Hey everyone, i've tried many different strategies after Bardylis. But some time i do too many things at the same time or not enough. Could people who get beyond that point talk about their strategy or the objective they complete first.

I'm a french from Québec so sorry for the quality of my english

Hey, I'm not amazingly far into the campaign, but after defeating Bardylis I pushed further into Illyrian territory to make their attacks against me less frequent/potent. Then I turned my attention to the Athenian cities just south of the starting cities. Then there are also several Macedonian cities to liberate from the Chalcideans to the east of Pella.

Hey everyone, i've tried many different strategies after Bardylis. But some time i do too many things at the same time or not enough. Could people who get beyond that point talk about their strategy or the objective they complete first.

I'm a french from Québec so sorry for the quality of my english
Don't worry about your English, it's pretty good :P and practice will make perfect.

As a general rule I would say defend your borders while focusing on one enemy at a time. The Illyrians are a good first target to go after because they have a few Macedonian cities under their control and they are very annoying.

I'd also recommend taking Elimea and then Olsoon, and complete that quest. That will let you build catapults, which are very good in sieges.

You should also look through the available quests that you have and look for ones that give let you take cities that won't rebel. So there's a quest into Illyrian lands that will let you turn an Illyrian city into a Macedonian city, which is very valuable (more income and more Macedonian troops available, plus it won't rebel).

You can also look for objectives that will increase the size of your Companion cavalry and Hypaspists, which are very helpful in a pinch.

Basically the first thing you should do is raid into thessaly (take the 2 cities above metroplis first) Keep some units there or recruit mercenaries (their cavalry is pretty helpful)
Also march with the pella militia and another phalangite north of pella and capture that city.
basically just hold out there and make a move into illyria make the objective group there with the city diabolis. Tear down the walls of either diabolis or the city below it and 2mercenary hoplites should keep the region (3cities) safe. Then basically make a further push into thessaly and against the tyrants of pherae (capture krannon and metropolis) then attack methone, dion etc from both agae and krannon. After that you can choose to push into paeonia (you can do that before you do thessaly also if you want) and then advance right from pella against the Chalcideans as 3form suggested you could do this also immediately as an alternative start. kill bardylis, just keep your cities defendet and attack the chalcadian league and methone eventually.

Thats not how you should do it since you basically can expand any way you want, but thats how I did it =]

Basically it is usefull to try to keep brigades near their home cities where they were recruited otherwise you will have a long way to get that unit back to the front. Also try to keep a military presence in every of your regions (i.e. one phalangite/hoplite for 4 cities plus a scout cavalry and one or 2spearman should be sufficient most of the time)
Also a very useful unit to take care on its own of whole regions defensewise is your companion cavalry since they can beat every enemy unit with ease and especially raiding forces. I found it incredibly useful for defenses(even without any leader or philip attached to it)
Sheep are very useful for big attacks! Try to use them as often as you can. They are worth more than gold i tell you! xD (also if you wonder how to lvl up your troops the button to access the lvl up page is at the upper right a starlike symbol... only works with macedonian troops though)

edit: good tip with the companion cavalry size Alexander. Wouldnt have thought of that now =] This is indeed imporant to know.

You guys really do stuff differently to me, I build a giant army of all my Macedonian units and leave mercs and some spear/horse to guard my territories unless they're a flash point, like the city above Pella which took 2 units of phalan to keep secure even with those two forts. I headed out and captured Olynthus first and that area then went all the way down to Athens (god that was a hell of a fight!) After that i'm working on subduing the tribes above and near Illyria.

You guys really do stuff differently to me, I build a giant army of all my Macedonian units and leave mercs and some spear/horse to guard my territories unless they're a flash point, like the city above Pella which took 2 units of phalan to keep secure even with those two forts. I headed out and captured Olynthus first and that area then went all the way down to Athens (god that was a hell of a fight!) After that i'm working on subduing the tribes above and near Illyria.
Yeah I guess you saw it more like a campaign while we played it more in a way to expand our empire in every way possible but not too far too fast =]
Your attempt seems interesting and I might give it a shot if I decide to start a new game =]
did you play on normal or expert? would be intersting to know what the majority is playing.
I think on expert the enemy attacks with more logical unit setups.(i.e. athen landing with hoplites +cav or peltasts insted of spearman + peltests)

I've been playing on Normal for now but it is only my 2nd game so 3rd I'll go expert maybe. I took out Athens in the hope it'd diminish their power over all but it seems to have had little effect :S

I hit Paeonia first after Bardylis, and just leave enough scouts/spears in the West to grab watchtowers and mines and fend off peltast raids. Once you get Stobi you can recruit tribal cav and merc archers, and taking the rest of Paeonia isn't too hard, and it's fairly easy to defend as well with a handful of mercs. The tribal cavalry makes defending your borders all the easier, and I didn't have to provoke Thessaly to get them.

After Paeonia I clean up that first layer of Illyrians to the West, which is another cluster of objectives. Only then do I try to move into Thessaly, with two armies taking the top two cities at the same time. Sacred War comes next, then strike east from Pella.