Hellenika Manual

[Phalangitis]

I have done already. Post #1

[Phalangitis]

I noticed some problems with some images in the manual for an unknown reason. I will try to re-upload them asap.

[Phalangitis]

Added on Scripted mechanisms tab the following

"
AUTOMATIC WAR DECLARATIONS
At some points some automatic war declarations may happen according to history. This can be negated by facing in the apropriate time some also scripted army spawns. For example at some point Koinon Aitolon declares war on Athens. Shortly after a Spartan army is spawned in Western Greece. By defeating this army in the same turn it spawns then Aitolia is signing a peace treaty with Athens again. In all situations as above the player is informed with ingame texts.

• SCRIPTED INVASIONS

In many cases the player will face scripted army spawns for major battles. For example when you play as Sparta you will phase the Athenian coallision in Mantineia etc . The army spawns consist of the original troop composition in higher levels of difficulty and they are reduced (and sometimes not appear at all) in lowert levels. By winning the foes immediately after spawn the player usually gains appropriate diplomatic benefits. In the above case (Mantineia) you subjugate Argos for example.

IMPORTANT TIP

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When Spartan or Boiotian player conquers Naupaktos an automatic response from Athens is triggered and an army is spawned nearby to claim back the city. This DOES NOT HAPPEN when you take the city by a fleet. We chose this approach to encourage the player to follpow history and to simulate Spartan admiral Knemos actions in the area

"

[Tenerife_Boy]

Yaiiiii glad to see we keep this alI've developing deeper and deeper the campaign uerto
Congrats Phal

[PanzerHue]

GREAT manual!!! Thanx a lot. Getting to know how and why you have constructed the mod mecanics according to history, makes this mod even more superb.
Best regards...

[Illidan1371]

guys i just downloaded the mod and i must say that i LOVE it! however the battle mechanics seem to be different than the ones in vanilla.
so I was playing as Persia, I invaded Makedon, when i auto-resolve the battles i usually win, due to the huge number of soldiers that i have, but when i control the army myself i always loose even when i outnumber the enemy 10 to 1, because my soldiers just route seemingly for no reason! so since the Greeks love hoplites my strategy is to send my spear men to charge the enemy hoplites, to pin the down then i send my lighter troops and archers from behind to kill them, but my spear men route WAAY too quickly like they route before they reach the enemy line( probably due to being under missile fire) and then their hoplites turn and slaughter my lighter troops and missiles. this happens almost every time, do u have any tips for me?

[Linke]

The Persian army is very ranged and mobile, mass archers with just the infantry enough to protect them. It is a historical formation wich you can activate with sparabata units if they have archers behimd, and givws defence bonus. Whilst the greeks advance they are under the rain of arrows and javelins.

Also the Persians in this time relied much on mobile horse tactics, like attacking with chariots from the mountains in the spartan campaign against Sardis. If you still want a heavy infantry use some guard spearmen (arstibara) or mercenary/aor hoplites like persia did for real. Immortals (anusiya) are also decent but a mixed range and infantry unit not hoplites.

[Phalangitis]

Hi, thanks for the feedback. For the Persian gameplay this is the real (and probably the only challenge). You see even in big and unfavorable ratios Greeks had the upper hand this era.. Before I propose some tactics I just want to present a charming insidense described in Xenofon's anabasis book. (In spoilers for those that dont want to read it)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Cyrous (prince of Persia) had assembled an army of 10,000 hoplites as mercenaries to aid him in his efford to take the throne from his brother. At the first time they were assembled before their march towards Persian capital they were asked to make a parade. The Greeks did and suddenly a signal was given and they formed phalanx. They start singing the pean (the attack hymn) and then shouted their attack cry "Alalalalalalaeeee" (<- from this cry comes the word alalagm which means extreme shouting). When they did observers and Persian parading troops routed on the second even though they were not fighting on each other. Persian troops mostly were of low quality and could not withstand the psychological pressure of the hoplitic warfare.. This was also prooven with the later fate of the 10,00 that after Cyrous was killed they returned home walking almost half the Persian empire undefeated. This insipred Spartans under Agisilaous to campaign against them and humiliate Perian army. He later was forced to retreat but not because of defeats but because of inner problems from his treachrus allies. As a continuation of these realisations Alexander expanded undefeated towards the east.

Now back to what you can do. As you said rely on your numbers. You outnumber in army caps the Greeks many times. So
1) Attack with 2 stacks versus 1.
2) Rely on your superior archers and cavalry. Cavalry wont do much against phalanx BUT it can eliminate enemy peltasts and with your own skirmishers attack from behind as you described.
3)Hit and run tactics. If you cannot go behind, shower them with arrows as the slow Greeks advance. Keep retreating untill you bring down their numbers
4)Hire as many AOR hoplite units you can find. There are also some Hoplites in Persian roster (simulating local mercs). Take nearby islands soon before they get too powerfull and use the AOR hoplites from there or other Greek territories. Those hoplites will have a better chance on delaying Greeks for you to encircle them
5) Improove your barracks buildings to be able to recruit faster expert Persian troops such immortals
6) Remember you are far richer and far better in sieges. So siege them as often and as longer as you can.
7) If everything else fails try lowering difficulty levels a bit.
8) Since I have not played a single campaign as Persia I am not 100% sure for our balancing options but from my experience fighting against them I must say that I found many times Persians as the toughest opponents. I have suffered numerous defeats from them..

[Illidan1371]

Thank you very much guys! your tips really helped, this time I recruited more Archers and Javelin men than spear men and used hit an run tactics and i am winning with almost no effort! like i was fighting a Spartan army with the same amount of soldiers, and i won the battle! i killed 1250 spartans and lost 125 soldiers!! it was a very easy campaign though and a strange one! i formed an alliance with Athenai and slaughtered the peloponnesians, then my Persians allies asked me to join the war against Ionia and i did and this did not break my alliance with Athenai, they watched as i conquered Ionia and the small islands near them, Athenai was busy defending against Epeirus and Makedon, my plan was to destroy Makedonia too, but then the campaign became too easy for me so i abandoned it, now i'm playing as Argos and am at war with literally all my neighbors and it's farmore challenging and way cooler, anyways thank you for creating this mod! it's PERFECT!

[M@x1mus]

Thank you so much for your kind words Illidan!

[nNagato]

I must say that this is easily the best mod for Rome 2, at least for Wrath of Sparta map. The amount of depth is insane, but it is all logical and historical and balanced at the same time. The game is much more difficult even on normal ~ hard. There is no more magically fill a full stack in 4 turns, there is no arbitrary tech rushing and you getting elite heavies but they don't, but instead everyone starts with heavies mediums and lights and actually use them all constantly in the whole game. The interdependence between diplomacy and government ideology and the buildings that leans to different ideologies makes the whole "ruling" of the faction much more dynamic. The use of spawned troops is something I'm usually against but the mod handled it correctly that I felt the spawned troops didn't increase the difficulty of the whole game but only for a specific moment which is nice. I also really like the new navy system, navies feel a lot more useful now and again there is no more heavy melee ship spamming with the naked marines. One thing I think needs tweaking is the range of the navy. Currently in my game the navies can move full range during winter and generally I think the full range is bit too much.

I'm currently playing as Athenai because I like the city Athenai, I like Athena, I like many Greek philosophers and mathematicians etc and Athens is just like my favourite thing ever in the Western world. In the original Wrath of Sparta DLC they seem like a very easy option to play as with only the -10 PO to "try" to destabilize them which is nothing. However in this game I found it really challenging to play as Athenai even though they can be said as the "strongest" starting faction.

[Phalangitis]

Thank you for your in depth analysis my friend.
Exactly this is the metality of the players that like Hellenika. Those that seek challenge and historic depth above the pure joy of the easy win.
EDIT for the full range of navy during winter this should not happen. I fixed it in the steam version but maybe I forgot to do it in the TWC off-steam version. Which one do you use?

[nNagato]

I'm using the Steam version but that only happened once. For some reason there was this one turn that I could move navies at full range during winter but after that every winter the navies moved at reduced range as intended.

The problem I have is that while navies are very mobile, transported armies moved really slow like vanilla. Therefore it is impossible for me to invade an island or far away province without waiting for a long long time, unless I use full stacks of navies and try my very best to use naked hoplites and missiles with reduced unit numbers to win a siege against actual land units.

That aside, I've restarted my Athens campaign twice already and I think this third time will actually work. The first time is just to get familiar with things, the second time I captured Thebai because I thought the "not as severe" diplomatic penalty will be like -50 where Athens or Sparta might be -100 and Argos maybe -25. Turned out I was wrong. Thebai itself gave me something like -500 diplomatic penalty with almost everyone and at that point I could just play without caring about aggressive expansion and diplomacy but that wasn't how I wanted to play so I restarted.

Athens is in a very difficult situation. It is very difficult to expand in Hellas because right North of Athenai is Thebai where you can't capture or subjugate (They will just rebel). To the West is Korinth which again I can't capture. This means I can't have a secured one side front. My new strategy for my third try is to have the two armies in Athenai keep protecting Athenai and the one in Euobia protecting Euobia. Take the city up North with where there is also a Korinthian army nearby, and take one city in Thraike and let Byzantion take the other. This way my Northern boarders are secured, I get 2 controlled provinces, eliminated 2 factions without much aggressive expansion and extra corruption. After the Spartan spawned army is destroyed I will need to try find a way to send an army to Aetolia. Then I will transport an army up North to Mytilene to prepare for the rebellion, and just build up my naval limit all around the map. The good thing about navies is that they have 0 upkeep when in dock so I can just keep building and building them as garrison and mobile support and only pay for them when they are at use. I believe then I can slowly pick off the island and coastal cities with my strong navy, and then with weakened enemies and developed cities and armies that is the time I can start to ignore diplomacy and take all of Hellas.

[Phalangitis]

I havent played many times as Athens (I am a traditional Spartan fanboy ) BUT from what I experienced they can be the easiest campaign if you get into Athenian way of thinking. Your last part where you describe your strategy is entirely into the Athenian spirit.

What is that? (I will quote from some pointers found here and there and mainly from our main Athenian tester johnoagrios that finished Athenian campaign in legendary and by conquering the whole map..)

1) Use your navy (like duh..). By that I mean keep a full stack in an island within range for a potential target. Lurk and when you see a settlement rather undefended strike exploiting your range. plus
"Yes they move slower (transporters). You can use navies for this (occupy settlements). They have a very large range and are very effective in land. You will see that they have small numbers of sailors but those sailors have X2 life points plus more ammo. So this makes them double in size in land. For example an 80 men marine unit equals to a 160 men in land and in fact is identical to a land unit. The only thing you need to be carfull is to land them and unite the army not fight in 2 fronts because their morale drops and you may loose easilly in the invasion. Another problem could be that you cannot land more than 20 ships per time. So If you have 3 stacks of navy dont attack all together. Attack with the first weaken the enemy garrison , then the second, then the 3rd etc. Navy warfare was a costly buiseness after all..
usually 1 or 2 attacks are enough for unwalled settlements"


2) Quell Rebellion of Mytilene. For this to be done plus a usefull trick (~ 3:49) check out this video


3) Check also THIS THREAD

[Reno Melitensis]

Land Battles are more difficult than Naval battles. I found a very useful tactic to attack and sink enemy navies with my Athenian marines. I have won battles 10 against 20, or else inflict heavy casualties on the enemies. And yes by far this is one of the best mods for Rome II. I found it rather difficult at first to get over the many enemies Athens has at the start. Some of them are history, now in 406 BC I expanded my empire and the Delian League is a powerful alliance that includes Athens, Argos Matinea, Lokri and Rhodes. Next to fall victim are the Melians, who have been a torn in my back for too long.

Cheers.

[juve]

The problem I have is that while navies are very mobile, transported armies moved really slow like vanilla. Therefore it is impossible for me to invade an island or far away province without waiting for a long long time

I completely agree about the highest overall rating of Hellenica, it's my favorite mod and possible it's a unique mod about which we can say it's a finalized, worked out to the smallest detail in terms of ideas and mechanics. Nevertheless, let me speak about the possibilities of improving this masterpiece

One of the small details that I think can be improved, it's a possibility of increasing a range of moving for transport fleet.

According to Thucydides, the Athenian fleet was in the region of Crete, a month before arriving to Kerkira for joint action against the Corinthian fleet. In game this distance is overcome in a much longer period of time, and for the transport fleet it will take at least a year. As a result, amphibious operations are carried out only by the war fleet and, in fact, only Athens can afford them. For example, a Brasidas troops cannot arrive from Pylos to the Herakleia region by sea (by land this path is impossible in principle, these troops are locked in the Peloponnese) because this way will be stretched for several years. Thus he will never reach Amphiopolis and we lose an excellent historical storyline.

If we talk about possible submods, I would remember the version of 12 months for the year. It can deprive the game of a part of historical characters, like Alcibiades, which will appear much later than the start of the game. But it will allow us to reconstruct in more detail the initial stage of the Peloponnesian War and the seasonal aspect of the Archidamus invasion, for example. When Archidamus has only one or two turns to invade and retreat, this is not entirely correct, as it seems to me.

Previously, a development team talked about the possibility of updating, in particular the renovation of Thrace.

Are there any plans to updates? I think they are very very much expected.

[Phalangitis]

I have troubled myself and my thoughts in the past about transports range. Let me explain why I did not did that. If we would increase the range of transports then the AI would use its huge stacks to strike all over the map and that would make the game unplayable. With the range limitations which are indeed unhistoric (A trireme could travel from Athens to Mytilene in 7 days) we protect the game from full stack attacks to all around. Ai sees the big difference of navies and transports and prefers navies for assault. The game would be frantic. You would loose and gain territories all the time.. At least now a settlement with a logic garrison can withstand multiple naval attacks.Finally in the times AI chooses transports and land troops for invasions those troops are vulnurable to the player's counter attacks. This may be a bit favorable for the player who has the logic to protect it own transports BUT Ai receives many boosts already. Giving the player the "gift" of protective strikes on the sea we balance out the fact that he cannot replenish, recruits with time penalties etc etc.

12 TPY also have many flaws and bugs. If we would make the game 12 TPY half of ingame mechanics would be lost so again we chose the lesser of 2 evils. FInally on this domain there is a seemingly illogical thing that infact it is not that wrong. Which is that? Indeed a Spartan army needs 3 turns to reach from Sparta to Athens. This is 9 months. If you look at it like that yes this is wrong indeed BUT. Keep in mind that during our time armies were assembled on Spring and were used up until Fall. They would return then to their home regions to attend to their fields. This cannot be done in game terms. Here we create an army and we keep it for as long as we like. The in-game movement range is not actuall movement but it resembles controll over a territory. Since armies are kept forever and are not disbanded every fall then an army with the actual - historic range would make the army OP and able to inflict way more damage and threats that it would actualy cause in reallity. Lower range simulates the actual and plausible area of controll of this army over a specific territory. It is known that armies would appear and all resistance would fall imediately. When the armies were withdrawn though the previouysly "loyal" territories were once again rebellious. This reduced range simulates this exactly.

[Reno Melitensis]

A little question. I was warned of a pro democracy revolt in Theba, and the rise of an army. As I am playing Athens I suppose Theba is Thebes. But I saw no army in the vicinity of Thebes. What is exactly this mess.Cheers

[Phalangitis]

This is the event where democrats seized power. Indeed an army composed with many elite units pls a sacred band unit should appear near Thebes. Usually we use warnings before the actual event to prepare the player and askew him to take measures. I need to check the tables cause I don't remember exactly. Will get back to you probably later today

[Reno Melitensis]

So if these are Democrats, I as Athens have nothing to fear, they will be by allies. Wright. So should I help them get control of Thebes. The Oligarchy in Thebes have been hard headed not to accept a peace deal from me. They are surrounded, I own Corinth and Opos, so they can not trade with any one. They broke their alliance with Sparta, and their two remaining allies are losing ground fast, that is Corinth and Elis. Also I destroyed the Lokrians, I can now recruit their Hoplites. But as an ally I have the other Locrian faction. There is something I feel strange with some Liberated factions. Once a faction have been liberated or restored, they should be more than thankful for their freedom, and regard the faction that freed them as more than just an ally. Matinea, Argos and the other Locrian faction where all liberated by me, Athens, after being defeated by Elis yet they don't want to trade with me or else are hostile towards me because I am an expansionist, more than that I am a Liberator, restorer of freedom.

Cheers