1.x AI Faction Progression Thread

[LordCurlyton]

@Lovejoy - No Casse invasion :(. Not that it would do much as Barbarian nations never build ships (I wish I knew why), so no reinforcements would happen.

The Ptolemaioi have tried to take Lepki several times earlier in the game, but just saw their forces wiped out. They haven't tried again for the past decade - probably due to the 2 full stacks waiting for them. It is actually the Saba who've stopped their expansion - normally they go through Palmyra to get to Mesopotamia, but the Saba garrison there is huge, giving the Pahlava time to get there first.

@SwissBarbar - the only extra modding is raising the value of Gold to 4 and lowering Silver to 2 making Large and Small Vein mines give different values (in standard EB the value of both is 3 and so the value of all mines is the same).

@TPC - Your analysis is, as usual, correct. I wonder whether the Hai are actually trying to head for 'Rome' (Gotland) as they are one of the 'Roman' factions, but I'm not sure whether the actions of the other two 'Roman' factions bears that out. What happens if Eremos is made the province of 'Rome'?

Baktria does attempt an Indian expansion, but always ends up with one of their armies stuck on the way to Opiana, not doing anything for the remainder of the game. This 'stuck stack' phenomenon happens to all factions, but hurts the small ones the most. However they can expand into AS regions easily as they share Regional MICs.

The AS/Ptolemaioi balance is the most difficult to balance as they share both factional and regional MICs. The slighest change can swing the balance. AS does seem to prefer defending Margiana to Syria which is the reson that Pahlava find it so hard at least 50% of the time. Beefing up Pahlava in v1.1 has meant that they can take on AS in the East but that leaves AS too weakened elsewhere.

[BI only] The other critical point between the two is often Kypros. If the AS take it then most of the time they will go on to dominate. I wonder whether it is too rich?

Actually before I intervened Kypros changed hands several times before the Ptolies began the inexorable squeeze. In BI it seems to be a prime early AS target, when they are more than able of sparing the small stack needed to take it.
I also noticed the Baktrian stuck stack but it finally unstuck and now Baktria is the proud owner of western India. And I never notice the Ptolies using Palmyra to get to Seleukia/Babylon. I always see them go the traditional route through Edessa. And I have noticed the Arveni build ships before, but not the Aedui/Casse/Sweboz/Luso. So I guess it can happen on occasion. And of course take into account which faction you use as the game tends to skew the performance of different factions based on who you are playing as. I am almost always a western power, like Rome. The one time I did a Pahlava campaign (pre-1.0 I think) the AS crushed the Ptolies. Since it was pre-1.0 I have no idea if they would do so again but I wonder if you played as Saka or Sauro if the AS would perform better.