Nerfing Bakria- and assorted campaign suggestions

[Tellos Athenaios]

In my campaign Roma didn't had any trouble at all kicking Epeiros out. They've declared a ceasefire now Epeiros has been so long out of Italy. The Romans actually have taken everything in modern Italy save Sardinia, Syrakousai, and Lilybaeum (you don't mind if I call it by it's Vanilla name... I hope). Plus: they have pushed right through modern Swiss, and they are currently busy expanding into Southern Germany and Austria.

Epeiros, on the other hand, has managed to take Dalminion so far - and that's it. Epeiros actually doesn't even throw a Koinon army, standing there for ages, off their lands! IMO Epeiros is rather weak all round. Especially for what it was like in 272 BC. - the strongest kingdom in all of Greece, supposed to become the next uniting force in Greek history: one that was expected to back it's claim to the Makedonian throne, and to hegemonia over all of Greece with succes. And it doesn't even finish off three standing units, units belonging to one of their enemies, when it has got a full stack army of it's own around! (Okay, that's an AI flaw, but still it pictures the current 'attitude' of the Epeirote faction: I'm not at home, please come back later.)

I just hope my experience was an exception, but otherwise: help Epeiros out!!! Please?

[Gazius]

More often than not, what I've seen even in my longer games, is that epeiros takes western greece and part of the balkans, KH takes the other part, and then just stagnate. My only AI game saw them take all of modern italy minus corsica/sardina, chasing the romans into austria. I think Epeiros should be set to a different attitude, Genghis Khan maybe? Something a bit more, expansionistic. However, I think its historically accurate for all of greece to be a quagmire until the Romans show up, no?

[Kugutsu]

I have totally the opposite. In my campaign the Epirots turfed the Maks out of greece in short order, then proceeded to wipe out KH. They then went on a massive expansion northwards, at their peak taking half of the steppes and attacking the Sweboz in their home territory. In the meantime they kept taking and retaking Taras and Capua and even besieged Rome with 3 full stacks. Unfortunately they made the mistake of attacking me in Nikaia, and I have since taken Greece from them. They are still pretty big in north east europe though, and so long as thry dont do anything stupid (like provoke me) they will probably outlast the Romans, who are in BIG trouble now the Carthies have finally wiped out the Lusetanns. Its amazing the effect that had: in about 2 years they have taken most of gaul and are besieging Segesta and Mediolanum...

[Conqueror]

In my Carthie game the Epirotes grew into a superpower, they kicked the Romans out of Rome & then Italy and almost destroyed the Maks (I interfered to save them). For a long time they were the strongest faction in Europe, but lately they've started to decline (probably because their borders became connected with Sweboz, Getai and the Gallic factions and they are at war with most of them).

[soibean]

kugutsu and conqueror Id like to see campaign maps if you wouldnt mind

[Conqueror]

You can see my maps in the AI progression thread (in the Gameplay Guides subforum).

[Kugutsu]

I have posted them in the faction progression thread, but here they are in series:

249BC

242BC

229BC

217BC

189BC


Unfortunately I didnt make a pic when they were at the peak of their power in about 205BC. At that point (before I invaded) they had all of Greece, all of what is now Poland, as far west as the Sweboz homeland, and as far north as the Baltic.

Edit: From these you can also see the dire straits of Bactria. The only reason they have 3 provinces now is because I gave them two. They seem to have simply given up, and are no longer building any troops. Its not because they are broke, because I have given them loads of money, and the graph shows they have about 3 million. The problems started for them when I took the last Seleukid settlement in Anatolia. After that they really took off in the east. I am trying to encourage Bactria to survive, simply to keep the Seleukids off my back...

[Kugutsu]

Thaatu: In my game the Ptolies are recruiting elephants in southern Egypt. I know this because I have fought them in half a dozen battles. They tend to have 2 units of archer-less ones and occasionally a unit of archer-carrying ones in each (big) army. I have also noticed they are very, very easy to kill. My horse archers generally kill the whole herd in 2 volleys, with any survivors running amok at that point. This is an issue, as my horse arches seem to ignore the amok units when they are in skirmish mode, so wont avoid them. I tend to lose more horses that way than from targeted enemy attacks...

I have also seen Saba armies in Egypt with elephants, but they might have been given to them when settlements rebelled.

[Thaatu]

Kugutsu: In my game Ptolies haven't yet conquered the southernmost provinces of Nile (too busy with their black sea expedition), so maybe that's why they don't have 'phants. What's the situation on AI fleets in your campaign? I hope I'm proven wrong. Either way, I worry too much about AI...

I would like to finish the year 2006 with these words:


Ptolemaioi nerfenda est!

[Tellos Athenaios]

Excellent post Thaatu. Still, I have to dissapoint you with some RTW calculating stuff. Let's play on low settings, and mind that no upkeep costs change:
1 Unit of Elephants = 3 beasts + 9 archers;
5 Units of Pezhetairoi = 155 men.

That means according to your calculations that:
1 Unit of Elephants = 3*150kg food (450kg) + 3*100L water (300L) + 9*2,5kg food (22.kg) + 9*3L water (27L) = 472.5kg food + 327L water;
5 Units of Pezhetairoi = 155*2.5kg food (382,5kg) + 155*3L water (465L) = 375kg food + 465L water.

You can see that the issue partially depends on what difficulty settings you are playing. And we haven't even examined the costs of medical upkeep yet: Elephants usually need far more looking after than humans when on a campaign. (Due to the fact that Elephants have far more trouble adapting to a foreign climate - should this be radically different from their 'home climate', as shown by the experiences of Hannibal.)

So based on these figures I cannot but conclude that:
1) It's more of a Vanilla issue, than an EB issue since upkeep costs don't change according to relative unit ratio, in fact they don't even change depending on the settings you're playing on. Thus playing on low settings gives you, most likely the most accurate experience - moneywise;
2) Elephants, moneywise again, aren't all that unbalanced;
3) And there's a limit to what we can argue about. For if we don't even know the price of food nor the price of water nor the price of medical care in those days, we may or may not be correct in our estimates that a unit's upkeep is balance or not comparing to another's; but still we may never know wheter it's costs themselves are actually balanced.

Now, perhaps it's time to get .

To slow down growth rates: what about using the shell command add_popultation "Settlementx" amountx? If the background script contained a loop checking growth rates in each settlement just before the game start to calculate all the other factions' moves, and 'removing' population accordingly, EB would, perhaps, be able to 'control' growth rates. Btw, the command mentioned above is capable of 'awarding' negative bonuses.