SPARTA v 1.4.5
Greece 431 B.C.
The war between Sparta and Athens involves almost all the greek city-states, split in two opposed alliances:
the Pelopponnesian League and the Delian League .
Greece 431 B.C.
The war between Sparta and Athens involves almost all the greek city-states, split in two opposed alliances:
the Pelopponnesian League and the Delian League .
IMAGES:
10 factions:
The Pelopponnesian League
The Delian League
Cretan city-states
Achean city-states
Aetolian city-states
Thessaly
Epirus
Macedonia
Thrace
Persian Satrapies
Features:
-Freelancer,
-Historical characters and lords
-Player can choose if to start the campaign as the really existed ruler of one of these nations
-Sea travelling
-Hundreds of new Items
-The flag of the ruler is the flag of every vassal (also for the player)
-Each faction has special parties' icons changing with the amount of men in the party.
If you are not a king you may choose the icon for your party . If you are king, you may choose the culture, which changes both icons and troops.
-Special icons for player's party depending on the size of the army
-A big fancy new map of the area of interest
-Voice and order sounds
-New companions and new mercenaries
-New troops for each faction
-AOR recruit system for historically accurate cities' hoplites: There will be many hoplites which can be recruited only in their city, for example Argos' Hoplites will be available for the player as special units to recruit with weekly refill only in Argos...But that is not all, as also the AI Lord who is owning Argo will receive Argos Hoplites as part of its reinforcements and the Garrison of Argo will be the only one having Argos Hoplites among its faction's troops. All of this regardless the faction they belong to. To own AOR towns is strategic because the AI Lord who owns it has a stronger mix of troops
-No more training skills: your men and you must fight battles to become veterans
-New scenes
-If you press 'I' while in battle, a bar will appear on the top-left corner, showing the number of soldiers on each side.
-If a leader is defeated in battle, the moral of the army will decrease.
-If you press 'M', you will make a battle cry.
-Battle Formations for player and AI (thanks to Motomataru's codes)
-New map banners' icons fitting the time period (no flapping flag)
-New faces, hair and beards (now good variety to choose)
-Villages and towns' prosperity will have a stronger impact on money (both for player and ai)
-Training skill has disappeared (soldiers become veterans after battles not after training!) at its place a new skill reducing food consumption (very useful because of the big size of Armies (from 300 to 1000 men)
-Spears and shields will not be shown on the back of soldiers when not in use. This for two reasons: the first is that I never liked that. The second is that it would look weird combined with some armours ... and I don't like it even stronger.
- New animations and items
- Animated Horses in city centres (AndyYa codes)
-There are many items, armours, helm, etc. they are often quite rare to be found in market places and often some of them can be found just in some faction (eg Spartan shields just in Saprta's market)
-Report screen, troop tree screen, political map
-Four layers of recruitment: village, Major Polis (ex Town), Polis (ex Castle), AOR
- No flag indicator on friendly troops, you must play "my way"…
- Added buildings to construct in towns which give bonus
- Added enterprises' inefficiency (progressively increasing when you have more than one enterprise of the same kind, so it is better for you to build all the different enterprises rather than multiple enterprises of the same kind). At the same time the enterprises' profitability has been reworked.
- Musicians will play during the feasts (their own lyre music)
- Game options related to difficulty of the game has been removed (no matter what you choose, you will play Sparta as it was meant to be played)
- Totally reworked the behavior of horse archers and horsemen throwing javelins. Now when you order them to charge, they will properly use their ranged weapons until they have ammunitions). I suggest to put ranged horse units in a new group in your battle management, different from cavalry.
- Implemented winter season: in January and in February, in part of the map, the scenes will be covered with snow (check the picture in the ModDB page to see the areas where it occurs).
- Wind will move plants and grass
- Added the option to kill a prisoner lord/ruler (it will cost 100 honor) or to release him (it will give some honor)
- Disable Companion Complaint option now will also prevent them from leaving your party
- Added the Diplomacy dialog to persuade your king to declare war. It depends on how strong the enemy is, in choosing the right things to say and on the relation level with your king. If there is a truce with that faction he will not accept in any case
Once you are a king you can:
- Talk to your minister by camp menu
-Change your Lords equipment and update their skills
-Your banner will become the banner of all your lords
-Change your faction troops' culture , choosing one of the already existing factions or a special player culture troop tree with customizable equipment and name (Thanks to MitchellD who implemented part of his Custom Troop Tree in this mod).
-Historical characters and lords
-Player can choose if to start the campaign as the really existed ruler of one of these nations
-Sea travelling
-Hundreds of new Items
-The flag of the ruler is the flag of every vassal (also for the player)
-Each faction has special parties' icons changing with the amount of men in the party.
If you are not a king you may choose the icon for your party . If you are king, you may choose the culture, which changes both icons and troops.
-Special icons for player's party depending on the size of the army
-A big fancy new map of the area of interest
-Voice and order sounds
-New companions and new mercenaries
-New troops for each faction
-AOR recruit system for historically accurate cities' hoplites: There will be many hoplites which can be recruited only in their city, for example Argos' Hoplites will be available for the player as special units to recruit with weekly refill only in Argos...But that is not all, as also the AI Lord who is owning Argo will receive Argos Hoplites as part of its reinforcements and the Garrison of Argo will be the only one having Argos Hoplites among its faction's troops. All of this regardless the faction they belong to. To own AOR towns is strategic because the AI Lord who owns it has a stronger mix of troops
-No more training skills: your men and you must fight battles to become veterans
-New scenes
-If you press 'I' while in battle, a bar will appear on the top-left corner, showing the number of soldiers on each side.
-If a leader is defeated in battle, the moral of the army will decrease.
-If you press 'M', you will make a battle cry.
-Battle Formations for player and AI (thanks to Motomataru's codes)
-New map banners' icons fitting the time period (no flapping flag)
-New faces, hair and beards (now good variety to choose)
-Villages and towns' prosperity will have a stronger impact on money (both for player and ai)
-Training skill has disappeared (soldiers become veterans after battles not after training!) at its place a new skill reducing food consumption (very useful because of the big size of Armies (from 300 to 1000 men)
-Spears and shields will not be shown on the back of soldiers when not in use. This for two reasons: the first is that I never liked that. The second is that it would look weird combined with some armours ... and I don't like it even stronger.
- New animations and items
- Animated Horses in city centres (AndyYa codes)
-There are many items, armours, helm, etc. they are often quite rare to be found in market places and often some of them can be found just in some faction (eg Spartan shields just in Saprta's market)
-Report screen, troop tree screen, political map
-Four layers of recruitment: village, Major Polis (ex Town), Polis (ex Castle), AOR
- No flag indicator on friendly troops, you must play "my way"…
- Added buildings to construct in towns which give bonus
- Added enterprises' inefficiency (progressively increasing when you have more than one enterprise of the same kind, so it is better for you to build all the different enterprises rather than multiple enterprises of the same kind). At the same time the enterprises' profitability has been reworked.
- Musicians will play during the feasts (their own lyre music)
- Game options related to difficulty of the game has been removed (no matter what you choose, you will play Sparta as it was meant to be played)
- Totally reworked the behavior of horse archers and horsemen throwing javelins. Now when you order them to charge, they will properly use their ranged weapons until they have ammunitions). I suggest to put ranged horse units in a new group in your battle management, different from cavalry.
- Implemented winter season: in January and in February, in part of the map, the scenes will be covered with snow (check the picture in the ModDB page to see the areas where it occurs).
- Wind will move plants and grass
- Added the option to kill a prisoner lord/ruler (it will cost 100 honor) or to release him (it will give some honor)
- Disable Companion Complaint option now will also prevent them from leaving your party
- Added the Diplomacy dialog to persuade your king to declare war. It depends on how strong the enemy is, in choosing the right things to say and on the relation level with your king. If there is a truce with that faction he will not accept in any case
Once you are a king you can:
- Talk to your minister by camp menu
-Change your Lords equipment and update their skills
-Your banner will become the banner of all your lords
-Change your faction troops' culture , choosing one of the already existing factions or a special player culture troop tree with customizable equipment and name (Thanks to MitchellD who implemented part of his Custom Troop Tree in this mod).
-Some figures:
10 Factions
Over 500 different shields
Over 400 armours\tunics
63 Major Poleis
101 Poleis
281 Villages
150 Lords
235 different troops (plus a number of mercenaries)
44 different AOR (area of recruitment) Poleis
Credits:
Renaissance, Hispania 1200 ( by El Xabeo de la Cova, JBL, permission by mikeboix), Custom Troop Tree (by MitchellD), Sands of Faith (thewanderingknight Brytenwalda, Diplomacy, AndyYa, Hoboistice, Baraban, Jaakko Osp Models, Bsapaka Osp Animations, Papa Lazoarou Anim Osp , Fires of War (Antonis9), Motomataru (Formation and AI Kit), Mount&Gladiusv2.0(Llew), AlphaDeltas_Ancient_warriors, Time Golem (TG's Ancien Armoury), Gothic Knight, john Malis, Anthony Schmidt, Exima, Micheal4, Choges Craft Channel, rgcotl, Adzan, vighols05, persnetto, Adriano.Fontoura.Fraga, James B., Daniel P., Davata, PantherOne, Vasilis l., SonKidd, Brian Erbes, mr.master Wee'd Helmets, ZarthasOSP, Byron Salgado, Kraut and Tea, BIGGER Kentucky James XXL (ottoman civil clothes), Mark7 Osp Crusader Way to Expiation pack,Aquil Osp, Virakes's Male and female face compilation, Jaymosuke Osp Hair, Aksyonov, robotninjabread, Spak Osp, nagesh111, atarki, Josuè Borghi, GSXNet, 3dhdscan, Dangry, Francesco Coldesina, MCG3d, Centre for Gis & Geomatics, Lucio Arseni, Owlish Media, Rigsters, Geoffry Marchal, Gorndon N., TooManyDemons, Aniket Saxena, sebasxpm, Drudru the Migniscisiscent Osp. LeGrandmaster, Mordachai, lexferreira89
Many credits may be missing because they are already inside the mods up here. Please send me a message if you see something you want to be pointed out in the credit session.
Many credits may be missing because they are already inside the mods up here. Please send me a message if you see something you want to be pointed out in the credit session.
DOWNLOAD LINK SPARTA 1.4:
IMPORTANT:
READ THE PDF File in the mod's folder, named "CONFIGURATE WARBAND FOR SPARTA" to set Warband in the right way to play this mod
SPARTA IS DEMANDING AND THE CORRECT SETTING IS NECESSARY TO LIVE A GREAT EXPERIENCE
For a tough immersive game ( for experienced warband players)
- start with realistic saving
- don’t have more than two companions in the party
- once you become king don’t give a fief to your companions, lords must be recruited from the lords in the game
- it is harder if you don’t start as a king obviously (but both campaigns should be tried in my opinion)
- obviously don’t cheat
PERSONAL COMMENT:
People are not used to fight with spears in Mount and Blade. Basically in all the mods and also native there are horse’ lances for charge and pikes for infantry. One hand weapons and two hands weapons are the most common and effective choice for infantry.
But this mod is set in the ancient Greece and at that time spear and shields were the main choice for heavy infantry. Swords were far less effective in phalanx formations and were used when the spear got broken or lost.
I understand YOU PLAYERS find this way strange and not as effective as a nice bastardsword... but that it is.
Also the balance in hit points of weapons and armours/helms it is made like this for two main reasons:
1)The weapons’ hit must take into account a fairly long enough battle time between two soldiers, some soldiers wore bronze armours, some just a tunic. And formatons can’t loose half of the men in a couple of seconds becouse of overpowered spears (as someone is suggesting).
2) armours, shields, weapons, are beautiful in this mod (also people who seem they didn’t like Sparta have admitted that point) and in the customize your army feature, as long as in choosing your gears for yourself and your companions during the campaign, I wanted you to choose what you like morstly or what is related to the polis you want to rule...
I did not want to put a sort of coat of arm with such better hit points that you would be forced to choose it if you want the best protection.
This mod is mainly Greek factions oriented and at that time greek generals were on foot with their men.
I strongly raccomend not to play on horseback unless you play as a Persian, Makedonian, Thracian or Thessalian (if you play as these factions'king you will already get the horse and the riding skills for it on purpose)
Battle Formations:
This mod has complex formations feature. If you start your battle with the Start Battle Holding Position choice, your men will automatically adopt formations at the battle start, shield wall for infantry, line for archer and wedge formation for cavalry. In the Party menu, you may also assign some troops to other groups as in native (and by camp menu options you can put yourself in one of this groups at the beginning of the battle). Remember that soldiers equipped with ranged weapons will be considered archers and will adopt line formation, unless you put them in the group 1, which is the default infantry group. During the battle, pressing the F1 hold position flag on the enemy, you can order your phalanx to attack the enemy's group you choose. They will advance to it and attack it keeping formation. Pressing F4 you have the formations' screen where you can choose among some formation types. If you select a group, move it to a position (for example on your left 20 m ahead) and press F2, you can memorize how that group will be placed compared to your position when every battle starts
Read This Part:
I made Sparta following a clear idea of how it should be. My goal was to make a mod which fits my personal taste, very challenging, with a different pace compared to other mods like my previous one. Sparta should be played thinking about a long chess match. You obviously will find hard to conquer a town and even harder to keep it once you become a rebel. Even earlier you will struggle to survive as adventurer. Parties' size are big, sometimes huge, and for that reasons battles are longer than usual. You must start taking care of your life (in-game) as if you die in battles AI will take the command of your army (even if sometimes it may play better than you). Above all in sieges you must remember that once you are too wound to fight, automatically computing battle will make you lose the fief quite easily.
In any case the point is this:
Sparta is like it is because I made it like this. It matches my original intentions. I am not going to change or add any feature. Apart from a massive work on scenes, there is just a narrow room for changes that I will do to adjust something (if I think it will be needed).
You can feel free to post new ideas or suggestions, of course, but it is very likely I will not adopt them if they involve changes beyond that point. I warn now sensitive people not to feel upset if I turn down the suggestions they make.
But this mod is set in the ancient Greece and at that time spear and shields were the main choice for heavy infantry. Swords were far less effective in phalanx formations and were used when the spear got broken or lost.
I understand YOU PLAYERS find this way strange and not as effective as a nice bastardsword... but that it is.
Also the balance in hit points of weapons and armours/helms it is made like this for two main reasons:
1)The weapons’ hit must take into account a fairly long enough battle time between two soldiers, some soldiers wore bronze armours, some just a tunic. And formatons can’t loose half of the men in a couple of seconds becouse of overpowered spears (as someone is suggesting).
2) armours, shields, weapons, are beautiful in this mod (also people who seem they didn’t like Sparta have admitted that point) and in the customize your army feature, as long as in choosing your gears for yourself and your companions during the campaign, I wanted you to choose what you like morstly or what is related to the polis you want to rule...
I did not want to put a sort of coat of arm with such better hit points that you would be forced to choose it if you want the best protection.
This mod is mainly Greek factions oriented and at that time greek generals were on foot with their men.
I strongly raccomend not to play on horseback unless you play as a Persian, Makedonian, Thracian or Thessalian (if you play as these factions'king you will already get the horse and the riding skills for it on purpose)
Battle Formations:
This mod has complex formations feature. If you start your battle with the Start Battle Holding Position choice, your men will automatically adopt formations at the battle start, shield wall for infantry, line for archer and wedge formation for cavalry. In the Party menu, you may also assign some troops to other groups as in native (and by camp menu options you can put yourself in one of this groups at the beginning of the battle). Remember that soldiers equipped with ranged weapons will be considered archers and will adopt line formation, unless you put them in the group 1, which is the default infantry group. During the battle, pressing the F1 hold position flag on the enemy, you can order your phalanx to attack the enemy's group you choose. They will advance to it and attack it keeping formation. Pressing F4 you have the formations' screen where you can choose among some formation types. If you select a group, move it to a position (for example on your left 20 m ahead) and press F2, you can memorize how that group will be placed compared to your position when every battle starts
Read This Part:
I made Sparta following a clear idea of how it should be. My goal was to make a mod which fits my personal taste, very challenging, with a different pace compared to other mods like my previous one. Sparta should be played thinking about a long chess match. You obviously will find hard to conquer a town and even harder to keep it once you become a rebel. Even earlier you will struggle to survive as adventurer. Parties' size are big, sometimes huge, and for that reasons battles are longer than usual. You must start taking care of your life (in-game) as if you die in battles AI will take the command of your army (even if sometimes it may play better than you). Above all in sieges you must remember that once you are too wound to fight, automatically computing battle will make you lose the fief quite easily.
In any case the point is this:
Sparta is like it is because I made it like this. It matches my original intentions. I am not going to change or add any feature. Apart from a massive work on scenes, there is just a narrow room for changes that I will do to adjust something (if I think it will be needed).
You can feel free to post new ideas or suggestions, of course, but it is very likely I will not adopt them if they involve changes beyond that point. I warn now sensitive people not to feel upset if I turn down the suggestions they make.
IN-GAME TIPS ABOUT CAMPAIGN AND FIGHTING:
Starting as an Adventurer:
- ) First of all, you should start thinking about your future own faction since the first in-game day. It means that since the first day you should take care of gaining honour and rising relation with lords.
- to rise your honour, it is particularly effective the "save villages" missions . When you find a village infested by bandits, if you can defeat them, always do it (and refuse presents after that). Also to release captured lords may be good (above all if you don't own a town with dungeons where to close them, they are likely to run away).
- to rise the relationship points with a lord there are some tips that many newby players may not know. For example that lords have their own temper which influences their reactions to many things. There are righteous lords who have their relation set to 1/3 of your honour value up until you meet them. So if I meet a righteous lord for the first time when my honour is 3, I see his relation with me set on 1 point, if I meet him for the first time when my honour is 60, I will find he has already 20 relation point with me. The sense is: focus on few lords at the beginning of the game, asking quest and talking and chatting just to those, to leave other potential righteous lords to rise their relation with you as your honour grows up. Just to explain it, to have a relation over 20 let all the lords available to the option of talking with you in private to recruit them once you become ruler.
-) The levelling up of your companions and of yourself is very important. Here too you must remember that your goal is to rule the world (I hope you are ambitious folks), so choose the attributes you want to increase thinking about that. You are a general, a ruler in the future, so you can not waste all your points in strenght, power strike and similar. My suggestion is at the beginning to rise strength, agility and intelligence until reaching maybe 15,12,12. Pathfind must be the first thing to increase (I personally would not waste anything in riding and archery as in Sparta it is better to fight as a hoplite). Then concentrate yourself only on charisma until you reach at least 24 (it means 8 leadership which if you buy the nobles' ring from the merchant may be risen to 9). Leadership il very important not only for the party size bonus that it gives, but above all for the moral bonus it also gives. Once you are a ruler with a couple of major poleis, high renown and high leadership, you will reach easely 1000 party size. And it will be useful when you have your old faction against you. To keep that army you need two things: high morale and a lot of food. For the first thing, the main solution is Leadership. For food, it is important the new skill called foraging. It reduces the consume of food, it is linked to agility and it is a party skill. So I suggest to rise one of your companion focused only on agility, to make him reach very high level of foraging for when you rebel (8-9 level)
-) When you start the game you are weak, poor and miserable. Able to do nothing apart to be beaten by bandits... Isn't it true? Well, the first mistake I see people do in that situation is to go to villages, to recruit villagers and to try to fight bandits, losing 90% of the times. In my opinion the best option at the very beginning of the game is:
- if you don't want to enlist in a lord's army (and I agree because it is more hardcore this way), you should recruit the few men you can from the major poleis in the normal recruitment slot (let's say you can have 6-7 of them), then you may look for the grey Stratiotai (generic patrols) and help them to hunt bandits. just join them while they are fighting with good odds (in the battle you will control also their troops). If you see a smal bandit party running away from them, you can reach it, talk and let it go. This way it will stop for a moment making the patrol reach it faster. After a week there will be also factions' colored patrols and this thing will be even easier to do. At this point your goal should just be to reach 2000 money, which is what you need to go to a AOR polis and to recruit local soldiers. With these 20 well armoured hoplites you can start hunting small bandits by yourself. Collect money and recruit other hoplites in other AOR towns (since the refill rate is weekly). Once you reach 60-80 hoplites, you can start enjoying killing bandits, and also join a faction at war as mercenary (and it will end your economic struggle). During all this period I described, it is wise if you recruited also some base recruits who become ranged units. for example Delian league has good archers at level 2 (but you should check the troop trees in the report screen to choose what is better in the area where you play). Also remember how much money you can get if you win a tournament! About trading, you will see it very profitable buying in some places some things and selling them elsewhere (up to you to search and find what and where).
- if you want to enlist in a lord army, you should definitely choose the right lord. The best attribute a lord may have to enlist in is: to be of a faction at war, to own a major polis close to the action and not too faraway from the enemy (but not too close either) and the ideal would be if he is the marshal too. For example the lord of Tegea or Mantinea for the Saprtans or the lord of Maratona or Amphissa for Athenians. Once you are enlisted (freelancer mod) you should just care about the loot and the experience you get. In my opinion it is not worth to stay too long enlisted also because in the upgrading path you will not get the best armours of the game because they are mainly AOR hoplites reserved, and in the loots you should find something good soon. Let's say until you collect 10000 money for example or 3-4 weeks. Never desert and never rebel!
-) Once you are vassal and you have your own major polis, if you still plan to rule the world, here come some useful tips:
- increas as much you can the relation with the villages connected to your town (you can see them in the note menu), don't spend any effort\money on the villages the ruler gave you. That is because once you rebel, your fief and its villages will come with you.
- Litterally fill your major polis' garrison with Aor hoplites, archers, cretan archers, rhodian mercenaries and just with the high level troops that villages with good relation can provide (that is why you must reach the 99 relation with those). Before rebelling, it is wise to have collected something like 300.000, 400.000 money and a garrison in your major polis of at least 4000 men. (if you also have a castle, which is more difficult to defend, I don't think you should reinforce very much, because you are probably going to lose it. If your old faction comes to siege it or a newly conquered fief, sometimes it is better not to try to defend it (only your capital must be defended to the death, the rest it is easier to conquer again after). That is because enemy factions may gather huge armies in sieges, you could face even 6000-8000 men in a siege. Usually after they got their conquer they disband the army. The point for you must be to fight as many lords separately as you can, taking them always prisoners and letting them rot in the dungeons. Never accept the ransom (unless you like some lord very much.... I never capture Brasidas, I just can't.... he was so great!). You will lose a lot of honour, and this is another reason because you need to collect a lot of it during all your campaign. When I rebel, I usually have 100-200 honour to spend. If you rebelled to Sparta.... well, I suggest to take it to the extreme consequences because if you got to capture many lords of them, it would not be wise to accept a peace treaty, releasing all of them, to be at war with them again in 30 days. Don't go around with too many men, usually 500, 600 would let you run away if needed. Always keep well armoured units in your army (just 20 recruits to make ranged units of them if you want and at the bottom of your party list). Try to recruit as many lords as you can (also from the surrounding factions). Persuasion is a skill which must be at least at level 4 by now. If the lord is a righteous one you may choose the most righteous reply, for all the rest the promise of land is the best choice. Here I would say "Don't give fiefs to your companions" but I can understand that it may be too hard for many of you (even if it must be years by now that I don't give fiefs to my two companions in Warband). In my campaign I started as adventurer, I became a general of Athens, fighting a lot against Sparta, I rebelled and I begun the dominion of Megara. I accepted peace with Athens which was being defeated by Sparta and I was immediately attacked by Sparta (the superpower in the mod as in the History at that time), I recruited many vassals fighing so many battles, I took on my side many vassals of Sparta with their cities. Now Megara rules the Peloponnese and it is the super power of the mod.... once you are a superpower, nobody declares wars on you and you declare wars on who you want....ahhhh that is life!!!
Starting as a ruler:
-) this is a different situation. At the start you have a lot of money 10000 or 20000. Don't waste them in troops or other things apart some food. The first two weeks are of low or negative budget for your major polis and that money is there to pay that loss. The money you get from a major polis depends a lot on its prosperity (a lot means that with 100% prosperity, a normal major polis gives all over 20000-30000 money, depending also on the ongoing wars and if the poleis that city trade with is owned by the enemy or not).
- If you chose to be the ruler of a faction at peace, you should spend the first 3-4 weeks at least holding feasts, patrolling around your city with 80-90 men to make sure villagers and caravans dont' get attacked by bandits (every party of villagers or caravan which reaches the city will increase prosperity of a bit, every villager or caravan which get attacked, will decrease prosperity of a good deal). Also do your villages' elder quests and your guild master quests (sometimes you should also include other cities' guildmaster quests). The composition of the army you use to patrol should be mainly made of hoplites with some ranged units and if you want, a 10% of recruits that you should put down to the bottom in your party list.
- If you chose the ruler of a faction at war (Sparta or Athens), what said about the money at the beginning is still true, but instead of doing quests or giving feasts, you should wait a day or two, maybe hunting bandits and then assemble the army and ride enemy's villages (better to choose 2-3 villages of cities that you are not planning to conquer at least in the first part of the game, but also not too faraway from where your interest are, because you may need to defend your land. Keep looting those villages when restored, not to ruin relation with too many villages). This way you are raiding villages with all your army as bodyguards, plus you are giving time to faraway lords to reach you (and you are also making a good loot). Don't go to siege things at the moment. The best strategy is to destroy the enemy's army, hitting where the odds are good. Where to fight depends on if you have good ranged units, cavalry or infantry. The player with a good infantry and good archers may win huge battles with starting negative odds too (you can also reire from the battle when your archers ended the arrows... but it would be a bit like cheating). In any case these are my battle tips:
Battle tips:
-) A good composition of the army is the secret for a likely victory on the battlefield. It depends very much on which faction you are playing, because there are some units very good for some factions, which should be included in a massive way in your army. In general terms, Hoplites are the core of the army so around the 70% should be made by it. Recruit them mainly from The AOR poleis of your faction (to keep some immersion) 25% archers (there are good mercenary ranged units if your faction does not have strong ones) and 5% cavalry (it really depends on the faction you chose, anyway at least 15 units must be taken otherwise better not to take anything at all). Cavalry must be used to kill the ranged units after the two phalanxes started fighting, moving Cavalry on a side or on the back. It is also useful to chase defeated enemies (it was used like this in the reality at that time).
- in the camp menu you can choose an option about where to put the player in the formation. If you choose 1 (infantry), once you give the order to follow you to your infantry in phalanx formation, they will stay exactly at your left (in ancient Greece the first position in the right was the position of the commander) and they will keep in line with you. That means that if you turn your character to one direction, all the phalanx will turn keeping itself in line with you. Using this feature is of immense importance once the player wants to use some kind of tactics, as to try to expose the back of the enemy formation to the group of archers you previously deployed somewhere (the enemy phalanx will try to face your phalanx if it is close enough)... you could also attract the enemy formation in a sort of trap, with two formations of ranged units (you assigned to group 4 and 5 for example) on both flanks of enemy.... lots of possible scenarios. Just remember that at this point to watch around, you should keep pressed the “\“ command not to turn all the army. In ancient Greece, Cavalry was mainly used to attack light infantry and ranged units and to chase defeated enemies. This mod tries to reproduce that aspect, so cavalry is not like in other mods of warband.This mod is mainly Greek factions oriented and at that time greek generals were on foot with their men.
I strongly raccomend not to play on horseback unless you play as a Persian, Makedonian, Thracian or Thessalian (if you play as these factions' rulers, you will already get the horse and the riding skills for it on purpose).
- When you meet the enemy, choose the first option to fight ("start battle in formation"). This way your army will be placed already in formation on the battlefield. In the same screen where you see the movement choice (F2), you are able to customize how your army should be displayed in every battle (related to your position). For example, if you want the cavalry to stay 50 meters behind you, you should move the cavalry where you want and then press F7 in that screen, to memorize that position, and you can do it for all the 9 possible groups in which you can divide your army. If you give the “Follow me” order, to all the units, selecting them pressing 0 (zero) they will move with you keeping each group that position you gave and memorized. This order is very useful to get close to where the enemy is (it often takes a hill and waits in defensive formation)
- I always give some extra command at the beginning: 2 times the stand closer to infantry, 2 times the loose formation to archers and the mount command to cavalry not to let them dismount. Then I usually give to everybody (0 button) the hold fire order to save arrows and the follow me order, to get closer to the enemy. Then I move the cavalry to some place faraway on the right or on the left, out of the sight of the enemy. I keep advancing with my army (which follows in the way I had memorized, usually archers ahead in front of me). When I see the enemy at the slinger shooting distance, i place my archers (I usually divide them in 2-3 groups as slingers, archers and cretan archers) faraway on the sides of the enemy, but keeping them at the same distance of my infantry (if the enemy has a good cavalry, as the delian league, I keep them closer to me on both sides). As I advance with my phalnx, I move my ranged units more clearly on both sides of the enemy . They all are still holding fire and are being hit by enemy's archers. At this point a I strongly advance to face enemy's infantry, we get close, than I start going backward, always facing the enemy, without turning because the phalanx will keep in line with me and if I turn I can make a disaster. The enemy follows me facing my formation and I order everyone to open fire, trying to expose the enemy back as much as possible. I move the cavalry close to the enemies' archers whatching out not to make them cross the infantry formation. When they are close to reach the point I gave, I change that order in Charge!. They will deal with archers and with the enemy cavalry who is attacking my ranged units (only on one side!).
When the enemy's reinforcement comes, I just follow the enemy's infantry going to meet it, once my arrows start hitting on shields, I stop the fire and so on.
Once the moment to attack comes, when my archers finished their projectiles, I usually send them to the closest border of the map, using the backspace map, and then I give them the order to retreat. Once they totally disappeared in the backspace map, I give their groups the order to follow me (in case there are other archers in my future reinforcements).
The attack with my infantry is usually like this. They follow me on my left side (as it was in the ancient Greece) until we are quite close, than I press the hold button (f1) on the enemy formation. They will attack it keeping their phalanx formation. If we need to disengage the enemy, I give the follow me order and I move backward, trying to stay always on the right edge of my formation. When only enemies archers are left I give the charge order, and that is all.
EDITED SPARTA 1.4
With the new version horse archers cavalry and horsemen throwing javelins behave in a much more realistic way both for AI and for the player. When they charge, they go around the enemy ( if infantry) trying to hit the side not protected by the shield. Or they try to hit other cavalry. Once they ended ammunition the charge old way, but from every side, accomplishing the object of creating confusion among the enemy phalanx.
Using them agains mainly infantry factions is priceless (the custom troops tree can make the player recruit Hippodromai very easily).
The shock cavalry gets a new role in fighting ranged cavalry, so to have contingents of cavalry and ranged cavalry has become a possible good choice for the player, I suggest to put them in two different divisions.
Extra tips for sieges-freelancer:
The player has a big impact on the faction he supports. If the player is not that experienced, that impact may be negative, but it is still there.
For example, the decision of the player to join a siege, has the effect to make the same siege end immediately (in the siege battle he is going to play). If left to itself, the AI would have time enough to gather the army to interrupt the attack on the town and to break the siege. An ai major polis siege attack may last several in-game days. If the player join the fight, he should be aware of what he is doing. If the odds are negative or he is not sure about how the siege map will let him use his troops in the fight, maybe it is better for his supported faction that the player go to drink a beer in a tavern instead of messing up things.
The same concept works for freelancing: sometimes your lord join a fight with very negative odds. He is doing because he sees friendly allies nearby, but in the actual battle they can’t help. At this point the best choice for the player could be to seek a brave and fast death (even twice if he was full health) and to retreat from the battle. The goal should be to let the lord fight himself, with his remaining troops while the player “is too wounded to fight”. This way your lord may receive allies reinforces or even run away.
In the sieges it may be a similar situation, where you must let the ai have time to react and not to make your party lose the town straight away. So, while freelancer, sometimes the player is better to be wounded for awhile.
Siege battles on different map should be fought using different tactics. Here I just suggest some actions that may be used, but your tactic is up to you:
First, it is wise to have special corps of ranged units in a team number different from the usual 2. These ranged units should be not common troops in your faction’s troop tree as you should be the only one to have them. I personally prefer to assign team 4 to Cretan Archers and team 6 to Persian Archers.
Talking exclusively about defending a polis in a siege battle:
Sometimes a polis has too many ranged units. The few hoplites show themselves ineffective to stop enemies at their gathering point. In some situations like this one you must get rid of all these ranged units. If the totality of troops is yours, the best idea is not to fill towns and your army with ranged units, there should be a small amount of generic team 2 and also a small amount (20-30 for team) of your special corps ranged units.
If in any case you start a battle with too many team 2 ranged units, if you have time, because there is no real emergency in act, go around for your ranged troops selecting groups by “/“ (nearby troops) and order them to charge and to hold fire. They will go to die in melee battle. Prefer in this actions the ranged units not using a bow (as they are more effective in sieges).
If you see enemies breaking your infantry and you are in emergency, just select the whole team 2 and send them to die (charge and hold fire command).
The point for you is to place the special ranged corps 4 and 6 in the best position as they will be your archers. All the rest your infantry. Often while a mass of hoplite hold the enemy in a narrow space, your archers kill the enemy in a massive way.
Place your 4-6 corps as soon the battle start, sometimes you must first make them hold the fire so that they move fast. Fo example, in the port major polis, I act like this:
At the Battle Start, team 6 hold position in the place behind the vases. Team 4 hold your fire and follow me. Then I run to the building where you can reach the roof and usually at the end of the ladder, I give the order to hold position on the roof. Then I jump from the ladder letting the team 4 keeping climbing it. For that purpose they are still holding fire.
If I see enemies having reached the front line of my infantry, i give the charge command to the infantry. Meanwhile I am reaching my position, which is close to team 6. Running there if I find some archers during the way I select them by”/“ being careful not to pick up my special corps troops so be far away from them before pressing the nearby soldiers, and send them to melee fight (charge and hold fire).
Once I reached the vases with plants, if the team 4 has at least 4-5 men on the roof, I order them to open the fire. If my infantry has gone down in fighting, I call them back in the same point where the road has a descent.
To give the charge order to infantry and to cal them back when needed is very important in all the sieges!
If I notice there are too many ranged troops in my army and too few hoplites (I can check the battle map pressing backspace to see how many archers are spread in the battle) i clean up the table sending the whole team 2 to fight holding fire.
In this siege map I was able with 1500 men to fight 7000 Peloponnesian league enemies, for example.
But what the player does in the fight, apart from giving orders? Well, for sieges, I suggest you to use javelins. Before entering a siege battle, in my inventory I replace the xiphos (no needed because no breaking spears in siege battles) with two packs of javelins.
During siege battles you can go to hit a bit with your spear, but only if you know what you are doing, as the player must not die or everything will be lost.
- ) First of all, you should start thinking about your future own faction since the first in-game day. It means that since the first day you should take care of gaining honour and rising relation with lords.
- to rise your honour, it is particularly effective the "save villages" missions . When you find a village infested by bandits, if you can defeat them, always do it (and refuse presents after that). Also to release captured lords may be good (above all if you don't own a town with dungeons where to close them, they are likely to run away).
- to rise the relationship points with a lord there are some tips that many newby players may not know. For example that lords have their own temper which influences their reactions to many things. There are righteous lords who have their relation set to 1/3 of your honour value up until you meet them. So if I meet a righteous lord for the first time when my honour is 3, I see his relation with me set on 1 point, if I meet him for the first time when my honour is 60, I will find he has already 20 relation point with me. The sense is: focus on few lords at the beginning of the game, asking quest and talking and chatting just to those, to leave other potential righteous lords to rise their relation with you as your honour grows up. Just to explain it, to have a relation over 20 let all the lords available to the option of talking with you in private to recruit them once you become ruler.
-) The levelling up of your companions and of yourself is very important. Here too you must remember that your goal is to rule the world (I hope you are ambitious folks), so choose the attributes you want to increase thinking about that. You are a general, a ruler in the future, so you can not waste all your points in strenght, power strike and similar. My suggestion is at the beginning to rise strength, agility and intelligence until reaching maybe 15,12,12. Pathfind must be the first thing to increase (I personally would not waste anything in riding and archery as in Sparta it is better to fight as a hoplite). Then concentrate yourself only on charisma until you reach at least 24 (it means 8 leadership which if you buy the nobles' ring from the merchant may be risen to 9). Leadership il very important not only for the party size bonus that it gives, but above all for the moral bonus it also gives. Once you are a ruler with a couple of major poleis, high renown and high leadership, you will reach easely 1000 party size. And it will be useful when you have your old faction against you. To keep that army you need two things: high morale and a lot of food. For the first thing, the main solution is Leadership. For food, it is important the new skill called foraging. It reduces the consume of food, it is linked to agility and it is a party skill. So I suggest to rise one of your companion focused only on agility, to make him reach very high level of foraging for when you rebel (8-9 level)
-) When you start the game you are weak, poor and miserable. Able to do nothing apart to be beaten by bandits... Isn't it true? Well, the first mistake I see people do in that situation is to go to villages, to recruit villagers and to try to fight bandits, losing 90% of the times. In my opinion the best option at the very beginning of the game is:
- if you don't want to enlist in a lord's army (and I agree because it is more hardcore this way), you should recruit the few men you can from the major poleis in the normal recruitment slot (let's say you can have 6-7 of them), then you may look for the grey Stratiotai (generic patrols) and help them to hunt bandits. just join them while they are fighting with good odds (in the battle you will control also their troops). If you see a smal bandit party running away from them, you can reach it, talk and let it go. This way it will stop for a moment making the patrol reach it faster. After a week there will be also factions' colored patrols and this thing will be even easier to do. At this point your goal should just be to reach 2000 money, which is what you need to go to a AOR polis and to recruit local soldiers. With these 20 well armoured hoplites you can start hunting small bandits by yourself. Collect money and recruit other hoplites in other AOR towns (since the refill rate is weekly). Once you reach 60-80 hoplites, you can start enjoying killing bandits, and also join a faction at war as mercenary (and it will end your economic struggle). During all this period I described, it is wise if you recruited also some base recruits who become ranged units. for example Delian league has good archers at level 2 (but you should check the troop trees in the report screen to choose what is better in the area where you play). Also remember how much money you can get if you win a tournament! About trading, you will see it very profitable buying in some places some things and selling them elsewhere (up to you to search and find what and where).
- if you want to enlist in a lord army, you should definitely choose the right lord. The best attribute a lord may have to enlist in is: to be of a faction at war, to own a major polis close to the action and not too faraway from the enemy (but not too close either) and the ideal would be if he is the marshal too. For example the lord of Tegea or Mantinea for the Saprtans or the lord of Maratona or Amphissa for Athenians. Once you are enlisted (freelancer mod) you should just care about the loot and the experience you get. In my opinion it is not worth to stay too long enlisted also because in the upgrading path you will not get the best armours of the game because they are mainly AOR hoplites reserved, and in the loots you should find something good soon. Let's say until you collect 10000 money for example or 3-4 weeks. Never desert and never rebel!
-) Once you are vassal and you have your own major polis, if you still plan to rule the world, here come some useful tips:
- increas as much you can the relation with the villages connected to your town (you can see them in the note menu), don't spend any effort\money on the villages the ruler gave you. That is because once you rebel, your fief and its villages will come with you.
- Litterally fill your major polis' garrison with Aor hoplites, archers, cretan archers, rhodian mercenaries and just with the high level troops that villages with good relation can provide (that is why you must reach the 99 relation with those). Before rebelling, it is wise to have collected something like 300.000, 400.000 money and a garrison in your major polis of at least 4000 men. (if you also have a castle, which is more difficult to defend, I don't think you should reinforce very much, because you are probably going to lose it. If your old faction comes to siege it or a newly conquered fief, sometimes it is better not to try to defend it (only your capital must be defended to the death, the rest it is easier to conquer again after). That is because enemy factions may gather huge armies in sieges, you could face even 6000-8000 men in a siege. Usually after they got their conquer they disband the army. The point for you must be to fight as many lords separately as you can, taking them always prisoners and letting them rot in the dungeons. Never accept the ransom (unless you like some lord very much.... I never capture Brasidas, I just can't.... he was so great!). You will lose a lot of honour, and this is another reason because you need to collect a lot of it during all your campaign. When I rebel, I usually have 100-200 honour to spend. If you rebelled to Sparta.... well, I suggest to take it to the extreme consequences because if you got to capture many lords of them, it would not be wise to accept a peace treaty, releasing all of them, to be at war with them again in 30 days. Don't go around with too many men, usually 500, 600 would let you run away if needed. Always keep well armoured units in your army (just 20 recruits to make ranged units of them if you want and at the bottom of your party list). Try to recruit as many lords as you can (also from the surrounding factions). Persuasion is a skill which must be at least at level 4 by now. If the lord is a righteous one you may choose the most righteous reply, for all the rest the promise of land is the best choice. Here I would say "Don't give fiefs to your companions" but I can understand that it may be too hard for many of you (even if it must be years by now that I don't give fiefs to my two companions in Warband). In my campaign I started as adventurer, I became a general of Athens, fighting a lot against Sparta, I rebelled and I begun the dominion of Megara. I accepted peace with Athens which was being defeated by Sparta and I was immediately attacked by Sparta (the superpower in the mod as in the History at that time), I recruited many vassals fighing so many battles, I took on my side many vassals of Sparta with their cities. Now Megara rules the Peloponnese and it is the super power of the mod.... once you are a superpower, nobody declares wars on you and you declare wars on who you want....ahhhh that is life!!!
Starting as a ruler:
-) this is a different situation. At the start you have a lot of money 10000 or 20000. Don't waste them in troops or other things apart some food. The first two weeks are of low or negative budget for your major polis and that money is there to pay that loss. The money you get from a major polis depends a lot on its prosperity (a lot means that with 100% prosperity, a normal major polis gives all over 20000-30000 money, depending also on the ongoing wars and if the poleis that city trade with is owned by the enemy or not).
- If you chose to be the ruler of a faction at peace, you should spend the first 3-4 weeks at least holding feasts, patrolling around your city with 80-90 men to make sure villagers and caravans dont' get attacked by bandits (every party of villagers or caravan which reaches the city will increase prosperity of a bit, every villager or caravan which get attacked, will decrease prosperity of a good deal). Also do your villages' elder quests and your guild master quests (sometimes you should also include other cities' guildmaster quests). The composition of the army you use to patrol should be mainly made of hoplites with some ranged units and if you want, a 10% of recruits that you should put down to the bottom in your party list.
- If you chose the ruler of a faction at war (Sparta or Athens), what said about the money at the beginning is still true, but instead of doing quests or giving feasts, you should wait a day or two, maybe hunting bandits and then assemble the army and ride enemy's villages (better to choose 2-3 villages of cities that you are not planning to conquer at least in the first part of the game, but also not too faraway from where your interest are, because you may need to defend your land. Keep looting those villages when restored, not to ruin relation with too many villages). This way you are raiding villages with all your army as bodyguards, plus you are giving time to faraway lords to reach you (and you are also making a good loot). Don't go to siege things at the moment. The best strategy is to destroy the enemy's army, hitting where the odds are good. Where to fight depends on if you have good ranged units, cavalry or infantry. The player with a good infantry and good archers may win huge battles with starting negative odds too (you can also reire from the battle when your archers ended the arrows... but it would be a bit like cheating). In any case these are my battle tips:
Battle tips:
-) A good composition of the army is the secret for a likely victory on the battlefield. It depends very much on which faction you are playing, because there are some units very good for some factions, which should be included in a massive way in your army. In general terms, Hoplites are the core of the army so around the 70% should be made by it. Recruit them mainly from The AOR poleis of your faction (to keep some immersion) 25% archers (there are good mercenary ranged units if your faction does not have strong ones) and 5% cavalry (it really depends on the faction you chose, anyway at least 15 units must be taken otherwise better not to take anything at all). Cavalry must be used to kill the ranged units after the two phalanxes started fighting, moving Cavalry on a side or on the back. It is also useful to chase defeated enemies (it was used like this in the reality at that time).
- in the camp menu you can choose an option about where to put the player in the formation. If you choose 1 (infantry), once you give the order to follow you to your infantry in phalanx formation, they will stay exactly at your left (in ancient Greece the first position in the right was the position of the commander) and they will keep in line with you. That means that if you turn your character to one direction, all the phalanx will turn keeping itself in line with you. Using this feature is of immense importance once the player wants to use some kind of tactics, as to try to expose the back of the enemy formation to the group of archers you previously deployed somewhere (the enemy phalanx will try to face your phalanx if it is close enough)... you could also attract the enemy formation in a sort of trap, with two formations of ranged units (you assigned to group 4 and 5 for example) on both flanks of enemy.... lots of possible scenarios. Just remember that at this point to watch around, you should keep pressed the “\“ command not to turn all the army. In ancient Greece, Cavalry was mainly used to attack light infantry and ranged units and to chase defeated enemies. This mod tries to reproduce that aspect, so cavalry is not like in other mods of warband.This mod is mainly Greek factions oriented and at that time greek generals were on foot with their men.
I strongly raccomend not to play on horseback unless you play as a Persian, Makedonian, Thracian or Thessalian (if you play as these factions' rulers, you will already get the horse and the riding skills for it on purpose).
- When you meet the enemy, choose the first option to fight ("start battle in formation"). This way your army will be placed already in formation on the battlefield. In the same screen where you see the movement choice (F2), you are able to customize how your army should be displayed in every battle (related to your position). For example, if you want the cavalry to stay 50 meters behind you, you should move the cavalry where you want and then press F7 in that screen, to memorize that position, and you can do it for all the 9 possible groups in which you can divide your army. If you give the “Follow me” order, to all the units, selecting them pressing 0 (zero) they will move with you keeping each group that position you gave and memorized. This order is very useful to get close to where the enemy is (it often takes a hill and waits in defensive formation)
- I always give some extra command at the beginning: 2 times the stand closer to infantry, 2 times the loose formation to archers and the mount command to cavalry not to let them dismount. Then I usually give to everybody (0 button) the hold fire order to save arrows and the follow me order, to get closer to the enemy. Then I move the cavalry to some place faraway on the right or on the left, out of the sight of the enemy. I keep advancing with my army (which follows in the way I had memorized, usually archers ahead in front of me). When I see the enemy at the slinger shooting distance, i place my archers (I usually divide them in 2-3 groups as slingers, archers and cretan archers) faraway on the sides of the enemy, but keeping them at the same distance of my infantry (if the enemy has a good cavalry, as the delian league, I keep them closer to me on both sides). As I advance with my phalnx, I move my ranged units more clearly on both sides of the enemy . They all are still holding fire and are being hit by enemy's archers. At this point a I strongly advance to face enemy's infantry, we get close, than I start going backward, always facing the enemy, without turning because the phalanx will keep in line with me and if I turn I can make a disaster. The enemy follows me facing my formation and I order everyone to open fire, trying to expose the enemy back as much as possible. I move the cavalry close to the enemies' archers whatching out not to make them cross the infantry formation. When they are close to reach the point I gave, I change that order in Charge!. They will deal with archers and with the enemy cavalry who is attacking my ranged units (only on one side!).
When the enemy's reinforcement comes, I just follow the enemy's infantry going to meet it, once my arrows start hitting on shields, I stop the fire and so on.
Once the moment to attack comes, when my archers finished their projectiles, I usually send them to the closest border of the map, using the backspace map, and then I give them the order to retreat. Once they totally disappeared in the backspace map, I give their groups the order to follow me (in case there are other archers in my future reinforcements).
The attack with my infantry is usually like this. They follow me on my left side (as it was in the ancient Greece) until we are quite close, than I press the hold button (f1) on the enemy formation. They will attack it keeping their phalanx formation. If we need to disengage the enemy, I give the follow me order and I move backward, trying to stay always on the right edge of my formation. When only enemies archers are left I give the charge order, and that is all.
EDITED SPARTA 1.4
With the new version horse archers cavalry and horsemen throwing javelins behave in a much more realistic way both for AI and for the player. When they charge, they go around the enemy ( if infantry) trying to hit the side not protected by the shield. Or they try to hit other cavalry. Once they ended ammunition the charge old way, but from every side, accomplishing the object of creating confusion among the enemy phalanx.
Using them agains mainly infantry factions is priceless (the custom troops tree can make the player recruit Hippodromai very easily).
The shock cavalry gets a new role in fighting ranged cavalry, so to have contingents of cavalry and ranged cavalry has become a possible good choice for the player, I suggest to put them in two different divisions.
Extra tips for sieges-freelancer:
The player has a big impact on the faction he supports. If the player is not that experienced, that impact may be negative, but it is still there.
For example, the decision of the player to join a siege, has the effect to make the same siege end immediately (in the siege battle he is going to play). If left to itself, the AI would have time enough to gather the army to interrupt the attack on the town and to break the siege. An ai major polis siege attack may last several in-game days. If the player join the fight, he should be aware of what he is doing. If the odds are negative or he is not sure about how the siege map will let him use his troops in the fight, maybe it is better for his supported faction that the player go to drink a beer in a tavern instead of messing up things.
The same concept works for freelancing: sometimes your lord join a fight with very negative odds. He is doing because he sees friendly allies nearby, but in the actual battle they can’t help. At this point the best choice for the player could be to seek a brave and fast death (even twice if he was full health) and to retreat from the battle. The goal should be to let the lord fight himself, with his remaining troops while the player “is too wounded to fight”. This way your lord may receive allies reinforces or even run away.
In the sieges it may be a similar situation, where you must let the ai have time to react and not to make your party lose the town straight away. So, while freelancer, sometimes the player is better to be wounded for awhile.
Siege battles on different map should be fought using different tactics. Here I just suggest some actions that may be used, but your tactic is up to you:
First, it is wise to have special corps of ranged units in a team number different from the usual 2. These ranged units should be not common troops in your faction’s troop tree as you should be the only one to have them. I personally prefer to assign team 4 to Cretan Archers and team 6 to Persian Archers.
Talking exclusively about defending a polis in a siege battle:
Sometimes a polis has too many ranged units. The few hoplites show themselves ineffective to stop enemies at their gathering point. In some situations like this one you must get rid of all these ranged units. If the totality of troops is yours, the best idea is not to fill towns and your army with ranged units, there should be a small amount of generic team 2 and also a small amount (20-30 for team) of your special corps ranged units.
If in any case you start a battle with too many team 2 ranged units, if you have time, because there is no real emergency in act, go around for your ranged troops selecting groups by “/“ (nearby troops) and order them to charge and to hold fire. They will go to die in melee battle. Prefer in this actions the ranged units not using a bow (as they are more effective in sieges).
If you see enemies breaking your infantry and you are in emergency, just select the whole team 2 and send them to die (charge and hold fire command).
The point for you is to place the special ranged corps 4 and 6 in the best position as they will be your archers. All the rest your infantry. Often while a mass of hoplite hold the enemy in a narrow space, your archers kill the enemy in a massive way.
Place your 4-6 corps as soon the battle start, sometimes you must first make them hold the fire so that they move fast. Fo example, in the port major polis, I act like this:
At the Battle Start, team 6 hold position in the place behind the vases. Team 4 hold your fire and follow me. Then I run to the building where you can reach the roof and usually at the end of the ladder, I give the order to hold position on the roof. Then I jump from the ladder letting the team 4 keeping climbing it. For that purpose they are still holding fire.
If I see enemies having reached the front line of my infantry, i give the charge command to the infantry. Meanwhile I am reaching my position, which is close to team 6. Running there if I find some archers during the way I select them by”/“ being careful not to pick up my special corps troops so be far away from them before pressing the nearby soldiers, and send them to melee fight (charge and hold fire).
Once I reached the vases with plants, if the team 4 has at least 4-5 men on the roof, I order them to open the fire. If my infantry has gone down in fighting, I call them back in the same point where the road has a descent.
To give the charge order to infantry and to cal them back when needed is very important in all the sieges!
If I notice there are too many ranged troops in my army and too few hoplites (I can check the battle map pressing backspace to see how many archers are spread in the battle) i clean up the table sending the whole team 2 to fight holding fire.
In this siege map I was able with 1500 men to fight 7000 Peloponnesian league enemies, for example.
But what the player does in the fight, apart from giving orders? Well, for sieges, I suggest you to use javelins. Before entering a siege battle, in my inventory I replace the xiphos (no needed because no breaking spears in siege battles) with two packs of javelins.
During siege battles you can go to hit a bit with your spear, but only if you know what you are doing, as the player must not die or everything will be lost.
THIS MOD IS MEANT FOR VETERAN PLAYERS OF WARBAND
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