Greece Campaign advice

In my most recent capaing as The Greek city states I have declared war on Macedonia and repelled rome from Syracuse mutiple times but the problem is that Pontus really seem to want my city of Halicarnassus,and keeps sending around 500 to 600 troops to attempt to take it every turn,mostly a combination of 2 to 3 scythed chariots,lots of there crappy 1st level infantry,many pelasts and around 2 unirs of there pontic Light calvary plus a general.

I've beaten them back so far with the help of 2 units of merc Cretan archers that I was lucky enough to find outside my city,which I've had luck in using to make there own chariots go amok among there troops and then I can use my archers to clean up the rest,but the question is will they keep coming indefinetely or will they get involved with the Secludid empire/Egypt and not have the resources to keep sending armies after me,as at the moment I am not in a condition to fight a 3-front war..

Pontus will never give up for me until they have the whole of Asia Minor. Then they lose it to egypt. I usually pull out of Asia minor and syracuse at the same time early in the match and use the armies to secure Greece from the macedonians and Brutii by taking athens and corinth. My advice is to either pulll out of asia minor and finish off the Macedonians, or just try to weather the storm.

Unless you play VH/VH it's quite possible to fight a 3 front war with the Greeks. They can really soon recruit their armoured hoplites who can hold their own against every other unit. Also, if you play well then you get a lot of money from the sea trade which should allow you to recruit mercenaries in Mikra Asia to fight for you. Merc hoplites, Cretans, Rhodians, Barbarian infantry and cavalry(and bastarnae as well) can destroy every army that Pontos or Seleucids can send against you in the early stages of the campaign.
I usually blitz through Mikra Asia and take out Pontos early. Once they attack you they never accept peace and keep sending those annoying armies against you. So, it's better to destroy them as fast as possible. Seleucids are usually more reasonable.

concentrate on one front at a time and shrink your borders. the beauty of the greek war machine are HOPLITE warfare. you give me 3-4 units of militia hoplites i can hold any city for you against any stack. the pontics are your ******* their chariots will fall to your spears. just dont leave pergamum until your ready to fight and when you do youll have golden chevroned units to do your fighting.

in italy take all of sicily and then move up the toe. if you dont want italy than burn and pillage the land destroy their cities and leave it rebel held. shrink your borders in greece to something that a few forts can hold. i personally like using byzantium across as an initial line. and then to appease thee roman senate your could even give them the land right to the north as a gift they neve rleave their land and will be a buffer.

Ok thanks for the advice guys, I was kinda hoping that the Selucid Empire would make life difficult for them so they'd be forced to stop attacking me but it looks like I'll have to take the time and deal with them. Will I have to take there whole Empire,or just the cities nearest me? I'm worried about getting into conflict with the Egyptians if I go too far down. Also where is aI a good place to recruit Cretan Archers? I can grab a few near Halicarnassus but not all the time. I've been looking for Crete as it would make sense they'd be there in larger numbers, but I can't seem to find a city called "crete" on the map,unless it's under a different name...

Hello again Oz_

Cretan archers . .. Crete is the elongated island south of Greece. The city is Kydonia. One unit of Cretan archers is available sometime around 262 BC near the city of Appolonia in Epirus (Albania), or Corinth or Athens. Two units of Cretan archers should be available for purchase on Crete in 261 BC, 251 BC, 241 BC, and likely 231 BC. The game refreshes this periodically as you can see by the ten-year cycle. However, if you buy Cretan archers in Anatolia, around your city of Pergamum, what you purchase there reduces what is available on the island of Crete. The same is true if you purchase your Cretan archers on the island of Rhodes. (They can become available there as well.) But again, if you buy one @ Rhodes, it will diminish what is available to purchase on Crete or near Pergamum. Archers are not availble around Larissa, Sparta, or Thessalonica. I can't remember if they are available in the region of Thermon. I'm thinking 'no'. But I can't remember at the moment. Cretan archers are also available in the region of Sardis.

When I play the Roman factions, I usually send a general to western Greece around 261 BC to purchase one unit of Cretans there, then sail him down to Crete to buy the other two available on Crete. Then I repeat the mission ten years later, etc. Beware, however, of the rebels in ambush around Kydonia. They like to hide just west of the city. So if you disembark your general west of Kydonia, he could be ambushed. I usually sail my fleet underneath Crete (the southern shore) and disembark him east of Kydonia to recruit my archers. That way he avoids ambush.

Occasionally I have been able to bribe the rebel Cretan archers around Halicarnasus into my faction. Also, some factions are able to bribe the rebel Cretan archers around Kydonia into their faction. It's good when you can do that because they have two experience chevrons. I think when I've played the Scipii and even the Greeks, I have been able to bribe these rebel archers into my faction. But bribing doesn't work that way for every faction.

Good luck and good hunting!

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Originally Posted by oz_wwjd

. . . I was kinda hoping that the Selucid Empire would make life difficult for them so they'd be forced to stop attacking me but it looks like I'll have to take the time and deal with them. Will I have to take there whole Empire,or just the cities nearest me? I'm worried about getting into conflict with the Egyptians if I go too far down. ...

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Just a Postscript, oz_ - As one of our colleagues above mentioned, Pontus is ruthlessly determined to expand. Very true statement. You will have to crush them eventually. If you leave them alive at Sinope and Mazaka, they will come back to haunt you. The Seleucid Empire is what might be referred to (to borrow a term from the Old Testament) as a broken reed. I have very seldom seen the AI do anything with the Seleucid Empire but have it devoured by its neighbors. If you've played the Seleucids, you'll know from experience that they can easily find themselves in a four front war right from the get-go. The Armenians go for Hastra, the Parthians try to grab Seleucia, Pontus as you know makes for Sardis and Tarsus, and the Egyptians like to push early for Antioch. The bottomline is there is very little you can depend on from the Seleucids. Its pretty much determined by the game that they are one of the 'expendable' factions and are often one of the first to be eleminated.

I've found when I play the Greeks that the Egyptians usually don't become a problem until they've taken Tarsus. Then they start pushing deeper into Anatolia, usually going for Sardis. Sometimes they will actually try to land an expedtionary force on Rhodes. But I haven't seen that often. Try to keep a couple small fleets posted in the waters east and south of Rhodes so you can see what's coming. (Hint: I like to position a spy on the southern Anatolian beach north of Cyprus (Salamis) and just west of the mountains that are west of Tarsus. He 'lights up' the area so you can see who's hanging around Tarsus and at what strength. He also lets you see how large is the garrison @ Salamis.)

Another hint - if and when war breaks out with Egypt, don't push into their strength by fighting through their armies starting at Tarsus, then Antioch, then Sidon, etc. Hit them from several directions at once. Distract them with a push toward Tarsus, but land an expeditionary force on Cyprus to take Salamis. That army can them jump ashore potentially at Sidon. Divide and conquer, steal their profits, take their ports. Hit 'em where they ain't. Also, hit Alexandria with a second expeditionary force. I've found that the Egyptians like to build up their forces in the eastern Mediteranean in neglect of Egypt proper. Taking Alexandria and Memphis will take the wind out of their economy's sails. Their most advanced military buildings are usually in the three cities of Egypt - Alexandria, Memphis, and Thebes. Take those cities and you can deprive them of recruiting their best units - Pharoah's bowmen and their elite hoplites.

I've found that one of the things that makes the Egyptians such annoying opponents is their variety of missile troops. Pharoah's bowman are good long range archers who also can double as infantry. They are not the pushover for cavalry that Greek archers are. Tough hombres. Their generals start out as chariot archers. In the late game their generals convert to more conventional heavy cavalry.

I'm getting long-winded, so I'll stop now. :)

Just hold on in Asia Minor and Sicily until you blitz the Macs and the Brutii out of Greece proper asap. This should take only a few turns. Then you should be quickly rich enough to destroy the Bruttii in southern Italy and, at the same time, smash Pontus in the Asia Minor coast. Once Greece proper is yours together with Rhodes, Pergamum and say Crete you can rake in millions (and more by taking Sardeis, Halicarnassos and eventually Byzantium and Nicomedia), especially since you start with the Collossus trade bonus. By getting Greece proper and Asia minor you also get the Zeus statue at Olympia and its loyalty bonus, the Artemis temple and the Mausoleum at Hallicarnassos and their respective bonuses. After that the Greeks are hard to beat, even if we are talking about long wars of attrition with Egypt.

Armored hoplites, peltasts and militia cavalry make a very good field army combo that is hard to beat. Hoplites (like most phalanxes) of all kinds are very very hard to break in sieges by fighting in city streets. Abandon the walls and fight in the streets against enemies that have strong melee infantry like the Romans.

guyus as to mercs you are not really right. they refresh with a percentage possibility per turn. the numbers ar elow for example the war elephant mercs you can get are like .005 percent. you can alter those values if you want to . i do for certain mercs especially cretans.......

and crete and ALL of asia minor south of nicomedia and west of galatia are in one big pool.

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Originally Posted by gollum

Just hold on in Asia Minor and Sicily until you blitz the Macs and the Brutii out of Greece proper asap. This should take only a few turns. Then you should be quickly rich enough to destroy the Bruttii in southern Italy and, at the same time, smash Pontus in the Asia Minor coast. Once Greece proper is yours together with Rhodes, Pergamum and say Crete you can rake in millions (and more by taking Sardeis, Halicarnassos and eventually Byzantium and Nicomedia), especially since you start with the Collossus trade bonus. By getting Greece proper and Asia minor you also get the Zeus statue at Olympia and its loyalty bonus, the Artemis temple and the Mausoleum at Hallicarnassos and their respective bonuses. After that the Greeks are hard to beat, even if we are talking about long wars of attrition with Egypt.

Armored hoplites, peltasts and militia cavalry make a very good field army combo that is hard to beat. Hoplites (like most phalanxes) of all kinds are very very hard to break in sieges by fighting in city streets. Abandon the walls and fight in the streets against enemies that have strong melee infantry like the Romans.

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I remember someone conquered 50 settlements in 38-39 turns. So, their units are quite capable!

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Originally Posted by Ibn-Khaldun

I remember someone conquered 50 settlements in 38-39 turns. So, their units are quite capable!

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38-39 turns? I find that hard to believe, that would require immense "auto_win"ing and money cheating.

No. He actually put it up on his webpage with all the pics and where to go/what to do. If you take 1-2 cities per turn then it's not that hard actually. Especially for the Greeks who start in a place where many cities are so close. Also, Greeks have good economy and buying mercs or using Greek hoplites makes this very easy.

Anyone up to try this challenge? Winning "Conquest" campaign(50 settlements) in 40 turns? :tongue:

Greece is one of the strongest (if not the single strongest) factions economically, at least in my experience. In the early game I build up slowly keeping unit upkeep costs fairly low and driving Rome and the offspring of Alexander the Great out of the area. Taking Kydonia and the other small islands has been very profitable for me because the cities are easy to take, have relatively good financial benefits (since they obviously can build ports) and they are great cities to have just because they give you more settlements overall and the islands I find are rarely attacked.

What I have done on the Eastern front is play fairly defensive, breaking the Pontic advances by crushing them in the streets of my cities and then I keep spies in the nearby Pontic settlements, when I see that a Pontic city has a low or weak garrison I rush the garrisons from my cities over and take those weak Pontic towns then I ward off the Pontic attacks in those towns and advance again. Great experience for your phalanx units. Boring tactics but extremely effective. And its not too painfully dull because while I am fighting slowly in the East it frees up most of my military for advances in Sicily, Italy, and in island hopping.

I heard of these super fast camps ibn, although i am slightly less adventurous. However in the begining i am quite agressive and blitz relentlessly. It can be done though, i reckon.

Just one more question if you don't mind. In my war against Rome they seem to favour using 2 to units of "war Dogs" in their amry,which are a pain in the as to counter as seem to wait until I use my missile units,then unleash the dogs. Seeing as the AI doesn't recognize the dogs as a targetable unit,just the handlers the y only way I've found to get rid of them is to run my missile behind my hoplites and let the dogs impale themselves on my phalanx. Is there a better way to deal with they,as quite often I use my peltasts and other merc archers units to flank the romans,while my hoplites keep them in place,so the dogs bite charge chunks out of my archers,while I'm running them back to the hoplites,or bringing the hoplites to them.

There is no other option as far as I know.

Hello oz,

Forgive me if I've misunderstood you, but I think if you look closely during combat you'll notice that the fire of missile troops against war dogs will inflict casualties on both the dogs and the handlers. You just can't discriminate which part of the war dog unit you want to target with your archers - the dogs or the handlers. As for the AI targeting your missile troops with the war dogs, actually the AI is not waiting for you necessarily to use your missile troops. It's that you have brought one of your units close to your enemy's army putting them in an effective range for their release of the war dogs. Your missile troops are just a target of opportunity.

In truth, the ideal unit to face off against war dogs is any phalanx unit. Every unit type in RTW will take some casualties against war dogs. But the more armor and the better the weaponry the less the damage a unit will take from the dogs. Militia hoplites tend to be more vulnerable to them than other phalanx units. But if you keep your missile troops (especially archers) deployed behind your infantry line, they will suffer less. However, there is merit to deploying peltasts out front of your main line and/or your flanks to protect your phalanx. Unfortunately that can expose them to a war dog assault. In the main, wardogs are just annoying, and if they get to your Cretan archers, replacing Cretans is a hassle.

Also, and you will notice this eventually, the AI Romans will not necessarily limit themselves to just two units of war dogs. I've fought against Roman factions post-Marius where I was facing an enemy with as many as four war dogs units. :sweatdrop: So, if you're only facing two, you're getting off easy. :beam:

Personally, I like to use war dogs to break up charges, distract cavalry while I close on them with other units, or use them as a decoy for enemy archers. I've noticed that when I deploy war dogs adjacent to my own archers behind my infantry line, the AI tends to focus its own archery fire on the war dogs instead of my archers. I can live with that. I've even released a horde of dogs against elephants with some effect. The dogs will die in droves, but they will manage to take down some of the big beasties. Again, my main reason for using them against elephants is to slow down the elephants' charge and distract.

The dogs are not an ahistorical unit to the ancient world. As I understand it, the Romans used them quite effectively against the Gauls. :skull: And their use goes back even before the Romans. Molossian dogs were supposedly bred for war purposes in the Greek/Macedonian era. Fascinating, eh?

That may explain it,as the Romans like setting up on the highest mountain possible while I'm forming my hoplites into a battle-line,so I tend to take my archers and peltasts plus some calvary and try to rain some havoc on the from the flanks while my main battle-line of hoplites forms up.

If they try to counter that I either use my calvary as I usully have my general Plus whatever merc's I can find and demolish their equites/general's bodyguard or rain missiles down on them from all sides,then follow up with a calvary charge.The dogs are a pain as they are too fast for me to get more than a few volleys off,and if I order my calv after they they have a habit of taking off after the handlers which are in the middle of the roman battle-lines.

I see your approach. And Cretan archers are good for that long distance archery fire. I love playing the Greeks myself. It's a pity their cavalry is of only modest quality. One can compensate for that by building the Temple of Nike series so that you can get some extra experience chevrons to boost their effectiveness. I like building the Nike series temples @ Sparta, Syracuse, Tarentum and Thessalonica myself. That way, when I recruit my Spartans at Syracuse and Sparta, they're always going to have the extra experience chevrons.

The dogs are definitely annoying to Greek cavalry. Your cavalry will always vanquish the dogs inevitably, but not without taking a few casualties.

The harder the difficulty level you play the less time the AI will allow the factions it manages to just sit under archery fire. When I first started playing the game on 'easy' setting, to learn the ropes, I could get in fairly close with my army and have my archers rain down death while the enemy just stood there. But that happens less often when you play at the higher difficulty levels. Still, long distance archers are a must-have. And if you can maneuver your army in such a manner so as to neutralize some of the elevation advantage that the enemy might have over me, it's worth the extra marching. Missile troops are hugely more effective shooting downhill than uphill (which only makes sense.) And . . . the dogs have to move uphill at you. They, too, are less effective fighting uphill. Heavy peltasts would definitely be a good choice for those operations you're describing. Of course, 'heavies' aren't recruitable until you've built your catapault range. And if you've built that, you can recruit onagers which can really rain death down from a distance. :)

I'm a bit surpised that you're able to split your force the way you're describing without suffering too much in consequence. One of the things the AI loves to do is the suicide charge. If it sees a nice vulnerable unit like peltasts exposed, the AI will charge cavalry straight at them. I guess if you give your missile troops close escort support it discourages that behavior. Still, the AI behaves strangely (by our human standards) and will charge single units of infantry at your cavalry units. The AI seems to benefit the more chaos it creates on the battlefield by spreading you out. But you seem to have a handle on things.

Good hunting! Especially for the dogs. :)

for heavy cav recruit sarmatian cavalry. they are very very good. unfortunately unretrainable but if you adjust the mercenary regenreastion values......

personally i deal wit hit because i cannot stand having hurt units in my armies i cant retrain (mercs)

Actually I'm counting on the Romans to send their equites after my peltasts as my faction leader and his 45+ bodyguard are in close support and can demolish the inferior Roman calvary easily. Infantry is more of a hassle,as I have to micro one peltast unit or my calvary if they go after him,but with the other peltasts pouring missiles into them from the flanks and my Faction leader doing hit-and run strikes I can usually manage that as well. The thing about the dogs in even when it says the dogs are routing they continue to maul my units which I find mildly irritating as I need to bring up a hoplite unit or run the unit being attacked behind my hoplites and let the spears deal with them. I do agree with the extra chevrons on spartans though, I just started fielding them against the romans and they literally chew up roman infantry like it's going out of style,if the roman infantry doesn't rout after about 5 seconds.

Yeah, that's one of the things I like about the dogs when I'm playing the Romans. They really do serve as a good distraction unit. Portions of the defending unit are forced to linger with the dogs to defend themselves. Even when the dog handlers panic, if the dogs have been commanded to attack before the rout occurred, the dogs themselves will continue to assail the unit they were last ordered to attack. If you attack the war dog unit before they have been commanded by the AI to attack one of your units, I believe you will see that you can mop them up fairly quickly without the 'stickiness' (war dogs assailing your unit.)

Those Spartans are definitely one of the most impressive units in the game. I like to have 6-8 of them in my battle line when I'm facing off with the Senate.

You inspired me to start my own Greek Cities game. Pontids are definitely showing their relentlessness in my game. I just bribed the Cretans archers and Kydonia garrison into my faction. It cost me almost my entire treasury reserves to do it. But I got Kydonia in my camp now, with big time trade potential. And I got two Cretan archer units with experience chevrons that I intend to deploy to Rhodes to start building an expeditionary force for ready deployment to points east for when Ptolemies decide they don't like me. With Macedonia and the Brutii on the ropes and Capua vulnerable, I should be able to recoup the losses to my treasury shortly. Macedonian and Brutii navies were sure a pain for a while, but I think those hassles are almost over as well.

Keep up the good work! :)

well one tip I can give you:if you manage to capture a +3 missile temple from the macedonians,send all your cretans there for re-training. I managed to get one,so I now own 6 cretans with gold weapons amd silver armour ,all with silver cherons. add my spartans to that,upgraded with silver armour and silver weapons and my army is an unstoppable juggernaught of doom..

quite agree about the Temple of Artemis bonus. I have such a temple @ Larissa captured from the Macdonians. With the construction of an armourer, I'm getting the gold swords on my archers. I started a temple of Nike series at Pergamum and that has given me an experience chevrons recruiting advantage in a second city in the Aegean area. I have gone with the Nike series at Sinope as well. I'm up to 35-36 regions now in my Greek campaign. Seleucids and the Ptolemies have not made any aggressive moves yet. Thrace trespassed (a common method of provocation that the AI uses against you), so I went to war. They were at war with one of my allies anyway (Dacia), so I thought they should be humbled. Armenia is an ally. Carthage is a trade partner and our relationship cordial. Gauls betrayed our alliance and I'm punishing them now as well. The Romans, all factions, are kaput. So, too, Pontus.

I like recruiting Sarmatians to supplement my cavalry when I have the money. They hit a bit harder. And I love annoying my enemies with horse archer mercenaries upgraded to gold swords. I'm hoping to try a little experiment in this game - recruiting a battle line of heavy peltasts, upgraded with gold swords from my temple of Artemis and upgraded to three experience chevrons from Nike. When they get upgraded with these improvements they resemble Hastati in strength. If I turn off the skirmish mode, I'm hoping to use them in an Hastati type attack. Want to see if this is workable or just a pipe dream on my part. I'm thinking because they were designed as skirmish troops, they will probably still behave pretty much as skirmish troops even with skirmish mode turned off (though they won't retreat w/skirm-mode turned off; I just suspect they won't be aggressive like Hastati until all their javelins have been thrown - that's my guess.)

My armored hoplites and Spartans do take moderate to heavy casualties on the walls in city assaults if the opposing unit is an upgraded quality infantry unit. But if I have them in phalanx formation, they're pretty much unstoppable. I've occasionally had to play city assaults with a little cleverness to reduce casualties.

The Brits are also annoying my ally, Dacia. I'm coming to their rescue, but I'm afraid it's probably futile. Once the AI decides that a certain faction it controls no longer deserves to live, pretty much anything you do to save it only prolongs the inevitable.

Quick question. I'm playing a GC campaign in vanilla and I've taken the entire agean peninsula and taken all of the macedonian cities but their still in the game somehow. I've sent spies and diplomats north to look for them but all I find is thracians and dacians, anybody else ever have this "issue"? they always ask me for ridiculous peace settlements that include me giving them all thier cities and 80,000 denari.

Go South instead of north. Look at the city in north africa, in Cyrenaica, called Cyrene. Every once in a while, this city rebels from its occupiers - either Egypt (the Ptolemies) or the Numidians - and declares itself Macedonian. This is probably the hold out city you've been looking for.

Ridiculous diplomatic requests from weakened AI factions is par for the course in this game. :)

Ok thanks, I looked at Kydonia but neglected to really go beyond that, also thanks for the quick response it doesn't seem like that many people visit here anymore..

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Originally Posted by Octavian_of_the_view

it doesn't seem like that many people visit here anymore..

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True. With all the new games Creative Assembly has released since RTW, the traffic has been directed to them. RTW is not as sophisticated as some of the newer games. I haven't bought ETW or NTW, but friends tell me ETW is difficult compared to RTW.

Personally, I'm not interested in the Samurai culture so their Japanese games don't appeal to me. RTW behaves more like a game compared to M2TW as far as I'm concerned. Even on easy setting M2TW can be a challenge if you don't blitz early. And I never learned to enjoy the combat phase of that game. I like the way the unit movement works in RTW.

I think you can outsmart yourself in game design by making things too sophisticated. People like playing Monopoly because it's very basic in concept - a simple concept cleverly excuted and it doesn't change.

I like the religious and merchant features of M2TW. But the relentless superiority of the Mongol and Timurid stacks makes the campaign game less enjoyable for me. In one game playing the Mamluks, I wiped out 9 successive Mongol armies, and as soon as I was down to the last Mongol general of the ninth army, four more Mongol stacks showed up around Baghdad. It ticked me off. :no:

I would love to see CA introduce the merchant and religious-war-type features or something similar from M2TW into an updated version of RTW, and perhaps upgrade some of the artwork of the units, maybe even give the Parthians one decent heavy infantry unit, etc. But I'm afraid a new RTW is going to have the more advanced animation which is what ruined the combat phase for me in M2TW. So I may be playing vanilla RTW forever. :dizzy2:

I've learned a lot about playing RTW from some of the old veterans from the Guild. There's some good info in the write-ups if you take time to browse the site. :book: Welcome aboard! :balloon2:

Yes simplicity is often the best but technology demands we advance. RTW combines perfectly at once a deep gaming experience with a simplisticness of use that wont daunt a novice. It's fantastic really and to be perfectly honest I'm ok with sticking with it, it offers quite of bit replayability.

for the battles you can use the defencive attack.http://C:/Program Files/Activision/R.../tgas/0001.tga



the hoplites are defensive unites.So provok the enemie.when he will outnumber your armie he will surely attack.....im sure that if you pay attention for not being out-flanked you will suffer minimaum casualties and maximaum for the