Dammit

[Zradha Pahlavan]

I have been playing as the parthians for a while now [about 50 years gametime] on very hard/hard and everythings been a royal pain, just the way I like it. I've fought through what I thought was the impossible and began to win a three-front war. I wiped out the bactrians and squished the saka rauka into insignificance. I've also overrun a good two-thirds of the seleucid empire. The seleucids are now the ones fighting the three-front war. They are under attack from the west by pontos and the other greeks, from the south by the ptolemaics [I can't resist using this here: ] and their allies, and from my tiny squads of horse archers from the east.

But they still can crap out enormous armies of troops that continuously seem to get better armor. These guys are actually immune to arrows. And they all have spears. Oh yes, cavalry will be real effective against them, won't they?
How the devil do they get these guys? I could have sworn that I burnt all their fancy barracks long ago, but they just keep coming.

But that isn't the worst part. The real issue is that the majority of my cities are disorderly. I've built temples and such junk and there are huge armies stationed in tiny cities "keeping the peace" but the stupid people are still trying to revolt. If they rebel, then the enemy will have huge armies of troops all romping around the countryside and I'll have no troops and no money. Then I'll have to reconquer the stupid cities, which I've already done about 3 times per city, and I'll be totally broke.

I've had this issue once when I played as the epeirots too. I had to have a good two thousand men doing nothing but sitting on their asses in town just to keep the people from rebelling in one small city.

Is there anything that can be done about it that would allow for enough money to be leftover to get my troops into battle against the seleucids, or is the game over?

And I will not reduce myself to a lower difficulty mode.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well.. there is this thing called:
Spies.
Squalor.
And Distance to Capital.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

And all three of those things have nothing to do with my situation.

1. All of my cities have good sanitation. I made sure of that early on when I captured them.

2. My empire is too vast for a relocation of my capital to have any good effect.

3. I have many spies in both my cities and my enemies' cities.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Having good sanitation might not be enough to make your people use it... Anyhow, check the scrolls to see if squalor is *really* not an issue. Taxes? Lotsa cultural unrest from 'foreign' buildings? Annoying & embarrasing or downright oppressive governors? Lack of governors?

[General Appo]

3. I have many spies in both my cities and my enemies' cities.

Then you´ll know from where the Seleukids get their armies. And might even get an assassing or two there and start burning some stuff...

[Beefy187]

Im guessing culture penalty. Try destroy all the unnecessary buildings like enemy barracks. Until your cities turn in to your culture, reduce tax rates to the lowest.

[Ludens]

Im guessing culture penalty. Try destroy all the unnecessary buildings like enemy barracks. Until your cities turn in to your culture, reduce tax rates to the lowest.

Culture penalty actually derives mostly from the governor's residence, so tearing down other buildings may not help much. Setting taxes to low also increases population growth, which in turn increases squalor, but you can upgrade the governor's residence faster this way.

[Olaf The Great]

If the Seleucids still have Susa, Seleukia, or Antiocheia you can expect them to still ship out >9000 elites a turn.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Yeah, it's probably the culture penalty. Hadn't thought of that. I'll see what can be done to fix it, if anything.

Taxes are on low in all of the rebellious cities, which isn't always a good thing because the population grows faster and that leads to more problems. Also, sanitation is good in most cities except for the large ones.

Apparently all of the seleucid Thorakitai and Friends are being produced in Antiochea, which I thought I put a spy in but apparently I didn't. There is also a city near the Pontic border that produces them.

And as for the battle that may soon occur...
Thorakitai and chariots vs. horse archers. Any bets on who will win?

[Cullhwch]

Not to doubt your abilities, but scythed chariots could present a massive problem for your HAs. I'd suggest getting a few units of mercenary infantry to slow them down and kill them.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

I'm still more worried about the enemy infantry. If I got infantry of my own they'd get slaughtered by the vast numbers of Thorakitai and elite phalanxes.

[Ibrahim]

I'm still more worried about the enemy infantry. If I got infantry of my own they'd get slaughtered by the vast numbers of Thorakitai and elite phalanxes.

HA's can tackle both of them with ease-if you know how to use them (I had an MP battle over at the tourney; phalanxes slaughtered by 5-6 HA's, once my cavalry got owned). yes, all of me troops were medium and above in phalangitai, and thorakitai.

as for how he did it? It was at 2 in the morning so i don't really remember. he got aroud my rear, an that's the last that I could tell.

[Cullhwch]

Well, how many chariots are we talking about? If you're playing on huge unit sizes they'll cover a major portion of the map and prevent your horse archers from maneuvering behind the thorakitai. And if you get too close to the chariots, you'll get massacred.

In any event, give the battle a try and let us know how it went.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

One "huge" unit of chariotry.

I managed to tempoarily at least stop the rebellion, but I couldn't stop the loss of alexandria-east, but on the plus side I sacked Edessa.

But now that I'm [sort of] ready for them at last the seleucid army won't give me battle. They've decided to hole themselves up in antioch for some reason, which the ptolemaics may or may not have to do with. Instead, my troops got ambushed by a cavalry army and then another army attacked my troops in the middle of a blizzard. The stupid mercenary greeks I got are all dead now, though the main army is mostly intact.

[Beefy187]

Culture penalty actually derives mostly from the governor's residence, so tearing down other buildings may not help much. Setting taxes to low also increases population growth, which in turn increases squalor, but you can upgrade the governor's residence faster this way.

Really? never knew that. Cheers

[Zradha Pahlavan]

I finally got them to fight.

Battle Results [roughly]:
1400 enemies killed
200 out if 400 allies killed
700 enemies still survivng

The chariots went down easy, and I managed to elude the main army for most of the battle. Unfortuantely, a group of mercenary slingers killed a lot of my guys, and it took forever to break through the main line and slaughter them. I was able to hit the general's unit hard with my whole army, killing him. The other lesser troops routed easily, but the phalangites and the other heavy troops wouldn't break.

Just thought you might want to know.