The most powerful, balanced overall armies

[Cyclops]

Maybe its just my style but for me nothing rolls like the Macedonians.

From the lowest to the highest level they get well balanced armies and their elites are up there with anyone bar AS. I particularly like the Agrianes, but their cav is all good too, and the usual suite of cool diadochi pike and elites.

I find maco campaigns almost dull now, I just take a mouthful of my enemies and start chewing. There's enoyugh versatlity in their basic roster and regionals to battle anyone.

I think its a fair point made about the AS and I'd probably agree if I ever played them but I can honestly say they're the only faction I can't bring myself to start a campaign for. I'd rather be dead than Seleuc-ed.

[NeoSpartan]

From EB Multiplayer .81x I found several trends about Faction's strenghts and weaknesses, and interestingly a lot had to do with the budget you had to choose your army. (remember back then the Romani Cohorts imperatoria, Cohort Pretoria[sp] and Cohort Evocata were stronger than now).

From $10k to $20k
-Romani Polybian, Makedon, Ptolemoi, AS, Baktria, Epiros, Pontus, KH were very strong factions. They had an advantage due to having numerous troops with good armor, good moral and cheap cost. HOWEVER, cost limited the strength of their cavalry.

-Followed closely by the Getai. Suffereing due to lack of armor in many units.
-Followed by Romani Post Marian and Imperial. The higher cost of those units means that u have less men in battle, and ur cavarly is also weak.

-Here the Aedui/Arverni, Casse, Sweboz, Lusotana were at their weakest. Although they had large numbers of troops they were lightly armed, and all (exept the Sweboz) had OKis moral. So they took heavy casualties from javelings, and arrows. Also, because of the low $$ you could not train the more armored units, let alone train a good cavalry.

-We did not test HA factions but we did do a fight with them. From that I can say, HA could make a living hell out of Barbarians due to their lack of armor, mobility and ranged troops. Although the slingers are good, its hard to hit HAs when they do that circle. However, the others could stand up to the arrow barrage, especially post marian.


From $30k-$40k
-Here Romani Polybian shine as they can get really good Cavarly in decent numbers while still having a large strong infantry. (I lost 3 times in a row to them before MP died)

-KH, and Successors are still good.

-Post Marian and imperial get better as u can train more infantry. HOWEVER, your cavarly cannot stand up to anything the Gauls, Successor, and Polybians can throw at u.

-Carthege becomes good as u can now afford expensive pikes and good cavalry.

-Aedui/Arverni are now a force to recon with. With the new $$ you can mix in Neitos, Cornute(sp), Soldurus, and the dreadful Gaesatae! With ur light numerous troops AND you can also buy Helvetti phalanxes!!. Top it all with good Brenthim (sp) cavarly.
--I should not that the Gallic armies will always be short 2-3 units as you have to them up to afford Brenthim, Gaesatae and Neitos.
---The strenght of the Gauls lies is only killing ur forces enough so they get scare of the Gaesatae and rout thus severely weaking ur enemy. It is not uncommon to see Sammites, Thorakitai & Pezetaroi (sp) routing after ONLY suffering 45% casualties.

The Casse and AS can become really dangerous due to chariots as a good commander can have them take away the initiative of your cavalry wing, and force you to react to their movements. Also, a good commander will eventually tie you up and just have them hit the back of ur line/flank and cause uncontrollable routing. (I f*** hate chariots, I lost 3 battles to them before I figured them out)

Here we played a HA faction. They continue to be dangerous especially since they can afford good shock cavalry to add to the normal HA. HOWEVER to my astonishment a well armed cohesive infantry force can deal with them. Once the arrows run out they have to fight hand in hand. Hell I almost beat Parthia in MP with the remains of my Solduros, Neitos, Cornutes, Helvetii and 1 lonely General with 5 body guards.

Anything above 50K goes to AS in my book. Main reason, the Silver Shield pikes! So damn many, so damn strong, and backed up by Hetaroi, Agyrastidai (sp), and Cataphract, just forget it.

However... now might put Baktria next to them. Thanks to their super armored cataphracts, Pezetaroi and the Elite non-phalanks infantry (forgot their name).

Romani don't measure up due to their lack of cavalry. Barbarians get screwed as their elites are too few in number (60 Gaesatae against 120 Silver Shields). Maks, Epiros, Ptolemoi, and Carthege lack the strong cavalry wing.

Those are my conclusions fellas....

P.S and that is why I say: If you wanna test factions and units u gotta do MP. Custom comes close, but is not as good as MP. Let alone MP custom battles where u and ur buddy can test together without units doing stupid stuff. (as happens in Custom battles)

P.S.S and this is why I say that unit COST, and unit size is extremely relevant to comparing units!

[konny]

The best army has by far Karthago, because you can raise three different types of armies from her starting provinces:

1. A classical Hoplites army with their own Hoplites and the Greeks from Lilibeo, what is very powerfull in EB.

2. A Successor army with elite pikemen, African Theurophoroi and heavy cavalry from the core lands.

3. A Roman style army from Spain with light and heavy pila throwing shortsword-fighters, good skirmishers and cavalry of all classes.

Mix all three together with Numidian lights and Balearic slingers and you should be able to outclass your opponents.

[Meothar]

Konny, you could add

4. A Celtic army with Neitos and Naked Fanatics after you have conquered a base in Gaul (e.g. Tolosa). This seemed to be the strongest army I had as Carthage.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Carthies have a shining military of course, but not so good as the Mak one. I didn't play the Seleukids yet though.

The problem with the Carthies is that their Phalanx is extremely expensive while not as good as the regular Successor Phalanx. I employed a successor-style army myself playing them for my war in Egypt, and they tend to take quite a few losses.

The Carthaginian cavalry is very good, but not excellent. The Sacred Band Cavalry shines, but is outclassed by Hetairoi imo. Liby-Phoenician cavalry and citizen cavalry are good, but not as good as Thessalikoi or Prodromoi. The citizens are very slow! A disappointment for me personally are the Iberi Lanceari. They are extremely slow and are not very good in melee. From what I read in the description I think they deserve a little stat tuning.

The Iberian troops for Carthage do not impress me very much to be honest. They have the Loricati Scutari, which look cool, but are not so overall strong. They are not bad, and they hold the line, but they tend to take casualties easily. The Iberian Assault Infantry, I couldn't use them very much yet, but I don't understand why I can only construct them in my home territories. They are Iberian after all, aren't they? But I can't recruit them in Iberia. Why?

All over the western Med the Carthies get a very favourable unit roster to recruit. But as soon as you come to the east, there's nothing. You can't even recruit some Pantodapoi, or Militia Hoplites. That's a bit strange to me. And in Phoinike, the Phoenician homeland, you can't recruit anything at all (except artillery). Why?

Edit: I'm just curious about it, there's no criticism.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well if I am correct, and feel free to doubt me here because I do so myself, there is relatively more model sharing going on with the units/models the Carthies use than with most of the other factions. That is: nearly all units of Carthage are on a model used by another faction for a different unit as well - meaning: you can't have that different unit because it will look like your 'default' unit.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

You mean I can't recruit Militia Hoplites because they might use the same model as my Carthaginian Citizen Militia? But I can recruit Libyan Heavy Spearmen were I can recruit Libyan Spearmen - They both use the same model I think, that of Thureophoroi.