Tips and Tricks for New Players

Healing and Immortals:
Casualties are healed after a battle in order of first to last: the first cohorts that suffered casualties get priority of healing, while the last to enter combat and take casualties receive little to no healing. As long as a general has a quality healer like a druidic surgeon or the like, it can enable one to create units of "immortals" by deliberately subjecting select cohorts to suffer casualties first, and thereby receive priority of healing after battle. Some quality strategies include fast moving long range skirmishers like celtic slingers: station them a little in front of the battleline, let them skirmish as much as possible, if they get caught and suffer losses, advance the infantry line and cut the enemy down, either way the slingers deal good damage and heal whatever losses they suffer after battle since they took the first casualties. It is funny in this way to see Celtic slinger cohorts get repeatedly cut down, and miraculously healed in full, battle after battle, gaining chevrons steadily. Another approach involves tough elite infantry like gaesatae, Germanic bodyguards, hypaspists/solduros and the like, have them spearhead the attack and receive enemy javelin volleys, whatever damage they sustain tends to get healed after the battle is over since they took casualties first. This approach is extremely strong with gaesatae, enabling them to gain many chevrons and fully heal, becoming extremely powerful.

Druidry:
Druid skills are fairly hard to obtain but they can enable Celtic generals to become very powerful. Temples are crucial for improving the odds of receiving druidic improvements, the higher level the temple, the higher level druidry can be attained. Stone temples of Tanaris, Cernunnos, Sucellos, and Andraste all help greatly to bestow druidical bonuses. Seventh level druidry is extremely hard to obtain but is perhaps the most powerful general bonus in EB bestowing something like +2 hitpoints, +2 morale, +2 command, greatly improved healing (something on the order of 45%) and an influence bonus. To get the best chance of receiving strong druid generals, build level four druidical temples all over Gaul and Britain, put all young FMs through the Ynys Mon education in Britain, and station them all over Gaul after completing Ynys Mon.

Couple of useful things...
1. When conquering an enemy town, make sure that you destroy any barracks that you cannot use. This provides you with some instant income, and also prevents enemy from recruiting new troops if he retakes the city.

2. If in serious financial situation, look for your wonders. Some bring small bonuses, but present an actual last resort to your finances. For example: Tolosa lake (20000mnai) and Persepolis (10000mnai). Do not destroy experience bringing monuments, like Kogainon.

3. At the beginning of your Campaign, use all of your resources to train as much cheap troops as you can. E.g.: Aedui, you start with 5000mnai. Full up you recruitment queue with Lugoae and Iaosatae, and they will train in the next 4 - 5 turns, respectively, regardless to your financial debt.

If you want to build a militarist empire and you want some blitzing war you have 2 logical options depen on your patience:

1- If you are patient enough always build level 1 & 2 local MICs. Your low tier troops are most likely levies who are cheap to recruit that may allow you numeric superiority the only problem is that you need population enhancing temples and other building and you should never exterminate conquered cities use exile.

2- If you are in a hurry and your native levies are hard to use against endless stacks of elites of your enemies, forget about recruiting hire mercenaries. That means you need money ... a lot of money and a lot of inevitable exterminations........

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I know many people like cavalry warfare and cavalry dominated states, me for example I am addicted to use Cataphracts.
On the other hand, it would be quite annoying not to have 2 field armies even you have 30 cities.
And if you play any infantry dominated states you know that if you had 30 cities you can have more than 4 Field Armies!

Lets get numbers if you have 100,000 mnai you can feed -NOT RECRUIT-:

308 - Parthian horse archers
84 - Parthian cataphracts
68 - Parthian late Cataphracts

while you can have :

311 - native levy phalanx - axe holders :-)
157- medium phalanx - pezos
117 - elite phalanx - argies.

Do not forget phalanxes have 240 cavalries have 100
so at maximum if both side fights with elites

68*100=6800 grivpandar
117*240=28,080 argies!

That means you can nearly have 4 TIMES MORE INFANTRIES INSTEAD OF CAVALRY!

Do four men go quicker than one horse?

1-any building that gives a +morale bonus is crap, it doesn't even work. Thus +morale temples(unless they give a +experience bonus at the end) are inferior to other temples.
2-generally, the best temple is the one that gives the most +law, or in some way increases the combat potential of your army.
3-Some wonders give you no bonus(or a +morale bonus......) and you're better off destroying them unless you want it for roleplay benefit.\
4-As mentioned before, in the beginning of the game spam troop building in the first few turns OR spam economy buildings, the strategy differs depending on faction.
For example, the Casse start out at peace with the Eleutheroi, so you might as well just disband your army and spam economic buildings, factions like Carthage that already start out with huge armies and don't have a serious threat looming can probably be fine with spamming economy and just using your current army.

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Originally Posted by NoHelmet

Do four men go quicker than one horse?

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Simply avoid attacking nomads on the field attack their cities most have no walls... 20 units of phalanx make a whole line that horse archer cannot pass if attacked on the field as you know they are immortal in the front against horse archers.
BTW I hate slow moving phalanxes that is why I like killing them though it costs me a fortune.

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Originally Posted by Olaf The Great

For example, the Casse start out at peace with the Eleutheroi, so you might as well just disband your army and spam economic buildings

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Casse: Be careful though, don't disband all your army! The Eleutheroi send an army of 5 Caledonian skirmishers down to your northern border at the beginning of the campaign. Sometimes that army will sit in the forest and do nothing, but sometimes it will put your only town under seige, and you won't be able to fight them off with just your family members alone. Keep a couple of units at least. I usually disband only one unit of spearmen (and the ship) and keep the rest.

That's true, if you play on hard or very hard difficulty, the Eleutheroi can attack your cities.

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Originally Posted by Olaf The Great

1-any building that gives a +morale bonus is crap, it doesn't even work. Thus +morale temples(unless they give a +experience bonus at the end) are inferior to other temples.
2-generally, the best temple is the one that gives the most +law, or in some way increases the combat potential of your army.
3-Some wonders give you no bonus(or a +morale bonus......) and you're better off destroying them unless you want it for roleplay benefit.\

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I must answer you on this! true the moral bonus don't work, but experience bonus does! so level one temple of deiwoz (as an example) gives +1 moral... but level 3 gives +3 exp... combine that with a field game (+1 exp), and you can spam very cheap levies fresh out with 1 silver chevron, and medium line holders the same... wich makes them killing machine, especially if you have a blacksmith (wich I always have) and, if your lucky, a wonder that gives experience (in wich case every unit you train from that citie would have 2 silver chev. from the start...) So basicly, your medium troops can defeat elites XD well, this is how I can win against elite spam of AI, they send me elites, i send them EXP!!! wining without cheating!

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Originally Posted by Duguntz

I must answer you on this! true the moral bonus don't work, but experience bonus does! so level one temple of deiwoz (as an example) gives +1 moral... but level 3 gives +3 exp... combine that with a field game (+1 exp), and you can spam very cheap levies fresh out with 1 silver chevron, and medium line holders the same... wich makes them killing machine, especially if you have a blacksmith (wich I always have) and, if your lucky, a wonder that gives experience (in wich case every unit you train from that citie would have 2 silver chev. from the start...) So basicly, your medium troops can defeat elites XD well, this is how I can win against elite spam of AI, they send me elites, i send them EXP!!! wining without cheating!

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Especially since the Sweboz can get +3 attack for their elite footmen(the not-general version) from a blacksmith

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Originally Posted by Olaf The Great

Especially since the Sweboz can get +3 attack for their elite footmen(the not-general version) from a blacksmith

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very true. buit I don't use them a lot... duguntiz with 2 silver chevrons plus upgraded weapons can make wonders, for a fraction of the price of the elite... they still take casualities, but are much cheaper to recruit AND to maintain!

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Originally Posted by Duguntz

very true. buit I don't use them a lot... duguntiz with 2 silver chevrons plus upgraded weapons can make wonders, for a fraction of the price of the elite... they still take casualities, but are much cheaper to recruit AND to maintain!

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That is one of the most important advices: Do not think that having elite troops wins the day. Positioning, leadership, micromanaging. Arange your army in a way that will reduce your need to manage every troop. As Duguntz said, relatively cheap units with decent experience make wonders. Now, elites are good, and make a valuable asset to an army, but come at a much greater cost. So, if you do spam elites, at least put them to good use, do not sit around doing nothing.

Tip for new players:

When you are in a mood for an online custom game , you can find other EB players via the Hamachi network. you can find all details on www.ebonline.tk

Also , if you want , you can join in the Multiplayer tournaments located in the MP section of the EB forum .

Another tip it took a while for me to learn; Even when you have endless coffers, you still want to have a "trash" unit or two in your royal army, to distract your enemies and especialyl get them to waste missles. On battlefields a fast and cheap unit should be your "trash" unit, and the best trash units are missle cavalry(doesn't have to be archers as you want to get close enough for their infantry to throw stuff at you). This is especially true when your enemy has slingers and you don't want to have your elites wasted by peasants with rocks. If you're on a long campaign, simply replace the spent cannon fodder units with mercernaries.

This one could be considered cheating:
Disbanding a unit while it's in an enemy's watchtower will leave you the view, until an enemy army stops there (almost never)^^
Could be that you left a spy or scouting force there XD

Fleets in ports cannot be attacked by enemies, and can sail out even if the port is blockaded. That means that you can hold cheapest possible ship without the worry of it being destroyed and use it to board armies. Especially useful in narrow seas, where you often need to transport troops.

Fleets cant be merged, they have to be build together, how ever this is very costly, and you wound't need more than 2 tririme fleets to transport your troops safely...

but only because admirals seem to get stars quite easy. an admiral who hasn't fought any seafight is likey to submerge under another one. just remember, only a fleet with 0 stars can be merged. when a fleet/admiral has >=1 star it's only possible to add new ships "under" him he can't join a different fleet.

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Originally Posted by Ca Putt

but only because admirals seem to get stars quite easy. an admiral who hasn't fought any seafight is likey to submerge under another one. just remember, only a fleet with 0 stars can be merged. when a fleet/admiral has >=1 star it's only possible to add new ships "under" him he can't join a different fleet.

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Admirals who have a trait can't be merged under another admiral, but since in EB every Admiral has a trait (for the season), no fleets can be merged completely.

I'm sure I've been able to merge fleets together, even with the season trait.

I have no idea whether it was said before, Do not have more than 50.000 at the end of your turn. Your governors will have corruption traits that severely reduces your income. With 100.000 mnai, the chance to get that traits doubles; with 150.000 mnai it triples!
And do not confuse corruption traits with corruption info in your income table. Corruption traits effects your governors but this effect does not reflected on corruption screen. You have to build buildings mostly temples that give law bonus to reduce it but for traits you have to keep you treasury less than 50.000 mnai before you press end turn button.

Always remember, a unit with Gold attack and defence will always rip to shreds a unit with 6 experience. This applies to all mods so make blacksmiths a priority before experience in recruitment centers

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Originally Posted by Lazy O

Always remember, a unit with Gold attack and defence will always rip to shreds a unit with 6 experience. This applies to all mods so make blacksmiths a priority before experience in recruitment centers

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But there is only 1 level of blacksmith in EB afaik?
Also, each level of experience grants your unit +1 atack, +1 defence ( and +1 morale, iirc ).

@Atraphoenix: are the corruption traits in EB the same as in vanilla? I ask, because, though i used to have definetly more than 50k mnai while playing Casse, the only trait i got was "wealthy" for only one of my generals, hmm...
Btw: you are a modder yourself, could you give me a quick tip how can i get rid of any non factional ( roman + italic ) troops for Romans? I´d like to be facing some cool roman armies, instead of fighting lugoai & co. ( i know, such questions do not belong here, but rather in modding forums - a pm would do the job :) thx in advance!

Extravagant is a tradeoff, and is better for generals than governors. Lover of beauty is bad for generals(abeit a small -command which isn't really a big deal), and I think Barbarians have a lower chance for it.
Basic Blacksmiths can only go up to 1 defense and 1 attack(with some exceptions) but in MULTIPLAYER you can get up to +3. In the campaign you can get up to silver/gold for the Casse with a max temple of some sort(this may have been removed), and +3 attack and +1 defense for one unit from the Sweboz.

Here's a few tips.
1)Basically for governors, Influence increases happiness, Management increases income and reduces corruption. Both are great, but in your big cities with lots of +order improvements, management is strictly superior, though many traits that give influence also give management. The "Extravagant" traits give +1/2/3 influence and -1/2/3 management, and lover of beauty gives -1 command and +1 influence. They aren't 100% bad, especially balanced with ancillaries and command is practically useless for all governors aside from border settlements.
2)Recruited Generals are almost completely useless, I'm afraid. You can't hold any settlements with them(impostor trait despite military rule....) they have their uses in border defense, but eh.
3)Stamina is often superior to Morale and attack/defense, as battles in EB last a very long time, and your excellent morale exhausted cataphracts will get ripped to shreds by the warmed up peasants.
4)Cavalry charges with lances are much easier(stupid Total war battle system) with tired cavalry, as they move slower and actually lower their lances when they're an acceptable distance from the target.
5)You can stack units on top of eachother to form an incredibly dense line, especially with phalanxes. It's a little bit exploitative especially for bridge battles, but it might be balanced by the huge casualties you'll get from missile fire.
6)Bridge battles are potentially massive cakewalks, especially if you have phalanxes and massed archers, slingers can work but it's more difficult to avoid friendly fire unless there is a large amount of enemies on the bridge. It's very nice seeing generals run across the bridge and immediately die, and if they're Casse might cause lots of problems for themselves. If your enemy has lots of phalanxes they will be probably be forced out of formation unless it's multiplayer and the guy knows the cancel orders trick.
7)Pikemen are absolutely awful at attacking cities, they are effectively swordsmen in this fight and you're better off turning off phalanx. You can however get by with lining them up, and pressing "cancel orders" this makes them all go back to their main weapon immediately and go into formation, this helps with the "wtf spread" you get in cities.
8)Elites aren't meant to look pretty and be protected in the battlefield, remember they are BADASSES and can fight very well if used correctly. You can always go back and retrain them.
9)As I said before, use cannon fodder in loose formation to absorb missle fire to protect your elites, you can also get a few units to chase your unit to get themselves tired and away from the main battleline.
10)Don't commit your entire army to a single fight, notice how only the front few units are attacking and the back ones are just rapidly exhausting themselves? Yeah. Reserve those for when your main line is tiring and theirs is ripe for slaughter.
11)If you're attacking a wooden wall with a large amount of defenders, one ram is not going to cut it.
12)Sappers and Rams are crap against stone walls, though you might be good using a crap unit on the ram, but it'll probably catch on fire.

Casse trick regardless of difficulty

On the very first turn put your spy directly south west of the first northern town. Make sure it's right next to the town but not in it. By doing this the Eleutheroi army consisting of the Caledonian Skirmishers will STAY in Caledonia forever and give you a bit of breathing room at the start.

If you don't do this and they come down they will only attack your city once you build roads. (thanks to whoever pointed that out)

Contrary to what the above poster claimed, in my experience recruited generals are very useful indeed for holding distant or newly conquered settlements. It only takes four turns to install a type IV government, recruit a general and turn him into a client ruler. This then gives a massive public order bonus because client rulers almost always get a large influence bonus.

This enables your conquering armies to keep pressing onwards without losing lots of time to keep the new settlements from rebelling, particularly if you are far away from your capital. Later on you can always install higher level governments if appropriate. The only real alternative to this strategy is to bring a considerable number of experienced, high-influence governors with your field army, and you might need those to make money in your empire's core regions. Even exterminating newly conquered settlements sometimes isn't enough to keep them from rebelling without a good governor.

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Originally Posted by vollorix

But there is only 1 level of blacksmith in EB afaik?
Also, each level of experience grants your unit +1 atack, +1 defence ( and +1 morale, iirc ).

@Atraphoenix: are the corruption traits in EB the same as in vanilla? I ask, because, though i used to have definetly more than 50k mnai while playing Casse, the only trait i got was "wealthy" for only one of my generals, hmm...
Btw: you are a modder yourself, could you give me a quick tip how can i get rid of any non factional ( roman + italic ) troops for Romans? I´d like to be facing some cool roman armies, instead of fighting lugoai & co. ( i know, such questions do not belong here, but rather in modding forums - a pm would do the job :) thx in advance!

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-AFAIK it is same with vanilla.
-To deactivate any unit open export_descr_units
find "ownership seleucid, slave" delete the red line including comma.

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Originally Posted by Randal

Contrary to what the above poster claimed, in my experience recruited generals are very useful indeed for holding distant or newly conquered settlements. It only takes four turns to install a type IV government, recruit a general and turn him into a client ruler. This then gives a massive public order bonus because client rulers almost always get a large influence bonus.

This enables your conquering armies to keep pressing onwards without losing lots of time to keep the new settlements from rebelling, particularly if you are far away from your capital. Later on you can always install higher level governments if appropriate. The only real alternative to this strategy is to bring a considerable number of experienced, high-influence governors with your field army, and you might need those to make money in your empire's core regions. Even exterminating newly conquered settlements sometimes isn't enough to keep them from rebelling without a good governor.

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But they aren't usefuly as recruited GENERALS only as quicker ways to get Client rulers

Use multiple spies if you want 100% chance of opening gates. With good spies, two is enough to ALWAYS open them.

THX a lot @Atraphoenix! I thought, i would have to mess with EDB and stuff o0.

OT: i do remember it was definetly possible to attack ships within an enemy harbour ( at least in vanilla ). To do so you have to blockade a port with a fleet consisting of at least 2 ships, then choose other ship then the flagship and klick attack button. No idea, if it is/was a bug or intended, anyway, it should be possible in EB too.