Makedon campaign tips

[For Victory]

I just got this mod installed and updated a few minutes ago, so I leaped into a campaign and I chose Makedon because the estimated difficulty was Easy, and I'm not very good. So, I tried to start out on turn 1 by not recruiting anything, but I built roads/traders/similar econ stuff. This was a mistake because my "allies" in The Achaean League and Athens stabbed me in the back and took two of my cities. Can anyone give me some advice for playing as Makedon? Thank you very much, and thank you for the terrific mod Red Fox!!

[RedFox]

Well, the first suggestion would be to play on Medium/Medium difficulty, that will keep things easier. The first thing you need to do is build only a few essential economy buildings and recruit some troops while you also gather a large army and go south to fight against the Achaean League. This mod is a lot harder than vanilla Rome by far and is meant for rather hardcore players. If you want an easier faction to play (Yes, the estimated difficulty is outdated, since Macedon is acctually quite hard to play in the latest patches), you should try the Ptolemaic Empire or Republic of Carthage. If you want a bit more excitement, I also suggest the People of Aedui (gauls).

You won't have much room for economy though and you cannot afford to let troops stay in cities, I recommend to have as less troops in cities as possible, because that means more troops on the field winning the wars for you.

[For Victory]

Wow, thanks for the reply! I didn't know that your troops took more resources while idle in cities.

[aznflea]

redfox? are you sure? seems like your dtw experience conflicts with mine. makedonia was the easiest faction ive ever played. ptolemaic empire has cultural difficulties and carthage doesnt have much uber powerful troops like the romans or hellenes.

[RedFox]

Not only does my DTW experience conflict with yours, so does my DTW version.

There have been so many changes to Makedon it is hard to keep track of what was and is. Back during the first v0.8 Beta the Aetolian League had two huge gold chevron stacks and the Achaean League had one too, not to mention some awesomesauce Spartans. By v0.85 Aetolia got replaced with Baktria and things in Greece chilled out a little bit. I have tried to make it as reasonable as possible for Makedon, but the next version will be a lot harder than 0.941, due to Celtic Tribes. And IMO, beating those gold chevron stacks was definitely the most fun experience I've ever had in RTW, but people seemed to complain a lot over the difficulty factor.

If you want challenges, some people seem to complain that Rome is too hard (which it is not) and playing with Seleucids will leave your hands full with wars on 4 fronts. The People of Aedui are a completely different matter and provide a very enjoyable campaign. If you wish for more challenge, you can increase the AI bonuses manually.

[aznflea]

somehow it seems like ive already read this post somewhere. what dtw version are you playing? im playing the latest one with every patch upgraded, even the 0.95 which apparently adds no gameplay changes to the mod.

ive begun playing the makedonian campaign again and its very different on vh/vh. everyone seems to have a full stack. perhaps i will wait til the exhaust themselves on each other before i intervene in the pelops. i think i will attack the epirotes first. the city of ambracia always yields good memories to me. it seems to have a high tech barracks and be a massive money maker.

im curious as to what everyone else did when playing this campaign.

[Andy1984]

somehow it seems like ive already read this post somewhere. what dtw version are you playing? im playing the latest one with every patch upgraded, even the 0.95 which apparently adds no gameplay changes to the mod.

My best guess is, Redfox was referring to the next, thus unreleased, dtw-version. I can only say I really like the idea of a more challenging Macedonia.

ive begun playing the makedonian campaign again and its very different on vh/vh. everyone seems to have a full stack. perhaps i will wait til the exhaust themselves on each other before i intervene in the pelops. i think i will attack the epirotes first. the city of ambracia always yields good memories to me. it seems to have a high tech barracks and be a massive money maker.

im curious as to what everyone else did when playing this campaign.

I've stopped the gallic invastion with my northern army, only to strike south shortly after. These Greek cities are rich, you can take out the Achean League and the main part of the IGC. Besides, nobody wants to be stabbed by them when you find yourself campaigning against some northern barbarian tribe.

[Cal20]

Personally I wouldn't say the Makedon campaign was easy at all, maybe relative to the other campaigns in DTW, but not easy by a long shot.
Gets harder further in as well, I am currently slogging it out with Phtolemiesand Pontus and both in Turkey and it's just stack after stack of experienced armies. Not to mention Rome and probably Carthage soon. Quite the challenge.
Advice starting off is just to try taking all of Greece first before expanding anywhere else. After that I took Byzantium but waited a while before going over to Turkey.

btw RedFox - are the Eastern Cav supposed to be so strong? (Not sure on this that's why I asking). Just they seem to be and I thought they were only medium in the cavelry range. They stand well against even my general units this is before reforms as well.

[Dog Fart]

From what I've noticed, once players capture most of Greece they stop and say "aahhh that was too easy'. And it ends right there. The real challenge in a Macedonian campaign is to keep what you took. As the campaign progresses, you'll see that you are in the same senario as a Seleucid campaign... only a bit tougher at times. Rome, Scythia, Seleucids and sometimes Ptolemies closing in on your borders.

[aznflea]

here is the campaign 2 days ago. i forgot to take screenies while conquering so i had to take them after conqeuring.
what i did was hit epirus with antigonos(red arrow) and every unit i had. after 1 heroic 1 clear victory. i found that aratas of sicyon (orange arrow) hit corinth and larissa with 2 full stacks just as i had conquered ambracia. i had 1 stack of noobs led by antigonos. they had 2 stacks of pros led by a noobs. i still couldnt take them head on so i had to turn the war into a war of attrition. by using their stacks to attack, they left their bases vulnerable and i conquered the pelops easily. you can see sparta(purple) go against athens and be horribly crushed. when i went to sparta i found them with 1 general and 2 militias so i assumed this. the stack beseiging corinth was defeated as i lured them into the towers that shot them all.

athens was weakened after the spartan attack so i took it taking heavy casualties but luckily i had a massive pool of mercs available so i took them all and conquered larissa back from the achaean league who crumbled after the defeat. thrace started attacking me so i went up thrace. i had an alliance with the getae so i occupied seutopolis and tomi with relative ease and now the getae are fighting a weakened thrace and i dont think they will bother me for a long time so i went down to byzantium and nicomedia. again, taking them with heavy losses. i finally went up against the 1 full stack of uber pergamum soldiers. i had most my cavalry die so i used my general as the hammer and in the process my 10 star general died which was unfortunate because he was around 50 and prolly had around 20 or so years left in him.

antigonos was a legend. he made hard battles easier. i cant believe i took 3 stacks of ubers with such low quality units. i dont think i couldve done this without a 10 star general. the aftermath of antigonid conquests was a depleted makedonia. aggressive recruitment made me hold on to money by the skin of my teeth. when i found byzantium it had 13000 pop so im thinking of making byzantium my main military base. i only have a 5 star general now and im conquering asia minor. the celtic tribes are a very nice buffer faction against the pontics and seleucids. im currently at war with everyone around me except the getae and the celtic tribes.

it was a fun campaign. i think it was easy mainly because of antigonos. i swear, that man is a godsend in hard times.

[Cal20]

Yup like Dirty M said, taking Greece is the easy bit. I am waging war in Asia Minor and Italy and am finding it hard defending against Pontus and Ptolemies (who are huge). Then Carthage is making their way up the boot of Italy so no doubt they will attack my settlements there. After a few victories against Rome they have now bounced back, they seem to just recruit armies mainly made up of Barbarian Warbands. Luckily I am neutral with Thrace and Scythia have been pretty badly beaten, which i am glad about.
I am really looking forward to playing as the Achaean League as taking Greece looks even harder.. anyone got tips for them?

[RedFox]

anyone got tips for them?

Don't stop to catch your breath, or Macedon will crush you.

[Cal20]

Don't stop to catch your breath, or Macedon will crush you.

sounds like a fine tip, daunting, but good.

what do you make of what I said about the Eastern Cav?

[RedFox]

If you mean 'Pontic Heavy Cavalry', then yes, apparently they have 2 defense redundant.

[Cal20]

Yeah I believe that's the ones, they have javelins and seem to be the same model as Pontic generals. Was up against some with 32 defence they are rather annoying to fight, esp when they rain death with those javelins and there are around 3 units of them per stack.

[RedFox]

I reduced their armour and shield stats, so they should be easier to cut down with missile fire.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

My advice for playing is Macedon is pretty basic, but it worked for me: take advantage of the close proximity that Greek cities are to each other. Once you smash their standing armies, you should be able to take all of their lightly defended cities very quickly, before they have time to raise more large armies.

The trick is making the engagements favor your forces. Personally, I position my main army in an area that they have to pass through to attack, so that they attack my force rather than the other way around. That way, in the battle map, you can have your phalanxes deployed nicely and they'll charge into them. If you attack them, they'll wait there and you will have to advance with your phalangites, which in my experience makes them much more vulnerable and less effective.

If you can find a bridge to put your army on, that makes it much, much easier. You can destroy stack after stack if they foolishly attack the chokepoint of a bridge, I destroyed maybe 10-15 000 Carthaginians that way. Once they have no armies left, you can move in and crush them while taking minimal casualties.

[For Victory]

A couple more questions, more general this time. I am playing as Ptolemites this time, and there are cultural penalties in my cities which caused rioting and civilian deaths. I'm guessing that I need to make more greek cultural influence instead of egyptian, but I'm not 100% positive. Also, do governors serve as generals? Can I take them with me into battle or is that only for a real general? Thanks again.

[RedFox]

All governor are generals, just some are a lot more battle efficient than other. Ptolemies have a divided culture - Greeks and Egyptians. You will have to carefully select which buildings to build. If you build a building that establishes a dominant Greek culture in a settlement full of Egyptians, you will have lots of riots. Check the settlement details scroll for the breakdown of cultures in the settlement and decide which Temples and Colonies to build.
Western colony provides access to Greek barracks and Successor units, while Eastern Colony will provide access to Eastern Barracks and more native units. You cannot have two at the same time in one settlement.

[Cal20]

I reduced their armour and shield stats, so they should be easier to cut down with missile fire.

Sorry to keep going on about it but will that stat change also apply to the merc counter part?