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Example. I captured and raised a large Chinese city. It contained a Campus, military district, Holysite, and theater district.
Imagine my joy when when I got boosts for all of those, and something else too which I'm not sure about, but not complaining. 1 turn, and 5 Boosts/Inspirations. There is also an achievement for getting over 4 in one turn. I got it with 5! Go for it.
1) Tech Path: Bronze Working, Archery, Horseback Riding, Iron Working, and Construction (for Siege Tower). After that, research whatever you want. But 100% do Bronze Working first.
2) Build an Encampment and Basilikoi Paides ASAP. The district and building will boost unit production and provide 2 Great General points per turn. On top of all that, the BP boosts the XP gain rate of both your Unique Units. The best part, however, is the fact that any military unit built in a city with a BP will donate 25% of its production cost as science. That's huge in the early game, and will speed you right along. Combine that with the Eureka bonus from conquering Encampments or Campuses, and you'll fly through the tech tree. DO NOT neglect the power of the Basilikoi Paides.
3) Build some Hetairoi once your BP is done. The Hetairoi is a good unit with a LOT of interesting characteristics, but it's most important trait is the 5 Great General points you earn every time it kills a unit.
4) Get the Classical Era Great General. A great general is absolutely crucial for Macedon. ONLY the Classical Era GG will boost your Unique Units. If you miss the GG, your Classical Army will under-perform, substantially. This is why you want the Encampment ASAP - to start accumulating those GG points. With a Classical GG, your Hypaspists will have their movement points increased by 50%, and the the Hetairoi will get a total of +10 combat strength when adjacent to the GG.
5) Get Oligarchy for your government. Only the Hypaspist will get the +4 bonus, but combine this with +5 vs. cities, and +5 from a GG, and you have quite a good city taker. Prior to Oligarchy, Hypaspsists and Hetairoi adjacent to a GG are equally good at taking cities......at low promotion levels.
6) The Hypaspist has two bonuses: +5 vs. Cities, and +50% Support bonuses. The second one is largely invisible. Support bonuses are purely defensive, so you can never hover your mouse over and evaluate the combat. Just know that massed Hypaspists next to each other are slightly sturdier than normal swords.
7) The Hetairoi gets a free promotion, generates 5 GG points when killing a unit, gets +5 combat when adjacent to a GG, and counts as Heavy Cavalry instead of Light Cavalry like the Horseman it replaces does. A genuinely unique UU.
Adding to 7, the Hetairoi are great for the reasons you mentioned, plus it's good to produce a lot. They upgrade fairly early (with tech unlocked) and the cost is lowish. Very low if the 50% reduce upgrade costs card is set in policies.
Well, good points, and please don't take my comment about 4 as a critecism. It's not.
I missed it (admitely on level 4 prince only), but all was not lost. Thanks.
Edit: It's also my favorite civ so far. I love those boosts/inspirations when capturing a city with district. I got 5 boosts for one city!
The GG might be more crucial to have if you start next to someone with a good ancient or classical UU like Gilgamesh. Otherwise, I'd focus a UU and try to start finishing off some weak neighbors.
So make peace.. then more war!!
As macedon I prefer to let the ai build up abit first.. let them get some districts out and build all the wonders.. then you get more bang for your buck when they give...erm.. loose them to you.
The thing is that your Unique Units are not that much better than the units they replace. Your Hypaspist is only better when attacking cities; in a field battle, it's basically a Swordsman with +1 extra combat strength per neighboring unit when defending. On average, this bonus will be +2 or +3. Not exactly huge by itself. Your Hetairoi is quite different from a Horseman, but head to head, without a Great General, the Hetairoi performs almost identically. The free promotion can allow you to do some interesting things (healing, getting a jump on later promotions, etc), but it gives you no bonus in a head to head clash with another Horseman.
Even worse, as Heavy Cavalry, your Hetairoi don't get the Level 1 promotions for +5 vs. Spears or +5 vs. Ranged/Siege, substantially decreasing the offensive punch they could have against other units (the primary purpose of cavalry units).
The Hetairoi get a lot of neat bonuses that I like, but in a straight fight - again, much like the Hypaspist - they don't have much of an advantage over the Horseman it replaces. Unlike say the Legion or the Eagle Warrior.
The logistical advantage of both units - the lack of strategic resource requirement - is not has huge as it was in Civ 5. Civ 5 limited the absolute numbers of a unit you could have according to the numbers of Horses, Iron, etc. you had. In Civ 6 it's more of the yes/no question Civ 3 had. So while you can be guaranteed to have access to both of these good units, it's not exactly impossible for the AI to have easy access as well. Horses are pretty common.
What I'm trying to say is that Macedon needs that Classical Great General to get the most out of your first major war of conquest. Without it, your units just aren't thaaaaat much better than the normal equivalents. Make no mistake, a good player won't actually need that much of an advantage. But if what you're looking for is to use Macedon to its fullest - then you need the Classical GG. To do otherwise means you're ignoring all the clear connections the Devs are making between Macedon, the Hetairoi, and Great Generals.
As Macedon, you need to be maximizing the Classical Era push, and getting +1 movement for your conquering army will speed you along in combination with the Wonder Heal. And anyone who's played the Alexander scenario a few times knows how crucial that +5 bonus from GG adjacency is for Hetairoi. It can and will make the difference between killing a unit and leaving it at 1HP.
And my point is that delaying hetaroi until after you've built an encampment isn't something I would do, it's costing you the opportunity to easily dispatch a neighbor or two before walls. Of course they're better with GGs, but it's worth making a couple of them and using their GG point bonus to spawn one rather than wait passively for the encampment to do it for you.
Every unit you build prior to the Basilikois Paides is one unit - not - contributing 25% of its production to your science efforts. Hetairoi and Hypaspists both cost 100 production, so that's 25 beakers for each unit you produce. That makes a big difference with the early techs. And make no mistake, I have tried your approach before. On the higher difficulty levels, the GG points you get from the Encampment + BP will more reliably get you that GG than the intermittent 5 GG points you get from the Hetairoi. You absolutely want both.
Furthermore, as Martin said earlier, you don't actually want to kill people super quickly. You want them to mature a bit - build multiple districts. The more Districts they have, the more boosts you get. There's no real reason to do a super early rush as Macedon. Your bonuses work better if you take the time to get the GG, get a decent force of UUs, and build a Siege Tower.
With a Siege Tower, it literally doesn't matter if your enemy has walls. Your Hypaspists have +10 defense with the Tortoise promotion. Your Hetairoi have +7 defense with the Barding promotion. Your GG adds +5 combat and +1 movement. You will crush them just as easy as you could with a super early rush. Except NOW, you've given them some time to fatten their cities up for you. Macedon does not want crappy cities. Macedon wants splendid centers of science and culture. There's no reason to attack any city that does not have at least 1 District you get a boost from.
I don't disagree that a couple early Hetairoi could allow you to do an early rush. What I'm arguing is that doing so wastes a lot of Macedon's potential. That Basilikoi Paides is the first thing you want in your capital every single game - unless - you're getting rushed super early and need more units. In every other case, an early BP will pay for itself with the early Great General, with the boosted unit production, with the increased XP gain of trained units, and - most importantly - with the science boost you get for every single military unit.
Basilikoi Paides first. The end.
*One final point about the Great General. With the Classical GG, you will allow your Classical Era units to compete favorably with Medieval Era units. Properly leveled, a Hetairoi with GG adjacent is equal to a Level 1 or 2 Knight. With the +10 attack vs cities at Level 3, +5 from GG, and +5 innate, your Hypaspist will have a much longer period in which it can reasonably attack walled cities (with Siege Tower help). And the only way to do that is to go hard for the Classical GG. If you miss the first Classical GG, there will not be a second. Unlike all later Generals, the first Classical GG is the only one you get.
Not at all true. You're painting this opinion as fact, and it's coloring the rest of your entire argument. If you can capture two early capitals, you're almost entirely uncatchable for the rest of the game and you've eliminated irritating neighbors. You even admit yourself that building Basilikoi first only works if you don't get rushed. If I border Macedon at a start, and I have the ability to rush and destroy them before they become a huge problem, I will. If you're going to rely on the AI's complete lack of prioritization and initiative as a keystone of your strategy, at least have the objectivity to realize it isn't always the optimal solution.
PS Saying "the end" and then posting another paragraph isn't how endings work.
Two early capitals taken? And you're not getting rushed?
Have you tried Macedon on the higher difficulties?
If you spawn next to Rome on Emperor difficulty, they WILL rush you with mass warriors and archers. If you spawn next to Aztecs on Emperor, they WILL rush you with Eagle Warriors. Unless you spawn next to a super peaceful civilization, I'm sorry, but you're NOT out massing an aggressive civilization like Rome, Aztec, or Kongo in a battle of Warriors and Archers. Just ain't happening. The best bet is to play defensive until you can beat them in unit quality. Your Hypaspists and Hetairoi - with - a general over their Warriors and Archers.
Listen, I'm glad that rushing your neighbors with the equivalent of Horsemen is working out for you. But working for you is not the same as using Macedon in the optimal manner. You're pursuing a strategy that would work the same for literally any other civilization out there. You're not actually endorsing a strategy that uses the best tools Macedon has at its disposal.
Like I stated in my first post, I'm asking for the feedback because I want to play Macedon at a high level. I also said I've only put in about 6 hours as Macedon. I always "get my wet" if you will at Prince difficulty because I feel it is balanced and the AI isn't cheating yet. I haven't moved up in difficulty quite yet.
My apologies if it looked like I was writing that in response to your post. Apparently we were writing at the same time. I was responding more directly to Paugus, who was the last person to post.
Prince is definitely the best place to start at - I also find the higher difficult AI bonuses obnoxious in how obvious it is that they get free stuff.
I've done nothing but play Macedon since the DLC landed, which is why I have so many opinions. I have won games, but I have also lost a few at Emperor level. Those lost games happened pretty quickly - when Rome rushes you with 6 Warriors and 4 Archers and you just have Slingers..........well, it's pretty bad. There's a reason why I'm up front about Macedon's super early rush vulnerability.
The thing about Macedon is that - rushing aside - they scale well at high difficulty because Hellenistic Fusion works better for you the better the AI is doing. Kind of like Peter the Great's ability. At high levels, the AI spams more cities - and - builds them up better. That means more districts for you to get boosts from. It makes the slog of fighting a "cheating" AI a little easier/more enjoyable. There is nothing better than getting 5 boosts at a time from conquering a city (4 districts plus 1 from something like the 6 farm feudalism boost for example).
No worries thanks for your candor! If anything this makes me even more excited to get better with Macedon. I don't know if you play MTG, but when I say I like the "flavor" of Macedon it's really about the little nuances of the Civ, and that's what makes me want to get better at it. The fact that Macedon scales so well on higher difficulties due to it's UA makes it even more interesting. It really is a fun Civ to play as. The scoring of Alexander's theme makes it even better.