Spain

[pezhetairoi]

'hot' doesn't even come close. :-P I will enjoy the strategic challenge it poses. But more fun will be Carthage, because it doesn't have uber-hoplites that can stop all charges at the start of the game.

[IliaDN]

When I played carphage the game became pretty boring to me after defeating romans (and was pretty soon after beginning).Their elephants give nice chances in battle and also make possible to attack town without a ram.
As for greeks their hoplites can be easily otflanked even by infranture, so battle for Sicily will be a hard one.

[katank]

Actually, the Carthaginians are more fun for me due to their awesome blitz of the Romans. They get long shields and lybian spears once you take Rome. This makes for units that can actually hold the line and cav that can actually break units. Their starting elephant is by far their biggest asset. You just have really weak infantry though.

Greek hoplites are still nice. Turning off phalanx, turning quickly and reenabling phalanx allows for decent speed defense against flanking. Beside, having phalanxes on the flanks on an angle is good. The AI doesn't flank well anyhow. Often, they charge frontally into your center.

[pezhetairoi]

When I played carphage the game became pretty boring to me after defeating romans (and was pretty soon after beginning).Their elephants give nice chances in battle and also make possible to attack town without a ram.
As for greeks their hoplites can be easily otflanked even by infranture, so battle for Sicily will be a hard one.

Says who hoplites can be easily outflanked by infantry? On aggressive, just concentrate everything on a blow to the centre, and the flanks will give way, as long as you keep a unit or two at the ends as reserve. On defensive, you don't even have to do anything, just sit around in a square/circle/polygon and let your militia cavalry do the shooting, and let your sharp pointy sticks do the talking. Always worked for me. I never left a defensive battle as Germans or Macedonians with any more than 10% casualties, and even that was only when four units of bodyguards charged one after another into the same phalanx, decimating it but eventually being stopped in its tracks and slaughtered by reserve melee infantry mercs.