What are your cheapest core units to defeat Rome?

[moonburn]

you need to go on the offenssive if you had a fortified rhine and pyrinees and had the mines in the alps you could probably be swimming in money and afford 2 to 3 armies with those 3 armies you could be on the offenssive wich enables you to set a defensive line of weak troops and flank the romans with your more elitish troops such as the axeman or the swordman or your horseman even leucos epos are great they outmanouver their enemies and then just stand on their back shooting them with javelins that normally breaks the least strong roman units and then with 3-4 units keep on charging their backs until they break

if the roman cavalry goes at you engage them with 2 or 3units to lovk them down wich gives time for your general to get there and kill the roman general once he breaks the leucos can outrun the roman cavalry so they can´t escape and die
if they still got javelins when they rout turn the shoot at will it will even be more effective when chassing down the roman cavalry

also leucos epos enables you to hunt down their more elite units i never let princeps or triarii escape when they batle againt me i always runned them down

leucos epos and their ligurian equivalents are cheap and available as mercearies

i also have a population control policy so everytime a city goes over 12.000 citizens i turn it into an army recruitment center so merge some units and send the stacks composed of 2-25 men each into those towns to retrain them (i once took 3.000 citizens out of viennos or gergovia in 1 turn replenishing my army of eduii but it allowed me to rebuild my army and free massilia from a roman stack) actully you should consider having small armies like that of depleted troops so you can boost your military power in no time and control your population levels on diferent cities

also play on huge the diference and immersion is brutal and since i macro control freak the hability to control your population is a plus for me i go around sending levy spearmen all over to replenish some cities populations particulary when you have border forts and forts in all major passed in your lands you can get 1 unit of levy spearman from the carnutes homeland to emporium in no time by just changing the unit you recruit in x that recruited unit go to border fort to fort to city to fort to the destined city

not the same unit ofc but a similar unit

also the remi give great cavalry and belgiums are great lineholders imho experience and their swordman aren´t half bad at flanking and kicking the roman infantry butt (wierdly not from the front only from the back or the sides ... )

[QuintusSertorius]

I've been inspired to resume my Massalia game; I just love using Keltohellenikoi, and the "Epirote" ones have these cool green tartan cloaks. I've only got a couple of units of them in my army, but they're more than adequate to deal with mostly-unarmoured Celts.

I have Greek governments in Massalia, Alalia and Emporion, with client kingdoms in Tolosa and Burdigala.

[zenisar]

I've been inspired to resume my Massalia game; I just love using Keltohellenikoi, and the "Epirote" ones have these cool green tartan cloaks. I've only got a couple of units of them in my army, but they're more than adequate to deal with mostly-unarmoured Celts.

How did you get Epeiros to Massilia? Did you apply this "move" command, or migrate by ship in-game?

I have Greek governments in Massalia, Alalia and Emporion, with client kingdoms in Tolosa and Burdigala.

In client kingdoms, do you also recruit Celtic Vollorix unit? This is similar to Neitos in stats, just available anytime. If so, is it a general, or a regular field infantry unit?

[QuintusSertorius]

How did you get Epeiros to Massilia? Did you apply this "move" command, or migrate by ship in-game?

With the move_character command; I disband my navy (and elephants) immediately upon starting the game. I also move Helenos Aiakides to Dalminion to besiege it alone, so I can suicide him when the defenders sally out.

Epirote characters are easy, their visible names are the same as their internal names. Open the console (with `), remove the fog of war with toggle_fow so you can see where they're going, then move the cursor over where you want to move them to and type show_cursorstat to get co-ordinates. Then enter move_character "Pyrrhos Aiakides" x,y or move_character "Captain [whateverhisnameis]" x,y to teleport them to where they need to go.

When finished type toggle_fow again to return to normal view.

I also edited the EB\Data\text\expanded_bi.txt file so that all the labels say "Massalia" rather than "Epeiros", and changed the colour scheme (in EB\Data\descr_sm_factions.txt) so they're blue, rather than green (I also change the Ptolemies to yellow rather than gold, so they're distinctly contrasted from Seleukid silver). If you just want the files already edited, PM me an email address and I'll give you a copy of mine. I'd highly recommend downloading the Force Diplomacy mod and the "b" version of the City Mod (to at least give you a settlement-cap advantage over the Aedui/Arverni).

Once I've got Massalia, I let my original settlements revolt (I destroy my government buildings in each, but don't touch anything else) and disband most of my troops for the long rebuilding of my economy. I use the process_cq Massalia to rush-build some equivalent infrastructure to what was in the settlements I've abandoned (usually a port upgrade and blacksmith, along with some barracks so I can at least recruit a garrison).

It may seem like a lot of rigmarole, but once you're set up in Massalia, that's pretty much it.

In client kingdoms, do you also recruit Celtic Vollorix unit? This is similar to Neitos in stats, just available anytime. If so, is it a general, or a regular field infantry unit?

Yes, I make them type IV governments and recruit a Celtic Lesser King/Vollorix. They're a general who a turn after recruitment, if left in a type IV settlement, become a Client Ruler. I make a point of only putting Celtic units in them, though they may temporarily start with a Greek garrison. To spare their populations, I usually do the recruiting of their Gallic garrisons in Massalia, which has people to spare by then.

EDIT: On a related note, I've been having some interesting times while intervening on behalf of my ally, SPQR, against the Qarthadastim. Interesting in terms of struggling a little to cope with all the armour they bring. Finally kicked them off Sicily with this battle:



Heroic Victory because of the difference in quality of troops, rather than numbers. One unit of Hoplitai got very badly chewed up fighting Elite Pikemen, but never wavered. Those Brihentin are a waste of money, I think I'll disband them when I get back, Leuce Epos are more useful and cheaper. Barring the Iberians as special AP-unit, it's all Greek/Celtic. I took a special trip to Sicily earlier on specifically to hire those Kretans, there's not a decent archer anywhere else in the western Med.

[moonburn]

if i was any good with the console i would play a syrakousai game just for the hell of it

[QuintusSertorius]

if i was any good with the console i would play a syrakousai game just for the hell of it

I've just demonstrated all the commands you need and how, give it a try with an Epeiros game.

[QuintusSertorius]

Not relevant...