The Grey Death?

Playing as Hayasdan right now, on EB 1.2 huge units, hard campaign, normal battles. No cheats, some light modding in Traits of my own that may probably give me a minor advantage. It is now about -250 or something. I'd need to start the game to see the exact date.

I took Trapezous, Ani-Kamah, Karlti and Egrisi, in this order, in the first ten years (no real blitzing I think). Around -267 a sizeable Seleucid army transgressed into my territory, near the capital, but I intimidated them out of attacking by gathering almost all of my rag-tag forces of Caucasian archers and spearmen.

Since I was concentrating on trying to build a semblance of an economy, I didn't have any MIC beyond level 2 anywhere (still don't). But Armavir is a city and I have pretty good infrastructure otherwise.

My army is composed mainly of Caucasian archers, Scythian horse archers and Armenian spearmen now, along with the extremely useful heavy cavalry of the family members (one of them at 1 gold chevron, his bodyguards are nasty little brutes).

The problem is the Seleukids. Some years ago, they transgressed again, and I moved a large army to get them to back down. But they caught a lonely unit of depleted slingers, thereby declaring war, and I proceeded to own their faces, sacking Ekbatana for top dollar, and later taking it again along with 2 other cities. I have Phraaspa as well.

They are not fighting back! Sure, they did send two half-serious armies at me, but I owned them with arrows, including one large battle where I had 2 FM and only foot and horse archers. Maybe it's too early or something, but they started it; my entire armed forces are probably barely two full stacks' worth and they're spread from north of the Caucasus to Irak. As the human player, with the AI geared to think of me as the greatest threat, I expected to be steamrolled by full stacks of the bastards, with heavy cavalry and all that jazz. I know they have high level MIC's, I've destroyed 3 already. Where then is the famous grey death?

And the Sauro's are a joke as well, they like to raid Kotais when it's thinly defended but all it ever wins them is that my faction leader moves his old butt out of the city to slaughter them with a bit of reinforcements or, on one occasion, none at all. Their lands are fairly large otherwise.

BTW, somebody should tell the Sele's to recruit prodromoi or something that can deal with horse archers, because they are just laying down and building the Pan-Caucasus empire in the middle of the 3rd century BC shouldn't be a cakewalk :no:

I wish i were you.. I'm always relying on shitty mercenaries, because the seleucid armies of doom keeps coming for me, with elite pikes and the lot s:

I've reguarly had to give up cities and simply sack everything, because no matter what happens, the seleucids throw everything they got at me. They were winning a campaign vs the ptollies once, then they attacked me, and turned all their men on me. 20 years later, most of the western parts of their land were ptolly -.-

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Originally Posted by A_Dane

I wish i were you.. I'm always relying on shitty mercenaries, because the seleucid armies of doom keeps coming for me, with elite pikes and the lot s:

I've reguarly had to give up cities and simply sack everything, because no matter what happens, the seleucids throw everything they got at me. They were winning a campaign vs the ptollies once, then they attacked me, and turned all their men on me. 20 years later, most of the western parts of their land were ptolly -.-

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Yeah, in my games too they usually neglect every other front and send stack after stack at me. I usually get DoW'd after about five years and don't have time to take more settlements than the three closest ones north from my capital. Read about a tactic about harassing the approaching Seleucid armies with armies consisting only of horsearchers, but haven't tried it yet.

3 cities on top of Ekbatana taken, btw, not two. Anyway, don't take Aghvan early. Your biggest starting army is pointed west, so use it to take one of the cities there. Reinforce it with the small southern armies. Take both Trapezous and Ani-kamah before you head north, as they have lighter defenses (8 units each, or 8 and 6; the northern towns have 10 both).

As for horse archer only armies, they're good but not that good. The sele's in my game are deploying elite hoplite units (silver shields and babylonians most notably) and horse archers haven't got the firepower to repel those, you need foot archers which can dent them more, or skirmishers if you can use them. Pinning them down with Armenian spearmen is also useful; Caucasians are too weak imo and they take up too much population.

I forgot to mention that I'm playing on alex.exe.

Anyhow, I played a bit more (followed by ctd) just now, and I'm consolidating, finally took Aghvan and I'm trying to get some reinforcements to the South, because I have no more striking force, all my troops are in cities. The sele's aren't making anything of it, and Seleukeia and Babylon are looking juicy with 2 units in each. I'm planning to Expel their people to my kingdom and when I do, there'll be a lot of town promotions. Seleukeia has 26k people.

Gotta try going south(west) before going north, I've always taken the north ones first for some reason. And with the horse archer only -armies I meant just emptying quivers and then retreating, done without FMs of course to avoid getting negative traits.

I have a similar Hayasdan campaign where the Seleucids just went comatose after I first kicked them out of the mountains and then took Seleukeia and Babylon for good measure. I think it's due to one or more of:
(a) they had fared badly in the Syrian wars, and the Ptolemaioi were my allies
(b) they were bankrupt, and any new money they got went to raising armies in the east to fight Baktria and Pahlava
(c) I had sizable garrisons in all my border cities

It only lasted a few years though. Once Baktria kicked into high gear and wiped out all their eastern armies and cities, the Seleucids suddenly woke up, retook both Antiocheia and Tarsos, and got active in Asia Minor. This was also when their cash balance first went positive, so I think there's a cause-and-effect going on. Check to see if they have non-zero cash in your game?

Just use some bad FM you want dead anyway xD

Also, I've never been able to keep an alliance with the ptollies. (Not using force diplo), As soon as i get a border with both of them, they'll (normally), stop fighting. I saw them sit still for 20 years in another Hayasdan campaign, then suddenly ptollies attacked me.

Burned everything down to the bloody ground in retalliation.

When first times playing Hai on M/M i used to experience similar behavior of the dumb AI, but woo, if you play on VH.
Concerning HA vs. elite phalanx units: well, if there are no more then 2-3 of them, all you need are some good slingers, you know, aiming their backs ;) What i don´t get is, why are the Scythian HA´s ( available on level 2 auxilla ) cheaper and faster to muster then Armenian native HA? I mean, historical accuracy is a nice thing ( if it´s the case here? ), but a bit more of morale and limited AoR, wich comes too late for the inevitable AS attack, doesn´t sound very plausible to me...
I´m currently playing on BI.exe and i love the shield wall ability! With a bit patience and micro, your units take minimal losses, while staying warmed up, and punch through the enemy lines. Of course, you need units with significant armor.

It might be that they're running out of money. I tried to pull off money-related shenanigans with a diplomat, and most or all big factions were flatlining at 0. However, the sele's don't seem to be losing ground except against me. My only ally is Pontos, and they're doing ok but are at peace with AS. I have Seleukeia and Babylon, most of my family members suck, and I got a rather cheezy heroic victory against the only serious stack they ever sent (and I'm using "serious" very liberally here because that stack had no family members in it, nor any cavalry of any sort.)

Apart from the obligatory and useless thureoporoi (sp) and ----,,---- phalangitai, I've seen them come up with mainly Babylonian heavies, persian spear-archers, persian heavy archers, mercenary pezhetairoi, some silver shield boys, a few slingers and 3 stacks of ioudaioi early in the game which got lolowned. I remember at least a unit of thorakitai. But, apart from the very occasional FM, no cavalry. Zero. And a cavalry heavy army, say hippokontistai prodromoi hetairoi, would tear me apart because my Armenian spearmen are inferior, my family member bodyguards are depleted, and my foot and horse archers... well, yeah.

But it's probably because I didn't give them time to sort themselves out (if I'm invading them with foot archers and armenian spearmen along with the uber scythians it's pretty damn early in the game, I guess) so they could begin churning out stacks of heavy hoplites; this probably requires some more waiting on just hard campaign. Instead, the moment they attacked, with a very lackluster force I might add, I went all "say hello to my little friend" on them. Now I've taken their heartland, and I am the most advanced faction (lots of sewers, baths, healers and schools).

Perhaps if I just defended until about 250-245? Maybe wait till I have a proper army of armenian main line and elite units (though getting there with 5 or 6 settlements is a female dog)?

Caucasian ARchers and slingers are your best bet. Get HA if you can. Caucasian spearmen to draw their attention. But dont let them engage in melee

Rotten, you are aware that Alex.exe tells the AI to be more defensive than normal. Also keep in mind that it takes a while for the AI to really kick off. And difficulty plays a large part also.

By about 250 you should be facing some decent resistance provided you are at Hard or very hard campaign difficulty. Although most likely the alex.exe AI will just sit back and wait for Alexander to come conquer them....thats what the game was designed for afterall. Perhaps you should consider BI.exe or Rome.exe if alex.exe is not satisfying enough for you?

Good luck.

Maybe so, but I was under the impression that it was the best, most competent AI. Is that wrong?

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Originally Posted by rotten

Maybe so, but I was under the impression that it was the best, most competent AI. Is that wrong?

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Highly debatable. And I hate debating that point. From what I understand:

Alex.exe: Retrains, maintains garrisons more effectively, more passive in general which avoids constant assault spamming, (other?).

BI.exe: Possibly retrains (one thread suggests it does), tends to more often attempt naval invasions, moves forces more regularly into attacks (which can lead to continuous spam attacks)

Rome.exe: Standard game, no retrains, virtually no naval invasions.

I use BI.exe on one computer simply because thats what I started with when i tried submods and Rome.exe on my other computer coz I like all the pretty faction defeated pictures.


By far the most effective way to kickstart the AI factions is to increase the base movement points. I forget which file you need to mod but it involves changing the number from '80' up to somehting you like. I suggest about 140. Game is fully stable on that value and movement is not insane but far more managable for the player and the AI seems to put some serious effort into expanding and invading me even at long range (multiple Ptolemy stacks invading Saba homelands after I fought them at Axum...for example).
I have heard that any value over 100 will make the angels cry but have yet to see any evidence for this.

Good luck dude, hope you know what you are asking for in trying to wake the sleeping grey death.

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Originally Posted by rotten

Maybe so, but I was under the impression that it was the best, most competent AI. Is that wrong?

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Not really. It just has a massive cash-flow and a large number of cities capable of producing elites. Also, the A.I.'s hatred of the player means that the Seleucids' rivals will often sign peace with them once they are at war with the player. So instead of being piled on by its neighbours, the Seleucids can throw stack after stack of elites at you. That is the Grey death.

no, I mean the Alex.exe ai compared to the other two, not the Seleukids per se.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Not really. It just has a massive cash-flow and a large number of cities capable of producing elites. Also, the A.I.'s hatred of the player means that the Seleucids' rivals will often sign peace with them once they are at war with the player. So instead of being piled on by its neighbours, the Seleucids can throw stack after stack of elites at you. That is the Grey death.

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That happens to me in every game, where I'm near the Sele's xD And I'm on plain RTW.

Havn't really tried others, but my plain RTW game, Hard is more than sufficient for me, as i usually get gangbanged by 2-3 AI nations by 260. (If i'm lucky, i can get to 255, but by then). In my Armenia games, I usually find my self fighting Sauros and Sele's quite early. The Ptollies make peace with the Sele's once we share a border, build up for a few years, then attacks me too. And usually, the Parthians march an army to that little town, above the mountains, on the western coast of the caspian, to attack me, even though we share no border, and they're fighting for their lives vs the seleucids.

I usually give my self permission, to move those parthian armies, or use Auto-Win, as it's not realistic. (or call it me being a bad player/being lazy, whatever ya fancy, I just don't enjoy it, when some random nation, breaks off all trading relations, to get a city with 1500 inhabitans.. Never do it with nations i share a border with.)

It goes totally ape shit on me, when i try VH, so moved down to H

Basic movement, eh? I must confess I have been trying to extend the movement range of armies in this game. Seems ridiculous that a roman army can't move from, say, the river Po to Thapsus inside of a season, they could do it in a matter of weeks irl without straining themselves.

Well, hope i can move to BI.exe after this campaign without too much trouble. As for waking up the seleukids... I have all or almost all of their best provinces. I've split them in two. They are broken as a world power, though the east part should be able to put up a fight vs. baktria, pahlava and/or the Saka, and the east, against Pontos. They have, however, nothing on me, and neither does King Kong, because IrakMesopotamia is insanely wealthy in this game, I have 16k people and almot 1k trade income in Armavir alone, and I am starting to get to some semi-advanced unit types.

Movement is more because of gameplay reasons and the fact that it cant be well represented in turn based games

How much harddrive space do you have? Personally, I've got more than I need, so i made a copy of the base RTW game, and installed EB on that, and kept a clean BI game too :)

More than enough HDD space. I just replaced my old trooper with a 160 GB 'Cuda. I could've taken a larger one but that might give my very old PC headaches.

Alex is rather unstable, crashing and such, and my computer is barely able to run the mod as it is (the vanilla game runs quite smoothly though), is BI more stable?

Anyway, I have about half of the territories I need to win already, but with all the ctd's it might be a long time before I actually finish. Hope my assassins can clear out the Pontic ruling class so I don't have to declare war on my ally. However, what with me pummeling the Arche Seleukeia into submission they've done quite well; they have the western half of the north coast of Asia Minor (Trapezous is mine and I don't think they ever took Sinope) up to the province just north of Pergamon as well as Byzantium, despite Makedonia doing alright themselves and puppeting Epeiros. The Arche is keeping an almost full stack army in Ankyra and they have strong garrisons in other cities there, but I've got Mesopotamia, so I can just throw a swarm of men in their general direction (which is what they should be doing to me, which is why this thread is even here) and since those men will have composite bows they are thoroughly penetrated. Though I will mop up the East first. If the game doesn't beat me yet by crashing all the time!

I find the effectiveness and aggressiveness of each faction varies from game to game.

I find that if you keep your border armies weak, the AI tends to throw just barely enough to have about a 60% autocalc win rate. I usually keep my armies at quarter stack at most when playing as the Seleucids. I haven't even taken Sidon in 15 odd years and the Ptolemies still aren't spamming stacks at me.

Rotten, did some pokeing around to find the right file for movement points. Its in the descr_character notepad file. Scroll down a small bit and 'default movement points' should be there with a value of 80. As I said in my other post a value of less than 150 or so (I settled on 140 for most games now and its fine) won't make the game unbalanced. It does allow you to bring reinforcements around a larger empire with greater ease.

Main point to remember is that invading through italy and greece you can bypass the first few cities and attack the enemies rear without them being able to stop you. You should avoid doing this as its just plain impossible in real life. When used on the defensive and for assembling armies and transporting by boat though this setting is game-changing in how it allows you to assemble more varied armies and send units home for retraining and back within a reasonable timeframe.

Also, remember this will only apply to newly created games and is not applied to older saves. The old saves still work but have the old movement. So your current game with half the victory conditions provinces will have to continue at slow speed.

Taking time to mobilise armies is part of the difficulty, and the reason for watchtowers and spies. I use it for that very purpose in my Pergamon game; I have three armies all based in Mysia, dedicated to Thrace (for Makedonia and occasionally the Getai), northern Asia Minor (basically for fighting Pontos) and southern Asia Minor (for the Seleukids). If you're wondering why they're all so far away, it's a roleplaying thing. I have type IV governments in every other settlement, and they are all parts of a Helleno-Thracian Confederacy. Which means no armies stationed in their lands, they pay tribute in return for military protection when threatened by an enemy.

My spies keep an eye on opposing factoin activity so that I usually have a turn or two's warning that a pair of FMs need to leave Pergamon for the relevant camp and get the army marching. Takes two or three turns for them to reach the border, so the settlements have to be able to hold out that long.

Yes, difficulty-wise I would have to restrict my attacking a little if I use this (thanks for the file name anyway) but at the same time it might be helpful for the AI if I'm forced to keep hefty garrisons in all my cities because they can bypass my front line. Though I'm not sure they will. I don't really think the extra movement will work to my advantage more than the AI's because their ministacks of reinforcements will be less exposed to things my über famous victor conquering hero warlord excellent tactician etc. faction heir with 8 command, 3 doctor-type ancillaries, 3 silver chevrons on the bodyguard and a lot of horse archers. I got 3 heroic victories versus small phalanxes in 1 turn. It does really bug me that I can't move my guys more than like 250 miles in 3 months. An army can march a thousand miles in a season at a bit over 10 miles a day, which is reasonable when you have little to do with your time except getting from A to B, even for a badly organized mob on trackless land which is pillaging and raping, or fighting enemies, from time to time. This, of course, is assuming that they have at least some supplies with them. A determined and fit hiker, going solo or in a small group, on modern roads might do 30 miles a day or even more.

For reference, Paris to Kaliningrad is 875 miles in a straight line, or about 1k on the road (probably). This is roughly equivalent to the distance Cenabum (in NW Gaul) to Gintaras Ostan (2nd baltic province east of the Sweboz mainland territories), though allowing armies to move that much would be roflimba. Maybe put very harsh penalties for moving in enemy territory somehow? But that's another can o' worms.