EB 2.X AI Faction Progression Thread

[Rilder]

One thing that I always found interesting in regards to EB1 was the AI faction progression threads, seeing interesting paths of expansion for the various factions was almost as interesting as playing the game itself, so I thought, why not bring it back for EB2?

Previous one here: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...ression-Thread'

To get an image for this thread open the console with the tilde key "`" and type in toggle_fow then take a screenshot, usually with fraps or something then exit/minimize the game and crop that image down to just the minimap, possibly expanding the image as well to make it easier to read and then upload it and post it here.

Do include the turn or date and the further into the campaign you are the better, the first 20 or 30 turns probably isn't gonna be that spectacular.
Feel free to also make mention of interesting things you've seen the AI do as well ways you've influenced them as well.\
Might be worth including details on your campaign difficulty level as well.

============================

To start off here's one from my current (and first EB2 Campaign) Pontos campaign.

Pontos (M/M, since it's my first EB2 campaign and wanted to get a handle on things)
238BC (Turn 142)


The Getai seem to be ripping through the Rebel settlements they have available, I'm probably gonna have to go after them soon...hmm...
The Pahavla are just ridiculous and Baktria is expanding north for some reason.
The Bosporians seemed intent on pushing across the Black Sea until the Getai took Byzantion, I mean they had fleets dropping off full stacks to try and siege it, I thought they were coming after me at first.
Pergamon was the first faction destroyed I think, the Seleukids took care of them.

Probably could make more commentary but I think the map can explain it well enough.

[Funeh]

Britains didnt make much progress heh :S

[Wulfburk]

^ I think we are all used to that from the EB1 AI heh!

[Simpelicity]

Are Sweboz and Lougiones at war by any means? Otherwise that Lougiones makes no sense.

Funny how the romans avoided Epeiros. Or was it Epeiros winning?

[imareaver]

Oh, this is fun!

Rome turn 149:

I love this. All the rebel settlements that aren't hopelessly remote have been taken, and Numidia/Arveni/Macedon/Bosporus all have cool empires. Especially Numidia, they sided with me against Carthage as soon as I started winning and took a bunch of Carthaginian African cities.

[Berg-i-dum]

Arevaci M/M Turn 186. Allied with Rome, at war with Carthago. Notice the interesting Suevi attack on the romani at the Po valley. Quite good development of the factions.

[Moros]

Arevaci M/M Turn 186. Allied with Rome, at war with Carthago. Notice the interesting Suevi attack on the romani at the Po valley. Quite good development of the factions.

Never seen such successful Nabataeans!

[Berg-i-dum]

Never seen such successful Nabataeans!

Yeah they got the Sabaeans, these, along with the Lusitanians I got, are the only destroyed factions in my game as far I know.

[Moros]

Yeah they got the Sabaeans, these, along with the Lusitanians I got, are the only destroyed factions in my game as far I know.

Did the Sabaeans conquer Rekem, and then got their asses handed to them by Nabataean Hordes? Or were they succesfull from the start? I guess their campaign depends quite a bit on how they start. IF they do well and manage to conquer one or two provinces they get going but if they are to late the Grey Death or Yellow Fever take away their possibilities to expand.

Edit: it does make for a great, be it nervous campaign, when playing as Nabataea though.

[Shokifer]

Did the Sabaeans conquer Rekem, and then got their asses handed to them by Nabataean Hordes? Or were they succesfull from the start? I guess their campaign depends quite a bit on how they start. IF they do well and manage to conquer one or two provinces they get going but if they are to late the Grey Death or Yellow Fever take away their possibilities to expand.

Edit: it does make for a great, be it nervous campaign, when playing as Nabataea though.

I'm playing as the sabaeans and the nabataeans are really starting to worry me: they've taken both gerrha and Qarnawu and penetrated right into the heart of the seleukids, taking both seleukeia and babylon

Meanwhile I was wasting time getting mlheia (complete money pit by the way) and now I have one full banner army and they have several. Looks like this'll be a difficult campaign.

[Berg-i-dum]

I am playing M/M and it is right the AI is quite passive but still they make good armies and at least some tactical retreats when I attack them, still in the global map I see they are going in aggresive wars among them so it is OK. I forgot to change the difficulty since I knew it is recommended to play H/M :facepalm: too late to remind it... (you really can't force a change of that with the campaing started, right?)

Did the Sabaeans conquer Rekem, and then got their asses handed to them by Nabataean Hordes? Or were they succesfull from the start? I guess their campaign depends quite a bit on how they start. IF they do well and manage to conquer one or two provinces they get going but if they are to late the Grey Death or Yellow Fever take away their possibilities to expand.

Edit: it does make for a great, be it nervous campaign, when playing as Nabataea though.

I can't say since this was the first time in the campaign I used the console trick. But I think I saw the message of Sabean faction destroyed really early on the campaign so I bet you are right.

[Total_Wallyer]

That's not a tilde, also I can never open the shell :-(, just reloads the game

[SanderP]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=306594350

My factions progressing, I am the Seleucid Empire, no allies, Ptolemies as enemies.

[Biyob]

Lougiones M/M Turn 302




The AI has never attacked any of my settlements.

[Moros]

Lougiones M/M Turn 302




The AI has never attacked any of my settlements.

M/M isn't the best way to play it. I'd recommend H settings for campaign map. Also, if I were them, I wouldn't be keen on attacking you either!

Slightly worried about the horde mechanism though. I'll probably take everything but rekem and suffer the occasional light army rather than five fullstacks.

You could try to make them a protectorate then. Also an after action report would be highly interesting.

[Shokifer]

You could try to make them a protectorate then. Also an after action report would be highly interesting.

Haha I might actually try an AAR (Though for someone who aspires to making a living out of writing, i always make sure to never actually do any )

Should be quite interesting. Especially since I'm a tactician.

[Simpelicity]

M/M isn't the best way to play it. I'd recommend H settings for campaign map. Also, if I were them, I wouldn't be keen on attacking you either!

How much of a difference does it make? I started a LP on M/M, didn't know the recommended settings. It's still early, it might be fixable.

[Bingbangbong]

How much of a difference does it make? I started a LP on M/M, didn't know the recommended settings. It's still early, it might be fixable.

m/m sucks. Basically you never get attacked on battlemap and even in battles defending troops will just stand there and let you use all your arrows etc on them and not move until you attack them. with your infantry. my experience from vanilla mtw anyway.

[Funeh]

I am playing as ARVERNI and I am at about turn 60 and fighting the AEDUI in the northern france, almost got them. And suddenly Roman city SEGESTA (northern Italy) rebelled and became mein. I got note that my kinsmen rebelled against the pressure and want to join my cause.. That was pretty epic and I didnt expect it at all. Dont know if this is vanilla feature or EB2 only, because it has never happened to me before in any game.
Anyway, I didnt really plan to wage war against Rome that soon but I am not gonna abandon my people so I guess its on.
Too bad campaign AI is so passive, it would be exciting to struggle to defend the province, but Rome army just walked away

[Shokifer]

Medium probably isn't the best difficulty to be playing this game on.