Enlighten me

[Dayve]

I beg to differ.
I don't think Alexander set out to conquer half the known world with an army of levies.

Look at the battle of Gaugamela, both sides used their elites. Darius recruited the best of his cavalry from the satrapies under his command, Indian elephants and the dreaded scythed chariots (well, we know what fate those had).

The macedonian army had its elite phalangites, 7000 [by some estimates] of Alexander's best cavalry (with some Thracian and Thessalian mercenary units) and the man himself leading his guards. Parmenion and his elites on the other side of his army.

Also, you have to keep in mind... some of those battles numbered 50 to 200 thousands on each side. In RTW you can have roughly 4000 for each. Not much room for levies and arrow fodder in this kind of an army.

And Vasiliyi, thanks for sharing that with the rest of us. Takes guts to admit a defeat like that (especially with Maion around to rubb it in your face later... don't mind him, he's just a kid with a crush on a whole faction =P).

Then Rome should use it's most elite forces, Marian legions and re-inlisted veterans so that their units are on par with the Macedonian units, stats wise. Also Rome should be given extra units to use, because Macedonian mainline infantry have 240 men per unit as opposed to Rome's 160, even though the Macedonians units have better stats.

I should also point out that all Macedonia could ever throw at Rome were rabble, and were utterly brushed aside like a light sweat on ones forehead. So if you want to make this a realistic "once and for all" battle, your Macedonian army should reflect the fact that it has been at constant war with its every neighbour for half a millennium and was in a state of stagnation and decay in this period, and should thus be composed of mostly levies and led by incompetent drunkard who think that the phalanx is a practical offensive weapon without decent mobile infantry support.