Interesting...

[Mikeus Caesar]

Just recently fired up a campaign as the Julii, and have finally conquered all of Western Europe after destroying the last of the British in a hard fought campaign. I now control all of Western Europe from East Germany to the shores of Portugal, as well as the British Isles.

But there is one rather odd persisting thing - as usual the game has worked it's way down to only a few factions remaining, and as usual the Roman's persist, with the Brutii having conquered Greece and the Balkans and gradually getting control of the Steppes, but the big winner in the Middle East and Asia Minor and North Africa, that is causing trouble for the Scipii is, oddly enough, the Greek Cities - the last non-Roman faction.

Which is unusual because every game i've ever played (which is a lot, to say the least) has resulted in the Greeks being destroyed by the Brutii. Instead they've gone and played nomad, relocated to Asia Minor and subsequently destroyed Pontus, Armenia, Seleucia, Parthia and (gasp!) the Egyptians!

Currently the Scipii are fighting back, after having done a sudden push and conquering the Sinai peninsula, but still, this is rather bizarre - i'm fighting the Roman Civil War with Greece as an ally. They help me blockade Brutii ports in the Adriatic and Aegean.

Anyone else ever had the Greeks become a powerhouse?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

The Greeks Expanding east isn't too rare in my campaigns - they use their "outpost" city of Pergamon in Asia Minor to take over their fraction of the crumbling Seleucid Empire. Once they've finished fighting the Seleucids they typically end up grabbing a small amount of the other factions in the area (Armenia and Pontus). Although they usually do well up to that point with no "uber" factions (Egypt or the Romans) in their way of this expansion, their lands always end up colliding with Egypt which generally means out and out war between the two.

This is always the bit where the Greeks usually start to suffer. Although they are relatively powerful, and still have a large volume of land, Egypt is always bigger, better and richer. I've seen the Greeks make a little headway into Egyptian lands, but they always get dramatically pushed backwards towards their starting regions. Quite simply it ends up been one region forward and then two regions back.

Once though I did have an exception to this rule. The Greeks had expanded East as usual, and were actually in a sort of "deadlock" with Egypt. In this case though, the land balance between them was broken by my Scipii invasion, so I couldn't really consider what happened next, a divide of that area between me and Egypt, accurate.

[Mikeus Caesar]

In my case though it's odd as they did actually break out of their Egyptian deadlock, with no help the Scipii - the Scipii were still in the far West quelling rebellions. The Greeks managed to take on the Egyptians alone, and completely crushed them.

Things aren't currently looking too good for them, but i'm trying to send an expeditionary force to help take back their cities.

[Shieldmaiden]

Like you, I've seen the Greeks conquer Asia Minor few times - though not for long.

A suprise in my last Julii campaign - an Alliance between the Greeks and Parthians led to them conquering the entire East together, bar Egypt.

Why I don't know, but the Brutii never got a foothold in Greece, they conquered the Balkans and ground to a halt

The Greeks and Parthians never did destroy Egypt, and turned on each other. They were the only non-Roman Factions left by then, apart from Dacia.

AI Wars and Alliances can turn out interesting...

[Moosemanmoo]

I remember playing as Scipii, massacrering hopeless gauls that the Julii hadnt managed to crush. Anyway, i got bored and removed the fog of war to see the seleucid empire gone (surprise surprise) and woud you beleive it Greece had taken asia minor, most of Eygpt and thrace. The brutii had destroyed macedon but where being swarmed by dacians and now greeks!

Next thing you know little marius comes along and soon the entire world is roman, at this point i quit, unable to bear a civil war only to be fighting rebels for the rest of the campaign afterwards

[Hound of Ulster]

The Greek phalanxes in vanilla RTW are tough to beat, especially if they have missile support. Considering how nasty the Egyptians can be, I wouldn't be surprised if they bit off more than they could chew in that campaign.

[Dragunija]

Well,i seen them take some cities in Asia Minor,me playing as Parthia,but i came and conquered all Middleast,so no more Greeks in east.Right now i control Corinth and Athenes in Greece,fighting with Brutii and Scipii stacks there,and preparing for siege of last stronghold of the Greek City-states,Sparta.Though,they still fights off some lesser Scipii assaults.

[Moosemanmoo]

Egypt always becomes a power house but I find them comparatively weak when ecountering or playing as them, yet from my experience thougher nearby enemies such as the seleucids, carthaginians or pontos are always crushed by them. The result is that by the time Ive reached asia minor with the brutii, that im only left with facing the inbred yellow menace!

[Celt Centurion]

Egypt always becomes a power house but I find them comparatively weak when ecountering or playing as them, yet from my experience thougher nearby enemies such as the seleucids, carthaginians or pontos are always crushed by them. The result is that by the time Ive reached asia minor with the brutii, that im only left with facing the inbred yellow menace!

Egypt certainly does seem to start weak. The Nubian Spearmen and even Nile Spearmen seem to have serious limitations. Cavalry and the early bowmen get cut up really easily.

After getting to larger size cities though, train up Pharaoh's Guards and Pharaoh's Bowmen. Then send them to a city with a large temple of Horus for armour upgrades. For cavalry, use the heavy cavalry which will come available with one of the upgraded stable buildings. Hope that helps you.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

Well, in my campaigns, Greeks are actually fight back the Brutii and Brutii can not even land on Greek Peninsula anymore.

I think it depends on the situation

[Barbarossa82]

Egypt certainly does seem to start weak. The Nubian Spearmen and even Nile Spearmen seem to have serious limitations. Cavalry and the early bowmen get cut up really easily.

After getting to larger size cities though, train up Pharaoh's Guards and Pharaoh's Bowmen. Then send them to a city with a large temple of Horus for armour upgrades. For cavalry, use the heavy cavalry which will come available with one of the upgraded stable buildings. Hope that helps you.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

The three factors that make Egypt so strong in the campaign without being overwhelming on the battle-map are:
1) They have a great, secure strategic position based around their three Nile cities. They face no significant threats from West, East or South, and their Seleucid neighbours to the North have got terrible problems.
2) Lots of their troops get substantial bonuses in hot or desert climates. Given that they fight most of their battles in these climates, this gives them an inbuilt advantage which tends to swing auto-calc in their favour.
3) Chariots are absurdly overvalued in autocalc, largely due to their bizarrely high morale. A small egyptian army led by a chariot-mounted family member will often pulverise a Seleucid full-stack in autocalc.

[SHAMELESS PLUG]Of course you could always check out my mini-mod, Vanilla Balance Mod, which addresses these issues.[/SHAMELESS PLUG]

[Moosemanmoo]

Egypt certainly does seem to start weak. The Nubian Spearmen and even Nile Spearmen seem to have serious limitations. Cavalry and the early bowmen get cut up really easily.

After getting to larger size cities though, train up Pharaoh's Guards and Pharaoh's Bowmen. Then send them to a city with a large temple of Horus for armour upgrades. For cavalry, use the heavy cavalry which will come available with one of the upgraded stable buildings. Hope that helps you.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

Thanks for the advice, I'll use it whenever I get my head around how much I dislike Egypt

More of a seleucus nikator than a ptolemy soter myself

[Vitellus]

I think the only thing that prevents the Greeks from doing well is the pressure of the Romans on their western flank all the time. Usually they never recover from the loss of their Aegean trade base.

I say this because during my Gallic campaign, I destroyed the Brutii before they had a chance to cross the sea - I had struck quickly on the Romans, hoping to prevent them from becoming incredibly powerful and difficult to defeat.

This worked well enough, until about fifteen years later - as I was mopping up the last of the Romans and finally stabilizing my Spanish and northern frontiers, a full-stack Greek army emerges from the fog of war nad besieges Patavium! I quickly unveiled the fog and was shocked to see the entire Balkan region, white. The Greeks were the richest and most advanced faction, facing me, with the most territory and armies.

They were virtually unstoppable in that campaign - I destroyed full stack after full stack. In the end the war was only resolved whne I landed a second army on the weakly held Peloppenese, taking Corinth, Sparta, Athens, and Larissa in rapid succession, bringing about a Greek colllapse.

So, yes, the Greeks are definitely powerhouses absent Roman interference, but I"ve never seen them do well in the East. Odd.

[Moosemanmoo]

Destroying the roman factions early is a race that I love and hate at the same time, it's irritatingly hard cause they seem programmed to win anyway, and other factions are too stupid to realise how dangerous they are. On the other hand it's far more exciting than bickering with neighbouring factions until a house of pain kills you both.

I recently sent a parthian horse archer army to italy and slaughtered legion after legion. I didn't have the strength to actually take any cities though.
I had wasted half of italy before the celts finally swarmed em