Originally Posted by
ItsEm
Hi, just adding a post about a Hayasdan campaign that I am near to completing. Im around the 200 BC mark, so its been a long campaign (280 or so turns). Im playing the game at a high/high difficulty setting. The Hayasdan begin their campaign in the large valley that comprises modern Georgia. They have good infantry and cavalry and access to horse-archers, which can be a devastating weapon when used en mass. Problem is that the region borders a number of potential enemies: the Sarmations to the north, Pontus to the west, the massive Seleucid (AS) power to the south and the Phalava to the east. There are roughly 20 turns at the beginning where you have to build up your economy as quick as possible. I was able to grab Kotais in the west and Phraapsa in the east before the AS began to descend on me. Pontus and the Phalava start as allies against AS, so that was good. The difficulties of taking on AS so early were circumvented by what may be a glitch in the game, which I also noticed on my previous Sabayan campaign. If you send a diplomat to the AS capital and ask for a ceasefire, they will always accept. They may break the ceasefire every turn but you just need to ask again and the ceasefire is back on. Any siege in progress is stopped. Thats how I was able to deal with AS early. AS in my campaign did poorly against the Ptolomies, who grabbed their empire all the way to Perspolis and a little beyond, so the Ptolomies were my big problem for most of the game. Before they began to bite though, I made an alliance with the Sarmations and attacked and defeated Pontus, splitting their empire with the Macedonians. This is where it got trickly because the Macedonians soon broke an alliance with me and I was beset by them and the Ptolomies at the same time. Thanks goodness for bridge crossings as that is how I defeated many a mighty Macedon and Ptolomaic army at this time. The ithmus at Byzantion was the major battleground with the Macedonians. I was able to break Macedon finally by slipping an army across the Aegean and smashing and sacking many of their big cities, keeping my army going by purchasing mercenaries with the proceeds. Some of the cities at that time soon rebelled from my skeleton garrisons and went over to the Koinon Hellenon, which was nice. With attacks slackening in that area, I was able to take on the Ptolomies in the near east and grind them down in many large and small battles. To fight the phalanxes of both these powers, I needed to be able to build Hellenic native phalanxes as my main line, with masses of horse-archers on the flanks and more archers behind the main line. If I had no horse-archers, I would place my foot archers in columns on the flanks and move them around behind the enemy phalanxes to shoot them from behind. If I had no phalanxes myself, I placed my foot formations obliquely and never attacked, instead just letting the enemy attack. That way they lasted longer and pinned the enemy while my archers or cavalry could maneuvre behind for the kill. At this point I have seized Egypt and Persia and am now completing the final conquest of Greece, currently held by weak Macedonian and Koinon Hellenon powers. A small invasion from Carthage cause some sweats in Egypt but I tore their army a new a**hole and sent them packing (this was scary because in my previous Sabayan campaign a very powerful Carthage very nearly ripped Egypt from my grasp after a monstrous difficult campaign reducing the Seleucids. One fortunate thing is that the Sarmations never gave me any trouble, even though they cancelled my alliance at one point and were allies with Macedon. Guess they were busy with Germans and Saka in the north. Bactria cancelled it alliance with me after I conquered Persia and I was defeated several times by small but veteren armies with elephants, but they dont seem to be cable to put together full-stack armies. I made good use of assasins in this campaign, and killed many an enemy general, scores of diplomats, spies and enemy assasins. This was especially important in the near east, as Ptolomiac diplomats several times bought cities and armies of mine into their allegiance (that was annoying). Besides AS, none of my enemies ever granted ceasefires, and had to be destroyed outright. The Sabayan were not very aggressive even though they declared war as allies or subjects of the Ptolomies. I found this camapaing exciting and very challanging, but less so than winning as the Sabayan. That campaign was hell.
