Royal Scythian Campaign

[Kamakazi]

Not sure if this is worth its own thread but this has to be the most odd and interesting spread ive ever had in a campaign. My empire literally splits the game map in two pieces.

The German Confederation to my north loves me but wont even give me a defensive alliance. Sparta is a client of Athens and my ally BUT Athens HATES me with a passion.

Im fighting a double north south front in the west of my empire. The bulk of my forces are to the East though, fighting more or less surrounded fight against Seleucid(and its stupid satrapies), Armenia, and Media Antroponte. Agents are raping me sideways (apologies if tbat is to vulgar)

Farthest to the East im fighting Baktria.


Thought yall might find it interesting

[Hooahguy]

Certainly rather unique, Ive never seen a player empire which expanded that way, usually its more like a blob that slowly grows outward.

[Slaists]

LOL, looks almost like Attila's empire.

[Kamakazi]

yea I didn't mean to spread the way I did it just kind of happened. If Athens decides to declare on me I don't know how Sparta will fall and if they side against me my center is screwed

[hoom]

How do you even manage that

My experience to date with using R2 horse archers is that they can't skirmish properly automatically.
They always seem to get run down by stuff they should have run from or fail to approach things I ask them to.
And I completely lack sufficient APM to do it manually.

I really liked the balance that the EB guys had managed to get in the R1 engine, they were very brutal & pretty much skirmished perfectly.

What kind of army makeup do you use against the infantry heavy type enemies & how do you deal with sieges?

[Kamakazi]

I generally run either a total horse army 4 melee with the rest being light horse archers or the armored archers. If I don't run that I add in 4 spear units to pin down enemy infantry in order to flank and get shots to the rear of enemy infantry.

So in a 20 unit stack it would run either:

1x General (Armored Horse Archer)
4X Melee Cav
15X Horse archers usually unarmored but I mix in armored when I can.

or

1x General (Armored Horse Archer)
4x Melee Cav
4x Royal Scythian Spears
11x Horse archers (varied once again)

Generally I siege people out and wait on them to sally fourth so I can destroy their infantry. Macedon fell easily in early game because their infantry never caught me. I have to do a ton of micro managing but I generally run two groups of HA in order to get a type of flank and surround tactic working. The only real threats I run into come from long range archers (galic hunters etc) siege engines and enemy light cav because somehow they always run my guys down. If I don't micro all my cav then they get caught a lot by infantry who should never have gotten close.

[Kamakazi]

in other news ive officially closed the gap. Still holding in the middle and the west but ive done a pincer to break the stalemate in the east.

Ive also peed in Rome's cheerios. ;) And Athens declared on me ...... and as you can see that got them reaaallly far.

[Slaists]

Did Athens really declare on you or they just converted an agent of yours and declared war that way by default?

In mid-to-late games, that latter is how the AI typically declares war on me. They want peace on the same turn.

[Kamakazi]

They legitimately declared on me. I believe they brought tylis in with them because suddenly I was at was with them too but im unsure. It was a terrible play for them no matter what because I had an army camped 1 province away most of the game waiting on them to make that mistake. Now they are only on Rhodos and I just haven't gotten the urge to go finally kill them

[Kamakazi]

on a side note what is the most agents you've ever had? I have 34 right now on my RC campaign

[Slaists]

on a side note what is the most agents you've ever had? I have 34 right now on my RC campaign

It really depends. Sometimes, I get many; sometimes, just my allowance. I think, the max I got was around 50 but that was many patches ago. It seems, AI factions have different budgets for agents. So, it all depends on who I am facing.

Lately, I've started just to assassinate/wound the AI agents instead of converting. They tend to have odd stat/skill distributions (no specialization) for my liking.

I do hide my armies in ambush stance wherever I go (near or in hostile territories). This seems to minimize the AI agent spam. I guess, if the AI does not see your force (and the agent embedded in it) on the start of their turn, they tend to send their agents somewhere else.

[Kamakazi]

Every agent of my enemies has an option.... convert or die...... if you don't convert on the first try..... you die end of story

[hoom]

Seriously, it never occured to me that you could convert enemy Agents to get over the Emperium cap
Had assumed they would just die rather than convert if you're already at limit. (and really this is what should probably happen)

I have taken to using it in my Syracuse (Hieronymus at the Gates!) campaign.
It really helped out with breaking the strength of the Lusitanians who were in full control of Iberia and is now helping gain momentum as I invade Italy for the finale against Rome.

[Kamakazi]

glad we could help ;) I hate the agent spam... they were literally wrecking my armies

[Kamakazi]

Oh btw its official TWR2 or the DEVs or Both hate me.... I just got a scroll bug and had to screw around my computer for like 30 mins to figure out how to fix it..... if its not one thing its another lol

[Slaists]

glad we could help ;) I hate the agent spam... they were literally wrecking my armies

The AI agents become a non-issue if you hide your armies in ambush stance wherever you go. Sure, makes it a bit slower to move around, but at least, you don't get poisoned and then attacked.

On top of that, you having the ambush stance on results in the AI moving around in forced march stance like there is no tomorrow. 95% of the field battles turn into ambush battles in your favor.

The thing with the forced march stance against your ambush stance is that if your ambush fails, the AI army stops since it has discovered you and ends up captured within your sphere of influence.

Since the AI cannot do anything about the stupid stance for a turn (cannot get out of it, cannot attack while it is active) it gives you a free ambush on your turn.

This could probably seen as an exploit. But, at least on legendary difficulty (+ to AI's morale and other goodies), the AI probably has an advantage in an ambush situation since it immediately sees even your hidden units. So, I just set up for a normal field battle in most of these ambushes.

[Hooahguy]

On top of that, you having the ambush stance on results in the AI moving around in forced march stance like there is no tomorrow. 95% of the field battles turn into ambush battles in your favor.

The thing with the forced march stance against your ambush stance is that if your ambush fails, the AI army stops since it has discovered you and ends up captured within your sphere of influence.

Since the AI cannot do anything about the stupid stance for a turn (cannot get out of it, cannot attack while it is active) it gives you a free ambush on your turn.

This could probably seen as an exploit. But, at least on legendary difficulty (+ to AI's morale and other goodies), the AI probably has an advantage in an ambush situation since it immediately sees even your hidden units. So, I just set up for a normal field battle in most of these ambushes.

Thats why the Radious mod, among others, removed the forced march ability completely. Personally I wish that being attacked while in forced marched would just result that all your units started out as tired or exhausted. And that makes much more sense than being ambushed, but nobody has seem to have had any success in modding that in.

[Slaists]

Thats why the Radious mod, among others, removed the forced march ability completely. Personally I wish that being attacked while in forced marched would just result that all your units started out as tired or exhausted. And that makes much more sense than being ambushed, but nobody has seem to have had any success in modding that in.

Yup, the forced march stance surely does not help the AI.

I do not care as much about ambushing the AI as about hiding from its agents and capturing single stacks within my zone of control (which allows me to attack them on the next turn). If the AI was in normal stance: would not make a difference to me; except, probably, I'd get attacked after being discovered. Fine with me as well.

[Kamakazi]

I miss the forced march to be honest... takes forever to cross map an army

[Kamakazi]

Finally got the win! Had to break NAP with Rome (they hated me anyway) and throw my lot with Carthage. Very good campaign and luckily I got through it without a patch breaking it or something going crazy.






Hope yall enjoyed me blabbing on and if anyone wants some tips on Royal Scythia feel free to ask me. Im not an expert but I have experience ;)

Now on to an Iceni run.......

[Slaists]

Very nice! Seems you were playing 4 TPY?

What was your ruling party's influence near the end of the campaign, BTW?

I have a legendary RS campaign in the process now; but play it only now and then. Fighting the other horse archers seems hard since RS does not get any foot archers of their own.

[Kamakazi]

Actually its only radious mods so unless they change it it is 1TPY

My politics were actually almost dead even

601/1200 nobles

50% Royal Family
50% Other Nobles

I didn't even try that either I just loaded up my last save in that area. Prolly around 2 turns before win

[Slaists]

Actually its only radious mods so unless they change it it is 1TPY

My politics were actually almost dead even

601/1200 nobles

50% Royal Family
50% Other Nobles

I didn't even try that either I just loaded up my last save in that area. Prolly around 2 turns before win

Well, your victory screen says it's 219 BC while the turn = 214. So, definitely 4 TPY as the game starts in 272. With 1 TPY you'd be only in turn 54 by 219 BC.

[Kamakazi]

well I guess youre correct then lol

[hoom]

So Mr Horsemaster, Have been playing with some Horse Archers & need some advice.

When using Horse Archers does it make much difference how wide you make the formation?

A wide formation is going to be pretty easy to catch when trying to skirmish diagonally as they inevitably catch the nearest flank because the skirmish AI calculates the distance from the meta-center of the unit not nearest member of the unit.

But do you get a frontal firepower boost from going wide?
Some TW games/units have had it that further back rows won't shoot/not as often because of LoS impingement by the preceding rows.
But other TW games/units have made it less severe/not there.

Certainly R2 slingers have LoS block so do benefit from wider formations & sufficient space in front.

Seems like there is minimal LoS block on the horse archers &/or just not having their flanks run down so easily makes for more useful horse archers when setup not particularly wide.
Possibly better all round firepower also since horse archers often shoot to side -> the more square formation gives fairly stable firepower allround even if its only the 'front' ranks firing?


Separately do you use Heavy Shot much? Seems to be pretty good for taking out elite lancer & infantry type units?

[Kamakazi]

going wide seems to work better I seem to get more affects on targets. Yes they do get caught up more but I usually respread accordingly when I move units anyway unless im doing a quick run micro.

I use heavy shot about 70/80% of the time it rips light units apart and has better affects on heavy targets rather than using regular shot

the go to when I am using my armies though seems to be a pin and flank or a bait and flank. Use a small contingent to get the main army to split off and chase and flank with the remaining forces. The Ai seems to not know what to do when I am using this tactic and will switch targets several times before actually going after a group. This gives my archers more launches. Cantabrian circle is an interesting formation speaking of shots. It isn't the greatest when kiting a unit but if you have units preoccupied it seems to do a good bit of affect on target