Literally every faction attacking me.

**Cleomenes III** · September 16, 2013, 03:45 PM

I'm playing as Athens and I have conquered Greece and half of Asia Minor. Now almost every faction is at war with me. My only powerful ally Egypt has been destroyed by African hordes. Pontus is surrounded and can help me no more, Sparta and I are on our own. Now the Seleucids are raiding my ports and barbarians are attacking from the North. Why is this happening? Did I do something to piss off everyone? I know I like a challenge but this is ridiculous!

**tungri_centurio** · September 16, 2013, 04:12 PM

had the same happend to me in my roman campaign,i was at war with carthage,suddenly helvetti,dalmatia,celtici,sparta invaded italyi hadno army in italy to defend my towns and lost all of them,i had trade agreement with helvetti but no they wanted my lands,the other factions i had no problems with untill that point.i like a challenge to but fighting 7 stacks with my misserable 3 is impossible if they attack from all sides.im not playing rome2 anymore untill something changes.

**Unahim** · September 16, 2013, 05:36 PM

I played with my 5 Parthian cities versus the might of the Seleucid empire. 3 armies against 12+ (it's hard to say, since there were 10 factions fighting me once all others in the area also joined, and most of them had 2-4 stacks, but they didn't always send all of them, so), rebuilding themselves over and over as fast as I could fight them, on legendary. Still I took a city every few years, slowly advancing, losing something here and there. If I can do that, then you can handle those situations too. 1 army supported by an agent or 2 can easily take on 3 armies.

**alhoon** · September 16, 2013, 04:46 PM

Play with Parthia then. And don't attack Seleucid protectorates. Make a satrapy to guard your North borders and concentrate on the south. Make alliances with people that are at war with factions near you and join them in the war.

**Jackal2233** · September 16, 2013, 05:03 PM

You need to avoid Pyrrhic victories and defeats. Keep your losses to a minimum each battle and it seems the AI is too chicken sh-t to attack you.

**Alexander Iulianus Verus** · September 16, 2013, 05:40 PM

I love this. way to go patches. This is what i missed from shogun 2 CAI!!!!!

**Grazgul** · September 16, 2013, 07:52 PM

Originally Posted by Cleomenes III

I'm playing as Athens and I have conquered Greece and half of Asia Minor. Now almost every faction is at war with me. My only powerful ally Egypt has been destroyed by African hordes. Pontus is surrounded and can help me no more, Sparta and I are on our own. Now the Seleucids are raiding my ports and barbarians are attacking from the North. Why is this happening? Did I do something to piss off everyone? I know I like a challenge but this is ridiculous!

Protect Eygpt at all cost as Greece.

the fill 2 major roles for you.

1. They control all most all the southern ports
2. The provide a buffer from the desert and african forces.

In my new game (only about 8 or so regions) I have a 10 stack in eygpt to help them defend

**daelin4** · September 16, 2013, 07:59 PM

I actually experience this before the patch.

After the patch no one's trying to attack me. But my allies are always tying to ask me to attack my other allies, or my clients.

**spanish_emperor** · September 16, 2013, 08:38 PM

do what i do. At the start of the campaign, pick out those neutral factions or those factions that hate you just but can easily be brought to neutral and use most of your starting money as gifts so they don't hate you as much. If they don't hate you then they won't declare war on you. For example, as Carthage i bribe Cyrenaica, i bribed Massalyia and Spanish lands until they were at neutral or friendly towards me. The Gar...[insert rest of name here] in Africa, below Libya were always going to hate me but if you have enough money then bribe them until they are neutral. Being at war with them affects your relations with most African factions for some reason, even your client state Libya.

Rome was just too much money to try and bribe them. You can, however, if you wish to befriend a faction that hates your guts try to declare war on their enemies. For example, i declared war on the Etruscan league, even though they were very friendly towards me, because i knew they were going to die anyways i could not prevent it. This made Rome go from hating me to simply being angry at me. Then you can bribe them to try and reduce this anger to neutrality. I failed at this because Rome was on -200 towards me and only managed to get it down to -100 or so before i became bankrupt.

Conclusion:
1. Select target that befriending will minimize overextension of ones army. For example, i tried to bribe the Spanish tribes so that i wouldn't need an army in Spain chewing up money. I then went to war with Rome and Syracuse allowing me to focus on this side while occasionally bribing more spanish tribes. I kind of did the same in Africa so i wouldn't need to send an army there and protect Libya.

2. Bribe the hell out of them. Easier with neutral factions since it is cheaper to befriend them. Forget about bribing factions over -150 diplomatic standing with you (like Rome if Carthage) since its money better spent on others. Accept war with those that factions that hate you just too much to bribe them.

3. Declare war on useless factions that may be friendly towards you. I declared war on the Etruscan League so to reduce the negative diplomatic standing with Rome ( i may need to have a peace treaty with them in the future) before Rome completely destroyed them in like 4-5 turns. This should only be done with factions far away from you, preferably who are already at war with others, so that you don't have an invasion to deal with.

4. Be careful when releasing or killing prisoners after a battle. Remember that killing them will make the faction at war hate you more and harder to negotiate in the future with (although it will make your allies happy). Releasing them has the opposite effect.

5. For this to work you need few armies. Trust me, this is a better use of resources since armies take time to recruit, have to pay upkeep even if they are sitting in the city and you will never have enough armies to deal with all your enemies. Plus, the armies would need to be cheap rabble units and may be destroyed by better more elite units the enemy has. Even then, if you send one army from your city to conquer the enemy's cities you will leave them undefended for an enemy naval invasion.

**Mezmare** · September 17, 2013, 03:05 AM

Hi there,
After I tried my first campaign as an Egypt on VH with beta patch 2.5 I thought I've had just bad luck because Seleucids declared war on me in 6th turn by invading and destroying Cyprus - my satrapy. So at the very begining I already had war with 7 or 8 factions because of Seleucid's satrapies plus bonus-war with Cymeria from the start. But that's fine, I can handle war on West and new ones on East too. And then in next 2 or 3 turns Blemmeyans (?) declared a war (South border). Seleucids weren't a big threat so far so I focused on the southern border, killed Blemmeyans army, took over their only city and went back to fight Cymeria. After I conquered them and the another tribe (they had only one village) Seleucids and their satrapies started to invading my lands. Already lost Jerusalem and Petra so they started invading me from east by land and sea. Sparta became my defensive ally but they were destroyed by Seleucids in next few turns. When I thought it couldn't be more annoying some southern tribes declared a war on me same as Libya and probably Cartage in the future too. It was too much for me. Had no money to upgrade my buildings or troops. Left alone with two armies filled with weak units.

I heard that before beta 2.5 there was no challenge even on legendary. But now it's just crazy! Every time I'm literally surrounded by enemies. If a faction will become my trading partner or we get non-aggressive pact they declaring a war on me in the next turn! Right away. In the other hand I've been watching SurrealBeliefs Rome campaign (VH) and he's just steamrolling everything on his path. He's like "uhm.. let's see, who I might conquer next" while me as an Egypt can't do much against all that mess around me. I don't know is it because Egypt faction is somehow "broken" and everyone hates it from the very beginning or CAI is just completely insane after beta 2.5.

**Turtle Kent** · September 17, 2013, 03:13 AM

Originally Posted by Mezmare

Hi there,
After I tried my first campaign as an Egypt on VH with beta patch 2.5 I thought I've had just bad luck because Seleucids declared war on me in 6th turn by invading and destroying Cyprus - my satrapy. So at the very begining I already had war with 7 or 8 factions because of Seleucid's satrapies plus bonus-war with Cymeria from the start. But that's fine, I can handle war on West and new ones on East too. And then in next 2 or 3 turns Blemmeyans (?) declared a war (South border). Seleucids weren't a big threat so far so I focused on the southern border, killed Blemmeyans army, took over their only city and went back to fight Cymeria. After I conquered them and the another tribe (they had only one village) Seleucids and their satrapies started to invading my lands. Already lost Jerusalem and Petra so they started invading me from east by land and sea. Sparta became my defensive ally but they were destroyed by Seleucids in next few turns. When I thought it couldn't be more annoying some southern tribes declared a war on me same as Libya and probably Cartage in the future too. It was too much for me. Had no money to upgrade my buildings or troops. Left alone with two armies filled with weak units.

I heard that before beta 2.5 there was no challenge even on legendary. But now it's just crazy! Every time I'm literally surrounded by enemies. If a faction will become my trading partner or we get non-aggressive pact they declaring a war on me in the next turn! Right away. In the other hand I've been watching SurrealBeliefs Rome campaign (VH) and he's just steamrolling everything on his path. He's like "uhm.. let's see, who I might conquer next" while me as an Egypt can't do much against all that mess around me. I don't know is it because Egypt faction is somehow "broken" and everyone hates it from the very beginning or CAI is just completely insane after beta 2.5.

I had this same problem with Egypt. The entire world declared war on me. It was annoying and felt bugged.

**Mezmare** · September 17, 2013, 03:13 AM

Part II (somehow has been unable to post it right away..)

So, I also started a multi-player campaign as an Egypt on hard difficulty with my friend who's playing Cartage. Right now we're on about 30 turn and already have 21 wars declared by AI. Just like that. Without a reason. Every time we encounter a new factions they automatically declare war on me or him in next turn or two. Some of these factions have only one territory with one or two full armies. It actually seems like they were recruiting all these troops only to invade us which also means that there's almost no other wars between AI factions. All known factions send their armies straight to our lands. I know we probably share same enemies but from 24 known factions we have 21 declared wars already. It's just fighting to survive not to conquer.

Thanks for your time reading this.

**Cleomenes III** · September 17, 2013, 03:32 PM

Excuse my French but this is a load of

. Every turn 2+ factions declare war on me for no apparent reason. Every faction seems to want me dead. It's as if all the factions have aligned against me. I've had to abandon Asia Minor and pull all my troops back to defend Greece. Is this a bug or something because this is so bloody frustrating.

**Mukai** · September 17, 2013, 03:52 PM

I've never had war declared on me :'( Even with some hugely apparent war-mongering. OP wanna swap AI?

**Cleomenes III** · September 17, 2013, 04:44 PM

lol I would gladly swap. Everyone hates poor old Athens.

**Candy_Licker** · September 17, 2013, 05:04 PM

It seems that once you're a target, everybody will join.

I'm playing an Egypt campaign, hard, about 50 turns in, and nobody ever declared war on me. I only finished Cyrenaica and didn't expand further. I have about 20 trade partners, most factions asking me for trade, and the ones surrounding me usually ask for non aggression pacts. Sometimes they don't even want money.

Really strange. West of me, in Libya and the barbarian lands there are many wars. The African factions south of me, the factions in Arabia and Asia Minor are very passive. Basicially no wars going on. The ones in Africa and Arabia mostly have defensive behaviour, that's surely a reason. But I guess it's also because I am around and must appear as a threat.