Peaceful Expansion

[kekailoa]

I'm playing as the Aedui right now, and it's approximately 250 BC. I've captured all the Arverni towns and Avaricum, and was hoping to expand in peace without being distracted by other factions. But with no provocation or warning, the Romani besieged Mediolanium, with is very strange as they haven't captured Segesta or Pavatium yet. Why would they make a beeline towards my city instead of consolidating their power on the peninsula? They haven't even taken Rhegion to the south or driven out the Phyrric armies in the South.

All I wanted to do was take over Gaul and expand my empire in peace. Now my trade has been severely diminished, Carthage broke our alliance, and I have to spend my armies and time on conquering the Romans. I already took Bononia, but I really don't want to spend all that wasted time and effort conquering Italy. Any suggestions?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The game is called "Total War" and has therefore been hardcoded so that you are always at war. If you manage to make peace or wipe out all of your enemies, the game will give you new ones. This aspect is even greater in M2TW. Besides, the AI is stupid and doesn't know how to expand logically.

[||Lz3||]

there was a thread in the eb unofficial mods that changed (well...applied) victory condition to the ai factions , so they would expand more historically , but I'm not sure if it's still working , last time I checked ,the download link was dead... seems that konny is really busy out there or he is just ignoring us

[Amaris]

I already took Bononia, but I really don't want to spend all that wasted time and effort conquering Italy. Any suggestions?

Well....I'll tell you my "story":

I'm currently playing as SPQR with BI.exe and try to expand roughly historically correct. About 245 BC I made peace with the Carthagians and ended my "first punic war" in which I conquered Sicilia, Sardiania and Corsica. I discovered that every AI faction makes peace with me without any problems (other than in vanilla RTW or RTR platinum) - don't know whether this is due to BI.exe or the EB mod.
But often they go to war with me again in the next turn. Exactly this happened with the Carthagians. They invaded Sardinia and besieged Karali in the next turn after our ceasefire.

It is often said that the AI can't withstand the temptation to conquer a city with small garrison on it's border. This seems to be true. I noted that the AI invaded the island almost exactly at the same position every time - south of Karali. Therefore I posted light troops on every point of the sardinian coast (forts can't be built there), and the result was......no invasions and no war anymore !

The Carthagians can't invade Sardinia anymore, because my troops blocking every point of the shore. Therefore they can't besiege Karali and so I have peace for almost 20 turns now.

The bottomline is: Don't let the AI reach your cities - block every way with forts or at least light (cheap!) troops - and you will have peace.

Greetings,
Amaris

[konny]

there was a thread in the eb unofficial mods that changed (well...applied) victory condition to the ai factions , so they would expand more historically , but I'm not sure if it's still working , last time I checked ,the download link was dead... seems that konny is really busy out there or he is just ignoring us

Busy yes, ignoring never:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=177

[QuintusSertorius]

The game is called "Total War" and has therefore been hardcoded so that you are always at war. If you manage to make peace or wipe out all of your enemies, the game will give you new ones. This aspect is even greater in M2TW. Besides, the AI is stupid and doesn't know how to expand logically.

It also doesn't know when a ceasefire is in it's best interests, and when it's being spared in preference to annihilation.

[Olaf The Great]

The game is called "Total War" and has therefore been hardcoded so that you are always at war. If you manage to make peace or wipe out all of your enemies, the game will give you new ones. This aspect is even greater in M2TW. Besides, the AI is stupid and doesn't know how to expand logically.

You'd think someone like you would know about hte force diplomacy mod(which I think you use in your AAR?)
lol

Anyway, look up the force diplomacy mod in the unofficial modding section, if you can't find it just look into my posts.

[socal_infidel]

Here it is Force Diplomacy Mod. Relatively easy to install. Basically forces the AI to accept whatever diplomatic proposal you offer. Used it to some effect in my Ptolemaioi campaign to simulate the various Syrian Wars, as opposed to Total Syrian War from the get-go.

Cheers!

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm sure MAA is well aware of FD.

[socal_infidel]

'twas meant for the original poster, kekailoa, who may want to use it for his next campaign.

[burn_again]

I've played quite a lot of Aedui campaigns, so I know this problem all too well. Here are some things that might help:

- you could conquer Segesta and Bononia, have them both filled with full stacks mainly consisting of slingers and (later in the game) some archers. Rome will besiege you almost every turn, but often they will only use small armies. You just have to sally out and destroy their armies without engaging in close combat. This worked fine for me, but it gets really annoying after a few years. After the first 20 battles or so I'm usually tempted to use the auto_win cheat.

- another possibility is to raid Italy very early on. If you defeat the main roman stacks, it's very easy since most cities are not guarded very well, most will have only one FM as garnison. In the last campaign I played, I took all roman cities except Taras and Rhegion, exterminated the population and destroyed all buildings and then let them rebel back or be taken back by the Romans. This was a serious blow to their economy and they left me alone after this for many years. It also provided me with a lot of money, so I could conquer and build up Gaul. You should however not destroy the gouvernment buildings, because if a city rebels back to the Romans, the AI will not rebuild the appropriate gouvernment and will thus have no access to their factional units in the later game.

- I have also experimented with a cheat to buy me some time: I used the create_unit cheat to fill up Bononia and Segesta with Gaesatae at the start of the game (I know it's totally unfair ;-) ). That way the Romans conquered the south first before they eventually expanded northwards. It will take them some decades before they manage to take those cities, so that you can expand rather peaceful for a while. It is however a cheating game, so if you want to play seriously, you shouldn't do that.

[Justinian II]

Here it is Force Diplomacy Mod. Relatively easy to install. Basically forces the AI to accept whatever diplomatic proposal you offer. Used it to some effect in my Ptolemaioi campaign to simulate the various Syrian Wars, as opposed to Total Syrian War from the get-go.

Cheers!

For some reason I couldn't get it to work for me ...ever, which is why I got wiped out by the seleukids just after starting a Baktrian campaign.

Though, admittedly, it was my fault that I left Baktria itself only lightly defended, so maybe I deserved it

[burn_again]

Well I guess that in this situation (playing as Aedui and blockading northward expansion for Rome, one of the richest, strongest and most aggressive factions in the game) Force Diplomacy will be pretty useless.
All you will get is a War - Force Peace - War etc. thing every turn. Force Diplomacy is only effective if you have no or just a small common border or if you play as Rome and force peace upon barbarians who will be much weaker than you anyway.

[Mediolanicus]

For some reason I couldn't get it to work for me ...ever, which is why I got wiped out by the seleukids just after starting a Baktrian campaign.

You couldn't get FD to work, or you couldn't get a lasting caesefire? Which one did you mean?


If you can't get FD to work, are you sure you've clicked "reset advisor" in the game options before going into the diplomacy scroll and pushing "?" ?

[Ibrahim]

probably the former...

anyways, the poeple at the CA hardcoaded this behavior: they want total war, not normal war. also they want to make sure that if the AI feels threatened, to go down in a blaze of glory...

[STuNTz2023]

usually using FD and a tribute will keep the AI away, though the richer the faction the higher the tribute i usually have to use. Keeping your bordering garrisons a bit higher will help considerably along with causing revolts and wars between the AI (using assassins and spys). It was a key in my survival as saba against the yellow death.

Also in my romani campaign i couldnt get the aeudi to accept a ceacefire, so i campaigned through their territory's and took everything but 1 city burning and enslaving all of them and then giving the bordering towns to my allies the Averni. Had to FD the settlements to my allies, they wouldnt accept them (youd think theyd be happy i just ended the civil war and made them the winner).

Figures their currently being eaten by the swezboz.

[Justinian II]

You couldn't get FD to work, or you couldn't get a lasting caesefire? Which one did you mean?


If you can't get FD to work, are you sure you've clicked "reset advisor" in the game options before going into the diplomacy scroll and pushing "?" ?

Not getting it to work, and yes, I'm sure I've done that. I'm not sure what my problem is, it's possible that it may not have installed correctly; I'll have to try it again when I get time tomorrow.

[QuintusSertorius]

I'm not sure what people are doing to have it not work; I suspect they're not using it properly. I found even the old 1.0 files worked perfectly fine in 1.1.