Rome TW: The Greek City States
The Greeks are a double edged sword faction to play! They start in an amazing financial position, with rich provinces in Greece, Sicily and even in Asia Minor plus they have the Colossus of Rhodes Wonder that grants them a huge boost to naval trade. However, they also face a dire militaristic situation. Almost no cavalry units and limited ranged assistance you'll be relying solely on phalanx troops to support your war giving the Greeks a rather narrow scope for their army. Played on VH/VH
Starting Provinces and Initial Problems
You start with 5 provinces as the Greek cities but unfortunately they are completely spread out across the Mediterranean. On top of this their neighbours are very hateful and will come after you with full force from turn 1, meaning that a few turns in you could be facing a 2, sometimes 3 front war off the bat with little room for escape. The other issue is since your lands are so spread out sending reinforcements to each front is actually rather difficult, especially since the money you would have to waste building up your navy is desperately needed to reinforce your cities! Thus this faction has the most defensive start out of anyone. Unlike the Parthians or Dacians who must be aggressive to recuperate their failing economies the Greeks must focus on sitting back and defending their cities first before expansion is even a thought! Be prepared for a long, drawn out war with many defensive battles with odds completely against you!
Your (limited) troops
Never underestimate the power a phalanx has when you are defending or besieging a city! Especially the former scenario, in which they are actually so ridiculously strong that a few units place correctly can win against a horde of enemies looking to take over your cities!
All forms of their hoplites are strong enough to defend a city, even the Militia hoplites! However since you will be facing the Romans (with their tactics designed specifically to counter your phalanxes) upgrading to hoplites at least is recommended ASAP and once you can mass produce Armoured hoplites you'll be laughing at anyones feeble attempt to enter your cities.
Spartan hoplites are an absolute elite and one of the best infantry units in the game! They almost never rout, they are incredibly strong and unlike most other phalanx unit that sucks without their spear wall they can tear anyone up even in close combat. Once you can start producing these, keep your cities pumping these units out. An army consisting of Armoured hoplites + Spartan hoplites + A general unit and some support will kill anything. unfortunately the can ONLY BE PRODUCED in Syracuse and Sparta, which really dampens the amount you can produce!
Take advantage of the amazing Cretan Archer merc unit you can employ in all your cities. Be sure to buy every single one since they are amazing and your archers simply can't stand up to the Cretan's range or damage! Onagers are always a welcome addition as well for some artillery.
As for cavalry, I relied solely on my generals until I could recruit Samatian merc's in the East. Other than that I only used Greek cav when facing the Egyptians since their axemen/desert cav don't get the armour piercing bonus against them and swarming them can actually win you the battle!!
Preparations for War
Buildings
- Focus on military> economy in every single starting city bar Rhodes, which you want to build up to become an economic powerhouse (It had a 5000 denarii rating added to my total solely from that city at one point)
- Building Militia Barracks in every city is your FIRST MOVE in every single turn. You need to produce Hoplites ASAP to counter the Romans imminent threat!!
- Don't bother with Stables unless you are going after Egypt, at which point one of the cities you conquer will likely have them anyway. They should be the last building you build and only if you really feel like it
- Archery ranges aren't needed until you really, really want Onagers and feel like pumping them out would aid your campaign (I always find a couple of these beat the crap out of other Hellenic factions)
- You have a choice of 4 shrines and in all honesty I would only really ever use two of them, with a third possibly being used in special circumstances.
Shrine to Nike: By far your best temple giving an experience bonus to every troop trained there. Make sure Syracuse and Sparta definitely have this God, as I was producing 3 chevron, silver sword and shielded Spartans by the end of the game which literally rape any other unit your enemy can produce!!!!
But I still put this shrine in most cities
Shrine to Athena: Is a province a bit too rebellious? Probably needs a little bit more coercing to follow your ways and play along? This temple is perfect for quelling possible rebellions and annoying towns giving a big boost to public order! This temple also gives out really good ancillaries and traits to commanders, often giving + 1 for all stats
Shrine to Hermes: The god of travel and movement! This temple gives a boost to trade-able income but there are a few reasons I only use this temple sometimes. The first is the traits given vary between 'financially irregular' and further 'corrupt' or a great manager! When I say they vary I mean it is 50/50 what your general will get and they aren't chances I like taking! The second is the Greek cities isn't a poor faction and the boost simply isn't needed, its very easy to quickly be earning tens of thousands once you unify Greece without the bonus! I only built this temple in cities that are completely out of the way but still Hellenic and won't rebel. Eg: Rhodes/Kydonia
Shrine to Aphrodite: I have never liked temples that increase population growth simply because there will come a time when that growth will be out of control and squalor will become ridiculous. Also unless you like your generals being lazy, egocentrics then you really don't want this temple. Therefore in my opinion this temple has no real need to be built unless you really, really want to increase the population in some poor, garbage barbaric town (like Domus Dulcis Domus)
- Ports are the #1 priority for economic buildings since your naval trade is already boosted at the start of the game and your lands are rich in exports. Upgrade to dockyards when you can and the money will be flowing in! Farms are not nearly as important with this faction since the sea trade alone is enough to finance the city
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
Be very careful who you choose to go to war with! The Romans are a guaranteed enemy, and making unnecessary enemies by invading other countries is destined to destroy you. To begin with you simply cannot afford to finance multiple wars when the Romans are breathing down your neck and sending stack after stack against you.
It is for this reason I must insist....DO NOT attack Macedon/Pontus or the Seleucid Empire early on at all. In fact try and ally with them if you can. If they don't want to it doesn't really matter but it will make it a hell of alot easier in the fight ahead
Now I know alot of people have suggested taking over Macedon first to strengthen your position but there a few reasons, aside from the obvious that Rome is trying to kill you that I want to stress.
- You're the only buffer between Rome killing you, and Rome killing Macedon. They know this and won't actually attack you in the game unless you attack first! If you can hold them out all the better for them since it's one less enemy they won't have to worry about!
- The Thracians and Dacians will attack them at Bylazora and Thessalonica, adding weight to the argument that they won't willingly just attack you early on when they are facing a war on their other front.
- Macedon has a rather large fleet and will decimate you around the Grecian coast if you attempt to land troops to help your cities. By being neutral, or friendly, with them they'll leave you alone
Starting moves.....How do I plan for the imminent threat?
Syracuse will be your main cause for concern! The city will be repeatedly attacked by the Carthaginians followed by the Romans, followed by the Carthaginians....you can see how it will go. I must have beaten about 5 full Roman stacks plus 3-4 Carthaginian ones before things finally settled down. So how do you defend a city that is ravaged every other turn?
- Focus on defense. Do not move your armies out of the city, the Romans will destroy you in field battles, and even the Carthaginians will flank and rout your phalanxes rather easily.
- Syracuse begins with Stone walls, use them to your advantage and crowd the gates with phalanxes! I've never seen the AI build a sapping point, so Siege towers/ladders and rams are the only things used, meaning there is only one avenue for them to mass troops....your gates!
- Before looking at a proper defence lets check out the enemies Syracuse will face
Carthage
The best part about Carthage is that they begin with such garbage troops, their only real threat is their general. Their cavalry will be absolutely decimated on your spears and their round shield infantry will drop like flies against spears as well. Even their Libyan and Poeni infantry are useless against you, and you can just poke and stab each man until the unit routs. Elephants can be a problem, but not when they are literally faced with a wall of spears. After seeing their mates rout and looking at the wall of spears before them it took one of the beasts to die (about 2 seconds of stabbing) before the whole unit ran amok and routed.
Romans
Undoubtedly a much bigger problem than Carthage. The Scipii will relentlessly attack you and you'll really need to bolster up defences to knock them out. The Pila will expose weaknesses in your phalanxes so be prepared to have a much longer fight with a lot more troops lost! Their generals are also stupidly strong and it takes alot to kill them and rout their unit so expect a big fight when a few generals come along to the party!!
Strategies for defence
- A general idea for defence is presented below
-Basically the black lines represent your walls, the red arrows your enemies movements, blue lines your phalanx units, the purple line your general, Brown squares siege towers/ladders and the Light Green represents any skirmishers/archer units you may have
-Don't bother trying to defend the walls, your hoplites/militia hoplites will lose in hand to hand combat against any Roman unit and will lose a good chunk of men against the Carthaginians. Sure losing the gateway may result in a few losses due to arrow fire but they aren't significant enough to warrant wasting units on walls
- Place your skirmisher/archers on the walls. Have these guys pepper the enemy until they reach, and begin pouring onto, the walls. At this point follow the Green arrows and run them down to your city streets. The archers will be able to shoot the exposed enemy on the walls from their new position and inflict alot of casualties this way!
- Your phalanxes are mainly situated around the gate, with two units facing towards the openings in the towers. Enemies will come out of these towers one by one making it very easy to simply skewer each on your phalanx. Once the enemies on the walls are depleted enough you can turn the phalanx around and focus on protecting your gate. Just be careful that the enemy doesn't penetrate your gate formation on the sides (rarely does) otherwise these guys will be very, very exposed!
- The general can make his charge when you see fit, usually when the centre of the phalanx is beginning to collapse, the enemy is suffering alot of losses and a final charge will do the job!
- As a final word once the enemies on the walls have been skewered send your archers back up to secure the gatehouse again. This will result in whatever enemy units are left at the gate to rout since boiling oil will be poured on them, but it also allows them to shoot routing enemies! Easy target practise and good experience!
Your other cause for concern will be Thermon. Unlike every other game where the Romans take Apollonia and then Salona they will attack Thermon first and you can expect to see the Brutii turn up with multiple stacks by the third turn, and later on the Julii will also show up!
There's one good thing about the Romans attacking you though....while they are busy trying to defeat you the Gauls will have a chance to expand (all the way up to Salona) and even in Iberia, but most importantly in Northern Italy! This means eventually the Gauls will become such a huge threat that the Julii will pull out and be forced to protect their own borders!
Unfortunately this won't be for a while to come so protecting Thermon is vital for now!!
- Reinforce the city from Sparta and keep a constant flow of troops coming to reinforce the city! Don't forget to recruit Cretan archers who are invaluable against the armoured Romans!
- When defending this city ignore the walls and defend the plaza instead! Pile the majority of your phalanxes at the closest end to your enemy, but also have a few 'wandering' units that can move side to side to stop the units that decide to detour around your city and attack you from the sides/back! Make sure to use your generals to assist these troops in routing these units ASAP. It will decrease morale for the other and will allow you to assist the main front much quicker
Finally.....A guide to expansion and some help for the campaign ahead!
1. Starting moves
- First move: Build a city barracks in Sparta! It doesn't matter if it costs you most of the turns denarii it is an absolute necessity to pump out Armoured hoplites!!!
- Second move: Build a militia barracks in Syracuse and recruit a unit of militia hoplites
- If you have any money left build a unit in Pergamum and a wall. I've found that if you have a reasonable garrison in Pergamum the Pontic people will steer clear of you and concentrate on Armenia/The SE
- The next turn build a wall in Thermon and a barracks there. The Romans will attack by turn 3-4 so make sure the town is ready!!!
- Move your entire navy to the straight between Corinth and Thermon. Use the ship as a 'stepping stone' to get your men from Sparta over to Thermon without peeing off the Macedonians!!! Remember avoid war with them!!
- Continue focusing on building troops in Pergamum/Hoplites in Sparta/Militia Hoplites in Syracuse and throw the rest of the money into basic economic upgrades (Roads/ports etc) and shrines to Nike in the above mentioned cities!
- By turn 2-3 the Carthaginians would have besieged Syracuse, and in the next few turns the Brutii will show up in Thermon. A war ensues!!
2. Defence is the best Offence
- Okay so it isn't really, but for the Greeks it really is!
- Using the above guides to help you beat the crap out of any stacks sent against these two cities! Remember to continue building barracks/militia barracks in-between each fight and retraining troops/training an additional hoplite unit to kick butt
- The best part about these fights is evenly if you're grossly outnumbered (4:1, 5:1) you can still easily win solely because phalanxes are so damn good at defending choke points. It doesn't matter if there's 5000 of them if only 40 can fit in the area at a time!
- You'll also find your generals will become absolutely amazing in a very short period of time! Traits like Fearless, Superior Commander, Superior infantry commander and Amazing defender will pop up regularly. The general that was in Syracuse became a 10* general in no time thanks to this and morale is boosted big time as a result!
Secondary goals:
- Build hoplites/armoured hoplites in Sparta whenever you can. You want to amass a decent army to take on Macedon after things quieten down a bit. It needs to be big enough so it can quickly sweep through their lands and take most of their cities before they can react!
- Keep building a unit or two in Pergamum every now and then just to deter Pontic attack. They are usually busy and won't bother engaging you if you seem threatening!
- If you can spare it, and I mean this is a big IF, get a small force built in Rhodes to take Kydonia and stabilise your economy even more! This is an absolute bottom of the barrel, you have spare money after everything else ordeal!! Kydonia is easy to conquest later after securing Greece but you can always take the city sooner rather than later
3. Taking Messina
- This front should really be secured before other plans for conquest begin since it will only be a detriment to you otherwise.
- The best way to time this is after a Carthaginian, followed by a Roman attack. This is solely because the Carthaginians will be getting mauled by at least 2 other factions elsewhere, and defeating a rather large force of theirs will set them back big time in Sicily. It's also because you don't need them annoying you while your dealing with the Romansin Messina!
- Don't attack straight away when you've beaten the first two armies!!! The Romans will have at least 3(even with only one city) full stacks waiting and you don't have the resources to defend two cities right now. I tried this route and they besieged both Syracuse and Messina, effectively screwing me over in one hit. Another good reason is Mt Etna will erupt by about turn 20 and you don't want your men in the vicinity when that happens!
- Messina is definitely your first goal though, and after this is taken sit and rebuild for a while. The Scipii, and even Brutii will send a few waves against you until things finally quieten down and the House of Scipii will be a shell of it's former self! The Brutii will also simply give up and focus on destroying you at Thermon, which they will be failing at of course!!
4(a). Some breathing room.....Unifying Sicily!
- Once the Scipii have calmed down you can move your army on to take Lilybaeum, which was poorly defended in my game. A few spies in Africa and Spain told me that the Carthaginians had their hands full with other factions to really worry about this city anymore!!!
- I actually trained an additional army in Syracuse which was pumping out armoured hoplites by then and did a secondary conquest to Lilybaeum whilst defending against the Scipii!!
- If you've been especially resilient sometimes the House of Julii haven't even had time to take Caralis yet and are now busy dealing with the very large and powerful Gallic threat coming from Northern Italy. This is a perfect opportunity to gain a lovely booming economic town so make a detour to Caralis and capture that as well!
- From here try and transfer population to Syracuse to get large enough to build and Army Barracks!!! Once Spartan hoplites are coming into play things begin to get a whole lot easier! Be sure to also keep training troops for the next phase: The Italian mainland!!
4(b) Unifying Greece
- After Messina is taken the front in Sicily should be alot more stable so you can finally conquest on your main goal....unifying your homelands!
- The Macedonian's, having been neutral with you this whole time will have most of their armies hovering around the Dacian/Thracian borders leaving their rich rear exposed!
- Corinth is your first goal and for me was defended poorly by about 3 units of phalanx pikemen. By the time you have the army ready to move again the Macedonians usually reinforce Athens with a decent garrison and await your imminent assault. Begin building men in both Corinth and Sparta and ready a second army to assist your first!!
- Of course we aren't stupid enough to just walk into their trap so move past Athens and take Larissa instead, completely severing their economy in two! By now you will have Macedon's full attention and they'll be marching most of their troops back from the North towards their capital.
- Check the plague status of Thessalonica and Athens, if one has the Plague don't bother capturing it at all, it isn't worth it as your army will get bogged down in the city and will be useless for about 20 turns.
- I blitzed through Larissa, exterminating them so I could capture my main goal...Thessalonica! With this city captured Macedon is royally screwed and their armies won't even bother besieging you. If they do it's a walk in the park since their light lancers are so useless against stationary phalanxes I managed to slaughter 4 units of them whilst only using 1 single hoplite, and thats only because he was stupid enough to walk out in their charging line!!
- From here I moved my second army from Corinth/Sparta to take Athens and the first army to take Bylazora....Macedon's troops seemed too stupid to be able to actually deal with the war on two fronts and was utterly crushed in about 10 turns of movement and retraining.
5(a) Expansion every which way
- From here the road to expansion has one clear path, which I'll talk about in the next section, and several not so clear paths!
- After Athens was destroyed I focused on taking Kydonia (If not already taken), Halicarnassus and Sardis. Thus securing all rebel towns in the Greek waters and cementing my place in Asia minor.
- I had been making a third army this whole time in Corinth/Athens/Sparta/every Greek city and took Appollonia finally and Salona from the Gauls, beginning a war that was inevitable anyway. It then moved up to take Partavium as the game progressed and then expanded back East into Dacian lands
- Another army was trained in Greece and began capturing the remnants of the Thracian lands, kicking Pontus out of Greece and assisting the above force in wiping the Dacians out.
Asia Minor
In Asia minor I left Pontus alone for the time being and concentrated on taking out Egypt instead as they had blitzed The SE and had started taking on Pontus as well, meaning they were dangerously close to bordering and thus killing me!
Numidia had funnily enough taken over Memphis, and was actually doing well since I had basically raped the Carthaginians and they had no Romans to worry about. The Spanish had also been all but wiped out by the Gauls in Iberia!!
- For my Egpytian conquest I recommend fielding a large army of Greek cavalry to take on their Desert cavalry and actually winning. Your cumbersome phalanxes were be absolutely useless against their archers so make sure you bring some Merc cav and greek cav for the trip and DONT get caught out on the plains against them!!!
- Concentrate on creating two armies to tackle Egypt. One can assist the Numidians in taking Thebes/Alexandria and Memphis and then sweep through the rebel provinces and take Petra/Bostra/Dumatha etc. The other should first take Salamis (The real economic centre of their economy) and then Sidon and the rest of the Holy lands.
- Leave Tarsus alone as it will nicely distract the Pontic people while you build an army up to hit them from behind.
- As you near the last Egyptian cities you'll notice the defence has become insanely strong, often sporting full stacks so make sure you're well prepare for the fight!!
North Africa
- The Carthaginians continued to send the remnant of their troops to Sicily to attempt to take Lilybaeum which began to tick me off so I built up an army and ravaged Carthage and Thapsus before finally betraying my Numidian allies and killing them as well.
- Make sure you take a detour to Palma before Carthage so you can completely wipe their white banner off the face of the map!!!!
5(b) The main event. The Italian Peninsula
-Yeah you knew it was coming, the Romans have been bugging you this whole time and I'm sure your edging to kill every last man, woman and child to eradicate them from existence. Well that time comes as soon as you unify Greece from Macedon and have your economy in order so you can literally keep pumping out troops at them!!
- Your position is actually much easier than other factions once the dust settles as you've obliterated two Roman faction forces already, that leaves only the Julii as the last credible threat!!
- I took my main army from Sicily and blitzed Tarentum and Croton straight away, thus eliminating the Brutii within 3 turns. Their main forces were still trying to capture Thermon...they're persistent I'll certainly give them that!!!
- In my campaign Capua had actually fallen to the rebels and the House of Scipii was no more! But in any case you'll want a second army brought over from your mainlands as you'll need it to 'pincer' the SPQR's army and avoid them completely (If you don't feel like killing every single one of them)
- If Capua hasn't fallen it has to be dealt with, but the SPQR will assist their fellow Romans and send their full stack against you. The best way to deal with this is use one army as bait and lure them out to Capua whilst the other army besieges and takes Rome at the same time!!! They won't have time to turn around and deal with you so you'll take Rome and turn their army Rebellious before they can blink! Well done you outsmarted the Romans!!
- From here the road to victory is clear, take Capua and finally conquer the House of Julii at the double A....Arretium and Arriminum!!
Finito....wow that was big. I love this faction and they were an absolute tonne of fun to play with!!!!! Have fun!!
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Originally Posted by Strategos 1
