Luckiest Game? Destroy Pahlava as Seleukids in Spring 270BC

[Pavonis]

I just had an incredible first 2 years as Arche Seleukia holding the line against Pahlava and just have to share . As you can see in the screenshot, Pahlava has been destroyed by Spring 270:



I play on N/N with rules no exterminate/no expel/no selling historic sites

The first thing I did was defend Asaak successfully. I built a mercenary general the first term and rushed reinforcements. The angle the besieging Pahlava army attacked at allowed me to run my missile troops up a hill to fire down upon the invaders. It took two battles to finish; the first one was a sally by the city garrison which ended as a draw to restore ammunition. Then I attacked using reinforcements for a win.



Once Asaak was safe, I advanced on the Pahlava camps. But I got incredibly lucky. When I approached their final town where the Pahlava king and prince were, most of the troops had moved to the northeast! It was still an incredibly difficult battle, though, as the Pahlava royal bodyguards are TOUGH.



It took about 10 tries, but I was soooo happy to see the Pahlava faction destroyed message on the 9th turn.
I actually managed to hold the former Pahlava towns in later turns without losing them to revolts but they've been money drains so far.

Have you ever had everything just go so completely your way?

[d'Arthez]

Wiping out the Koinon Hellenon on turn 3 as Makedonia. They lost all their remaining family members on the seas. Considering that naval battles on VH/M are always with the odds against you, due to autoresolve, that was an absolute lucky shot.

[athanaric]

I suppose your phalangites did the main work there? Quite risky to use that composition against such a number of cataphract BGs.

Have you ever had everything just go so completely your way?

Well, I once managed to bribe the complete rebel army of Vindelicos when playing as Pahlava. Used them as fort garrison somewhere in northern Iran. I just had to get those Mori Gaesum...

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

How did you get a mercenary general recruited in Asaak?

Whenever I've played, the Pahlava besiege Asaak immediately after the end of Turn 1, and then the mercenary general doesn't arrive because recruitment and building is frozen in cities under siege.

I'm playing on BI exe, how about you?

[Pavonis]

@Titus Marcellus Scato

To get a mercenary general in Asaak, you must recruit immediately on turn 1. You don't have enough money so sell a temple you don't like (I like to replace all temples with ones to Atargatis anyways). Your general will be there when the Pahlava siege starts. And sometimes the Pahlava will delay an extra turn because of the general's presence. Units build when you hit the end turn button so that's before the siege. But maybe this is only true under RomeTW.exe and not BI.exe.

@athanaric
The only way to damage the Pahlavi bodyguards is to use the phalangites. The problem is those native phalangites are low quality and their formation will crack very quickly. I had to arrange to take on each bodyguard unit separately and use the archers as a melee meat shield support so the pikemen didn't get flanked (their arrows don't do anything anyways).

[Cute Wolf]

wow, you must neglect your western front a lot and in the meantime, feel free to have Yellow troopers flooding levant (unless you also take care to fortify Hierosolyma)

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

wow, you must neglect your western front a lot and in the meantime, feel free to have Yellow troopers flooding levant (unless you also take care to fortify Hierosolyma)

Are you kidding? He's already conquered Sidon, Hierosolyma, Side and Tarsus from Ptolies and destroyed Pontos from what I can tell. I think his western front is going fine as well.

[Pavonis]

No problems on the Western Front!

On the first turn I sent the Damaskos garrison to Sidon. It leaves Damaskos undefended but the Ptolomies in Sidon are locked down in siege. Sidon is taken turn 2 using the phalangite advantage of the Seleukids. I send the Antiocheia garrison west towards Tarsos. Tarsos is taken turn 3 by the superior Seleukid force. Meanwhile all the garrison troops but the weakest unit per city from Sardis, Ipsos, and Karkathiokerta plus the troops which just took Tarsos are sent to Mazaka and merged into a large strike force which takes out Pontos. At this point I'm building more phalangite units to support the southward push to overwhelm Judea. Meanwhile, garrison troops from Babylonia are used to take Palmyra. So by turn 9, the west looks like this:



After this turn I reinforce an army heading south to try to invade the Ptolemaic homeland.

[Fluvius Camillus]

Good job mate!

It is good to see that you share my expertise and know how to defend all fronts properly!

If you come accross more ultra catas later, remember that AP and charges in the rear does wonders too. When kept safe from fire, you can use the AP axes of the Arachosian skirmishers to kill them off while engaged, same goes for your BG charges!

I'd like too see how this develops!

This is my earliest picture of my very succesful Seleukid campaign!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

~Fluvius

[Pavonis]

"Wiping out the Koinon Hellenon on turn 3 as Makedonia. They lost all their remaining family members on the seas. Considering that naval battles on VH/M are always with the odds against you, due to autoresolve, that was an absolute lucky shot. "

In the opposite situation, I was able to destroy Makedonia as Koinon Hellenon on turn 4 (Winter 272 BC).



But that was more due to fighting several heroic victories than to any lucky event (except if spies opening gates counts).

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Fluvius, I think you have a challenger

[Brennus]

Im very envious, my current AS game has me doing my traditional juggling act of trying to keep my fronts stable with the Pahlava and Ptolemy probing for weakness.

[d'Arthez]

Opening gates does not really count as luck. If you have several spies in the area you can insert just enough spies to guarantee the gates will be opened. A bit of saving and loading and you will know exactly what to do.

It should be possible to conquer the entire map by about 240-250 BC. That is with an unmodded EB game; as far as I am aware Fluvius plays with extended movement mod, which of course makes it a lot easier.

I managed to own about 54 settlements as SPQR by the end of turn 19 in an unmodded game.

The Seleukids are probably the best suited for a a rapid world domination game.

[Fluvius Camillus]

Opening gates does not really count as luck. If you have several spies in the area you can insert just enough spies to guarantee the gates will be opened. A bit of saving and loading and you will know exactly what to do.

It should be possible to conquer the entire map by about 240-250 BC. That is with an unmodded EB game; as far as I am aware Fluvius plays with extended movement mod, which of course makes it a lot easier.

I managed to own about 54 settlements as SPQR by the end of turn 19 in an unmodded game.

The Seleukids are probably the best suited for a a rapid world domination game.

What!?! That Sir, is an outrageous allegation!

@Brave Brave Sir Robin

Well I really don't blitz my campaigns at my maximum capability. I actually do roleplay quite much (for my standards). Really blitzing is all about logistics, knowing how to win seemingly impossible battles is simply the standard. For me it is actually harder to finish a campaign after 150BC than not blitz.

Maybe when time allows it, I can try a faster campaign.

~Fluvius

[d'Arthez]

It was not meant as an accusation at all Fluvius.

[Ca Putt]

why not think of it as challenge?

well Imho getting ridd of Maks/KH as the other one is mostly a question of surviving and the vitality of their Island dependancies. To some extent you just have to overthrow them.^^

[Grade_A_Beef]

I've played Seleucid VH/M and I usually leave the Levant alone until I've full developed. I focus on obtaining VC territories that are owned by other culture groups, so I don't have culture penalties before they become huge cities. Funnily enough this causes me to hit Greece right after I deal with the Palahvans. I take Rhodes, Halicarnassus, and Sparta before I make a quick peace with KH, then I spy on Mak cities looking for those close to Huge city status

The Pahlavans are almost never a true threat. Spam of about 10 phalanges are usually enough to exterminate that faction. It's a simple matter of extending those (on huge unit sizes) phalanges all the way across the map and then walking to the other side. Catch a horse archer and maul it, move on. It's positively unfair how resistant levy phalanges are to missile fire.

For some reason since I didn't make any aggressive moves the Yellow Death was surprisingly docile and never sent a full stack against either Damascus nor Antiochea (let alone attacked those two provinces). I have no clue why but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

In ALL my Seleucid games this is almost always a constant. Hayasdan is almost never a threat as they primarily expand north. Once their primary armies have expanded enough it's a simple matter to take their cities in Caucasus. Baktria is never a threat as they rarely ever go into India and I don't war with them; they have the same culture group I do, so I let them develop for me and deal with the Saka for free also.

Pontus for me has been a wild card however. They are never aggressive against me, but usually they stick to one or two provinces. On my last playthrough they took over most of Northern Greece before I declared war on them (their capital had 23,000 people or so.) Would've loved to see the rest of their expansion as the Maks were stuck to Epeirote and Thrace while the Epirotes themselves were stuck in Illyria.

[zera133]

Play kh on vh/vh
I attacked Pella with 1300 men at summer 270 BC,the garrison was about 3400.
My attempt was failed due to time limit and both side lost their king.
The Macedon try to eliminate my remaining force but failed.
I took Pella with ease the next turn