Did any of you ever lose a campaign in EB?

[Shadowwalker]

Out of recent disaster I just have to ask this.
I recently (read: today) lost 2 campaigns in a row. Ugh.

Backstory: I switched to Alex.exe about 2 weeks ago and had some really interesting campaign starts since then (all the ongoing campaigns in my signature).
I then decided to start another Sab'yn Campaign (finished a campaign with them some months back on BI.exe).

I survived for exactly 5 years since the Ptolemaioi decided to get rid of that thorn in their side by sending a Trireme fleet with a fullstack consisting of Phalanxes, Galatians, Kretan archers and some Prodromoi as well as 2 generals down to South Arabia.
I tried to fight them off with the impressive army I had (1 Ethiopian Spearmen, 2 Arabian Skirmishers, 4 Arabian Slingers, 4 Archer-Spearmen and 2 Family Members).
I faced a crushing defeat and retreated to Maryab, could not retrain the remnants though since I still was in debt.
The Ptolemies then sieged Maryab and took it the next turn, despite my desperate defense efforts.
They razed the town to the ground and I was left with Tamane and Sabata (when the fleet approached I just had started sieging Carna).


I still hoped that perhaps Maryab might rebell back to me or to crawl out of debt quick enough to build a basic MIC in Sabata.

Then I saw a second stack (15 units) coming down the way from Petra, again consisting of a lot of heavily armoured units as well as 3 Prodromoi and some archer/slinger/Peltastai etc units.

(By the way - I don't understand that at all. Carna was still a rebellic province and although they already had taken Petra and Bostra they shouldn't have walked through Arabia. We shared no land border.)

When Tamane was sieged (1 FM inside since my barracks of course weren't finished in time...) I considered this campaign lost.


And started a Getai campaign instantly.
I built some basic pop growth buildings and trained 2 Komatai, then split my armies into 2 equal stacks that headed for Kallatis and Sarmiszegethusa.
Since I'm terrible at storming walls/cities I waited for the defenders' sally.
I took both towns (suffering quite a few casualties in the process since I made some rather stupid mistakes during the sallies).
The remaining units I ordered back to Buridava - just in time to say "hi!" to my allies, the Makedonians, that apparently had decided to gather every single unit they had in the north and to go for Serdike and Naissos (which they already owned) and to head further north then immediately.
And of course they just laughed at our alliance when they saw that I had not even a halfstack to defend my "empire".
And again - battle - crushing defeat - Buridava lost.
And still 10k in debt.

Someone must have told the Sauromatae then that Kallatis is easy prey since the Getai have no army worth to mention anymore.
(The town was defended by a depleted unit of Komatai).
Kallatis was sieged the next turn by a couple of Horse Archers and a Family Member.
And the Makedonians sent a halfstack north into the woods near Sarmiszegethusa (which was defended by 48 Dacian Archers).

Second campaign lost.
And I feel humiliated somehow. :shame:


So.... did any of you experience similar defeats?


(By the way - both campaigns were on M/M!)

[seleucid empire]

WOAH, you got it bad, that kind of thing has never happened to me as either getai or saba but i only play on H/M not VH/M. in all my games ptolemies recruit stacks really quickly but ive never seen galatians or cretans in their army within 5 years of the game starting

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

The only campaign I've ever really lost is when I played VH/M as the Casse. The small stack of Caledonian rebels attacked my city in the first year, my FM's went out to fight them (I'd disbanded my infantry), and I got annihilated. All FM's dead, game over.

I have abandoned lots of other campaigns when I gave up playing on VH and H, though. I play on M/M now - that's all I can manage.

[A_Dane]

Lets see: Pontos a good while back. I had managed to establish my self somewhat, Crimea in my possession, most of seleucid asia minor etc.

Haddn't seen anything to the seleucids in some 5-10 years, so i started gobbling up the Egyptian possession and took Byzantion. The latter would prove my undoing.
Out of nowhere an Egyptian army appears and ambush a halfstack of mine which was gonna reinforce my main army. Crushing defeat, 1 family member dead. I manage to avenge it with my depleted main army, but this was when it went wrong. Suddenly the seleucids laucnh a surprise invasion with a full army, half of it elite pikemen. Simultaniously, my allies Armenia attack Trapezous, Epeiros attack Byzantion and the Sarmatians goes for Crimea..

A rather long war of attrition ensure, I manage to gather an army and defeat the seleucids & armenians, saving my cities, but Byzantion is lost, and Epeiros sends 2-3 stacks across the straight, with more through Macedonia on the way. It ends up in a rather huge battle in Galatia, where I narrowly defeat 2 of those stacks, but completely deplete my army, with ever more Seleucids and Armenians moving in. I decided to just admit defeat there, because even though I had the cash to build up a new army, I would probably not have the time.

Someone better might have been able to turn it around, but I was pretty certain I couldn't, half the royal family was dead, and the only place I could train troops worth deploying was the capital (had focused on mines everywhere else).

Other than that, I've had numerous defeats as Armenia, 1 as Bactria, and 1 as all in Greece.

[The Stranger]

ye i almost lost a pontic one as well. i got attacked when i didnt expected it but i couldnt be asked, reloaded to the turn before and did a cheap trick to survive, i hid my defensive army in an ambush and left the city empty but they never attacked the city. its really funny, so i tried it again with the army in the city and got attacked. so for a couple of years i used the trick and kept my capital alive untill i could get some mercs and counter attack. from then all got easy. other than that ive never lost a campaign but tbh i get bored by campaigns after 20 years usually :S but most of the time its cuz im already winning so hard there is no point in continuing

i play vh/m or vh/h

[Blxz]

Never lost a game but early on in my EB days I struggled and barely survived with Baktria. Ended up taking them to victory in the end (or near enough without actually getting the pop-up screen). The trick is to plan for these unexpected attacks. I suspect that light troops, as in the Sabyn and Getai rosters, do not match your fighting style very well. Maybe try a few games as Rome or one of the medium sized greek states first? Even carthage is not a bad choice.

[Shadowwalker]

I suspect that light troops, as in the Sabyn and Getai rosters, do not match your fighting style very well. Maybe try a few games as Rome or one of the medium sized greek states first? Even carthage is not a bad choice.

I assume you're addressing me here?
If yes - you're right about me struggling with light troops tactics.
I am more or less able to fight successfully with heavy infantry/phalanx-based armies. So the campaigns I played with various hellenistic factions, SPQR or Kart-Hadast (and the current Arverni one as well) were/are running rather smoothly.
(Although every SPQR expert would probably scream in horror when seeing my army deployment... Despite using a "historical" army composition I for example deploy Hastati and Principes in one single line instead of a chess board formation, just because I hate losing 75% of my Hastati in one battle. :shame:
Also the Triarii are usually used as protection against cavalry flanking attacks or to flank the enemy battleline myself instead of being a last resort line infantry. For that kind of battlefield role one can find a few historical examples though so it's not completely weird.)

I tend to use those battle tactics even with factions that don't provide fitting troops for that though.
That of course means that I seriously misuse the given troops or use weaker units that are better fitting into "line infantry tactics" rather than the strong faction troops.

Even the battles in my successful Sab'yn campaign were fought with "standard" line infantry tactics (Levy Phalangites and flanking infantry) after consolidating in Arabia.

[The Stranger]

hmmm perhaps you are doing something wrong if you lose 75% of your hastati in 1 battle

i use the board formation and i barely lose 25%. i lose my veles/velites the most for obvious reasons. and whenever my principes have finished throwing their javelins i charge them in (instead of letting the hastati fall back. only really ahistorical thing i do is use the triarii to envelope the enemies on the flank instead of leaving them for the end or not using them at all. and ofcourse my cavalry going crazy on the flanks checking the enemy bodyguard cavalry, routing skirmishers and performing rear charges

[rickinator9]

I pretty much just deem a campaign lost when I don't have any good or troops left and that has happened several times when I was a bad vanilla player. I didn't know about Hammer&Anvil then.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Hayasdan on VH/M. I didn't 'lose' as in destroyed, but the Selucids eventually ripped the heart out of my kingdom, so the end was inevitable - this was after a long time of desperate hold-the-line battles against endless Hellenic armies.

[Blxz]

Yeah shadow walker, was talking to you. You might want to try using decent light infantry armies and trying something apart from holding a line. You could try a mid-line collapse where you pull the centre back and have the sides move in to envelope the enemy units. This must be pulled off with only light units though. Immobile phalanxes won't work very well here. And check out the sabyn red sea axemen. Very useful against armoured units. But don't allow them to take the frontal assault.

Never been a fan of the getai but I know they have a very powerful roster. There are many powerful anti-armour units. Perhaps you also need to try and find suitable terrain. With these lighter and weaker troops it becomes very important to pick your battlegrounds. Fighting defensively (for me at least) is very important as I am incapable at attacking.

[athanaric]

I've abandoned scores of campaigns, either because things went south, or the Romans were wiped out before the MoT happened, or I got bored wit fighting five battles per turn.



Second campaign lost.
And I feel humiliated somehow. :shame:
Bad luck, combined with a few beginner's mistakes. My advice: try Getai again. Now you know what not to do, and you'll fare much better. Once you're out of debt and able to retrain your troops, things will get easier.

[d'Arthez]

Most of the smaller factions are tricky to start with.

Hayasdan can be extremely painful if you make a wrong move in the opening turns, but it can be a complete cakewalk if you know what you are doing. The same applies to Getai, Saba, Pontos, and to a lesser extent to Pahlava and Baktria. Some strategies work better than others, even though from an objective point of view they should not work as well (mainly due to AI quirks on diplomacy). Sometimes you just have bad luck.

As mentioned by Blxz, if you are not comfortable using particular troop types it can cause you serious grief.
One way to deal with that is to engage in a few custom battles, so that you can learn through trial and error how you can effectively counter heavy infantry / missile troops / horse archers / heavy cavalry etc..

There is no shame in losing a campaign, as long as you use it to learn from your mistakes.

[The Stranger]

pahlave is so easy -_- not to speak of saka rauka :S

horse archers just **** the AI...

man i remember those BI bodyguards from the sassanid empire. with just 1 faction heird and another member you could conquer the world.

[Brennus]

I have given up on plenty of Aedui and Casse games before, usually when I find myself locked in the Romani-Sweboz vice. I have never played a game until I am completely detroyed, once I view the situation has become unsalvageable (which is probably far too early for most peoples' liking) I tend to call it quits.

[PureEvil[PIE]]

I haven't lost a game so far or given up (though I'm a coward and play on m/m), however, with the Aedui I came extremely close to losing... I had early on split my forces up and attempted to siege several cities at once whilst in debt (was hoping that if I could take several cities at once, then I would come out of debt relatively easily) short story is that none of the armies were strong enough, didn't take any cities and then the Arverni/Romani got angry with me. Though, I managed to claw back into the game and am reasonably ok (haven't gone back to it in a while though, been concentrating on my Carthage campaign).

[Kromulan]

I lost all my towns (played it all the way to the bitter end) in a Saba campaign. War with Ptolies was going well enough, then I had a rebellion event give me a war with AS... I even had 2 provinces in India, right up until Baktria (allied with AS) got a border with me. Then one of the desert towns in egypt I had ransacked and abandoned to rebel back to Ptol was captured by Carthies, who let it rebel back to.... me!
I had one army capable of dealing with fullstack phalanx armies and it just ground down to ineffectiveness in a 2-year span, then it was just trying to delay the inevitable.
The end played out like the battle of Berlin... my halfstack of beat-up misfits and merc remnants (2 FM) in my last city with 2 AS fullstacks, 1 Ptolie fullstack and a Carthie general in the province. Fought off the AS stack that attacked, but the ptolies got me.

[The Stranger]

sounds epic :P a good way to lose if there is one

[Nightmare]

I never lost a campaign in EB, but I almost lost one. It was Koinon Hellenon. Holy cow, forget the "nigh impossible" ratings of Pontos or Saka - to me those were nothing compared to the KH start.

Faced with the options of "fight" or "run" I'm always one to fight. From the get go I had to pull my army from Crete without a chance to even attack there. I just met the Macedonian forces with everything I had, including all faction leaders. I even left cities totally vacant without any garrison forces. Yeah, I won battle after battle against seemingly insurmountable odds, and being hugely outnumbered by the Macedonians (they had better quality too). But here's the thing: I couldn't regenerate anything - I was totally in debt and that debt was growing every round. The Macedonians would just regenerate whole stacks out of nowhere. The point is, I was losing to attrition. At the end of this opening saga I had to run with all my generals in one pathetic quarter or half stack and let him have my cities on mainland Greece.

I thought the game was lost, and didn't even play that save for a while. Then one day I just loaded it up to try and analyze any mistakes or see what I could have done differently. For some reason I decided to play a few more rounds, and low and behold he had to pull some troops from one of my cities to defend against Epeiros and I was able to attack that city with like 6 generals and take it. From that position I was able to claw my way back to the mainland, and eventually won the campaign.

If anyone wants a challenge I recommend the campaign. I play all my campaigns on vh/m.

[The Stranger]

Hmm... I never had much trouble with Koinon. I usually manage to get an early peace with Makedon because Epeiros almost always overruns them and takes Pella early.

[d'Arthez]

You are doing something wrong if you have not conquered Krete, Korinthos and Chalkis by the end of the year.

[The Stranger]

kinda yes :P Atleast crete, with the spy there if you are lucky you can get it in turn one and be back in time to lift the siege on Athens :P

[NacroxNicke]

I have lost like three times a Koinon Hellenon campaign, with Alexander, on VH/H.

Epeiros normally can't help me and I got overrun in 5 or 4 seasons, I was close on one, I took Chalkis and Crete, but Mr. Argomedes came with a two full stack, and it didn't end well for me ):

[Nightmare]

Hmm... I never had much trouble with Koinon. I usually manage to get an early peace with Makedon because Epeiros almost always overruns them and takes Pella early.

LOL. No way I ever came close to getting peace with Makedon the entire game, and he didn't care how things went with Epeiros (he lost Pella early, then took it right back, and Epeiros never bothered him the rest of the game).


You are doing something wrong if you have not conquered Krete, Korinthos and Chalkis by the end of the year.

LOL. You must be getting the "early Makadon peace" as well?

[Shadowwalker]

You could try a mid-line collapse where you pull the centre back and have the sides move in to envelope the enemy units. This must be pulled off with only light units though. Immobile phalanxes won't work very well here. And check out the sabyn red sea axemen. Very useful against armoured units. But don't allow them to take the frontal assault.

This is a way to win against phalanxes that worked a few times for me when I still played on BI.exe, but the switch to Alex has changed things on the battlefield quite a bit it seems.
The AI always outflanks me when it gets the opportunity (and in the mentioned campaigns it got that opportunity everytime since everything I was able to afford were halfstacks and so the enemy battleline was always much wider than mine :shrug:).
Also the phalanxes come in one long, closed block at me now, their flanks guarded by heavy and light infantry, the skirmishers are really annoying now (I consider myself lucky when they advance too far and I can catch them with my light cav, usually they are close enough to the main line to retreat safely).
Oh and did I mention that there's almost always at least one unit of either light AP infantry (thracian peltasts for example) or light/medium cav that tries to snerak behind my lines to catch my archers? :inquisitive: (*)

To summarize it: seems that with Alex the AI's tactical intelligence was raised to "below average" which means it excels my skills now. :laugh4:

And yes, those Axemen are fantastic. In the successful Sab'yn campaign on BI they saved more than one battle that seemed lost already.


Never been a fan of the getai but I know they have a very powerful roster. There are many powerful anti-armour units. Perhaps you also need to try and find suitable terrain. With these lighter and weaker troops it becomes very important to pick your battlegrounds. Fighting defensively (for me at least) is very important as I am incapable at attacking.

Same here. whenever I attack I find myself either in a forest (with the enemy in the deepest part of it of course) or at the bottom of a valley with the enemy in guard mode at the hill's top.... seems I'm not able to "read" the campaign map... :laugh4:


Anyway - it somehow comforts me to read that others do actually lose campaigns as well. And the serious beating those arrogant wanna-be-Hellenes (aka Makedonians) get from my Pontos armies comforts me as well. :laugh4:

@Nightmare:


LOL. You must be getting the "early Makadon peace" as well?
Hah! On VH you can praise your god of choice if you don't swim in the Aegaean Sea by the end of 272. :laugh4:

No, I assume he just doesn't play on VH/M. You will never get a peace offer on that difficulty and you will always be the target of the AI.
And if the AI gets eaten while being beaten back by you ... well, doesn't matter at all.
VH may be recommended by the team but you should bring a bit of masochism and love repetitive battles without any reason to choose that difficulty.
Let's praise CA. :bow:


__________________________________________________________________________
(*) There are exceptions though.
In the battle for Nikaia (actually one battle for Nikaia, there's one about once per year) the Makedonians came along with a fullstack, consisting of 3 Argyraspides (one with 7 chevrons), 4 Pezhetairoi, 3 levy phalanxes, 1 Thracian Peltasts, 1 Galatian heavy spearmen, 1 elite thracians, 3 Akontistai, 1 Sphendenotai and 1 Toxotai and 2 Prodromoi.
Almost all units were full strength (except one of the Akontistai that was about half strength).
(Could have been only 3 Pezhetairoi though... I just remember to have fought a unit of Peltaistai Makedonikoi as well there, it was the unit that guarded the back of that monster Aryraspides so that I didn't even have the chance to charge it's back. I first had to rip apart that guard unit.)

They attacked my Royal Army that is stationed between Nikaia and Byzantion for more than 10 years already:
1 FM (King Memnos)
1 Chalkaspides
4 Levy Phalanxes
2 Kelto-Hellenic Infantry
1 Pontic Thorakitai
1 Mercenary Thracian Peltasts
1 Galatian Heavy Spearmen
1 Thureophoroi
2 Caucasian Archers
1 Caucasian Spearmen
1 Gallic Light Cavalry
1 Kappadocian Medium Cavalry
1 Cappadocian Hillmen

(The Chariots and the Tindanotae are planned but not bought yet .... still need a lot of money for all those mines.)

Since the AI had the clear phalanx superiority it decided to send the Argyraspidai against my Phalanx line (mauling my units very badly, only the Chalkaspides were above quarter strength after that battle), the Pezhetairoi around the left flank and the Levies around the right one.
Was kind of a nasty surprise to see them turn left/right all of a sudden.... :laugh4:

[d'Arthez]

LOL. You must be getting the "early Makadon peace" as well?

If you mean exiling them to Lesbos, with or without help from Epeiros, yes. If Epeiros helps, you can usually either take Demetrias comfortably (since you can churn out more units than the Makedones, if you have Chalkis, Athenai, Korinthos and Sparte). If Epeiros does not help, it will take a bit longer. The real prize of course would be Pella, since you can eventually build massive mines there.

Just make certain that any border with Epeiros is well guarded. Ideally you want to enter a war with them on your conditions, rather than be forced in a three-way slug fest for Greece.

I hardly, if ever get peace offerings from any faction, and yes, I do play on VH/M. You can use Athenai as a great defensive position. Your Family Members can be a great asset on the streets.

What really helps when taking Korinthos is that your effective border becomes Athenai. Taking Chalkis is more or less taking a freebie - it only adds to your income, whilst defending the city hardly costs any Mnai. Something similar applies to Kydonia. With 5 cities to supply some income, whilst only needing to defend one position, it is a matter of accumulating and spending enough money to banish the Makedones to Lesbos.

[The Stranger]

This is a way to win against phalanxes that worked a few times for me when I still played on BI.exe, but the switch to Alex has changed things on the battlefield quite a bit it seems.
The AI always outflanks me when it gets the opportunity (and in the mentioned campaigns it got that opportunity everytime since everything I was able to afford were halfstacks and so the enemy battleline was always much wider than mine :shrug:).
Also the phalanxes come in one long, closed block at me now, their flanks guarded by heavy and light infantry, the skirmishers are really annoying now (I consider myself lucky when they advance too far and I can catch them with my light cav, usually they are close enough to the main line to retreat safely).
Oh and did I mention that there's almost always at least one unit of either light AP infantry (thracian peltasts for example) or light/medium cav that tries to snerak behind my lines to catch my archers? :inquisitive: (*)

To summarize it: seems that with Alex the AI's tactical intelligence was raised to "below average" which means it excels my skills now. :laugh4:

And yes, those Axemen are fantastic. In the successful Sab'yn campaign on BI they saved more than one battle that seemed lost already.



Same here. whenever I attack I find myself either in a forest (with the enemy in the deepest part of it of course) or at the bottom of a valley with the enemy in guard mode at the hill's top.... seems I'm not able to "read" the campaign map... :laugh4:


Anyway - it somehow comforts me to read that others do actually lose campaigns as well. And the serious beating those arrogant wanna-be-Hellenes (aka Makedonians) get from my Pontos armies comforts me as well. :laugh4:

@Nightmare:


Hah! On VH you can praise your god of choice if you don't swim in the Aegaean Sea by the end of 272. :laugh4:

No, I assume he just doesn't play on VH/M. You will never get a peace offer on that difficulty and you will always be the target of the AI.
And if the AI gets eaten while being beaten back by you ... well, doesn't matter at all.
VH may be recommended by the team but you should bring a bit of masochism and love repetitive battles without any reason to choose that difficulty.
Let's praise CA. :bow:


__________________________________________________________________________
(*) There are exceptions though.
In the battle for Nikaia (actually one battle for Nikaia, there's one about once per year) the Makedonians came along with a fullstack, consisting of 3 Argyraspides (one with 7 chevrons), 4 Pezhetairoi, 3 levy phalanxes, 1 Thracian Peltasts, 1 Galatian heavy spearmen, 1 elite thracians, 3 Akontistai, 1 Sphendenotai and 1 Toxotai and 2 Prodromoi.
Almost all units were full strength (except one of the Akontistai that was about half strength).
(Could have been only 3 Pezhetairoi though... I just remember to have fought a unit of Peltaistai Makedonikoi as well there, it was the unit that guarded the back of that monster Aryraspides so that I didn't even have the chance to charge it's back. I first had to rip apart that guard unit.)

They attacked my Royal Army that is stationed between Nikaia and Byzantion for more than 10 years already:
1 FM (King Memnos)
1 Chalkaspides
4 Levy Phalanxes
2 Kelto-Hellenic Infantry
1 Pontic Thorakitai
1 Mercenary Thracian Peltasts
1 Galatian Heavy Spearmen
1 Thureophoroi
2 Caucasian Archers
1 Caucasian Spearmen
1 Gallic Light Cavalry
1 Kappadocian Medium Cavalry
1 Cappadocian Hillmen

(The Chariots and the Tindanotae are planned but not bought yet .... still need a lot of money for all those mines.)

Since the AI had the clear phalanx superiority it decided to send the Argyraspidai against my Phalanx line (mauling my units very badly, only the Chalkaspides were above quarter strength after that battle), the Pezhetairoi around the left flank and the Levies around the right one.
Was kind of a nasty surprise to see them turn left/right all of a sudden.... :laugh4:

I am going to play a campaign on VH/H right now and prove all of you wrong!

[The Stranger]

If you mean exiling them to Lesbos, with or without help from Epeiros, yes. If Epeiros helps, you can usually either take Demetrias comfortably (since you can churn out more units than the Makedones, if you have Chalkis, Athenai, Korinthos and Sparte). If Epeiros does not help, it will take a bit longer. The real prize of course would be Pella, since you can eventually build massive mines there.

Just make certain that any border with Epeiros is well guarded. Ideally you want to enter a war with them on your conditions, rather than be forced in a three-way slug fest for Greece.

I hardly, if ever get peace offerings from any faction, and yes, I do play on VH/M. You can use Athenai as a great defensive position. Your Family Members can be a great asset on the streets.

What really helps when taking Korinthos is that your effective border becomes Athenai. Taking Chalkis is more or less taking a freebie - it only adds to your income, whilst defending the city hardly costs any Mnai. Something similar applies to Kydonia. With 5 cities to supply some income, whilst only needing to defend one position, it is a matter of accumulating and spending enough money to banish the Makedones to Lesbos.

Ye on VH/M its not hard, on VH/H or VH/VH it should be harder.

Ok update, i started a KH campaign on VH/VH

Season 1: I move my family members from Sparte to assist in taking Kydonia - Crete. I infiltrate with the spy and luckily I get open gates so i can take it the first turn. I recruit an extra toxotai kretikoi and assault. I win losing some 250 men, mostly haploi and FM. I disband 2 of my 3 pentekonterai and train another haploi in Athens. Together with what I take from plundering Kydonia I also build a pacification toke in Kydonia.

Season 2: Im -300 sumthing in debt. I ask for an alliance with Epeiros, they negotiate terms, Alliance, Traderights and some 1800 mnai. i build another haploi. I move my army from Kydonia to athens including the spy and then disband my last pentekonterai and build roads in Rhodos.

Season 3: +200 mnai thanks to some useful swapping of ancilleries. The full stack of Makedonians in front of athens is apperantly intimidated and retreats. I attack Chalkis with all force. Sadly no open gates so i build 4 rams and end the turn.

Season 4: +400 but the FM in Rhodos dies and I lose lots of income from the lack of a governer with acumen. Expected balance next turn -350. Luckily I can now attack Chalkis and reset the balance.`[I toggle FoW to see whats happening, and the Makedons full stack has gone north to stop Epeiros from taking Pella.]. I assault Chalkis 2400 men vs 1200. The cretans rain death from above, the FM do the fighting! 1% lost vs 70% killed! and still killing left to do. But there is the phalanx and they rally in the square. In the end 130 lost vs 1150 killed. I sack Chalkis and end the turn.

271,
Season 5: +1100 mnai. I keep my construction to the minimum. Arche Seleukeia (AS) blockades my rhodian port, robbing me of any substantial income. I move my army from Chalkis to Korinth. My faction leader is too old and restricted in his movement, he wouldnt make it so i left him in Chalkis. Lucky my spy is resourceful and I get another open gates.

well thats it, Kydonia, Chalkis and Korinth in 5 turns. With a little less luck on the spies it would take 6-7 turns.

https://img685.imageshack.us/img685/2151/5turnwonder.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/685/5turnwonder.jpg/)

ill do the battle later, homework calls now and it seems harder to conquer :S

[moonburn]

i lost plenty of games particulary when i click delate instead of load that really gets on my nervs

[The Stranger]

qs at the start of everyturn, or just reload the autosave :P

[Lysimachos]

i lost plenty of games particulary when i click delate instead of load that really gets on my nervs

In the future, just double click on it, no risk of deletion there. :-)

[seleucid empire]

Ive only lost one campaign the very first time i played EB. i didnt realise the army upkeep was so high (cause i was playing vanilla before) and my epirote kingdom was 30K into debt because i just sat outside pella waiting for reinforcements. then macedon came with 4 armies and crushed me cause i wasnt used to the different EB battles either ( sent my elephants straight into their hypaspistai cause in vanilla, a frontal elephant charge pwns anything without phalanx mode)

[Potatomade]

I exclusively play on VH/VH, so yes, I've lost a lot of campaigns, but with proper early planning you can win almost any of them. When I lose a campaign it's either because I've never played the faction very much and don't know any tricks, or because I forgot my special little system for winning big early on. I do extremely well as Hayasdan, Saka, Koinon Hellenon, etc., but only when I properly execute my opening moves. After that it's easy.

[Greenlizard0.]

I lost a campaign as Bactria. First I took Kophen, then gave Bactra to the Seleucids (I wanted my empire to start in India), started to move my armies to India. But I forgot the Sakae and they attacked me and took Kophen before I reached India (I was the one to attack, not the best idea when outnumberd by horsearchers).

[Nightmare]

Ok update, i started a KH campaign on VH/VH... blah blah... well thats it, Kydonia, Chalkis and Korinth in 5 turns. With a little less luck on the spies it would take 6-7 turns.

okay I gotta call BS on you stranger. either that, or ...

1) you saved and reloaded games over and over until you got the result you want (battles, alliances, etc), or...

2) you are playing on an easier difficulty than VH/M, or...

3) you are using forced alliance, or...

4) you are the luckiest player in the world, since for some reason makadonia doesn't want to assault you with everything he's got from the get-go, and epieros wants to throw an alliance at you plus 1800 for your trouble, or...

5) i'm the unluckiest guy in the world.

i just tried again myself to test it. it worked out the same. couldn't get spy inside city in kydonia. couldn't get epieros to take an alliance no matter what. couldn't make makadonia back off from assaulting me instantly with everything he has, blah blah. are we playing 2 different games?

[athanaric]

are we playing 2 different games?
The more difficult campaign starts (KH, Baktria, Hayasdan, Pontos, etc) depend a lot on luck. Sometimes the Makedonian army will just wander off for whatever reason. Not necessarily during the first turn though.

[moonburn]

i guess so because what he said i can do in 3 turns it´s only a matter of being lucky and taking krete in the 1st turn be lucky enough for the rhodian dude to survie the trip over to chalkis and still be able to fight (hardest one really ofc always bring along the slingers and even the hoploi and leave the city unguarded with an hoploi on construction)

take the 2 armies from sparte with the 2 family members to korinth and besiege it from the athenian side when it´s time to attack reenforçe it with the athenian army (leace the classical hoplitai guarding the city)

on turn 1 you should be able to land the spartan king back in the peleponesos and if you´re lucky you can use the 2 ships ferrying him to take him directly to korinthos to reenforçe the batle on the sieged city you can also use this to take the athenian army into korinthos via the port and once the batle is finished you can send all the troops that besieged the city on turn1 to guard athens before the makedonians siege it

thats for turn 2 in turn 3 the rhodian should desembark with 1 unit of hoploi and 1 unit of slingers (did i mention that your slingers are you best friends at the start alongside the kretikoi and that the spartans are great taking walled city´s) besiege chalkis and reenforçe that army with a few units´if chalkis is filled with a makedonian army they should sally out and you can pick their units 1 by 1 with your slingers weakaning their moral and crushing them and then if you didn´t win totally already just grab the only ram that´s on the batlemap and ram that door down to finish them off

give or take it´s all a matter of coordination counting your movements right so as not to let the spartan king sitting in the boat if the makedonian fleet comes to destroy you it´s natural that the rhodian never makes it to chalkis on turn 2 it always takes turn 3 for him to arrive when he survives the trip turn 1 it´s just the time for your 3 ship to get to rhodios so thats normally a wasted turn but remember the general needs to finish turn 1 on the ship or he will never reach chalkis on time

then there´s the luck factor mainly if the spy opens the doors of krete (and yes you can take the city with your starting army just ocupy the streets properly with your spartans and hoplitai and outmanouver them going around and slamming into their backs i normally use the spartiates and kretikoi to do this) and the 2nd factor is if the rhodian survives and makes it to chalkis 80% of the time he just tends to die fairly fast on 2nd turn

[Nightmare]

i'm quite an experienced rtw veteran and don't know how you do all of that without being monstrously in debt, and without being able to replenish troops (something makadonia doesn't have to worry about). unless you just take on full makadonian stacks over and over again with your starting units and never lose any units at all. if so, i guess you are superman, and i tip my hat to you. either that, or epieros is giving you a lot of help by throwing everything they have at the maks, but that never happens with me.

[moonburn]

i normally get 3200 from epirus for the trade rights and alliance
also 10.000-14750 it´s very doable for peace with the seulekids so no i never worry about going into debt the more soldiers you loose the less money you have to pay ofc i overplay the initial turns so i tested it to the limit trying the best to get as much as possible at the start but then you must prepare a bit and by 271 summer you have enough strenght to go over and take thessalia and pray that the epirotes haven´t taken pella (normally by this time and with the money the seulekids pay you you should get the peztharoi and the kretikoi from the mercenary pool)

[d'Arthez]

On VH/M, you may be able to pull that off in two full turns (Chalkis, Korinthos and Kydonia), if you are lucky with spies, and the Makedonian army wandering up north. It is just a matter of winning two sallies.

[Ibrahim]

nope, haven't lost any. only won 2 though. most I just never finished.

the ones I won are (in order)

1-Arche Seleukeia (v. 0.8). difficulty: M/M
2-Arche Seleukia (v. 1.2). difficulty: M/VH (battle=M)

the others I simply aborted because I didn't have time for them (studies get in the way), or they became busywork (due to the hardcoded AI, not anything with the mod itself). one I aborted because it got corrupted-something to do with a computer crash while playing it. oddly, it crashed not long after I had lost 1/4 of my men and the best general on the Ptolemioi front in an epic battle (which I won). It would have likely ended in a campaign loss though, as that 1/4 was out of no more than 800 men-the ptolemioi only lost c.5 percent of their forces, and 600 of them bit the dust in the battle. 2,000 more men were on their way, but they were greener than lettuce, and ill equipped to deal with the ptolemioi.

yes, it was a Saba campaign.

[stratigos vasilios]

I got absolutely massacred with my Casse VH/VH campaign...so I turned it down to M/VH (medium battle), still got belted. My first AS campaign, also my first EB campaign ever, I was pretty much mauled from the start. It got to the stage where the file was unsalvageable so I gave up and picked another faction. Since then, I haven't lost a campaign since. Although I have lost some tremendous battles!

[The Stranger]

okay I gotta call BS on you stranger. either that, or ...

1) you saved and reloaded games over and over until you got the result you want (battles, alliances, etc), or...

2) you are playing on an easier difficulty than VH/M, or...

3) you are using forced alliance, or...

4) you are the luckiest player in the world, since for some reason makadonia doesn't want to assault you with everything he's got from the get-go, and epieros wants to throw an alliance at you plus 1800 for your trouble, or...

5) i'm the unluckiest guy in the world.

i just tried again myself to test it. it worked out the same. couldn't get spy inside city in kydonia. couldn't get epieros to take an alliance no matter what. couldn't make makadonia back off from assaulting me instantly with everything he has, blah blah. are we playing 2 different games?

I can do it again and take screenshots. i did not reload any battles and they were easy to win :)

I was actually playing on VH/VH :P

it is easier to do on VH/M because then I dont need to move the 2 spartan FM from Sparte to Kydonia/Krete. On VH i knew i was going to need the FM.



i'm quite an experienced rtw veteran and don't know how you do all of that without being monstrously in debt, and without being able to replenish troops (something makadonia doesn't have to worry about). unless you just take on full makadonian stacks over and over again with your starting units and never lose any units at all. if so, i guess you are superman, and i tip my hat to you. either that, or epieros is giving you a lot of help by throwing everything they have at the maks, but that never happens with me.

The KH dont go into debt very fast if you disband their navy. and once you have taken crete you are in the safe zone. and actually the reason they are going into debt in the first place is because their FM at start have spartan bodyguards and you pay 770 upkeep for those and on top of that the General's salary...


I will do it again on VH/VH and i wont abuse the AI to get money. I will not abuse spies to get inside either. and i will do it within 7 turns and i wont lose a city!

[The Stranger]

i guess so because what he said i can do in 3 turns it´s only a matter of being lucky and taking krete in the 1st turn be lucky enough for the rhodian dude to survie the trip over to chalkis and still be able to fight (hardest one really ofc always bring along the slingers and even the hoploi and leave the city unguarded with an hoploi on construction)

take the 2 armies from sparte with the 2 family members to korinth and besiege it from the athenian side when it´s time to attack reenforçe it with the athenian army (leace the classical hoplitai guarding the city)

on turn 1 you should be able to land the spartan king back in the peleponesos and if you´re lucky you can use the 2 ships ferrying him to take him directly to korinthos to reenforçe the batle on the sieged city you can also use this to take the athenian army into korinthos via the port and once the batle is finished you can send all the troops that besieged the city on turn1 to guard athens before the makedonians siege it

thats for turn 2 in turn 3 the rhodian should desembark with 1 unit of hoploi and 1 unit of slingers (did i mention that your slingers are you best friends at the start alongside the kretikoi and that the spartans are great taking walled city´s) besiege chalkis and reenforçe that army with a few units´if chalkis is filled with a makedonian army they should sally out and you can pick their units 1 by 1 with your slingers weakaning their moral and crushing them and then if you didn´t win totally already just grab the only ram that´s on the batlemap and ram that door down to finish them off

give or take it´s all a matter of coordination counting your movements right so as not to let the spartan king sitting in the boat if the makedonian fleet comes to destroy you it´s natural that the rhodian never makes it to chalkis on turn 2 it always takes turn 3 for him to arrive when he survives the trip turn 1 it´s just the time for your 3 ship to get to rhodios so thats normally a wasted turn but remember the general needs to finish turn 1 on the ship or he will never reach chalkis on time

then there´s the luck factor mainly if the spy opens the doors of krete (and yes you can take the city with your starting army just ocupy the streets properly with your spartans and hoplitai and outmanouver them going around and slamming into their backs i normally use the spartiates and kretikoi to do this) and the 2nd factor is if the rhodian survives and makes it to chalkis 80% of the time he just tends to die fairly fast on 2nd turn

can you do it on VH battle difficulty? I found it impossible to take crete with just 1 FM on VH battle. ofcourse on Medium you can do it in 3 i guess.

[The Stranger]

Ok I just redid it on VH/VH. i played sloppy and didnt really care to play it optimally in terms of economy and military losses (I lost a FM when storming crete due to this sloppiness...)

anyway

t1: i move 1 FM from sparte to Crete, I hire 1 mercenary cretan archers, I besiege crete and make 3 rams. I put my spy in but no luck. I disband 2 ships. https://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7071/test1mn.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/test1mn.jpg/)


t2: I actually get lucky now, the spy opens gates, but it doesnt matter because i already have rams. I storm crete, it goes decent, but i lose a FM in the battle. the epeirotes near Pella go on the retreat. The makedons mass near Athens. I move my army from crete to athens, leaving only some akontistai as garrison. I play sloppy so i forget my spy, i also forget to disband the ship after it transported the units, so i should have been in a better financial position. I move my army from Sparte to besiege Corinth and end turn.

https://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2029/test2kn.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/407/test2kn.jpg/)

https://img812.imageshack.us/img812/138/test3v.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/test3v.jpg/)

https://img717.imageshack.us/img717/1788/test4lb.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/test4lb.jpg/)



t3: the makedonian army moves north to deal with the epirotes near Pella who are not besieging it but are staying close by. I move my army from athens to besiege Chalkis. I decided to leave the ship in athens and not disband it. the army near corinth is not strong enough to take it by assault on VH/VH (i have 2 haploi, 1 akontistai, 1 slinger and 1 FM vs 1 FM, 2 levy phalanx and 1 akontistai) so i decide to just keep sieging it.

https://img443.imageshack.us/img443/4223/test5fwh.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/443/test5fwh.jpg/)


t4: I take chalkis by assualt. the army cannot move anywhere so I end the turn, still besieging Corinth.

https://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9075/test6g.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/test6g.jpg/)

https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4569/test7w.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/85/test7w.jpg/)


t5: i move my army to help in the assault of corinth. I cant be asked to actually fight the battle but I will win no doubt.

https://img35.imageshack.us/img35/9475/test8s.jpg (https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/test8s.jpg/)


thats how you do it in 5 turns on VH/VH with sloppy play :P

[Lysimachos]

Nice.

[Nightmare]

thats how you do it in 5 turns on VH/VH with sloppy play :P

that's how you do it when the makadonians don't attack you, i guess, lol. they are all over me every time, sieging athens, sieging sparta, and attacking pretty much everything they can attack. right from the start.

i agree though - your experience was easy. i mean, if the makadonians actually run away from you instead of assaulting you, yeah, that sounds easy.

[The Stranger]

well on VH i can imagine that it will be hard, but i am sure i can defend a full stack of makedonians in athens with 4 FM and then counter attack chalkis and korinth. it might mean that you will not be able to take kydonia tho.

on the other hand, this has been typical macedon behaviour for me... i am rarely attacked by them. tho this game was atypical in the sense that pella was not taken by epeiros as it is normally done.

[Nightmare]

well on VH i can imagine that it will be hard, but i am sure i can defend a full stack of makedonians in athens with 4 FM and then counter attack chalkis and korinth. it might mean that you will not be able to take kydonia tho.

how do you defend against full stacks of macedonians with just 4 fm? i don't get it. am i missing something? the dude has levy pikes, medium pikes, maybe an elite thrown in there. he has other stuff too. and you've got 4 fm. what part of this don't i understand? i coudln't defend it with everything i had, and i've been playing rtw since day one.

[The Stranger]

what difficulty do you play on? i think it will be hard on VH battle difficulty, but i am sure its doable on medium battle diff.

just hold a narrow street part with 2 fm on guard mode. smash the rest from the side with the other 2. use ur missile to pepper the mass and try get a mass rout by killing the enemy general :P

ofcourse i didnt mean just 4 fm but the 4 fm + whatever you have near to, which should be some haploi and a few cretans.



ok i did another type of blitz. this better to simulate pressure on athens from the makedons. its on VH campaign M battle

t1: bring army from crete + spy to the athenai port. disband all ships. besiege corinth with the spartan army, make some ladders. end turn
t2: assault corinth. immediatly move the army from corinth to attack the full stack makedon army at Athenai. if you have done it right you should have a 3 way surround and the sea on the 4th side. attack and you will crush the first full stack easy. you should have 2100 men vs 2700 men. would the makedons have attacked athens it will be even easier. but in the open field you can also win it. 4007

then take the army from Athens and move it to attack chalkis. if they give battle like vs me it you might be able to take the city the same turn if you can fully rout the enemy. if not you will have to besiege. perhaps if you are lucky the spy will open the gates. the loss of 2 cities + their major army will enable you to even take demetrias in the next 2 turns.

4008 I wont actually fight the battle now, but i will undoubtly win it.


anyway i think this proves even more that KH are easy as long as you are very agressive and blitz the makedons.

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

Oh you rebellious poleis-krate :clown:

[Cute Wolf]

want to lost? Pontus, using Alex, VH/VH
or Hayasdan, using Alex, VH/VH

[Nightmare]

@stranger,

well, for me it's never battling 1, 2, or 3 macedonian stacks. it is literally battling 10 or so that all hit me one after the other.

either way, nevermind. compliments must be given where compliments are due. if u can face down anything approximating what i have to face on my KH campaigns and end up calling it "easy" afterwards, then you are a much better man than me. that's simply all there is to it.

[The Stranger]

can you please tell me how you play and on which difficulty? i think the problem is that you give the macedons time and dont attack them early. 10 stacks in a row means you must be atleast 10-20 years into the game i think. there is no way they can have so much army in the first few turns.

[Blxz]

either way, nevermind. compliments must be given where compliments are due. if u can face down anything approximating what i have to face on my KH campaigns and end up calling it "easy" afterwards, then you are a much better man than me. that's simply all there is to it.

This is the first time I have ever seen Nightmare give an inch in this forum. If I didn't dislike you so much I would applaud your character growth. Well done sir.

[The Stranger]

that is a very mature post...

[moonburn]

if you take kydonia in turn 1 you can land the kretan 1/4 army in the peloponesos (sparta region) and in that same turn you can besiege korinth and your besieged army should be turned towards athens you can move the athenian army except the akontistai unit and attack the stack outside korinth (1 less army) or you can attack it before you besiege korinth defeating and anihalating both armies means you conquer korinth in turn 1 (pull that one off and i will bow to you i was never able to do it but it´s doable in theory) and while doing that remember to ferry the rhodians towards chalkis

don´t worry about mnai that comes with conquering korinth kydonia chalkis and thessalia from taxing the population disbanding your navy means you loose your fastest way to move around if it troubles you that much just don´t retrain them and keep them in the athenian harbour with just 1 or 2 soldiers per ship

on turn 4 you will reach sidon with your diplomat and you can extort the seulekids for at least 10.000 mnai so that should balance out your check book

thats turn 1 for me in the kh campaign in turn 2 you should reach the epirotes and extort them cash for trade rights and alliance and even map information they normally pay up (talk to them after taking korinth and kydonia they react diferently depending on how big is your army and how many regions you got)

the batle around korinth depends all on how flexible you are moving your army around tactic is everything phallangites are slower then hoplitai use that to your advantage place the akontistai and spondenetai in the backs of the phallangitais using them well means you get to win those early batles (ofc i´m talking alot but i never took on both armies around korinth at the same time i always handle the one outside 1st and then take the city where the 2nd one stands but in theory you can defeat them both at the same time)

[The Stranger]

its only theoretically possible for one reason and one only, the greek army lacks light cavalry, thus chasing and killing routers is not as effective and thus its impossible to kill the korinth army to point of routing. and thats why you cant take the city in turn one. its easy to defeat that army on medium difficulty tho.

also there is no reason to get the army from rhodos to chalkis, the army from crete can take it in the same turn and you will require 1 ship less to do it. saves you money and it means you can put the tax on Rhodos on very high.

[d'Arthez]

I think the best you can do with Korinth is take it at the end of turn 1 sally, and that would be a long shot on VH/M. Not a recommended strategy.

[The Stranger]

they never sally me :S

[Nightmare]

can you please tell me how you play and on which difficulty? i think the problem is that you give the macedons time and dont attack them early. 10 stacks in a row means you must be atleast 10-20 years into the game i think. there is no way they can have so much army in the first few turns.

I play all games on VH/M.

I don't give Macedonia any time at all. The first time I ever played the campaign I tried to assault Kydonia with the army I had there (I thought that was what I was "supposed" to do - my army was right there!), and after clicking "next round" I was attacked at Athens by that Macedonian stack. So I restarted the game (I was just 1 round into it), thinking "ah, I'm not supposed to attack Kydonia, I'm supposed to pull everything out and fling it all at the Macedonians - everything I've got."

So that's what I did. Next game, I did not attack Kydonia. I literally pulled everything I had from every city right away, and flung it into the defense of Athens. I didn't even leave garrison troops in any cities - that's how much I pulled. Every family member, and every available unit went to defend Athens, and defend it aggressively. Right straight away, no pussyfooting around.

Yeah, I defended it the first round. And the second. And the third. But no matter how many stacks I beat, he had more stacks the next round, and more after that, and my units were just dwindling and I coudn't build any more units because I was in debt. Yes, I'd say he sent at least 10 stacks until he took Athens, then he took Sparta too because I didn't have anything but family members left, and they were running for their lives. He even followed my family members up there near that city northwest of Korinth (rebel city, has some kind of oracle in it) and tried to kill them. I've never seen an enemy stack just chase another stack and keep chasing, but he did it. My guys were starving too, and couldn't move more than 1 or 2 steps a turn - it really sucked and I almost lost them. Note that this was on the vanilla RTW engine too, not Alex which I hear is more aggressive.

The campaign was a nightmare, I almost lost, I had no cities on the mainland, and in fact the only thing I had left was family members, and I was still in debt. I left a post about this particular campaign, asking how the Macedonians could be so tough (they :daisy:slapped me, they :daisy:slapped Epeiros, they :daisy:slapped the Dacians, and they pretty much :daisy:slapped anyone they could get their hands on). Peeps just wrote back and said they had a great starting city in Pellas, great starting units, blah blah.

All I know is, I've never seen a more rabid AI controlled faction. Really, I've had the Selucids send endless stacks at me, but hell they have a huge empire to support it, and it's mid game when that happens. Macedonia did it from the start, with no huge empire.

I thought my experience was typical. But if you say it doesn't play out for you that way, then I don't know what to tell you. I have seen others on the forum complain about the KH campaign difficulty, so it can't just be me, but who knows? You are either way better than the rest of us, or the game just happens to play out differently for you for whatever reason.

Question, for whoever wants to answer. Which KH campaign is more typical? The one I described (i.e. "the campaign from hell") or the one stranger describes? In other words, how do YOUR KH campaigns play out?

[d'Arthez]

They have not much to sally with, so you can't send much to siege the city. I manage to get sallies when I send 1 FM, 1 Akontistai and 1 Hoplitai Haploi. Perhaps you can sneak in 1 more Sphendotorai, but that is hardly an army you could expect to win with.

If I send more than that, they won't sally, but they won't attempt to lift the siege either, so you can take Korinthos on turn 2. Still quite a good outcome though.

[The Stranger]

I play all games on VH/M.

I don't give Macedonia any time at all. The first time I ever played the campaign I tried to assault Kydonia with the army I had there (I thought that was what I was "supposed" to do - my army was right there!), and after clicking "next round" I was attacked at Athens by that Macedonian stack. So I restarted the game (I was just 1 round into it), thinking "ah, I'm not supposed to attack Kydonia, I'm supposed to pull everything out and fling it all at the Macedonians - everything I've got."

So that's what I did. Next game, I did not attack Kydonia. I literally pulled everything I had from every city right away, and flung it into the defense of Athens. I didn't even leave garrison troops in any cities - that's how much I pulled. Every family member, and every available unit went to defend Athens, and defend it aggressively. Right straight away, no pussyfooting around.

Yeah, I defended it the first round. And the second. And the third. But no matter how many stacks I beat, he had more stacks the next round, and more after that, and my units were just dwindling and I coudn't build any more units because I was in debt. Yes, I'd say he sent at least 10 stacks until he took Athens, then he took Sparta too because I didn't have anything but family members left, and they were running for their lives. He even followed my family members up there near that city northwest of Korinth (rebel city, has some kind of oracle in it) and tried to kill them. I've never seen an enemy stack just chase another stack and keep chasing, but he did it. My guys were starving too, and couldn't move more than 1 or 2 steps a turn - it really sucked and I almost lost them. Note that this was on the vanilla RTW engine too, not Alex which I hear is more aggressive.

The campaign was a nightmare, I almost lost, I had no cities on the mainland, and in fact the only thing I had left was family members, and I was still in debt. I left a post about this particular campaign, asking how the Macedonians could be so tough (they :daisy:slapped me, they :daisy:slapped Epeiros, they :daisy:slapped the Dacians, and they pretty much :daisy:slapped anyone they could get their hands on). Peeps just wrote back and said they had a great starting city in Pellas, great starting units, blah blah.

All I know is, I've never seen a more rabid AI controlled faction. Really, I've had the Selucids send endless stacks at me, but hell they have a huge empire to support it, and it's mid game when that happens. Macedonia did it from the start, with no huge empire.

I thought my experience was typical. But if you say it doesn't play out for you that way, then I don't know what to tell you. I have seen others on the forum complain about the KH campaign difficulty, so it can't just be me, but who knows? You are either way better than the rest of us, or the game just happens to play out differently for you for whatever reason.

Question, for whoever wants to answer. Which KH campaign is more typical? The one I described (i.e. "the campaign from hell") or the one stranger describes? In other words, how do YOUR KH campaigns play out?

well ive never encountered this in my games, even when i play other factions i see the makedons usually getting overrun by greece and epeiros.

this still doesnt change the fact that on medium battle difficulty you can have an army strong enough to beat a full stack in a sally from turn 2 and still take corinth in turn 2 and chalkis in turn 3. you might have to leave kydonia if you dont get lucky with the spy, although i think you should have enough movement points to drop them just in the right spot (the athens harbor) and get the 3way surround.

i just cannot see them having more than 3000 men attacking athens in turn 2 and you can bring 2000 men (including ~400 elite hoplites from your bodyguards) to match them, which should be more than sufficient to totally destroy them. and from there you should be in a position to get out of debt and you will be able to hold the front against them if they keep sending stacks or expand if they dont.


are you playing 1.2 on the 1.5 patch vanilla rtw?

[athanaric]

So that's what I did. Next game, I did not attack Kydonia. I literally pulled everything I had from every city right away, and flung it into the defense of Athens. I didn't even leave garrison troops in any cities - that's how much I pulled. Every family member, and every available unit went to defend Athens, and defend it aggressively. Right straight away, no pussyfooting around.
Defending Athens is a rather wearisome task. My first two or so successful attempts at a KH campaign (never finished though) started with pulling the royal "army" from Krete (without taking it, which is boring, but less of a risk), and getting it to Attike ASAP, while IIRC also sieging Korinthos with a smaller force. If possible, also one or two units from Rhodos. The Makedonian royal army sieged Athens and I had my seaborne division attack it from the West to lift the siege. This means duking it out in a wooded area (not too dense though), making ambushing a viable tactic. One of my armies started on a hill, and I put the spearmen in wait while ordering the missile troops to engage. Which lured the Makedonian king towards them and straight into the arms of my Spartan hoplites. Meaning there was no space or time for the feared hetairoi charge, and the Makedonian cavalry was effectively neutralized. With the rest, ist's just a game of patience and attrition. Kill off the more mobile elements, especially the remaining cavalry, and when there are only phalangitai left, well you know how to deal with them. When that one battle is over, your casualties shouldn't be very high and you can move all available forces (save for a token defending one, preferrably Chremonides who's a competent administrator) away from Athens to take Korinthos and Chalkis at the same time (Korinthos first if you can't handle both at once. In fact, you can already start sieging with a smaller force before the main battle). If that is accomplished, you're back in the black and you've won the campaign.

[Shadowwalker]

I play all games on VH/M.

Every family member, and every available unit went to defend Athens [...].

Yeah, I defended it the first round. And the second. And the third. But no matter how many stacks I beat, he had more stacks the next round, and more after that, and my units were just dwindling and I coudn't build any more units because I was in debt. Yes, I'd say he sent at least 10 stacks until he took Athens, then he took Sparta too because I didn't have anything but family members left, and they were running for their lives. He even followed my family members up there near that city northwest of Korinth (rebel city, has some kind of oracle in it) and tried to kill them. I've never seen an enemy stack just chase another stack and keep chasing, but he did it. My guys were starving too, and couldn't move more than 1 or 2 steps a turn - it really sucked and I almost lost them. Note that this was on the vanilla RTW engine too, not Alex which I hear is more aggressive.

The campaign was a nightmare [...]

Question, for whoever wants to answer. Which KH campaign is more typical? The one I described (i.e. "the campaign from hell") or the one stranger describes? In other words, how do YOUR KH campaigns play out?

I never encountered such an AI behaviour.
I don't play my campaigns on VH though. I used to play on H for some time but got tired by the AI fielding mercenary armies mostly ... which brings me to a question: did you take into account that on VH every AI faction gets huge (!!!) money bonuses and that the stacks you had to fight may have been exclusively composed of mercenaries? The area you're battling over (Greece/Makedonia) has a great and diverse unit pool to choose from.

Anyway: playing on Alex.exe and M/M seems pretty perfect to get a rather reasonable, yet challenging campaign (Pontos just conquered Pella in my new SPQR campaign, the Getai captured Segestica right before I could reach it, the Averni did the same with Massalia etc).

About KH: the last KH campaign I tried was on BI.exe still (about half a year back) and it didn't feature more than 2 mainland fullstacks of the Makedonians.
But it was of course not VH as well, so this is not useful info for you, I'm afraid.

[moonburn]

i think you´re mistake is not besieging korinthos if you show your face and do not punch them they´ll punch you
also on vh the ai will visit the mercenary pool regularly but there´s only 3 units of mercenary in the turn1 so i guess what happened was that you never totally obliterated the makedonian armies so they just retrained and kept returning augmenting their units by at least 3 every turn

there´s an army in korinth 1 in thessally and 1 in chalkis so it´s doable for the maks to keep you on the defensive if you don´t get a grip on your game but as i said take kydonia and extort the seulekids and epirotes for money via diplomacy wich should enable you to get back on your feet by turn 4 financially

they never besieged athens while i´m besieging korinth they normally just pull back to try and defend pella (also remember by the end of turn 1 i defeated the korinthian army and the one in chalkis is just 2 or 3 units so hardly enough to win in athens wich changes considerably the power balance in the lower balkans weakning the maks and making the epirotes an overall threat by the end of turn 1 wich they where not at the start since the maks had more units)

as for stranger yeap i´ve been trying for the past 2 days to find a way to take korinthos on turn 1 and it seems pretty desperate there´s always at least 1 family member that gets away with it to defend korinth instead of leaving it empty but doesn´t mean i won´t try i got it down to 150 units once divided by 4 regiments but since a family member with 1 unit escaped i don´t know if that would have been enough make korinth empty remember the "enemy where so few and feeble" so i supose it´s just a matter or killing off enough units before letting escape the batlefield and taking out both argeades)