Playing Pergamon - Endless Wars

[Diego Alatriste]

Hi all,
This mod is really great and I love to play it. But I have a problem. In my Pergamon game I got attacked early on by the Seleucids and the Macedons. Currently I own nearly all of modern-day Turkey and I am the second strongest faction in the world. But I am still at war with the Macedons and the Seleucids who behave like mad berserks. Almost every round the Macedons attack with full-stacks Byzantion and they always loose thousands of men. They wasted so much money and soldiers in a pointless war and even after I send them 50.000 Gold and we agreed to end the war, they attacked me already in the next round again. The Seleucids began to attack me and after I took Tarsos as a border post, they began to send their best soldiers and elephants against me and always lost. I tried the same thing with them like I did it before with the Macedons. But after I gave them 70.000 Gold and they were happy, they attacked me in the next round, too. Both of them and I are the 3 mightiest factions and this infinite war allows me nearly nothing to do except defending my 2 cities they allways attack and refreshing my troops. I am not saying that the challenge is bad but they behave so irrational and excessive that it absoluetly makes no sense. All in all this really annoys. Have you any idea what I could do? Is it normal that the AI is so agressive? Thank you in advance and sorry for my English!

EDIT: I am playing on M/M

[dvk901]

I have found that the best way to deal with an incessant enemy who keeps attacking you in spite of everything is to punish them. I once played a campaign as the Romans and found myself in a constant war with Spain, even though I had never overtly attacked them, and had no interest in them at the time. I was embroiled in a bitter struggle with Carthage and Macedon, and no resources or time to deal with the constant attacks by the Iberians. Diplomacy and money, as you say, amounted to nothing.

My solution to this was to create Legion that I knowingly sent on a 'suicide' mission. I put this army on a boat, sailed all the way to the Atlantic side of Spain, and then pillaged and destroyed their cities one after the other. I would take a city, destroy all the buildings, exterminate the populace, and then move on to the next. I repeated this until I had probably destroyed 5-6 cities and my Legion was down to about 1\3 it's original size. Even then, barricaded in the last city I took, the brave Legion beat off 2 more full stacks before finally succumbing to a third.

The Iberians left me alone then for a very long time. Sometimes, in RTW, which has pretty bad diplomacy, the only diplomacy is the sword and spear. So I would say find a 'weak spot' in your enemies under belly, and then hit them hard with a goal of destroying rather than conquering.

[_Tartaros_]

second that,
in my current rome campaign i punished the belgae in the same way to get a quit border with them.

[SD_Man]

Hi all,
This mod is really great and I love to play it. But I have a problem. In my Pergamon game I got attacked early on by the Seleucids and the Macedons. Currently I own nearly all of modern-day Turkey and I am the second strongest faction in the world. But I am still at war with the Macedons and the Seleucids who behave like mad berserks. Almost every round the Macedons attack with full-stacks Byzantion and they always loose thousands of men. They wasted so much money and soldiers in a pointless war and even after I send them 50.000 Gold and we agreed to end the war, they attacked me already in the next round again. The Seleucids began to attack me and after I took Tarsos as a border post, they began to send their best soldiers and elephants against me and always lost. I tried the same thing with them like I did it before with the Macedons. But after I gave them 70.000 Gold and they were happy, they attacked me in the next round, too. Both of them and I are the 3 mightiest factions and this infinite war allows me nearly nothing to do except defending my 2 cities they allways attack and refreshing my troops. I am not saying that the challenge is bad but they behave so irrational and excessive that it absoluetly makes no sense. All in all this really annoys. Have you any idea what I could do? Is it normal that the AI is so agressive? Thank you in advance and sorry for my English!

EDIT: I am playing on M/M

I dont think that appeasement is ever a good strategy (RTW or no RTW), youre practically just feeding them an army.

[tungri_centurio]

yea dvk's strategy is a good one,destroy the inner homeland with suicidal army,but also take on the offensive at your borders

[LoGaL]

also, if you stop sharing a border with them ( say gift a city to some other faction) they stop hating you

[Diego Alatriste]

I tried this recommended strategy and in some way it works. But only for a short time! I do not even damage them really I just delay their attacks.
I destroyed 2 large cities and 2 other cities of the Macedons, but they have so many settelments that this does not really harm them. I had the same idea that I should gave their cities to other factions, but this does not work! Nobody accepts my offers, neither my allies nor neutral factions.

[trenktas]

destroying enemy cities always works for me. i destroy their coastal cities and capital. with a strong fleet u can go along the coast and take poorly defended cities. and in the end stick in one and kill as many troops as u can. destroying their capital does alot

[dvk901]

I tried this recommended strategy and in some way it works. But only for a short time! I do not even damage them really I just delay their attacks.
I destroyed 2 large cities and 2 other cities of the Macedons, but they have so many settelments that this does not really harm them. I had the same idea that I should gave their cities to other factions, but this does not work! Nobody accepts my offers, neither my allies nor neutral factions.

Well, there is a method to the madness I described in my post. First off, remember that I said I sailed this army 'all the way around to the Atlantic side of Spain'. The reason for this was not only to pillage and destroy, but to draw off and distract their armies. The AI in RTW 'being what it is', isn't too bright about where attacks come from or why. They simply respond to the player's attacks quickly, and in the direction from which those attacks come.

In my case, the Iberians were attacking me in Emporea..or southern Gaul along the coast...with armies that were really bad-assed bunches. I had all I could do to hold them off. My strategy was to make them 'think' the real danger was in their western regions....away from where they were attacking me. And it worked very well. They sent ALL their armies over to the west to deal with my one heroic Legion......where I gave them a royal black-eye and cost them a LOT of money and time to rebuild.

So part of this strategy is to distract and draw off your enemy. If you just attack them on 'your' side of their empire, they respond by sending even more armies in time. But if you attack them, say, on the western side of Macedon over by Illyria, they will sent all their forces over there.

Sure, in time they will recover and come back. But this is total war. Peace is something enforced by war. As for giving settlements away, use forced diplomacy to force a faction to take it. Forced Diplomacy is included in RS2.

[GreatOne]

What I usually do is just go and sack the Capital or any cities that might grant the enemy bonus tax income, and just holding that spot so that my border regions that are getting sieged constantly get some breathing room while i hold their most profitable regions and grind their stacks down.

However, there is a script in place that spawns several defending armies after you take one of those, and the answer is.... well... come prepared

[dvk901]

Yes indeed. Which is why whatever armies you send to do this might just as well be written off.