The big empires: Carthage, AS and Egypt - Suggested house rules for starting campaign

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Find the big empires boring because you're already so big and powerful at the start of the campaign? This thread is for suggested house rules to make things hard for yourself at the start, so the AI factions have a chance to build up a bit without you blitzing them to death.

Here's my suggestion:
1. Before you spend money on your army, every town in the Empire must have been provided with the Basics of Existence. The basics are:
a. Basic Sanitation/drainage. So they don't live in excrement. Upgrade this to a Sewer for minor cities and larger settlements.
b. Basic Farming. So they have food to eat. Improved farming for cities.
c. A Wall around the settlement for protection: Palisade for small towns, Wooden Wall for large towns, Stone Wall for cities.
d. A Granary. So they have somewhere to store grain in winter.
e. A Shrine to a god. So they have somewhere to worship. Temple for cities.
f. Local festival. So they can celebrate life and feel happy.
g. Roads. To enable trade. Paved Road for cities.
h. A Trader. So they can trade for supplies. Market for cities.
i. A barracks (can be factional or regional). So locals can be recruited to defend the town.

Until every single town in the empire has all of the above items completed or under construction, you can't recruit any new units, retrain existing units, or hire mercenaries. You have to manage until that point with just your starting army.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Those would be impossible as AS unless you wanted to fall back to Mesopotamia and Syria. 2/3 of your cities are completely underdeveloped and you are beset on multiple fronts. You also don't make that much money at the beginning considering you need multiple field armies and decent garrisons in several towns. After you stabilize however, those rules would work.

[vollorix]

I´d find it more interesting to hear some houserules concerning the FM and the way one would deal with their abilities in the Diadochi kingdoms. The most important reason why i abandoned my Seleucid campaign was not the fact that i could afford decent armies and wasn´t pressed to the level of extinction like when playing Pontus or Hay, actually - it was the lack of identification with Seleucid FMs, i think. Playing a smaller faction with a royal dynasty ruling it, i find it more logical how to imploy the FM according to their abilities and characters. Pontus + Hay is quite clear, Pahlava too, Epirots getting bit more complicated, - perhaps because my lack of knowledge on the Greek history.

Also, though i do not like to exactly recreate the history, i´d like to know what kind of governments would be suited for the towns i conquer. Mostly i´m orientating myself on the purpose of those settlements in the long run, on the FM beeing stationed there as (military) gouverner, and, partly, by looking which types are placed by the script for the AI when it conqueres those towns. There are so many lovely descriptions for the important cities beeing conquered by a FM but i somehow miss the fate of those settlements while ruled by a specific faction. It´s not the historicity that i´m interested in primary, but the realismus of the actions i take while ruling a faction ( just similar to the fact not to build all elite armies and screw the fun in the campaign ).

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Those would be impossible as AS unless you wanted to fall back to Mesopotamia and Syria. 2/3 of your cities are completely underdeveloped and you are beset on multiple fronts. You also don't make that much money at the beginning considering you need multiple field armies and decent garrisons in several towns. After you stabilize however, those rules would work.

It's not impossible - try it and see! Although you won't be able to hold ALL your towns, you will easily be able to survive for 6 years without recruiting. It's no harder than playing one of the Gallic factions, who go into debt and can't recruit anything while fighting a difficult war at the same time.

I always use Force Diplomacy to give Marakanda and Alexandria-Eschate to Baktria (after destroying every building except wonders), those two towns are impossible to hold. Asaak will definitely be lost to the Parthians, destroy everything there too. The Parthians are likely to take Zadrakata and Hekatompylos, possibly even Antiocheia-Margiane, Apameai and Gabai if you're really unlucky. The Ptolemies may take Damascus from you (unless you succeed in making peace with them), but they are quite obsessed with fighting Eleutheroi in the early campaign, which keeps them off your back for a while.

However, although you will be the victim of a Parthian 'blitz' in the first 5-10 years of the campaign - an uncomfortable feeling if you're used to being the one doing the blitzing! - you WILL, if your strategy is good, be always able to hold the CORE cities of your Seleucid empire - Seleukia/Babylon, Antiocheia, Sardis, Ekbatana, Susa, Persepolis, and Prophthasia. From those you will be able to raise enough income to make a comeback later in the campaign.

And although you can't spend mnai on recruiting until you've finished your building program, you CAN spend it on paying regular tribute to your minor allies, Baktria, Hayasdan, and Pontos - bribing them to stay friendly. I recommend 250 mnai per turn for 80 turns (= to 20 years.)

Basically, for AS, you'll be on the strategic defensive and hard-pressed in the early campaign. But for me, that would make AS interesting, since for almost all the other factions, you're on the offensive at the beginning, taking enemy and Eleutheroi towns.

One (rather desperate!) solution to the early Parthian problem might be (after giving Marakanda and Antiocheia-Eschate to Baktria) to let Antiocheia-Margiane, Zadrakata, and Hekatompylos go Rebel (destroying most non-wonder buildings first except barracks). This will create a series of independent buffer states (with ready-made garrisons) between you and Parthia, and will enable you to make peace with Parthia in the short term because they won't share a border with you anymore. (Giving them all to Baktria would also work as far as making peace with Parthia goes, but would make Baktria very powerful and dangerous.)

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I´d find it more interesting to hear some houserules concerning the FM and the way one would deal with their abilities in the Diadochi kingdoms. The most important reason why i abandoned my Seleucid campaign was not the fact that i could afford decent armies and wasn´t pressed to the level of extinction like when playing Pontus or Hay, actually - it was the lack of identification with Seleucid FMs, i think. Playing a smaller faction with a royal dynasty ruling it, i find it more logical how to imploy the FM according to their abilities and characters. Pontus + Hay is quite clear, Pahlava too, Epirots getting bit more complicated, - perhaps because my lack of knowledge on the Greek history.

Here's my interpretation of the Seleucid system:

Seleucid regions are called satrapies. And are governed as self-contained petty 'kingdoms', just as a very small one-city faction would be. An FM of over 21 years of age is assigned to govern each satrapy (city), and he will NEVER leave his satrapy except in emergency. (Or when being educated in a major city when he's under 21.) He will be assigned his own small local army to maintain order and is responsible for dealing with bandits and small-scale rebellions by himself, without assistance. The satrapy system seems to work best when the governor has ethnic traits in common with his town - e.g. Hellen FM's govern best in Hellen cities in Asia Minor, Syrian FMs govern best in Syria, etc.

The Royal Armies (one in the west, one in the east) are always commanded by one of the faction leader's sons (sometimes even the faction leader himself in extremis) and the Royal Army will go to the aid of a local satrapy when it requires assistance (i.e. when it's being invaded.)

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

But if we're using house rules and you're trying to play somewhat historically, a Seleucid Basileus would not just abandon the eastern front unless he was incompetant. The entire point was to emulate Alexander and recreate his empire. Losing those provinces and abandoning their Greek populaces would be bad PR.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

But if we're using house rules and you're trying to play somewhat historically, a Seleucid Basileus would not just abandon the eastern front unless he was incompetant. The entire point was to emulate Alexander and recreate his empire. Losing those provinces and abandoning their Greek populaces would be bad PR.

Well, historically, Antiochus I was more interested in Asia Minor than in maintaining the eastern empire. He fought and won a tough battle against the Galatians (so attack Eleutheroi Ankara in your campaign and win) and then attacked Pergamon and was repelled (attack Eleutheroi Pergamon with a small army.) He died soon after, in 261 BC.

Antiochus II was more interested in defeating the Ptolemies in Asia Minor and Syria than in maintaining his eastern empire. (Try and capture Tarsus and Sidon.) Also, destroying the Ptolemaic navy is very high priority, to stop them shipping reinforcements to Tarsus. (Build a fleet of triremes and wipe out the Egyptian ships.) He died in 246 BCE.

Antiochus II's son Seleucus II actually WAS incompetent - he was defeated by Pergamon, Pontos (as allies to his rebel brother!), Egypt, and the Parthians - and lost vast swathes of territory both in the West and the East.

Since it's hard for us players in EB to simulate the historical civil wars in the Seleucid Empire, and simulate rank incompetence by FM's, my suggestion is to make Antiochus I 'incompetent' at the start of the AS campaign (by trying to make his people happy through building programs, instead of recruiting large garrisons of troops to keep them in order.) So if he dies about 261 BCE, you'll only be struggling for about 10 years or so before you start getting a proper army organised.