Re: Scythia
I think it is a good idea, which also solves your economy problems, to move south and attack Thrace,whilst Partatua attacks Sakae, then move on to the Greek Cities, and Macedon. After this, dedicate most of your troops to the Romans, then finally, move on to taking the Dacians and the Germans with some troops, and Pontus with some others (being careful not to over-extend into Egyptian territory).
Re: Scythia
Welcome to the org Zielas..
Last edited by Craterus; 04-22-2005 at 18:01.
Re: Scythia
Ok, so I've finally started my campaign with these guys... I played 2 hrs or so last night and 3 hrs this afternoon and all I can say is Damn those Germans!
Everytime I try to advance further into their territory, they siege the one I just took. They come out of nowhere and bypass my line of sight and I have to go back to fend them off..
I have an army killing the Parthians and I would consider pulling them back to reinforce my Germanic onslaught but it will take 10 years to march throught the vast Scythian provinces..
I have Thrace and Dacia's support against these Germans but I'm also struggling with funds, but I this is a fun campaign nonetheless.
Had a bit of trouble with those Amazons though, a stack of chariots amushed me and they had some more stashed in the town. Is it me or is that province buggy? A grey "cloud" kept covering the whole screen, a unit of H-H-M (Head Hunting Maidens) were surrounded by chariots and I couldn't do anything.. Brave, warrior women vs. Brave, warrior women (Amazons) lol.
Re: Scythia
Thank you very much for your hospitality Craterus. How do I get the avatars of the eastern generals by the way. Also, don't bother moving those armies from Parthia, by the time they get to Germania, you will either have won or lost the war, and the Parthians will smash your settlements, and you'll be crushed in a deadly pincer of death! As for solving money problems, it may have been better to ignore the Germans (poor economy in their settlements), and move south, defeating Thrace and Macedon, then returning to defeat the Germans with a stronger army.
Re: Scythia
Germania and Parthia are allies and are trying to pincer me already, like France and Russia did to Germany pre-WW2 (Mutual Assistance Pact). I am allies with Thrace and Macedon have already gone. Germania and Parthia are those that are constantly niggling for me to kill them. My plan at the start was to team up with Thrace on Dacia. But when the Parthians and Germanics came along I settled for an alliance with Dacia to slow their oncoming and to hopefully receive some assistance when attacking the Germanic hordes.
Re: Scythia
My game was to attack Parthia and Thrace at once, now Parthia is quiescent in the east so I'm not bothering them either though we're still at war. Thrace was destroyed by Zipoetes, and he proceeded on to destroy Macedon with the help of a new army raised under a bribed rebel general. In the north, Partatua and quite a few of my family members are already knocking at the gates of Damme (the two German Vicuses having been taken), and they haven't had a chance to do anything against me. My game seems to be very alliance-scarce. Anyway, the Germans haven't been proving much fight so far (that might have to do with the fact that I bribed a 14-unit army away, I don't know :-P). I now have two large armies at war with the Brutii and Julii in southern Greece and the Adriatic coast, and am raising two more to pincer Pontus from Byzantium and Armenia (that would entail destroying Armenia first, yes) in order to gain control of the entire Black Sea. I'll leave the Seleucids in between me and Egypt so they can rip each other to shreds before I pick up the pieces.
Poor you, Craterus... are you managing? :-P By right the Germans don't have very rich territory, how in the world did they manage to offer you any resistance O_o
EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004
Re: Scythia
Just a short status after the weekend:
My Macedonian campaign is finally running good. I besiege Larissa. This is just a honey pot for the Macs. They attack me whenever they can even with small armies and I slaughter them all; My army has 60% HA and rest are malee cav. Works pretty good. In open field you can kill everything. Phalanxes are no prob. You do not have any losses. Just shoot them. Macs and Greek cav are not that easy.
After clearing the area I send a smaller army to Athens. I have my first artillery there and try to attack. Does not work. I have only enough ammo to break one hole. When I try to enter the fire from the walls is so heavy that I loss 1 phalanx and half barb cav. and HA. So I interrupt this attack. Before that I manage to kill a Gerneral’s guard that followed my HA.
My allies the Brutii come and attack Thessalonica. They offer me to become protectorate and give me 2000di and annual payment of 500. Then Larissa capitulates without a fight. I erase population. The Dacians beg for peace and pay for it. Germania offers an alliance. Now I besiege simultaneously Korinth and Athens. I am not strong enough to storm the walls.
I move my capital to Thessalonica. Now I have riots in the eastern part. I going to through them down. These towns are too big anyway!!
Craterus: Greetings from the sunny south
If you cannot stand the cold winter in Germania you may want to jump to Greece, too. Fine weather, one wonder, and friendly people everywhere. At least the few that survived my triumph.
See you there!
Re: Scythia
They sneak round with small annoying armies and I'm in debt at the moment so I can't build huge garrisons and my citie are defended wioth peasants so I can't advance far enouggh into their territory to make an impact.. I'm going to wait for their economy to fail.. and hope ine shoots up for the final push to send the Germans back to Berlin..Originally Posted by pezhetairoi
oops, i mean Damme.. that final push reminds me of another war..
Re: Scythia
Ahhh I see. Well well. I finally got a taste of what you meant by small little armies last night, but guess what, thanks to you warning I had one of my almighty bribers lying in wait at Marcomannii. :-) I took Thrace and Greece first, so cash flow is definitely the least of my worries. And to ease my bloodlust, guess what? The Brutii have kindly sent a full stack from Apollonia to *ahem* relieve me of the burden of Thermon. I will inform them that I do not need their help :-)
I'm kinda stand-alone in terms of diplomacy now, no allies except Greece, whose alliance with me will soon be broken. Diplomats are amazing...you can almost hold an entire segment of frontier with just them alone.
I changed my plan--the eastern army will no longer attack Armenia, but instead it will take out Parthia. Also, the Pontus army will do it alone, and instead of gangbanging Pontus like I planned, I'll just bribe my way through and gangbang Seleucids instead--they're doing pretty well in my game, pushing Egypt back.
I can't believe the Romans are willing to pay 2000 to buy my map information every single turn. XD XD XD
I'm beginning to regret exterminating all my Greek cities, now that I'm raising a new army in there I'm starting to wonder if that was a good idea since I'm starting to run out of new recruits. >.< Dacia is currently a big neutral bulge in my empire which I shall turn orange once I'm done with Greece. It doesn't make any strategic sense otherwise. Very soon, Dacia will feel like Czechoslovakia after Anschluss.
EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004
Re: Scythia
oh, WOOHOO! I'm a member ;-) *celebrations, confetti, the whole works*
EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004
Re: Scythia
Ave brothers in arms,
Ave Craterus,
some comments directly from Germania:
That's the Mao Tst-Tung strategy (see quote below). It can be very nasty. Tried it against the Brutii. The best way is to ignore the small armies and go straight for their capitol . Usually they will follow and attack you! Then you can kill one after the other easily. If not, then they will get some dirty barracks and you get their palasts
Germania has no economy. So you may wait foreverI'm going to wait for their economy to fail.. and hope ine shoots up for the final push to send the Germans back to Berlin..
oops, i mean Damme.. that final push reminds me of another war..
And be careful, many foreign armies got lost in the forrest of Germania.
Ave Member Pezhetairoi,
congratulation
I am still attacking Corinth and Athens. It will take another 5 and 7 turns. The Brutii attack my capitol. I cannot send my army to chase them. I need the money from the Mac cities and the wonder of Corinth desperatly because I am broke. Looks like the fight of Thessalonica is goinig to be a Alamo kind thing. Anyway. Since they besiege me I received two new family members there. You know, a friend in need
Re: Scythia
Ave Franconicus, it's a pity you're broke, otherwise you could scrape together some infantry mercs or a peasant unit from someplace and break down the gates. Germania's tactics are strange, I'll say, but they make sense--hit where the enemy is not. (sounds like something out of Sun Zi's Art of War)
Ah, I'm a bad member who got a thread closed in the colosseum due to improper content. Oh well. Lesson number one learnt.
Hmm, Craterus, what year are you at? I thought you should have enough money from Macedon to at least to support four 10-unit armies... how come you're broke? Didn't build enough economic infrastructure? I discovered that rushing in the beginning and slaughtering everyone right at the start would get you money, but it only lasted that short a while, and after that income would be really low because of the low pop...
My strategy was to go slow in Thrace, occupying the cities (and slowing down my army advance a LOT) but building lots of happiness buildings so that when I left I had pretty decent Turn-10 cities with several thousand population churning out money which I then spent completely on ports, traders and the sort. In fact, as I consult my records, no new units were commissioned until Turn 17, only some retraining. Macedon I exterminated, but that was after I had a strong base in Thrace.
As a result, for a slow advance right at the start I had a very strong economic base from which I could go on the usual stuff like building noble archers, etc...
Never once came near going broke except right at the start when I ran down my treasury just building roads and ports. Any thoughts on my economic strategy? I mean, Scythia was made for a rush campaign, but it does seem some caution in the beginning does produce some decent results in the long run.
EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004
Re: Scythia
pezhetairoi
your right! I tried not to make to much buildings, cause this is a very barbarian nomadian faction. Nevertheless I built as many harbors as possible. Maybe erasing all the Thracian and Macedonian population is not sustainable. Maybe I let the Athenian live
P.S.: Like your new face
Re: Scythia
Year - 257 bc, I'm not far in and I'm playing how I usually would, but I lack the experience with barbarian factions and the rushing tactic, I'll see how it goes, more on this as it progresses.
Re: Scythia
HELP !!!!!!!!! i have started on h/h see how i would go and boy its imposible. The battles arnt hard to fight or anything its just that Thracia always go to war with me and bring in huges stack armys with batserne and phalnxe troops. All i can offer as defence is 4 sythian archeres. Any one know how to actually complete this campaign?
"A lamb goes to the slaughter but a man, he knows when to walk away."
Re: Scythia
Sure, there's a few people here who have already completed their Scythian campaigns, read further up the guide, there is some very good information and tips further up this page and the previous pages..
Re: Scythia
Well, Tibilicus, one thing you should have done right at the start of the campaign was to strike Thrace first, before they hit you. But since you didn't, well... that's the result. When I hit thrace early in the game the sum of their armies and garrisons would have just made one full stack, which Zipoetes and his 3 HA 2 Archer army would have easily beaten. But as it is, they were highly separated, so all I had to deal with was scattered 3-4-unit armies. Thrace in my game was destroyed by turn 10 or so, and that was only because I was delayed due to the low public order in Campus Getae.
Thrace can't keep up this pace of full-stack invasion for long, take the fight to their territory and attack their cities. They will be forced to come back to aid it, leaving your territory alone. The thing is, you have to destroy them now, and you must do it fast to stop them from raising any more full-stacks. So, besiege Getae (or go deeper in to Tylis if you so wish), raise a mercenary unit to man the ram and take one city. Exterminate and advance immediately to the next and the next. Thrace should be only to get control of 3 cities in the first 20 turns (is that the period you're in?) so once you get those their full-stacks become mere rebel armies you can deal with another day. If they miraculously manage to get Porrolissum (as they did my Macedonian campaign), well, leave them there. The Dacians'll deal with them, and besides, cut off from the sea in a low-population large town they can't do much against you.
In short: Take the fight to them, and ignore their full-stacks on your territory. How many have they got, anyway?
Alternatively, do the Scythian horsearcher thing. Melt away into the steppes with your army, surrendering your city, but amassing a greater force of horse archers. Then, return and grab it back from them. Since Thrace can't have many cities, it stands to reason that those full stacks you see represent their maximum effort (remember the AI believes in rushing everything at the beginning, and if you can break them then they're yours for the taking) and once you buy time, increase your armies and defeat them, that's it. Thrace is yours, and you can storm across the Dniepr river and take Getae, Tylis and Byzantium in quick succession.
This strategy is more risky in that you surrender Scythii, your capital (it shouldn't still be, it should be Tanais by now), but it's only temporary. The thing is to buy some time.
EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004
Re: Scythia
You meant Scythian HA, right? crank those babies out and learn to micro them well.
Drawing them into field battles is easy as the AI only cares about relative combat strength which is melee. Their phalanxes and bastarnae are essentially nothing. The beauty of HA warfare is that once you neutralize their cav, the battle is essentially won.
Since they have bastarnae, I'm presuming that it's pretty late in the game. This means that you get scythian nobles which long with your general are great for tearing up their militia cav. If earlier, use headhunting maidens who can maul their general through armor piercing attack.
Have fun and happy hunting. Used well, HA armies should yield better than 10:1 kill ratios including friendly fire casualties and the fact that you have to deal with AI cav.
Re: Scythia
katank and pezhetairoi are right!
Attack! Never hide your HA in the towns! Try to beat the enemy on open ground. First clear the field, then go for the cities! If you meet a field army, always strike first! AI then is defensive, that means they hang around and watch their commrades fall under your arrow rain. Try to get some barb cav or Gaurd to keep the Thracian cav busy. Evevn though they do not have many they can be a problem for your HA.
Finally:
Love your HAs. If you treat them right, they will pull you out your troubles!
Re: Scythia
Thracians have betrayed me and have a ful stack headed for Tanais/Cheresoneos..
These two don't have big garrisons and I probably can't catch them now, shall I attack Getae, or send an army to stop them?
Re: Scythia
Try to bring the war on their teritory. How strong are their garrisons? Do they have any field armies in their homeland?
Where is your army? In Scythii? If possible lay besiege to Getae, go to Thylis and erase any army you meet on the way. Attack their capitol and take it. This will hurt them!
If their army returns you can attack them whenever you want to. If they attack Tanais/Cheresoneos take Byzantium. Then you control their complete homeland. Then you have lots of income, good production lines and a guarded back. Then turn east. By the way, it would be helpful to have an alliance with the Macs, then.
Re: Scythia
Unfortunately, Macedon has cancelled their alliance with me so I sense an attack coming on. Thracian towns are poorly garrisoned so I guess I'll knock out their towns quickly and then that army will turn rebel, right? But my nearest, decnet army is fending off German attacks in the north, I'll bring them back and let Thrace have Chereseneos or Tanais.. I don't think the Germans will be around for a while now anyway. I could try to bring my army back from Parthia but it will take a long time. But I've crippled Parthia and they won't be coming up again for a while..
Re: Scythia
That's why all of you should not head for Parthia or Germania early on. Kepp your eye on the ball and sack Thrace and Macedon in quick succession.
If they don't have strong field armies, then siege their cities with only 3-4 Scythian HAs.
They will sally, thinking they can beat you but get destroyed in the field.
Note that their units when routed will go through the gates. Have your Scythian HAs follow closely and you can get into the city. Then smash the enemy and the city is yours without ever having to build siege weapons or assault.
Re: Scythia
katank, I require your assistance. Do you know how to activate battle editor on patch v1.2? the readme wasn't much help. Also, this campaign was easy! I finished it in under 50 years (new record for me)
Re: Scythia
Ziaelas: There's a thread in the colosseum about the battle editor that will answer all your questions about enabling it. What's the battle editor, anyhow?
And of course Scythia is easy! ^_^ Dacia is already surrounded on 3 sides, Damme has just become capable of building diplomats so no more worries about Germanic guerrillas, and Mogontiacum will fall in the next two turns. Apollonia will also fall in the next 2 turns, and Athens in the next 3. I expect Phraaspa in the bag as well.
Craterus: In this case I recommend you march into Thrace, storm their gates, and dash their inhabitants' brains on the battlements. That's...just a variation of Franconicus' more tame suggestion. If you do it fast enough you can annihilate Thrace before they even get either of your black sea cities.
Don't surrender Germania, I don't think the situation's that bad yet (Unless you're short of money, upon which the situation would be VERY bad.)
Is Campus Scythii still available for you, or is it light blue already? Assuming they've just passed Scythii (or left it) it will take them 5 turns by barbarian roads to arrive at Chersonesos, and 6-7 to arrive at Tanais. THey will then siege (and I do not expect the AI to storm you) so if you've upgraded your walls you can buy another 3-4 turns' time at least, if not more. Upgrade your walls, build a horse-archer or two in both Chersonesos and Tanais. They're in mutual-supporting range so as soon as you can discern which settlement they're angling for send the other city's HA to reinforce and do a two-side-attack sally battle. That'd be the strategy I'd use.
Besides, your garrison doesn't have to be very big. HA can beat almost anything, remember, as long as they aren't caught in melee. So... why not try and duke it out with what you've got? As long as they are delayed at the walls of one of your settlementsyou can take them out. Easily, too. Just be careful not to overlap units and get friendly fired when fighting your battles, and you will win a heroic victory.
But that's only a sideshow. If you can crush Thrace's homeland before they get new provinces in the good ol' Pontus Euxinus then all that won't be necessary and you can just use your new-built HA to get a man-of-the-hour announcement in trashing the latest rebel army north of Chersonesos.
Germania... Aaaah, Germania. Yes, pull back that army and head south through Dacia (it's the fastest way, and I always did my factioner transfers through brownland) to Bylazora and take it. Since Mace has already cancelled alliance with you anyway I expect you might as well hit first, and besides, those settlements are more worth the lives of your men. After Byl, Thessalonica. Then you can move on to Byzantium, or Larissa, whichever tickles your fancy. Bingo, you're back in the black if you aren't already. Let the Germans have their measly Vicuses back. They don't do much anyway. It's an alternative to Thrace, and you can create a new invasion avenue. It will take about 3-4 turns without roads through Dacia, obviously faster if the Dacians have managed to develop.
EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004
Re: Scythia
Craterus,
don't worry about Mac. If you win a decisve battle against Thracia they will be on your side again. But never trust them!
I fear the Greeks even if they bring gifts. (Roman saying)
Good luck
Re: Scythia
pezhetairoi,
I have to admit that you articulate much better than I do.
Re: Scythia
My campaign against Mac is doing fine. I besieged Corinth and Athens. Brutii besieged me at Thessalonica even though I am their protectorate. Strange behaviour. I could not afford to call my armies from Corinth or Athens. So I attacked them with what I had. There defeated them in two battles. They had almost 2,000 in each, but no members of the family and only some equites. Killing the Romans is easy. The members of my Royal family (I had three in these battles) along with barb cav killed their equites, flanked them, killed the dogs, attacked from the rear. Their Hesatii and Principii stood in the arrow rain until they were hit by my cav. Once they had even Gladiators. They were running to my HA thinking that they are the best special unit in the world.
Then Corinth and Athens capitulated. As they did not fight I was generous. I only enslaved them.
The Greeks attacked Corinth the very next turn with 2 armies (1,600 each). Corinth has good walls, but Scythians are not used to hide from an enemy. So I attacked the Greek army that had the besieging equipment. They had just phalanxes (and one skirmish). Even though I had only 1,200 men and about 800 horses I could easily kill them (only 65 could escape).
Now cash is flowing. I control most of Greece. The Macs have left the mainland. I laid siege on Spartha. Brutii are besieging me at Thessa again. This time they have lots of cav and dogs. They also block the harbour of Athens. A pirate fleet blocks Thylis.
Re: Scythia
Strange is not, is Roman behaviour. They cannot be trusted same as Macedon
As for Battle Editor, it is way to making maps and Historical Battles. You must add (space)-enable_editor to target address. Right click on short cut drop down select properties, target address is highlighted
Re: Scythia
They walked straight past Campus Scythii.. I'll do them a trade then, Cheresenos for all their Thracian Land.. I can't fight on three fronts for much longer, with only two decent armies and very poor roads, this is quite difficult.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks