Pergamon on Hard

[stevehoos]

This is a difficult campaign, I have tried this about ten times in a row and finally got lucky when Athens helped me. This and Syracuse are very hard. I love difficulty though.

[tndgu]

Great!
Pergamon is indeed difficult, but once you get things going, Pergamon can become an empire easily due to their roster.


These are the save games that I have after each difficult step has been overcome.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hXM...ew?usp=sharing


Here is a small quick guide for those who struggle as Pergamon on Hard difficulty.


First turn, move you general for the Nicomedia, recruit two units and get mercs, they will go out of the city to fight, easy win, loot the city and recruit levies.
Send diplomat to Athens and establish as many treaties as you can with all the greeks, declare war on Macedon if possible.


Second turn: Move your general out of Nicomedia, ctrl+m to merge units, attack the region called Athaneai(IIRC), hire mercs, sack, and liberate. Then go back to Nicomedia.
Build Theatre in Pergamon. Research civil three, preferably philosophy or construction. You really need growth asap.


Next turns, join the war against Lydia via Egypt, recruit troops with a raised army in Pergamon, I recommend cav general and slinger + levy hoplite combo and a light cav. Chase enemy slingers with light cav, levy hoplites will hold longer than you might expect, and clean the rest with your general. Do not rush for Ephesos, instead, loot the other town that Lydia has (during the early game Lydia is really weak, they have no army, so abuse that.) Loot the city and leave it, send all the money comes from the loot to Rhodos and Knossos to get as many treaties as possible.


The key tosdinning as Pergamon is to use all the initial money on Mercs to rush and on Treaties via diplomacy.


If you have declared war on Macedon then Athens will most likely leave you alone.
If you do not get the good side of Rhodos asap, they will declare war for no reason and keep sending full stacks.


After Lydia has been abused, capture Ephesos, then Break treaties with Rhodes and capture the entire province. After that game will be easy.

I'm not a Veteran of DEI, but what I have found out after nearly 1000 hours, rushing strategy is the only way to win at hard difficulty. Because ai is scripted to be agressive, If you want a slower approach and turtle, you will find 5 factions declare war on you and will send full stuck armies happily while being at war with 4 other factions.

So, rush and loot. It is very easy to deal with rebellions.

[stevehoos]

I prefer not to rush the AI, seems like this makes things a bit too easy, oh well.

[Jurand of Cracow]

rushing strategy is the only way to win at hard difficulty. Because ai is scripted to be agressive, If you want a slower approach and turtle, you will find 5 factions declare war on you and will send full stuck armies happily while being at war with 4 other factions.

This is the situation also for 1.3.2, I'd say. No time to turtle, the AI will attack you soon, faction by faction. In my case, Rodos was the first to sent two full stacks. It agreed to a peace proposal after both were destroyed. However, in the meantime the (emerged) Odryssai have declared war on me out of the blue (we didn't have a border, just neighbours accross the water). They have sent two armies from the north and sieged the city of Pergamon. Unfortunatelly you can't pass by a siege from the south to relieve the city, you'd need to go around the woods and the river, to attack the siegers also from the north. Another setback: in the meanwhile also Knossos declared war out of no reason, sent an army over the water and instantly took Ephesos. It was an obvious game-over.
The bottom line: no way to deal with three factions on Hard. No time to turtle either. Perhaps a cheese strategy as described in the second post is the way to go.