Have I been missing out on Epeiros all this time?

[moonburn]

pella dalminion segestica serdike naisse epidamnos tylis bizantion and athens all have mines and their importance is as i stated

milking taras should have been in terms of population hire akontistai ferry them over to your capital to bolster the population taras is by far your most populous city all others you might aswell just enslave it to divide the population get slaves and get a booster on population growth

the getai go 1st for kellitis 1st and then they concentrate on the orca cordinau wich always screws them up bigtime you should take the time to get naissos get a client ruller and build forts all over the danube

thats why i always build around 12 forts on the danube at least so they don´t have a direct route to my cities and ofc a few secondary forts just to make sure i can ferry 1 unit from kallatis or tylis directly to segestica in 1 turn

also in places like the scordiscii land naissos and segestica (not so much the war with the romans deplet it alot) once they hit 6.000 population the problem is controlling the population

my regular armies are mostly boiii gallothracian the auriates(illirian levy spearmen) and illirian clubmen because of the excess population in those places since the client rullers seems like he comes with a population booster because he reduces squealor

also use those armies to replenish depleted city´s and get them all to 6.000 population means taxes wich means money

i wuv the balkan wars and all those great mines

the best campaign is the makedonian one since you get the mines and the aegean trade as resources and you get to kick out the epirotes to italy and the kh to mikra asia

also if the getai piss you off you might just aswell take their 2 regions wich are also rich in mines

against the sauromatae should be easy stone forts and speciallized archers armies on the secondary forts so you can lift the sieges

then once thats done send army after army against the romans in northern italy and gift it to the edui or arverni be carefull they don´t take out massillia or else the romans will be a massie thorn at you western border when you are ready to take mikra asia and send out a 5-7 rmies attack pparticulry to conquer rhodos and sinope

[QuintusSertorius]

260BC now, the Makedonians don't seem to want to make much war, they blockaded Pella's port, then wandered off. Still no land attack; I took Serdike in the meantime waiting for them to get going and still nothing. I'm now in the position where I'm rolling in money, but don't have the population to recruit from. I've even taken to hiring mercs just to demobilise them in settlements I want more people in. I really don't need any more mines (developing the one in Serdike) and I don't particularly want to go into the cauldron that is Greece proper. There's a comfortable stalemate there which I'm observing, but not intervening in. Not unless I can ensure KH and Makedonia can survive elsewhere (KH is easy since they have Rhodos, I could give them Krete; Makedonia is harder since Mytilene is vulnerable). Maybe I could re-install both in Asia Minor, or perhaps the Bosphoros. I might take Nikaia to give to the Getai for that reason.

I really want to take Singidunum, but the garrison there is mad (Thracian elites, Gallathraikes, Thracian peltasts, etc). I'll need a proper army to do that, once I get recruiting properly I'll have a go. My army presently is a couple of levy phalanxes, a couple of mercenary hoplites, thracian peltasts, mercenary thureophoroi and kretan archers.

I used Force Diplomacy to get peace with the Romans once they took Taras. We've ignored each other since, they've been slowly trying to take Rhegion, and I added loads of Neitos to the garrisons of Segesta, Bononia and Patavium to deter them from going north for a while.

I don't kill factions, makes the game less interesting to me, and I try to make sure the AI doesn't kill each other, either.

[moonburn]

then i got a surprise for you maks will become the new troy they always did on my epeiros campaignwhile the greeks will become the yavana the eastern greeks from hallikarnasus and if the arverni join in the party with seulekids ptolemaioi and pontians in the mix it becomes very fun to watch and you might even get the hellenes to accept protectorate status

i normally had all the balkans taken except getai by 265 and i was building up mines like crazy and by 260 all my mines would be complete and i would have a large trireme ships blocking italy and he seulecids while keeping 3 armies of levies like gallotraikes illirian thureporoi boii swordman "protecting" segesta bononia and patavium from both the aedui and the romans 2 armies in mikra asia watching over the maks and the kh and 2 armies in the getic border and i was still swimming in money

the city you said it´s hard to take indeed thats the home of the cordinau orca of the scordiscii my favourite soldiers in the entire game my garrisons where far larger then the average including schytian archers my armies are generaless as you can imagine no need to deplet the soldiers moral by having a royal showing them how much they lack to become real men

ofc thats my makedonian campaign where conquering krete means adding in like 2.000 mnai imediatly to your trade income and ofc the peace treaty with the kh from rhodos helped

then after that initial stage i take like 50 years up to 200 bc (i gotta wait until i got the top barracks in the conquered territories before starting the ssimilation process particulary in serdike and naissos ) until i go to full war with the romans

ofc the romans will cost you a fortune in both men and money but better then destroying them or allowing the epirotes to be destroyed and ofc it´s very fun arriving in italy hiring an entire army and to to lift the siege but you get to have 3 protectorates altough i still gotta discover how the hell do i get getai to accept protectorate status

- - - Updated - - -

then i got a surprise for you maks will become the new troy they always did on my epeiros campaignwhile the greeks will become the yavana the eastern greeks from hallikarnasus and if the arverni join in the party with seulekids ptolemaioi and pontians in the mix it becomes very fun to watch and you might even get the hellenes to accept protectorate status

i normally had all the balkans taken except getai by 265 and i was building up mines like crazy and by 260 all my mines would be complete and i would have a large trireme ships blocking italy and he seulecids while keeping 3 armies of levies like gallotraikes illirian thureporoi boii swordman "protecting" segesta bononia and patavium from both the aedui and the romans 2 armies in mikra asia watching over the maks and the kh and 2 armies in the getic border and i was still swimming in money

the city you said it´s hard to take indeed thats the home of the cordinau orca of the scordiscii my favourite soldiers in the entire game my garrisons where far larger then the average including schytian archers my armies are generaless as you can imagine no need to deplet the soldiers moral by having a royal showing them how much they lack to become real men

ofc thats my makedonian campaign where conquering krete means adding in like 2.000 mnai imediatly to your trade income and ofc the peace treaty with the kh from rhodos helped

then after that initial stage i take like 50 years up to 200 bc (i gotta wait until i got the top barracks in the conquered territories before starting the ssimilation process particulary in serdike and naissos ) until i go to full war with the romans

ofc the romans will cost you a fortune in both men and money but better then destroying them or allowing the epirotes to be destroyed and ofc it´s very fun arriving in italy hiring an entire army and to to lift the siege but you get to have 3 protectorates altough i still gotta discover how the hell do i get getai to accept protectorate status

[QuintusSertorius]

I feel like I'm inadvertently playing Pergamon in this game, my army is composed almost entirely of mercenaries. Mercenaries I could recruit, mind, if I wasn't concerned about depopulating my settlements. I'm wondering if I should add some levy units (besides Deuteroi) to my army just to make battles harder.

[QuintusSertorius]

I grabbed Singidunum and will soon have Naissos too. Old Pyrrhos is still alive, he's turned into a Supervisor having been sat in Pella for a long while!

Having struggled for FMs for a decade and even resorting to recruiting an Allied General, I'm now awash with them, I've got four youngsters in Ambrakia learning how to be good leaders, but will need something to do soon. I don't intend on turning all those client kingdoms into factional holdings any time soon.

I'm about to recruit a second army to protect my "north" which is almost entire client kingdoms (the two new additions will be, since there's no factional troops recruitable there anyway). My "royal army" is presently:
1x Family Member
1x Hellenistic Mercenary General
1x Curepos
1x Hippakontistai
1x Pezhetairoi
2x Deuteroi Phalangitai
1x Hoplitai
1x Hoplitai Haploi
1x Thureophoroi
1x Illyrioi Thureophoroi
1x Sphendonetai (I wanted Iaosatae but can't find any mercs...)
1x Kretan Archers
1x Akontistai
1x Thraikioi Peltastai

The northern army will be more "barbarian" in character, I'm thinking no phalanxes (or at most a single levy unit) with lots of Gauls, Illyrians and Thracians. I'll retain some Hoplitai (to hold the centre) and a unit of Kretan archers. I'm expecting they'll be fighting the Getai soon.

[d'Arthez]

Sounds like your game is developing nicely Quintus. I am not 100% certain, but I think Iaosatae could be regional recruits in some of your conquered provinces.

By now your population base should have expanded significantly as well in Pella and Ambrakia. Your newly conquered territories probably suffer from a lack of population at the moment. You'll have to spend time to improve the infrastructure and economy of those client kingdoms first. And maybe assimilate them in due time.

Have you created a navy to establish control of the Adriatic and to deal with the pirates if they are a nuisance?

How much have the Getai expanded? And what is happening in Southern Greece? Still a stalemate between the Makedones and the KH?

[QuintusSertorius]

According to the Recruitment Viewer (which may not be accurate for 1.2, mind), I can't recruit Iaosatae in any of them. Other Gallic troops (Gaeroas, Lugoae, Keltohellenikoi), but for some reason no archers or slingers. I can't even get mercenary Iaosatae, which is a bit weird, because you can get them in Anatolia as mercs. I don't need them, Sphendonetai are better slingers (if much weaker melee combatants), but they make a nice bit of regional colour.

I've been helping the populations of my client kingdoms by disbanding mercs every now and then - Segestica and Dalminion are towns now - but none of them have the barracks for recruiting anything but their garrisons yet. That's the next step soon.

I don't have a navy yet, the other two Greek factions are keeping the pirates at bay for now. Though given that I'm adding money to the Eleutheroi every now and then by the console, piracy will become an issue. I can see some big stacks of them in certain places on the map that will cause trouble eventually.

The Getai have stalled after adding Sarmiszegethusa. They had a go at Kallatis, Ak-Ink and Naissos a few times, but failed. Greece is still a stalemate - I've facilitated that a little by transporting any army mobilised out of Mytilene or Rhodos across. I did also go to war with the Makedonians briefly, I besieged Demetrias for a bit, but didn't assault it, then retreated when they didn't seem to respond. They attacked with a force half the size of my army as I left, which I shattered, then FD'd peace. I'd won a battle which seemed enough to cap off the conflict.

Elsewhere in the world, I've been keeping the Romani bottled up in Italy by adding units to the garrisons of Segesta, Bononia and Patavium. They've finally started to expand into Sicily and fight the Qarthadastim. That should keep them occupied a goodly while.