Ave, fellow Generals!

This guide will provide you with basic + advanced information how to recruit the best soldiers to ever be in a Total War game!
From the steppes of Sarmatia to the Deserts of the Sahara, no one will be safe from your mighty soldiers, bred for a single purpose: stomp your enemies into the dust, hack everyones manhod off, only to jam it into your enemies throats while singing manly man songs!

Why? Because I'm gonna ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ show you why.

PS: YO, listen up guys. I am perfectly aware that i can get better units when upgrading praetorians, oathsworn and so on. In this guide, Sparta is JUST AN EXAMPLE. I have chosen Sparta because I thought it would be a good example. Of course this guide works with all roman and hellenic factions.

Now, let's start with the important part- setting up a province where you will recruit your gods of war!
First, you will need a province which consists of AT LEAST THREE cities. AND you will need a fully upgraded province capital, that means you need the full capacity of buildings slots. Why? Because you will need all of them.
Damn, you might say, so many red buildings! Damn right! That's the blood your enemy will lose out of their noses, ears, mouths and vaginas after seeing your godlike soldiers set loose murdering unlucky-to-be-outside levies, pillaging the countryside and raping every tavern wench from Baktria to Camulodunum!
In this example, I will use the province of Hellas and the faction Sparta.
As you may have noticed, there are two training sites in the province capital- the stratopedon
and the ephebic college.
These are crucial in turning green peasant boys
into blood-dripping war machines, so construct
them ASAP!
And that's why you need these building slots!

Furthermore, you HAVE TO construct the
Temple of Ares, and also a hippodrome as they
are essential in providing public order and further
bonuses for your units!

The foundry and the armourer, as well as the
highest-tier barracks (here the Momument of
Leonidas for Sparta) are considered an
ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE.

The above province example is (imho) the perfect build for martial culture, but I'm open for Improvements.

Now, it's time to look at the buildings which help recruiting pure badassery.
Let's look at the barracks first (of course top-tier, as all other buildings to come)

First, we have here a 15% discount on land units, which combined with other bonuses lets you recruit units for half the price!
Second, it has a global effect, which gives all land melee unit +5% morale!
*And third, it lets you recruit units in this province with an additional 30% morale boost!
YES, you heard right: F U C K I N G 30 % !

*(only applies to Sparta, as only they are able to construct the Monument of Leonidas - but other factions get also morale bonuses in their respective barracks too)

**A nice plus is also the unit and ship discount you get when enabling the "Noble Philanthropy Edict". But as no one of us is Tony Stark and we don't really need this particular edict, we will skip this part.


The next building will be the Stratopedon, one of the Top-Tier training site buildings, recognizeable trough the shield and sword depicted on it.

It can only be built in the province capital, so make sure you have the tech already researched when a bulding slot becomes available.
The 5% on morale are nice, but the 20% on melee defense are even better, allowing even militia troops to hold the line much longer as usual. The next bonus are the 3 experience ranks it provides on recruitment, which means you will have already veteran units!*

*The 20% bonus, as all other bonuses, are also applied on experience ranks, meaning that the more ranks a unit has, the more base points it has on which the stats are calculated!


Now to the other training site, the Ephebic College.

As all training sites, it can only be built in the province capital-make sure you have at least 2 training sites!
It gives you a nice 5% morale boost, but the most important part is the 20% on melee attack, which means your troops will be chopping, piercing and disemboweling enemies much faster and more efficently!
Of course, if they haven't already been killed by the charge impact of your troops, stocked with the very useful 15% boost this training site provides!




Next, the smithies:

The foundry gives you also 20% on melee attack, and also an additional 5% on armor.
You also get 70 wealth from the foundry, but that's not the point.
Remember to recruit your war machines AFTER you have constructed all smithies, as the upgrade will be far more expensive than the unit itself!







The armourer provides your units with better shields and armor, giving them an awesome amount of bonuses: 20% on armour, also 5% on melee attack AND 20% on shield effectivness! Now even cretan archers may not bother you, damn, even catapults would look like childrens toys with that godmode armor! Well, maybe not really...but you get the point.




Last but not least we will have a look on the temple of Ares Enyalios (enyalios: belligerent, warlike)

Be sure to construct this temple in the province capital, as only there it can be fully upgraded! (in minor cities only up to tier III)
Again, the temple gives you additionaly 10% on morale - combined with the aforementioned morale boosts, your units will stand their ground down to the last man.

Furthermore it provides spear recruits with 2 experience ranks, which is pretty awesome and is clearly a big plus for hellenistic factions, and above all, for SPARTA.

Enabling the "Bread and Games" Edict, you will be able to recruit two more units per turn - very handy in times of war!

As you may have noticed, the red military buildings, which are so important to recruit soldiers in the likeness of Ares himself, produce much squalor. To counteract to that, you are obliged (!) to construct one hippodrome in your province capital, and a tier III Sacred Grove in a minor city of your choosing.

Furthermore you HAVE TO activate the "Bread and Games" Edict, as it will give additional 4 public order from the hippodrome,+4 food and public order from the edict itself, +2 recruitment slots from the temple of Ares, additional income and more!Also it is crucial to research the philosopher skill tree, which will give you up to +4 public order (Consensual Contracts).

Also the construction of such building will cost you food- that means, that you always have to look after your food if you don't want your troops to starve and die. Just bes ure to have enough farms in other provinces which provide enough food. The ideal amount of food stored is 20, as it gives maximum growth!

Tech tech tech, it's all about the tech tree if you want to unlock buildings and units!


Basicly, it's like this: to unlock barracks, you have to research the managment tech tree. For the training sites and unit upgrades you go for in the tactics tech tree. To build foundries and armourers you only have to research the first tech of the siege tech tree.

The Advanced Cavalry Training, the last tech in the Tactics tech tree, will give your units +10% melee attack, as well as +10% melee defense AND an 8% charge bonus!
So it is definetly worth it to spice battles up!

Of course, to research everything will last a long time, so it is highly reommended to build A LOT of libraries to enhance your research.


Additionaly, your general has also influence on the stats of your units - so it's a big plus if you skill him accordingly.

The most noticeable skills are as follows:

Great Leader (perfect to recruit already experienced soldiers)
(+1/+2/+3) experience rank(s) for all recruits
(+4%/+8%/+12%) morale for all units

Tactician (very useful to move farther on the campaign map)
(8%/16%/24%) campaign map movement range
(0/+4%/+8%) melee defense skill for all units

Dread (your enemy will be running at the first sight of you)
(-10%/-20%/-30%) morale for all enemy units
(0/+6%/+12%) weapon damage inflicted by all melee units
(0/+6%/+12%) weapon damage inflicted by all missile units

Soldier (good if you like to charge often and first)
(+10%/+20%/+30%) charge bonus for all units
(0/+4%/+8%) melee attack skill for all units
(0/+4%/+8%) shots per minute for all units

Logistics (perfect for replenishing and skirmishing)
(+4%/+8%/+12%) replenishment rate for all units
(0/+25%/+50%) ammunition for all units
(0/+8%/+16%) armor for all units

Now, after turns of researching, upgrading and constructing you are finally able to recruit your own unstoppable force of bloodthirsty warmongerers, ready to kick some A S S!

Your screen may look like this now..


Let's compare this insane stats to regular Royal Spartans:


Damn, are these badasses intimidating!
And that are only the building upgrades, now suggest how these Rambos will look like if you completely upgrade their general AND army traditions! Their stats would nearly double!


Of course, this guide just covered the upgrades for melee land units, but to build similar ELITE caalry and archers you only have to change some buildings.

Here you can see the same province, but this time for missile units:

The main goal is to increase reload rate and missile damage:

TEN shots per minute, one shot every 6 seconds - that means your enemy will look like a giant dead porcupine under this missile barrage!

Here is the respective Provine for Cavalry recruitment:

The Temple of Poseidon gives your horses +5% speed, which is also a nice addition to your already broad arsenal of upgrades.


As you may notice, the changes in the cavalry stats are not as impressive as in their infantry counterparts - but by upgrading army traditions and the generals skill tree, they will become a force to be feared!

That's it - that was the full guide how to build godlike units.

I really hope everything is understandable and all of you enjoyed this guide (and learned something!) as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Please don't forget to subscribe and rate!

May Fortuna be with you, and may we meet on the Battlefields of Multiplayeria!