Forest battles are one of the biggest "issues" I have with this game. Here I am, cruising along and I meet a Greek/Roman army. . . I attack them, and the battlescreen loads up a. . . FOREST? No Greco-Roman commander would deploy his army in a bloody forest! I've fought against successor states in forests. The only battle a pike/cavalry army would ever fight in a forest is one in which they were being ambushed. Same with the Romans. The command and control problems presented by fighting in forested areas would preclude any "large" battles being fought there. No classical-age commander would willingly fight a battle where he could not possibly know what the bulk of his army was doing.

Forests determined the size and shape of many classical battlefields. If they thought an advantage could be gained, commanders would align their army such that the forest guarded one (or both) of their flanks.