Long time lurker first time poster here.

I've played multi player quite a bit and I think I may be able to offer some valuable advice.

First of all because the mod focus's on historical accuracy all units/factions won't be equally balanced and equally useful which is perhaps the main problem with competitive EB multi payer. If you want to have the best most effective army possible your army composition will involve a lot of spam which to be honest stifles game play diversity a bit. I personally think the best multi payer experience is one where players invent cool little scenarios and innovative house rules.

So I watched the replay and the first thing I noticed (naturally) was unit composition which I believe was skewed heavily in the favor of the Carthaginian player for a number of reasons.

1: Elite African Pikemen I would consider arguably the best pikemen in the game in terms of cost effectiveness, significantly better than medium pikes for 50% increased cost. Also the 4k elite pikemen of the successor factions though powerful are simply too expensive to be worth it, but then at 50k this might not be such a big deal.

2: 3x Hellenic Spearmen vs 3x Iberian assault infantry, 2x Liby-Phoenician Heavy Infantry, 1x Greek Hoplites and 2x naked fanatics is a no brainer. Just the 3 assault infantry alone adds significant synergy to a phalanx army where as in this context the Hellenic spearman's only worthwhile use would be as a cavalry screen. The heavier Hellenic Hoplites in my opinion are better suited to guarding the flanks and filling the gaps of your phalanx line.

3: 3 units of Hellenic skirmisher cavalry is a complete waste against such a heavily armored army, given the presence of Thracian Light cavalry as an extra to the 3 companians Macedonia had only a slight edge in the cavalry department though not nearly enough to redress the imbalance in infantry. Basically it might as well of been 17 units vs 20 in favor of Carthage.

Also even though the archer strength was equal I question their cost effectiveness, with so many phalanx's and other armored troops around I probably would of only bothered with 1 or maybe no ranged units in favor of some medium infantry.

Tactics

Both players made a lot of mistakes, not that I am implying I would be any better (playing is different from theory). However overall I think the loss can be attributed to the fighting on the left flank (Macedon's), even if the Macedonian army had won the phalanx combat I still think Carthage would of won. Frontal charges on infantry is not a bad idea but a sustained melee against spearmen is, withdrawing right after a charge is essential, hit and run tactics is what makes charge cavalry worth the cost of deploying them. That attack alone pretty much reduced the Macedonians cavalry strength by a third with minimal losses to the Carthaginians. Afterward a unit of Companion's cops a full charge from 1 maybe 2 units of Iberian heavy cav, then finally the rest of Companion's is surrounded and routed after another ineffective charge. Basically the Macedonians were out manned and out microed on the left flank allowing Carthage to surround and steamroll to victory.

I wont go too much into the corrections because much of it is obvious from the critique above but I will say that the Macedonians suffered from a lack of assault infantry which could of been used to great effect on the right flank. Agrians or Thracian peltasts would of been and excellent choice.

As far as phalanx usage is concerned, it is pretty subtle and complicated and I am not too sure on the best way to use them so I would take Vartan's advice where that is concerned. What I do know is the formations need to be deeper (5 or 6 ranks) because not only does this increase damage over a smaller area but phalanx's are also very robust when surrounded, you have a large (relatively) window of opportunity to save them before they rout. This is also why ap troops are very important against phalanx's, I have won battles against roman opponents where my entire line was surrounded for 5 minutes by legionnaire's, because their weapons weren't ap I had plenty of time to finish the cavalry engagement and save my line with Alexandrian style charges for an overwhelming victory. I will admit this may be a bit imbalanced.

I would also like to say that even though there are quite a few underwhelming units in the game there is only one unit (that I've noticed) that I think is particularly overpowered which is pretty impressive considering the amount of units in the game. This unit is the Thracian peltast it is cheap, skirmisher, high damage javelins, well armored, high stamina, nice shield and a high lethality ap falx secondary. In short the unit has no weaknesses and is effective against every unit type in the game.

Sorry for the long winded essay but I thought I'd make an effort considering it was my first post and all.

Note: I stuck with English naming for clarity.