New to EB

[vartan]

Welcome to EB and more importantly to the community. There are a myriad of great contributors to be found here. Response times? phenomenal. Attitude? Lovely (most of the time). Hope you have a fun time playing EB. I play anywhere from M/M to VH/M depending on how intense a campaign I desire (syntax: campaign difficulty / battle diff).

[Unintended BM]

I almost always play on M/M difficulty. I used to play on H/M, but then I tried a game on M/M and I figured out that you can actually get the AI to listen to you occasionally, so I've been on that difficulty ever since. For good first factions, I'd suggest Rome, Makedonia, Epiros, or even the Ptolemies.

Rome requires minimal fighting in the beginning, but Makedonia and Epiros pretty much require you to take all of Greece right at the start. The Ptolemies are good because you have a very safe starting position and you don't really need to do much at the starting. The Seleukids are always preoccupied with other things, giving you plenty of time to build up your economy and get a good army together.

For building up your economy, first you need to get rid of some of your more expensive units. Navies always cost much more than any of your troops do at the start, so you should disband those as soon as possible. Next, either consolidate all of your various starting garrisons and armies into one or two larger armies to conquer with, or disband some of the garrisons of towns that don't need them. After that, spend money on mines, roads and ports. Also, anything that gives a health bonus is important too. Set your cities to the highest tax level possible without them losing population. After doing all that and using your starting army to take a few towns or whatever, you should be making plenty of money with just about any faction, except some of the really hard ones.

[Apázlinemjó]

Welcome here.

Hayasdan and Pontos are probably the hardest campaigns in the game, so don't start with those.

[Duguntz]

Hello and welcome! you should DEFINITLY try Sweboz! they're insanly fun to play! I mean, it's in my opinion, the most ''brutal'' faction... a lot of fun when you scream WAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH in front of your screen while your Clubmen charge roman legions (or any other who dare to oppose your right to plunder!)

[vartan]

Hayasdan and Pontos are probably the hardest campaigns in the game, so don't start with those.

Caveat: If you're Armenian / Pontic Greek and/or have some sort of emotional or inherent attachment to these nations feel free to engage. It will be hard, but you'll be more motivated than your average player for obvious reasons. Case in point...

[Teucer]

Baktria is fun too (cool units, interesting area and political situation), but you have to expand quickly, or the Seleukids will come knocking and you won't know what hit you.

[Zim]

For those that play with Hard Campaign difficulty, do you still find the game challenging? I've played on VH I worry the game will be too easy if I lower the difficulty, but some of the things I've heard about H campaign difficulty sound promising.

[Mediolanicus]

For those that play with Hard Campaign difficulty, do you still find the game challenging? I've played on VH I worry the game will be too easy if I lower the difficulty, but some of the things I've heard about H campaign difficulty sound promising.

I play on medium and it is hard at times. Just give the AI time, don't blitz and don't exploit their stupidness.