How do I nerf the Ptolemies - without conquering them?

[thelord]

Try giving Salamis to the AS, it made a huge difference in my game.

[QuintusSertorius]

Try giving Salamis to the AS, it made a huge difference in my game.

Not a bad idea at all.

As far as "desert provinces" goes, would it be worth taking Ammonion and Augila off them as well?

Or maybe just remove them from Syria altogether. Nabataea and Sinai are both expansion regions for Saba; just leave them with Judea and Phoenicia.

[Cartaphilus]

I'm doing the same.

You can give Cyprus (or Cyrene) to Kh too. It could be a good solution. And it can simulate some rebel Ptolly princes as well.

And you can use Saba to recreate the Maccabean "realm".

[Skandinav]

You could also make them give you 20000 ( or something ) mnai every turn in a hundred turns to bleed them dry a little with force diplomacy. Do not fret as in most campaigns they have ressources in abundance and chances are still pretty good no other faction will invade them for various reasons and their borders will be static for a designated time period. You can then use the mnai to fund factions who are in decline and shouldn´t be.

I also think that factions who are protectorates have a tendency to be more passive, although I am not quite sure.

This combined with a multi-factional border and the occasional province swapping through forced diplomacy have given me a fairly balanced middle-east in my last couple of campaigns, but I also recommend playing on medium difficulty since ai aggression seems much more plausible and intelligent here, if you are looking for a role-play/historical game that is.

[delra]

Give southern Egypt to Saba and Cyrene to Carthage so they start fighting at three directions instead of one.

[Banzai!]

add_money -40000, numidia

and repeat.

[overweightninja]

In regards to giving southern Egpypt to the Saba, be careful. I did the same thing in a Kart-Hadast campaign a little while ago and the Saba were unable to keep order and hold anything north of Meroe, the troops spawned from the rebelling cities actually ended making the Ptollies more powerful than when I started :(
Syria is a good place to start stealing settlements...
Cheers