Strategy

[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.