how much do macadonians kick tail!!!!

[King of Atlantis]

Macedon has the best army..

Phalanx pikemen and compainion cavavlry. This is the best combo..

And like Uesugi said, you have acces to the cretian archers who are probably the best archers in the game.

[PseRamesses]

Hey, don´t forget the Greeks: Athenean hoplites, Spartan hoplites and armoured hoplites (can take on thoose dredded cohorts any day), decent archers (+cretan archers), heavy peltasts etc. Weak cav though but who needs them. I just bring 2 along for flanking.

[Krauser]

I like to do the whole traditional thing. Use siege weapons to soften them up, then continue with archers using fire arrows, and finally move the infantry in. Use cavalry to feint and break up their line or hit their flank.

[edyzmedieval]

Hey, don´t forget the Greeks: Athenean hoplites,

Excuse me?!
Athenean Hoplites?!

BTW,

Ptolemy, your apologies are accepted.

[Viking]

Man, this kicks tail!!!!(wouldn`t rear end be better? )

[Garvanko]

Macedon is fun because they have a small group of excellent units that ae easy to manage and effective against all factions. They also have easy access to the best Merc unit, IMO i.e basternae. Plus they get to fight the Romans early on.

Seleucid is the most powerful because they have a huge roster of excellent units.

[Eaglefirst]

The Horse Archer armies of Parthia/Armenia/Sycthia are the best openfield armies. Egyptians with Pharohs Bowmen and the bloody oversized, armored killing, and underpriced Desert Cavalry. Macedon is good but whatever they do the Selecucids can do and they can do better especially since they have cataphracts.

[Dark_Magician]

1 to 1, any archer wins against AI hoplites. Just by firing and retreating

[King of Atlantis]

Excuse me?!
Athenean Hoplites?!

BTW,

Ptolemy, your apologies are accepted.

somebody has been plaing RTR methinks...

[magnum]

He's playing the Extended Greek mod. Several new units for greek factions to make them more comparable in ability to the Romans.

[Gaius Magnus]

I don't know, I think the Romans pretty much kick bootay. They are very versatile, and always up to flanking a rigid phalanx. Elephants? No sweat for the Romans. Just use Cohorts and Lergionary Cav, Cohorts and Triaarii, or Cohorts and Merc Hoplites.

Bye Bye Heffalumps!

Oh, and isn't it just great grinding down a phalanx with several units of Archer Auxilia or Merc Cretans? Those silly pole vaulters are so inflexible.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Macedonians being good? Pah. In any campaign i play they suck more than Numidia, if that's even possible. They get their asses wooped by the Romans, Greeks, Thracians, Dacians and Scythians before Cyrene in Africa rebels in their favour, and there they sit until their faction dies in poverty.

[pezhetairoi]

Heh, that's because of the AI. In the hands of a good general Macedon pwns all...Duel me one day and I'll silence you on that :P But first I have to get some home internet access... *looks rueful*

[Rayven1]

My tactic is a pretty traditional one. I stay in my spot while the stupid AI marches my way. I sit there firing siege weapons into the enemy formations till they get close enough for me to open up with arrows. Once they have gotten a bit closer I allow the auxila skermishers to throw a round or two of javilins before retiring behind my infantry. Once the auxilia has retired I allow the first line of infantry to go into fire at will mode. Most enemy units break from the first salvo of pilums even before they make contact with my first line. If they don't break then I allow the second line to go into fire at will while my cav harrasses the enemy missle troops to keep them out of range. The AI seems to like a all or nothing approch so by this time they would have destroyed thier cav on my spear troops, charging into obvious traps on the left and right flanks..

[pezhetairoi]

A nice strategy, but it's based on the assumption that the AI will come to you, and that you have lots of missile power. I rely on shock so you'll forgive me if I say this strategy isn't really very practical from a personal bias... Although I do use archers to open the battle whenever possible.

[Rayven1]

Its my experience that the AI when attacking will always come to you. I try to be on the defencive as much as possible because I get the best results that way with minium loss. I usually allow my army to wait nearly the full duration of a siege if the enemy garrison is large. This way I draw them into combat outside the city walls. A little trick I use on the AI is to park an army right in front of the enemy stack forcing him to ether turn around or attack to get through my area of control. Usually works to draw the enemy into a scrape he will not get out of. Being on the defence however can backfire when facing armies like Macadon which will use almost all cav and siege weapons. Key to those battles is to have a good amount of spear units to counter the cav and to get into melee as quickly as possible. Set your siege weapons on 1) enemy general(siege weapons seem to hit him if you target him more often than not) 2) enemy siege equipment.

If you are low on missle units pilas can make up for that if you use them right and have atleast a unit of skermishers. I never turn on fire at will as a default. I usually save them for the main body of the enemy infantry. Often the enemy will send up skermishers or a single unit of infantry first and if you have fire at will on you will waste your ammo with crappy results. Wait for the main body to engage and then turn on fire at will on your front line only. This way if you even need engage with your second line they will have a nice set of pilums to throw at the already weakened enemy.

[pezhetairoi]

nicely argued; that's what I do if I was on defensive, but most of the time I prefer to force an engagement instead of just waiting in the enemy's red zone... Admittedly though I base this on my experience when I tried three times as Germania to stand in an enemy's red zone and he just stood there and stared back at me until I lost patience and attacked him. The enemy's attacking you only matters if you're already at war with him and your chances of winning are significantly lower than his. Or so it seems; no faceoff in which I have parity or more in red/blue ratio has ended in the enemy attacking me, only when they are fighting battles of relief.

[gardibolt]

My tactic is a pretty traditional one. I stay in my spot while the stupid AI marches my way. I sit there firing siege weapons into the enemy formations till they get close enough for me to open up with arrows. Once they have gotten a bit closer I allow the auxila skermishers to throw a round or two of javilins before retiring behind my infantry. Once the auxilia has retired I allow the first line of infantry to go into fire at will mode. Most enemy units break from the first salvo of pilums even before they make contact with my first line. If they don't break then I allow the second line to go into fire at will while my cav harrasses the enemy missle troops to keep them out of range. The AI seems to like a all or nothing approch so by this time they would have destroyed thier cav on my spear troops, charging into obvious traps on the left and right flanks..

I have never, ever, had the AI do anything but just sit there unless I attack them first. If I did this I would lose every single battle on the timer.

[pezhetairoi]

yeah. so true.

[Rayven1]

EDIT: (I should have said who I was responding to)

I have never, ever, had the AI do anything but just sit there unless I attack them first. If I did this I would lose every single battle on the timer. --Gardibolt


hmm... wondering what game you are playing . The AI will always come to you if they are attacking. What I mean is that if thier army attacks yours and starts the battle they will always come to you. If you are on the attack however a different strategy is needed since they will indeed wait for you to come to them. The tactic I mentioned is very effective. You can often force the AI to attack by parking your army in a place where they have to move through your area of control. Often I will siege a city and allow my army to sit there for the duration of the siege because 1 of 2 things will happen. Either they will attack me and give me another heroic victory using the tactic I mentioned in my last post or they will forfeit the city and I lose no troops at all. Right now in my RTR game its 118BC and I control 128 regions. 627 battles won 98 lost(mostly sea battles against egypt. I do not understand sea battles and why my fleet will engage one ship at a time when there are 300 ships in the fleet.)

[Kourutsu]

I destroyed them with Germ warfare. I didn't have to send one unit in to take care of them.

[Conqueror]

Macedon has the best army..

Phalanx pikemen and compainion cavavlry. This is the best combo..

And like Uesugi said, you have acces to the cretian archers who are probably the best archers in the game.

You do realize that Seleucids also get phalanx pikemen + companions? And they get cataphracts which are better than maccie cavalry. Everything that Macedon can do, Seleucids can also do. But seleucids get elephants and chariots, while Macedon doesn't.

As for Cretan archers, they are mercs. Anyone can hire them, but only in certain provinces and only when they appear. You can't retrain them. Macedon can use them in custom/multiplayer battles though, which is a nice advantage to them.

BTW the reason why you should get good archers even when you have cataphracts and what not, is that you can then easily minimize casualties. Even win battles without a single casualty to your own troops. With the right formations and manouvering you can force a situation where the enemy has only two choises: to sit still and be killed by arrows to every last man, or to charge directly to your pikes. And good long range archers are very effective placed on stone walls when you sally out to drive away a besieging army.

[Arphaxad]

They sure do look cool those macedonians, and i have won a battle or two with them on my side...but i have also lost horribly. A freind of mine kicked my ars back to macedonia with a large selucid army, and i haven't dared use those macedonians again. Its all cohorts for me now. Long live Rome!!!!!!!!!!!

But yeah, macedonians are awesome in the right hands and should never be taken lightly.

[HarunTaiwan]

I've never lost to the Macedonians.

But they are one of the few factions to put up a fight, unlike that shite country Britain.

J/K mate.

[Al Khalifah]

I respect the level of detail you give in your location ptolemy. If I hadn't moved we'd nearly be neighbours.

Oh and by the way, Selucids rule. They remind me of the Macedonians in Age Of Empires.

[Kekvit Irae]

Let's keep this thread civil

[King of Atlantis]

You do realize that Seleucids also get phalanx pikemen + companions? And they get cataphracts which are better than maccie cavalry. Everything that Macedon can do, Seleucids can also do. But seleucids get elephants and chariots, while Macedon doesn't.


Really never knew


I like the macedons starting position much better though, plus their the kingdom the alexander came from. Sure they got a lot less than the selucids, but i like the better anyways.

[Wishazu]

Macedon has the best army..

Phalanx pikemen and compainion cavavlry. This is the best combo..

And like Uesugi said, you have acces to the cretian archers who are probably the best archers in the game.

macedon does not have the best army, Rome, Germania, Parthia, Seleucids, Armenia all have much better cavalry, also the Royal pikemen are mediocre at best compared with the phalanx`s of the greeks, seleucids, Carthage, Egypt and pontus and cretan archers are not that good...

[Papewaio]

Gentlemen please remove the swearing from your posts.

This is a PG site and we have people from 10 to 70 and this is one of the high traffic forums.

Good to see the apologies which is a good sign, just clean up the mess before the party begins.

[pezhetairoi]

It is pointless in arguring about which army is the best, really, because qualitative differences don't matter as much as the person who commands and uses them. If you play to each army's strengths then obviously that army will beat any other army's. After all, why is it that the AI keeps screwing up cohort battles and losing even though I am facing them with warbands and barb cav?

In the qualitative department, though, the Macedonians are sufficiently high in troop quality and diversity to ensure that they will not find it difficult to beat any army as is.

Even without melee mercenaries they are sufficient to the task, and with the Macedonians command and control is easy with troops being divided into simply phalanx/cavalry/ranged. Only three elements, and therefore much less command friction. In comparison with the Seleucids who have to divide their army into phalanx/legion/cavalry/ranged/chariots/elephants it is much easier command-wise to use the Macedonian army, and adapt it to different situations.

To address the apparently hot debate about Seleucids vs Macedon:

Seleucids have elephants, but Macedonians have archers, and they fire flaming arrows. And besides, there's always the phalanx.

Seleucids have Legionnaires, but Macedonians have Royal pikemen (who are actually hoplites, and that is correct because the Hypasists were historically hoplites, not phalangitai) who can meet them stroke for stroke in attack if not defence, and can for phalanx anyway that will give them the definitive advantage over the legionnaires for most of the combat. A word on Royals: Those who say Royals suck compared to the hoplite units of the Greeks are missing the point. The raison d'etre of Royals is not phalanx combat, but melee flank guarding. The phalanx is a bonus rather than the standard usage of a Royal unit. Why otherwise would the Royals be given a 10 attack in phalanx but a nasty 12 attack in melee? They can hold their own.

Seleucids have Silver Shield pikes, the Macedonians don't. But what does it matter? It is the cavalry that is the Macedonian decisive arm, not the phalanx which is there just to fix the enemy in place, not damage him.

Seleucids have Scythed chariots, the Macedonians don't. But the Macedonians have peltasts and archers to whom the chariots keep dying to. And they don't have enough of a crew to ensure the chariot can keep going once a fatal hit is scored. Admittedly they are deadly against any cavalry, but they are hopeless against any phalanx, and no general worth his salt is going to set any cavalry in the path of chariotry anyway.

Seleucids have Hetairoi cavalry. So do the Macedonians.

Seleucids have Militia cavalry to pepper the enemy with javelins. Macedonians have Sarissophori (a.k.a. Light Lancers) who can catch the militia, or at least keep them away from the main battle formation. Also, the Sarissophori are very fast, and very deadly with their charge of 15. Who needs cavalry melee?

I suppose that covers all the bases. Macedonians already have something for every eventuality without requiring the huge overkill-diversity that the Seleucids are provided with and which takes 2 turns to build anyway. Against the other factions' armies, of course, I will make a list.

Against barbarians: the Macedonians rule without doubt. They have an answer to everything the barbarians can throw at them, and then some, as the decisive blow is struck by cavalry that can overwhelm the enemy's barb cav which are the best ingame in attack.

Against Greeks: I rest my case. The Greeks have no cavalry worth talking about. Oui?

Against the Romans: The Macedonians are made for the Romans. Not only do they get to go for Rome early ingame, they will trash the enemy hands-down. The republican cohorts have no answer to the hedges of long pointy sticks they will face, and a massed charge by 4 LL will sweep the opposition away, much less with more cavalry, the way I do it.

Against the Egyptians: The Macedonian cavalry arm will be taxed to the max, but it can be done. Admittedly, though, here the usage of some mercenary camel cav would be useful for their morale effect.

Against the horsearcher factions: The cavalry, again. This is potentially the most worrying faction group you will face. But they can be beaten, especially if you use your phalanx as bait and send your cavalry wide to do a double envelopment the way Alexander did it against the Scythians. Even better if you get hold of some of your own Scythian mercs or Bedouins to face them with.

Against Carthage: Fear not their elephants, they run amok as easily as Seleucid ones. Iberians die like flies on pikes. Only their Poeni and Sacred Bands can make a dent, but with five rows of your pikes opposing two rows of theirs you get some advantage when it comes to the crunch, no? Also an easy victory, but only after you beat their longshields.

Against Numidia: Liberal peltasts, archery and cavalry are needed to kill the heavy archer support that any Numidian army can have. But, hey, you have LL, and they're on foot. What worries?

All that said, though, no matter how good the Macedonians are, their armies will die as easily if under a crap general who, for example, sends his LL on one-on-one melee missions against enemy cavalry, or allows his phalanx to be outflanked without relief by reinforcement or cavalry, or lets his levies stand alone against a massed cavalry charge without sending any counterforce, or does not use any of his troops/mercenaries for the purpose they were made for.

Qualitatively, and in the hands of a good or even decent general, Macedonians prod buttock!