Discuss [ROR] The Peloponnesian War
I feel Athens need more help, in my first game they where totaly owned by Sparta and Thebes. ( i was playing as macedon)
Amazing scenario that needs some tweaking and coop/mp.
Sparta: My first playthrough was rather easy. Athens is preoccupied with Thebes, which are getting wrecked, and Sparta can peacefully conquer all the minor cities, build eco, make a horde of OP hoplites and wreck Athens and everyone in between. Probably the easiest game.
Thanks to the powerful military, Sparta doesn’t have to be that afraid of the fact that it can’t trade, which means it is dependent on the gold mines, which run out and Sparta really need to expand. Some tweaks could solve it, more on that later.
Athens: Start with a fortified position on an easily defendable isthmus. I haven’t really played them, but it feels that they should have an easy time, wreck Thebes, trade with Macedon, wreck Sparta from the sea.
Thebes: They start quite weak and have to fight barbarians on the North as well as early attack from Athens. They are supposed to have sword army, but they can build only short swords in the Bronze Age, who get wrecked hard by hoplites. So does cavalry. So I ended up holding with 20 bowmen and a priest, slowly building up economy, then make 30 heavy cav to clear map. Trade with Macedon gives long-term gold, but there is plenty of gold on the map.
Syracuse: Didn’t have time to play this too much, but the lack of vision is annoying. Tried to wreck Athens hard, but the amount of victory points was so small that it was probably a mistake. To me it feels like they could use an eco a bit.
Pirates: Very grindy, potentially interesting in MP, but need another mechanic. Pirates rise and fall with their navy. The other unit they can build are swords, but swords can’t compete against hoplites/phalanx/centurions that all Greeks can have. So they need navy to raid and kill enemy units/buildings from safe distance.
My first incursion against Sparta was success. Sparta doesn’t have navy at the start, or any defensive buildings, so I could wreck their villagers and units, as well as accumulate fair amount of wood to expand navy. After getting both armor upgrades, I moved to Athens, but that’s where everything turned.
Athens are well defended, both with ships, towers, and troops. Ships die to towers, as I couldn’t destroy enough Athenian buildings to get ship range upgrade. Units die to hoplites. And in time, both Spartha and Athens can expand their economy to send enough ships to wreck mine.
I killed plenty of enemy ships and units, but I couldn’t kill enough buildings to replace my navy. Sparking the end for me. My swords were useful for some light raiding, I couldn’t do anything against enemy on land. A few hoplites with a ballista would completely wreck an infinite amount of swords I could (with difficulty) transport.
This hard limit on snowballing is an issue, and there isn’t a way for Pirates to get enough ship without destroying buildings. Meaning once enemy can throw enough ships at you, you will die.
Also, there are blind priest, who don’t do anything. I thought they could heal my ships, but this isn’t the case (need villagers to repair them, and Pirates don’t have villagers). Healing ships could be a way to preserve numbers and go with the raiding gameplay.
Also, some way for Pirates to rebuild their outposts, make them into bigger towns would be cool. That happened with some communities getting rich from piracy. If that would cost gold, it gives player a way to recuperate their losses for the price of gold, delaying their victory target, but allowing them to rebuild after getting wrecked. Potentially important in MP.
Neutral cities:
There are bunch of neutral cities that player can conquer after destroying their government center. But only thing that will happen is that the city buildings will be transferred to player. That is quite boring. What if the city was just… conquered and paid tribute? That would solve many problems:
For Sparta, conquering cities would be the way to get gold.
For Pirates, conquering cities would be an alternative way to get resources.
Other factions:
Persians are interesting, but sadly not playable. Same with Thracians. There is space on the North-West of Greece for additional faction.
But really, coop/MP with everyone having different mission targets and need to prevent others from winning would be cool as hell.
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For some reason I cannot get it to work after I have subscribed to it, and I don’t think anyone else has this problem. There is a big red exclamation mark that pops up after I subscribe, and it’s practically unplayable for me. I might need some help, please.
Normally that means it’s for a previous version of the game
I have the same problem! any solution?
Playing Syracusa on hard seems impossible. Too few troops starting troops without way to get more, I cleared all barbarians and minor cities and some of Athens troops and only 40 WAR CONTRIBUTION, and there’s no way to attack Athens anymore, they have too many troops and have beaten Sparta and Thebes. I have most of my starting army already, but any time I try to attack they swarm with more troops than i have in total, both by sea and land.
The secondary objectives should give you more troops or Athens should have a limitation.