Macedon

[Johnny Blaze]

Hello Everyone,

Just though I would mention a few of the things I have noticed about the Macedonians. First of all, Militia Hoplites and Levy Pikeman are for all intensive purposes COMPLETELY useless. Therefore, if you are the type of commander who enjoys seeing a long line of gleaming pikes, I suggest that you upgrade your barracks ASAP before engaging in any conflict with the Romans or Greeks. There is nothing more frustrating in my opinion that outnumbering your opponent, lining up your levy pikeman against his infantry line, swinging your calvary around to the rear of his army and then just as you are about to delover the decisive blow...having your entire line break and flee for seemingly no reason. Often the morale of these buggers is so poor that even with a very expeienced general and superior numbers the infantry of your line will flee almost before they lose a man.

Which brings me to my second point... dont use Macedonian infantry early on in the game, use their calvary instead! It is quite possible to win battle after battle after battle with a large stack of just light lancers and a decent general.. why would you risk losing by adding any levy pikeman? Now dont get me wrong, I am a HUGE fan of the combined arms approach.. in fact if your are not playing an eastern faction it is almost essential for survival in the middle and late game. But lets face it... light lancers have one of the best charge bonuses in the game, and the infantry of the Greeks and Romans can be out maneuvered time and time again. Just run around them till they break apart from their battle line, then hit isolated units in the rear hard! Withdraw immediately and repeat the process to take advantage of the high charge bonus! Use your general's calvary (preferably the backup general(s)) to deal with enemy heavy calvary (practically non-existant with the romans and greeks), and the light lancers can deal with any inf or missle troops no problem. Another point which validates this theory is that in RTW calvary are sooo overpowered compared to other troops that you must take advantage of this to win battles with minimal losses. I do not have the new patch 1.2 myself, but I have heard that it increases calvary strength even more (what were they thinking??).

Remeber, this advice applies mainly to the early game on VH/VH setting. On easier settings your inf may or may not have better morale (I have never played on the easier settings myself as I find the battles easy enough as it is once you get a feel for the AI and the units).

[mrcow88]

what ive done for my vh/m campaign is go all out to get the greek cities of the greek peninsula. first turn, empty all the men you can out of ur cities while still keeping the taxes as high as possible and train peseants in all the cities but corinth where u should train a diplomat to sell an atm package to the greeks. plus u dont need to move the corinth units anyway because its right next to the first target, sparta. send ur starting diplomat up past bylazora to the thracian capital, often a dacian army will come down to this area and u can sell an atm package and/or bribe a really sweet general, continuing to thrace to sell another atm package later on. next turn, use the diplomat in south greece to bribe the army that comes from thermon, u will get these units and send them right back where they came from, all the defense thats left is a general and militia hoplites. also, when the next coming of age comes around, send him to that city to get experience witht the seige. at the end of turn 2 u should have massed all the troops u started with right next to sparta, easier to do if u use the boats provided at thessolonica. turn 3 attack sparta and the army nearby, it will be any easy fight with all those troops u started with, plus the faction leader usually suicide charges in the battle, making it really easy to rout the remaining units. just occupy sparta and build temples to ares as high as the tech tree allows, then stables. now, ur probably wondering why ive left out the brutii. 2 things will happen with them, 1 they will land at apollonia and take that and start there (not as much in my game) or 2 they will suprise land at corinth the turn after u start ur seige on athens or so (80% of the time). every time its been the faction heirs army too, so u cant bribe it, fight it with ur spartan army. this can be a tough fight with the good general for the romans, but to ease the fight, train lancers every turn where u can after the first turn of peasants and send them to south greece, just flank them and rout em. and its not just limited to the brutii, ive had the julii give up on gauls and come after me at corinth too, witht their faction leader. the scipii r usually busy on syracuse but after 15 yrs theyll knock at ur door too if u havent made it to the italian peninsula by then. jsut keep repelling these roman armies until u can take ur main army to tarentum and croton and finish the brutii off. the whole plan ive laid out is a massive blitzkrieg and having cavalry trained at the exterior while infantry is trained in the interior allows for fast movement. with the spartan army go to athens and take that. that same turn you should take thermon to get the greeks of the area. also, u should get a few rebel armies and thracian armies wandering through ur area, bribe them and add them to the bribed dacian generals army. with taht army, if u have enought troops, try to beat thrace to byzantium, if u dont go to their capital and seige that, but make sure u have a diplomat to bribe everything u can for more troops, u should have the money by now. with tylis gone, thrace is screwed and its only a matter of time. i went to byzantium next, took that, built a full stack army and then went to finish off the greeks in asia minor. always keep building troops in most of the cities because teh more armies u have the faster u can expand, i have 4 armies right now, one in italy, one is asia minor, one in thrace and one going to crete then rhodes then asia minor. even though this seems bad as it hinders populatin growth and costs a bit to maintain, u dont want to stockpile money in this game, at a treasury of 50k or so ur general lose their management abilities and become crappy governors, in one of my scipii games, all my governors were so and so the wrathful with a 700k treasury. the point is always spend ur money to expand faster. now with the brutii gone, feel free to take an army up to apollonia then salona, if the gauls own salona, take it anyways and keep going to segestica. this is bout where i am now and its workin quite well, but that senate army looks like a pain compared to my lancer heavy force

[ajgundam5]

First 5 Turns - Ally with Greek Cities and when they lay siege upon Athens go and build siege weapons yourself, then assault the city and the Greeks will even help you out :-).
From then on try to wipe out the Greeks from Greece and then move north up until you wipe out thrace. If you prevented the Julii from getting any territory outside of Italy they should be your first choice to hit. Then continuously produce units in the major 3 greek cities and ship them over every chance you get nd keep making troops in italy until you control it all. I hunted down all the italian factions so they wouldn't bother me. Then I moved into Asia Minor. Then I just kept expanding.

[Svean]

Macedonians starts really powerfull so - use it!
First of all I took Athens - you willa have many benefits of that - a lot of cash and producting center for most of the game.

In the north you should send a diplomat to birbe incoming Dacian army. It's worth about 6000 (maybe less - I don't remember) but you will take one of the best leaders (in my game he became fraction heir). Of course before that try to sell to Dacians yor map and offer to attack Rebels (same with Greek Cities).

In south build and send to Greeks a diplomat (see above) and after taking Athens send that armies to Sparta. Most of the times Greek units hide near the city living there only Spartan hoplites. In that case attack the city - spartans will defend the city while you could deal with the rest of the army and THEN kill as many of spatans with arrows/javelins as you can. This unit has 2 lives (my cat is better - has 7 ;)) and great stats so after using all missiles charge them with everything you have.

That's the very beginning.
After that take Thermon and go north - Dacians and Thracians will try to take Bylazora soon. Birbe them or kill in battle. And go for their cities ;)
Thacian cieties don't get culture penalty so you don't need to enslave them but you can if you want yor main cities bigger.

During that prepare for Brutti. I couldn't ever ally with them but even allied they always attack. In my game they go for Tessalonica but they were easily defeted with garrison from Byzalora and Larissa (with the help from the besieged too :))

Then you can take Appolonia or/and invade Asia Minor/Crete/Rhodos.

[cunobelinus]

i enjoyed these there spearmen are there strong point there royal pikemen are my favoutrite spearmen and phalanx even if the arent the strongest type.i went fro greece and wiped them out first then there is the romans they are really annoying.i never completed my campaign with them

[Imperator]

Campaign-
When playing Macedon you must remember you can't use their phalanxes exacly like Greek ones because they aren't as good against missile troops. On the Campaign map try to get alliance and trade rights with both Dacia and Thrace to secure you back. If they do attack, which they might, be ready! what I did was take Athens before the Greeks and then I took Thermon and blockaded Sparta to destroy trade then I bribed their huge army and use it to take Sparta. Now you have a really good production area from Sparta, Athens, Corinth, Thermon, and Larissa. If the Brutii haven't attacked yet attack them! They have Appolonia and possiby Salona. Now try to get a ceasfire with Greece and take Crete. Now you have a good invasion point to Italy, sail over two bg armies and quickly take Tarentum and Croton before the Romans can do anything. Slowly work your way up to Rome and defeat the huge army. This will probably destroy you army so have a reseve army. Now might be a good time to attack Thrace because they probably have some good cities, adn Dacia because they can't stand up to Macedons phalanxes. Once you take all of Italy you might have to fight Gaul but you can beat their hoards with you cavalry alone! You can choose to go into Sically (Syracuse is Awsome!) or you can march on the final Greek settlements with will eventually bring you to fight the People of Pontus and later Egypt. By now if you haven't attacked Thrace, attack! you can get phalanx pikemen from bribing and their cities and Dacian ones will give you the possibility of two fronts with European barbarians. From here your on your own.
Infantry-
At the beginning your arny isn't very good militia will rout on contact with the enemy and levy will rout if not helped. Once you get to phalanx pikemen your fine, but they aren't very good against missiles. Royal pikemen are awsome, they're just like aroured execpt with more men. I always put either mercenary hoplites or royal pikemen on the flanks because the can move faster with their shorter spears.
Cavalry-
Macedon starts out with a few light lancers and two of macedonian cavalry. Macedons cavaly is made for one purpose, while your infantry hold the go around back and charge. Remeber until you get to macedonian cavaly don't let your cavalry get fully engaged by infantry, they will be slautered. In you armies you should have at least 4 cavalry. Don't underestimate light lancers because of their armour and defence because their charge bonus is 15! Companion cavalry is unnessecary but is awsome because they are just like legionary cavalry.
Missile-
Macedon has two kinds of missile troops: skirmishers and archers. Personally I like archers more because they can sit safe behind your battle line and peg enemy troops. Skirmishers though can be useful against other phalanxes and can put a charge in a desperate situation.
Mercenaries-
In Greece you find three different mercenries hoplite, cretean archers, and skirmishers. To me only the archers are really worth your money. In Turkey you get barbarian cavalry and infantry, hopites, cretean archers, slingers, thracian and bastarnae, samaration cavalry, and eastern infantry. All except the easrtern infantry and Barbarians good. In Italy there are hoplites, barbairians, and sammnite mercenries. Sammnites are only watered down triarii.
Temples-
Macedon has 4 temples: Zeus, Ares, Artemis, and Demeater. Zeus gives public order and happiness, Ares gives public happiness and experiance. Artemis give public law and better missile weapons, and Demeater gives public happiness and increases farm output.

[Aimar78]

To make things a little more interesting with Macedonia try to walk in the steps of Alexander the great, in the first few turns gather up all your armies and generals jump in your ship and sail straight to nicomedia, take it and give all your cities in mainland greece to your greek brothers in exchange for pergamum, now you can conquer asia and the Greek cities should be strong enough to keep the brutii off your back untill the conquest of asia & egypt is complete, and then you can set your sights on rome and fight on your own terms.