Bactria Campaign and some observations
I am playing a campaign with Bactria. Just using MC's 4tpy mod.
I made an alliance with Parthia. If you move troops out of the city in Sogdiana, the Parthians will not make an alliance and attack Sogdiana.
In the beginning of the game, I found it preferable for this not to happen. I made the alliance.
Instead, they go after Hecatompylos/Khorosan and south towards Alexandria/Alexandretta.
The Seleucids left me alone and I moved east and took out the three rebel states on the map's edge.
I stopped moving south after taking Sagala/Aria.
I then moved west to take Phrada from the Seleucids. I did so to link up my provinces via road.
Obviously this meant war with the Seleucids, but they made no attempt to take back Phrada.
This took me down to about 260 BC.
Both Parthia and Armenia were at war with the Seleucids. Pontus and the Ptolemies too.
I was somewhat shielded from the Seleucids by the Parthians.
I then moved south to take Kapisa/Arachosia. This provided a good jump off point to take the last two rebel cities of Pura/Gedrosia and Begrum/Kyhbor.
To my disdain, I found that the rebel leader in Kyhbor had died and the city went over to the Armenians.
The Seleucids had taken Pura. I intented to take both.
The Seleucids came after me real hard at Kapisa. Instead of antagonizing the Armenians, I contented myself with taking Pura and waiting for a break in the storm to take Begrum.
This took a long time. While I had two stacks of troops for this, only one stack were front line troops.
And those Seleucids do like to send stack after stack at you.
It was tough to defend this wide a front. Especially with the Armenians having a big army in Begrum.
I eventually built up sufficient forces at Kapisa and Pura(I hired every Indian Merc I could for garrison duty) and beat enough seleucids armies to create a window for where I could take Begrum from Armenia and be back at Kapisa in time for cornflakes with the inevitable Seleucid counter-attack.
I cancelled my alliance with Armenia and then attacked and took Begrum.
With the far east locked up, Harmozeia/Carmania became the next logical target.
All Seleucid attacks were coming through Harmozeia and they could attack Kapisa or Pura from here.
Which they did. And I am all for reducing my front.
I had a tuff as nails army at Phrada. This army covered the Parthians in Hecatompylos.
All of my starting provinces were weakly defended. I had perhaps a full stack garrisoning all of these cities. But I had watchtowers set up and spies further out. If the Parthians tried anything, I would have time to prepare.
I attacked Harmozeia and took the city.
It was here that I started to notice some odd things. Odd perhaps only because I had never seen this before. The Seleucids sent two armies at me. The first army by-passed Harmozeia and the second attacked.
I can only speculate that the army that by-passed me was going after Kapisa or Pura.
Had it gotten away from my army at Harmozeia, it could have caused some problems.
I had no troops to match them behind Harmozeia. Only in Phrada.
Of course, I wiped out the besieging army and was able to get the army that tried to get by Harmozeia.
Elsewhere, the Parthians had taken three provinces from the Seleucids. Hecatompylos, then Alexandria and then Pauravas/Ambi. And they had three or four armies hovering around Susa.
The Seleucids were fighting back. But they clearly felt that it was important to send stack after stack at me in India rather than defend the heart of their empire. I found this to be odd too.
Armenia took Phraaspa/Atropane and Media from the Seleucids. So things were looking grim for the Seleucids.
I then cancelled my treaty with the Parthians and was suprised to see an almost total withdrawal of the Parthians from this area.
After a few turns, their armies were on my borders. I had built up a third army in Bactria.
But I did not attack Parthia and they did not attack me.
The Seleucids took advantage however, and retook Pauravas and Alexandria. They also took Saramana/Hyrcania. The Armenians then declared war and took Chardara/Parthynia, leaving only Hecatompylos to the Parthians. Which I then attacked. I did not want the Seleucids this close to me and it was clear if I did not take it, the Seleucids would.
Despite not having any cities left, the Parthians were still a faction. The Parthian faction leader was still alive and the Seleucids finished him off a few turns later.
I then went after Saramana and Alexandria. I also took Chardara from the Armenians.
The Seleucids then sent stack, after stack, after stack at me at Alexandria.
I have about eight or nine famous battle sites along the road from Paravas to Alexandria.
I deployed my general on the hillsides and the Seleucids attacked me every turn for some ten turns or so.
Skiles the defender is my generals name. Its funny because all the battles are fought next to each other.
Six or seven famous battles are all in row next to each other.
Again I find it odd because elsewhere the Seleucids are taking a beating.
The Ptolemies had taken much of Asia Minor. Pontus got destroyed somewhere along the way.
The Ptolemies also had every city upto Antioch. Yet here the Seleucids are, sending countless full stacks after me. While they are losing far more profitable territories elsewhere, they are going balistic over me. It doesn't make much sense.
Elsewhere, Iberia, Gaul and Germany got destroyed rather early on. By 250 BC all three were gone.
I can only speculate as to who took them out. Carthage possibly took Spain.
I am sure Rome must have taken some part in this.
The Greeks were destroyed by 260 BC. I think Illyria got tonked by Macedon. To my suprise, Macedon got destroyed. And it was the Romans who did it. They are in Asia Minor and have the lion's share of it. They also wiped out Thrace.
It was around this time that the Seleucid attacks on me petered out. They basically only have Antioch on the med sea and Babylon, Susa etc.
But it seems awful of the AI to waste about a dozen full stack armies on me while the other Seleucid territories get taken by Rome and the Ptolemies. I had spies in Mesopotamia and I saw them marching from there to get to me.
Why does the AI not defend its other territories? I suspect we shall never know.
I liked that the AI tried to by-pass my frontline armies to get to my much weaker interior.
I liked that my cancelling of the treaty with Parthia made them pull back.
I did not like that the Seleucids went after me at the expense of Asia Minor and much of the levant.
That makes no sense. Especially when the far east is hardly profitable in relation to the aforementioned areas.
I really don't like that the west is devoid of any factions so quickly on. It could just be the Romans in the west.
There has been no Roma/Carthage war. The Iberians could have kicked out the Carthaginians from Spain
and the Romans then beat them. Hopefully Carthage will at least have Spain.
The Romans have a major chunk of Asia Minor and Greece and Macedon. I have to assume the same of much of the west.
I did have one great battle defending Harmozeia though. Classic successor battle.
I loaded my right flank with two units of hypaspists and my two family members. They overloaded their right, though that might have been because I deployed my line and advanced before the AI could adjust.
In any event, my pezoi on the right pinned their phalanx units and my family members and hypaspists attacked the enemy phalanx in the flank and rear and I rolled up the line.
My left flank got mullered however. Two units got decimated and routed. Another unit was decimated before my victorious right could help out. A unit of enemy hypaspists got loose behind my line and started to cause chaos with my missile troops.
I managed to kill their general which probably helped. But it was a good punch up for quite sometime.
Very enjoyable. But it does get tedious fighting armies containing nothing but pikemen, imitation legionaires and hypaspists. If I am lucky, I will see a unit of peltasts here and there.
And the only cavalry I ever see are family members.
The only time this changes is if the AI hires mercs. But that doesn't seem to happen very often.
I could be completely off the mark here, but my observations of AI armies and auto-calc seem to revolve around melee stats. If you have more pikemen, heavy inf etc, then you are going to increase your chances of winning. Consequently, the AI forms armies based on this.
How many Parthian armies do you see with a lot of HAs? Armenians too I might add!
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I had my archers shooting at their elephant from 4km away easy.) Also, Indian Infanty are amazing archers, their my faveorite unit to use because they can hold somewhat in a melee thanks to their 40 pound swords.
Originally Posted by Sardaukar One
