War Exhaustion

I'm playing Macedon. I vassalised Getai, KH, Epirus, Sarmatians, Pontos, and was happily minding my business picking away at the rebels in Asia Minor when .... the Seleucids declared war on me.

I have been at war with them for 4 years now. I have probably killed 10 full Seleucid stacks. But they just ... keep ... coming. This is becoming a real drag. I have rolled them up to Antioch at this point, but its still ages to Baktria. At this rate I will have to fight ~100 full stacks in order to conquer them and have them stop annoying me.

I just can't take that! I don't wait to face the same stock army time and time again. I want to kill Romans! Germans! Gauls! Spaniards! Carthaginians (especially the Carthaginians - I am very worried about them. They have almost killed Lusitania and Rome and Egypt).

I can't autoresolve battles because their commanders have insane command stars. I always get clear defeats autoresolving stack v. stack.

I have tried using Force Diplomacy to get a cease fire but they just redeclare war the next turn.

Is there a way to quickly break Seleucid power so I can have fun in the West (and stem them crazy Carthies)?

The Force Diplomacy minimod in the unofficial mods section / auto_win attacker or defender.

You don't need to conquer them, just defend your lands: much fewer battles because you only have to fight the offensive stacks. After some failures the AI seems to lose interesset in a particular town/province and will leave you alone for a longer time.

Forced diplomacy won't help so much because they will break the ceasefire very soon if they still have stacks left that are destinied for your towns. (quiting and reloading can help because strategical targets are not saved).

Force Diplomacy on the other hand will work when they don't have the means to attack you.

Use move_character to whisk away offending enemy armies, send them to India or something and it'll be a long while before the Seleukids can gather big enough forces to trouble you again.

Course it helps if you're using the console to deplete their treasury as well.

Although if you're playing on VH campaign difficulty, you're screwed either way since they keep getting loads of money.

The Seleucids will always attack you if you own cities which they think are "rightfully theirs" - Eleutheroi ones that they used to own before they revolted. Or sometimes they're just stupid.

Conquer Asia Minor, take Antiocheia and build up the mics. Make an army out of that, use auto_win attacker until you get some experience/command stars, then just start doing auto-calc and retrain.

It can help to capture some AS border cities and give them to a small faction that the AS like. As Carthage I gave Cyrene to KH and was never attacked by the Ptolemies again - and they never took Cyrene from KH.

It always seems that every campaign I start it always comes down to fighting the Seleucids for half the game. I've fought them as Rome, Carthage and Baktria(uh ok this one its expected).

I just steamrolled them as Makedon - was in India by around 240 BC or so. Seleukids gone, Baktrans gone, Pontus gone, Haysadan gone, Ptolemais gone problem solved.

how is that possible? buildings take a while to build in EB, you can't really move on that fast after conquering a city :( how do you take over the middle east that fast? that is like 120 turns.

Pontus also ruined my game. They declared war on me so I had to wipe them out, bringing me into war with the Seleucids.

I was planning to build up a massive multistack army and do an Alexander surprise blitzkrieg. Instead I had to go into Asia Minor with 1 and a half stacks.

Go on the defensive. Conquer up to a small border (Syria, Sophene, and some border of Armenia is quite easy to defend from the east factions), then build armies with lot of archers and a few phalangitai. When they seige your border towns just wait for them to attack. When they do, set all of your archers to fire-arrow. They should destroy most if not all of the enemy seige equiptment. Move your phalangitai to defend anything that gets through. Most likely they will start sending crap after a short while (Pantodapoi and such), which is vulnerable to missile attack.

This tactic will mean you only have to fight a battle about once a year (though a seige battle), and you can meanwhile build up a large force to counter them, which I suggest you do in spurts.

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Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

Go on the defensive. Conquer up to a small border (Syria, Sophene, and some border of Armenia is quite easy to defend from the east factions), then build armies with lot of archers and a few phalangitai. When they seige your border towns just wait for them to attack. When they do, set all of your archers to fire-arrow. They should destroy most if not all of the enemy seige equiptment. Move your phalangitai to defend anything that gets through. Most likely they will start sending crap after a short while (Pantodapoi and such), which is vulnerable to missile attack.

This tactic will mean you only have to fight a battle about once a year (though a seige battle), and you can meanwhile build up a large force to counter them, which I suggest you do in spurts.

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Will I not lose a lot of troops to starvation?

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Originally Posted by Sand

I just steamrolled them as Makedon - was in India by around 240 BC or so. Seleukids gone, Baktrans gone, Pontus gone, Haysadan gone, Ptolemais gone problem solved.

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I'm guessing that Makedon and AS share MICs, don't they:beam:

No, I think it's Makedonia and Baktria that share MICs. I think Seleukids share with the Ptolemaioi... because there's no other Greek factions to share with if Epeiros and KH share...

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Originally Posted by Banzai!

Will I not lose a lot of troops to starvation?

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Yes, but you should have plenty left by the time the attack comes, and since those regions have good regional archers, they'll be easy to replace.

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Originally Posted by Chaotix27

No, I think it's Makedonia and Baktria that share MICs. I think Seleukids share with the Ptolemaioi... because there's no other Greek factions to share with if Epeiros and KH share...

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Yep it's Mak and Bak.

After playing a few more turns it looks like the Seleukids aren't so bad after all. I have discovered the scythed chariot. One charge down the flankss = instavictory, although the chariots tend to get used up.

I'm racing to Babylon at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Banzai!

Yep it's Mak and Bak.

After playing a few more turns it looks like the Seleukids aren't so bad after all. I have discovered the scythed chariot. One charge down the flankss = instavictory, although the chariots tend to get used up.

I'm racing to Babylon at the moment.

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Sounds you are having a good time with the Maks! I'm also having my own Mak campaign right now (round 250BC) and I've just unified Hellas and was just about to raise a couple of armies and invade Megale Hellas, until the Seleukidai attacked Byzantion... The most annoying thing is trully their endless stacks which don't bother me specifically much but it's also that their armies are usually of very good quality. Like, Argyraspides, Pezhetairoi and Prodromoi are very frequent in their big stacks. I'm doing well btw and it seems I'll be moving to Anatolia as well after all:sweatdrop:

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how is that possible? buildings take a while to build in EB, you can't really move on that fast after conquering a city :( how do you take over the middle east that fast? that is like 120 turns.

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Hmm looking at my campaign map shots [ 1.0 game, havent upgraded yet as the campaign is still ongoing], I believe I have exaggerated. By 240 BC I was only as far east as Persepolis, and as far south along the Nile as Memphis and as far west as Sicily/Southern Italy. By 229 BC, the Seleukeids were conquered, Ptolemies effectively destroyed [ I kept them alive so they would develop the desert towns they still held for me to take later] I was into Baktra and finishing off the Haysadan who were annoyingly running around in lots of very small stacks. My faction leader, Alkonyeus started off governing Pella for a few years, defeated the Epirotes, conquered as far east as Pura and Alexandropolis, then travelled back to Pella and died aged 70 something.

So about 160 turns. But basically I blitzed. Going east makes sense as the majority of your Level 2 governments lie in that direction. Antioch makes a decent capital option to fight public order when you start hitting Babylon area. Can also use it as a handy block on the Ptolemies whilst you send your armies further east into Persia.

1 - 2 [ second when I could afford it] front line stacks with - mainly levy phalangites and medium successor cavalry, hellenic or eastern slingers, artillery. As many movement boosting/casualty healing retainers as you can get. Garrison skirmish troops being churned out pretty much every turn and sent towards the front lines. Most "eastern" cities can churn out additional garrison skirmishers four turns after you take them. Then its just a case of staying focused on Seleukids and cities of Nile.

Frontline city reaches the city and takes it in one turn [ artillery FTW], then garrison troops [ 4 per city as a good rule of thumb] arrive and take over either on the same turn or next one. Frontline stack moves on to the next objective. Antioch, Alexandreia, Seleukeia need to have troop building prioritised as soon as the public order is stabilised. Roads wherever possible. Hitting Baktra was huge, because I didnt have to send my troops all the way back to Seleukeia for retrain anymore. There will be a year or two where youll have to avoid building anything pricy but when you do conquer the east, the money comes pouring in.

bonzai, how did you conquer the entire mid east in 120 turns? from the list of factions you destory, that is the case. how? did you mod the game?

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Originally Posted by craziii

bonzai, how did you conquer the entire mid east in 120 turns? from the list of factions you destory, that is the case. how? did you mod the game?

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I think you mean Sand. I'm only about 100 turns in and I've only got asia minor, greece and some of the black sea coast.

my apologies, hehe. I guess I should stop drinking for hte rest of the week.

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Originally Posted by craziii

my apologies, hehe. I guess I should stop drinking for hte rest of the week.

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:laugh4: I understand you completely, believe me:yes:

hi,

i think you have to prepare a good army for face them, in EB, like in rome the diplomacy never works forever, sometimes if they ask you to become a protectorate they even attack you again!

why don't you try to organise a army with horseman, archers and a good infatry for fight them.
try to charge the with some cavalery on the back after that you kill most of the with the arrows.....

i am in your same situation and i am winning them!

bye
Jiulius