[Migrated Epeiros Redux] The Thracian Kingdom

I've been trying out a lot of migrated Epeiros campaigns recently, just to see what's interesting with them. I've done my old maintstay, Pergamon. I had a dabble with the Bosporan Kingdom. I'm currently doing Massalia. I've done all of those before.

But then I got thinking about one I haven't done before - the Thracian Kingdom. Starting with just Tylis, the aim is to rebuild Lysimachos' old empire. It's sort of a reverse Pergamon, where instead of starting in Asia Minor and grabbing bits of Europe, I start in Europe and might eventually advance into Asia Minor. There's a whole mix of Greek, Celtic and Thracian units just in the starting position. You're sandwiched between the Getai and Makedonia, though otherwise have a lot of Eleutheroi for breathing room.

I've even got a bit of a roleplaying justification in my head, too. I'll take Epeiros, kill off Helenos as usual, but also Pyrrhos (to simulate his death in Argos - and to make it a little more challenging). Then Ptolemaios and Alexandros flee to Tylis, where they start to build an empire of their own. I'll do a bit of development so that it's vaguely possible to sustain without blitzing the nearby region, then go slow from there.

Thoughts?

Very nice role playing scenario!

I've gone with Byzantion, rather than Tylis as my starting province, and put the mines in so I've got a vaguely viable economy at the start. I'll put a client king in Tylis instead, once I've built an army.

https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/...28039356_n.jpg

As an aside, I did consider doing the Kingdom of Tylis, migrating Casse (since they're hived off in a world of their own anyway), but two things put me off. Firstly, Casse FMs have those stupid chariots instead of horses, and secondly Keltoi can't recruit Thraikian Peltastai, who would be a core unit. So never mind.

get the mines and blitz the maks or you´ll never stand a chance in the long run caught beteween the maks and the seulekids and ofc when you finally move to asia you might also have to contend with the ptolemaioi so from your starting position make a bline towards pella then get the old epirote regions and get the mines

fortify the danube against the getai and the alps against the romans from your starting position you don´t really need to erase the maks you can keep them in lesbos that island off mikra asia and ofc you can let the kh live and fight it off beteween the maks and kh in greece proper beteween tessalia korinthos and that island off greece and sparta and athens

migrate the sprtiates army in krete off into the mainland

fter you secured the mines that enables you 3-4 armies (one to fortify the roman path one to defend the danube and against the kh maks from the south and one for you to pick your fights

at this time i would advice an invasion of krete or the bosphorians both easily defencesable and provide nice income and easily defensble positions and then pick if you go against the maks or kh or against the seulekids and the ptolemaioi pontus and so forth

whatever you do remember your keltic units give you an edge against all others but without the balkanic gold from those mines you won´t be able to keep a large army to face many fronts at once

give or take

It's about 252BC in my game now, and I've got four provinces: Byzantion, Tylis, Kallatis and Mytilene. Kallatis I was forced to take after pirates blockaded my capital and nerfed my economy. Then I grabbed Mytilene to build a navy of my own to get rid of them, and spent quite a few turns clearing the seas of pirates.

I've been repeatedly reinforcing the garrisons in Segesta, Bononia and Patavium, so the Romani are bottled up in Italy for the time being. The Makedonians are too busy with KH to bother me much, I even besieged Pella for a few turns to try to get their attention and they ignored me, so I came back again.

Thing to remember is that I'm playing on M/M difficulty, so no one is throwing mega-stacks around. Indeed before I did my pirate-clearance, everyone was suffering from blockades.