So originally I posted the beginnings of this in 'DeI-post your empires' or some such thread. After one update, I was finding the collection of screenshots a mess and tried to get to the task of sorting through all the and establishing a naming system on my end so I can upload them in bulk without Imgur/Imgur's album system messing with the order and forcing me to re-arrange.
Of course, who wants to edit and format the names for 106 images, and choose what to use... So I briefly said it.
Then someone posted in response to that thread with no particularities cited, but merely that somebody had been editing their pfm file or something...
Ok, so that managed to kindle the spark a bit, and the end result is below (well, part of it, it's 3:34 at the time of writing this preceding segment).
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First Post
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
So I tried loading up an old Seleucid save file from a while back (VH/VH or VH/H, can't recall) and it didn't work. I was kind of bummed but not surprised as the save was old, so out of boredom and an urge to play one of my favourite RTW factions now playable in glorious splendour (relative to RTW...) I decided to kick off a campaign as Seleucids again, this time with Legendary/Legendary settings.
All images pertaining to this post and campaign can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/p8q9b (Text found in this post may also be present as descriptions under pictures)
With the reformatting of my naming scheme I ended up deciding to make a larger, more detailed (much more detailed), post regarding my campaign and leaving the pictures out of the post. It's a little bit of a hassle to do several, absolutely nightmarish to have to do ~100 with the image insertion in-built on this forum.
This will also serve as a recap of my previous posts with more detail (a lot more detail in some cases, skip as you see fit if what you're running into is a par de course for your TW-related knowledge), as I'll start from Turn 1. (No screenshots from that far back though, I'm afraid, as I started with the idea of keeping track around 7-8 turns in.)
Turns 1 & 2: Having played Seleucids before on various difficulties Turn 1 was something of a theorycrafting delight for me. A lot of stuff I had tried before worked to varying extents, but on Legendary I was aiming for the most optimal start possible as there was little to work with as-is and little room for wastage or inefficiency.
I started with army movements first, unlike before where I usually opened the diplomacy panel in hopes of patching up the tattered state of Seleucid foreign affairs before things boiled up. I chose to do this as my first battle after moving my armies was also an assault on Salamis by Antiochus' starting army. The declaration of war on Cyprus, while questionable to some, is actually one that I've found to be the most generous where Eastern Satrapies are concerned, and almost always I find Drangiana stays with Seleucid rule following this declaration of war and the subsequent declarations of For or Against by the various Satrapies.
So, the movements of my armies were pretty straightforward, all existing armies move by the shortest route possible to Tyros. After their movement, I generally replace each general with a new one recruited as Silver Shields. The reasoning being that I find phalangitai the most versatile, yes you read that correctly, of most of the general's retinues available to the Seleucids (who, I might add, are spoiled to no end by the choices they have in that regard). The reason phalangitai are versatile in this assessment rather than the commonly attributed 'inflexible' mono-purpose unit is due to a few factors (largely factors concerning other units). The first is that cavalry units for generals is a tactical gamble like no other. I like using shock cavalry generals in Total War games, and I always have, but the lethality of spear bonuses in recent editions of Total War titles has made it progressively scarier to field cavalry that possess a meaningful strings attached to the campaign map. Unlike any manner of infantry-unit general a cavalry general can be ignobly felled (and easily at that) by some nameless, flea ridden levy from a meaningless and soon to be demolished mud hovel somewhere in the desert. Frankly this is a scary concept, both realistically and where your virtual general is concerned. You certainly don't want to lose a veteran general simply because this time around some damned savage speared his horse while his unit was wheeling about to break off after a charge. So, #1 You Don't Want A General Who Is Easy Pickings For Spears.
(Having proof-read this monstrosity I decided the rest of my Why You Should Use Silver Shield Pikes segment will be spoiler-tagged for ease of access to the rest of this post... thing...)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Next on the list would be the rest of the Bonus vs Large applicable units, which I will somewhat broadly address simultaneously by writing them off as not worth the investment. The reasoning is very simple, elephants are unit-stompers, but only in so far as hapless infantrymen are concerned. And sadly even that same flea-infested levied scum is not classified as hapless where elephant generals are concerned due to the innate bonus spear units get (and levies are almost invariably spear-type, bar very few factions which possess levy-quality melee units actually worth recruiting). And as an additional point, your general is something you want to protect (usually) and having the possibility of losing control of his unit should be a fearful prospect. So no, elephant generals (the ones you want to survive ) are not worth using imo. Chariots are not worth using for the same reasons as elephants (bar losing control), an both of them suffer terribly from having a small number of platforms from which the unit's stats operate.
Think about it this way, in terms of game economy and simple arithmetic, if you have to pay the same amount for the same units and one unit happens to be terribly vulnerable to certain things, you want to avoid that one for at least one reason. What's more, even if such specific-counters didn't exist, a fewer number of higher-value platforms for a unit to operate on means more value attributed to every hit scored as you simply cannot distribute damage as evenly before casualties start to appear. What's worse, the potential for high-damage directed fire to hit that kind of valuable unit (javelins... oh the javelins) means that no-matter what is on the receiving end, a lot of damage is being dealt. In this last case, it's invariably better to go with a unit that sports more platforms from which to perform its combat functions through as having more around means less value per individual, thus less loss incurred for each of those inevitably high-damage hits that can come from some of the lowliest of units even the AI doesn't have trouble tossing at you in great heaping mounds.
So, besides being terribly easy targets as individually higher value troop choices (chariots, cavalry, elephants) there's still more to be said. These three units are all actually more uni-purpose than the fabled 'inflexible phalanx' I'm rating them against. All three of them serve but a single goal on the battlefield, shock-value (anything less from a general's retinue is just bench-warming, so why not confine him to a pike-block where he's still relatively safe AND fighting?). All three of them bring that in very potent quantities, and with different specific differences regarding their unit type, but I'm inclined to go against a unit which has a single purpose where other units might find more duality or universal utility (even better). Oh and do not call the pin-prick shooting capabilities of elephant generals enough to give them the duality of a ranged unit, if you honestly think this you need to go back so far into elementary game theory you'd best stop reading right here and look up some beginners guides.
This is not to say I have never used them, quite the contrary as I've found cavalry to be the most flexible of the three, and possible the most efficient due to quite a bit of added utility with speed and the ability to disengage after charging (something elephants and chariots I find just get subjected to free-strikes a lot more while they try to, made all the worse by spears with-and here it is again- the Bonus vs Large trait found among spears, which will make up a huge proportion of what you encounter and thus pop needless damage on your unit as it tries to break off for another pass). I can pretty confidently say even with some good kill counts and low casualty rates, they still don't warrant the risk involved, especially those that last a long time and become inherently more valuable as they progress.
Onto the advantages of infantry generals. Infantry generals are universally my go-to choice, and with the Seleucids there's actually quite a bit to choose from but I'll narrow it to two choices. Swords or pikes. Very simple fork in the road, Silver Shield Pikes or one of many flavours of sword-armed generals' retinues. Saving the pikes for last, I'll address the various sword units Seleucids have the luxury of choosing from. Sadly this will be a pretty quick assessment, the Thorakitai Agematos Basilikou I think they are called, is pretty much hands down the best of the various sword units. (It's the one Antiochus currently starts with as his personal retinue of guardsmen) All of them have precursor javelins of the same type, as far as I know, or insignificant in their differences that this is not worth looking at in regards to comparing sword units. In other areas they outshine due to having all around better stats, and for very little increase in upkeep at that. The only time I would consider otherwise would be for a sword unit capable of forming an infantry square, and as far as I know Seleucids do not have such a unit. Trust me, I've looked at the damned Legionnary copies and they can't, and even in the case that they did this would be an extremely specific tactical decision which I don't think quite fits the concept of picking one unit that's intended to be better suited to most situations and lacking severe weaknesses where possible. Disappointingly the Thorakitai Agematos lack even a formation to adopt, though, so I'm actually not particularly keen on such units.
All that's left are the Silver Shields, and if that wasn't enough to convince you then I need to address the merits of the interestingly second-class-in-name force of pikemen. The obvious stuff mentioned as weaknesses for the aforementioned units can often be listed as strengths of the pikemen, sporting the largest (if only by a small margin) unit size of all the other general's retinue options for the Seleucids. The advantages lay in SUPREME defensive capabilities like no other unit you can find. I don't mean in terms of individual stats of combatants (higher Melee Defense and Armour will be found almost every case available if you look for heavy infantry wielding swords or spears), especially on Legendary where the AI troops get significant bonuses, your stats are proportionately diminished in meaningful impact. What pikes bring to the table is the splendid nature of the advantage of striking first. As a general rule of thumb being able to hit the other before he hits you is a good thing in a combat situation, but missile unit effectiveness and role in this era is vastly different from modern day so in the context of melee, your only other options are charging for the impact bonus, charging in order to expend precursor projectiles, or a high initiative value. The first two I don't rate highly for reliability as I find they're a sort of cheap-shot method of hitting first, and will not work repeatedly without exhausting your unit (or their projectile supply), not to mention impossible with infantry if the enemy just keep on your tail and prevent you from reclaiming charge bonuses. The last one is where pikes rank the highest, and it is made all the better with the function of the phalanx in conjunction with this.
The ability to keep the enemy at bay whilst dealing damage is about as effective and efficient as it gets. And while it operates on different principles, the Roman method of warfare on the micro level uses the same doctrine. With a wall of pikes out at all times melee with other units is almost a non-factor if numbers are even and it's a frontal engagement, you will simply grind them to dust as they try to assault you and get skewered in droves. Even with vastly superior numbers, if you limit engagement to the front you are effectively fighting the same battle as you would be against even numbers. This kind of reliable defensive capacity the Silver Shields bring is inconceivably potent, and in the right situation better than 20 units of cataphract elephants. (Hell in the cookie-cutter-made spear levy hordes you inevitably face regularly in harder difficulties would have no issue bringing down 20 units of cataphract elephants due to the sheer weight of numbers combined with the Bonus vs Large combat bonus their troops possess). In terms of surviving projectile attacks however they are more vulnerable than your better-armoured, better shielded sword-armed comrades, though this is a small price to pay for the ability to have your own contingent of super-Spartans essentially everywhere you go. (Space Marines? Don't need em, Super Spartans are better). On the offense, you might think they are lacking compared to pikes, however I would argue otherwise.
Again bringing up the subject of the general concept of game-economy and efficiency regarding expenditure and gains, I find pikes to be more than sufficient on the offensive in the worst of scenarios. When utilized fully and supported properly they're practically better than swordsmen. And not in the over-used vernacular meaning either, I really do mean they're practical as in utilitarian-approved level of ad-hoc capabilities. Swordsmen will only out-perform for the first few seconds, up to a half-minute at most, your equivalent pike unit. This is largely due to their better initial shock value, the precursor projectiles they possess, and their ability to rapidly close with the enemy. After that, pikes win because once the lines reach swordsmen regularly run the gauntlet of RNG* in terms of whether or not they suffer damage. Pikes will only have the same applied to them if the enemy fight them somewhere besides their front, or manage to squeeze past the bristling array of sarissas, which results in an overall reduced threat to the pikemen. All the while the front-most rank of sarissas will be actively advancing with the intent of producing casualties from the ranks of the foe. As a general rule surviving longer to deal damage is a more reliable method of damage out-put than more damage upfront but less likelihood of survival. Couple this with Thorakitai and Legionnaries having issue hacking through levy spearmen on Legendary and you'll quickly realize there's some merit in this statement. Besides this, you might be asking 'Why are defensive traits considered in the equation for offensive benefits?' Well DeI did the wonderful thing of tuning down the killing frenzy found in Vanilla. By doing so things like fatigue, long-term unit survival due to various means, and morale, actually impact the battle more. Units like swordsmen would undoubtedly perform better in vanilla as their precursor javelins along with better up-front stats have the potential to shatter units all in one go. Like-wise a phalanx has the potential to mow down a unit by advancing on it, but the difference lies with the sword-unit's potential for first strike regarding precursor javelins and the ensuing charge bonuses (assuming they reach the target just the same as the pikes do).
This is not the case, however, and if one is able to close ranks with the enemy pikes will always out-perform an equal or often greater number of swords on the offensive. And if you ever find yourself in a pinch on the offensive, your pikemen can adopt defensive measures simply by... being pikemen. It's certainly a pretty big advantage to be able to say your unit doesn't have to do anything differently to better posture itself for defensive action. Of course all of the above regarding pikemen is assuming you have the damn formation enabled. If ever this is not the case and you're caught in melee, run the hell away so you can form up, and wake the up if your pikes are ever caught out of phalanx (yes, EVER, there is no reason for them not to be because running across the map in phalanx has the same in-phalanx fatigue-maintenance related bonuses...).
Welp... there goes half an hour spent on tangents. Oh well I guess I did say 'detail,' so it's not exactly something I should be removing. Later sections should be... less detailed, at least for my sake I hope.
(Note to self, justifying actions in extensive detail not always needed as preemptive action...)
So with all the armies converging on Tyros, the one exception would be Antiochus and his army. Antiochus boards transports with his starting forces and lands just to the South-West of Salamis. This last bit is important because I've found many times I hit the 'Sword' icon to assault the settlement by land and the army disembarks on the North-East portion of the island adjacent to Salamis. While this is the CLOSEST route (thus automated pathing sends you there), which would logically mean you preserve the most movement points = better net results, it actually works against you. Disembarkation consumes all of your remaining movement points and it seems that the North-East landing point is actually out of range of the Salamis settlement itself. Many a sigh found its way from my lips when, in previous cases where my army was stranded for a turn on the North-Eastern landing point, I had to either disband the elephants or pay up for their use.
This brings up my next point regarding opening moves, my elephants. Yes Seleucids start with the terrifying Misthophoroi Indikoi Elephantes, or just 'elephants.' Sounds great till you look at the up-keep cost of the unit... Paying 1000 valuable talents of gold for this damned unit, and it's not even close to the ~270 I'd have to pay for a general's armoured version of this. At first glance I was keen on disbandment, but I'm never one to let anything go to waste. This is why I keep the unit for all of 0 turns, I simply aimed to disembarked Antiochus' army in such a way that he would get a Turn 1 battle, and in said battle the elephants would pave the way as the forlorn hope. Almost 100% of the time the defenders of Salamis have been routed without meaningful casualties to the rest of the army, and this case was no exception, Legendary or not. I've tried varying levels of commitment from supporting units, but for the most part Salamis' native garrisons just inherently gave-way like wet tissue to even an unarmoured unit of elephants as there is a noticeably fatal lack of spears or even javelins for that matter. For the most part even half or more of the elephants have survived on different occasions. This is not their purpose though, and so as a note there is always the lee-way of the potentially survivor-elephants as additional fighting force to work your way through Salamis' defenders without expending your actual force.
This works very well to my advantage because after the assault on Salamis I lost time at all replenishing and on Turn 2 I immediately ferried Antiochus and his army back across the Levantine Sea to Tyros to rendezvous with his additional troops over the course of the next few turns.
Besides army movements, I think I'll try to avoid general diplomacy (minor sum x for trade agreement/non-aggression, etc) bar the important developments that I can recall, and regarding important developments, nothing changes much from what you see in the Turn 8 screenshot for the situation. Egypt declares war in defense of Cyprus on Turn 1, the Eastern Satrapies rise up en-mass bar Dragiana, which stays loyal.
So Turn 1 more or less ended with me spending all money on hand on recruitment of generals (working toward the 8-cap is something I always do, besides most of the 1st turn ones being simply replacements for poor unit choice generals you start with), adoption of generals, construction, and lastly the movement of the starting spy out into the Mediterranean to pave the way for trade to come.
At the beginning of Turn 2 I took my starting admiral and fleet, grabbed what I deemed sufficient for the assault, and went for an amphibious attack on Side while Cyprus was still in the process of assembling an army there. The assault was a success and the mercenaries disbanded as there was no threat left in Asia Minor until half a dozen turns or so later with the declaration of war on Galatia to garner favour with Cappadocia and Pontus. Units in-transit continue, of course. Antiochus' army moves back across the sea and into Tyros where the general present I would normally shift units from before disbanding.
All in all an unexciting turn both to play and write about.
Turns 3 & 4: I toss a pair of sacrificial generals, one each turn, into Syria with varying numbers of mercenary troops to investigate on what Egypt had whilst getting rid of generals with Eastern Culture influence traits, etc. I lost both generals and their respective mercenary retinues, but one I had raised as a companion unit and his mercenaries consisted of two units of camelry, one with spears the other with bows, along with a mercenary jewish unit and together the mounted units managed to smash and cut down to a man 5 units of Machimoi foot, three being sword infantry, one unit being pikes, and one such unit of slingers. This also freed up my hands of the issue of pesky generals from the Other Families tab that I wasn't able to adopt for cheap/bribe at minimal expense.
Besides this, these two turns were pretty quiet and ended without anything significant occurring besides the skirmishes near Jerusalem where my expeditionary sacrifices found a large Egyptian army of about 17 units and dropped it to 12 and later 10.
Turns 5 & 6: The province of Cilicia was pacified (one Public Order boosting general raised there briefly on Turn 1 in Taurus I believe) and Antiochus moved to Tyros, where all the existing armies you start with I had dragged over to Syria to merge with him and disband any remaining generals units to be distributed in Mesopotamia in later turns.
Turns 7 & 8: All 4 of the Mesopotamian settlements received garrisons, Seleucia a generals unit only (Silver Shield Pikes), Hatra and Edessa get generals with 1 Epistratoi Phalangitai and 1 Thorakitai each. Charax as per Seleucia, but with an admiral as well, recruiting two raiding ships to be completed turn 8, and the general queuing the recruitment of two pike units as well as all the local mercenaries available. This comes out to be 1 unit of Eastern mercenary archers (Thanvare-i Parsig), 1 Persian Shock cavalry unit (Asabaran-i Parsig), and 1 unit of Egyptian pikemen (Misthophoroi Machimoi Phalangitai).
Antiochus (on the very border of the province since Turn 7, when he finished assembling his army) crosses into Jerusalem and takes the town with insignificant losses, taking with him another insignificant general who has -3 (maybe -2) growth rate that I fielded as a suicide elephant unit accompanying Antiochus' stack as a single unit army, this unit took 45% casualties in the Jerusalem assault, allowing the full stack to come out with fewer than 50 casualties from the footmen.
Turn 8 AI: Three full-stack AI armies enter my lands (I think some were 19 units, but close enough).
1st Battle of Charax: The first to assault was Gerrhea, attacking Charax from land with a stack of 20 units, 15 native to their roster (~11 spears & 4 slings), 5 mercenary units of 2 camel spearmen, 2 camel archers, 1 mercenary arabian spearmen unit. The local garrisons were damaged to varying degrees so I think they were poisoned at some point. Assault is repulsed without me having to commit my Silver Shields or recently recruited Phalangitai levies. Bulk of the casualties were taken by the garrison ship-board peltasts who disembarked for the fighting, the garrison Nizagan and slingers, and the mercenary melee units (Egyptian Pikes and Persian Shock Cav).
2nd Battle of Charax: Second stack comes from just North of Charax in Persia. Full stack being around a dozen Nizagan, a third or so of that in Palkhandar/Eastern slingers, 1 generals unit, and the rest filled out with mercenary eastern units consisting of Persian archers and heavy cav. They run into the same battered garrison at Charax and in this assault the entirety of the garrison units native to the settlement are routed or annihilated, the mercenaries are slain to a man, barring the Persian archers. Though my General's Silver Shields and two Epistratoi Phalangitai flanking his unit hold out without heavy losses.
At this point I was still adapting my defensive tactics and had tried overly complex defense-in-depth. Quickly proved to be over committing to choke-point defense in too many places due to the AI actually bringing in units from other angles and threatening to overrun the settlement with their numbers. I had to withdraw immediately (towards the end, rather hastily) to the town centre, in the process sacrificing most of the non-pike units in holding actions.
1st Siege of Seleucia: The last stack is one from Media Atropatene and assaults Seleucia. His army is of similar composition as the ones found at Charax (seems to be standard with the Better AI Recruitment Sub-mob) Walls are stormed while the gates burned and rushed. My Silver Shields hold the gate alone, later with Nizagan forced to hold their flanks against the influx of Nizagan from the walls who overran the slingers and mobs posted there. Most of the garrison units (slingers, mobs, Nizagan) are nearly or utterly annihilated in the assault, but the Silver Shields hold with little loss of life, their wall of sarissas keeping the gate permanently choked and inaccessible until exhausted, at which point I withdrew them to the town-centre and had them reform along the entire length of the streetway. The remaining units (mostly rallied ones with fewer than 40% total strength) I had perform a rear-guard action for the 230-240 Silver Shields who withdrew safely.
The remaining enemy force was mostly exhausted Nizagan and some Palkhandar/Archers (Sharpshooters from the general's unit IIRC). Silver Shields went from Exhausted to Winded before the Media Atropatene force caught up with them and smashed themselves into the wall of pikes. Assault on Seleucia results are the first screenshot, along with other screenshots taken on Turn Nine of this campaign.
Turn 9: I have the garrison in Hatra (General's Silver Shields, 1 Thorakitai, 1 Epistratoi Phalangitai) move over to reinforcement range of Seleucia and the Seleucia garrison general moves out with the assistance of Hatra's units to mop up Media Atropatene's invading army. Charax's garrison does similarly with Gerrhea's routed force, allowing the Persians the benefit of safety until next movement phase to evacuate their battered army.
It was at this point I decided I may as well keep it going with the screenshots and post it all (eventually...) Legendary settings are locked, as are Battle Realism settings. Time length set to infinite, for better or worse, to ensure the magnitude of the battles do not translate into an impediment. Later screenshots that I manage to snap in the immediate post-battle screen show anywhere up to 1 hour 45 minutes for total battle duration (as of yet the longest, will probably break that at some point in this campaign though). Steam Overlay is laggy as hell during load-in and load-out times so I don't always manage to get one before it ends and I have a dozen or so screenshots of the Army killing Army animation on the campaign map instead.
Recruitment of units in Mesopotamia continues with Seleucia being the recipient for Turn 9/10 recruitment.
Second Post
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Turn 9 AI: Much less from the AI this turn, but it was still a nuisance to watch the repeated strain on Charax as the garrison hardly ever managed to replenish fully before being attacked again, or poisoned and then attacked.
3rd Battle of Charax: Gerrhea sends another stack into Charax. I didn't get the screenshots besides the pre-battle screens, but it was more or less a refined defense along the lines of what I tried and learned in the previous two encounters defending Charax. Needless to say I hold onto the settlement, for now...
Turn 10: Likely a turn of nothing important, I'm pretty sure I loaded up and hit end turn within moments as there was nothing to really do.
Turn 10 AI: If I recall correctly Armenia has a full stack shuffle over to the task of sitting on its border this turn...
2nd Siege of Seleucia: Almost identical to the assault on Turn 8, Media Atropatene sends another stack at the gates of Seleucia. Even with the interruption of the units in queue Seleucia holds out as per Turn 8, Median force is routed with mostly the local garrison bearing the brunt of the casualties.
Turn 11: Seleucia's garrison (now complete with two units of Thorakitai and one unit of Epistratoi Phalangitai) heads out in pursuit of the broken Median army. I neither fought the battle nor screenshotted the stuff, but the Median army is pursued and cut down. Annoyingly with comparatively extreme loss of life on the Seleucid end as seen in the screenshot of the status of Seleucia on Turn 11. (I think I avoided auto-resolving specific incidents like this in the future, fighting a battle like that would see much more favourable results)
Turn 11 AI: So a while back I declared war on Galatia to garner favour with the Pontic and Cappadocian courts. I seriously expected nearly no possible repercussions as virtually every faction on the Anatolian peninsula was at war with Galatia and should have had little issue ousting the little Celtic pests. Well Turn 11 exceeded expectations and Galatia took Iconium from Sardes and was more or less in a position to aim for Side.
1st Battle of Hatra: So with the transition to the AI turn, Armenia declares war and bears down on Hatra with two stacks totaling 8550. Opposed by 2752 defenders situated within Hatra, of which only 512 are phalangists, 256 Silver Shields and another 256 recently levied Phalangitai. Almost true to the questionable nature of numbers given in classical records for many battles, the few defeated the many. In the process the local garrison troops were slowly eroded away to almost nothing by the sea of Eastern levies, though the Silver Shields took only one casualty to missile fire. This may or may not be due to having a cynical as hell commander who kept them in reserve all the way till the Armenian army broke and fled. At which point they were happily committed to the task of spearing those with their backs turned... this contingent of Silver Shields are prone to taking to the field in stark contrast with their comrades stationed in Seleucia, it would appear. This is corroborated by the real results of the battle- body counts. Silver Shields amass as much glory in slain enemies as their levied subordinates in that regard, albeit with much less loss of life and disproportionately small amount of risk taken.
4th Battle of Charax: I was so distraught at the sudden re-appearance of two stacks at Charax I forgot to pick up screenshots of the OoB. Needless though that may be as the results are clear... (Just as a side note, Charax as a settlement offers far more routes of entry accessible to incompetent AI than Hatra, so the swarm of two stacks coming from two directions of the map actually caught me off-guard. Whilst retreating towards the town centre one unit of phalangites (the one with the lowest kill-count) lost its nerve and broke. The defense may have actually held... but cycling two units of pikes in the choke was too much and the fatigue rest times were not sufficient to keep both Fresh when on the front, so as it was they were all cut down... if only #3 hadn't routed. Importantly though, Charax was only Sacked, thus only forcing me to pay for the repairs on the buildings present in order to see them through their final turn of construction as opposed to what I was really thankful did not happen. Though this meant that the valiant slain died in vain... as the Arabs were not after the settlement after all.
Turn 12: On the AI's turn two armies from Nabatea took up positions on the hill-sides of Ma'an Aqaba, just south of Petra. One fortifies itself in a field camp while the other remains mobile. Leaving the safety of Petra's walls Antiochus takes to the field in the first large-scale clash in the open field for the Seleucid Empire.
Battle of Ma'an Aqaba: Antiochus breaks off 4 of his 5 contingents of levied Phalangitai as well as accompanying skirmishers to encircle the camp-defenders, with skirmishers tasked to immediately bring down the perimeter towers before distancing themselves from the camp and providing assistance to the phalangitai engaged at the entrances/exits of the camp with missile fire. Trapped in their own camp, the fortified Nabatean army attempts to break out while the Petra garrison arrives to bolster Antiochus' force and deal with the second Nabatean army on the side. With the reinforcing army entirely routed before ever reaching the fortified camp, the collective Seleucid forces turn their attention to the camp and proceed to massacre the camp defenders. All prisoners taken at this point are executed as Turn 8 saw the capture of enough slaves to bring serious Public Order penalties for any more slaves taken.
After the clash near Petra, Side receives a general with a healthy sum of coin tasked to its defense as the settlement lacked a single pike prior to the arrival of the Silver Shields. In the process 5 units of mercenaries are raised, 1 Asabaran-i Parsig (Persian VH Shock Cav), 1 Thanvare-i Parsig (Persian Foot Archers), and 3 Misthophoroi Cilician Epibatoi (Cilician Marines, though their designation really doesn't stand out, they're just bog-standard 300-man melee units with pretty rudimentary stats).
Turn 12 AI:
1st Battle of Side: The Galatian army possesses a relatively even 3-way split between Spear levies, Slingers, and various mounted units. And my lack of spears and pikes mentioned before would prove troublesome as the mounted portion of their force secures them the majority of the town, putting units of Mobs and Cilicians they encounter quickly to flight. Defending forces box themselves around the town square before further retreating to the capture point itself, with the onus on the Silver Shields... at least in theory.
Side's garrison commander may be a relative of the one present at Hatra, as he orders the remaining Cilician mercenary infantrymen, garrison spearmen and mobs as well, to advance ahead of his Silver Shields. These units end up taking the bulk of the casualties from Galatian missile fire and charges, while the Silver Shields handily impale those who get too far into the ranks. More surprisingly the cavalry mercenaries played no part in the battle save running down routing Celts... :/
2nd Battle of Hatra: The Armenians already have another stack bearing down on Hatra on the second turn of open hostilities. Ends in disaster at the same choke-point as the force is roughly half the size of the first one they sent (1 stack instead of 2) and managed much less progress on the garrison forces before being routed and run down. Only 98 survivors rally with their general following their defeat, the rest are cut down or scatter to the desert hills.
Turn 13: I think it was around this turn or the couple turns prior that Cappadocia was under threat of being completely conquered by Pontus. I lost no time in extending an offer to vassalize Cappadocia as a Satrapy, but demanded they fork over as much money as they were willing to in the process. The funds were enough to start a couple building projects in Syria and cover the expenses for the mercenaries at Side (Only the two Persian units, 1 Shock cav, 1 Foot archer, the three decimated Cilician units I disbanded immediately on Turn 13.
Stupidly, I didn't pay enough attention and breezed through this turn as quickly as possible (the number of back-to-back defensive battles gets... annoying at times, I much prefer open field engagements when I have the luxury of fielding a real army). The fruits of this blunder in 3...
Turn 13 AI: Galatia's broken stack receives reinforcements, mercenaries, and marches on Side again.
2nd Battle of Side: The Galatians attempt the same assault with less than half the numbers. They're put to flight in record time, being shattered and run down in less than half an hour (at least where this campaign is concerned, that was a short battle). Seleucids suffer little over 25% the casualties they inflict, made all the better by being mostly from the local garrisons.
Turn 14: No idea what happened this turn, probably raised some new mercenaries based on threat levels in some settlements and queued up new units. Breezed through without having to fight or even auto resolve, that much I know.
Turn 14 AI: Armenia assembled an army with a greater proportion of cavalry at some point, but instead of running down the cause-way in Hatra and impaling itself, it decided to bypass Hatra and aim for Edessa instead...
1st Battle of Edessa: Unfortunately for them the cavalry impaled itself on the charge, and did little else besides pepper the dense masses of expendable troops with javelins for the most part. Very little javelin fire successfully impacted important sarissa-bearing units, with disastrous results for the Armenians relentlessly assaulting down two main cause-ways into Edessa's core. Towards the end of the battle I detached two levied pike units to flank the heaping masses of Armenians and trap them in the streets, the resulting rout was a massacre.
Turn 15: My turns seem rather insignificant, but I do remember a small naval engagement near the shores of Alexandria somewhere between T14 and T16. Egyptian tactical victory as their combined fleet and transports rout the comparatively tiny force of 6 Seleucid vessels. Seleucid strategic victory attributed to disproportionate losses (2 Raiding Hemiola, 1 Pursuit Trihemiola w/ Mercenary Persian Archers, 1 Assault Dieres w/ Hillmen, general's ship decimated in crew-count) as opposed to the deaths of the Egyptian general and his bodyguard, several potent land units (Machimoi Phalangitai and importantly the general's Basilikoi Phalangitai) lost at sea, as well as several of the Egyptian naval vessels rammed.
Turn 15 AI: If ever there was I time so far in this campaign where I legitimately didn't expect something, this was it.
5th Battle of Charax: Having very recently restaffed the defense of Charax with a general and some new units (2 levied pikes, 1 merc persian archers), Charax finds itself assaulted again by the Qidri and Gerrhean combined forces well over twice the Seleucid numbers. Forgot to screen-cap the OoB, but the results are clear enough, I've found the method to the madness of holding Charax with whatever is on hand. Isn't guaranteed but it certainly is the most optimal arrangement, and with the increased level of this army following 4th Charax, the use of defensive deployables was something fun. The rolling fire-balls and brimstone pots, while reasonably effective especially with the heaping masses of desert levies flooding through the streets, were probably still not worth picking over a real army trait. I probably lost as many 'full units' to the little pyro-gimmicks as the AI did, as the Mob unit tasked with the ignition of these things ended up routed and cut down while inflicting probably similar numbers of casualties.
Turn 16: Started looking around Petra to decide whether to detour south to capture the Nabatean settlements or continue down Gaza and aim for the Ptolemies. Decided the latter was not something Antiochus' vast (and rag-tag quality) force could handle so I stuck with Nabatea as a sparring opponent. Rest of the turn pretty insignificant. Worth noting my income since the beginning of the game has been on the steady increase with most of my generals opting for a point in Research Rate/1% Corruption reduction as well as the Foreign Relations boost, some of which had rank 2 in and provided the tariff boost. This coupled with trade agreements as my Spy navigates the Mediterranean and beyond is all that's keeping the Seleucid Empire afloat with on-demand spending in regards to recruiting generals regularly and mercenaries less so.
Turn 16 AI: The only thing notable about this turn I recall is that the influx of AI agents in my territory started to rapidly increase from around here. Each faction ended up with multiple agents around the regions closest to them that they were attacking, and the flood began around here.
Turn 17: Began to aim for unlocking recruitment of Authority agents to help combat the agent problem, the two techs add up to 10 turns in total I think.
Turn 17 AI: Ok... so Qidri and Gerrhea...
6th Battle of Charax: The Qidri and Gerrheans hastily reassemble their armies and so a force totaling 8630, one stack Qidri, one stack Gerrhean, arrives at Charax. Garrison forces are much better equipped to deal with them now though, as two veteran Epistratoi Phalangitai are bolstered by another two recently levied Epistratoi Phalangitai, all of which are arrayed behind the local garrison Epistratoi Phalangitai. All the while I've been working on my pike micro and tactics, as well as the general theory behind holding the stupid port settlement. This probably plateaued around here so I'll explain that, for lack of other stuff to go on about.
So long as you have pikes you can make do without quality troops, for the most part. However this isn't as clear cut and guaranteed as you might think. Pike units can be chipped away at in melee in a manner that is beyond what one can control with a unit attacking pikemen, that and fatigue will get the better of any unit. The tactic I've adopted rests entirely on having enough pike units to continuously shuffle them out of the fighting line so that (ideally) they get no further than Tired before being relieved. In addition to this I try to prevent the weird issue I label "peeling," described blow.
Initially I operated with only one unit fighting at the front, much like an open field battle with contiguous units of phalangites arranged individually. But I found the frontage of pikes was insufficient to prevent enemies from making it up to the phalanx. This would inevitably lead to 'peeling' phalangists away from the formation, where the stupid bastards drew swords. To make matters worse it almost invariably ended up with the peeling pikemen a full pike-length away from the formation fighting the enemy in melee at arms-length (and with the new multi-target in melee, they're quickly cut down). Not only compromising to the phalanx and the defensive capacity of the sarissas it presents, this peeling also causes undue casualties at a startling rate. I've had Silver Shields take casualties more rapidly than Epistratoi Phalangitai, and it was only after this that I watched A LOT more closely at the combats that played out in hopes of a solution.
The reason for this is that having pikes means you can block a corridor, it doesn't mean you necessarily win by default. If anything the near-loss of Charax proved that with resounding success as they overran the town-square and my exhausted and battered units could do nothing more. Pike units fight like any other unit and become fatigued and accumulate losses over time, the problem was to avoid the wasteful nature of casualties to peeling and keeping a close eye on fatigue so the pikes operate at acceptable effectiveness.
The solution was simple, and could be done in two ways. The first was to double up on the number of pikes presented on the same frontage by deploying a unit over-lapping. This also solved another issue conveniently, which was the issue of bringing up a second unit while withdrawing the first unit. This would often lead to a tangled mess of two units on the move, and doing one at a time seemed to have its own problems as sometimes the units tried to reform in the dumbest manner.
Deploying two units of pikes almost exponentially multiplies the functional effectiveness and survivability of the phalanx. Not only does it stop the issue of peeling for the most part (bar the front ranks of the edge-most files), but the units attempt to dress their ranks due to the jumbled nature of the formations as they overlap as well. This serves to regularly reset the status of the phalangites to seek their place in the formation, which further prevents them from wandering into a situation where they are certain to become a meaningless casualty. The second method of solving the issue of peeling, as well as providing another utility for the phalanx, is deploying a unit similarly to the second unit of pikemen.
Although in this case they're positioned slightly ahead of the bodies of the front rank of pikes. With this, I've found you can't really double up on pikes without really screwing the unit integrity, and thus not actually having two solid arrays of sarissas. However the trade-off is unique. In this manner of use, the secondary unit serves as meat-shields for projectiles, preserving the precious lives of trained (or otherwise) phalangitai. The other is that they act as chaff for enemies who breach the ranks of pikes and would otherwise normally begin to peel pikemen away from your impregnable defense.
A minor benefit of the above tactic which I've been able to only utilize once is to use skirmishers for the front-line chaff as indicated above. For archers and slingers this is pointless unless they're out of ammunition and deemed expendable, but for javelinmen this is a potential opportunity for a lot of free damage. The only issue being I find they invariably find ways to end up riddling their own phalanx with javelins to the back, neck, and skull, as well as the corpses of the foe. The only solution to this is a small skirmisher unit, small enough to deploy in either a single, or at most two ranks either infront of the pikes, or 1 infront and 1 interlocked with the first rank of pikemen. This last piece of criteria pretty much invalidates this as a functional tactic as you need skirmishers to be severely depleted or be natively tiny units (dismounted marine skirmishers). Needless to say both of these have bad points of their own, hence I said this was only the potential for an opportunity, and very far from a sure-fire tactic. Would be interesting if they actually implemented a unit-attachment system whereby skirmishers could operate alongside a phalanx and receive bonuses while doing so, but that's probably asking for too much and would be very complicated to do if it was distribution of skirmishers across multiple contingents of phalangites.
Last edited by LawL_LawL; February 28, 2014 at 04:04 PM.
Reason: Merged first two posts. Second edit; formatting & spoiler tags to eliminate text walls
Will post most recent additions here and merge them with the above post as I add more.
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Third Post
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Turn 18: At the beginning of this turn, I was startled to see a Median army sitting not far from Hatra in Forced March stance. Not because of the threat to Hatra but due to the situation at Seleucia. Going through and back-tracking via screenshots to post the narrative made me miss this with the chronological posting, but Seleucia was besieged on Turn 16 AI and at this point Seleucia was 1 turn away from submission.
The way things ended up this way was because the AI Median army on Forced March ended its movement on Turn 17 AI on the road from Ekbatana to Hatra instead of Seleucia. Prior to this I had already been able to spot the army and I had ended Turn 17 expecting the army to go to the assistance of the siege at Seleucia and storm the place. Had this happened, I was confident the defending forces would be able to hold and had no doubts even with the couple turns of added attrition. Instead the detour of the army forced me to either sally from Seleucia and fight an up-hill battle with an army of mostly scratched and beaten Thorakitai units, or raise a relief force.
Knowing I'd have to deal with both armies anyways and wanting something to relieve Seleucia, I grabbed a general out of Dura (he had mercenary recruitment cost reduction trait/s) and hired every mercenary unit I could find in Syria before marching into Mesopotamia and adding more mercenaries to the stack. This army ran out of steam where its own marching was concerned, but Hatra's garrison was able to advance to meet the marching Median army with the reinforcing mercenary stack able to come to their assistance.
Battle of the Tigris: Although an ambush battle by name and deployment zones, it was far from an actual ambush. My small force of initial troops deployed far and out of sight of the Median host in wait for their reinforcements. Even with both armies arrayed together I was initially a little skeptical about the outcome of the battle due to the over-reliance on low morale troops. Turned out to be perfectly fine as the mercenaries handled the challenge without a problem, the bulk of casualties being inflicted on the mercenary Jewish Spears, Hillmen, and Egyptian Pikemen, followed by the Hellenic Thorakitai contingents.
After the battle was won through encirclement, the rout lead to a pretty thorough pursuit phase, with reserve units, unfatigued missile troops, and the mercenary javelin cavalry being particularly helpful in running down (albeit very gradually) the tired routing army. Every Median unit was destroyed following the battle as seen in the results screens.
3rd Siege of Seleucia: Kind of silly of me, but there must have been a brain fart or I simply didn't notice until now that Seleucia itself was not in any condition to hold out until relief forces arrived. Well, there was little point in sitting about waiting for the city to capitulate on its own so I decided to sally forth with what remained of the garrison and troops billeted within the city.
The battle wasn't particularly favourable as I had neither the numbers nor particularly advantageous 'quality' as I lacked pikes bar the general's Silver Shields and a single unit of Epistratoi Phalangitai from the city garrison. Battle dragged out long enough that all missile units ran out of ammo and were committed to the melee, most units army-wide had routed once, with all the Mobs, Nizagan, some sling-armed units, and about half the Thorakitai units fielded being shattered at some point in the battle.
By the end of Turn 18, I'd certainly guaranteed one thing about my troop roster. Although pretty handily superior in melee (where bare stats are concerned), Thorakitai took a serious beating fighting Hillmen and Nizagan as they were recruited with the intention of being wall-defenders for Seleucia or flanking/reserve units for towns and field armies. This coupled with the Legendary AI stat boosts lead to some serious casualties when they were forced to do the work of forming the main line, something I'd normally leave to the Seleucid phalanx.
Turns 18, 19, and 20 AI, and Turn 19 and 20 (mine) : Nothing much happened during these turns besides troop movements, building projects, minor diplomacy, and the likes. No AI attacks, but some armies had moved in and out of sight. So standard turn miscellany aside...
With the disgraceful mercenary army not able to fulfill its job and subsequently sitting in the desert as the siege of Seleucia was broken on its own, I really felt opposed to disbanding the army so I sacked the Seleucid Family general at the head of the army and replaced him with some idiot not affiliated with my political faction. I also moved all factional units out of the stack, most returning to settlements as garrisons or merging with the force at Seleucia which was taken over in command by Antiochus himself, leaving the Levantine expedition in the hands of a family memeber. The mercenary army, now truly composed entirely of mercenary units save its new commander, was ostensibly tasked with the capture of Ekbatana. I was aware at the massive gold dump this would result in if I kept the army up even one turn (up-keep costs over the course of 4 turns was well over 25k) but in the spirit of RP and not really needing such a vast financial surplus I was perfectly fine with the interesting deployment ahead of them.
Turn 21: Within striking distance of Ekbatana itself, but unwilling to even attempt to force my way into the city with this rag-tag army, battle is joined beyond the walls where a Median general was in the process of gathering levies to bolster his army.
1st Battle of Ekbatana: If I didn't expect much out of this army with the first encounter against the marching force of Medians not far from Hatra, I was definitely not expecting anything good to come of a mercenary army of barely over 3300 clashing with a Median army of little over 6000. So without further pessimism I aimed for a standard plan of attack. All of my mercenary phalangists were arrayed 6 ranks deep in order to help extend the length of my line, with the additional space given over to deepening the ranks of the Hillmen and Jewish Spears following their precursor javelin volley and collision with the enemy ranks. Archers I kept in maneouvrable squares instead of an extended line so I could focus fire where I see fit. Mercenary javelin-men were placed on my right, along with the general's Companions and the majority of the mercenary cavalry.
As the lines closed with one another the javelin-men were driven off pretty quickly by a unit of Hillmen, so they were forced to split up slightly and kite the Hillmen for the majority of the main phase of the battle. My general and his accompanying mercenary and Companion cavalry rode out beyond range of the Median archers who also happened to be a general's unit and the only ranged unit in their army. The same occurred on the left flank, where I had a single unit of mercenary horse ride out to flank. The pikes met vast numbers of Hillmen and actually took a beating from the precursor javelins, but stabilized their rate of casualties by being largely impregnable to the axe wielding mob. The flanks didn't do nearly as well, with my Jewish Spears and lone unit of Hillmen giving as good as they got with their initial javelins, before being hopelessly pulped in melee to the overwhelming numbers across from them. Most of the Persian hoplites were also situated on the flanks, so those units gave way pretty quickly as the battle progressed.
As this happened, I dragged my archers over from close to the centre of my line (where they had fired off two volleys into the advancing hillmen before they met the phalanx head on) to the right flank. Jostling for positioning while Median units were pretty much forcing their way in and around the right, my archers managed to direct enough fire on the enemy general's archers to drop them to around 70 men of their 160, but not without the Syrian archers taking returning fire and receiving a face-full of javelins from a nearby unit of Hillmen who attempted to charge them, after which a unit of Persian hoplites followed them in pursuit of the archers. From this point on the archers ended up doing as the javelin men; forced to kite melee units that they couldn't deal with and I didn't have additional units to deal with until my cavalry were able to come back.
Off on the flanks and rear of the enemy line, I used the general's Companions to break the remaining Persian archers (importantly to ensure the charge killed as many as possible as the mercenary javelin cavalry would've fared poorly once melee ensued against the spear-armed archers. While that happened I directed my mercenary cavalry with fire-at-will on to charge the enemy rear in separate sections of the enemy lines in hopes of dealing as much damage to the masses of disordered Nizagan and Hillmen who screened the backs of the tightly-packed Persian hoplites. Not long after my general joined in on this charging duty.
As my flanks crumbled, I was forced to bend the line to a horse-shoe shape formation with the remnants of pikemen to prevent encirclement (the AI seemingly couldn't untangle its units from the mess and stopped trying to flank). My archers and javelin-men had each dealt with their respective pursuers in melee troops and began to return to the main battle. The archers were unscathed after the Syrian unit took initial damage and another Persian archer unit took some minor casualties wheeling slightly longer than intended and . The javelin-men had one unit receive precursor javelins once and routed from the massive loss of life, they were pursued by the Persian cavalry general and shattered not long after. Cavalry were in turn dealt with by my archers prior to returning to the main battle.
Some of the Jewish Spears as well as the Hillmen unit rallied, but routed either on the way back to the battle or not long after returning the fight. Though in the end the cavalry, archers, and pikes were able to produce results and the Median army routed. I pursued until the battle ended with routers all having escaped or died.
So, I was actually pretty impressed with how well the mercenary army performed, having pretty sub-par morale all across the board. Although following this I was able to assault Ekbatana itself (and easily capture at that), but there was a Parthavan army just beyond it to reinforce the city, were it to be attacked. That pretty much guaranteed my mercenary expedition was over. I disbanded all the terribly bloodied units, which meant all the melee troops bar the pike units, along with the javelins and some of the cavalry too, and moved the force into the hills closer to the way they came.
Turn 21 AI: Nothing notable, I think.
Turn 22: With a new general from the Seleucid family at the head of the expedition into the Levant, the Egyptians also happen to prepare a counter-attack aimed for Petra or Jerusalem.
1st Battle of Rafah: Much like Antiochus before him, the glory seeking scion of Seleucia departs from Petra with the intent of engaging the enemy in the field while one army is encamped. In deployment, I attempted to deploy based on the geographic positions of the armies in order to cut-off the reinforcing Egyptian army and deal with it separately while trying to coop up the camp-defenders. This failed utterly as the game gave me a big "Screw off." So the Egyptians joined battle from the opposite side of the map, managing to enter their camp without significant resistance besides the harassment of my Median cavalry, javelin cavalry, and two contingents of Galatian horse. The cavalry managed to actually break several units of Makhairaphoroi as well as one unit of Epistratoi Hoplitai, two units of Slingers, and the enemy Galatian cavalry. In the process the Galatian cavalry were spent and routed, one of which only did so because the AI Galatian Doriphoroi charged the cavalry at the same time it was beginning to turn away from the Makhairaphoroi it had just charged and the infantry's overwhelming volley of precursor javelins wiped the unit. The Median cavalry and javelin cavalry took minor losses, but played no further role in the battle until they were required to chase routers, with the exception of the javelin cavalry being called on to ride up and torch one perimeter tower in support of other units doing so when the attack on the camp began.
So with the entirety of the Egyptian army within their camp the battle was a little more troublesome as the numbers of pikemen I had weren't sufficient to rotate units out for fatigue recovery in all the camp entry-points so I had to commit Thorakitai to the zones to stop the Egyptian troops from easily pursuing the pikes for easy prey. While the pikes and swords occupied the Egyptian troops in the 3 choke points my slingers fired away over the palisades and caused a decent amount of damage. Most of the casualties were caused in the rout once the Egyptian Basilikoi Phalangitai and their general died, as well as the Elephant-mounted general.
Following the battle the Seleucid troops retire to Petra for replenishment while beginning to consider attacking into Nabataean territory in the near future.
Turn 22 AI: It's that time again...
7th Battle of Charax: 8862 troops of the combined forces from Persian and Gerrhea assault the combined land and naval forces of 3587 Seleucid troops. The defending garrison and all naval troops involved were committed to the battle over the course of it, and mostly destroyed or suffering heavy casualties. The important units of the Silver Shields and standing force of levies recruited by the general manage to maintain the defense of Charax. Persian and Gerrhaean armies routed in a similar fashion to before.
Now that the narrative is up to date with the pictures I posted, I'll also add some self-explanatory pictures from my recently started Roman campaign on L/L.
Amazing story!
I noticed you know the Seleucid and legendary seems to be like a walk through the park.
What do you think could be changed too make the game even more challenging?
I'm playing Rome Hard campaign/battle realism and got my ass handed back to me 3 times just trying to get off Italy, Just how are you doing it. I know how to play the game but what mods are u using. I just use DIE and BullGods Cards. You have to be using something else.
I'm playing Rome Hard campaign/battle realism and got my ass handed back to me 3 times just trying to get off Italy, Just how are you doing it. I know how to play the game but what mods are u using. I just use DIE and BullGods Cards. You have to be using something else.
Amazing story!
I noticed you know the Seleucid and legendary seems to be like a walk through the park.
What do you think could be changed too make the game even more challenging?
mfg Viruzide
Originally Posted by adambomb1
I'm playing Rome Hard campaign/battle realism and got my ass handed back to me 3 times just trying to get off Italy, Just how are you doing it. I know how to play the game but what mods are u using. I just use DIE and BullGods Cards. You have to be using something else.
To make the game more challenging? Intelligent AI or an equally competent human player. Fighting against AI, even AI with advantages in raw numbers and stats everywhere possible, is still just fighting AI. It will make the same mistakes, and you can capitalize on those mistakes. Of course the scaling difficulty makes some mistakes less meaningful and others completely irrelevant, but mistakes will always be made. Even if the mistakes were all made meaningless by stat boosts, one can always look for other methods, and once a method is found the AI simply has no way of dealing with it, provided it works. If it doesn't work, then the AI passively deals with it by doing precisely as it did before and still managing to pull through.
Though the fact that at maximum difficulty the AI pretty much gets all the money it can spend means the AI isn't forced to optimize (which it can't) but can just go full-throttle in every sector, which makes less glaringly obvious weaknesses appear. It's not really making the AI any better, but just making everything more punishing for the player. Thinking back, I don't actually know why I played this game on any other difficulty rating before. There was some kind of "wow that's cool" factor to units from every era of Total War games, but beyond eye candy TW provides a more detailed battle engine than most games, and that's pretty much all it has going for it. Once the battles stop being difficult the game loses purpose, imo, as I can play another game with far more detailed political and economic systems that sacrifice battle detail with less input and control in favour of automated simulation.
As for what I'm using, the full list of mods I have are as follows:
DEI
Better AI Recruitment
Close Pike-Formations Sub-mod (the one that brings back the 4th rank of usable pikes that stopped on one of the major patches from CA)
Steppe Raiders Sub-mod (The Melee Infantry/Melee Cavalry unit pack for Royal Scythia, and perhaps other Nomadic tribes as well, to give them more of a roster of troops)
Originally Posted by Black9
Pikes.
Pretty much has it in that one word. Pike formations give an advantage that you can't quantify with numerical stats but have to understand and judge in a more fluid manner with theory. While 256 Epistratoi Phalangitai are statistically worse than 256 Silver Shield Phalangitai, that doesn't mean they perform proportionately well to their stats against the same opponent. Both units can pretty handily hold three or four times their numbers if they have to hold a choke point that isn't wider than their maximum frontage as inhibited by the game.
As I probably mention more than once in the posts above, it's down to maintaining unit combat effectiveness. And to do so means watching the fatigue on them so they don't over-exert and begin to suffer in both morale and casualty rates.
I think I'm actually really interested now in trying a Roman campaign without any easy-access pike/hoplite units. Rome was by far the most simple point-and-shoot faction (as it should be, being the centre-piece for the game bearing it's name) but I want to see how legionnaries fair against Legendary/Legendary. Seeing Thorakitai perform more or less even against Hillmen and Spearmen in appropriate numbers to match the cost makes me think Rome may lose a few of it's fangs altogether on L/L.
EDIT: I'll probably stick a couple mile-stone markers for the Roman campaign alongside the Seleucid one.
Last edited by LawL_LawL; February 25, 2014 at 06:17 PM.
my Rome campaign on VH is hell )) i haven`t declared war to anybody, but now in war with ALL european factions, ALL greece and tracian. Even spanish tribes declared a war ) without reloads it`s impossible. If you can handle rome camp. on L/L i`ll say you a greatest master ))
my Rome campaign on VH is hell )) i haven`t declared war to anybody, but now in war with ALL european factions, ALL greece and tracian. Even spanish tribes declared a war ) without reloads it`s impossible. If you can handle rome camp. on L/L i`ll say you a greatest master ))
The lack of immediate enemies bar the token-enemy Etruscans is a refreshing change from being boxed in on all sides by Eastern factions. Got a few turns in and I don't fully know the potential for any of these units on Legendary and the lack of easy access to pikes is a serious change of play-style on my end so I have some things to sort out. Still, Triarii are immensely powerful for what it's worth in upkeep and recruitment, sadly the next tier of units phases them out instantly so I have little interest in them beyond service as generals' units.
Have avoided Rome mostly so I'm actually less accustomed to this faction than the Seleucids, but as far as I can tell conquest of Italy shouldn't be a problem. I actually attacked them at Arretium on Turn 1 because IIRC they self-destruct their garrison by some means and the settlement becomes ridiculously easy pickings if you let the garrison undergo its changes after Turn 1.
I think I'll try and assemble an army as quickly as I can maintain a full stack and see how expansion goes. Playing Julii for a change in pace with relations. (Syracuse with huge Hellenic penalties and Seleucids with huge Eastern penalties is getting a bit old...)
The lack of immediate enemies bar the token-enemy Etruscans is a refreshing change from being boxed in on all sides by Eastern factions. Got a few turns in and I don't fully know the potential for any of these units on Legendary and the lack of easy access to pikes is a serious change of play-style on my end so I have some things to sort out. Still, Triarii are immensely powerful for what it's worth in upkeep and recruitment, sadly the next tier of units phases them out instantly so I have little interest in them beyond service as generals' units.
Have avoided Rome mostly so I'm actually less accustomed to this faction than the Seleucids, but as far as I can tell conquest of Italy shouldn't be a problem. I actually attacked them at Arretium on Turn 1 because IIRC they self-destruct their garrison by some means and the settlement becomes ridiculously easy pickings if you let the garrison undergo its changes after Turn 1.
I think I'll try and assemble an army as quickly as I can maintain a full stack and see how expansion goes. Playing Julii for a change in pace with relations. (Syracuse with huge Hellenic penalties and Seleucids with huge Eastern penalties is getting a bit old...)
Please do a lets play if you have the means to do so. Then upload it to youtube Would love to see your approach to a Rome campaign.
Destroying Etruscans with Rome is not the problem , it is constantly fighitng off other factions if you don't make non aggresion packs and trade agreements .
Rather destory Etruscnas , hold against Carthage ( & Sparta , they always auto - declare war on me ?? ) and forget about building , just buying non aggresion packs and then trade agreements of other factions , Barbarian tribes in upper Italy for example , oh and Epirus .
Rome L/L is much harder in view on units , no pikes so you can't score 1000 kills in a battle definitely , but it has far more better position then Selucids , that's for sure .
Try playing Ardei on L/L , I had a blast playing with them !
Destroying Etruscans with Rome is not the problem , it is constantly fighitng off other factions if you don't make non aggresion packs and trade agreements .
Rather destory Etruscnas , hold against Carthage ( & Sparta , they always auto - declare war on me ?? ) and forget about building , just buying non aggresion packs and then trade agreements of other factions , Barbarian tribes in upper Italy for example , oh and Epirus .
Rome L/L is much harder in view on units , no pikes so you can't score 1000 kills in a battle definitely , but it has far more better position then Selucids , that's for sure .
Try playing Ardei on L/L , I had a blast playing with them !
I was finding before when I did play a bit as Rome, Praetorian units can rack up ridiculous numbers of kills against inferior troop types (1200-1400) on H/H. Though that's on a much lower difficulty so perhaps stats alone will no longer complete the battles for the legionnaries.
As for Carthage and Sparta, yeah that happened to me too. Carthage on Turn 1 and Sparta on Turn 2 (or perhaps the other way around, any how I've been at war since the very beginning). I mean, I get the Carthaginian aggression, but Sparta seems like an odd candidate. And with the way the diplomacy works, it seems like I have no choice but to deal with them :/
Nice read, I play with them as well, but on hard difficulty. I must say they are poorr! And entire Asia declared war on my, luckily as you said the pikes are unbeatable. I think I took 1200 pikes against 3000 twice in a row lol
Nice read, I play with them as well, but on hard difficulty. I must say they are poorr! And entire Asia declared war on my, luckily as you said the pikes are unbeatable. I think I took 1200 pikes against 3000 twice in a row lol
With Seleucia, the best way to proceed most of the time is to focus offensive efforts on the Western half of your empire. The comparatively low faction density (at least, those you're at war with) makes the number of armies you encounter in the field much smaller and capturing cities without billeted armies, which keeps your armies over-all focused on their strengths; defensive battles.
I pretty much do this as standard practice with any faction to make trade partners ASAP, and that is to send out my spy (if I don't start with one, like Minor factions like Syracuse/Bosphorus I'll recruit one early) to navigate the coasts of the map until all possible sea-routes are found. As the Seleucids having large amounts of trade-partners from around the Mediterranean provides a ridiculous amount of income, the problem being that with the Capital change to Seleucia from Antioch, if Seleucia is besieged (as in my campaign) your income tanks hard as all roads do lead to Rome (or it's factional equivalent) and you must have your capital unobstructed to facilitate trade income.
Been playing my L/L Roman campaign lately, around the same amount of turns into this as the Seleucid campaign. Can't be assed to write as much with them but posting screenshots roughly as much as Seleucid campaign, focus mostly on pre & post battle screens. In-battle screens mostly for very 1-sided affairs (AI sided) for additional information regarding critical victories/defeats. Must say Triarii are worth their weight in diamonds, cut and polished. Hoplite Phalanx is brutal, what can you do against Melee Defense 70 Triarii? Admittedly it is far more susceptible to peeling and I've seen many a Triarius shanked from all sides by Celts, but those who peel off have far better chances of returning to the formation (if you dress the ranks or reform them in some manner to get them to move back). And though it's impossible to fix this issue of peeling, you can still avoid most casualties from it by dressing ranks regularly and making sure to continue with that micro every 30s-1min where possible.
I'm actually regretting rushing the Cohort tech as there will never again be such powerful defensive units in my roster, though the benefits of having post-Marian infantry more than makes up for it. Definitely keeping the existing Triarii generals and 3 units of additional Triarii as revered veterans and relics of the manipular legions.
Great thread! I'm definitely not a great R2TW player, and I'm always overwhelmed by the Seleucid's starting situation since everyone and their mother declares on you early on. But this really gave me an idea of how to start. I hope you keep up with this thread!
Progress on Roman campaign going well. Turn 35-40ish, can't recall. So far all of Northern Italy conquered, pacified, and Romanized, Larissa taken from Hellenic rebels, with humorous results found in the settlement itself. Syracuse made a client-state, sadly this pushed the envelope too far and Carthage declared war along with their clients (again, after being paid off to end the first 'cold' war period).
Armies pushing into Germania along with declaration of war on Suebi in order to back the Raeti, who agreed to become a client state in the process. Massalia brought into the fold by money and a symbolic declaration of war on Arverni, plan to deal with Gallic factions after Suebi and Lugii are dealt with.
So I was in the middle of a battle with 10,018 Roman troops vs 17,659 Germanic troops. Order of battle presented as the last screenshots uploaded. I was actually pretty psyched up for this battle due to the monstrous size of the German forces and the difference in battle mechanics with so many units that guaranteed reinforcements would trickle in as units broke and fled. The fighting was very disordered in nature due to my two main armies (full stacks ea.) fighting on opposite sides of the map, multiple entry-points of Germanic reinforcements, and the fog that settled after three attempts to wait for better weather (rain, rain, fog, fog). This ended up making it rather hellishly disorienting and difficult to maintain semblance of lines. Many units from the first stack were nearly annihilated due to being caught up with fresh German troops emerging from tree-lines from a reinforcement point I didn't know about yet (<30 surviving legionnaries). So this battle went on for about an hour, with the vast majority of German troops still unengaged and all of my <100 legionnary units being withdrawn either voluntarily or otherwise. My Triarii had yet to be committed to serious fighting, along with a large portion of my legionnaries.
And then it crashed...
Would have taken more German land today were it not for the CTD which ended my session. Pretty bummed and not in the mood to load-up and re-fight an hour's worth immediately.
So, out of curiosity, what's the largest clash you've had the (dis)pleasure of playing in Rome 2?
Originally Posted by nonja121
Great thread! I'm definitely not a great R2TW player, and I'm always overwhelmed by the Seleucid's starting situation since everyone and their mother declares on you early on. But this really gave me an idea of how to start. I hope you keep up with this thread!
Thanks, I'll definitely continue the Seleucids as they're one of my favourite factions and a very interesting empire. At the moment I'm juggling them and my Roman campaign and the latter is definitely the more interesting to play of the two which is a bit of a shame. I'll probably end up alternating between them to keep things a little different on my end.
Last edited by LawL_LawL; March 02, 2014 at 12:06 AM.
Going well , this Rome campaign
I see you attack AI in sieges into rear , they all choke into one gate and never look back , while then you simply take other half of forces trough near gate and assault them while they never ever have somebody to intercept you . That is good tactic , shame AI can't counter it :/
aah! I see, the route with the higher density of cities is indeed better. I think our approaches are similar, I do scout with schips, declare war in far far west in spain while gaining their favour to make trades. I currently have set defensive mini armies in big cities on the eastern and egyptian border to hold them back for at least a while. At that moment I am making east of macadonia enterily mine, Pontus is almost destroyed, so is Hasayadan I do hate their spies, because I play with Yuki's diplomacy mods which I think nerf my incomes a bit, while boosting others. I have like 8 trade partners, two armies of 10 ~ 15 units, 3 defesive armies of both 6 units. My income is like 3400? And repairing is expensive, I try to counter it with my spies, but difficult haha..
I like your campaign in Rome too, looks fun! Too bad Roma doesnt have better spears than Triarri
aah! I see, the route with the higher density of cities is indeed better. I think our approaches are similar, I do scout with schips, declare war in far far west in spain while gaining their favour to make trades. I currently have set defensive mini armies in big cities on the eastern and egyptian border to hold them back for at least a while. At that moment I am making east of macadonia enterily mine, Pontus is almost destroyed, so is Hasayadan I do hate their spies, because I play with Yuki's diplomacy mods which I think nerf my incomes a bit, while boosting others. I have like 8 trade partners, two armies of 10 ~ 15 units, 3 defesive armies of both 6 units. My income is like 3400? And repairing is expensive, I try to counter it with my spies, but difficult haha..
I like your campaign in Rome too, looks fun! Too bad Roma doesnt have better spears than Triarri
I actually never really considered running into Asia Minor as I found that to be somewhat inhibiting strategically. Waging defensive wars on your Egyptian and Eastern fronts to open a third in Anatolia is not generally something I'd consider as most of the time I need Northern Syria with a general either for public order, on-demand reinforcements for Hatra or Edessa if an army is seen to cross into Mesopotamia, or both. With that in mind, and 4 generals stationed in Mesopotamia itself, that leaves only 3 open army slots for campaigning purposes. Drop another one for defending the Egyptian front and my campaign into Asia Minor would be a little more troublesome to tackle. At least, in theory.
In the sprawled nature of Asia Minor, the geography and density of settlements actually feels worse if you're at war with more than one faction as attacks can come from more potential routes, making the issue of defending settlements potentially more troublesome. Where as in my Levantine excursion I was able to facilitate rapid expansion and holding efforts with just one full stack, occasionally an ad-hoc lone general's unit as well, due to the layout of the settlements making for some easy map choke-points such as Gaza and Hejaz to the West and South-East of Petra respectively. On easier difficulty I'd probably drop the general in Northern Syria, once again bringing the total available general count to 3, but I suppose it still rests on the matter of who you're fighting in Asia Minor. Depending on the situation between Galatia, Pontus, Bithynia, and your Hellenic satrapies there could be easy settlements to take and hold with minimal risk provided you're not at war with two potential attackers in close proximity.
When I mentioned faction density earlier I was mainly referring to the Eastern front, where the vast numbers of AI factions makes for more potential invading/defending armies actively operating in the area. This is because, as a rule, a greater number of factions will always be able to field more than a faction with the sum of those parts. This is pretty much invariably the case with the way the army cap scaling works, even massive empires will struggle to field more individual armies than the combined forces of all the Seleucid former-satrapies and the armies of Armenia and Media Atropatene as well.
As for diplomacy, as I rule I generally don't pay the AI for anything, nor randomly declare war purely for a little bit of gain in treaties. Sometimes I concede a little ground case by case, but for the most part the diplomacy screen is something for me to make large gains without a catch. This usually means declining non-aggression pacts unless the AI in question is actually one I'd be concerned about spontaneously declaring war, and when offering non-aggression or trade, usually asking for money as well.
Being incredibly penny pinching where diplomacy is concerned generally grants me a bit of additional financial lee-way especially early-on when trade income isn't very significant, nor any other source of income for that matter. Later on it matters less and less as getting even 2000 for a treaty isn't too important when your income is 6-9k depending on tax levels and other factors. Though it's always better to have too much than too little where stockpiling resources is concerned.
Originally Posted by stupar123
Going well , this Rome campaign
I see you attack AI in sieges into rear , they all choke into one gate and never look back , while then you simply take other half of forces trough near gate and assault them while they never ever have somebody to intercept you . That is good tactic , shame AI can't counter it :/
Works well to truly negate the numbers advantage and turn the battle on its head. Although it only works if the rear assault units can make contact with most attacking units in order to get the morale penalties applied to all of them. If the AI has too many units some of them actually don't even begin to enter the gates and a rear attack ends up drawing those units away from the gate to form ranks and fight your attackers. Ultimately you still need really strong defensive units to plug the gate, anything less than a genuine hoplite phalanx will see some issues, and even my hoplite phalanx Triarii was seeing a lot of celts pouring through the corners where the numbers of Triarii were few and mostly Rorarii in square were forced to try and hold. Phalanx (Shield Wall) seems to give much fewer bonuses and holds its position less effectively, though I've also tried using multiple Rorarii units formed in squares with mixed results, often not being sufficient at all unless they form up in support of a real defensive unit.
Either way most of the defensive siege battles as Rome have hinged on those Triarii Generals, much like the Silver Shields with the Seleucids. The moment the AI can get troop quality similar to the Triarii the defense is pretty much guaranteed to collapse, which is why I'm actually not too keen on waging war with any Hellenic factions unless I'm the one on the offensive to dictate where the fighting happens. An army of Hoplites will pretty handily walk over Triarii, if I have any generals of the sort still alive when such a war breaks out, as well as most local garrison units that are not legionnaries.
Will probably do another screenshot dump not long from now, if I can get past the battle in Germania without a CTD. Would be a real shame if the problem was due to allowable RAM use being capped. If I crash again I'll probably look into this immediately...
Last edited by LawL_LawL; March 02, 2014 at 12:08 PM.
I actually never really considered running into Asia Minor as I found that to be somewhat inhibiting strategically. Waging defensive wars on your Egyptian and Eastern fronts to open a third in Anatolia is not generally something I'd consider as most of the time I need Northern Syria with a general either for public order, on-demand reinforcements for Hatra or Edessa if an army is seen to cross into Mesopotamia, or both. With that in mind, and 4 generals stationed in Mesopotamia itself, that leaves only 3 open army slots for campaigning purposes. Drop another one for defending the Egyptian front and my campaign into Asia Minor would be a little more troublesome to tackle. At least, in theory.
In the sprawled nature of Asia Minor, the geography and density of settlements actually feels worse if you're at war with more than one faction as attacks can come from more potential routes, making the issue of defending settlements potentially more troublesome. Where as in my Levantine excursion I was able to facilitate rapid expansion and holding efforts with just one full stack, occasionally an ad-hoc lone general's unit as well, due to the layout of the settlements making for some easy map choke-points such as Gaza and Hejaz to the West and South-East of Petra respectively. On easier difficulty I'd probably drop the general in Northern Syria, once again bringing the total available general count to 3, but I suppose it still rests on the matter of who you're fighting in Asia Minor. Depending on the situation between Galatia, Pontus, Bithynia, and your Hellenic satrapies there could be easy settlements to take and hold with minimal risk provided you're not at war with two potential attackers in close proximity.
When I mentioned faction density earlier I was mainly referring to the Eastern front, where the vast numbers of AI factions makes for more potential invading/defending armies actively operating in the area. This is because, as a rule, a greater number of factions will always be able to field more than a faction with the sum of those parts. This is pretty much invariably the case with the way the army cap scaling works, even massive empires will struggle to field more individual armies than the combined forces of all the Seleucid former-satrapies and the armies of Armenia and Media Atropatene as well.
As for diplomacy, as I rule I generally don't pay the AI for anything, nor randomly declare war purely for a little bit of gain in treaties. Sometimes I concede a little ground case by case, but for the most part the diplomacy screen is something for me to make large gains without a catch. This usually means declining non-aggression pacts unless the AI in question is actually one I'd be concerned about spontaneously declaring war, and when offering non-aggression or trade, usually asking for money as well.
Being incredibly penny pinching where diplomacy is concerned generally grants me a bit of additional financial lee-way especially early-on when trade income isn't very significant, nor any other source of income for that matter. Later on it matters less and less as getting even 2000 for a treaty isn't too important when your income is 6-9k depending on tax levels and other factors. Though it's always better to have too much than too little where stockpiling resources is concerned.
Works well to truly negate the numbers advantage and turn the battle on its head. Although it only works if the rear assault units can make contact with most attacking units in order to get the morale penalties applied to all of them. If the AI has too many units some of them actually don't even begin to enter the gates and a rear attack ends up drawing those units away from the gate to form ranks and fight your attackers. Ultimately you still need really strong defensive units to plug the gate, anything less than a genuine hoplite phalanx will see some issues, and even my hoplite phalanx Triarii was seeing a lot of celts pouring through the corners where the numbers of Triarii were few and mostly Rorarii in square were forced to try and hold. Phalanx (Shield Wall) seems to give much fewer bonuses and holds its position less effectively, though I've also tried using multiple Rorarii units formed in squares with mixed results, often not being sufficient at all unless they form up in support of a real defensive unit.
Either way most of the defensive siege battles as Rome have hinged on those Triarii Generals, much like the Silver Shields with the Seleucids. The moment the AI can get troop quality similar to the Triarii the defense is pretty much guaranteed to collapse, which is why I'm actually not too keen on waging war with any Hellenic factions unless I'm the one on the offensive to dictate where the fighting happens. An army of Hoplites will pretty handily walk over Triarii, if I have any generals of the sort still alive when such a war breaks out, as well as most local garrison units that are not legionnaries.
Will probably do another screenshot dump not long from now, if I can get past the battle in Germania without a CTD. Would be a real shame if the problem was due to allowable RAM use being capped. If I crash again I'll probably look into this immediately...
Yes I'd like to see your conquest of Greece , I always found their hoplites indestructible in sieges :/ ( legendary of course , not even rear charges rout them ! ) .
Oh and I haven't noticed much agents in your campaign , you don't use them much ?
I simply love to poison supplies , assiante genral then with champion lower the morale by using show force , quite makes even the most elite army crumble in several minutes of battle .
Seleucid Empire Campaign (L/L) - I'm Bored...
and establishing a naming system on my end so I can upload them in bulk without Imgur/Imgur's album system messing with the order and forcing me to re-arrange.
) are not worth using imo. Chariots are not worth using for the same reasons as elephants (bar losing control), an both of them suffer terribly from having a small number of platforms from which the unit's stats operate.
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Originally Posted by adambomb1
Would love to see your approach to a Rome campaign.
