I also had a small holding army of 3/3 (whenever I do this I mean spears/javs) to cover my towns when army was marching I had 15ish units and had taken a few Epirius attacks before I moved on Apolonnia because I couldn't get a decent timing with his armiesДЄt this point I had 3 towns with hoplite barracks in sparta and skirmisher barracks in Larissa - essentially spartan hoplites/Pelasts are what you want - get them asap. Next target Apolonnia, Ideally you want to take it easily and sit there smashing Epirus when they attack UPGRADES- I went spear dmg and ranged dmg wherever possible with morale when not - dmg is the weakness in the spear army I felt needed sorting, also your starting spears will rout at 50% strength ish so you need morale+++ Once you get Larissa open enough to take it, charge up there and kill it(bring Athens if you can)Д¬AREFUL - Epirius have a decent army and even a unit of Elephants so pick your battles and regen your unitsД¬HAMPIONS - they are amazing, when time/money allows - make one and chuck into your army for training Bonus' Side note - you have to kill Athens and Macedonia at some point - do not join them in wars

Recruit 50/50 spears and javs/slings for 2-4 turns Your army sits on the boat crossing to get up to Larissa move your sparta army and merge with your other army so you have a general sat on his arse and 1 army.

Once you get Athens and Pella you will have a shit load of gold because everyone will trade with you The big bonus I think you have as Sparta is everyone is Helenic, you can march on and your provinces will sort themselves out, not holding armies back or having to build loads of dignitaries or + happiness buildings while converting That all sounds crap - what is in your favour? What will hold me up if I do not have - construction chain What will give me dmg bonus' - workshop to smith = 10% dmg and the start of the seige line for balistas What I need - Spartan hoplites and pelasts but to get to anything in the top tiers you have to go miles so thats out of the question. I felt this bit was interesting, to get spartan hoplites (Spears) and peltasts (best javs) you don't have to go far.

don't hope for much - your cav take kill skirmishers and make a good rear charge on an unit already tied up with your spears but thats about itД®ssentially - if you don't like javelins and spearmen - play another faction! take their skirmishers out with javs and a little cav (pelasts have great armour/ defence) while you engage their melee with spears then use your javelins in the rear and flanks for dmg and routing. I am open to opinions but using hoplites to hold the line and javs for killing was the best I could manage. Pelasts destroy other ranged units and their fire special is also pimp morale busting awesomeness Which is what you will be up against early doors and beat skirmishers, I ran and at turn 50 are still running 50% spears and 50% javs. The way I decided to proceed was Javelin (throwing spears for a change!) - they are scouts, flexible and even though their range blows they can seriously hurt spears. The main issue is DPS - you have no damage really, spears can stand up to anything but the reality is they do very little damage, you want to rout units and win battles then spears are not your boys. Tiny place that recruits spears and slingers To the North you have 2 Epirius towns you need to take (you start at war) To the east you have Athens - allied with Macedonia which means if you take either capital (Athens or Pella) you are boned. The main issue is that there is no easy capital to take which means ZERO TRADE Somewhere shitty is the short answer, on first views I was thinking - wow, I can't even get a region up and running! This thread is to tell you how I decided to do it and the rationale behind it - It is definitely not a definitive guide but I wanted to put what I had found down on for reference

Rome 2 sparta units