AI faction expansion in your campaigns? [Archive]

Teleklos Archelaou

12-29-2005, 17:38

Not much has been said about this. We change builds so often internally up to the open beta, that very few long campaigns were run. I know I would (and I think most all members) love to see some screenshots of how the AI controlled factions expanded over the years in your campaigns. If you've run some for 20+ years, how about posting some shots and your thoughts?

AI expansion seems to be a lot more slow in the open beta with some changes made recently in regards to rebel family members, troop strength, and city development. So let us know how it's gone and what you think about it! Thanks! :grin:

-----------------------------------------
Here are some examples from older campaigns (on older wacky builds) from the internal boards. Basically just to show different ways you could post these things:

https://img349.imageshack.us/img349/5093/2713jo.jpg

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https://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9104/testrun20yz.jpg

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https://img278.imageshack.us/img278/364/yuezhi062234kk.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
https://img363.imageshack.us/img363/1320/yuezhi072134cr.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
https://img389.imageshack.us/img389/38/yuezhi082020gu.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
https://img92.imageshack.us/img92/4921/yuezhi091905lb.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
https://img92.imageshack.us/img92/6442/yuezhi101831lw.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

Dayve

12-29-2005, 18:41

https://img435.imageshack.us/img435/1070/12yearsin3kc.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

There's my campaign after 12 years (only got that far up to now), i'll post more as i progress. :winkg:

(I am ze Romans by the way)

khelvan

12-29-2005, 19:49

Woo! Sweet, sweet Zeus, I finally got the Sarmatians to expand!
:ave:

Teleklos Archelaou

12-29-2005, 19:58

Woo! Sweet, sweet Zeus, I finally got the Sarmatians to expand!
:ave:
Just as amazing that the Yuezhi took Chighu too, but it is nice to see the Sarmatians do that. Maks are looking good. Also it seems as though the Seleukids keep getting provinces either bribed away by Ptolemies or are giving them up in a deal. Greek_fire had a nice expansion in another thread too.

Spendios

12-29-2005, 21:30

My Pontos campaign in 258 BC :

https://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=carteeb5uh.jpg

khelvan

12-29-2005, 21:36

Oooh, that's a nice one too.

Inepticus

12-29-2005, 22:06

How does one turn off the fog of war to see ?

khelvan

12-29-2005, 22:14

In the console (usually ` to get there) type "toggle_fow" and do the same to turn it off.

Narakir

12-29-2005, 23:02

https://img528.imageshack.us/img528/3250/casse264bc6nr.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
I'm playing Casse. I'll post more soon as I advance. :bow:

Ps : I've noticed that casse gouvernement 2 and 4 share the same name and descriptions.

Big_John

12-29-2005, 23:20

249bc, i'm karthadastim
(sorry, no sauromataen expansion) ~:(

https://img524.imageshack.us/img524/4246/clipboard025vm.jpg

The_Mark

12-29-2005, 23:48

I'd say that the Sauromatae were bogged in a war against Hayasdan and Pahlava. But.. Look at Baktrians go! They're set for the rest of the game, I'd be damned if anyone can challenge them in the East, that'll only happen if Sels can turn all of their attention there, but Baktria would still survive in India.

@ Narakir's:
If Epeiros and The Koinon are allied, they'll trash the Maks good, a brush over Thermon could turn them against one another though. Epeiros will still come up as a winner there, they're already advancing North and taking territory there. Luckily for them Getia has been quite silent. I'd bet that Epeiros will challenge Rome herself after a few decades.

Cybvep

12-29-2005, 23:53

https://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7106/map4gt.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
256 BC. I'm playing as Aedui. Currently, there is only ONE war - Arche Seleukeia vs Ptolemaioi (they are fighting with each other from the start almost constantly...).

Thorn Is

12-30-2005, 05:34

Here I've been playing as Pontos with the fog of war turned off so i could pay attention to what is going on everywhere around the map, which is taking forever to watch all the moves :happyg:
https://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a139/ThornIs/Map2.jpg
This is after 10 years....
The Aedui and the Arvernos have been in constant war. Arvernos seems to be winning, though they havent really taken any land from their Gaulic counterparts and now the Romans have several armies in southern Gaul and are expanding very aggressively. The Casse are on their way to ruling Britain very soon. Epeiros and Hellenon have allied together and have given the Macedonians a thrashing. Getai is coming along nicely. Sauromatae, rather then taking the northern rebel cities has just attacked the expanding Hayasdan, wonder what will happen from that... I'm allied with Hayasdan :gring: and has even tried to help them take a rebel city which borders both our borders. We were defeated though. My economy is now stable, but I'm low on troops and will take some time to gain enough money to expand some more :sadg:

Teleklos Archelaou

12-30-2005, 05:51

Nice guys. Keep 'em up. Especially when you get further into a campaign.

Chester

12-30-2005, 08:40

How to I view my .tga file?

Big_John

12-30-2005, 08:47

hi chester, what i did was to press "print screen" on my keyboard to capture the display to the clipboard, while in rtw. then i press "ctrl+esc" to get out of rtw and opened an image viewing program. i use irfanview, but any image viewer should work. i pasted the clipboard data into irfanview and cropped it and resized it, viola.

http://www.irfanview.com/

edit: in other words, i don't bother with the tgas at all, though any image viewer should be able to open a tga file.

Epistolary Richard

12-30-2005, 10:24

Here I've been playing as Pontos with the fog of war turned off so i could pay attention to what is going on everywhere around the map, which is taking forever to watch all the moves
On the campaign selection screen try unchecking the Follow AI Characters box

Greek_fire19

12-30-2005, 13:47

You can use imageshack.us

Here's a map of 246 B.C.

I was the Casse, and I had absolutely no interaction with other factions whatsoever, I doubt they even knew I existed.

One interesting thing you'll note is that somehow from the other side of the world the Aedui took over Galacia. Is that just a random fluke or have Eb made it more likely for celts in various places to join forces?

https://img326.imageshack.us/my.php?image=map6iw.jpg

EDIT: I'v played a few campaigns to about this stage now, and from what I'v seen this is pretty typical. Noone becomes the absolute supreme power and basicaly noone is totally destroyed. In fact it seems as if the A.I is perhaps actually more cautious in EB, in partiuclar in it's dealings with other A.I factions.

I played on with that particular campaign for about another 5 years, but nothing much happened so I didnt bother taking another screenshot. I took over Ireland and the bactrians took those 2 rebel provinces near the caspian sea. The Macedonians expanded into asia minor a bit after a few seleucid provinces rebeled and I think carthage lost another iberian province

Greek_fire19

12-30-2005, 13:51

One little thing: Has anyone had a game yet where the seleucid empire was totally crushed? It just dont seem to happen very much, in fact more often than not they actualy expand.

Thorn Is

12-30-2005, 16:38

On the campaign selection screen try unchecking the Follow AI Characters box
Ive been playing like that so I could keep track of all the factions. I've noticed that even though some factions might not expand they are usually always trying to expand, but either losing to the rebels or to other factions...

GreekFire

what looks interesting in your map is going to be the battle for Gaul, with the Romans having a presence in the south and the Sweboz looking pretty tough...
Although with my game the Seleukos are still dominant in the region the Macedonians have taken another hit - losing another city just after I took that picture.... If they don't rally they might be the first to be destroyed.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-30-2005, 17:39

One little thing: Has anyone had a game yet where the seleucid empire was totally crushed? It just dont seem to happen very much, in fact more often than not they actualy expand.They expand into Arabia often just because the AI likes to go after rebel provinces when it can. And they will often get cut off from provinces they might grab in the northeast. But I usually see them lose provinces to rebellion and other factions step in then. I've seen them cut apart in many places, but never totally destroyed (but then I've never played a really long campaign either).

Chaotica

12-30-2005, 20:18

My Macedonian campaign in 248 BC:

https://img432.imageshack.us/img432/2122/ebmakedon248bc6sp.jpg

Unfortunately, I get a CTD after this turn. :(

Teleklos Archelaou

12-30-2005, 20:19

My Macedonian campaign in 248 BC:

https://img432.imageshack.us/img432/2122/ebmakedon248bc6sp.jpg

Unfortunately, I get a CTD after this turn. :(
Holy crap! I wonder what got in the Yuezhi drinking water?

khelvan

12-30-2005, 20:46

One interesting thing you'll note is that somehow from the other side of the world the Aedui took over Galacia. Is that just a random fluke or have Eb made it more likely for celts in various places to join forces?When provinces rebel, they have to "rebel to" someone, we can't just make them rebel to the slave faction (believe me we wish we could). So instead we have them rebel to people they have the closest affiliation with. So the Aedui in the case of the Galatians.

GoreBag

12-30-2005, 23:10

https://img439.imageshack.us/img439/359/257screenshot6qf.jpg

After 15 years in, everyone seems to be doing well for themselves, with the exception of those ninnie horse people.

Things actually started to pick up after I took the screenshot; Makedon, my ally, decided to besiege Naissus. Reinforcements arrived before any rams were brought to the walls and their army was utterly crushed. In fury, I quickly assembled what more troops I had and marched on Sardika, where my spy was ready and waiting to keep the gates open. Sardika's garrison consisted only of a Makedonian family member, so the battle was really just an excuse to have live targets for practice.

After slaughtering the populace, my general produced a trait that gave him troubled dreams. All of my generals are wimps! Help!

Divinus Arma

12-31-2005, 00:58

The year is 262. I will post a map soon.

I am playing as Rome. The Aedui have not been doing well against the Arverni, but manage to hold on. The Aedui hold Galatia in my campaign as well.

edit: Nevermind.

Thorn Is

12-31-2005, 01:32

After slaughtering the populace, my general produced a trait that gave him troubled dreams. All of my generals are wimps! Help!

having that trouble too. Thanks to some horrific battles I massacred a few cities in revenge. So I dont know if my generals are wimps or I'm just a bastard :gring:

Ok after 20 years
But I keep getting kicked out after Seleukos turn so I dont think continuing will be possible anymore :sadg:
https://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a139/ThornIs/map4.jpg
Ok Major wars....
the Aedui have secured the north, with their enemy Arvernos in the south... though the Romans have a staggering 3 cities under siege in Gaul - 2 rebels 1 Arvernos. Don't think they would have taken them all, but give them some time and they would be a powerhouse in Gaul.
The Romans and Epeiros have been in constant war. The Epeiros have even marched on Rome. At the time this was taken the Romans had Taras undersiege and Eperios had only one army left in Italia.
Iberia and Karthadastim have fought to a stalemate.
the Getai have become a true powerhouse...
The Macedonians were almost finished at one time, but rallied and have taken some cities on the coast of Asia Minor. In otherwords - it was almost as if they were forced into migrating eastwards. They have since been trying to fight their way back on to mainland Greece.
the Seleukids and Ptolemaios are in constant warfare with no real result, just a lot of battles and a lot of dead.
I have (pontos) became a trading powerhouse. Making around a 1000 gold per turn. Have no enemies, just a lot of friends, though that would probably change with time.
well cause of my problems with getting kicked out of my game its probably the end of that campaign. Must say it was a lot of fun, and very interesting constantly watching the other factions an how they react to eachother and how they expand. :gring:

The_Mark

12-31-2005, 01:42

A shame that the Sauromatae haven't expanded properly, especially in Thorn's campaign...

Thorn Is

12-31-2005, 01:48

They fought a lot in the first 10 years against the Hayasdan and the rebel factions to the west and the north, but never had a huge army.

Thorn Is

12-31-2005, 02:12

It would be interesting though to see if someone could make it 40/ 50 years in without too many CTD's to see if they will expand once they have some time to build up a good enough army - or if oppertunity knocks
though they were doing well in Greek Fire's and Dayve's campaigns

O_Stratigos

12-31-2005, 02:22

My Macedonian campaign in 248 BC:

https://img432.imageshack.us/img432/2122/ebmakedon248bc6sp.jpg

Unfortunately, I get a CTD after this turn. :(

Its 248 BC!! This must mean that the CTD in 252.2 BC in my Makedonian campaign can be overcome! But how?!? Has anyone else went past 252 BC playing Makedonia? That will be great news!!
Maybe we do need a list of all the factions- like the_handsome_viking has suggested- so we can keep track of what is happening and people can report the progress on individual campaigns every five or ten years screenies and all.

O Stratigos :bow:

Thorn Is

12-31-2005, 02:30

Maybe we do need a list of all the factions- like the_handsome_viking has suggested- so we can keep track of what is happening and people can report the progress on individual campaigns every five or ten years.

would be neat if a bounch of people get organized to play unique factions.... you know like 2 people per faction so every faction gets played equaly and some arent ignored....

Teleklos Archelaou

12-31-2005, 02:59

O_Stratigos

12-31-2005, 04:55

Although they might not be stickied, individual threads in this particular forum, if they are about an individual faction (discussing what works, what doesn't, etc.) would be cool - but only as they are needed and as people want to post about them. Sorta had one going on the Romans you've seen already.

Of course anyone can start a thread about a faction like is suggested, but because of the enormous amount of information that is coming in, I think having all the factions listed in one place –like the EB Bug R&TH and EB GG- will make it much easier for everyone to find and post progress, bugs etc. It will also be of great help, I believe, to the EB members who are trying to fix the bugs and CTD’s to just pop over to a given faction and make any comparisons and observations they might need.
For example, I am about to report a CTD:Karthadastim and I’ve been looking all over the place to see if anyone else has already posted any, so I can add mine there as well.

Anyway that’s what I think; maybe someone can explain as to why it can’t be done, or why it might not work or whatever.. :shrug: ~:thumb:

O Stratigos :bow:

Dooz

12-31-2005, 12:40

My Casse campaign, 250 B.C.

https://img364.imageshack.us/img364/9003/2508yo.th.jpg (https://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2508yo.jpg)

Dayve

12-31-2005, 15:04

https://img388.imageshack.us/img388/1514/2533fb.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

253BC, still playing as the Romans and it's the same campaign as i posted earlier in the thread.

Thorn Is

12-31-2005, 15:41

My Casse campaign, 250 B.C.

https://img364.imageshack.us/img364/9003/2508yo.th.jpg (https://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2508yo.jpg)

Karthadastim has been kicked out of Spain.... The Iberians will probably fortify Iberia like something... ~:)

Teleklos Archelaou

12-31-2005, 16:38

Karthadastim has been kicked out of Spain.... The Iberians will probably fortify Iberia like something... ~:)
Yeah, that was interesting. And also that Baktria has not done much except get northern india bribed away by the Parthians it would seem. (india rebels to baktria, so it didn't rebel to parthia). A pretty nice distribution otherwise. Looking good.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-31-2005, 16:41

https://img388.imageshack.us/img388/1514/2533fb.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

253BC, still playing as the Romans and it's the same campaign as i posted earlier in the thread.
-That's troublesome why the Pahlava got Ma'in. Ptolemies are the faction creator so they should be the one it rebels to.
-Baktria going northwest is weird.
-Seleukids falling apart looks good
-KH is probably just sitting on rhodes

everything else looking good.

Dooz

12-31-2005, 17:57

Here's the same Casse campaign at 242 B.C.

https://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1002/242bc6ve.jpg

One weird thing... Maybe they were there before and I hadn't noticed, maybe they're supposed to be there, maybe they just got that far but...

https://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1905/displaced7sx.th.jpg (https://img404.imageshack.us/my.php?image=displaced7sx.jpg)

Those Gauls sure are resourceful.

Teleklos Archelaou

12-31-2005, 18:04

If it rebels, it has to rebel to someone. Better them there than anyone else. :laugh4:

Big_John

12-31-2005, 18:58

If it rebels, it has to rebel to someone. Better them there than anyone else. :laugh4:is there anyway to decrease teh chance of rebellion for AI factions? in one of my campaigns, i noticed that rome was takign taras from epeiros over and over again, and it kept rebelling back. i'm not sure, but i have a feeling that this maybe be stunting the growth of AI factions (especially when conquering other AI faction cities).

Teleklos Archelaou

12-31-2005, 21:27

Romans and Epeirotes are actually the same culture - there should be very little reason for them to rebel unless it just has to do with sheer population numbers. I don't know how we can alter rebelling chances any other way though actually.

Spendios

01-01-2006, 15:05

My campaign in 241 BC

https://img500.imageshack.us/img500/3513/europabarbarorum22xp.jpg

The Sweboz in Tolosa ? Is that normal ?

O'ETAIPOS

01-01-2006, 15:27

I noticed Makedon cut to pieces many times. It may be caused by lack of
MIC II in Mak cities - both KH and Epeiros have one (Athenai and Ambrakia respectively)

Teleklos Archelaou

01-01-2006, 16:52

They had to have bribed that city away it would seem, Spendios. Same for the pahlava province in India.

Etairos, Maks, I think, just are in a situation where they have multiple enemies to start the game all in a fairly restricted area. Sometimes the wind up with a lot of territory, sometimes (like in spendios') they just hold their own, sometimes they get split up or crushed (like in wonderland's). It's a volatile area and position. I'm not too unhappy with it so far. Plus, we still have units to add and building levels in cities to tweak, and even govt bonuses to tweak. It'll all work out. :grin:

Thorn Is

01-01-2006, 17:28

I kind of like the unpredictability of the AI in EB. Makes every campaign a little unique. Of course that is my own very humble opinion.~:)

O'ETAIPOS

01-01-2006, 17:48

I have to report one problem - KH 'king" is sitting on Krete, in the same spot from the start of the game (almost 10 years)
are there any plans for more Makedon style Makedonian starting army?
I mean some taxei Phalangitai instead taxeis hoplitai, some psiloi in the garnisons. But, I suppose it will be to easy for human ths way.

Teleklos Archelaou

01-01-2006, 17:53

That's where Areus was in 272 BC so that's where we wanted to start him. Too bad the stupid AI doesn't either:

A. go pick him up
B. recruit mercs and take kydonia
C. bring more troops to help him take kydonia
D. charge him into a heroic death in a futile attempt to take kydonia
E. disband the other troops with him and just let him wait to die alone

Oh well. When the human plays as KH, it's pretty easy to solve the situation at least.

khelvan

01-01-2006, 21:47

Hmm, we should stick the KH navy right next to him and see if it helps him.

jerby

01-01-2006, 21:50

nice to se ethe EV-veterans surprised abotu their own creation ~;)

the tokai

01-02-2006, 00:22

A. go pick him up
B. recruit mercs and take kydonia
C. bring more troops to help him take kydonia
D. charge him into a heroic death in a futile attempt to take kydonia
E. disband the other troops with him and just let him wait to die alone

What did the real Areus do?

Teleklos Archelaou

01-02-2006, 01:10

He ran home as quick as he could when he found out pyrrhos was approaching. But he got there just after the fight had gone down. But his son had successfully kept pyrrhos from breaking into the city itself (with the help of many of the women of sparta). Pyrrhos then had to turn around because the maks came down with some forces and caused him to disengage sparta.

areus died a few years later outside of korinth while trying to push the maks out of the peloponnese.

Narakir

01-02-2006, 01:40

Maybe some people can use the command -ai, just put it after your EB shortcut and the AI would play the player faction.

Dayve

01-02-2006, 01:52

https://img461.imageshack.us/img461/7499/242bc1hi.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

242BC... Again it's the same campaign i've been playing from the start. I be ze Romans.

mattholomew

01-02-2006, 03:10

246 bc, i'm playing as the romani

wait... i thought i got the picture posted but i guess not

QwertyMIDX

01-02-2006, 04:36

Maybe some people can use the command -ai, just put it after your EB shortcut and the AI would play the player faction.

That keeps you from running the script which makes the game play very differently.

mattholomew

01-02-2006, 06:37

https://img462.imageshack.us/img462/6461/rtwminimap7dk.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

246 bc, i am the romani, the Ptolemaioi had expanded further into syria and anatolia but lost that ground, and carthage had controlled most of spain and parts of gaul up to masilia and gergovia earlier on, but when they began to lose some provinces they declared war on me. Since then they have lost a large amount of land rather quickly. the sauromatae and hayasdan have been fighting of control of the provinces above the black sea for a while. Oh, Baktria has a full stack army near the capital which has been there for quite a while now and they haven't been expanding. The Seleukids dont have any real military force on the eastern portion of their empire, so i'm hoping to see some Baktrian expansion into their lands soon, as i am eager to see the special alerts about the seleukid collapse

jerby

01-02-2006, 12:28

look at yhuezi go! sauromatae is doign great as well!

Moros

01-02-2006, 13:40

It's 246 BC. using the -ai.

The casse had a rough time since they were the player faction but I helped them twice by using the add_money code So they at least were able to conquer two other settlements. (It crashed once and started it up again)
Now, it has crashed again and this is the last screen I took. from 246 BC

https://img334.imageshack.us/img334/2525/rtw2461ff.png

jerby

01-02-2006, 14:29

seleucids on the crumblign side...

Zastrow

01-02-2006, 20:16

https://img502.imageshack.us/img502/3001/ebscreen6fj.jpg

I included the Faction rankings, dunno if you find it helpful or not, I included the factions that are powerful in my game as Romans, Carthage, Ptolemy, Seleucids, Baktrians, Armenians, Parthians and myself. I got a message like 8 turns ago Egypt is about to win, not much I can do, navies are too damn expensive to and roaming pirate fleet with 7 stars that keeps randomly blockading my sicilian ports prevents me from risking moving out of the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas.

Carthage is my next objective after I stabilize my northern front a bit more, once I sieze carthage proper I can begin moving into Gaul or Greece with sufficient naval power and commercial might to back up full-scale invasions of those kinds.

Overall I think I'm doing good.

jerby

01-03-2006, 01:02

"egypt is about to win"
that can happen? wow..
..
..
that sucks...now There's pressure....

but then, I've already started my third campaign. not failing, not boredom. but over excitement to see what's around

Teleklos Archelaou

01-03-2006, 01:10

Those messages should just be ignored. They've yet to do anything. It doesn't relate to our new victory conditions anyway.

O_Stratigos

01-03-2006, 09:20

My Makedonian campaign at 247 BC
https://img461.imageshack.us/img461/2880/247bc1bi.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

I gave Dalminio to Ptolemaioi and Singardunum to Aeudi as buffers, following through on my master plan for world domination... :evil: ~D

O Stratigos :bow:

PS: Hey TA, have you reached a decision about the phrourion yet?

Conqueror

01-03-2006, 17:35

Progress from my Baktrian campaign:

260BC
https://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9925/eb260bc3xp.jpg

247BC
https://img443.imageshack.us/img443/7762/eb247bc7md.jpg

236BC
https://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8034/eb236bc7qu.jpg

When Seleukids attacked me, all of the other initial Seleukid allies (Hayasdan, Pahlava, Pontos) renounced their alliance (they're still allied to me and to each other) but none of them has declared war on Seleukids so far.

Meothar

01-03-2006, 20:11

https://img366.imageshack.us/img366/1699/swe2469iu.png (https://imageshack.us)

My campaign as Sweboz 246. At this time, i fight agains the Getai (they attacked me). The Gaul factions and Rome never fought against each other, they just sit there since the beginning.
Armenia and Parthia fight for many years and sometimes really conquer a city. Also, Makedonia fights against Pontos, KH and Epirus, but they seem to win. Rome is at war with Carthage, but they never conquered a city of their opponent, they didnt even send an army to try it. Sarmatia is a Protectorate of Armenia. I have to say, before the war against Getia, it was quite boring, but I think it gets interesting now. I played a campaign as Bactria, too, but it crashed and I dont have any screenshots.

Dayve

01-05-2006, 02:17

https://img322.imageshack.us/img322/6523/2356qg.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

235BC in my campaign as Roma which i have been posting throughout this thread... Seleucids are almost finished i dare say, Greece is still alive but they've been reduced to owning Rhodes only... The Armenians are doing ok for themselves... Sarmatians are expanding nicely as is Baktria... I've just given up Carthage and Adrumento because i realised it's way too early for me to be even thinking about expanding in Africa yet (historically anyway), although Carthage will NOT accept a ceasefire no matter what i offer...

Thorn Is

01-05-2006, 05:06

wow look how bad the Seleukos has been hit
I feel like lighting a candle in their memory
and poor Pontos

Dayve

01-05-2006, 06:11

It's even worse 3 years later :2thumbsup: Will post it tomorrow, bedtime now though.

Teleklos Archelaou

01-05-2006, 06:29

Very nice seleukid collapse. I have to wonder about seeing Armenia take such large areas compared to Pontos every time though. In our earlier tests they split it up (the race around to the north of the euxine), but every single time now they take it. I think it is more a matter of not helping Armenia out so much to start the game than needing to beef up Pontos at the start.

We wouldn't force it, but it's more accurate to see Armenia solidify and hold their own than to expand into areas Pontos historically had more control over (granted it comes later though - not in 240 or whatever).

Dooz

01-05-2006, 08:10

Continuation of my Casse campaign, Summer of 227 B.C.

https://img223.imageshack.us/img223/5001/227bc9rt.th.jpg (https://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=227bc9rt.jpg)

Chaos in the East with the Persians spread all over the place, no solid holdings for anybody around there throughout the campaign.

Armenia and Pontos are doing as you suggested T.A. It's good to have variables like this, so perhaps they shouldn't be nerfed? (Admitted bias on my part, being an Armenian and all... ~;) )

Ptolemies are powerful as hell.

The Epirotes (?) have all but destroyed Makedon, pushing them east across the channel and now reign supreme in their area, although Rome is now at their throats and Getia is no joke.

Carthage is doing it's thing in Africa having gotten kicked out of Iberia by the Iberians.... who are consequently kicking everyone elses ass to their north. I am however allied with them for the time being.

Rome doing quite well. Just declared war on me, joining their allies the Sweboz... who are currently the most powerful nation on earth.

The Aedui have been all but destroyed thanks to yours truly with the help of the Iberians, left only with one province.... in Turkey no less... Arverni are a protectorate of the Sweboz and are near their end.

More fun than a barrel of stoned monkeys.

Geoffrey S

01-05-2006, 11:35

cdbavg400

01-05-2006, 12:37

Here's my KH campaign in 256:

https://img157.imageshack.us/img157/546/256kheb8hm.jpg

A few noteworthy things about the current state of affairs:

- Pontus has moved into Europe and has taken Byzantion. Now only if they stopped getting thrown back by Pergamon's forces.

- Backtria has broken away from their alliances, and are about to take that final rebel provence to their northwest. Pahlava could help Selekeus, but....

- The Yuezhi have declared war on the Pahlava, and seem to have enough troops to take their two eastern most cities.

- Rome has stopped focusing on Sicily, and instead has been gobbling up rebel provinces to the east, with a few more currently besieged.

- This, however, has left Italy wide open to attack, which the Aedui seem about ready to do, as their stacking troops in their southern provences.

- The Averni have become Protecorates of the Aedui, but have several full stacks of their own, some seeming to heard northeast and attack the Sweboz, others about to southwest into Iberia.

- Cartage is definitely going to lose all of Iberia soon. They're too busy trying to take all of North Africa.

Dayve

01-05-2006, 16:36

Teleklos Archelaou

01-05-2006, 17:18

I like the varied things happening to the Seleucids. Sometimes they retain and enlarge their empire, sometimes they crumble. Aside from the Yuehzi it looks like most factions expand quite nicely, overall.

Though in the last two screenshots, there's a strange Pahlavan looking province in Arabia. Would that be a bug?
I think it would have to be a bribed province (as is Tashkashila). That one should rebel to ptolemies if it has to rebel to anyone.

Baktria looks like a Texas gerrymandered congressional district. :grin: I guess they are still at peace with seleukids and just taking what provinces rebel? If not the AI has lots its marbles.

Did epeiros take Krete too? Weird that Sicily still is mostly rebel.

-----------
edit:

Ma'in province: faction creator is numidia (Ptolemies), but faction culture is indeed Pahlava.

It would be really nice if someone fully explained to me how the AI handles rebelling provinces. Why do some go rebel sometimes, sometimes to the faction creator, and sometimes to the faction culture?

edit2: Hmmm. I'm wondering if the faction that takes a province is indeed the faction creator, if they can't hold it then maybe the game looks to the faction culture next.

Malrubius

01-05-2006, 17:25

Did epeiros take Krete too? Weird that Sicily still is mostly rebel.

Hiero of Syracuse is one tough cookie! I need to do his biography trait. :laugh4:

khelvan

01-05-2006, 18:18

Ma'in province: faction creator is numidia (Ptolemies), but faction culture is indeed Pahlava.

It would be really nice if someone fully explained to me how the AI handles rebelling provinces. Why do some go rebel sometimes, sometimes to the faction creator, and sometimes to the faction culture?

edit2: Hmmm. I'm wondering if the faction that takes a province is indeed the faction creator, if they can't hold it then maybe the game looks to the faction culture next.Generally they've been rebelling -from- the Ptolemies. So maybe it looks to faction culture if the faction creator holds the province.

Teleklos Archelaou

01-05-2006, 19:02

Generally they've been rebelling -from- the Ptolemies. So maybe it looks to faction culture if the faction creator holds the province.
If this is the case, we may just have to live with this. Who else viable could they rebel to? Why in the world was this not made a little simpler.... :furious3:

QwertyMIDX

01-05-2006, 22:03

*Cough* Sabeans *Cough* ~;)

Conqueror

01-05-2006, 22:26

https://img322.imageshack.us/img322/1559/eb231bc7tf.jpg

Baktrian campaign in 231 BC. Poor Ptolemies have lost Alexandreia and are now getting squeezed hard between the Seleukids and the Karthadastim. Eastern Europe north of the Danube is the only large area that is yet to be conquered by any faction.

Dooz

01-05-2006, 23:09

Well since it has happened in two screenshots now i think that city in Arabia must be rebelling to Pahlava... What's the garrison for it looking like in your screenshot Wonderland? In my game they have a full stack almost in there, of what troops i am unsure though since i've no spies in the area...

Around a full stack in mine too. It also seems like the Aedui have the same province in the last screenshot as they do in mine, kind of out of place. Hopefully these'll be fixed with 1.5 or BI with the culture fixes. BTW, Conqueror, do you know how Rome got their Iberian provinces? Was it rebellion, bribery or conquest?

Dayve

01-05-2006, 23:59

Well the province that rebels to them is the Galatian province i think... Although it might as well just stay rebel because it's so far from the Aediu that they won't be able to control it unless they keep a full stack army in there and that'll be difficult with them being over the other side of the map and whatnot...

Jebus

01-06-2006, 00:14

http://tinypic.com/jreequ.jpg

203 BC, playing as the Romans, and hopelessly suffering from Imperial Overstretch.

- I am currently at war with the Iberians, the Karthadastim and the Egyptians (who all attacked mé while I was fighting the Swéboz - the Getai and Epirus did so too, so I was fighting one hell of a war there for a moment). Iberia and Pontus (of all people) are constantly bribing my cities in northern Germany, after which those cities consequently rebel (except for Swébozautsroasxwcfao or whatever that awful, awful name is again, who the Iberians have managed to hold and turned into a full-stack-spawning nuisance.), which resulted in about four or five full stack rebel armies traveling around the countryside, distrupting my trade routes and sporadically besieging my cities. I should really send some armies up there...

In the meantime, the Ptolemaioi are slowly but surely kicking my ass back into the mediterranian, and the Iberians keep on throwing stack after stack after me - although they only have about four cities left. They should be gone soon.

- Epirus made Makedonia a protectorate about fifty years ago, which means their treasury is now (and I lie not) at two million denarii. I dread the day when I will have to wage war on them, because they could probably bribe my entire shaky empire in a couple of turns... Right now, they are conquering the Getai, though, who have actually held up pretty well for the last twenty years or so - I guess Epirus has drained all his cities for manpower...

- Ptolemaioi and the Seleucids have been waging a stalemate war since the game started, with Antioch and Damascus changing owner every five turns or so. I hope that the fact that the Ptolemaioi are now waging a two-front war will work to our mutual advantage - although I don't trust the Seleucids, either. And I *really* don't want to conquer the Seleucid Empire before I conquer Epyrus, either - because that would not only make it logistically very hard, but it would also give the Epirotes more cities to bribe that I cannot man with family members. Speaking of which - I now control sixty cities, yet only have twenty-seven family members. They should really get to breeding more, or propose some decent adoption candidates...

Also, you might notice that the Ptolemaioi control a province in the Baltic. They bribed that city around 250 BC, and although they never, ever garrisoned it, it has never rebelled. Odd, if you ask me...

- Baktria has made the Yuezi a protectorate, yet they don't seem to be getting rich from it. I guess they are either operating with huge losses, or the Yuezi don't get scripted financial help... Baktria has been at war with the Seleucids off and on for the last fifty or so years, but they still haven't hurt them all that much. Instead, Parthia now seems to be bribing their cities one by one.

- The Armenians have expanded all the way into Russia. They just kept going - I guess they really had a grudga against those Sauromatae. They've declared war on the Getai a couple of times, but always made peace shortly afterwards. I'm pretty happy about that - it helps keep a balance of power untill I'm ready to venture into that scene.

- The Casse haven't done a thing since they've conquered Britain. I guess I might annex them after I (if I) defeat the Ptolemaioi.

- After Epyrus made Makedonia a protectorate, nobody seems to wage war against Pontus anymore, and Pontus hasn't declared war against anybody. Pretty unique, compared to vanilla games...

- The Greeks are holding out on Rhodos, as they have done for ages now. I might send a fleet over there when I can afford one, becuase Rhodos ( and Krete) whould make great bases to hit the Epirotes in the back when I invade them.

Speaking of fleets - even though in the beginning of the campaign there were a lot of pirates, for the last thirty years or so I haven't encountered a single enemy ship, neither pirates nor another faction. I have one crappy fleet sailing troops back and forth to North Afrika constantly, and it hasn't been attacked in ages... So I'm guessing either the AI doesn't use the new port system properly, they think they can't afford a fleet (hah), there's some über pirate fleet somewhere in the East that keeps on sinking everybody's ships, or the AI are using all their cities to constantly turn out troops instead (which might be the case for the Ptolemaioi and the Seleucids, who are waging an epic war of attrition...).

Also, I have noted a strange graphic bug: Epic Stone Walls don't appear on most cities. On the campaign map, those cities just appear like they have no walls at all. I just thought I'd mention it.

jerby

01-06-2006, 00:16

*Cough* Sabeans *Cough* ~;)
looks liek Jurchen Fury is winning that battle ~;)

Teleklos Archelaou

01-06-2006, 01:26

Very interesting jebus.

-Make cheap diplomats and put them into your cities - they help (but don't always stop) the bribing situation and aren't really an exploit.

-Ports are being worked on currently. The first patch might not have all the corrections, but we will get them soon.

-I've already brought up internally the epic walls disappearing. Dunno what is causing this yet.

Geoffrey S

01-06-2006, 14:44

https://img322.imageshack.us/img322/1559/eb231bc7tf.jpg
Those two Roman provinces in Spain. Were they captured, bribed, or did they rebel to the Romans. They seem a bit out of place, but could be caused by a number of things.

Conqueror

01-06-2006, 16:36

I don't know, but I'd guess bribing. I haven't paid that much attention to the factions on the other side of the world.

Mujalumbo

01-06-2006, 19:25

If this is the case, we may just have to live with this. Who else viable could they rebel to? Why in the world was this not made a little simpler.... :furious3:
As the Ptolemies, I took a city on the Arabian peninsula. It had a 10k+ population, and so my garrison wasn't large enough to quell discontent, it rebelled... to Pahlava.
(Luckily, it wasn't the city with the old dam. I was on a mini-mission to capture all the wonders in Arabia.)

Spectral

01-06-2006, 21:52

My Baktrian campaign, 230 bc

https://img343.imageshack.us/img343/5376/mybaktria2dl.jpg

Notice the great Roman Empire, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea. :laugh4:

Thorn Is

01-07-2006, 00:02

noticed something that happened a few times, including my campaign, Makedonia has been forced to migrate into Asia Minor.
Doesnt always happen, but interesting when it does - since in my formor campaign I was Pontos...

Proper Gander

01-07-2006, 18:45

i'm playing as the Casse, and it's 257 BC. the KH are strong and seem to be in firm control of their Makedonian enemies. interesting!
rome is expanding up north. and the Averni are about to surround the Aedui, as they are sieging the provinces of western modern france.

i have had about 3 or 4 CTD's without a message telling me why. but it mostly worked again after a reload.

here's the map:
https://img438.imageshack.us/img438/9149/257bc4mu.jpg

Teleklos Archelaou

01-07-2006, 19:06

Maks are doing pretty good in my pontos one:
https://img229.imageshack.us/img229/9765/2469ud.jpg

It's 246 and I'm taking away all the Armenian cities from them. Had a good battle with them over Mtshketa - they had a large army but I just waited till they charged in and repelled them with some phalanx troops. One cool thing - as I was chasing them out, somehow an almost full unit of jav cav stormed in from the other direction onto my one unit in the center of town still. gah! But I kept them off and won.

The slowdown over building governments is keeping me from pushing too fast though - as I have to ferry my good units in from the west to replenish.

As for the AI factions:

- KH is down to Rhodes, and the maks just landed troops there and have three fleets surrounding the island. I think KH has three units left. They should be done for soon.
-Romans and Carthies are held back by the huge garrisons in east sicily.
-The Seleukid collapse is the most interesting thing though. The Pahlava are storming in all over and are sieging two towns in the center - and Ekbatana already has a huge rebel army there.
-Baktria must have failed to hold Opiana and it rebelled pahlava. Stupid, but we haven't found a way around that yet. Baktria is trying to take it back though.
-Interesting that Ptolemies are having a hard time in the upper nile. They took Damaskos and now are trying to take seleukid Palmyra too.
-But those seleukids have done something neat here - they took Side and Tarsos both. With me (pontos) above them in anatolia, they focused on the south and drove the ptolemies out totally. Halikarnassos and Pergamon are full of stacks of rebels, so no one is going in there. :grin:
-Epeiros on its last legs in two provinces, but are a protectorate of the Maks. They are the only protectorate in the game. Looks like the maks got a huge financial boost from the protectorate though. Too bad...
-Sweboz ain't doing much. Romans have broken out to the northeast of the peninsula now though - but face large stacks of troops there.

Jebus

01-07-2006, 22:14

http://tinypic.com/jtrk8h.jpg

Continuation of my Roman campaing, now at the fall of 182 BC.

I think I finally broke the Ptolemaioi. This war has been hell - they kept sending stack after stack after me, and I had five fleets ferrying armies back and forth. I even lost two of my three-gold-chevron veteran armies: I really am pretty good, but if you are attacked by three full stacks of Klereuchoi Agemata in a row (or at the same time, even) you WILL lose, no matter how good you are. I felt how the Nazi's must have felt fighting the Soviets: for every stack I slaughtered, two more came in its place. For every four cities I conquered, they conquered three back while I was retraining my armies. But after applying a scorched earth tactic (destroying their MIC's when I took their cities), I seem to have finally broken them. I don't see any full stack armies on the field anymore - just some leftovers - and they seem to have gone on the defensive. The Seleucids, the lazy bums that they are, now have eight full-stack armies around Sidon, and the only city they have taken in all those years of the Ptolemaiic war is Damascus. I guess now a race is going to start between the Seleucids and myself as for who can annex the most cities before the Ptolemaioi are gone - and my only remaining veteran army is currently stuck in Memphis, but a new one is being trained in Arretium. It's been a hell of a ride, but I've beaten them down. Hellenic bastards.

The other fronts, in the meantime, have closed. I've fully conquered Iberia, and by garissoning my cities with diplomats I have apparently stopped the North German bribing problem. Funny fact: when I re-conquered one of those cities, it had six level one Iberian governments, and eight (!) level one (yes, level one) Pontic governments. 14000 free gold for me - used it to treat myself to a free Curia Maxima.

Gold is starting to become a problem, by the way. One would think that a player owning 80 cities would swim in gold - but nothing is further from the truth. I have to spend about 100 000 gold each turn for construction (the only two cities completely built up by now are Rome and Carthage), and all the rest goes to re-training and re-building my armies. I'm constantly stuggling to make ends meet.

As you can see, the Armenians have now conquered even more of Russia. They went on a rampage on the Persians, whose only remaining city is now the one safely encased between the Baktrians and the Yuezi, whom they gained by rebellion. The Armenians are now fighting the Epirotes, who are now obviously winning the war against the Getai. As soon as the Ptolemaioi are completely gone (well, except for their Baltic province - which they, while it is still not garrisoned, have yet to lose to rebellion), I'm going to attack the Epirotes and open a front there too. Their treasury is now down to a million and a half - I guess those zillions of elephants they now own have something to do with that.

For the rest, nothing much happened. The Casse still haven't done anything, and the Baktrian army stacks are still sitting behind their borders, looking at the undefended cities of their Seleucid enemies.

I am now far more certain of victory, though.

Dooz

01-08-2006, 00:05

Hell yeah baby, Armenian empire runnin' wild on your ass!

...

Anyhoo, I love the EB economy. You rule almost 1/3 of the world and it's not "end-game" mentality where it gets boring because you're infinitely rich. I think the balance is really great. You conquer territory, support just enough for garissons and keep your main army going. Maybe have some more anti-rebel armies here and there. Perfecto.

Then again, I'm playing on M/M, and in most of my territories, tax is very high and I'm just getting by. On harder difficulties, with more realistic taxes, I think I'd be in trouble........ Looking forward to future campaigns.

QwertyMIDX

01-08-2006, 03:50

EB is best on VH/M, that way the stat balance stays in place but the AI is more aggressive and the rebels will attack faction cities.

LorDBulA

01-08-2006, 08:59

Jebus

01-08-2006, 13:27

Whats very importent AI also makes less suecidal decisions.

Jebus great campaigne i must say.
Can you post more stats about your Empire?
How much chash you earn, how much your army costs, how much man you have in armies, what about brigants etc...
Or it would be the best if you could just post your save in this thread.
I would really kie to see how big empires works in EB.
We never had a chance to paly that far.

It would be my absolute pleasure, if you could perhaps direct me towards a site that would host my .sav file. I've tried three so far, and they all said my 'file type is not allowed'...

What I CAN do, though, is post some stats.

I am now at the summer of 170 BC.

Empire:

http://tinypic.com/jutwr5.jpg

Faction scroll:

http://tinypic.com/jutwzn.jpg

Finanial scroll:

http://tinypic.com/jutxe8.jpg

Notice my huge army upkeep. I guess about 100 000 of that is caused by the fact that I am forced to garisson my cities with hastati or mercenaries... Which costs a bundle. I am yearing for the Marian reforms, because then I will apparently be able to produce Vigiles for all my cities, which will most likely cost a lot less to keep the order. It's a shame to have to pay about 500 a turn to garisson a city like Mediolanum, safely tucked away in the middle of my empire. Oh vigiles, how I yearn for thee.

LorDBulA

01-08-2006, 13:49

Just .zip the file. Or use any program to pack it.

Malrubius

01-08-2006, 13:50

It would be my absolute pleasure, if you could perhaps direct me towards a site that would host my .sav file. I've tried three so far, and they all said my 'file type is not allowed'...

Try zipping it up? Save energy and your sanity!

Jebus

01-08-2006, 14:29

After trying four more sites, I finally did it. (http://www.freefileupload.net/file.php?file=files/080106/1136726905/RomanSave.zip)

The things I do for you people...

LorDBulA

01-08-2006, 14:31

Thanks a lot.

Jebus

01-08-2006, 14:42

No problem.

Could you perhaps conquer the Seleucids for me, and then send it back?

Dooz

01-08-2006, 15:52

Jebus

01-08-2006, 16:15

Jebus, how come you have to garisson with hastati or mercenaries? Haven't played Rome yet, so just curious, you can't train lower level troops in newly conquered cities? Or is it for public order purposes?

Yes, it is for public order purposes. And to avoid that a newly spawned stack of rebels can just walk into your city unopposed.

Also, the auxiliae you can train in conquered territories have more often than not a similar upkeep cost as the hastati. And you can't even train these in certain areas (e.g. the desert), so you're forced to garisson them with mercs untill cheaper garisson forces arrive. And you can't train these untill you have a suffecient surplus to have their upkeep cost added to the mercs cost temporarily, etc. etc.

Dooz

01-08-2006, 16:16

Yes, it is for public order purposes. And to avoid that a newly spawned stack of rebels can just walk into your city unopposed.

Also, the auxiliae you can train in conquered territories have more often than not a similar upkeep cost as the hastati. And you can't even train these in certain areas (e.g. the desert), so you're forced to garisson them with mercs untill cheaper garisson forces arrive...

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Hyperstyle

01-08-2006, 16:21

Getai campaign, H/M

https://img236.imageshack.us/img236/6933/getai19od.jpg

https://img236.imageshack.us/img236/97/getai20yw.jpg

Some notes:

Macedon got a fullstack army of slingers :sweatdrop:

Casse got a full stack army but won't attack caledonia.

Just in the last few years armenia and sweboz started to expend greatly.

Rome isnt expanding much because of the large arveni,carthagian and epirote armies swarming around.

QwertyMIDX

01-08-2006, 17:03

You have Roraii don't you?

Jebus

01-08-2006, 17:47

Who, me?

No, I don't have Rorarii, as the Polybian reforms have already happened.

jerby

01-08-2006, 19:24

you're quite the gammer Jebus..wow...
how mcuh time did you spend on this? how many hours a day do you play it?

Jebus

01-08-2006, 19:48

I dunno... About three to four hours, I guess. My girlfriend's got examns and I got bornchitis, so it's not like I got that much to do anyway.

Plus, it's fun.

LorDBulA

01-08-2006, 21:26

I advice you to not fight bridge battles.
They are so unrealistic and stupid.
I can assure you that it will play much better.
I wonder if you could hold halicarnasos withough exploiting river crossings.

Jebus

01-08-2006, 22:00

Heh heh.

It wasn't really about the exploiteable river crossings - IIRC I autocalculated the battle that ensued the next turn anyway, since the attacking army an all-archer army and it would've been a waste of time - but about holding the armies above the river away from Halicarnassos until that fleet transporting reinforcements arrived, and leaving the troops in Halicarnossos facing an army they could defeat by themselves.

It worked - the Ptolemaioi are gone from Asia Minor now.

King of the dutch

01-09-2006, 20:57

ok here goes

[img=https://img236.imageshack.us/img236/4193/map258cut6qf.th.png] (https://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?image=map258cut6qf.png)

Edit: great it worked! Question though. How do i get the image on my post like you guys?

Anway its 256 and as you can see i kicked the Macedonians out of ....macedon. They are in Milete now. Everyone is slowly expanding except for the Sauromatae. I'm a little further on now and Epiros got eliminated. Casse have almost al of Britain. Cartahge is holding in Spain. I'm waiting for the seleucids to get torn up so i can attack 'em too. Romans have just moved into illyria now. Only segesta and Mediolanium are left for them in Italy. Adui and Averni have picked up their swords again. Sweboz is almost in contact with getai now. Armenians do their thang. That is move up the black sea. (i find that interesting and surprising as wel)

Well its exciting. btw, i really have a hard time getting commandstars, in fact none of my generals have any. In fact most of 'em are getting worse and worse despite running around sieging cities and killing and maiming and stuff. And the nightmare trait is a bit harsh for exterminating 1 city. Maybe after 2?

grtz kotd

Dooz

01-09-2006, 23:40

KOTD, to make your image visible, just choose a different option of posting from the imageshack site. Thumbnail 1 is a good one if you have a larger image. It'll post a smaller version of it, visible here, then you can click on it to view the full version.

And the nightmare trait seems pretty decent. It only goes to those who are unselfish and other such nice traits I believe, so it makes sense. How many cities and innocent people would a good-hearted man have to demolish before having to feel any guilt?

CorporateSlave

01-10-2006, 01:40

Does anyone else feel that the Armenians are a bit more aggressive then they should be? I think this point was raised elsewhere, but jebus' campaign drives home the point. Should they be nerfed? Or the neighbours, such as Sauromatae improved?

Dooz

01-10-2006, 02:05

Yeah, that's a point that's been brought up, but it seems that in different campaigns they end up developing differently so it's not a constant thing, as with any other faction. I think that's the way it ought to be, why not? In my campaign Iberia and the Getai were powerhouses and Armenia was still pretty much where they started. I think it's good to have the chances of diversity.

Teleklos Archelaou

01-10-2006, 02:34

It's good to have a chance, yeah, but they clearly are more successful in almost every game than Pontos, while Pontos became the faction historically that expanded much more. Either way, it's hard to get these all worked out when our unit lists and unit recruitment still are quite a way from being fixed. We would probably be wise not to fool around too much trying to tweak things like this yet till we get those two problems sorted out better (or we'd have to tweak again once that's done).

Spendios

01-10-2006, 18:02

Pontos "may" suffer from not having elite units neither in infantry or in cavalry, Armenia is far better in cavalry (which is historical) but Pontos hasn't "elite" infantry to compensate.

Wardo

01-16-2006, 04:59

Hi, here's the AI expansion in my first EB Campaign as the Casse.

https://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3130/timeline3rl.jpg

I spent the early decades isolated in my home island but after a while I couldn't restrain myself any longer and I had to attack, so I made a viking invasion on reverse and landed in "modern Sweden", expanding from there.

As you can see the great kingdom of the Britons has "liberated" and "allied" with the Scandinavian protectorate which claimed territory from the evil Sweboz as the true, rightfull rulers of the North, and we're now also moving West to free the lands our ancestors left for Britain, I've reached my Pax Britonnica though, to the East my army is battered, weak, small and if the Sweboz mount a large offensive they will gain land, I can't expand to the West right now because of the large masses of Roman armies in the South, I'm struggling against these Romans, their armies are huge and powerfull and they have gained the allegiance of some of the Southern tribes, those traitors, we shall exterminate their settlements if we ever conquer them! That should teach them a lesson! Great campaign, great fun, I can't wait for the next EB build.

Teleklos Archelaou

01-16-2006, 05:15

Oops - starting a new page now. Make sure you go back one post and see Wardo's AI expansion pics!

It's very interesting that in yours by 210 all of europe, anatolia, and asia (except the subcontinent) - every bit - belongs to a faction. The romans are doing well it seems. Poor pontos though. :grin:

Also that Arabia is faction-free! Carthage looks like they are losing ground, and ptolemies doing very well as usual. In another couple of decades the Seleukids will be totally gone it seems - very very interesting. Also good to see the Maks spreading out in that pattern (a little unusual). The romans taking all of sicily but not driving epeiros off the heel is funny.

Very nice sequence. Good work! :2thumbsup:

Reenk Roink

01-16-2006, 05:22

Yeah, I really like how Arabia remains independent.

To the team, are you going to make it harder for these areas to be conquered in the next build?

QwertyMIDX

01-16-2006, 05:39

Arabia you mean? If that's what you're asking than we have something up our sleeve.

Reenk Roink

01-16-2006, 05:45

*dies*

Mouzafphaerre

01-16-2006, 14:22

.
:laugh4: Good old days of fan torturing are back! ~D
.

Spendios

01-16-2006, 22:00

My game in 225 ( I play as Pontos )

https://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2663/carte2258kz.png

Justiciar

01-16-2006, 22:04

Wow.. that all looks fairly insane.

Malrubius

01-16-2006, 23:45

My game in 225 ( I play as Pontos )

https://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2663/carte2258kz.png

There's probably an interesting story behind what's going on with Aedui and Rome!
:laugh4:

BozosLiveHere

01-17-2006, 02:48

This is from my Ptolemaic campaign, autumn 238BC, just after I conquered Pontos. It's a very weird campaign, with the Romans locked in an eternal war with Epeiros and never gaining ground, the Iberians keeping a somewhat powerful Arverni as their protectorate and the Koinon Hellenon actually managing to hold two cities in Greece against the macedonian attack.

https://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/bozoslivehere/238.jpg

Unlike most of the campaigns posted here, in mine the Seleucids are the second most powerful faction. I guess my conquering of their western provinces in the early game left them with a more efficient, easier to manage empire, and now they want their lands back.

https://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/bozoslivehere/ranking.jpg

menander

01-17-2006, 04:16

My game in 225 ( I play as Pontos )

https://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2663/carte2258kz.png
What is with Armenia? That's some wierd stuff right there...

PSYCHO V

01-17-2006, 08:00

Dooz

01-18-2006, 07:13

Casse campaign, 209 B.C.

https://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1605/209bc4fq.th.jpg (https://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=209bc4fq.jpg)

The east is still as crazy as ever... maybe even more so with the sprouting of Koinon Hellonen rebels all over the place. They're in Sicily, soutern Turkey, in between Pontos and Armenia, and across the sea to the north of that. Incidently, KH and the Getai have way too similar faction colors on the camp map.

I have begun my invasion of the Roman peninsula, leaving a wake of destruction in my path. I expect that odd stretch of Casse territory to be retaken soon, as my main goal is destroying everything on the way to Rome itself, which is next on the agenda after destroying the current city I'm laying siege to. Also, the last Arverni stronghold is under siege by an army of mine and will fall soon.

There's been an uneasy peace between myself and the Sweboz after many years of ruthless killings. The two northern 'Gawjam' cities were taken from them, their inhabitants exterminated and buildings destroyed. They are constantly revolting, killing themselves and damaging the remaining buildings some more but won't become rebel cities because I'm playing on M campaign difficulty I suppose. I don't even have any garrisons in there... *shudder* You don't want to be living in either of those towns... The Sweboz themselves are concentrating on the east, recently having started war with the Persians.

Of my Iberian allies, I am afraid... they have around 7-9 full stacks and haven't declared war on Rome yet. They are however constantly trying to bribe my cities and planting spies. We've been allies since I first invaded the mainland and it's been working out so far, but war seems inevitable unless they attack Rome, especially since the last Arverni town is soon to be mine.

Zenith Darksea

01-18-2006, 09:20

Dooz

01-18-2006, 10:05

That's interesting: the Koinon have got some of their traditional colonies (Trapezus, Syracuse etc), though I suppose that that's through rebellion. And have Epirus invaded Asia Minor? That's quite cool.

Yup, that's Epirus in Asia Minor. Tried to take that Pontic town several times to no avail over the course of the years.

BozosLiveHere

01-23-2006, 04:20

This is from my Sweboz campaign, spring 245BC.

https://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f71/bozoslivehere/sweboz245.jpg

As is becoming usual in my games, the Romans never expand much. There has been a lot of interesting activity in the eastern steppes though, pretty much all of the factions in that region have fought each other at some point.

I have also formed a barbaric league of sorts, getting alliances with the Aedui, Arvernni, Getai, Yuezhi, Iberians and British. Hopefully we'll have destroyed the "civilized" nations by the turn of the century. That will teach them. ~;)

Warlord 11

01-24-2006, 10:14

Rather stupid question: how does one take a screenshot of the minimap?

For us few tech-illiterate people.::sweatdrop:

Malrubius

01-24-2006, 10:26

I'd recommend you go to http://www.howiesfunware.com and get his screen capture program, for the easiest screenshot-taking.

Warlord 11

01-24-2006, 10:46

I'd recommend you go to http://www.howiesfunware.com and get his screen capture program, for the easiest screenshot-taking.
Thanks! Now how do I post it...:embarassed:

Malrubius

01-24-2006, 10:54

Go to https://imageshack.us

Warlord 11

01-24-2006, 11:12

Yeah!
https://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9236/map2hv.th.png (https://img3.imageshack.us/my.php?image=map2hv.png)
I would like to thank my mom, my dad, and Malrubis.:laugh4:

The Rome/Epeiros situation is more interesting than it looks. At one point epeiros captured Caupa and was besieging Canne, at another point, they lost all there cities in Italy and had both of there other cities besieged!

I'm Casse if you can't tell!

Edit: btw it is 231 BC

john289

01-26-2006, 21:32

https://img482.imageshack.us/my.php?image=suhhhhuhuhuhupppp5kr.jpg
I'm playing as the Sweboz. The major front in the campaign right now is Iberia, I blocked them off with two forts from rampaging through Gaul. I decided to sally out and meet them, and the next few turns was large army against large army.

On the Eastern front, the Dacians and Armenians don't have a hope of launching an offensive, and the Romans haven't given me any problems in awhile;)

By the way, this is my first campaign in EB, and in my faction victory conditions, it says I have to take Vicus Vendelicum. I looked all over the campaign map posted here, and ingame, and I can't find this damn place. I'd be thankful for some help:)

Wonderland, the same thing happened to me with Iberia. They had around 5 full stacks and I only had two, now my numbers stand at 2 full stacks and their numbers stand at two full stacks. Hopefully I'll win some big ones and continue my attack, slaughtering their cities(which is really driving my war effort, my numbers are kept up only with mercenaries payed for with blood money and loot) and rid myself of the Iberian pest. I'm really annoyed with them, not one of my generals has died to them on the battlefield but quite a few have fell to their assassins.

Spendios

01-27-2006, 22:16

Here is the situation of my Pontic campaign in 201 BC

https://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8332/2013pz.jpg

In the East, Baktria is now at war with the Seleucids while Pahlava is a Seleucid protectorate.
The Ptolemaioi and the Seleucids are in peace leaving the Ptolemaioi at war only with Carthage for the Sahara provinces...
Koinon Hellenon has been destroyed (their last city, Chersonesos rebelled)
The Makedonians do nothing since they are allied with both Seleucids and Getai.
Hayasdan and Sauromatae fight in the steppes of eastern Europe since I have wiped Hayasdan from their land...
Aedui are a protectorate of the Arverni.
The Romans who were "sleeping" few tours ago are now in the process of attacking Gaul and the Sweboz...

Antagonist

01-28-2006, 02:56

I have a summary of my on-and-off Aedui campaign, now at 215BC, at three stages.

250 BC
https://img93.imageshack.us/img93/2644/2501gt.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
(ImageShack doesn't seem to want to provide a thumbnail for this one, sorry.)

A heavily fragmented situation in the East, as usual, but otherwise not too much going on this early in the game. The only big news is in Gaul, where my Aedui have crushed the Arverni pretenders and are currently fighting the Sweboz for control of the lands of the Belgae.

235 BC
https://img101.imageshack.us/img101/479/2351fy.th.jpg (https://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2351fy.jpg)

Now things begin to get interesting. The Easten situation is still chaotic, but Baktria is beginning to emerge as a power. Hayasdan aren't doing much, but Pontos and Sauromatae are making slow progress. The Seleukids and Ptolemaioi are locked in combat, but both sides seem to be holding their own. In the West, the Getai are also expanding, as are the Casse who have succeeded in uniting Britain under their dominion. The Sweboz have expanded eastwards, but their homelands have suffered greatly at the hand of the Aedui, who captured them but decided that they could not be held, and so restored them to their rightful owners on condition of an alliance on favourable terms. The SPQR has consolidated Italy and the Epirotes driven out, although they still retain control of Messana, but the Romans' efforts at northward expansion have been frustrated. In Greece their is still no sign of a clear winner in the conflict between Makedonia and KH, while in Africa the Karthadastim continue their aggressive expansion. However, they have suffered badly at the hands of the Iberian peoples, who have all but driven them out of the peninsula, with only a single, surrounded settlement remaining. The Iberians seem set to emerge as a power in the future...

220 BC
https://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4999/2200fj.th.jpg (https://img83.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2200fj.jpg)

War! Chaos! Bloodshed! Pretty colours! The Casse have been sucked into conflict with the Aedui and have crumbled, while the Aedui are now a force to be reckoned with indeed. In the East Baktria is slowly pushing aside Pahlava and the Yuezhi to become master of the region, while it's beginning to look bleak for the Seleukids, though they still have strength. The Koinon Hellenon, which were reduced to possesing a single settlement at one point, have rejuvenated thanks to rebellions which have given them control of much of western Asia and the southern and northern coasts of the Pontus Euxine, as well as the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, oddly enough. They have even forced the anaemic Makedonians into a protectorate. Further west, Epeiros has been pushed back into it's homelands and seems to be in terminal decline. The Romani, despite temporary successes have failed to wrest control of the Alpine provinces from the Aedui, and now set their sights westward and begin to expand into Illyria and Pannonia. They also seem to have something of an uneasy truce with the Karthadastim, who have slowed down somewhat, being in something of a stalemate with the Ptolemaioi in the east, while in the west they have been entirely driven out by the Iberians, who have emerged as a formidable nation. Allied with Rome, they extorted money from the Aedui to preserve peace, but eventually the temptation was too great. In 222 they spilled over the Pyrrenees in strength, with no fewer than 5 full-strength armies. The Aedui swiftly assembled their forces in southern Gaul, but though they succeeded in throwing back one Iberian army, a second attack led by the leader himself broke them. They fled back to the settlement of Tolosa, where after a short siege they were overwhelmed in a dramatic and eventful siege battle which would have been thoroughly deserving of an AAR if it hadn't been 3:45 AM.

There were a couple of other interesting events which don't show up. Messana, which went through about 5 different owners eventually ended up in the hands of the Iberians, who opportunistically sent a few soldiers over with a fleet. Stranger, at one point I recieved a message that Baktria and the Casse had opened hostilities, which was sufficiently weird that I turned off fog, to discover that a Casse diplomat had bribed a city in the Pahlavan heartland which had been foolishly left to the defence of a single unit of Sarmatian mercenaries. Unsurprisingly this did not turn out to be a wise investment in the long run, as they lost it within a year. Even stranger than that, I have seen rebels behaving like full factions in this campaign. For example, when I was finishing off the Casse I was surprised to discover that, in a foreshadowing of real events many centuries later, a large army of Goidils had appeared in Caledonia. Seems that they were able to build up their forces to the extent that they could combine the excess troops from both cities on the island into a large force and send it across the landbridge, curious.

That went on for a while, this is certainly been one of the most enjoyable TW campaigns I've played, and I'll keep things updated.

Antagonist

Teleklos Archelaou

01-28-2006, 04:36

Very nice Antagonist!

I can't wait to see a good AAR of a failure and loss of an empire after it's been going ok for a while. :grin: I played a Hayasdan where I think if I had kept going for another couple of decades the Ptolemies might have been able to push through and take my lands.

Dooz

01-28-2006, 12:53

Casse campaign, 192 B.C.
https://img84.imageshack.us/img84/4804/192bc9gt.th.jpg (https://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=192bc9gt.jpg)

I can't wait to see a good AAR of a failure and loss of an empire after it's been going ok for a while. I played a Hayasdan where I think if I had kept going for another couple of decades the Ptolemies might have been able to push through and take my lands.

I have an embarrassing fact to admit... That's exactly what was happening in my campaign about 8-10 years ago, at war with Rome and the Sweboz. I had a lot less land and they kept army spamming, and economy was becoming an issue. I was in a costly stalemate. Then what put the nail in the coffin was learning that any Casse reforms would come at 107 B.C. I believe, almost a hundred years=400 turns away.

I made a save of my current, pure game and put a copy of it safely in another folder. Then I did the worst thing I could possibly do... I got a protectorate from the Sweboz, launcing me into the over 2 million mnai stratosphere, not to mention not having to worry about my Northern front anymore. Well after that, I was at peace with the Romans as well and I began building up huge armies with which to invade my Iberian allies, strong by my side since I first invaded the mainlands decades ago. And so, with this new source of income filling up my war chest, I launched my current invasion and yeah... not someting to be proud of but I damn sure had a hell of a lot of fun the whole time, and am continuing to do so.

Before the jackpot though, while still at war with the Romans, I did the most fun thing I've done yet in any version of this game. Took my faction leader, my original Barae's grandson and a great leader in his own right, and lead him through a march to Rome, sacking every city along the way until finally destroying Rome itself. Some of these cities were then given as charitable gifts to other nations, dividing up Rome something awful, including handing over the city of Roma itself to the Sweboz.

Now here's where some interesting occurences...... occur. I had given the city just to the north of Roma to Epirus. A short while later, I realize that the southern Italian cities had either rebelled to Epirus or they had invaded the peninsula and taken them. Shortly after, a fleet arrived with a nice force on deck to the eastern coast of the peninsula, but did not unload because the shores were under Roman control. And there they remained, waiting for the opportunity. Then, more and more Epirote forces channeled into the peninsula and eventually got a garisson to their undefended city. All this time, Iberia is at war with the Romans and have maken some good headway, including having taken the city to to north of the Epirote one but lost it to rebellion. This was taken advantage of by Epirus as they took that one for themselves as well. And there they currently stand, with the two southernmost cities on the peninsula, and the two to the north of Rome, as seen on the map. Oh and not to mention, they're doing pretty well on their own part of the world as you can tell.

Ok by this point, the Sweboz are my protectorate, I declared war on the Iberians, and the Romans immediately jumped to ally with me and I agreed. After decades of bloody fighting, the swords were put aside between our two nations and we joined forces against the Iberians. To prevent any possible conflict between the Sweboz and the Romans and the chance of alliances falling apart, I bought back Roma, now rebuilt by the Sweboz, and gave it back to the Romans. Now here they stand, slowly rebuilding their forces after having been depleted of the resources necessary to withstand the long, drawn out wars.

As for the Casse, we've pushed back the Iberians into the confines of their peninsula, which will soon be invaded full force. Ah and an interesting note. Over between the Sarmatians and the Getai, a large chunk of that land is ownded by the Koinon Hellonen (you can see the color difference in the full image). After almost having been obliterated, they've risen from the ashes and have migrated north. They've also invaded the mainland and taken two cities to the north of Rhodes. For a brief while, they had a presence in Sicily due to rebellion again, but Carthage pushem them out and claimed all the island for themselves. The Gauls have two strongholds, thousands (hundreds?) of miles apart; one in the middle of Turkey, surrounded directly by 4 nations, the other to the east of Italy, stuck between the Romans, Sweboz and Getai. Carthage and Ptolemy, well... they're Carthage and Ptolemy. I've posted an image in the bugs forum about Carthages armies not having moved for decades. The Ptolemies have recently declared war on the Armenians and have reached their cities. The Persians, divided up all over the eastern world. Baktria's been split in half, the Yuezhi are maintaining their lands strong as ever. Seleucids are banged up pretty bad as they have some fragmented lands, still under the rule of the main empire. The Sarmatians are at war with the Koinon Hellonen who have been looking to expand their holdings to the north and the Getai were at war with the Sweboz for a good while, loosing some lands to the southward expanding Germans. I don't know if there's been much action there lately however because of the protectorate deal and all...... Ah yes, and the land of Pontus have been pinched in by the Epirotes and Armenians.

Oh man, this has been the best campaign ever. A very interesting situation in the world right now as so many things are happening and are yet to happen. Once again, thanks EB!

LorDBulA

01-28-2006, 19:13

Well i am on the best road to loose campaigne.
Its 231 so i am good 41 years into game.
I play as Gatai, and evrything was going really well until sometihing like 12 years ago jaguernout named Romani decided to anihilate me.
At this time my faction was at its peek with 7 setlemnts and aroung 12K seson income. I was wining war with Pontos and was very happy that i propably will achive my Victory conditions in 20-30 years.
It seems so funny now :laugh4:
Now i control only 5 provinces (one i luckyly got when it rebeled to me). I lost one of my homland provinces (i had 3 of them).
My cities are devastated, i had to seell all not esenital buildings to keep my war machine going and my teritory is romed by roman army that i propably cant handle, it already once destroyed my rolay army.
I tryed to save the day by becoming protectorate of romani but this only stoped them for 6 sesons.
In fersome fightings i conquered 13 diffrent settlements total (including my starting province). And 12 year war costed me at least 200K manai (counting only training costs). I fuled my war by sacking and burning to the ground Vindebora, Sagestica, Ak-Ink and Nicodemia. But enemy counteratacks alway drove me back to my homelands.
I could most likly hold on for few years but withough outside help, like masive AI invasion on Romani my chances are less then zero.

Whats most funny is that i will be the first faction to loose in this campaigne.
All other factions are dooing quite well.

Some pictures:

https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8857/picture0017py.th.jpg (https://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture0017py.jpg)

https://img491.imageshack.us/img491/2130/picture0074ig.th.jpg (https://img491.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture0074ig.jpg)

I read few times about people migrating to diffrent part of world.
It seemed that they do it for the fun, but now i will try it becouse of necesity.
I will choose one or two selfish, charismatic generals and i will try to capture Rhodos and proclaim myslef thyrant of Rhodos. By this point i will basicly stop being Gatai, and i will have to rely on mercenaries (like reall tyran).
I wonder where this will lead me. It may be mighty fun but this expedition will be very difficult and i may never be able to sack this rich island.

Teleklos Archelaou

01-28-2006, 19:23

Wow. Very nice indeed. I also hear the Crimea is nice this time of year. :grin: It does suck that the Romans are coming straight after you though. Good luck finding a boat!!

O'ETAIPOS

01-28-2006, 21:24

What armies are you using LorDBulA?
Have you tried full cavalry army - 1-2 gen cav, 2-3 heavy cav, 3-5 HA(possibly the Skuda sth ones they have spear as additional weapon), maybe some light cav?

I know this is expensive, but as Romani are not full-archer you could exterminate them almost without losses, attacing small armies or when faced with bigger enemy try to hit and run - kill as many as you can and then withdraw from battle.

Just never use precious heavy cav if enemy hasn't lowered morale. Be like flowing water if you couldn't be like iron wall :)

Use inf to protect towns and for really big battles - poor inf dies so fast :(

Edit: Never use HA as a shock troops in other situation than last desperate need, you will need theire arrows in the next battle!

LorDBulA

01-28-2006, 22:30

Well my expedition to Rhodes was very short. I never left mainland.
First i had to get a boat so i launched offensive to recapture Katallis (my homeland with navy port). Unfortunately it turned out that its protected by big pontic army. It was tough battle, pontos had 400 Horse archers. Other then that forces where more or less even. Around 2300 men on each side.
Unfortunately my only selfish generals where not exactly military geniuses. This combined with quite light nature of dacian troops end up in massacre.
My royal army was gone. So was its leader. Second general run north leaving remains of his once proud army behind. You are right Teleklos Archelaou Crime is nice is nice this time of year, and full of horse archers.

Second attempt was more sucesfull. Afther my much better general defended Sardika he took all gold horses could caried and run like hell toward Pergamon (province owned by Makedons my only ally, loyal for 20+ years).
Spy reported insignificant Seleucids presence in Halikarnassos and in Lydia.
Afther about year and a half, Maks where blocking my progress i got to Lydia.
I hired mercenaries (by that time i had quite a lot of cash) and attack Lydia.
Seleucids where fighting back but i sack the city within 6 months.
I made a big mistake by not slaughtering citizens. Its really hard to keep control of 16K foreign city. In 6 months i captured Halikarnassos but i lost Lydia to revolt. It cost me 20K of manai to higher all avaible mercenaries to face 2600 angry citizens and 800 reinforcments from outside the city. I won the battle but my 2000 mercenaries have still to capture Lydia capitol. Its still defended by 1400 seleucids. Meanwhile Maks 3000 strong army is few kilometers away most likely coming to help Seleucids (Maks chose alliance with Seleukids over alliance with me, i wonder why :embarassed: ). So i have to hurry.

Back at home i have only 2 province left. I was attacked by Hellenes, they sacked Sardika most likely as a revenge for my looting expedition to Athens, them that was so long ago.

O'ETAIPOS i duped HA would work, they are great but Romans use lots of triari and HA cant hurt them much.
I can win in filed against Romans, the problem is that they economy is so much stronger then mine. I destroy few stacks, no problem they rebuild and keep coming. What worse i was their only enemy and they trow everything they got at me. And pontos attacking me from the east is not helping. Before my migration i won 97 battles and lost 18.
I would give kingdom for one unit of ellephants. With them i could repel romans.
I dont fight at river crosing. They are very unrealistic.

mattholomew

01-29-2006, 06:18

https://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3033/rtwscreenshotcopy8zt.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

After a big ctd as the romans i decided to take a break and play some age of empires, star craft, and medieval total war, but soon i was called back to my true passion, EB. In my KH campaign, things started out great, i got macedonia to become a protectorate on turn one as a sort of joke, but they listened. The 13000 mnai that came to me the next turn really helped out. My economy was booming, i disbanded 2 fleets but used the third to bring a second general to krete and quickly took over. Shortly afterwards i returned and began to build up my economy, leaving my units depleated from the krete campaign as garrisons. For about 12 years things were going great, pyrrhus decided to take thermon for me, and i quickly took advantage of his weakness. At the same time, an eleutheroi band attacked athens and ended up killing one of my young generals. I took thermon and broke the athenian siege, then made peace with the epirotes. Soon after, i noted the depleted garrisons of the eastern aegean and decided it might be a good idea to build a fleet and transport one of my two armies over to take pergamum, and from there perhaps i could take asia minor and eventually liberate my fellow hellenes in sinope and trapezous. I spent three turns to gather the six thousand mnai needed to create a low level fleet in rhodes. I didn't realize how foolish i was to waste so much money that could have gone to my army or economy in greece itself. My fleet sailed to athens, but an epirote fleet hiding nearby came and destroyed it, crushing four turns of a foolish plan. Enraged, i sent my full stack army to destroy ambrakia, but on the way the epirotes made peace and i decided i would wait and build up my economy for a few turns. Makedonia at the same time decided to ally with them. A few years later epeiros blockaded athens so i resumed my attack. I didnt expect it but makedonia took this time to declare their independence. I thought nothing of it as i wasn't gaining much from the protectorate anyways, and makedonia's 5 full stack armies were busy with the getai, elutheroi, and pontus. A few turns later, however, i noticed a full stack army sitting on rhodes. I wasn't sure that an attack was imminent, but nor did i want to lose because of a stalin style defense. I recalled my army from campaign in epirus for an attack on corinth, which i took, as well as chalkis, in a matter of turns. Then, halicarnasus decided to revolt against their seleucid overlords and joined my cause, but at the same time the makedonian army returned to rhodes and overwhelmed the pathetic garrison. I didn't think that the island was so important (-2000 income wasn't good for me) but i lost an immense ammount of trade. Meanwhile, epirus has besieged thermon once again and athens is about to be overrun by my former makedonian protectorate. If i can repel epirus at thermon, then i can probably launch a counter offensive to retake athens and advance into makedonia. At the same time, war with the seleucids seems imminent but the logical choice is to wait until my baktrian allies declare their independence so that

Pontos is looking good, as are the romans and baktria. Carthage and iberia haven't done much, and the seleucids have been pushing south towards the ptolemies for a while. even parthia is doing alright. Epirus had a large presence in italy for a while but i haven't paid much attention to the celts and sweboz. Casse are doing great. This campaign has been so much fun because i am losing hopelessly despite my best efforts. I was surprised that makedonia would invade rhodes, and i'm really hoping to have the good luck that the kh normally have in campaigns, and that many greek colonies will start rebelling to me, it saves the ai so why not? Also, the romans have a relatively large naval pressence near epirus which is pretty good for me, i wish they'd start putting some armies in their fleets though. It seems that once an ai faction expands too much, they start running out of full stack armies, just an observation.

O'ETAIPOS

01-29-2006, 11:22

O'ETAIPOS i duped HA would work, they are great but Romans use lots of triari and HA cant hurt them much.

The key is "triangle of death". send 1 HA to shoot phalanx from the front. when thet start to chase you send two more HA's to shoot phalanx from the back. Now, where ever they go you have 2 HA's shooting from behind. On huge settings it means sth like 2000 arrows with power 6+ Triari have heavy armour (14) but you should kill enough men to make them waver. Then you stop shooting and charge heavy cav from many directions. Mop up and repeat with another inf unit.

I can win in filed against Romans, the problem is that they economy is so much stronger then mine. I destroy few stacks, no problem they rebuild and keep coming. What worse i was their only enemy and they trow everything they got at me.

If you send cav to kill every small stack (that i saw in your screenshot) you will hurt them much. Then you send them to Italy and you could kill romans during gathering the armies. Also you could hurt theyre economy sitting there.
Big armies that break through attack with inf armies.

And pontos attacking me from the east is not helping. Before my migration i won 97 battles and lost 18.

The question is how many men you lost in the proces - cav army could anihilate enemy with ratio's like 20:1

LorDBulA

01-29-2006, 14:19

The key is "triangle of death". send 1 HA to shoot phalanx from the front. when thet start to chase you send two more HA's to shoot phalanx from the back.
Lol 3 HA vs one phalanx unit? I could only field something like 1000 HA.
I doupt that they could tackle 3000 men strong army. Not enough arrows.
Plus romans use quite few Lucos cavalry. Whenever i faced them they mannage to wipe out my HA with no probelm in 1 vs 1 duel.

If you send cav to kill every small stack
I never chase enemy units. I end battle when End Battle button is avaible. More realistic. So when i rout anemy army fast usualy around 40% of enemies can survive.

The question is how many men you lost in the proces
Alot. In ambushes i could get something like 1:5-6 ratio.
In most fearsom battles i had like 1:1.2 kill ratio.
On avarage i would say no more then 1:2.5

O'ETAIPOS

01-29-2006, 16:45

Lol 3 HA vs one phalanx unit? I could only field something like 1000 HA.
I doupt that they could tackle 3000 men strong army. Not enough arrows.
Plus romans use quite few Lucos cavalry. Whenever i faced them they mannage to wipe out my HA with no probelm in 1 vs 1 duel.

you need to concentrate firepower on one or two units at a time and not just pepper the whole line if you want to rout some units.
there is not much sense in using more than 3-6 HA per army (unless you fight enemy HA), you just cant command them well on battle field.
You need to take care of your HA's! NEVER should you allow enemy engage them h2h - that's why you took heavy cav with you.
Keep moving - cavalry is there to move!
If you used all the arrows and no enemy seems to have low morale just withdraw - you are not escaping, you are tacticaly redeploying. :)

I never chase enemy units. I end battle when End Battle button is avaible. More realistic. So when i rout anemy army fast usualy around 40% of enemies can survive.

In my system when last unit broke the rest are lying everywhere on battlefield. :)) always fight one enemy unit at a time.

Alot. In ambushes i could get something like 1:5-6 ratio.
In most fearsom battles i had like 1:1.2 kill ratio.
On avarage i would say no more then 1:2.5

My cav has average 1:10, when I fight enemy who is not well armoured and has not more units than me I could finish without losses (rout with arrows only)
I have problem with ambushes - always loosing more men than in normal battle, so I avoid setting them. :)

Dooz

01-29-2006, 16:50

What difficulty battle are you guys playing on?

O'ETAIPOS

01-29-2006, 16:59

Settings - large, difficulty medium - as this is recomended

Teleklos Archelaou

01-29-2006, 17:58

Nice rundown of your campaign Mattholomew. It looks like it will be difficult for you to win there with the Maks and Epeirotes still doing tolerably well, but it should be very difficult for the KH to win. That's why they never really expand a lot in EB - they shouldn't very much (plus they don't have tons of rebel space to expand into). But it is nice to occassionally get a province that rebels to you. This is one of the first campaigns in quite a while that I've not seen the Hayasdan explode past Pontos. They look to be pretty even this time.

Hope you enjoy the rest of it!

QwertyMIDX

01-29-2006, 19:25

Settings - large, difficulty medium - as this is recomended

Large VH/M is recomended actually.

O'ETAIPOS

01-29-2006, 19:41

Large VH/M is recomended actually.

Wonderland asked only about battle difficulty, I use VH campain diff.

LorDBulA

01-29-2006, 20:51

I play VH/H and hudge unit sizes.
I guess that gorilla tactic: attack, shoot them, retreat could work.
But its just to boring and i prefer men fight, face to face, not some seek and hide game.

I have problem with ambushes - always loosing more men than in normal battle, so I avoid setting them. :)
Haha. Ambushes are great. You can even ods by using them. But if you faile to ambush enemy it can end up bloody.

PSYCHO V

01-29-2006, 23:58

soon i was called back to my true passion, EB......

Sounds like things are about to get pretty intense there.

Dooz

02-06-2006, 12:23

Casse campaign, 182 B.C.

https://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1024/182bc9nd.th.jpg (https://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=182bc9nd.jpg)

This thread has died off it seems. Post your images folks.

QwertyMIDX

02-06-2006, 16:40

Go Eperios, way to take Rome.

Dooz

02-06-2006, 17:17

That's not Rome, it's the city just to the North. I sacked Rome myself a while ago, along with the cities on the way. I gave them that city and they've built quite an Italian peninsula presence. They've funelled in a lot of troops to the east coast and in from the North.

jebes

02-06-2006, 20:20

Dooz

02-07-2006, 11:33

Well as far as my campaign is concerned, their weak state is wholly my "fault". They were expanding quite nicely... a bit too much. They had all of Italy and a lot more land to the north, east and west. When they attacked me though, all that changed. I split up Italy by re-introducing Epirus and they did the rest. I also took their northern and western holdings in Gaul.

Yep... they were doing quite well before all this.

O'ETAIPOS

02-07-2006, 18:00

Hmm, I have been following this thread and I am a little concerned about the faction expansion in Rome. It seems that there are very few times where Rome expands the way it did in history. It seems they even have a hard time kicking Epieros off the heel. I wonder what causes this and if there is a way to fix it. Or, perhaps it is good as is because Rome is already one of the easier factions.

In my Mak campain rome hadn't tried to attack epeiros for years - when epeirotes had only Taras (guess why :)) then epeirotes captured rhegion and got Syracusai (rebelion?) rome attacked about 20 years from the gamestart. During that 20 years they had theire main army sitting on epeirotes border - so no other expanding.

jebes

02-07-2006, 19:22

Mostly, It seems odd when comparing the historical vs EB expansion of Rome to the Historical vs EB expansion of Karthadast and Ptolemaioi. I like the fact that every EB game is different. I am not complaining about that at all. What I don't think is portrayed very well is the momentum of each faction coming into 272 BC. I think EB does a good job of getting a snap shot of 272, but it is impossible to show motion in a snapshot. All the nations at this time were in motion and have to make a completely new path each time, instead of continuing what they were doing in 273.

Anyway, I won't care if nobody else does, but it does seem a little odd.

LorDBulA

02-07-2006, 21:13

mattholomew

02-09-2006, 03:55

I for one will not complain on Rome expansion.
Playing as Gatai i had my as* kicked big time by Romans.
They declared war on me about 245-240 BC.
By 220BC i was seeking refuge in Halikarnassos and Sidone (? city north of Halikarnassos) after loosing all my homeland territories.
My kingdom was thorn apart by Romans and Pontos.
But true cause of my demise where Romans, Pontos was just a helper.
By 220BC Rome was greatest power in known world.

that's true, but historically the romans never expanded into the upper balkans, eventually they did get dacia i suppose but that was very difficult and occured only after they ruled the majority of the mediteranean coastline. I think that the overwhelming power of messana and syracuse plays into this, as it keeps carthage and rome from ever coming into contact with each other. The romans can expand well, i've seen them explode in north-westward expansion, i'd just like to see that redirected in a more historical direction. Then again, i'm sure that the EB members will get to that so there is no reason for me to nag.

by the way, isn't it fun to lose campaigns? I always thought RTW would be fun to lose in, making last stands and all, maybe even rebuilding an empire from scratch more than once per campaign. Long wars in EB are the best.

LorDBulA

02-09-2006, 08:13

Yea it would be good to direct Romans to conquere Sycily first. But i dont think there is a way to do it.

by the way, isn't it fun to lose campaigns?
Yea it was my best game ever. I think i never had so much fun playing computer game.
But practically i wasnt defeated. When i knew i cant win i send 3 generals to Asia minor. One manage to get there and with mercenaries help he proclaimed himself tyrant of Halicarnassos. Then i captured Sidone. So when i lost my dacian holdings few years later (with all others faction members) i still had 2 cities in Asia Minor.
Those greek cities where very wealthy. I was making a bit more then half of what i used to in my best times. The future was full of danger but also full of opportunities. If i didnt encounter possibly fatal CTD and didnt have to move to other mod testings i still might pull it off.

Zero1

02-09-2006, 23:43

Well, in my current campaign as the Aedui VH/M reccomended settings, I've finally managed to unite all of ancient Gaul and have two experienced and well armed full stack armies, I am in alliance with Carthage, both of us are on Rome's borders which are largely contained to the Italian peninsular, and I'm about to move in.

I can say, its really satisfying to take a nation suffering in decline and in the middle of a civil war, on the brink of collapse, and turn it into a major super power.

I love you EB! :2thumbsup:

PseRamesses

02-10-2006, 00:42

After kicking out the Epirotes from W.Greece/ Balkans my spies returned some 10 years to Italy and to my amusement they had not only survived but taken the whole island of Scicily, S.Italy and was hammering the gates of Rome itself. I do love this game!

Tricon

02-10-2006, 22:53

I have no pics, but in my last two campaigns (one araound 150 bc, one 200 bc) pontos is doing extremely well.

Zero1

02-14-2006, 08:04

https://photobucket.com/albums/f246/Manoftyr/?action=view&current=Campaign268x212.jpg

Here's mine, I'm playing as the Aedui and it is 246bc, I conquered Rome a few years ago and have finally managed to more or less pacify *read largely annhialate* the population on the Italian peninsular, and I'm about to move on Iberia...this campaign has been SO much fun!

mattholomew

02-24-2006, 05:12

https://img161.imageshack.us/img161/9791/rtwscreenshotkh8xe.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

this is my kh campaign in 225 bc, i had an awful lot of hard fighting since my last post. Epirus was far too strong and i've let them live for too long. now they come at me with full stacks of their strongest phalanxes but luckily i've managed to nearly drive them out of greece. Meanwhile, Makedonia exists only because i have given them provinces in order to serve as buffer zones in the hope that they might aid me against pontos and the seleukids. Unfortunately, both of their armies in anatolia were destroyed retaking mytilene from a rebellion. Pahlava is no longer allied with the seleukids, and is at war with armenia and baktria. Seleukid provinces between the persian gulf and hyrcanian sea have been rebelling lately as well, leaving the east to fend for itself. Sweboz and getai are competing for control of the baltic and upper balkans, and although there had been bloodshed, now they only compete to take rebelling border territories. Meanwhile the gauls aren't doing anything at all and the Casse are working their way into the mainland. The ptolemies made a comeback and are now invading Syria, while the Seleukids are pretty much on the retreat. As for the Epirus, Carthage, and the Romani it seems pretty much over expansion wise. The Sicilian Rebels are just too powerful, same with the getai, sweboz, and I know i wont let epirus take ground from me, so unless epirus decides to blitz the Romani, or vice-versa, i think it's over for them. Sicily is just too powerful. Pontos is doing well, i want to invade and take sinope back but they've got three stacks in byzantion. Maybe i could put ships in between europe and asia to block them, but that would be a bit of an exploit. If I could just take the rest of epirus, i'd be able to bring both of my armies to invade asia. I think i'm just about done, though, with the new patch coming out and i'm too lazy now to fight large battles personally. Either way, it's a very fun campaign.

Teleklos Archelaou

02-24-2006, 05:32

I've enjoyed those posts mattholomew! The patched OB is going to still be awfully difficult, it's sure not easier than the unpatched OB. It's definitely even more realistic, but it's got plenty of other nice touches to make it more fun and interesting too.

Dooz

02-24-2006, 09:31

My goodness. Will there hopefully be less rebels spawning all the time, unnecessarily? I'd welcome difficulty in other forms, but if more rebels are one of them... that's not cool. Otherwise, I canNOT wait for this patch.

To keep things on topic, here's my campaign.

Casse:

172 B.C.
https://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8621/172bc4io.th.jpg (https://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=172bc4io.jpg)

142 B.C.
https://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9590/142bc0fc.th.jpg (https://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=142bc0fc.jpg)

Once again, the best and most fun campaign of my natural life. Here's a thread with some info on my current armies and a bit about the situation.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1073759&postcount=19

Basically, two of those identical main armies as shown, and the most recent one was put together for a far away expedition to wipe out a Gallic stronghold in Turkey. The situation turns chaotic now as Rome has declared war on me and suffered two huge defeats in a single turn at the hands of Calpornos the Thinker (formerly Calpornos the Wrathful), faction heir and extraordinary man. Carthage has invaded the south of Italy, taking one of Epirus' two remaining holdings on the peninsula. Now only one city remains under Epirote control in Italy, Carthage has creeped in to the south, Rome has just three cities and Casse are holding firm to the North.

Epirus was doing a good job of funneling in troops from the mainland onto the peninsula to keep their positions, but a recent invasion by the Carthaginian navy has changed all that, wiping out most if not all of the Epirote fleets. Now, they have huge armies waiting on the coast with no way to get across the channel, and only a battered force (albeit not small) left to defend their final city against the encroaching Carthaginians. Carthage did their part in supplying enough troops from Africa down to Sicily to make the invasion and holding off the counter-attack successful. Now both their armies in the area are not at a level to continue fighting at the moment. All the blood in Italy is shed by the Casse and Romans.

With no plans of moving further south into the peninsula, the rubble of the Roman cities I conquer, exterminate and destroy will have to be bestowed upon an ally, possibly Carthage, as "gifts". The situation is indeed heating up and I can't wait to see how it all unfolds. There's much more going on in other parts of the world as well, but that's for another time.

Ambiorix

02-25-2006, 05:25

Is it just me or do the Eastern factions tend to expand... oddly. Baktria and Pahlav always seem to kind of swirl in and out of the north and the east.

Teleklos Archelaou

02-25-2006, 05:43

Yeah, they do. They seem to like to grab whatever provinces open up when Seleukids lose them. Baktria often does take india, but those cities are so huge that it takes some big armies to do it. My most recent foray into Taxilia was soundly beaten back by their troops.

mattholomew

02-25-2006, 06:20

I've noticed something, when people blitz early in the game there tend to be large powerful nations in other parts of the world, far earlier than any nation becomes powerful in a campaign where the player goes slow to take things over. Maybe this is already a known bug in the total war engine, i didn't take any time to check.

QwertyMIDX

02-25-2006, 06:32

We have a script in progress that should make blitzing a more dangerous strategy.

Ambiorix

02-25-2006, 19:55

In one of my campaigns (I'll try to find which one and get a screeny) Pahlav was allied with Baktria and I guess either allied with Sauromatae or the just didn't attack them. They had a snaking empire that touched SE India, through their starting two territories, up to the Northern steppe, and west into Germannia, with their empire never more than one or two provinces wide.

Trithemius

02-26-2006, 13:22

From my campaign as the Romans, I should note that I foolishly did not heed the reccommended settings and so this is M/M. :(

https://img162.imageshack.us/img162/4751/romeaiexp2558sp.th.png (https://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=romeaiexp2558sp.png)

Some of the troop movements I observed suggest:
- The Baktrians are going pretty well, and seem to be trying to decide whether to go finish off the Yuezhi or not.
- The Hayasadan seem to be creeping around the top of the Black Sea, they don't seem to have gone the biff with the Sauromatae yet.
- The Sauromatae seem to be doing their thing and taking steppes with reasonable facility; they seem to be going west now though.
- The Getai are going great guns and are stomping all over the place with big stacks. Thankfully they have not given me any trouble yet.
- The Aedui have Iberian and Averni (!) protectorates and seem to be making some kind of super Celtic confederation (again?). I wish they'd fight each other a bit so I can gobble up some Averni lands.
- The Carthaginians seem to be napping - they have some large stacks wandering the Sahara looking for the source of the Nile or something (I assume).

Dooz

02-26-2006, 22:03

God, I hate protectorates. I wish there was a way to just turn them off, for both AI and player use. And Jeez, Baktria is and odd military machine.

King Thengel

02-27-2006, 01:16

https://img509.imageshack.us/img509/8907/getic1sq.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

My first (and current) campaign as Getia at 256 b.c. ...I'm kind of scared of the Sarmatians, they've been expanding like crazy all of a sudden..

Trithemius

02-28-2006, 23:39

Ten years, and about forty turns, on from my last map and this is what things look like:

https://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9932/romeaiexp2457dn.th.png (https://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=romeaiexp2457dn.png)

Baktrians - seem to still be moving on the Yeuzhi, although the next turn they signed a ceasefire and alliance with them (I noticed that the Averni and Aedui did this - but was it was really a protectorate, maybe this needs another message?)

Makedonians - have a whole lot of pretty black-bannered stacks wandering around near Pella, but aren't doing a whole lot. I wish they'd go the biff with the Getai and save me a lot of handwringing every time I see a Getai stack cruising around near my Alpine provinces. I think they are moving in on Byzantium finally though...

Ptolemies - are still slugging it out ineffectually in the desert with the Seleukids. They don't seem to be doing a lot of successful conquering, but it seems like slightly larger P. stacks are kicking sand in the faces of their smaller Sel. cousins.

Carthaginians - finally consolidating Africa, although a lot of their guys are still holidaying in sunny Sahara.

Sweboz - my noble Germanic allies are finally moving on the Aedui - who have been at war with me for some time. We'll see how it goes though.

Aedui - these miserable curs backstabbed me and managed to buy all my Alpine provinces before I could get my assassin cadres into action! Our "war" consists of their little fleet occassionally blockading my ports and them sending the odd diplomat who is generall caught nosing around Aventicos before his gruesome murder. Obviously they are getting lazy behind their Averni Shield

Averni - these fellows are insufficiently warlike I think, they send a big stack to look around the Alps, but then pull back. Their spies bother Mediolanum and Patavium sometimes, but I have governers in these towns as I am trying to grow them fast so its not a big deal.

Koinon Hellenon - didn't like me kicking the Epeirotes, of felt protective of the Oracle at Delphi because they sent a big (780+) stack to fight my diminished consular force (480+) under Cotta (who crossed the sea to fight Epeiros because he developed Restless Warmonger ;)). The miserable devils have another one on the way, and I am low on cavalry so it could be a bit grim.

Sauromatae - have reached the sea, and seem to be exploring their wide, flat, land.

Everyone else - didn't seem to do much since it went by to fast (or maybe I was taking a drink when it did?), not a lot of action anyway.

Epeiros - a special mention! Epeiros is gone now, thanks to Cotta, but their elephants sure were a scare! I like to think I am now in the mindset of the Camillan Romans regarding elephants (wishing for flaming pigs and silly pointy carts :P).

vizigothe

03-06-2006, 19:30

262 BC
https://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c350/vizigothe/262.jpg

Not much going on so far, I am Casse btw.

Cheexsta

03-11-2006, 00:25

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v23/cheex/Random/RomeTW2006-03-1021-53-51-50.jpg
Since this pic, Rome has taken a couple more settlements and have made the Averni a protectorate. The Ptolemies are coming very close to taking Carthage out (they have around 4 full stacks in the area, give or take), and Iberia has also taken the whole peninsula while Baktria has firmed her grip in the East, scattering the remaining Parthians. The Seleukids declared war on me and are about to lose a few more of their Asia Minor provinces, and the Getai have nearly taken the whole Balkans and have become my ally (with a little help from 200,000 mnai).

This is definately an interesting situation. Go east and face the monstrous Ptolemies or head west and take on Rome, one of the richest factions aside from myself. The recent war with the Sels (even though they were my loyal allies for 52 years!) has made me want to go east, though...

GMT

03-11-2006, 08:48

Trithemius

03-11-2006, 14:34

1090618 mnai?? how the hell did you get that much dough??

You've got to be using some kind of money cheat..

Look at all those trade routes! It's not inconceivable a person could get that much if they tried a bit and had a reasonable fiscal policy. I've got about 250k as the Romans, and my game is a couple of decades earlier and I have not been pushing trade hard in my development programs.

QwertyMIDX

03-11-2006, 19:26

Mines are the really money maker, I will have to cut income from them a bit...

Dooz

03-12-2006, 00:38

Mines are the really money maker, I will have to cut income from them a bit...

Nooooo, they're amazing! Playing as the Getai, I'm making enough bank to keep two very nice field armies active, maybe even another one now that I'm about to take Chresynospos(sp?) and have Nikomedia... talk about cash cow. (and I know that's the point, but hell, it's fun) I'd hate to see them go : ( As far as the huge amount of money in that posted image, it is possible protectorates or maybe cheats are involved, not just mines. But I suppose if it is solely from that... it might have to be toned down a bit, but yeah...

Cheexsta

03-12-2006, 01:55

1090618 mnai?? how the hell did you get that much dough??

You've got to be using some kind of money cheat..
Nope, no cheats. Just top-level mines and trading ports ~;)

Yes, I think mining income will have to be tweaked. Pella alone is making ~15,000 every turn just from mining income alone, while Byzantion and Athens are each making ~5,000 or so. I'm currently earning a good 49,000 per turn, and that's with 4 full stacks in the field (two of which are mostly levies, but still...).

I've been concentrating on trade for the past 50 years and regularly give 200,000+ to the Romans to keep them going ~D

Good fun.

QwertyMIDX

03-12-2006, 01:58

It won't all go away, mines will still be a huge source of income, just not quite so much.

Simmons

03-12-2006, 04:19

Nope, no cheats. Just top-level mines and trading ports ~;)

Yes, I think mining income will have to be tweaked. Pella alone is making ~15,000 every turn just from mining income alone, while Byzantion and Athens are each making ~5,000 or so. I'm currently earning a good 49,000 per turn, and that's with 4 full stacks in the field (two of which are mostly levies, but still...).

I've been concentrating on trade for the past 50 years and regularly give 200,000+ to the Romans to keep them going ~D

Good fun.
I guess the only reason I don't have such a surplus in my current Seleukid campaign I have a lot of under developed rebellious eastern provinces to dump a whole lot of cash into :embarassed:

Dooz

03-12-2006, 08:23

Ah, well... at least I have this campaign to go wild in : )

QwertyMIDX

03-12-2006, 09:45

Indeed, enjoy it while you can.

pezhetairoi

03-12-2006, 15:22

Ya. Mines have become such dominant sources of income that I'm going out of my way to send expeditionary forces overseas to secure provinces with mines, with the result that I have been sucked into a three-way fight with Qarthadast and Iberia over Pallantia, Baikor and Gades, while I have been forced into a major commitment (2 field armies!) in Greece, near wiping out Makedon and getting entangled in a life-and-death struggle with their ally the Getai that has culminated in me locking up their two fullstacks in Ak-Ink and Kallatis under siege. Mines shoudln't be doing this to me...

QwertyMIDX

03-12-2006, 19:58

Well they kind of should...what do you think people were fighting about in Iberia in the first place?

Trithemius

03-13-2006, 02:33

Well they kind of should...what do you think people were fighting about in Iberia in the first place?

The wild music makes them all crazy!

Cheexsta

03-13-2006, 08:03

Here's another pic of the same game, 10 years later. Rome and Iberia have erupted in war, and there's absolute chaos all over Europe. I've finally declared war on the Armenians after they attacked the Seleucids, who had become my ally again. Perfect excuse to take the trade-rich Black Sea ~;) The Sand Wars are also still raging on, with the Ptolemies having a fairly strong upper-hand but keep losing lots of provinces to revolts.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v23/cheex/Random/RomeTW2006-03-1301-37-22-87copy.jpg

Has to be one of the most interesting RTW games I've seen in a long time...

Teleklos Archelaou

03-13-2006, 17:13

Very neat. Gotta love that Baktrian empire. And the Hayasdan do look like a good place to attack next (since I think you were at war with seleukids already - poaching off their provinces where possible). The rest of Anatolia will help you make a lot more money (like you need it :grin:).

Trithemius

03-14-2006, 01:13

Okay, not the exhaustive documentation I had originally (before I discovered my screens were bad) but it might be interesting/useful all the same (I also realised that I am only thirty years in, not forty - I guess I am slow :P).

I'm the SPQR and the game is VH/M. Click the thumbnails for bigger images if you are inclined to do so.

https://img210.imageshack.us/img210/5274/rome262073a7at.th.png (https://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rome262073a7at.png)

At this point in time I had just begun, after ten years of war against the Epeirotes and Eleutheroi in southern Italy, to tackle the north. The AI factions, for the most part, seem to be a bit sleepy. The Averni seem to be going okay though.

https://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9536/rome252073a0bv.th.png (https://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rome252073a0bv.png)

Now the map shows the results of some of my antics in Gaul. My princeps, Blasio, obtained Vanquisher of the Gauls after a big battle and some enslavement in the taking of Mediolanum and decided that he wanted a triumph (or another one, since historically he'd already had one, according to his biography?). He lead a consular army through Massilia - which we permanently colonised - and then on through Gergovia, Viennos, Vesontio, and Bagacos, enslaving and burning everything down for plunder. I managed to buy peace and an alliance with the Aedui by giving them former Averni lands (although the Averni got Viennos back) and got an alliance with the Sweboz after I gave them Bagacos. I hoped, at this point, that the Sweboz and Aedui would tussle and that I could use the time to take Tolosa and wipe out the Averni - alas it was not to be...

The Seleukids seem to be making a bit of a comeback in the east, and the Yuezhi are taking territory too (which is not something I had seen much of earlier). The Hellenes, Epeirotes, and Makedonians are in a three-way war with fullstack armies wiping each other out left, right, and centre - I have a diplomat stationed in Demetrias who is monitoring Athens and Pella as well and its complete madness! The Aedui have a real bother in taking Eleutheroi towns in Gaul, and seem get rebuffed a lot - and even the Getai are having trouble marching to the Alps.

https://img391.imageshack.us/img391/1408/rome242073a1xw.th.png (https://img391.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rome242073a1xw.png)

As of this map, my adventures in Gaul are over. I have fortified and colonised Viennos - and it and Massilia are my depots for future expansion. I have an army moving back across the Alpine settlements, and garrisons of roarii and gallic auxiliaries (sotaroas from Massilia) ready to move in and man the walls. The Aedui, rather than using their newly granted lands to improve their armies and finish off the unification of Gaul, decided to improve their armies and attack me in Viennos (Blasio went back to try for Imperator again - but apparently the triggers were excessively stringent - poor old Blasio, the disappointment was the end of him :(). The Sweboz are now my marcher lords in Gaul and they haven't garrisoned the territories because I burned all the barracks and the Aedui hold Vesontio; I really hope the Sweboz and the Aedui fight a bit, but the Sweboz are getting a bit large under my patronage... Greece is also a bit more peaceful now, since I kicked out the Hellenes and the Epeirotes and Makedonians made a peace deal. The Makedonians and I allied to expel the Hellenes, but I am waiting for the backstab - or rather the frontstab - from them now.

The Carthaginians are ripe for a bit of a kicking too. I think I can hop an army over the Carthage and sack it and surrounding settlements good and proper then get the hell out before their big stacks arrive which might be good for long-term strategic positioning in the region. I have fought a few limited wars with the Carthaginians, but I've always been able to buy back their trade after taking my objectives. The Pontics seem to have stalled in their advance, and the Baktrians, Yuezhi, Pahlava, and Sauromatae are all running out of independent settlements to grab so perhaps there should be some wars in that part of the world soon.

Dooz

03-30-2006, 05:11

Getai, 210 B.C.

https://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8958/getai210bc7vz.th.jpg (https://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai210bc7vz.jpg)

Damn Persians, always scattered all over the place. Now in the middle of Africa? Yikes.

Angadil

03-30-2006, 11:31

Interesting that Sauromatae expansion.... They seem to have taken 5, maybe 6 provinces (hard to tell if they own Bosporion Tyrrannesis). Hmm... I used to think the Sarmatians had a hard time to grow, but looking at this thread it would seem they manage some conquests reasonably often. Is that a correct impression?

Also, some input on the Sauromatae from the player's POV would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone played Sarmatian campaigns? We are concerned about them and they will be tweaked in oncoming releases. For example, the price of their cavalry units is likely to drop meaningfully. Are there other things you think we should worry about?

Dooz

03-30-2006, 18:33

If Bosporion Tyrrannesis is that piece of land to the east in between the Seleukids, Yuezhi, Pahlava and Baktria, then yes, that belongs to Sarmatia... those little devils. They've only recently started to expand this way as they were a protectorate of Hayasdan for a good while. However, that's all over with now, they're at war. The Sweboz also had a huge surge in conquest, having lain dormant for decades. Now they're in a see-saw war with the mighty Romans, gaining a lot of victories under they're powerful leader. And at this point I've kicked the Seleukids out of Turkey, launching raids from the strategic islands of Rhodos and Salamis. However, I'll probably give those back in the peace discussions as I have no interest of keeping them. They have been reduced to rubble after all ~;) .

208 B.C.
https://img478.imageshack.us/img478/1388/getai208bc0nw.th.jpg (https://img478.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai208bc0nw.jpg)

Angadil

03-30-2006, 18:49

Zenith Darksea

03-30-2006, 22:16

Just what in the hell is Pahlava doing in the middle of North Africa?!?

Geoffrey S

03-30-2006, 22:22

Finally had time to do some gaming the last two days, and had some prolonged EB experience. Must say it's excellent! Playing as Baktria I've conquered Kophen and Gava-Haomavarga in some hard-fought battles where I was outnumbered, particularly up north. After some years of vicious fighting against brigades and migrating Indians those darned Seleucids broke their alliance and attacked Baktra. Armenia and Hayasdan stayed loyal and I convinced the Ptolemaioi to join the fight; after that a huge battle outside Baktra that I really enjoyed.

It's great thus far, next week I'll finally start on some of the description work I promised to do.

Edit: one minor bug I noticed, Pantodopoi shields look strange from behind. All transparent and stuff.

Dooz

03-31-2006, 01:09

Armenia and Hayasdan stayed loyal and I convinced the Ptolemaioi to join the fight; after that a huge battle outside Baktra that I really enjoyed.

That's good news, considering Armenia and Hayasdan are one and the same :tongue: .

Dayve

03-31-2006, 02:02

https://img89.imageshack.us/img89/7440/clipboard010qq.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

218BC, me is the Romani as always :2thumbsup:

Big scary Germanians just started throwing huge amounts of men into my eastern most province.. Panonia Illyricum or something like that... Where Sagestica is... It sucks, i still have only the earliest of Roman troops and although with good tactics they can be great, they stopped being an effective attacking force long ago and for the last 35-40 years i haven't expanded beyond what my last great leader conquered before his death...

My armies are ok in defence as i say but... I lose large amounts of them every battle and am constantly having to send them home for retraining and bring new ones in from home which isn't really a problem considering i'm making about 40k a turn and have over 100k to play with everytime i finish building stuff... Anyway enough about them... The Ptolemies... I'm shocked... I did plan on conquering the city of Carthage a few years after i get the first reforms but if the Ptolemies get there first i will be staying friends with them... I've given Carthage huge sums of money over the past 5 years to fight them but they never seem to do anything... I've also given the Seleukids large amounts of money to fight them but they also did nothing and now are even allied to them!

Makedonia doing well expanding east a little... They're very very rich. Casse have taken all of Britain! Now if they could just use the fleet they have to expand into Europe...

Iberia is pwning... Rampaging through Gaul already taken like 5 cities there... Good campaigns... Looking forward to 209BC for the reforms then i can go on the offensive once more!

They do happen in 209 right? :sweatdrop:

Cheexsta

03-31-2006, 03:50

Sweet. Don't worry too much about the Ptolemies, though, they won't be able to take out Carthage that easily. In my last Makedonian game the ex-Carthaginian provinces kept revolting whenever the Ptolemies took them. The Ptolemies will have Carthage under their thumb for the most part, but they won't really be able to do much else.

I'm actually very tempted to start a Roman campaign, now...

Geoffrey S

03-31-2006, 07:11

That's good news, considering Armenia and Hayasdan are one and the same :tongue: .
Oops. Meant Armenia and Parthia. :shame:

Dooz

03-31-2006, 08:43

Oh man, that campaign is looking sweet as hell. Interesting developments, even in the east. Not a crazy jungle like in mine. I've been holding off on the definitive campaign until later versions, if not the full release of the mod. Till then, I've played an extensive Casse campaign, well over 150 years and now playing a nice Getai campaign. Probably do another faction or two, hellenic maybe and carthage, before taking a crack at Rome. Can't wait for more developments!

Dayve

04-01-2006, 00:32

https://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3124/clipboard010pc.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

214BC... Not long after my last post but some interesting things happening... Makedonia expanding east a lot more and north too all the way up into eastern Germanic lands.. Egypt has laid siege to ALL of Carthage's remaining cities and the best thing of all... The Casse have landed an army with a general on mainland Europe and are laying siege to a city along the coast! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dooz

04-01-2006, 01:38

That's so awesome. Makedonia running wild! I can't believe the Casse have conquered the island and are actually breaking out. They're still only with their original province in my campaign. The Ptolemies? Fuhgetaboutit.

Getai 203 B.C.
https://img316.imageshack.us/img316/4576/getai203bc6go.th.jpg (https://img316.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai203bc6go.jpg)

This has been going pretty good. The war between the Romans and Sweboz still raging on, wonderful stuff. I have an extensive network of spies all over the damn place so I see just about everything that goes on. Great battles, back and forth. The Sweboz really owe it all to their incredible leader, Swahaut or somesuch. The recent Roman reforms have given them an edge though, and Swahaut is getting older, just turned 50. I gave the Seleukids all their Turkish holdings back, albeit completely destroyed. Trying to give their allies, the Armenians, a reason to attack undefended cities.

QwertyMIDX

04-01-2006, 01:46

I love how there's no telling how a game will go when you start a campagin. I think I've seen a report of every faction doing at least pretty well.

Dooz

04-01-2006, 03:14

I love how there's no telling how a game will go when you start a campagin. I think I've seen a report of every faction doing at least pretty well.

One thing you can count on; there will be Persians where there ought not be Persians.

paullus

04-01-2006, 03:14

Anyone seen the Arverni win the civil war? That's the one faction I havent seen do all that well (ie, expand much), perhaps they have somewhere in these eight pages, but if so, I don't recall it.

Dayve

04-01-2006, 03:46

https://img428.imageshack.us/img428/6898/clipboard015sv.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

My last one of the night. Just got the reforums as the Romani... Looking forward to using my new troops tomorrow. The Ptolemies are worrying... They have some seriously scary armies... I have a spy in Africa and i've looked at one of their full stacks... It had over 10 units of these pikemen in a chainmail suit with a relatively small shield - i forget their name but it says they are somewhat elite and their defense stat is scary... They had 5 units of galatian swordsmen who were wearing chainmail too and had a big shield... I forget their name also but again their stats were scary... Every unit they had in the army had 2 silver chevrons or more and some even had gold... No wonder the Carthies only have 2 cities left.

The Germans are just annoying me now... They will not leave my eastern provinces alone at all... They send a few armies, get defeated, accept a ceasefire and then come back 4 turns later with more men for me to kill... I've raided their cities that border me, exterminated and destroyed then left them, they re-take and come back for more... They just won't stop... They've actually taken Sagestica from me which was worrying at first as they had another huge army nearby and all mine were retraining in Arretium and Ariminum...

The Casse failed to take the city in my last screenshot but they're back for more... Sieging an Aediu city with 2 full stack armies... I'm proud of them. I've been giving the Seleucids money and demanding they attack the Ptolemies but i think they're just using the money i give them to go on vacation sitting on a nice warm beach somewhere laughing at the stupid Romans who think they're actually going to use the money to launch an attack on the most powerful faction in the game...

:furious3:

Dooz

04-01-2006, 09:08

Have you been helping the Casse at all or is everything that's happened been of their own design? Also, you could give your Sweboz border town you raid to the Getai or some other faction as a buffer zone. Ought to be pretty effective for a while. Maybe an ally of theirs so they don't come back for more, and if they do, they'll have other things to worry about. And the Ptolies shouldn't be much of a problem 'cause they most likely won't be crossing the sea to raid you or anything... although I guess you never, what with the Casse doing what their doing. I can't believe their back with two more stacks.

O'ETAIPOS

04-01-2006, 17:59

Makedonian campain

Year 268BC
https://img309.imageshack.us/img309/9892/ebmak2685dp.png (https://imageshack.us)

Year 257BC winter
https://img431.imageshack.us/img431/8778/ebmak2572ms.png (https://imageshack.us)

Year 248BC winter
https://img416.imageshack.us/img416/9610/ebmak2483uj.png (https://imageshack.us)

Cartaginians and Ptolemaioi are alies for looong time, Ptolemaioi and Seleukids are in war from the beginning, but only effect is Sel capturing one city north of Anticheia.
Sarmatians are under atack from Hayasdan and Phalava, were left with one province, but another rebeled back to them.
Romani have peace with everybody and and for years they were doing nothing.

Dayve

04-01-2006, 21:42

Everything the Casse is doing is without financial aid from me. I've given money to the Greeks, (who are all but dead) the Aediu, the Carthies, the Seleukids and the Baktrians. The Casse have several armies actually just standing around on Britain... Hopefully they will bring them across soon to join the fight. I'll get a screenshot for ya.

https://img348.imageshack.us/img348/7900/clipboard014pt.th.jpg (https://img348.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clipboard014pt.jpg)

I just noticed something interesting - Massalia has rebelled to the Greeks and they have a full stack there... I wondered why small Greek armies had been wandering into northern Italy. I'll let you know how that one works out. I might give them some money to see if i can get them to expand more into Gaul perhaps... What a difference in history that would be.

Dooz

04-01-2006, 22:48

Wow, Parthia has a large, coherent empire in O's campaign. Interesting how long that'll last until they start sprouting up all over the place. And I'm loving that Casse expansion. I guess I have a soft spot, I played my first EB campaign for over a 150 years as the Casse *tear*. Two general lead armies on the mainland, wow. I wonder what kind of troops their wielding.

Getai 200 B.C.
https://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8394/getai200bc9aj.th.jpg (https://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai200bc9aj.jpg)

War has broken out with mighty Rome. All alliances have shifted, madness, madness! An unsteady alliance has been forged with Sweboz, having had a common enemy in Rome. They have however ceased hostilities for the time being. The Seleukids are also an ally of mine as I practically handed over almost all of Turkey to them. They're at war with Ptolemaoi, few battles here and there. A bit of hard luck. A superb prospect of mine, one Zalmoxis, was assasinated at the ripe age of 23 by a Roman, who was then made short work of by an assasin of mine. It was a tough loss though... very tough. He was to be the next great general. However, I do have at least two others who are leading the campaign against the Romans, one of which is already making strides towards greatness.

Dayve

04-02-2006, 14:01

Two general lead armies on the mainland, wow. I wonder what kind of troops their wielding.

https://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8695/clipboard010lg.th.jpg (https://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clipboard010lg.jpg) Not the best lineup ever unfortunately but at least they've got them on the mainland now and if they can do it once, they can do it again... I decided not to give them money and gave it to the Greeks in Massalia instead to see if i can get them to do something.

As for your Getai campaign - Looks great. Rarely ever see any Getai campaign screenshots around here.

-Those crazy purple pyjama people of the east... They always end up with a city inside other factions empires... I might ally myself with them and give them Alalia just for something to do...

Teleklos Archelaou

04-02-2006, 18:56

Wow! That Makedonian expansion in Dayve's campaign is something I've never seen here before. They and the Epeirotes have managed to coexist, while they subdued the other greeks in Hellas (except the Epeirotes took Delphi), and then all of Ionian Greece, both sides of the Bosphoros, then greek cities at Kallatis, Olbia, and the Crimea. And all the factions look to still be alive in 209 too, with the Greeks making their only real stand at Massilia. A wonderful campaign there Dayve - great screenshots!

Dayve

04-03-2006, 02:06

https://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7599/clipboard010nl.jpg (https://imageshack.us)

201BC. After my faction leader and also best general (3 stars) was assasinated by dirty German assassins, (left me annoyed for a while i can tell you) i sent my 2 best other generals with a legion each into the Germanian land just north of Sagestica and put an end to this skirmishing/raiding BS by exterminating all 3 of the cities there and gifting them to the Greeks, who still haven't built a unit in them for 4 years despite having almost 200k Minai in gifts from me... Oh well at least it stopped the Germans annoying me.

The Iberians are pushing right up the west coast of Gaul and they have some pretty big armies about the place. Casse have gone back to Britannia without taking any Gallic cities, unfortunately... Ptolemies keep taking Carthy cities but they eventually just rebel back to the Cartheginians... Macedon hasn't expanded much but isn't showing signs of giving way to that empire of hers anytime soon.

Lastly i have declared war on the Epirotes and taken Epidamnos... The next city of theirs i capture will put me border to border with Macedon, who are allied with the Epirotes.. That should be interesting.

Cheexsta

04-03-2006, 02:57

Ok, maybe I was wrong about the Ptolemies. They seem to be owning Carthage pretty well, aside from a few revolts from the looks of it.

Very interesting ~D

Dooz

04-03-2006, 03:59

Getai 198 B.C.
https://img159.imageshack.us/img159/4141/getai198bc5gx.th.jpg (https://img159.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai198bc5gx.jpg)

Well, took care of Rome pretty nicely. A few outnumbered, heroic victories, good experience for troops and generals and now, the war is over. I gave their bordering cities to the Sweboz to end hostilities. Rome is currently at war with Iberia only and I am enjoying some peacetime. However, I have a bad feeling about those crazy germans... Ptolemies are almost completely gone from the Arabian peninsula, Seleukids making progress there.

Dayve

04-03-2006, 14:08

Them crazy Germans will stab you in the back any chance they get just like they did me. We were allies up until they took a town which bordered my Sagestica, then the armies started to march... One even marched into northern Italy! :furious3: Disgraceful! They were actually quite difficult to beat at first... I lost a huge battle and then they went on to take Sagestica for me, but my faction leader marched right in and took it back. He got assasinated though... I'd advise you to keep a spy and an assassin with every army to be sure they don't assasinate anybody good... I was well cheesed off when they did my faction leader.

Anyway good luck with your campaign... I will be invading Getai land soon myself i foresee, they keep marching armies into my land and then leaving... It's only a matter of time before they lay siege to my richest city, Dalminion, which is making over 10,000 minai a turn. :2thumbsup:

Jarardo

04-04-2006, 01:10

https://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/Jarardo/Map226bcacopy.jpg

226 BC Makedon campaign. I expanded in too many directions at once. I was spread too thin, then my allies, the romans, decided to pick a fight with me too. I could maintain my borders, but turns sometimes took me an hour, as I had to play out multiple battles every turn. It ended up being a chore, so I just threw in the towel.

I gave my parthian allies a lot of money, hoping they could distract the factions around them, and also kept good relations with Carthage, but despite the Carthaginians huge economical power, they failed to maintain war with any of their neighbors. So I ended up fighting everyone at once. I wish I could have finished it, I developed some good generals, and had a lot of fun, but it just got too tedious.

Dayve

04-04-2006, 03:07

No kidding... All that by 226BC? Look at my last campaign screenshot in this thread - It's now 196BC and that's all i have... I've been lucky... The Aediu have stayed allied to me the whole game... I even own all of northern Italy except for Mediolanium and they still haven't even sent 1 soldier onto my land... The Ptolemies to the south are busy with Carthage and Seleucids so they haven't bothered me... I'm just slowly conquering the Greek peninsula at the moment.

The way you expanded is pretty impressive though, i can imagine how much it must've sucked to have to fight all those battles every turn...

Jarardo

04-04-2006, 06:12

Well there wasn't so many battles every turn until the last five years or so. The Hayasdan had all that territory north of getai, and were harrassing me there, so I just invaded those provinces. I also moved out of pontus, taking that territory from the ptolemies and the seleuks.

I was thinking earlier that I could just abandon some of those provinces and try to finish it, all I have to do is take the Itallian provences, that will be a lot of fights though.

The Hayasdan definetly did pretty well as far as AI goes in this campaign though, and I didn't aid them at all.

QwertyMIDX

04-04-2006, 07:22

It's cool that Rome went into Iberia instead of central gaul in your game too.

Geoffrey S

04-04-2006, 08:34

Those Armenians seem to be going bonkers in a few too many games, methinks.

Jarardo

04-04-2006, 12:09

I just downloaded your save from the interesting saves thread Dayve. The ptolemies invasion of carthage is pretty awesome, I've never seen the AI be that successfull in an invasion.

I like your organization too, the forts with large armies are cool.

QwertyMIDX: It's cool that Rome went into Iberia instead of central gaul in your game too.

Yeah I wish they would have pushed a little harder, I was pressuring them to attack the Iberians, I was pressuring the Carthaginians too. Neither one really got a lot accomplished.

It really is cool how diverse things can end up with different games.

Dayve

04-04-2006, 17:10

I wouldn't abandon it altogether... Abandon those worthless landlocked northern ones and pull back to choke points which you can defend in the mountains of northern Greece and rivers etc... Then continue to expand east, Alexander style... :sweatdrop:

Oleo

04-05-2006, 12:42

Roman Campaign, Medium/Medium v0.7.3a,

251BC
https://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8189/eb251bc0vh.jpg

227BC, I sort of expanded much faster than I wanted to.
https://img126.imageshack.us/img126/2451/eb227bc5aj.jpg

Also I dont play long stints, so there might be some less expansion due to load/save bug (f.i. Aedui have besieged Viennos of the Arverni many times with far superior army without taking it)

Jarardo

04-05-2006, 17:43

The Yuezi and the Baktrians seem to be doing better in your campaign than most I've seen. Heres one with just the AI playing.

https://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i303/Jarardo/AIExpand.jpg

Thats 233BC, I just left it running all night, woke up and had a message that the Romani had won. So there was zero save/loading going on here, the only faction with protectorates was the Romani, and they had...Iberia, and one of the gaulic factions I think as protectorates. Lots of alliances still though. I like that the makedons are doing fairly well too.

King Thengel

04-05-2006, 18:52

https://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i157/XxCirdanxX/Epirus.jpg

My new campaign as the Epirotes, VH/M, 0.74, 269bc. The world seems mostly calm right now, except for the Romans, angry at the loss of their capitol :sweatdrop:.

Dayve

04-05-2006, 23:02

Jarardo - That one with just the AI playing with no saving/loading is awesome... Just shows the mess that saving/loading actually makes of the AI...

I've abandoned my Romani campaign anyway due to every city on the map having huge stone walls and the Makedonians throwing constant full stacks of their best troops at me despite having every single one of their ports blocked and me taking most of the Greek peninsula.. Also i installed the trait fix so the save game became incompatible.

Dooz

04-06-2006, 03:57

Getai 193 B.C.
https://img129.imageshack.us/img129/6913/getai193bc0bx.th.jpg (https://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai193bc0bx.jpg)

Man oh man, it's been a hell of a few years. After securing my borders after the initial war with Rome, I fell back and retrained my armies, as well as completed a full new army, bringing my grand total to 4 national, identical standing armies. One of them is stationed in the east under my faction leader, just in case the Seleukids get frisky. The other three you ask? Ah, well, you see all that Carthaginian land in Italy and Sicily? That my friends is the result of one hell of a Getic invasion.

Prior to military force, dozens of spies were ferried across the channel into the area, giving me a precise picture of what to expect. Luckily, the brunt of the Roman forces were away at war with Iberia, but there were still formidable defenses. When all preparations were complete, I sent in my three armies, two of which were lead by blossoming generals, the other by the faction heir, a great leader. Each of the armies was accompanied by a spy and an assasin, for reports had indicated high assasinatorial activity on the peninsula. And so it began. The great war for Italy itself.

Strategic alliances had been made to keep my focus on the war and keep my borders safe. One especially interesting alliance was with Carthage, who would reap all the benefits of my actions, as well as recieve generous financial aid to support a war with the Ptolemies. Over the course of 4-5 years, the peninsula was decimated. Wholesale slaughter of Romans abroad, destruction of buildings and whole cities. All that was left was passed on to the grateful Carthaginians.

When all was said and done, the Romans had been kicked out of Italy all together. I had three armies worth of seasoned troops and battle-hardened generals... unfortunately, one of the initial three would not make it off the island. Duras, a promising young general, was killed in an intense battle for Segesta, the last he would have had to fight. His replacement was brought in from Athens, another promising young lad, but there were no Romans left to kill. After the peninsula and island were secure, the glorious armies were shuttled back across the channel, back to the fatherland.

The balance of powers has shifted. We are in a new world order. The Getai are the most powerful nation on earth, masters behind every political move, every war, everybody. Welcome to hell.

QwertyMIDX

04-06-2006, 07:54

Looks like you may have made a monster out of Carthage though.

Dooz

04-06-2006, 09:22

Eh, I always wanted to see a monstrous Carthage. You want somethin' done right, you gotta' do it yourself! And so I have. I freakin' love seeing large Carthaginian stacks. Coolest freakin' troops and just everything. Plus, the invasion was unimaginably fun. Plus, they still haven't trained a single unit in any of the new provinces or brought in any troop from outside to garisson. Luckily, Rome hasn't striken against them yet because they're already at war with Iberia, Sweboz and myself. We'll see how things go from here.

Jarardo

04-06-2006, 10:45

Looks like a great game Wonderland.

Dooz

04-06-2006, 11:34

Getai 191 B.C.
https://img91.imageshack.us/img91/953/getai191bc9pj.th.jpg (https://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=getai191bc9pj.jpg)

It's been nearly two years since the invasion of Italy. Soon after my forces exited the peninsula, the Sweboz scared the Romans into submission and acquired their third protectorate (other two are Auedi and Sauromatae). The world climate has shifted once again. The Getai are now allied with Rome and the Seleukids, as well as Carthage, Sweboz, and Sauromatae. Baktria has solidified their holdings in the east and are at war with Hayasdan, one they have a good chance of coming out on top in. The Ptolemies and Seleukids are still stuck in their eternal struggle against eachother, and Carthage is squeeazing the Ptollies in from the west. Ptolemies are holding their own though, surprisingly effectively. They won't be going down without a hell of a fight, that's been shown already.

The only action in the west is the war still raging between the Iberians and Rome. I think the Iberians might eventually come out on top as Rome is now a protectorate. They do still have many massive armies though, although mainly consisting of Gauls at this point. They can hardly be considered "Rome" anymore. All the other nations are at peace currently.

Carthage has finally begun to bring reinforcements into Italy and train a few light troops in the southernmost city. They might attack Rome if they choose to honor the agreement we had made years ago for assistance. However, that'd be a foolish move at this point as the Sweboz would likely retaliate and the delicate balance in Europe would be destroyed. They did receive another huge grant from the Getai in the sum of 200,000 mnai. That should help them sustain their war efforts against the Ptolemies as well as aid in the reconstruction and refortification of Italy and Sicily.

And so is the situation in the summer of 191 B.C. The Sweboz may very well be the most powerful nation around at this point. Masses upon masses of men, well equpied, trained and lead, ready to attack or defend as necessary. I fear a Germanic invasion, I'll admit. My returning armies are fully retrained however and await orders. The victorious generals are enjoying the downtime after years of war across the sea, residing in the bordering cities. I think I'll sit back for the time being and see how things unfold. The wars in the east are quite entertaining and the Roman-Iberian war isn't too bad either.

paullus

04-06-2006, 22:52

Dooz

04-06-2006, 23:09

Man, the first of your last two updates, I looked at the pic before reading your post, and I got REALLY excited that Carthage had taken Italy. Shoulda known that would be the result of gifts.

And if you have a major war with Sweboz (probably sometime soon), may I suggest posting some pics (in another thread of course) of what are sure to be slugfests.

Ouch, sorry bout that! I know how you must have felt, I would too. I'll try to do some sort of mini AAR maybe with the possible upcoming war. I'm still hoping to avoid that though until EB is ported to 1.5 and I can start a new campaign :)

paullus

04-08-2006, 15:23

260 BC

[img=https://img468.imageshack.us/img468/1719/2604mr.th.jpg] (https://img468.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2604mr.jpg)

I should've been taking shots earlier. Note the Carthaginian army on the coast, and the large Roman army heading to Sicily. Well, around a year ago the C army invaded, beat a small Roman army, and then besieged Capua. Until the Roman army and a couple others attacked it and it withdrew. Its hard to follow the army movements during the turn, but they seemed to follow each other around, until the C army went toward Epirote territory, and then the R army is now making its run toward Sicily.

Not sure this says all that much about the AI, but it was pretty danged cool. I'm just a little sad that the climactic battle outside Capua didn't happen.

pezhetairoi

04-08-2006, 16:04

https://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9813/010348fk.jpg

This is my Roman Empire in 226BC. A brief guide: Iberia, the Getai, KH, Makedonia, and Epeiros have been destroyed by my vigorously expanding borders.

The Arverni never expanded past their three provinces, while the Aedui spread strongly to the north, into the territories of the Belgae. They even had a fleeting war with the Sweboz, which was all sound and fury signifying nothing, and which ended in 4 years.

The Qarthadastim have been driven out of Spain, the Lipari islands, and Sicily. Right now every single port they still have is blockaded by a Roman fleet. The Romani have complete naval superiority in the Mediterranean, with a squadron headed for the Black Sea to finish the picture.

The Ptolemaioi have expanded uncontested across the bottom of the map. They have come into fleeting conflicts with the Qarthadastim and fought a long and hard Arabian war with the Pahlava. A long war with Arche Seleukeia was ended only 5 years ago. The Romani are allied to the Ptolemaioi.

...and my faction is also allied with the Sauromatae, who are, as always, the big losers in the steppe wars. They are reduced to two provinces, one of which (Olbia) was a gift from me after a very vigorous Hayasdan bribed it and came into direct contact with my border, making me incredibly nervous. So I counterbribed it and let it rebel into the hands of the Sauromatae.

Hayasdan. The big opportunists of the campaign. They now occupy a gigantic swath of Seleukid territory, but not through any direct conflict with the Seleukids. I have never seen a quicker landgrab in any campaign. No sooner does one Seleukid province rebel does a Hayasdan fullstack appear before it within two turns, and takes it.

Pahlav look really big and pink, but they are weak in the middle. Most of their victories were scored with small mobile forces against the equally small mobile forces of the Sauromatae. In other words, they don't have any military power worth talking about. But that could change in a hurry since there's plenty of time for them to build a new army. They had a few provinces rebel to them in Arabia from Ptolemaioi, which I think is damnedly weird, but as said elsewhere on the forums, nothing to be done about it.

Yuezhi...no comment. They suck, fullstop.

Baktria has been taking the slow-and-steady approach, building up fullstack after fullstack. They launch these on massive offensives every 10-20 years, then retreat back behind their borders to consolidate for decades on end. They have had two wars with the Seleukids. (Dammit, i couldn't even get peace with the Seleukids even after pushing my borders all the way to Antiocheia, and they got peace TWICE.)

Currently my 'marches', that is to say my warzones, are in Gaul and Asia Minor.

https://img400.imageshack.us/img400/2449/01018mi.jpg

Here's Gaul, where there is a three-way fight going on between me, the Aedui and the Arverni. There is a Cauldron battle shaping up around Bibracte, which seems to be attracting fullstacks like flies despite my attempt up north at Bagacos to lure some Aedui forces north. The Gaulish campaign is extremely bloody, since I am contesting Carnute Cingetos, Gaesatae, Soldurii and Brihentin with Camillan Romans, and I am playing in cohort style, which means every triarii must be accompanied by one hastati and principes, so I don't become exclusively a phalanx army.

https://img400.imageshack.us/img400/6219/01030ns.jpg

And here you see the Asia Minor theatre. The army at Nikomedia is composed exclusively of Mytilenean (or Lesbian, if you so wish to call them) peltastai, who conduct themselves admirably against scythed chariots and cappadocian cav. The army currently besieging Pergamon is a fullstack of Skuda, Bydirag and god knows what other Baexdzhyntae horsearchers, hired as mercenaries from the horsearcher countries. Don't look down on it, its silver-chevroned veterans have gone through over 35 battles, and contributed immensely to the destruction of the Getian, Makedonian and Epeirote empires. They have also eradicated countless rebel armies in the Balkans on their own. And prior to this screenshot, they had just completed cutting a swath of destruction through Pontos (who initiated a war with me without which I would never have entered Asia Minor) all the way to the gates of Amaseia itself, destroying every major army on the way save the last one in Amaseia.

Anyhow, that's all for my AI expansion broadcast. Goodnight.