Siege...

[kof88]

How to march into the cities when I have phalanx, light calvary, javelins...

I'm sieging the nearest city on the east, when I ask my hoplites to march in... they simply can't deploy their phalanx and crushed by their units.. Same goes to other units..

What should I do??

[Professor420]

In order to keep up your speed, you have to be judicious about what cities you seige. Generally, if the enemy has more than 5 or so units in a stone-walled city, ignore it and keep going. The army is too small to pose any real threat if they evacuate the city, so can be safely ignored for a while (until you can bring up reinforcements). Just keep Alexander and his army moving forward.
The reason is, you lack two types of very important units. The first is archers, which don't matter much in taking cities (but would be damn nice in riverbattles). The second is a sword infantry for taking walls. You will be at a big disadvantage, and I'd say its impossible, to take heavily defended walls effectively without vast numerical superiority and heavy losses.
Avoid large battles in cities, at all costs. Your army is completely ineffective in seige and city assaults. And as long as you keep up a fast speed, Persia won't be able to reinforce their behind-the-frontier towns, so bypass their border cities for their fleshy interior.

[Rumpletumpskin]

i agree with the professor that speed is the most important thing. on my latest game i was able to take epidamnus, byzantium, and halicarnassus within the first 5 turns. taking epidamnus and byzantium is not crucial, it may not have been smart even. if you want to go after the persians right away i would suggest leaving a half stack(on the highest difficulty) to garrison Pella since the scythia will be sending an army from the north to join your other barbarian enemys to the east and west. then i sent alexander accross the sea with a full stack to attack babylon from the north west. using the forest north of babylon as a hiding spot, i was able to make it to the persian capital without being engaged once. i plan to use babylon to lure the persian armys away from the west (halicarnassus) and then press forward with the army that first made landing on persian soil. as far as taking citys i have found that deployment is the key since the enemy will base their deployment on yours. when you say your beseiging the closest city to the east i assume that your writing of byzantium and that your facing wooden walls.

this strategy works on both stone and wooden walls(assuming you have cavalry): your available deployment area pre-battle will allow you to place troops on half the map. place your entire army on one side of the city and a single ram/siege tower on the other. the enemy will deploy reactively with all or all but one of there units positioned to defend the wall from your main force. when the battle begins send all your cavalry to meet your single ram/tower on the other side of the city while they capture/bash down the walls. from here on your strategy depends on the the walls you face:


wooden: you now have a single unit of infantry and all you cavaly inside the walls. if the enemy is few you can make a break for the square. you only need to hold it for a few minutes to win the battle. if the enemy is many you can use your cavalry to attack from behind once your main force bashes down the walls and engages them from the front.

stone walls: you now have a single infantry unit on the walls and all your cavalry on the way to join them. use you infantry to make a mad dash for the nearest gate that doesn't involve a confrontation (you should have 2 to choose from). have your cavalry meet you there followed by your main force as soon as they can arrive. you can now move your army inside the city without losses.

what helped me the most starting out was spend all of my money on the first turn pretraining units. you can pretrain a half a stack in pella and sparta which is about 3000 men if you play on the huge scale. of course you will be in negative income on the 2nd turn but that will happen quick either way.