Small country strategies

[unmerged(11258)]

Has anyone had any luck playing small countries like Syracuse?

I managed a 30 victory score in a war against Carthage and they still wouldn't even cede me one province.. Is there any hope or point in playing a small country?

 

[SJG]

The trick to playing small countries is to become not small ASAP. This generally means annexing one-province minors. Getting into a war with the big boys generally spells doom.

Of course, this makes the eligibility of playing small nations very closely linked to the proximity of one-province minors.

As Syracuse, you're pretty screwed on that front. Epirus, Achaea, Aetolia, Sparta, Bithynia and Pergamon can do pretty well though, especially given all those nice same culture provinces around.

I'd go so far as to say that most of the Greek minors are actually easier in the long term than Macedonia (Macedonian being only same-culture-group to Greek is a pain). If you can survive the first few years and expand a bit you're set for world conquest.

 

[unmerged(14477)]

Seing that the small guys always ally with the big guys and that a blietzkrieg annex-before-the-big-guy-comes-to-aid is rather tricky to pull off, I'd say the best strategy in playing as a minor (expept massilia...) is to ally with a big guy and take advantage of the conflicts they are in. With the Achaeans I had great success with following the macedonian jaggernaught in their wars with Illyria and Thrace and Bithynia - those wars netted me three procinces, the one Greek culture/religion. From there on it's easier, but you have to play your cards well, time your intervention and try to take advantage of every opening - for instance, Macedonia sooner or later gets torn apart by civil strife, and that's a chance for you to jump on the throat of their minor allies or take away a few provinces from the macs themselves.

Most Greek minors can fair pretty well in the early scenarios.

 

[Henri]

Seing that the small guys always ally with the big guys and that a blietzkrieg annex-before-the-big-guy-comes-to-aid is rather tricky to pull off, I'd say the best strategy in playing as a minor (expept massilia...) is to ally with a big guy and take advantage of the conflicts they are in.

Most Greek minors can fair pretty well in the early scenarios.

I am playing Macedonia from early on and have annexed all the greek minors without any treaties or any wars with the big boys. I now have about 20 territories and growing.

Be aware however that when you attack one of the Greek minors (except Illyria which should probably be first) you will probably be at war with all of them including their allies (usually Crete).

Be also aware that you will have frequent civil wars that, before 1.2 , would bankrupt you through mercenary spam. I made the mistake of attacking Aetolia without a Casus Belli and could never get my stability high again, which meant frequent civil wars.

Eventually you will either collide with Rome or one of your Eastern neighbors. I haven't reached that point yet, but a war with Rome while they are ahead in gold, technology and territories could spell the end for Macedonia. On the othr hand, if they ar at war with Carthage, everything is possible...

For a horror scenario, imagine a civil war breaking out while at war with Rome, and a simultaneous barbarian uprising in key provinces...

Henri

Henri

 

[Azugal]

Macedonia fills a strange void between the big 4 and the minors. Because even Rome is a fair distance away, and because all the minors nearby are relatively small, with careful planning it is easy to conquer or ally with all of Greece, colonise north, annex Illyria and become the defacto 5th power.

 

[unmerged(14477)]

Macedonia is VERY easy in vanilla. Extremely easy. There is a tendancy for civil war that could (or would) cripple your plans, but if you keep stab at +3 and watch carefuly the loyalty thingy this is not very likely to happen and if it does, you'll have an easy time. Also, Macedonia is certainly not "a minor", they got a decent starting power, VERY easy pickings nearby (Illyria is doomed, Thrace too, with careful alliances and planning the Mac player can take on Bithynia too and all that in less than 20 years from game start), add to it the colonisation spam Macedonia is capable of (them Balkans are easy to colonise...) and by the time Rome gets an interest in the BAlkans, the Mak player can have everything there and then something.

I was talking about more interesting choices, like Achaea, Aetolia, Sparta, or Pergamos or (for more tough situations, especially in 1.2) Rhodes or Crete. Those are the really hard Greek minors, along with Syracusae in the next scenario. But they are playable. I've had great succes with Achaea and Aetolia. Haven't played though Rhode and Crete and haven't heard anyone having any success with these...

 

[unmerged(101035)]

I am playing Macedonia from early on and have annexed all the greek minors without any treaties or any wars with the big boys. I now have about 20 territories and growing.

Be aware however that when you attack one of the Greek minors (except Illyria which should probably be first) you will probably be at war with all of them including their allies (usually Crete).

Be also aware that you will have frequent civil wars that, before 1.2 , would bankrupt you through mercenary spam. I made the mistake of attacking Aetolia without a Casus Belli and could never get my stability high again, which meant frequent civil wars.

Eventually you will either collide with Rome or one of your Eastern neighbors. I haven't reached that point yet, but a war with Rome while they are ahead in gold, technology and territories could spell the end for Macedonia. On the othr hand, if they ar at war with Carthage, everything is possible...

For a horror scenario, imagine a civil war breaking out while at war with Rome, and a simultaneous barbarian uprising in key provinces...

Henri

Henri

Or you could just use the civil war for an endless army to destroy Rome. That's how the AI Seleucid empire never dies no matter how hard Egypt attacks it during a civil war at 0 manpower . Of course, Macedonia has to get pretty big to get an income large enough to recover from that kind of deficit.

Rhodes or Crete would be about the same difficulty as Sparta, just with the added annoyance of having to cart your small army over with your small navy first.

 

[unmerged(11258)]

Seing that the small guys always ally with the big guys and that a blietzkrieg annex-before-the-big-guy-comes-to-aid is rather tricky to pull off, I'd say the best strategy in playing as a minor (expept massilia...) is to ally with a big guy and take advantage of the conflicts they are in. With the Achaeans I had great success with following the macedonian jaggernaught in their wars with Illyria and Thrace and Bithynia - those wars netted me three procinces, the one Greek culture/religion. From there on it's easier, but you have to play your cards well, time your intervention and try to take advantage of every opening - for instance, Macedonia sooner or later gets torn apart by civil strife, and that's a chance for you to jump on the throat of their minor allies or take away a few provinces from the macs themselves.

Most Greek minors can fair pretty well in the early scenarios.

nice post... I did manage a alliance with Rome after fighting Carthage to a draw ( as Syracuse) but it didn't occur to me to try to snag a province when they were at war. I'm going to go back to an earlier save and try something like that with Syracuse. I don't see any reason why countries should be playable if they have no chance at all. You guys are right about small Greek minors though, they aren't that difficult once you get going

 

[unmerged(101035)]

You can knock out Thrace with any old minor, including Crete and Rhodes (well Crete anyway I succeeded with, Rhodes is a tiny bit weaker, but about the same, so I assume you can with them too). Once you do that you can actually cut off some of Macedonia's expansion with your own colonies. Only problem is, since 1.2 this will give you celtic/druidic colonies unless you have time to let thrace convert, so don't forget to place the proper characters in the religious tech and governer slot .


Actually Illyria is harder than any of the minors I think. Although you can pay tribute to macedonia and box them in with your own colonies, rapid colonizing from a big bad macedonian province is nowhere near the same thing as depleting your already puny Illyrian provinces. It's a true race to see if you can get strong enough to DO anything, even with all that land. Remember, Macedonia will refuse a call to battle until the relations are pretty bright green, so they aren't exactly going to back you up with the greek conglomerate for a while. Not only that, but I could swear to god there is a bias against converting to shamanism. Even Zoastrian flips faster, or my luck just sucks with both Illyria and Rhoxolani.

Thrace, well... yeah I dunno, I haven't even been able to succeed at getting Macedonia to accept a tribute so... even harder . You only get one try too, because one failed diplomatic effort with thrace puts you below -150 right away.

 

[JakethX]

For a horror scenario, imagine a civil war breaking out while at war with Rome, and a simultaneous barbarian uprising in key provinces...

ive been there

 

[Lionel-Richie]

I've been trying this out myself. I am playing a vanilla 1.2 as Aetolian League. Things are kinda rough, I managed to annex Epirus, Illyria's last province, Rhodes, Crete (who were my ally but meh...NONE of my allies will help me against macedonia so I decided their resources could be put to better use), and I colonized some near Illyrian territory.

My problem now is that there aren't many minors left nearby. Macedonia has gotten large, strong and even has some provinces in the middle of the Selucid lands.

The biggest problem is they are allied with Aechaen League and Sparta (Sparta is my ally too so they just stay neutral in any wars).

The diplomatic power plays are what seem to stop me, interestingly enough. I couldn't annex Aechean League early because they latched on to Macedonia fast and Macedonia neutralized my one ally (who was too scared too fight anyway) but allying them as well. I also can't seem to get any of the bigger empires to ally with me, even though my ratings are great with say...the Selucids...and they NEED help. Look at how carved up they are!

 

[unmerged(101035)]

That's why you head them off as best you can in the beginning. You can't really completely do it, since the comp auto colonizes if you are racing for the same colony. In the very beginning, either beeline for thrace, or take one of the two civilized illyrian provinces so they don't have all of them, or better yet do both. Then at the very least they have nowhere to go if you also kill dacia before they do, and they just kind of go up in a smaller than normal strip that you eventually cut off completely.

In any case, yeah there's some kind of odd stopper placed on alliances. You can't ally with anyone who has too many allies, and you also can't seem to no matter what if you don't do it from the start. You could try getting your butt kicked by somebody else on purpose so you can pay tribute and get an alliance that way . Other than that, you may be reduced to nibbling on carthage while they are at war... although attrition change made that hard in 1.2. You look to be kinda screwed, unless you are still able to buddy up to rome or something. You probably won't catch Macedonia... unless the Seleucids rebound and you jump in to take advantage, or unless they pop a civil war and you ninja the rebel provinces or something like that.

 

[Lionel-Richie]

Yeah I'm hoping for Civil War in Macedonia. I keep trying to support rebels in some of their provinces, but not much luck with actual revolts. They've got -3 stability at the moment though.

It was pretty bad, I DoW'd Macedonia when they were fighting the Seleucids but then the Sels had a civil war and just collapsed allowing Macedonia to funnel all its troops back towards me.

 

[unmerged(101035)]

So I screwed up with Crete and started to try Rhodes, turns out they are actually easier than crete because they have two trade routes and so more money. They also have one boat to start instead of two, so moving the troops at the beginning is more annoying .

Anyway, was planning to do the same thing I did with Crete, ask Macedonia for military access, land my whole 8 troops in macedonia, then wait to see if I could steal Scodra if Macedonia claimed the other two, or if not was going to knock out thracia. Well, Epirus was in it's usual double team of doom, fighting Rome and Carthage, Rome took Syracuse and had peace... usually though whichever of the two doesn't make peace ends up with Epirus (or Macedonia immediately pounces as the rarest event if for some reason Epirus is left empty). All of the sudden, for absolutely no apparent reason (I don't think they were even fighting Rome yet)... Epirus makes peace with Carthage, who marches out. Epirus is sitting there troop free and I'm in Macedonia.

So yeah, my Rhodes game started brilliantly, now have Epirus AND Thrace with minimal effort hehe. Those two are so strong (I had no idea, I usually don't bother trying to go to Epirus, it doesn't usually open up like that) that just with Rhodes, Epirus, and Thrace, my diplo window says "we may be able to convince Macedonia to pay tribute"... it doesn't work, but still . Rhodes is already strong, yay! I was worried, because usually if Macedonia gets cut off in the slightest, they will declare war on whoever is in Epirus... whether it's still Epirus, or Rome, or Carthage... and though I had great relations, I had no alliance with Macedonia and a pretty stiff bad rep for immediately taking a friendly nation and then Thrace with no CB for either. They left me alone though, so I'll sure enough be able to make a full empire.

 

[unmerged(11258)]

where in the menu is the info for "bad rep" score?

 

[whosthebestcop]

First move should have been to annex the other league then going to war with Macedonia followed by 1 or 2 more wars with the big M and you would have basically swallowed all of Greece.

 

[unmerged(14477)]

I am not quite sure we are playing the same game here...1province Aetolia annex Achaea and then go to war with Macedonia? Huh?

 

[whosthebestcop]

I am not quite sure we are playing the same game here...1province Aetolia annex Achaea and then go to war with Macedonia? Huh?

They are the 2 riches provinces and largest manpower pools in Greece. Using tons of militia you could wage war on Macedonia easily. I've done it with Sparta. after taking over both leagues since Sparta is poor!

Might have to take a stab hit right away and declare war before alliances are made. Macedonia might get Sparta as an ally they can easily be dealt with.

Before the 1.2 tribute bug I thought it was easier playing a 1 nation Greek minor than Macedonia. You keep taking monthly tribute, gold, and provinces from Macedonia for usually 3 or 4 wars. Doing the same with Sparta. While annexing only rich 1 province nations until either your Bad Boy goes down or you are powerful enough not to have to worry about Bad Boy.

 

[unmerged(101035)]

Yeah, I don't really think I like the bad boy now, people complained that it was too tough because of the relentless agent spam... but that just means they needed to tone down the spam, not give you more points In vanilla, where you can annex a few countries and then you've chewed your way to gads of free colony space, it's too easy. Hell it's even easy to play do a map covering tribe if you pick one somewhat far away from the big powers in vanilla.

It's actually harder with a fuller map mod, not particularly because any of the adds are stronger than a strong greek state, but because there's tons more stuff in the way to conquer so your stability actually slows you down. That, and Rome tends to conquer much better than colonize, so they have a much better chance of bordering you and take exception to your behavior when there is more on the map to conquer. When you have to declare two wars to get those 4 provinces every single time instead of sitting there and colonizing, it gets pretty hairy later on.

 

[SJG]

I've been trying this out myself. I am playing a vanilla 1.2 as Aetolian League. Things are kinda rough, I managed to annex Epirus, Illyria's last province, Rhodes, Crete (who were my ally but meh...NONE of my allies will help me against macedonia so I decided their resources could be put to better use), and I colonized some near Illyrian territory.

My problem now is that there aren't many minors left nearby. Macedonia has gotten large, strong and even has some provinces in the middle of the Selucid lands.

The biggest problem is they are allied with Aechaen League and Sparta (Sparta is my ally too so they just stay neutral in any wars).

The diplomatic power plays are what seem to stop me, interestingly enough. I couldn't annex Aechean League early because they latched on to Macedonia fast and Macedonia neutralized my one ally (who was too scared too fight anyway) but allying them as well. I also can't seem to get any of the bigger empires to ally with me, even though my ratings are great with say...the Selucids...and they NEED help. Look at how carved up they are!

To play one of the Greek minors you need to get out of the starting blocks fast. Declare war on day 1 on a poorer neighour that doesn't have an alliance. That generally means taking a stab hit but it's worth it to double your size almost unopposed. Don't worry about where they are, all the Greek nations will probably give you military access.

Aetolia and Epirus are so rich that you should be able to beat early Macedonia with the two combined, especially as Macedonia always gets entangled with Illyria. When they have zero manpower and a few small armies is the perfect time to strike. If you manage to annex Achaea while holding off Macedonia (make sure you declare war on Macedonia so that annexing their ally doesn't end the war) you're absolutely ready to take on the world.