Fun way to play AS.

Like many others here, i find the Seleukids interesting as a faction, with good roleplaying opportunities. (They have these extra titles like "overlord of Micra Asia or Mesopotamia or one other)
However i don't like their starting position. Immediate war from all sides, too large to properly oversee, a heap of rebellious provinces you don't want, AND: no Eleutheroi territory between you and your immediate enemies, which makes a cease-fire with them impossible.

So: rebellious provinces + no Eleutheroi barrier = eureka!

I disband all troops in all regions i do not want, turn off autobuild/recruit, disband some structures (you'll get so much money you can leave the wonders, but temples or other public order buildings MUST go, occasionally also sewers/healers. I like to leave economic buildings as well, MICs go, to give my Pahlavan & Baktrian heirs equal chances.).

In this particular case i chose to become a Karian/Southern Anatolian state. So i disbanded structures and troops, moved capital to Ipsos and let my empire crumble.

I conquered the two Ptolemaeian Anatolian settlements, and let the one closest to Antiocheia revolt as well. Side, i held on to. Now having an Eleutheroi barrier between me and Ptolies i could easily obtain a ceasefire. However war was soon declared as i progressed to take Halikarnassos, and later because of Ptolies fruitless attempts at taking "our friends" in Cyrene; whom i have nothing to do with.

You could do this in any way you want; if you want an empire, based on the banks of Tigris and Euphrates rivers - go ahead, let it all revolt and play YOUR game, historical or not ;) .

yeah, crumbled AS empire was somewhat a long time favourite..... :coffe:

But it remains annoying that there's always gonna be scripted wars between AS and Ptolemies. However, with the crumbled AS-start-up, and all the Eleutheroi provinces, Ptollies don't seem to eager to expand, strangely. It seems, without an AS to pick on around, Ptolies are quite peaceful...

Are there other factions that lend themselves well to this kind of play?

If you want better "Crumbling Empire" campaign, you should try karthadast, FD your Iberian holdings for Lusotann, FD your Sicilian holdings for Romaioi, and your Islands holdings for Either Lusotann or Romaioi. Turtle arround in africa and try to conquer Ptolies.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Actually, that campaign will result (after you trashing ptolies) mostly Romaioi grows as a big superpower at the north, before at war with you.

It'll be even better in AtB! (Check out the new Nabatu previews!)

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You know what's even better, playing as the AS? Try not to lose a single province (except Asaak). Seriously, it's really fun to try and hold on to Marakanda and Alexandreia-Eschate and turn them into stable powerbases from where you can march into the steppes. I succeeded in that for the first time and I sent them Sakai flying back to Chighu.

"In this particular case i chose to become a Karian/Southern Anatolian state. So i disbanded structures and troops, moved capital to Ipsos and let my empire crumble."

"If you want better "Crumbling Empire" campaign, you should try karthadast, FD your Iberian holdings for Lusotann, FD your Sicilian holdings for Romaioi, and your Islands holdings for Either Lusotann or Romaioi. Turtle arround in africa and try to conquer Ptolies."

Holy crap, I have saves of both of those situation (complete with Ipsos as the AS capital). :laugh4:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hax

And if you order now, you get a Maurya preview for free!

You know what's even better, playing as the AS? Try not to lose a single province (except Asaak). Seriously, it's really fun to try and hold on to Marakanda and Alexandreia-Eschate and turn them into stable powerbases from where you can march into the steppes. I succeeded in that for the first time and I sent them Sakai flying back to Chighu.

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Hahaha! That's a funny post! "...Even better is to not to lose any single province, not one, hold on to it all, don't let anything go - except Asaak. (!!!)..."

Might i inquire, why not Asaak?
And also, have you crumbled your AS? It just looks beautiful seeing all that space on the map becoming available. It's as if the ice melts and the land becomes visible again.

Seriously i think keeping Marakanda and Alexandreia-Eschate and turning them into stable powerbases from where you can march into the steppes, while letting all other provinces go, is more the challenge I'm looking for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zim

"In this particular case i chose to become a Karian/Southern Anatolian state. So i disbanded structures and troops, moved capital to Ipsos and let my empire crumble."

"If you want better "Crumbling Empire" campaign, you should try karthadast, FD your Iberian holdings for Lusotann, FD your Sicilian holdings for Romaioi, and your Islands holdings for Either Lusotann or Romaioi. Turtle arround in africa and try to conquer Ptolies."

Holy crap, I have saves of both of those situation (complete with Ipsos as the AS capital). :laugh4:

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Problem with crumbling empires is provinces revolting back to you. With Carthage, i "crumbled"* everything but Spain, my North African holdings, as well as the Island holdings, including Lilybaeum and did a classical Iberian Nation, problem was Carthage-city revolting back to me every now and then.

*By "crumbling" i mean disbanding all troops and public order structures, to get the province to rebel, to Eleutheroi.

I've been tossing around a similar idea. I'm considering RPing some sort of civil war within the Seleukid state. The idea here is that you will play as the 'loyalists' who are reduced to a handful of provinces. I plan on giving most of the AS territories to Baktria through FD (and renaming them something appropriate). I might even use cheats to put in appropriate factional MICs before I do it so they can start building armies right away, but that would be a bit more work. The main question is where to place the AS loyalists. Anatolia might be best, but Mesopotamia would also work. If I went with Mesopotamia, I might also give Pontos some of the AS cities in Anatolia and rename them as Pergamon or something (I've already changed them to an East Greek culture). I'd probably leave a few eleutheroi buffers, but I suspect this set up would still get pretty brutal, fairly quickly.

My worst fear about this plan is that it will just result in an uber-Egypt. On the other hand, if you guys have seen them go passive without the Seleukid threat, it might just work.

You'll need an Eleutheroi barrier between you and the Ptolies. Easiest to get this would be if you stayed in Mesopotamia,, rather than Micra Asia, because Ptollies are close there.

Also, i wouldn't bother getting a ceasefire & trade rights with them, until they solidly have Cyrene. Otherwise about every turn they'll attack Cyrene, and you'll get a scripted war. Makes me think... one should have the option to let the Cyrenians take care of their own bussiness.. but yea, the game's called total war after all, so what can you expect, huh?

Move your capital as far away from the provinces you'd like to lose.