Pahlav

[Iskandr]

Anyone had any luck with this faction? Besides having no economy to speak of, I have been invaded by Selucia within 10 years of start every single time I try them (4 or 4 now). The AI Parthia, with an extra 30k a turn, barely survives...how is a human player supposed to survive, much less expand?

Iskandr

[khelvan]

Anyone had any luck with this faction? Besides having no economy to speak of, I have been invaded by Selucia within 10 years of start every single time I try them (4 or 4 now). The AI Parthia, with an extra 30k a turn, barely survives...how is a human player supposed to survive, much less expand?

Iskandr

The AI does not get an extra 30k per turn. They get it on the first turn only.

[Jebus]

The AI does not get an extra 30k per turn. They get it on the first turn only.

Then what does this mean?

monitor_event FactionTurnStart Treasury < 20000
and FactionType romans_julii
and not I_LocalFaction romans_julii

console_command add_money romans_julii, 30000

[Iskandr]

They certainly do get somewhere between 20 and 30k a turn, on medium. At least the small factions do, since their starting largess quickly runs out from army upkeep, recruitment and construction. Once they hit the red, they get some sort of subsidy, I would assume about 30k from the way protectorate payments have worked out ( I know now not to accept them). Ironically, the Seluecids, perhaps because they have such a big empire with conflicting priorities, seem to field a smaller army than either Pontos or Yuezhi (!). Most likely that is simply because they spend more on garrisons and construction though.

Iskandr

[khelvan]

That means they were granted a sum of 30,000 on ONE turn. Over the average the per turn figure is much, much less, so say the scripting team that actually wrote the code and does not rely on anecdotes. It was granted to factions based on the number of cities they hold, and no other criteria, aside from an initial bonus. In the future it will be very different.

[Jebus]

Perhaps I am nothing but an utter, complete idiot, but doesn't the piece of script I just posted mean that the AI gets 30 000 free money whenever their bank balance drops below 20 000 Mnai?

[MeroFromVero]

Perhaps I am nothing but an utter, complete idiot, but doesn't the piece of script I just posted mean that the AI gets 30 000 free money whenever their bank balance drops below 20 000 Mnai?

Yes.

[Jebus]

Ahà!


Petition to ban Khelvan for desinformation.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

well, back to the topic. I play as the Pahlava on hard/hard and have conquered Iran, Uzbekistan, Kazachstan, Tadzjikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Indian province. What I did was basically attack the Seleucid central asian provinces immediately. I was then able to negotiate a truth with the Seleucids and waited for several years to get out of my 15k debt. While I waited the east of the Seleucid kingdom was crumbling away by revolts.
For me, the hard part started later when both Bactria and those nasty Yueh-chih with their horse- and foot archers attacked me...

gl,


Mad Guitar Murphy

[Rodion Romanovich]

I haven't played Pahlava yet, but I think quickly starting war with Baktria is a good idea. Then attack the eastern seleucid empire. Leave some small forces to defend against the Yuezhi, but later build up their strength when the Yuezhi seem to come closer (watchtowers and spies are useful here) while conquering more of the seleucids. Also leaving a small force against the sarmatians, with the same watchtower/spy system. In my Baktria campaign I noticed the seleucids are quite easy to crush as Baktria/Pahlava, because they can't recruit as good archers and many of their eastern provinces rebel quite soon.

[QwertyMIDX]

EB is best played on VH/M in order to make the rebels and AI aggressive but keep stats balanced properly.

[econ21]

EB is best played on VH/M in order to make the rebels and AI aggressive but keep stats balanced properly.

Excellent - my favorite settings, for the reason you give. I play RTR on VH/M and it works well - M/M is no challenge as Rome. But I am currently playing EB on M/M. I am not sure it needs the VH campaign, even for the Romans. The AI seems to have more than enough money to buy troops and is not too shy about starting wars - it is 248 in my Roman game and I have been attacked by Epeiros, Greece, both Gauls and Carthage. All but Carthage have had very big armies.

[QwertyMIDX]

If you don;t play on VH campaign difficultly the rebels will never seige your cities though, which takes a lot of the challange out of EB.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I play VH/VH but the rebels don't seem to besiege me very often...

[QwertyMIDX]

Yeah, even on VH they don't do it often, but rarely is MUCH better than never.

[Ambiorix]

When I play as Pahlav the rebels seem to come out of the woodwork to seige my cities. This is the only faction thus far I have utterly failed on all of my approaches with.

[Arman616]

I am 12 years into my pahlav campaign. I basically disbanded everything in the beginning, then built my economy from the ground up, and then attacked the north eastern selucid pronvinces and cut them off from the rest of their empire. Now i'm going to retake iran, and then turn east onto bactria and yeuhzi.

[booker]

The AI does not get an extra 30k per turn. They get it on the first turn only.

Could someone confirm this?

From what i understand on VH campaign the AI get 30k bonus once in a while...

[Ambiorix]

What difficulty are you on? Whenever I disband my army I always get seiged by rebels.

[Zenith Darksea]

I've often had rebels appear (a little too often for my liking - I think I'll tweak that a little), but they never seem to siege my cities. Though on one turn as Pahlava two enormous horse archer stacks appeared, one next to each of my cities. Well, I couldn't afford to raise armies to deal with them, and I couldn't link up my city garrisons because they'd be taken out as soon as they leave the cities. I would beg that in future versions the rebels don't appear as often (but when they do appear, they should be powerful to provide a challenge). It really irritates me that I can't afford to maintain more than two units of Pahlavan Shivatir (incidentally, their animation needs fixing), but rebel bandits can conjure up fullstacks of horse archers turn after turn. The bandits would have to pick a lot of pockets to manage that.

[Arman616]

I've often had rebels appear (a little too often for my liking - I think I'll tweak that a little), but they never seem to siege my cities. Though on one turn as Pahlava two enormous horse archer stacks appeared, one next to each of my cities. Well, I couldn't afford to raise armies to deal with them, and I couldn't link up my city garrisons because they'd be taken out as soon as they leave the cities. I would beg that in future versions the rebels don't appear as often (but when they do appear, they should be powerful to provide a challenge). It really irritates me that I can't afford to maintain more than two units of Pahlavan Shivatir (incidentally, their animation needs fixing), but rebel bandits can conjure up fullstacks of horse archers turn after turn. The bandits would have to pick a lot of pockets to manage that.

yea, can you lend me your text file if you manage to decrease the frequency of rebels, even on VH mode?

[Zenith Darksea]

Right, I've managed it, and it's not hard to do actually. Go into descr_rebel_factions in the Data file, scroll down until you find Rebel Faction: Bandits, and you'll see there's a line that reads something like 'frequency' or 'chance of appearing' or something like that. It's currently set to 15 (I'm sure it was 20 in the original RTW though...). Basically, the higher the value, the lower the chances of bandits appearing. I halved the chances by increasing the value to 30. Ramp it up to 100 though and you'll practically never see them again.

[Cheexsta]

I didn't think that number actually did anything? Hmm, might give it a go...

[econ21]

If EB could reduce the spawn rate of rebels in its patch, I for one would be grateful. (RTW rebels are tedious make work IMO).

[Mujalumbo]

I am 12 years into my pahlav campaign. I basically disbanded everything in the beginning, then built my economy from the ground up, and then attacked the north eastern selucid pronvinces and cut them off from the rest of their empire. Now i'm going to retake iran, and then turn east onto bactria and yeuhzi.

I'm at ~250 B.C.
As above, I disbanded my starting army, and concentrated on economy buildings. Sent spies out to help Seleucid cities rebel, and, of course, I would go in and liberate them from the tyranny of the local despot...

My lineup is currently very un-Parthian; pantodapoi phalantigies and archers with the spear. I dunno what I need to recruit Dehbed Asavara (armoured horse archers); I conquer a city with a high enough MIC, put in a type 1 guv't, and no go...

I know I should be using horse archers to kick the stuffing out of Baktria and the Seleucids, but I just can't afford them. (Mind you, I always like to have a bit of profit each turn. I suppose if I just recruit until I have 0 profit or even some loss, I could field a decent army...)

edit: I know it's somewhat of an exploit, but I can't be bothered manually fighting the rebels that crop up. I usually have a family member governing a city, so I just send him out alone and auto-resolve. If he wins, great. If not, send 'em out again next turn. If he dies, he dies.

[Arman616]

yea, the upkeep for the horse archers is way too high. And the buy cost should be lowered too, considering that they were nomads and called upon for defense of their country.

[Steppe Merc]

It will be fixed. Also you will have the ability to recruit Pahlava Shivatir from two buildings: one in certaint steppe areas around where they evantually took control of (Daha Dahyu, as well as Sogdiane, Margiane etc). You can get them from the Nomad Camps level one there. But in places that aren't nomadic, like Parthava, you need to get them from a MIC2. This will hopefully be in the next patch.

[Mujalumbo]

Was it supposed to be fixed in 7.4? Pahlava Shivatir are still sky-high expensive in 7.4. Not only that, the Seleukids and Baktrians can recruit them, too! Even the Daha Baexdzhyntae are a little pricey.

I captured a rebel town that had a high enough MIC to recruit some cataphracts (the basic models, without the maces). 'Course, I spend five years putting a Type 1 gov't in, so when Baktria started throwing their stacks at me, it was too little, too late. :(

[The_White_Knight]

Yeah, even on VH they don't do it often, but rarely is MUCH better than never.

I started a 'hard' campaign once, as the Baktrians and my starting cities were nearly annihilated by rebel forces.

In the future it will be very different.

How?