That campaign is being very interesting. I thought KH were the underdogs of the Balkans. I now know I was TERRIBLY wrong. Taking Athens was already a campaign by itself, even with Pyrrhus. I can say he won the early game for me, because other than the KH being a tough bone to chew, all my actual problems started well after his natural death.
Although I managed to make myself a neat empire, taking over the entire Greek peninsula and starting to grow out, my performance on the battlefield is worse than ever. After disbanding the shambles of what was left of my starting army, and with a good enough economy to build up a new one, I set for a general template for my defensive army (I will just give a descriptive name than to try and fail to get the greek names by head):
2 Thureos Skirmishers, 2 Thureos Spearmen, 2 Thureos Swordsmen, 5 Mounted Javelineers, 8 Citizen Hoplites
My plan, at first, was to have 12 Hoplites per defensive army, but after the Thureos reform kicked in, their numbers dwindled significantly, so I had to introduce the new infantry to bolster their numbers. Still, I felt like an overall loss, because Hoplites got much better defensive stats and moral, and are still more available than the Thureos warriors even after the reform (at least in South Greece). Regardless, I had to adjust the composition of my army according to what I could recruit and later reinforce, so that was what I had at the end. Ended up not being too expensive (although more than my Carthaginian defensive armies attempt), and feasible to set up in the future to be shipped off to new theaters. Satisfied, I picked my new FH hopeful and decided to try to grab some rebel provinces around to build up his military experience.
It was a complete disaster. My hoplites, that seemed such tough nuts to crack when I played Barbarians, spent more time routing than fighting, their performance in the computer's hand being absolutely terrible. The Hippoakontistai (yeah I remember their name better because I was a big KH player) did their best at flanking and attacking skirmishers on the computer's hand, but ultimately would start routing even on seemingly advantageous fights. The battlefield wound soon turn into such a cluster that I wouldn't even bother trying to evaluate the performance of the other units, and in Crete I just won a siege by the skin of my teeth.
Is my composition that bad? Do my General's Confidence attribute makes that much of a difference? Yes I know, leaving units for the computer to control is generally a terrible idea, but I never had this horrible performance before, and it would always free my cav for flank attacks that would lead to very early victories with 8%-15% casualties.
Anyway, I plan to integrate some elites to these defensive armies. You can easily get 2 Hyperaspists or 2 Macedonian Peltasts from your capital, so shipping 2 of either to a defensive army wouldn't really be a problem, and I presume they could improve morale. I will also plan to comment on my new offensive army, mostly elites and phalanxes, but I will leave that for when I can grab a screenshot of the composition and try them more with Pergamon.