Living with the Yellow Death (Ptolemies)

[CaesarAugustus]

Just wondering, is it possible for the AI to win the game achieving victory conditions? Becuase the Ptolemies in my game are almost the size of Alexander's empire, and only two cities in Asia Minor away from achieving what would be the victory conditions.

[konny]

I take it that there might have been the possibility that a charismatic leader in Egypt could have overcome the internal troubles and starts to re-establish Alexander's empire.

In my Romani campaign I had made the opposite alliances of the historical Rome, allied with the Maks and Seleucids against KH (and Ptolemaians). The Yellow Death has now nealry crushed the Seleucids but has so far made no moves against Makedonia. That I would use as an accuse to start war aganist Egypt, the same as I did with KH.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

talking about Ptolemaics.... i was too curious (when i saw they had a town in Naissos...) to ask them for Map Informations...

well:

Sorry, that is f#$@()*& hilarious.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

Well, I have to make a serious post, although I am still chuckling from Obelics post...
In regards to "Living with the Yellow Death", I am for whatever is historically accurate. If the Ptolemies played a dominant role in the world (as we EBer's know it) at the time, so be it. I think the EB dev team has proven themselves more then adept, so I will back their calls. Someday, I will even - perish the thought - play the Yellow Death, but for now, I prefer to build my own empire further West (based on a little city I call Roma) and complain about the dreaded sister-lovin', galatian spawnin', tons of trade havin', miles of phalanx producin' yellow monsters of the East.

[vashdm]

Well in my Pahalva campaign ( veryhard \ medium ) I owned all AS city of asia ( ectabana and susa to ) but AS is winning against the Ptolemaioi , they have also control Of Taras
I think if the Ptolemaioi don't conquer Antiocheia , AS got some godd chance of resist and maybe win ,because Antiocheia has a large population, good MIC, makes money and is in a strategic position
Or maybe is beacuse the largest Ptolemaioi army is in Etiopia and is not moving !

[Gebeleisis]

well i one didnt have problems with the ptoleis,in my as campaign i whiped the floor with them til lthe year 255 they were gone :)

[Visitor13]

Just wondering, is it possible for the AI to win the game achieving victory conditions? Becuase the Ptolemies in my game are almost the size of Alexander's empire, and only two cities in Asia Minor away from achieving what would be the victory conditions.

I'd like to know that as well.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Just wondering, is it possible for the AI to win the game achieving victory conditions? Becuase the Ptolemies in my game are almost the size of Alexander's empire, and only two cities in Asia Minor away from achieving what would be the victory conditions.

No, the AI cannot acheive victory conditions. Victory conditions are done by the script and require that the faction is 'local'.

[anubis88]

Well in my Pahalva campaign ( veryhard \ medium ) I owned all AS city of asia ( ectabana and susa to ) but AS is winning against the Ptolemaioi , they have also control Of Taras
I think if the Ptolemaioi don't conquer Antiocheia , AS got some godd chance of resist and maybe win ,because Antiocheia has a large population, good MIC, makes money and is in a strategic position
Or maybe is beacuse the largest Ptolemaioi army is in Etiopia and is not moving !

They have Taras? wow!
could you please post a screenshot? i've never seen seleucids in Italy since i play RTW

[vashdm]

sorry it wa Tarsos not taras !
I've made confusion

[Torvus]

I don't know about you guys, but i love the Yellow Death. I almost always play as either them, KH, or Epeiros.

As the Ptolies, i usually take Antioch within ten or twenty turns. However, back in .8, I used to have to fight off Seleucid armies every five or six turns, which i actually enjoyed. In 1.0, the Seleucids shrug off the loss of their former capital and then promptly roll over and die. this sickens me to think that any Hellene would give up so easily.

As KH, I love it because they draw the AS' attention away from helping the Maks prevent me from advancing into Anatolia and Ionia.

and as Pyrrus and his Epeirotes, I usually negotiate a cease-fire with the KH, dominate the Maks, and focus my attention on Rome. those red-lovin fools never know what hit them.

[CaesarAugustus]

No, the AI cannot acheive victory conditions. Victory conditions are done by the script and require that the faction is 'local'.

That's a relief... except now it looks like I started a war with the Yellow Death for nothing. Gah.

[jabarto]

I don't know about you guys, but i love the Yellow Death.

See, I think this is what bothers me most about them. I know from my experimenting with them that they're practically my dream faction, but I always feel so strange for wanting to play a faction that has frustrated me constantly since my vanilla RTW days.

Anyway, there's not much I could say that hasn't been mentioned already. I usually just play a Western faction, expand westward, and try to forget they exist. Unless I'm playing as the Seleucids, in which case my typical reservations about blitzing go right out the window as I steamroll them as fast as I can, cackling with glee as I scour them from the face of the Earth.

[PrimusPilus]

Servus,

I think that the one other faction becoming a superpower actually adds a bit to the game. In playing as Rome, I have found that the Carthaginians are not that difficult to defeat.

By monitoring the status graphs, you can see who is becoming too powerful. In the case of my current campaign, it is in the Ptolemies.

Once they started getting too big (they were pushing into the Balkans which I saw as my area of influence) I intervened in the area. This made for a decades long struggle much like the Punic wars were in actuality.

I had my ups and downs fighting them as their experienced phalanx troops would grind up a lot of my infantry.

With the reforms of the general of the age, Aemlius Regulus (marian reforms) the tide turned for good. My legions backed by good auxilary cavalry, light ballistae and local mercenaries have now driven them out of most of Asia Minor.

I can now see the day when I will march on to Alexandria and drive the decadent inbred swine from power.

PP

[Dubius Cato]

I'd like to reiterate that for a war against Egypt sea power is important. You can raid their cities where you want when you want, and that way destroy their ability to build high end units in the regions closest to your probable borders.

The only problem are the gold chevron/weapon/armor slaves that spawn when the cities eventually rebel. Ptoly armies consist of high powered slaves then. Too bad you need to delete map.rwm for the nerf patch...

[d'Arthez]

Superpowers are cool to fight against. They add a lot of challenge - and may make the game virtually impossible to beat, if you have to whipe out that superpower, and its borders are on the other side of the map (can you imagine the fun you have as Romans, going all the way to India, because of the Ptollies?).

That being sad, it is frustrating if it is always the Ptollies or Seleukids and to a lesser extent Baktria. It would be quite interesting to fight against the Pahlava or a large Celtic faction.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Thanks for all the replies, everyone!

What bothers me most about the Ptolemies is that they have too many advantages.

1. They have the best economy of any faction at the start.
2. They have an army which seems near-invincible in autocalc battles.
3. They have a great defensive strategic position and are usually only at war with AS alone for a long time, while AS often has to deal with several other factions as well.
4. They are very aggressive, continuously advancing and attacking.
5. They are great at diplomacy, sending out loads of diplomats and making allies all over the place.

Now I don't mind 1, 3, and 5. They seem very historical to me.

But 2 and 4 are a pain in the arse!

I don't mind Egypt having lots of armies. She can afford it, after all. But her armies shouldn't be better in quality than the Seleucids, especially not in autocalc. The combination of superior quantity AND superior quality is just too much for the AI to cope with.

Historically, Egypt seemed to me to be quite a conservative power, happy to hold what she had rather than go for all-out war. So a less aggressive AI 'personality' may be in order.

[bovi]

It's a very tight balance to make. In 0.8x the AS was just about always the superpower (gray death), while in 1.0 they only rarely beat the ptolies and the yellow death takes over the spot. Any concrete suggestions?

[Visitor13]

I don't know, make Carthage more hostile towards them from the start?

[konny]

Any concrete suggestions?

If that does not require a complete workaround of both factions, the Ptolees should not share MICs with AS. That would drasticly slow down their speed of expansion and give AS some time to breath.

[Gaivs]

Thats actually a very sensible rationale konny. Even if historically they were very similar, im sure for the sake of gameplay, make Ptolies and Makedonia share MIC's and have Seleucids share with Baktria, or Ptolies and Baktria etc.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Konny's idea is a good one.

Also:

1. Make sure that the Ptolemaic units (Galatians and Phalanx units especially) aren't overpowered in autocalc battles. One of their bonuses needs to be reduced to achieve that. Can't remember which one though.

2. Restrict the recruitment areas for Galatians. Only a very few provinces should be able to recruit that unit, the major settlement areas for Galatians. Galatia itself obviously, possible Alexandria or Memphis also if that's where the major Galatian ex-patriate communities were settled. Outside of those few areas, Galatians should be available only as mercenaries.

3. Change the Ptolemaic AI 'personality' to a more conservative type. They should not be 'Napoleon' or 'Ceasar'. They need a more cautious and safer strategy that involves guarding Egypt and Palestine very strongly, but only advancing when they are certain of victory. They should not be treacherous, but honorable - and only very rarely attack their allies, if ever.

[marodeur]

Konny's idea is a good one.

Also:

1. Make sure that the Ptolemaic units (Galatians and Phalanx units especially) aren't overpowered in autocalc battles. One of their bonuses needs to be reduced to achieve that. Can't remember which one though.

2. Restrict the recruitment areas for Galatians. Only a very few provinces should be able to recruit that unit, the major settlement areas for Galatians. Galatia itself obviously, possible Alexandria or Memphis also if that's where the major Galatian ex-patriate communities were settled. Outside of those few areas, Galatians should be available only as mercenaries.

3. Change the Ptolemaic AI 'personality' to a more conservative type. They should not be 'Napoleon' or 'Ceasar'. They need a more cautious and safer strategy that involves guarding Egypt and Palestine very strongly, but only advancing when they are certain of victory. They should not be treacherous, but honorable - and only very rarely attack their allies, if ever.

I can only agree with that. Especially No. 2 will have a great effect, because the galatians are simply too powerful and I am not sure whether their recruitment-area is historically correct. Especially if you keep in mind, that for example the seleukids can't recruit galatians in those areas - historically they would have done it too, if it had been possible.

[General Appo]

Yeah, it´s annoying as Karthasdim to get tons of heavy Galatian infantry thrown at you near Augila and Ammonion. I mean, Celts in Turkey, okay I can go with that, it´s historical after all, but Celts in the middle of the Sahara?
It´s double annyoing since I can´t recruit anything in those areas except some weak skirmishers.

[Theodotos I]

I don't know. I'm on my fourth campaign in 1.0(Baktria, Getai, Kart-hadast, and now Pahlava), and I've never seen the balance of power between the Diadochi truly upset. Either the Ptolies make nice with the AS, or they fight back and forth between each other, slowing gaining ground and then losing it. When you look at history, that doesn't seem unreasonable. Neither nation were exactly weaklings.
Of course, all my previous campaigns have ended around 200 BC, so maybe that's the problem. I'll certainly be playing the Pahlava far past that date. Things are getting interesting!