Okay...

**Mogan** · November 23, 2009, 03:49 PM

In my late game (it died from BSOD) I played as Britons, (watching the entire map) I saw some rather interesting AI behavior from Phyrrus:

- Rome and Epirus declares ceasefire
- Phyrrus starts walking north, trough Roman territory, while the Roman stack starts an invasion, and capture Reghium, and continue to Sicily, where they start a war against The Greek Cities, sieging Syracuse.
- Phyrrus is attacked by a ridiculous stack near Rome, and thus sieges Rome.
- I send a diplomat and a spy to Rome to check out closer the situation.
- The Romans in Sicily takes Syracuse, and splits their stacks, one attacking Hanno, and the other going northwards.
- Next turn, Phyrrus sacks Rome.
- Epirus becomes a monster in Europe, taking Macedon, The Greek Cities, Rome, the part of Gaul south of the Alps and just steamrolling the entire Western civilisation. Their invasion halts deep in Barbarian Territory and Asia Minor.

This is where my BSOD occured, and the Autosave was overwritten by a younger brother, just wanting to have a look at your mod (btw, he thought it was awesome). I'll try to recreate the event (so far unsuccessful), but as a sidenote, Epirus gets a LOT of money when they take Rome. I just guess it was a weird incident this time, taking it way earlier than meant to. All the other games, Phyrrus has attacked the Roman stack and became squashed.

I managed to recreate this myself as Epirus, but it seems like a rare incident when the AI is Epirus.

**Carados** · November 23, 2009, 06:51 PM

Peculiar, Rome is the wealthiest city in Italy so whoever holds that has a good chance of taking the whole place. When did this happen? Straight away, or after a few turns? What settlements did both of them have etc.

**Quinn Inuit** · November 23, 2009, 07:46 PM

Yeah, that's pretty weird. Maybe we need to set the diplomacy between them to Maximum Loathing if it's not already there.

**Mogan** · November 24, 2009, 02:43 AM

The ceasefire was declared after first turn. The sacking of Rome happened after 6-8 turns.

I think setting them as worst enemies is a good idea, as I'm quite annoyed by all the factions who really fought eachother at this time, just declaring ceasefire and roaming around against rebels with their enormous stacks made for fighting eachother.

When the game died, Epirus held most of Greece and Italy. I know Rome is supposed to give a lot of money, but Epirus got way to much for it being just a few turns in the game (2-3 years or so). He just spewed out soliders in both Italy and Greece, and after they took Athens, they were just unstoppable. But, some empires were unstoppable at certain point...

Next time some "unbalanced," weird event occurs, I'll take it as a challenge to outlive the giant.

EDIT: Correcting my spelling, and adding a new thought.

**Quinn Inuit** · November 24, 2009, 07:03 AM

Interesting. Epirus shouldn't be able to steamroll that quickly even if things do go well for them. We'll look into this.

**Carados** · November 24, 2009, 09:21 AM

If 600 is max then unfortuantely they really are set at the max and there isn't much else we can do except get rid of or move the diplomats. Perhaps move the Rome one to Quintus's army or that area at least?

Oh, I have another question... did Pyyrhus ignore all the other settlements, in particular Capua? If he has elephants you might not notice him immediately taking a settlement due to the elephants (and subsequent revolt) - and Capua can give a fair amount of cash, couple it with Rome and there you go.

**Mogan** · November 24, 2009, 02:57 PM

No, Capua fell shortly afterwards. You, see he was just walking a bit back and forth, slowly getting northwards. I suspect he was trying first to siege the rebel cities the romans captured, and then decided to try take on Gaul, but was interrupted. Then he seemingly just sieged the nearest city, which was Rome. Then his army was split up, and he took Ancona (I don't remember exactly) and sliced Italy in half. Then he just slowly mopped up the rests, and after a few more turns, Epirus had two full stacks + several small playing with the Greeks.

**Quinn Inuit** · November 24, 2009, 07:54 PM

Hmmm...I think the problem is that his army is just too awesome for anything except the massive Roman starting army to deal with. It must tear up smaller forces if it meets them separately.

Carados, I think you're right about the diplomats. How about we start the Epirote one in Epirus and the Roman one up near Massilia?

I'm still really surprised the two armies wouldn't fight. I've never caught them wimping out in a test game.

**Carados** · November 25, 2009, 06:48 AM

Aye, I've never seen it happen either and believe me, I've tried it a lot of times... This might just be a one off. Still, moving the diplomats would make it absolutely certain, Massilia sounds good. Does Epirus even start with a diplomat? I don't recall them having one.