KH vs Macedon AI question

[Unintended BM]

The AI situations in Greece are always screwy for me. As KH, you can easily attack Korinth with no trouble from the giant stack. With Makedonia, Pyrhhos almost never attacks Pella, he always goes back to Epirus. As Epirus, no one does anything. I've played a game where I sent Pyrhhos and the starting armies to Italy, and no one ever bothered Ambrakia or Epidimanos for many, many years. It seems to work slightly better when the player isn't one of those three factions.

[ximxim]

Playing as the KH, is there any way to preserve Makedonia as a decent power without stifling your expansion in other directions? Since the early situation is so precarious I always find myself blitzing them and they wind up with that single region in asia minor. I suppose you could let them keep Pella and expand by boat...

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Makedonia can convert into a 'Pergamon' power in Anatolia if they are driven out of Greece.

[Duguntz]

in my present Sweboz campaing, Makedonia were left on their small island near anatolia. with the income bonus, they built full stack after full stack, and when i wanted to take a screenshot of my empire, I did toggle_fow, only to discover that five Mak fullstack are completly obliterating Pontos, and Maks are now a well established 'pergamon' empire... plus, the city north of pella just revolted to them and there's one full stack outside plus the garrison (also full stack), give them a good chance to give a try for their old capital... i just love the situation! Maks in anatolia, in great strengh, koinon helenon expanding on the islands...

[Madoushi]

In my Makedonia game, I expected to lose Pella, so I sold off most of the buildings and units inside.

So of course, instead of assaulting it, Epiros came down and besieged Demetrios.

So I got to keep Pella, which was now losing me money, and I had to throw everything I had at Demetrios to keep it from falling.

Epiros has it pretty easy, you can lose Taras and it's no big deal. Makedon has it tougher, you need to take either Athens or Sparta fairly quickly.

KH has for me a nightmare scenario; if you lose either the battle at Krete and/or the battle at Chalkis you basically have to money cheat, migrate or give up.

[J.R.M]

Luckily the battle at krete is pretty easy, as far a i remember (havent played in a while) the AI never uses its cretan archers to kill my levy hoplites or kill some of my spartan bodyguards, so its just about using your crets to shoot down their hoplites behind the walls and win with relative ease, all thx to those Spartans, they can do marvels at the beggining of KH camp.
Oh! i almost forgot the spy u start with, if ur lucky the gates are magically opened for u in DA 1st turn, sweet.

[satalexton]

Levy Hoplites can stand against pretty much anything, so long they're facing the right direction. They are an early game saver. I once did a migration which I gave all my holdings to Eperios and Makedonia, and traded for Taras. Just using Levies and Spartans, I managed to sack Barbaropolis within 15 turns. The battles were epic, the losses were great, but the sheer steadfastness of hellenic ethos and their burning hatred of the barbaroi granted me 3 herioc victories and nailing their last FM when Barbaropolis was taken...