Something we don't explain very well is the importance of tearing down your walls. Walls make you more capable of withstanding a siege, but they cost more, and they make your cities more likely to rebel, requiring you to keep a larger garrison to keep them safe. So if you tear down the walls for cities that are relatively safe from the enemy, you'll have more money and men to go around.

There's no way to make more farms, but how you place your roads can be really important. Sometimes it's useful to open the asset list and see where all your food is pooling and improve your distribution in that area. One example is Heraklea Lyncestis at the start of the Macedonian campaign, right after you defeat Bardylis. There's tonnes of food in this area, but with the basic roads, you can't distribute it fast enough, and the city quickly reaches its cap. This is one of the best places to buy an upgraded road.

For your native units, it might also be worth levelling up your logistics so you use food more efficiently. Logistics shrines will also help nearby cities, so make sure to capture those. (In the Macedonian campaign, there's one right next to Emathia.)

Food is the most important aspect of morale, so if you're starving, you definitely do not want to go into battle. That said, if you're fighting around a heroics shrine, it's usually best to take the shrine before anything else.

Crete and Sparta are my favourite factions in the sandbox, but they're definitely challenging, and I would suggest going through the campaigns first. Especially at the start, you need to be really careful with your troops, because if you lose them all it will take a while to get your recruits back. Make sure to put your troops inside cities when they're not being used, so they eat less, and make sure everything is connected by trade routes, so those islands get food. If you're playing as Crete, the hardest part will be to get a foothold on the mainland, whether that's in Sparta or Persia. Just focus on taking and holding one city. That city will be a big target for a while, and you won't have very many forces to fight off the enemy, but you can keep them distracted by harassing their cities; you don't need to take them, you just need to distract them while you get stronger. It's also important to plan at what time of the year you attack, because you're not really going to be able to ship in any extra soldiers in the winter.

I assume you're talking about the Macedonian campaign, since both Crete and Sparta can build hoplites.

As the Macedonians, it's essential that you make the most out of your phalangites. These guys are tanks, and can soak up huge amounts of damage. Pair them with some peltasts for ranged attack and you'll dominate.

The spearmen are rather weak in the field. The best use for spearmen is garrison duty, because they're the cheapest unit for their size.

The game is designed to encourage the use of historical military strategy and tactics with an emphasis on logistics.

Philip developed an elite core of maybe 2-3 thousand troops that were employed year round, training when they weren't on campaign. The mass of phalangites were stationed in regional cities, retained their regular jobs, but were involved in regular training to maintain their skills... probably similar to how the English paid their longbowmen a retainer to train for an hour or two everyday, while remaining in their respective communities. This provided the English with awesome archers to call upon when campaigning, just as Philip had reliable phalangites to mobilize when campaigning.

In the game this elite core is represented by the Companion cavalry and the Hypaspist infantry. Take them wherever you plan to seriously campaign.

Use your native Macedonian population to build phalangites. Build just enough Macedonian scout cavalry for reconnaissance and raiding and maybe build one or two Macedonian peltasts for ranged support. For your army of conquest, you can start with one or two phalangites. With the addition of the Hypaspists, which you get for completing an objective, you have a solid combined arms army for conquest. Add catapults as soon as you can, as they make sieges a lot easier. The rest of your support cavalry and ranged troops should be mercenaries.

Select a limited number of frontier cities to be bases and keep those cities walled. Tear down walls everywhere else, although I tend to keep my native Macedonian cities walled, especially when I am leaving them without a garrison (no revolt risk). Station a phalangite brigade at each one of your frontier cities where you expect enemy activity and always maintain at least one squadron of cavalry for scouting, flanking and pursuit after battle. Try to stockpile food at these cities, even if you have to carry some of it in with workers. Then, where you are ready to campaign in a specific region, you will have a walled city to act as a base of operations, with stockpiled food and regional troops to add to your elite core when it arrives in the area. If your campaign objective includes capturing a city, make sure you have a siege train (2 catapults should be enough) that can reach the enemy city shortly after you have cleared the area of mobile enemy forces.

In battle, pin down enemy heavy infantry with your phalangites and the Hypaspists. The Companion cavalry can survive if forced to take on hoplites by themselves, but are much better when used as a flanking hammer to crush enemy heavy infantry, pinned against an anvil of phalangites. If you are forcing your way through a narrow mountain pass, try to back up your battleline troops with some ranged fire added by peltasts.

Only build spearmen from your mercenary population, and only when you need them for garrison duty as they are easily defeated by hoplites. Add mercenary peltasts and some of the better mercenary cavalry and the occasional mercenary hoplite, where you need them to backbone your battleline where you can't station a phalangite brigade.

Don't forget to send out scouting/raiding parties (reconnaissance in force) to scoop up enemy sheep and capture watchtowers to give you early warning of enemy reactions.

Think like a military commander:
-Do enough reconnaissance to know your enemies strengths and weaknesses.
-Take enough supply with you on campaign or plan to quickly overwhelm an area that is rich in food.
-Mobilize or plan for reinforcements to shore up your frontline forces if needed.
-Make sure you have the depth to pull weakened units from the front, so that they can more easily take replacements.

I'm the lead designer, so basically, it's my interpretation of ancient warfare that is being implemented in Hegemony.

From the beginning, I was interested in making a wargame that would play out on one huge map, with a focus on logistics and the many minor battles and skirmishes that occurred in real warfare, instead of focusing on the rare large pitched battle (the ones that make the history books).

I wanted units to be built upon a cadre that would reform back in the units home city if the unit was defeated in battle and thus, avoid permanently losing elite units, which I had found frustrating in games.

I also wanted cavalry to function in a more realistic role (scouting, flanking, pursuit after combat) than is usual in games, etc., etc.

That said, the implementation decisions and details of the design have been an ongoing dialog, with all members of the team having their say... mainly between Rob, Rick, Philippe and me.... often more of a friendly fight at times, but all for the best... .Clarissa and Britt are newer to LDA and have been wading into the fray more recently.

-I designed the map, placed the cities and pathfinding regions in "Philip/Gold/Rome" and did the objectives for the "Philip" campaign. I'm less involved in the details of "Rome".

-As Rob does most of the game programming, he is really the lead designer in terms of programming the specific mechanics of the game. i.e. Rob has the final say on whether a feature can be implemented in code or not and makes decisions to modify features so that they'll work as code.

-Rick designs and codes the website and store and helps Rob when and where he can. Rick also writes the cut scenes and took over the objectives for the Peloponnesian War and is doing them for "Rome".

-Philippe does all of the animations, some modeling and textures.

-Clarissa now does most of the modeling and some of the textures and did the 2-D art for "Philip".

-Britt is the newest member of the team and has taken over the 2-D art, does some textures and sculpts (beautifies) the map for "Rome".

It's not quite as simple as all of that, but that is a basic breakdown of our small team here at LDA.

Our goal is to make the Hegemony games an accurate, enjoyably playable, interpretation of military history. We opened the door with "Philip", refined it with "Gold" and will try to make it even better with "Rome". We'll keep on trying to get it right.

Player support makes it all possible. Thank you all!

Jim