Couple of newbie questions

[briand]

Hi, I've been starting to get into Gates Of Troy in the past few days and firstly I'd say I'm really enjoying it. When I first tried it (the Ionian Revolt) I thought it was only "okay", but as I've progressed to the campaign games I've come to appreciate just how strategically rich the system is, with plenty of scope for different styles of play. I've always liked the ancient Greece time period and the GOT gameplay is kind of like a game of chess in the Aegean. Awesome! I've been playing quite intensely for a couple of days now and there a few questions that have occurred to me. Although there is something to be said for diving in and trying out things for yourself, it's also wise to seek advice if you're wasting your time on the impossible So my questions so far are;


1) Cavalry. Is it advisable to have an army composed entirely of cavalry? I used to play a board game called Pelopponesian War, and the units were composed simply of Hoplites, Cavalry and Navy so I may be subconciously falling back on this. Do Cavalry units move more quickly on the campaign map than infantry? I tried making a small army composed purely of cavalry but they didn't seem to move any faster on the campaign map than infantry. I was trying for a kind of mobile fast response unit as an intercepting and disrupting force.

2)Navy units. Is it possible to become a kind of naval power in the game? Last time I tried a campaign map starting at Melos, and I figured that if I'm going to be travelling over sea a lot then I may research wood technologies early and get better ships. I did eventually get the Naval Architect and I thought I'd out it to good use by kind of "prowling" the waters around Aegina, but the rewards were very few. Again, I may subconciousy be using the Peloponnesian War tactics!

3) Population. I've persistently got a problem with overcrowding. When I see that the people are getting unhappy with overpopulation I tend to build them bigger places to live. But the problem is that bigger places also accelerate the growth rate. Especially the Capital! So far I don't see how to deal with this Catch 22 situation. I can build them things like temples and markets, but that doesn't deal with the core problem of too little living space in a city.

4 Diplomats. How do you know if the enemy ones are spying? Obviously if you're hostile with a certain power you'd be wary of them, but so far I've never seen any message saying that a foreign diplomat with me has been caught at something naughty.

Also, I'm a bit confused about the success rates of my Diplomats. Consider "Poach a Philosopher" It has a success rate of 15%. I tried it once with a 5 star diplomat and he failed. I tried it again and he failed again. Tried it again and he still failed! If it had been a human player/ moderator telling me these reuslts I wouldn't have believed them for a minute. And it's not the only example I can think of where the failure rate has been very suspiciously high. So are there any modifiers beyond the base failure percentage?

Well, sorry if some of the might seem basic questions. I only have Gates Of Troy which doesn't have detailed manual. I did try the tutorials, twice, but couldn't seem to find the answers to my questions. Appreciate any help!

[IainMcNeil]

Great - glad you are enjoying. I'll give you a few pointers but other players will be able to give you more.

Cavalry - this period was dominated by teh Hoplite so cvalry are good against light troops only, so use them carefully. Combined arms works best.

Navy - light infantry and auxlialiaries are best on ships as marines. Cavalry & heavy infantry are not so good.

Overcrowding can never be fixed, it gets worse as the city grows and all you can do is entertain the people in other ways.

Diplomats - you have to decide for yourself

Difficulty depends on experience of the diplomat and difficulty of the task. Longer tasks are more likely to fail - failure rate is per turn.

Try teh Spartan online manual for more details, its available at the Spartan site www.slitherine.com/spartan/

[joseph_kerr]

I love cavalry, probably my favorite unit of the game. The period may have been dominated by hoplites but you'll find the AI is very fond of churning out huge armies of light infantry and skirmishers, troops cavalry are very effective against even in small numbers. Don't waste time with citizen cavalry, they'll take bad enough losses against even basic light infantry. Use at least theban cavalry or their equivelent for the eastern nations, and make sure you're fighting on open ground. Just try not to go through swamp/marsh lands unless you have to. They slow to a painful crawl in that terrain and won't fight well in it either.

You'll find that an effective strategy is to make a small band of skilled units that match up well with the enemy troops while taking little losses, find the city your enemy is using to train troops and just keep attacking those troops as they come out. If you take the city the AI will just start training troops elswhere but if you stay outside the AI will keep training troops there for a rediciously long time. Just a way to counter the AI's advantage of churning out armies seemingly non-stop. If you're not able to do that another thing to do is use a single cheap fast moving unit like skirmishers and get them close enough so the enemy will go to attack them. I've led more than a few large armies on a merry chase while i gathered my own forces. Skirmishers move fast over all terrain so you can often not even actually engage, just stay close enough for them to keep following and if they do attack just retreat and keep moving.

I've begun creating the naval architect sooner in campaigns than i used to. You don't outright dominate the naval battles the way you might think you should but the real advantage is the speed you gain in moving troops to a battle. Saves on the food and silver used in a march and lets you react to situations faster. You can also blockade ports if you haven't tried it. Put enough ships in front of a port and while sometimes the AI will attack they're just as likely to march all the way to another port. This can be done with single skirmisher units and can be effective against delaying attacks by a larger enemy nation. Not to mention if that port they're heading to instead is in another nations lands they're likely to find a fight on their hands from that nation.

[vakarr]

Hi, Cavalry do move faster in the campaign map but only on the right terrain - there are a lot of mountains, forsts, hills etc in Greece, which is one reason why hoplite warfare predominated there. You will see that an all skirmisher army will zip around comparitively quickly in that difficult terrain. Check the movement rates in the manual. An all cavalry army will not work unless you can guarantee that you will always find a place to fight with sufficient open terrain. Even the weakest javlin-armed skirmishers can beat cavalry if they are in a wood. It's worth using any kind of cavalry, although its more fun to see the heavier cavalry punch through almost anything (I'm playing the "Arrival of the Persians" scenario, if you like cavalry, this is the one for you, not too many spearmen in that). Even the weakest cavalry units do nasty things when hitting the enemy in the rear, and after doing that a few times soon have enough experience to charge frontally.

Population - yeah, I know, it's silly, you make a town bigger, and it only becomes more crowded! You can only manipulate the tax, food, and production rates plus put an educational institution and a market in each town (and keep upgrading them). If you are desperate, put a shrine in as well. If you have reasearched all the bricks, the Wonders such as the Acropolis also increase happiness (though you've probably won the game by then anyway). Don't bother with the doctor etc, they make the population pressure worse. You can relieve the population pressure by recruiting peasants and reduce discontent by arrisoning troops (something you may have to do anyway to keep out those pesky barbarians).

Diplomats - the diplomat actions are hugely expensive, so I save the game at the end of each turn, and if I get a result I don't like - You just spent 50,000 silver on that diplomat, and ha, ha it failed - just reload the game. Also works for barbarian invasions (they disappear or go elsewhere) and bad harvests.

[olliebark]

well, your question on diplomats... I Don't own a copy of Spartan (only ordered today) my friend showed me it and it's great...

Anyway, if they do something horrible to your diplomat he tended to do either what they did to yours or worse to their diplomat... i dunno if it made any difference but oh well...