Damn Macedonians! Any advice?

[limes]

The secret of supressing Macedons in coming AEE is Epirus faction and hours of balancing AI behaviour. Epirus is part of Epiro-Macedon aliance (it's vice versa is Greco-Illyrian friendship). In short, when Pyrrhus is too much occupied in Italy (here we've got different scenarios) Macedons will lose its hegemony in Greece. It's not only one factor concerning Macedons. Second one is Thrace.

[Companion Cavalry]

This is a failure of perspective. In a lot of other campaigns, the Romans

do all the above things, they're the same problem

[Companion Cavalry]

Wow, do I kill all conversation or what ?

[Ullerius Tiberius]

Yes. (Maybe this will refresh the discussion lol...)

[Renegen]

I heard that once their empire gets too large it suffers from inefficiency and corruption.

[Sacratus]

Illyrians and Greeks destroyed Macedon in my game. And the Greeks and Ptolomeics destroyed Seluicids. :S

How sad.

[Solaris]

Strange how Roman AI never expands into Macedon.

I suppose historically the only reason they 'invaded' them was to punish them for their supporting of Carthage in the Punic wars.

[Companion Cavalry]

In my (EB) campaigns, Rome is annoyingly crushed by Epirus after maybe 30 turns it's sad that they don't even have a chance to be a major pest

[Solaris]

So, the problem is, we don't want to make Rome so strong that the human player can win really easily when playing as them - but we also don't want them to be so weak, it's unrealistic. So how about modding it such a way that they recruit a lot of troops, but the troops aren't uber. So maybe make the units have cheap recruiting cost and upkeep.

Thoughts?

[Companion Cavalry]

Or have them a little stronger and strengthen the Aedui gauls in the north

and epirus in the south be a little weaker?

Or you could leave them strong but have their troop upkeep higher

and a another possibility is to just make them start with undeveloped villages,

Rome was not a stone walled city in 272 b.c

[Solaris]

Er.. yes it was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servian_Wall

[Companion Cavalry]

Hmm, alright then I stand corrected but still the suggestion stands,

make rome's cities undeveloped and okay, keep Rome a stone-wall city

[Laardilla]

I had conquered Gaul, Iberia, and Carthage as the Romans when I finally got forced into a war with the Macedonians. Full stacks galore just showed up in Patavium. After a couple of years of enormously destructive battles in the Province I got frustrated and turned of the fog of war to see where they were all coming from. They held Denmark, to the southern tip of Greece, to half way across Asia Minor... I'm in 260 BC of my next game as the Romans now.... lol

[Wien1938]

The reason the Romans moved into Greece was because of the War against Hannibal. Hannibal was supported by Philip V after the battle of Cannae, who was otherwise engaged in fighting the Aetolian League and Athens. He used Illyrian pirates to attack Roman shipping.
In turn, the Senate sent an army to occupy one of the Illyrian clans and root out the pirates. Later when Rome allied with the Aetolian League and other Greek states, Rome gave Philip an ultimatium, withdraw from Greece and accept Roman control over Macedonian foreign policy.
After the defeat of Hannibal, the Romans were much more aggressive and assertive in the Mediterranean and were determined to stop the rise of any dangerous rivals again.
Philip refused the ultimatum and fought and lost the war.

[Megris Vernin]

The only way I really found to defeat the Macedonians on the strategic level was to use pretty brutal tactics. I would take a few boats and place an army near Athens and Sparta...when they moved their armies away I would send in my army(if you have spies this strategy works even better) and burn the city down...purposefully selling off all of their buildings and structures and. It doesn't show up for a while but after you hit a few of their money making port cities....they slow down enough to taken them on.

Also the loot you get form destroying their cities really helps...it would help me suppourt an army larger than my economy would allow, and let me handle myself when every sing enemy would attack me!

[marcvs agrippa]

If you like to play with historical expansion, the only way I found to supress fast greek expansion to the north is playing on campaign difficulty "Medium".

It seems like any campaign difficulty above medium makes the AI going wild - and north
On Medium they expand slower - and to the east.
You'll have to play Battles on "Very Hard" then to have at least a minimum of challenge.

Playing the power-broker is a very sensible business ... for me it mostly ends up in war with everybody ... and that is no option at all although it's "Total War". (well in fact it's not total war anymore, it's total realism )

[Mythos_Ruler]

Hmmm, guys, I play as Macedonians and I don't see a problem. j/k

[Delvecchio1975]

Playing as the Seleucids I managed to beat the Macedonians, on autoresolve!

After kicking the Ptolemies, Pontus and Armenia out of Asia Minor, and taking Maronia and Byzantion i got into a war with the Mac's. Stack after stack, incessant fighting. I grew tired of the same battles soon enough and started autoresolving, resulting in slightly smaller losses on my side than on their side, but with a huge experience bonus that I never get when playing with phalanx armies. I had two stacks on the European side of the Dardanelles, and I replenished them in a different city every turn, so that those cities had no chance to become depleted (which in the beginning happened to both Maronia and Abydos). My armies in the beginning were hoplites and peltasts only. I replenished them in Maronia, Byzantion, Prusa, Abydos, Pergamon, and when things looked bleak for a while, even in Smyrna and Halicarnassus. Ancyra and Pessinus regularly contributed Galatian armies as a right kick in the nuts.
In the mean time Sardis grew as well, so I built an army of pezoi and skirmishers there to ferry to nearly empty Chalkidis. Stormed & took it, and that effectively stopped the downpour of Macs in the north. Cleaned up the three last stacks of Macs in the north and imediately took Philippi, Tylis and Debeitos. From then on it was easy - a second Sardis stack took Athens, Sparta, Corinth and is now siegeing Ellis, and the northern stacks (in the mean time upgraded to the charyspasides (??. the gold ones) took Pella, Thessalonika and Larissa. The Macs Still hold the north west of Greece, and current day Rumania and further up north (the Sarmatians are suspiciously intact) ...

[nemgod]

I have played RTR for some time now but mostly as either Greek Cities or Macedonia and I can tell you that the issue is not just about Macedonia but with Illyrians and Thracians as well.

When playing as them as soon as I finish off Greek Cities or Macedon (Depending on who I am) I will ALWAYS get into a long winded war with both the Illyrians and Thracians. With Thracians as well always a fast booming expasionist people to end their threat I HAVE to follow them up all the way up to North and Baltic seas basically in the wrong direction to win. Although for some reason they avoid fighting Samartians who will try to take me out when i get so far north.

Yes Hellenic armies are stronger than the non hellenic ones to the north (Although the one I am on now Greeks and Illyrians carved up Italy between them only for Greeks to stab the Illyrians in the back). Perhaps something could be done to stop the first strike by those two on Macedonians/Greek cities then perhaps then the Maks/Greeks will go east instead of north and fight against the Selucids in battles that go both ways instead of the black plague.

[Shesgar]

So, I am writing this for the second time because forum ed up and didn't save my reply....

Basically I wanted to chip in my personal experience of how to fight against Macedon in the beginning with the Greeks.

To start with I altered a bit the desc_strat archive and change the starting treasure of Macedon... Instead of 3000 just 0. Which, honestly, is not such big difference since they make tons of money per turn (IIRC 5k a turn)

And so it begins, first turn of the campaign... What should we do first? well, we bring our boats near Italy and get Pyrrhus and his army inside them and then lead him to Elis where he shall start to besiege it. That's an army. With the troops that I got parked around the different towns that I own I gather a second army of sorts and besiege Corinth. Both should be taken ASAP... if you get the chance to attack a nearby army that involves the city defenders as well go for it.
As soon as you take them and massacre the whole population for the money and to keep them under control (only one unit needed for them to be happy) you should move forward with your armies and besiege Larissa and Chalkida. Probably, by this time, Macedon has gathered a stack army ready to kick your ass (you may notice that a lot of their army is composed of mercenaries) if you manage to get through this first obstacle then you are most likely set in your war against Macedon. A blitzkrieg tactic is in order here... Keep moving forward with your armies to take out the rest of the settlements that belongs to Macedon, once you've taken Thessalonica and Pella they are done for.

You may wonder now, what about south Italy? Sicily and cold-hearted Carthaginians? and those pesky Illyrians?

Well chill your tits, that's what's coming now.

On the very first turn Rome will, most likely, ask you for peace, but don't lower your guard, they will betray you as soon as they conquer Peastum and that other settlement which name I can't remember now (OOps!) So diverting a bit of the money you got from plundering Elis and Corinth into recruiting a couple of hoplitai units would be a smart choice.

Sicily... oh dear, that city takes care of the upkeep of most of your troops so losing it could be a problem. Carthage will attack it pretty damn soon for my taste. First they will go for Agrigentum and Messana and then Syracuse. The garrison there is larger than your typical "starting garrison" but it may not be enough, though and if you do as I did (disbanding the two units of cavalry there to save up some money) you may find yourself struggling for naught. Conclusion: Spending money on Syracuse is not a very good idea, not even for troops, losing it won't be the worst thing in the world but it will make taking the Macedonian cities as soon as possible a priority to make up for it.

Oh, Illyrians, you cheeky buggers, you see a weak spot on the northwestern part of the empire and you take advantage of it. Luckily for us, their basic troops are quite weak (warbands and Illyrian slaves) therefore reinforcing Apollonia and Antigonea with a couple of hoplitais units should be enough to fend them off.

There, I think I covered the most important things.
I am having a blast with this campaign on H/H and I only have to take Bylazora and Philippi and the Macedonians are no more.-

Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Shesgar.