Do you cheat with Pahlava?

[Jebivjetar]

@HunGeneral: youre right, i think im gonna destroy them

Still, there is a problem: almost all of my armies are somewhere around Babylon (im having a real, big crusade against AS), so ill have to send some of them to Baktria to manage situation there. That means ill have to leave Antiocheia: i wont have enough soldiers to defend it


And one more very interesting thing in my campaign: while i was blitzing AS, taking everything they had, they just moved in Ptolies lands: i play with toggle_fow, and this is what i saw: Ptolies didnt even defend them selves against AS: they send all their armies to the east and captured most of rebel-cities, leaving everything behind without appropriate defences: its just like they gave their land to AS as a gift... i dont understand that. I even offered them Palmyra when i capture it: they didnt want it!

[HunGeneral]

Still, there is a problem: almost all of my armies are somewhere around Babylon (im having a real, big crusade against AS), so ill have to send some of them to Baktria to manage situation there. That means ill have to leave Antiocheia: i wont have enough soldiers to defend it

Hmmm.. is the AS still making reasenoble resistance or are they just trying to slow you down?

One thing you could try is put some foot archers, slingers + horse archers into the city and if it gets besieged then sally - send out the HA's through one or more of the gates, keep your archers on the walls. Use the cavalry to lure anything in the range of the skirmishers on the walls and overrun routing troops with your HA after they ran out of ammo. If all archers/slingers/HA are out of ammo just get your troops back into town and finish the battle (press Esc and click on "quit batttle" if it sais your sally was succesful then you can leave the battle) - you keep the town and no loses will be healed on any side... This is the best nomads can make out of stone walls.

And one more very interesting thing in my campaign: while i was blitzing AS, taking everything they had, they just moved in Ptolies lands: i play with toggle_fow, and this is what i saw: Ptolies didnt even defend them selves against AS: they send all their armies to the east and captured most of rebel-cities, leaving everything behind without appropriate defences: its just like they gave their land to AS as a gift... i dont understand that. I even offered them Palmyra when i capture it: they didnt want it!

I never saw that before although I never got that far as you are now (too little time for EB)
Make sure you get the AS out of Alexandria there they can still train all there elite troops

Goosd luck to the rest of the campaing.

[Jebivjetar]

Baktrians are about to loose their new capital (Kophen), and the AS now lives in Asia Minor

Here are some pictures from my campaign:












Now i understand what it means when you have armoured H/As

[Jebivjetar]

And i must correct myself: i have wrote that Ptolies moved to the east, which is not truth: in fact, they are moving south, as is showed on some pictures.

[antisocialmunky]

I didn't have to cheat to kill Big Blue and Grey Death. I ended up having to sit at my starting town until I had about 4 FMs that had spent 20 years gassing the massive Grey and Blue blobs. Eventually I broke out, killed the Bactrians, and gobbled up all those naked Seleucid towsn in the east. Earthquakes in the Zagros kept killing my elite armeis though. :-\

[Jebivjetar]

Ive decided to use add_population (with -) because i dont have money to build palaces for upgrading my cities. It is weird, you know, that money issue with Pahlava: you have to build all those things in order to get reforms, then you must build new barracks: population is growing and its not fun when you cant do anything except build and build and build. I have about 20 provinces and cannot afford palaces! Damn! I do not have any elites (ok, i have one cataphracts, ive trained them because Pahlava is known for having them, but thats all elites i have), but afterall: my budget for army is very, very small, i have few little armies, mainly H/As, i spare money whenever i can, but anyway have not enough to upgrade my cities... Damn.... And that rich AI can afford everything it wants (e.g. Baktria, with 2 towns is having about 3 fullstacks), but me, as a human player, cannot build what is necessary...

Now i have big empire without money...
I have no money to build.
If i dont build, my public order became very low... I dont want my hardly-earned provinces to rebel. Especially not to AS..

I have alternative:

1) disband my army and just build (read: build cities for my enemies who will take them if i wont defend them)
2) fight well with my armies and give my provinces to rebels.


... i think ill quit now..............

To conquer with Pahlava and expand: thats something i call "two sided blade": its weakening me....

[Dayve]

Armoured horsies are terrifying. Play a campaign as Baktria, conquer Alexandreia Eschate and wait for Pahlava and Saka to declare war (they will, trust me). Then, take your best and biggest army and wait for it to be attacked by a Saka or Pahlava army with a large number of heavy horsies and family members. Saka seem to use a great many family members in their armies.

Only then will you know what it means to fight with or against these units.

The battle can't be in a city or fort or in any way where you are blocking a chokepoint and they have to charge your spears head on. Just a plain open field battle.

[Atraphoenix]

I have adapted realist movement mod so to send armies from mesopotamia to baktria does not take 6 -8 years now

[Jebivjetar]

I have adapted realist movement mod so to send armies from mesopotamia to baktria does not take 6 -8 years now

How did you manage that? Which modifications have you made (and which files)?

[Alsatia]

Sorry, I cannot answer the last question. An i'm wondering, how in the world does the AI manage Pahlava to rise up and pwn Selucids?

[Atraphoenix]

How did you manage that? Which modifications have you made (and which files)?

just check unofficial submods

here is my link to it:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=116294

you have to change descr_character file in both data folder of Eb and sp game edu backup.
I used RS team set namely 260 in the line:

starting_action_points 260

but many testers have been saying some buggy issues so a new campaign is necessary I am around 260s. Arshak is on the last phase of his indian campaign. Tirdad is about to conquer ecbatana.

but beware AI also uses this against you.
My vital advice if you play with this mod AS uses infantry so they move very slow but if you use just cavalry in the first phase you may have a very important advantage so keep your infantries at cities and always use cavalries with your field army . after you conquer more than 12 15 provinces if you know how to handle arygispides that they started to send me when I was about to enter mesopotamia do not stop until you conquer antiocheia.

P.S. Hyrcanian hillmen are good phalanx hunters so use them in loose formation to surround phalanxes from flanks and rear. for elite phalanx you must have completed cavalry building that cost 6000 manai in khiva. so if you just looted a city build that cavalty barract to get noble catas and archer catas.

[Arutima]

God, all of you sure like to rush

[Jebivjetar]

God, all of you sure like to rush

Ok, i would like to know: how did you manage to beat AS/Baktria/Saka Rauka/Hayasdan: in what order did you smash them?

Which difficulty do you play?

Are you using force diplomacy?