So, you've got the Persia DLC and wanted to have a go at being the underdog. You wanted to command the most elite infantry of the classical world feared throughout the Hellenic world. You wanted to throw those haughty Persian diplomats down a cliff to retrieve the dirt and water that Xerses demanded as tribute. You wanted to change history when Sparta left the Greek coalition after they had retook Byzantium.

But because you really wanted a challenge, you've also decided to dial up the difficulty from mere balanced. After all, this isn't just any boring old Greek city. This is SPARTA! This shall be a legendary campaign that would be retold through the ages to come!

But after a few turns in, you've found that you either can't pay for your army or you're stuck outside besieging Olympia in the province north of you for years on end without progress. Much less deal with the coming Athenian declaration of war 10 turns later. (Curse those pesky game mechanics getting in the way of the most epic struggle in history XD )

Then you've come to the right place.

(Unless you're one of those traitorous Athenians coming here to laugh at the traditions of Sparta. Get out!)

Greetings King Leonidas. Your kingdom awaits. These are the traditions dear to Sparta. Have a good read.

And one more for being a monarchy:

As you can see, unlike those soft Athenians. We Spartans are born and raised for war. Each Spartan soldier receive experience on creation and our generals are of better quality.

However don't let that "Very High Military Expertise" deceive you. As we begin incorporating more regions into our territory, military expertise will drop due to having less Red colored military buildings relative to number of regions.

Unfortunately what is more worrying the "Agoge" modifier. Providing an additional 50% penalty to manpower on top of the 25% penalty coming from "Hellenistic Traditions". Yes, you've read that right. Compared to other factions, Sparta has 4 times less people fit for military service! Although you shouldn't be so surprised, after all we leave our young in the wild to fight wolves for survival.

But that's not all, Agoge also means that each new population being created in our capital has the probability of being a slave (which would provide no manpower and taxes) instead of a citizen. Heh, this doesn't bore well for empire building.

Just take a look at the manpower situation in your capital Laconia. Even with a Military Academy and a Barracks boosting manpower, it's only providing barely half of what other factions could.

At least the quality of Sparta's troops would make up for it, right? Umm, not really...

Fortunately, Spartan infantry consume less manpower than other factions, The elite Spartan Hoplite uses 3, while Perioikoi coming from other cities under our rule only uses 1.


At 6/5 atk/def, Spartan Hoplite has both 1 better stat than the standard Greek Armored Hoplite with 5/4 atk/def.

What is effectiveness, you might ask, and why do our hoplites have 4 of it but other Greeks only have 2 of it? Well, a unit's effectiveness + experience levels gives you the minimum roll of the dice during combat. And since Spartans have lots of both, that makes our dice rolls consistently high. After all, Sparta's military prowess comes from our skills! And not praying to RNGsus.

Compared to Mercenary Hoplites with 4/3 atk/def, Perioikoi made up for their missing attack by their +1 more hitpoint. But they are definitely not a match for armored hoplites. Best to be kept in reserve in case battles drag on for more than 1 round to fill up gaps so your wounded hoplites can rotate out.

The Helots make up our missile troops. Being slaves, they are fodder and come at no manpower upkeep.
Compared to us, other factions have to spend 4 manpower on infantry upkeep and 3 on missile upkeep, which sort of evens out both armies in terms of manpower costs.

Unfortunately in battle, any advantage we gain from our elite infantry is lost to the poor quality of our support troops. Surely my king, you know of that embarrassing incident in history during the Peloponnesian Wars when those cowardly Athenian skirmishers refused to meet us in honorable battle but instead pelt us with missiles from afar. Our heavily equipped hoplites being unable to match their speed ended up surrendering to the enemy.

This is how the damage rolls are calculated. Support units provide 1/3 of their ranged attack rounded off to the front lines. Helots, having a ranged attack of 4, provides only +1 support. While other factions fielding skirmishers with 5 ranged attack provides +2 support. For example if attacking up a hill, this leaves the initial rating of both sides equal at 7 (shown below)

Well, take comfort in the fact that at least you're getting a higher minimum roll, and that the enemy will have to chew through all 3 hitpoints to kill a hoplite.

Also notice the Green squares on the leftmost and rightmost front lines? Those squares are for cavalry only. If you have no cavalry, the enemy's cav will cause flanking damage on your troops. Being flanked is no joke, it could even kill our hoplites in one shot. So better build a stable to stop exposing your flanks, before you end up in a major conflict. (As a temporary measure, if you manage to control any region of Macedonia province, you can use the decision to recruit local troops to get 2 light cav. The emergency levy decision for 100 legacy points also provides 2 units of cavalry.)

To sum up. Basically the only advantage that Spartan armies have over others during battle is a higher minimum dice roll. You are not invincible. Don't go looking for fights you can't win. (especially not in mountain terrain with your clumsy hoplites!) Don't leave your army with a 2-0 general ungarrisoned out in the open to be attacked.

With 3 hitpoints, try not to get your hoplites killed. You'll lose out on the experience level gained and they cost a lot of gold to recruit, especially when you have a large army as their recruitment cost increases quickly. If you need more than 1 elite army running around, you might want to field hoplites on the front lines only.

Luckily, Sparta has one last trick up our sleeves during times of war. After all, the Peloponnesian League isn't just made up of Sparta alone. All allied Greek cities can be drafted as infantry reserves, *ahem* fodder, when needed. Just march into their city and demand they take up arms, they'll join your army in the next turn. (Quick way to access the regional decisions is the hokey 'R')

This temporary boost in troops can serve to fill out our reserves in battles, or to quickly increase our siege rating to quicken the pace of a siege. So if you have an extra Draft Perioikoi decisions on hand, feel free to disband some of your unneeded troops in times of peace.

If you have full confidence in your hoplites in winning their fights, a particular intriguing military strategy is to have only 4 or 5 hoplites on your main line. This leaves room for perioikois to join the battle for the sole purpose of losing their fights. Resulting in an overall tactical draw for the initial rounds of battle, and preventing it from progressing to the pursuit phase. This would allow you to prolong the engagement for future rounds to inflict more damage upon the enemy army.

Just try not to draft this fodder from Sparta. Not because the description warns you that they'll get no experience, but because you don't want the only city in your entire country actually producing some decent manpower to suffer from the Drafted modifier.

Wait, what? Shouldn't that be Athens' shtick? Unfortunately my king, you will see what I mean when you lead your army out of the capital.



At this rate Sparta will go bankrupt in 10 turns. Just in time for the war with Athens, haha. A few mechanics are at play here:
- Armies in the capital cost 25% less upkeep
- Experienced units have increased gold upkeep
- 10 units will also receive free upkeep
- Cap on free upkeep for units is 15 gold each
So while standing in Sparta, your 2 star 30 gold upkeep hoplites were costing just (22-15) = 7 gold each. But in any other province they'll cost 15 gold each. This will only get worse as they gain experience. And when you recruit beyond 10 units.

Although in history, Spartan troops rarely venture beyond the Peloponnese, clearly keeping your troops at home isn't going to solve this problem. What we'll need to do is to build up our economy. Meanwhile you'll probably should turn some citizens as merchants before you go bankrupt.

Assuming that hoplites fall within your free upkeep while perioikoi do not. Each 2 star soldier you add to your army will cost you 15 gold in upkeep. That's 2.5 merchants to support each new infantry! I don't know about you, but I see only 6 citizens in Sparta...


Okay, time to start solving our cash flow problem. See that Market in Laconia? Demolish it. No, I don't care that it has assess to salt making it break even (usually it doesn't). It's still costing you 1 infrastructure in upkeep, but more importantly its taking up a building slot. Also, no one is manufacturing pottery, leather, dye and cloth for 100 years.

Here's what you'll want to build instead:
Food and money? Sound like exactly what a young coastal nation needs! Just be sure to check that you have access to fish. Usually one or two fisheries already exist in Greece to supplement the naturally occurring ones. (Otherwise Laconia won't have fish, so you might want to switch to other more profitable buildings, unless you want to waste turns re-rolling the buildings till you get lots of fish) Don't forget to build the accompanying salt mine and oil mill.

Another two buildings you can consider is the furnace and blacksmith. The furnace will import the iron found in Laconia as a bonus resource for blacksmiths, and generating some of that juicy 25% higher trade revenue as a Hellenic nation.

At least in Sparta, you'll find yourself in no shortage of metal (unlike Athenae who has to colonize Illyria for iron). The excess can be used in diplomatic transaction to sweeten cooperation agreements. And perhaps allowing you to exchange other resources or even territory in later turns. Or sold off for 500 gold or 300 manpower whenever the decision to do so appears:


Zero slots commerce buildings such as the anchorage and the crafter district are also great for your economy.

Eventually, you would want to build up your manufacturing industry in your capital and the 2 closest regions, Arcadia and Argolide. There they'll be safe from sieges by Athenae. When you run out of building slots, begin destroying the less productive buildings and focus solely on maximum commerce and as much culture to keep the population from revolting. It helps greatly if you have conquered most of Greecia and have manage to create the province. Since resource are shared within the province, the other regions can specialize in food and infrastructure instead.

By turn 100, you should be able to get these 3 provinces to provide an income of more than 500 gold each. Just imagine the amount of level 4 experienced hoplites you'll be able to support with that kind of money.

First things first, go to Achaia and set all your people to produce food. It has 3 population but 4 buildings, meaning you can't build anything till you gain 2 pops.

This would result in an infrastructure shortage. Well, doesn't matter, excess infrastructure doesn't get stored if you're not building anything. Just pray that RNGsus doesn't destroy one your buildings, especially that wall. (If someone waltz in and take the province, they might even enslave a citizen, and we'll be worse off than we had began.) On the other hand, if the commerce building a useless Usurer, might as well restart the game anyway, since RNGsus isn't on your side from the very beginning.

Beyond destroying that useless market, I'll leave Laconia for you to manage. Try to build the quicker buildings, but of course weigh their benefits in, including solving any of your current resource shortages. You don't need any citizens in culture. That temple in Achaia should already stop you from slipping in culture decadence ratio (CDR) rankings right from the start.

(*Note that threshold for growing your population in your capital scales linearly, while other regions scale exponentially. Which will make growing past 20 population outside your capital probably not worth the effort. So eventually you'll want to specialise Laconia for growth. This means having food buildings in the early game, but replacing them with sanitation buildings to max on health in the late game. That's after you have formed the Greecia province allowing the regions within to share resources. Dedicate some of them to flooding your capital with food.)

On to military matters. Argos would mostly be just keeping its army to defend its capital, probably in fear that it'll be crushed under Spartan's might should they ever decide to leave home. Let's keep it that way then. Don't weaken your army enough to make them think otherwise.

Unfortunately, your initial army is nowhere near enough to resoundingly defeat Argos. So your sights should be set on the regions to your north. Do not delay or they will be taken quickly by the Boeotian League. On your first turn, recruit enough slaves, *ahem* Helot shieldbearers, to pad out your ranks with the full complement of 8 support units. Ensure your army is led by the general with the highest attack value. Then await for Arcadia to be set as your objective on the next turn.

Take your army and directly assault the city in Arcadia in your next turn. For some reason, the entire garrison would sally forth and meet you in open battle. Crush them. This is much easier than waiting for the siege to be done. As you can see, the siege has a rating of -6, meaning it'll never progress. (Unless you manage to roll a 10 and breach the walls, but then you'll still have two more layers of wall to breach.)


Make very sure that you assault Arcadia as you march on it! Never assault Arcadia as you siege it. Even one led by a 2 attack general would fail. Arcadia has strong walls, so the garrison gets a +3 terrain bonus. This is unlike the other fortified towns held by independents at the start of the game, which gives +0 to terrain.


Once done, wait for Acarnania further north to be set as your objective and conquer them. You could siege them if you really want to, but I don't see any reason why Sparta should wait to bring these independent Hellenic city-states under our protection.

With that, all the independents within reach should be taken care of. The rest would have been quickly taken by either the Boeotian League or Macedonia who would only be all too willing to see Sparta cut off. (At least we're not being sandwiched like the Boeotians.) Now to settle in for the siege of Argos.


Athenae usually takes that small white island to the west of Macedonia. Let them have their island, it won't stop us from marching in from Epirus to take it later. If you have an Implant Trade Settlement decision (hotkey 'R') to spare, you might consider using it on the island of Cephallonia just west of Acarnania, as there are fish in those waters. It'll cost 175 gold and 40 manpower, come with an impediment, generate decadence, and lower your military expertise though. Meaning you'll might take 15 turns to recoup that loss.

On Turn 3, Sparta will always receive this mission to capture Argolide. The rewards are always legacy points and 2 perioiki units. You should be doing this anyway, but hey I'm not complaining if the game is willing to give a little more incentive. Wait, actually I do have a complaint. Why is the reward that Athenae receives for completing its first mission... even more money?!

You have 30 turns to complete this. That's too much, try to get it done in 8. That's because when Athenae declares war on you once the peace treaty is over, you're not gonna be able to blockade Argos harbor.

By now, I'm assuming you are fielding a full 15 unit army, the missing unit being a cavalry that you don't yet have a Stables to recruit from. Hopefully you haven't lost any units from assaulting the independent cities previously. But if you did, quickly have them replaced with Helot shieldbearers for now and march them all toward Argos.

You might assume that since we're sieging Argos, having a general with high attack rating is better. Unfortunately this isn't the case. The forces we have aren't enough to make a dent on the Argos walls. Even a general providing a max of 4 siege points isn't going to do much to over come the 17 point difference between attacker and defender.

No. What we will be doing instead is to starve those cowards out of their walls. All armies will first consume the same food stockpile in the region that's also used for population growth before they start living off the land. So you'll need to wait for the food stores to run out before it'll affect the army.

However sieging alone would never starve a large city with a harbor. That's because the penalty to food production is just 25% since the citizens would still be able to smuggle food in through the harbor. To increase the penalty to 75%, we would need to station a boat outside the harbor. (Just any boat would do, could even be a single hardly threatening Helot slave sitting quietly on a raft.) This would put an end to fishing and transporting food in from the countryside.

Double check just in case Argos had been secretly building a fleet while you were out consolidating power in the Peloponnese. In all likelihood, they wouldn't have.

After a few turns, the defenders will be dying off one by one due to starvation. Check every turn to see whether their food usage is still partially supplied. (You can tell if they're starving from their tattered banner on the map.) Once their garrison numbers drop to about 8, they would then be able to find enough food within the city to feed everyone. Waiting further would no longer be productive, it's time to launch and assault and finish them off while they're still weak from starvation.

Once that's done, it''ll soon be time to face our ever unrelenting rival Athenae.

Do you see what I see when I click on Achaia? If you say a harbor or a warship, then you're wrong.
What I see is someone wasting 2 perioikai worth of manpower teaching them how to swim! What I see is an infuriating waste of a building slot that can't be demolished, blocking any construction there on turn 1!

Remember that your most expensive 10 units have free upkeep. That means each hoplite you train will kick out a perioikai of only 1 manpower of free upkeep. Better yet, perioikai can be drafted using the decision whenever needed. Might as well just keep the bare minimum of perioikai during peacetime and save up manpower for war.

So if you have manpower to spare, spend them on hoplites! On the other hand, if you have money to spare, spend them on Helots! Did you hear that right? Helot shieldbearers? What can those slaves do?

Allow me to show you their stats again. Right there beneath their pathetic ranged attack of 4 (which has time and time again caused you countless nightmares of failing to weaken the enemy's effectiveness during skirmish). Right below there lies the most amazing stat in the game, +1 siege resist for only 3 gold!

Do you know what it takes to generate siege resist? Yeah that's right, a building slot! In general, you might get about 2 points for each building with siege resist. But not coming from that harbor that Athenae is going to blockade though. Nor that Tier 2 city wall that took 2 other military buildings to unlock either. Now I'll ask you this, is a building slot worth 6 gold of income, especially one that you can recruit on demand whenever war is declared? Hell yeah!

Ha! And the scenario gameplay says that Athenae has more of a defensive, slow-burner profile than Sparta. Well clearly whoever wrote that had never encountered the Spartan strategy of garrisoning all our border cities to the brim with slaves! There, we managed to find a use for them after all. They even consume only 0.2 supply per unit, that's just half that of normal skirmishers. Perfect for garrison duty! At least pair them with some perioikai though, especially in small cities with small garrisons. Otherwise, even that +3 terrain defense won't be enough to save your cities from assault.

You might ask, why go to all such lengths to defend ourselves from Athenae though? Why not just storm into Athens with our mighty army? This is why:

With 10 siege resist and free food for the garrison, good luck trying to siege that down. Not to mention that Athenae's navy patrolling the sea makes blockading it by sea hopeless. Especially considering that they are able to construct heavy warships even at Civ Level 2. You'll need somewhere around 30 perioikai to tilt that siege resist in your favour if sieging it only by land, but even then, you'll be spending turns on end just waiting for each layer of wall to be breached. Time better spent fighting on land to build an empire.

So we've come to an impasse. Athenae can't land on Sparta's capital because of our hoplite garrison, and we can't starve them out because of their fleet. One one hand the masters of the land, and on the other, the masters of the sea. So every time we battle it out, Athenae gets to take any of our undefended coasts, while we take any of their colonies within marching distance. After years of fighting, we check who has won more battles and occupied more territory and demand the loser fork over their legacy points.

Lesson here? Don't colonize islands and don't travel by sea when at war.

There is also the issue of that ancient rivalry between Athens and Sparta. Dominance is measured by comparing these 3 aspects:
- Naval power
- Number of regions
- Legacy points

To achieve dominance in any aspect, you'll need to be in the lead of 1.5 times more than your rival. Having more aspects dominant would trigger events that might give rewards to the winner such as:
- Bonus infrastructure points
- Bonus culture points
- Better relations with other Hellenic factions
- Enslave a population from the loser
- Granting an additional general
- Providing additional regional decisions

It is almost certain that Athenae's fleet will always overshadow our non-existent navy. And right from the start our legacy scores are so evenly matched that neither side can gain such a lead over the other. So keep expanding your territory rapidly enough to ensure that we are at least equally dominant, so as not to suffer the penalties.

In the late game after you have long eclipse Athenae in legacy, it might still be useful to keep Athenae alive even should you be able to create a powerful fleet to challenge them. Getting a free general and a free slave every now and then doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

There's no easy way to say this. Sparta has a slave problem. Throughout history, the Helots had outnumbered Spartan citizens 10 to 1 in the capital of Sparta alone. So Sparta really didn't have the manpower to field armies far from home for long periods of time for fear of a slave uprising. What this means is that our capital has a chance to add a slave instead of a citizen whenever its population grows.

To fix that, we'll need to build a Slave Market. Any region will do, doesn't necessary have to be in our capital. Once you've done so, the below decision would appear occasionally. During the early game, it's perhaps best to sell excess slaves for gold. Do note that you'll at least need 500 gold to even click on the decision, even if just selling slaves, so try not to empty your coffers entirely. In any case, 500 gold provides a healthy buffer for any emergencies. An extra income source from the slave trade would surely help in maintaining that.

Later when you've built more slave markets, this figure could come out to be quite substantial (see above). But building multiple slave markets is definitely not a priority! Unless you really need them to divert slaves captured during battle to other regions.

There's another decision that allows you to decide on slave rights. If Sparta has any government building (either a Governors Palace or the Oration Tribune line of buildings), then you would be well-advised to free some slaves. Remember, slaves don't contribute taxes or manpower. You really don't want them in one of your most wealthy and best manpower producing region.

The goal of much of the early mid-game would be spent trying to achieve one thing - getting to Civilization Level 3 and be reorganized into the First Spartan Empire (for a safer and secure future). Do not underestimate the benefits of becoming an empire, for it would fundamentally alter how Sparta shall wage wars. Rejoice if you manage to do so, for it is a feet that no Spartan king before you have accomplish.

Let me just stress how significant an undertaking it is to reform such time-honored Spartan traditions. For it would completely free us of the shackles of our pasts to confront the great threat that is the mighty Persian Empire. Of course to fight an empire on even standing, perhaps one too must become an empire, so as to bring to bear all the resources that only an empire can call upon, to marshal all the civil and military apparatus that only an empire could summon.


This will thus be uncharted territory for Sparta will now have access to:
- Mercenaries that would fight for our cause - bound not by blood, but by gold. No longer will we have to drain precious Spartan manpower. The is the true might of running an empire, my newly crowned emperor - paying others to fight your battles.
- Access to the powerful Spartan Phalanx, a veteran of battle that would be more than a match for the famed Persian Immortal.
- Shipbuilders defecting from Athenae bringing with them the plans for constructing Heavy Warships, the terror of the Mediterranean Sea
- Ability to field Cataphracts as devastating heavy cavalry. Finally something that can beat the Persian's own heavy cavalry on the flanks. You'll need to build the Campus Cataphratae first though, which is a Tier 2 military building that requires an Armorer first.
- Grand Palace erected in Sparta which prestige and splendor rival that of Persia's


Congratulations! So many units unlocked that you'll be spoilt for choice. But this here's probably the best of them all. Do you see it? No more manpower upkeep for cavalry! Finally you'll be able to include multiple cavalry units in your main stacks without worrying about their unprotected flanks after the first round of combat. Hopefully by now Sparta has become the trade capital of the world allowing you to afford upgrading your entire military. If you have manpower to spare, perhaps you might even consider replacing those Helots in your main army with better ranged provincial troops.

What does it take to reform your entire government? Own 20 regions and be a glorious monarchy with 5 progress tokens, and finally this button will show up in the faction panel. So let's get to work then, shall we? The tokens should be easy enough to gain as you're a small nation surrounded by enemies. Accumulate about 5 tokens from culture early on, we can get the rest from conquest.


Since Athens is blocking your expansion by sea, this would mean expanding up north through Macedonia. It's quite easy to catch them off guard during one of their wars with Thrace, perfect timing to march up that mountain province in Epirus that would otherwise be a problem for your clumsy hoplites. One other thing about the Macedonians, at least these uncultured people on the edge of civilization don't have the kind of Athenian legacy to summon stacks upon stacks of troops for 100 legacy points through the emergency levy decision.

Now that you've attained the power of an empire. Let's go teach those Persians a lesson or two after all those of years of them messing around with the Hellenic world. Revenge for taking advantage of us, fomenting those annoying revolts in our land, stealing our gold, metal and sailors all while we were busy fending off the pesky Athenians.

However don't take unnecessary risk against Persia. Do check that your good administrator of a leader isn't close to dying, and try not to let all your regions hover near 50 loyalty. Ideally most of them should have a high margin for precaution. Don't worry, Persia will still be there before the game ends. It's not going to fall to its own decadence on higher difficulties. Just take care that you don't fall to your own!

(It's best to liberate a region that you don't want to keep. Your high relations with the new faction would enable you to cede away other regions that you don't want through diplomacy.)