The myth of needing to blitz exposed.

[Turtle Hammer]

After getting a bit bored with my Baktria campaign which had turned into a series of winnable but frustratingly frequent sieges, I decided to revisit Pahlava, as I love the faction, but had some epic failures playing as them previously.

As we all know, the best way's to just bliz through right? Conquer enough until you break even etc, right?

Well, personally, I found this left me exposed, and I never got far enough into breaking even to do much with my settlements.

This time I tried something else. I disbanded all units, and left one general in the Northern settlement, with the rest in Nisa, (which is more than enough to defend it) and turtled down for a bit. I built up the economy slowly but surely, and used my spies to incite rebellion in AS territories without having to declare ware on the grey monster.

This led me to cause a rebellion in Asaak, which three of my FMs took with no supporting troops. AS declred ware after this, but it was too late. I made it defensible quickly by developing to the point where I could recruit Mardian Archers, and with three of them, the size armies AS were sending weren't enough to not be anihialated in near lossless victories.

From there, I was able to get the Pahlavan reformed government by 255BC, and sent one of my FMs with some HAs out to take Zadrakata. As it stands now, I'm making over 5k a turn, my settlemetns are all highly developed and sufficiently defended to fend off any assault, and I'm not far from getting the reformed government in Zadrakata too. This is by far and wide the best result I've ever had playing as Pahlava. My general in Zadrakata's already got about five heroic victories to his name as a result of the futile attempts AS has made to retake that settlement.

Has anyone else found initial cutbacks, economic growth, and Turtling works better for them with this sort of faction?

[Entropy Judge]

I remember (a year+ back, when I first played EB) that vets normally said there were *two* ways to start - blitz, or disband military and build up. Personally, I've found that it really depends on the territories you're surrounded by. If you're surrounded (or have significant contact with) several AI territories/factions, blitzing seems to work better for me, as if you weaken yourself they'll normally attack - for me, this includes the Greeks, Macedonians, and Epeiros, and to a lesser degree the Aedui. I tend to take one or two cities from the neighbor, as that both strengthens me (higher cash flow) and weakens them through unit loss.

Turtling - again, for me - works better with factions that have more Eleutheroi territories. This includes the Romans (although I frequently take all of Italy proper fairly quickly), the Sweboz, and especially the Casse. Although the Sweboz have enough starting forces to take 2-3 territories if you're good/lucky, the game I just started had me almost 30K in the negative after taking ... uh Denmark and Gawjam Rugoz, I believe. So I'm forced to disband almost everything and wait until I have cash to build up now. Seeing as I'm fairly slow anyway (it's 269 IIRC), I don't mind too much, and I think I left it at the Default difficult (M/M), shame on me.

So basically, I turtle if I think attacking early will bring the wrath of concentrated counterattacks on me, or if I don't want to bleed myself unnecessarily (Camillan Romans vs Gaesatae is doable, but it's still not fun). I've not played Baktria or Pahlava, due in part to a vague dislike of the terrain, but I think I'd play defensively - build up slowly and pick off Eleutheroi settlements before pricking the giant (even if the Egyptians are winning).

[athanaric]

I turtled as the Casse a good way into the 260s - I think it was right until 260 BC, actually. I did this by not building roads in my starting settlement, so the Eleutheroi didn't attack me. I did however build the largest available trade port, after expanding my farms (building up farms to level 2 should be your first step as Casse), as well as other assorted buildings. I had to disband some of my army initially, but with a level 3 port, level 2 farms, some health buildings, and market upgrades, you can eventually field a force large enough to take the next settlement, after destroying the two Eleutheroi field armies.

[herne_the _hunter]

I turtled as the Casse a good way into the 260s - I think it was right until 260 BC, actually. I did this by not building roads in my starting settlement, so the Eleutheroi didn't attack me. I did however build the largest available trade port, after expanding my farms (building up farms to level 2 should be your first step as Casse), as well as other assorted buildings. I had to disband some of my army initially, but with a level 3 port, level 2 farms, some health buildings, and market upgrades, you can eventually field a force large enough to take the next settlement, after destroying the two Eleutheroi field armies.

Same here in my second attempt with the Casse. I've only been playing with EB for a week now. The first time I hadn't realised about disbanding the fleet so after the argricultural upgrade I was broke and going further into debt. So I had no option to attack Ictus for funds but then I was sandwiched between them and the Cymri force that stays around the area of the stone circle so started another campaign....On this second attempt as playing them I just disbanded the fleet and kept the rest for the most part with replacing with slingers where needed. Wasn't bothed by the Eleutheroi at all and of course you can still trade with them until you go to war with them. So built up argriculture and the port and other areas of the faction until I was strong enough to go to war. It's taken me from 262 - 240bc to take the whole of the islands. Glad I've started playing with them in getting to know what the EB mod is like. the psoition of where they are it means you are just left to your own devices to develop.

Itching to see what the Parthians and the Sarmatians are like as they are my favourite factions in RTR. So cutbacks, economic growth, and turtling are the sort of game I can get my teeth into. Managing the infrastructure gives just as much pleasure as indeed the battles do...infact it makes the battles more enjoyable when they do happen becasue you've got your troops this far.

[Faramir D'Andunie]

From my experience every faction can pull of both fast expansion and slowly build strategies, though for some one is more easy to pull off that the other.

Personally fast expansion, killing an enemy quickly and efficiently kills my will to continue a campaign. Baktria for example, last time I played it (sometime back in July) I followed a rather hold and back build for 10 years and then decided to storm AS. A mistake, as I was so succesfull I eventually lost the will to continue. As a rule for me in general when you act against the AI, do it slow so he can react to it and don't overkill it as in bringing stacks that end up winning anyway.

[Eastern Roman]

Roleplaying/turtling is the best solution to me for enjoying a long, in game years, campaign. Constant battles, conquering lands gets boring eventually. I like, to a certain point, micromanagement too. The bad thing is that the game is called Total War and even if you don't expand fast cause you trying, like this mod, to bring a bit realism in this game engine you will in the end going to face one of the Ptolemy or Seleucid monsters, an Epeirote/Macedonian empire stretching from Aegean to Baltic, a Celto-Iberian empire from Spain to Germany, perhaps a Carthage monster, Romani trying to greate the Holy Roman Empire invading Germany or smth like this...
I'm trying to roleplay campaigns KH, Seleucid and most recently a Romani one, which is the most successful so far because i try to follow history so i kind restrain myself, i know what to do, when to expand and when not. Using force diplomacy some times helps to keep the beasts down.

[Turtle Hammer]

Roleplaying/turtling is the best solution to me for enjoying a long, in game years, campaign. Constant battles, conquering lands gets boring eventually. I like, to a certain point, micromanagement too. The bad thing is that the game is called Total War and even if you don't expand fast cause you trying, like this mod, to bring a bit realism in this game engine you will in the end going to face one of the Ptolemy or Seleucid monsters, an Epeirote/Macedonian empire stretching from Aegean to Baltic, a Celto-Iberian empire from Spain to Germany, perhaps a Carthage monster, Romani trying to greate the Holy Roman Empire invading Germany or smth like this...
I'm trying to roleplay campaigns KH, Seleucid and most recently a Romani one, which is the most successful so far because i try to follow history so i kind restrain myself, i know what to do, when to expand and when not. Using force diplomacy some times helps to keep the beasts down.

Yeah, this steady expansion as Pahlava is going well. I'm going to take the three settlements I'm currently at (Susa, Charax and something beginning with K) and then I'll only have AS to the west of me, and I'll probably try and make peace. They've offered it a couple of times, but only for stupid concessions on my part. But strangely, I've found I'm really rolling in money now. But it's been diminishing a lot lately, I need to build more economic structures, and I've got too many settlements that are still in the process of "reforming".

Funny you should mention this Turtlehammer, I thought exactly the same thing last night when I was playing as the Hai. I am only in 268BC but I disbanded my army straight after taking the settlement to my west and now I have mines and farms in both settlements, bringing in 2k a turn. OK, I will admit it isn't much but still, I got a half stack out of that 2k with HAs, slingers, bodyguard cavalry and Caucasian Spearmen, so I can easily take a few more settlements with that army. All hail TURTLING!

"Isn't much" as the Hai is still plenty man, their starting position's really tough. Go too far west and KH and Pontus'll start crying and being all "warish" with you, and you just know stuff's gonna get real with AS soon.

[High Chunker Greens]

Funny you should mention this Turtlehammer, I thought exactly the same thing last night when I was playing as the Hai. I am only in 268BC but I disbanded my army straight after taking the settlement to my west and now I have mines and farms in both settlements, bringing in 2k a turn. OK, I will admit it isn't much but still, I got a half stack out of that 2k with HAs, slingers, bodyguard cavalry and Caucasian Spearmen, so I can easily take a few more settlements with that army. All hail TURTLING!

[Julianus]

For me it's kinda hard to resist the urge to blitz...especially when you see there're only a few garrisons in that rich city just beyond border.
But it's also true for me that excessive expand quickly kills the fun of a campaign, so soon I decide to start a new one...

For this reason, currently I'm planning a new campaign roleplaying the Spartans, by axing the KH to a single city and make them at peace with all eleutheroi cities at the start, so they can trade with them. We all know the Spartans were never ready to conquer and maintain a huge empire, especially not in EB era. So that's not what I'm going to do. I intend to slowly develop my city, at the same time wait for the Macedonians to return to the north to deal with the Epeirotes, then take my chance to liberate Corinth and Chalkis, hence throw off the Macedonian rule over Greece, but I figure that taking Demetrias will weak Macedonia too much to keep the Epeirotes in check. After that any time a Greek city is under attack, e.g. Syracuse by the Cathaginians, Byzantium by Pontos, Themon by the Macedonians or Epeirotes, or when the inept Epeirotes fail to protect Taras against Roman aggression, I will throw a coin to determine whether or not their people decide to send an envoy to me to solicit aid. ( And if it's the clever Athenians who are calling for help, maybe I will throw another coin to determine if we'd like to answer.) If so I will send an army to help them defend their city or retake it for them, then leave a tyrant ruler there and leave, maybe after punishing the aggressors.
And in every city I liberated, I plan to establish a type III goverment and set up a tyrant ruler there, I believe that's what the Spartans usually did. Of course for that I need to do a little more modding, by making client rulers recruitable in type III goverment, and I guess I also have to halve the upkeep of their bodyguard to be affordable to give every single city a client ruler.

I have only figured that much, any suggestions? Do you think it's doable?

[Siegfriedfr]

After getting a bit bored with my Baktria campaign which had turned into a series of winnable but frustratingly frequent sieges, I decided to revisit Pahlava, as I love the faction, but had some epic failures playing as them previously.

As we all know, the best way's to just bliz through right? Conquer enough until you break even etc, right?

Well, personally, I found this left me exposed, and I never got far enough into breaking even to do much with my settlements.

This time I tried something else. I disbanded all units, and left one general in the Northern settlement, with the rest in Nisa, (which is more than enough to defend it) and turtled down for a bit. I built up the economy slowly but surely, and used my spies to incite rebellion in AS territories without having to declare ware on the grey monster.

This led me to cause a rebellion in Asaak, which three of my FMs took with no supporting troops. AS declred ware after this, but it was too late. I made it defensible quickly by developing to the point where I could recruit Mardian Archers, and with three of them, the size armies AS were sending weren't enough to not be anihialated in near lossless victories.

From there, I was able to get the Pahlavan reformed government by 255BC, and sent one of my FMs with some HAs out to take Zadrakata. As it stands now, I'm making over 5k a turn, my settlemetns are all highly developed and sufficiently defended to fend off any assault, and I'm not far from getting the reformed government in Zadrakata too. This is by far and wide the best result I've ever had playing as Pahlava. My general in Zadrakata's already got about five heroic victories to his name as a result of the futile attempts AS has made to retake that settlement.

Has anyone else found initial cutbacks, economic growth, and Turtling works better for them with this sort of faction?

I know we all have different experience with Eb (like me for exemple, the AS ALWAYS conquer anatolia, fend off the ptolemioi and proceed in conquering the eastern faction, whereas for many other people they seem to die), but regarding pahlava i tried MANY games and only succeded in one, where i blitzed.

When i play pahlava, the AS always attacks me in a few turns because i'm probably their weakest neighbor, and autoresolve is laughably unfavorable to cavalry units.

Also i really don't understand how you can hold Asaak with 3 mardian archers... if i leave the AS alone, they develop more advanced barracks in nearby cities and send phalanx at me, and i need to empty ALL my ammos to kill ONE phalanx unit so i have no idea how you can destroy AS armies with 3 archers.

If i don't go out and HA the hell out of them, AS beats me.

[Turtle Hammer]

I know we all have different experience with Eb (like me for exemple, the AS ALWAYS conquer anatolia, fend off the ptolemioi and proceed in conquering the eastern faction, whereas for many other people they seem to die), but regarding pahlava i tried MANY games and only succeded in one, where i blitzed.

When i play pahlava, the AS always attacks me in a few turns because i'm probably their weakest neighbor, and autoresolve is laughably unfavorable to cavalry units.

Also i really don't understand how you can hold Asaak with 3 mardian archers... if i leave the AS alone, they develop more advanced barracks in nearby cities and send phalanx at me, and i need to empty ALL my ammos to kill ONE phalanx unit so i have no idea how you can destroy AS armies with 3 archers.

If i don't go out and HA the hell out of them, AS beats me.

Sally, fire off all your arrows, and exit battle when it says "your sally has been sucessful", bear in mind I had 3 FMs in there too. Quite often the AS armies reposition as soon as the battle start, and if you position your archers right you can fire into their flanks. Also, they'll usually try and face your foot archers, so your FMs can shoot their flanks. Once you've weakened them enough at distance, maybe over a turn or two, they're weak enough for your FMs to charge in and maul them in hand to hand. As they started sendingmore serious stacks, I did increase my garrisons so I had about 4 HAs too, but initially AS's attempts to attack are mediocore at best. Using toggle_fow revealed the Big Yellow Machine to the south is proving rather a headache for them which may be why.

Another thing I did since then was raid the AS cities with fast mobile armies that are small enough for them to sally out against, but that they will lose to. Selling of AS MICs and government buildings turns a nice profit on this, but I do normally restrain myself and "occupy" if they're only towns as they'll eventually be my territories. You don't on your own doorstep.

Also, AS can be bribed for quite a long time sometimes.

Lastly, call the typo-police, because I made some criminal mistakes in the OP. I must've been playing a mod for Rome: Total Ware.

[Slaytaninc]

I finally got to a good start in my Baktria campaign, it's now 246 BC, and I've grown to 5 settlements.

Marching my two armies and a unit from Baktra, I took Kophen, but I forgot to untick Patrokle's AI button, so he got himself killed, but I managed to take the city. (Kophen is supposed to be modern-day Kabul, a Mauryan territory until c.180BC, so my next playthrough I won't take it). Using a mix of turtling, very high taxes whenever possible, going into debt, and some really dubious diplomacy to end the constant Seleucid invasions (That I provoked by taking Alexandria-Ariana) I created a large enough army to expand. Parthia is Neutral, and has taken Marakanda, and the Seleucids still hold Alexandria-Eschate, buffering me against the Saka. (I also left Gava-Hoamavarga alone)

I've protected myself from the Seleucid invasions by reaching the desert separating me from the area near Persepolis and touching the ever-friendly Pahlava. I have a mobile force that I'm simulating doing an Anabasis (Which curiously enough led me to Persepolis garrisoned by two units, which I could have raided but didn't.)

Now I'm just turtling to build up my economy, and I'm waiting for Pahlava to start expanding into Iran, as I'm much bigger than I'm supposed to be at this point in history, so I want to role play a bit. Although I'm sure by the time my preparations are done (I'm aiming for the 220s) I'll be nigh-unstoppable, so I'll probably give the Seleucids a lot of money in the console if that's the case.

Next time I play as Baktria, I want to turtle in just Bactria until c.255BC to be more historical, but apparently that makes it a lot easier when you finally get going.

[Boriak]

My Baktrian blitz didn't work out so great either. It's 259 BC and Seleucids are sending full stacks against me, along with the Saka that found themselves on the doorstep of Baktra itself while all I have to protect my meagre four towns are Archer-Spearmen and skirmishers. Right now, I'm a bit doubtful about the people who say Baktrian campaign is easy.

[Durnaug]

Excellent thread. +rep

I am hoping things settle down in my new "do not use previous saves if events do not go your way" KH campaign. Then I will switch to the spys-and-guys tactics to trigger rebellions in AS. Should be fun.

[The_Blacksmith]

In 240 BC in allmost all my campaigns, every settlement is annoyingly overpopulated...

[sinner]

In 240 BC in allmost all my campaigns, every settlement is annoyingly overpopulated...

try the city mod, this will limit city size, plus it has some penalties for population growth. and u can manually change what city size settlements reach by following the instructions in post #66.

[AntigonosDoson]

Agreed! City mod is great. In 240 of my Makedonian campaign I still have no huge cities (neither do Romans, which means : no reformed phalanx for me :-( ). Even worse, most settlements can't pass over the 'city' level! And around 16 000 people forcing the settlement to produce more population is really challenging.

[RedGuard]

any advice on playing as AS? this is my first campagin ever as them and playing EAEM so surrounded by heavily armed Eleutheori. plus the Ptolemies are constantanlty invading me through jerusalem and have some pretty advanced units so i cant just disband my armies- since they have already seiged antioch once. and now the goddamn palmyrians are attacking lol.

[Skep]

Hey guys great thread!

I started playing this mod recently as Baktria. I had to restart my first campaign because of some new features I was exploring. Im playing as Baktria on M/M and am in the 250's BC. I have Baktria, Kophen, Alexandriopolis, and the town to the west of that Phothosomewhat?. Had a hard time with the economy, mines are expensive. Defending Baktra with a few phalanx units has saved my empire more than once, I'm at war with Arche Seleucia but have a nice alliance with Pahlava.

I find it annoying that I can only build the first phalanx unit in Baktra (with the brown leather armor). Al other city's, also type I, build an other type with linnen curas. Makes retraining harder. Had a lot of difficulty building a decent army early on since Kophen could only train Hellenistic Spearmen (the sucky ones).

The OP said something about invoking rebellions with spies, how does that work?