This very well could have been posted before; but just in case for those of you that like Thrace I wanted to share a strategy in Vanilla Campaign that I dubbed Eastern Expansion.

My premise is this: The two most difficult early opponents are the Horse Archers in Scythia and the superior phalanxes of Greece & Sparta. With that in mind, I decided not to push west at all and leave Dacia alone. I sent an army down to Byzantium (Rebels) and took that city right away. My diplomat went west though, and I got trade rights from Macedon and then went straight to Brutii, who had just declared war on Greece. We exchanged trade right & map information and then I offered an Alliance which they accepted. My thought was, keep Macedon & Greece as a buffer between me and the western edge of my territory and let the Romans stay busy fighting with them.

I built some ships from Tylus and then carried an Army across the channel into Turkey where I declared war on Greece and captured Pergumum. I sent another army to Campus Sythii where by the skin of my teeth I captured that city. My thought here is that I want to push through Scythia as fast as possible to prevent them from building better units i.e. Noble & Chosen Archers which honestly I don't think Thracia has an answer to. Meanwhile, back in Turky I captured the rebel town of Halicarness & then sailed to Rhodes and took that Greek city.

At this point I am consolidating those two cities in Turkey and waiting to see who comes after me between Pontus & the Seleucids. I don't think I can wait too long though; the thought of the Selecuids and their silver shield pikeman, chariots & companion cavalry are pretty scary. I want to see if Egypt or Pontus declares war on them first. Meanwhile, I am still pushing into Scythia. I defeated a huge army they sent to recapture Campus Sythii at the bridge of the eastern edge of the province. I was sending my army out with the goal of heading down to Chersonesos when I saw them heading towards me. Instead of attacking, I just sat on the bridge and waited. Sure enough, next turn they attacked me. I used 6 units of militia pikeman to block the bridge and they sent all their horse archers and charged into the spears. A huge bottle neck of troops (archers, horses, etc) were all stuck on the bridge and piled up on each other. I had 3 units of mercenary horse archers and they just sat there and shot into the mass of bodies. None survived although 3 of my militia spearman units routed. After that, I was unopposed going to to Chersonesos and I took the city.

Dacia then surprised me by becoming allies of Brutii. I didn't see that happening. I thought for sure that Dacia would end up getting attacked by Julii which would prevent them from allying with Brutii. Well, it didn't end up mattering because two turns after they allied with Brutii they sent two armies and besieged two of my towns: Campus Sythii and Campus Getae. I was actually impressed; because it seemed almost like a human strategy of deception to lure me into a false sense of security. Luckily, the armies they sent to attack the cities weren't very big. Each one had 4 units of spearmen. The army at Scythii just had a general with them whereas the Getae army also has some archer units. At Getai i matched the 4 units of their spearband with 4 units of militia hoplites. I had two units of falxmen and I sent one to the left flank and one to the right flank. Their general charged the center. It ended up being a close call because I routed their flanks just as they routed my two center units. I forgot, I also had one unit of skirmishers behind my two center units. Anyway, as my two center units of hoplites routed they pushed into skirmishers behind them (which I had turned off skirmish mode). I then pinched into them from each side from the flanks and got the win. The cool thing is that the Brutii broke off their alliance with Dacia but kept mine. Probably because of our common enemy in Greece.

So, I don't know if anyone reads these much but I will update as the campaign progresses but it currently feels promising. No threat at all coming from Rome and Greece & Macedon are too tied up against Brutii to head east towards me.