Your favorite "Pikemen" nation and why

[Epimetheus]

Along with AI mercenary recruitment, Hard campaign difficulty allows rebels to attack you as well. I've never seen the point in higher difficulty battles though, as it just gives your enemies unrealistic stat bonuses.

[fomalhaut]

i prfer the infinitely rich AI to not have access to mercenaries in that way.

[MegasAlexandros]

I have to say that I'm really split between Makedon and Baktria. Makedon I enjoy because they are essentially the classic troop roster that Alexander the Great would have used on his campaigns. Though the regional greek troops are boring as hell, some of the the Thracian and Getic troops are absolutely brutal. The Elite Thracian warriors with the romphaia are absolutely devastating once they get some experience behind them. I also adore the Agrianian assault infantry; their javelin range is insane.

Baktria on the other hand, might come out on top for me. They really are the perfect fusion of Hellenic and eastern cultures and have some of the most flexible recruiting options in the game. If you want to build a traditional Macedonian phalanx-based army you can, but if you want to create a steppe-style horse archer and cataphract-based army you can as well. The Hellenic Cataphracts are beasts on the field, and they have the some of the best horse archers in the game.

Although I enjoy the pikemen-based armies, they are the easiest to play as. They require almost no management, as you can just put them on guard mode and let the enemy come to you and then flank them with your melee infantry and cavalry. Shock and melee infantry-based armies (like the Romans and barbarian factions) often require a lot of babysitting to make sure they aren't getting the crap kicked out of them

[fomalhaut]

For me the amount of micromanaging to make sure your pikes are actually working is plenty and overwhelming. remember defense mode when pike v pike attacking, but take off guard mode when you are being attacked by a pike. also beware of the slightest slopes! and lots of just wtf moments. Phalanx take lots of finesse if you ask me, both in real life and in figuring out the nuances of the game mechanics related to them. CA didn't try to make Phalanx work so we have to work around that

but yeah, Macedonia and Baktria are probably two of the best factions in the game. Macedonia is classic Philip/Alexander style army with awessssomeeeee regionals, Thracians and Agriannes? yes please!

but Baktria is the outpost of so called civilization and the fused warfare/culture is soooo cool. Indo-Greeks is a subject that greatly interests me and i only knew they existed because of EB

[CashMunny]

I'd play Baktria a lot more often if I didn't get sandwiched between 3 highly frustrating and/or powerful factions (Seleukeia, Saka Rauka, Pahlava) at the start and if they didn't take away two of Baktria's starting provinces. I know that before they took Alexandreia-Eschate and Marakanda the Baktrians were always turning into a blue death but now they're almost always stuck trying to even take over India. And If I play them I usually have to buy Alexandreia-Eschate and Marakanda to have a chance. If I don't, 99% of the time the Seleucids just run me over.

[Drewski]

Current Mak campaign, AS have everything in the far east, all the way to the edge of the map in India. I slowly advanced through Asia minor using 2 full stacks to take each city. (One to garrison until local troops could be recruited and dissent had lessened, and one to fight when necessary, as I absolutely cannot stand full stack sally battles, they are so messy-every unit needs its formation altering, and 3000+ troops take forever to get through the gates to start with, never mind getting them into some semblance of a sensible fighting formation). I stopped at Antioch and currently have 4 full stacks guarding it and every possible approach, and still the AS is sending a full stack or two every few turns.

Medium isn't so easy if you go slowly ;)

First time I've ever seen AS take out Baktra so early on, and continue to rampage East as well...Of course, the second the AS backstabbed me, they not only ceasefired the Ptols, they also formed an Alliance with them(ho-hum). At least I've had many temporary truces with AS, the longest lasting 6 yrs or so. I have an Assassin army in Byzantion to kill any AS diplomats that try to get through and Ally with either Rome, or Getai (my longtime allies and border sharers). One got through that I somehow missed, made an Alliance with the Getai, then I saw a ragtag bunch of AS troops approaching one of my fullstacks. Knowing that they would attack just to break my alliance with Getai, I struck first and let them run away, then chased the diplomat to his death ;)

An interesting game overall. Limited peace through a huge military presence.


Baktra are really good fun, and have a great varied roster with something of everything (plus Indian Guild Warriors, who are carbon copies of Elite Thracians you can get in the East), but have it quite tough if early situations go against you. Plus the provinces are so huge that they all need a garrsion of some kind, and you never really make much money (compared to any of the western civilized factions that is).

[vollorix]

It´s a bit off topic, but still...

@Drewski: concerning "medium" campaign difficulty i have to say i´m experiencing quite unsusual thing while playing Macs - Eleutheroi towns are building troops, quality troops, no crap skirmishers! ( Syracuse building Lonchophoroi, Syracuse Hoplites, and Peltastai, for example ) The only real difference to other campaigns: i cheated a bit ( 90k mnai given to my treasury ) to help out Romans: i bought off two small armies of Epiros who are gangbanging Romans badly ( took Capua allready... ) after i´ve driven them off from Greece. Also, i´ve been attacked by a spawned rebell force near Demetrias ( i was on the high ground, i had 2:1 men power, lol ), too. That was even before i used the money cheat. I´ve also seen AI taking mercenaries ( Epirotes got merc phalangitai, not in my current game, though ).

[vollorix]

It´s a bit off topic, but still...

@Drewski: concerning "medium" campaign difficulty i have to say i´m experiencing quite unsusual thing while playing Macs - Eleutheroi towns are building troops, quality troops, no crap skirmishers! ( Syracuse building Lonchophoroi, Syracuse Hoplites, and Peltastai, for example ) The only real difference to other campaigns: i cheated a bit ( 90k mnai given to my treasury ) to help out Romans: i bought off two small armies of Epiros who are gangbanging Romans badly ( took Capua allready... ) after i´ve driven them off from Greece. Also, i´ve been attacked by a spawned rebell force near Demetrias ( i was on the high ground, i had 2:1 men power, lol ), too. That was even before i used the money cheat. I´ve also seen AI taking mercenaries ( Epirotes got merc phalangitai, not in my current game, though ).

Sorry for the double post.... my connections is lagging somehow ;(

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

i prfer the infinitely rich AI to not have access to mercenaries in that way.

I agree. Plus, no matter what faction I play, I like to hire mercenaries myself. It's expensive, but doesn't reduce your town population and thus your income.

[Ksifos]

KH campaign was at VH/H, while I enjoyed a lot the battles (are there bonuses in H?) I had to fight non-stop almost 15 years with Ptolemaioi, over Minor Asia.And when I beated them AS just started a new series of fights.It was fun but too much :-P
In my Casse campaign it was VH/VH but only near the end I dealt with the "endless armies" phenomenon, having Romani sending a bunch each round.

So since I intend to roleplay I will opt for medium -you say the AI recruits mercs, which I want to- and maybe hard for battles.

About Baktria.Probably you could field more "classical" army compositions, I mean closer to the Philip/Alexander's design, but what about your nearby enemies? Dont they rely on horse archers? Because if true, then it would be imperative to adapt or else you 'de be having some hard times chasing those blasted horse archers all over the map :-P

I played the other day, a custom battle for testing purposes.And utilised those elite Thracian heavy infantry with their mighty swords.These guys are the definition of "BRUTAL".In fact they were cutting through enemy lines, and took two or three enemy units to halt their "butchering" advance.They were absolutely impressive.
IIRC they can be recruited in an allied governed Tylis by the top level "MIC for locals".These would make some nasty allies if I plan to go against the Romans (die Pedite :-P)...some day.

Concerning "phalanx tactics" from the little I experienced with the KH: depending on the opposition I altered their depth (for example against heavy infantry I would go for at least 6 men deep) and just grabb them and draw a line behind the enemy.Meaning simply moving them towards the enemy and they would auto-engage.I found this the easier way to utilise the phalanx giving me time to deal with the dozens of small skirmishes that happen on the flanks.

[fomalhaut]

As Baktria you get the Eastern Equivalent of the Thracian Elites; The Guild Warriors of India. they are BRUTAL. and much more exotic. i'd imagine even Elite Thracians would be scared of these people from another world.

Guild Warriors absolutely destroy Silver Shields, Hypaspists like they were still baby faced recruits.

In fact i roleplayed that my Guild Warriors wanted as payment for their services only to fight against the Hypaspists of AS. It was 120 v 120 and my entire army watched as it happened (the hypaspists were the last enemy unit), the guild warriors and Hypaspists fought a long battle, but ultimately we won :D

[Ksifos]

As Baktria you get the Eastern Equivalent of the Thracian Elites; The Guild Warriors of India. they are BRUTAL. and much more exotic. i'd imagine even Elite Thracians would be scared of these people from another world.

In fact I tried to load a custom battle to test these units against each other.
I didn't manage to start the battle (I am on Alex.exe) no matter what.I could set battlemap, factions, choose units but when pressing "proceed to battle" it just halted to the units screen :-s

Still comparing through cost (all gold chevrons, weapons) Thraikioi Romphaiaphoroi must be a bit better :-P

[fomalhaut]

idk, i think they are about equal. Indian archers are also the equivalent of bastarnae, except with huge bows :D

with the indian units, you could take on the world.
Indian Spearmen as line
Archers -> anti armor after arrows are spent
Guild Anti everything, flankers
Elephants = hammer
Indo Iranian Horsemen = screen, harass, rout cleanup

[Drewski]

Only thing with Baktra and the Indian units, is the huuuge distance they will be from home, if fighting the most obvious enemy, the AS, around say Persepolis. There is absolutely no chance of retraining, so I usually follow a main stack with some non fighting reserves (expensive though) to replace fallen men. And trying to get even the most energetic, cheerful General to march said distance, will reduce him to a quivering wreck, who eventually basically refuses to move...;)

@Vollorix that's interesting thoughts/observations on Medium campaign, thanks for sharing :) One of my house rules, is that all rebel spawning stacks must be dealt with immediately, whatever the circumstances. I also love Bribing armies. As Mak, Roman Massalia revolted to KH, and i spent several 100k bribing Romans who tried to take it back, until it became too expensive. But it kept the Romans occupied for several years doing basically nothing else, so served it's purpose.

[TheLastDays]

Well as Baktria you would face both classic pahlanx enemies and horse archers... one from the steppe that's basically nothing else than HA (that's very easy to counter...) and Pahlava who mixes it up with other troops... so you get both and have to adapt to both which makes Baktria so much fun ;)

[LusitanianWolf]

Well, I'm not very found of phalangites but had very nice games with Baktria and Epirus ;)

Why? Awesome skins, awesome rosters, elephants and some time before being swarmed by endless AS spamming (the main reason that I don't play more often in the east, after the 984938924 stack I usualy get bored).

[fomalhaut]

Out of all the unit skins, Baktria has the best. those Peltasts are beautiful! the only ones that are prettier are the Ptolemy Squids

[Ludens]

Are these supposed to play when you start each faction's campaigns? Because all I get is a marble tablet with a "Europa Barbarorum".

Unfortunately, only a couple of intro videos were made, so most factions still have the placeholder you describe.

[N0V0NEU]

I am doing a campaign with the Ptolemaioi on VH/H. Current year is 236 BC, the Seleucids send enormous armies against Alexandria every year (currently 9th siege) and I have already lost Syria to the Seleucids. From the West the Quarthadast are threatening me with smaller raids and have already took Kyrene from me.

So if you want a great challenge, you should definiately try the Graeco-Aegyptos Ptolemaioi

[Ksifos]

Ludens - yes the one with Epirus is brilliant! Just the creator doesnt want to reveal the music theme he used :-P

In less than an hour I am giving ...some exams.It is quite an achievement, I managed to study a bit, having the "EB temptation" around my mind, lol
So I will soon be in the pleasant position to take control of the "glorious-wannabe" faction of Macedonia :-)

Still if any of you have any "pikemen" ongoing campaigns, feel free to share your experience through this thread.I might too.
Something useful could come out of it. ;-)

[LusitanianWolf]

Ludens - yes the one with Epirus is brilliant! Just the creator doesnt want to reveal the music theme he used :-P

In less than an hour I am giving ...some exams.It is quite an achievement, I managed to study a bit, having the "EB temptation" around my mind

Glad you did, I have one a Biochemistry one tomorrow and having a bit of a difficult time resisting the temptation.
But the campain I am with atm is my first with Hayasdan, I gess the allmighty Kavakaza Sparabara and Hai Nizagamartik dont realy count as pikemans :P


Good luck btw.

[fomalhaut]

Watch out with Ptolemy though, the victory conditions are essentially lying to you. It says you only have to outlast Arche Seleukaia, but you have to conquer their entire posessions for that to happen. AS always gets eaten up when you play in the west, but since you are the player the AI won't let that happen so Baktria, Pontus, Hayasdan, Pahlava and Saka Rauka instead make peace and alliances with AS or maybe never break their alliances at all. would not reccommend the Ptolemy campaign even a little bit

[CashMunny]

Watch out with Ptolemy though, the victory conditions are essentially lying to you. It says you only have to outlast Arche Seleukaia, but you have to conquer their entire posessions for that to happen. AS always gets eaten up when you play in the west, but since you are the player the AI won't let that happen so Baktria, Pontus, Hayasdan, Pahlava and Saka Rauka instead make peace and alliances with AS or maybe never break their alliances at all. would not reccommend the Ptolemy campaign even a little bit

I've seen them attack AS when I'm Ptolemaic Egypt, but you're right it is rarer than the other alternative of them all ganging up together and helping the Arche.

[fomalhaut]

right, the idea is that AS should be eaten up just like it always is when you play a faction not bordering the AS. but when playing a factino bordering them, the AS not only not get eaten up, they usually expand all the way to india and make friends with all their should be enemies so they can focus on whatever faction you play as.

this is normal, whatever the RTW AI totally and completely sucks the life out of the game, but i didn't realize this until i had captured my last settlement as the Ptolemy that the Arche Seleukaia, in the past 100 years, had not lost a single settlement...

[Ksifos]

Ptolemaioi can't be that hard, especially if procceding to some good alliances.Carthage attacks? be a roman friend ;-)

Havent played them but Egypt has a nice starting location, lots of trade routes to establish hence a potentially good economy (also read about mines in the south), plus just one main front (against AS) since Carthage is too far away (you can afford losing Kyrene temporarily).The more AS is pushed, the better your economy becomes.And their roster is sufficient to deal with any kind of enemy.

[fomalhaut]

i am not speaking on a matter off difficulty, they are probably the easiest due to an early outstanding economy. i am speaking in terms of the amount of land you have to conquer makes the campaign last far too long and becomes rome total bore. This is because a victory condition of Ptolemy is to destroy the Arche Seleukaia, which, however, since you are on the eastern side of the map does not go to war with any of its neighbors meaning YOU and YOU ALONE have to fight all the way to India and Northern Persia and the steppes to end the Arche Seleukaia which will take another 150 years even though you already have every other condition met. does that sound like fun? lol



and alliances 'against' enemies doesn't work at all. the more possible situation is rome and carthage are still allied when they attack.

[moonburn]

ptolies are easy once you take antiocheia it´s all defined imho you can use the seulekids mic wich means you´ll never run out of troops and aslong as you pick them wisely (aor attention call ) you will always have somewhere to retrain


besides the trade there´s mines in arabia and in ethiopia and sudan in arabia they´re even easyer just use the navy to get there do not use the land route

avoid taking kyrene and build forts it seems that the ai doesn´t wich to declare war until they have a common border (new trick i´m trying of building forts in eleutheroi regions and so far so good they can´t reach the eleutheroi setlement and they don´t attack the forts)

besides with ptolies you can pick your fights you´re wealth enables you a strong navy and from there you can drop armies anywhere

[fomalhaut]

like i said ptolemy are easy as hell, technically speaking. their economy and army are both outstanding but the victory conditions are essentially based on completely faulty assumptions is what i am saying. i spent a lot of time on the campaign only to realize that even with the territory conditions met, it was only a minute fraction of what needed to be done.

There is NO fun in conquering the entirety of a pristine Arche Seleukaia for the sole sake of destroying the faction, it's only a matter of time that is artificially lengthened due to the scripts that make sure you will be fighting down to the very.last.settlement. and god help you once you conquer AS territory that is bordering Baktria or Parthia because they will attack you the next turn even though they've been next to AS for 100 years.

it's retarded, not fun, boring, dumb, and it made me waste a good 40 hours of this campaign that i had to drop because i didn't realize destroying a pristine AS was part of that

[vollorix]

Talking about hundreds of years needed to destroy another faction allways amuse me somehow^^ You´d need about 50 years to wipe out any faction, not more, and 100 years in total if you are roleplaying, like i tend to do ( not too much, though, since the necessities of the game are sometimes quite ugly ). On the other hand, why follow those victory conditions you have been set to? Make your own ones and play to your satisfaction ;)

[Ksifos]

Started my campaign (M/H) and by 270BC:

- Gathered army and besieged and took Athens & Sparta
- A peace aggreement was established with the Getai
- After taking Sparta Antigonos immediately dispatched to Rhodes where after a Heroic Victory took the island.That led to the KH faction elimination
- Antigonos now on Crete but met strong resistance by locals and will wait for reinforcements
- Lost Pella to Phyrrus
- Economy is slowly recovering

Overall a good start with the primary goal of throwing KH out of the game being achieved.It was neat seeing Deyteroi cutting Greek generals (Spartans).
Now economic stability comes at a priority while taking small action against Epirus.I have a full stack on the border to Pella ready to engage.

By 269BC:
- Pyrrhos Aiakides died heroically trying to break the siege in Pella
- Pella, our homeland is ours again
- dispatched half-stack to conquer Tylis
- considerable seasonal income, our nation is developing fast
- Epiros is targetting Pella and Demetrias besieging them constantly

This is going to be interesting ;-)