Have I been missing out on Epeiros all this time?

[QuintusSertorius]

As people might be aware, I play Epeiros as a migrated faction all the time. Pergamon, The Bosporan Kingdom, Massalia, Kyrenaia and even Thraikia. It's loads of fun to play a Hellenistic faction somewhere other than intended, the first one especially is very viable with lots of obvious things to do even from the outset.

However, I have never played a single game as Epeiros. Their precarious starting position (at war with everyone!), a province stranded on the edge of Italy with little prospect of reinforcement, and an uninspiring starting roster didn't work for me. I don't care about elephants (waste of money as far as I'm concerned) or elite phalanxes (levy is just fine for holding the centre) and the Illyrian units (barring the cavalry) didn't impress. I can recruit the excellent Greek units virtually anywhere, in which case why pitch myself into the mad conflict for Greece proper?

Have I missed a trick by never even trying this out?

[Boriak]

I find Epeiros's situation quite interesting to play. In my campaign, Pyrrhos is still alive (age 63) and he just launched a fresh campaign against Rome, thrashing their armies around the southern half of Italy. Meanwhile, his heir Ptolemaios went ahead and conquered the east coast of the Adriatic, along with some provinces between this and the Getai. Althought poorly populated, those provinces grant access to some powerful Celtic-ish units. Once Pyrrhos is dead, the new king will launch a campaign against Makedonia (what's left of it). After that it's probably Asia Minor's turn but I aim to play in a reactive way so some sporadic invasions to Italy or possibly Getia are bound to happen. The trick: use as few phalanx units as possible if any, rely on a mix of barbarian infantry and elephants instead.

If a certain civilization isn't interesting enough, you make it interesting on your own.

[Siegfroh]

I like Epeiros because of the diffiulties in the beginning. Well, with the elephants, it is very easy to take unguarded Pella.

I made peace with the Getai, left Southern Italy for good, made trade agreements with evryone except my enemies, and concentrated on uniting Greeks and Makedonains first.

[QuintusSertorius]

I've been giving this a good old go, it's now 245BC. I launched my invasion of Sicily to restore Epirus to the throne there. Messana and Alalia fell easily, fortunately I was able to take Syrakousai by battle, rather than siege:



Now it's a proper war with the Qarthadastim:



I intend to teleport some of their stacks from Africa and Spain to fight me in Sicily, at least I'll get some proper battles that way. Between Syrakousai's huge population and pre-existing barracks, and the big pool of mercenaries available on the island, I'll have lots of troops to work with.

Then when I've taken Lilibeo, a swift invasion of Karali and then turn my attentions to southern Italy. As you can see Taras is rebel; it revolted to me and I left it to revolt again. I don't want a war with the Romani yet, not til Sicily is secure. I'm looking forward to padding out my force with Samnites, Bruttians, Lucanians and Tarentines when the time comes.