EB Noob Queries

[Korlon]

In my roman wars I was putting similar number of classic hoplites up against equally mixed hastati/principe and I could barely win battles and took huge losses, my tried and true pin and pincer tactics only just worked well enough to just pull out the victories. I compared their stats and granted they were better but it wasn't a huge disparity between units. Is this game that much harder than RTW (like are enemies getting massive morale bonuses or what?) or are my starting units just the shite i thought they were.

If you are actually do pin and pincer tactics, make sure the pinners have guard mode on. They won't push against the enemy, meaning they'll be moved back a little, plus their stamina suffers very little, sometimes still being fresh a long time into the fight. Nothing different than vanilla from this. Also, you do know that spears get an automatic -4 attack against other infantrymen and +8 against cavalry?

2nd question, government. Havn't even touched this yet in my game. Is keeping the existing Macedonian or Roman governments intact wrong? Will they govern any better in terms of happiness (from my readings i gather i'll have access to a larger building tree, better trade, etc when implementing my own)? I assume its logically like they are my subjugated allies but if i destroy a government building to impose one of my forms, will the settlement come to a screeching halt as i wait for the new government to be built? Will i be able to recruit the same units/any units during that time? will all the buildings i built under the old government become obsolete?

Always destroy governments that are not yours. It's a roleplaying aspect that EB expects you to do. Do not build buildings if the government is not yours. Also note that any bonuses that may be shown in the building detail of a government other than yours don't actually give out those bonuses to factions than the one that actually owns it. Barracks should also be torn apart, both regional and native, unless you can use it.

Lastly the computer ai seemes to be doing very little in terms of fighting amongst themselves, KH and Macedon, Ptolomies and Seleucia, and the Aedui and Averni, and thats pretty much it. Is this to be expected? Will they start more as the game progresses? It was always one of my annoyances from RTW that the only really sustained campaigns run by the ai were against me, and maybe thats cause i'm really agressive (read:reckless) and piss everyone off, but I was hoping for a bit of ai infighting...

The game is pretty much made so that everybody moves slow, including you. Also, the AI, I believe, is set up so that taking over rebels is basically prioritized over fighting other factions if there are rebels bordering their provinces. This, coupled with the much stronger garrisons rebel settlements now carry, make them slow to move. But people usually say the rebel settlements will be taken once their generals die out. Without the general's command stars, the auto resolve makes it easier for the AI factions to take over the town.

The game's seemed to be set up so that you can expect Baktria and Ptolemy to be large powers east of the Bosphorus. The west is a little weirder.