0.8x AI Faction Progression

[BioHazard]

[IMG][/IMG]
This is my Roma v.80 campaign being played on H/M. After unifying Italy I went after the Carthage first thing, it took many years to destroy them (they held out for many turns in their last stronghold at Garama with those elite troops of theirs). I know I have progressed slowly but I was concerntrating more on my economy than military. As you can see KH and the Spainish are pretty powerful. AS was getting destroyed be the factions around it but with a little money from me they got back on their feet and is now slowly destroying all around them. The Getai have formed a powerful empire. Casse has conquered Britain and Ireland. Most of my legions are near the Spainish/Gual border with a few more at the northern KH border. I have 1 legion in africa taking Sala. Egypt has been losing ground since AS got back on their feet, they just took back Memphis and Alexandreia a few turns ago. Bactria is not doing as well as they usually are, they just went to war with AS and lost those 2 areas in the far corner all in the same turn. Sweboz is down to only 1 area and is a vassal to 2 empires. Soon I will have my legions take over Spain and Gual then I will turn around and start a slow conquest of KH.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi guys,
This is the world of Summer 239BCE in my Seleucid campaign:



Carthage declared war on me the very moment I captured Kyrene and keep on sending out half stack armies of elites, mostly made up of Elite Swordsmen and Pikemen, about every three turns. Baktria also likes sending out three-quarter stack armies mostly made up of Native Phalanx, Native Spearmen mixed in with Elite Royal Guard units, to attack the borders. They seem to target Alexandria-Arania and that city which I can't remember the name of right now right north of it. Pontos, even though I am continually assaulting them with my faction heir, keeps on pumping out large stacks to attack Mazaka. Armenia seems to be keeping itself to itself and is yet to attack me. Parthia violently attacked me in the first ten turns, but now seems to have gone into defensive mode - when I attacked them with a large army in 245BCE they managed to damage me to the point where I decided that the attack was not worth it. The Saba are also in a very defensive mode. They attacked me at the start and they managed to take a couple of towns before they were forced home. I managed to get a ceasefire with them and recently an alliance. They now seem to be sitting at home doing very little. Egypt never managed to attack me before I went on an extermination spree destroying city after city. They are now also very passive and seem to be waiting for me with some rather feeble armies in their remaining cities. I hope this helps you with future releases. Cheers!

[Cadeyrn]

Looking at this I'm happy to see nearly all the barbarian factions actually getting something done for a change.

[Kralizec]

@Omanes: looks like the Casse are doing terribly. I've never seen the Lusotana or the Getai do so well, though.

I meant to post some screens from my (now abandoned) Casse campaign here, but I'm visiting my parents today. Tomorrow I'll sort out my screenshots. Meanwhile...

The faction progression was pretty funny to watch. The Ptolemaioi took over the entire Levant and the Arche Seleukeia started crumbling as they also lost their possessions in Asia Minor. The Romani took over almost entire eastern Europe and parts of Gaul. I kicked them out of the latter, and while they were preoccupied with me the Epeirotes, who hadn't expanded much before that, started nibbling away Romani provinces as well. Then the KH, who held Makedon, Tessaly, Propontis and other parts around the Black Sea went to war with Epeiros and kicked them out of Epeiros proper.
At some point, Karthadast went to war with the Ptolemaioi and took Alexandria. Arche Seleukeia used this opportunity to annex their old homelands and Syria and started thriving again.
By 207 or so, Epeiros holds huge swathes of eastern Europe but none of their original homelands, KH is finally starting to lose lands against a resurgent Arche Seleukeia in Asia minor, the Getai have expired and the Romani are confined to Italy, a single province in modern Germany and the province Skythia where they can't recruit anything. Oh, the Makedones/Antigonids were still holding out on Lesbos for a long time till the Seleukids put an end to them.

In 2000 years, historians are going to have a tough time piecing the events in this time period together

[Oleo]

206 BC,

195-ish



romans still camillans, due to not building new barracks.

[Orb]

Oleo, looks like AS are going to be the third or fourth to get wiped out.

Sweboz go East, Carthage kicked out, Dacia expanding, Casse expanding

Interesting.

[Oleo]

Oleo, looks like AS are going to be the third or fourth to get wiped out.

Maybe, but they are my allies and under my protection, as long as they keep that up (not attack me for some stupid reason), they still have a chance

[Kralizec]

If you take those Ptolemaioi cities in the Levant and southern Asia Minor, the Arche Seleukeia are certain to attack you. They'll have noone else to attack otherwise in that region.

[Dumbass]

Maybe, but they are my allies and under my protection, as long as they keep that up (not attack me for some stupid reason), they still have a chance

Good idea, keeps you safe from the big blue beast. For now...

[Moros]

Nice game Oleo. That campaign of your's really proofs that Hayasdan isn't impossible. They might start of badly, but they are quite possible.

[Xtiaan72]

What are you guys using to blow up these maps? Photo Shop or Paint? I've been messing around with paint trying to crop some photos but they look terrible and when I try to overlay text it erases part of the map! Anyway sorry this is a little off-topic but I'd like to join the club on this thread!

[Orb]

Nice game Oleo. That campaign of your's really proofs that Hayasdan isn't impossible. They might start of badly, but they are quite possible.

Heh, I did that in 0.74

They aren't exactly easy, but it was so satisfying to completely pwn 3,000 Greek troops with 2/3 of a stack of horsemen and 30 casualties (I actually pulled this off, the trick is to use cheap Galatian mercenaries to pin one flank, nail it with Cataphracts, use HAs to kill the enemy general and then just force through the rest of the line with Galatians and Cataphracts

[Justiciar]

They're a seriously great faction, esspecially if AS stay strong for more than half a century. I had a go some time ago, taking things slowly, seeing Hayasdan declare it's independence while the other vassals still clung onto the Empire, even going as far as to declare war on me. The first long-term EB campaign I've been defeated in. Fun, fun, fun. The Aedui have certainly grown in an interesting way there. Somehow remininscent of Napoleonic France.

[Dooz]

That campaign really shows how in EB, it just takes longer for factions to spread out and become empires or what have you. Most shots are of campaign only 20-30 years in, and that's just not enough time to see much happen. In that 195 shot, you see the Auedi dominating, Getai doing well, even the Casse have expanded north. And I love the back and forth of Carthage. So cool, gaining Iberia, losing it to invading Gauls and rebellion, so realistic. Granted it might be a bit better if such things started just a bit sooner, it's still cool to see such screenshots of cool campaigns. I can only imagine the Auedi hordes roaming the countrysides...... oh, the hair.

[Oleo]

What are you guys using to blow up these maps? Photo Shop or Paint? I've been messing around with paint trying to crop some photos but they look terrible and when I try to overlay text it erases part of the map! Anyway sorry this is a little off-topic but I'd like to join the club on this thread!

My screenshots are saved as jpg (I use a program called screenshotmanager.exe that saves a screenshot as jpg whenever you press the button, whether you are busy with word/windows/RTW or any other program)

Then I open them with paint cut out evrything but the map and resize to 150%.

[Dumbass]

Just need to ask: did pontos send a naval invasion to Bosphoria?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Well, I did some more in my Roman campaign. Trying to get as much done before it is completely obsolete. Not really AI progress, since everyone borders me, and just look at how the AI is attacking me.

My whole campaign:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

264:
251:
240:
231:
221:
This is where everything started looking up for Rome.
211:
201:
190:
180:
170:
160:

Latest:

Saba betrayed me and my own protectorate sided with them, so now there is no more Armenia (my protectorate). Trying to "fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here" I accidentally took Charax. I then took Gerrha and gave it to Saba. I moved up the start date for the Imperial Era and got a guy who is "Highly Ambitious". I had him conquer Dacia to get some money to back his cause. Strangly Dacia accepted becoming my protectorat, so the war ended quickly. Something really weird happened: all in the same turn all my enemies asked for peace:

I think that's the first time I've ever seen complete peace in this Roman camaign.

As for the AI, the Sarmations are getting attacked from both west and east, but nothing visible on the map is happening. And one weird thing: Saba is at war with both Parthia and Seleucia. I think the gap between Arabia and Persia is close enough that they (Saba) consider Persepolis and Garmana acceptable targets. Too bad they don't have boats and instead all three of them are walking through my territory to fight eachother.

[Dumbass]

That is one amazing campaign you had, you've even had the pax romania! Congrats, won't be long till you comlpete it, you just need to raid the sweboz homeland. I hope you get to re-enact teutoberg forest.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

That is one amazing campaign you had, you've even had the pax romania! Congrats, won't be long till you comlpete it, you just need to raid the sweboz homeland. I hope you get to re-enact teutoberg forest.

Sweboz, my allies since before I left Italia just attacked me. So I sent a compitant guy (so he hopefully won't fall for an ambush) and four legions to counter them. I remade my alliance with Sauromatia and they are now being hit from both sides. This is interesting enough I'm going to put off playing 0.81.

[Lysandros]

Ptolemaioi campaign 240 BC, 0.81 with some changes to the script (AI factions get money easier if in debt): Epeiros already had conquered Rome, was pushed back and had become a protectorate. After Taras rebelled, a new war broke out and Epeiros recovered. Most amazing: this is my first game ever where Lusotannan expands and the Seleucid empire advances towards Europe.

[Moros]

What did you exactly change if I may ask?

[Janius]

Just started a new Romani campaign, with 0.81, Bi-exe and VH-H settings...

The year is 247BC:



Nothing really special, except maybe the Averni dominance in Gaul.
The saka and Sweboz are expanding quite nicely too.

I on the other hand am expanding very slowly, mainly because kart-hadast and macedonia are keeping me buzy in my homeland.
They keep sending half-stacks across the seas, landing them near Capua and tarentum.
At first it were only levy troops, but now more and more elites are send.
I'm trying to built up my economy, so I can afford a decent fleet, but it takes time (and money, which I don't have ).

PS: Congrats to the EB-team for improving an already great game, keep it going

[Teleklos Archelaou]

-Wow. Looks like the doom and gloom about Maks getting thrashed isn't always accurate. They've done away with KH at this point except from their island retreat.
-Look at those nomads go! Baktria is not having an easy go at it.
-Parthia also expanding into Seleukid lands.
-Germans getting frisky.
-As are Sabaeans - and that is not due to rebellion in Arabia (or I would be quite surprised if the Seleukids had gotten that far already).

Nice post!

[Fondor_Yards]

-Look at those nomads go! Baktria is not having an easy go at it.

The Saka took Baktria itself! Meep! And Alexandreia Ariana for good measure! *At least I think it's Alexandreia Ariana, there are too many Alexandrias*

[Foot]

*At least I think it's Alexandreia Ariana, there are too many Alexandrias*

Thats the vanity of conquerors for you.

Foot

[Ower]

Thats one cool campain. Awsom, to see Bactria geting crushed for a change.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

This was one of the last internal versions, but is nearly 0.81. I wanted to show this because of what KH is doing. I'm Pahlav (240BC).
240:

[Lysandros]

Moros:
I just removed some of the condition entries when money is to be added to an AI faction and raised its value. Like this:

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType romans_julii
and not FactionIsLocal
and Treasury < 3000
;and I_NumberOfSettlements romans_julii < 4
;and I_TurnNumber < 20
console_command add_money romans_julii, 16000
end_monitor

Same for every other faction, of course.

[Dooz]

Shouldn't there be another thread for 0.81? I know it says 0.8x for this thread, but it's run a long time, and .81 is a whole new beast entirely. I'd make one myself, but I don't want to be presumptuous. TA made this one, perhaps he'll make the other one if he wants.

[Justiciar]

It's 0.8x.. should last us right up to 0.89. Clever, eh?