EB 1.2 + CITY MOD b + Darth 16.2 for EB + Sinuhet 7.0 AI Battle Formations for EB [Archive]

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MDPR

12-07-2010, 00:30

The following is a mixed AAR + opinions and a few suggestions.

This is indeed a challenging game. Especially because the CITY MOD b. makes it difficult to recruit new troops in the perimeter of my Arche Seleukeia empire, the faction Im playing on VH/VH.

With the city mod b version, I got 3 cities that can advance to Huge. Rest cant.

Pahlava, Saka, Ptolemaio and Eleutheroi are naturally causing me great difficulties, since I more or less am in constant fighting on all fronts.

So far i have gotten to 259 bc, with some 19 or 20 provinces. Macedonia is still my ally and one way I began making few more money from start, was to make peace with Epeiros and Koinon Hellenon, and at the same time capturing the two Ptolemaio provinces at the coast in the western part of my empire.

Giving Macedonia some money now and then - have maybe made them stay allied with me for now? One thing is for sure. If Macedonia at some point decides going East, now I'm involved in fighting with Pahlava and Saka in the northeast and Ptolemaio in the south, + the "loose" ½ stacks from Eleutheroi, several places inside my empire, I am done. So thats a good challenge.

Pontus haven't attacked so far, and had Pontus done that I had lost the west part of my empire.

Two of my huge cities have been sieged, Seleukis several times and I have also lost it two times in a row to Ptolemaio now. Fightings costing me 1½ stack plus a significant decrease in the city's population.

Great strategical and tactical game.

I especially like - hate :) - when Pahlava siege a town, I then try to break out off with numerous troops, just to have my troops clustered with arrows, and then when I have enough troops outside the city walls and begin to be ready to attack, the AI leave the battlefield, having lost almost no troops.

Also, the prices on certain buildings, like mines to 35.000 Mnai!!! - Top amount of income I have had in a season yet, has been 10.000, and 1/3 of those, more or less go to retraining troops. Good challenge trying to save up for the income these mines can provide in the future.

I can only recommend playing EB with the CITY MOD b. and Darth 16.2 + Sinuhet 7.0.

One thing I noticed after having installed City Mod, was the halfling of playable factions. Looks like its not possible to play as Barbarian with this mod. Doesn't matter btw, its a great challenging mod, playing the Arche Seleukeia faction.

I love that they dont speak english on the battle-field. Sadly they still speak englisg on the campaign map, but it is what it is.

A casualty list would for some weird way, be cool in this game as well. Like you complete your campaign, or a decade perhaps, and then get an option to view how many troops you trained -and used up so far. Statics of your forces would also be cool. Like how many spear units, how many Cav and so on, your army consist of right now.

EB = GREAT GAMING

EB + CITY MOD b + Dart + Sinuhet = AWESOME GAMING!

Oh, the Music and all the historical information, almost forgot that. Love it!!!

Ludens

12-07-2010, 15:27

Glad you like it!

Welcome to EB and to the .Org.
~:wave:

Paltmull

12-08-2010, 16:33

Seriously, people who play as the Arche Seleukeia have got to be masochists. Instead of trying to build an empire you start with one, that immediately begins to slowly get eaten from all sides. :sweatdrop:

moonburn

12-08-2010, 18:49

arche seleukeia is awsome to play with but it demands the kind of menthal preparation and attention to detail that i think i no longer have :X not to mention the lack of luck

whenever i played arche seleukeia i always imediatly left markanda and alexandreia machioteia (or whatver it´s the name) rebel
leave parthia also and start building up my economy for the reconquest my main goal is always the western mediterranean to remove the ptolomaioi from side and from cilicia then imediatly and automathically build up whatever i can must and destroy the pontians and secure mikra asia place forts on the passages and have my western boarder secured then place forts around hayasdan in the mounta passes create a network of working watchtowers and redevelop the economy (mainly beteween seleukeia and babylon and in the secure places of my kingdom) to raise a mine or to raise an army ... the mine will allow you to have an army later on while an army allows you to conquer early on and defend better so it´s your decision

on the east i always go for stone walls that will keep the phalava away until you´re ready to amass an army of pantadipoi (i use them to keep the squalor down and control the population) and send them against the phalava

that pretty much sums up my starting experience as arche seleukeia (and by starting i mean until 268bc)

Fluvius Camillus

12-08-2010, 21:57

@moonburn
It looks like you also lost your attention regarding interpunction of your sentences... No disrespect meant towards you, but it makes a post much more enjoyable to read.

@Paltmull
A finished empire? The empire is finished when the empire of Megas Alexandros is reunited! Have you ever tried playing it? The troop roster, the pressure and the variance in battles makes it an awesome faction to play.

Really you should try it, my personal strategy was to try to hold and takes some towns in Asia Minor and the Levant from the Ptolemaioi. While in the meantime you muster all forces that you can to turn the tide in the east. My turning point was when Antiochos I Soter scored a massive vistory over the Pahalavans near Asaak, defeating Phriapatios the Elder and a fullstack. Eventually other states will attack you to keep up the pressure. Eventually when you conquer the immediate enemies and build up you suddenly posses an incredibly powerful army and endless resources. Now you can lay back and goof around however you like.

Well done on the progress MDPR, doing this with these mods and difficulty, you sound like a very experienced player. This type of playing probably simulates the enormous pressure the empire was facing very well.

~Fluvius

Paltmull

12-08-2010, 23:38

@Paltmull
A finished empire? The empire is finished when the empire of Megas Alexandros is reunited! Have you ever tried playing it? The troop roster, the pressure and the variance in battles makes it an awesome faction to play.

Ah, bad use of the word "finished" there. What I meant was simply that you start with an empire. My bad. :sweatdrop:

I kinda like building my empires from scratch. It's no fun defending an empire that you didn't create yourself IMO, but that's just me.

Anyway, my post wasn't very serious. :P

Jebivjetar

12-09-2010, 09:17

Welcome to the forums, MDPR ~:wave:

Fluvius Camillus

12-09-2010, 11:43

Ah, bad use of the word "finished" there. What I meant was simply that you start with an empire. My bad. :sweatdrop:

I kinda like building my empires from scratch. It's no fun defending an empire that you didn't create yourself IMO, but that's just me.

Anyway, my post wasn't very serious. :P

You definately should try it out, if you don't you won't know what you are missing.~D

~Fluvius

MDPR

12-10-2010, 22:23

Thanks for the welcome and nice discussion. Can only support those who raise the thumb to play as Arche Seleukeia on the settings I am playing. I forgot to mention, that I am playing on Huge Unit size. This is an important extra challenge when playing the City b. mod.

The Ptolemaio front

Two of the coastline cities between Ptolemaio and my Arche Seleukeia lands, are now close to be depleted. These are Sidon and Damaskus, with Damascus still having a few 2000 citizens left, while Sidon is down to 600 few! Both have had more than 6000 in population. Antiocheia has now regained a number above 6000, but it has actually been down to 4000 at some point. That is really, really low for such a city. The consequence has meant that all nearby cities has served as training and retraining-cities for my depleted armies, meaning that my city-development-progress, has been extremely slow, all over in the western part of my empire.

Anyway, lots and lots of continually hard fightings in this coastal region still, with huge costs on both sides and with cities being lost and won on both sides as well. Antiocheia for instance, has been taken by Ptolemaio two times so far and I have recaptured it two times also. All with huge costs in my units, population, trade and taxes.

Actually several stacks of my armies has until now been lost on the Ptolemaio front. However, 3-4 times that many enemy stacks has also been destroyed and my spies deep south in Ptolemaio-lands are showing a lower production-pace of enemy units, so basically the same situation as in my western part of my empire.

Ptolemaio has been using mercenaries a lot. I have considered to do so as well, but I haven't had the money up for it, due to the fact both Pahlava and Saka has created this massive war-machine in the east. Just massive and strong, -with horse-armoured units destroying all my forces, forcing me to raise new armies, costing me a lot of money and population.

The Pahlava front

Very frustrating situation to see your empire crumble under the armoured boot of Pahlava and Saka. Mostly Pahlava though, since that faction due to its invasion now acts like a buffer-zone between me and Saka, who managed though to take 3-4 of my cities while I still had borders to it.

I have fortunately been able to control the situation the last 30 seasons or so. Well control and control?, but stabilize the situation, only loosing 1 more city in the east, making it possible for me to out-build my cities in my core-valley between the two oceans, although in a slow, slow pace. My core-valley goes from Antiocheia to Charax, and has the mountains in the north and the dessert in the south. My strategy is now to focus most of my building-programs on my core valley and when possible on my western part of my empire too.

After my capital, Seleukeia, achieved to build an advanced barracks-and-armoury-training-centre? (cant remember the exact name), I have now been able to field my first heavy stack, with lots of heavy spear units (Thorakitai, Thureophoroi, Argyraspides, Persian and Syrian Archers), proofing to be able standing ground when facing those lethal Parthian Armoured Horse-formations and their archers. So the deployment of this new stack has been a great relief. My first successful large-scaled battles won with this very stack.

So this means, I now have a weapon to face both Pahlava and Saka. Very expensive weapon I need to add, but I have it. Until now, not even my hoplite-phalanx defensive bridge-battles have been able to stop Parthian Cataphracts, - something I have not experienced before in other mods, where bridge battles always are close-to-win battles. But No, here in EB on VH/VH, even such battles can be 100% fail when facing the war-machine of Pahlava/Saka.

Karmana, Persepolis, Susa and Ekbatana is all I have left in the East. Karmana is under constant sieges now, although with very small siege forces from Pahlava. Karmana has been defended with success 4 times in a row. Ekbatana has been sieged too, some 2-3, times, but Pahlava lost a lot of units every time. All my mountain-passes on my eastern front, are under observation and 1 time a small Pahlavian force, with 1 Parthian Cataphracts-unit plus some light infantry managed to get as far west as north of Charax. My heavy units being trained in my capital destroyed this force.

My cities

I have used a lot of money to upgrade my cities as much as possible and used slaves from captured Ptolemaio cities, to boost up my economy. Pretty much all my non-frontline cities has zero garrison-units, thus only a general (manager-strong character).

This means I am relying on Macedonia and Pontus, to not attack me, while I'm trying to upgrade my western cities.

I have 18 cities at the moment. Not planning to capture any new ones for now. Capturing cost infantry. Infantry lost means depleting my cities. In over all I have captured 3 enemy cities and lost many more in the east. I started out with 24 cities, cant remember exactly? Actually, when I think of it, I have re-captured the double amount of my own cities being lost to my enemies than captured any of their cities :-)

Challenging game.

Blxz

12-12-2010, 08:42

Sounds fun. Keep us informed as this progresses.

Do you have an end goal such as EB victory conditions or are you just going to survive forever?

MDPR

12-12-2010, 23:30

Hi Blxz, yes it is actually really fun and at the same time an opportunity to learn a bit of history too. I use the EB victory conditions. Also, by now, Ive got to around year 240 BC.

The new Hayasdan front!!

After I used my new heavy stack, to capture Apameia and Zadrakata back from Pahlava, nothing much happened on the eastern front. For two or three turns I only faced the usual attacks from Ptolemaio and my money-flow began to go to that front only, paying of fast with some huge victories.

Then it happened. Like a knife in the back. Hayasdan decided to attack me from north!! Thus basically the very scenario I had hoped would not happen. I naturally cant say how the strategical AI works, but my guess is that the Hayasdan faction attacked me because I captured Zadrakata, inflicting huge losses on the Pahlavan side in doing so, thereby also cutting the land-connection between it [Hayasdan] and the Pahlava faction too.

Regardless of the reasoning behind the attack, the Hayasdan offensive had two clear targets; Edessa and Arbela.
In overall the Hayasdan invasion stopped my offensive against Pahlava and all my offensive moves against Ptolemaio. I was forced into strategical defense.

The Hayasdan invasion force

From the start of the offensive i was able to count more than 40 Hayasdan units in the Edessa-Arbela provinces, moving towards both cities using mostly the two roads from Karkathiokerta, but also the mountain-passes, located west and north of the two targeted cities.

The invasion force was organised in two larger armies, with 1 full stack directed at Edessa and 1 close-to-full-stack, directed at Arbela, plus some smaller forces in the rear, and in the mountain-passes.

Against that invasion-force, I could only field some 20 units, stretched out from Edessa to Arbela and from there on, all the way up to Ekbatana, where 8 of these 20 units was assembled as a reserve-force for my two stacks deployed up at Zadrakata.

None of my 20 units was heavy, although the two archer units i had in Edessa, was experienced, as was most of the 8 units in Ekbatana as well. So, in short, my defense was strong enough in Ekbatana, but weak the whole rest line down to the western-mountain-pass at Edessa.

Also. Even more important at the start of the invasion, -at Phraaspa, 1 full Hayasdan stack was located inside Phraaspa city, plus a close to full-stack north of Phraaspa.
That meant my 8 units in Ekbatana could not be used to reinforce Arbela, and that my heavy-stack, located north-east of Zakradata had to be pulled out of that front and moved to this new Ekbatana-front.

The creation of my counter-invasion-army

Beside the mentioned 20 units, I had no instant reserve-formations available to face the Hayasdan offensive. So I was now forced to create a new army.

In order to raise enough Mnai to create this new counter-invasion-army, all building projects throughout my empire was instantly canceled, regardless of their progress. A sad but necessary decision, that made it possible to gain more than 20.000 Mnai, thus enough to raise a new army of heavy and medium units.

Babylon, Selekueia, Antiocheia, Ebetana, Susa, Arbela and Charax was chosen as training centres for this new army, which within 2-3 turns began assembling and moving to the Arbela-area where my single fort, west of the city was lost, leading to a siege of the city.

At that very point, -at the siege of Arbela, Edessa was lost to Hayasdan and also Sidon fell as well to Ptolemaio, while Karbana, Gabai and Apameia was either siged or faced Pahvalan forces nearby.

In order to strengthen my new counter-invasion-army, I decided to pull troops out of my Ptolemaio-front, sending them to Edessa, but they were attacked and eliminated north of Sidon by a huge force from Ptolemaio. A ½-stack-force I had not seen sneak by my lines at Damaskos, while i battled to hold the city.

As consequense I now moved a small fort-garrison-force, consisting of two 2 units, from the area around Antiocheia to Edessa-city, in hope they would somehow be able to participate in the coming defense of the city. However they were bought off by a Ptolemaio diplomat!!

Thus my attempt to strengthen my new counter-invasion-force with troops from the Ptolemaio front turned into a disaster, leading to the later fall of Sidon too.

My counter-attack

Within 3 turns I had been able to hold a sieged Arbela, fight down a 6-unit strong Eleutheroi-force just east of Arbela and push away the Hayasdan siege-force afterwise too. Some hard fightings making me return this new depleted army to Selekueia for retraining.

Also, I decided to pull out my main force at the Ptolemaio-front, sending it to recapture Edessa, so my empire would no longer be cut in two parts. A cut that along with my new army instantly lead to huge decreased income. At that point my income fell from around 10.000, to 5000 Mnai per turn.

Edessa was recaptured with my army from the Ptolemaio-front, although it took some 4 battles in doing so. Battles that actually dident cost me that many casualties. Perhaps because I was the sieging force and because all my troops was really experienced?

With the recapture of Edessa and Arbela, my counter-attack concentrated all available forces from both cities and from Ekbatana too, towards Karkathiokerta, which I captured with only a decent amount of losses.

At Phraaspa I had already used my 8 units from Ekbatana to hold of the big enemy force in this area, until my heavy-stack from Zakradata arrived. These fightings took place north and south of the brigde near to Phraaspa, costing me pretty much all 8 units. However, the Hayasdan forces here, constantly being reinforced BTW, never went for Ekbatana, but stayed on their side of the river, until my heavy stack arrived and layed siege to the city, which it still does.

This siege has resulted in 3 battles, where Hayasdan forces has attacked me from teh outside, causing the inside full-stack, to participate in the battle on the stratigical map, but fortuantly not on the tactical map.

Peace with Saka and Allaince with Sauromatae

Short on diplomacy. After the invasion from Hayasdan, I offered peace to as many as possible, I finally a peace-offer came through with Saka. But only after I had made an Alliance with Sauromatae.

This new alliance has not made it more easy to make peace with Hayasdan, yet.

Enemy reinforcements delayed?

There is no doubt that the enemy-reinforcement delayed feature, has saved my siege-forces several times, both at Edessa and now at Phraaspa. At both cities, the Hayasdan forces has been much stronger than my siege forces, but I have only fought half the enemy forces, due to that lucky feature.

Had the enemy reinforcements arrived to the battle, I think I would still be fighting south of Edessa, or maybe even at Antiocheia?

Also, I would never have been able to maintain the siege of Phraaspa, after 3 counter-siege-battles, where the sieged full stack dident show up on the battlefield.
Does anyone know why it is so difficult for reinforcements to arrive to the batte?

Also, shoudent there be some favour for the AI here?

My cities

I have used almost no Mnai to upgrade my cities in this invasion-period. Lots of new units have been created and thats pretty much it.

MDPR

12-14-2010, 23:15

My Arche Seleukeia empire Year 232 BC

https://i55.tinypic.com/rm44eh.jpg

As you can see, Pahlava is working as a buffer-zone between me and Saka. I want to keep the situation like that, until I get the economy to raise 5 full stacks, with heavy and elite units.

Invading Saka with anything less will be suicide.

Macedonia BTW, has less land now, than on this map.

The Hayasdan front

Years of total war has gone since my last update. Lots and lots of battles on all fronts. Frustrating many battles.

However, on the Hayasdan front I have been able to capture the Hayasdan capital and the city just north of it. I decided to destroy both cities completely, as like in selling as many from the population as slaves and destroying as many buildings as possible.

I have done it bacause the Hayasdan faction wont accept any of my peace-offers, even when I offered giving two of its lost cities back.

At that point Hayasdan only had 1 city left, but the AI refused?! (BUG?), thus I was forced to destroy as much as possible in order to gain Mnai and simply pull out my army of Hayasdan lands, in order to retrain it and use it on my east-front.

I have destroyed at least 4 full Hayasdan-stacks in the row of battles, ending with my capture of the Hayasdan capital and the city north of it. 4 full stacks!

Still though, new Hayasdan-stacks appears, although not with that many heavy units in them.

Playing on VH/VH is in fact very hard :-)

Well done on the progress MDPR, doing this with these mods and difficulty, you sound like a very experienced player. This type of playing probably simulates the enormous pressure the empire was facing very well.

I agree. Think this type of playing simulate that pressure. You are constantly in war, inside and outside of your empire. It would be awesome could this be played against a human player, both playing on VH/VH and with City Mod b.

The Ptolemaio front

Sidon and Damaskos has been able to hold against several siege-battles from the always war-dedicated Ptolemaio faction. This faction only has one word in its vocabulary: WAR.

In one battle about Damaskos, where I was totally outnumbered, I actually managed to play to time-out, ending the battle on the Damaskos-Plaza it self, having only my general and 1 more horseman back, + 18 infantry troops in 4 total exhausted and depleted units. The enemy still had some 4-500 hardfighting men left. Saved by the bell .-)

In one of the siege-battles about Sidon, I managed to completely eliminate a 22-unit-full-stack og medium and heavy Ptolemaio-infantry, supported by two Ptolemaio-horse-units, 1 light and 1 heavy (General). Here, in this battle, where I also was completly outnumbered, the Ptolemaio general died mid-battle causing the enemy morale to break and start a total flee, resulting in a total massacre of all 22 enemy units. Every street inside Sidon had dead enemies after the battle, -where I killed around 3000 enemy soldiers while loosing only 200 my self!

Only time in this campaign I have been able to do so.

The Pahlava front

On this front, everything has gone bad. I have lost Persepolis, Karbana and Apameia.

Zakradata has been defended so far, in a single large siege-battle, and following a few smaller battles outside the walls, where I have destroyed a build-up of new siege-forces from Pahlava. Smaller battles I have won so far, but also costing me vital troops at the same time. Zakradata actually has an army training centre now, but so far only for light units, which wont be able to hold stand against Pahlavan attacks in the long run.

Ekbatana has been sieged two times and defended two times. Pahlavan half-stack-armies are now moving around west and south-west of Ekbatana. More reinforcements from east is on the way to Ekbatana!

Charax and Susa are both in danger becoming the new front-cities, so my strategy is to clean the area around Ekbatana for enemy formations, regardless of my losses in doing so, and then make the roads from Zakradata safe again.

Also, I want to recapture Persopolis again. The city is too important and I have invested a lot of Mnai in it too. With the loss here I also lost the income from the local mine and the sea-trade with Charax!

Phraaspa has a garrison of one single general-unit left now. Everything else has been moved either west or south. I wont be able to hold it against any future siege, as the situation is right now.

My cities

With the capture and destruction of two large cities in Hayasdan lands, I gained some 57.000 Mnai!

Those have been used to build two 5000-income-Mines, which will take some 20 seasons to finish. But it will be worth the investment.

VH/VH and EB victory conditions

Although I am winning most of my battles, I am constantly facing enemy armies each turn. In some turns I have to fight 8 or more battles, naturally having an impact on my ability to keep upgrading at least some of my cities. Cause in some turns, all 10.000 Mnai i get in income, goes to retraining units.

My capital is still the most advanced city i have in my empire and it will within some few 10-15 years, be able to reach any new upgrade level.

I already have the option to upgrade my army center in my capital, to elite units, but the price is huge. I need more cities to upgrade their trade buildings first.

Also, I checked the victory conditions again, with the city-flashing-feature, and its insane. I have no idea how to capture cities up in Saka so far away. It will take me several years just to move units up there in peacetime?

Battles and amount of units

I have so far, in those 30 years I have played this campaign now, won 200 battles and lost 70.

I have won most battles on the walls of my cities and lost most in the open field, when facing heavy armoured horse formations.

I have just tried to count the number of enemy units around my empire and although I haven't got an eye on all of them all the time, I estimate to face some 100 units at the moment. Against that, I have around 80 units, of which some 10-15 are depleted.

Fluvius Camillus

12-15-2010, 00:28

The_Blacksmith

12-15-2010, 12:17

ahh this is why i allways rush Pahlava as Seleukia... go for the cities, ignore the armies... hard, but achievable.... my record is killing them in 256... but i dont citidevelop untill then...

QuintusSertorius

12-17-2010, 17:58

FriendlyFire

12-17-2010, 21:24

MDPR

12-25-2010, 15:09

Am I the only person who's been unimpressed with both DarthMod and Sinhuet's formation files? Neither make the AI capable of holding a line, and Darth Mod results in reinforcements walking round and round in circles, or just standing still. In both we still get suicide charges by the enemy generals.

I would say I'm fairly impressed. Its true that in some siege battles when the AI has two armies attacking the walls, it can end up in that freeze, just standing still and getting shot at from the towers, however the amount of times it has happened in my campaign here, with now more than 400 battles, are very few.

Also, the amount of units the AI has lost in those freeze-siege-battles have been quite few.

The AI in my campaign has no problem forming a line, and reforming it too. Hammer and Anvil is also used from time to time by the AI and more importantly, it retreats from the battlefield when it find out its either outnumbered or outclassed.

Is the AI with D and S perfect? No. But its not easy to win over. Most times in siege battles, it has simply retreated all its horse units when its infantry units has fallen on the walls.

Also. I still tend to loose battles in the open against the AI, when I'm the one attacking. And if not loosing, then winning with devastating costs, Pyrrhic-victories essentially, which I cant afford on VH/VH with City mod B. Simply not enough Mnai for Pyrrhic victories.

Fluvius Camillus , thanks for the tips. Ill try to respond to them in my next report. I am in the year 210 BC now and has seen a peak (18.000 Mnai in income per season!) and also a downfall (now in 210 BC i have 3.600 Mnai in income per season). Ive taken a lot more screenshoots this time, to give a better impression.

My next report covers some 20 hard figting years, where I almost stopped playing the campaign, after loosing province after province after province, having my empire, almost cut in two for a too loong time.

Ill try to make the next report as short as possible.

One thing though: playing on VH/VH with the City B mod, is really very hard.

QuintusSertorius

12-25-2010, 15:27

I would say I'm fairly impressed. Its true that in some siege battles when the AI has two armies attacking the walls, it can end up in that freeze, just standing still and getting shot at from the towers, however the amount of times it has happened in my campaign here, with now more than 400 battles, are very few.

Also, the amount of units the AI has lost in those freeze-siege-battles have been quite few.

The AI in my campaign has no problem forming a line, and reforming it too. Hammer and Anvil is also used from time to time by the AI and more importantly, it retreats from the battlefield when it find out its either outnumbered or outclassed.

Is the AI with D and S perfect? No. But its not easy to win over. Most times in siege battles, it has simply retreated all its horse units when its infantry units has fallen on the walls.

I'm not talking about sieges, I'm talking about battles in the open. Three reinforcement battles in a row where the AI's reinforcements walked around in circles were enough for me to remove DarthMod.

Sinuet's isn't any better for holding a line. The AI makes two lines, hoplites and other infantry in the first, and phalanxes behind them in the second. Thoroughly stupid, they should have just made a single line with the phalanxes in the middle and the others on the flanks. That would be a lot more difficult to beat than two narrow lines who can be beaten in series.

Also. I still tend to loose battles in the open against the AI, when I'm the one attacking. And if not loosing, then winning with devastating costs, Pyrrhic-victories essentially, which I cant afford on VH/VH with City mod B. Simply not enough Mnai for Pyrrhic victories.

That's because you're playing VH battle difficulty, which gives stat bonuses to all AI units, not any formation mod.

MDPR

12-25-2010, 15:33

I'm not talking about sieges, I'm talking about battles in the open. Three reinforcement battles in a row where the AI's reinforcements walked around in circles were enough for me to remove DarthMod.

Well, in many open-field battles when the AI is the one attacking, and you decide to deploy out of sight from start, it will either stand still until it spot one of your units, or move around - looking perhaps? At least thats how it seems...that its looking/searching?

But beside from that I have fortuantly not experinced what you describe? I have expereinced that the AI with a full stack or more, move around on the map until it decide to find a good attack-position on your one flank with most of its heavy stuff, while it has skirmisher and arrows facing your front.

MDPR

12-25-2010, 15:41

ahh this is why i allways rush Pahlava as Seleukia... go for the cities, ignore the armies... hard, but achievable.... my record is killing them in 256... but i dont citidevelop untill then...

Yes, well, having made it alive as Arche Seleukeia, in 210 BC, I begin to see your point.

On the other hand, playing the strategy you suggest, still cost a lot of Mnai. How did you get enough Mnai to raise enough stacks to continue capturing all those cities?

Also, did Pahlava never ambush your stacks while moving between the cities in the east. Those distances are part of the strength of Pahlava I think. Cause distances like those in the east can be used to ambush your troops, or to confront you in open-field-battles, where Pahlava deploy up to 500 heavy armoured horses. A powerful strength that I at least have lost entire halfstacks too, several times.

QuintusSertorius

12-25-2010, 15:46

Well, in many open-field battles when the AI is the one attacking, and you decide to deploy out of sight from start, it will either stand still until it spot one of your units, or move around - looking perhaps? At least thats how it seems...that its looking/searching?

You keep making these strange assumptions about how these battles went. I never hide my army, the AI is stupid enough as it is without doing that. And besides which, obstructions mess with my slingers.

In every instance, my army was out in the open, completely visible. With DarthMod, reinforcements either walked around in circles, or entered and sat in a staggered column doing nothing.

Doesn't matter whether the AI is attacking or not, with Sinhuet's they almost always use two lines, and the general invariably suicides himself on the centre of my line. If they'd simply used one line they could envelop mine (I never use stacks of more than 14 units, and am almost always outnumbered) and make a difficult fight of it.

MDPR

12-25-2010, 15:53

You keep making these strange assumptions about how these battles went. I never hide my army, the AI is stupid enough as it is without doing that. And besides which, obstructions mess with my slingers.

In every instance, my army was out in the open, completely visible. With DarthMod, reinforcements either walked around in circles, or entered and sat in a staggered column doing nothing.

Doesn't matter whether the AI is attacking or not, with Sinhuet's they almost always use two lines, and the general invariably suicides himself on the centre of my line. If they'd simply used one line they could envelop mine (I never use stacks of more than 14 units, and am almost always outnumbered) and make a difficult fight of it.

Strange assumptions? Whats so strange about them?

I alway try to hide as much of my army as possible from start, making it more difficult for the AI to spot my positions.

The_Blacksmith

12-26-2010, 03:18

Yes, well, having made it alive as Arche Seleukeia, in 210 BC, I begin to see your point.

On the other hand, playing the strategy you suggest, still cost a lot of Mnai. How did you get enough Mnai to raise enough stacks to continue capturing all those cities?

Also, did Pahlava never ambush your stacks while moving between the cities in the east. Those distances are part of the strength of Pahlava I think. Cause distances like those in the east can be used to ambush your troops, or to confront you in open-field-battles, where Pahlava deploy up to 500 heavy armoured horses. A powerful strength that I at least have lost entire halfstacks too, several times.

Oh the only thing you have to worry about in 271 BC is 5-6 Generals, 4 Hillmen, Archers and Horsearchers... easy peasy... and i used one stack with 6-11 Pandodapoi (not phalanx) 3 Phalanx and 2 generals and 1 Eastern medium cav...

ofcourse i dont play on VH/VH, but bumrushing the cities (like you should with Saka) is wel... sometimes your only choice

QuintusSertorius

12-26-2010, 03:45

Strange assumptions? Whats so strange about them?

I alway try to hide as much of my army as possible from start, making it more difficult for the AI to spot my positions.

Because you're assuming I play as you do when I do not. I use no guile or trickery against the AI, it's bad enough they often flee as it is. At most I take advantage of hills and that's it. Doing nothing special or unusual, the AI is incapable of making or holding a single, unbroken line. Their generals charge the centre of my line most of the time. This happens with the original formation files, DarthMod and Sinhuet's files.

vollorix

12-26-2010, 09:39

@ QS:
Theoretically, you can make enemy generals a "skirmisher cavalry" ( no javelines needed, iirc RTR ExRM onse had this feature built in ). That way they are less prone to "heroicaly" charge your main battle line. The only thing you´ll have to live with is a super annoying behaiviour of AI generals refusing a fight, but fleeing all the time away from your troops, making it almost impossible to kill them. But hey, that´s what you are unhappy about, right? ;)

MDPR

12-26-2010, 14:07

@ QS:
Theoretically, you can make enemy generals a "" ( no javelines needed, iirc RTR ExRM onse had this feature built in ). That way they are less prone to "heroicaly" charge your main battle line. The only thing you´ll have to live with is a super annoying behaiviour of AI generals refusing a fight, but fleeing all the time away from your troops, making it almost impossible to kill them. But hey, that´s what you are unhappy about, right? ;)

LOL, in fact my last defensive battle against Hayasdan forces, the Hayasdan-stack-general, was in a skirmisher cavalry unit. He was the last alive after his army had fleed the battlefield and he deployed him self in a flanking position to my Phalanx line, where I finally attacked him and killed him with one of my archer units. This was like 20 minutes into the battle - a stack to stack battle, where my elite-phalanx-center never was attacked, only the wings of my phalanx-line was attacked from the front, as was also the two end-phalanx-units of my line too; - attacked from both the front, the flank and rear.

Because you're assuming I play as you do when I do not. I use no guile or trickery against the AI, it's bad enough they often flee as it is. At most I take advantage of hills and that's it. Doing nothing special or unusual, the AI is incapable of making or holding a single, unbroken line. Their generals charge the centre of my line most of the time. This happens with the original formation files, DarthMod and Sinhuet's files.

I am not assuming anything in regard to you, so your wrong. In fact I dont even know how you mannaged to turn my thread about my campaign into a thread about formations?

Please just open your own thread about D and S formations and I will then continue to make reports about my campaign in this thread.

MDPR

12-26-2010, 18:59

The Ptolemaio front

So basically some 40-50 battles have been fought on this front the last 20 years? Lots of battles, that's for sure. Lots of victories, both tactical and strategical. But also some defeats, - tactical and strategical. Big defeats too. In one recent battle, a decisive battle, in 213 BC, I lost my entire south-front army, consisting of a full stack of experienced, armoured heavy and medium units. A defeat that removed 20 of my units from the strategic map and opened the door for yet another huge Ptolemaio offensive.

The present situation

In this year, 208 BC, the situation on the the Ptolemaio front is a huge disaster. My entire front has collapsed, Ptolemaio is stronger than ever, and it now seems as Antiocheia will fall soon. Cause Sidon just fell along with its 12-units-strong garrison and now Damaskos (having a small 3 unit-garrison) is being besieged by a full-Ptolemaio-stack (22-units), while Palmyra (having a small 5-unit-garrison) is being threatened by a new Ptolemaio stack-build-up, south of the city. And beside of my two small mentioned garrisons, their is only a single fort (one unit strong), between Sidon and Antiocheia, where a heavy unit is trained right now, as the only garrison-force available, with the exception of the 116 horse-strong-faction-leader unit. However, my few 116 heavily armoured horses against the Ptolemaio-3000-strong-men-stack in Sidon, will not be able to hold the plaza.

So far, the Ptolemaio-faction has deployed more than 60 units in this offensive, where I in total have less than 10 units left, dispersed in three cities and a single fort.

My "reserve"-forces are on their way to Antiocheia, from different parts of my empire, but some will not even arrive this year, due to the long distances they have to march.

The sad fact is - that I'm now facing a total defeat on the Ptolemaio-front. A defeat that thereafter easily can evolve further to the west, the north and the east, where all my other cities, except my capital, has only small garrisons available.

But how did it all come to that? and how much land did I capture on the Ptolemaio-front, before the fort-disaster struck my forces as hard as it did, at the Hierosolyma-fort-massacre, in that sad year of 213 BC?

The developments on the Ptolemaio-front from 232 to 220 BC

Well, shortly told, I fought a very long series of defensive battles between 232 and 215 BC. I won most of these battles, but also lost some of them.

Sidon was for the most part, in the period 232-220 BC, the usual front-city, continually changing hands - sometimes to my side, and sometimes to the Ptolemaio-faction, basically changing hands, whenever one of us had managed to assemble enough new reinforcements, making us able to conduct offensive moves.

Things actually didn't look too bright in that battle-period, cause even though I kept winning most of the battles, I slowly lost population to train and retrain units from and also Mnai. Never enough of those so necessary Mnai.

However, I did manage to keep Antiocheia safe, making it possible to update it with new building projects.

I also decided on a strategy, that meant more than half of my new trained units at Babylon and Seleukeia, was to move to the Ptolemaio-front. In general 2 out of 3 new trained units went to this front, naturally having a negative consequence on other fronts, but not on the Ptolemaio-front.

Military speaking, I also mannaged to capture Hierosolyma in 229 BC, in a bold and basically stupid move, where I used a 10-12 unit-strong-stack, to capture and hold Hierosolyma. This move really was stupid, cause the odds on the entire Ptolemaio-front, was in overall 3 to 1, in favour of Ptolemaio that is. But, I just needed to do something offensive (bring the battle to them-mentality i guess?) and so I did.

However, my decision to enslave the population of Hierosolyma, provided me with some 8 - 10.000 Mnai, which I instantly used to strengthen my south-army with a few more heavy-elite units. A necessary component when facing Klerouchikon Agema (Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx) in all those siege battles.

The loss of Hierosolyma naturally hit Ptolemaio on its finances and opened up a diplomatic door for me too, to ally with Saba, something I had not considered to do before.
Hierosolyma, in 229 BC, although captured, was a lost cause from start. I had no reserves to follow up and consolidate a front around the city, thus pretty much instantly after my capture of the city, Hierosolyma was besieged by superior forces and finally taken by Ptolemaio, after some few 2-3 siege battles, where i literally fought to the last man on the city-plaza it self.

The units I used up in Hierosolyma, consisted mostly of the same units that had taken and defended Sidon in so many battles before. Thus with my first loss of Hierosolyma, I also lost my first heavy-veteran army.

http://i53.tinypic.com/29ctpxl.jpg

Then what happened, was that I and Saba joined in an alliance, and Saba fairly soon after, began sending up reinforcements to my front, - entire stacks of reinforcements, naturally helping me out a lot, beating some of the Ptolemaio-forces here. One time in that period, I was invited to join a battle with Saba, something I hadn't tried before. I accepted joining, but somehow never fought a battle? I think that it was a Saba-siege of Bostra, my army (a full-stack) just didn't arrive too? you know, the reinforcements-delayed?-feature.

Regardless, both Saba and I somehow managed to take out enough stacks from Ptolemaio, so I could begin going on the offensive again, which I did, capturing Hierosolyma again, enslaving its population again, and then going for Bostra with Saba, where I got to capture Bostra (and enslave) and then finally, with a new heavy-half-stack from my Capital Seleukeia, manage to capture Palmyra from a weakened Eleutheroi. Palmyra had actually been sieged by either Ptolemaio or Saba?, at least one time, thus its garrison was fortunately depleted. I didn't complain about that.

In overall, the Saba-reinforcements, my own reinforcement-focus on this front, and the capture of Palmyra, Bostra and Hierosolyma, changed the entire picture on the front, where it was now I who was the strong part. The graph showing military might, also presented a 30-40% fall in units, on the Ptolemaio side, during this period.

Many, many battles fought.

The developments on the Ptolemaio-front from 220 to 215 BC

So in 220 BC I owned all cities on the south front (Syria-region basically), while Saba managed to capture Petra (Sinai-region), making Menphis and Alexandreia to the new front cities, - a situation that completely changed the behaviour of the Ptolemaio faction, namely, into nothing.

Nothing offensively happened for a long time? Many years with no huge offensive moves from Ptolemaio, except a few failed attempts, where Ptolemaio tried to siege Hierosolyma and Petra at the same time, with too few forces.

In that period I had spies in the west, north and south parts of Ptolemaio-lands and my spies showed a huge lack of Ptolemaio troops and also a population drop of around 4000 in Alexandreia it self.

I think the lost income from all those cities Ptolemaio had lost, the loss of minimum 4 full stacks, plus the fact, that Karthadastim now so politely declared war on the Ptolemaio too, made it behave more defensively. Cause it acted defensively, something I never thought I should experience from the Ptolemaio-faction-AI.

Nice experience.

So, from 220 to 215 BC, with the exception of a single stack now and then, I had really no major fights on the Ptolemaio-front. A pause that boosted my economy, which I this time used to stamp up new buildings all over my empire. Those five years was one big building period, where Macedonia also got a small, but still continuously piece of the Mnai-cake, every single season.

https://i51.tinypic.com/17tgk3.jpg

http://i53.tinypic.com/2iqfznr.jpg

Disaster at Hierosolyma and collapse of the Ptolemaio front

In the year 215 BC, a new offensive began from Ptolemaio. It was from start clearly directed at both Petra and Hierosolyma, at the same time again, and I thought it would end out before it really got started, cause in both cities, I and Saba had deployed full-stack-garrisons. Thus some 40 units in first line, plus reserves in our rears too, which for me counted some 15 more units. Not sure how many units Saba had in its rear?

The first few siege battles I and Saba won, but not without getting our garrisons depleted. Then a pause of a year or so encountered in the offensive, although Ptolemaio kept having two or three almost full stacks deployed on our territory, just across the borders.

At the same time, some of my retrained units from earlier Hierosolyma battles had been retrained and sent to Salamis, which they sieged-out and then captured the city.

http://i53.tinypic.com/2nktizb.jpg

In 213, Ptolemaio moved against Hierosolyma once more, and sieged the fort southwest of the city. A siege-battle it won, cause I only had a single medium-infantry unit here. After this siege-battle Ptolemaio simply just occupied the fort.

That made me think I now had the chance to siege the fort out, something I have been doing several times, where the AI seems to forget that it is sieged and doesn't sally out, thus loosing entire stacks in those battles. (Something I have tried my self too, several times, although loosing maximum half-stacks only).

Essentially, my expected short siege-out, proofed to be a massive failure, when the besieged Ptolemaio-stack, decided to sally out, and actually won the sally-battle it self, resulting in a massacre on my entire fleeing stack, further resulting in the total collapse of my entire south-front.

A tremendous disaster. Basileus, give me back my army!

This Ptolemaic-sally out-battle, actually started out just fine on my part; the besieged force attacked at first frontally, with some light skirmish infantry-only, not being a problem to defeat at all.

Then, however, it used the side-gates to send out its heavy units, elephants, cavalery and Klerouchikon Agema (Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx), having two or three of these hardcore phalanx units. I had one elite phalanx my self on my right wing, not in the center.

And the center became the focus-point in this battle, where i had a medium phalanx and a heavy spear-unit deployed.

My two center-units was attacked by elephants, which they defeated with heavy losses though and also with disorder in the center-line it self, which was instantly after the few surviving elephants fleed the battle-line, also attacked by heavy Ptolemaic infantry, in which during that fight, also attacked from its rear, by the enemy bodyguard cavalery. That was it!

My whole center dissolved and then, the whole line began to shake. The following fightings lasted some 15 minutes or so, but it was the end, cause I was not able to regroup at the center and soon my entire phalanx-line, was broken into several pieces that fought to survive. I think I mannaged to take out one of the Klerouchikon Agema-units?, (Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx), but not the two others.

http://i53.tinypic.com/vq1wmf.jpg

The developments on the Ptolemaio-front from 213 to 207 BC

After the annahilation of my entire south-front-stack, Hierosolyma had few 5 units to defend the city. They lasted to 210 BC with the fall of the city, so in the same turn as Bostra, also having been sieged, fell in a siege too.

I then scrambled everything possible, I still had south of Antiocheia, depleted-units and full-manned units and deployed them as garrison in Sidon, which fell in the first siegebattle, where 2 out of 3 Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx units was taken out. Good but not good enough when that last Elite Phalanx is still marching to your plaza who now only has a medium phalanx availble. Epic Fail!

Sidon became yet another massacre and after the defeat here, the overall south-front situation, in 208 BC, made Antiocheia, Damaskos and Palmyra the next three expected targets in the Ptolemi offensive.

My reserve-stack from East, heading to help defending the walls of Antiocheia, was attacked by a Ptolemaic force, apparently having cut the road between Antiocheia and my capital. This force also contained elephants.

https://i51.tinypic.com/309hovo.jpg

I won the battle by classic, solid corner-defense, but still, with 50% losses!

After the battle, in the same turn, an even stronger Ptolemaic stack, having been deployed south of this battle, attacked my now depleted half-stack, but this time I choose to retreat from the battle on the strategic map, in order to try and save it from being annihilated, and fortunately the Ptolemaic stack dident follow, but moved north to Edessa instead. This retreat saved Antiocheia, who in the next turn was reinforced with these units, although all of these were depleted. Retraining could fortunately be done, since the huge enemy force in Sidon had not moved south yet. Perhaps luck was on my side this time?

Koinion Hellenon as a short-timed enemy

In 2007 BC I decided to send most of my garrison in Salamis to Sidon, who now, after the enemy force here had moved south, seemed to be weak defended. I wanted to try and split up the stacks of Ptolemaic forces, south and east of Antiocheia with this Sidon-cut, even though I knew i could loose all my units in the hopefully future recaptured Sidon. Then alarm struck. A new front!

Koinion Hellenon had send a fleet with a small siege-force to Salamis and besieged Salamis just after I had boarded my own troops onto my fleet.

I had no idea how strong Koinion Hellenon were at that point, so I checked and from reading the graphs, it looked like this faction was about to loose, so I guessed this attack was some kind of desperate move, trying to capture an easy province?

Regardless, I had no choice than to move my Sidon-force from the ships and turn to this new enemy who I defeated with ease. After the victory at Salamis I send my ships west, to see whether Koinion Hellenon owned Rhodes, which it did. My ships was then attacked by a small but strong Koinion Hellenon fleet and i retreated them to a safe naval base.

My next move was to make peace with Koinion Hellenon, which after some fleet-fighting-problems, trying to get a diplomat save to Rhodes, was done. Koinion Hellenon accepted a peace, although it wasn't happy about it.

Although the attack from Koinion Hellenon, military speaking, only halted my attempt to recapture Sidon and thereby split up the strong Ptolemaic forces in the Syria-region, the diplomatic outcome was much more influential. Cause Macedonia decided to cancel our old alliance, meaning Pontus might just could change its neutral view on my provinces too?

So I tried and retried to get back the alliance with Macadonia, but they wouldn't, so I then tried Epeiros, who after two seasons agreed to ally

Now I had an even stronger allied in the west than before. Much stronger. Eperios is among the Top-5-Factions and after the allaince was agreed, Eperios send a whole stack standing by as support, close to one of my western cities, partly facing Macedonia and partly facing Pontus.

http://i54.tinypic.com/140fb5z.jpg

After my victory at Salamis I went for Sidon as planned and recaptured it after a short siege. It was defended by a bodyguard-unit only. Sidon was naturally, as expected, besieged instantly after my capture, but that was OK, cause it meant Antiocheia had fewer forces to fight. Antiocheia could not fall. Edessa, Tarsos, yes even Arbela could fall, but not Antiocheia. It was too upgraded and also the second of two cities in my whole empire, where elite units are trained.

http://i56.tinypic.com/112e7gx.jpg

FriendlyFire

12-27-2010, 18:59

Awesome campaign report - it's always great to hear how other people play their campaigns. And nice to see that the Ptolemaioi are recruiting elephants! To answer one of your questions:

One time in that period, I was invited to join a battle with Saba, something I hadn't tried before. I accepted joining, but somehow never fought a battle? I think that it was a Saba-siege of Bostra, my army (a full-stack) just didn't arrive too? you know, the reinforcements-delayed?-feature.

In my experience, when you're invited to join a battle by an ally like this, the enemy almost always withdraws, so the battle never actually takes place. If you have track-AI-movements turned on, you can often briefly see the armies moving as a result of the battle-that-never-was.

I had written a couple paragraphs of anti-Ptolemaioi advice based on my current Pontos campaign, but then I remembered you're playing on VH battle difficulty, so all my advice is probably useless :smiley2:. I have no idea how I'd kill those Ptolemaioi elite phalangites on VH battle difficulty... probably horse-archer them to death!

auboy105

12-28-2010, 06:08

MDPR

12-28-2010, 13:51

Well so far it has been a great challenge.

S and D; i just downloaded them and installed them? However, think the City mod b. version, is much more important to a difficult game as the one I'm playing, than these two formation-mods.

Check out the AI Battle Formation Mods on this website.

I actually have no idea whether they are combined or not, I'm not a vet player, just spotted EB on tube, checked out some Epeiros Campaign videos and thought the game looked awesome, so I downloaded it, read the forums, wanted to try out the City Mod b, playing a faction on VH/VH and that's basically it.

There has been some criticism of the formations in this thread. Check out those posts if you already haven't done so.

Awesome campaign report - it's always great to hear how other people play their campaigns. And nice to see that the Ptolemaioi are recruiting elephants! To answer one of your questions:

In my experience, when you're invited to join a battle by an ally like this, the enemy almost always withdraws, so the battle never actually takes place. If you have track-AI-movements turned on, you can often briefly see the armies moving as a result of the battle-that-never-was.

I had written a couple paragraphs of anti-Ptolemaioi advice based on my current Pontos campaign, but then I remembered you're playing on VH battle difficulty, so all my advice is probably useless :smiley2:. I have no idea how I'd kill those Ptolemaioi elite phalangites on VH battle difficulty... probably horse-archer them to death!

Thanks. Yes I like to read Campaign reports my self. Thought I would add one too.

I havent the AI-movemt-camera turned on, so cant say for sure, but it sounds logical.

Please post those paragraphs of yours, I havent won the game yet. Basically Im just trying to survive. Have only played some 60 years so far.

Also, I try to hide as many of my forces as possible and only go on the offense when I have too, cause I cant afford the losses when attacking - on the strategic map that is. Thats where the City B mod influence my game-play.

MDPR

12-28-2010, 21:51

The Ptolemaio front

https://i55.tinypic.com/2i11729.jpg

This screenshot shows the fall of Antiocheia and its garrison of 19 mostly heavy units, of where two where my elite phalanx costing almost 4000 Mnai each.

The Ptolemaio siege-force had 3 Klerouchikon Agema-units, (Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx), and its stack consisted of 22 units, of which two where bodyguard cavalry units.

I only managed to take out 1 Klerouchikon Agema-unit, (Ptolemaic Elite Phalanx), however, the remaining two units, had some 40 and 30 soldiers left each, and you can see them on the screenshot above, walking on the plaza among all the dead, just before my final troops are killed.

More than 4000 men was killed in this siege battle, of which the 2800 was my troops.

A massacre. A disaster. Perhaps, quite likely, the end of this campaign.

Cause now everything is open now, with the exception of one close-to-full-stack, a depleted stack, all my other stacks and half-stacks are deployed long, long away from this "front", - or gap is probably a more precise word, yes this gap i now have where I before had a front.

I have no proofen idea of how to take out those Ptolemaio units of Klerouchikon Agema yet? They are super-armoured, even when assaulting them in the rear.

I havent been able to attack them in their rear with my own phalanx though? Arrows dosent really work, already tried that. Also, when they stand in friont of a tower that would normally decimate a unit, they only loose 5 10 men.

The beginning of the end?

In this same turn, wher I have now lost what I could not afford to loose, the important city of Antiocheia, I also lost Sidon, Edessa and Zakradata, and also lost a minor battle north of Sidon, where 6 of my heavy spear-units were thrown back and depleted with 40-50%.

I got a message the turn after, saying that Edessa has now been sacked and enslaved. This have given Ptolemaio a lot of Mnai, cause Edessa had a 16.000 populos.

In total, I have lost some 35-40 units in 1 single turn, including a population of some 40.000 at least, which is a lot when playing City mod b.

Between Edessa, Palmyra and Antiocheia, the victorious forces of the Ptolemaio faction, still has huge armies ready, with at least 3 Klerouchikon Agema-units left, although they must be severely depleted by now? Hopefully they are.

What now?

Should I sell out of all my buildings in some cities on my east front? Sack an entire city so I can raise a new army and somehow beat Ptolemaio back?

Or should I stop the campaign here while it is still fun?

:help:

Great challenge on vh/vh. Must say.

FriendlyFire

12-28-2010, 23:30

I have no proofen idea of how to take out those Ptolemaio units of Klerouchikon Agema yet? They are super-armoured, even when assaulting them in the rear.

On medium battle difficulty I find them straightforward to take out, as long as I can dedicate two units to do the job. On very hard battle difficulty they get a +7 bonus to defense, which is why I mentioned using horse-archers: defense doesn't count against missile weapons, so their bonus wouldn't apply. Other things to try:

Wear them out before they make contact with your line. Exhausted troops are less lethal in combat, so if you can force them to march all over the battlefield you reduce your own casualties in the final combat. Lure them with skirmishers and/or keep backing your own line away and/or make them march uphill.
Isolate them from the main fight. If one starts advancing towards a unit of yours, back away to lure it through your lines. Then reform the lines - now you have it trapped and can apply the following tactics.
Pin them with another phalanx that's on higher ground. A height advantage is a huge force-multiplier in phalanx combat: on normal battle difficulty a levy phalanx on a good slope will butcher an elite phalanx trying to fight its way uphill. This may be another way to nullify that +7 bonus.
Whenever your phalanx switches to "Fighting" status, select it and hit Backspace to go back to "Ready". This saves their energy, and most of the killing gets done by other troops anyway. The one exception is if the enemy phalanx does an about face to point its sarissas at whoever's attacking it from behind - then your own phalanx should attack to get their attention again!
Hit them in the back with missile fire. Slingers are great, since their missiles are armor-piercing, but horse-archers are easier to get into position. Either one can also be used as a skirmisher to wear the enemy out first.
Hit them in the back with armor-piercing infantry. Axemen are good for this: cheap and easily recruitable. However, this won't be nearly as effective on VH difficulty, since that +7 defense makes the elite phalangites insanely good in melee combat (especially if your own axemen are also fighting uphill!).
Hit them in the back with a heavy cavalry charge - this typically means your general, but Kinsmen will also get the job done: they have an armor-piercing charge with a high attack value and high lethality, plus an armor-piercing secondary weapon for melee combat.
Break their morale. Even an elite phalangite will break when they are exhausted (bad for morale), see nearby units routing (ditto), are surrounded (ditto), and suffer a lot of casualties in a short time (this is why heavy cavalry charges are so effective). I go even further and have a unit of Galatian wildmen just standing around the battlefield taunting: their fear effect makes the enemy break that much faster. Scythed chariots are another fear-inducer.

Note that I typically use all of the above: wear them out, isolate, fight from higher ground when available, soften them up with missile fire, flank and charge in with AP infantry, then finally follow up with a heavy cavalry charge, all while my Galatians taunt them. I've seen elite phalangites rout after taking less than 50% casualties, which is very gratifying, but if they have a good general commanding them (more bonuses) they'll stand and fight much longer. And all this is just on medium battle difficulty! I don't envy you :smiley2:

vollorix

12-29-2010, 12:52

Multiple charges, 2 at least, are very usefull: First your Bodyguards charge in and are kept in melee till the second cav. unit arrives. The first blow mostly causes "shaken", while the second one does the "weaving". And if the kill ratio is high enough the unit breaks inevitably. Disengage immidietly after the enemy unit breaks with your cavalry, to let them flee and slaughter them with your light cavalry or skirmishers, while utilizing your infantry and bodyguards for another sandwich move.

Slingers firing from the walls in the backs of any unit will devastate them despite heavy armour: 1) the ap bullits + 2) they are on a high ground + 3) shooting them from the back/the right side ( unprotected by shields ). Feels a bit like cheating, but playing on VH it´s actually inevitable to "cheat" the AI, because not only the defence bonus grows, but their morale too ( + 7, iirc ), which means a unit with already 15 morale gets 22 value, and because those troops are disciplined, they recover from initial shocks too well.

To fight the VH bonis you need some very experienced shock units: yes, axemen can do the job, but if the phalanx fights back, even with their swords, those poor buggers get slaughtered due to lack of armour and poor defence skills. You need a unit with good morale, very good stamina ( for prolonged and repeatable attacks ), high armour values, armour piersing abilities and/or high lethality. Agrianian Assaulg Infantry in case of Macs, Thracian Elite Swordmen, Thracian Peltasts at least. If you can, hire some Tindanotae, the Galatian Wildmen, their 2 HP together with allready called fear effect and high lethality, will do the job too ( plus they are "very hardy" and don´t break in a 1 on 1 fight due to 22 morale value ).

MDPR

12-29-2010, 16:37

http://i56.tinypic.com/112e7gx.jpg

My new heavy half-stack deployed on the screenshot above, just northeast of Palmyra, was thrown back in a intense battle, before it could lay siege to the town, so I pulled it further back to Seleukeia and retrained it with yet another half-stack having been doing some fights around Susa for some time. These two armies have now been merged, retrained and just won a victory over a Ptolemaic stack, deployed only 2 turns-march from Seleukeia it self, and fortunately not having any elite units in it.

Only thing is that Susa is now without any real defenders and that the the Ptolemaio faction has all these forces deployed still. I only have this single close-to-full stack, in the entire area from Ipsos to Charax! Everything else out there are garrisons-only, with the exception of my army deployed up in Hayasdan lands, where I have managed to capture the Hayasdan capital for the second time. My strongest garrison is in Ipsos it self, a 6-unit garrison. All others has max 3 units, some only the general-unit. Also. In my western part of my empire, only Ipsos, Mazaka and Salamis has an amory. A training center that can produce heavy spear is only avail in Seleukeia now.

Petra has been recaptured by Saba, but when i moved my spy down to see how strong Saba was here, Ptolemaio was already besieging the town with a depleted stack of heavy units, however only facing a Saba garrison consisting of mainly freed-slaves inside. Thus Petra will fall as well too.

My allies has two stacks in or near my lands. Eperios has a stack standing next to the city of Ipsos and Saba has a stack south of Charax.

Ptolemaio has a constant stream of smaller contingents, (2-3 unit-stacks) in Sinea moving north to my lands.

Thanks for all the tips FriendlyFire and vollorix. Ill use them. Havent used arrows in the rear of Klerouchikon Agema yet. I have not had the chance, since most my battles has been on the walls.

Pausing this very, very challenging campaign

Think I will call the day and pause this campaign. Save it and restart a new one, now I have an idea about what to face from both Ptolemaio and Pahlava from start. I had zero idea about what to expect when I started this campaign, except what I read in the faction description. So i knew that I would face a strength from east, but not this heavy.

Think I must have fought some 500 battles by now?, in less than 72 years - thats a lot - and of those, most on the east and north front, not against the Ptolemaio faction, although I have written most my reports so far, facing Ptolemaio, since this front is the shortest of all three of them.

For instance, the Hayasdan front has been drawn from mid-way between Ipsos and Mazaka, to Edessa and Arbela and all the way up to Praaspaa too, including all the passes in between. Not to mention the Hayasdan hearltand it self. The Pahlavan-front has mainly been drawn from Zakradata, Ekbatana, Susa and down to Persepolis and from here to Karmana. So as you can mesaure, long, long front-lines, that the Ptolemaio-front cant even match close. And distances mean something when playing City mod b.

Ive naturrally fought a lot east and northeast of the above drawn Pahlavan-frontline too, in the first 10-20 years of the campaign that is. Fightings I should probably not have fought so dedicated as I did. Too many Mnai went here for no other purpose, than to stall the steamroll of heavy Pahlavan horseunits.

Im going to start a new Arche Seleuekia Campaign on VH/VH with City mod b, once again. Not sure about those formation-mods. Need to give them a bit more focus before I start.

Has anyone here actually won as Arche Seleuekia yet, playing EB Victory Conditions, using huge unit size, VH/VH settings, no AI-camera-movement, and of course using City mod b?

Thanks for all replies so far, Ill consider to post the other front-reports too.

BTW, I have seen this screenshoot-competition, and although it has reached its deadline, just want to share this screen from my third recent defeat at Persepolis, when those heavy horses from Pahlava crushes my phalanx at the north gate of Persepolis it self.

http://i56.tinypic.com/4kfa51.jpg

Also, yet another screen, just to show the number of battles I had already fought, back in 215 BC, thus before the super-offensive from Ptolemaio began.

By now, at the pause, I have reached year 205 BC, so many more battles fought than shown below.

https://i52.tinypic.com/15ed314.jpg

vollorix

12-29-2010, 21:34

I must admit, i have never fought so many battles in a single campaign, perhaps because i do not play on VH at all and prefer the smaller factions. Maybe i am blitzing to well, but mostly i focus on one front and fight untill i take all the settlements from my enemy, disabling him to recruit or retrain armies. The only 500 battles i ever had would on Battlenet, lol... So, respekt for your devotion to the campaign! :)

When you play a modded version, have you installed "konny´s" mod too? Those command stars are quite usefull to autoresolve sometimes, and, only from my personal impressions, the units seem to obey the orders slightly better, which is helpfull if your units should perform well on the battlefield.

Good luck with the new campaign, i would like to see some "Heroic City Defender" among your eastern generals ;)

About screenshot: when i saw it, without reading the text, my first thought was right about the Cristmas competition. Anyways, Brennus has not yet set up a voting pool, if i got it right, and perhaps he would concider to accept some postnominated screenshots till than, who knows?

MDPR

12-29-2010, 23:20

OK. The Pause Screen in this campaign and a short description of the overall situation. My empire is about to be cut for good. I dont have the units to stop it, and probably not to redo it, sice Ekbatana and Susa might be the next enemy targets I have to defend.

https://i52.tinypic.com/4uuhhg.jpg

- I have some 35 units or so, in my capital area. As seen above my Capital is clearly being threatened from west. Saba has moved up a stack, hopefully, to help me out.

- Tarsos is besieged by a half-stack, but Tarsos it self doesn't even have a single armoured unit, and half the small garrison consist of native units having been here the last 50 years!

- Karkathiokerta is being threatened by an enemy force from Edessa. The city it self has a small but fairly heavy garrison, however, it will fall. No support available to help the defense.

- Amavir is free of besieging enemies again and still has a close-to-full-stack as garrison, however, half the units here are persian spear-men. Besides, Hayasdan forces are once again moving south, probably towards Arbela, so I cant get the stack down here, to support Karkathiokerta, since the passes are now blocked by those enemy forces.

- Ani-Kamah is free. No sieges or enemy forces nearby. The garrison is small but consist of depleted heavy units though.

- Praaspa is free again, having just defeated a smaller Hayasdan siege force. However the battles and the training and retraining of units the last 5-10 years, has brought the populous down to around few 600. Not possible to train new units here for a while.

- Ekbatana is free, but has a small garrison only. My faction-leader, having been the governor also, just died. No other general available. Moving a new general up from my capital.

- Arbela is being threatened by Ptolemaio forces from west and Hayasdan forces from north (on the screen you cant see the Hayasdan forces atm, but they are there). Small but heavy garrison inside. No support from my capital since all forces here are to support the defense of the Capital.

- Susa is free, no enemy units nearby anymore. Small garrison of 3 units.

- Hekatompylos is free again. I just defeated yet another Pahlavan siege-force here.

- Gambai and Persepolis are free again, plus i managed to win a battle between Gambai and Persepolis too. New Pahlavan force-buildup at Karmana though.

Good luck with the new campaign, i would like to see some "Heroic City Defender" among your eastern generals ;)

Thanks, their really arent much I can do in this campaign anymore anyway. Or at least thats how I read the situation right now, taken in the situation-info i posted above.

Most intense campaign. Must say. Can only recommend trying it out.

MDPR

12-29-2010, 23:54

I like to follow this story, glad you finally decided to show a picture!~D

It really is exciting! I understand you really don't hold back in this game?

Some tips you may find useful:

On the AI:
- The AI will (especially on VH/) attack you like a berserker if you border them, if you however have a buffer between them (in this case Pahlava between you and the Saka), the enemy usually is peaceful and will gladly have peace with you or even an alliance.

On the East:
- As you have said yourself, taking back Persepolis is vital, but also is Karmana. It is an extremely wealthy city, especially with mines. With a good governor in there and developed buildings it can give a great boost to the economy. It will also remove Persepolis from the front border. Cities like Apameia and Hekatompylos (or even Asaak) have mines too, but not as great as Karmana. Maybe it is an idea to move along the ocean if that won't overstretch your resources, save for Pura, these cities are quite good economy. Even some further inland, like Alexandropolis or the richer Prophtasia, have mines, but these are too far out of your reach of course. Always remember to keep this buffer with the Saka. Only break that when you think you are ready for the beast beyond. If that would happen, archer spam is your friend.

On the West:
- It is good to hear that Antigonid Makedonia is still your ally, they should keep Europe of your back. Why did you not take Halikarnassos? It generates decent sea trade and won't affect much in that area. Be cautious of Pontos though, they might try to imitate a Haikakan trick if you don't watch out. Remember that the Anatolian lands are very vurnerable but profitable provinces.

On the North:
- That raid probably takes the Hai of your back for some time, maybe fit for repeating when they have rebuilded the ruins? I hope you did not destroy any wonders? Not taking Ani-Kamah is a good decision, it may have normal mines, but it will probably overstretch resources and the front line against the Hai. Plus provocative to the Pontic lords.

On the South:
- Hold the line at those cities, it will be the best shot you have at holding them, Antiocheia as front is too dangerous. You probably didnt take Palmyra to have the sons of Ptolemy to focus on Sidon and Damaskos. A break out to the south taking Hierosolyma can narrow the front down, although the fate of Bostra would be a problem. (Consider Saba who likes to walk from Carna all the way towards there because you border them then).
- Have you considered sailing for Kypros, once it goes to you it usually gets left alone and you can get some nice income from there.
- You don't have any spare resources anywhere, so it would be best to leave the east side of the Arabian peninsula alone. Taking the Persian Gulf could bring in some cash, but other places can use your resources better and the Sab'yns are always watching.

On other stuff:
- Just curious what your Basileus' role is in your empire? An active role or managing the capital?
- All these tips sound very expansionist and costly, I am just trying to give you a lot of ways to turn the wars into your favour.
- Sorry if I missed anything which you had covered already, I didnt read all of the updates.

The best of luck.

~Fluvius

On the AI:

The AI attack as a bersek on VH yes, so perhaps I need a strategy that can somehow counter that, by making peace somehow, or taking out the AI capitals around me, from start?

On the East:

The East, well, think Persepolis, Ekbatana and Susa should be focused from start of myh next campaign, as training and economy centers. Everything else in the east is only a bonus if I can hold it continously. Except should i choose the other AS-strategy that I read about in the forums, - going east - from the start. Evrything possible thrown at east, while pahlava is still being weak. Destroying Pahlava and the going for Baktria and Saka.

On the West:

Yes Macedonia did that very well. The reason I dident take Halikarnassos, was that my first stack-battle was when I tried to take Side from Ptolemi. My capture resulted in a Ptolemi offensive near Sidon or Damakos, cant remember anymore, so I had to move this Side stack to the damakos-Sidon front. After that a massive war contiouned on this front, until the very pause in 202 BC, except those few peaceful years between 220-215 BC.

No units availble to capture new cities over here basically.

Pontus never even moved forces close to my borders. In this campaign the most peacefull nabo out there, Pontus. Wouldent ally with me though. In fact I did everything possible to keep peace in the west, from the start to the pause.

On the North:

I did destroy the wonder up north. It gave me...some 10-20000 Mnai. I had no other option, cause i needed the mnai to build those mines, so I could boost my economy. I couldent afford loosing units every second turn.

Is there a scripted negative faction-factor, when destroying a wonder in a captured city?

On the South:

Thanks for the tip here. Hierosolyma did narrow the front, but it took all the heat at the same time, so I think thats why it fell so fast, almost every single turn was a siege.

On other stuff:

Manager role mostly, and so far not in the capital at all. Have been no chance for him to go there, all these battles all the time. Every turn some 4-8 battles. So moving long distances without a half-stack as escort is stupid. He would have been ambushed, as has so many of my forces been, while on the move.

Thanks for your help Fluvius Camillus :-)