Any ideas on this one?

[GeneralHankerchief]

So, here's the situation:

It's 146 BC (yes, 146). The Civil War has been dragging on for about 30 years now, with the Scipii slowly making gains. I am pushing to cut the other Roman factions off from water, with moderate success. However, in Thrace, my faction leader Decimus Scipio runs into this:

https://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n231/GeneralHankerchief/eep.jpg

Good news: They haven't been aggressive.
Bad news: They're massing.

The closest army is in central Greece, and it has to blast through Thessalonica and Bylazora to get to the action.

Anybody have any ideas on what to do? I would like this city in my possession as well as these armies removed. It's times like these where I wish night battles were included in RTW vanilla... :help:

[warhero]

You could
A) Raise another army with a strong general to bring up to the front with you
B) You can hold for a bit and see what the enemy does, either move and spread away like a bad AI, or attack you.
C) Seeing as the Highest command stars is 4, you can sally Forth, lead your armies and test your skills and luck

This has happened to me before, and I tried Option A

[Craterus]

Let them attack. They probably won't send all the armies, and if they do, you could probably still win.

[jhhowell]

A couple of thoughts. First, you're overflowing with gold, so if you have a diplomat handy you could try bribery. That will likely end the game in a hurry, so it's arguably an exploit...

Second, Campus Scythii appears to be heavily fortified and poorly garrisoned. If you can shift your camp to within a single turn's movement, you can snag the city and hopefully provoke the Brutii into attacking much tougher walls than your field fortifications. You might be close enough already, but I suspect the onager is too slow (and it's the key unit since you need to be inside the walls before the massive army can react).

[El Diablo]

Go for the bridge. If they attack you there then their bad. You have some good ranged units. It would be the best place to defend.

If the do not attack you at the bridge then see how many merc you can recruit (and if enough) take them to attack the city to the north (leaving the majority of your army at the bridge choke point) and wait for them to block the river with their own corpses.

Good luck...

[Caius]

Buy Mercenaries.

Or retreat.

[Brutal DLX]

Don't hide in the fort and wait. Be aggressive and fight. If you're good, you could take on 4-5 stacks, if you don't trust that much in your skills, fight on the bridge (while baiting them to go there by letting mercs besiege the Scythian city, as has rightly been suggested before).
Even if you lose, you may be able to retreat (if no own city close, send a ship to the coastline) and retrain, and it's a good bet you will kill more of them than they kill of yours and thus you will slowly get local numerical superiority.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Thanks for the input guys.

At the moment the northern bridge is closed off to me, more troops are blocking the way. I camped on the bridge south of the city (not shown in the screenshot) for an extended period of time but no luck.

I'll try to go around every army, to the left. Maybe just blast through one. I'll let you know what happens.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Thanks guys, the northern bridge worked like a charm. :yes: Campus Scythii has fallen and Campus Getae will go soon.

There's a similar situation in Julii territory, with a bridge nearby... :evil:

[x-dANGEr]

Attack like a lion and kill them all!

(It is quite possible, if not easy if you play on Medium Battle Difficulty. Though, if you're playing on Very Hard.. I'd also go for the above, and sacrifice one general bravely ~;) )