Any thoughts on "migration" campaigns?

Has anyone done a “migration” campaign with EB using current rule? I mean one where your faction conquers somewhere a fair way off and makes it their main home, perhaps abandoning their original region altogether. Anything you conquer along the way is incidental, a means rather than an end. Apart from Vonsh’s Saka AAR, which is a bit different because nomad factions have their own rules for governments, I couldn’t find much.

Does anybody have any general advice on this?

[I’m considering having the Armenians migrate to the north shore of the Black Sea to get away from the Seleucids. After playing Pontos, it seems a fairly sensible thing for the Armenians to do. They won’t be able to build many of their native troops there, but their only troops that seem really special are the cataphract generals that they’ll keep. The archer cataphracts look nice but cost every mnai they’re worth, so they’re not vital when you can have regular horse archers. Apart from the that the Helleno-Skythian troops around the Crimea look like an improvement – classical hoplites instead of ordinary spearmen, dirt cheap Hellenic archers for garrisons as well as mid-priced Skythian archers for battles, and so on.]

Problem is with most migrations you'll end up with just native troops so the migration wont be that fun... But there are some ways, such as a Celtic faction to Galatia, that will work. Would give you a totally unique game and give you access to a bunch of factional troops with Greek and Thracian mercenaries.

I rember see a game where the numidians had moved to russia and then took over europe, all ai controlled. It was in a rome total realism game, and it realy made there title seem a bit false.

I played a Parthian campaign once, where I gave the starting territories to Saka, after conquering much of Persia, so they could be a bit stronger against Baktria. (They ended up allying with Baktria and I had to fight both of them.)

The story so far with Armenia...

Plan: Head for Pantikapaion, conquering Kotais on the way so I'd have supplies. Spend nothing on native cities. Keep Armavir for mining revenue but no real effort to defend it. Maybe give it to third party if Seleucids look like attacking it.

272:
- Taxes -> max
- Expecting mainly sieges in near future, disband medium cavalry + HAs + skirmishers
- Take Kotais in autumn. Missiles push them back, ram breaks gate, spears hold main street, slingers fire over their heads at the square, cataphracts go round the houses to charge defenders from sides/behind. These are my normal siege tactics.
- Leave 1 unit, buy mil gov for 5% happiness to get higher tax.
- Build a few slingers at Armavir, cheap on the march and handy for sieges.
- Ceasfire with Sauromatae, who will be my new neighbours.

271:
- Spy killed on 92% mission, grr... Use diplomat to watch enemy troop movements.
- Long march by the sea shore for main migration army.
- Great horde of Eleutheroi skirmishers from Trapezous besiege Kotais. Sell buildings. Disband garrison, the more Eleutheroi survive the "assault" the more trouble they'll make for somebody else.

270:
- Marching still.
- My main army fights the Eleutheroi field army east of Pantikapaion. Missile infantry beat their HAs, cataphracts smash everything else and punish HAs for coming close when they're out of ammo, spears protect my missile units and do some pins or flank their engaged horses.

269:
- Besiege and take Pantikapaion (stone walls). Goes OK. Sappers break wall, cataphracts blast a way though it for the rest, then usual tactics.
- Put in type 2 gov. Type 1 not avalible, 2 gives level 3 local MIC which does all I want. Higher MIC just gives some elite Skythian cavalry which I don't need. I usually avoid elite units, they're an admin headache.
- Faction leader dies. Bye-bye 50 cataphracts. Been rejecting loads of awful family members, not quite sure why since I'll just use them as cavalry but never mind.

268:
- Settle a bit, get some money.
- Manoeuvre on strategic map to catch Chersonesos field army away from town and hit them down a steep hill. Big dangerous enemy, heroic victory.

267:
- Very tough siege of Chersonesos (stone walls), using 50% mercs. Can't sap so I have to take the walls. Close and bloody battle in which I lose a spear unit in a burning siege tower, but I get the gates open and the cataphracts blast a way for the others. About twice my usual losses. Good thing I hired the classical hoplite mercs to go with my wimpy spearmen.
- Install type 2 gov, and have arest.

266-265:
- Good income allows continuos construction. 3 cities including 1 mine, and not much military still alive. Get morale, population, culture all going the right way.
- Get a local MIC going in case of need, but relying on mercs and generals to avoid recruiting out of population. Cities are <2000, need to grow.

264:
- Message right out of left field says I'm at war with the Sauromatae. I also seem to own Kotais for some reason, and it's got 10 spear units inside. I figure the Sauromatae took it without me seeing, and it rebelled from them to me. So I disband all the units (which were costing 2000/turn) and let them have it back.
- Sauromatae won't make peace now, since we've got two land frontiers. I think of offering Armavir for peace, but it brings in 700/turn and I can take the Sauromatae. I'd give it up to avoud trouble with Big Grey, but not the horse worriers.
- Take out the Olbia field army in weird river battle where they have all the misssile troops but I flank them with cataphracts via two fords.
- Take Olbia, wooden walls, not so hard as the last two. Has to be type 3/4 gov, I prefer 4 (better happiness).

263:
- Wander east and take Tanais. No walls, five defending units. I find Sauromatae buildings inside and their leader watched the siege from over the river. I've probably just annoyed them. I put in a type 2 gov.

So I now have four cities along the north of the Black Sea, and a recruitment roster that's better than I'd get in my homelands. My problematic neighbours are the Sauromatae, who are a lot softer than the Seleucids. There are plenty of lightly armoured barbarian infantry types to the west, who'd be east meat for my cataphract/missile/hoplite army.

The only problem is that I'm playing Armenia who don't have much of a tech tree (doctors, paved roads etc) and they'll never amount to anything.

It seems migration is feasible, but it makes most sense when you didn't have much to lose by leaving regions 1/2. You'd need a good reason, like avoiding the Seleucids. Armenia were ideal.

The best Migrations go to Britain, because it is so remote and really different. At least, these are the ones I have read.

Maybe the armenians could continue the mirgation and hit macedonia from the north?
Then confront the greys when you rule all of hellenes and attack from asia minor.

The other greeks hae probebly forgotten about you.

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Originally Posted by alatar

Maybe the armenians could continue the mirgation and hit macedonia from the north?
Then confront the greys when you rule all of hellenes and attack from asia minor.

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I wonder if I took Macedonian heartlands and built type 4 governments, would I be able to recruit pike phalanxes from local MICs?

I doubt it. Pike recruitment very much seems to be a "Greek or extremely Greek influenced"-only option. Having not checked the Hayasdan's unit list, I couldn't tell you. I know as the Romans essentailly all the Western Greek provinces let me locally recruit stuff up to L3, including basic Hoplitai, but nothing fancy.

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Originally Posted by alatar

Then confront the greys when you rule all of hellenes and attack from asia minor.

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This is a difficult option even for the Macedons, attacking the AS from the West. Armenia is strategically / geographically the better position to blitz the AS with a hard hitting movement south to the Persian Gulf and cutting the empire in half. Anyway, everyone who has to deal with AS can only be regretted. Either you die under their sarissas or you die of boredom after fighting pantodapoi phalangitai and nizag gund for 30 years...

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Originally Posted by Centurio Nixalsverdrus

Armenia is strategically / geographically the better position to blitz the AS with a hard hitting movement south to the Persian Gulf and cutting the empire in half.

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I found (with more than one faction) that cutting the AS in half just means you get attacked from both sides by the two halves. I'd prefer to maintain a single battlefront that's as short as possible, with the enemies coming down a predictable path, so I can switch my one or two armies around to meet their stacks.

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Anyway, everyone who has to deal with AS can only be regretted. Either you die under their sarissas or you die of boredom after fighting pantodapoi phalangitai and nizag gund for 30 years...

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I think there might be an argument for playing factions who face the AS on H/M or M/M instead of VH/M. EB is meant to be historical and realistic, but VH Seleucids defy all logic because of the massive injection of money. They're meant to be a bit cash-strapped -- they've relatively few ports, many enemies, and Parthia/Bactria are taking their silk road. But playing the Ptolemeies on VH/M I found the AS were richer than me. Their many cities can turn out units whenever the population will stand it, and and they still have money left over to bribe cities with armies and family members inside on successive turns. It doesn't make any sense.

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Originally Posted by LordCurlyton

I doubt it. Pike recruitment very much seems to be a "Greek or extremely Greek influenced"-only option. Having not checked the Hayasdan's unit list, I couldn't tell you. I know as the Romans essentailly all the Western Greek provinces let me locally recruit stuff up to L3, including basic Hoplitai, but nothing fancy.

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Well, Pezhetaroi need a level 3 MIC according to the unit cards. In theory, it might happen. I guess I should find if there's a console code to give myself the city, then use codes to build the MICs and try it out.

I'd be well happy with medium phalanxes, I never build anything heavier anyhow. The real issue is that if I were to grab somehwere like Tylis (Mac region 1), even if I get it before them, I'm committed to a war to the death with Macedon.

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Originally Posted by LordCurlyton

I doubt it. Pike recruitment very much seems to be a "Greek or extremely Greek influenced"-only option. Having not checked the Hayasdan's unit list, I couldn't tell you. I know as the Romans essentailly all the Western Greek provinces let me locally recruit stuff up to L3, including basic Hoplitai, but nothing fancy.

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This is sad but true. Recruitment of pike units is restricted to the western and eastern greek factions. No one else gets to recruit them it would seem. The Getai and Kart-Hadast can train their own versions but I don't think they can train the greek ones.

The celts get Mori Gaesum but that's about it. Everybody else has to do with whatever spearmen they can recruit. The exception is Pontos that can train the Pantadapoi Phalangitai and their elites the Chalkaspidai but even their recruitment is limited.

It would be nice if you could get atleast the Pantadapoi Phalangitai as a regional but that would propably be ahistorical.

I know for sure the only way the Hai are ever getting pikemen is as mercs.

Hmm, on a related topic.. Is Makedonia supposed to be unable to recruit Pezhetairoi in formerly Epirote cities, where the Epeiros could and did train their own Pezhetairoi?

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Originally Posted by The Errant

It would be nice if you could get atleast the Pantadapoi Phalangitai as a regional but that would propably be ahistorical.

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This recruitment system seems to be more historical (what happened) than realistic (what could quite fesibly have happened).

A lot of the text in the mod talks about learning and adapting, e.g. Baktria being a mix of Hellenic/Persian/Indian units or the Romani units adopting equipment and techniques that worked against them. But it's like all change stopped on the last day of winter 273BC.

Oh well, I still love it. And deciding what's realistic would be a nightmare.

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Originally Posted by Morte66

This recruitment system seems to be more historical (what happened) than realistic (what could quite fesibly have happened).

A lot of the text in the mod talks about learning and adapting, e.g. Baktria being a mix of Hellenic/Persian/Indian units or the Romani units adopting equipment and techniques that worked against them. But it's like all change stopped on the last day of winter 273BC.

Oh well, I still love it. And deciding what's realistic would be a nightmare.

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The good part is that the team has promised us some of their tools once the 1.0 comes out. With those tools we should finally be able to tweak unit recruitment to our hearts content, without getting an aneurysm in the process.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do right now. It's just so bloody hard most people who tried it once won't bother doing it again.

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Originally Posted by Morte66

This recruitment system seems to be more historical (what happened) than realistic (what could quite fesibly have happened).

A lot of the text in the mod talks about learning and adapting, e.g. Baktria being a mix of Hellenic/Persian/Indian units or the Romani units adopting equipment and techniques that worked against them. But it's like all change stopped on the last day of winter 273BC.

Oh well, I still love it. And deciding what's realistic would be a nightmare.

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I agree with you, but I think the team shouldn't make fictional units. The Maks died in the 160's, so they don't get a reform except hysteroi pezhetairoi. The Romans were the "real-world-EB-winners", and so they get 3 reforms. The Saka get a reform with really odd greek units because they did in history, but the Sarmatians don't...

I think it would be impossible and not desireable to make fantasy units of what might have been - though it would be great, of course. You would have to be God to make appropiate what-might-have-been units.

Im tempted to take the Sweboz to Galicia... A few hundred years too early, but that would be fun none the less. Perhaps hand the homeland over to the Sarmartians (in absence of other gothic factions) and try to pursuade them to follow me...

I have a Sauromatae game going in which I migrated to Getai's homelands and abandoned all but one of my steppe provinces. I thought nomadic factions could make their faction units anywhere because of the whole migrating thing, but I can't make any faction units in my new territories, at least with a "pastoral" government. I'm going to switch one or two to a "nomadic" government when I can.

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