Greek Tips?

[Byte]

Hello there, just got back from getting beaten like a girl. The macedonians just took Athens and altho i have a few islands and one territorry on the opposite pensinsula, i just cant bare to continue without lovely athens. Units are a precious commodity in this mod and the Athens siege just took all i can afford.

I guess im gonna restart. Any tips on making progress with the greeks without getting decimated by the Macedonians? I wish the bloody romans would keep them busy...

[Juus]

Get an Alliance on the first turn.

If that doesn't work, at least get trade and map info. Then send your diplomat to Thrace and Epirus to get Alliances. Start training your best infantry available at Sparta. At Athens, queue up your cheapest unit - you only need to defend it, after all.

Send your spy into Corinth.

Build temple of Nike at Sparta. Same at Athens (or Athena), up to you. Hermes at Rhodes. Recruit any merc unit available in Athens.

Use your family member at Rhodes to recruit Mercs on the Island (Slingers, Cretans, a hoplite unit I think). Ship them all, except the family member to Sparta. They'll bolster your forces.

Build for a couple of turns. Then attack Corinth from Sparta with everyone except your best governor. Corinth is likely to have a small garrison. Hopefully your spy will open the gates, but if not, build 3 sap points.

Either way, the AI will either try and relieve the seige (good, as you'll be able to fight defensively), or you can take it next turn.

Once you take Corinth, you have a solid base to defend Athens and launch an offensive against Macedon.

[Omnipotent-Q]

Get an Alliance on the first turn.

You can't get advice anymore sound on this. If you ally with them, then the alliance generally stands firm. At some point they'll be distracted for the Brutii, leaving some Southern Macedonian cities dangerously unguarded.

[Romanus Invictus]

Only problome is that you'll proububly end up decemaiting your forces just as the Romans decide that the other side of the Adriadic should speak Latin.

so once you've killed off Macedon, start a build up and prepare for the invasion...

[jw1089]

i like that strategy. i just started a greek campaign, and i was thinking of just rushing them

[Byte]

Yeah that sounds good. What about taking corinth and then making a cease fire treaty? So then i could expand eastward and let the romans distract macedon?

[Favre]

They wont bite, Macedonians will always backstab you, Your best bet IMO is to slaughter like all but 1 macedonian town and force em into protectorate

[imthefrgt10]

well when u get into a fight with the phalanx just leave one unit far from the battle so when u engage the enemy the can get behind the enemy line and then u have them at your mercy, just dont let them get behind your lines

[Juus]

I doubt Macedon will accept a ceasefire that early. Once you take Thermon and Larissa, they will probably restrict themselves to blockading your ports, especially as they'll probably now be at war with Thrace and Epirus.

[A$TAR-519]

Bro why are u getting massacured? make allies man, also try to make as much trade rights as possible, dont let the macadonians build up their long pikes, as their pike is 6 meters while the greek 1's are only 2 and a half meters !! *gasp* try to go to creatan and hire some archers, and build stone walls for athens, train out armored hoplites like hot cakes, and try to ceasefire with brutaii if you can, the last thing you want is brutaii rushing you from the west while macadonia crush you from the top. (^_^)

Tips:
1. send your dipolomate west asap, good empires to start alliances are Thrace and Epirus, dont get the sucicides. cause their busy fighing the egyptians and wont help you much, and on the west, the only roman family that you have a chance with are the juliaiis.
2. dont panic and overbuild, try to keep the building list down, and addjust what to build accordinly, example dont build a sewer when you need a trader, because money is everything, and you need to churn out units asap, (mercenaries are expensive)
3. Because you are recruting like mad, try to enslave any settlement that you capture during ur campaign, not only do you get decent money, but you also increase the population, which in turn leads to better buildings and better units.

Thats all I can think of, Once macadonia is gone all you have to worry about is the brutatii and the scippii familes, also some slaves, hople i helps you a lot! (*_*)

[A$TAR-519]

i ment east dur dur dur

[NONOPUST]

uh guys, theres only a united roman faction

there is no more julii, brutii, or scipii

[chaplain118]

bribe

[Carsten]

bribe

I like it when a guy named "chaplain" recommends bribery.

But if I recall correctly, the Greek Cities start with 30,000 denarii, whereas most other factions in TE start with 50,000 or more, so bribery is not as good of an option for the Greeks. Also, as Thrace I have tried bribing several Macedonian forces and not one accepted a bribe I believe.

I have played a hard/hard campaign as the Greeks (in TE 5.1 I think)
and took 6 towns from
Macedon without losing a land battle. First I beseiged Corinth, then put a big army northwest of Athens where it could basically block land attacks to Athens, Corinth, or Sparta.
Then when I had a 3-boat fleet I sent troops to an easy seige of Mytilene.
I planned to take their other island next, but the King of Macedon brought an army south of Larissa within striking distance of my army near Athens. So I engaged them, killed the King, and walked into the empty city of Larissa.
Outnumbering Macedon 6 towns to 3, it was just a matter of time before taking the rest.

By then, the Romans were finishing the Epirus forces in Italy, so I took the eastern ones.

Now I could look at easier conquests like Crete and Halicarnassus.

And since Greeks begin with Rhodes and have a bonus to naval trade, it helps to build the biggest ports
early wherever possible, and get trade agreements with the big sea powers.

[Juus]

Few screenshots..

If all goes to plan, and you manage to get mercenary reinforcements from Rhodes and Athens, your army should look something like this..


I'm using the BI exe, and the AI is much more active, particulalry when it comes to naval expansion. Was a bit spooked when they landed a small army at Rhodes - never seen that before..

[spirit_of_rob]

I think the best piece of advice early on is choose your battles carefully

short and sweet

[Taelok]

Juus how are you using the BI.exe file to run this mod? *curious* and how much difference does it make?

[Byte]

Ok i restarted and im doing much better. I think rushing Corinth in the third turn was a good move because they didnt get the chance to raise an army. I also got theron after a huge battle with also their reinforcement army, and my mercenary assault stack got totally trashed, so i left them in theron. They have some scattered half-stacks and a full stack with 5-6 stars up north, i guess its gonna be the final boss army. :tooth:
Having a blast now that i got around to the formation freeze bug, much better than vanilla, although i gotta say there are still some quick deaths, might be the power of the hoplites though, not used to non-roman units. Also not used to kickass cavalry, greeks rock.

[Juus]

Juus how are you using the BI.exe file to run this mod? *curious* and how much difference does it make?

If you have BI, then create a shortcut of the BI exe on your desktop (Rename it Terrae BI exe or something), then click properties and type -show_err -mod: at the end of the command line.. It should look something like this.

"C:\Program Files\Activision TE\Rome - Total War\RomeTW-BI.exe" -show_err -mod:

Then use the shortcut to run TE.

Well the main difference of using the BI exe, is the the AI is smarter and more aggressive. Especially by sea. Twice Macedon has invaded Rhodes in my Greek campaign.

[Taelok]

I'll certainly try this thanks Juus. Have you seen Carthage invade Italy or other such things?

Thanks again.