An enormously hard slog.

[Zenith Darksea]

I'm playing as the Koinon Hellenon now, and it's total war with Makedonia to reverse the tragic results of Chaeronea, and I think that pretty soon the shout, "On to Makedonia!" will be raised again, this time with rather more reason. But the ferocity of the Makedonians is nonetheless most impressive! They just never stop coming at me. As a result of the fact that I have little technology and limited (though not bad) resources, I've been forced to maintain a single army while simultaneously destroying a number of Makedonian forces that were all at least the same size as my own, often much bigger. First off, I brought Areus home and disbanded my navy. Then Makedonia besieged Athenai, so I returned the favour at Korinthos. This had the desired effect of eventually drawing the Makedonians away from Athenai, but I've just had to fight army after army, often with superior troops to my own. I think that I'm on to my last full stack now (fingers crossed), and once that's finished, I'll have a short stop to reconstruct my army and then it's off to Thessaly! I've never had so much fun as the Hellenikes (though I am exhausted now), and when the bugs are ironed out and the final units added in, I imagine it will be immensely pleasurable. I love the level of historical detail as well. Sadly I've not experienced any Olympic Games yet (the fact that Olympia is currently at the centre of a strenuous liberation campaign by the Koinon probably has something to do with this), but I look forward to them when I do. I just hope that there's a nice scripted reward or some such waiting for me in Pella!

On to Makedonia!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Great to hear. When they're done they'll be even better too! They've got more scripted events than any other faction actually (I think), but don't get your hopes up too high with Pella in your sights.

[Zenith Darksea]

Oh well, it'll still be fun to give Makedonia a taste of its own medicine.

[Equilibrium]

I also had some difficult battles against the Makedonians when playing as Epirus; I took their two northern towns very quickly by forcing them to attack me in field battles. I had only a 6/7 units army and they attacked me with two full stack armies, fortunately not at the same time and I did beat the crap out of both armies...so Thessaly and Makedonia were mine, but this was nothing compared to the battles that were ahead of me... The Makedonians had taken Sparta and had a full stack defending Corinth, a half stack wandering around on the Peloponnes and another full stack besieging the Athenians that were defending themselves desperately. Apart from that another makedonian army was trying to take Delphi...I won't describe how hard it was to conquer corinth and to beat their armies and at the same time getting money for reinforcements of my grown army; but the the thing that angered me the most were that the treacherous romans backstabbed me exactly the moment when I was one step before getting the most powerful faction in greece; so I had to quit my makedonian campaign and to make war with the nasty romans as I didn't want to lose Taras wich was one of the important "economy-cities" for me, fortunately they agreed to become my protectorate after I had killed their faction leader and another family member when defending Taras. Now money starts to roll in and I'm currently making about 30k per turn, no more money problems for a long time I guess. I guess this results from the AI getting too much money by scripts when it looses a certain amount of mnai per turn? I think that this should be fixed, so the players can't expoit this any more. This took a lot of fun and challenge away from my Epirus campaign, and I think I'll cancel my "alliance" with the romans as soon as greece is fully under my rule. For now I'm glad I can concentrate on one enemy and don't have to bear the risk of a two front war at the moment. But I had a challenge that I never experienced in the vanilla/any mod version of Rome, it was simply great.

[invictus]

I did the total opposite, i annexed all of italy as epirus and left greece, soon to return with a new and bigger army to destroy the macedonians with. -Leon

[Marcus Scaurus]

I'm playing a Koinon Hellenon campaign, conquer all of Greece, Makedonia and Epirus in ten years. I didn't find the Maks very hard to defeat. The first few years were hard, lost Athens after a few turns but after stabilizing my economy and finances I was able to field good armies, capable of defeating the Maks. Had a hard time defeating their strong hetaroi, but the hammer-and-anvil tactic did the work. After a few years I defeated their starting armies, and it was strange to see that they didn't raise any more armies after that, quite strange because they still had 4 fairly rich settlements. Sent my spies to see what troops they had, and I noticed some strange things. Both Pella and Demetrias only had 400-500 inhabitants, so the Maks were just unable to raise new troops because they didn't have the population. Same goes with Athens. Maybe a bug?

[Zenith Darksea]

Well, it's late 269 and I've pushed North and conquered Thessaly after another particularly tough campaign, though not as tough as my Corinthian one. Since then I turned my army around to conquer Euboea - I just can't leave it in my back and the Makedonians have deployed a significant military force there that could threaten Athens. If I beat it, as I hope to, I'll turn around again and finish Makedonia off. Then hopefully I'll have some breathing space before I have to face Epeiros. I might even take Aitolia. Though I'd prefer not to have to take on Epeiros right now (they're busy with the Romans, so they might not have time to take me on); instead I'd quite like to expand into Asia Minor once Pella has fallen. But my campaign against Demetrias was very enjoyable: a series of tough phalanx-on-phalanx battles in a forest on the sea shore with the Magnesian peninsula and Euboea visible in the distance. Very atmospheric.

[Marcus Scaurus]

Epeiros was way too easy to conquer after I annihilated the Maks. They only had 2 cities, each with a garrison of about 3 or 4 units. During the siege of Epimomdas, their faction heir returned from the north with an army (half stack), but it was recently defeated: most units only had 20 or 50 units.

[attilla]

I recently started a Koinon Hellenon campaign and i must say it is the most difficult start I have had yet. I managed to get the island just S of greece, I am blanking on the name at the moment, after a tough fight with the rebels on the island there(used my starter cash to hire mercs and then disbanded them after capture). Athens is constantly under siege by the maks and I can't seem to get enough of an advantage to push them away. There is a full stack between Sparte and Athenai which is stopping me from sending some backup. Plus about a half stack in korinthos which i could maybe defeat with the force I have in Sparta but not with the full stack there. I am about 5ish years into the campaign and my forces in Athens are slowly being worn down as I don't even get a turn to replace my losses. Makes it very stressful and fun at the same time though.

Right now I'm trying to save some coin so I can maybe build a force in Rhodes to ferry over, that is if I can make it past the mak navy without being sunk. I already had that happen once which was a serious blow(had 5 units on the ship- which at that point was a huge investment). I don't reload games so I have to deal with screw-ups, makes it more interesting. I might have to be happy with jumping from Rhodes to Hali and letting Athens fall to the maks. Their starting armies are gone but they keep pumping them out like nothing I have experienced. It's fantastic. Great to see such aggressive AI. Playing on VH campaign H battle.

Excellent work EB Team!! Oh yeah, one thing I have noticed as far as getting traits. My general in Athens has been at war/under siege for the last few years but I just got a "Bored" trait lol! His life is anything but boring with a battel taking place every other turn attempting to stop his city from going up in flames. Still the mod is fantastic even though it is only in beta stages. I wish I could help with the moddeling but my only skills are in law... Keep up the good work EB team!!

[Pritzl]

Just my 2cents: 'Hard' = good, 'slog', not so much. There is a tendency towards stack-spamming for sure which is not a good thing.

[Zenith Darksea]

To be honest, that did get boring in the battles. But on an overall strategic level, it made me consider my options more, and it gave me a much greater sense of achievement once I'd finally annihilated all the Makedonian armies.

[Pritzl]

I still firmly believe that the same effects (e.g. considering your options more carefully) can be achieved via other means, for example, making it harder for the player AND the AI to raise troops in general.