Is my strategy realistic?

[Slim_Ghost]

To stop the enemy from attacking me, I siege their cities which borders my empire. Afterwards I occupy/exterminate, destroy ALL their buildings and give them to some other random faction. Those factions will then act as my buffer against the enemy.

Historically, has this happened before?

[CaesarAugustus]

well Armenia was sort of a buffer between Rome and Parthia...

As for your strategy, no I do not think it is realistic if you give the regions to some random faction, however dem -militarizing and perhaps creating a client or dependant faction on your borders is acceptable. (In my old 0.8 campaign, I managed to have an Aedui client kingdom on the far side of the Rhine until it got overran).

[Slim_Ghost]

How about I just imagine that the people that controlls the border city is my protectorate, it's just that they have ties with the other factions?

I mean, like giving Antioch to Arveni would resemble, after a bit of stretch of imagination, giving the city to the Galatians for their pillaging and plundering pleasure.

[konny]

To stop the enemy from attacking me, I siege their cities which borders my empire. Afterwards I occupy/exterminate, destroy ALL their buildings and give them to some other random faction. Those factions will then act as my buffer against the enemy.

Historically, has this happened before?

"Creating a desert" on your border is of course most realistic. Giving any lands to any random faction is of course not realistic, but to an allied nearby faction would be.

[Dayve]

Your best bet is force diplomacy mod. It's a little complicated to get used to the first couple of times but afterwards it's as easy as activating the EB script.

I used it extensively in 0.8. The Aediu were sending full stacks of Lugoae and other crap through the Alps but i was expanding historically and got tired of spending 20-30 minutes fighting a full stack each turn, so i just forced them to ceasefire each turn. They broke it each turn of course but i made them accept again, obviously i couldn't conquer Gaul yet because it was only like 230BC or something. I did it with the Sweboz too, they were worse than the bloody Aediu... 2-3+ full stacks through the alps every single effing turn.

Before i discovered the force diplomacy mod i just used to build forts with 1 unit of cheap nasty lugoae in it and auto_win defender/attacker each time it was attacked and i sallied.

If you're re-writing history however, which is something i also do but only when i play as anybody other than Rome, then why not just conquer them and make their entire kingdom a client faction of type-4 governments?

Get to it! It would be most profitable, and many thousands of slaves too. Good for business slaves are.

[NeoSpartan]

To stop the enemy from attacking me, I siege their cities which borders my empire. Afterwards I occupy/exterminate, destroy ALL their buildings and give them to some other random faction. Those factions will then act as my buffer against the enemy.

Historically, has this happened before?

...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 "

[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.

[WhiteShark]

what i do is : I invade enemy city on my border, sack it but DO NOT destroy buildings.

Next step is to purposly make public order so that Independent(Rebel) forces will overrun the settlement. That way, it makes a natural settlement and because of the strong rebel army from indestroyed barracks, enemy will have a hard time recapturing the city.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

what i do is : I invade enemy city on my border, sack it but DO NOT destroy buildings.

Next step is to purposly make public order so that Independent(Rebel) forces will overrun the settlement. That way, it makes a natural settlement and because of the strong rebel army from indestroyed barracks, enemy will have a hard time recapturing the city.

That's something I also do, particually to Rome, which often grows to fast, as it has it to easy most of the time.

[MerlinusCDXX]

what i do is : I invade enemy city on my border, sack it but DO NOT destroy buildings.

Next step is to purposly make public order so that Independent(Rebel) forces will overrun the settlement. That way, it makes a natural settlement and because of the strong rebel army from indestroyed barracks, enemy will have a hard time recapturing the city.

it's a nice idea, but half or more of the time it will just rebel back to the faction I am trying to take it away from, and with gold chevrons, armor and weapon upgrades to boot. I'm not really into giving an enemy something better than he originally had just for him to use it against me...

[Cheexsta]

This is a strategy I've been using extensively in my Roman campaign, but only where it feels appropriate to make such land concessions. For example, I have been under constant attack from the Suebi, so I allied with the two Gallic factions (both of whom were already allied and at war with the Suebi) and pushed into Germania itself. Unfortunately, the Catevellauni declared war on me, breaking my alliance with the Gauls. So in the end I managed to get a peace (and even an alliance) with the Britons, and destroyed the two Gallic factions. I'm not in the process of partitioning Germania between the Catevellauni, Getae and remaining Suebi (whom I am now at peace with).

It seems perfectly feasible in a historic sense, and Rome did it quite extensively, especially in Greece and Asia Minor before Rome had any real aspirations of conquest there. As long as the provinces and factions they are gifted to make sense, then it is definately a realistic strategy.

[NeoSpartan]

who are they???? Catevellauni

[Cheexsta]

Casse. I'm playing as the Romans so I prefer to think in Latin terms.

[Rottweiler]

I pillaged some "rebel" city of eastern Iberia to gain more cash to start second Punic War. Then I tried to give rebellous city to Karthadastim to make the game more challenging, but they refused. So I abadoned the city and after couple of turns it was occupied, not by rebels(as I hoped), but people supporting Koinon Hellenon faction(since the rebel city had a Greek culture) and thus resulted an unnecessary early war against Koinon Hellenons. It kind of spoiled the epic feeling of conquering the Karthadastim controlled Iberia.

I restarted the Romani campaign, but first I lowered morale stats Romani units, lowered cost of some Carthaginian specific units and chosed "hard" battle difficulty instead of recommended "medium". Battles seems more challenging and enjoyable right now. There is even some tough fighting going on during 1st punic war in Sicily, as it should be. I try fo follow Roman history as close as possible in planning of my campaign. (ie. I conquer provinces in historical timeline.)

But to stay on topic: no faction has ever accepted conquered rebel towns/provinces I offer them. I have pillaged rebel towns several times to gain cash and then tried to give them to AI factions.

[Cheexsta]

Try offering a small sum of money with the town and make sure you offer it as a gift. Generally, you'll only need to spend a couple thousand minai, at most 10k. 2000 is usually enough, though.

[Lynchius]

The gauls planted hedges to mark their boundaries in the roman period. Your way is more pernament but if it works it works.