Aeneas tips early game?

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

Aeneas is one of the strongest characters in Troy. His early game roster...? Not so much. I find the early hours *really* hard to get through. Until Turn 10, when he can build his first military building and get some really good swordsmen, his roster is filled with trash, and you also tend to be running against the clock against an ally you can't fight that early because he's a Trojan Pillar (Declare war on him over a territory he nabs, and his army is not only filled with units that are just plain BETTER than anything I can field, but the other Pillars will break alliances and pretty much the entire Northeastern map will declare war on me >.>.

[Sn3z]

Go wide playstyle his roster albeit weak is so accessible, sell all your stone,wood and bronze income to infalte your food and go for more map presence, grabbing Hephaestus is also pretty decent with stat upgrades.

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

Yeah, with the free update Hephaestus quickly became my goto for Aeneas; 15-20 (20 if you use the agent) to armor and attack was great for him. I was just wondering if I was doing something wrong; until you get up to Rank 3 city Aeneas units are...Horrible. But he does get at higher levels a solid roster.

But to expand I usually take the northeast of the map; plenty of small two settlement provinces to let me build as many temples as I can. Unfortunately I tend to not be able to get the Prometheus' Ring because a Trojan Pillar neighbor keeps nabbing up the choice land; can't confederate him no matter how much I pump diplomacy bonuses. A real pain since that guy has TWO grain producing settlements. >.> And Aeneas has very little of his own in that region. So...Yeah, a lot of trades for keeping grain in the green.

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by jakl201:

Yeah, with the free update Hephaestus quickly became my goto for Aeneas; 15-20 (20 if you use the agent) to armor and attack was great for him. I was just wondering if I was doing something wrong; until you get up to Rank 3 city Aeneas units are...Horrible. But he does get at higher levels a solid roster.

But to expand I usually take the northeast of the map; plenty of small two settlement provinces to let me build as many temples as I can. Unfortunately I tend to not be able to get the Prometheus' Ring because a Trojan Pillar neighbor keeps nabbing up the choice land; can't confederate him no matter how much I pump diplomacy bonuses. A real pain since that guy has TWO grain producing settlements. >.> And Aeneas has very little of his own in that region. So...Yeah, a lot of trades for keeping grain in the green.

Stagger the trades over x turns as well, you don't want to be caught with your pants down in a load of negative food. Also I think building the resource buildings which give negative growth(-70) are the best fit with the selling off of resources at the start, so you can pray for growth bonus and/or use the building to mitigate and any other means, finally rushing the food tech will help you become less reliant on selling resources where in the middle game you can settle down and buildup, it also gives you time to prep agents for recruiting at rank to reduce the food consumption of armies.

Hephaestus also has excellent syngery with above play-style because your selling off your resources which in turn create scaling issues, well that gets solved because you get a big discount on construction of resources buildings using the temple and you can stack that with the research on the way the grabbing the final food tech, its all part of the plan.

The only issue which does arise is trying to increase influence, often I have I just waiting for that to rise to after I got the infrastructure setup, so maybe someone can work on that issue and fit that in with the "sell your resoruces playstyle".

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

Yeah, unfortunately Aeneas starting area has a very low amount of people. I wouldn't build it on my main temple, but Zeus and the chains where you recruit the Envoys, then *use* the Envoys to boost your own Influence as well as that in neighbors seems to be the best way to go.

After playing a few more of the other kinds of faction heroes to refresh my memory, Aeneas Rank 3+ is actually pretty good; his swordsmen and spearmen create a good bulwark, and his unit selection just gets better after that. Low amount of missile types does suck; if you want bowmen best to summon Artemis' or go with Cerberus to get Elysian Marksmen. It's just the first 10 turns suck; I never really use his 'intended' function of having stacks of expendable units to soften up his main armies advance.

I just find the first few turns rather critical; his 'ally' neighbor Illos will snatch crap up to prevent you from gaining the Prometheus Ring unless you are *extremely* quick. And having to start out one of your first turns replenishing from building up a razed settlement sucks.

Another tip I can offer is that after you are established, have most of the production types of buildings, send a stack across the Sea to the West to capture Dion (IE Mount Olympus). The unique building there gives you a whopping -2 to turn cooldown on Hetacombs and acts like a temple which increased price *and* favor gained from them. Quite helpful with his unique mechanics, but puts you relatively close to Pythia and Achilles.

[JimmyTheSnake]

Load up on full stack armies with only the cheapest units. You can afford two full stacks like this right from the start. Just go on a rampage attacking the weaker enemies near you. It's like playing Oda from Shogun 2.