ShieldWall
Legionary
posted 04 September 2008 05:16
EDT (US)
4 / 9
Always play to the strengths of a faction, and with Greece this is obviously its heavy infantry. I tried using cavalry in the Macedonian fashion, taking as much as five Greek cavalry on campaigns to make up for their lack of power and using them aggressively. But without any upgrades they will struggle against just about everything, and even with upgrades they're fragile and best used with extreme caution.
So I learned that about three quarters of every Greek army should be armoured hoplites - as others have said, they're cheap, easy to recruit, extremely resistant to missiles, and providing their backs are covered they will kill absolutely anything that is stupid enough to fight them. All I add to this mix are a general and two greek cavalry, who are only really used for chasing routers, an onager, a cretan archer, and two normal archers.
If I'm attacking I put all the hoplites in a long line, maybe with a few reserves at the back if I think I can be outflanked, and just advance them into the mass of the enemy. If defending, I arrange the hoplites into a semi-circle so that they can't be easily flanked, and even if they are I've a pair of hoplites at the back who can move and block anything that comes around the side. Meanwhile the archers I take off auto-fire and get them to hammer enemy archers, skirmishers before they get close enough to fire. This is very advisible against Egypt - as much as half of their army can be skirmishers.
How to deal with the Seleucids? Normally you don't have to as everyone else is beating seven shades of shit out of them. They shouldn't be a threat to you in battle though. Your armoured hoplites will destroy any infantry they have. Against Egypt, it's a good idea to build a fleet and blockade as many of their ports as possible. Fighting Egyptian armies isn't so very hard, but fighting the Egyptian economy can be difficult - if you destroy one army, they can replace it with two very quickly.