Parthia

**pezhetairoi** · 07-06-2005, 01:01

Play nomadic. Pack up your show and cross over to Greece. Surrender your eastern cities, let them starve the cities out and take them but don't bother with anything more than a one-peasant garrison. Leave eggy alone while you move into Greece. It's easier prey for you, since hoplitai are just Greek for 'sitting ducks'. Also, Italy, whose legionnaires are also Latin for the same. Take those out and you've got a far more profitable and much safer base of operations. Then you can adopt my Brutii strategy for a 'shock and awe' campaign on Egypt: Phase 1, 10 turns of diplomatic bribing, phase 2, kitting out 2-3-4 armies to land simultaneously at various points in the Egyptian empire while producing Grand Fleets to get naval superiority from the Egyptians and blockade them until they cry mummy, to borrow Miles' expression ;-) Then phase 3, complete annihilation based on three-pronged attack mixed with manoeuvre and splitting of forces to bewilder the AI. Let Pontus live as a bulwark against Egypt. If Seleucia dies, you can't help it. They're pretty much defenceless anyway. If you want to stop Egypt from touching Seleucia, try to build a fort at the crossing south of Seleucia. Chances are that the Egyptians have possession of Dumatha, so they will launch attacks from the deep desert. Build a fort at the crossing, and a watchtower at the extreme south to watch for Eggies.

If you can't fight them, bribe them. But to do that you need to make more than 2-3k a turn. To do that you need Greece and Rome, since your moneymaking Asia Minor is definitely NOT safe.

Egypt cannot be beaten in a casual campaign. Lots of planning and preparation needed to weaken them.

**Dead Knight of the Living** · 07-11-2005, 13:16

Two cities left and all of Asia Minor is mine. I'll be relieving the Eggies of responsibility for governing Antioch in the next two or three turns too.

I had an unbelievable turn of good luck. Seleukia was besieged and the city to the west of it as well. I submitted as protectorate to them in exchange for them paying me 3650 denarii for 10 turns. I moved my army to one of the bridges west of Seleukia. Sieges were lifted. Next turn, the Eggies attacked anyway. Three full armies attacked the bridge one at a time. And one at a time I David Copperfielded them. It bought me a lot of time to heal up my other very depleted army. The tide is slowly changing. I'm pulling in like 4,000 denarii per turn now. That still sucks, but it's better than the 1500 I was getting a few turns ago. I've kicked the Eggies out of Asia Minor completely. I only have two rebel towns left to take. Smyrna and the other one's name escapes me. Once Asia Minor is completely subdued I'm off to take the holy land. Eggies are still fielding a lot of full stacks, but they're dropping like flies when they attack my armies. This is definitely the most fun campaign I've ever played. I'm glad I didn't start over.

And Pezh,

I kind of took your advice. I didn't completely abandon the eastern cities, but I'm not really paying attention to them anymore. I've moved my capital to Samosota which is further west towards Asia Minor. I plan on moving it to Apamea since I've almost conquered all of Asia Minor. I'm focusing all my development on the Asia Minor Cities. The only city in the east I care about is Seleukia because it's fairly developed. And the eggies seem to be magnetized to it. I guess because of the world wonder attached to it. I kill most of the Eggies on the bridges by Seleukia. It's definitely my center of gravity right now. Thanks for all the pointers everybody.

**VAE VICTUS** · 07-11-2005, 18:27

What Or Who Are Eggies?persians?

**Dead Knight of the Living** · 07-11-2005, 20:36

Originally Posted by VAE VICTUS

What Or Who Are Eggies?persians?

Eggies=Egyptians
Persians=Persians. People who lived in what is now Iran. Or the name of empires formed by non-Persian people, but formed the empire or nation in the land of Persia (Iran).

**pezhetairoi** · 07-12-2005, 00:53

Lol, first time I saw anyone ask about Eggies. Yay, dead knight, glad to know it works. As long as you defend at the Seleukia bridge you won't have any problems. The east is incredibly poor though. How's your campaign against Egypt doing?

**Dead Knight of the Living** · 07-15-2005, 15:07

Originally Posted by pezhetairoi

Lol, first time I saw anyone ask about Eggies. Yay, dead knight, glad to know it works. As long as you defend at the Seleukia bridge you won't have any problems. The east is incredibly poor though. How's your campaign against Egypt doing?

It's going well. I've taken all of Asia Minor now. IT's all mine. I'm about to grab Malta I think. The one with the Colossus Wonder. That'll boost my trade very well. I took Antioch also. They've besieged it, but I'll easily lift that. It's still a little hairy over by Seleukia. They've now figured out to bypass my army on the bridge and go around. I've had to fight a couple of battles away from the bridge. IT's no problem though. I win, I go to Seleukia to retrain and go back to the bridge. And now I've another 8 unit army over there to help keep them running around. I basically use this army to siege Eggie towns and turn their armies away from Seleukia. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. If it doesn't I attack with the 8 unit army and expend all my arrows on them. By the time they get to my main army in Seleukia they are at least 50% strength and ineffective.

The biggest thing going in my favor is that so far they have never put more than two archer units in their armies. I rarely see chariots and if so never more than one or two units of them. It's normally all phalangites. My HA's and Persian Cavalry chew them up slowly and spit them out. If I can't defeat them in one battle I at least attrit them down far enough so in the next battle I wipe them out. I rarely lose more than 20 or so men in a battle.

One disturbing thing though. Before taking Antioch I fought a battle and they had two units of Pharoah's Guard Bowmen. I thought for sure I'd take a bunch of losses. But what I did is surrounded their entire line. Whatever side of my circle they moved to I withdrew and closed the other side of the circle. I also kept moving the units laterally to help throw them off balance. Eventually a hole opened up and I sent my General and my only unit of cataphracts in to take out one of the PGB's. Also, they had one unit of Native bowmen. These idiots advanced ahead of the phalangites so I charged them with two units of PC's. Instant Route. These PC's took a few casualties from the sole remaining PGB. Not much. But before this last PGB unit did more damage I managed to get my general and cataphract units on them too. AFter that is was just a matter of taking out phalanx units one at a time with the classic

>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<
Persian Cav Enemy phalanx

^^^^^^^ Flanking Persian Cavalry
^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^

One at a time. Slow and STeady wins the race.

I will add this. If the Seleucids decide to declare war on me, I'm done. They'll be free to siege my towns and I won't be able to spare an army to stop them. Now, that of course is slowly changing. My income is increasing each turn. And after I take Malta I'm sure I'll be able to build an army to defend my eastern borders from them.