The Amazing Epeirote Debt Machine, or: "Help?"

[Bootsiuv]

Fair enough, but personally I think the Mid-game is often the most exciting.

[Landwalker]

After a massive battle for Corinth (again), against a large, predominantly mercenary army of Hellenes, it's on to Sparte for the final blow.

Reaching the southern Peloponnese prompts a question, though. Why is the southern tip divided between Aitolia, Crete, and Silicia?

Cheers.

[Kampfkrebs]

Reaching the southern Peloponnese prompts a question, though. Why is the southern tip divided between Aitolia, Crete, and Silicia?
Cheers.

There is Cape T. the ancient Toys'R'Us (for mercs).
Get a ship, put a FM into that ship and deploy him there, and there you go with a nice big army of everything you can imagine.

[Bootsiuv]

Wow....a new feature of 1.0, yes? I must have missed that one. Sounds friggin awesome though.

*wishes dad wasn't going to a cook out today so he could use his cable connection.*

Oh well, I'll find out tomorrow.

[muzz]

I don't think you should try and hold Taras. I evacuate everyone but the skirmishers, and destroy all the buildings, scuttle the fleet. Build roads and either farms or granaries in the other two provinces, build 4 archers for garrisons and 4 slingers in Ambrakia to send to whatever's left of my army in Demetrius by turn four. After I sack Demetrius on turn two, then I disband the ele's and send a diplomat to make peace with the Macedonians on turn three. Make peace and get trade with as many people as possible. Rome won't make peace till they have Taras. I have only a governor and an archer in all my cities, and send whatever's left of my army to Thermopylae. Usually get to about -30000 mnai before I start to make money. Sometimes, if I have a large enough army, I take Athens by 268BC after they've beat on each other (KH and Mak's). Have to be careful if eleutheroi spawn tho... hope that gives you some ideas.

[Landwalker]

Well, from my present campaign, I've found that disbanding the elephantes and making peace with Macedon is not, necessarily, the way to go. With nothing but the starting units (and not counting those in Taras) and a couple of units built with the initial funds, I was able to capture Pella on turn one, Demetrias on turn two, and then proceed down into southern Greece in short order. Although I'm away from my desktop at the moment, I believe it is around 268-267, I hold all of Hellas south of Epidamnus and Pella with the exception of Thermon, and am finally turning a nice profit. Given the several battles I fought in which the deciding factor was a well-timed Elephant-charge into the rear of the enemy infantry, I can confidently say that disbanding the elephants is certainl *not* the way to go if you plan to blitzkrieg Greece.

If, however, you would rather only blitz Macedonia and then make peace and consolidate, disbanding the elephants is virtually necessary. Still, with the path I took, I never reached -20,000 mnai and am now making about 6,000/turn even with the elephants (which have, in the course of many battles, been reduced to one third of their original number). I did lose Taras, but only after three assaults by the Romans, so I certainly made them pay for it, all the while tempering my debt with Taras' limited income (and, of course, completely sacking the city before the final assault that captured it).

Cheers.

[Michaelis]

Man, I'm still submerged in work - wish I had a little time to try out v 1.0...

Anyway, I've been playing Epeiros for a while now - can't get too deeply into a game because I don't have the headspace for taking care of 50 provinces and 20 armies... So I quit and start over after maybe 100 turns. Played a few openings this way, 0.81 of course, so I don't know how applicable my experiences are to 1.0. With that caveat, here goes:

The best and quickest way to win as Epeiros is to slaughter everyone, of course. I take Pella on turn 1, and immediately transfer my best troops including the elephants to Italy. Depending on the Greek situation, I'll also take Demetrias with whatever forces I've got left in Greece, and always grab a few barbarian provinces too. However, the main thrust is in Italy - I've wiped out the Romans three times in a row by 268 BC, so it's certainly possible with 0.81. That takes care of debt - those Roman cities are BIG, worth lots of money. BTW, I always spend all the initial money on new units.

After that, it's a bit of a walkover, a race to conquer as many provinces as I only can in the shortest possible time. I average 2 and a bit per year, by 250 BC I always have 50 provinces, give or take one or two.

Don't ever disband your starting troops to make money, it's crazy - you'll only have to spend more money to recruit them again later. Use them to grab as many provinces as possible, it always takes care of the income/debt problem really fast.

Two unrelated observations: someone was asking about mining income. To determine mining income, zoom in on a province and count its mines, noting what they mine, too. Copper is worth less than silver/gold. Yes, Pella has a couple of gold mines and makes 2000 per turn right away with a lvl 1 mine.

Second observation: I used to never slaughter cities, because that's killing future tax income. But in my last campaign I made it a rule to slaughter every single conquered city, and you know what? It made the game much more interesting. I actually had to make the towns grow before recruiting any new troops! Granaries became a priority instead of sthg you build because there's nothing else left to build that's not too expensive.

Don't know how it will work out in 1.0 of course, but from now on I'm going the slaughter route in every game. I like the whole city growing process.

BTW, is there a thread somewhere that would list all the keyboard shortcuts for the game? I'm still a newbie at this game, and constantly come across hints that there are many things possible that I'm not even aware of presently...

Looking forward to getting some time off and really getting into an EB game!