game is broken

[Randal]

That siege-tower bug hits me very frequently. It's annoying. So very annoying. I end up using sap points and ladders if I can, or just don't assault walls.

As for the pursuit problems, what happens quite a lot (and more often in EB than in vanilla) is that a fleeing unit will get spread out, while the pursuing unit sticks together in formation. Then, when some routing soldiers are behind your pursuers and some in front the pathfinding will -think- your unit is in the middle of the enemy formation and your horsemen will stop going at full speed, instead keeping pace with the routers. Nobody gets killed.
This is very annoying, but it can be fixed with micro-managing: order the pursuing unit to run ahead of the routers, and when enough are contacting them/in between them, order to attack again. It's not a perfect solution but it helps.

Some of those other things sound just plain weird though. Some must have been bugs. Were those skirmishers standing on a massive wooded hill and your archers all the way at the bottom? A good trick for that is to just charge up the hill; the skirmishers will obediently skirmish away from your archers, so then when -you- have the high ground you can shoot and massacre them all in a few volleys.

In my Baktria campaign, by the way, the Parthians seized every Seleucid settlement up to Susa. They expanded faster than I did! I ended up attacking the AS just so I'd have some room left to expand without being squished by a giant Parthian empire at some point in the future. (My armies are now seizing Persia, the Parthians have everything north of there and are conquering the Caucasus now.) Goes to show it all comes down to the luck of the draw. In my Roman campaign it was the Armenians who conquered half the east.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I play M campaign. And, since the AI doesn't recruit as much as on VH level, it's not necessary in M campaign to pursue and kill all enemy routing troops. You can afford to do the historical thing and let some of them escape.

I don't pursue with exhausted units, and I don't pursue at all with hoplites or phalanxes. Pursuing routers is a job for light infantry and light cavalry, and even then it's only worthwhile when there are a lot of routers. If there's only half a dozen left from an enemy unit, it's not worth the effort of pursuing them.

[Subotan]

I've played two different Baktria campaigns out in full, both following Randal's strategy. Baktria's a fun nation to play

[SD1987]

The game isn't broken. I've played Bactria and I've been able to keep peace with the Seleucids for ages and conquer tons of crap on the eastern side. Helps if the Parthians get their conquer on though.

[Jikot]

Most of what i enumerated i had already seen before at one time or other, it's just that this time around all of the little annoyances seem to be piling up in a highly concentrated manner (never seen three siege towers fail consistently at the same time for instance).
Earlier today i was besieging an AS town that was completely isolated, no hope of reinforcements, and then *poof* a rebel army spawns out of nowhere and attacks my besieging army. Seriously mind-boggling stuff i swear.

@Randal: i know about units sometimes getting stretched out, making your pursuing unit simply run along in the middle, this was never the case in any of the points i mentioned. The buggers simply pulled away effortlessly.

@Titus Marcellus: you'll find that i never pursued anyone with anything BUT cavalry and light troops. Exhausted and routing heavy infantry (still large units, clumped neatly together) still effortlessly pulled away from my fresh light infantry and horses.
Also; i pursue to the last man EVERY time. Too often have i seen units that were reduced to less than half their original numbers simply be replenished after the battle, without ever entering a town and without any reinforcements nearby.

@SD1987: i started over about seven times, each time hoping to keep the SA pacified long enough for me to go east, it never ever worked for me. In my current game i attacked SA immediately, and i seem to have broken their backs, but for the very first time Pahlava and SR seem incapable of getting a large enough army to attack SA in Alexandreia Margiane/Eschate. (You can bet they will after I decide to take these towns however).

Mind you, i'm still having fun, but i guess there just are these "events" that i feel need mention sometimes.

[SD1987]

I think with Bactria, the key is to not make waves at the beginning. Don't conquer any of the cities to the north, south or west of you. I just went to the cities in the east where the Seleucids weren't going to go regardless and keep pressing enter and building everything up until I've got tons of cash flowing in. Then auto-battle any invading Seleucids with a great defensive army while extending further down into India until I have enough cash that I feel really confident attacking the Seleucids with. I think the key is not extending too much so that you're left open to attack.
Generally my strategy with any of the hard ones (like Pontus) is get a few cities and then hit return ad nauseum until the civilizations around you are starting to shift in their power balance and then time is ripe to attack.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

@Titus Marcellus: you'll find that i never pursued anyone with anything BUT cavalry and light troops. Exhausted and routing heavy infantry (still large units, clumped neatly together) still effortlessly pulled away from my fresh light infantry and horses.
Also; i pursue to the last man EVERY time. Too often have i seen units that were reduced to less than half their original numbers simply be replenished after the battle, without ever entering a town and without any reinforcements nearby.

Never seen exhausted infantry outrun fresh infantry. No idea what's going on there - unless you've got a game option selected where the enemy don't suffer fatigue effects? Check under Options.

Enemy units can be replenished if the enemy general survives, and he has superb healing traits. Then it can happen. In EB, a fallen warrior on the battlefield may only be wounded, not dead - and in EB, your own soldiers don't always kill off the enemy wounded - they sometimes escape after the battle.

[Rahl]

Enemy units can be replenished if the enemy general survives, and he has superb healing traits. Then it can happen.

But the enemy also needs to win the battle. A defeated foe does not heal any of his soldiers. If it happens it would be a bug, but I never saw that and I played hundreds of hours of EB in the last years.

[Jikot]

And now the game really is broken. CTD every time. Guess the computer wins after all.

[XSamatan]

Check the advice given here about CTDs and their solutions.
If you don't come around a repeatable CTD, open your thread in the bug-subforum, we'll sort that out.

XSamatan