Strategy

[Franconicus]

I wonder what are the best or new strategies that you apply in your games? I am not talking about tactics.
Two examples:
In my Germanian campaign I rushed through Gaul and took the Gaulish towns in Northern Italy. Then I saw the Brutii attacking Dacia (allied with me) with big armies and coming close to my homeland. All my armies were somewhere else. My strategy was to
1. block all the bridges across the river that is between Dacia and Germania.
2. Send a small expedition force (high mobile) to Dacia. Brutii were busy chasing them and so they were not able to conquer the Dacian cities.
3. Take the army in Italy and attack the Brutii in Segestica. This cut the supply of their army in Dacia.
After this their army was isolated and immobile. I could easily attack it when I thought the conditions were good.

Another one from the Greek campaign. This is a quite obvious one.
Sicily: You have two enemies here. Both only concentrate on Sicily while you are busy everywhere. So I attacked the Romans and took Messana the very first turn. So they were out of the game. However my army was now split in two and Carthago attacked me in Syracuse. My strategy was not to attack the enemy army that was much stronger than me but to send my Messana troops to Lilybaeum. That made then withdraw their troops from Syracuse. The town was secured and I had time to built up a new army.

[PseRamesses]

I also use theese forms of tactics especially in an initial phase of a conflict, especially against a stronger or equal foe.
Ex: RTR, VH/VH: Carthaginian campaign vs Ptolemy (Egypt)
They blockade my port in Lepcis and came marching with stack upon stack upon stack.... across the Libyan desert. At the Tripolitanian border I already had a very good defensive general with onagers, archers and phalanxes so I sent one more army there from Lepcis to re-inforce him. My whole fleet except 3 are now thundering the coastline of Libya blockading port after port down the entire coasline towards the Levant. Meanwhile I always keep a very good commander in Sicily so I board the three remaining fleets and send them towards the Aegean on a more northern route. Goal: capture Kydonia, Rhodes (Colossus) and Salamis before they can react.
The main reason is that Cyrene and Siwa aren´t worth the fight and I rather take the islands and maybe Sidon and Tyre (old Phoenician homelands) before turning Ptolemy into a protectorate. The secon reason is, like Sun Tzu stated, to apear strong where I´m not and apear weak where I´m not, he he!

P.S "When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue". (Mao Tse-Tung) This is actually Sun Tzu´s from the art of war so you might wanna change that.

[Franconicus]

P.S "When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue". (Mao Tse-Tung) This is actually Sun Tzu´s from the art of war so you might wanna change that.

Thanx for the information. But as Mao demonstrated it very successful, I think I keep it

[pezhetairoi]

For my opening strategies, if all my provinces are adjacent to one another, and my land is not defensible from initial projection, I 'retreat' into far more defensible locations to secure a base before moving out to reoccupy my starter lands. Like in Germania, I simply concentrated all my troops, swarmed south into Italy and conquered the whole peninsula, surrendering the Germanic lands to the Britons (not without a fight, though ;-D ). That left me with only 4 passes to defend by land, and highly improbable and easily-dealt-with amphibious invasions of one unit or less. Likewise I tried an Armenian short campaign the other day and I simply poured all my troops into Asia Minor before expanding east again to reconquer Artaxarta from the Parthians. My playing style is highly mobile, so I depend very little on forts or garrison defences, preferring to let my grand armies take up the burden or relieving sieges etc on the border marches. Also, to me, many cities (almost all) are dispensable, except perhaps, (from a Greek context) Sparta, Carthage and Rome.

In short, I keep moving. The only time my army sits still is to pacify a city until I cobble together a temple to increase PO.

Franc, why is happyness a warm gun? ;-) For me happyness is an Royal Spartan First Urban Cataphract Cohort. :-D

[Franconicus]

Franc, why is happyness a warm gun? ;-) For me happyness is an Royal Spartan First Urban Cataphract Cohort. :-D

It is a title of a Beatles' song. It is strange but cool

[Kekvit Irae]

Germans are in a tricky position at the start, but have great potential to be powerhouse players. The way I normally play Germans is to have all my available units (leaving a few behind for town garrison duty) and consolidate them into one mass army and rush the Britannian city on the French mainland. Without a beachhead, the Brits are forced to build boats to transport whatever armies they need to invade Europe. Leave a good-sided force at that city for when they come back to reclaim their land (and they will, often), and start pumping out Spear Warbands in your other cities, consolidating them into one or two mass armies, and just rush Rome. If you are extremely lucky with a spy, you can siege Rome and their (often) puny garrison, wiping out the Senate faction in a single turn. If you arent lucky, you are SOL as the Senate's field army will come and smack you down.
Once you have Rome, build the temple that will allow you to recieve the Gothic Cavalry. With the Chosen Archers and Gothic Cavalry (complete with black eyeliner and Cruxshadows CD), you can easily dominate the Roman factions that want Rome for themselves.

[Franconicus]

Here is my latest:

I am Greek Cities; I reunited Greek and Sicily. I now fight in Africa to kil Carthagians. After that I will land in Italy to destroy the Brutii homeland (not occupiing!). I assume this will lure the Scipii into the Brutii land. The I will land in Scipii land and destroy the town here. That should destroy the base of these two factions lasting. Then I will finally sack the Brutii army outside Italy.
All I need to start this is some artillery.