Advice on how to progress my campaign?

[el_dext0r]

Hi

I've been playing R:TW for a few years and been reading this forum for about the same amount of time, never got round to posting before though.

Aaaaaanyway, my current campaign is pretty much at a standstill and I have no idea how to progress it, I'm guessing several people on here will have had similiar circumstances.

I'm playing VH strategic map, M battle map as the Brutii, its about 210BC and I've just had the Marian reforms, I expanded east as soon as the game started and I currently hold all the initial greek and macedonian provinces and am currently expanding past Halicarnassus into Pontic territory.

My problem is that for the last 30-40 turns my easternmost cities have been bogged down every single turn by several full stack Egyptian and Pontic armies, I posted an army at the bridge just north of Halicarnassus which slaughtered literally tens of thousands of Egyptians but I thought this was pretty cheap and moved them.

I'm now faced with a veritable tidal wave of armies consisting of mainly Pharoahs Bowman / Guards and loads of chariots. While I can hold my own against them at the minute from the safety of my walls it is getting tiresome fighting these huuuuuuuuuge fights every turn and don't really know what to do.

I took my biggest and best army to capture Alexandre and try to cut the damn Egyptians off at the source but this is now besieged every turn as well!

Other than abandoning my eastern cities and retreating to Rhodes to regroup for a few turns (this would probably help with my revolting peons too) before recapturing the cities I don't really know what to do.

Sorry for waffling

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Firstly, welcome to the .Org el_dext0r!
You are currently facing one of R:TW's most powerful and malicious factions. Egypt generally always does end up as a superpower, exploiting weaknesses in early Selucid actions.

Commonly, at this phase, I prefer to combine bribes with mass recruitment! At this point I typically have a large volume of wealth, so I usually train a multitude of diplomats and use them to bribe enemy forces to reduce enemy army strength. In addition this prevents as many forces as possible from reaching one's Turkish cities.

While I am doing that I usually try my very best to assure the highest possible levels of military development in all of my frontline cities. While I am building up, I typically try to train the highest level of infantry units available in other provinces, and combine them with quite a few heavy cavalry units. In addition a few archers can also be useful. The idea is that the infantry units will pin the foes down, while the cavalry nip round the back, wipe out the archers, and then move onto the rear of the enemy phalanx units (in this case Pharaoh's Guards).

When I have a relatively large force, at least four stacks, I send spies out to identify the most developed/vulnerable cities. The definition of vulnerable is that they are easily accessible - either on my borders, or next to the sea, henceforth accessible by ship.

After my spying is complete, I split my forces into single stacks, target the identified cities and exterminate them to avoid any trouble. I then retrain my forces if possible, and recruit a reasonable sized garrison. Afterwards I move onto a another nearby enemy city which has a developed military base and repeat the previous strategy.

If a city ever is close to loss, I always destroy all the buildings there to leave the foes with nothing to take advantage of. This forces them to build up again from scratch, henceforth preventing them from using the cities as recruitment centres.

If this is continued until all developed enemy provinces are lost, the foes should end up with a few pathetic little towns recruiting peasants/millita units with the remainder of their once massive funds.

Hope this is useful to you, good luck!

BTW, this strategy is fairly generic. For more precise suggestions screenshots of the situation or the upload of a save game may be useful. If you have any problems doing this, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Autumn]

Some artillery can be a god send when trying to decapitate Egypt. Being able to siege and assault a city in the same turn stops you getting caught between the sallying garrison and any relief armies they send at you.

[sjmxru]

your right to hold the enemy at the bottle knecks but if u dont destroy them at source they'll keep coming!

i'm with these guys, destroy the war machine (the cities) & if u cant hold them destroy them & give them to an ally

if u cant storm a city u can do damage with artillery & assisins

blockade ports cut off the income, this may mean building up a navy big enough to destroy enemy ships first, dominate the seas

if u are fealin dirty u can always recruit spies in a plague infected city & send them to infect an enemy city

[Hound of Ulster]

use at least two stacks against any one Egyptian stack. Expect heavy causlities also.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

From my experience, the best way to face "paraoh-based army" is to find a geographical advantages.

For instance, Find an ambush spot or a hill (Never attack first, let them come).

Since paraoh units have high stats, geographical advantages like bridges, stiff hill, or river is the best option for you i think