Your favorite "Pikemen" nation and why

[CashMunny]

And awesome Chaonion Agema, as well. Although they just replace the Argyraspides, so they're not that unique. But they look absolutely stunning. I guess that makes sense, although to be honest no factions have interesting people after the first 50 years, everyone is dead that starts out and new ahistorical characters take the forefront. Epeiros is kind of fun because they're Barbaroi and Greek together, and so I can justify executing large cities and ambushing a lot easier than when I'm playing as say, Makedonia. They're also the only green faction besides the Gauls, if you like to see the world painted green without having your line infantry run like little girls every time they're flanked until 200 B.C. or so as happens with the Celts.

[Ksifos]

Hey Fomalhaut :-)
I don't mind of heavy infantry support since I am thinking of 'old-school' phalanx tactics, meaning cavalry and light infantry on the flanks.Macedonia fulfills that requirement as it excels in both.It is a VERY strong candidate indeed, for one more reason.It gives you the option to expand anywhere, while Pontus is basically an eastern nation and Epirus would look to strengthen its position on the Peninsula.

Vollorix - well I am quite used to RTW AI gangbanging tactics to the point of addiction ;-)
That's why Pontus is the other option, since I know I would have to put SOME effort to survive.I always play VH and now maybe I change the battles' level as most of you suggest.I imagine though a lot of "defend the bridge" battles, right? Also the most obvious would be to consolidate the Minor Asia's provinces.After that going where? Towards Caucasus or to the rich South, right in the face of AS and Ptolemaioi? :-P
Pontus has some nice mixture of units, plus those dreaded "fire and forget" Scythed chariots.

Finally I will choose one of these two :-)

[fomalhaut]

I would never choose a dirty philhellene over a true blooded Macedonian dynasty and the brave men bred there

don't shame Philp with an army who imitates Macedonian ways but lacks every good quality of them

[vollorix]

@Ksifos: Bridge battles ain´t fun ;) You allready know you will gain a heroic victory, you know that the enemy army will be annyhilated, their general won´t escape etc. etc. I´ve played so many Pontus campaigns that after a while you actually know the good places for a battle, and if you follow a predefined strategy you might get out of trouble within the first 5 years with ease. Rushing is the key, but whom and how varies;
- you can kick out the Seleucids from Asia Minor first, then tanke rebell settlements around you - there is no other power ther, Ptoleys are way to passiv, and as long as you don´t wipe out their main enemy too fast and too well, they won´t attack you at all.
- you can grab Ankira and "ally" yourself with the Galatians, quickly build up their local barracks ( costly, takes a while... ) and support your levy phalanx zerg tactics with stylish barbarians, slowly driving Seleucids, and Ptoleys aftrewards, away.
- you can rush Eleutheroi ( well, Ankira is one of those towns ), but Synope ( seetrade, Hellenic units ) and Trabzon ( mines, seetrade ), along with Ani Kmah ( mines ), are quite profitable after you build the infrastructer up.
- mines can be constructed in Mazaka, and 3 chevroned units can be cranked out of there ( slingers, caucasian archers, axemen of any kind, asiatic cavalry ) with lvl3 gouvernment and the Greek temple, and it can be taken on the first/second turn, depending on if your spy can open the doors for your army.
The choice is yours, as is the challenge in the campaign; if you are to fast and to good in battles, you can call Asia Minor yours within 10 years; if you are roleplaying a lot, well... that´s when things are going to become funny ( especially with some rigid houserules :S )


@fomalhaut: I don´t know much about Alexander, aside from general infos, but weren´t the Macs calling themselfs Greeks? At least something Pontic rulers never did, as they were proud Persians; and that´s the way i allways play my campaigns, trying to recreate the Persian Empire rather then conquering Greece - way too unrealistic, and too early in the game ( waiting for Romans to come ). Btw: the Arsakids used to call themself philhellenes too, at least in the earlier phase of their reign ;)

[Ksifos]

Fomalhaut - lol

Vollorix - if you rush and gather strength the AI will counter that with the infamous 'gangbanging'.All vs you.Have faced that situation dozen of times ;-)
In that case I use any means to defend myself and survive.
For example in my KH campaign, after almost 15 years of non stop battles with Ptolemaioi, when I grabbed Tarsus I had almost immediately AS declaring war and sending 2 to 3 "elite" full stacks" / per turn, so I had to use the bridge and fight back, or else I would be dead :-P

What you say about map stands true, but what is the difference from standing on a mountain top with slingers /archers and the enemy not having a chance to even come close? Just a little ;-)
It's nice what you suggest but not applicable when you 're getting gangbanged :-P

Yes I do roleplay but it's not my primary objective.

PS - I had almost finished my Casse campaign (only the last town of Aedui ws left, still heavily fortified) when Romani unleashed all their power towards me,lol.And now I am stuck fighting those @$*&# Pedite around the Alps.Bad fortune for them fresh british armies are coming through the channel :-P

[A_Dane]

Pontos is nice, but I wouldn't play it for the Phalanx vs Phalanx fights, as they really don't measure up. You got your levy pikemen, and you got your elite pikemen. The levy pikemen are decent, but get torn to pieces in an outright fight with any medium phalanx. Your "elites" are.. well, they're bad. In my experience (Pontos is the nation I've played the most), they're not much better than the medium pikemen the seleucids throws at you. And yes, this is even on medium.. Still an amusing campaign, I just found my self to be using other units than my pikemen :/

I'd really go for Epeiros, you can whipe out Macedon from mainland Greece, and hopefully they'll take over Asia minor, so you can get some pikemen action over there as well. If not, either the Seleucids or the Egyptians will be there to duke it out with you :)

(you could do it with Macedon too, I just find their units to be uninspirering :s)

[moonburn]

selling taras ? the blasphemy furthermore tara is 75% of your tax income if you´re already crippled at the start as epeiros economically (and yes you can take pella and demetrias on the very 1st round if you use your elephants right and wait for the right time to charge the maks in the back and always but always when charging with the elephants make sure they are guarded by the illiryan cavarlryman they´re indepensable and one the enemt routs they mop up all the enemies before they reach the town square)

selling tara is a mistake and as i said use phyrros the elephants and whatever unit you can use to take demetrias and pella and send alexander to taras if you survive there he will be one of your 2 best generals once phyrrus dies (him and ptolomaios)

the thing with epeiros is learning proper siege strategies open 3 holes on the wall send in the kelts or some other lighter unit to gain time as you place your phallanx pull back the lighter troops let all units be fighting against the phallanx place your elephants escorted by the illiryans and then kick them in the back trunk style and they´ll rout you can also use your general for the escort and mop them up duty´s but make sure skirmishers are either engaged or eliminated don´t let them near your ellies while they can still shoot (in rebel barbaroi setlements this is more problematic since there´s no squared city´s and it can be dificult to concentrate them all against one phallanx with a hole on the wall for you to pass your ellies by)

epeiros is a fun campaign but you might take longer to take control and operationalise your balkanic mines (more economical problems then for instance kh and maks) also after you take demetrias go for peace with makedonia they´ll keep each other busy and won´t attack you (i´ve been able to keep peace with kh for 50 years because makedonia is still in control of chalkis)

in italy your main duty is to survive once you take the balkans you can start concentrating on italy by ferrying your units over to italy and trying to take as fast as possible sicily particulary syracuse who will be your main recruitment center (on huge man power is very important you will have to take akontistai around the balkans to allow your city´s to reach 2k population so you can develop your mining activities so plan head and plan well because that shifting of population around costs money that might make you loose alot of turns in mine building)

once syracuse is taken you´ll be able to reigh supreme since they should enable you to recruit thureporoi and deutoroi from turn 1 wich with taras will grant you enough manpower to face rome

as for makedonia and despite what a few people said once you´re 50 years into the campaign all the cdtc and the dificulty of winning with phallanxs will make the throkitai invaluable since you´ll want to start autoresolving batles and thats where they´re the most precious babies (altough in batles you fight they can hold the line for your agrarians and thrakians and gallothracians to flank)

i understand fully well the allure of makedonia you can take athens on turn 1 (just used a few men from chalkis to siege the city and they´ll sally out altough i prefer the hold siege it with your faction leader and the thessaloy and charge them down the hill after your akontistai and slingers have weaken them you can call you in the mediums altough i prefer to use them with your corinthian army to take take sparta the batle beteween corinth and sparte is all about proper cavarly use so all cavarly you can call in is invaluable to win that fight and once you do you can take sparte by turn 3 ) you can protect pella with the original general akontistai and a unit of deuteroi (you can also leave a unit of thessaloy there and try to hunt down and kill phyrrus from the start use the thessaloy to attack phyrrus retreat to a place where phyrrus will have his back to one of the shooting towers and use swords meanwhile leave your general in position if he tries to pull back use the general to hunt him down) another trick is to keep running around the city walls and let the epirote bg´s die by arrows but then he tens to escape another one is after weakaning just charge them in the back with your general (use the thessaloi to tire them and weaken them) and run them down tired(exausthed) epirote bg´s will be easily caught by fresh makedonian bg´s
as for the ellies just place the akontistai with shooting at will off and wait for the ellies to come into range if it works well 80% of the time the ellies run amok before they can breach the gate if not it´s a matter of how your deutoroi will fare and for how long

[CashMunny]

You know, once I started using Alexander with EB, I almost never get crashes even 100 or 200 years into the campaign. I had some issues with unofficial mods, but those are cleared up too. I recommend Alex.exe with L3z's modpack until Jirisys' is 100% stable.

[Drewski]

selling taras ? the blasphemy furthermore tara is 75% of your tax income if you´re already crippled at the start as epeiros economically (and yes you can take pella and demetrias on the very 1st round if you use your elephants right and wait for the right time to charge the maks in the back and always but always when charging with the elephants make sure they are guarded by the illiryan cavarlryman they´re indepensable and one the enemt routs they mop up all the enemies before they reach the town square)

selling tara is a mistake and as i said use phyrros the elephants and whatever unit you can use to take demetrias and pella and send alexander to taras if you survive there he will be one of your 2 best generals once phyrrus dies (him and ptolomaios)

the thing with epeiros is learning proper siege strategies open 3 holes on the wall send in the kelts or some other lighter unit to gain time as you place your phallanx pull back the lighter troops let all units be fighting against the phallanx place your elephants escorted by the illiryans and then kick them in the back trunk style and they´ll rout you can also use your general for the escort and mop them up duty´s but make sure skirmishers are either engaged or eliminated don´t let them near your ellies while they can still shoot (in rebel barbaroi setlements this is more problematic since there´s no squared city´s and it can be dificult to concentrate them all against one phallanx with a hole on the wall for you to pass your ellies by)

epeiros is a fun campaign but you might take longer to take control and operationalise your balkanic mines (more economical problems then for instance kh and maks) also after you take demetrias go for peace with makedonia they´ll keep each other busy and won´t attack you (i´ve been able to keep peace with kh for 50 years because makedonia is still in control of chalkis)

in italy your main duty is to survive once you take the balkans you can start concentrating on italy by ferrying your units over to italy and trying to take as fast as possible sicily particulary syracuse who will be your main recruitment center (on huge man power is very important you will have to take akontistai around the balkans to allow your city´s to reach 2k population so you can develop your mining activities so plan head and plan well because that shifting of population around costs money that might make you loose alot of turns in mine building)

once syracuse is taken you´ll be able to reigh supreme since they should enable you to recruit thureporoi and deutoroi from turn 1 wich with taras will grant you enough manpower to face rome

as for makedonia and despite what a few people said once you´re 50 years into the campaign all the cdtc and the dificulty of winning with phallanxs will make the throkitai invaluable since you´ll want to start autoresolving batles and thats where they´re the most precious babies (altough in batles you fight they can hold the line for your agrarians and thrakians and gallothracians to flank)

i understand fully well the allure of makedonia you can take athens on turn 1 (just used a few men from chalkis to siege the city and they´ll sally out altough i prefer the hold siege it with your faction leader and the thessaloy and charge them down the hill after your akontistai and slingers have weaken them you can call you in the mediums altough i prefer to use them with your corinthian army to take take sparta the batle beteween corinth and sparte is all about proper cavarly use so all cavarly you can call in is invaluable to win that fight and once you do you can take sparte by turn 3 ) you can protect pella with the original general akontistai and a unit of deuteroi (you can also leave a unit of thessaloy there and try to hunt down and kill phyrrus from the start use the thessaloy to attack phyrrus retreat to a place where phyrrus will have his back to one of the shooting towers and use swords meanwhile leave your general in position if he tries to pull back use the general to hunt him down) another trick is to keep running around the city walls and let the epirote bg´s die by arrows but then he tens to escape another one is after weakaning just charge them in the back with your general (use the thessaloi to tire them and weaken them) and run them down tired(exausthed) epirote bg´s will be easily caught by fresh makedonian bg´s
as for the ellies just place the akontistai with shooting at will off and wait for the ellies to come into range if it works well 80% of the time the ellies run amok before they can breach the gate if not it´s a matter of how your deutoroi will fare and for how long

Here's my way to play Epiros. Basically never fails. I'll also quantify it, by saying that you absolutely do not need to follow up taking all of Greece with the rampage through Italy. Once you have Pella, Dem, Ambrakia, Epi,Sparta, Corinth,Chalkis and Athens (as early as turn 5), you'll be rolling in cash.

You can then continue very slowly, even disbanding most of your army in Ambrakia to add quick pop.

ON TOPIC, my fave Phalanx nation is Mak. Just avoid war in the west with Rome at all costs, as they are the bulldog that won't let go...