First off, Happy New Year. Also thanks for making such an engrossing game that I can keep coming back months later and get stuck in for hours.

I have three questions about the main Philip of Macedon campaign (though two are really just general gameplay ones).

1. Why is the "Insolence Demands Destruction" objective, to take Olynthus(sp), in the Sacred War objective group and not the one about attacking Olynthus and the Chalcidean League? Just seems sort of out place or unintuitive.

2. When I made a truce with Epirus, I had captured a bunch of watchtowers in territory that they owned and territory that I owned. I also accidentally left an Epirote watchtower up in my territory. After moving my invading army East to deal with Thessaly, their spearmen destroyed my watchtowers both within their land and one or two within *my* territory. However, their tower in my land is marked with the "truce" icon. Am I allowed to destroy it and rebuild it as my own without violating the truce?

3. Similarly, one of the mines south of Elimea (not sure if that's the right one, it's the one to the north of Olooson) is marked with the truce marker since I made peace with Illyrian. The mine is unbuilt. Can I capture and build it without violating the truce?

The diplomacy was never meant to be used in the Philip's campaign as a conqueror like Philip that expanded in all directions also had enemies at every border. I mean even their ally Epirus has to be partially conquered to allow Philip to have his wife's brother Alexander as king there. Before Hegemony Gold there wasn't even the possibility to make a truce. I can understand that you don't want to be attacked from every direction, but that is one of the main parts of the game actually.

Olynthus is - like every objective in the Sacred War - a hegemony objective. The Olynthus: First Blood objective group has no main objective - you can win even without ever having controlled any other Chalcidian city than Olynthus itself (plus having teared down their walls although you can rebuild them again later).

*** WARNING! HISTORY! THE FOLLOWING COULD SERIOUSLY AFFECT YOUR INTEREST IN THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD! ***

In reality Olynthus was first member of the Delian League - or in other words vassals of Athens. Then they separated and fought with the Spartans in the Archidamian War to obtain more liberty; Athens had treated them more and more like slaves. Even after the truce of Nikias Olynthus continued to fight Athens, because within the newly founded Chalcidian League Olynthus had obtained a much more privileged position than it had been as Athens' vassal.

After the Ionian War and Sparta's victory the time of Sparta's hegemony began and the Chalcidian League as one of Sparta's allies was prospering. But at a certain point they became too powerful: Sparta sent a force of 10000 men and allied with the Kingdom of Macedon to destroy the Chalcidian League. Olynthus had to surrender.

In the following years the ciruit repeated: Olynthus became a member in the second Delian League, separated and reestablished the Chalcidian League. Again a war broke out and again Olynthus fought against Athens - but this time with the Kingdom of Macedon. Macedon won, razed all the Athenian cities that dared resisting and the Chalcidian League was practically an enclave of the Kingdom of Macedon: independent, but surrounded by Philip's new acquisitions. So it was only a matter of time until war broke out.
The pretence were two of Philip's half-brothers: Arrhidaios and Menelaos that seeked asylum in Olynthus. As no Macedonian king (or at least no one of interest) before him had ever passed away peacefully he knew that this was a serious threat to his position as king of Macedon. So king Philip demanded the extradition of his two half-brothers. Olynthus denied and rapidly allied with Athens, but the rescuing force wasn't fast enough and Olynthus had to surrender once more. It was completely destroyed and their inhabitants were sold into slavery - a similar fate like Potidea's eight years before.

*** HISTORY DATA ENDS HERE! ***

The summary is: Philip had to attack Olynthus because it granted asylum to two possible apparents to the throne. Because of the high priority of this task, "Insolence Demands Destruction" is in the Sacred War objective group: the attack of Olynthus was a direct consequence of his newly acquired power in Thessaly.

It's not hard to fend off the AI when you realize it's attack patterns. Most normally it takes mines, destroys watchtowers and burns farms. If you have a good garrison in a walled settlement on the border, the AI cannot do much. It will not try to starve you out, it either attacks the settlement directly (which should not be a problem) or burns farms, sits around for a while and leaves.

You can easily concentrate on one enemy at a time. The AI will not penetrate your empire, as long as your vulnerable unwalled settlements are away from the front (and the sea, because of Athens etc) there is no reason to worry about them.


---


Somehow the AI can do things like take watchtowers etc in a truce, though you can't without breaking it. Really odd behavior.

Have observed some wierd things myself with the AI during truces as well. Had Chalcilidyan League troops gathering food and taking down watchtowers in my territory after a truce one winter when their cities were short of food. Moving my troops next to them didn't scare them away. Only moved back into their own territory after they ran out of food. This was with v1.5.6.