Pre-Marian Romans O.O

[Favre]

I downloaded 5.1 Recently, and I was wondering, whats the best strategy to destroying Epirus?

Ive lost 2 cities and now rome is being attack on Vh/h

This is daaamn hard. I've lost like 3 full stacks to 1 stack of Epirus so far. This is soo damn hard, but a good challenege. I'd like some good pointers on how to defeat these pesky epirotes


By the way, what units does it take to form a legion?

[_]Blackfire[_]

go for an alliance to begin with the eventually build up and wipe them out..

[Kaweh]

Merge the two great armies you have at the start of the game, add a few princepes units to this army, hire some mercenaries and attack them in the third round and blitzkrieg them.

K.K

[Favre]

Dont start with any great armies, Its on VH/ H

I onyl start with roughly 15 units total in all of my settlements

[chaplain118]

merge all of your units, throw in at least 2 generals in it(recommend 3), go after pyhrrus as soon as possible. That always worked for me.

When fighting on the battle map, keep your velites out of trouble by having them retreat as soon as they run out of ammo (they're useless after that), manually edit your units into 4 trenches (instead of the manipular formation) during deployment to counter the elephants(if no elephants, use manipular formation), have your lesser generals out by the wings to help tackle the phalanxes, keep your main general surrouded with tough units such as triarii, if no triarii, then use principes. Make sure that you're not being flanked by elephants, if that happens, you're screwed no matter what. In case of emergency, use one group of velites to stop the elephants and then use your heavy missile infantry (hastati, principes) to take them down with missiles. For phalanxes, move your units around so you can exploit their weakness: BACKSIDE, as soon as you attack, withdraw to avoid heavy losses. If you sense you are on the verge of losing the battle, pull back all of the men you have. Remember, the Romans lost the pyrrhus in their first attempt. After you fight him, he'll usually go back to Greece.

Good luck, I hope this helped.

[JCaesar316]

Ive just started again as rome on vh/vh, so i feel your pain. I managed to get an alliance with them and the gauls i then built up my forces (spending most of cash reserve) and sent them to greece once i had landed that army i was returning my ships to home waters when i noticed the large part of the Epirus army boarding just one ship (elephants and all) this was too good to be true imo so i attacked and sunk it.

Now i know this isnt going to help you in anyway, i just wanted to rub it in a lil' lmao

My best advice is to take out there biggest advantage namely their elephants with a good few units of Velites (as they get a bonus Vs elephants) and hopefully making the elephants run amok and killing their own troops. If you manage this whats left of their forces should be easy meat.

I suggest atleast 4 units of Velites as the Epirus (i think) have two units of war elephants more if you want to make sure, throw them out far in advance of you main army and hope the Epirus are stupid enough not to screen their elephants, they shouldnt as elephants are a first strike weapon used to break up enemy formations before the infantry close to finish the now disordered enemy.

[The Black Reaper]

its it considered blitzkrieging if you have like 24 settlements by 256 B.C???

[Hader]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=53116
Check out my AAR there, you might find it useful. I am pn H/H and had no trouble defeating Epirus early on. Basically what i did was I got an alliance early on with them to protect against any earky attack that i could not counter. Then with men sent from every town i created a professional legion that would go on to wipe them out.

[Mongie]

I love the early battle with them. Sending a few men into a quick battle then a full retreat seems to work in delaying the invasion into Capua adn seige.

I like to build a quick army to attack on the first turn off the seige and trap them between to little armies and wipe them out !!

They wont attack inforce for around 10 turns then !!

[Favre]

For some reason, they sent their main force from italy to greece on a boat O.o

So i took over Tarenutum and their other sttlement is next.

[joorik]

Well... since you get 70k gold in the start it opens up some options.

I'm currently playing as vh/vh romans and captured both Italian Epirot cities in less than 10 turns.

First of all I started gathering troops south and didn't plan to attack them yet. But then I noticed that Epirot had split its forces leaving one of their family members with only 2 groups of some relatively tough phalanxes. So I went a charged with the small force I had ready nearby, killed their general and retreated off the map before the reinforcements from nearby square arrived. The reason why I attacked was that their king was there last round but seems that it was some random family member now . Still a relatively good catch.
And on the next few rounds I used my diplomat to bribe off everything I could and this was when Epirot made their biggest flaw ever leaving their king inside Tarentum and main army(with elephants and all) right outside it. Bribing that cost me some 40k gold but also meant that in the next few rounds I had killed all Epirot forces inside Italy and maintained most of my military might leading to quick capture of Sicily, Sardinia, Korsika and Carthage.

From there on it doesnt really matter wether you play easy or very hard since nearby opponents are no match to you and by the time you find some tougher opponents you yourself are tougher also.

[Mongie]

Well... since you get 70k gold in the start it opens up some options.

I'm currently playing as vh/vh romans and captured both Italian Epirot cities in less than 10 turns.

First of all I started gathering troops south and didn't plan to attack them yet. But then I noticed that Epirot had split its forces leaving one of their family members with only 2 groups of some relatively tough phalanxes. So I went a charged with the small force I had ready nearby, killed their general and retreated off the map before the reinforcements from nearby square arrived. The reason why I attacked was that their king was there last round but seems that it was some random family member now . Still a relatively good catch.
And on the next few rounds I used my diplomat to bribe off everything I could and this was when Epirot made their biggest flaw ever leaving their king inside Tarentum and main army(with elephants and all) right outside it. Bribing that cost me some 40k gold but also meant that in the next few rounds I had killed all Epirot forces inside Italy and maintained most of my military might leading to quick capture of Sicily, Sardinia, Korsika and Carthage.

From there on it doesnt really matter wether you play easy or very hard since nearby opponents are no match to you and by the time you find some tougher opponents you yourself are tougher also.

Ive got the 5.1 patch added on and starting Money is at 7000.

alot more fun !!