Need help in my campaign

[GrandAdmiral de Ruyter]

I'm playing the Greeks. Sooner or later the Romans always invade so my tactic was aimed at defeating the independent Greeks, the Macedons and Thrace before they did so I could focus all of my resources at defeating the Romans. Thrace has been giving me a hard time and still manage to hold on to one or two Northern regions. I've got a nice Greek kingdom built up but the Scythians have been invading in the north with big armies, I can barely fight them off, and now the Romans are invading. My economy can hardly keep up with this. What is your advice for me to proceed?

ps - I would love to make a printscreen. I used to be able to do this on XP but with Vista it gives me black screens any advice anyone?

[synthesis]

I personally try not to eliminate Thrace completely until Rome is under control. Specifically, I take over Thracian settlements but I am careful not to create a border with Scythia.

As for Rome, they will stream armies from northern Italy to Illyria to the north of Greece. Check them here and then send good troops to southern Italy with onagers or a very good spy. This way, you can assault poorly defended cities on the same turn without having to build siege equipment. Take over the city and plunder it, destroy the barracks and then move on to the next poorly garrisoned city. You can really wreak havok and reduce Rome's military output like this.

[Barend]

I would suggest taking the remaining Thracian lands, and occuping them. Then install armies on the bridges adjecent to Scythian territory, this should counter them. Another option is to give the bordering regions to an allied faction, thus creating a buffer-zone. You can do this with the force-diplomacy script.

I agree with the tactics suggested by synthesis for fighting the Romans. Try to stop them in Illyria and secretly build an army to invade souther Italy. I would suggest taking Tarentum and kepping it, dividing the Romans and creating two fronts. Maybe you could capture Sicily and stage an invasion from there.

Good luck!

PS.: Are you by any chance Dutch?

[GrandAdmiral de Ruyter]

Thanks for the advice! I am Dutch. I guess I should have invaded southern Italy earlier but I was already steaming blitzlike to the north, not fast enough apparently. I have already blocked the bridges to Scythia but they keep besieging them and refuse to fight, they just wait three turns so I need to get out of the forts and fight in the open field. I cannot afford three strong armies defending the forts so I lose the battles. I have four ten star generals in the field, all with very strong armies. One army is fighting Scythia and independent Greeks coming from the north. One army is being rebuilt in Byzantium or Pella. And two armies to fight both the Romans and remaning Thracians. The Romans will probably send six or more armies making Greek life very difficult.

I read somewhere about the force diplomacy script. I will try to use it to force peace with the Thracians, Scythians and independent Greeks. Or should I continue to fight four factions. Would it be cheating to force peace?

[silentsam74]

I have already blocked the bridges to Scythia but they keep besieging them and refuse to fight, they just wait three turns so I need to get out of the forts and fight in the open field. I cannot afford three strong armies defending the forts so I lose the battles.

Yeah, you said it. You can't put forts directly on bridges so you need to get out of the forts. Place the 'blocking' army directly on the bridge. That way they have no choice but to attack you on your terrain of choice. Even if once the battle starts you find that they begin to swim your way perhaps you can rush units up to the river bank and take them straight to melee as soon as they cross.

[Barend]

Well, seems like you're in a tough position. I don't think that forcing a peace with the Scythians would last for very long; that's why I suggested making a buffer-zone.

Try to position your armies in places where the enemy MUST pass (bridges and passes) so that even when they fight you, you can take them on one-by-one. Building forts is a good strategy, garrison them with as few units as possible (one unit of doryphoroi) just so that they tie up the invading armies for some time, long enough to send an army of fine Greeks their way.

Finish off the Thracians as soon as you can, this would give you some peace at least and won't tie up another army.

Make your cities close to the front your military training centres so that you can retrain your armies quickly. The rest of you cities should be focused on making as much money as possible so you can afford more armies.

That's all I can think of right now, maybe when you figure out how to make screenies I'll be able to come up with more ideas.

PS.: Altijd fijn om Nederlanders te zien

[GrandAdmiral de Ruyter]

Hey I finally managed to get some screenshots (frapit).

[Legio]

What I do is send an army to Tarentum and take it- it has Greek culture (at least on the 5.6.7 I play) and you can build more troops then. From there, you can travel North by skipping to Croton, Capua, and then Rome. Against the Scythians, thoarakitai and archer spam works well.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

I wouldn't use force diplomacy to get out of a tough situation, but I would use it if the campaign is being stupidly unrealistic, as the Scythians in particular have a tendency to try and take over the world with their laughably overpowered horse archers. (that win every auto resolve battle with the AI).

Rather than force peace with Scythia, I would recommend modifying Scythia's files so that they are more in line with their historical, nomadic nature. That will prevent them from being a huge problem to you so you can focus on Rome and other historically accurate threats.

[_Lacedaemonian_]

Some quick tips (in no particular order):

Withdraw from Dacia behind danube. U control the greek peninsula so u should have a fairly good income.

Make extensive use of bridges.

Use forced diplomacy to make thrace ur protectorate, then give them the lands between u and romans; this will buy u some time.

Make extensive use of reinforced walls.

Make ur cities adavanced in order to better defend urself.

Invade south italy (after careful reconnaissance) with loads of catapults.

Final advice: in my honest opinion u should boost ur economy first, secure a somewhat small border and then head into the offensive. Hope this helped

[Barend]

Seeing what your situation is I would suggest something different. You seem to be doing allright on your northern frontier. Try to take Olbia. It's fairly well developed and it will stand aginast every siege the Scythians can throw at it. It willl make an excellent choking point.

On your western frontier, it seems like you have over extended yourself. Maybe you should give up those regions (for now) defend your lands somewhat closer to home, around the city of Ambracia.

I think that defending on these two points should help you out. It might also give you the time and money to raise one or two armies to take southern Italy.

I hope you find this helpful

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Seeing what your situation is I would suggest something different. You seem to be doing allright on your northern frontier. Try to take Olbia. It's fairly well developed and it will stand aginast every siege the Scythians can throw at it. It willl make an excellent choking point.

You're assuming that the Scythians will actually attack Olbia in siege...in my experience, the AI tends to try to starve them out by just sitting there. The biggest walls in the world won't stop that if you don't have a relieving army that can beat them on the open field and stop the siege.

Scythian armies can be entirely made up of cavalry, which means they literally HAVE to starve cities, because they have nobody to wield rams and ladders even if they wanted to.

[Barend]

You're assuming that the Scythians will actually attack Olbia in siege...in my experience, the AI tends to try to starve them out by just sitting there. The biggest walls in the world won't stop that if you don't have a relieving army that can beat them on the open field and stop the siege.

Scythian armies can be entirely made up of cavalry, which means they literally HAVE to starve cities, because they have nobody to wield rams and ladders even if they wanted to.

Well, most of the times they besieged my cities they either some units to push their rams or abandoned the siege after 5 or 6 turns. If they try to starve you, yoiu have plenty of time to raise a good army to defeat them.

[Scutarii]

I would personally create a buffer in between you and Scythia, then kill off Rome. Then you just retake your former territory and advance across the north of the Black Sea.

[aznflea]

get a ship, get a siege weapon, get a spy, get an army with lots of archers and line holders and then use it to ship your units off to rome. use the spy to calculate exaclty when the city is poolry defended and then when its exposed BAM BAM BAM. you take it. destroy barracks and try to keep it. the romans will waste their resources trying to take the invincible city back. the archers are there for maximum damage while sallying out and the line holders are to protect your archers.
this way you can stop roman offensive in illyria because they will be hell bent on taking rome back.

scythia is a major pain in the ass. what i do might be considered cheating but i play games for fun not frustration and ridiculously boring battles. i use force diplomacy to trade all their towns for map information. destory all their towns and then let them rebel so the scythians are back where they started. i then use force dip to give back the amount of money i got from destorying all the buildings.

[GrandAdmiral de Ruyter]

Thanks for all your good advice. Here's an update on how it's going.

The AI must have sensed that I was going to use force diplomacy on the Scythians because they assassinated my diplomat which was heading to Vibantavarium.

Meanwhile the Romans attacked my fort in Illyria. They sent a strong army with a six star general to do the job. Rather than waiting for them to starve my army I choose a battle in the open field. See my screenshots for how that went.

As usual the Romans tried to overwhelm my left flank:


When I saw the Roman general unprotected on my left flank I sent in my two star general and heavy cavalery to kill him.


After killing the Roman general I sent my cavalery into the Roman rear on the left flank expecting some routing.


The Roman Triarii were not impressed by the death of their general and held firm while my troops on the right flank were starting to rout. I was forced to retreat my cavalery from the left flank and send it to reinforce the right.


My right flank was lost before the cavalery arrived and now troops on the left saw their routing friends and starting to rout as well. Not even the inspiring Spartan Royal guard could stop them from routing. Now the Spartans were overwhelmed and three quarters of the army were routing, even my general routed. In a last effort to save the Royal Spartans I ordered a general retreat.

And lost the battle


The Royal Spartans got slaughtered to my big despair and I also lost the fort to the Romans.

Now my Kingdom is exposed to the Romans in the West and a new invading Thracian army at my city of Sarmizegetusa.


I have recalled my two armies that were to protect my northern border from Scythia to defeat the Thracians. I also started to recruit that army aznflea talked about to attack Rome in order to divert their attention away from invading my Kingdom. Hope it helps, I don't feel like cheating but the situations seems somewhat hopeless.

[Scutarii]

Watch out for the garrison script if you attack Rome. Or just don't click on the advisor when it comes up about it.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Whoa, your Royal Spartans got slaughtered in that fight?

The Romans really aren't pushovers...not even Marian Romans too. Royal Spartans are almost impossible to take down like that...was it Triarii?

Also, don't be deceived by the size of Thracian armies. They often have a lot of full stacks, but in my experience most of the units in there are spearmen warbands and other low quality units, and they have only a few more high quality units like falxmen and thorakitai in there. You should be able to smash them with much greater ease than a similarly sized Roman army.

Personally, I would suggest sending what remains of your phalangites on the Roman frontier to garrison your nearest city. Retrain them if possible, and then wait for the Romans to attack the city. When they send in units on foot, just put your phalangites in front of the gate, in front of wall positions where the walls can be destroyed, etc.

The Romans should take massive casualties trying to run right into the phalangite formations when they can't outflank them. They might take the city, but you should be winning in a war of attrition.

While this is happening, recruit as big a relieving force as you can to get up there.

How are you doing financially? How many more military forces could you have and still make a profit every turn?

[Grimbold]

Hey ppl,

I like to hijack this thread to say hi. Im new to XGM mod and been enjoying it for 2,5 days now . I started a 1st campaign to test things out and lets say at one point i faced the same situation as the OP faced, although i didnt face a Scythian threat, but rather a big roman one. I controlled about the same land as the OP does with the difference that the romans were further in the territory with about 5 full armies and lets just say my economy wasnt in no state to fight this threat.

After doing this test camp, i started a new campaign with the Greek city states ofc, and now its much better. Im facing a 2 front war, battleing the Greek cities (independent) and the "Egyptians", who recently blocked my ports and now they're getting their arses wooped. The romans are still in their peninsula and battleing Thrace and in centre Europe. I've captured some cities from the Thracians aswell, but half of Dacia still is under their control.

Now, since i've only played XGM mod for 2 days, i've been seeing this Forced Diplomacy script several times , but failed in understanding on how to use it.

Also, there's a thread about "Shield Wal". Lets just say i havent seen this anyware aswell . I mean, there's the Guard mode, other than that, i dont see this anywhere. Care to explain?^^

Sry if this is off-topic

[_Lacedaemonian_]

@ Grimbold

Force Diplomacy Script
This allows you to force any faction to accept any diplomatic offer you make to them. You can access this by clicking on the help button on the diplomacy scroll (the question mark in the top right corner) and then clicking on the "show me how" button when the advisor comes up.

This option is included so that you can correct for certain weaknesses in the AI. Here are some suggestions for how this option can be used to make the game more realistic and more interesting:

(1) The AI doesn't know when it's beaten. You can use this option to force a faction to accept a ceasefire or protectorate status when they have been beaten down to the point where you could crush them easily. My own house rule is that I can use this option when a faction has been reduced to three regions, I have their capital under siege, and I have enough forces available to crush them easily within a few turns.

(2) The AI often doesn't know a good deal when it sees one. You can use this option to force the AI to accept an offer that is clearly to their advantage.

(3) The AI won't keep an alliance, even with a reliable ally, and even when breaking the alliance would be foolish. If you want to role play a lasting alliance, you can use this option to keep the AI from staring wars that don't make any sense.

If you do use this option it is a good idea to come up with sensible house rules, at the start of your campaign, that govern how and when you can use it. Your game will be a lot less fun if you use this option as a cheat to make the game easier.

retracted from XGM readme/general guide here: http://www.wmwiki.com/hosted/xgm/xgm...e-playing.html