Is my strategy realistic?

[Dayve]

...uhm... EB is running on RTW's engine so... whatever works for you then go ahead.

Is good that ur stopping Ai attacks a lot of people who don't do what u are doing come in and complain "The AI keeps attacking me and it doesn't want to stop... mua mua mua "

Sometimes people want to expand historically, such as the example i gave earlier. If your faction is being continually attacked by a faction that your faction never really fought with or especially never conquered then if you're playing historically it puts you in an awkward situation.

Fighting 2 battles per turn sucks, for me it does anyway. I like a battle every couple of EB years, so 8 or 12 turns or so, unless i'm expanding then i expect it every turn, but when a faction i cannot expand into yet is sending 2 or 3 full stacks every turn i lose interest in battles and the campaign VERY rapidly, i imagine the OP is having the same problem too.

[Slim_Ghost]

Yes...as Pontos I want to expand to Greece and to the steppes first. I do not want to expand to the extremely volatile (correct word?) lands of Mesopotamia and Gaza, with the juggernaut factions Ptolemais and Arche Seleukeia I had to deal with.

[Dayve]

Well if you're not expanding as Pontus historically did (would be a boring campaign if you were) then a couple of towns inbetween you and the yellow/grey death won't buffer anything. If they want you they'll come for you, those two particular factions are notorious for being bastards.

There are a few choices, but buffer cities just won't work. You either have to play as a faction in the west so you don't come into contact with them, conquer them entirely or use force diplomacy mod.

Although, if you're REALLY lucky and give the cities to a faction that is allied with Egypt/Seleukia then maybe, and it's a big maybe, those two factions won't go to war for many many years. Sometimes the AI keep alliances for the whole game, sometimes they break them the very same turn they are made.

[NeoSpartan]

Sometimes people want to expand historically, such as the example i gave earlier. If your faction is being continually attacked by a faction that your faction never really fought with or especially never conquered then if you're playing historically it puts you in an awkward situation.

Fighting 2 battles per turn sucks, for me it does anyway. I like a battle every couple of EB years, so 8 or 12 turns or so, unless i'm expanding then i expect it every turn, but when a faction i cannot expand into yet is sending 2 or 3 full stacks every turn i lose interest in battles and the campaign VERY rapidly, i imagine the OP is having the same problem too.

I understand... but RTW will rarely give you that priviledge.

thankfully the mods kinda solved that problem for those folks that play extreme roleplaying. But look at Zackafein's posts he is able to keep allies bordering him, I don't know what difficulty he plays. He told me gives $$ and land to his allies so they don't mess with him.... but I have yet to confirm that.