Cisero 1.2+ Sparta tips

[Jin Shepard]

Hello

For the past well.. week(s) I tried to play Sparta, but no matter what I do, I cant seem to win.

Lots of people say get a lot of heavy infrantry and you faceroll, yet I never seem to do, even if they got zero heavy infrantry, and just 5 archers 5 light infrantry, i loose quite a lot of men with my 5 heavy infrantry and 5 archers.

Expanding is another issue, the local powers, city states etc are ALWAYS in a triangle defencive packs, I cant win vs 20 stacks when I got 10.

Also their forts are so much stronger, I loose so many men that even if I manage to get a bit of land, even crete as a whole, I run out of manpower, completely.

the vanilla version i saw one or two lets plays of Sparta but neither of them I have ever experienced ingame myself, as if they were insanely lucky for the city states to loose their defensive packs.

[Matt Bellamy]

Hi, I do not know what difficulty you use but honestly I am a little surprised by what I am seeing.I think the Sparta campaign is a generally easy one.

FIrst things first there is no reason to use archers especially as Sparta.Archers are ver weak in general, so avoid using them unless your traditions are based around archery. This is not the case with Sparta. So use only heavy or light hoplites and always in seperate armies, so as to get the max bonus from using the phalanx formation.

There s also a tradition that gives you 10% discipline (or attack , I dont remember exactly,) and it is amongst the first available traditions. Also there is a tech around level 3 or 4 that gives you another 10 % morale or discipline (again forgive me for not rememberign exactly). If you add the 5% discipline from Spartan Heritage that gives you a fairly good heavy infantry army.

As far as diplomacy is concerned, I generally always go for Messenia first if that is possible. Use your allies, you can call them in offensive wars and help combat these triple defensive alliances ,or more.

I know forts in the Peloponesse are a ...big obstacle, literally, but if you stackwipe on the first days of the war low morale armies, then you can preserve your manpower.

That is the most basic advice I could think of, and I have played as Sparta and Athens a lot, ( because I was born and live in Athens lol ). If you need something else tell me ,hoped this helped you.

[Jin Shepard]

I go to war without a casus beli on Messenia right away in the first month, if I do not do t his h e will sign up with multiple defensive packs.

I didnt knkow archers were weak for sparta, and that I have to seperate my armies from heavy and light infrantry, I will try this next.

But everytime I tend to do a bit well, Mecadone attacks me with massive armies compare to mine, it seems I am a noob?

I play even on normal difficult...

It would be so good to see a lets play Sparta cisero but there are none..

Should I bother with buildings btw?

And how do I gain enough manpower with small amount of lands to get more ?

[Jin Shepard]

I tried 3 more times, go to war next to me to get the land, then I wait and see who is able to be attacked, but everything has 5 defensive pacs, for ages! And Macadonia doesn care, he just facerolls over everyone of them, leaving half my island covered in Macadonia or his tribute city states, I am stuck every single time, I am doing something horrible wrong if everyone is saying how easy it is or things have changed a lot and well, show me how? video? Pictures of a playthrough? Because to me it is almost next to impossible, Macadonia or Phrygia just destroys everything.

[Apohavnosis]

This is the order of wars I found out was the easiest during my Sparta "Molon Labe" games.

1) Take Messinia.

2) Ally with either Aetolia, Akarnania or Boeitia (depending on their allies) and wage war with Megalopolis defensive pact, or Lepreon defensive pact. If they pull you into a war, don't give up unless it drags for too long.

3) Wage war against Elis alliance OR the other defensive pact. Then declare on what's left, besides Argos. Epidauros and Troizen could be hard to get, if Argos doesn't provide mil access.

4) Patrai should still be available for the taking along with their other buddy city state, declare on them.

After you hold all of the Peloponissian territories, besides Argos and maybe Epidauros and Troizen, you can declare on Argos which is guaranteed by Macedon and wipe it's army out.

Patrai is the key territory to defend against Macedonian armies, because they can't cross from Megara. Keep a fortress there and attack their armies after they have crossed the strait.

An army of 10 light inf, 5 heavy, 2 cav and an auxillary of 10 archers was enough for me to win those strait battles.

5) After the big war against Macedon, go for Crete. OR go for Crete first and then against Macedon, if you feel you need it. Build only the fast ships to transport troops and ignore any major naval engagements.


You could also try and get an army of 10 horse archers, they can make a HUGE difference against Hellenic armies. I find heavy infantry a bit less effective in Cicero update. Plus, the horse archers mobility is insane.

[Jin Shepard]

I did as you say,

1) I toke Mesinia

2) Allied with Aetolia

3) waged war against Lepreon so that there was millitairy acces for Aetolia

4) and the rest, I cant take, the city states at this point ( i think 30 mins into the game) has a defensive packt of 7 city states... I canno thandle that ...

patrai is also in a def pact with Aetolia, my ally.

[Jin Shepard]

Tried it again, with a allie, but the city states x4 defensive pact just destroys my armies of 10 Archers, 10 Hopolites and 6 heavy units. even with 2x 10 generals and 1 8.

I just do something so bad, I dont understand it, I need to ''see'' what people do, why isnt anyone doing a vid!!

[Apohavnosis]

Give it some time, all these alliances and pacts don't last for very long. This waiting time is good to fabricate claims on future conquests, like Crete and let your country recover it's manpower and war exhaustion.

[Jehzir]

I actually take Messinia first with the 1 every 10 year CB, ally with Elis and fab CB on the closest CS on crete (forgot name) once that is done...

Go south and take as much of crete/rhoads as I can sometimes its 4-6 cities other times is the whole island, it depends on allies and wars going on. Quickly ally with Gortoya on crete to have them help out clearing the others off. Sure it will piss them off but use their manpower and not yours. One trick I use is stacking 6k with a higher level general than Gortoya and then let them stack on the fort and then assault the forts using their manpower, making it easier to clean up.

Then head down to cyraneia and wack them, they are usually solo. Your first shot you may only get as far as the capital, attack it from the east and make sure your boats are already in the water with at least 16 stack of each army/ships when you declare. That is the income boost. This method comes with the added danger of Egypt gaining a CB on you. So start improving their opinion of them before you start the war if you want a bit more comfort. ONLY WAR Cyraneia if Egypt is at WAR with other nations, such as nabaeta or kush, if Egypt is not at war, they will CB the single missing city for the province and steam roll you.

THEN I come back "home", with my new found wealth an allied with Partari as Rome and Macedon already wacked the easy stuff as I was taking out Messinia . I was invited to be a part of the larger 8 city defense league which i joined to give me a bit more defense against Rome/Macedon. Which makes it easier to take on the small defense league.

Took out the small defense league then dropped Elis as ally and waited the 10 years or so for manpower to rebuild.

Took out Elis and then follow what Vasilas said with the Macedon battles, I use slightly different build in 10 LI/8HI/10A with a 5LC (use forced march) reserve for quick reinforce from one city back that the AI cannot see, wait until the macedon armies lock then throw the reserve troops on.

[Jin Shepard]

I have done a lot of that myself, though I never got as far as egypt, the reason being that Phrygia or what is the n ame and macedonia already declare war on me way before that ever has a chance of happening.

I dont usually have higher then 2 aggrasive expantion at any given time, but they always decalre war on me and then land with 20k armies on crete or my starter island.

Maybe i wil make a vid of my own hmm to show. Man that would take a lot of gigs of space though!

[Azazel]

you are doing something wrong or you dont pay attention to some important things.the AI is the example for the word"braindead" you have to be able to exploit that
hurry tech,take the right ideas
import tradegoods supporting your army with their boni
ally guys to help you in your wars and betray/ eat them up after
for gods sake-watch the terrain you will be fighting in
choose the battlefield -drag them in to attak you in the mountains and reinforce your troops
dont split your troops around-be ready to reinforce for example a siege
go for stackwipes
strategic placed forts are a very good against AI-i love them
take your chance-but when it isnt there-dont force it,be patient,it will come
if you watch out for this points you should be able to beat everybody at a force ratio 1-2 against you

[Jin Shepard]

Current game is going a lot better, I got a bit of land next to egypt, but he wants it, already went to war with me twice, but somehow I managed to fend them off ( not that he actually went in full force...)

I also made a nice little horse army, when the ai attacks and see a bigger army coming he runs, but horses will catch up, meaning my main army can then catch up in the fight, and i can manage to take down a full army with little losses.

And yes, I also now make more use of the braindead ai, I just went into a suprise war with Macedonia because he spend all his manpower on a war in the north, so I am now taking over the south of macedonia :)

Still worried about egypt...

[Coffee]

Thanks for the thread, this helped a lot.

I started off attacking Messinia. It can require some restarts because its best to get the 1 month CB on them and dont always get it from the military government thing. From there I took some of crete and expanded my influence there and got Patrai to a level 3 fort.

The best victory came from when I put a claim earlier on to west delta of egypt. In this particular game egypt very early on lost some land to antigonids, but didn't make too much a difference in their power.

However I had a feeling the two kingdoms would go to war again, and that they did. Egypt I knew would be heavily distracted with antigonids since they are a big power. So I gathered 10k of my army (most I could afford) and landed them on the province with a port next to alexandreia (Kanapos). That way I could send my 13 sized fleet to the dock if egypt's navy came by and then take it out to help with the siege of alexandreia.

And with that, took egypt's capital, the delta of the nile and up into memphis. I could potentially have got more, but didn't want too much aggressive expansion (already got quite a bit from it) and I'm pretty happy with what I got. But best game I've had yet in imperator and now gonna work on converting the part of egypt I took. I could have got more of the nile, but that is okay.

My economy in any case has gone way up and got great land.