Balance in the Far East with the Seleucid satrapies is somewhat broken

[Principe Alessandro]

Greetings fellow DeI players and developers of this amazing mod.

Lately I was playing some Pahlava and Taksashila campaigns, the thing I noticed that is much different from the previous versions of the main campaign is the fact that the Seleucid satrapies remain firmly loyal and AI factions like Baktria and Pahlava are more likely to declare each other war than to fight against the Seleucid satrapies for the simple fact that their combined forces have endless manpower even if quality wise are sub-par since they employ mainly cheap light eastern infantry.

What do you think about changing the diplomatic relations between the Seleucids and their satrapies for the next update to allow some of them to break their alliance?

Or even better merge those satrapies with the Seleucids?

[Butan]

The seleucid diplomatic balance has always been very fragile and random across campaigns; you sure its a redundant problem?

[Dresden]

The odd thing is that they are setup to be more aggressive, have worse relations with the Seleucids and be less reliable than before. But, they have a lower tendency to break. I have actually seen them break a few times but its not nearly as common as it used to be. We won't be merging them because its not good for gameplay and the Seleucids themselves and it doesn't really fit - also it would mean redoing the startpos which isn't happening. Our options are basically:
1. Accept that this is the new normal and the Seleucids are a bit more of a diplomatic block you have to fear in the early/mid game. Its not exactly all easy for them as they have to manage all those satrapies and armies marching across them using food/supplies. So its a different play through if you are the Seleucids.
2. Script a break for specific satrapies at a certain turn. This would guarantee that some break off but it removes any sort of random element to the campaign and would be very predictable.

Also, as a side note, I believe you can join wars against individual satrapies without going to war with the whole block, so that is one way to pick them off.

[The Guy With No Imagination]

Personally I'm okay with how it is. The wars in the far east at the time were vicious and hard-fought between rebel satrapies, the Seleucids, and the Parthians/Baktrians. Seleucids at this time were a regional hegemon and I think it makes it a bit more fun to actually have to fight an "Empire" if you're playing as Parthia/Baktria/Taksashila

[Garbad]

Or you can cheese it with join war.

[PietrolEremita]

Are we saying that there is no way to set the ai to "treacherous"? Just aggressive or passive?

[Dresden]

Yes there are reliability ratings, which are pretty low right now actually. And those change based on in game actions anyway.

[delita5]

The seleucid diplomatic balance has always been very fragile and random across campaigns; you sure its a redundant problem?

I can see that you never played with them to say such nonsense

Personally I'm okay with how it is. The wars in the far east at the time were vicious and hard-fought between rebel satrapies, the Seleucids, and the Parthians/Baktrians. Seleucids at this time were a regional hegemon and I think it makes it a bit more fun to actually have to fight an "Empire" if you're playing as Parthia/Baktria/Taksashila

I even like the idea of fighting a "Empire" more Alone? Serious I think ridiculous as are the factions against Selenic, I grabbed campaign that even Egypt wanted war with Selenic and you do not even try to make "friends" to try to mount a "coalition" against Selenic that will not work (I already tried playing With Baktria making alliances with Parthia and Taksashila and guessing ... as soon as I entered into war against Selenic they will break all agreements and declare war on me)

2. Script a break for specific satrapies at a certain turn. This would guarantee that some break off but it removes any sort of random element to the campaign and would be very predictable.

I would like to suggest Parthava, Aria and Arachosia since these were the factions that declared independence "normally" formerly

[The Guy With No Imagination]

Well I mean I don't really know what was said there but in my Baktrian campaign not only did around half of the satrapies declare independence, it was after I had declared war on the Seleucids and therefore I had both the rebel satrapies and Seleucid-backed ones to contend with. That was about 100 years ago in my campaign though, and everything from India to Armenia has fallen. And yeah, no allies either.

That was on VH/H difficulty so it's pretty feasible.

As for making alliances with others to try and tackle the Seleucid block, just send some money or join whatever wars Parthia/Taksashila/Baktria get involved in and grease them up nice and good before trying to slide in to Iran

[Vladdy Daddy]

I can confirm that the satrapies have been more loyal than before, in the old version of DeI. I've played 3 campaigns as the Seleucids on recommended difficulty and not only the existing satrapies remained loyal, but Baktria, Parthia, Dahae and other independent faction in that area became my satrapies whenever they've declared war on existing ones. Playing as the Seleucids is like playing as Shao Khan in the old MK games: it has the best roster out of all Hellenic/Successor kingdoms, already starting with 3 whole regions (better than before), it has more loyal satrapies, more starting imperium, it has ownership on all the important resources like silk (something that bothers me, since it's somehow required to build lykeions, meaning that all the Greek/Succesor kingdoms rely on having a trade agreement with the Seleucids and even the Ptolemaic Egypt, it's biggest rival, can't rely on it's superior research to build its special great library without the damned silk).
The problem is that the way it is right now, with the Seleucids being a huge conglomerate of states, playing as any other faction in that area means that you have to tiptoe around its satrapies in order to build yourself enough of an empire in order to declare war on this huge block of states, which is daunting for many. My humble suggestion is that all the satrapies in the east should be independent from the beginning (or at least those which resent the greek culture the most) in order to make the game more versatile and give players playing as Atroparkan, Baktria or Parthia a little freedom of expansion without facing a huge juggernaut in their infancy.
Playing as the Seleucids right now always comes with that dreaded snowball effect: you've already bypassed a certain threshold, so the game somehow bends to your will even more, especially in the diplomacy. I can build imperium just by declaring war on every tiny faction and then offer it the option to become my satrapy. It's just not fun.

[PietrolEremita]

Yes there are reliability ratings, which are pretty low right now actually. And those change based on in game actions anyway.

I think changing "pretty low" to "the lowest possible number for every single satrapy" might create more fluid scenarios here

[Principe Alessandro]

The dream for every Pahlava player is a great coalition with Taksashila, Baktria and Media, the problem is that the AI is less likely to declare war against a big group of satrapies and their master.

[Butan]

I can see that you never played with them

I didnt post 1.2, but quite heavily in older versions where the most common occurence was satrapies breaking off and declaring successive individual wars within 10 or 20 turns. The exact opposite complaints were heard, it puts things into perspective
Post 1.2 I've seen AI Seleucid with all satrapies still firmly in check 50+ turns in, but also a couple instances where they had only half or none left, playing on Normal, hence my personal doubts.

Its hard to determine if the Seleucid "average" scenario is clearly trending toward one end of the geopolitical spectrum and that it needs any kind of fixing.

[ThatWhichThinks]

I agree that in 1.2 the satrapies are less likely to rebel, but I think that's actually a good thing. The Seleucid empire was never really a threat before; you would just wait two turns into the game for the entire system to fragment and the Seleucids to get absorbed by various rebelling satraps and the Ptolemies. Now, the Seleucid block is an actual barrier to expansion that you have to prepare to face and the Seleucids themselves seem to do a lot better because of it.

I never saw the Seleucids hold their own past 40 turns or so in the past. Now, they are able to actually hold their Asian territory and either expand into Asia minor or take the fight to the Ptolemies. I much prefer this diplomatic paradigm to the recklessly suicidal satraps who always revolted no matter what.

[delita5]

I agree that in 1.2 the satrapies are less likely to rebel, but I think that's actually a good thing. The Seleucid empire was never really a threat before; you would just wait two turns into the game for the entire system to fragment and the Seleucids to get absorbed by various rebelling satraps and the Ptolemies. Now, the Seleucid block is an actual barrier to expansion that you have to prepare to face and the Seleucids themselves seem to do a lot better because of it.

I never saw the Seleucids hold their own past 40 turns or so in the past. Now, they are able to actually hold their Asian territory and either expand into Asia minor or take the fight to the Ptolemies. I much prefer this diplomatic paradigm to the recklessly suicidal satraps who always revolted no matter what.

The problem is that it does not matter if you and the "little friend" of some vassals of Selenic, even if you make an alliance with the neighboring factions hoping for a possible betrayal on their part, it never happens. ( And worse and see your "allies" breaking alliance with you and declaring war on you because you just do not like Selenic )
I find it strange that some people claim that sometimes they fail to rebel, I have never seen it

[Dresden]

I have seen them rebel a few times, but not often. I would say it used to be 90% almost they would rebel. Now its probably like 10-20% of the time in the early game.

One option I want to test is having 1 satrapy rebel at a fixed time. Then, see if that causes more to have the higher possiblity of rebelling. That would maintain some of the more random nature of the game, so you don't have 3-4 satrapies rebelling at a fixed time with a script.

[delita5]

One option I want to test is having 1 satrapy rebel at a fixed time. Then, see if that causes more to have the higher possiblity of rebelling. That would maintain some of the more random nature of the game, so you don't have 3-4 satrapies rebelling at a fixed time with a script.

I would recommend Parthava so maybe Parthia would have more chances in going to war with Selenic in the future.

[Dresden]

Yeah I agree if I test the idea it would be Parthava

[Dago Red]

...vassals of Selenic .... like Selenic )

You mean the Seleucids (or Seleukids).

[Qba]

Not only the satrapies are less likely to rebel, but also they are almost always backed by Seleucids when attacked. In previous versions of DEI, Seleucids were more likely to abandon their satrapy when it was under attack.