Quote Originally Posted by cython
1) Why Macedonians start with such a bad economy? It's like -10000/turn... Clearly my options were either disband most of my army or become over aggressive... I ve choosed the second and in turn 1 i charged to Spata, Athens & Ambrakia (it took me 3 Heroic Battles to kill Pyros)... anyway it took me about 20 or so turns till cash was flowing into my treasury. From what i know Macedonians should not have such a bad economy... right? At least they should have one city above 6000...
Macedon army is way to big - cutting many units is necesary - for more hist. accurate situation check myAAR - in 5th paragraph there is list of troops I havent disbanded (multiplied by ten for more "historic" look, gen bodyguards are added to amount of Hetairoi)
Macedon was on the edge in this year. Phyrros was controlling most of Macedon itself and vast areas of Thessaly. If he had wisely choose targets, by the end of year he had chance to eliminate Antigonos and control whole greece.

Quote Originally Posted by cython
2) Missile troops & cavarly don't seem to be effective

There were cases were archers (Toxotai) emptied all their ammo onto a unit of rebel Taxeis Hoplites only to kill one man (i highly doubt that this is realistic)... even worse image two Toxotai and two peltasts (the good ones) empting all their ammo one a unit of Taxeis Hoplites (the peltasts were firing from the flank of the enemy) only to kill 10!?

And cavalry does not kill units... it only break morale when you flank the enemy... Cavalry was actually so bad that Etairoi (Fresh) alone could not take care a unit of peltast (Tired) or a charge of Etairoi onto a unit Taxeis Hoplites from behind, who were fighting my infantry, could only kill only 5 men! I am sorry but it does not make sense, a charging heavy cavarly can inflicte far more damage only from the momemtum it has...
As many people wrote here - hit enemy from behind. Phalanx units are almost invulunerable to missles from the front, but try placing somebody behind them...
Toxotai are useless in battle field, they only make good garnison troops. Spendotenai are much better.
Cav charge is broken, but few things you should consider
-charge downhill is much more effective than uphill.
-multiple charges from many sides should crush enemy, while single charge is good only against lowest level skirmishers

Quote Originally Posted by cython
3) Even with all the above obstacles i have manage to form a small empire consisting 20 provences with a lot of vistories... but my most skilled generals during the whole game was Antigonos with 3 stars (but quickly reduced to 1 as he was getting older), and X (i dont recall his name) 1 star after coming victorius in many battles (most of the time were tough battles like 4:1 or 2:1 against me)
Candidate for good general should be sharp/charismatic/vigorous if you chose other he will not develop well. Getting stars is very hard and it is OK as not everybody could become Aleksandros