I am currently in the latter reaches of my Koinon Hellenon campaign. Anyone who has glanced at their victory conditions will notice that you have to make an awful lot of enemies in order to win.

A war of attrition rages around Tarsus with the Ptolomaics, while in the west I have finished grabbing the Carthaginian islands and am contemplating taking on the Romani (for southern Italia) and the Aedui (for Massilia and coastal Iberia).

I have faced the best the civilised world could throw at me, and beaten it.
  • I have laughed at Phyrrus's elephants, and turned them into pin-cushions.
  • I have faced hugh phalanxes, and turned them into neat rows of corpses with flanking attacks (Traditional Hoplites rule!).
  • I have faced heavy cavalry from hell, and they have died on my spears.
  • I have faced armoured machine-gun arrow firing horse-archer bodyguards, and overwhelmed them with peltasts (they were probably too busy looking at all my dead slingers).

With the Maks, Epirotes, Pontics and Getai all exterminated, you would think that I was ready for the final big push - but no, there is a thorn in my side and its name is Kotais.

My Greek fighting system has reigned supreme all over the Mediterranean (Traditional Hoplites, Peltasts, Slingers, Cretans - no Cavalry). Even the sneaky Easterners and savage nomads only required extra slingers and peltasts before they too went down under the greek steam-roller.

But now my system has broken down. Kotais was fairly easily captured - the last regular Hayasdin army is now pushing up daisies around the stockade. Unrest is so high that I have been unable to keep Kotais more than 2 turns.

There is actually a dip in my progress graph! (2 stacks lost to date). There is also a pesky Hayasdin spy to put the last nail in the unrest coffin (just can't seem to catch him).

My first expulsion killed the general, and a tiny Hayasdin stack attacked my men as they were being expelled, meaning they immediately got a giant kick up the rear from the new stack from the town. No one survived.

I tried extermination, I tried selling all those smelly easterner buildings, but the result is always the same. I get expelled from Kotais, and a full stack of Sparabara with gold upgrades appears. These guys die quite quickly under missile fire - but in melee they are veritable supermen. Even when I manage to rout some of them (ganging up 3 on 1, front and both flanks) they just trot back a hundred yards, reform and pile straight back in.

I think I am going to need to get my best traited general, another couple of full stacks and exterminate the whole faction before I can hold Kotais more than 6 months.

Has anyone else had trouble with Kotais? If this goes on much longer, I will have to move my Capital there!

PS. I think there be a new trait for this situation "Humbled by Sparabara" - it should bring a big influence penalty as the holder will never again be able to show his face in public.