The Greek Cities

[Lord_Lufcuare]

ok you don't tun that off because you can't I think it's had-coded so__y fo_ lack of punctuation and rrrs

Why did you say that to my brother man, Just to let you know Cleon of sparta was my Brother, he has long snice died, i was on his computer and found this in his favorites, i like the game so i signed up with it. And i was broswing the Fourms and found that yall mocked my brother why? what did he say to that called for it?

[ReluctantSamurai]

I think folks were just having a little fun It's always been my belief that one shouldn't take oneself so seriously that you can't have a good laugh at yourself.

Sorry to hear that "Cleon" has passed on to the great phalanx-in-the-sky........may his shield remain stout and his spearpoint sharp...............

when your city is undersiege for a long time some of your men starv to death and weakens your units

As a sidenote.....I've never liked the way RTW handles sieges. A port city should need to have its port blockaded, as well, for the garrison to incur losses. If not, then the city has to be taken by direct assault. Common sense, I should think

In addition, no matter the size of the garrison, a certain minimum size army should be required to besiege cities. Seeing 2 Velite and 1 Hastati besiege and take a city like Thermon, for instance, is a bit too much to swallow, IMHO.

Sorry for the rant

[Aryan]

I am playing as Greek Cities since couple of days. Last night I bribed one of the family member of ROME(Senate) and tried to take him to Arretium which I had captured from Julii. There was an ambush by Senate Grand Army(full stack with 4 generals including faction hier) near mountain in Roma region. I tried to pull back but Army pursued me and I was forced into battle with my singel family member with 33 body guards against full stack of Senate. I knew that time if I fight that battle in a nomal fashion, than It will be a sure defect including losing my just bribed(35000 D) family meber. So what I did that placed my general at the top of the hill and waited for the Senate Army to approach. They came and once they were near enough I charged into one hastati unit + one valite unit killing 54 and losing 3 guards than I ran staright downhill out of there approach and keep my general moving so that Senate Army could not catch my general. Guess what?? Timer expired and got a close victory which would have sure defeat and massacre of my general.

[Aryan]

Hi, Last night I have finished my Greek campaign by anihiliating the Egyptians and taking 2 cities from the Armenians. I found phalnax formation is a death warrent for Chariots and damn effective in sieging the enemy cities. All you have to do is to enter through the gate and complete the journey to the town centre. In your way chariot(melee or Archer) will come and kiss the death sticks of your phalnax. They could not fight well as of their lack of nimbleness in cities.
So now I am moving to Macedon probably but still not sure. Any suggestion with which fraction I should go on? I have played with all Roman Fractions, Egypt, Germania, Carthage, and now Greeks. By far my germania campaign was toughest but most entertaining. It was my first non Roman campaign.

[ReluctantSamurai]

For a drastic change-of-pace play one of the horse-archer factions: Parthia, Armenia, or Scythia. HA's require an entirely different approach (hit-and-run) but when you get the hang of it you'll see that phalanx is simply cut to pieces with relative ease. Armenia's Cataphract HA's are one of the most devastating units on the board (IMHO) as they combine the horse-archery with the ability to charge into melee when called upon.

[Aryan]

For a drastic change-of-pace play one of the horse-archer factions: Parthia, Armenia, or Scythia. HA's require an entirely different approach (hit-and-run) but when you get the hang of it you'll see that phalanx is simply cut to pieces with relative ease. Armenia's Cataphract HA's are one of the most devastating units on the board (IMHO) as they combine the horse-archery with the ability to charge into melee when called upon.

Thanks for your reply, and I myself willing to try my skill as Commander with Horse Archer faction but I don't feel I am still ready for the challange so I have started another campaign with Gauls and till now it is going good. Have united the Gaul, eliminated the Julii from Italian Peninsula. They have Carlis which I will be taking in 2-3 turns. I will keep posting about my progress in Gauls thread.
Thanks again.

[Centurion1]

ah the gauls easily one of th emost challenging factions. hard for a turtler liike moi.

[williamsiddell]

For anyone like me who purchased recently.

Greek Cities, hard, huge, no time limit, free camera.

Why Greeks? Because of the phalanx, central capital (why go through shifting your capital when you choose other races), large number of early ports combined with the colossus.
Why hard? Others too easy and I aint masochist enough for very hard.
Why huge? 240 size peasants useful to control growth and happiness, and as a boost to low populations.
Why free camera? Just because a limited camera irritates me.

Main strategy.
Early - squeeze as much cash as you can from your cities, middle - low tax to boost growth (I find, contrary to what you may think, that speeding population growth fills the coffers), late - don't overstretch your armies and consolidate before expanding, very late - money coming out of your ears, so concentrate on conquest and bribe like there is no tomorrow. If you choose fast conquest expect the AI to attack cities behind your lines (all tribes do it).

Cities:
Some cities have built-in unrest. Tylis, Themiskyra, Tanais, Tarsus, Petra, Bostra, Dumatha, Batavodurum, Bordesholm, Mogontacum, Damme, Vicus Gothi, Croton, Vicus Macromani and Domus Dulcis Domus are a pain. Boosting growth with slaves up to 2000 is reasonable in these cases and some can cope with a boost to 6000. But generally avoid boosting otherwise because you'll have to stuff them with garrison peasants. Be aware of high growth cities such as Patavium - NEVER boost those! I think a growth rate of 5% or more means the city will grow at a rate faster than you can build. I try to work out how many turns it will take til promotion, then add up the build turns of buildings I want to build in the city so that I can work out a strategy for not promoting until I have completed all buildings in the current level.

Example:

City with pop of 2300 and growth rate of 3% will grow at roughly 70 (3/100 x 2300) per turn. To reach 6000 with take many turns (roughly 50). Building will require about 15 turns. So this city is a candidate for boosting by either slaves (requiring the presence of a general) or peasants built in a nearby city whose population you wish to control.

Cities close to your capital are prime targets for slave boosting. They have low corruption or happiness issues so you should keep a few generals handy and aim to get them to 24000 as soon as sensible. Bear in mind growth slows rapidly with size.

Culture penalty:

Your priority on capturing a city should be to reduce this penalty ASAP. Each city will ignore one foreign building and the one I usually don't replace is the wall. Unfortunately Greeks can't upgrade paved roads so where they are already in place the wall must be improved. The Pyramids cancel Egyptian culture penalties in all cities.

Military buildings:

Are never worth upgrading because your front lines will have moved on before you see the benefit and the next city you take may well have better buildings. Deleting unneeded military buildings in a newly captured city is a necessity to reduce culture penalties.

Temples:

Athena is the default. Aphrodite is very useful in low growth cities near your capital, especially on islands (Kydonia and Rhodes benefit). As you near 24000 in those cities you should switch to Athena. The other two temples I never use and delete them where I find them. They penalise public order in return for a unit bonus (units need to stop in the city to gain the bonus) or boost income (some of this boost will be taken up by garrison units required to cover for the loss of public order Athena provides). In some Greek cities you will see temples that look like yours - but they aint! Delete them cos they won't upgrade. Finally, some foreign temples have very useful bonuses associated with units - take advantage then delete. Egyptian temple bonuses take full effect when you take the Pyramids.

[williamsiddell]

Spies:

You'll want plenty. Border cities should have one in residence to discourage foreign spies (more than a nuisance because of their unrest effect). Each army should have two spies in the area - to open gates and for one to be left behind when your army moves on. Move your spies up from cities that are no longer under threat from foreign spies.

Assassins:

Should be promoted by attacks on weak armies before moving them up to kill enemy generals, spies and diplomats. Essential on offence to ease attacks by killing opposing generals, and enemy spies in cities preventing your spies from entering. You should build one every so often and train it up ready to replace any lost. The attack percentage is difficult to fathom. I've lost many assassins on 95% and been successful many times on 30%. You'll reload a lot to mix up the order of events involving assassins, spies and diplomats (i.e. anything to change the next dice throw).

Diplomats:

Send several out to explore and create trade ties (to boost cash), maps or treaties. I usually have a scattering to bribe revolters or small wandering armies. Early on I bribe a city or two. Halicarnassus for the Mausoleum and Sardis for Artemis. It's best to bribe Sardis to avoid war with the Seleucids - who will be fighting everybody else anyway.

Units;

Militia Phalanx - only used early because they rout easily. Useful for garrison duty.
Phalanx - an army mainstay.
Armoured phalanx - nobody gets past these guys.
Spartan phalanx - only ever had the one you start with. Not necessary to win easily.
Slingers - never built and usually disbanded. Annoying habit of disappearing into the distance to be massacred - unless you deselect skirmish.
Archers - one or two per army. Lump a few together and you can destroy an enemy unit in a short time.
Horse archers - ammo quickly used up, then useful as light cavalry (deselect skirmish first though otherwise death awaits!)
Mercenaries come expensive - Cretan Archers and Rhodian slingers are deadly and have added range. Horse archers have more ammunition and greater range. Cavalry will boost a weak army. Early on, a phalanx or two can be useful.
Always repair units rather than buy - it's cheaper (no one-off recruitment cost) and you will retain some unit bonuses.

Generals:

Athens has an academy, but otherwise I don't build one elsewhere. I use Athens early to to boost some generals abilities particularly for fighting. Eventually you'll find ancillaries are ten a penny and mostly of limited use. Attributes can be a pain - often they are negative in type and may increase unrest in a city for instance. There is a trigger at the start of each turn which checks whether you have 50, 100 or 150 thousand gold and if so may result in negative attributes being applied to a general (use build queues at turn end to keep your cash down). I don't know how the AI chooses which general to make governor, but you should always check it is the one you want. Near the end you may end up with 50+ generals - I lump lots into boats and send them out to be sunk (their bodyguard costs about 3 gold per turn per horse). You need a general present in a city to receive a slave boost. Ancillaries can be swapped amongst generals when together in a city or stack (drag and drop).

Navy:

Hardly used. Rebel ships wander about only rarely blockading and then only for one turn. The AI tribes only rarely attack by sea (Rome and Carthage to Sicily, Rome to greek mainland, British to europe - but otherwise as rare as hens teeth). A standing fleet is an unnecessary drain on cash. Build only when needed and definitely no quinqueremes (500 gold per turn). Having built and used, then disband.

Battle:

Preferred roaming army - 2 hoplite for wings, 3 armoured hoplite front line, a few archers and mounted archers and a few generals and cavalry. To cut losses and prevent routs when auto-resolving make sure your heavies are ordered immediately after the generals.

Set up in square bracket formation on high ground and, if you're being attacked, as far back as sensible. Make use of impassable areas (farms, cliffs etc.). Place your strongest units in the front line. Three men deep if faced with an army stretching across the horizon, otherwise four deep. A phalanx should be at each end at right angles to protect against flank attacks. Missile units set up behind the front line (never seen my own slingers hitting the front rank, but have seen archers firing into the ground on a reverse slope). Cavalry and generals lined up behind. Mostly the enemy runs after a few minutes fighting the front rank phalanxes. Never attack unengaged enemy units with a general unless they are routing (your general will die). To kill an enemy general, wait until it attacks your army then send in a cavalry unit followed by lesser generals. Mop up the enemy to ensure non-survival. Once set up, your entire army can be moved in formation by first selecting all then finding the middle of your front line. Click just ahead and slightly to the left or right to swing left or right. Click straight ahead to move the entire army forward (some types of terrain seem to affect execution of these moves). Auto-resolve when faced with hordes of horse archers (it's less painful).

Siege:

Auto resolve where possible (the enemy never fights to the end). If you have to manually resolve, try to lure enemy units from the town centre (then when they rout it is all over). Buy some mercenaries just before attacking (they will man the rams). Don't panic if your city is besieged - you usually have time to get an army up before they attack.

Early Strategy:

Aim for Athens right away - if you don't the Macedonians will take it. Use the boats you start with to transport the generals and units from Asia Minor to the vicinity of Athens and group your armies and generals on the mainland for the attack on Athens. Build a port in any city without one. Then build walls in Sparta and Pergamon because otherwise foreign armies will pretty soon walk in. Set all cities to very high tax and sell any military buildings you don't need. It's unlikely you'll have to build any army units because you can increase your army from local bribes. Several spies and diplomats will be necessary.

Aim to build an Agora in Syracuse and Sparta as soon as possible to provide assassins. In Syracuse you'll soon have three generals and might want to build a few units and then wait to be attacked. At hard level when you take Messana on Sicily you'll be faced with waves of attacks from all the Romans - to preemt that, threaten Croton on the mainland as soon as you can. Ally yourself with Macedonia (they'll soon attack anyway) and the Seleucids and note Carthage is rare in accepting a ceasefire (once you've taken their city on Sicily).

Later strategy:

Greek cities can usually be taken as is. Others within the circle radius Sparta to Massila usually enslaved. Further out you have two options 1) exterminate or 2) enslave, then delete culture penalties, repair units and build peasants etc. Then step out and allow to revolt and enslave again. For low population cities, try to leave a general behind to boost population by enslaves elsewhere (that means a city that would take ages to reach promotion can start building soon). The Egyptian cities are neat. Take the small ones first (in an arc around Jerusalem), then take Memphis for the Pyramids, then the rest. Then you can boost populations elsewhere by enslaving the huge cities. North Africa with its long distances and slow desert movement is probably best attacked by sea-hopping. Most northern cities are small. The routine for small towns - immediately delete the barracks, trader and temple and build Athena.

[williamsiddell]

A few more tips.

To rule the entire world:

Leave Rome to last. The other Romans are destroyed quite early (most of their units rout against a phalanx). Rome has to be watched. Make sure you destroy any remaining army it has. Station a couple of assassins nearby and place a spy inside. As you go about conquering everybody else, Rome will churn out spies and diplomats and every so often generate a bunch of generals. Use your assassins to immediately kill any spy or diplomat as they appear in the city. If you don't then you will find the cities around are soon bribed (Rome has loadsa money) or show increased unrest. Make sure you have replacements handy should your assassin or spy die.

Peasants:

Cost 100 to build then 100 per turn. This means that rather than a useless peasant sitting in a city costing 100 per turn for no benefit, if you are confident the peasant will not be needed for at least one turn, you can safely disband. If it isn't needed for more than one turn you save gold. Don't build and send a peasant elsewhere unless the destination is nearby (if there is a chain of cities you can send to the nearest city and take a peasant from that city to the next and so on).

Distant cities:

Are always a pain. I build no hygiene facilities (in the hope of plague) and prioritise buildings that reduce the chance of revolt. Same with fast growers.

Spanish cities:

You should be nearing the end game by this time so enslavement has limited benefits - I exterminate them all.

Organise your armies:

When you get the chance select all the units except the generals and take one step out. Then move them back in the order you want. A typical choice for me would be first hoplites (easy to find a barracks to repair), then armoured hoplites, Then a couple of horse archers (again easy to repair), then a couple of cavalry, then archers, then mercenaries.

The reason for the order is that casualties seem to be taken first from the start of the queue when you auto-resolve (best to let the hard nuts take the onslaught). It seems that if mercenaries are at the head of the queue the attack will fail (I think because they are the first engaged and rout easily). Also mercenaries can't be repaired so they should be at the back. Organising also means that in battle you can easily find a particular type of unit.

Generals:

Die for the first time in their sixties. I tend not to hang on to them no matter how good because in the long run I'll win anyway. So when they reach their sixties I transfer all useful ancillaries to other generals and send the pensioner to a city to await DEATH! The elderly usually have high influence and are useful in dodgy cities.

When transferring ancillaries sometimes the leading general ends up second best. Moving out and back should correct the order.

Units:

I never build onagers. They slow the entire army down. Nice effect in battle though!
You may be able to pick up elephant mercenaries in the desert.

Cities:

A status of 70% or more should ensure no revolt. I've noticed a very minor bug occasionally where a change to the tax rate causes a large change to growth rate.

[guineawolf]

My tactics where slightly different.

My first move was to send my Sicilian diplomat towards the Scipii and forge a trade agreement (They'll still attack you in a turn or four). Then did the same to Carthage. I tried bribing both but was unsuccessful. I built a dock, built a ship, then sacked the city and moved my troops out abandoning the provence. (You are going to lose this provence unless you spend a good portion of your resources on it in the first 10 - 15 turns).

Once I had my armies safely on the Greece penisula I went to work claiming Corova and Athens. At the same time, my Rhodes army was building up for five turns or so and was then sent to take the rebel controlled cities on the main contenant. Exterminate the macedonian population. You will end up with almost no revolts for the next 100 years or so provided you keep decent generals and 3-4 troops in each settlement and with such high morale, you're able to tax at very high and each settlement will be a gold mine. You want to get Corinth, Athens, Sparta, Halicarnassus, Rhodes, and Pergamum. Leave Larissa alone for the time being, you'll need the troops elsewhere very soon...

Eventually the Brutti will be tasked by the Senate to invade Thermon and Apolloinia...You need to have an army in nearby Corinth (or an army you can move) for this phase. Without forces, the Romans will have four - five cities from which to build troops and will make your life much more difficult. I immediately struck out and took Thermon, I also took Apollonia but simply sacked and abandoned it (just wasn't worth keeping really). The goal here when you fight these battles is to kill off the Roman generals. They're going to send one of there best and brightest (I had to fight a 6 star faction heir). Kill him off and their faction is majorly weakend. Within the next five or six turns (if you didn't already), you should have spy's in Croton and Tarentum, and as soon as you see the troop sizes are small, invade the romans. I did this around Turn 20 or so. If you're lucky (as I was) you'll be able to wipe out their faction completely at this point.

Sack both cities completely, exterminate the population and destroy every building (after you've retrained all your troops), teaching those dirty romans to stay on their side of the sea. You'll see the Scippii will remove some of their attention from Carthage and point it at these cities. By the time they do, you need to have both cities sacked and on a boat back to Greece. The Scippii will have to battle the rebels which will weaken them...after they take one or both cities, bring you're army back and lay the smackdown on the Scipii troops to. Once you do this, the two cities will be controlled by rebels for several turns.

At this point I turned my attention to the north...finishing off the Macedonians in Larissa and Thessalonica (Those guys had the plague :( ). By this time, the Thracians and The Secluded Empire will begin getting froggy. Defeating them will require a large navy, so focus on shipyards. Once you clean out the macedonians and Scipii, you really wont have too many enemies so focus on building that navy instead of building troops. Keep two medium - large armies...one in Larissa / Thessalonica and one in Halicarnassus or Pergamum. While clearing the oceans lay the smackdown in Sardis (Secluded Empire) and Clear out the Thraceians up to Byzantium. You don't have to wipe them out, choice is yours. I made peace and eventually got them to turn on Darcia by giving them back Byzantium after I began my move on the other roman cities. Make friends with the Parthians so that you have you're flanks covered by an ally. Try and keep good relations with them for as long as possible.

At this point, sit and build...build build build. Try to keep your military as low as possible without sacrificing too much defense. Roman troops are particullarly tough compared to Greecians in the early game, however after the Roman Reformation event, you should be spouting some huge cities and pumping out upgraded troops which will do nicely against the romans.

You'll find that the romans, in their effort to effectively build their empire, have left their backdoor open to invasion. Their biggest cities will be virtually unprotected, you want to take them out as quickly as possible, crippling their economy and troop building abilitiy. I recomend taking Sicily first, exterminating the populace, then take Rome and the Julii starting cities. I kept pushing the Julli out till I got to the mountain choke point in Arretium and left two armies there in ambush. From there, I moved my Sicilian armies (aftering repairing the city, retraining troops, and four turns of troop building) to the Carthage Theatre.

A lot of people will have objections to exterminating, however there's one thing that plays an important role here. When you disperse the population of a settlement, those in their home cities / territories are more likely to revolt than those sent to foreign cities. While once or twice will have no effect, you're going to be taking over about 10 Roman Cities in 10 turns. If you enslaved, you're looking at roughly 1000 + romans in every roman city and that is not good. You'll have to spend far too many resources trying to keep the peace in this region....The only good Roman is a Dead Roman.

From this point it's up to you...continue taking on the Julii in the former gaul territories and / or the Scipii in Africa, or focus on Darcia to get your 50. Darcia will be less likely to revolt as it will be closer to you're capitol, but it's just soo much fun killing romans.

you should enslave them,becoz it can increase your cities(with governors)population,that will increase your income and troops supply..

[Vincent Butler]

A few more tips.

To rule the entire world:

Leave Rome to last. The other Romans are destroyed quite early (most of their units rout against a phalanx). Rome has to be watched. Make sure you destroy any remaining army it has. Station a couple of assassins nearby and place a spy inside. As you go about conquering everybody else, Rome will churn out spies and diplomats and every so often generate a bunch of generals. Use your assassins to immediately kill any spy or diplomat as they appear in the city. If you don't then you will find the cities around are soon bribed (Rome has loadsa money) or show increased unrest. Make sure you have replacements handy should your assassin or spy die.



Spanish cities:

You should be nearing the end game by this time so enslavement has limited benefits - I exterminate them all.


Units:

I never build onagers. They slow the entire army down. Nice effect in battle though!
You may be able to pick up elephant mercenaries in the desert.

Agreed on Spain, especially Corduba.

I use Onagers, especially if you are Greece vs Rome. You don't have the heavy cav to counter their onagers, unless you don't mind taking the chance of losing your Greek Cav. I especially love them in bridge defense, Rome and Egypt, and if they last Thrace, love Onagers, and at a bridge Hoplites are sitting ducks. They are also good in city defense for attacking siege towers (you may have to move them around so they can attack), and for destroying enemy Onagers attacking your towers. This is a new defense system I have started using.

[wooly_mammoth]

So, to conclude the journey through the playable factions of rtw I went ahead and started a campaign with the greeks. By now it is almost done, I only need about 11 provinces, which I'll be taking from Egypt. I own all southern Europe down along the Alps and Danube, Sicily & Sardinia, Crete, Asia Minor and the whole Nile region. I gave myself a few (very easy) challenges to make things a bit more interesting.

1. I was extremely rude to all barbarian factions, I didn't even give them trade rights. However, they've been less aggressive than I hoped, only the dacians took a fort at a Danube bridge by assault and it ended up in a nice bridge battle where I defended two crossings at the same time. I've seen some british ships along the italian coast so maybe I'll get some fun if they try to storm over the Alps. Currently I think they are beating the crap out of the germans.

2. no cavalry at all in regular armies, excepting one general unit at most. I only use cav for highly mobile forces that hunt down rebels. It's fun now, since armored hoplites, spartans and heavy peltasts together can easily hold flanking maneuvers, particularly from the weak egyptian cavalry, but fighting the romans was a pain. They flanked my butt off, and I only managed to beat them by pulling heroic victories on battlegrounds where I could use the terrain (rock formations) to guard my back and just stuff the choke points with spears. Plain awful, roman generals are aggravatingly effective against phalanx units, you'd say it's not the phalanx that gets a bonus at fighting cavalry, but the other way around.

One of the nicest moments was in the early game, when a carthaginian spy infiltrated Syracuse, opened the gates and then Hanno's army took it by storm (elephants included). I had only a few hoplite forces inside and a peltast unit, since the main army was busy fighting the Scipii up north so it could have been a tense defense. Sadly, the AI rushed towards a single gate, peltasts skewered the elephants from the walls, troops clustered in the gateway and got impaled on spears, elephants panicked, everyone died.

[ReluctantSamurai]

So, to conclude the journey through the playable factions of rtw

So does this mean we can expect a Macedonian AAR soon, seeing as all factions, including the SPQR are playable?

[Vincent Butler]

So does this mean we can expect a Macedonian AAR soon, seeing as all factions, including the SPQR are playable?

Can you actually play as the SPQR? My computer crashed when I tried it. I was able to start as Rebel once, though.

[wooly_mammoth]

So does this mean we can expect a Macedonian AAR soon, seeing as all factions, including the SPQR are playable?

Nope. My OCD applies only to factions playable by default, so the greeks will wrap up my time spent with vanilla rtw at least for the next couple of decades. I will return however to BI and mods (I have in mind darthmod, eb and rtr for now). I know some of the modifications list factions like Macedonia, Pontus or Armenia as playable by default, so they qualify for the OCD in those circumstances. Maybe I'll make some fully developed AARs in the dedicated sections.

Anyway, since this is pretty much at the end now and it's only a matter of clearing some egyptian doomstacks before victory (no problem at all given how inferior they are to real hellenic men ), I will say that

a) I'd have a hard time singling out a favorite faction between Carthage, the Seleucid Empire and the Greek Cities. All of them pose a good strategic challenge in the early game and enjoy tough-as-hobnails infantry with excellent cavalry support later (well, the greeks don't get cavalry support but tougher-than-hobnails infantry will do).

b) my least favorite must be the barbarian factions, largely due to the very poor infrastructure they get. It never felt like I was actually building a barbarian empire, but rather racing against the clock to annex the needed number of territories before things started falling apart due to the very limited economy and development opportunities.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Can you actually play as the SPQR? My computer crashed when I tried it.

You can...just don't click on the Senate, which most definitely will crash the game. It's quite fun because you have to bum-rush a few towns or you go broke in a hurry. Rome cannot support that SPQR doom-stack when player controlled. SPQR as AI controlled gets monetary perks to keep it going.

My OCD applies only to factions playable by default, so the greeks will wrap up my time spent with vanilla rtw at least for the next couple of decades.

If you have the GC in your top three favs, you're missing out on the best of the phalanx factions. The Greek Cities are the most boring of the lot, IMO, because you get....Armored Hoplites/Spartans, and.....Armored Hoplites/Spartans, and.....not much else.

All of them pose a good strategic challenge in the early game and enjoy tough-as-hobnails infantry with excellent cavalry support later

So it's strange you won't play Macedonia, which fits that description to a tee

my least favorite must be the barbarian factions...before things started falling apart due to the very limited economy and development opportunities

I only experienced that when I first started to play them. Later, after I figured out how to make enough money to do whatever I wanted (you'll never see the filthy rich treasury like you do with Greek or Roman factions), they were a lot of fun...especially Germania.

But...if it's no longer fun then move on to something that is

[wooly_mammoth]

Aaaand done. Here's a pic of just before occupying Susa and fulfilling the objectives. Too bad I didn't get any border action, the britons decided to be aggressive and attack my Alpine fortifications just as I was wrapping things up.



A very fun faction to play as. Armored hoplites and heavy peltasts rock everything up.

[Vincent Butler]

A very fun faction to play as. Armored hoplites and heavy peltasts rock everything up.

For their level, not including Romans, Armoured Hoplites are the best unit for their level. And they will match Principes, and put up a decent fight against Early Legionaries. Chosen Swordsmen are next, but give me AH over CS. Heavy Peltasts are awesome, but limited by the level of building required (Catapult Range). I use Merc Peltasts and Illyrians quite a bit. Once they get experience, they can fill the gap of auxiliary line infantry. Not your main line troops, but good for flanking maneuvers. And they have missiles to boot.