Poor, poor little Athens...

[Arlin]

First of all, I LOVE this mod. Of course I'm playing Sparta first. That's just a given. And let me state the obvious, Spartans defending a walled city is just...wrong. After the first couple thousand enemy deaths, it's not funny anymore. Well...I take that back. It's still hilarious.

I wish I had known this series of events was going to happen because I would have started taking screenshots and taken a stab at my first AAR. Sadly, it's too far beyond the point of giving an AAR but I still wanted to share my current campaign.

Now to my story...

Sparta's first enemy is obviously Corinth (or at least for me it was. Crete is an option but he's not a threat). After building up a full stack of Spartan units I hit Argos. Thankfully Corinth was a bit busy at the time so I was able to take it without much hassle. Had to fight maybe a half-stack or so of Corinthians so that was around 2000 deaths for them. Hit Corinth next. They put up a great fight. 1 1/2-2 stacks faced off against me and I was hedging bets on if I'd lose less than 500 Spartans or between 500-1000. I hadn't fully come to understand Spartan strength at this point. Safe to say, I wiped the floor Corinth. Had to soak up all their blood somehow, ya know?

About this time, my good 'ol buddy Athens backstabs me with a half-stack ambush by sea at Rhodes. I lost the city but had been building up a 2nd Spartan army (full-stack of course) to go retake it and then move on to Crete eventually. Retook Rhodes easily enough because it was Athenian low-mid level troops. That army is now in Crete and moving on their main city. But I digress.

Corinth, under Spartan rule, has become a land of blood. Athens had about 4 stacks overall. That adds up to around 12,000-16,000 Athenian soldiers, if my math is correct (seeing as how a full stack of Spartan units is 4000 men). One stack besieged Corinth and assaulted after a few turns. I lost less than one hundred Spartans and they were annihilated. The next stack struck. Death to Corinth once more. Then this most recent third stack hit with few extra units on the side. These got smart and surprised me with a single ladder unit from behind. While I defended the walls against the main group of 3-4k troops, they 800-1000 at the back wall got up without conflict. Not an issue, but still my blunder for not checking their siege equipment pre-battle. I had at this point already slaughtered a good chunk of their current army before they got the gate. Pulled back to center and held the roads with a couple units of Spartiates. Battle ended with my victory.

I have slaughtered nearly 12,000 Athenians...and guess what. Their fourth and final stack just besieged Corinth... I've bled Athens dry.

Epic.

 

[Spartan198]

Yeah, I've noticed that events in southern Greece tend to converge on Corinth.

 

[Lord Dakier]

Sparta... walls?... Sparta did not use walls. They're were walls in off themselves.

 

[Arlin]

The walls were of Corinth. I didn't have a chance to fight in the field because as soon as I had taken the city, Athens waltzed in and knocked on the door.

 

[Amorphos]

Crete may attack Rhodes when you least expect it.

I should probably have made spartiates take more turns to build, the problem is that when not playing as Sparta the ai will not build spartiates if I do make them take longer.

As true Spartans you are expected to adjust the game as you feel is appropriate to that faction to make it hard for you. I would suggest 4 turns to build for all Spartan units when playing as them.


check out the stickied u-tube vids.

 

[Arlin]

Yeah, 4 turns a piece would probably make it more challenging and way slower going. Starting to steamroll now. Pumping out my 4th stack. Problem is with the longer it takes to make the army, my income started to pile up. I got bored of having so much money so ended up buying most of Thessaly... >.<

 

[Amorphos]

the income is designed to make the ai more agressive, if you go by spartan gameplay rules then you shouldnt use it to bribe cities. you see the whole point is that veterans can easily win, so you want to set your game up so that it provides a challenge.

usually i find that once you get past the first part of rtw it is relatively easy, hence sometimes it makes a better game if you allow the ai to get stronger. as i gave much more money ~ end game scenario level, you need to take into account that it is for the ai not the player. in that light if you play as sparta [especially] it is better and more realistic if you limit recruitment in some way.

 

[Arlin]

Oooooh, got'cha. I did read over the Spartan gameplay rules a while back but most escaped my memory when I started playing. I'll stop bribing cities then... Persians are cheaper in comparison to Greeks, it turns out. >.<

And yeah, I see what'cha mean by veterans. My original army could easily take a couple of stacks at once (if the AI would even think to concentrate it's forces). As is, the 1v1 stack battles are heavily in my favor. It is just a time-consuming campaign at that point. I decided to push out 5-6 stacks and send them off alone into the big 'ol world to have some fun trying to conquer nations solo. 4000 Spartans vs Persia for example. Another 4000 against Macedon. Another heading west to fight Magna Greacia which has taken Sicily and plowing through southern Italy. Is this an okay way to play or still too overpowering?

 

[Amorphos]

Sounds like fun, sort of thing I would do.

If you want a good Sparta Vs rome campaign, then remove the pre-marius roman units for the EDB, …hang on, I have made a version [attached at the bottom of this post] This means that the romans will begin the game with their strongest units ~ that I have made almost as strong as the spartiates and stronger than all other Spartan units. That will give you a challenge for sure!

I have made a harder units file too, so that Spartans will take longer to build. this is only for if you play as sparta, so make backup copies of these two files for when you want to play as any other factions.

 

[dacder]

poor poor sparta as athens I sank a tiny sparta navy carrying a full stack for no reason not at war with them or anything.

 

[Amorphos]

haha, i would have been more impressed if you had let them land and defeated their army though :sparta:

 

[dacder]

haha, i would have been more impressed if you had let them land and defeated their army though :sparta:

I was too tied up with corinth

 

[Amorphos]

fair enough

 

[Deepcrush]

What if you want the build up to go quick so that you can start a war with everyone all at once?

 

[Amorphos]

Use the late build stats that give you the late romans etc from the start. The files are on the add your own stats thread....

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=7780907#post7780907

 

[Deepcrush]

Uh uh... I don't mess with code... Computers break around me when I think about messing with things.

 

[Amorphos]

ha, Its just a text file, drag n drop it into Sparta data file, that’s it! No coding required.