Battle of Athens (EB w/ Alex blows me away)

(I just posted this on the wargamer message board as well to show EB off, hence the "EB for dummies" unit descriptions and such mixed in ;))

I just thought you guys might enjoy this, and I am blown away at the moment... There's an unofficial Europa Barbarorum mod out now that allows EB to be played with the Rome add on Alexander .exe file, which has been said to greatly enhance the AI's intelligence and challenge. I combined this with the Darth Formations EB add on that I enjoy, started playing a game as the Koinon Hellenon (Southern Greek cities), and just finished a siege defense vs the AI over my city of Athens. Apparently, the Alex mod fans aren't kidding about improved AI...

The RTW siege attack AI is generally just awful- I'd yet to lose any siege battle against the AI unless tremendously outnumbered to the point of victory being impossible, and although I was stuck with a smaller force here, I fully expected the usual "AI parks at gate, gets slaughtered by arrow towers, finally gets in, charges like mad for city center and gets slaughtered some more, charging in general first of course" tactic to occur- and to my shock and entertainment, it didn't.

I had a small defending force in Athens of an Athenian general, some skirmishers, conscripted "Hoplitai Haploi" hoplite reserves, and a relief force that I'd planned to also garrison the city with who instead sat outside waiting for the assault so they could join in as (player controlled) reinforcements. To my amazement, I nearly lost the whole battle, and not due to sheer force of numbers killing off my men, but because the AI actually behaved intelligently, used most of it's soldiers properly, and flanked the hell out of me! Here comes the story:

Here you can see the view my wall defenders had of the Hellenic relief force cresting a hill- and bearing straight down on the enemy force!
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-35-13-85.jpg[/image]

And the relief force's view- I bet my grizzled Spartiate commander nearly reached orgasm after cresting this hill and seeing that his force had ended up immediately behind the enemy!
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-35-56-15.jpg[/image]

Enemy breaks through my walls (and they actually TRIED to, instead of just dawdling around them), reserve hoplites block the street in guard mode to prevent city center from being taken.
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-42-47-60.jpg[/image]

Macedonian skirmishers come in from behind! They must have run in immediately after the gate fell, and all the way around the outside road, then up and through the rear street to my city center! My Athenian general rushes in to send them fleeing away.
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-46-54-10.jpg[/image]

Macedonians flank again, coming up side road with akonkistai (skirmishers) and hoplitai haploi (reserve hoplites), forcing me to meet them with my own reserves, and run my Athenian general to block the main road, as Macedonian main infantry is now pouring down it. I hope that relief force hurries...
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-48-50-94.jpg[/image]

Macedonians have flanked me yet AGAIN! Macedonian classical hoplites come pouring in from yet another side road, forcing me to send my Athenian general in a near suicide charge to prevent them from taking my city center (they did, but couldn't hold it). Thankfully my reserves have fought back the enemy flankers and can attempt to outflank the newly arrived enemy hoplites- using some crappy javelin skirmishers to hold the main road now, this is really looking bad.
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-50-38-30.jpg[/image]

Chaos is brewing in the city center... Those skirmishers toward the back here are ENEMY skirmishers, actually flanking me and throwing their javelins into my soldiers' backs, instead of doing the usual RTW mad charge! I haven't seen the AI do this in 4 yrs or so of playing RTW mods!
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-51-47-65.jpg[/image]

My Spartiate general has made his entrance (not pictured, my relief reserve hoplites smashed through the Macedonian reserves who were worn out and guarding the gate), now runs up the back of the side street to come up behind the Macedonian infantry trying to dislodge my troops from the city center. Also, by the look of them, I'm obviously using TWFanatic's great hoplite mod!
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-52-47-13.jpg[/image]

My peltasts here are screening my Spartans from this new incoming enemy unit, and I'm hoping they can hold them back long enough for my general to do some damage.
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-53-08-29.jpg[/image]

Spartiates charge into the fray, utter chaos ensues in the city center.
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-53-27-88.jpg[/image]

More utter chaos
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-54-12-21.jpg[/image]

(Not pictured- I also have a unit of Classical hoplites making their way down the main road- they slaughtered a reserve hoplite unit, a reserve pike phalanx which the AI stupidly scattered around in the street, and killed off the routing enemy general around the time of the above screenshot)

Spartiates succeed in breaking enemy morale. My heroic Athenian bodyguards fought from having 120 men down to 24, were still fighting hard and started chasing down routers!
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-55-46-30.jpg[/image]

Spartans charge back to relieve the now nearly dead peltasts who screened them on the way in.
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-56-39-71.jpg[/image]

And just barely, I won. Without the Spartiate commander and Classical hoplites, I wouldn't have. This was more akin to an MTW (original) battle than anything I've played in RTW, EB included, to date. I'm really impressed, and doubt I'll be sleeping much tonight...
[image]https://i249.photobucket.com/albums/...5-56-51-51.jpg[/image]

I love this mod more and more every day. The EB with Alex.exe add on can be found here (requires that you own the Alexander add on for RTW!):