The Greek Cities

[Ludens]

why can't view this? It just says guide on the first page?

Hello Cobalt, welcome to the Org . I am afraid there isn't a real, single guide for the Greek cities. This thread is a collection of suggestions and strategies on how to lead the Greeks to glory.

[WarLord of the East]

from my experinces the greeks arethe one of the easiest faction to play especially early in the game they have slight advantage rich lans ,armored hoplites ( one of the best unıts in the game considered cost / effectivenes)
very good starting position the problem occurs when you face the oppenents late in the game against heavy cavalary of east (and even against romans and macedons) they stand week hoplites are good and spartans comes but the hoplites are the most vunarable unit against onager fire due to their tight form. and by considering they have no heavy or medium cavalary always try to attack the macedons early romens mıd ın the game and never get involved with parthians if they managed to survive and build cat elp. and per. cav.
i did not had any problem while dealing with pharoah try to backstab the wıth spartans attack alexandrie thebes and the other city (i dont remember its name there you will find a lot of armor and xp up grades due to temple cities and also the cities have a great natural defences through sinai and bridges (i am playing at vey hard at both options as most of you ) by the way i wrote my username wrong by accident i am a recruit to this forum at all

[WarLord of the East]

can't i change my user name ?

[Ludens]

can't i change my user name ?

Hello Warlord of the East, welcome to the Org . Junior members cannot change their username, but TosaInu can do it for you. Try PMing him.

[WarLord of the East]

thank you for help :)

[guineawolf]

I advised to set fire to the rams because this strategy allows you to defeat large assaulting AI armies with few garisson troops present.

Walls aren't the Greeks best friends, since when the AI come's up with an hughe invasion force they will most likely include some rams and ladders too: and that's where things might start to go all wrong. Greek armies are for some reason very very bad at fighting on walls, fighting on walls is a sure way to loose the battle against most factions. And by building walls you provide the AI with the possibility to attack the hoplites in the back (the AI doesn't have to go for your troops, I've noticed that it sometimes does try and find ways to sneak around my forces) and from then on it is pretty much a Clear Defeat.

To draw conclusions:
1 Whenever you can't afford yourself much of an garisson, then don't and don't build walls.
2 Whenever you do, be sure to try the supersalsa approach: it's far better to slaughter your ennemies than force them to go away but relatively unharmed. (They will keep roaming your lands and keep pillaging)
3 Always have some archers as garrison, they are one of the cheapest unit's available, are capable to hold off much larger enemy forces, have a decent size to keep up public order rates, and in both approaches fulfill a critical task.

And as allways: keep your hoplites with their noses pointed towards the enemy.

i forget where i read this,that it said spearmen are less effective against other infantry while they are very effective against cavalry,and hoplites are group in spearmen.

[Ludens]

i forget where i read this,that it said spearmen are less effective against other infantry while they are very effective against cavalry,and hoplites are group in spearmen.

Spearunits generally have a lower lethality than swordunits. Lethality is the chance that a succesful hit results in a kill or a knock-down. This accounts for the lackluster performance of Triarii compared to Principeps, even though both units have the same attack factor. Off course, against cavalry this effect is negated by the spearbonus, and a prepared spearunit is better able to survive a frontal cavalry charge. However, phalanx units always have a sword as secondary weapon, so they get the best of both worlds.

[WarLord of the East]

Cıty defence
there is no need for archers just have 8-9 hoplıtes ( no need for spartans but 3-4 armored ıs requıred for hard battles )an onager and 2 skırmıshers
Deploy your hoplıtes around the cıtys center the enemy wıll come there sınce ıt needs to remove all your men from there to claim the cıty (you know where ı mean the place whıch has your flag) fıll all the gaps maxımum 3 roads to center and enemy only attacks two mostly (there mut be some kınd of bug or sth lıke that) let the enemy come to you and meet the comer wıth artılery fıre. sınce the area ıs vey close ıf you can hıt a couple of flamıng shots ıt wıll kıll a lot of TIRED and UNHAPPY man put 1 of peltasts just behınd the hoplıtes where the enemy wıll attack wıth ıts most forces then other to the walls some where far from the enemy sıege when enemy captures walls and opens gate and hıs man moves out of walls then recapture the towers wıth fast peltasts the towers wıll kıll aproximetely 1/4- 1/5 of the enemy then kıll the remaınders who are comıng to your hoplıtes they wıll be tıred and wounded.... !!!!!remember that at the cıty center your man wıll never flee!!!!!
i ve defeated 2 tımes larger late roman armıes wıth urban chords and preatorian cav. at VH/VH mode several tımes same tactıc for macedon thrace and seleucıds and even wıth cartage and pontus

[davidb1980]

What is this spartan hidden resource and how do i mod it on my game

[Seamus Fermanagh]

works just like elephant, though there is no map symbol depicting it's presence in a province. If you don't have the spartan resource, you can't build spartan hoplites.

It occurs in Syracuse and Sparta in the vanilla game.

Go look up how and where the resource is listed in those provinces -- you should be able to add it to others.

[Rotc_Railey15]

I was ready in the first pages that some of you made Carthage your enemy. When I played, Carthage is a powerful ally if you let them. When the Scipii attacked me first, they lost an entire army to my Hoplites. We they attack the Carthaginians, they captured Lilybaeum with tremendous casualties. Thats when I sent and army of 1 Greek Cav, 2 militia cav. and 7 Hoplites to attack and captured LilyBauem. As you all know, once the Scipii lose Sicily, they have lost the war.

Macedon was tough, but after they depleted armies attacking my defenses, I went on the offensive and captured Athens, Corinth, and Thermon. It was after that where the game got alot easier. Money flowed in, and I was able to afford Armoured Hoplites. Pontus though became a problem. They became allies with Macedon and attacked Pergamum.

To make a long story short, the Greeks have been my best game so far. I have at least 132000 denari and hundreds of Spartans. My navy is superior and now my toughest enemy is Egypt instead of the Romans. But ive blockaded all of Egypt's ports with my superior Naval forces and have also used my navy to transport entire armies to suprise attack Egyptian cities on the coast line. My lastest capture was Sidon.

[woad&fangs]

In my game I abandoned pergamum and syracuse, took corinth in two turns and Athens two turns later, three turns to capture larissa and then I blitz the romans. I killed more than half the bruttii army in one battle in appalonia then it took 10 turns or so wipe them off the map. I did a circle around sicily while playing defense in italy it took about 10-15 turns to beat those roman smurfs off the island. After that i churned out another big army back in greece to finish off macedon and then to attack italy from the north. This took longer than the other romans but eventually the senate capua and the julii fell to my two armies. After that I oddly decided that a greek empire should include gaul soooo.... apparently hoplites and armoured hoplites are nearly immortal against gaul as long as they dont have those nasty archers. I'm not kidding my army was about 90% hoplites or armoured hoplites and they took a new town every five turns or so. This was the fastest I ever beat the imperial campaign. Oh yeah, and auto resolve seems to have a love affair with hoplites feel freee to use it.

[Rotc_Railey15]

I have had difficulty in working my way up Italy. The Scipii only have Capua but are well defended and have the Julii coming to the rescue. Ive tried going on the offensive but have found myself outnumbered and surrounded several times. My lastest plan is to work up the coast east of Italy capturing Julii cities and ultimately attacking through italy from the north. It might work, but I need to send more troops to the region with Spartans attached. I should also recruit some Mercenary war elephants in the middle east and use them against the romans.

Ive mainly focused against the Egyptians though and have captured two Scythian settlements. The Britons have really devastated them and are my alllies right now. Ive been trying to get them to attack the Brutii so I can easily take over settlements with fewer casualties.

[Bootsiuv]

Oh yeah, and auto resolve seems to have a love affair with hoplites feel freee to use it.

Heh, I've found it to be the exact opposite, usually phalanx based units like the vanilla hoplites (I play XGM now, and hoplites don't have the phalanx in the current version, although that's about to change from what I hear) get torn up from autoresolve, maybe because I play on H/M. Who knows.

[GM1940]

If you don't mind the logistics of it, having siege equipment keeps you in city fighting - where hoplites shine brightest - as much as possible. As Seleucids it's a bit easier because elephants are necessary anyway and can bash in wooden walls and gates.

Against wealthy factions like the Romans this can avoid large scale relief battles where hoplite armies can be a little hard pressed (Unless you corner camp, which is cheap.)

[woad&fangs]

Boots I mean against the armies of Gaul, Romans should be fought on the battle map whenever possible but my army I used to invade gaul was all either hoplites or armoured hoplites and since my graphics card wasn't good enough to fight on the battle map back then I had to auto resolve all my battles and I easily beat gaul

[Takhlahr]

Hello,

I've played the Greek Cities some weeks ago and I must say that it is indeed an interesting choice but also a very easy nation to play.

In turn 1 you can wipe out the scipii from sicilia and attack the macedonia. You will have a good advantage in greek peninsula very soon because you can build armored hoplites very soon in sparta which is a superior unit early on. The macedonia will fall really easy.

The good thing about the greek cities is that you have seperated places at the beginning of the game: sicilia, greek peninsula and a way to the asia minors. So you just build up quickly 3 or even 4 armies and fight at several places, including creta which you should get quickly(bring a diplomat there to bribe the wonderful rebels there to get even more cretan archers). The key here is much hoplites since the AI really sucks to beat them. You have some disadvantages: no or really bad cav and no archers besides the common ones. Luckily you can recruit cretan archers and you should do so. I have one general who is patrolling between the provinces to recruit those archers.

All the others generals are really needed in your armies. Trust me, you need them because they are the best cav for you for the entire game. My main 3 armies have usually something around 3 to 5 generals each. They are mainly for flanking defense, taking down the generals of your enemies and of course for chasing down the routing enemies. I never had any family member in one of my cities as a govorner. You need them in the battles.

The greek cities start really rich, after 3 or 4 turns - in which you build the standard trade buildings - you are earning more money than you need. Now you should really switch to military buildings to be ably to build up better hoplites. Sparta should build up the best barracks possible from the beginning of the game. You have so much money that you can easily hire any mercs you are able to hire. Use them as garrison or cannon fodder in tougher battles. Have you ever saw how easy you beat an army of the enemie when you use one of your hired warbands in asia to lure the enemie to them and 2 or 3 cretan archers are firing in the flanks of all attacking units?! That's just pure MONKEY ISLAND.

Use all the rest of your money to build up a good fleet. I got backstapped several times from carthagian, seleucid, egypt and so on and then you are really happy to have a superior fleet, only numbers counts there really.

Well, like I said it was interesting because I was not able to ally with any important nation, luckily at least dacian and even parthia wanted to ally with me and so you don't need to worry about all of your borders. You got backstapped every now and then and have to fight many wars in many directions. Now you see that you really need 3 or even 4 armies.

Too sad there is really one downer: the ai really sucks in battles. They are never able to beat your hoplites if you know what you are doing. I remember one fight when I bribed one of the seleucids army: 4 militia hoplites and immeditaly besieged one of there cities which it. I got attacked the next turn from 1 general with 1600 troops and they got reinforcement from the citiy which included another general and 800 troops. To be honest, it was one of the most interesting and most disappointed battles every to see you they charged right in my hoplites and got routed every time. I lost 3/4 of my troops but beated more than 80% of their troops in open terrain.

All in all you can say that I noticed again the real downer of the game: the really bad ai in battles. If the AI would be much better there then RTW would be the best game ever.

Even with 3 to 4 armies fighting at the same time I realized that I was too passive. 2 Improvments would be to attack the scipii after the first brutii army appeared in sicilia. And meanwhile build up another army early on to attack the brutii at the same time from the west.

I just hope you can understand this post because english is not my native language.

[woad&fangs]

First off your English is perfect and better than 90% of the posters in this forum. Second, yes the AI is really easy to beat. In city battles I have found phalanx units to be nearly invincible unless I do something really stupid. I think I there is a mod called DarthMod that improves the AI but I haven't tried it.

[guineawolf]

i forget where i read this,that it said spearmen are less effective against other infantry while they are very effective against cavalry,and hoplites are group in spearmen.

i think i have to change this after i get more conclusion with more and more combat on the battlefield,it is that phalanxe units that get pnalty against cavalry only,the rest spearmen with no phalanxe get only 0.73 lethatlity compare to phalanxe unit's 1.00 lethality,coz all phalanxe units equip with sword too....

[Poulp']

First off your English is perfect and better than 90% of the posters in this forum. Second, yes the AI is really easy to beat. In city battles I have found phalanx units to be nearly invincible unless I do something really stupid. I think I there is a mod called DarthMod that improves the AI but I haven't tried it.

definitely

Darthmod is like cocaine, once you're in, there's no going back

[Seamus Fermanagh]

definitely

Darthmod is like cocaine, once you're in, there's no going back

Darthmod with its formations and better basic strategy for the AI is much stronger than vanilla -- and much more of a challenge.

[Poulp']

Please note that I don't promote the use of substances, with the exception of wine and women.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Please note that I don't promote the use of substances, with the exception of wine and women.

Too late, the DEA already has your URL tagged for constant review!

[Oshidashi]

It's truly great playing the Greek Cities! I was triggered playing with them once more because I'm currently reading The Peloppenesian War by Thucydides

I can't make much additions to the previous posts, it took me 2 weeks to read everything in this thread and I've had no exceptional experiences in my game. It does annoy me that I haven't been able to make any alliances so far, except with Macedon, who attacked me a few turns later anyway while others did succeed in making alliances early in the game.

Normally, in all my games, I try to build up the economy ASAP through trade structures. In this game I also did that but I chose to not build a port at Sparta. I also didnt build any walls in Sparta, just for the sake of realism. They are after all the dominant city when the game starts: it's the largest city you start with (larger then Pergamum I believe) and all the names of the family members end with "of Sparta". But as soon as Athens exceeds Sparta in importance (this is ofcourse measured in a subjective way), I will build more trade structures - and other buildings that don't correspond with the Spartan way - in Sparta.

Needless to say, I train most of my navy in Athens

[guineawolf]

i own 32 region at 232 BC,and 500K of treasury with 45K net income,with most of it militia hoplites(very good swordmen for me) and militia cavalry.........how about it?
With roman (Julii left) own a last stronghold (just a large town)

Note:1K=1000

i standardised my military production buildings,like building armourer at the same time,so i can retrain my units at every cities(mostly border city,i can resupply everywhere within my border.Or militia barracks for hoplites.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Keep all but the painfully honest family members out of your cities or they will all become, rather rapidly, a rapacious lot of acquisitive graft-hounds. Large treasuries have VERY bad consequences for governor traits. See the "Care and Feeding" thread.

[woad&fangs]

When you are making 45K per turn, losing a few denarii to corrupt governors doesn't really matter.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

When you are making 45K per turn, losing a few denarii to corrupt governors doesn't really matter.

Agreed. However, I can recall a game or two where I was losing 20% of my income to greedy governors skimming off the top because I had allowed the treasury to grow over 150k and the traits had neg-spiralled. I was making over 200k a turn at one point and losing 40k of it -- down to a paltry 10k profit level -- to "shrinkage." Plus, shortly thereafter, a whole city to a Scythian diplomat because the governor was thief with no honor.

A few thousands to placate the 5-6 governors who are adding hugely to the economy is one thing, but it can get out of hand. I usually "bank" my money by building large queues of expensive buildings -- which can be returned from the waiting list to my treasury if I need cash.

[guineawolf]

Keep all but the painfully honest family members out of your cities or they will all become, rather rapidly, a rapacious lot of acquisitive graft-hounds. Large treasuries have VERY bad consequences for governor traits. See the "Care and Feeding" thread.

dun worry,i can use 25% law bonus from Pantheon of Athena to cover their corruption(-3 law=-15% law)......Then i can put greeks influence to cover those garrison upkeep by increase 40% PO(public order).For low income region,it prove useful....coz lower income,the lower the corruption(% of income being sucked) as calculation,but we need these land though....
Roman use it monthly games and races's to cover 40%PO ....
For carthaginian,egyptian and easterner,they use torturer to cover up the corruption,that is +3 law bonus;1 law bonus from priest of horus and priest of baal,then you can still got +1 law bonus at balance,without count at the punisher(traits) that provide more law bonus....

[paul_kiss]

I'm currently playing for the Greeks, and I must admit they're a great nation to play.

I've a question. Now the heavy hoplites are the backbone of my armies (and they're real killing machines), and I've come to the possibility of training the Spartans. But I've checked the stats and tried to compare heavy hoplites with them, and the comparizon showed me that the heavy hoplites don't really lag behind Spartans, they're almost equal (Spartans in fact have less armour than the h-hoplites).

So I'd like to know is there any sense to switch from training heavy hoplites to Spartans.