1.0x AI Faction Progression Thread

[Elminster12]

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Silver Death's Iran + Iraq isolation looks funny! Interesting how lazy the Catelluvani are...and the seemingly death-bed ridden Makedonia.
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Interestingly enough, I made peace with them a couple of years ago, and the turn before I called it quits for the night, they offered me an alliance, which I, of course, accepted. It's really not going as smoothly as one might first think, as the war with the Ptolies is fairly large-scale and they love blockading Sardis on me. I'm more or less supporting the largest number of troops I can manage without draining my treasury. Amaseia has an Imperial palace going, and Sinope and Nikaia are close. I've won and lost battles by a razor edge on a number of occasions. It DID make the early-going easier, as the Seleukids(obviously) didn't really have much to attack me with.

Also, the Casse have been lazy. They literally took Ictis less than ten years ago. The Getai started out real slow, but they've taken off. The only thing I have to complain about is that the Hai and the Getai have thus far not built any more port upgrades, which would be nice for my treasury, and the Ptolies (luckily or unluckily) betrayed me JUST as I was going to launch my second Bosphorous campaign. Don't ask me about the first, it never existed.

[beatoangelico]

Baktria H/M

236 BC



230 BC



Casse = usual expansion in britain

Lusotann = allied with the Karthadastim from the start

Averni = one of the main SPQR enemis atm, had expanded much in Gallia in recent years

Aedui = more static than the Averni, allied with Roma

Sweboz = big expansion in Germany but still friendly with the Gauls

Romani = the big surprise of the campaign atm: they headed north leaving alone the Epirotes, that after the Makedonian disaster in Greece had conquered Rome and most of Italy. Really bad position now with Epirotes Karthadastim and Aedui all trying to break them in pieces.

Karthadastim = stationary in Spain and not really aggressive in Sicily they had focused in Africa waging war against the Ptolemaioi after conquering Cyrene

Epeiros = after 25/30 years of unstable balance in Greece the crushing defeats of the Antigonids have freed their forces from the Epirote homeland, beginning a double expansion in Illyria and Italy and managing to conquered even Rome after some unsuccesful sieges

Getai = started a strong expansion from 255 BC, allied with Epeiros and for now at peace with KH

Makedonia = lost Corinth quite quickly, then in about 3/4 years KH suddenly conquered all the makedonian cities except Mytilene. From that point they launched an uneding series of sieges and assaults on Pergamon that regularly resists and push back what remains of the Antigonids.

KH = one of the most succesfull factions so far, first Corinth, then all mainland Greece fell in their hands. Around 240 bc they launched a full scale attack on Pontos, seizing Thrace in less than 1 year and then crossing the sea. There after some non decisive fights the Selekids wiped out in a single huge battle most of Pontos army and KH had easily occupied Nikaea. Now storming what remains of Pontos and starting a very interesting war with the AS.

Pontos = atm it seems quite doomed, at war with both AS and KH and a devasted army, but 10 years ago was one of the emerging factions, with Thrace and northern Anatolia in its hands.

Hayasdan = at peace with the AS but constantly struggling with the nomads, first the Sauromatae and now the Sakae, but not much seems to have happened.

Ptolemaioi = quite surprising they have been forced to defend their territories from both SSBQ from west and Saba from south-east, so they was unable to focus on the Syrian front after they managed to conquer and sack Antiochea. The long term conseguence was the loss of all cities in Asia Minor, including Halikarnassos, when the war with Pontos forced the AS to send significant forces in Anatolia. On the other hand they have recently regained provinces from both Saba and the Karthadastim.

Sauromatae = after some succesfull campaign against Parthia they were overrun by the Sakae and reduced to just one province. Now the war between Saka and Hayasdan could change something.

Sakae = allied to AS but for now mainly focused on the west with a few very succesfull attacks on the Sauromatae

Parthia = my long time ally, without much luck for now. First lost a northern steppe province to the Sauromatae, then in constant strife to expansion in the Seleukid territory. In 334 they lost Dayu Daha to AS, but I decided to retake it and give it to the "rightful" owner.

Saba = after the eleutheroi arabian provinces they attacked the Ptolemaio with some big initial succes, but now are mainly on the defensive.

AS = the Silver Death is still the biggest power on the map, even if at war with almost everyone as usual. In the easter front against me (Baktria) and Parthia, after some rebellion problems, only 3-4 times they have send a large wave of troops, but it often seem that its main concern is the Asia Minor/Syria front.

[Beefy187]

239 bc. Hai campeign...

Going solo. Seems like Pahlahva, Bactria and all the other bunch are happy being slaves to AS. I managed to free half of Asia minor. Wow Beefy your good? Sorry im playing H/E campeign

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Hmm, I get the impression the KH is a bit overpowered?

*cowers behind the walls, awaiting the inevitable castigation*

[hoom]

Update on my Getai campaign:
222BC


212BC


*Not much happening in Gaul.
*Carthage has finally expanded in Spain but rather than heading East into Egypt & the sand wars and at the expense of Sicily, Carthage has launched several naval offensives at Athens! They did take Athens off Makedon but it rebelled to KH

*Sweboz slowly expanding. The Boii etc are doing a magnificent job keeping them away from my borders. I've seen stack after stack beaten off with little loss. Recent gain to my North I believe to be rebellion from Hai.
*Frankly the thought of trying to go up against Boii stacks like this is kinda terrifying:

*Hai went North with great power but may have peaked & have declined slightly recently
*Sauromatae were nearly wiped out at one point but have come back
*I've taken out most of Epiros & Makedon are reduced to Euboia
*Various Hellenes have continued to land stacks on Rhodos including most recently a pretty full stack of Makedons. It remains in the hands of the Ptolomies though.
*KH came back from the brink with the help of Athens rebelling from Carthage & also picked up Halicarnassos in rebellion from AS about the same time
*Sabyn have taken over the Upper Nile
*Pontos are quiescent
*Ptolomies continue to spar with AS over the Levant, they held Antiochia for quite some time, it having only recently been won back by AS
*AS has gone East with great force & reasserted itself quite firmly
*Bactria Parthia & Sakae are not doing well at all against the Grey Death.

[pseudocaesar]

Rome needs to be adjusted, they never win anything or go anywhere.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I had a blast with RTW diplomacy tonight. I name it an unfeature from now on.

As you may know

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the diplomacy AI and the military AI in the TotalWar games, as declared by CA, were programmed separately, by separate programmers. The thing is that, while the diplomacy AI makes decisions taking the military situation into consideration, the military AI doesn't even know that there is diplomacy built into the game.

Roma attacked me. What an attack though! Merely blockaded a port of mine. Every next turn I either decimated a few of their scattered 'armies' or ransacked a settlement of theirs (or both), and requested CF+TR via my resident diplomat in Roma. They accepted every time, just to attack the next turn again, only more miserably. Why? See inside the spoiler.

Having to fight off a few mosquitoes every turn is a nuisance. Will have to radically solve the problem.
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[Soggius Chippius]

Well, ten years have passed, so its time for my Casse campaign's next update.
Here's the state of the world at 206 BC



First off, what's happened to the world in that 10 years?
Well, as far as Greece and its surrounds go, the Getai have died off after their impressive start, while the Epeirotes have ballooned into an empire that is beginning to scare me a lot more than Carthage. KH are still somehow hanging on to Greece and the Hellespont, but far more impressive so far has been their unexpected expansion all around the Anatolian coastline and even into Syria.



O_o I suspect they took advantage of a crippled Ptolemaic 'empire' that was too focused on Carthage, but I can't be sure since I had fog on for most of the time. Hmmm. Greece. What else...Oh right. Makedon has said goodbye to its homeland and now controls inland Anatolia. How long they'll be able to hold onto that I don't know. The Seleukids will be fairly eager to lap it up, that's for certain.
Speaking of the Seleukids, the situation east of Anatolia has gotten pretty interesting actually. Not only the KH, but the Seleukids as well have been taking major advatage of the Ptolemies' weakness and snatching up large swathes of land to put them back in the game. Which is a very good thing for them really, because Baktria has started moving back from their steppe exile too. I have an unpleasant feeling I'll be getting the Blue Death in a few more decades, with their current interest in the Seleukids' eastern parts that have been left lightly garrisoned while they try and capitalise on the Ptollies.
The Sarmatians have been doing freakishly well for themselves, having only really lost one province to Baktria while having gained about 4 I believe. Perhaps they'll be the supersteppe faction Geoffery S was going on about. Somehow I doubt it though. They've been doing well enough against Eleutheroi, but I doubt they've beaten Baktria too many times so far.

Anyway, enough about the rest of the factions. What about me?

Well, basically as far as the Casse have been concerned, the last 10 years have been almost solely based around the conflict in Italy with Carthage. Granted, about a turn after my last update I finally crushed the Arverni and a few turns later I took the two last eleutheroi territories in Gaul, but Italy has been by far the most important battleground for a while. Happily enough, unlike certains modern wars, there is an end in sight!



As you can see, it's being waged on two fronts. My main army has been crushing their forces and taking their settlements as they march slowly southwards, while my spies have been informing the general populace of the predilection for furry porn that certain members of the Carthaginian Senate have. As a result, Capua, Arpi and Messana have revolted (although Capua was taken back by the Carthies. For about a turn)
Currently, Taras has fallen back into the hands of Epeiros through a civil revolt (this one wasn't me oddly enough. Perhaps the rumours are true) and as one might expect, the Carthies and the Epeirotes aren't the best of friends right now. I can't see that going my way for a great deal of time, because the next factional city I'm going to encounter on my march south is going to be Taras anyway. -_- The plan at this stage is to try and take the rest of Italy and Sicily before the Tarentines decide my towns look attractive enough to attack. Then I'll nick off with Taras and leg it back up to the Po where I can a. refresh my dwindling supply of Calawre and b. secure Italy from Epeirote retaliation with a full army at....Patavium I believe.
Anyway, obviously Italy isn't the only potential problem I face, so let's look at two others.



Spain is starting to look a bit dodgy. Currently the border looks peaceful enough, but then you look at the map and realise that Carthage has bugger all land left, and Spain are feeling notably expansionistic.
"But Soggius! Surely there's a respectable Carthaginian presence in those three home provinces! I'm sure you've nothing to worry about. They'll hold out for ages yet."
To which I say.



Bollocks.
That's all they have left. Carthage has ignored almost every other front (even Egypt. Comapred to last update anyway) and put all its blasted resources into stopping me crushing them. It hasn't worked out for them very well unfortunately, as they've lost all the momentum they had in Spain, as can be seen from the above, and I have a strange feeling they stopped producing units for use in Egypt around the time the war in Italy started, because 5 years ago they had *everything* in Egypt (except for that one strip of land opposite the Arabian Peninsula. It's either Axum or the province above it) as well as its current holdings in the Levant. Then they just stopped expanding, and suddenly, in the last 3 turns, rioting broke out across Egypt, leaving the Carthies with the patchwork of provinces they have left there. I on the other hand have faced at least 6 fullstacks in the past 10 years, even with their unit production capacity cut down by the riots I incited.
Oh yeah, and just for a laugh, here's the current situation in central Egypt.



Nearly everything's a full stack in the Ptolly towns, but the Carthies are notably sparse on the ground.

Anyway, the point is, Carthage is sunk. At least on this side of the Med anyway. Which leaves me to deal with what I suspect will be my next big problem.



Germans.

I've been Allied to them since I landed in Europe, but....they're the Germans! They're the Milan of RTW except in every mod as well as vanilla. I'm ready for them, sure (that's quite a strong army there in Vesontio) but I'm torn between not wanting another war on my hands, and wanting to actually use that army there to get me more cash rather than having it sitting there as a money sink. Ah, decisions decisions. I'm leaving Helvetica alone, because I have a feeling it's that that's keeping them from attacking. Once that's gone, it's me or the Boii, and I know which I'd rather choose if I were them.
(Incidentally, don't worry about Olaf there. Sure he's on my land, but he's been on my land for the past 15 years, so we've managed to come to an agreement)

Anyway, that's enough from me. See you in another 10 years.

[Conqueror]

Makedonia campaign, VH/Med with BI, 250 BC:



Both Karthadastim and Ptolemaioi keep hitting me with naval invasions, the former targetting Capua and the latter going for Athenai. They always accept ceasefire & trade rights after I push their invasion armies to the sea, only to launch another invasion some turns later.

Far as AI-to-AI interactions go, Casse are totally passive, Gauls are hammering each others heads in, Sweboz are expanding but not yet a monster. Karthies expand in Africa and Ptolies are flooding into Seleukid lands. Pontos has been going fairly nicely. The steppe factions fight it out furiously and Baktria seems to be growing steadily.

[Olaf The Great]

While my spies have been informing the general populace of the predilection for furry porn that certain members of the Carthaginian Senate have.

Wat.

Incidentally, don't worry about Olaf there. Sure he's on my land, but he's been on my land for the past 15 years, so we've managed to come to an agreement.

I like your land, its nice n' blue.