The Greek Cities

Guide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My tactics where slightly different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One other note....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for any help on that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clickety-click

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TN[ KrAzY!

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

---

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeanne d'arc

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny

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

---

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

Ok my Greek campaign is really rocking now...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sapi

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

---

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

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

ARCHERS!!!

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

:charge: :charge: :charge:

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

1. Merge Macedon early on

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

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

2. Romans & others

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zorn

...but those peltast drove my nuts...

---

Your nuts are motorised and have wheels ?!? How did they get the keys ?




My Greek Cities game has been interesting . I struck Macedon on the second turn and took Macedonian each city in turn {bribing a few times} untill I had destroyed them {I'm doing the same to Thrace now whist maintaining an aliance with their enemies Dacia : I'll give them the last Thracian city to help keep them strong against Rome and as a buffer to Scythia} .

The Interesting part is how I seem to have managed to Neutralise the Romans without even having a single war with them .
On Sicily I chose to build Syracuse as a Military production centre {I figured it would have to fight a war on its' own} and imediatly sold maps and trade right to Scipii and Carthage whilst building up an army steadily of Hopilites and Mercenary Missiles .
I noticed Scipii chose to try and Take the Carthaginians first {not sure why , but I might have looked too strong for his available forces and I think the Carthaginians attacked or otherwise provoked them} and not wanting to let Scipii get another city to increase their strength against me , I sent my Diplomat to see if I could bribe them . Well , they were either two expensive or unbribeable-Faction leader or Faction Heir {I can't remember which now}- but I then sent my bag man ~:cool: to Messana and the Scipii apparantly had some kittens and quit the seige to race back to their Sicilian base . That gave me the idea to see if I could play head games with them , and apparantly I can .
It is now winter in 249 B.C. and Cathage and the Scipii still have their starting Cities {they fought only one big battle that left a marker and Scipii won it} , I have a Ring of three forts with held each by just a single Militia Hopilite unit each blocking my border from their armies {they will have to go through them , and the Scipii are so broke they won't be getting any artilery for a long time yet} plus a big buff army of my own {8Armoured Hopilites , 4 Merc Peltasts , Peltast , 2 Cretian Archers , 1 Archer , 4 Hopikites , 2 Merc Hopilites , 2 Militia Cav , 2 Greek Cav , 1 Samnite Merc -there were some there historically so I modded it , 2 Ballistas and 4 Militia Hopilites for garrison duty and Both my Faction Leader and a promising young family member} which easily outclasses what the others present there {Scipii are obviously out of money} and whist I could take that Island in a number of ways it is so dammed interesting messing with them like this .
I think that by showing a lot of {well armoured} teeth , you can convince the Scipii to try Carthage {and Carthage to try Scipii} first . The *take you hardest troops and stand in their face* method seems to convince them to leave your territory at the start if you make sure to get a big bruising line of Hopilites and Mercenaries .

The Brutii I have also kept at bay with a combination of helping the Dacians {alliance and smashing the Thracians when they attacked Dacia} whom have taken territory up to the Dalmatian coast and intimidation from a hard fullstack army with a spy in it to prevent bribery . The Brutii only own Epirus {town is Apollona} and are obviously as strapped for cash as the Scipii , and the Gauls seem to have managed to keep the Julii hemmed in except for Liguria {Segesta} .

This is setting up to be an interesting game ~D .

For those who must know , I play on normal level : its' only a game {I consider computer games to be more like television than worthy challanges , plenty of the latter in the real world} and frankly , winning a game on I'm too sexy/I'm too sexy level doesn't mean a great deal in the real world to me and includes some anoying "gamey" elements to beef A.I. that ruin my immersion . If I want challange , I step outside where real life has them in abundance with actual and genuine rewards for success {though P.V.P. games -WWIIOL is my favorite- can provide challanging opponents , it cannot keep my attention solely on challange given it is still but a game ; it is only able to keep my interest as a diversion/entertainment} . Its' just a game . A very , very good game , but still just pure entertainment for me .
Some players have a bad habbit of deriding any whom don't play "I'm too sexy/I'm too sexy" level . They should grow up and show some character {that is good character , not chrulish nor childish character} and simply be happy with they having it there way and others having it how they might wish .
I'll demonstrate the correct attitude for them : ~:cheers: you do it your way , Ill do it mine .
What I have done might not work on Very Hard/Very Hard level {the A.I. gets a +7 to its' units attack stats , thus generally has statistically stronger armies evertime if they are even close to yours in size , which would probably make it decide to attack you from the getgo} , though on Very Hard/Normal Level it might {your army would , built up strong enough , be stronger than theirs' and likely deter attack : note , Phalanx units can kill elephants fast if facing them in formation , thus could likely be considered stronger by the A.I. than you might were you facing Phalanx with Elephants} .
Some might like to try it and see . ~D

While I do agree that vh/vh is far too much for me, Mr. Frost, I recently moved up to h/h in my current Greek Cities campaign and it's like night and day. I feel that the battle adjustments to the AI on Hard makes up for the almost complete lack of AI generals that you experience on every difficulty level.
I've been having a devil of a time from the mid-game on; bogged down on 2 of my 3 'fronts' to the point where I am starting to get nervous (in the context of a video game, of course - heh).

* Egypt and Rebels simply refuse to allow me to pass/hold on to Tarsus; the area is scattered with historic battle markers to mock my lack of progress. The first time I occupied Tarsus, rebels kicked me out after I occupied them. The second time, the peasants got snooty after I enslaved them. Right before I saved, Egypt seiged the city with 1700 men (probably all axemen) against my garrison of 300 after first taking my fort that was guarding the mountain pass to the northeast. I'm telling you, the next time I take that place over I am burning the sucka to the ground! ~;)
* Carthage 'allowed' me to capture their capital and the two cities to the South of them (sorry, I'm a geographic ignoramous), only to overthrow me from Carthage and the city below it once they bumped off Numidia. The lone city I hold onto in Africa had just turned blue on me, even though it's fully garrisoned and it is set to Growth. 3 attempts at getting a Governor to them has been rebuffed by three separate naval powers; as such, I am contemplating striping the place and pulling out at the first signs of pitchforks and hungry torches.
* The Italian creeps have been gracious enough to allow me to crush them into the pavement, but those darned Ju Ju beans are giving me trouble in what was once the Gaul/Britannia territory in Europe. The Senate is long gone, their Scipii and Brutii cousins off visiting Hades, and yet Caeser's kids sit in their cafes - eating Bavarian pretzels and laughing at my slouth-like crawl in converting them to the ways of Socrates. How rude.

The main problem with Greece, as has been pointed out, is that their one Super Unit; the Spartan Hoplite, is a turtle that refuses to breed anywhere but in Sparta (duh) and Syracuse. Keeping up with the Jones' in the naval department is iffy at best (on Hard) - so ferrying those turtles from the two points is a slow process that involves years worth of port jumping.
I thought holding onto Syracuse on Medium was a key to victory; on Hard, it's the key to survival.

In my last M/M campaign, once I took the Italian boot the game was over; mop up time all the way. In this current H/H one, the game has just begun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by D. Boon's Ghost

...The main problem with Greece, as has been pointed out, is that their one Super Unit; the Spartan Hoplite, is a turtle that refuses to breed anywhere but in Sparta (duh) and Syracuse. Keeping up with the Jones' in the naval department is iffy at best (on Hard) - so ferrying those turtles from the two points is a slow process that involves years worth of port jumping.
I thought holding onto Syracuse on Medium was a key to victory; on Hard, it's the key to survival...

---

Yeah , I'm going to have to mod in some pornographer units to get those Spartans thinking about horozontal folk dancing with women by crickey ! ~D

I abandoned sicily once i built a navy. it is time and resource consumng.

you have to be aggressive. you should build traders in Rhoedes and Pergamum. build hoplites in Sparta, i profer armoured holites because they are greater it means waiting but in the long run you will be thankful.

I tend to stick to the one unit, i stick with the armoured Hoplites. they can hold and break any infantry, cavalry and ever chasing archers because of thier shields they take little loses.

I took Cornith, than Athens than Larrisa. i waited 10 turns built forts in all mountian passes, this stopped Macedonia's chance of invading succefully. luckily the plague hit them, i sent in a Diplomat and he was infected, now this was a useful little tool. since he was and any army/town he entered was infected..i sent him into all the Roman cities near me and when he died i sent another and repeated the process..i servely weakened them..

I tried and tried and tred to get a ceasefire with the Romans how ever even after an offer of 100k gold and 3 provinces they wouldnt cave, soo...i trained 10k armoured hoplites... and sacked Rome... now the problem with this is the Roman fleets. i had to gather every boat i owned to attack them succefully, i think the men involved were 1500 (Rome) 2800(Greece) naturally they went home 1000 men short. but they still harried my boats that i used to send my armies over, so after 6 turns i made it.

i took over ancient Persia and destoryed the selecuid empire and Pontus. Egpyt is currently at war with me and unable to defeat my hoplites.

does anyone know how to build Spartian Hoplites?

Highest-level barracks in Sparta, AFAIK (or at least the building file mentions something called "hidden_resource_sparta" as a prequisite...). If that doesn't work, it's probably buggy.

hmmm... I'll have to go check my savegame. If I recall correctly, the barracks of a 12'000 people city is enough. I was able to build them and it's not like Sparta jumps to 24'000 all that fast...


EDIT: It is indeed the case. You need the highest level barracks (at town >12'000) to build the spartan hoplites.

Now everyone says that :abandon sicily!
I say NO!!
Magna Grecia (great hellas) should be restored and those stinky barbarians called romans kicked out as the asian mercenary phoenician scums...jk ~D
Turn one: take all the units and the general from syracuse hire the merc hoplites and the peltasts and attack the roman army in Mesana they will be split and by the time that the second army arrives you have killed the pripary and if you are good in the tactic map Messana will be yours in the summer 270
While doing this siege korinth and send your thermon army to the north to take apollonia which will be your sally/kill post facing the brutii...
After securing sicily (the carthies can be yeasily overrolled since you have two cities and they have only one and they dont reinforce it from africa) the money starts to roll in you aim will be securing western asia minor and destroying the Makedonians...

Hellenes

TIP:

Dont know if this was mentioned yet, you should immediately in turn 1 take all your units in sparta and siege corinth. Turn 2, attack the city and take it. Will make a big difference.

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

how do you do the 'deep'-part? and why?---> how and why?

:help: can anyone give me the code for the Macedon plague. I was being stupid and deleted it when I played Macedon and now I want it back so I can infect all their cities. it is in C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign. Look in the text file descr_events and it is like the second or third one down entitled plague_in_macedonia. I need all 3 lines of code in that group. Thanks. PS I know it happens really early, but I want it for my next campaign.

In addition I find it usefull to only take Theramon, Athens, Corinth, and Sparta in southern Greece, since I can then use the Macedonians as a buffer in the north while I focus my attentions elsewhere. Then I can kill the Brutii at my leasure while Macedon is to occupied with Thrace to bother with me at the moment.

in my old game as the greek cities i played m/m (only second playtrough) and was able to hold syracuse and take over sicily while i crippled the macedons and sealed of greece i united my two army's and sent them into asia minor keeping my momentum untill a crushing defeat in antioch made me rebuild my forces meanwhile i had invaded greece and faced a scipii/brutii force the brutii had their faction leader and the scipii their main army i killed the faction leader and the scipii took off it was the last brutii so their cities rebelled and became small pickings then the road to rome was open.

My greek campaign (VH/H) has probably been my easiest so far. About 12 years in and Rome is in big trouble.

The main reason: Money. The Greeks should be swimming in it.

You can pretty much build units and building upgrades constantly in all your cities. You can also bribe rebels - many of whom join your faction instead of disappearing. You can also buy lots of Mercs, particularly Cretan archers.

The challenge is managing 3 theatres simultaneously. Sicily, Greece and Turkey.

I kept Sicily. Both the Scipii an Carthage came right after me (Turn 1 and Turn 2, I think) but both were beaten rather easily on my walls thanks to bad AI. I had a unit of archers (Can't recall if I was given them or if they came with a bribed rebel unit) that I perched above the gate. Then it was just a matter of a couple turns before I had Messana and could crank out 2 units per turn. Lilyaeum fell pretty fast after that. Then I got Syracuse built up to make archers. And I was in complete control of Sicily.

Turkey, I more or less left alone. I took what rebel provinces I could easily and ended up with Ancyra, and two of the western-most provinces. Lots of good mercs to be hired here. I've built this area up economically, used it to send troops to Greece, but done little else there so far.

Greece. I laid off Macedon at the beginning, and they laid off me up to a point. I took Athens and Crete by force and bribed one other province (Salona?) because I happened to have a diplomat walking by and it was cheap. Eventually the Romans mobbed Thermon. First Brutii, then Julii. At one point, I had two full stacks of Brutii and Julii attack at once and lost Thermon. Around this time, Macedon attacked Sparta and things were a little anxious.

I solved the Macedon problem by taking a half-stack of guys from Turkey, mixing in some of my Athens garrison and besieging Corinth. They pulled their siege of Sparta back to defend, and after a series of battles Corinth was mine, followed quickly by Larissa. Macedon is losing territory fast.

I solved the problem with the Romans by dropping a very nice stack in peninsular Italy, which was quite poorly defended. Brutii were eliminated in just a couple turns, Scipii and SPQR soon to follow. It appears the entire might of Rome was focused on taking me out. The Scipii in failing to take Sicily, and the Brutii and Julii in Greece. None of the Roman factions has expanded beyond its original borders.

So, long story short, hold Sicily if you can. It neutralizes the Scipii directly and makes a great launching pad for an early invasion of Italy.

Just yesterday I finished my first big campaign as the Greekc Cities.

By the end of the game, I held all of the Greek peninsula up to Bylazora, all of the Italian peninsula, most of Gaul and all of Asia Minor and controlled the best part of the Mediterrannean with my fleets. I pretty much exterminated the Seleucid Empire and was starting to reach over to the Iberian peninsula in the west and Egypt to the east, when the game ended, right when I captured my first Spanish city (held by Numidian armies by then) ... baaah...

Now, here's two things I learned from it all.

One, there's only one surefire way to deal with squalor. Every time you take a city, slaughter everybody, especially from the mid-game on, when cities are starting to overcrowd themselves to slow death. Most Roman cities I captured had at least two levels of farming developped and that spells overpopulation like nothing else...

Now, killing everybody once you capture a new settlement won't do anything for the ones you already control (except, of course, that it will not add to their already high squalor by sending even more people to crowd them up). So, sometimes rebellions occur and they can be pretty annoying.

In this case, I found it's best to just withdraw all armies from the rebelling settlement, wait for the rebel army to form, siege the settlement, take it and slaugher everybody in it. Yes, again.

All this creates a situation though- you end up having a lot of people in a few central Huge Towns and many Large Towns with populations of less than 10.000... or even less than 5.000!

Well, the only way to deal with that, is forced immigration. Have every Huge Town produce Peasants, without stop. Then send them over to the smaller settlements you want to populate and disband them inside them. It works, as it's been suggested before, but it's very dull to do, truth be told... In any case, by the time you get to this point, you 'll have left over several lesser troops (like militia hoplites, for example, or regular peltasts) who are just sitting around needlessly garrissoning towns that are far from your borders and munching on your budget. You can disband them too. You don't need them.

Which brings us to lesson learned, number two.

Namely, don't bother building anything but phalanx units. It's a waste of time.

Yup. I know it's heretic, I know we (we as in Greeks... well, not me personally... but you get my point...) lost an empire and then some to the Romans for lack of diversity and flexibility, I know Alexander took over the world with his ingenuity in mixing it up between phalanx and hypaspists and all that... but, still... The naked truth is, in RTW, if you have enough phalanx units, then everything else is simply redundant.

No, you don't need missile troops. They just get in the way. For the first few decades of game time, I kept it by the book and built toxotes and peltasts to go with my hoplites. Well, guess what, after every battle, I found my missile troops in tatters, having accomplished nothing but to cost me their retraining funds... while my phalanx units where all but unharmed. And, usually, victorious, to boot.

Seriously. What do you need other troops than the phalanx for? Well, you need them to keep the phalanxs' flanks protected, as there's very few things that can harm the phalanx face on, so conventional wisdom says. But then, why would you want to keep your precious, vulnerable flanks protected by... well, by anything but more of the best defensive unit type you can have? No, really. Why would you try to guard your flanks from a charge by preatorian cavalry with... what, heavey peltasts? Slingers!? It's suicidal.

As about cavalry overtaking because the phalanx is too slow... well, conventional wisdom, again, says the phalanx can't move to save its' life. Well, it can't, but hoplites don't need to maintain their phalanx formation when they 're manoeuvering. There's a little button in their control pannel that lets you switch formations. As plain spearmen, they can make a dash for it, even from one end of a 16- unit wide line to the other, fast enough to reinforce the line against heavy cavalry (not to mention infantry). I do it all the time. I can show you screenshots if you don't believe me. The phalanx can't run, but the hoplites can. See them run! The Spartans, in particular, look like a gigantic mutated crustacean... ~:confused: (just remember to form them back to a phalanx once they 're where you want them... Oh, and don't forget you can just press "," and "." to wheel a unit- or a group!- any time. They stagger a bit to one side but they make a perfectly ordered rotation).

The only missile troops I use, ever, anymore, is Rhodian slingers. And that's only because I like slings (and it says something that I can afford to have fun flinging stones to peoples' helmets and listening for the "t'clong", right in the middle of battle and win to tell the tale).

Even cavalry is redundant, as long as you play defensive. And, as it has been pointed out, if you play with the Greeks, you should. Even as you slowly work your way to an imperialistic orgy, you still can play defense- just don't attack your enemies' armies. Siege their settlements, so that they have no choice but to sally forth or send troops from outside. At which point, you 're the defender and all you need to do to win the game is pick your high ground, arrange your phalanx in a wide horseshoe and wait for the enemy army to charge you, then rout themselves silly ... hey, it happens to all men...

Erm... OK, on a second thought, do keep a few cavalry units behind your phalanx line. It will really speed the game up. And it's hard to mop up routers with a phalanx...

Oh. And something else... Thracian mercs. The ones with the romphaeae... I never got around to using them yet, but they look cool. They can play the varanguian guard for your phalanxs' Byzantian infantry. The Greeks can really use a good shock troop.

:charge: {Woooo! Look at me, I 'm the Greek Cavalry!!!}

:duel: {Go away! Can't you see we 're in the middle of something??!!}

There. Hope you found it enlightening enough...

In my game i managed to hold on to Sciliy (thx to a little luck ) but lost asia minor to the Pontus as i brought my rhodes troop to the balkans :/

because of that i'm not making that much progress, though i did finally manage to secure sciliy for myself and is slowly pushing north on the balkans (very slow... havn't even taken back Athens yet though i did take the Macidonian city north east of Thermon.)

I think it is wise to either evacuate Asia minor or Sicily... personally I think you should evacuate asia minor instead of sciliy because the Pondus or Seleucid will not likely become super power house usually but the Scipili will if they secure sciliy fast.

You will need to kill the Romans fast obviously....

Milita cav are acturally quiet strong ... espically early on when no one is running around with many archers... they can destroy must infantry on their own.

I think later on if u don't wan to mass merc just mass onager+Archer+ hoplits :P.

Hello, I am a Greek and I am not wealthy.

But how can this be?? The story follows...

Well, actually, I've become very poor in my 2nd Greek campaign on H/H. My first was M/M, and in that I was making more money than Zeus and basically rolling over all opposition to spread Stoicism across the world. (It must be so, for Ariston to go out of his way to place a pop-up about his philosophy... RITE?)

I suppose part of the reason is because of v1.2, which takes away the option to sell your pretty little map to other factions for thousands.

I started out my H/H Greek campaign just like my M/M one, immediately storming Corinth and pissing off (and only) the Macedonians on the first turn. By turn 3 I have taken the city, and immediately after Macedon calls for a ceasefire, which was unexpected and I accept. This gives me time to prepare the attack on the rebel city of Athens.

Meanwhile, Sicilly is quiet as the factions there wait in the calm before the storm. And exactly like my M/M game, Carthage is the first to break the peace, and lamentedly, as before they choose to attack me instead of the Scipii. Lamentedly for them, that is. They attack at the worst possible time: After I had built the next level of barracks to obtain regular

Hoplites, but before they themselves have any reliable artillery or missiles. And my lively Syracusean governor has managed to find a band of Cretan Archers while he was out strolling in the woods. With the incredible courage born to the Sons of Helen, I drive out the invaders, after the Carthaginians run the gauntlet of my walls. And arrow towers. And burning oil. And missile fire coming down long narrow roads.

The single greatest difference that v1.2 has made for this campaign so far is that the Hoplite is nerfed. Perhaps it is the higher difficulty from Medium, but even from the front, a charge will make the Hoplites buckle initially, before (and if) they push back and reform the line. They don't creep sideways as much, and they are far less powerful and take longer to beat an enemy unit in front. No more neat lines of dead! They are also now highly vulnerable on the move. If the hoplites are attacked while moving, even from the front, the front ranks will engage with swords, BUT you can tap the Halt key and they will switch to spears and grind away at the enemy as per normal. The deep formation actually works now, because a long thin one will immediately crumple, or they will all switch to swords (typically, if the hoplites can't hold off the enemy with spears only, the first rank will switch to swords but their buddies in the back will keep poking with their spears). I actually like the nerfing, it makes it all seem more natural for some reason. They are still formidable from the front like always, only now they aren't super humans at it. I've lost whole units of hoplites, surging them through broken walls and gates, where previously they could be relied upon to pin the defenders down while the archers do their work and I pile the infantry through the breaches. But, ah, such is war.

In the East, efforts are made to turn Pergamum into a military complex in anticipation of expansion in that direction. I gain an alliance with Pontus but it is not so easy with the Selucids. I take the bother of getting my general off Rhodes and into Halicarnassus because it is hard to be lively on a small island. In my M/M game, Pontus and Selucia went to war, but in this one the Selucids attack Halicarnassus, and fail.

Meanwhile, a few hundred rebels appear around Apollonia after I eventually take that city. My first impulse is to crush the upstarts, then I scout the rebels and saw that they were comprised of Greek units, and in particular, 3 whole units of heavy peltasts. I splurge to get them, and they prove handy later when I march towards Thessalonica and a full stack of Macedonians comes to meet me on open ground. In my previous games, I never used skirmishers, a preference retained from Shogun and

Medieval, but after reading so many good things about them in Rome, I decided that I had to use a few of them at least. I've decided that skirmishers like peltasts are good to have if you have nothing better. They can do heaps of carnage if they throw their javelins into a flank or rear, but that sort of opportunity doesn't come by often. Apparently, the speed with which they fire is demoralizing; a few volleys into an enemy that's pinned down by hoplites is often enough to rout them.

They're the fastest moving infantry, so they are handy for chasing the routing enemy from the field. Thessalonica is as good as mine, and the Macedonians were kind enough to build it up for me. But then, in a huge upset, Pontus breaks the alliance and attacks Pergamum, because, I think, I had accidentally wandered into its territory while exercising my governor. But still...!

With regards with the Scipii in Sicilly, I had hoped that they would stay neutral and keep being nice trading partners (thus, with SPQR and the other 2 Roman families as well). History repeats itself and the Scipii come for Syracuse, instead of the surely weakened Carthagianians, a move that reeks of spite rather than logic. Like my M/M game, I am forced to go to war with the Romans early while having to contend with Carthage, only this time there is Pontus and Selucia as well. But the saga is far from over. THRACE tries to invade Thessalonica, so by the mid-260s I am at war with NINE factions including Rebels. On the plus side, Gaul has become my ally. WHOOPEE! I've never played the Selucids, but it sure feels like I'm playing them. In my M/M game, the Macedonians perished at my hand by this time, and Thrace was probably gone or dying, and I would surely have been sailing for the Romans.

And then the volcano erupts. I had completely forgotten about that. I lose an emissary (will of the Gods, eh?) but soon afterwards, Messana becomes mine.

In the East, things do not go smoothly for me. Pergamum becomes a place where it takes forever to get anything done, rather then my envisioned shining city of hoplites, all thanks to Pontus coming around every now and then to say hello with whole stacks of armies. Instead, Halicarnassus is relatively peaceful because eventually I realized there is a bridge there that can hold off the Selucids with a relatively small force. But by then Halicarnassus is well into economy mode.

The time is around 258. The 9 factions at war with Greece have started going neutral or allying with one another and I dread what's coming next: war on all fronts. I had also completely forgotten about the plague, which starts in Thessalonica around this time and brings things there to a standstill. Sicilly is totally mine, conquered by one general and his sons (I lose a general in Lilybaeum to a charge gone wrong). In my M/M game, I would be rolling over the Romans, to wage war with the Gauls, now, I am struggling to build an economy. I am earning about 10k a turn, which is gone in a flash, and there is also the problem of naval blockades, which take place more often with v1.2. I plan on holding off Macedon and Thrace around Thessalonica, to invade either the Romans or Carthage. I need to enslave largish populations to pump up Syracuse and Sparta to large cities (Syracuse is ahead!) and then I can reap the benefits of Spartan Hoplites. The tale continues...

As a last word, I think the Greek strategy is rather ironically symbolized by its flag, the lightning bolt. Greece's collection of Hoplites are the slowest things on the field, and their cavalry are sadder than the Romans (somewhat moot
because the Romans have historically incorrect powerful cavalry in this game) and the barbarians. Their battlefield tactics emphasize close infantry action, and an advancing battle line, with missile support. Well, I suppose this is true for nearly all factions in general, but Greeks in particular because this is all they can do, and do WELL. Another thing is that you need a rock solid economy going. There are 3 classes of archer; short-ranged skirmishers, units with regular range, and the long range ones. It seems that the Greeks get their long range units long before any other of the factions, through Cretan Archers, which populate all of their starting territories. But because they are mercs, they are expensive. And because of the nature of the hoplite, hoplite armies are incredibly weak on the flanks. The majority of my casualties are from flanking cavalry. So, while the Greeks plod around on the tactical field, on the campaign map they need to be FAST. Whether you use spies or siege equipment, the Greeks need to take the cities as quickly as possible. On open ground they present their weaknessses, but in cities they are unbeatable. I've played Julii, Germania, Britannia, but only the Greeks I've enjoyed so much that I'm doing them twice.

So, like the cockney Greek General says: Now is the time for Greek courage! And always remember: Front Towards Enemy!

While Rome wasn't built in a day, Greece can be. I've been playing RTW for about a month now and having beat it once as the Greeks in version 1.1 by year 246, I decided to give it my all to win this game as quickly as possible without cheating. I used no mods and nothing that would be considered cheating. Many times I saved and reloaded, many times I exploited AI weaknesses and flaws, and through it all I only become more and more cheap as far as my victorys went, but it was all legal. My goal was to win in 40 turns or before 250 BC. I actually won by 257 BC.

On to the fun stuff. Here is a map of the direction I took and what year I reached each city.

Final Map

If you want to see my little journal that I was writing while going through this campaign, check out this site.

Journal

This was all in good fun and I must say I really enjoyed it. I think that it can still be done faster by at least 3 or 4 turns, but I'm not going through that hell again. I spent about 45 minutes to an hour per turn just analyzing everything and going through the battles.

I also want to note that I don't think that any other faction could beat the game as fast as the Greeks are capable of. The Seleucids and Egyptians are probably the next fastest, but I'd say the Greeks have the upperhand due to how spread out they are.

I hope some of you Greeks out there are able to get some use out of this!

As the greeks, the news isn't too good...
1.you start with 5 cities but sepeated in 3 different fronts, non of them are connected save by sea.

2. on all 3 front you are in a 3 way brawl, and on all 3 front you are in the weakest position with little hope of reinforcement anytime soon.

3. your army is vanillia and outdated, you have a one purpose infantry line up, one of the crappiest calvary line up and mediocare at best archery and skrimish line up, the only thing above par is your seige line up. your army is highly defensive in nature.

There are some good news though.
1. you start with rhodes and pretty much any province you own or will own have ports too, meaning you will be pretty good in the money department as long as you can keep ur trade open.

2. you will get seiged a lot, but luckily ur hoplits are extremely good at seige defense. and the AI is extremely retarded in seige assults. (and defense too) you also start with stone walls on ur most dangerous province Syracuse, while u can capture Athens fast which also has a stone wall.

3. wether intentional or not, the hoplits are acturally better than their supposed superior pike counter parts in most sense. as long as you manage to keep them from being flanked they will carve their way through pretty steep odds.

Now, you can choose to give up one front asap, or you can try stay on all 3 front, either way ur first priorty should be acquiring Athens and Cornith to secure ur foothold on the balkans. I highly suggest capturing Athens first, reason being i rather have Cornith jammed between Sparta and Athens then tring to take Athens while the Macedonians counterattack me.Taking Athens before u get into war with Macedonian also mean u have a stone wall defense against any one trying to head south.

On Sciliy and Asia minor I highly suggest massing up at least 6-7 groups of miltia hoplits right off the bat, they will be able to deal with most seige assults for a while, on Sciliy do remember that Messina is on a time bomb to blow, you either take it really quick or you wait till the Volcano goes off before attacking. this sector will be quiet hard fought but luckily at least ur in a good situation to defend it.

After taking Cornith and Athens, i think focus on Sciliy is ur best move, the reason being that if you want to win on the Balkans, the best way to do it is probably by seiging the Brutties hometown and cut off their reinforcements. and securing Sciliy will give u a easy jump right onto the Bruttis heartland.

On Asia minor really take the chaces as they are Presented, it's a loooong way to fight but securing Sardis and Hellenisia will at least give u a relatively good foothold. the other factions there will kill each other eventrually, just make sure u don't become the first victim. if possible sue for peace with the Selucids and/or Egyptians as they are going to give u good trade.

btw Even the 'non-playable' factions can be made playable by editing a little text document.

As regards the Greeks, one word: Spartans

Those spartan hoplites are absolutely awesome! When everyone else is "tired" these supermen are "warmed up". I laughed out loud the first time I saw that.

It's a sad day when any one of these demi-gods die since any reinforcements are a long time coming. My present spartan unite is at 2 silver chevrons and are down to 68 men (of 80). 9 of those were lost taking the walls of rome, while the rest of the greek army waited outside...

At the start none will ally with you, but after taking two of the Macedon southern cities, Athens, Crete and the two western greek ones they've started to come around. Presently I'm allied with the gauls, dacians and seleucids and at peace with everyone else except Rome. My theory is that greece seems so weak initially that noone want to ally. Soon I'll be so strong that none will want to ally again, so I'm enjoying this respite.

Sicily is still split three ways, but luckily there have been no war with Carthage. They haven't even been at war with Rome!

Tactically the lack of cavalry is a huge problem. The best bet for a balanced army are probably Sarmatians, but they are a long way from your starting lands (you can get them in Pontus' starting lands though). Be wary of heavy cavalry turning your flanks - if that happens your only hope is a unit of Spartans nearby to turn the tide.

Greeks have a great starting position and capable of sustained expansion in all directions. Their economy can well afford it too.

All out blitz of Macedonians and Romans at start is the best. Beware of missile units though as they can maul your spartans from afar. Shield those form missiles and you are good.

Hoplites are also possibly one of the strongest melee unit at large town level. Patch 1.2 made them not quite as vulnerable to switching to sword combat.

Similarly, turning off phalanx make them as fast as other infantry so it's quite possible to flank with hoplites.

Greek cav just blow and lack of shock cav is the worst part. You are forced to use archer/hoplite combo instead although militia cav is good for chaisng routers, screening infantry advance, and general harassment duties.

I FIND THE BEST WAY IS TO GET AN ALLIANCE IN THE FIRST TURN OR SO WITH THE MACEDONIANS and then kick every one out of sicily and make it a huge production isle.
By this time the bruti or scipii will have invaded , with macedoians reppel them and in the same turn try to bribe someone into atackking the macedonians .
Now gather a army that you should have been building in sicily and invade capua, now split your the army from greece and attack both bruti citys.
Hopefully the macedonians r to busy fighting whon ever u bribed to bother u .Anyway as soon as you can assult all citys and keep a small garrison in the bruti towns and move the rest of the army north building forts on the way.This armys job is to hold up the juli.
Now the army in capua should resive renforcments from siicily and attack the senate. With an army full racked up and maybe more and with the juli being held up u should have no trouble in dealing with the senate.
Then just go north and mop up the remains of the juli. by this time the macedoins will have probaly attacked.If u have any armie left go north and round the aegean while if u have a army in sparta attack corith and move north.
u need athens for this to work as it stops the macedonians gettimg reinforce ments. theyll be in a sandwich.then when they have 1 place left offer cease fire and demand huge tribute. if they refuse attack and if they agee attack anyway.after that theres a whole world out there.





Maybe its time to rewrite history.

Sacking Corinth and getting the Statue of Zeus right away is a nice boost. Thessalonica can also become a hoplite factory quickly. Unified Greece is amazingly rich. You can easily take on the Romans and the Macedonians simultaneously while remaining defensive to the Carthaginians.

But katank, I find taking all of the Balkans early on quiet difficult, which is why I usually settle with just taking Athens and Cornith, and then try to gain a firm holding on all fronts first before making the Advance... I find that the best way to weaken the Brutties threat on the Balkan is simply (taking a hint from ur Carthage blitz strat) sail from sciliy to sack their home towns .

On another note, it is very important that you get trade rights with Egypt/Carthage and the Selucids, so you can acturally make use of ur trade bonus, also take Crete when you have some spare men or mone as it is a incrediable money machine once you get ports going. you probably will get into some trouble with the Selucids but you need their trade, espically since you probably wont' be trading with the Romans or Macedonians any time soon, sue for peace with Carthage and Selucids ASAP after taking Sardis and Sciliy.

The balkans are not that bad to take. You can beat Brutii to Apollonia and siege Corinth on the first turn. Ignore Athens and go straight for Larissa and then Thessalonica. With Pergamum force, push for Nicomedia and then Byzantium if Thrace didn't take it already. Rhodes can sit pretty and ship slingers to Italy or take Halicarnassus.

Carthaginian blitz type strategy is good as Italy is often poorly defended but without elephants, it's not as effective. Conventional warfare to sack Messena first is probably better.

Pump out hoplite and use some militia cav to screen infantry advances. Hoplites should have phalanx off unless responding to imminent threat. Take out enemy archers (Macedonians start with 2, Julii and Scipii each with 1) at all costs to save your spartans. Also consider using militia hops as fodder so your more expensive hoplites don't end up being pila fodder.

I now know greece is not that hard to play at all. Im 15 years in got a good hold on Asia minor and will hopefully in the next few turns take the final scipii land on Scily. Luckly for all you greek players even on vh/vh the a.i still charges at your pikes if you get close enough. Try to get rid of the romans quick once they are post marius your dead. Still woried when egypt will come knocking on my door mind. :duel: ~D :bow:

PM Romans aren't that amazing. They're not unbeatable but I know there is reason to be worried, just remember, they aren't unbeatable.

I'm in a tough stalemate with the PM Scipii at the moment.

A new tatic i have tried is beat the roman armys with smaller more powerful ones. I went into a battle with 6 armoured hoplites 1 archers and a 1 generel. The romans then tend to get cockey and just through everything at you. Only to realize half way through they should of tried going round the back and flankinf. But hey by that time there to demorolized and peg it.

Hey tibilicus, 250 posts and still a junior member??? ~:eek: I'm shocked.

Anyway, as a response to the topic, the Romans tend to be very cocky/stupid (i prefer stupid) and when I faced them they let me pound them with missile cav before they made a move.

This is me, establishing my presence here and awaiting the arrival of IliaDN and Franconicus. Let the Greeks begin world conquest soon!

I think I will start this camaign by the end of the week! ~:) ~:cheers:

Good to see you Ilia! Start soon! I've already started--from the ultimate in mobility to the ultimate in static warfare! What a change :-D It's going to take me some time to get used to not having any more HA to play around with. And hoplite-hoplite battles are just plain tiring. *yawn*

I've gone on Turn 1, and already Messana has a Greek army on its doorstep, while Corinth has been besieged. I'm not attacking the Scipii, because I'm waiting for them to attack. Hoplite defensive square works wonders at this point in time in the game :-D Meanwhile I'm building up every city except Sparta with basic hoplite facilities, Pergamum will launch attacks on the rebels once it gets its first standard hoplite unit...

Anyone know what to do with Rhodes' army? I'm currently envisioning its army (when built up) heading for Kydonia-Cyrene-Leptis Magna-Thapsus-Carthage, with my Rhodes navy... but I keep getting this nagging feeling it's supposed to be used for more than that.

Was even thinking of a surprise attack on Egypt, but that's just me being insane--Hoplites? against archers and archers? Heh.

Umm...this is way too weird and I was wondering if anyone has ever seen it before. I'm playing my third campaign with the 1.2 patch, this time as the Greek Cities. I press "End Turn" in the winter of 248 BC and the Brutii settlement of Segestica -- which they had left ungarrisoned -- automatically gets transferred to my faction, as if the Greek inhabitants have thrown a rebellion without any encouragement from myself. No bribing or anything -- in fact, I haven't even sent a boat, a diplomat or a spy to that region of the map.

Not only do I inherit this free settlement, but it also comes stock with its own small army -- specifically six full militia hoplite platoons and six full peasant platoons, all with an Experience of 3, Gold Shield Armor Upgrades, and Silver weapons upgrades; I'm not even able to provide these same upgrades to new units at my other settlements at this point in the game.

I have gone back a few turns to make sure I didn't inadvertantly accept a proferred territory in exchange for trade rights or something ridiculous like that, and nothing like that has apparently happened. Yet it consistently gives me Segestica on the same year.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this is simply too weird. Does anyone know what's going on here?

I think I may. It seems that each settlement has a 'founder' line in the descr_strat file. It might have something to do with that, though it's only a hunch. Perhaps you want to see if Segestica's founder is the Greek Cities. If it is, then it probably means there's a time trigger built in somewhere into the game where an ungarrisoned settlement owned by someone else will revert to the founder at a certain date. Sort of like Macedonia founding Cyrene. If it has nothing to do with that, then I can't help you. Meanwhile, enjoy your new units, with their nice upgrades they will be very useful for you.

[QUOTE=pezhetairoi]"Anyone know what to do with Rhodes' army? I'm currently envisioning its army (when built up) heading for Kydonia-Cyrene-Leptis Magna-Thapsus-Carthage, with my Rhodes navy... but I keep getting this nagging feeling it's supposed to be used for more than that. "
Maybe to use it against Pontus and Selucid Empire?
Think I will join you tommorow.By the way what are your campaign settings ( difficulty and unit scale)?

I'm playing hard huge, as is my usual practice... just to get the hang of it... are you on vh?

I came to your conclusion this morning in the middle of a history lecture, so i'm shifting Rhodes' army to join the one in Pergamum once I reinforce it with another unit or two of militia hoplites. I'm going to capture all the rebels in Asia, then cross to Byzantium.

How about you conquer half of Asia Minor and then send your Pergamum army up to Getae, take that and then meet up with an Aegean army at Tylis, the Aegean army will have just taken Byzantium. And you should own all of Aegean lands. That would be my plan, don't know if it would work well.

I'm starting this campaign tonight or tomorrow night.

Hey, Craterus what will be your settings for this campaign:
difficulty/unit scale.

M/M Large probably

Maybe h/m

I'm planning on my usual war on all fronts, the Sparta army destroys Macedonia while my Asia Minor army remains in or near Asia Minor... for me I wouldn't send the AM army so far north, leaving Pergamum etc open for Pontus (I don't expect the Seleucids to be attacking yet). I'll take Byzantium, and retreat back to Asia Minor, leaving it as bait for Thrace to retake so that my Aegean army can defeat their armies in the field. Then their settlements will be easy. I want to lure them out of the towns where my hoplites aren't quite so good.

Took Corinth and Messana yesterday in Turn 3, the Scipii are already defanged since they lost half their family members and half their cities but Carthage seems to have some designs on Syracuse so once I turn Sicily white and red (the colours of my Singapore flag! ^_^) I'll turn on the Brutii, so they won't do anything to my Aegean posessions.

Asia Minor army is now merging en route to Nicomedia. The last time I tried to take it with just 2 MH and my pergamum general their 1 MH and 1 Thracian mercs completely took them apart in the confusion of battle, so I shall go at them with many many more MH this time. And 1 hoplite unit, too. AND merc hops.

I'm developing Sparta into an AHop factory, and Thermon will have facilities for building basic hoplites before I turn it into an archer factory. Larissa has stables, I know, so I'll turn it into a Greek Cavalry production city. And there! A triumvirate of soldier cities. I have decided that Rhodes will just gear up to invade Kydonia later, with 2 hoplites and 3 biremes. Hopefully I can get a MOTH there.

I've been learning a lot with Greece, it's a very different experience from the German phalanxes, because they are currently weaker. I was fighting a sally battle at Messana, with the two late aforementioned Scipii family members, and they just broke through my four-ranks-deep hoplites and routed them with a charge. Alright, one of them was the faction heir, fine, but my German phalanxes, when I had played them, were capable of withstanding two general units on one without breaking, without my general behind them.

Also, some observations on the general. Greek bodyguards seem crappier than the Roman ones... any truth in that? I tried a one-on-one with the Roman bodyguard, faction heir to faction heir, and mine lost even though we were both charging straight at one another. Was totally disgusted and reloaded the battle.

Also, my Spartan hoplites, after assaulting the walls of Corinth (mein gott, not a single casualty in engaging the enemy hoplites! Freaky!) and coming down to the ground floor, did not seem to want to go back into phalanx, and also did not want to change their formation from loose back to 'tight' formation. The buttons were just blanked out. Why?

Greetings!
I have finally started Greek Cities campaign on VH/M , huge unit scale.
1 turn: I attack and defeat Scipii near Messana ( killing their both family members), some enemies managed to retreat;
I besiege Corinth and Larrissa and Messana;
In the several next turns I took those cities bribed nearby carphaginians and kill several Scipii and Brutii armies landed on Sicily;
When I came to Appolonia I found out that it is still rebel (Brutii instead of taking it it sent their troops to Sicily!)
Also I had besieged Athens.
Now when Selucids are at war with Egypt I plan to take Halicarnassus(don't remember the right spelling of this name) and their province in Asia Minor;
Also I besieged Tarentium with my family leader spartans 1 unit of hoplite and 1 unit of cretan archers.

Hi friends,

I see you could not wait any longer. All right, I try to join you asap.

I have one suggestion:
1. Should we open a new thread. I fear we are spamming this one!
2. Why not play with the same setup. I like hard/hard/large best.
3. Maybe everybody can explain his innitial plan?

Hi friend.
1. About new thread - maybe we can do one in colluseum?(or the Entrance Hall);
2. I prefer VH/M , because I don't like enemy's soldiers be stronger than mine just because of difficulty level, huge unit scale is just interesting in strategic option;
3. I have already smashed macedonians and Brutii other romans and selucids are to follow them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pezhetairoi

Also, some observations on the general. Greek bodyguards seem crappier than the Roman ones... any truth in that? I tried a one-on-one with the Roman bodyguard, faction heir to faction heir, and mine lost even though we were both charging straight at one another. Was totally disgusted and reloaded the battle.

---

your impression isn't wrong. I daresay Greek (Macedonian, Thracian etc.) general bodyguards are the weakest in the game because of their stats: unimproved ones have 12 attack and 9 charge (just as Romans), but only 10 defence compared to the Romans' 14. Barbarian ones go at 13-9-13, I think. This is quite annoying since decent general's cavalry would be particularly useful to the Greeks with respecct to their otherwise crappy cavalry --- family members still are the best, but they tend to be unreliable. I once lost a general in a flank charge into a decimated unit of principes involved in a heavy fight with two hoplite units.... just use them way more careful than you would other gens.

a complete stat list of all units (also improved and unimproved gens) is accessible: http://www.totalwar.co.kr/rome/

JUst to let you all know, I haven't started a Greek campaign because I thought I'd play on my strengths a bit. Cavalry. Instead of a phalanx/crap cav faction (Greeks), I've gone for a phalanx-good cav faction. Yes, that's right. MACEDON!!!

It was a hard choice between Spartans and Companions, but I concluded to go for the decent cavalry option, balance it out a bit. Royal Pikemen are almost as good as Spartans anyways.

Well some things about my plan:
1. Leave Thrace to be in Campus Getae as my protectorate ( to protect me from Skythia;
2. Conquer Italy and Asia Minor ( now I am struggling there against Pontic armies);
3. To achive total dominance on Balkans.

Greeks won't do very well against Scythian HA's at all.I'd try to leave a good bit of space between you and them.

But then again, I've never battled against Scythian AI.

Abut Skythia I have one idea:
I think you remember city with amazons which is situated North from Skythia I wish to conquer it , because it have temple of Aphrodite , and maybe it would be possible to train them there while playing for Greeks.

Train what there? I found the Amazon area to be very buggy, but I conquered it. While I was assaulting the city, a grey cloud kept covering the screen. I lost a good amount of men because of that.

Train amazons.

How do you train Amazons?

Have just conquered Themiskyra in my Scythian campaign, and chariots would be a cool break off from those HAs.