A bit of help with Eprius?

[raenor]

Epirus is one of my fav factions to play. It was the first faction I ever played in EB back in 0.8x cant remember which one exactly.

Usually when I start a campaign with them is to destroy everything in Taras and give it to the Romani, try and trade it for ceasefire/trade rights/minai. This is easier to do seeing as there is no FM there anymore. I also disband my navy and the Illyrian cavalry in my two mainland cities. Keep the elephants for now, they are very useful for taking down wooden walls early on.

I also take Pella in the first turn using the elephants. After that you need to consolidate the rest of mainland Hellas. To do this effectively you need to destroy the Makedonians field army, if you are good at field battles then this shouldnt be too much of a challenge, though if you are worried you can either try and trap them in Demetrias (sp?) or if you're lucky get them to siege Pella with your army inside. Once you have taken Demetrias and destroyed the Makendonian army you can probably disband your elephants as they are a big drain on your economy.

Some campaigns I get lucky and I see the Maks and Koinon duke it out for a few turns and reduce each others armies a bit before I have to tackle them.

As for armies MAA said it well, basically a successor army but with a few more heavy inf than the rest. Usually my armies consist of a solid core of phalanxes, usually Phalangitai Deutoroi (sp?) as their AoR is widespread, a few Pezhetaroi and one or two Chaonion Agema. Then I usually base my flanks on Thorakitai with one Theurophoroi (sp?) on each flank for flavour and to envelop the enemy. As for cavalry I quite like Thrakioi Podromoi (sp?) and also the Lonchorphoroi Hippeis (sp?) as they are fairly cheap and a very sexy unit. For missiles I just use a mix of slingers/archers, whatever the best you can get your hands on, recruit the Cretan mercs as they are the best archers around for you.

As for regionals good places to get decent ones close to you are the two regions above Pella and Byzantium, Serdike and argh I cant remember the other one, starts with a T! Anyways either of those are good places to pump out regionals for your armies.

Other than that just remember to destroy the foreign Govts when you take a town like MAA said and build economy buildings to make more money, mines are a must, always build the 1st tier mines everywhere you can!

Good luck with your Epirus campaign they are a great faction to play, lead Pyrrhus to the victory he deserved!

[gamegeek2]

Got a good Epeiros campaign going, see 1.1 AI progression.

Take out Makedonia and KH mainland provinces ASAP. After that, consolidate your empire and expand northward into the Thracian and Illyrian provinces, which are packed full of mines and excellent Thracian regional units. Scourcouw is particularly valuable, build a Lv. 4 government there.

The Mines in Pella and Dalminion are particularly profitable, though many other mines in the general area are above average in production. All mines are good anyways. Build them, set up a good trade network, and you'll be swimming in cash soon enough, able to finance many fullstacks.

[retep219]

Thanks a lot for the advice, guys.

Right now on my campaign:

I played med/med because I'm a total EB noob. I took Pellas with my elephants, disbanded them, and then marched south to Demtrius. Took it with some help from my spy...=D. Then, the Konion Hellion decided to bottle up the passes north of Athens, preventing me from getting to Attica, Euboea, or the Pelopennusus. (sp?) So right now I've just besieged Athens. Speaking of problems:

1. I really can't afford to replace any gov. buildings.
2. I can't retrain troops using Makedon buildings, we do not share barrack MIC's. (Though we do share foreign native MIC's, so I can atleast make and retrain those hoplite thingies)
3. I can't make elephants (Ok...just kidding. When can I make more of these though?)
4. Italy. My army is just sitting there, looking useless, because the Romani do nothing and I couldn't afford to keep my fleet around. Should I just ignore it and leave until later?
5. Those MIC's are too expensive. For that matter, all trade buildings are too expensive. At least I'm not in debt...yet. (2 denarii, with a profit of about 400 a turn) I hope Athens and Euboea will get my some money...

[Maion Maroneios]

Glad to hear you're having fun

1. Then don't, at least not until you get some decent income
2. You already figured that out, so destroy every Makedonian MIC, but not the native ones
3. Well, you actually train them. Anyway, you have to build a lvl 5 MIC, IIRC (the highest one)
4. I don't quite get you. Do you have an army sitting there and not knowing what to do with it, or is there a Romani army that looms outside of Taras? In the first case, just leave enough for a decent garrison and disband the rest. In the second one, train some units to do the same and let them come
5. If you start making money, you'll have no problem with building costs, believe me. When you conquer southern Hellas, you will soon swim in money

Hope this proved helpful,
Maion

[retep219]

An Italien clarification:

I have a fairly worthless army and a level I MIC in that Italian city. Sitting right on top of me are three pedites extrodenarii and a couple of triarii who are content to do absolutely nothing. Needless to say, I have no idea what to do. For one, why are the Romans just sitting there?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

As far as money goes, when playing EB you'll need to disband some/most of your armies/navies or conquers several settlements right off the bat. If you don't plan on holding Taras or invading Italia soon, that would be a good place to disband troops at.

[machinor]

Regarding elephants... you can train Elephantes Indikoi with lvl 5 factional MIC in your capital (and only there). If you have Athens, you should easily make enough money. Try to get a peace treaty with the Seleucids als they are a good trading partner in the Aigian Sea. You can also make peace with both KH and Makedonia and let them fight over the Peloponnes, like a sandbox experiment. :D
I personally am an Italian interventionist, so I always try to keep Taras and bring over an army from Hellas to Italy as soon as possible. Rhegion is one hell of a cashflow province since it already has completely built up mines (!!!) plus a good position for sea trade. When I successfully have Southern Italy under my control I usually expand into Sicily and take Syrakousai. After having achieved that, I usually have a nice Central Mediterranian Empire from where I can easily expand in every direction since I have a lot of provinces where I can train fairly good units (the phalangitai deuteroi are THE best compromise in the phalanx-section as far as cost/effectiveness goes) and which produce quite some revenue through mines and sea trade.

Man, I already feel like starting an Epeiros capaign right away. I love those green guys! :)


P.S.: Regarding units... use Illyrian Cavalry. They are reliable medium cavalry who do quite ok for their money with a fair charge and more important AP axes (!!) for close combat. Get them into close combat with other horsies and they'll chop down about every other cavalry in the region. They were the bane of the Romans in my Italian rampages. :) Retraining them can be a bit tricky if you're far away from your home provinces, though.

[retep219]

Thanks a lot for the advice! Right now, Athens is under siege. Judging from vanilla, it should benefit be greatly. My main Italian problem is that I can't afford a fleet...700 a turn in upkeep will put me in the red. (I disbanded my starting fleet and elephants so that I wouldn't go bankrupt) I'll try to hold on there...the Romans seem to enjoy doing nothing. As soon as I can get a fleet....well...at least my capital starts with a level II MIC. Should be helpful.

Two questions:

1. Who are the Yuezhi? I see them in signatures everywhere, but they are not a faction.
2. Are mines worth it? In vanilla mines cost 2000 for level I, 3500 for level II, and made only 350 denarii a turn.

[Conradus]

In vanilla mines were pretty cheap and you earned your investment back in 10-15 turns. Level one mines in EB cost about 8000 (or 14000? mnai) but they can earn you about 1500 a turn. Level two mines are only really usefull if you have a lot of cash already. They're very expensive, but double your income. If you're Epiros you're better of first conquering all those balkantowns with mines before upgrading your mines to lvl 2

And the Yuezhi used to be a faction, but they've been replaced by the Saka faction. They still are a nasty suprise somewhere in the 100ish BC when a couple of fullstack horse archers appear on the edge of the map.