Peloponnesian war too realistic :(

[necrolyte]

I like playing as Athens (I used to be a fan of the Spartans, but recently, the presence of my faviorite ancient philosophers makes Athens my faviorite of the two), but I've found I can't keep hordes of Thebians, Spartans, and Corinthians from looting my rich farmland and towns, as it happened in history. Granted, Athens has never fallen, but its by far the best city the Delian League gets. Without all those fun things, I lose much production, population and gold.

Does anyone have a sure-fire strategy here? Spearmen and Hopilites get cut down like mad.

 

[Aarvaead]

Use troops that counter your opponents'. If he has horsemen, use spearman or phalanx; if he has melee units, use units built with a bonus fighting melee units. The key is to build catapults (bombard): throw them against a stack... It will weaken your opponents' units, and then, kill'em all!!!

 

[AriochIV]

I haven't played through the scenario yet, but it appears that the idea is to cling on with Athens while you build up your overseas assets for an eventual counterattack.

As an aside: a bit silly that they use England's unit vocalizations for Athens rather than the Greek ones, don't you think?

 

[Jawsofwar]

Won this scenario on noble by building up a huge navy force of galleys when I already had enough triremes near the peloponesian coast. When I was running out of turns in the scenario I finally sent my whole invasion force to the coast near sparta and sent the army to attack. Sparta and thebes were too busy attacking athens so the bulk of there army was not by sparta . In other words you got to use your navy to send in a quick decisive blow. Once you take sparta the game is over and you win. The trick is to keep athens from getting captured while building up this invasion fleet. I had times where I thought for sure I was going to lose.

 

[holy king]

havent tried it as athens but as spartans it just too easy...
get catapults by producing research in all your cities quickly, build up a force of 15-20 of them (with vassalage and theocracy), some hoplites, axemen whatever and rush for athens... your vassals will be looting athens all the time...
never faced any real conter attack by landing troops on prince difficulty...

 

[nullspace]

Switch to Bureaucracy and Theocracy. That will get you +50% production and +2 experience in Athens. Chop trees and pop rush to speed up production some more. Build a barracks. Axemen are the most important unit, since they have the advantage against everything but horse archers and catapults. Consider building a fortress near where the enemies enter your territory so your units have a safe place to wait and heal. A second worker can be useful to build fortresses, and rebuild things that get pillaged.