AI Seleukids and Ptollies

[I of the Storm]

We all dislike the gray death and the yellow fever, right? We all know that sooner or later one of the two will break out (usually the ladder). In a recent Carthaginian campaign with fow lifted, I sent a diplomat to Syria to take care of the events there. My aim was to maintain the balance of power as long as possible.
The AS managed to take Tarsus but quickly seemed to be confused, moving single units and half stacks to and fro, without actually doing anything - while neglecting the garrisoning of its frontline cities Antioch and Damascus. As a result, I had to FD both of them repeatedly from the Ptollies back to AS.
It occured to me then that the reason for the dizzyness of the Seleukid AI was that last Ptolemaic foothold in Asia Minor, Side.
I think the AI doesn't know how to deal with this thorn in its side (no pun intended). So I FD this one to the AS as well, and lo and behold: for a decade or so, the Seleukids in Syria became suddenly focused. They took Sidon and now its trench war in Judaea.
My conclusion: these two ptolemaic settlements in Asia Minor, Tarsus and Side, confuse the seleukid AI to the point where it doesn't get anything done in the western theater, and consequently loosing to the Ptollies most of the time.
I have only this one game to base my conclusion on, but I'd like to know if anyone has had similar observations - that Tarsus and Side cause priority problems to the Seleukid AI?

[Bob Doad]

interesting :)

[Brennus]

that last Ptolemaic foothold in Asia Minor, Side.
I think the AI doesn't know how to deal with this thorn in its side (no pun intended).

Well it made me giggle.

[kaptainplanet]

Actually, you could be right. I remember just one game, where the Seleukids didnt slowly collapse as they usually do. Instead, they recaptured taken settlments in East Asia, and started expnding. I was very confused about that, especially because very early in the game, as Pontus, I had taken all their settlements in Asia Minor (and actually the whole Asia Minor). Somehow I thought that getting rid of these 2 provinces helped them focus. So maybe the case is that actually the Ptolemaean cities in Asian Minor block their AI..

[I of the Storm]

That would be 1 point in support. Thx.

[Damnas]

I tired and make an alliance with the Ptolies as soon as possible in my last Romani game since I read somewhere that the AI is worst when allied with the player. In that game the Seleukids and the Ptolies stayed at war until around 200 BC but the border never moved from Judea and the Ptolies stayed mostly contained to Egypt. However Baktria and Pahlava suffered as a result.

[Bob Doad]

OP we hate the Yellow Fever (Ptolomies) and the Grey Death(Seleukids)....what about the Lusotannans do they have a special name?

[tobit]

Hmm, maybe Browning Terror?

[w0lf]

Following the format of the other two, i guess it would be the Brown Diarrhea.
Also, registered just to be able to say this...

[I of the Storm]

Following the format of the other two, i guess it would be the Brown Diarrhea.
Also, registered just to be able to say this...
Very good, I like that. I don't have a solution for when they/it become/s endemic. Although in EB it's not as bad as in other mods.

[seleucid empire]

I like H campaign or VH campaign cause thats when the AI surprises you.
In M Romani Dominates the West and Ptolemies Dominates the East in most games ive played
In H, Its the Sweboz, Romani, Lusitanians, (sometimes Epirus do as well if they keep taras and wipe out the Romans) who dominate the west and the Seleucids or Ptolemies in the East
In VH stuff becomes crazy. You never know what faction becomes a superpower. Ive seen a Sarmatian empire stretching from the border of the Gaul in the west, all of Armenia in the south and east until the Saka lands. Ive also seen Dacia take all of the balkans and eastern Europe up to the baltic lands. In VH carthage also wipes out Rome in many of my games. The odd thing is, Ive only ever seen Seleucids dominate the east in VH mode. In one game as Casse, I watched Bactria grow to hold all of India and the Parthian Lands only to be steamrolled by 10 plus Seleucid fullstacks

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Very good, I like that. I don't have a solution for when they/it become/s endemic. Although in EB it's not as bad as in other mods.

Roll on EB2 with limited recruitment - no more phalanx spamming! Let Grey and Yellow Factions of Death spam pantodapoi and foot archers all they want, I can cope with that.

[I of the Storm]

Roll on EB2 with limited recruitment - no more phalanx spamming! Let Grey and Yellow Factions of Death spam pantodapoi and foot archers all they want, I can cope with that.

I hope I live to see it released...

[rickinator9]

I think the seleucid downfall is closely associated with the fall of antiocheia. I always see the ptolemies building huge garrisons there, while antiocheia is not really defended well. When Antiocheia falls, the seleucids start losing a lot of towns, as they can't get pezhetairoi anymore.

[Bob Doad]

Idk i quite like facing elite phalanx armies! In my last campaign as the Romani I fought multiple elite Seleukid armies in the deserts with an army of all Numidian Skirmishers, Maure inf, Gaurtamine inf, Maure Bows, and Numidian Cav with a Libyan general, sorry for the spelling. I was using them to ward off raiding Carthaginians parties(they had been banished inland) when i faced the first of seven armies! I really just wanted to weaken them so that my newest city would not be conquered and I weakened them with my skirmishers,held the line with my gaurtamines, shot at his skirmishers with my bows and led his cavalry away with my horsemen! When his horses had been led to the corners of the map I swung my general and maure inf behind his phalanxes and overwhelmed them!

[ForzaFiori]

I'm thinking that the OP might be right. In my current Romani game, AS and the Ptollies had a nice stalemate going on, until AS kicked the egyptians out of asia minor. Since then, they've taken the rest of the Levant, and the top of Egypt, almost to the boarder with Carthage (there's still that one greek town in eastern libya that the Ptollies own).

[seleucid empire]

I'm thinking that the OP might be right. In my current Romani game, AS and the Ptollies had a nice stalemate going on, until AS kicked the egyptians out of asia minor. Since then, they've taken the rest of the Levant, and the top of Egypt, almost to the boarder with Carthage (there's still that one greek town in eastern libya that the Ptollies own).

i believe ur playing on very hard mode?

[Blxz]

I almost never see the Ptollies do anything much. The AS is an unstoppable monster in all my games. I suspect it has to do with the bonus to movement that I have given to all armies. Cureently not running any other self-mods and yet they still end up like this...

https://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af98/Blxz/greydeathmini.jpg

Thats early in the peace, they eventually went on to take the Carthiginians out totally along with baktria the Hai and have almost finished with the Sauromatae. I forget who I am on this game but I tend to play the romans mostly so it is either them or the Lusotan.

Als, this is a regular occurrence for me. i have played dozens of EB games, at least every faction 2 or 3 times and many of them quite a bit more. 19 out of 20 games the AS dominates.....I miss yellow maps sometimes.

[seleucid empire]

Hey Blxz are you playing on VH mode? I wanna see if my theory is right that in all VH games Seleucids dominate the east(always happens for me)

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

The AS is an unstoppable monster in all my games. I suspect it has to do with the bonus to movement that I have given to all armies.

That would help the Seleucids a lot, with moving armies around their massive empire.

[ForzaFiori]

i believe ur playing on very hard mode?

I wish I played VH. That game is M/M.

[I of the Storm]

Interesting thing about the difficulty levels. I didn't know that the results differ so much. It might have something to do with the AI recruiting mercenaries above M difficulty, something it doesn't do on Medium.
My observation is from M/M games (suits my play style best).

[seleucid empire]

I wish I played VH. That game is M/M.
wow really??? i never see AS even survive in M games. For me Medium is always yellow fever

[Ca Putt]

The AS can get pretty evil when you play KH as this means you're inititally allied with the Ptollies and nobody competent (aka you) is there to strip the AS of their land(Pontos, Hay, Pahlava and baktria). My KH campaigns always result in Epic(or rather tedious) struggles against "THE EMPIRE"(AS), "The wild natives of Magna graecia"(the romans) and "The Wild natives of Iberia"(the lusitanians).

[Bob Doad]

The AS can get pretty evil when you play KH as this means you're inititally allied with the Ptollies and nobody competent (aka you) is there to strip the AS of their land(Pontos, Hay, Pahlava and baktria). My KH campaigns always result in Epic(or rather tedious) struggles against "THE EMPIRE"(AS), "The wild natives of Magna graecia"(the romans) and "The Wild natives of Iberia"(the lusitanians).

I request an AAR :whip: jk but it wud b cool

[Blxz]

I am not sure my difficulty level with that game. i have quite a few saves and they all vary. I found that picture lying around in my storage somewhere. If I am remembering the game correctly, I was roman. I used to play all VH/M but more recent games have been M/M; for that one I have no idea. So I can't confirm or deny your theory about the AS on VH difficulty.

[seleucid empire]

is that version 1.2? any chance you could send me that savegame?

[Ca Putt]

I request an AAR jk but it wud b cool you would laugh I actually thought about it and even wrote some lines of introduction, however the save got corrupted and I lost intrest :/

[capomafioso]

apparently theres a negative money cheat you can use to drain the enemies treasury,so does anyone know it?

[Blxz]

is that version 1.2? any chance you could send me that savegame?

Nope. The save is long gone. Each save is named after the faction. My 'Rome' save has been overwritten many times since then. It should be fairly easy to recreate though. It happens in almost every single game to the point of being boring. Just double movement points. It makes all the little minor factions much more active and a more fun game overall. Pontus actively tries to expand and the Hai tend not to go north until much later in the game, normally after the AS take their southern cities. Also gaul ends up being more interesting.

The downside, as you may have guessed, is that within a few decades the AS recovers it's strength. They are able to bring their heavy Phalanx armies to the east and start to wipe out the eastern factions. Once that is done they bring their whole army back west and take out the Ptolomies. From there the whole map just collapses. Fun times to be had by any powerful western faction looking for a challenge.

In an effort to balance this I have just recently started using a -50% happiness bonus to both the Ptolomies and the AS in their core buildings. It does work much more effectively but they still expand by about 200BC. My next game will replace that with a law negative instead to sap some of their money. I suggest you try somehting similar or they WILL steamroll.

[Heneryv3]

Has anyone noticed that the Gaulish factions are always killed by Romans or the sweboz creating the red fever and the pink eye. For example in my casse campaign by 250 both Gallic factions were reduced to 1 region while the sweboz took over all of Gaul. While in my Carthage game Rome has pushed in and controls half of Gaul along with half of it being sweboz. Considering the sweboz economy this is quite a feat

[LusitanianWolf]

In my current Pontus game I'm fighting both Grey Death and Yellow fever who put their differences behind and are now the best friends around :wall: And Green Pestilence (Epirus) just decided to join the fun, how nice. XD

[seleucid empire]

haha the green scourge i call them. Also sometimes theres the macedonian back scourge. Both of these are more dangerous than the grey death of yellow fever because their empires are more compact and thus they can send 2-3 stacks over to asia minor each year. Have fun :P

[LusitanianWolf]

haha the green scourge i call them. Also sometimes theres the macedonian back scourge. Both of these are more dangerous than the grey death of yellow fever because their empires are more compact and thus they can send 2-3 stacks over to asia minor each year. Have fun :P
Thanks I will =) Too bad I won't have much time to play in the near future.
I'm playing with Jirisys' Mega Mod so movement is a lot faster which means that both AS and Ptolies can gather and send lots of troop realy fast but also that I can react more easily. I'm more worried with them than with Epirus because Its much more harder to counter attack the two giants without crazy blitzing all of Asia, I was wanting to expand slowly to Greece and around the Pontic Sea, not to be lurking around Iran and the Eastern Steppes... Thought possibly I'll have to send a few raiding parties to sack Egiptian Hearthland.

Btw, congratz on your insane AS campain! I've never played half that long due to CTDs, and getting bored by the logistics of huge Empires (and never ending stack spam). I hope I can continue a lot more with this one since I freaking love Pontus and I'm getting much less CTDs than usual (playing in a different computer)

[EB rocks]

macedonion black scourge

Hey seleucid i call them the black death. stupid plague :whip:

[vollorix]

There are some measures which can be undertaken to slow/weaken Grey and Yellow plague:
1. One could adjust the EDU changing the recruitment time for their elites ( infantry ) from 1 to 2 turns ( 3 turns doesn´t seem to be worth for the AI, but i might be wrong, without having prolonged observations data ).
- editing EDU is easy as cake, as long as you make a backup of the original files, then open it with a text editor ( preferably "notepad++ to avoid corrupted data ), and finaly changing a single number from 1 to 2 in the following line ( second one from the bottom of each entry ): stat_cost 2, 3533, 883, 80, 120, 2204
The good thing is: it´s save game compatible, unless you corrupt the file, but then your .exe file won´t start the game, instead showing you the error message ( which will appear only, if you have -show_err added to your "exe shortcut" - read more in technical help ).

2. Donating rebells significant summs of money ( iirc, 30k is the highest one you can give them via console at once - add_money "slave" 30000 ), enables the Eleutheroi to retrain their depleeted units, train new ones, and even hire mercs ( if on H/VH campaign difficulty ). Of course, once the immobile gouverneurs are gone, the settlements become much easier prey for the factions, but this should give you a timeframe of approximatly 40 years to keep thoes plagues at bay.

3. Use force diplomacy mod to gift some conquered settlements to other factions which aren´t hostile towards yours, to create a buffer between you and the annoying AI faction that doesn´t know when to stop; and don´t forget to pay regular tribute to those factions, so that they wouldn´t come to the idea to start beeing a problem instead. Of course, this is more difficult on VH campaign difficulty.
Additionaly, one could "cause" a fresh war between those factions, again using "forced diplomacy", after one has got rid of common boarders with at least one of those factons. But in most cases AS and Ptoleys would start fighting one another anyway short after one of them doesn´t see you as their main goal, for the moment.

I know, most of this "tricks" are well known to veteran EB players, but some new people might find it helpful.