Greek Cities Speed Run

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 30, 2009, 03:49 AM

Find my other stuff here.

Greetings and salutations,

This thread will follow my RTW speed-run as the Greek Cities. The basic premise is to finish the Imperial Campaign on VH/VH with Greece in the shortest time, using every trick I know to maximise speed. The campaign will be played on large unit scaling with no time limit and I will personally manage all settlements. I chose the Greek Cities from recommendations in this thread that suggested they had a good starting position to launch offensives in many directions from the beginning of the game. Using this as my objective, I hope to expand aggressively and finish the long campaign in under thirty turns.

Updates will be posted every six turns to show how the campaign is going. I spend a long time taking my turns but I hope to post an update every 3-4 days. This wont be a conventional AAR, as I'll also include campaign map and battlefield strategies, something which I found helpful when I first found these forums some years ago. Hopefully they will be detailed enough so that others can learn some tricks that I've learnt from other people and a couple I've found for myself.

I've just finished my fifth turn, so the first update will be posted within 24 hours. The campaign map is currently littered with five famous battle markers. Hope you enjoy the campaign as much as I intend to

**Magmaniac** · August 30, 2009, 06:09 AM

Thumbs up! Kick some ass with your spears.

**Change** · August 30, 2009, 06:13 AM

I feel sorry for those overused troops

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 30, 2009, 09:50 PM

So begins my speed run. At the beginning of summer in 270 BCE the Greek Cities have five settlements; Sparta, Syracuse, Thermon, Pergamum and Rhodes. These settlements are spread out and none are directly connected at the beginning of the game. This is the strength of the Greek starting position. By using these settlements to expand aggressively in different directions, the Greek Cities are in a unique position for a speed-run. The key to a successful speed-run is to fight superior forces and win against the odds. A fully upgraded, twenty unit stack is not an option. A speed-run army consists of whatever you can scrape together and rarely gets above ten units, even if the enemy’s does.

First Turn (270)
Money is tight for the first turns and this is common to all first turns of a speed-run. To remedy this, I began building some ports, knowing that sea trade brings in incredible income. Unlike in a long game, where you can first focus on an economy, maybe some farms before building your military, a fast speed-run requires you to start thinking about war and what you need for a campaign from the moment you begin. Luckily for the Greek Cities, Sparta could already recruit Hoplites, which are vastly superior to many other early units if used correctly (more on this later).
As soon as the game began I saw that the Scipii had an army directly outside Messana. This is significant because if an army is attacked in a tile next to a friendly settlement the army in the settlement will also come to the field as reinforcements. This meant that if I could destroy both armies in the field (or destroy enough so that they melt away) there would be nobody left in Messana and I wouldn’t have to besiege the city which would waste a valuable turn. Seizing the opportunity I recruited a unit of Mercenary Hoplites (couldn’t afford the Peltasts too) and attacked the army of Quintis Scipio while the faction leader Cornelius reinforced. The odds were 1:2 against me, but I used the slight hill advantage and isolated the armies attacking one at a time to gain victory.

LESSON ONE: Enemy missiles

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Here was the result of the battle. The enemy survivors were remnants of General’s Bodyguard units that had lost their general, so they disappeared after the battle, leaving Messana unoccupied. I moved my units in and took it.

Other events of the turn were besieging Corinth and moving armies around. Not many quick pickings in the first turn.

Second Turn
Corinth fell to the army that came out of Sparta. My spy also kindly opened the gates of Larissa to allow me to attack it straight away. It also fell with limited casualties on my side. Seeing a strong Rebel army outside Halicarnassus, I redirected my army that was travelling to Pergamum from Crete and attacked them outside of their city, again forcing the enemy defenders to fight on the open field. With few survivors their forces melted away and I was free to take Halicarnassus without a fight in the city or having to wait a turn to build rams.

My army from Pergamum also moved up to besiege Sardis. There were not enough units in the army to finish constructing a ram in one turn, but I’d planned for this and kept a unit of Cretans away from the battle against the Rebels in Halicarnassus. The Rebels had their own unit of Cretans, and I’m very protective of my own and didn’t want them picked off at long range before I could take out the enemy ones. The Cretans moved up and allowed the ram to be built.
I attacked a Carthaginian army too, and was rewarded when Hanno attacked back during the Carthaginian turn. I used my archers to scare the elephants (which unfortunately didn’t go anywhere near the rest of the Carthaginian army) and destroyed their army. Luckily the army melted away so I wouldn’t have to deal with the elephants again.

Third Turn (269)
The Scipii strike back! They landed an army outside Messana, so my troops that had just fought the Carthaginians had to march in the other direction to combat this new menace. I only took three Militia Hoplites for the fight though because it would be enough for a win and because I wanted the rest of the army to besiege Lilybaeum that turn. This is where I found the first mistake I’d made that had cost me time. The Carthaginians had recruited the Mercenary Peltasts that I hadn’t recruited in my first turn because of money constraints. Now I had 43 build points in my army besieging Lilybaeum, 7 points short of being able to build a ram. If I’d recruited the Peltasts I could have attacked in two turns rather than the three it took. The battle against the Scipii was costly (as many Roman battles are thanks to their Pila) but it was a good victory nonetheless. Not heroic though, because I lost so many of my own troops.

Sardis also fell this turn and Thessalonica was besieged.

Fourth Turn
The Brutii wanted a piece of the action and landed a large force outside Messana. I had retrained my troops the turn and was building a Bireme in preparation for an attack against the Italian mainland when they arrived. Poor them! They had plenty of cavalry, but I defeated them using a system of interlocking phalanxes. I also realised that this was a turn for the better for me. Because the Brutii had sailed to Sicily they hadn’t taken Apollonia as they usually do, so I didn’t have to fight them on the Greek mainland, allowing me to concentrate on sending all my forces north to finish Macedon.

LESSON TWO: Correct use of the phalanx in the field

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Thessalonica, the Macedonian capital was also attacked this turn and fell and is a good example of how to use a phalanx in city warfare against cavalry.

LESSON THREE: Correct use of the phalanx in cities

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Fifth Turn (268)
Lilybaeum was taken. I also fought a battle outside Croton hoping to gain the city in the skirmish. Unfortunately a general managed to escape so I was forced to besiege the city and wait a turn. I also finally got a force to attack Athens which had been sitting there as a Rebel settlement while I was dealing with the Macedonians. I also took Ancyra in Asia Minor.

Sixth Turn
Croton and Bylazora both fell, the latter signifying the end of Macedon, the former the start of the end of the Brutii. I have made war with Pontus and besieged Nicomedia and have moved from my victory at Croton to immediately besiege Tarentum.
I have armies marching towards Mazaka and Byzantium as well as an army preparing for an invasion of Carthage and another that will take a ship up to attack the Julii in northern Italy. Things are going well so far and I haven’t overstretched myself yet. It is winter of 268 and the Greek Cities have 16 regions.

Any suggestions are welcome. Anything you want to see more of or less of in future updates?

**Hakomar** · August 30, 2009, 10:13 PM

I will be intrigued to see you take Rome with that army. I loved your Thracian campaign, but it was a bit short.

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 30, 2009, 10:18 PM

Yeah, damn saves... I was really enjoying that one.
I bought a brand new copy of Rome a couple of weeks ago and did a fresh install with no mods or anything so nothing should break this time around, fingers crossed.

EDIT: I've been recording battle information as I've been going along and I've put it intop an Excel spreadsheet that I'll update. Hopefully it should illustrate that army size isn't always the most important factor in victory.

**Julius Barca the Great** · August 30, 2009, 10:44 PM

I'm glad to you see you start this, and am hoping to learn a thing or two.
One question: you said cavalry greatest advantage against a phalanx in momentum. I had always thought the opposite. As far as I know, if a spear unit is braced, then any cavalry unit charging into it has it's charge bonus turned back onto itself. But I do use the "V" formation, under the assumption it worked better simply because it was attacking the flanks of the enemy, not the front (thus removing portions of the armour and shield values). So now I'm rather curious as to whether I've been misunderstanding this for quite some time.

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 30, 2009, 10:50 PM

You're right that when braced the enemy takes a lot of damage from hitting the spears, but some horses still get through (especially with heavy cavalry and bodyguards), and it's once they get into your lines that they actually start killing troops. One of the advantages of the 'V' is that the enemy cannot charge and so prevents them from breaking your lines as much as a frontal charge can do. The attack to the sides is an added bonus to what by then is a hopeless case for the enemy cavalry

**Magmaniac** · August 31, 2009, 01:26 AM

My god what an awesome campaign this is turning out to be! Good luck storming italy and asia minor. I would suggest opening up a new front by landing an invasion force in egypt if you have spare troops.

**Change** · August 31, 2009, 07:48 AM

REST YOUR TROOPS!!!

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 31, 2009, 09:24 AM

Your concern is admirable

@Magmaniac
I was thinking of that next. It's turn 7 and I can start producing Armoured Hoplites in Sparta so I'll get 5 from Sparta and Thressalonica and send a navy down with them and some Milita Cavalry in 3-4 turns. We'll see how the empire is at that stage and whether it's viable.

**Walternat0r** · August 31, 2009, 06:20 PM

Very nice work man, how's the monies keeping up? Are you building anything other than military buildings and ports?

**decimator22** · August 31, 2009, 06:49 PM

What better to say than good luck. I enjoy seeing blitzing campaign in all total war. Not sure if you have M2TW but a guy conquered everything in under 27 turns.

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 31, 2009, 07:09 PM

@Walternat0r
The finances are fine. I exterminate every settlement I take except the tiny ones because then I'd fall below the population needed to recruit units. I build roads, ports and military buildings. I don't think the other finance buildings generate enough money quickly enough to be of value for a short campaign. My starting treasury every turn is about 10,000dn, but I usually use most of it building and recruiting. I just sacked Capua which got me a good 4000, so as long as I can keep this rate of conquering up I shouldn't run into any real trouble financially, especially when I hit Egypt.

@decimator22
That's pretty impressive. Which faction was used? I've only played it a bit, having borrowed it off a friend for a couple of weeks.

**decimator22** · August 31, 2009, 08:03 PM

He used the turks abusing the jihad function. Here is a link to it and apparently it was done in 21 turns. Its over in the org forum.

**Genius of the Restoration** · August 31, 2009, 08:42 PM

Thanks for the link, it's quite impressive. Don't know if I can do Rome in 21 turns though...

To let everyone know where I'm at... it's winter 266 at the moment and I have 24 territories and Scipii and Brutii are gone. Next stop: Rome!

**Parzival2211** · September 01, 2009, 02:58 AM

very impressive, Genius. A bit sad though, that it takes a speed run to create a challenge. I wish the AI was smarter.

Good luck and keep us updated!

**Genius of the Restoration** · September 02, 2009, 09:18 PM

Seventh Turn (267)
Or more accurately, the AI turn in winter in 268. The Brutii attacked my stack besieging Tarentum with everything they had left. I was pushing it a bit with this battle. A couple of times my Militia Hoplites began to waver, which is one step away from a mass rout once the freed up unit of Hastati pilas some Hoplite kebab. This is the only danger Roman infantry pose to Greek hoplites. Once they’re in close-combat the hoplites should be able to win, but the morale effect of two simultaneous pila bursts is a problem, especially to a unit already reduced in strength.
In my actual turn I took an unoccupied Tarentum, Apollonia from the rebels, took Nicomedia from Pontus and marched another army further into Asia Minor. My aim was to use one army to take Mazaka and then move south-east to attack the Seleucids while the other would take Sinope and move into Armenia.

Eighth Turn
This was a rather boring turn. All I did was march armies, attacked some rebels that had spawned for the experience and to get a Man of the Hour (important to remember that the only way to get this is to not take a general with your army). I started making an army to attack Egypt with. Fought a fun battle against Pontus though. I love fighting skirmish factions; they present much more difficulty for the rather static Greeks.

Ninth Turn (266)
After his last battle against Pontus, Memnon had become my first 10 star general. Go team!

Eager to capitalise on Pontic foolishness in splitting their forces into nicely manageable armies I directed Memnon to attack half stack of Peltasts with a couple of jav cav. It was a clean victory that saw Pontus damaged beyond repair. With too few units left to mount a successful defence, their destruction was assured. I also laid siege to Capua, the last remaining Scipii settlement. Being the kind souls that they are, they decided to bring another army in and attack me. Bad mistake. If they’d sallied I would have had a harder time because of the walls limiting how well I could pursue them after they’d routed. On an open field it was just carnage.

LESSON FOUR: A combination of previous lessons - attacking from different directions

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Attacking from the left is not the same as attacking from the right. This is most obvious with missile weapons. Troops always hold their weapon in their right hand and if they’ve got a shield it is in their left hand. The defence versus missiles is dependent on what arc the unit is being fired at from.
From the frontal arc, defence vs. missiles is armour value + twice the shield value. From the left arc it is armour + shield value. But from the right it is only armour (since the shield is carried in the left hand). This means that given equal terrain, you should always prefer to place your missile units so they can shoot into the right arc of their target for more casualties. Of course the best is still the rear arc which only provides half the armour value for defence vs. missiles. Take a unit of Hastati as an example (5 armour and 5 defence shield). Defence vs. missiles would be front:15, left:10, right:5, rear:2.5.
You can also position other units in ways that maximise their effectiveness vs. the AI. One of my favourites is a method for killing generals. When a unit is shot at with missiles they usually give chase, especially if they are a strong unit that could defeat the unit they are being shot by. A Generals Bodyguard is the best example of this. You can use this AI preference for charging at missile troops to your advantage. Put the missile unit in front of a melee unit such as I explained in LESSON TWO. They can shoot the general and encourage him to charge. This is where placement is most important. A general (or captain) is positioned at the front on the left of a unit (except for a captain using wedge formation). This means you can position a unit in a position just ahead of where the Bodyguard is charging to as a means to directly engage the general. One of the most annoying parts of RTW is when you completely destroy an army only to have one general escape. This ensures this doesn’t happen. In the pic below you can see that the Scipii general is marching (not charging yet) for the Militia Cavalry that are throwing javelins at them. By placing my right phalanx slightly ahead I ensure that the general is caught in the spears and directly engaged. If however it had been the other way around and my left phalanx was forward the general would have been out of harm’s way.

Another bonus of this is that because the general will snick the first unit the Bodyguard will be denied the ability to charge. They will also start to wheel around to attack the first unit and then run into the second unit which will act as though attacking them from the side. This is one of the useful tactics you can use with the phalanx. Don’t always set it up in a straight immovable line (though this is useful sometimes too), be aggressive (these units had just finished moving there – they aren’t yet braced)

EDIT: An example of a perfect execution of this strategy. The general is completely isolated from his bodyguard in the background and fell in moments as a consequence.

Tenth Turn
My army made it to Byzantium only to find that Thrace was already besieging it! Only provided more fun for the faction leader, who attacked the Thracians and got lucky with a spy and got Byzantium in the same turn. My army bound for Egypt took a slight detour when my Militia Cavalry had just enough movement points to attack the rebels at Crete. I couldn’t get the rest of the army on shore but the jav cav were more than enough to take out the settlement.

Eleventh Turn (265)
Treachery! The bastardly Seleucids bribed Mazaka! Unable to defeat my armies in combat they’ve resorted to bribery! War will not spare the cowardly...

Anyway, see if you can spot something strange about these battle results:

The result of having Scythed Chariots in a garrison that consisted of a Faction Leader and some Pontic Light Cavalry. Sigh. This was the fall of Sinope and the end of the Kingdom of Pontus. What a way to go!

This turn also saw two important and rather amusingly coincidental events, the fall of Carthage and the so-near-it’s-infuriating not-fall of Rome. The SPQR army was outside Rome, so as usual I forced the fight on the open field where I trusted my cavalry advantage would destroy the Roman’s completely. I took a number of screenshots for this battle so I could show you how I played it as it’s usually one of the most challenging of the campaign.

Here you can see my cavalry running the enemy around until the enemy infantry are exhausted. The reason I had all my cavalry running around and not in hiding with the hoplites was because the SPQR had more General’s Bodyguards than me and I needed the Cav advantage in case they charged me (Roman Bodyguards are superior to Greek ones too). It's much easier to deal with the enemy when they are out of stamina.

Once the battle was underway I formed a line. I used this rather boring formation because of the experience of the Roman troops. While a Hoplite can usually beat a unit of Hastati, the 3xp Principes are more trouble, especially when backed up by Bodyguards. To safeguard my centre I doubled up my lines. The Hoplites were spread until three rows deep (the amount where all spears can be used) and another unit was spread directly behind them two rows deep, providing five rows in case the Bodyguards charged (which they did). I also kept my General close by in the centre ready to assist, while the other Bodyguards did the fighting. In the screenshot below you can see the main battlelines have joined and my Militia Cavalry have begun to group behind the Roman lines. They’re job was to break the Velites and then hammer the Roman troops engaged with the Hoplite anvil.

Here the left flank of my main line had been freed up by the Militia Cavalry so they turned around to assist the Hoplites who were keeping the Romans from getting behind my line.

And then it was all over!

But unfortunately I didn’t get everyone, and here is where the annoying part of escaping generals comes in. Of the fifteen total survivors, guess who made it alive?

I also took Tarsus and decided to rest to recuperate my forces before pushing on to Antioch.

Twelfth Turn
Not much happened this turn. Rome fell, surprise surprise. I besieged Arretium and Caralis fell. I also retook Mazaka
LESSON FIVE: Combining units in the campaign map

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

There we have it. The Greek Cities now control 29 settlements with a perfect record of 59 battles won with no losses. I have armies bound for Dacia, Armenia, Egypt, Seleucia, Julii, Gaul, Thrace, Carthage and Numidia. All’s well. This is an image of the end of my turn with the army that is bound for Egypt.

A table of battle results so far. The other one was wrong in the column of Greek kills against the Brutii, but this is the updated version now so I wont go back and correct it.

If there's anything you want me to include next time please ask.