When a campaign stalls

This is a continuation of my thread a short time ago called "adapting to egyptian armies* , my problem was i was advancing further and further east and the egyptian armies were simply overwhelming my phalanx heavy armies and seriously threatening my then flourishing empire (thanks to some advice my amies are now a match for them). Which had all of greece except Apollonia as far north as Bylazora, plus Byzantium it included all of western asia minor as far east as mazaka but not including pontus, tarsus and galatia, i also had crete and rhodes.

Alot has happened in the 25 years or so since the point of that *crisis* its around 195BC now and the empire has expanded considerably, the crimea is now under my control, as is Tarsus in asia minor, Thrace, Illyria, Dalmatia, Antioch, Alexandria, and Pannonia and for a decade Rome itself was under greek control, but recently fell to the Julii.

My new problem is that my expansion has stalled and the empire is now in the first stages of decline, my economy was 200,000 but in about 12 years has dropped to 150,000 still plenty of cash true but 1/4 of my ecomony has gone in a decade and my armed forces have increased very marginally (most being spent on naval repairs and sanitation) but with the amount of wars im having to fund its dropping faster and faster as the years go on. The Marius reforms have taken effect for the small roman empire (mostly just italy and sicily carthage etc) and they exacted the first significant defeat of a greek field army thus far this game, in the important province of Illyria thanks to their advanced legionary and praetorian cohorts.

The now established northern frontier is suffering regular Thracian and Dacian incursions since installing the patch AI controlled navies have been the most irritating thorn in my side constantly harrassing my ports and even though my navy is vastly superior so many 1 ship navies are around my empire that they are overstretching it, as ive now lost control over the black sea.

The large expedition i sent to egypt succeeded in capturing and sacking Alexandria but the lesser force sent to take Memphis was crushed by the egyptians and Alexandria is under siege, Rome which was taken by another large expedition has fallen after years of sieges and greek victories infact all the destruction of the senate and the taking of Rome accomplished (apart from a massive fortune from the sack) was the gigantic sky rocketing of Roman production and massive armies now patrol the once defenceless italy.

The problem is, these expeditions although successful were impossible to follow up due to commitments in the homelands and eastern frontier, with Rome gone and my gains against Egypt looking frail at best plus the now ridiculous amount of wars im funding the empire looks in severe danger, I have the Small kingdoms of Dacia and Thrace to the north whom im at war with, the three empowered roman factions to the west, the weak but navally powerful armenia to the east and the major power of egypt to the south.

So ive completly stalled, I cant make permenant gains abroad and am barely holding my frontiers in the east if Antioch falls, Tarsus and Mazaka will soon follow my armies in western asia minor are inferior and outdated hoplites from the early campaigns against the Pontus, as my major field armies have moved east my weaker units have logically been on garrison duty thus advancement in technology has been neglected.

Even greece itself it lacking sufficient high quality troops to send out as most went to italy and later egypt, public order is becoming more and more of a problem and plague is starting to become more common, and if the future couldnt look much worse, upon looking at my family tree most of the governors who spurred the empire to economic brilliance have died or are near death leaving incompetant or no heirs to replace them.

Im sure everyone has had a great empire suddenly stall, but im not seeing a way to get out of this depression with the amount of wars im involved in and there reluctance to make peace its only a matter of time before the frontiers simply cannot hold them back any longer, despite my power my field armies are scattered and would take years to consolidate sufficiently, so any thoughts? or any similar experiences?

ya, they really go after your trade by blockading your ports post patch.

You have to control the seas before you can control the land. Concentrate on taking enemy coasts first.

Whenever I get myself in your position, I start with a full blown sanitation of my army. Every expensive unit carrying out garizon duties is scrapped. Other "back-up" armies are scrapped. Front line units are called back. Instead, I invest in cheaper defenses: forts. If that all isn't doing it, I release the most outer holdings (in your case in Italy and Egypt) and concentrate on getting smaller borders. This could be achieved by for example defeating the Armenians to get the Caspian mountains as border, defeating the Thracians to get the Danube, etc. These borders can be defended more efficiently, saving me money.

If you dont mind mindless slaughtering, give almost all of your cities to the enemy. Reconquer and Exterminate in the same turn. Massive cash influx and loyalty.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Select and maintain a single aim.
Avoid conflict on many fronts.
Lose everything not of direct and immediate value.
Scorch the earth before the over-mighty invader.
Use subversion.

If he puts one of your guys in the hospital, put two of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way.

I'd agree with Ellesthyan on auditing your army and reducing your borders. Look for chokepoints to build forts or even just station an army, it doesn't matter if it's in your territory or not, just do anything you can to limit your enemy's movement.

Instead of just disbanding troops close to the front, send them on suicide runs against the enemy: block roads, blockade their ports, ambush solitary units, even try besieging a settlement - it doesn't have to work, you're just trying to be a nuisance. This will force the enemy to spend resources and, most importantly, time in hunting down your troops. Sure, you'll be giving the enemy cheap victories, but you need time to give you breathing space so that you can regroup.

Send diplomats to factions on the other side of your enemy's lands and get friendly with them, trying to persuade them to join your fight.

From what you've described, I'd concentrate on one foe, fighting holding actions against the rest. Armenia sounds a relatively easy target for you - avoid open field battles and besiege them to limit their mobility advantages - and that will neatly remove their navy from your list of troubles.

Playing as the Brits I find my economy grinding to a halt as I approach 50 provinces. Post-patch rebels spawn continuously with big stacks so I have to maintain large standing armies everywhere I go. Previously I could leave a couple of diplomats to wander around and mop the rebels up but increased bribery costs mean this is no longer an option.

Holding cities is also increasingly tricky - I've abandoned all options except exterminate anywhere outside of the core barbarian territories.

I have a couple of large fleets but they rarely leave port except to fight off blockaders.

general tips:

- Make allies, give them enough gold and they will be happy with you.
- Make academy buildings and train good governors, put them in the key cities.
- Move the capital to the center of your empire
- Concentrate your troops in full stacks (i am sure that you have done it)
- I found useful having medium tech troops in my armies that are easier to retrain in captured cities than high tech ones.

In your situation I would do:

- Stop all offensive action.
- Move my troops to well defended cities
- rebuild my navy to have the sea control again.
- build reinforcements and bring them to my armies.
- Attack again.

ok, it's easy to say but hard to do ~:)

If you have 150,000 denarii, then you have way too much money. You have the means to expand and gain victory, but lack the focus and offensive impetus to do so. Your bloated treasury means most if not all your governors will have terrible traits of extravagance. The game greatly increases the chances for this happening first at 50K, and increases the chances again at 100K, and yet again at 150K. There is no need to hoard so much cash.

You need a cohesive plan to expand to victory. You have a powerful navy, so USE it! Systematically blockade your enemies and put together an amphibious assault force to surprise attack enemies with port cities. If your troops are inferior, then send out a couple generals and recruit mercs to fill the gaps. You have no excuse to be defensive when you have a huge treasury, and a big navy. Decide how you want to fill out the 50 provinces you need, and begin with that end in mind.

Since the Romans are strong now, if you fight them, you will need to adjust your tactics and force composition to make up for the general lack of mobility of Greek troops vs Romans. Invest in artillery, particularly onagers, missile units: slingers and archers, and heavy cavalry: sarmatian cavalry and mercenary war elephants, and skirmishers or missile cavalry. Combining your heavy infantry with skirmishers, missiles, and a few units of onagers using fire should devastate most serious opposition.

You must be relentless. Send in 2 armies at a time, with at least 3 total generals in the force. Use 1 army as your primary strike force, the other as a source for fresh units and to scout and protect your primary force from relieving armies. Keep shuttling in primo units with your navy. Your economy is more than sufficient to support the end game, so focus on military action.

Block off access to the Black Sea through the strait next to Byzantium, then wipe out all fleets inside and blockade all ports with just two or three ships each. They can only create one ship at a time so they will be perpetually outnumbered whenever they're recruited.

Next, maintain a stiff defensive strategy along all of your borders but the Dacian/Thracian region. There you should march overwhelming forces and intimidate them into becoming your protectorate. This way they are eliminated as a threat, become a buffer zone for that front and wont extend your lines at all, and now will also provide you with regular tribute.

This should be enough to pull you out of the fire enough to fight back on your other fronts at least.

Alot of good points, one I think is long overdue is moving my capital from Sparta. Byzantium is probably best positioned in the centre of my empire, i have the treasury and general manpower to attack other people, but as soon as i take a city that field army will be forced into garrison duty and suffer numerous sieges thus they are being wasted, its very annoying when you get in a position like this.

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The game greatly increases the chances for this happening first at 50K, and increases the chances again at 100K, and yet again at 150K. There is no need to hoard so much cash.

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Lol i didnt hoard the cash the greeks just seem to make obscene amounts of money at the start. Im making a good profit again and training troops but getting them from A to B to C is always the problem as the frontier is so vast my 4 field armies in the balkan area cant cover every point and the by now thousands of thracians/scythians/illyrians/sarmatians/numidians and god knows who else ive stuck on the frontier in forts arent cutting it. However the north has been slightly pacified as thracians armies simply arent able to take cities very well.

Ive pulled out of alexandria and after a large battle with the egyptians as i tried to escape, safely got the army out of egypt and am sending them to conquer Cyprus, I made a note to utterly sack alexandria of course. Antioch is looking like itll have to be abandoned to, also after the advice given im building a series of forts on the eastern frontier to stop tarsus being under siege almost constantly.

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Send in 2 armies at a time, with at least 3 total generals in the force. Use 1 army as your primary strike force, the other as a source for fresh units and to scout and protect your primary force from relieving armies.

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Thats a good point, i did do that when i sent an army to egypt my main force took the major objective Alexandria and the second mostly mercenary force and cavalry were as back up and were meant to take Memphis but were caught and destroyed by egyptian relief armies. One problem has been backing up early gains due to the size of the empire which i intend to decrease by pulling out of Pannonia and Syria.

Anyways good advice all im going to get stuck into it again only another *thinks* 200 years left ~:cheers:

Can only agree with most above. If you had 200k den then you should have been more aggressive early on , particularly concentrate on their good troop making cities. Even if you raze them and give them back they will be way behind in making good quality armies.

Put another way you can only field a certain number of troops, if these are top quality full stack you can regularly win battles with minimal losses, 10:1 or even much higher wins are quite possible.Rinse and repeat.

Destroy their good troopmaking capability and massacre their large poor quality troops.

Don't forget assassins are good stuff when used for sabotage as well.

I probably should have been more aggressive however i did attack macedon very early on and had wars all over the place so i conquered alot very fast and it cost alot of time to rebuild and fortify my position.

Just finished it for tonight and things have gotten alot better, took Cyprus, sacked Sidon, pulled out of Pannonia, took Galatia from the Pontus, destroyed the thracian military, my eocnomy is fine, and my new capital is Byzantium.

All in all i think complacency was my enemy.

~:cheers: for all the tips.

Launch raids into enemy territory with the goal of crippling them. Take Alexandria for instance. Why try to hold to an untenable position - when you captured it you should have done 3 things:

1) Sack the city and exterminate the populace

2) Sell off all improvements

3) Then leave and move the next Egyptian city if you can't, if not, then go home

The idea of these "punitive" expeditions is twofold:

1) Raise cash by sacking cities

2) Crippling the AI empires

Just take a large fleet, load a strong army on it, and take a tour of your enemies coastal cities.

That should help gain you time. On land you can do this to, launching raids across your border to cripple the AIs.