What is your typical game?

[Marcus II]

How do your games typically play out?

I usually play on H/H settings, however after reading several threads, I play the campaign on Hard and battles on Medium to achieve balance/realism.

My games usually involve one of the Greek based factions (Macedonia, Greek City States, or Eperios) [forgive the incorrect faction names]

I will play until maybe 200BC, when the game becomes unbearable. Fighting 3 battles per turn is NOT fun, especially when you have to command them yourself. The Auto-resolve is horribly coded. (e.g. Auto resolve = 200 Kills, 1000 losses VS. personal command = 950 kills, 150 losses)

I get too tired of playing these battles, and I don't want to set the battles to easy, because I like fighting them personally from time to time.

I do however notice that my empire will generally encompass the Greek mainland, and half of modern day turkey, with a few islands. Its always the same people declaring war, and never making peace even when they are losing BIG time.

The Romans will come in and attack out of nowhere, destroying everything. I now continually give them 100 minai per turn to make them happy to prevent this from happening, but its sorta "cheap" if you know what I mean.

So, with that said - how does your typical game go?

[Juvenal]

EB starting positions are generally quite challenging. With a new faction I often need several attempts before I find a strategy to survive the first few turns and start expanding.

I think that the middle game becomes easier. Once I have built a strong economy and can fund a full-stack it isn't difficult to make progress. I generally only have one army so every battle is interesting and important.

There comes a time when I attract the attention of one of the great powers (such as the Selucids, Ptolemaics or Romans). Even though I now have a very good economy and can maintain 2 or 3 stacks, the great power will be spamming full stacks every couple of turns.

I can easily get into a stalemate where I am holding off the superpower, but can't organise a force to make progress anywhere. At this point, if another faction or two attacks me things can get quite difficult.

I think the solution to this is to be bold. A flying column sent into the superpower's rear can work wonders. Take cities, sell the military buildings and abandon them. This will relieve the pressure on the main army which can then start grinding forward to capture territory on a more permanent basis.

I don't like to abandon games before the end. If I have been taking it on the chin from the Selucids for ten years, then I won't be satisfied until I have ground them into the dust. It's a matter of blind pig headedness honour.

I would expect to be on the home stretch by 200BC unless I have been turtling or have blundered (I play VH campaign, M battles).

[gaius valerius]

my campaigns run generally the same like with Juvenal - especially the stalemate that happens when i recover from the rough start and can defend but not attack. i to always assault the enemy their main provinces when they attack me.

for example i am now playing as carthage and the ptolies as always come crashing down from cyrenaia. okay they wont conquer my towns but its an economic burden to keep the *expensive* elite phalanxes in lepki. so i sent 2 full stacked armies to egypt and syria and 10 turns later the ptoly capital is located in side, with palestine and egypt totally sacked, every building (except the historical ones) destroyed and given as a present to the greeks who i personally made my new neighbour . i make a habit of giving territories i conquer but dont need to rivalling factions, especially to those who dont use the same MIC's. keeps my borders at peace and gives me great riches.

My battles i play on hard mode, its easier with hellenic factions who have phalanxes cuz they allow you to auto-solv battles easier so when playing the romans it can get a pain in the ass after a while to keep commanding battles yourself so for those i sometimes use medium battle difficulty. i only stop my campaign when it has a persistent crash