What to do When Attacked Constantly?

[Scutarii]

Hi,

I've headed out east and am playing the Saka, Parthians, Baktrians etc. on Hard/Medium.

However, after about 3-4 tries with each faction I am attacked en masse by anyone who neighbours me within the first 15 turns, as a nomad faction I can sometimes pull through with massing my generals but even they are stopped dead by 16 phalanx who ignore incoming arrow fire (even from behind they seem to all just get back up when I've run out of arrows and retreated).

Playing as Saka most recently (attempt 4) I tried being non-aggressive early on as a different approach and disbanded the armies, massed generals to act as sweepers and then spent the next 25 turns fighting a constant stream of bizarrely elite Parthians skirting north to take Chach, then the AS joined in, then the Baktrians.

Again and again and again, regardless of which faction I play the other three always just dog pile me with a constant stream of 2-5 unit stacks eventually building up to much larger ones from the AS. I swear I've killed more 10 star generals than I have family members by this point too.

I've played on medium campaign difficulty before - not out east - but it's nowhere near this bad. Is this a quirk of Hard difficulty?

Is there anything I can do when I have essentially either no income or no army and no way of developing my settlements as I'm constantly fighting fires.

15 tries in and the process is the same each time, everyone attacks me constantly.

Is there a way of dealing with this? Getting any kind of breathing room? I've read some of the factional advice threads in the Gameplay Guides forum but they never seem to get attacked en masse (or don't seem to describe how to deal with a stream of phalanx doggedly marching through any settlement you own).

Do I just have to suck it up and find some way around this if it's just the way things roll in Hard mode?

It's exhausting to spend 10 turns mopping up tiny stacks, building one new building and having the settlement taken yet again...

[Ca Putt]

For Saka:
Don't stop, Attack, raid, attack, raid etc. When you play Saka, you need all the momentum you can get as your economy sucks. Fight your battles in the open or go around your enemy and take the town while his army marches in vein.

For Baktria:
Don't capture Antiochia, that will trigger Parthian attacks. Go east instead and lay hands on the rich "indian" Provinces. I wasn't too good in my Baktria campaign so I will leave the rest to others.

For Pahlava:
Go south, do not interfere with the affiars of the Saka and the Baktrians, they keep each other at bay perfectly. The Selucids however are bound to attack you sooner or later, so make sure to give them a reason. the Eastern Selucid holdings are easy pickings for your army and AS Patrols are nomore than walking targets for your skilled horse archers. By the time Antiocheia reacts your troops are at the walls of Susa or Ekbantana. The baktrians and Saka are unlikely to follow you down south before they dealt with each other.

[I_damian]

The Pahlava are quite easy and one of the most fun factions to play. The key, like Ca Putt said, is momentum. Pure aggressive behaviour. Remember, you're nomads. Exterminate every Seleukid city, you need the cash and you can't afford to leave large garrisons behind. It's the only way. Start with Asaak and Antioch-Margiane, whilst at the same time smash those two un-walled settlements in the very north-east of Seleukid territory, just above the Baktrian capital. You can let them rebell afterwards, you won't need 'em. Then just carry on sweeping west and south in one giant pincer movement. Do it fast and by the time the Seleukids start sending Klerouchi / Pezhetairoi Phalangitai at you you'll already have Persepolis and Ekbatana and you'll be able to recruit some semi-decent line infantry to hold them at bay while your horse archers hit them from behind.

Then it's just a case of following the guide for the Persian reforms to turn your empire in to Parthia with some pretty awesome infantry and cavalry and you're golden. The east is yours. As the Pahlava I've literally never known the Saka or Baktria to ever declare war on me, and I once played as Pahlava until around 200 BC.

As for Baktria, it can be a royal pain in the backside. Seleukia WILL attack you eventually, usually for me it's in the first 10 turns. The Pahlava likely never will. The Saka will once you expand east. I had one campaign as them which I eventually had to abandon, it was around 260 BC and the Saka were sending a whole stack of noble cavalry and horse archers to my north-eastern most city every single turn. Literally every turn I had to fight off a full stack. It sucked.

[Scutarii]

So the dog pile by turn 15 is not something you've seen before?

If I go on a full steam ahead march how do I deal with the cities rebelling and randomly spawning huge stacks of silver chevroned units to run around behind me?

Or am I literally abandoning my homelands and deciding on a new capital instead somewhere deeper in Seleukid territory? Which I suppose would remove my borders from the Saka/Baktrian spheres of influence.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Whichever one of those factions you play, you've got to make sure the Seleucids quickly lose at least four towns to you and your allies to stop them become uber-powerful too early, otherwise they just spam armies like crazy. Most factions that border the Seleucids have to start that way IMO, except maybe the Ptolemies and Hayasdan who can afford to go after Eleutheroi instead.

Hard campaign in EB is worse than Very Hard in vanilla, and Very Hard in EB is a nightmare. I stick to Medium myself - at least that way the AI doesn't buy up all the mercenaries.

[Leão magno]

Alternatively you can use forced diplomacy. It will help you if role playing is your intend

[I_damian]

So the dog pile by turn 15 is not something you've seen before?

If I go on a full steam ahead march how do I deal with the cities rebelling and randomly spawning huge stacks of silver chevroned units to run around behind me?

Or am I literally abandoning my homelands and deciding on a new capital instead somewhere deeper in Seleukid territory? Which I suppose would remove my borders from the Saka/Baktrian spheres of influence.

As the Pahlava you mean? The cities you take won't rebel. You exterminate them, destroy the old government type and barracks you can't use for recruitment and garrison them with a single unit of archers with low taxes. Their population is so low after the extermination that they do not rebel. You don't need to abandon your two starting provinces if you don't want to but to be honest, they're crap. You're migrating nomads who eventually become the Parthian kingdom. You could abandon them and make your capital at Persepolis and be like ancient Persia. Or you could make it Seleukia/Babylon and supplant the Seleukids.

[antisocialmunky]

Surprisingly, I never really had issues with Phalanxes as Pahlava. Just slowly mass HA and once you get to a certain amount, you can grind down a siege every 2 turns until you have Gold Chevrons on everything and enough infrastructure to go on the offensive (watch out for earthquakes).

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

As the Pahlava you mean? The cities you take won't rebel. You exterminate them, destroy the old government type and barracks you can't use for recruitment and garrison them with a single unit of archers with low taxes. Their population is so low after the extermination that they do not rebel. You don't need to abandon your two starting provinces if you don't want to but to be honest, they're crap. You're migrating nomads who eventually become the Parthian kingdom. You could abandon them and make your capital at Persepolis and be like ancient Persia. Or you could make it Seleukia/Babylon and supplant the Seleukids.

The problem with exterminating is that it will take longer to replace the Seleucid governor's palace than it would normally do. This causes a culture penalty for you (lowering public order) that won't go away until the town expands in size and you replace the Seleucid building with your own palace. So I generally Occupy in Towns, Enslave in Large Towns, and Exterminate in Minor Cities and above.