Ptolemaic Empire

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

Im in a bind here as Ive been playing my Ptoelemaic game for a while and are raking in enough money to stablize my economy, and military. My current land ownings at the moment encompass all of homeland egypt down to the bottom of the map, all of the 4 cities near and around jerusalem along the Mediteranean, and 3 cities in Galatia, inlcuding the recently captured Mazaka ( I think) with is mines. Anyway the problem is ive just realized how militarily strong the Sellcuids are, tohave gotten as far as i have was noteasy ive lost ovr 13 major battle, mainly due to height advantages. I just want to end thisunrewarding war with the Selucids but if I make a treaty they want 25000 mnai, and Antioch, and the other three cities I have in Anatooia. And even after that thye will atack me agin. I just want to launch a massive naval asault on greece, and Macedonia, but am stuck with the selucids. The present year is 235 B.C. and i have no idea what to do. Keep fighting The massive selucids or make for peace.
I will have some screenshots loaded soon to give a better idea of the presnt situation but other then that i just need advie.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

That sounds pretty cool actually. I'd try to get alliances with other factions on the sides of the seleukids and then expand maybe into south arabia. You get land trades and sea ports for trade, plus you don't expose yourself to anyone else (only the seleukids, who you fight with anyway). I'd think it risky to move into an area like greece with lots of other parties present. They will be strong too. However, it would let you fight against other types of units, and might be more exciting.

[VandalCarthage]

I find that if you can maintain a border around Karia, Pamphylia, Kilikia, and Syria; you can pretty much handle everything the Seleucids throw at you with just a large army in Antioch. You can even make a grab for Lesbos and not be bothered too much. If you throw up some watchtowers all around your border or just near cities, it's a pretty easy line to maintain.

[edyzmedieval]

I love the Ptolemies. They are the best, along with the 2. Seleukids and 3. Romani/Karthadastim

[Krusader]

I love the Ptolemies. They are the best, along with the 2. Seleukids and 3. Romani/Karthadastim

Yeah, playing Egypt in EB is much more fun than vanilla.

[edyzmedieval]

Playing with Ptolemaioi in EB is very challenging and fun. I really enjoy them.

[Avicenna]

The KH can whip Carthage once they're given the Spartiates. :)

[edyzmedieval]

You want too much.

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

First update on the Ptolemiac and Selucid war. Ive sent too massive, full stack armies to Anatolia to deal with the Selucids and have won one battle pushing them East. The only problem now is that they have about 2 full stack armies in Galatia, and are seigng three of my cities. I dont know if I should go for Selukia in the east, or head north towards their Backtrian provinces.
I agree with everyone about the Ptolemies, they are the best. As you get a taste of so many different units. My favorite being the Galatian Klerucho witha 28 defense, 38 charge bonus, Excellent morale (Ive only ever seen one unit, with only one-quarter men left, rout) , and 12 atack there killing machines. Fighting the Selucids is not teribly difficult but it is a very bloody type of fighting as they have very similair units so its mainly Phalanx lines Vs. Phalanx lines, with a constant flanking and anti-flanking stragedy. The only secret weapon style unit I have is my armored elaphants which, although are Mindbogglingly expensive and very tricky to use, can if charged into a bloody Phalanx match, easly turn the tables, and cause thother side too flee.
Still working on getting in some screenshots, could anybody tel me exactly how to do it??

[abou]

That is what is great about elephants, and will be even better when the charge bug is fixed after the move to 1.5. If you can line up and lock your phalanx and the opposing phalanx together you can run elephants right through their entire line from the side.

enemy battle line ---------------------------- <- your elephants
your battle line -------------------------------

[edyzmedieval]

Alt+ Print Screen.

For screenshots.

[Avicenna]

You could always wait for them to advance into your phalanx line, while firing missiles into their ranks. It's easy to rout the first unit that arrives, then with their weakened morale it should be a shorter and pretty much bloodless battle. (for you anyway)

[paullus]

But that's less valorous...besides, if you let them do all/most of the advancing, the chances of getting a really jagged enemy "phalanx" increase tremendously. I like to run mine the last bit of distance, then put the phalanx down just before contact. Makes a nice crash.

And yeah, the Ptolemies are awesome. So much unit diversity.

[Avicenna]

That just makes it into two jagged phalanxes. The phalanx is best used in defence anyway, not in attack.

[paullus]

I know you can wait for the Ai to incompetently wade into your pike tips, and lose maybe one man, but seeing as how this is a game and none of your wee phalangites actually die, I prefer to get a nice crash. And if you set them up correctly, it usually works really well as far as cohesion for both sides: you force the AI to be (partly) competent by meeting them in the middle. Seems much fairer to me than waiting for them to arrive exhausted and disordered from their march across the map.

[abou]

Isn't the point to play defensive if you are the one attacked?

Generally, when I attack the AI just stands there waiting for me to make a move unless it assumes that the battle favors its own forces, which means I am the one marching. For the most part, if you are on the defensive you have a distinct advantage that any commander would recognize and hold on to.

[Avicenna]

I prefer to allow my archers to use their arrows up though, instead of them having to stop shooting once there might be friendly fire. Also, with the fire arrows I can thin their ranks and demoralise them a bit then go in for the kill. Anyway, when the AI is on defense I manage to win by quite a bit even though by the time my phalanx reaches them it's all broken up.