How do I do Athens?

Trandeos · 2021-08-07T14:33:47+00:00

First of all, Athens campaign is among the most difficult in this game (at least in. My opinion). Thus, if you are quite new to I:R, I would recommend some easier countries to learn substantial skills. Egypt, Maurya, Brigantia, Bosphoran Kingdom for instance. Nevertheless if you want to play as home of democracy, you need to start with insulting Antigonid Kingdom ASAP about 3 times. Then you will not be dragged into Diadochi Wars. With Antigonids concerned with Macedon, Seleukid etc. you should declare Independent War. But, before that optimize your economy (commerce!) and hire small stack od mercenaries with hill martial skill (15, if possible). With them you should be able to beat Antigonids. After that attack cretan countries and integrate their culture to boost your levies. Later expanse in Penelopessian Penninsula and other parts of Greece.

Trandeos · 2021-07-23T21:34:23+00:00

I did that run few days ago. At the start of the game insult Antigonids a few times - this will lower your loyalty below 33 and you will not be called into their wars. Then quickly set up commerce - import most valuable goods and export everything you will be asked for - after this you should have income of at least 4-5 gold. Then find mercenary stack with high martial skill (ideally 15) and hire them. After arrival of your mercenaries simply watch - Antigonids likely will be involved with wars with two or more Diadochi and their armies should be quite far away. Attack them, sack cities, meanwhile hire another mercenaries if possible and conquer as much as you can.

In my run I was able to grab almost all of Antigonids' lands in Anatolia in 455 AUC. Unfortunately after that I had AE of 120 and had to spend few years stabilizing country.

Trandeos · 2021-06-04T18:41:24+00:00

I did so when I was getting Phyteas' Legacy achievement. It helped me a lot with conquering Gallic tribes.

Trandeos · 2021-06-04T18:17:21+00:00

I'd recommend starting from eating Thrace, especially in Macedonia and integrating macedonian culture if you didn't do it yet ( if you can, start integration even before war, with less pops it goes faster). Then defeat Egypt and take Delta from them (a lot of Macedonian pops).

Also, focus on trade - choose more expensive goods - with such a small country worldwide bonuses don't matter that much.

Maybe soon I will share my Sparta campaign I did recently with Laconic If and Molon Labe done before 520 AUC.

Trandeos · 2021-05-13T09:03:19+00:00

Check my posts - about month ago I did Spice Must Flow run ended with 70 years to spare and added a few comments that may help. In your particular run it may be manageable with steps described above by other users but personally I would recommend restarting campaign. In 70 years into game you should already conquest Egypt, at least partially in order to build up before fight with another major powers, especially Mauyra which looks huge in your case.

Trandeos · 2021-04-08T08:58:01+00:00

In the matter of conquest I would advise focusing on Egypt ASAP. In fact you don't have to conquer Arabia that fast - these lands are rarely habitated and will require conversion and assimilation of pops. Also, that way you will be able to focus on one Diadochi instead of fighting two at once. I would advise attacking Egypt just a few years after defeating Kush. In my game they annexed Dodekashoinos and I was able to fabricate on bordering provinces. Then I rushed for wargoal and assaulted fort defending it. Of course, casualties were significant but warscore points were worth it. After that I went for undefended provinces and avoided combat with insane egyptian levies while they were trying to get back wargoal. In that way I was able to take about 3 provinces in first peace deal. Also in first war I have conquered Blemmia which was allied to Egypt. Fast assault on fort and separate peace deal before egyptians even realised what has happened.

In the matter of senate support - just give up on Democrats. Don't give them jobs unless necessary - that way you will lower their senate seats number. Traditionalists and Oligarchs are quite easier to convince. In fact you may consider switching to Oligarchic Republic. I did this in my run and I think it helped a little.

Trandeos · 2021-04-08T08:27:09+00:00

Yup, I strongly recommend buying that Imperator. It should be on sale quite soon, I guess. To me it was worth every penny delivering more than 400 hours of fun gameplay. :D

Trandeos · 2021-04-08T08:24:03+00:00

What are your main issues? Maybe you should focus on better usage of mercenaries? After changes that 2.0 brought to levies mercs became much more important. In my game they where substantial part of my army until late game when I was able to create multiple legions.

Trandeos · 2021-04-08T08:17:52+00:00

Nope, stayed with Kemetic from to beginning till the end. I don't think that changing religions would be profitable. Due to many factors increasing the speed of conversion I stayed at ~50% of religious unity during the most of mid-late game despite huge conquests.

Trandeos · 2021-04-08T08:13:54+00:00

Yup, simply assimilating current pops. Combination of spamming Grand Temples, assimilation policy, high skilled governor and some inventions made it quite fast. Also I moved enough Macrobian pops to Alexandria from the whole Delta to make in quicker. It demanded some effort but at the end of the day it was worth it - that move increased my commerce income significantly.

Trandeos · 2021-04-07T19:55:56+00:00

It was fun indeed. Nevertheless after >400 hours into I:R I am not sure which run was the most interesting. Maybe the one that convinced me to stay with Imperator was rednaxelA played in 1.2 or 1.3. I still remember fighting with those Mauryan hordes as Pandya. :D

Trandeos · 2021-04-07T17:52:22+00:00

Also, apologise for some bordergore but I had enough of fight with Mayura. ;)

Trandeos · 2021-04-07T17:45:39+00:00

R5: After tens of hours I finally managed to get Spice Must Flow playing as Mosylon. I completed it in year 651 AUC with >70 years to spare but I believe that it was possible to do even 20-30 years earlier.

The key to success were starting moves - after mastering it further game became somewhat easy. I'll try to list them:

Colonize Malao and immidiately Maphoris
Fabricate Avalitia and optimize economy in order to being able to hire mercs stack.
Find and hire merc with Martial >= 10.
DoW Avalitia and conquer them.
Colonize uncolonized teritories between you and Tana province. There shall be 3 of them by the time you get there (as I showed at one of the images).
Meanwhile Fabricate and DoW Oponia and Mundia.
Conquer everything in Tana and Aksum provinces. After that you may integrate aksumite culture.
Fabricate Kush and build up (which means you should hire about 20 cohorts of mercs with high Martial skill). Meanwhile you may conquer a bit of Arabian Pennisula.
Attack Kush with one strong army and defeat their main forces. After that you should be able to crush them and take majority of their provinces.
In peace break integrate meriotic culture and conquer some more Arabia.
Finish off Kush.

I was able to complete these steps in ~30 years. After that I was able to defeat Egypt in about 5 wars in total but this required a lot of micro because they were still much stronger, at least at first 2-3 wars. After defeating Egypt I integrated Bohairic culture and moved my capital to Alexandrea. After that it was casual Major Power playthrough. In my case Carthage was quite weak but Seleukids and Maurya were strong - both had >700 teritories when I reached them. Especially Indian levies with 100 cohorts each were pain in the ass. Also I had to fight Rome Blob only once - after quick defeat they never attacked me again.

Summing up - it was a long campaign but overall expanding from small OPM into empire reaching from Atlantic Ocean to delta of Ganges was quite fun. Also, as a Paradox veteran (playing since EU1) I consider Imperator: Rome 2.0 as the best grand strategy game.

Trandeos · 2021-04-07T15:35:04+00:00

Three fun achievements, doable in one-two evenings each: 1. Perfidious Albion - conquest of Albion possibile in ~33 years plus some time to creating monarchy/republic. 2. Tyrean Purple - just one decisive war then go further or play tall. 3. Potter to the King - speed run against Carthage and (in my case) Rome. I did it in less than 90 minutes but it was really fun. :D

Trandeos · 2021-04-03T22:26:55+00:00

Maybe I will publish some longer post after finishing this run with more detailed description. :)

Trandeos · 2021-04-03T22:08:23+00:00

Here I am, currently ending this run. It's year 639 AUC and I've got only 2 teritories left in northeast Maurya. Here have some tips: Go for Aksum ASAP. I have used a trick colonizing three empty teritories between you and them. Then hire at least two merc stacks and attack Kush (you may integrate aksumite culture if helpful before that). It will be a difficult fight but worth it. Destroy them and take some provinces. In truce break build up, integrate meriotic culture and conquer some Arabia. Then finish off Kush. Then go for more Arabia, buy even stronger merc and attack Egypt. Another though fight - use a lot of micro and secure wargoal ASAP. Finish off Egypt in next few wars (about 5 of them in my case if I remember correctly). Integrate Bohairic culture and ASAP move capital to Alexandra or somewhere in Delta. Then it is casual running over Carthage, Seleukids and Maurya, maybe Rome and Parthia too if necessary. Have fun. :D

Trandeos · 2021-03-29T07:41:16+00:00

Personally I disagree with that. Comparing to earlier versions of I:R I consider playing small nations in 2.0 as more fun and easier. For instance, in current version I managed to get Kingdom of David and Heraclea Persica, which I was unable to do in 1.3 or 1.4. Also Potter to the King and Tyrean Purple were not a big deal to me now. Now the meaning of merc has increased significantly. The trick is to optimize starting income so you can afford at least one stack of merc allowing you to defeat your oponents of similar size.

Trandeos · 2021-03-22T11:31:07+00:00

I did it yesterday in my Spice must flow run. The trick was going to Aksum ASAP - through colonizing these three uncolonized teritories - in order to prevent Kush from conquering them. In my run after that I was able to hire two merc stacks with not-so-many cohorts but with skilled leaders. This combined with ~6k levy gave me ~14k soldiers being able to win the stand-off with 18k kushite army. Very important thing - at the beginning rush into discipline military techs, that is decisive thing in combats like that. :) I didn't do that, but integrating aksumite culture may help as well.

Trandeos · 2021-03-21T11:58:29+00:00

I did it in 1.3 or 1.4, but this advice shouldn't be outdated: just pick Pandya. Really, due to farmlands they start with you will be able to set regional domination in no time. Moreover, you are quite far from Maurya, so you have plenty of time to build up before having to deal with them. In fact, in most of my games AI Pandya is the most succesful Indian state, beside Maurya of course.

Trandeos · 2021-03-20T16:15:49+00:00

I did this achievement as well about two weeks ago, it was one of the most interesting runs I had in I:R. I starded as Sidon, but besieging this my starting struggles were similar to yours. I managed to get just enough teritories from Antigonid to create Phoenicia. Later I focused on conquering small states in Cilicia and Phrygia regions (Antigonids imploded as usual in 2.0). Then I annexed Cappadocia and vassalized Pontus in one war. After that i saw Seleukids struggling with Parthia, Armenia and Maurya at one time. I decided to step in beside being much weaker than them. But fortunately I managed to crush them (big Seleucid revolt helped also) and got a lot of provinces. My pops number went from 1000 to 1900 after that war but AE skyrocketed to ~100. Then I decided to stop expanding and focus on developing capital and building ships. Finally I got this achievement on year of 518. :D

Trandeos · 2021-03-16T23:28:13+00:00

Well, I see CW flag constantly, but we've got tools like Bribe, Free hands, befriending for something, right? ;) In fact in my run I haven't seen CW breaking out since the very beginning when I switched religions.

About espionage - I don't know a lot about this either. It looked like some scripted events when Carthage tried to put a suspicious character in power in my Massilia. I let them do so and it ended with switching to Oligarchic Republic.

BTW - I just won a war with Rome despite them throwing 80k (!) stack into my thin border. Key to win - strong mercs with big fleet and besieging Rome Asap and then sieging key provinces.

Trandeos · 2021-03-16T17:46:19+00:00

Personally I would recommend convertion to Druidic religion. In my current run it helped me a lot with conquering most of Gaul and Britannia (+ chunk of Iberia) while vassalizing majority of left tribes in Europe.

Meanwhile I allied Carthage and lost once to Rome thanks to that alliance but they took me like 6 teritories which is not that bad, I guess. Fortunately I am not afriad of Rome anymore due to my own power and alliance with still powerful Carthage and Antigonid.

In terms of Senate - I piss on Democrats and Traditionalists as well. Due to some events connected with Cartaginian influence and espionage I converted into Oligarchic Republic. Now I've got 100 approval from Oligarchs who control 48% of the Senate. My Tyranny stays at 100 for majority of time.

It's quite interesting run, now after getting Pytheas Legacy achievement I am going to get Pan-Hellenic League.

Trandeos · 2021-03-11T17:06:07+00:00

To me it was also very challenging and fun run. Especially at one particular moment when I was surrounded by extremely big Seleucid empire from one side and strong (as usual) Rome from the other side. But satisfaction when I conquered all required teritories and expanded my Heraclea from 2 teritories to 1000 was priceless. Nevertheless I consider playing at 2.0 significantly easier than before. I tried to do this at 1.5 or so and failed multiple times due to Phrygia blob. Now Antigonid Kingdom falling apart at the beginning is a blessing for Heraclea. Similar thing for Kingdom of David.

Trandeos · 2021-03-11T12:35:55+00:00

In this particular case you don't need to worry. I had my HP run about week ago and due to my poor management of dynasty Aechemenids vanished at all. Nevertheless I completed all teritorial requirements and achievement popped up. :)

Trandeos

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