Evilmen's corner - any tips of darkness?

[Oaty]

Archers, even better is horse archers. Large quantities are impossible for the AI to deal with.

Umm I had 9 hastati against 2 HA and 1 archer unit. I'll jsut say I won but will never do that again. If the A.I. has none or too few cavalry they are hurting and so is the human.

[zhuge]

A few small added thoughts. I really think Maltz has gotten most of them though.

On [Shield too big? Shoot their back!]:
Now comes in 2 flavors: moving and stationary
Have enemy troops chase bait while javelin throwers hit them from behind. Angle direction of bait away from javelin throwers so that chasing enemy units get the best "exposure". This way all those pila can be used up before any melee.

On [Shoot the parade!]:
Parade not forthcoming? Push a fast unit into the breach and parade will restart. Make sure you have enough time to retreat unit out of harm's way while still giving archers and javelin throwers enough parade "exposure" time. For best results: be patient (if you can afford the time) - the enemy will frequently stop a unit just in front of the breach and remain still till shot at once again (so make those stationary target shots count).

On [Encourage enemy general to commit suicide]:
Sometimes enemy generals are too tough. Soften him up first by running close to your archers and letting them shoot for fun. Have a spear unit near archer just in case enemy general changes targets (usually doesn't happen). Javelin throwers also do nicely but you'll have to micromanage your bait a bit more carefully when taking corners.
Once the AI is fixated on your bait he's usually fixed no matter what and once he's nailed onto the spears, even lighter troops have a fair chance of killing a general's unit.

On [Choke points with choking old man]:
Enemy choking old man in a threatening position near our troop stack without general? We can shove him in the direction we want by getting a troop to occupy the square he stands. Haven't seen the AI bribe towns yet in the early game so if you can end the shoving troop in a town he's safe as well.

[Jeanne d'arc]

[flanks??]

U need a phalanx unit for this to work and its best used vs an army with no archers.In a field battle place your phalanxes in the bottom right corner of the map, the AI will march its troops directly in front of the phalanx.It will not attempt to flank you cause it simply cant.Heroic victory for sure.

[Ziu]

If I don't have spies or diplomats available I sometimes send out equites or some some such light cav unit as a lookout.
Once one of my equite/scout units with no movement points left was attacked by a full stick. Ouch you might say... Nay, I merely ran the unit round and round the edges of the battle map with a 1500+ army vainly pursuing until the time ran out.
Victory!! And the enemy was forced to withdraw!!
This also bought me extra time to reinforce the city they were obviously sent to attack.

[Epistolary Richard]

Roman v Roman bribery is the worst, by the time you're in a position to march on Rome your coffers are normally swollen. The other factions send armies against you, but they're typically led by captains: buy them off. When you reach their cities: buy them off and then occupy them with the troops you just converted. When you finally reach the capital/faction leader/heir use their own troops to lay siege to them.

I spent about 50 years conquering Gaul, Spain, Germany, Britain and Dacia as the Julii with my legions, then two diplomats on their own conquered Greece, North Africa and Thrace in about ten years. Crazy.

You don't even need that many diplomats as you will bribe more on the way!

[-Abbey.keeper-]

CIA Intervention

Egypt getting too strong? crushing all that stand in their way? bullying the hapless Seleucids with their shirtless tanks? send a couple of diplomats and bribe all their armies to match the balance of power in the middle east.
ship bio weapons over and decimate their city population from greece for good measure!

[Maltz]

Quote from another player:

[Deadly spear-door!]
You can position your phalanx very close to the gate, so their spear sticks out of the wood. You can kill all of the ram pushers this way while they can't touch your wall at all!

***

I just explored more on the "infinite tribute" bad feature, and found some worse pattern of AI behavior. For example, if you can sell your map for roughly 3k-4k, ask for 2k tribute of 9999999 turns, right AI always agree. Then you immediately ask for an alliance - they will agree as well!

[Maltz]

CIA Intervention
ship bio weapons over and decimate their city population from greece for good measure!

That's indeed sounds like what CIA would do in secret.

Somethings to note for biowarfare:

(1) Naval admirals can never recover from plague unless their fleet is wiped out. So you always get the plague warning at the beginning of a turn. Infected admirals can only infect your other settlements by docking in the corresponding ports. However, you can use them to spread the love to ever corner by boarding your infected spy to visit friends or foes alike.

(2) Egyptian cities are fun to infect. Another good place is Rome. The Senate usually sends new family members/units into that stack, so there is a good chance they will catch that plague. In 6 turns that army will be reduced to half strength. How nice!