Ptolemy archers and decent heavy Cavalry .. or lack of th em

[TTRouble]

Hi Guys

Can we change the make up of the Ptolmey armes a wee bit - I thought things had improved recently in my Sel campaign but having battled against 5 armies today I think theyre not balanced. Basically, the AI seems to be recruiting lots of Levy pikemen (thats oko as they can be as tough as nails to beat at times), some very decent heavy/med infantry but my main gripe is that its hardly ever recruiting archer units esp in Asia minor and their cavalry are always light missle units and that just seems wrong to me. Occasionaly you'll come up against some heavy Greek cavalry, so far just 2 units of Lonchophoroi but have yet to meet any companion cav other than the army's general.

Here's some example army units .. all of them easily beaten and with minimal losses. The battles were all river crossings but without any archer units or some heavy cav they were just oo easy:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

TTRouble

[TTRouble]

Here's some battles to just illustratate the point (ok I do have the advantage of defending a river crossing) - batteling the ptolyemys without any archers ends up being a "turkey"shoot. Its really unbalanced, esp when fighting against an army like mines where theres a good mix of units - esp long range archers, horse archers and heavy cav. On a river crossing battle like these.. my units are practically immune but ff the AI had recruited archers, artillery and heavy cav .. it'd be way harder but more balanced.

Selecuids Campaign - BI/HH/0 turn.

River Crossing battles:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Battle in the Middle East _ defending from high ground.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

TTrouble

[tone]

have to confess, I'm not sure why they would do that as they have no differences from the other factions really.

[TTRouble]

Hi Tone...

I've had a few more battles with the Ptolemy's and basically its coming down to this:

1. Asia Minor - none of their armies have archers and may be the odd one heavy cavalry unit. Some have may be one or two slinger units but thats it.May be the barracks that theyre building do not have archers ?

2. Middle East - this has improved with the AI now recruiting 1 to 2 archers (not greek . I think they were Scythian), Alan horse archers and some heavy cavalry.

Here's the unit stats for some of the battles against the Ptolemys - the archers (foot and horse) are killing between 200-300 men each on every engagement. None of the Ptolemy armies/units in Asia minor have armour upgrades which is going to make it easier for my archers to take them out.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Its really weird as I'm now having to battle Pergamon and those armies are very balanced - at least 2 units of heavy cav + general, and at least 2 foot archers + horse archer units mixed in with lots of heavy infantry (lots of elite units so far - silver shields, Agema phalanx's).

Cheers

TTRouble