Need help Battle of Sucro

You need to have at least 3 generals (2 archer-type, a cavalry-type). You can upgrade both barracks so that your elite army can add unite each also every turn tried to recruit infantry each turn and protect each unit. You can only defend the left and right base in order to win the stage

I barely won this with a 1* clear with Drusus and cavalry commander with 6 cavalry points, but I'll share how I did it anyways.

Start:

1. DO NOT upgrade Trade Route, go for the usual Irrigation, Poetry then Metallurgy.

Why? Trade Route will give you 6 more economic output per turn which is a smaller amount than what Irrigation provides and more costly to upgrade compared to Irrigation.

What if we capture 1 city or more? You may capture 1 more city, but your defences will be spread thin defending this city and the 3 target cities (naturally, Pompey's is too far to be defended).
Plus, the 12 economic output has to minimally break even the loss of 2 economic output per round, so you'll have to take a city quickly. This is not an easy task given that you have a smaller force compared to the enemy and all your allies are in danger at the start, except for Pompey.
Thus, it's better to increase output for 3 resources than 1, especially since the effect on economic output is worse overall.


2. Deploy your gens.
Your archer gen can remain in your province and help guard the province to the east. This helps since the enemy will spam light infantry or swordsman later on.

Your cavalry and/or infantry general should march westward. Why? Delaying Pompey's defeat by 1 or 2 turns delays the Lusitanian reserves' charge. This is important because this charge can easily overwhelm Pompey's forces, take his city and march on the allied city immediately to your west.
Bonus: You get to defeat Sertorius and some of his troops as he leads them to hit Pompey's flank. Since their target is Pompey, the only resistance you'll face is from counterattack.


3. Spam slingers and auxiliary infantry/light infantry.
The sligers are the only troops who can deal "Thump" attacks to the enemy, a very effective weapon against the heavy armour of enemy troops early on, like Sertorius' Legionaries for example.
Plus, they're are archers so infantry and cavalry cannot counterattack.
Beware the enemy Javelin general! That unit is an archer type unit so it can launch counterattacks against your slingers.

The infantry spam is to use "Pierce" attacks against light armoured enemies. Since light armoured enemies are guaranteed, you'll have to deploy Piercers.



Mid-game:

1. By now, you would've defeated Sertorius and his troops, or badly weakened him to the point that Pompey can defeat him.
What now? Pompey will still be defeated. One of, if not the only Lusitanian general at Sucro will emerge to defeat Pompey, triggering the Lusitanian surge.

What can you do? If you've troops in the region, try to block his advance and delay him. There's no stopping him due to the loss of all the troops deployed to assist Pompey.

Best case scenario: You take down a few of the Lusitanian troops during the surge, weakening them. This is possible because they'd generally target Pompey's target city then sweep eastward. One of the slingers deployed westward actually didn't die even though he was right outside Sucro, showing that the enemy will largely ignore everything, but their targets.


2. Seetorius's army will now spam light infantry and the number of troops will heavy armour would have dwindled. This means that you should spam light infantry from both military camps.

HOWEVER, once the marksman commander attacks, spam light infantry to guard your city. Move the pre-existing light infantry unit in the urban centre to the commercial centre, this guards against the accompanying bowman.


3. Your marksman general should focus on guarding the allied city on the east.


4. If you've any troops left in the province immediately to your west, use them to block the advance to the urban centre and defeat any enemy troops. This helps you ensure that the urban centre has enough leftover HP to survive endgame.


Endgame:

1. The Lusitanian forces have advanced and take Pomey's city. Now, their target is the province immediately to your west.

What can you do? Well, your economy may not be able to sustain 2 infantry units per turn throughout the 16 turns and the existing troops may have been cut down by the enemy spam.

Your only goal is to block the advance to the 3 remaining urban centres and defeat as many enemy troops as possible.


2. With regard to the archer attack on your city, defending passively means that your infantry are acting as pin cushions. Consider that if you attacked the general, they'll almost be immediately cut down.

If you attack the archer, you'll lose troops and may risk allowing the occupation of the commercial centre.
This is dangerous because the enemy can more easily attack the urban centre and occupy it.


3. You lack both the military and economic power to effectively resist the enemy. All you can hope for now, is that you've delayed the enemy long enough to win.

I see you bought drusus. Good choice!

Nevertheless it’s an annoying economic challenge to reach the secondary target of 30 units with only 1 city. Even with stronger generals than at my first pass, the most efficient use of all resources and units. The whole Mithridatic war was easier to accomplish with 30 medals. I’ve tried so many times and think I can’t do anything better. Maybe the only way is to level up the Pantheon to further decrease the economic consumption. It’s now on lvl 3 (-6% consumption).

i wouldn’t mind the 5 medals, but this only mission blocks the scroll achievements for perfect clearance of all following campaign chapters. Does anyone remember how he made a perfect victory?

Unfortunately it only gets worse from here. Sertorius Strike and especially Eve of War are notoriously hard missions

Finally a perfect victory, now with tech lvl IV on Pantheon and Library. But it still needed every trick to press the max out off the city. Beyond 26 units the belligerence lvl changes to aggressive, so I dismantled the stables for a second residential area for 100% income. Approx round 10 I had enough metal(tools) to swap the industrial for a second commercial area.

Research: Trade route -> Irrigation -> Consul -> activate Olympic. 

This time my infantry and cavalry gens only supported Pompey by killing the to Lusitania archers, but stayed far away of the Sucre borders. Like that, the lethal Woad raider general never appeared. Pompeys city and the northwest stayed untouched and my gens were able to come back to northeast after Sertorius died. With them, defending and killing 25 was rather easy. 

just barely scraped through this with a 2* as well with Belisarius, Infantry Custom Gen, and Pedius

firstly, i went head on attack on the invading sertorian troops and it's general, completely annihilated them w/ belisarius, but then sertorians began an invasion of the central-west base, had to send my inf commander leaving a battered belisarius and pedius behind for defense of the other two bases

pompey's base falls, sertorius and the lusi general begun to sweep, i begun to neglect the far northeast and it fell to sertorians, belisarius and pedius nearly get destroyed but were able to take out the lusi general and a bunch of troops, but the hordes kept on coming. i had to sac pedius who was able to garrison the central-west base until turn 15

belisarius got a few more legions, my inf commander had by this point retook the far northeast base at the cost of 3 of his legions, keeping said base garrisoned by auxillary, but they were destroyed in one turn

by this point it was the final turn, pedius had been killed and my inf commander had less than half a legion left in his pocket, and my luck was godly, belisarius took out all 3 besiegers of the far northeast base and after a swift forced march, was able to take out 3 more sertorian units at the central-west base, the light infantry i planted at that base after pedius died held it's ground, won barely with 25 medals in my pocket