Syracuse:Let it Burn?,or Never Surrender?

[Spartacus_GR]

Just got my sound card,and can play rtw and am now about to start an greek cities campaign.
But i wondered what i should do with Syracuse,do i keep it and fight at all costs?or sell it?,or maybey flee from it?

[VOP2288]

Syracuse is an interesting city to have as the Greek Cities in vanilla RTW...it's basically all alone out there.

Almost 99.9% of the time Syracuse will be attacked by either Carthage or Scipii...even if you're on good terms or even have an alliance with one or both, neither nation will hesitate to attack the city within 10 turns.

Syracuse, from what I recall in vanilla, is a fairly large city with high walls and is basically on the same starting level as Sparta, Athens, and Rhodes. I almost always attempt to hold it, just constantly increase the garrison and have a nice steady 8 or 9 units protecting their walls...then hopefully with your command in battle you'll be able to hold off any attacks while you buy time to send over or raise an army of your own to conquer Sicily.

But - if you want to get rid of it then by all means abandon it and try and sell it off to Carthage - selling it to Rome will only add to a power that will eventually, at some point or another, come after you.

[Turk]

never try to lose syracuse
its important you can conquer sicil invade africa and italy and make the medittarean sea to the greek mare nostrum

[Kamos]

Yes, yes, yes its an important city its also a great spot for some kick ass battles ! On a serious note its probably gonna drain you in the beggining but in the long run its great as it gives you an advanced hold on Sicily and its quite the money maker.

[Cemendur Telcontar]

Yea I would definitely keep Syracuse. In my old Greek Campaign, Carthage attacked first, and I easily beat them back. Then the Romans came with like 5 stacks, and I defeated each one by one. That gave me the opportunity to expand into Italy, and I eventually took over. So yea keep Syracuse. It's one of the best cities to start expanding from.

[thoscme]

i agree with all of you, keep syracuse! i like the city, when you have control over sicily, you can expand wherever you want

and, i believe its the only city along with sparta that can train spartan hoplites??

[HeracliustheVictor]

Keep it, you can conquer Sicily and then move on from there.
Also you can have some very fun sieges there as well.

[|DuDe|]

ya but it doesnt train spartan hoplites am i wrong ?

[Spartacus_GR]

i thought only with RTR

[Hex Khan]

I keep syracuse, I enjoy the challenge of holding that advanced isolated city, but to my knowledge, doesnt syracuse have a formidable garrison? I usually use that to attack the scippi at Messana right away, lets face it, who wants to be victimised? this way you have general neutrilised the scippi threat in none of my games do they ever bother to expand after they return to capua.
But then again thats my opinion

[NobleNick]

I keep syracuse, I enjoy the challenge of holding that advanced isolated city, but to my knowledge, doesnt syracuse have a formidable garrison? I usually use that to attack the scippi at Messana right away ... in none of my games do they ever bother to expand after they return to capua...

Agreed with Hex Khan, for the most part. However, my ONE game played as the Greeks did see the Romans coming back, in droves; but that game was a VH/VH SWAP game played in partnership with Severous the Awesome (O.K., O.K., so I embellished his name a teensy bit... ). You can see an extremely well documented pictorial journal of how we kept Syracuse and conquered Sicily by clicking the link. Notice that Severous has Syracuse's healthy Greek garrison out the gate and going for the Roman jugular at Messana on the very first turn!

[Mad Hoplite]

Incredible. All you guys recommend to keep Syracuse.

My problem is not defending it, my problem is maintaining it! That stupid town (I mean, ingame) can easily suppose a -3200 to my gold income, and that's usually all what I take from both Athens and Pergamum!

So, i'm sorry, but my advice is just the opposite. First turn: build a boat. Second turn: flee from Syracuse AND DON'T EVER LOOK BACK.

With all the troops freed this way you can land in the next turns at Crete or Halicarnassus, two towns truly renowned for not being always in frickin red numbers.

P.S: Don't forget to demolish the barracks and the docks before leaving!

[NobleNick]

My problem is not defending it, my problem is maintaining it! That stupid town (I mean, ingame) can easily suppose a -3200 to my gold income, and that's usually all what I take from both Athens and Pergamum! ... With all the troops freed this way you can land in the next turns at Crete or Halicarnassus, two towns truly renowned for not being always in frickin red numbers...

Syracuse can become a problem and expense later on but try to hold on until its expanded enough then abandon it let it rebel the take it again by force and exterminate the populace then the survivors will have no problem paying hi taxes... Try to train most of your army there that way population growth is slowed down.

O.K., guys, Mad Hoplite may have a point in using your Syracuse troops to go after tastier meat. We can discuss that. But first, a short lesson in economics is in order. I ask you to take this on faith for now, but hopefully you will understand in a few paragraphs: Syracuse is NOT, I repeat NOT, losing you money. NO town/city, except possibly the very, VERY **SMALL** ones are losing you money; and then only under extenuating circumstances.

What does that -3200 mean? It does NOT mean that Syracuse is costing you 3200 denarii per turn. And it does NOT mean that Syracuse's income is -3200 per turn. What it means is that what Syracuse makes in income MINUS ITS SHARE OF ARMY UPKEEP (based on its population) is -3200.

Here is a concocted, but realistic example -- Let's say you have 3 cities:
City A (population = 31000, city income before army upkeep = 3000)
City B (population = 7000, city income before army upkeep = 1200)
City C (population = 2000, city income before army upkeep = 400)

Let's also say that you have a standing army (including Peasants in town to keep order) which costs 4000 per turn in upkeep. The cost of army upkeep is prorated among the cities, based on population. In this very easy example, we have to spread out 4000 cost over 40000 population, or 1 denari per 10 population. So the army upkeep tab is 3100 for City A, 700 for city B and 200 for City C. So, what do you see as "income" for the city?

City A = (3000 - 3100) = -100
City B = (1200 - 700) = 500
City C = (400 - 200) = 200
TOTAL NET INCOME AFTER ARMY UPKEEP = 600

So the city which makes the MOST money for you looks like it is making the least!

So, back to our discussion of Syracuse: It is a CASH COW: It is making BIG bucks for you. Do not leave it! If you want to verify this, save your game to a scratch game and then leave Syracuse. Note the "income" numbers for all your other cities (this will be most dramatic if you have only a few cities). Then take another look at those numbers just after you lose Syracuse (or any town). What happens when you lose that money-sucking town of Syracuse? The "income" in ALL your other cities goes DOWN. Why? Because you not only lost the POSITIVE real income which Syracuse produced, but you lost Syracuse's population. Now the army upkeep is re-prorated across your (now much smaller) population, and all the other cities must bear a larger share of the army upkeep. If you add up all the decrease in "income" in all the other towns, you will find out ABOUT how much Syracuse was adding to the economy.

Let's try that in our example: City A is "losing money;" so let's get rid of it by sailing away and letting it rebel. Now the army upkeep of 4000 is split between two cities (ROUGHLY 3100 and 900) and the economy looks like this:

City A = LOST to rebels
City B = (1200 - 3100) = -1900
City C = (400 - 900) = -500
TOTAL NET INCOME AFTER ARMY UPKEEP = -2400

Total net income after army upkeep has dropped from +600 per turn to -2400 per turn. Ouch! This faction is in deep doo-dah. And City B, EVEN THOUGH ITS REAL INCOME HAS **NOT** CHANGED AT ALL, now looks like it is losing 1900 denarii a turn. Get rid of City B, too, since that it is "losing" money? Hopefully you now know enough to soundly reject that decision; and you really wish you could have that "loser" City A back.

An important byproduct of this discussion is how to make your city incomes look better: Get more cities. This splits the army upkeep over a larger population, so each city has less of a burden. But the much more important point is that without lots of analysis and/or experience, the income number that shows up by each city name is virtually MEANINGLESS. Make no decisions based on this number unless you absolutely know what it means. I contend that virtually everyone does NOT know what it means. Even I do not know what it means most of the time.

I look to the end of turn expenditure report for my economy news: Subtract last turn's cash from this turn's cash. (Often this will give you a negative number.) Add new construction and new recruit costs to this number. The total shows how much over "operating costs" your economy generated last turn. Hopefully it is a positive number. If not, quickly go out and capture a city and/or LOSE a big battle (drives your army upkeep down).

Now, what Mad Hoplite said might be valid: take those troops and find a juicier target. But the target will have to be VERY juicey to warrant leaving Syracuse. I say keep Syracuse and use it's troops to collect Messana. You will have a very tough time finding a target juicier than this two-city combo.

[StickShift]

i've played three or four Greek Cities campaigns and never once have i held onto Syracuse.

why? like Mad Hoplite, i take the garrison and send them elsewhere. once in greece, i use those troops and the ones i've trained/gathered locally to hit Corinth and Larissa at the same time. With one fell swoop the heart of Macedon is in Greek hands and your income from the conquered cities swells you with gold. From there i usually send one army north to finish off the Macedonians while the other heads west to fight the Brutii invasion.

if you time things right, by this time the Scipii are mopping up Carthage in Sicily. the time is right to build an army and invade. with most of their troops licking their wounds around Lilybaeum, it will take two or more turns to get to Syracuse or Messana. both should have minimal garrison, but Syracuse's walls make it easier for you--and the Romans--to defend, so take it first. Messana will be more of a fight, but with wooden walls the fight will be easy. the Scipii will be crushed after these two battles and Lilybaeum will fall quickly.

as long you've kept the Brutii in Italy, you will have two of the Roman factions beaten. invading southern Italy is going to be a cakewalk...i also managed to keep the Romans from invading Carthage, so no need to chase them into Africa.

frankly, i didn't want to get bogged down fighting in Sicily when i have the Greek heartland to worry about. besides, you get Syracuse back after 20 turns or so of Carthaginian and Roman development (which you don't pay for).

if you don't mind fighting very hard for Syracuse, by all means, hold onto it. but for me, i thought it better to take the troops there and use em else where.

[Turk]

I give you a tip how to hold syracuse in vanilla rtw:

1.build the next barracks
2.so much militia hoplites how the next barrack is finished
3.then hoplites
and then carthage will attack you
and you will win
and then the romans
and when you fight with these two
wait with the phalanxes on the streets in a phalanx wall of course
and then the way is free to conquer the rest!

[Mrtickles]

I can't verify but I'm 90%positive that Spartans can be trained at Syracuse, plus holding Sicily cripples the Scipii. After Post Marius units come into play making sure that one third of Roman power has only 2-3 cities is incredibly helpful.

[EmperorJulian]

Keeping Syracuse is of extreme importance if you want to hold the Scipiones in check. Sometimes I'll abandon Pergamum to make life easier in the East but I always like to keep Syracuse as a staging ground for attacks on the rest of Sicily. Also by getting into a war with the Scipiones and the Bruti you can hold them in check, meaning that the total number of Roman armies you must face later in the game is much reduced. Also you can indeed train Spartan Hoplites in Syracuse. This is strange since Syracuse was spawned from Corinth, not Sparta but hey I'll take them anyway I can get them! Cheers!

[Leonidas The Lion]

From what i can remember in vanilla RTW i kept Syracuse and resisted both the carthaginians and the scipii. The scipii will constantly attack with 6 or 7 stacks just beat them this will drain their power anywhere alse making it easy for you to move on to italy from the brutii's side.

[Wrath]

It is possible to reinforce Syracuse from your cities in the east but it will take a while. I guess the best possible way to defend Syracuse is just to keep training units and even hiring mercenaries from Sicily.

[myrm1d0n]

well it depends on wat civ ur playin as ya!?if ur carthage take it to get an advanced footing into the italian peninsula and vice versa for the scipii..for the greeks..great to take it 4 naval defence of the area as well.i would personally take sicily ..build like..4 armies on it spanning like 8-10 turns;ur really gonna need it against roman armies and carthage 1s tat come mounting on ya..i would advance carthage 1st..better to hit them 1st before they get powerful with sacerdband dont u think guys?!remember tat roman units are no match for hoplites.can take them anytime...