Sparta Opening Moves

[Sterling]

Hey everyone, just wanted to see if anyone had some advice for what to do with Sparta with the current Meta. The guides that I have found are out of date, and for me it is almost impossible to deal with the Defensive League. Am I just doing something wrong? Is there something I am missing, or do I need to change my strategy and just wait for a while. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

[DireStrait727]

push, same issues (i am a noob in paradox games tho)

[MerlinTheGameWizard]

I haven't played sparta since the changes but I'll probe around and play as them and see if I can't find a strategy that works.

[Landstander]

your goal should be the consolidation of the lower half of greece as fast as you can. then go for the crete islands. once you have those build up buildings for manpower and money. get your manpower up. hit macedon while they are at war with someone else. make allies so you can call them into war to help you. improve relations with antigonid and make him an ally. call him in as much as you can. let his troops get worn down from your wars. hopefully egypt or seleucid will tear him up a bit for you when youve taken all of greece you can go east

[ashbery76]

Kick him down the well.

[Lace]

For me, you have to wait until the Arcadian League falls behind, or Argos is not guaranteed by Macedon anymore. You should attack Argos first and then the Arcadian League. After you defeat them, the Peloponnese is pretty much yours. Elis and the Achean factions are weak, you should go for them as fast as you can, or Macedon will go for them.

I dont ally with Antigonid Kingdom mainly because they are a way harder foe to defeat than Macedon, and the Antigonids will beat the sh*t out of Macedon in almost all scenarios. Way more useful a weak Macedon that you can conquer than a super big Antigonid Kingdom. Cause don't forget the Antigonids have like 10 clients states and feudatory states. Going at war with them is suicide, imo.

Crete is such an easy conquest if you have the money to support your fleet. You will not need more than 8.000 men to conquer all Crete but there is sometimes that a Cretan faction allies with the big bois, like Egypt so watch out.

The best way to start for me is to ally with Epirus right away and form a Defensive league with all Beotian states, normally you will have almost 10 factions in your league. After that, you dont need to worry about being attacked by a big boi, and if a big boi attacks you can take huge chunk of his territory. Ally with Epirus, form a League and put yourself as a Mercantile stance.

Thats pretty much it.

edit: and never put a peloponnesian faction in your defensive league, when you have all the Peloponnese, taking out your defensive league its easy. Epirus its a way better feudatory state than a province, imo.