Roleplaying VS convinience = change in history

[JaNuZ99]

Hey everyone, I'm new but i wanted to jump in and introduce myself while discussing the topic ^^

It was yesterday when i began to have some troubling thoughts RPG wise, if it important i'm currently playing on the metro naval mod

1. The Pyrrhic wars
2. Consul reelections
3. garrison for my cities
4. roman way of raising armies
5. Punic wars

all of these are just prob that role playing-wise are problematic and end up with the player (me) playing a-historically, and well its a little annoying

1.Its 280BC i'm supposed to be at war with Pyrrus of Epirus, but Pyrrus and his army is all the way in the south attacking Rhegium and i'm taking Paestrum and Corfinium, so OK we haven't fought yet... 279 comes and goes w/o a single engagement between me or Pyrrus so i guess the battle that inspired the famous "Pyrrhic victory" didn't happen.
So again OK. 278 i send a fullstack (consular army) led by my faction leader (who in my mind i treat as a re-elected consul) he is defeated, i have heavy casualties and lose most of my army but i deal heavy casualties to the greeks, cuase i made pyrrus's elephants run amok (finally Pyrrhic victory) one small catch.... PYRRUS DIED IN BATTLE!
there goes the 5 year war i was supposed to have... and with that the only real (kinda) threat i have in the south are the greek piecemeal army that beat me, and the Greek garrisons. So i essentially changed history, the pyrrhic war was won in two years, with the death of Pyrrus (for Role playing purposes i later took Tarentum by bribing them in 272 when they "surrendered" ) I tried load a previous save and let him live but in the end i always end up killing him in a fatal seige of Rhegium... so he wont get to sail home... like was historically accurate ,therefore i changed history ^^

2. Okay so how many times will my consul get to be consul? in the end Quintus always ends up being consul at least hmm 13 times , (and that's when i retire him to Rome, but he ends up getting greedy and i like having generals to lead my legions, so i occasionally need him to fill up the legate/praetor/consul spot)

3. now comes the garrison issue... Rome has a big population,even when i max out the recruiting queue every turn my population is too much, and eventually by 267 BC i can barely keep Rome happy maintain my high tax policy, which i need to stem population growth, additionally i'm maintaining garrison troops in my other cities, if i don't they become unhappy even with happy buildings... and i can't enforce effective taxing... if i remember right there was a police thread that addressed the prob that the human player essentially has to maintain a garrison to keep the newly conqoured lands,which is a historical because normally defense of said settlement or region was left to the local government kept in place by the Romans

4. Here a big prob i have , we all know that Rome levied its soldier for seasonal campaigns then disbanded those armies, how do i reflect that in my game w/o losing my military?

5. Finally the Carthaginian keep trying to take rhegium starting up the Punic wars a couple years earlier, and if its not that they start it up by blockading Rome!

anybody found any of these prob or others frustrating, and the whole reason i bring this up was to see how other figure it out or manage it?

[Quinn Inuit]

Hey everyone, I'm new but i wanted to jump in and introduce myself while discussing the topic ^^

Hiya!

It was yesterday when i began to have some troubling thoughts RPG wise, if it important i'm currently playing on the metro naval mod

It's not super-important, so long as you know this is the ExRM forum. I mean, I don't mind people talking about MNM on here, but it is a little unusual.

1. The Pyrrhic wars
2. Consul reelections
3. garrison for my cities
4. roman way of raising armies
5. Punic wars

all of these are just prob that role playing-wise are problematic and end up with the player (me) playing a-historically, and well its a little annoying

I forget, does MNM have MC's Roman Leadership Mini-Mod, like the ExRM does? That makes it much easier.

1.Its 280BC i'm supposed to be at war with Pyrrus of Epirus, but Pyrrus and his army is all the way in the south attacking Rhegium and i'm taking Paestrum and Corfinium, so OK we haven't fought yet... 279 comes and goes w/o a single engagement between me or Pyrrus so i guess the battle that inspired the famous "Pyrrhic victory" didn't happen.
So again OK. 278 i send a fullstack (consular army) led by my faction leader (who in my mind i treat as a re-elected consul) he is defeated, i have heavy casualties and lose most of my army but i deal heavy casualties to the greeks, cuase i made pyrrus's elephants run amok (finally Pyrrhic victory) one small catch.... PYRRUS DIED IN BATTLE!
there goes the 5 year war i was supposed to have... and with that the only real (kinda) threat i have in the south are the greek piecemeal army that beat me, and the Greek garrisons. So i essentially changed history, the pyrrhic war was won in two years, with the death of Pyrrus (for Role playing purposes i later took Tarentum by bribing them in 272 when they "surrendered" ) I tried load a previous save and let him live but in the end i always end up killing him in a fatal seige of Rhegium... so he wont get to sail home... like was historically accurate ,therefore i changed history ^^

Yeah, that's why Carados and I did all kinds of work in 3.5.3 to make sure Pyrrhus behaved better and you actually got at least one good battle with him. We can rig the start of the game to make him fight you, but it's harder to make him come back for more later. We did manage to make sure he fights the Romans twice if both are controlled by the AI, though.

For the record, FOE does a really good job of that, too.

2. Okay so how many times will my consul get to be consul? in the end Quintus always ends up being consul at least hmm 13 times , (and that's when i retire him to Rome, but he ends up getting greedy and i like having generals to lead my legions, so i occasionally need him to fill up the legate/praetor/consul spot)

There's really no way to mimic the limited consular terms with the game engine, sadly.

3. now comes the garrison issue... Rome has a big population,even when i max out the recruiting queue every turn my population is too much, and eventually by 267 BC i can barely keep Rome happy maintain my high tax policy, which i need to stem population growth, additionally i'm maintaining garrison troops in my other cities, if i don't they become unhappy even with happy buildings... and i can't enforce effective taxing... if i remember right there was a police thread that addressed the prob that the human player essentially has to maintain a garrison to keep the newly conqoured lands,which is a historical because normally defense of said settlement or region was left to the local government kept in place by the Romans

And that's why, a few versions ago, I nuked population growth (we've also worked around the grain bug). We're also going to be adding a more realistic garrison force for the Romans...not perfectly realistic, but more realistic than garrisoning with your legions.

4. Here a big prob i have , we all know that Rome levied its soldier for seasonal campaigns then disbanded those armies, how do i reflect that in my game w/o losing my military?

No way to do it, sadly. The game is _very_ poor at reflecting the largely seasonal armies of the time.

5. Finally the Carthaginian keep trying to take rhegium starting up the Punic wars a couple years earlier, and if its not that they start it up by blockading Rome!

That's odd. I'm not sure why they do that...I've never really played MNM, so I don't know how they have it set up.

anybody found any of these prob or others frustrating, and the whole reason i bring this up was to see how other figure it out or manage it?

As I explained above, I think we've conquered a lot of those problems, are working on a couple of the others, and the last few aren't addressable with this game engine. (And yes, I'm very proud of what we've done to deal with those problems...there's a lot of hours of coding and experimentation in those solutions.)

[JaNuZ99]

Well firstly sorry for posting on the wrong forum.

Secondly I am only now about 5o try extended realism becuase I was on try rtrpe and MNM

Thnx for the response BTW

P.s yeah I read that police thread for a cheap police unit for. Rome

[Quinn Inuit]

No problem. We get the occasional post meant for somewhere else, but it's not a big deal.

[Carados]

The ultimate problem is that the computer... well... it's a computer. It operates on a mathematical basis and is very much confined to the limitations of the game mechanics. No matter how hard we try, we can't repicate history as history played itself out. Perhaps the best way to deal with things is via scripting but that takes a fair bit of effort and it doesn't take into account the current situation. For example, we could "kill" Pyrrhus and his army and then create him in Sicily in the year 278 (or whenever), however there is no way to take into account the variables in those preceeding two years. It might be that the Romans made a complete pig's ear of the Pyrrhic war and suffered a crushing defeat to Pyrrhus. A typical respawn of Pyrrhus would then underestimate the strength of his army. On the flip-side, should the Romans do a lot better than expected, then Pyrrhus would somehow acquire troops that in reality he would not have been able to acquire.

There is also another point to raise
If you want absolute 100% historical accuracy, why bother playing it out anyway? Although we try to get things as close to historical correctness as possible, sometimes it is a good idea to leave things to fate. Pyrrhus would have actually decimated the Roman army at Heracleia if he was able to pursue them. But, as fate would have it, his elephants panicked and his army was unable to run down the fleeing Romans. If those elephants had not panicked, then history might just have turned out different.

If the Gauls decided to unite earlier under the banner of a single warlord, then Caesar might not have been able to conquer them all. He wouldn't have the political power to seize Rome, and history could've turned out very different.

If Titus Labienus hadn't stopped his men from looting the Nervii camp and aided Caesar, then Caesar would've most likely been killed!

If Hasdrubal was able to get his elephants to Hannibal, or if Hannibal had realised that Nero had left his camp to aid the other consul at Metaurus in dealing with Hasdrubal...

History is ever on a knifes edge. The path it takes comes down to chance and chance alone.

[JaNuZ99]

If you want absolute 100% historical accuracy, why bother playing it out anyway? Although we try to get things as close to historical correctness as possible, sometimes it is a good idea to leave things to fate. Pyrrhus would have actually decimated the Roman army at Heracleia if he was able to pursue them. But, as fate would have it, his elephants panicked and his army was unable to run down the fleeing Romans. If those elephants had not panicked, then history might just have turned out different.

yup you are completely right. You know since i'm already replying i guess i'd just like to take the chnace to say EXRM, is freakin amazing!

As i mentioned before till now I've only been playing MNM and RTRPE. I was amazed to see that finally i was given Corfinium and paestrum at the start of the game, and even more pleasently surprised when i saw that rhegium was under roman control. Though i think Rhegium was an ally of rome during the Pyrrhic war, though i'm not sure.

As it happens in my campaign i changed history
Seeing that my full stack was a financial burden for me i decided to go ahead and duke it out with pyrrus, hoping that the loss of men would make it less of a burden and on the plus side i'd weaken Pyrrus, so it came as a utter shock when i lost 2/3 of my full stack and found out that Pryrrus only lost 200+ men!

I then decided to restart the campaign and make a save before the battle and fight out myself, well after being defeated twice and doing no better than the AI, i quit, ate , came back on and gave it another try, after a 27 min game of heavy fighting,frustrating lag, and a lot of sprite i still lost but managed to take half his army to Hades \
unfortunately as i was withdrawing my remaining forces, with my Triarri holding off his calvary and his elephant dead (my vetelites came through!) the AI sent Pyrrus and his bodyguard to attack and i had to respond by enveloping him... he died....

Though that didn't stop his army from besieging me next turn..

I gotta say so far EXRM is being awesome!! I'm STILL dealing with his remaining army (those tarentum hoplites and calvary are hard as hell to kill!) and i still have to deal with taking Tarentum itself and Croton! I'm only on the year 277

hehe so much for a five year war :p which is perfect considering the amount of denari it cost to raise a legion ,let alone a consular army (full stack)

to end it off,

i tip my hat to the developers.
thnx!

[Carados]

As i mentioned before till now I've only been playing MNM and RTRPE. I was amazed to see that finally i was given Corfinium and paestrum at the start of the game, and even more pleasently surprised when i saw that rhegium was under roman control. Though i think Rhegium was an ally of rome during the Pyrrhic war, though i'm not sure.

Things are likely to change in ExRM 4.0. For starters Rhegium will start off as rebels with an italian based army to simulate the revolting army. Paestrum is possibly going to go rebel as well. It shouldn't really be under Roman control I don't think.

As it happens in my campaign i changed history
Seeing that my full stack was a financial burden for me i decided to go ahead and duke it out with pyrrus, hoping that the loss of men would make it less of a burden and on the plus side i'd weaken Pyrrus, so it came as a utter shock when i lost 2/3 of my full stack and found out that Pryrrus only lost 200+ men!

Hahah. Yeah, Pyrrhus is quite nasty in that first battle. If you know the R:TW tricks of the trade you can beat him fairly easy, even on very hard, but for the casual gamer he is a beast.

I then decided to restart the campaign and make a save before the battle and fight out myself, well after being defeated twice and doing no better than the AI, i quit, ate , came back on and gave it another try, after a 27 min game of heavy fighting,frustrating lag, and a lot of sprite i still lost but managed to take half his army to Hades \
unfortunately as i was withdrawing my remaining forces, with my Triarri holding off his calvary and his elephant dead (my vetelites came through!) the AI sent Pyrrus and his bodyguard to attack and i had to respond by enveloping him... he died....

Good stuff. Your cavalry are the most expensive units so you'll want to have as many of them killed off as possible. Losing your entire army at the expense of half of Pyrrhus's is actually a good trade. At the moment the Romans do have a second army further north to help out if thinks go pear-shaped.

Though that didn't stop his army from besieging me next turn..

I gotta say so far EXRM is being awesome!! I'm STILL dealing with his remaining army (those tarentum hoplites and calvary are hard as hell to kill!) and i still have to deal with taking Tarentum itself and Croton! I'm only on the year 277

hehe so much for a five year war :p which is perfect considering the amount of denari it cost to raise a legion ,let alone a consular army (full stack)

Interesting. We had reports a while back saying the Tarentine phalangites were actually horrible units and kept dying a lot faster than other "weaker" phalangites. It's a good thing you're struggling with the cavalry. Though outnumbered, the greek cavalry triumphed over the Romans and for ExRM this should be no different.

to end it off,

i tip my hat to the developers.
thnx!

Thanks
Glad you're enjoying it so far. Quinn took over the project a long time ago and he has done the most work. I joined in rather recently (3.5.1ish?) but I had a major role in getting the Pyrrhic war to play out as good as the game allows. Still not content enough with it yet, I'm going to try and get Pyrrhus to go to Sicily. I don't like how Pyrrhus is continously overshadowed by other great generals, so I want to explore his travels a little bit more.

[JaNuZ99]

Things are likely to change in ExRM 4.0. For starters Rhegium will start off as rebels with an italian based army to simulate the revolting army. Paestrum is possibly going to go rebel as well. It shouldn't really be under Roman control I don't think.

well in most mods I've played rhegium starts as a rebel city anyway.

Hahah. Yeah, Pyrrus is quite nasty in that first battle. If you know the R:TW tricks of the trade you can beat him fairly easy, even on very hard, but for the casual gamer he is a beast.

well i'm not exactly a casual gamer and i always play on VH VH ,but I'm still adapting to those Tarentium calvary... if they didn't chase my skirmishers i could get them close enough to kill off some elephants and hopefully get them to run amok behind the enemy ranks, then I'd shower the enemy, flank with my calvary and either send them after Pyrrus or send in my infantry in guard mode to attack the phaglites while my calvary attacked them. Anotehr thing is the calvary Pyrrus has with him are missile calvary so they have the skirmish thing on and my calvary are not fast enough to get them.. and chasing his calvary throughout the battle is unproductive and it takes away my ability to flank his phaglites which suffer from the standard phalanx flaw of being inflexible,movement-wise.

Good stuff. Your cavalry are the most expensive units so you'll want to have as many of them killed off as possible. Losing your entire army at the expense of half of Pyrrhus's is actually a good trade. At the moment the Romans do have a second army further north to help out if thinks go pear-shaped.

Yeah I know, but its take two turn to get them to engage the enemy meaning they either take corfinium or besiege it. The reason is they have a spy at the beginning infiltrate corfinium and sometimes they just attack, gates are opened and my garrison is destroyed.. though i can't say i don't use it to my advantage.. sometimes i move that Picene spearmen unit in Ancona to corfinium, that way i no longer have to pay there 400+ upkeep and they serve as a good force to kill off some of the enemy = less enemy when i attempt to take it back with my army in the north.

Interesting. We had reports a while back saying the Tarentine phalangites were actually horrible units and kept dying a lot faster than other "weaker" phalangites. It's a good thing you're struggling with the cavalry. Though outnumbered, the Greek cavalry triumphed over the Romans and for ExRM this should be no different.

Oh they do, my skirmisher really nuke em when i get the chance, but problem is the AI is actually being smart and uses its calvary to scare off my skirmisher.. and when i send my calvary to engage and kill of theirs.. my calvary routs like ers

Thanks
Glad you're enjoying it so far. Quinn took over the project a long time ago and he has done the most work. I joined in rather recently (3.5.1ish?) but I had a major role in getting the Pyrrhic war to play out as good as the game allows. Still not content enough with it yet, I'm going to try and get Pyrrus to go to Sicily. I don't like how Pyrrhus is continously overshadowed by other great generals, so I want to explore his travels a little bit more.

NP its pretty awesome, though I do have some suggestions if you care to take them, in fact they are the reason why even though I'm currently already mid into the Punic wars,but i'm deleting my current campaign.

1. Make Macedon focus more on Asia Minor PLEASE! Macedon has overrun the Greeks in Greece... in my campaign the Greek only own TWO settlements one is in Asia minor and another is somewhere on the BLACK SEA!

2. Macedon ALSO DESTROYED the Ilyrians, now who am i going to engage in the Illyrian Wars of 229,219, and 168BC

3. Can we help out Numidia? They were overrun by the Carthaginians... who am i going to hand over all those desert provinces the Carthaginian have later on in the second and third Punic war... and if i let them rebel,then i have roman rebels.. and Rome DOES NOT accept rebellion... ^^

[Mogan]

Well, the Phyrric Wars are supposed to be a tough one. The only thing exactly historical is that Rome always defeats Epirus with good infantry, good infrastructure and war of attrition. Phyrrus did gain some support after all.

About Macedon issue, in reality, Macedon did not rule over the Greeks, but they did often control them, under strong kings. Only when their back was sure, they focused on Asia Minor. Rome:TW sucks at representing the influence of a strong neighbour king/ruler.

[Quinn Inuit]

I'm glad you're enjoying it, too!

I'm nearly done with my crazy time at work, so I'll be able to get back to developing soon.

Good luck getting Pyrrhus to travel properly. Let me know if you want me to mess with the map a little to give him a good route.

I think Rome probably should control the Paestum region by 280, but only just barely. We should probably yank any AOR buildings they have there. I did a quick check on Wikipedia and it looks like the Romans controlled everything but the serious mountains, Tarentum and its environs, and Bruttium and points south by 280. Plus, I seriously doubt we'll be able to keep Pyrrhus or the Romans in line if Paestum is rebel. It'll attract 'em like flies to honey.

[Carados]

Ah, well in that case we'll keep Paestum as is.

[Carados]

What version are you playing JaNuZ99? Quinn got rid of the Italy-Albania and Greece-Turkey landbridges a while ago. In the latest version Pyrrhus has a gigantic army, and Rome has a stack with a slight numerical advantage opposing him.

Either way. The Pyrrhic war should be getting improved on a lot more in ExRM 4.0. I am also going to try and get Pyrrhus to wreck havoc in Sicily. Hopefully, Pyrrhus will decimate the Romans early on then leave for Sicily thus allowing the Romans to replenish their strength. It is highly unlikely Pyrrhus will come back to Italy, unfortunately (getting him to Sicily will be challenge enough, never mind a return trip to Italy and then Greece!!).

1. Make Macedon focus more on Asia Minor PLEASE! Macedon has overrun the Greeks in Greece... in my campaign the Greek only own TWO settlements one is in Asia minor and another is somewhere on the BLACK SEA!

2. Macedon ALSO DESTROYED the Ilyrians, now who am i going to engage in the Illyrian Wars of 229,219, and 168BC

Ah yes. This is when the version needs updating. Macedon shouldn't be able to do that so easily in the latest version. I do have a suspicion the Greeks are more likely to do so instead, but Macedon does hold them up for a while it seems.

3. Can we help out Numidia? They were overrun by the Carthaginians... who am i going to hand over all those desert provinces the Carthaginian have later on in the second and third Punic war... and if i let them rebel,then i have roman rebels.. and Rome DOES NOT accept rebellion... ^^

Numidia is going to be replaced with the 3rd super/minifaction. Search the forums for more information about it. Basically, the Numidians are still going to exist but not as a stand alone faction. You can gift provinces to this "faction" and get trade from them if need be.

2. The Romans could match up to a Greek army ,led by a brilliant general,that fought in the style of Alexander the great.

Based on the Pyrrhic war I disagree with this statement completely. Romes win/draw/loss record against Pyrrhus is 0/1/2. My personal opinion is that the histories hasn't been kind to Pyrrhus, since a significant part of his life is lost. We know he wrote books and that they were very well recieved, even Hannibal praised his work and was influenced by them. We also know that he had quite a reputation in the Greek world as a battlefield commander. He frequently fought alongside his troops as well. He most definitely had elements of Alexander in him. What lets him down are other parts of his personality. He aimed for too great a conquest too soon. He couldn't focus on a single objective and see it through to the end. He also had a bit of a problem with the way he treated people (though I'm led to believe his Sicilian campaign ended badly due to the scheming of the existing Greeks on the island).

I should really start a brand new topic about this!

[JaNuZ99]

I'm playing the latest EXRM i believe v3.5.3b

when i talked about my eastern campaigns i was referring to to the times i tried playing eastern faction in various mods, and sum it all i HATE the eastern factions, although in EXRM i find except with Bactria.

when i t comes to Illyria, i just want it to last long enough so i can historically turn it into a province

As to Numida, i just want someone to unload the desert provinces that i take from Carthaginians on. Oh and and of course a trade partner.

Well i confess i don't know too much about Pyrrhus ,though i did know about that little bit about Hannibal admiring and being influenced by Pyrrhus.

[JaNuZ99]

Numidia is going to be replaced with the 3rd super/minifaction. Search the forums for more information about it. Basically, the Numidians are still going to exist but not as a stand alone faction. You can gift provinces to this "faction" and get trade from them if need be.

you think you can give me the link to the thread, i'm really intereted in this mini faction/super faction ideas that i've gotten hints about in some threads,but i still do not have a definite thread to tell me the plans or changes for ExRM 4.0 regarding the factions

[Carados]

you think you can give me the link to the thread, i'm really intereted in this mini faction/super faction ideas that i've gotten hints about in some threads,but i still do not have a definite thread to tell me the plans or changes for ExRM 4.0 regarding the factions

I'll see if I can find a thread later. The list of factions that we'll be having is looking like this:

Rome
Carthage
Celtiberians
Gaul
Germans
Scythians
Dacians
Galatians
Bactria
Parthia
Armenia
Pontus
Seleucid Empire
Chremonidean League
Macedon
Epirus
Ptolemaic Empire
Barbarian minifaction
Greek minifaction
Eastern minifaction (incl Numidia)

In short, the Britons, Illyrians and Numidians are being replaced by the minifactions. Though each of these people will be part of their respective minifaction so they'll still exist in the game, just not as a fully fleshed out faction such as Epirus.

The one thing I can promise you about the behavior of Macedon in the next version is that it will be very different.

What is your opinion on the RTRVII layout for Greece? In particular Macedon. With the very few miniplaytests I've done on Greece so far, I find that the Chremonidean League and Macedon enter war, without fail, on the first turn.

[Quinn Inuit]

Check early on in the ExRM 4.0 thread. There's a lot in there.

The one thing I can promise you about the behavior of Macedon in the next version is that it will be very different.

I'm curious, what don't you like about the Eastern factions, and which factions do you consider Eastern?

Carados: that sounds like an excellent thread idea.

[JaNuZ99]

I'm curious, what don't you like about the Eastern factions, and which factions do you consider Eastern?

well call it a bad taste in my mouth, whenever i play eastern factions i begin to feel likes its just grinding, after a while the battles in the desert of Egypt kinda make the battlefield dull for me, the fact that there arn't to many places to hide my men means i can't enjoy ambushing anyone. And while i see the power of phalanx i dislike commanding actual phalanx units, in the end i guess i'm just a western player, i like my soldiers actually slashing at each other in the barbaric form of the Gauls, or in the disciplined form of the Romans.

By eastern factions i mean : Selucids,Ptolies, Armenians (though i do like some of their units) and well the Greeks aren't really eastern,but i dislike commanding phalanx troops so them too.

but i take excepting with Bactria, their elephants are fun to command.

[Quinn Inuit]

Well, they start good old Antigonus in a pretty different situation than we do. Moving him will likely change their priorities. Also, maybe we can start them off at war with those Aetolian scum ( ) instead, which might be a good way to keep them apart for awhile.

[Carados]

Well, they start good old Antigonus in a pretty different situation than we do. Moving him will likely change their priorities. Also, maybe we can start them off at war with those Aetolian scum ( ) instead, which might be a good way to keep them apart for awhile.

So... does that mean you like where they've put them in these two screenshots?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The problem currently is that the Chremonidean League doesn't have anywhere to expand but to Macedonian territories. If Macedon was moved to Phillipi or Maronia then it would give both factions some breathing space?

[Quinn Inuit]

well call it a bad taste in my mouth, whenever i play eastern factions i begin to feel likes its just grinding, after a while the battles in the desert of Egypt kinda make the battlefield dull for me, the fact that there arn't to many places to hide my men means i can't enjoy ambushing anyone. And while i see the power of phalanx i dislike commanding actual phalanx units, in the end i guess i'm just a western player, i like my soldiers actually slashing at each other in the barbaric form of the Gauls, or in the disciplined form of the Romans.

By eastern factions i mean : Selucids,Ptolies, Armenians (though i do like some of their units) and well the Greeks aren't really eastern,but i dislike commanding phalanx troops so them too.

but i take excepting with Bactria, their elephants are fun to command.

I understand. Some factions just aren't for everyone.

So... does that mean you like where they've put them in these two screenshots?

Yes. I'd forgotten they'd posted those.

The problem currently is that the Chremonidean League doesn't have anywhere to expand but to Macedonian territories. If Macedon was moved to Phillipi or Maronia then it would give both factions some breathing space?

What about north to Aetolia? Alternatively, we can try giving them prefers_naval, or reduce their starting armies so they won't feel so bellicose.