1.x AI Faction Progression Thread

Hello HopliteLegion, welcome to the .Org and to EB ~:wave: .

Sounds like you are doing well. Have you already taken Pella? I would recommend you to do so quickly: the mines there are very profitable, and if you don't Epeiros is likely to snap them up.

I have not. My naval assets have caused me to cut back on troops for now. I've blockaded Makedonia's ports hoping that it will prevent them from raising an army large enough to fend off Epieros and attack me simultaneously. In the mean time, I've been using what little funds are coming in to bolster my economy and I'm trying to secure as many naval trade partners as possible. The siege of Korinthos nearly bankrupted me, and I've yet to Kydonia's citizens to be happy enough to raise taxes.

Yes, fleets are very expensive. So expensive, in fact, that blockading ports is only worth it if you were going to keep the ships anyway. The A.I. gets financial support from the script, so blockading is not as effective as you might think. Especially not if has built mines in Pella.

I don't know your exact situation, but I would consider disbanding the fleets and using the savings to attack Macedon.

I am playing as Carthage. The year is 239, I have been at war with the Romans for years and have finally been able to push them out of Italy only to be attacked by the Aeudi slowing my inevitable conquer on the two divided Roman halves remaining. The Yellow Death had been harassing me in Tripoli and with all my elite troops tide up in Italy with the new Gaul danger i can only field local units against the Yellow Death's mighty phalanxes so i began to raid his coastal cities from recently conquered Crete but with it's superior navy i have no choice but to raid territories on the edges of its empire or face disaster.
Iberians are my allies... for now, they still have a good deal of territory left to take in the north so im not too worried.
Aeudi signed a peace treaty with Roma upon my invasion of Italy giving them a free hand to expand and kick some Arveni butt. However, the Arveni quickly sign a Vassal agreement with the Aeudi. After a peace treaty with the Germans the Aeudi turn to besiege my newly taken city of Segesta a year ago.
Arveni havnt taken a single province all game and they are just barley hanging on against the Germans in the east.
Sweboz have been gaining momentum, conquering all the way to the alps in short order and commands MASSIVE stacks.
Romans are split with three territories south of Gergovia and two in Illyria. They have slowly been expanding outwards from Italy ever since i took Capua somehow.
Epieros spans from Athens in the south to far north in territory which is usually held by the Getai in all my games, not only that but since they removed KH from Greece theyve been at peace with all their neighbors even the Makedonians and Romans. They also seem to be completely forgetting about Aetolia as they have yet to even besiege it.
Macedon had a rough start but came back to retake the southern part of Greece. Now they're allied with Epieros and attempting to take Pergamon from Pontus.
KH had held Athens for years even against several armies of Macedon and Epieros but eventually fell. Not alot else going on with them except the recent rebellion in thr southern tip of Anatolia.
Getai, being too slow to seize territory before Epieros, had no choice but to expand into the steppe and had some early success but now their stacks stand mostly idle in the north for some reason.
Sauro have been getting roughed up between the Getai and the Hayasdan.
Hayasdan had been expanding north in Sauro territory reaping the rewards of the Getai-Sauro Conflict in the West and had split the Horse lords in half for a time. But upon losing Uspe in 243 it was the Hayasdan who had become split.
Pontus was a slow start but eventually it declared war on Arche and began slowly taking cities. Its now at war with Macedon but its main line of expansion still appears to be Arche in Anatolia.
Arche atlast seems to be losing in Anatolia after the combined pressure from the Yellow Death and Pontus. Its Capital is also underseige in Mesopotamia by a Yellow Death army that crossed the desert. It's armies are still in the East eventhough Pahlava is just one tiny provence away from defeat and stands no threat. It has yet another army standing around in southern Mesopotamia appearing ready to invade eastern Arabia. If only they turned towards Syria and Anatolia the Yellow Death could be put in its place.
*Sigh*
Yellow Death this Campaign went right at it, attacking me as soon as we had a border with eachother and pouring troops into Tripoli that normally conquer the southern nile and Nabataea. Strangely it still has a full stack bordering Nabataea that sits there year round and it only moves towards me when i besiege one of their cities.
Saba hasnt done much of anything i can see
Saka hasnt moved south towards Baktria in awhile instead it fights small battles against Arche forces without much territory gained on either side.
Baktria is going to make waves soon, they are on the verge of taking the Indian territories to their South and with that cash flow under their controll the saka wont stand a chance unless they make some moves soon.
Pahlava had been doing good up until a few dozen turns ago when Arche decided to send almost all its elite troops against them now they hold a small village south of the Caspian.


I was going to add a picture of the map but unfortuantly i need atleast three posts to do so :/

239BC in my Epeiros-as-The-Bosporan-Kingdom game:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...ac1f95cb2a9472

Well, I decided to have one last fling on 1.2 before the second game came out, because otherwise the waiting would be killing me. So: here's Makedonia progression. H/M, RTW.exe. No player interference with AI armies (other than killing them when they get too close). It's 216 BC by a system of time measurement that doesn't exist yet.

https://i.imgur.com/J8vE7kz.png

Casse - Zzz. Finished taking over the isles by 235. Haven't done anything since, unless you count allying with the Aeduoi for no good reason.

Lusotannan - They cut off Qarthadastei expansion in Iberia early on by surging through Sucum-Murgi, Baikor, and Arse, reaching the Mediterranean by 257. Then, they sat pretty quiet, expanding into Celtiberia and Cantabria painfully slowly. Once they'd taken all the Eleutheroi cities, though, everything began to happen very fast. In the mid-220s they kicked the Qarthadastim out of Iberia over the course of five seasons. Then they turned on the Auernoi in the north, swarmed through the Pyrenean passes, and are now pre-creating the Visigothic Kingdom of Alareiks II. They are the real power in the West and I'll probably end up fighting them for central Italy in ten years.

Aedui - The ultimate survivors. They created a north Italian empire in the 260s and promptly lost it to Rome. They lost several races for Eleutheroi cities in Gaul to the Auernoi and had to be content with a few scraps. Sweboz armies showed up in northern Gaul and besieged a few of their cities. Somehow, they've fought all those menaces off, rebuilt their empire in northwestern Gaul, and have taken advantage of the rapid collapse of the Auernoi empire to reestablish themselves as a strong regional power. They'll probably find some way to screw this up, too, but it's nice while it lasts, eh?

Arverni - I thought, for a bit, that the Auernoi were going to win the War for All Gaul for the first time. Like, I've never seen anything but the Aeduoi coming out on top. By the late 230s, the Auernoi had grabbed the lion's share of the western provinces, and unlike the Aeduoi they were holding strong in the face of the Sweboz armies. A 228 Iberian intervention even got them Emporion. Everything was coming up Auernoi. Then, in 222, the Lusos showed up, kicked them out of Iberia, and captured their cities north of the Pyrenees. Now all of the Auernoi cities save Vesontio are under siege, either by Aeduoi or Lusotannan armies. It's been quite the fall.

Sweboz - Pretty standard job by them. They directed their armies mostly to the west early on; in the 230s they looked to be taking apart the Aeduoi in concert with the Auernoi, reaching Bagacos and Bratosporios. Their eastern territories came through rebellions. First the Sauros captured and lost Asodat, then in 217 the KH captured and lost the Bastarnae lands. Now the Aeduoi have revived, the Romans are north of the Danube, and their expansion options are increasingly constricted by Eleutheroi terrorstacks and factions that are stronger than they are. On the bright side, they're allied to me, so well done.

Safot Softim biQarthadast - Monstrously boring. Did nothing whatsoever in Iberia apart from allying with the Lusotannan in the 250s. Three decades later the Lusos betrayed them and snapped up Mastia and Gader embarrassingly easily. They kinda messed with Epeirote plans in Sicily in the 250s and 240s by stationing single-unit armies all over the place and blocking the Epeirote stacks trying to go for Syrakousai. Then after the Epeirotes weakened the Syrakousan garrison they went in for the kill with a tiny army and took it for themselves. Within a season of that happening, a Mak army showed up and captured their two Sicilian provinces within a year. After that, they focused on conquering North Africa. Starting in 219, Qarthadastei ministacks started interfering with the Ptolemaic reconquest of Kyrene to little point or purpose. Hopefully this will blow up into an actual war. This screenshot gives me some hope.

Senatvs Popvlvsqve Romanvs - These Romans are crazy. First they lost major ground to Epeiros; not only did they fail to take Taras, but by 247 they'd lost Capua, Arpi, Ariminum, Rhegion, and Bononia to them as well. Roman territory was basically Latium + Etruria + the Po Valley. Then the Romans did something fairly extraordinary. They used their fleet to blockade pretty much all of the Epeirote ports, cutting off a huge chunk of their money. Then, when the Epeirotes' scariest stack got stuck in Sicily due to Qarthadastei and Syrakousan resistance, the Romans recaptured their Italian territory bit by bit. By 232, they'd recovered everything in Italy save Arpi and Rhegion...and they're still stuck there. Unable to crack the paltry defenses of those two large towns with wooden walls, the Romans unleashed their troops into the Alps; they just captured Mrogbonna a year ago, although all the guardian stacks are still there. I signed an alliance with them back in the 260s when it looked like they were doomed, and it lasted up to the 230s when their navy started doing that inane "must blockade everything" thing. So now we have off-and-on wars: they blockade a few ports, I annihilate their fleets, they peace out within a few turns, and the situation remains as before. I haven't killed them yet because a) I want MoT reforms and they still need another huge city in Italy and b) most of my armies are busy elsewhere.

Epeiros - Nemesis. Pyrrhos chose to ignore Pella in 272 in favor of a weakened attack on Thessalia. I punished him for his presumption by killing him with an army in Hestiaiotis two years later that I'd extemporized from the troops released by the defeat of all KH armies on the mainland. (They still had Athenai, but it was no threat.) In 265, after I managed to sneak into Ambrakia, Helenos Aiakides fled Greece by ship with the good parts of the Epeirote army, going off to conquer a new empire in Italy as the old one crumbled. After that, I peaced out and watched the Epeirotes and Romans slaughter each other. And although Epeiros came tantalizingly close to total victory - armies in Aemilia, Campania, and Umbria encircling Rome, with the Romans barely fending off assaults on Latium - the old demons showed up again. Just like Pyrrhos, his descendants failed to focus on a single opponent. After the failure of the first few attacks on Rome, the bulk of the army went down to Sicily and shattered on the walls of Syrakousai. Rome's fortunes revived, and those Makedonian jackals took the opportunity to capture Messana from a badly overextended garrison. Ever since the late 230s, they've clung to Arpi and Rhegion, somehow. I would've finished them off already, but I want the Romans to get huge cities first.

Getai - After I kicked Epeiros out of Greece, I was planning on grabbing my objective territories in the Balkans and pushing on toward Anatolia. Previously, I've managed to stop at Serdike/Tylis/Kallatis and then keep the peace with the Getai for most of the rest of the game. Unfortunately, I lost the race for Kallatis to the Getai, so I decided to kill 'em all. I hate the way their large towns and cities look anyway. Sarmizegethusa fell in 262 and Buridava followed it three years later due to stupid Pontos drawing away the army that was supposed to finish it off.

Makedonia - Yo. I go too slow for a blitzer and too fast for a roleplayer. Sorry?

Koinon Hellenon - Instead of trying to fight Pyrrhos and the Chremonidean League at the same time, I took everything out of the north and blitzed Sparte and Athenai, trusting to AI stupidity to keep the Epeirotes off my back long enough to conquer southern Greece. It worked; by 267, the KH had been driven out of the mainland and was confined to Rhodos. Having dismantled my own navy for the cash, I peaced out with them and turned against Epeiros. Somehow, the RTW 1.5 AI was smart enough to bring Areios' Spartan army back from Krete and use it to invade Karia. From the base in Halikarnassos, the KH fought both the Ptolies and AS successfully; by the mid-240s, Rhodos had established a viable south-Anatolian empire of Halikarnassos, Side, and Tarsos. From then on, unfortunately, the Ptolies inundated them with troops and kicked them out of Asia. Just in time, the Sauros lost Olbia and Chersonesos to rebellion, and the KH reconstituted itself as a new empire on the north shore of the Black Sea. Now that I've got disposable armies, though, their days are numbered. Heh heh heh.

Arche Seleukeia - This was a little strange. Up to the late 260s, the AS looked to be holding its own - lost some ground in the east to the Saka and Pahlava, but captured Tarsos and Sidon. Then the bottom fell out of the ship in about 255, when the Ptolies got their act together and marched into Syria, the Pahlava kept pushing in the east, the KH started a war from their Karian base, and Pontos snatched Mazaka and Ankyra. But then, in 252, the Ptolies snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by peacing out of their war and allying with the AS in order to, I dunno, fight in unison against the KH. The Seleukids promptly used that opening to betray their alliance with me by attacking Pergamon and Nikaia from their remaining Anatolian bases in Sardis and Ipsos. So I curbstomped them. Now they're locked in a bizarre three-way war with the Saka and Pahlava over the Upper Satrapies; they hold Antiocheia Margiane with a stack and a half and periodically send out flying columns that capture cities and lose them within a few turns. And they control a little Seleukid island of Syria-Koile in the middle of a Ptolemaic yellow ocean, which never gets any less stupid.

Pontos - They tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it didn't really matter. Pontos came out of the gate strong, took Mazaka + Ankyra from the AS, beat me to Nikaia and Byzantion, and then launched an invasion of Makedonian Thraike in 261. I turned it back, inaugurating a series of unnecessarily cautious counteroffensives from me. With each city, I slowly cut off all the angles, drew Pontic armies into farcically bad positions, and ground them into dust. My sole focus was never on Pontos; early on, I was still fighting the Getai, then the AS, and then the Ptolemaioi. But eventually, in 225, I captured Mazaka and ended the war.

Saurometai - For a few decades - the 240s and the 230s - the Saurometai were riding high. They captured most of the Greek cities of the Black Sea coast: Chersonesos, Pantikapaion, Trapezous. They'd pushed back the Hai and held their own against the Saka. They never seemed to be able to take Olbia, though, which turned out to be a blessing. Because when they did capture Olbia in 227, it promptly revolted to the KH. Which proceeded to steamroll Sauro possessions around the Black Sea while the Hai did their own Lazarus act in the Caucasus. They're back-footed now due to the combination of Hellenic and Hai threats, but it's doubtful that either faction will get any farther.

Hayasdan - Surviving and thriving. They initially lost the race for the Caucasian cities; the Saurometai grabbed Kotais, Kabalaka, and Trapezous while the Hai were stuck with Mtskheta, Phraaspa, and Ani. Most of the Sauros' success was built on their scary FMs, though, and when those died the Hai started to pull through. They kicked the Sauros out of the Caucasus for good in the early 220s and have been trading Uspe with them ever since. They periodically lose Trapezous to KH rebellions but always seem to get it back in the end. They've rebuilt their alliance with the AS as well.

Ptolemaioi - The Yellow Death just ain't the same these days. In the early going it lost its Anatolian empire to the combined forces of the KH and Seleukids; then when it got its act together in the 250s and 240s and stormed into Syria it only went halfway, reaching Palmyra and Antiocheia while leaving Demetrias Damaskos untouched. And then the Ptolies peaced out with the AS and allied to it, a move that only gets more incomprehensible with time. They had a decent shot at rebuilding their Anatolian empire in the 230s and early 220s, when they got all the way to Halikarnassos. That was when my armies intervened; before I managed to capture Tarsos in 223, they got several fullstacks through the Tauros Mountains, and hunting them all down was a piece of work that I only finished in 219. That front is mostly just festering now; apart from the two stacks guarding Antiocheia, most of their military might has been directed south, toward the Saba (lol) and Kyrene. Good luck with that. Once the KH is dead, it's their turn.

As'Sabyn wal'Jau - The usual from them. They've got a chokehold on the four cities of the Yemen. Gerrha periodically revolts to them whenever the AS captures it. Same with Meroe and the Ptolemaioi. They can never seem to build on any of the successes that fall into their lap. Oh well.

Pahlava - Locked in the aforementioned three-way slugfest with the AS and Saka, and they're the lightweight. Two things are keeping them alive: their FMs (which the AS really sucks at killing) and the fact that Indian and Gedrosian provinces revolt to them. The Saka keep getting distracted into reconquering Taksashila, and the AS can't seem to hold onto anything east of the great salt desert apart from Antiocheia Margiane.

Baktria - Lost the race for Marakanda and Antiocheia in Skythia Alexandreia Eschate with the Saka. The Baktrians managed to delay their demise for a few decades by bleeding the Saka for every inch of ground south of the Oxos, but it was a losing battle. First they lost Baktra, then the Haomavarga valley, and Saka troops finally stormed the Paropamisadai in 236.

Saka Rauka - These guys are deceptively scary-looking. They steamrolled Baktria with something like two and a half stacks in the 240s and 230s, looking like the scourge of God, but ever since then it's been all they can do to hold onto their possessions as they are. Gandhara keeps revolting away, their offensives against Antiocheia Margiane are all non-starters, and the stacks that push down into Arachosia Sakastene seem to get distracted very easily.

Fifteen years later...

https://i.imgur.com/Fh3dtG9.png

Casse - Have done exactly nothing. They have three stacks sitting around Camulosadae twiddling their thumbs because they can't be bothered to declare war on anybody (and vice versa).

Lusotannan - So I was a bit off on the estimate, but the Lusos still ripped up Gaul like nobody's business. They'll probably finish off Lemonum in a few years and move on to bigger and better things. It's anyone's guess where - they've got stacks lurking along their frontiers with both the Sweboz and the Romani, although they are allied to the former.

Aedui - Ak-Ink revolted from the Romani in 208 just in time to save the Aeduoi, who lost their final Gallic province to the Lusos three seasons later. Rome took the opportunity to vulture Viennos and force them into a protectorate. Now they're a useful buffer zone between my Getic provinces and Rome's bizarre transalpine empire.

Arverni - Any season now. Lemonum's besieged by Luso armies pretty much round the clock; the Auernoi have picked up two heroic victories in the process of defending themselves but the end is undoubtedly nigh.

Sweboz - They were pretty quiet for most of the 210s and 200s; out of the wreck of the Gallic states they only managed to snag Vesontio, and the Eleutheroi stacks to their east have boxed them in after the conquest of Coutinoe. In 202, though, in order to take advantage of Rome's weakness, they declared war. It's been a singularly ineffective war so far, with no major invasions on either side yet, but it's still early days.

Safot Softim biQarthadast - Perhaps the most inspiring story of the bunch: the AI has been adventurous in a good way. They've been trading Kyrene with the Ptolemaioi off and on (just lost it by revolt two seasons before this screenshot); there are some pretty nice stacks involved, so I'm hopeful that somebody will start kicking somebody else's butt. They also tried a naval invasion of southern Iberia when the Lusotannan were distracted with Gaul in 205; the army was annihilated and they made peace within a year, but at least it's something.

Senatvs Popvlvsqve Romanvs - In 214, they captured Arpi and made peace with Epeiros; it took them another six years to reach MoT. Once that happened, their fate was sealed; I rolled over south Italy in rapid succession, annihilated almost all of the Romans' factional stacks, and then agreed to a truce for an operational pause once I had taken all of my Italian objectives. Apart from taking Viennos from the Aeduoi corpse they've done virtually nothing else; Noricae remains out of their reach with two Eleutheroi guardian stacks still intact, and the Romans are doing zilch about it.

Epeiros - They flailed about for another two years until the Romans recaptured Arpi, at which point I decided 'screw it' and attacked Rhegion. Epeiros finally bit the dust in a pretty uninspiring battle outside the town in 213.

Getai - Still dead.

Makedonia - Still alive.

Koinon Hellenon - I invaded Rhodos in 214 and attacked the Bosporan cities a year afterward. Hayasdan held up its end of the bargain by holding down Trapezous. The last hegemon of the allied Greeks died in battle at Tanais in 209.

Arche Seleukeia - They've got an on-again off-again relationship with the Ptolemaioi and have been periodically sending stacks at Tarsos and Mazaka. Those don't tend to have a very long lifespan, except when they retreat from battle (which happens really often, for whatever reason). Probably should've been using the stacks on the East; they've been gaining ground there, but only glacially slowly. Prophthasia is under their control more or less firmly, but their hold on Astauene is ridiculously tenuous.

Pontos - Also still dead.

Saurometai - Floundered about for a bit, lost the territory of the Iazyges to the Hai, then peaced out in frustration. For completeness' sake, I conquered Pantikapaion a few seasons after the KH finally died, and the Sauros ran away from that war too. They seem to be pretty much neutered.

Hayasdan - It's kind of funny how awful they are at holding on to Trapezous. On the bright side, it apparently makes for an excellent buffer zone; the Hai haven't gone to war with me at all for the entirety of the game, and I haven't got any particular interest in changing that.

Ptolemaioi - For almost all of the intervening fifteen years, they've focused exclusively on Africa: their war with Qarthadast, and their war with Saba-controlled Meroe. They're kind of winning the Qarthadast war - they've pumped fewer troops into it from what I can tell, and Qarthadast can't hold Kyrene even when it does capture it - and they definitely beat the Saba in Meroe. Then I declared war the turn that this screenshot was taken. So far, Antiocheia and Salamis have been besieged and a Ptolemaic squadron of 'fours' was basically annihilated off the Syrian coast.

As'Sabyn wal'Jau - Zzz. Gerrhaia has revolted to them twice and they've lost it both times. They can't seem to hold onto Ubar. They'll probably get Palmyra and Bostra in the course of my mad rampage in the Levant. Whatever.

Pahlava - They're still alive, kinda. Haven't done anything other than capitalize on revolts from Saka and AS control, though.

Baktria - Also also still dead.

Saka Rauka - In 212, most of the Saka garrison in Drangiane launched a harebrained invasion of Karmania that actually succeeded, creating one of the weirder empires I've ever seen. Unfortunately, within two years the AS had recaptured both Karmana and Prophthasia due to the Sakas' failure to reinforce either city. Apart from that, Saka armies keep battering themselves to pieces on the walls of Antiocheia-Margiane and not much else. They haven't even tried to reconquer Gandhara.

Nice. Keep us posted, Constantius!