The way to play DeI

[Rupsie]

Hello DeI community, I recently installed the mod to enjoy the new perspective it can offer. And as such I was wondering whether DeI has any suggestions to 'enhance' the game experiance, see for instance the mods for older titles (RTW, MTW2) that would suggest house-rules to prevent utter player domination (Common suggestions were: don't rush ai out, don't go cav heavy, don't abuse agents etc.).

The reason that I ask is that I am now 40 turns into a Carthage campaign (took over spain in the first 20 turns) and the ai seems extremely passive (no wars, no treads and can be picked off 1 by 1 if I want.

Should I let the ai build up or rush them out?

[Zeonix]

Be a pacifist and watch the world pass you by.

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

What difficulty are you playing?

[Rupsie]

I read H/N was the way to go, so I started my campaign VH/H (CAI/BAI)

[JakkoUK]

Whole of Spain in 20 turns on very hard? No way.

[Alu10]

Whole of Spain in 20 turns on very hard? No way.

especially on hard battle diff, has he instant replenishment, even garrison troops can hurt the troop count. pumping out army after army in 20 turns or what?

[FlashHeart07]

The AI being passive sounds odd to me aswell especially on VH. I played on normal (best thing for testing) and got attacked by two factions the same turn. Also take note that playing anything above Normal for battles will give the AI a huge bonus to stats making levy units tie with your elite.

[Alexandre Lange]

I think that, CAI wise, if you open the game strong and position yourself well, it gets passive, because when AI makes the analisis to decide if it goes against you or not, it concludes that it should not, because it will lose. If your are stronger then all factions around you, you get no enemies. I'm having an almost perfect H/N Suebi campaign, around turn 60 now, and I chosed and planed each one of my battles so far. No initiative from the AI, all offensive battles in enemies' territory. It's good to have the upper hand, but sometimes boring. The harder the campaign, the most AI belives it can beat you, and the most it makes agressive plays based on it.

[Dresden]

Yes the AI is "smart" about who to fight, but that can be bad when the player gets large early on.

We used to have it set so that the AI would break treaties and declare war more often. The unfortunate side effect of this is that for most players (smaller factions early on) this becomes a huge mess as everyone you meet declares war.

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

Yeah that is somewhat strange that the AI is non-aggressive. I guess play more passive for the first couple turns? My Seleucid campaign on VH/n is the complete opposite. I'm at war with almost all my satrapies, my loyal satrapies pulled me into another war. As a result I'm fighting a 2 and a half front war against 5-6 nations with little help from my allies. Every battle has been on home turf except one.

[boblikesoup]

Yeah that is somewhat strange that the AI is non-aggressive. I guess play more passive for the first couple turns? My Seleucid campaign on VH/n is the complete opposite. I'm at war with almost all my satrapies, my loyal satrapies pulled me into another war. As a result I'm fighting a 2 and a half front war against 5-6 nations with little help from my allies. Every battle has been on home turf except one.

I had a Selucid campaign on VH or Legendary where nobody declared war on me. I just spent heaps of money on buying satrapy loyalty and improving general's diplomacy. By turn ~50 I just stopped playing because I had like 100k in the bank.

I'm having the same problem with Armenia. Started with 3 cities, conquered 3 more 1 at a time. Now I am the biggest force in the region (besides friendly Selucids) with no enemies. Will there be any challenge later if I'm playing smart?

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

I had a Selucid campaign on VH or Legendary where nobody declared war on me. I just spent heaps of money on buying satrapy loyalty and improving general's diplomacy. By turn ~50 I just stopped playing because I had like 100k in the bank.

I'm having the same problem with Armenia. Started with 3 cities, conquered 3 more 1 at a time. Now I am the biggest force in the region (besides friendly Selucids) with no enemies. Will there be any challenge later if I'm playing smart?

Thats hilarious! I tried that as well, but only for the factions who I suspected I could make happy. I dropped the most hostile one but tried to hold on to the others. Unfortunately the two factions I gave the most money caused me the most trouble. Drangia declared war on me two turns after I gave them thousands of gold. That turn Persia was camping a full stack on one of my cities and quickly picked it up. I think they planned it haha. That turn crippled me, I lost all my clients except one, I lost a city, and I hadn't played total war in a while so I was having food problems. Haha.

[Rupsie]

Taking over spain as cathage is not nearly as hard as you might think, I choose the dudes that give diplomatic bonus and earned massive cash the first turn from trade agreement and non-aggression-pact, the only ones I excluded were the 3 1 region factions in spain (also you start with a peace treaty with rome). This gives you rougly 10-15K gold to make a good army in spain. Move all armies to spain as other factions dont pose a tread (kept navy + token army near Sicily).

My army in spain ended up to be 1 horse gen, 2 elephants, 2 light spannish horse, 1 balarian slingers , 2 normal slingers, 1 peltasts, 4 Carthaginian hoplites, 3 of those anti-cav-peltast/iberian ligth spear troops, 1 cathagenian swords and hired 3 more of those barbarian swords dudes (only mercinary). You have most of this almost by turn 6, move in on the village (arse) above your capital in spain (you don't have a full stack yet so use merc to fill what you don't have). I had two easy victories (less then 500 casualties for a 2.5K men army total), 1 outside their city, 1 to capture the town. When assaulting the town, just pepper the troops on the edge until they mass rush out of the town. Get your second army recruited there (elephant hanibal as gen) and turn your first army to the two single region factions (town & city) left of you. This town was allied to central spain, so that one was the next on target, after a tough battle 2 turns later (outside my city) I was able to recoup and take central spain by turn 10 (Numentia).

At turn 13 Kartuba fell by atacking the army outside of the city and winning (reasonably well) by picking off the reinforcements when they try to march to the main army. Turn 15 it was Ebora turn to fall, it was garrison only as the army had left the city to attack Olisipo. Dispirite this it was a bloody siege where I lost1/3 of my men. The lucitani (occupying Olsipo) fell the next turn as the garrison and army was pretty much depleted.

By turn 19 my second army was ready (1 (Hannibal) elephants, 4 Carthage swords from Carthage (those dorkim something you get once you upgrade your barracks) 4 balaric slingers, 3 AOR axemen dudes 4 spear-javalin-anti-cav 2 iberian light cav 3 merc melee.
First army takes arracilum on turn 19 and Hannibal sieges the city Tarraco (I also moved my navy to this place), I did this as the two factions were allies. (Here I also lost all my diplomatic credibility despite breaking the non-aggression-packt and trade 3 turns ago). Turn 20 I held aracilum from the counter atack (& faction is destroyed) and hannibal wins a bloody victory outside the gates of the city (but could not capture the town). At turn 21 The city fell an both armies move to Brigantium and take it at turn 25.

Next 20 turns nothing happens and everyone likes you (even rome turned neutral, and lost south italy to syracus (?) (the blue faction) .

[Dresden]

Carthage can also be somewhat easy as they have purposefully been put in a good situation to help the AI survive when they are Carthage.

[Rupsie]

What factions tend would you recommend for nice (or epic) campaigns (I also like to have the ability to build wildly different armies).

Carthage has always been my favorite faction due to the way its roster works; they tend to have access to everything in pretty much every mod and even in vanilla.

[chadwicknight]

What factions tend would you recommend for nice (or epic) campaigns (I also like to have the ability to build wildly different armies).

Carthage has always been my favorite faction due to the way its roster works; they tend to have access to everything in pretty much every mod and even in vanilla.

Have a go with Epirus. I found it very difficult/epic

[Zanze]

Seleucids can be a hit or a miss. Either everyone declares war on you or they don't. If they do, fighting in pretty much every direction makes for a fun and interesting campaign.

[Glustrod]

Seleucids can be very challenging I think and they have access to alot too.
And Macedon when you start.

Edit: Like preposter said^^

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

Seleucids can be very challenging I think and they have access to alot too.
And Macedon when you start.

Edit: Like preposter said^^

Yeah Macedon can be tough as well. It really depends on how many factions declare war on you. The last time I tried Sparta and Athens wiped out Epirus super fast and a few northern Thracian tribes declared war on me with Greeks. Macedon has almost no friends if Eprius goes down and Rome will generally side with the Greeks. That's the one campaign I've abandoned. I had two armies but every turn they had to fight one or two battles and were never full strength. No one allied with me and I had no money.

[Don_Diego]

Found the start of Octavian campaign a real challenge, ended up trying to have a civil war with pompey and lepidus but then rebellions keep popping up in Gaul and Belgica and the suebi and Cheruski are threatening the borders too. With the little time i've had to play, not managed to secure my own area yet, let alone expand... It is a nice hurdle to get through before you can dominate the world with imperial legions.