Where to go now?

[naut]

Egypt or Pontus.

[Karo]

I would say try Armenia or Seleucia i playd with both of them and they are fun to play and are very challenging

[PaulTa]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Lately, I've just found myself completely frustrated with the lack of troop selection in Rome. The only nation that gets a really decent kick start along the lines of diversity is Germania, and the tech lvl 3 restriction means that I can't necessarily turtle since squalor will kill me.

I think that I'm going to settle on either Seleucids or Macedons. Macedons have the awesome temples, while seleucids have the most diversified unit line-up.

Off topic- Why in the name of all that is holy did the Greeks get stuck with no usable cavalry? :(

[Byzantine Emperor]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Lately, I've just found myself completely frustrated with the lack of troop selection in Rome. The only nation that gets a really decent kick start along the lines of diversity is Germania, and the tech lvl 3 restriction means that I can't necessarily turtle since squalor will kill me.

I think that I'm going to settle on either Seleucids or Macedons. Macedons have the awesome temples, while seleucids have the most diversified unit line-up.

I say Seleucids. They have a very good unit roster, if you live against the Egyptians long enough to use them!

Off topic- Why in the name of all that is holy did the Greeks get stuck with no usable cavalry? :(

Because historically the Greeks were not very good horsemen.

[The Teacher]

go with eygpt, they are strong with money and citys, but they have nice big wide open borders that attract armys like bees round honey. Currently im fighting a way with four of my neighbours ! brill ..

[jhhowell]

I think that I'm going to settle on either Seleucids or Macedons. Macedons have the awesome temples, while seleucids have the most diversified unit line-up.

Off topic- Why in the name of all that is holy did the Greeks get stuck with no usable cavalry? :(

I'm having a blast with the Seleucids - awesome faction! Read up on the faction guide, it has very useful tips. Attacking both Egypt and Parthia by turn 2 works exceptionally well. Remember, everyone is weak and unprepared at the start of the campaign - including you, but aggressive play plus mercenaries fix that quickly. The Seleucids will never have money problems thanks to the Hanging Gardens and their nice trade position.

And I strongly dispute your claim that the Greeks have no usable cavalry. Play a Greek faction and you will learn differently. I grant that Militia Cav is the worst of all the jav cavs, and Greek Cavalry seems to be the second worst of the light cavalries (better than the Macedonian Light Lancers - avoid Macedon since they don't get Militia Cavalry). But that's a strictly relative judgement, in absolute terms Militia Cavalry is a campaign winning uber-unit. The fact that it's a basic stable unit is very helpful as well - one could argue that that fact alone makes it superior to Cavalry Auxilia despite the weaker stats. Also note that horse archers have terrible melee stats - this is key to crushing Parthia in the first few turns, since your militia cav can just run them down and kill them. As an aside, it's also helpful that the toughest units you'll face in the east (2 Parthian Cataphracts, one Armenian Cataphract) are on your unit list, so when you bribe them you get those units for yourself.

The person who complained about slow phalanx combat may also share this mistaken view of Greek cavalry. In my experience, phalanxes rarely see much actual combat (except street fighting and some small rebel engagements). Their role is to be really unpleasant mobile terrain around which your generals and militia cavalry (and archers, chariots, elephants, cataphracts, and companions) operate. It's not at all unusual for my phalanx line to get zero kills even in a large battle. From what I recall reading up about the Seleucids on wikipedia, this is historically reasonable - they were successful with combined arms, but had a lot of trouble when they tried to use phalanxes alone as the decisive arm.

Macedonian temples are indeed nice (my 3-4 experience Militia Cavalry are loving the gold weapon upgrade from Thessalonica!), but Seleucid temples are adequate for their needs. Dionysus is good for Jerusalem and the Nile cities (Athena or another law temple would be better, but Dionysus is good enough); Asklepios is good for the Arabia and Armenia cities with terrible population growth; and Hephaestus works well everywhere else. Like the Scipii, you'll have quite well upgraded troops by midgame.

[PaulTa]

I've got a question for the old timers on the forum... Before CA altered the Chariots, were the Heavy chariots useful? Currently, they seem like more of a handicap for two turns and around a thousand denari.

[jhhowell]

I've got a question for the old timers on the forum... Before CA altered the Chariots, were the Heavy chariots useful? Currently, they seem like more of a handicap for two turns and around a thousand denari.

I'm not an old timer, but since nobody else is speaking up I'll comment.

Looking at the stats, the British heavy chariots seem comparable to the Seleucid/Pontic scythed chariots and the Egyptian chariots. I know for a fact that both of the latter are quite effective (far too good, in fact) and well worth their ~1000D, two turn cost. I consider chariots to be the centerpieces of rebel-quashing groups, and optional but effective additions to main armies. If chariots have been nerfed, CA didn't go far enough. Take away the magical cavalry massacre ability and reduce their speed to camel speed, and chariots would be pretty reasonable IMHO.

[PaulTa]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

MP, on the other hand, is anybody's guess. I know how fragile MP is to slight changes, being an AoE 3 veteran.