Roman Rebellions and the Samaritians

[I2ain_2_Battle]

every time i defeat roman cities, when i'm the spartans. they rebel every 4-5 turns and spawn a huge army with golden chevrons. I've been dealing with their rebellions after 20 turns of killing everyone in the city after i conquered it. and they keep spawning. is this as bug or do i have to defeat the romans for good before they stop spawning huge armies against me?

The Samaritans on difficulty medium have taken most of the world on the right, and now are trying to wipe me off the face of the planet. i'm the spartans. they have 60,000 men against my 2,000. and are surrounding my every turn. is there anything i can do to continue my campaign or do i have to slowly but surely watch them conqueror my cities one after another from the sheer mass of soldiers they have. this almost feels unfair, like why are they so dominate and tough to kill. and how can i defeat them with the Spartans.? i really want to finish my campaign, i've spent months and months on it. But i don't see any other way to end it without them kicking my butt. It's unfair, their civilization is to totally stronger than my army. now just to kill alot of them, i have full horse armies to kill their cavalry. Its unfair how they have such a huge army, after army pouring into my little province.

[Timefool]

Make sure you delete buildings that lower happiness and set taxes to low. Putting a governor with high influence will also help to keep happiness high.

The Sarmatians use mostly cavalry, and since you are the Spartans you shouldn't have that bad of a problem. Use Spartan hoplites with the short spears to kill their cavalry, and make sure your units don't get separated. Hold the battle line against enemy infantry because your troops should have a higher attack and defense. Flanking the enemy is the best way to make them run away, so keep a few units behind your front line to be able to go around and attack the enemy from behind when they are engaged. Cavalry are best for this, but if the enemy has a lot of cavalry, it would be safer to send spearmen in.

[I2ain_2_Battle]

u act like it's so easy? just fight spear men to horse lol what kills me is their horse archers, they cut my spearmen to grass, so i have an option since them and my archers have the same distance of shooting. put my archers in front, and have them run back. then when they do that their cav archers destroys my line men on the front line. it's really confusing. i've tried putting a rebel settlement in front of me. and it bought me a few turns. but then they attacked the rebel settlement. so i'm screwed. i'm thinking about starting a new campaign, but it bugs me that i know i'm gonna have to fight the samartians eventually.

[Timefool]

What difficulty are you playing on? Also, make sure your units face the enemy horse archers because if their sides or rear faces them, then their defense stat will be lower. I put my units with a high defense out front of my experienced troops to take the missile fire and then when they run out, I send my spearmen in. If you are facing overwhelming enemy forces that seem unfair, you can use the auto_win attacker/defender command to win the autoresolve because unless you have been playing your game for a few hundred ingame years, you shouldn't be fighting a superpower like that.

[I2ain_2_Battle]

and what exactly is the auto_win attacker/defender command?

[Basileos Predator]

Well it's quite simple:
When you attack the enemy, then you insert in the console(it opens when you press ~) auto_win attacker.
When you are attacked by an other faction , type auto_win defender.
Also, can you post some pics of the campain , just for curiosity, so that we see what you face.

[Du Silence]

Samartians are surprisingly fearsome, once they've developed into a superpower.
What you need to do, is to scout out the enviroment, find chokepoints around the map and then exand to said chokepoints.

E.g. when Sparta, I figure you're centered around greece and possibly have territories in Asia Minor and probably also Macedon.
Which is swell, you should be able to make a natural borderline with rivers, and only a few river crossings.
Take spearmen with high defence and loads of archers to the chokepoints and you'll see that it'll be a lot easier to hold your ground against them.
be sure to have severve armies stationed close by to the actual armies defending the river crossings and choke points, simply because you'll need to retrain your defending army from time to time, and leaving the chokepoint open, could break loose hell on your settlements.

Now for the offensive part. Having made a good defense against the horsebased armies of the Samartians, you'll need to focus on strengthening yourself, that you do with more settlements under your command, thus more income, thus potential for more armies.
To get said buffs, go towards the Romans.
Why? Simply because making a choke-point natural border tactic on Romans won't be very effective, their legions are superior closecombat infantry and can be quite a hassle, especially when lumped together.. So they're chosen for conquest, simply because they are a bad choice to defend against.

Use spies, ships and siege engines to expand in italy, if you're tied down at the front.
That way, you should be able to get footholds in Italy quite nicely, and if done correctly, drive the Romans out of Italy.
Given that you have success in this, you should exand north of Italy, to likewise find natural borders towards the East, and make sure the Samartians don't play the same tricks on you in your more western provinces.

As you secure lands to the west, and hold the barbarian steppe horsemen in place at your border, expand your economy, and be mindful on building projects, if they are too costly, it might be better waiting for next turn to build this building, and instead you can take a cheaper building which may also be in your interest to build.
Nvm having your generals at your eastern border become anything really, you should have a fairly easy fight ahead of you in the river crossing defence.
Putting on battle time limit is a good idea, since it can be quite hard to defend properly when the 3rd army spawns and you've long since run out of arrows.
As for generals in the east, that's where you can get yourself some proper Alexanders, or Hannibals, those will come in handy as you race to expand to a size that can challenge a Samartian Empire.

Be sure to have temples of Hephaistus in your army based cities, as that will allow you to get Gold Armour, very handy for resisting those nasty horse archers.