1.x AI Faction Progression Thread

[IrishHitman]

Romani Campaign (Got bored kicking ass as Makedonia for once)

249 BCE


The map of the year just before Makedonia, seeking glory as Greeks will, stabbed me in the back.
As you can see, I had already secured Sicily and Italy. I struck against Epirus on the first turn, and captured Taras by the skin of my teeth on the second. After that, I retrained the southern consular army, then bypassed both Rhegion and Messena to attack the Carthaginians in Sicily.

I won, after a siege and battles with a marine landing by Carthage's ships.
I then went on to capture Corsica and Sardinia, which earned a triumph.

After that, it was boring fights against independent city states in the North, which went well except for a pretty bad defeat at Massalia. The same turn, Makedonia attacked Segestica unsuccessfully, prompting invasion by myself.

240 BCE


As you can see, the invasion of Greece is pretty well advanced.
I've made peace with Carthage for the moment, so I can concentrate on the Greek front.
I also wish to see if Carthage holds up in Iberia before I start my expeditions there.

The Macedonians send mostly levy and skirmisher armies against me, which I defeat utterly with only 5-10% casualty rates each time. The problem is that they send them at an incredibly quick rate, meaning that I have to send armies back to Italy every year or so to retrain back up.

I apologise for the fog of war, but I can't use the console commands due to Vista...

[Mediolanicus]

I apologise for the fog of war, but I can't use the console commands due to Vista...

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=103681

[Jebivjetar]

Pahlava, 213BC

[SwissBarbar]

I have started playing EB again, and to get the feeling, I started a Makedonian campaign. I expand quite slowly, I don't want to blitz anyone and I role play a lot. It's 240 BC.

Makedonia (me)
Only ally is AS, which is allied to Makedonia since the game started. I conquered all of Greece and left the KH on Rhodos and Halikarnassos alone. And I wiped out Epeiros from their Homeland. When the KH started to attack Athenai from time to time, I decided to conquer Rhodos, so they cannot build great ships, and thereby cannot send armies to Athenai anymore. Krete, Mytilene and Pergamon are allied Kingdoms, at the moment there is a war going on against the Ptolemaioi, who attacked first. The Getai were allies, but they broke the alliance when the Ptolies attacked me (they are also their allies). But they have never attacked me, and I won't attack them as long as this stays as it is.


Epeiros
I LOVE Epeiros in this game. They had nothing left, except Taras, and it was besieged by Rome. Every turn I waited for the signal, that this faction has been destroyed, but it didn't appear. So I've sent spies and found out, that Epeiros managed to conquer Rhegion. Short after that, they took Capua and Roma as well. At the moment they are as strong as the Romans, and they besiege each other all the time. Let's see who can gain the upper hand at the end.

Romani
The thought it would be easy to defeat Epeiros. The Romani were in possesion of:
Roma, Capua, Arpi, Arminium, Arretium, Bononia, Segesta, Massalia and Tolosa when the war against Epeiros started. Now they have lost many settlements to the Celts and Epeiros.

Ptolemaioi
Most advanced faction, mighty empire and enemy of Makedonia

Seleukids
Have been crushed by the Ptolemies and Pontos first, then by Pahlava.

Pontos
Conquered a great part of Anatolia and even Byzantion, but then attacked Makedonia and lost Byzantion in the war against them. Now they have peace with Makedonia but are still at war with AS and also the Ptolies.

Pahlava, Baktria, Saka, Sauro
I used toggle_fow for the first time, to show you the cool Epeiros-Story, and was extremely surprised by the eastern factions What a great AI-Expansion! The Makedonians will be very much surprised, when the Pahlava appear in Anatolia (I think they could manage the Ptolies, because they will suffer from many casualties against Makedonia. This will be very expensive for them, so it will be easier for Pahlava.



Notice: I've never given money to any faction.

[IrishHitman]

Wow, you can conquer the Parthian Empire now...

[SwissBarbar]

Yeah, how cool is that

[IrishHitman]

Yeah, how cool is that

Are the Parthians and the Ptollies at war yet?

[retep219]

I'm Getai in this campaign...265 B.C.

Yes, I know I blitzed. Increased movement a bit, I admit, I just can't handle slow games. So my own expansion is a bit cheap...

Anyways...AI expansion has been very interesting...as you can see, the Sauromatae have expanded across the entire steppe, I expect them to be fighting the Sweboz within ten turns! The Aedui are also massive; in addition to the fact that they control all of Gaul, northern Italy, and Vellika, they are also sieging a couple of Alpine cities with forgettable names and Emporion, and have the Arveni vassalized. Carthage also looks like it is going through decent expansion in North Africa, but the Romans have started up the Punic Wars in Sicily by laying siege to Messana.

On the rest of the world: Hayasdan and Sweboz have decent expansion, but are of course dwarfed by the Sauromatae. The Konion Hellion are confined to Rhodes, my attempts to teleport their armies from Rhodes/Crete to Lydia all failed miserably (they insisted on trying to walk back to Athens...) so I gave them up as a lost cause. Makedon is destroyed. No other factions seem to be doing especially well....

On my own campaigns: I started out by defeating all the rebels in the surrounding area, which wasn't that hard. Makedon declared war on me, I quickly defeated their field armies and won a few heroic victories while waiting for reinforcements to arrive from the Crimea. With a reinforced army and a consistent stream of units from Buridava and Sarmiszgethusa, I pounded Makedon into the dust. KH backstabbed me, I defeated them too, they did not have much of an army. Epeiros was even easier, their forces were very scattered. However, I noted that the AI behaved in a smarter manner than usual--when it became obvious that the war in Greece was lost, it loaded Phyrros and a good half-stack into a ship and sailed for Taras, where Phyrros won several auto-resolved siege assualts against various Roman captains thanks to his ten stars, ensuring the survival of the faction...as a Roman vassal. After Hellas fell, I invaded Anatolia, kicked Selekeia out of the peninsula, was backstabbed by my Ptolemaioi allies, took Side, and then captured Antioch/Damaskos, burned everything to the ground, and traded them with Seleukeia for peace and Mazaka. Arche Seleukeia is now severely weakened, leaving the Ptolemaioi with an opportunity...

As long as they have a nice war, I'll be happy...

[Jebivjetar]

Pahlava, 201BC

[the man with no name]

I'm Getai in this campaign...265 B.C.

Yes, I know I blitzed.

Is even that possible? All that in 7 years? 25 ******* seasons?

Pahlava, 201BC

Nice carthage expansion, white death? Getai look like a mini iberia and the romans are over 9000...
miles apart

[retep219]

Is even that possible? All that in 7 years? 25 ******* seasons?

Oops, I forgot to mention the modded increased movement. Edited the orginal post. Talk about a dumb mistake, lol. But other than that, no cheating at all.

Even the increased movement isn't THAT bad, it does make the AI build empires faster...look at the Aedui or Sauromatae.

Pahlava, 201BC

Nice game! I like Carthage...and especially the Romani, lol. Where the Aedui ever powerful? Judging by the spread of their remaining provinces, they once occupied a considerable area. Epeiros and Sweboz expansions, although large, are more regular, if I recall correctly?