1.x AI Faction Progression Thread

**Ravenfeeder** · 11-02-2008, 19:23

Continuing Kart-Hadast Game from #467 above

210bc

All Gallic gains against the Sweboz are courtesy of yours truly who sent an entirely Gallic force (mainly Nietos and Geasatae led by a Lesser King) against them.

AS almost gone. Pontic expansion is great but they are at war with Maks and Ptolemaioi so I don't fancy their chances.

Sapmi revolted from Hai to Sweboz control. Sabyn continue to be a thorn in the Pharoh's side.

**Lovejoy** · 11-02-2008, 19:41

Epic expansions Ravenfeeder. Lets just hope Ptolemoi dont get to strong now.

Any Casse invasion yet?

**SwissBarbar** · 11-02-2008, 23:05

Ravenfeeder , what did you do to get such an extraordinary AI expansion in the east?

**The Persian Cataphract** · 11-02-2008, 23:56

Okay, this much has been established:

* Pahlava has a great expansion routine which appears quite faithful to historicity.

* Pontos does also seem quite capable of expanding quite well; sometimes they end up as far as the Bosphorus.

* Sauromatae, from selected reports are aptly strong.

* Hayasdan has fine expansion possibilities, but usually ends up in the northern steppes, which must be addressed.

* Baktria seems aptly down-toned; still some traces of awkward expansion into the southern parts of Greater Iran, as far as Persis, but may be capable of properly expanding into India.

* The Seleucids are literally sodomized... Some might think it's apt, but it should be a 50/50 outcome and not arbitrary. For instance they should be strong around Syria.

* Ptolemaioi. The Yellow Fever. This may be the primary cause of the downfall of AS, and historically out of the two powers, it was actually the Ptolies who got the shorter end of the stick. They are clearly over-powered.

Ideally all these factions should have some substance of reasonable proportion to them as far as the AI is concerned.

**Ravenfeeder** · 11-03-2008, 00:56

@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?

**penguinking** · 11-03-2008, 01:41

So far the AS almost always does fine in my campaigns. They take Tarsos and tend to expand a bit more in Asia Minor. I've yet to encounter a Yellow Death in four campaigns; they are always pretty inactive and really slowed down by Saba.

I've also noticed that Macedon is frequently very strong. The KH may need some help. Saka seems to be doing better too.

**LordCurlyton** · 11-03-2008, 01:46

Originally Posted by Ravenfeeder

@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.

**Ravenfeeder** · 11-03-2008, 11:43

I should add that I'm playing H campaign difficulty. The extra money provided by VH will skew the results differently.

**LordCurlyton** · 11-03-2008, 01:37

Well I wouldn't say that the Ptolies are overpowered. Its just that it seems that the AS ends up at war with all of their neighbors in 10 years or less. If a way could be found to keep them loyal for maybe even 5 years longer the AS could probably have a decent shot at holding them off. The fact that Carthage seems to not desire the Sand Wars anymore also seems to help the Ptolies. Even bringing a renewal of the Sand Wars would likely divert enough Ptolemaic attention to give the AS life. Personally I would like to see a situation where both slowly decline, but that is a personal preference admittedly since engaging one of the two superpowers is a task of slogging through endless phalanx stacks, which kills the game for me eventually. Unfortunately the main reason the Ptolies seem to win out is that they get to the triple-gold uber-general faster than the AS, and those they get will almost certainly be bunched in Anatolia and the Levant, whereas the AS will have any they get spread out over the various wars. If only a way to minimize the effect of a general on auto-calc could be found, it would probably alleviate many of the problems.
I believe the Hai keep choosing the steppe b/c either the Sauro tend to leave their cities almost undefended by sending troops westwards to conquer or they believe the Sauro cities to be easier as they have the mix of infantry and HA whereas Sauro is plain ol' HA.
On another AS note: if you play with FD and get the Syria/Levant/Anatolia area for yourself right after the Ptolies begin to conquer the AS core (i.e. before they Seleukia and Babylon), raze the military buildings of the territories you are going to give back to the Ptolies and leave the ones you will give back to the AS unscathed then the AS tends to be able to hold on. In fact, I actually had them sign a peace treaty that left the AS with the non-coastal part of Mesopotamia and the Ptolies with the coastal part (the Maks had conquered half of Anatolia and Pontus the other half by that time), at which point the AS began to crush their Eastern opponents one by one. So I really think that the AS/Ptolie war is very balanced stat-wise, just slightly in favor of the Ptolies, which in the end adds up to a Ptolie victory more often than not. So not a total nerfing but perhaps a modification of starting armies/wealth. For example, why do the AS start poor? Even with the dissent and all I would have figured the AS would still have a decent war chest available.
I do like the Pontus/Pahlava expansions as well, though Pontus still tends to not build up their MICs in multple cities. I usually only see big MICs in Ankyra and Amaseia. Pahlava however seems to love to crank out the MICs.