Greek and Major Powers.

[unmerged(152202)]

it seems like after all my time playing, Greek nations are the most fun. the amount of Greek culture regions is very large and leads to an army that can match the Seleucid if played right.

this is a very hard feat for a tribal nation, and even if you amass a giant empire. you will have trouble forming a decent army throughout the entire game. after several tribal games this can get annoying when you switch to playing a greek game and notice the difference.



Rome has a very good amount of cultured areas, as do the Seleucid, Egypt and Carthage have a fair amount.

it does not seem correct that after hundreds of years an empire may be stuck with a couple 20k armies at the absolutely most.

 

[Achab]

You are right that Greek culture is easier to play as there are a lot of greek culture provinces to grab. But the Seleucids have only 4 greek provinces at the start date and really low manpower reserves.

On the other hand tribes, when player properly, can overrun their enemies with significantly smaller fielded armies, thanks to the specific morale and land organisation bonuses. Check my tribal AAR to get an idea.

 

[Emperor Leo]

it does not seem correct that after hundreds of years an empire may be stuck with a couple 20k armies at the absolutely most.

If you play as a Gallic or British tribe, you have lots of Celtic provinces to use. It's just a case of taking them with brute force. If you play as a Gallic tribe, you have the oppertunity to form Gaul if you claim enough specified provinces.

As Achab has already said, check out the AAR! It's quite a feat!

You're quite right, though, Greek countries are a joy to play. My nation of choice is Macedonia or Pontus. My main reason is because they're both a Monarchy. I like to "roleplay" my leaders which is quite hard to do with the ever changing Consuls in republics.

 

[unmerged(152202)]

I know how to play, I've controlled more than half of the entire map as a tribe. http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l116/LanceMoris/massinisid4.jpg playing as an easy annex by Carthage.

anyway the point is, it's not fun having a disadvantage the whole game without many chances to increase your man power.



when you reach the point of controlling 50 or more regions as a tribe, it still does not compare to the amount of troops Epirus could have as example. you will always be fighting to have your man power stable, but as a Greek state that is almost never a problem and it seems as if you are actually playing as a country of that time. with a tribe it feels you are not receiving the full experience.

 

[UniversalWolf]

You're quite right, though, Greek countries are a joy to play. My nation of choice is Macedonia or Pontus. My main reason is because they're both a Monarchy.

I like the Bosporan Kingdom.

 

[Emperor Leo]

I like the Bosporan Kingdom.

I've never had a serious go with the Bosporan Kingdom. Hmmm, this may have to be my next game.

 

[Red Rainbow]

You're quite right, though, Greek countries are a joy to play. My nation of choice is Macedonia or Pontus. .

Illyria seems a good challenge, too... I played for about 100 years and as a member of a solid alliance with Macedonia and Pontus you can keep the red or green blobs (Rome & Carthage, of course... ) away.....

 

[unmerged(152202)]

Illyria seems a good challenge, too... I played for about 100 years and as a member of a solid alliance with Macedonia and Pontus you can keep the red or green blobs (Rome & Carthage, of course... ) away.....

Illyria can relate to many of the gaul tribes since it also doesn't have many regions of it's own culture.

sure leading tribes can be challenging.



but nothing beats controlling massive armies around a large empire which any Greek nation has the easy possibility of providing. since the culture rate is so high.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Greeks have only one major challenge in the early game and that is conquering Macedon, but as Macedon is weakest of the big boys that isn't very difficult if you time your war right. Once you control the mainland Greece it's easy to become serious challenger. So yes, Greek states are indeed fun.

 

[BurningEGO]

I only like to play as Epirus... and sometimes as Sparta... I like the seleucid despotic monarchy too, but generally speaking they are too easy to play with. Unless you get embroiled in total war, lose your manpower, have to deal with rebels and with parthia-egypt (and a lot of other minors!) at the same time. Which hapened to me some times.

Epirus however is definetely the most fun country to play with in my opinion. I have even finished the game a few times with them and conquered almost the entire world.

Apart from the greeks, i also like to play as Egypt. Hey, if you change the Egyptian government you can have a crazy omen chance. Something like 90 per cent or close to it iirc. I keep invoking the omen that gives you bigger population growth... and in no time you will get a crazy population in the nile!

I am only sad that as Egypt one cant really have women in power... There is no way to raise their popularity faster than at the rate they lose it.

 

[swilhelm73]

As Epirus, how do you handle the Roman war you start with?

 

[unmerged(152202)]

As Epirus, how do you handle the Roman war you start with?

I usually ignore Rome and go after Italy later, it's smarter to take control of Greece first and to much to juggle it all at the start of the game.

 

[Achab]

As Epirus, how do you handle the Roman war you start with?

Rome marches his whole army to Sicily after they take MG. So you just trap them there with your fleet and then siege the whole undefended Italy.

Screenie for an illustration:

 

[BurningEGO]

As Epirus, how do you handle the Roman war you start with?

Put your entire army with the best general you can get in sicily. Place your fleet in the Sicilian Port as well. Let the romans march into Sicily in full force. They will loose because of the massive handicap armies receive when passing straits. Once they loose, take your fleet out and block the strait. The entire roman army that is still in Sicily after taking a beating will fight you one last time, but since they didnt have time to get their morale up, they will disband almost imediately. Then, lay siege to the roman provinces AND dont let the romans muster a big army. Kill all the small divisions you find one by one. Specially those coming from Etruria or from provinces with Iron as a resource (in case rome is trading iron with any other power or with Etruria itself), since these will provide Rome with Heavy Infantry.

Then at peace deal take whatever you can, specially those provinces in the north to avoid having Rome colonizing PLUS etruria. 100% of the times i played as Epirus, taking Etruria early on from Rome means that Rome will have to focus on building militias... and such are easy to defeat with the heavy infantry you are now able to recruit. I usually attack the Romans again once the truce expires and take whatever i can and then after that, i annex em in a 3rd war.

 

[BurningEGO]

Rome marches his whole army to Sicily after they take MG. So you just trap them there with your fleet and then siege the whole undefended Italy.

How comes that Rome already annexed Magna Graecia?

 

[Achab]

How comes that Rome already annexed Magna Graecia?

In 2.31 the annexation limit is risen to 2 provinces. MG is usually gone in 4-5 mnths from the start.

 

[BurningEGO]

... Damn beta patches.

 

[UniversalWolf]

In 2.31 the annexation limit is risen to 2 provinces. MG is usually gone in 4-5 mnths from the start.

With the Total Conquest mod it's raised to 6, which is awesome.

 

[jhhowell]

Then at peace deal take whatever you can, specially those provinces in the north to avoid having Rome colonizing PLUS etruria. 100% of the times i played as Epirus, taking Etruria early on from Rome means that Rome will have to focus on building militias... and such are easy to defeat with the heavy infantry you are now able to recruit. I usually attack the Romans again once the truce expires and take whatever i can and then after that, i annex em in a 3rd war.

From what I've seen, this will at best work only after saving and reloading. I just did this iron removal strategy to the Ptolemies (playing the Seleucids in Epigoni, though that shouldn't matter), and watched them rebuild their armies with Pezhetairoi despite having no iron produced or traded to the provinces I observed. I did not see any Pez recruiting in subsequent playing sessions, but that's inconclusive since it's not clear the AI wanted to rebuild the army much more.

I just assumed this was another example of the AI cheating, sort of like the traditional no-naval-attrition rule exemption the AI gets in all EU games. But if you've found that this strategy works to prevent the AI from building heavy infantry, maybe it just requires a reload to make the game "forget" the no longer existent trade routes that had been bringing iron to certain provinces...

 

[Emperor Leo]

From what I've seen, this will at best work only after saving and reloading. I just did this iron removal strategy to the Ptolemies (playing the Seleucids in Epigoni, though that shouldn't matter), and watched them rebuild their armies with Pezhetairoi despite having no iron produced or traded to the provinces I observed.

Are you sure they weren't mercenaries?