret that..

By the way, Germania always destroys Gaul in all my games. If not them, then the Julii.

The problem with Roman factions, is they never use Cav against me, so they never stand a chance against my Lancers and Macedonian Cav.

[Craterus]

In my game, the Romans field a lot of well-trained Equites, which can get tiresome. Strangely though, the Romans (SPQR, Brutii, Scipii) are fielding armies of a couple of well-trained units as opposed to massing up troops. Julii have still massed up armies comprised entirely of Velites.

[Dead Knight of the Living]

The problem with Roman factions, is they never use Cav against me, so they never stand a chance against my Lancers and Macedonian Cav.

My campaigns it is either the Britons or Germans that destroy Gaul. The Romans use cav every once in awhile, but very rarely do they use archers. I just tear them to shreds with archers when I'm Macedon. Cretan Archers when I have them.

[pezhetairoi]

When I played Macedon I usually faced Romans fielding balanced armies with about 4 units of Equites max. I rarely used archers on my way to Rome even if I had them (was using them against the Seleucids and Egypt), i preferred to just move into the red zone of Roman armies, form pike square and let them dash themselves to pieces on it.

A question now: Is the fact that pike formations face 5 rows of spears compared to the hoplite 2 rows any advantage at all? I tried modding levy pikemen up to Hoplite stats, the only difference being the pike vs spear, but I didn't see any marked improvement in performance between the two in a unit-on-unit clash.

[Deus ret.]

maybe you should test those pikemen against non-phalanx units. In my impression, phalanx units are not too effective in combat against each other, that should be due to their formation. With pikemen, your 4 frontal rows are fighting (at least in the animation), compared to the hoplites' 2 -- that should make up for a major advantage over non-phalanx units. At least that's how I explain their stats to me, which are always considerably lower than hoplite units of the same level.

if that does help you.... :charge:

[pezhetairoi]

well, actually no it doesn't ^_^ I'm even more confused now because I gave eastern infantry spears and phalanx formation, and they beat a pezhetairoi (phalanx pikemen) formation in one-on-one O_o can someone tell me what the HELL is going on? Eastern infantry, even on phalanx, should not beat qualitatively and offensively superior troops...

[SpawnOfEbil]

I know the answer is probably obvious, but I'm having trouble getting my phalanxes to work against barbarians, such as Dacians.

They tend to flank around my main phalanx body, straight into my cavalry. Normally, this isn't a problem, as I tend to countercharge them and rout a few units in the process, but light lancers only come in packs of 14 and I normally lose a few in each charge, so by the end I may only have 3 or 4 lancers left from each squad.

And when I don't have any cavalry, my phalanx is easily flanked and annihilated.. Can anyone help?

[pezhetairoi]

Throw back a few phalanxes on the flanks in reserve out of phalanx mode. Slant them slightly so they are protecting your flanks. Once you see cavalry coming just turn on phalanx mode and leave them there. Don't form your phalanx into a single line of advance, that's not wise against Dacians. Alternatively, form your phalanxes into a single line but hire some barbarian mercenaries and put them behind your main phalanx line. Also, do not counter charge your cavalry, but let your phalanxes and mercenaries absorb the shock so the enemy loses his charge bonus. THEN you counter charge. That way you minimise casualties drastically and completely screw up the enemy's morale, especially if you're not doing a frontal countercharge. Your cavalry are least effective when used on cav-cav melee with both sides charging. As Macedon, it is essential that you have a healthy force of melee mercenary infantry when in barbarian areas.

I once fought two Dacian armies with one Macedonian. I had 3 levies, 6 light lancers, 2 generals and 4 barbarians/bastarnae. I offered my 3 levies alone to the first army (the second had not yet arrived), which promptly dashed itself to pieces on my levies while my mercenaries absorbed the shock from the second army's cavalry and my cavalry destroyed the first, putting them in the perfect position to destroy the second army from the rear after my levies turned, just in time to meet the second army's infantry which promptly dashed itself to pieces on it. The trick is, when fighting with phalanx and melee infantry, leave your melees out of the line and put them behind, because the barbarian AI unfailingly chooses to charge melee infantry over phalanx.

And one a final note, you should NEVER enter barbarian territory without cavalry, no matter how many phalanxes you have. That is sheer folly, because the barbs have the best light cav in the game. If don't have any cavalry, your phalanxes can only have the fate of being flanked and annihilated.

[SpawnOfEbil]

I knew I was being stupid :)

Cheers for the help.

[Garvanko]

Bastarnae mercenaries are pretty decent units, imo.

[jacked]

They're decent units?

[pezhetairoi]

Hell, they're more than decent units, they're damnedly good cavalry charge-stoppers. With 2 HP they can last really long and they can take charges incredibly well. Good to use them for general-hunters. SpawnofEbil and jacked, welcome to the Org :-D Forgot to say it the last time so I'll say it now. :) Macedon rocks!

[SpawnOfEbil]

Aye they do.

My favourite tactic is to deploy all my phalangites in a straight line (no surprises) . Normally my enemy charge in a column, so I normally have a few units spare. These guys on the end then wheel around and take down the enemy unit next to them. They rout pretty quickly, even with 2 militia hoplies pulling this off, and then the phalanx at right angles to the main line moves down the line.

Failing that, I get a ton of rhodian slingers and cretan archers and pepper them. I once routed an army using nothing by missile troops and lancers.

[katank]

That works amazingly well. You can actually do a funnel effect. Have two phalanx walls but inverted. The middle is no phalanx but sheerly missiles with overlapping field of fire.

Behind, horde lancers.

They either engage phalanxes and dash themselves to bits while getting hit partially from the flanks by missiles or go for your missiles and get flanked then charged by mass cav.

Either way is a mass rout.

The flanks need extra guarding though for an inverted line.

The advantage is a clear field of fire for your missiles and sustained attrition.

[jacked]

oh, never used them before

[jacked]

what region can you get them in ~:confused:

[pezhetairoi]

The Balkans, and Asia Minor. Bastarnae are especially numerous (comparatively) in the Dacian and Thracian territories.

[jacked]

I guess I never tried to conquer that area

[pezhetairoi]

You should...that's the logical area of expansion for Macedon. *nod*

Wow you've been posting quite a bit these days. Only a few days and you're already up to 28 posts.

[Garvanko]

Alternatively pez, you don't HAVE to conquer Dacia, just make incursions into their territory with your General at Bylazora or Tylis and recruit Basternae every so often.

I prefer to let Dacia make the first move if they want a war with me.

[SpawnOfEbil]

I've started a new Macedonian game, and let me tell you, go for the Romans first. They are a right pain in the behind if you let them grow.

[SpawnOfEbil]

Btw-is there any way to increase unit sizes? Having a squad of 14 cavalry is a bit pointless.

[Craterus]

You'll have to restart your campaign for the unit size change to have an effect.

Go to options/settings, havea look around there and you find something that gives the option to change the settings.

P.S. Sorry, I don't know the exact place to change settings.

[pezhetairoi]

It's in video settings, under advanced options. There's a unit size option. Alternatively you can edit the unit size in the preferences text file in the RTW root folder.

As for Rome, it's hardly a pain in the a**. Not at all. As long as you catch them before Marius, and you restrict yourself to defensive battles (unless you have a serious cav overkill) you're good to go. With a five-row pike line no legionnaire is going to be able to get through to force your pezhetairoi to use their pathetic daggers. But me, I entered Italy on turn 13, working on a strict timetable.

Dacia... yeah bastarnae recruitment drives are good, but I usually go whole hog and take out Dacia anyway. They're so weak, and they don't have the brains to antagonise Thrace for the sake of sea access, so they don't deserve to live. Darwin, my friend. Darwin.

[Craterus]

ROME IS MINE!!!

I won't describe in much detail, you'll see why.
I began the siege, things progressed, I got to the main square, routed, got there again, all my cav routed to Roman generals (57 in one unit!!!), then I had a power cut. Lovely.

Siege of Rome Attempt 2

Went for a different approach this time. Sent some Mercenary hoplites (renamed them Corinthian Hoplites, because that's where I got that unit from) to the gateway. The general charged as planned and was killed. That general unit routed back to the main square with one man remaining. The Corinthians scaled the walls and were enveloped in a grulling fight against some full-strength Principes. Slowly but surely, the Corinthians died, until the final man realised he was completely outnumbered and took his chances against the ground. At which point, I sent my cavalry in (1 general, one Macedonian Cavalry, One Light Lancers, I attacked the one-man general's cav, then went back to the walls to attack the Principes, who had abandoned their vantage point of the walls. Annihalated the Principes, but with heavy casualties. Back to the centre square to take my chances against the Senate Faction leader (57-man cavalry!!), and lost. All the horsemen died. I sent in some more Corinthians, accompanied by Samnites and they set up outside the square. The Roman cavalry wasn't tempted. I charged the Samnites, and they charged back. Samnites routed, they pursued. Pursued right onto my spear points. Rome was mine.

Following the battle, I demanded the Julii become my protectorate, free of charge. They agreed. I now set my sights on Sicily whilst I rebuild my army in Rome, just waiting to attack the Julii.

I'll have to attack fast, because the Gaul are planning a major invasion from the north. I have no generals on Italy, so all my new cities could be bribed by Scipii in a number of turns, but generals are on the way. (I have 6 generals for 15 regions).

So, I think I'll try and cut a deal with the Gaul, I don't fancy their land, I'd much prefer to follow the route of Alexander, starting with the barbarians to the north of Macedon. Thrace and Dacia. Then I'll head east. As far east as possible... ~D

[SpawnOfEbil]

Just a quick feature to get phalanxes into a single line without any gaps:

Go to desc_formations, and edit the single line formation and changed the unit spacing from 2.0 to 0.0.

Now, group your phalanx units and sort them into a single line. With any luck, there should be no spaces between your phalangites, thereby preventing your guys from getting caght in the gaps.

[pezhetairoi]

Spawn, I love you. My levies were dying to falxmen because of that. Thank you sooooo much ^_^

[SpawnOfEbil]

Cheers. I knew that would come in useful to someone. It's not without shortcomings though.

For a start, it has this strange tendency to put royal pikemen at the left of your battle line. While this might be ok for some people, it means that due to the insane rightwards shuffle (Which shouldn't even happen with pikemen as they have no shields to hide behind historically) your royals will be easily flanked and it will cost you a lot of money.

[pezhetairoi]

well, historically it makes sense since they were the best troops (i.e. they stand the best chance against an enemy, in fact their melee attack is higher than their spear attack) except for the -tiny- fact that they were supposed to be on the RIGHT of the line. But no worries. You can always redeploy them in the right order, then move them forward in that order. That will lock in the battle order when marching, as long as you don't reset the line's width/depth, upon which there's a chance your pikemen will redeploy into funny orders IN FRONT of the enemy.

[Skott]

Last night I decided to start a Macedon campaign to see what they were like. Never tried them before. People are correct. The militia and levy pikemen units are very weak. Even when I double column (column within a column) they couldnt do much good against the enemy. It was the Brutii hastati that gave me the most grief. My men would just fall to them without much effort and/or turn and run away. They couldnt hold against a Brutii cavalry charge neither.

The Greeks have a much better army than the Macedons as well. I havent had a chance to test them against the Thracians. Thrace is allied with me in this campaign. I'm hoping that alliance will hold till I exterminate the Brutii. I beat the Greeks by sheer overpowering numbers and bribing. In fact thats how I been beating back the Brutii. A lot of bribing since my front linemen like to die so much. Luckily I have a very nice stream of cash coming into my treasury. Right now I control all of the Balkans and looking to invade Southern Italy. I finally got archery buildings in two of my cities so thats going to be a big help. I also have the ability to build some phalanx units (third tier phalanx) now so I'm gonna start swapping out my militia and levy pikemen for them. I'm hoping that'll help me out against the Brutii. If not then its going to be a extremely hard fight against the Brutii's two home cities.

I found the Macedon starting cavalry units to be okay but not great. 1 vs 1 against the Brutii cavalry they lose more often than win but against Greek and Rebel units they do the job pretty good as long as I can get directly behind them. Problem is they are good for maybe two charges and then they are too tired to be of much help. Heavy cavalry would be better but dont have any of them yet other than my generals units.

[jacked]

ROME IS MINE!!! craterus did you finish that campaign yet ~:confused:

[pezhetairoi]

Some minor problems there--generally, you've not been using the strengths of the Macedonian troops, but you're expecting them to hold their own against everything the enemy throws at them without doing some playing-field levelling of your own.

The Macedonian strength lies in the early game not in its pikemen, but in its cavalry. Alexander the Great never intended his pikemen to be the warwinning arm, nor did he mean for them to take the brunt of any attack. It was always his cavalry that struckl the decisive blow, and indeed, it was the cavalry that often opened every battle he fought. It would serve you well to remember that when Macedonian kings began using phalanxes as the strike arm, they got run over by Rome.

Macedonian starting cavalry units, on the contrary to your assertions, are actually possibly among the best in the entire game. You may not have seen this, but Light Lancers have a charge bonus of 15, the highest you will see anywhere. Use this to good effect. Don't expect your LL to hold in a battle--they were not made for that. They are charge machines, so keep charging, withdrawing and charging again. Don't let them get bogged down. My strategy has been to either fight in all-cavalry armies with 12 LL, 4 Greeks and 2 generals in high-manoeuvre battles, or to field a heavy cavalry arm of 6-7 LL and 2 generals and only 4-5 pike units.

If you managed to get your LL into a one-on-one with Equites, then you are a bad general, pardon me for saying so. LLs are best used in bulk--no cavalry force, even if it be cataphracts or generals, can withstand 4 LL units charging at one. Sure the first unit will take losses, but once the other three units pile on they just get literally run over. And the advantage of LL is that no amount of armour-piercing attacks from the enemy will give them any advantage since the LL don't have armour as it is. Which means the LL can never fight at a disadvantage unless you're in forests.

Don't use your cavalry to charge so often. Save them up, only use them when it is urgent, necessary, and when it is strategic. This means you manoeuvre LL in big blocks of 3-4, not as individual units. That way, one huge charge will simply sweep away all opposition. If you do it right, you won't even need to charge a second time, just pursue. Macedonian cavalry is useful to take the brunt of a charge, but you don't get them till late, and they're not that necessary anyway. Ignore Greek cavalry. They are marginally higher-armoured LL without the charge bonus. In other words, they are a step back. With LL you can defeat even Parthia.

In my current campaign I have over 30 provinces, and the bulk of Egypt's armies have been crushed, even though they had liberal bowmen complements. No archers are needed except mobile ones. In other words, get Scythians, Bedouins. Cretans are also useful, but only for their higher attack. Otherwise their immobility is only a burden.

Pikemen are not to be used as battle openers, or aggressive forces. March them towards the enemy by all means, but leave them there in front of the enemy, or order them to march to a point behind the enemy line and make them stop once they join battle.

In military terms Pikemen are to be used only to 'fix' the enemy in place, immobilise him so he cannot redeploy to meet your real threat--the cavalry. While he's busy fighting off your sharp pointy sticks you crash into him from behind and flanks, or frontally if you must. That will break him. Your pikemen are not supposed to fight the whole battle by themselves. They will not hold, even the standard phalanx pikemen. But if you keep this doctrine in mind, you will be able to conquer the world with Levies and Militia, like I have. I am not joking when I say that I am in Turn 40, with the Balkans and half of Italy under my control, as well as parts of Egypt, the steppes and Asia Minor, but I have at the current moment a grand total of ONE phalanx pikemen units. The rest are levies and militias.

Talking about flanks, it is not commonly known that your militia hoplites make good flank guards in a sense. Levies are hopeless in melee attack (2/1 charge) but militia hoplites have 4/1 at least. And they are more manoeuvrable than pikes when it comes to the crunch. That's what Royal pikes are there for in the end--they are meant as flank guards, not as main battle liners.

Greeks vs Thrace? Pure slaughter. For the Thracians, that is. As Greeks you have no choice but to use your infantry because your cavalry is crap, but as Macedonians you have that option.

[Skott]

I'll employ some more L.Lancers in my armies and see how they work out. So far the Brutii have had more cavalry than me so they tend to counter my hit-from-behind tactics pretty good so far.

The front linemen need to hold the line while I work my cavalry though. So far they dont do that very well. Hence my hopes the new phalanx units will do a better job. Now that I have archers this should help the front line hold back the enemy better. Soften them up first at least.

The Brutii are down to their original two cities in Southern Italy so they cant outproduce me anymore at least. Just got to get a small navy put together to ferry my men over. My original 3 unit navy was sunk while I was expanding on land so I need to rebuild it. I didnt think the Brutii would attack them in harbor but they did. Usually the AI ignores ships in the harbor but this time they didnt.

[pezhetairoi]

You should've crushed the navies early ingame, and pursued land campaigns only when you have some sort of naval superiority to stop the Romans from bringing over reinforcements.

As to the Romans having cav superiority.... Well, you just have to outproduce them. From my experience Levies can take any cavalry charge unless it's delivered by a faction leader or heir, so I'm sorry but I really don't see why you're having problems that require you to urgently produce phalanx pikemen. As for cavalry charges, try to hold off to the last moment before charging, let your infantry take as much of that as possible. Make them the sacrificial lambs if need be. While the cavalry pursues the routers they will buy time for your cavalry to come up from behind. The AI has a habit of making its cavalry units charge one by one as it is, so it is actually possible to swarm and overwhelm one and most of a second before the AI can bring all its cavalry to bear against you by which time you would have the numerical superiority. Dunno, your BRutii AI seems different from mine which was low-cavalry, high-infantry. But it's worth a try. As is LL are more valuable because you need the speed.

Try to lure the enemy cavalry away from the main formation by swinging wide and rear while keeping your units concentrated and moving together, the AI has a habit of spreading out its cavalry to catch you, and once they divide, you strike and defeat in detail. If you can move the cavalry away there should be a significant advantage to your LL since they can run faster so they can quickly get into the position you need for a charge in flank or rear. And if the AI charges it will only be aiming for one of the units you have in that swarm of LL, so the other 3 have an unimpeded attack. That's a gameplay flaw built into the whole thing, so take advantage of it by overwhelming the AI target selection algorithm or whatever you call it.

[Craterus]

craterus did you finish that campaign yet ~:confused:

No, I haven't played much since that post. I'm just about to kill off Julii. I am sieging Arretium and Ariminium (I bribed Segesta) and I will wait out those sieges. I've found Macedon is a lot better defending. Assaulting a city is hell with Macedon; you have to send cavalry after cavalry if it's a large force to kill.

Also, I have an assassin navigating around Sicily. I've assassinated 3 Scipii family members, leaving two left. Lol, faction heir and leader will be tough but my assassin has 8 points (eyes) and I think he is up to the job. Hopefully, he will not be distracted by his catamite...

[Deus ret.]

I have achieved good results with Royals in towns. They almost block one street alone and thanks to their pikes, most enemies will have considerable trouble to get into melee. As long as your units are upgraded and your general has some command stars, nothing should go wrong. Against the Romans though, you feel the disadvantage of mostly having to wait for the enemy to charge you -- which they do only after having thrown their #%$&§-pila in my experience.

And your assassin....don't try to kill the leader and heir while they are in towns or accompanied by larger armies: you'll likely lose him without a reload. Even with my 9-eyed assassin, an attempt on the lonely 3-influence faction leader had a meagre 16% chance of success (ok I didn't know which traits he had...maybe you're better off ~:) ), so I killed him personally next turn.

[Skott]

The Brutii are heavy in hastati and cavalry in this campaign. Never seen them with so much cavalry before. The AI seems to have reduced their archers and put in cavalry. I increased my LLs and it has helped some but their cavalry keep waiting for me to attack with my LLs before they go in. And they arent attacking by single units neither. The AI is actually being decently smart for a change. I'm playing VH/M so maybe thats the reason? this campaign has been a real challenge unlike most of the other campaigns as far as AI play goes.

I also think this game is bugged more than I remember playing it originally. I'm seeing alot of odd things I dont remember from the first play through with it. I just now destroyed the last of the Brutii. I assaulted their home capital city of Tarentum. I got all the way to the main square and killed all their men including the generals. I beat the countdown clock by 10 seconds. I sat back savoring my victory watching the clock tick down and then the victory window pops up. It tells me I had a close defeat. I was so angry I wanted to put my fist through my monitor. :furious3:

I knew I had them beat. No other troops in the city and the game gave them the victory. The city turned rebel since my troops were pulled back. So I figure if the game is gonna cheat then so will I. I saved before the fight like I usually do in case I want to refight a battle for fun or personal experience. So I went back to my saved point. Found the cheat to give me an auto victory to give me the city. I figure I won the city by a fair fight so I deserved it. ~D

I think over time files got corrupted as the game sat unused for quite a while after initially playing it. Lot of bugs I see now I didnt see the first time playing through and the more I save my games the more they seem to get messed up. This is using the v 1.0 game. No patches. I heard something about a save game bug that alters things in some posts so maybe thats it?

What I intend to do is come Friday I'm going to uninstall the game. Defrag the hard drive. Then reinstall the game and patch 1.2. Then I'm going to download RTR 6.0 and try that. Never played the RTR mods and I'm getting bored with the original game anyway. RTR probably keep me preoccupied for a few more weeks before I get bored with it altogether.

[jacked]

Also, I have an assassin navigating around Sicily. I've assassinated 3 Scipii family members, leaving two left. Lol, faction heir and leader will be tough but my assassin has 8 points (eyes) and I think he is up to the job. Hopefully, he will not be distracted by his catamite...

Whats a catamite?

[gardibolt]

His young boy toy.

[Skott]

I forgot to to say something about the naval warfare in this campaign. Basically its a non-issue in this case. I only need to ferry troops over from the Balkans to either Southern Italy or Asia Minor. A single ship can most times slip right past an enemy's armada and deposit troops. Which is what I did in Southern Italy against the Brutii.

I didnt want to go through Northern Italy because the Gauls are staying friendly and I didnt want to fight them as well as the Romans. The Julii have been attacking by sea but after the initial full stack they landed its just been three unit armies which I can handle now.

I didnt bother to build up a fleet since its easy to move my troops overseas in this campaign. It saves me time and more importantly precious resources. Considering I cant get the Greeks or any of the Roman factions to a ceasefire it just isnt worth trying to build up a huge armada to fight them all when I can slip a ship or two through their constant moving about. The AI seems to put too much resources into navies in this game and its actually good in some cases, like this one, because the ships for the most part dont help them and only burn up denari they could otherwise put to better use.

I did however build three new ships at Thermon to replace the ones I lost and used them as my transport to Italy. I could have done it with one ship but I wanted t make sure they could survive one attack in case of interception. Turns out I didnt need three though. One trip is all that I needed and the ships made it back to Thermon afterwards anyway. Lucky for me the AI navy is acting as normal. Useless for the most part.

[pezhetairoi]

your game sounds screwed. As to the cavalry though, the enemy always waits for you to charge first, which is why you have to draw them away from the main formation. The disadvantage of waiting is that you lose the initiative. So make them react, make them go where you want to go. Lead them by the nose.

[Garvanko]

I didnt bother to build up a fleet since its easy to move my troops overseas in this campaign. It saves me time and more importantly precious resources. .
True, but i'd build up a couple of strong fleets once you get to higher tech levels and send 'em on expeditions, either to blockade ports, support troop carrying vessels or sink enemy ships..

But depends on the favtion and your finances, of course.

[pezhetairoi]

Yeah. As Macedon my first priority was to expand agains the Thracians while building a grand fleet. With the grand fleet's completion coinciding with the destruction of Thrace I then open hostilities against the Brutii as a secondary front while I mopped up Byzantium. Then I transferred hostilities to the Brutii while the Balkans became my second front, and then things got hairy. Now I have three grand fleets wandering around, one with all triple-gold ships, one with all triple-silver and one with all triple-bronze, reflecting their completion dates... I have complete naval superiority. No fleet with the sole exception of the Carthaginians can defeat me, and even the Carthaginians will have a hard fight when they decide to open hostilities because I'm raising a fourth fleet and my triple gold and silvers are already in the western Mediterranean.

Macedon has the potential to be a major seafarer. If you get command of the seas you can launch amphibious invasions to open subsidiary (and more profitable) theatres of war like, Egypt and Italy, and you get more strategic options e.g. landing where the enemy is least equipped to expect you.

[Skott]

Dont think I'll need to worry about a navy in this campaign. Once I finish off the Julii (two towns left) I'll take out the Thracians and then the Greeks in Asia Minor. Wont need a navy for the Thracians and I just need to ferry over two armies for the Greeks. One for mainland Asia Minor and one for Rhodes. Assuming the Greeks are still about by then. Then its game over. I dont plan to play the campaign longer than that.

[Skott]

All of Italy is mine now. Julii, Brutii, and Senate factions destroyed. Only Romans left are the Scipii and they arent a threat. They launch small 3 or 4 unit raids at Croton every three or four turns but thats it. Not sure what territories they have but I'm guessing its probably just Sicily.

Now I can turn my attention and resources towards Thrace. They been a faithful ally since the beginning but its time to remove them. Looks like they took only one territory from the Scythians (Campus Sothii) so I'll make it a quick blitz into their lands. Then I'll invade Asia Minor and take out the Greeks.

The Gauls have been at war with me for a while but they cant do much against my cities. All have stone walls and a few archer units to keep invaders out.

I'm suprised how little fighting there is going on between the various factions. Most of the factions are unallied and not at war for the most part. Kinda strange to see so little fighting. I'm 28 years into the timeline but in other campaigns I have seen alot more fighting by this time. Its like everyone is building up and watching me or something.

~:cheers:

[Craterus]

His young boy toy.

That's a nice way to put it. The official definition (I didn't know what it meant) is: The younger partner in a homosexual relationship (young boys).

[Garvanko]

On the Scipii..


They launch small 3 or 4 unit raids at Croton every three or four turns but thats it. Not sure what territories they have but I'm guessing its probably just Sicily.

:
Is this a 1.1 bug. Because its just farcical.

[Skott]

On the Scipii..


Is this a 1.1 bug. Because its just farcical.



I chalk it up to a stupid AI. One nice thing about it is that it helps build up stars on my generals. I keep rotating generals in and out of Croton as they gain experience. ~D

[pezhetairoi]

Same opinion. If you want to find out what cities they've got, just send a diplomat to their territory and demand they give you a region. You'll see what regions they have, save for the capital which will not show up. Then just leave your diplomat there, sell maps, and come back. Problem solved.

I now own all the Balkans up to Vicus Venedae, amazingly Gaul is racing with me for most advanced and also strongest faction, but that's because I changed them to comfortable napoleon :) Now they're no longer spamming warbands, and they actually have a unit of Chosens. So proud of them... they're shaping up to be a worthy opponent, and I'm about to test them with a three-army invasion once I wipe the floor with Germania and leave the northern half to Britannia.

The 3-4 units thing I have linked to AI 'opportunism', because now that no other faction save an enemy owns those regions, they would by all means try to take it for themselves: don't forget every faction wants a stronger stnading for the up and coming Roman civil war that will now never come.

Since you're there, why don't you just do something about Capua? It's save you a lot of annoyance.

[Craterus]

It was getting late last night (2am) and I landed a full stack on Sicily. Out of movement points, I pressed End Turn. First up, Scipii.

I immediately have a battle with Scipii full stack. I won't go into details, but heroic victory. Then another Scipii full stack shows up out of nowhere. When it gets to the end of the battle (3am), all their units have routed off the battlefield the voice comes on: "Victory! But by the narrowest of margins..."

So I thought "Close victory, not too bad, they'll be hurst by this more than I am"

But before the stats come up (Deployed, Kills, Men Remaining) comes up, my computer crashes to desktop. So I just lost an hour of work. Bit annoyed by that, but I gave the battles another go today.

Something bad has happened to my game, cavalry won't stop pursuing routers, it won't turn, it won't change target. It won't deploy in a straight line. Being a cav commander, this is seriously annoying. So I quit the battle, reloaded, and tried again. Same problem :help:. So I reloaded again and this time withdrew to the boats.

This little glitch has seriously annoyed me and caused an almost burnout for my Macedon campaign. If anyone else knows how to fix these glitches, please :help:

[jacked]

Maybe you have to reinstall.

[Craterus]

If it doesn't work when I play later, I'm giving up on that campaign and starting an Armenia one with Mundus Magnus.

Is there anywhere to see all the outro movies? Because I think I am close enough to the finish of the campaign to regard this as not cheating.

[Skott]

Do you have a point in the game saved earlier then the current time where the crash happened? I usually have a couple save points when playing. The original game has alot of bugs in it and I have learned to have at least two saved files for each campaign I play. Generally it goes like this:

AutoSave
Macedon Campaign
Battle/Siege
Backup

The autosave is built in and self explanatory but I add the next three myself. The main campaign save that I use the faction name I'm playing. Then there is a save file I save before each battle in case i want to replay the fight for whatever reason. And then there is the backup save. This save I use when i'm not sure if a direction I take in the game is a good one or has an alternate direction I may want to come back to later on to explore. The backup save is the one that can go back several years in turns.

As you can see I have a habit of saving alot. A habit I have grown over the years of playing a lot of computer games. :dizzy2:

[pezhetairoi]

Craterus, one of the folders in the data folder has all the animations for victory and faction destruction.

[Craterus]

Oh lol. Cool! Are they different for each faction, or each group of factions?

[pezhetairoi]

different for each group of factions, but generic otherwise. There's, naturally, unique ones for each Roman house (i.e. different colours, same animation), but only one for the barbs, the easterners and the greeks. I think. Faction destruction, of course, has one for every faction.

[Craterus]

Aha, I've seen 'em all. Now I don't have to worry about completing certain campaigns just to see the outro movies. The Greek one is cool, by far the best.

So, here I end my Macedon campaign (burnout, buggy) and end the last of my 1.2 campaigns!

Now, I set my sights on a Mundus Magnus Armenia campaign.

[Elephant]

In my VH/H campaign, I took the Corinth and Larissa archers, along with some Light Lancers and my general to get Sparta on turn 2.

Even though it took me 3 reloads, I succeeded in defeating that damn unit of Spartan Hoplites. Needless to say, the AI forgot to build wooden walls, in which I built right away to prevent the Greek army that wandered away to get a chance of immediately counterstriking.

On turn 3, the Greek Cities leaders continues to drink merrily, and sent out a stack of Cretan Archers and 3 Peltasts from Thermon. Conveniently, I had 2 Light Lancers and a family member in Larissa... I will let you guys guess how the battle that came after went. ~;) After disposing of his missile unit stack, I planted a spy in Thermon, and immediately got a chance to strike a nearly-deserted Thermon with it's open gates.

With this done, I successfully eliminated Greek Cities from Greece. Athens would come later.

Other than that, my campaign has gone on quite smoothly, other than Dacians attacking Bylazora... which I made a grand sally that worked every time...

THE "WHACK-A-MOLE" SALLY METHOD

Ok, here is what I mean: you must sally against an opponent right as soon as he besieges you. Deploy troops as you see fit, but make sure your General's Unit/Cavalry is near the gate nearest to the opposing army.

When battle begins, charge the General's Unit/Cavalry out the gates as bait, but keep the door blocked by stopping the orderas the unit is almost through the gateway.

After a short time, the enemy army should attempt to march into your open gates... quickly run back into base with your gates shutting them out.

Now, quickly run your bait to another gate of your city, and use the method above to keep it ajar... The enemy army should be trying to reach that gate just like in the previous scenario.

Now, the great thing about this is: your towers will be shooting at them as they try to circle along your walls trying to reach the next open gate! You can quite easily lead them through a wild-goose chase... Or as I like to call: Whack-a-mole adventure!

When the enemy is weakened enough, they might stop falling for this trick in the battle... but then, the enemy units that "ran the gauntlet" should be tired now... Finish the job with your units!

I know this is cheating, as I am exploiting a dumb AI, but man, is this ever so satisfying to watch! Try it!

[pezhetairoi]

I prefer to let them march for the gates, then have fun letting them meet my welcome committee of pikes just inside the gates. Much more gratifying.

[Elephant]

I prefer to let them march for the gates, then have fun letting them meet my welcome committee of pikes just inside the gates. Much more gratifying.

Yeah, that could work too... And it would probably feel less like an exploit.

Yet, when Bylazora was under siege at that time, they had two Archer Warbands while I only have 1 unit of Peltast... The Militia Hoplites I had would probably rout pretty quickly under their Falxmen + 2 Family members + arrows.

But still, I would recommend anyone to try the method of sallying I stated above, although I am probably not the first person to think of that. ~;)

[bubbanator]

2 or 3 units of levy pikes behind the gate can hold up quite well. However, if you find that too unrealistic you can just make a 3 sided box right inside the gate to say hello to whoever wants to come inside ~;)

One word of caution: don't put them so close to the gates (or walls) so that their pikes stick out past the walls. The enemy just charges at them but doesn't get killed by your pikes. Very odd. However, this too can be exploited.

[Taurus1]

2 or 3 units of levy pikes behind the gate can hold up quite well. However, if you find that too unrealistic you can just make a 3 sided box right inside the gate to say hello to whoever wants to come inside

Defeating Pontus in the Macedonian campaign is easy if you use this explotied strategy therefore I do not use it. Also it is true what you say about putting them too close because even peltasts can break a phalanx then which is rather strange.


Anyway, I am going to give my tips on the Macedonian campaign how I did it.
It is a good idea as with most factions to boost up your econamy because without money you cannot have armies, which is pretty obvious to everyone but I will say it nonetheless.

Thrace and Dacia are not much of a threat thoughout the whole campaign so you can ally with them straight away and if they do not except it is no real big deal as they can esily be swept aside later on. Firstly you must focus your conquest on the Greek cities and push them off of mailnad Greece which will give you the combined income you need and the territory you need to wage war on the Brutii.

No doubt by the time you have accomplished this (or evn sooner) the Brutii have invaded and will begin to attack Salona and Thermon. I find it an easier strategy to leave Thermon only slightly defended and instead concnetrate your garrison in Thessalonica which will enable you, with the assistance of roads, to travel around the rear of the Roman forces thus spliting their forces between Thermon and Salona. It should prove too much of a problem pushing the Brutti off of mainland greece as long as they cannot gain a foothold.

If and when you succeed in this objective you next priority should be to take all of Italy and vanquish those pesky Romans once and for all. Now this may sound strange but once Italy is taken the campaign has been more or less won already as the only factions that posed me any real problems from then on were Scythia and Egypt, both of which have an array of high speed light cavalry and missile cavalry. To defeat these armies it is best to bring along a few units of cheap Greek cavalry to keep the horse archers occupied then you can attack the main infantry forces with your overpowering Phalanx force, hopefully anyway ~;) .

Also one tip for attacking Egypt (as stated in my Seleucid strategy) is to prepare a naval assault to blockade their ports and an amphibious assault on the cities along the Nile Delta, Alexandria etc.

The rest of the campaign should just be a simple process of mopping up the remaining factions that dare stand in your way.

Thankyou :bow:

[LestaT]

I'm currently playing RTR 5.41. My initial plan was to conquer Egypt before making to Rome (bacause somehow Egypt?ptolemaic) always strong in RTR version. My stly of playing is always to limit number of enemies I'm fighting (max 2 if possible).

As Macedon , Greek (and also Phyrus) attack me since the earlist turn so there's no choice but to make war with fhellenistic factions.

Macedons list of pikes/hoplites are not exactly memorable but blessed with great cavalries. In less than 10 years both factions are no more exist so I can concentrate on Dacia which become hostile. Romans is quite docile in my campaign and they only stay in Italy.

Now 50 year after the Dacians are gone , when I set myself on asia minor (belonging to Egypy now) the Germans broke our alliance.

There's no choice now but to go up norst instead of south.

Cheers....

btw my Macedonians are now reaches the baltic.

[spartakis]

ahh macedonia. one of the funnest campaigns ive played. ill admit i did use 1 cheat and that was addind 20000 denari in the begining but that was only because thrace had an aliance with greece and decided to attack me. but more on that later. in the very begining i saw that athens was right there so i sent all my cavalry (i love cavalry for seiges) and quickly built an army to invade. i easily too athens and enslaved them as i always do as i like to get the slave trade going in the begining. the boost in finances got me enuf to build a small army for thermon and after battle (i automated it as i outnumbered them by quite a hefty margin). i enslaved them for the same reason as athens and tryed to build a large army toinvade sparta. with my temple of choice as artemis i had cavalry up the wazoo aith my trademark line of archers in back and watever infantry i could scramblein front and charged sparta. with around 4 seige towers i got through the walls fairly easily and the battle only went downhill from there for sparta. after that battle i built up my temple and then my cavalry and took my general and the biggest army i could manage and sent it on a ship to italy to take over the brutii. croton and the other coastal one (cant remember the name) were my first choices. after taking those i was quickly invaded by all 3 roman factions but i was luky enuf to ship over sum extra generals to hire sum barbarians and help quell the invading army. with a few lucky battles i automated i had a few turns to take capua and by then i had an alliance with thrace after long battles with them which i ended up automating most cuz of the superior cavalry i had. i told thrace to defeat the 3 roman factions and luckily enuf for methey managed to distract them enuf for my growing army in capua to take over rome which was sending its bigegst army to capua at the time. and thats where i stand now. i plan on taking down the roman factions next which should give me the rest of my 37 needed territory's for the win.

[Bonusmalus]

I've started a macedonian campaing that's going on well at least for now.

In the beginning of the campaing, the key unit is the militia hoplite. It's nearly as good as levy pikemen. I use to stack them in my cities and use armies of phalanx pikemen and light lancers in attacking.

First task is to take at least two rebel provinces (for me its naturally Athens and Apollonia). I thought Apollonia would be harder because the Brutii would also be wanting it. so I took the army with macedonian cavalry and light lancers and rushed it to Apollonia. Later on I sent a family member and couple of levy's there. At the same time Brutii landed there. I managed to capture the city and then I was just waiting for them to attack. They didn't attack. I made an alliance and trade rights with them. That gave me enough time to prepare. Then I began to build up my forces to attack the greek cities. With an army of phanlanx pikemen and light lancers+a family member sparta was mine. The spartan hoplite can be tricky, I took it down with my two cretan archers. After Sparta Thermon should be easy to capture. Try to get trade rights and alliances with thrace and dacia. You can take thrace a little bit later. By this time Brutii has taken Salona and Segestica and now they are breaking their alliances with me. They attacked Apollonia but I brided their army. Bylazora was also under attack but my phalanxes defeated hastati easily in the streets. Try to defend yourself against the brutii by placing strong garrison in both Apollonioa and Bylazora and maybe Larissa too.... By this time, I have produced a full stack army ready stomp on the thracians. I took Byzantium easily and brided a thracian family member who took Tylis with a mercenary army. Leave forts at the river crossings. now you can concentrate on Brutii. In my game I took two full stack armys over the adrian sea to take Tarentum and Croton. I have also ona half stack army ready to punish the brutii garrisons in Salona and Segestica. After Brutii kick Scipii out from Italy. Then Rome is at your fingertips. After Rome the rest of the known world is open. Should I go after the Gauls.... Maybe I should conquer the Asia-Minor.... Maybe I should go after Egypt..... The choice is yours. :charge:

[pezhetairoi]

I've got a post somewhere in here about my strict timetable of conquest for Greece and Italy, with the result that by turn 13 I had a fleet with a large army headed for Tarentum, and all greece captured. Yeah. On turn 6 I took Sparta, and really, if there's one thing wrong with spartans, it's their incredible vulnerability to archers. With only 3 armour that is literally the biggest chink in their armour.

If you're ambitious like me you can actually take Thermon and Sparta in one breath, like so: Corinth and Larissa to Athens. Thessalonica and Sardica to Thermon. Following which, Corinth and Larissa to Sparta, with the addition of another unit or two from Larissa and Corinth, which have been kept busy with recruitment (you hope.) Quick and easy, as long as you make no commanding mistakes, you will remain with two viable armies of about 10 units' strength to mess around with Italy and Asia Minor.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

You love the phalanx I see!~D

[pezhetairoi]

Yeap I do, but against such an idiot AI that dashes itself to shreds on phalanxes, how could anyone not? I doubt I'd like fighting Craterus the Cavalry General with my Phalanx Combined approach, though. He'd cut me to pieces and send pikes routing over the field.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I really need to get my router to let me play online games. I have mastered the phalanx to it's fullest of manueverablility. I bet I could take Craterus...

[pezhetairoi]

Not against the supercavalry commander, you can't. ;-P But it's be nice and instructive to watch. It'd also be a very long battle if you had no archers.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

You talking about Craterus, the REAL Alexander general or the Craterus on this site? (I know he's a good online player so I thought you were maybe talking about him)...~:confused:

[pezhetairoi]

...lol, of course THIS Craterus, the online one. He's really good. You should read about his exploits on the earlier threads in the guides. Legendary, I tell you. Things like routing a whole army with 2 units of cav. Unsurpassable.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Good...I was about to say...

With your username you should know Craterus was not a cavalry commander...he was indeed the commander of 3 of his hometown units...the pezhetairoi~;)

[pezhetairoi]

Aye, I know that. Craterus 2000 years ago was an infantry commander... now he's reborn as a cavalry commander. Ironic, no? ;-)

[Craterus]

Actually, Craterus went on to command the Companions after Philotas' execution (the assassination plot that he was supposedly involved in).

Then, he became ruler of the Macedonian part of the empire... and died whilst fighting against Seleucus, I think... not too sure about his death..

EDIT: Oh, and Alexander, any time you're up for a beating, give me a call... ~;)

EDIT2: And Pez, it was 2 units of Generals' Cav... But hey, give me a few units of light lancers and I'd be happy to take you on...

[pezhetairoi]

If I remember, Craterus, your namesake was killed by an alliance of Diadochoi in some battle or other. Strange, I always thought he was an infantry sorta fellow. I never knew he commanded the Companions.

Oh, d'you know Alexander might have bequeathed his empire to Craterus? I just read an article in which they said ancient greek for 'to the strongest' was something like 'krateris' or something like that, which could very well have been 'Krateros' for all we know. And so history was changed because of one mishearing. :)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Advice to Macedonians in RTW (vanilla):

You have an excellent light cavalry. Use it well.

I had two armies (4.5 Hoplites, 9 Light Lancers) combine against my Brutii city defense (Fac leader, Equites, Hastati, Town Militia, 3 * Peasant). Hoplites bust the gate, back off, and Lancer after Lancer charges in. ~D Let's just say that horse-steak was on the menu in a big way (us'n - 70 or so, them'ns -730+).

So, remember, sons of Mokdon, Lancers are for field engagements, not gate crashing. :bow:

[pezhetairoi]

Dear Seamus, I always used my LLs for gatecrashing because my levy pikemen were so hopeless in melee. :) As long as you send enough LLs at the enemy AT ONE TIME, they will break. :) You should the spectacular fireworks when 6 units crowd into the gate and gain enough mass to charge. :)

Yeah, I know, it's suicidal. But it's kinda hard to do otherwise when they're such good stuff. Anyhow, in 1.2, you can gatecrash, join combat, then vamoose out the gate, and the defenders -will follow you out the gate-. Then you can slice'n'dice them to bits in a field engagement, and repeat until the enemy charges everything he has at you. ;-) Remember, when the enemy charges out the gates pursuing you, leave one unit of cavalry next to the gate to cut off their retreat once they're out the gate :-D

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Actually, in the game I am playing, they really did pile in about 6 units in one grand charge.

I three sided them, but did NOT follow any routers out -- that would have been my debacle in a hurry. Those lancers have little staying power, but their first hit is a wallop.

[pezhetairoi]

hell yes. Oh well, against you I guess expecting you to charge out after them is asking too much. But for the AI defending, it's perfectly wothing reason... one of the reasons I love the AI. :)

[Seyfullah]

I haven't read all of this thread yet so I don't know if someone posted about what I am going to ask:

I was fighting the Brutii to wipe them off Greece while suddenly I had Cyrene.~:eek: ~D I don't recall sending any troops there especially because the garrison's attack, defense, and experience ratings were high and they were composed of only peasants and militia hoplites.(7 peasants and 2 militias I think) Anyways I just wanted to know if there was a trigger or this was a random event of some sort. I don't know much about mechanics, I was curious about this maybe my computer/game is going crazy.

If someone has a logical explanation for all this I would be very happy to know.

Thank you before-hand.

[Craterus]

Each settlement has a founding faction.

If the town rebels(verb) from the Rebels(noun), the founding faction is "gifted" the settlement.

[Seyfullah]

Craterus thank you!:bow:
I was surprised with this and I didn't know what happened. This info will prove to be useful in the game(I don't know how much). I will use the opportunity as a chance to expand in Africa.:charge:

[Craterus]

Of course. It's a nice little base. Good luck, but I'd recommend you garrison it first. You don't want to lose it right after getting it. Just build peasants for a garrison, they're cheap and effective.

[pezhetairoi]

No worries about that, Craterus. Cyrene always reverts to Macedon with 6 units of triple-gold-chevron militia hoplites and 3 units of single-gold peasants. At least, it did the two times I played Macedon. That is more than enough for you to take on the Nile valley once you send over a family member or two and a few units of cavalry and archers. :) No need to worry for a garrison, just leaving those peasants behind is already enough to beat off most of the mobile forces Egypt has short of a half-stack :)

[Seyfullah]

Exactly. But I think it was 6 peasants and 3 hoplites. Anyways, until I send someone over I plan to stabilize Greece and the Balkans. Too many fronts can be exhausting.

[Craterus]

Dude, it's "TOTAL War". Not "One-Front-At-A-Time War"

[Seyfullah]

Well, think of it this way: I have played one game with the Julii e/m, long campaign, and won(this was my first rtw game ever). Now this is the second game, m/m long.
Maybe you'll cut me some slack.~D
Also even though I said too many fronts can be exhausting, I'm fighting the Gauls, the Dacians, the Thracians, all the Romans, and the Numidians(only at sea and if they siege Cyrene) at the same time.:charge: The year is 249 BC.

[Craterus]

Ok, maybe I'll let you off. :wink2: Don't forget to keep us updated on your campaign though.

[Seyfullah]

Well, I'll give you a quick summary and I'll keep you up to date on it.
As soon as I started I went for the unification of Greece. The Brutii had taken Apollonia of course, but I conquered Thermon,Athens,Crete,and Sparta. Even though I was trading with Thrace and Dacia, I had to fight them because they attacked me and were in the way of my plan. Before the plague in Thessalonica, I was already in contact with Gauls(which I allied asap) through Segestica. Anyways, that's when I had a huge setback. I was having little skirmishes in the north with Dacia and Thrace:duel: , and I was building up an army to take on the Romans in Italy. Through my careless game play, the faction heir died defending Thermon, his son while going up to Segestica, and his father(the faction leader) of either old age or plague. Also during this time I lost Thessalonica to the Brutii and was stabbed in the back by the Gauls. I worked hard to take those places back and was 'gifted' Cyrene. Currently the Brutii are out of commission(not by me, and I'm mad about this) and I have landed a small force in southern Italy. A big force is after the Thracians.
If you guys have any advice, I gladly welcome it.
I'll keep you posted.

[pezhetairoi]

Just keep going, and develop the situation further. The fun's only just begun. Though I have to say, losing those 3 family members was careless. :)

Expand that small force in Italy. Capture Tarentum or something, and use it as a base and expand your Italian army. The Italian front will be one of your most profitable so you should speed it up your turning of the paninsula black and orange.

[C-F]

Well,
I finished my second tech-tree, the Macedonians, 5 levels, 55 buildings, 20 units, and one ?-mark; I could not figure out what the 'bodyguard improvements' are.
The image quality is not for printing, as for the 1024 byte restriction; I'm looking for an upload site for the original 3.5Mb bmp file and will post a link when found.
Let me know if there are any errors or mistakes...
Enjoy :bow:


https://img189.imageshack.us/img189/9352/macedontechtree02c8eb.th.jpg (https://img189.imageshack.us/my.php?image=macedontechtree02c8eb.jpg)

[C-F]

... will post a link when found.
Let me know if there are any errors or mistakes...
Enjoy :bow:




You can download it here (http://rtw.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=3975)

[Seyfullah]

I had a weird battle last week. I was sieging Tylis when the garrison and a reinforcements attacked me. I held a good place on top of a hill and so did they. They came but while I was watching out for my cavalry, I lost focus of my main line and they routed most of my phalanx. I used the general to rally them and got some of them back. Towards the end they had 2 infantry units and 3 pikemen, I think. I only had my general with 10 guards, half a unit of merc. peltasts and about 6 merc. peltasts in another unit. Using my general to attack the infantry from rear (also downhill), I let the mercs get away to a safe distance. Then I manuevered my general out of pikes' way and set him as a bait (by this time only 6 of them left) and put the mercs a little bit to the front on left and right. Whenever the pikemen came I pulled my general further back and flanked with mercs from both sides. When they switched their attention to the main merc unit, I flanked with my general. :charge: This happened for some time until all routed and I won the battle and the city.
At first I thought I was going to win with my strong force but when they routed I was kind of worried. The last piece of inspirational tactics saved me.

Just thought I should share this with y'all. I think it was interesting.

[Craterus]

Good use of the general, they're crucial if you're down to your last units.

[Garvanko]

Anyone know a good strategy for dealing with Falxmen? Without sustaining significant casualties.

[Craterus]

Pincer them..

Let them run onto phalanx (anvil) and use cav into the back.

They're tough, but once you've got rid of Dacia and Thrace, they don't exist anymore.

[Seyfullah]

Craterus, I have a question. I have read in this thread about the strength of the Macedonian Cavalry. Is it possible to rely on cavalry to win battles or should the armies be infantry based? I am asking this to you since you are a great cavalry commander. Cavalry were used as auxiliary troops so I have never tried it, but I do wonder the possibilities.

[Ludens]

Craterus, I have a question. I have read in this thread about the strength of the Macedonian Cavalry. Is it possible to rely on cavalry to win battles or should the armies be infantry based? I am asking this to you since you are a great cavalry commander. Cavalry were used as auxiliary troops so I have never tried it, but I do wonder the possibilities.
Historically, what made the Macedonian army so powerful was the effective use of combined arms. They had good infantry and powerful cavalry, and used them in hammer-and-anvil tactics to defeat their enemies. This you should try to do in game as well.

The latest patches have dimnished the power of cavalry, so relying soly on them to win the battle is going to be expensive. I usually find it works best to have between one-third and half of my army consisting of pikemen, about one-third cavalry and the rest skirmishers. The pikemen form a line to engage the enemy infantry while the cavalry deals with enemy cavalry and then hits their flanks. The skirmishers are mainly there to drive of the enemy skirmishers and provoke their cavalry in an unsupported charge.

[Craterus]

Craterus, I have a question. I have read in this thread about the strength of the Macedonian Cavalry. Is it possible to rely on cavalry to win battles or should the armies be infantry based? I am asking this to you since you are a great cavalry commander. Cavalry were used as auxiliary troops so I have never tried it, but I do wonder the possibilities.

I haven't actually played with the latest patches, and if cavalry are a lot weaker then relying on them will probably cost me. This is quite worrying because it means a big change in my style.

I ALWAYS take infantry to a battle, but I use them as support troops and they rarely see action unless they're needed.

The possibilities are there, and cavalry can be very effective, you just have to know how to use them.

[Ligur]

Fun thread, I had an almost 10 month break playing RTW but when they got the 1.2 patch out and B:I out I had to reinstall. Lo and behold, I'm reading the book Alexander by Pressfield which inspired me to pick Macedon. This far I only played one evening, currently engaged in a three front war with the Romans (Brutii), Greeks and Dacia and haven't lost a single battle. Medium/Medium, I thought I was rusty so I didn't want the weird morale bonuses the AI gets otherwise.

Got one heir/general killed while fighting the Brutii on a city gate when they invaded Greece, bad mistake and careless on my part, but somehow in a wonderous manner my whole army rallied and annihilated them to a man.... never seen such, almost everytime my general gets slaughtered the fight is over but my phalanxes and lancers somehow regrouped and made a slaughterhouse of the field. Wow.

This far the light lancers have been a wonder, they don't have staying power but who cares, just charge, withdraw, flank, repeat...

This far it feels Macedon has real striking power fast if you play your first turns right and become a true force very quickly. For some reason I've been unable to get almost any peltasts or merc archers in this far, maybe bad building decisions but as I said I was rusty, and the merc hoplites don't really strike me as a wonderful unit.

But goddamn, I tried the Alexander tactics in a few fights, i.e. strong phalanx center, left wing auxiliary cav etc to hold the enemy wing, strong right wing with your most powerful cav which will break through the gaps and absolutely wiped the field of any resistance.

Lets see how it goes after the Romans get better units. Also I used to play VH/VH if at all so maybe I took too easy settings despite my long break.

[_Aetius_]

I'm playing Macedon on RTR VH/VH its been a great game and I currently own everything from Illyria to Syria (eastern asia minor is in Pontic hands), which in RTR constitutes a hell of alot of provinces.

To summerise, a quick, brutal but ultimately successful war with the Greeks brought about the conquest of all the Greeks in the Balkans within a decade. During which time I also occupied the only Ptolemaic province in Europe after they attacked me.

I planned on consolidating, but the Seleucids were hellbent on war so I was forced to invade Asia Minor very very early on, it seemed the endless stacks of seleucids would overwhelm me but I gained a toehold in the north west and constantly reinforced my position. During 20 years of warfare western Asia Minor was mine and i'd conquered territory from Illyria in Dalmatia and had sporadic warfare with Thrace.

These 3 wars continued pretty constantly for decades, I suffered reverses such as the total annihilation of a stack when the Thracians cavalry flanked my position and charged my centre. Also the Seleucids crushed another stack outside Nicomedia, but by now my economy was booming so these losses were swiftly replaced and the Thracians were slowly being absorbed.

Success against Seleucia speeded up dramatically as central Asia Minor was seized many Seleucid stacks were swept aside along the way including the vital province of Galatia, with its gallic influenced troops.

Around this time 220bc or so, my army in the east was 50% mercenaries, mostly Galatians and Cretans, the further east I was forced to go the more mercenaries were in the army. I pushed deeper into Seleucid territory seizing Tarsus and then moving still further taking Antioch and 4 nearby settlements. I even went further east and briefly besieged Babylon but was forced to retreat. Now my eastern army is almost entirely made up of Persians and Galatians as Macedonian troops are so far away its hard to get regular native reinforcements so far east, besides the mercenaries and Persian troops etc are doing brilliantly. By 200bc all of Asia Minor except the east was mine and I had a permanent presence in Syria.

The greeks still lived in Sicily, with their 1 province Syracuse, I got an expedition together and besieged the city, I stormed and only lost out when the time ran out, I had 1 man left to kill :wall:. I was further angered when Carthage besieged Syracuse whilst my army was unable to react. So I in hindsight rashly attacked the Carthaginians and they retreated, this wasnt a big deal since peace was made with Carthage soon after, but my alliance with Rome was broken and war followed. Syracuse was taken anyway and the Greeks dead. :skull:

180bc is pretty much where im at, I have extended far into the north beyond the Danube and the war with Rome goes on, despite the fact ive smashed 8 stacks without losing a single one of mine. They persist on attacking me.

I plan now to march east and take Babylon and Seleucia crippling the Seleucids before pre-empting against the Ptolemies and capturing Cyprus which is the key to there economy with its 3 cities. Furthermore absorb Rhodes and Lesbos which are still in Ptolemaic hands from the beginning of the game. Oh yes and of course my plans are well under way for a formal invasion of Italy, I already have 2 province in the south but im massing 3500 men for the invasion, the target Rome itself.

[Ligur]

Update on my campaign, first of all, I have no idea where you other guys got all the money from at the start, I've 20 gold at most after each round and for a while it was a bit rough as I've had to replenish armies with mercs which took alot of my infrastructure development out. Also since I'm at war with nearly every neighbour they frequently block my harbors or siege cities which sucks money out of my war chest.

Then again I didn't read the thread much, just went to do it my way, eliminating Greece from the peninsula (they still have Sicily and Rhodes with big stacks awaiting for a landing) and then Thrace attacked. By my last post, I had already wiped them out and was in a war against the poor Dacians I tried to co-exist peacefully with.. Alas, in vain.

I exterminated them all, which might've been a mistake maybe... the towns produce nothing, they would have been good targets for training generals and a buffer between me and Germania. But they just refused to yield no matter what I tried. Now I control the empty Thracian/Dacian wastes with a few tough garrisons in the ready if Germania tries something funny.

On my mission to destroy the Greek completely I crossed over from Byzantium, at which point the Greece allied with Pontus who throw masses of men at me. However they were not powerful enough to penetrate a phalanx/peltast line and survive the following flank and rear charges by my light lancers and other cavalry I picked along on the way. Some pretty epic battles took place with thousands and thousands dead.

This all the while fighting with the Brutii and Julii in the west. I have camped in Segesta and pump new forces to repel their landings on the coast, which they do regularly. I'm not even trying to hit Italy, just keep the coast clear and any invading Romans in check.

I've been using a Macedon style battleline all the time when suitable, with strong (well... as strong as I can get with only semi-developed cities) deep phalanx middle, a left flank that can hold its on against cavalry or spears (mercs and cav mixed) and the most powerful cavalry massed on the right wing, poised to envelope and rout the enemy with one huge charge which either flanks or envelopes their center. I bet this would've not worked so well on VH though, as some pointed out militia hoplites and levy pikemen tend to rout for no reason very quickly. On medium they are both mostly solid enough as long as you hold their flanks protected and keep them on a deep coherent formation.

Allied with Gaul to spite the Romans, and Scythia just so I don't have to mind the empty north-east wastelands.

Egypt, as usual, is emerging as a powerful force in the south, rolling over everyone. I'vet yet to see more than a few of their diplomats but I pose this question to you Macedon players:

How the hell will I deal with their chariots?

I know its going to happen sooner or later. Infact after dealing with Pontus for good and taking the last Greek outposts, I have a mind to attack the middle-east, like Alexander, and I know what's waiting for me over there. Its scythes on wheels. The game is nearing 235BC so mere light lancer charges will not do it all anymore. I'm already having trouble with principes and such landing on the coastline between Segesta and Salona and losing quite a few cavalry units to beat them back. Nothing a few flanking wedges of lancers can't handle but you get casualties fast the moment the fight stalls into a melee, at which point you should pull back at once for another run but while multitasking several different fronts in the battle you sometimes forget to do it ASAP.

edit: I have to say I love the phalanx center & cavalry enveloping tactics. I have _some_ peltasts and archers in each stack, and have enjoyed using ballistas to rout enemies attacking over the danube or in Ponthia, but this far I've seen my phalanax center rout only a couple of times, when fighting against such overwhelming odds I had no chance to keep their flanks covered or turn around fast enough to face the flankers. They are truly a calming force in my center I can rely to repel almost anything thrown at them as long as their sarissas and spears are pointing in the right direction, a massive force of Dacian and Ponthic infantry have both rushed my phalanx front and oh my oh my... I hardly suffered any casualties at all since they can't get near enough to use a sword or a short spear before being ground down by the constant pummeling beat of the Macedon lance.

[Watchman]

Playing Pontus, I found the Eggy chariots a pain. The Heavy ones were actually pretty easy to deal with; they could usually be goaded into charging pike-points, just buried under an advancing wall of pointy things, or shot to bits. But the archer versions are a bit of a major pain, especially when there's the rest of the army (Pharaoh's Bowmen are... not nice) keeping you from just sending some disposable Peltasts to keep them busy while you demolish the rest. It's usually impossible to engage the archer chariots with suitable troops so long as the Pharaoh archers are active, and conversely you can't really clear out the foot archers with cavalry as long as the chariots hang around ready to rip your horses to bits.

Aside from using Scythed Chariots as chariot-hunters (obviously not an option for Macedonians), I found artillery to work suprisingly well. At least on Hard the AI seemed quite hesitant to assail a properly supported pike line, and while it dithered trying to decide what to do lobbing rocks onto its fancy wheels and shiny archers stacked the deck nicely.

Heavy infantry mercs were a pretty good chariot-killer too as long as the things deigned to come close (and event the archer kind are often surprisingly willing to try a massed charge); both Thracians and Cilicians seemed to do a pretty good job (one bunch of the latter lasted some three battles before being depleted to uselesness). Even the puny Eastern Infantry seemed to do pretty well especially when "braced", presumably by the virtue of pretty decent defense score, spear bonus and sheer numbers. 'Course, those guys aren't that useful against most anything else but at least they're more mobile than phalanxes...

[Ligur]

Hmm! Never thought of artillery to deal with chariots but this sounds like something that could work. I just have to make sure I have my infrastructure ready enough to actually build some decent artillery before I invade the Eggie territory, from the few fights with Ponthian chariots I know the units that finish the battles for me, i.e. Macedonian/Greek/Lancer cavalry with their flank/rear wedge charges will suffer horrendous losses against massed Eggie chariots.

Maybe build a solid phalanx front of the best fitted units I can get, get some archers behind them and then nuke the chariots with arty as they approach.

Some peltasts could serve as a nice distraction, taking the brunt of a possible chariot rush and then withdrawing after throwing a spear or two. Poor guys, they will suffer massive casualties but then again, what are skirmishers for...

Man, I hate the Eggies and their super-units :mad:

[Craterus]

Let the Egyptians attack you and deploy at the back of the deployment square. That way, they'll come to you, and it gives you a chance to use your artillery on their chariots. :idea:

[Watchman]

In my experience it was usually enough to simply deploy into the basic phalanx fortress line with the artillery right behind the pikemen in the center, flanked by archers. On the average the Egyptians seemed *very* hesitant to engage the Phalanx Pikemen head on (no wonder; my experience suggests longer pikes are seriously bad news to fight against), leaving the artillery free to bombard them while the AI tried to figure just how it was going to try to crack the formation.

Often, after eating enough rocks and commonly losing many of its chariots to stones, pike-points, arrows and peltasts (who are in my experience a fairly effective way to lure chariots into pikes), it simply decided to take a hike and withdraw. At which point I of course cheerfully obliterated as many retreating units as I could with cavalry, the Pharaonics and particularly Bowmen being singled out for special attention.

Worked on the attack too. Doing a proper creeping "parade attack" (as I liked to call them already in MTW) which scares the AI into withdrawing is pretty tedious, but wins battles with minimal casualties. Good for holding territory against those annoyingly endless piles of armies the Eggies like to throw at you. If you have HAs - the mercs available on the eastern and southern Black Sea coastal area work fine - you can even inflict some decent casualties in the process.

[Ligur]

The AI is "learning"... Well, not really, but I had a day of fun wiping out the last Ponthians and their chariots, Royal Phalanx with some experience & armor just stop them like they hit a wall of steel, nothing gets through, I won't even take casualties while the chartiots crumble into pieces. In one battle a single Phalanx unit got almost 500 kills, and that's without chasing anyone at any point, just thursting their lances at the AI infantry and chariots trying to get past them.

Then suddenly in a few battles after the AI got clocked it used some kind of type of evil new flank/rear charge with the chariots. My own cav counter-attacked and I was able to chase them off but with horrendous losses, I lost 6 units of lancers in a single fight. YIKES! The evil AI targeted the units with exactly the weakest defend stat on my flank and burst through. Skimmers or archers had no chance to survive for a second or two, barb infantry with a good commaner was able to hold on untill my own heavy cav got in the mix. And like someone pointed out, counter-attacking with bactrian or thracian mercs helped a bit.

Be as it may that was only Ponthia that had over-expanded I had to deal with, now the Eggies started a war with me one turn after Ponthia was wiped out by me, without any other provoaction.

Ugh, I hope the Germans (former Ponthian allies) don't attack me as well, I have my hands full with all the roman factions and now Ponthia is gone but changed to Eggies... damn, I'd rather fight the Ponthians...

edit: I got a good force of artillery in Anthens, but for some reason, the same round the Egggies attacked my onager city was hit by the plague, so they're out of use for a while... goddamn,

[Ligur]

The plague fleet is on the move. Take that you charioteering weasels.

Charioteers... the AI is trying to play clever and flank my Phalanx (appears that on almost every difficulty the AI will think twice about charging a unit of Royal Phalanx frontally) fortress and I don't have my Onagers with me yet to bombard them since my Onager producer (Athens) got the plague. My archers are doing a nice job reducing them but they move so fast they are out of range half the time.

If I load my Onagers into ships and carry to them to the midde-eastern fields of war they'll just spread the plague to my cities and armies over there, right, correct me if I'm wrong.

This vexes me and I want to punish the "wise and belligerent" Pharao a bit. Killing his best general near Antioch is not enough, not by a long shot.

So what is this plague fleet? A little jest you can play on the AI many of you might've heard of already. Since I can't send my Onagers into Egypt untill the damn plague ends, I had several spies gather in Athens, get infected with the plague and loaded them into the menacing "plague ship" that was guarding the Athenian port. Then I drew a few powerful, separate fleets of ships from Sparta and Thermon to run escort for the plague ship so I will, by Zeus, get my agents into Egyptian soil even if they try to intercept the one carrying the plague carriers.

And when they get there, they will infiltrate all their major cities, and the spies all being plague carriers... Death WILL stalk the lands along the Nile, even if my armies are still parked near Antioch. I hope I can get the Pharao infected too, but in a year all their major cities and provinces along the Nile should be fighting the plague whilst trying to out-produce and out-fight my Macedon elite on their northern front at the same time.

Take that, you [snip!].



EDIT: Please mind the org's language rules. froggy.

EDIT: Hahahaha, all their cities far enough from the battle front are stricken with the plague. And excuse my bad language, froggie.

[rotorgun]

If I could "pipe in" here with a comment or two about defending against chariots. When I played as the Greeks I learned to keep a couple of Phalanx units in reserve on the flanks behind my skirmishers and archers. I would deploy them in a longer line, about three deep, to give wider coverage. This way, when the charioteers tried to charge my skirmishers, I would retreat them behind the Phalanx units and let the Egyptian "Panzerwagenen" meet my line of spears, all the time behing peppered with javelins and/or arrows.:wall: Only when they broke and began to route would I commit my cavalry, which was stationed behind the flanking phalanxes. Sometimes I would leave some mercenary "javcav" outward on the flanks to harass their archer chariots.

As far as the plague ship concept goes, I found it amusing. The nasty little Egyptian court could stand a few deaths in the family. I guess the Pharohs never learned from their experience with Moses.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Plaguing the Egyptians is, I agree, only fair payback for the non-ptolemaic anachronism ogres they are in the vanilla game.

Loved the close to your Brute campaign, Rotor', apparently my reply was snarfed by the cyber-gnomes. It was a good climactic moment.

Good effort on chariot-killing. Same tactic usually works for charging cav as well. I've found chariots pretty fragile, especially the Brit version, the moment they stop. For a few seconds they stall as they roll over some unit, and in that moment a counter attack by non routing nearby infantry will usually smash them up pretty well.

-- Seamus Fermanagh, Magisterum Equitum to Rotorius Brutus Princeps Senatus Dictator.:2thumbsup:

[poweraxe]

Hi,

I started a Macedonian campaign two days ago, so far its going well, i took Athens quickly, but am now under attack by the Brutii, the Dacians, and the Greeks similtaniously, although ive been able to repulse their attacks so far.

I really like the Macedonians cav but i have a question: is it best to use line or wedge when charging? Until now ive been using wedge during a charge, and then turn it off afterwards. Is this the right way?

[teja]

As for my taste I like to use light Macedon cavalry in a line formation. they are lancers so their first hit is doing the most damage. Pull them out of the enemy soon after they hit them, because their skills and weapons in close combat are very worse. Pull em back, then charge again. The usual tactic is to hit and run.

Macedon cavalry you cannot build from the start on, they are more heavy than the cheap lancers are. I use them often in a wedge formation charging just after the lancers had hit the enemy. They can fight in any formation, but using a wedge will break many enemy formations. You can turn the formation after you already engaged into normal modus. They fight pretty good in close combat. You start the campain with only 2 of these, so watch good for them as it will take some time until you have buildings able to replace the losses they had.

[Ligur]

Didn't have any time to play for a week but now played a couple of more nights. Still having trouble with the Eggie chariots, I will try the sarissa winger tactic rotorgun suggested next. Problem is, I'm campaigning so far off from my homeland I've had to use far too many eastern and barb mercs as my "troops of the line" and they get annihilated. Not that I'm losing battles that often, it just comes so very, very close very often. They put up a hell of a fight, those Eggies. I hope they lost a few characters on the plague though, I was able to re-infect their major cities for about 10 years on row with this one crazy 60 year old spy who would not die of the plague himself no matter what, but was a carrier all the time. Hah.

Also I know I'm a bad diplomat in this game but damn, after the B:I version and patch, every AI faction hates me even more then ever, no amount of money or gifts will give their friendship, so now I'm reduced to turning Egypt, Italy, Germania Major, the Gaul territories and practically everything else into a salt wasteland. I don't even want their crappy provinces but they insisnt on attacking my borders no matter how much gifts I shower them with.

My current "major" campaign is turning the NW forests of the game map, infected by endless full stack Briton armies, into unpopulated wilderness. I have three columns of Greek trained units romping over in a wedge on the strategic map, and just exterminate anything I encounter, tear apart every city, when they they rebel (I let them on purpose) exterminate again and leave only smoldering ruins behind me.

Damn barbarians.

The Egypt campaign is taking ages, mainly because I decided not to strike their heart (Memphis, Alexandria) with fleets filled with crack troops, like I posted before I just keep them suffering from the plague and slowly work myself southwards, currently sieging Damascus and Seleucia.

[Ludens]

I really like the Macedonians cav but i have a question: is it best to use line or wedge when charging? Until now ive been using wedge during a charge, and then turn it off afterwards. Is this the right way?
I am not exactly an expert, but I find wedge useless because it doesn't have the same frontage as a two or three-line formation and it doesn't compensate for that by giving a lot of penetration. However, I haven't used it since the 1.3 patch (and before that I barely used it either) so maybe things are different. It is usefull for quickly turning a line-formation into a collumn and getting in between and past enemy units.

[rotorgun]

Didn't have any time to play for a week but now played a couple of more nights. Still having trouble with the Eggie chariots, I will try the sarissa winger tactic rotorgun suggested next.

It helps to angle them about 30 to 45 degrees from the main Phalanx Taxis(Battle Line. Of course, this is just one variation. You can modify it as you need to. I used Onagers behind the main line when available and Heavy Peltasts when I developed them. If you can afford the Cretan Archers then buy them. They are the best light archers in the game, and are the only ones with range enough to counter the dread Pharoahs Archers.


The Egypt campaign is taking ages, mainly because I decided not to strike their heart (Memphis, Alexandria) with fleets filled with crack troops, like I posted before I just keep them suffering from the plague and slowly work myself southwards, currently sieging Damascus and Seleucia.

Definately send an amphibious force to attack these cities.(After the plague has run its course) If you look at some of the posts from the Brutii thread, Seamus Fermanagh gave me some outstanding strategy advice concerning these Egyptian towns. (That is why I recommend him for election as Hegemon of the Grecian League) Taking Memphis, Alexandria, and Thebes will bring you enormous wealth, and cause much heartache to the Pharoah, who will have a difficult time keeping order in his remaing provinces. Capture the Pyramids and the Egyptians are in your back pocket. Be sure to keep the pressure on in Coele Syria; a two front war creates some difficulties for the enemy. If you can, blockade all of his ports to put economic pressure on him as well. The Greek Cities are a naval powerhouse, if you've managed to capture them early in the campaign. Put those Athenian helots to work transporting the house of Macedon and avenge Alexander against the issue of Ptolemy.

Dromos(Charge at the run),
Rotorgun

[Avicenna]

Unlike most other people, I didn't bother with Egypt or even Pontus for that matter. I took non-Egypt Africa, Italy, Greece and the barbarian lands North of Greece and Italy.

[Ligur]

It helps to angle them about 30 to 45 degrees from the main Phalanx Taxis(Battle Line). Of course, this is just one variation. You can modify it as you need to. I used Onagers behind the main line when available and Heavy Peltasts when I developed them. If you can afford the Cretan Archers then buy them. They are the best light archers in the game, and are the only ones with range enough to counter the dread Pharoahs Archers.

Definately send an amphibious force to attack these cities.(After the plague has run its course) If you look at some of the posts from the Brutii thread, Seamus Fermanagh gave me some outstanding strategy advice concerning these Egyptian towns. (That is why I recommend him for election as Hegemon of the Grecian League) Taking Memphis, Alexandria, and Thebes will bring you enormous wealth, and cause much heartache to the Pharoah, who will have a difficult time keeping order in his remaing provinces. Capture the Pyramids and the Egyptians are in your back pocket. Be sure to keep the pressure on in Coele Syria; a two front war creates some difficulties for the enemy. If you can, blockade all of his ports to put economic pressure on him as well. The Greek Cities are a naval powerhouse, if you've managed to capture them early in the campaign. Put those Athenian helots to work transporting the house of Macedon and avenge Alexander against the issue of Ptolemy.

Rotorgun

I played a couple of more nights and the plague still hasn't ended, this one 60+ year old spy just refuses to die of it and keeps infecting all their cities. Laugh. Then I went into some sort of berserker rage mode and found out why I didn't play at medium last summer, the stupid Romans and Britons absolutely feel they need to attack me so I annihilated several full stack armies with 100 and at best only 7 casualties, while the enemy suffered more then 2000 warriors sent to Hades. The AI actually attacked my main battle line head on several times... what the heck? Against veteran, well armoured Phalanx? Pure slaughter. But this stalled sending a force of marines to the heart of Egypt, as I need my new troops to fight in Europa.

As for the Eggies, since I captured all of the Greece during the first 10 or so years, I'm a naval and economic powerhouse, which means I control the seas, which means I've blockaded all their ports almost instantly when they started a war with me, which again means I haven't seen much of their feared chariots lately and they are facing some severe problems with production. I actually burned a few of their cities and abandoned them to start a revolt so I could train my troops slaughtering their gold shield peasants even better.

I think I'll do it the "hard" way and just use my troop training center in Antioch to gather troops and send more waves in, I currently have 4 stacks pummeling their way in, burning everything east of the Nile and they're doing just fine. My onagers and Cretan archers destroy any missile troops, and then I walk my Phalanx Taxis on them and grind my way through, while lancers sweep in from the right flank and wipe them out in one terrible charge of "dragons teeth" wedges.

Hooray.

[Ligur]

Question: why do people include Onagers in their army unless you're looking to bring down some heavy fortifications?

In field battles the damage they cause, at least when you count the kills, is quite meager. A lucky shot sometimes knocks out a general or two, but often a unit of archers would do a lot more damage than a unit of Onagers, measured in kills at least.

I still haven't figured out what to do with those things, except bomb Eggy chariots from afar or bring down walls, otherwise they are quite useless for me or am I doing something wrong?

[Romulas]

I like using onagers for the moral effect (frightened by artillery). I suppose archers with fire arrows could do the same, I don't know the stats. But of course the onagers have a much longer range and the just look cool. If the enemy is far enough away i'll use fire "bombs" for even more affect. The more I can frighten and enemy the easier they are to deal with.

[rotorgun]

Question: why do people include Onagers in their army unless you're looking to bring down some heavy fortifications?

In field battles the damage they cause, at least when you count the kills, is quite meager. A lucky shot sometimes knocks out a general or two, but often a unit of archers would do a lot more damage than a unit of Onagers, measured in kills at least.

There are three reasons to include Onagers in a field army.

1. If the enemy forces have Onagers in their order of battle, it is good to have them for counter-battery fire. It's bad for the troops morale when they are being bombarded and the enemy is not.:no: :skull:

2. If the enemy has sizable amounts of heavy infantry, especially phalanx capable types, it helps to break up their cohesion prior to their closing with your infantry. They make good targets as they are slow moving. This works well for elephants as well, although they do tend to move a bit faster. Using them against moving skirmishers or cavalry is wasteful I agree.

3. If you are going to conduct a siege, which is self explanatory.:wall:

I guess a fourth reason could be that it is just impressive to watch those Great Balls of Fire heading downrange. I also find some great satisfaction whenever I can get behind the enemy's main line to take his out.:2thumbsup:

[rotorgun]

I think I'll do it the "hard" way and just use my troop training center in Antioch to gather troops and send more waves in, I currently have 4 stacks pummeling their way in, burning everything east of the Nile and they're doing just fine. My onagers and Cretan archers destroy any missile troops, and then I walk my Phalanx Taxis on them and grind my way through, while lancers sweep in from the right flank and wipe them out in one terrible charge of "dragons teeth" wedges.

Hooray.

Sounds like fun Ligur. I can sometimes be resolved to stubborness too. There are some great river defense lines around Antioch where one can lure the desperately aggresive Egyptians to battle. Just be sure to have some heavy artillery to combat those Pharoah's Archers. They will make mincemeat out of any standard archers in the game. They remind me of the Elite Byzantine Infantry in MTW that are also bow equipped.

What are the Parthians and Pontics up to in your game? Watch your back with those factions. They can put up a tough fight to a Phalanx type army as you know.

[Ligur]

I also find some great satisfaction whenever I can get behind the enemy's main line to take his out.:2thumbsup:

Yes siirreee. When the Romans started pushing in from the Italian peninsula especially the Brutii kept sending naval armies on the shore near Salona with up to four Onager batteries each. They were usually enable to land a few shots on my Phalanx front... before my Light Lancers swept in from the right flank and destroyed them. It is very satisfying. The stacks they landed with were always too small to prevent me from enveloping them from the right flank with the speeding Lancers. With the Onagers gone, the Brutii found themselves between a wall of pikes backed by elite archers, and a formation of Lancer wedges BEHIND them. It was, invariably, nasty... for them.


Sounds like fun Ligur. I can sometimes be resolved to stubborness too. There are some great river defense lines around Antioch where one can lure the desperately aggresive Egyptians to battle. Just be sure to have some heavy artillery to combat those Pharoah's Archers. They will make mincemeat out of any standard archers in the game. They remind me of the Elite Byzantine Infantry in MTW that are also bow equipped.

What are the Parthians and Pontics up to in your game? Watch your back with those factions. They can put up a tough fight to a Phalanx type army as you know.

For some reason the dread Pharaoh's Archers have been giving me very little trouble, but then again, my own have been trained to a very high level in a temple of Artemis somewhere and provide deadly coverage, and my Lancers usually run through the PA's quite fast when and if they manifest. Which is rare, probably as I explained before, I cut all their trade at once when they declared their moronic war on me, so that with infecting their heartlands with the plague has kept their production pretty meager. The first few battles were quite rough but after that, I'm facing dregs of their best troops that managed to flee some earlier battles, peasants and cheap spears mostly now. Tee-hee.

The Ponthians do not exist anymore. They started a war with me earlier when I was occupying the last Greek colonies. The Greeks allied with them as some sort of last resort move and I found myself under attack by Pontus, and exterminated them by using cavalry and heavy inf mercs mostly. There is a post above which details some of my actions with them. At first they rushed in at my Phalanx in a couple of bridge battles and I utterly pulverized everything they threw at me with deep formations, then it turned into open field battles which resulted in thousands of casualties. Heavy merc infantry holding the left flank and counter attacking with my heaviest and most devastating cavalry wedges charging from the right flank (picture a huge oceanic wave, and replace the spray and foam with dismembered limbs, flying bodies and bloody carnage) ended up carrying the day for me in the end most of the time.

A surprisingly easy war to win in the end. There were some utterly massive battles with up to 4000+ dead around Ancyra and Sardis but my generals came through against some pretty nasty odds, mostly thanks to the annihilating Light Lancer wedges which I used to charge, withdraw, charge, withdraw, ad infinitum. Horrible losses for me too but they carried the day almost every time, then went home to retrain and were back in the field in no time with fresh troops.

Oh and I allied with Armenia since Egypt was giving them some sort of trouble, so they protect my NE border just fine, I haven't actually even seen the Parthians yet. I think they have something like two provinces in the far east edge of the map and are a non-factor. I just hope the Armenians won't backstab me.

[Glaucus]

my way to deal with chariots, while playing as Brutii, chage em with velites or light auxilia, there amazing against chariots. I don't really see the need to use onagers unless attacking a city or fort. If a unit is marching, and the onagers shoot at them, the artillery will always overshoot. In my experience, onagers can only work if the enemy are standing still. You could buy 2 archers instead of an onagers, and get 4x the kills

[Glaucus]

I have just started a Macedon campaign, my first time with this faction. I have quickly massed and taken athens, and hope to attack Thermom and Sparta the same turn in a few years. I am considering allying with Thrace and letting them take over Dacia, maybe with some of my funding. That way I can advance into Turkey and make the Aegean profitable. Any thoughts on my diplomatic strategy or what I should about the romans would be much appreciated. Thanks, Glaucus

[Garvanko]

Glaucus.. Im pretty much using the same strategy as yours. Ive taken Athens, Sparta, Thermon and Byzantium.

Thrace and Dacia will stab you in the back, so tread carefully.

As for the Romans.. they won't ally with you, so get as much trade from them as possible before they attack - which they will, most probably at Thessalonica. Im looking to defend Greece from the Brutii, while launching a campaign on Asia Minor with all its riches and wonders.

[Glaucus]

I'm turning my gaze north, as Dacia and Thrace both attacked me unprovoked. I took Tylis from thrace after they attacked me at Byantium. An army of dacians got killed charging into spears at Bylazora. I eradicated the romans from the mainland greece using light lancers, phalax and levy pikemen, and quite a few diplomats who helped lighten my purse. Should I launch an attack into Italy, or move north into Dacia further, or into pontic land, though I think the Greek Cities and them are fighting it out over Ancyra? I think I should let pontus take all of turkey, land an army at Tarentum, and kill the Brutii hopefully. Then I can sue for peace with the Scpii/Julii/SPQR. I doubt they'll except, but if they don't they'll be sorry. So I think north is the place for me.

[Garvanko]

Thing is, the Brutii have senate missions that focus largely on taking Greece ealry on. Unless you stop them, they will keep coming for you.

Im still debating whether to attack Italy, especially as like your, I have trouble in the north with Dacia and Thrace.

Its funny though, I never seem to have so many factions working against me when I play the Greek Cities, yet they are pretty much in the same position as Macedon.

[Glaucus]

Strange indeed, maybe because the Greek Cities never get a chance to get up north without killing the Brutii and Macedon first, so by the time they do get to Thrace and Dacia, its not as bad.

Thank god I haven't had to deal with chosen archer warbands yet, but I am shipping some Cretan Archers to assist my invading army in Italy. I'm in trouble, my general died, leaving only hordes of levies and phalanxes in Tarentum. In the meantime, I think I'm gonna go with the Teyls strategy and get thrace and Dacia as my protectorates, thus effectively forcing them to expand west, while I take over Turkey and Rhodes, along with all those beautiful wonders.

Do you think it is possible to get the other romans to call of the war once I eliminate the Brutii?

[saxon_maik]

Strange indeed, maybe because the Greek Cities never get a chance to get up north without killing the Brutii and Macedon first, so by the time they do get to Thrace and Dacia, its not as bad.
...
Do you think it is possible to get the other romans to call of the war once I eliminate the Brutii?

In my experience as Macedonia or Greek Cities the Romans never called off war with me. Instead, once I land in Italy and take Croton and Tarentum and kill off the Brutii, the remaining Roman factions gang up on me and I become their primary target. That keeps the Julii expanding into Gaul and the Scipii rarely get to Africa - which makes for interesting games because then one has to deal with a strong Gaul and/or Carthage after slugging it out with the Romans.

I'm not sure there's much benefit from getting Dacia and Thrace as protectorates. Outright occupation seems more useful, especially to get more cities to train troops to throw at the Romans.

Getting Dacia might be a strategic necessity because the Julii sometimes send armies down both sides of the Adriatic. Containing the Julii is important - fighting Romans with scrappy macedonian phalanx pikemen is NOT fun at all, especially on more than one front.

A side remark on the Greek Cities: I recently played a Brutii H/H campaign and the Greek Cities wiped out the Macedonians, going all the way to Bylazora. I guess that only happened because I left them alone for a while.

[Glaucus]

Interesting, and as you said the the Julii will advance into Illyria as well as Italia, thats why I thought getting thrace and Dacia as my protectorates would be better, then I have a shield between myself and the Julii who are up in Gaul and Aquinicum.

[saxon_maik]

Interesting, and as you said the the Julii will advance into Illyria as well as Italia, thats why I thought getting thrace and Dacia as my protectorates would be better, then I have a shield between myself and the Julii who are up in Gaul and Aquinicum.

Yes, you will have a shield, but it is only a temporary one. Both Dacia and Trace will fold quickly, even if the lowly AI is in charge of the Julii.

Many others stated this in the past: protectorates are pretty much useless because you cannot control the protectorate diplomacy and military actions.

Dealing with the Julii:
I find it very effective to put together a fleet and move a big army (with siege weapons) up the Adriatic to take Patavium. That fleet needs to be big enough to survive pirates and multiple Julii attacks! Without Patavium the Julii economy falters quickly, especially if you can also take Mediolanium and then block the bridges. This should relieve some of the Julii pressure on Croton and Tarentum.

[Glaucus]

building my Invasion-Julii fleet right now...

[Garvanko]

Im starting to hate my Macedon campaign. Keep getting attacked, especially by Allies.

[Glaucus]

Yeah I'm starting to agree with that. Though it does make it a bit more interesting. If my allies want to start a war, then I shall smite their capitals to the ground beneath my calvary and pikes!

[Goalie]

Yeah I'm starting to agree with that. Though it does make it a bit more interesting. If my allies want to start a war, then I shall smite their capitals to the ground beneath my calvary and pikes!

Dont forget your ongaers.

[Lorenzo_H]

How do I unlock Macedon? Could someone give me in-depth instructions as to which folder i need to infiltrate?