Morale trouble with Ptolemic Empire?

[scubatim84]

Anyone else who's tried the Ptolemic Empire notice that the troops turn tale and run at the drop of a paperclip during battle? I haven't seen such a bizarre problem before with this mod and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this. Even the Carthaginians, who I'll admit have a rather weak troop lineup to start, didn't run nearly as easily. I've had multiple battles where I had twice the number of the enemy army and they have turned around and ran within a minute of lines meeting. Comparable troop quality on both sides so it wasn't like I had militia spearmen fighting Spartan Royal Guard or anything like that. Anyone else notice this?

[nhinhonhinho]

Ptolemimic's army is terrible in early game and far weaker Carthaginian Civic Hoplite. Have both weak moral and fighting ability . Have your Generals leading your army and try to use my formation here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=393673 . In post 11 there're a special formation for Ptolemic

That's about militia army. The better way is use many local Eastern army roster. They're stronger than your core event Sparabara is better than levy spearman and you have awesome Syrian archer and Median cavalry. Combine them with Machimoi Phalanx

I found Ptolemic is a good faction btw

[Grimbold]

The economic boost it gets during the start does not compensate for the weak army it has, infact the Ptolomies probably have the weakest army of XGM.

[scubatim84]

Yeah I'm noticing that...at least the Carthaginians just got their asses kicked, they didn't turn around and run within seconds of the battle starting as well. I'll try your formation, but eh, if it's not just me and Ptolemics really just have an awful military, I don't think I'll have much interest in playing them. I understand that they were OP in vanilla but not sure why that means they had to be nerfed to hell and back in XGM.

Right now I'm just going to play a German campaign I guess, lol. My fiancee is german so that's the suggestion I got last night.

[Pinkie Pie]

op is overpowered im guessing
and early on as the ptolemies you will have to rely on mercenaries

[scubatim84]

Well, I did some researching and found some old threads where people did post what seemed like very sound strategies for starting as Ptolemics.

Basically I followed most of them and I've just been turtling and attacking no one while sending out diplomats to get alliances, trade rights, etc. with as many nearby factions as possible. The Seleucids wanted me to become their Protectorate, so I did that to buy time, but they just broke it last turn so oh well. I did get about 8 peaceful turns out of it at least. On turn 1 I started building city barracks in Memphis and Alexandria, and shrines of law/happiness elsewhere, then started doing a mixture of rax/econ everywhere else and I built blacksmiths in Memphis and Alexandria. I'm currently building an armourer in Alexandria. Basically, the strategy I read which I adopted is to be able to recruit the Malanchite(sp?) phalangites and cavalry since they are far superior from the regular ptolemic units, and they have good morale, which I am now doing (have 5 stacks and rising), and in Memphis I'm training up elephants. Due to the blacksmiths and armourer, they'll also have upgraded armor and weapons so that should help.

Although now, I'm curious what you guys think as far as war strategy goes. Here's a pic of my setup right now...pretty standard, as you can see I haven't lost or taken any settlements yet.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So who should I focus on first? Get rid of EK in that region so I don't have any enemies to the south? If so, what then? Go after Seleucids, or hold them at bay and pick off Sabaeans first so I don't have any enemies to the east?

[Grimbold]

So the choice is to reck your economy with mercs? Sorry but i aint buying that, and its not like their later units are awesome. So how do you survive the early years of attacks from TSE and the EK?

Oh and Scubatim, Germania campaign is great fun. At the start its just picking all the nearby rebel settlements ( except those with the golden chevron units). Later on it gets annoying, as you most likely be at war with those Scythian dogs. You can include Thrace aswell.

[Pinkie Pie]

go for antioch straight away and then move a small army east to raid burn their larger settlements (seleucia, hatra, susa etc) all of these are in the western part of their empire. after you have done this move back and hold antioch and prepare to defend against whatever they can chuck at you
the result is a severly weakened TSE concentrating on you and leaving their eastern settlements open to parthian attacks

[Grimbold]

go for antioch straight away and then move a small army east to raid burn their larger settlements (seleucia, hatra, susa etc) all of these are in the western part of their empire. after you have done this move back and hold antioch and prepare to defend against whatever they can chuck at you
the result is a severly weakened TSE concentrating on you and leaving their eastern settlements open to parthian attacks

Thats all nice, but TSE starts with a full stack on Antioch and i dont think its going away anytime soon.

I just cant take the Ptolomies. I really dislike that they have a crappy military.

[scubatim84]

Thats all nice, but TSE starts with a full stack on Antioch and i dont think its going away anytime soon.

I just cant take the Ptolomies. I really dislike that they have a crappy military.

Shrug, Carthaginians struck me as even worse.

[scubatim84]

Well, the German campaign seems alright to start, but I still think the unit roster is limited enough that it's just kind of boring after awhile. You have axemen...double axemen and oh! chosen double axemen. Great diversity there. I don't think I'm going to stick with my German campaign for that reason.

As far as Ptolemics go, I know that they won't have the uber-ness of the Spartans like I'm used to, but when I was fighting against them late-game on my GCS campaign, they held their own fairly well. The Basilikon guard was about equivalent to my sacred band.

Grabbing Antioch sounds like a good idea except it sounds like going after TSE straight away is going to leave me open to enemies from all sides. Eastern Kingdoms and Saba both don't like me now that the TSE hates me, since they're allied with them, so if I ignore EK and Saba I will be getting hit from the west, south and east as well as whatever TSE throws at me. Weakening TSE gets my vote, but if I get weakened in the process, I think that will likely end in both of our demise, not just theirs....and yeah, I farkin' hate the Scythians and Parthians but I know I'll have to fight them sooner or later. Missile cavalry spam = coward's way to fight.

[Grimbold]

Well, the German campaign seems alright to start, but I still think the unit roster is limited enough that it's just kind of boring after awhile. You have axemen...double axemen and oh! chosen double axemen. Great diversity there. I don't think I'm going to stick with my German campaign for that reason.

What? I find they have great diversity. As soon as you get the 3rd lvl of barracks you get quite a few difference units.

The logic you're following applies to every faction. GSC: Militia Phalangite > Phalangites > Arm Ph.

Martin, im not dissing your strategy, it might even work, but the simple fact that PTE has the most weak military in the mod, makes the campaign very unatractive to me.

These days im more of a barbarian fan, playing Germania, Iberia and now Gaul again.

[scubatim84]

What? I find they have great diversity. As soon as you get the 3rd lvl of barracks you get quite a few difference units.

The logic you're following applies to every faction. GSC: Militia Phalangite > Phalangites > Arm Ph.

Martin, im not dissing your strategy, it might even work, but the simple fact that PTE has the most weak military in the mod, makes the campaign very unatractive to me.

These days im more of a barbarian fan, playing Germania, Iberia and now Gaul again.

Hmm, maybe I'll stick with it then. What kind of units do you get then once you get the 3rd lvl barracks? I looked at the faction guide and it made it sound pretty bland. I also just did a custom battle with the upgraded egyptian phalangites against TSE's regular phalangites...wow they turned and ran almost instantly. I don't even understand why Ptolemic is even in the mod if it's worthless...it'd be better to just remove them and replace them with a faction someone actually would want to play. Carthage isn't much better, but even Carthage is better than PTE, and that's sad.

[Grimbold]

Hmm, maybe I'll stick with it then. What kind of units do you get then once you get the 3rd lvl barracks? I looked at the faction guide and it made it sound pretty bland. I also just did a custom battle with the upgraded egyptian phalangites against TSE's regular phalangites...wow they turned and ran almost instantly. I don't even understand why Ptolemic is even in the mod if it's worthless...it'd be better to just remove them and replace them with a faction someone actually would want to play. Carthage isn't much better, but even Carthage is better than PTE, and that's sad.

Well you get what Gaul gets ( if you've played them) only in the German version. Chosen Axemen, Chosen Archers, Berserkers, Heavy cavalry, heavy spearmen.

[Pinkie Pie]

im my saves it usually does move due to TSE moving their capital to Seleucia

[Pinkie Pie]

why not just edit their moral?

[nhinhonhinho]

Chariot in some way like cavalry so elephant will crush them too

To me Ptolemic? Year we are the people army. Every men have to join the army with minimum train and poor equipment in early

Then you get Machimoi and Syrian archers. They make the whole thing easier. Your phalanx is a bit weaker but your archers will carry the day since they're superior to almost anything TSE throw at you. Syrian archers also server pretty well in the role of support troops in melee

[scubatim84]

I can't train the archers yet but I did do a battle against TSE just to test it out...the numbers weren't quite even, but they usually aren't anyway, so eh. I think it was about 500 Seleucids, with a reinforcement of 900, against about 1,000 of mine. The spearmen did make short work of the elephants in the custom battle, however, this time I met the Seleucid phalanx line with my Machimoi phalanxes and they held fine. Supporting missile troops in back helped, my cavalry took potshots here and there and chased down runners, and as Dimebag felt, I felt like I was cheating when I sent in my elephants against their light infantry and hoplites....it was a slaughter.

Although I've decided to do a Rome campaign for now. I haven't gotten around to it with the mod yet and it looks like fun. Just beat out the roman rebels and now I'm going to work on expelling the remnants of Pyrrhos out of Italy.

[nhinhonhinho]

If you can train Machimoi so you should have access to train Nubia or Syrian already

Btw the best troop to support front line in melee is javelin.

[Pinkie Pie]

arent syrians an aor unit only available in antioch and hatra