Problems with war on Makedon Campaign.

[jonhgalt]

i have been playing with rome the Makedon Wars H/N campaign. The beggining is a blast, fight Epirus is hard and it takes just a single mistake to have another 20 or 30 turns of War. After the fall of Epirus i was gathering my forces to take the long empire of Makedon, and news flash: no enemy armies defending their large empire. I have read a previus post where they said that IA doesnt know how to handle large empires and well seems like it is true. (even if i activate hardcore mod 20 turns before beggining the invasion) Regardless of that i have been roleplaying with Custom Battles i make this post to put my opinion about this thing.

The problem is obviusly that IA doesnt Know how to recruit, priorize or anything where their empire reaches some size. I was wondering that the possible answer is a multiple front campaign, but i have been look at the distribución of Makedon forces, with the no fog of war mod, and they just sit and go nowhere. With middle size empires it doesnt happen they are capable of stacking 4 armys and reinforce every time they are able to. ( i can upload the save game in varius moment of the campaigns, if the modders want to see what happens exactly).

In a recent campaign with Ptolemaic empire, it becomes interesting, even if the seleukids doesnt behave too good. Becouse Parthian Empire, Ethiopia, Rome, Lydia, and other factions were really hard to handle. The most interesting thing is that: when i reduce Seleukids to 2 cities, they started to recruit again, and right now they have a 3 stacks army. For this reason i am sure that: if an empire reaches certain size, it will broke, and just that. I have some basic idea about coding, and i know that fixing IA behavior is HARD as hell. So i find 2 possible solutions for this.

1) Satappries and vassals: If IA starts with large domains but independ in their administration, the problem will fix for sure. and is going to make a good challenge to take a large empire (as it should be) i have fought against 2 or 3 small kingdoms and i can assure u. is it very very hard. specially if u are outnumbered. One possible thing is: if the AI reach some size, script it to split, in 2 or 3 parts that become allies, it is a lot easier than coding the IA, and will make a very good solution for this.

2) Make the empire live and civil wars more hard in the moment that the player reach some size: it is obviusly, that the problem of large empires is a possible of late game. if is really hard to rule a large empire u will find ourself outnumbered figthing a huge ammount of sattapries invading your self, playing for examine as roman empire, tryng to invade eastern empires, will become a very very hard challenge, even u already have beaten gaul tribes, carthage, german tribes, etc.

[alhoon]

All of R2TW games have that problem with large empires. In my opinion the only possible solution is what you suggested: Satrapies. Not Client states that can declare war to others and drug the parent empire in, but satrapies.
The way I am thinking of it (not sure how much of this can be done) is:
Once an empire conquers a whole province, spawn up a faction there as a satrapy and give the satrapy the whole province.
Give the AI a +200% or something on money from satrapies to recompense for the lost revenue and greater recruitment pools so that the satrapies won't mass rebel for becoming stronger than the parent faction. Perhaps for the boss faction a pop growth bonus and replenishment bonus per "satrapy level" as well. Giver the boss faction a slight bonus to defend its lands according the number of satrapies as well like giving them bonus XP to garisson troops or attack\defence bonuses in home ground etc. That way the Player would be incentivized to take on the satrapies first before going for the capital of the enemy.
Satrapy levels could be like 1 satrapy, 2-3 satrapies, 4-5 satrapies, 6-8 satrapies, 9-12 satrapies, 13+ satrapies.

[PietrolEremita]

While this problem exists, I rarely notice it as the ai needs to grow to a multi-province (4+) empire to be noticed. Carving out an empire into province-sized satrapies is definitely too trigger happy.

In my Baktrian campaign I just finished a 30 turn long war (plus many more to prep it) against Atropatkan. They had 3 provinces and a few more regions and had no problem Fielding 5.5 stacks and countering my moves. Many Baktrians died. This is on N/N and as a tw veteran since Shogun 1

[Warrockk]

That would be perfect, expecially in Rise of The Republic

[alhoon]

While this problem exists, I rarely notice it as the ai needs to grow to a multi-province (4+) empire to be noticed. Carving out an empire into province-sized satrapies is definitely too trigger happy.

In my Baktrian campaign I just finished a 30 turn long war (plus many more to prep it) against Atropatkan. They had 3 provinces and a few more regions and had no problem Fielding 5.5 stacks and countering my moves. Many Baktrians died. This is on N/N and as a tw veteran since Shogun 1

Yes, but once you meet a 15 regions Empire you'll steamroll them unless you happen to be unlucky and their armies happen to be close to yours.

[Dresden]

One idea we had to combat this was to have army spawns for Macedon when playing as Rome (or the other way around when playing as Macedon). I just haven't had time to implement it, other things keep coming up.

[alhoon]

One idea we had to combat this was to have army spawns for Macedon when playing as Rome (or the other way around when playing as Macedon). I just haven't had time to implement it, other things keep coming up.

That would probably work too...

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Moved to: DeI Strategy Guides and Gameplay Discussion.

[PietrolEremita]

I am currently playing Rome and I just started my invasion of Carthage around turn 100.

Very early in the game they got attacked by Syracuse and I observed the 60 turn long war very carefully.
Syracuse had free reign in land in Sicily, as we observed many times in a large empire, all of Carthage's army were in Spain fighting. Syracuse attacked Akragas many times but failed because... Chartage had 2 full stack fleets defending the city and counterattacking. Finally, 40 turns after the war started, a full stack appeared in Sicily and Chartage won.

Now that I started my invasion, a similar pattern emerged. No stacks to be seen (Carthage has been fighting all of Spain since the beginning of the game, all their stacks are there and they are slowly winning).
BUT: 4 full stack navies are fighting me very effectively, keeping my invasion force at Bay and plundering every undefended city. I have no doubt that, was I going to loiter in Africa conquering very little for a couple of dozen turns, eventually the army will show up, like it happened during the Syracusan war I just described. The problem is that the player will use those turns to conquer most of their empire, crippling them.

Given the above, and many other campaign's evidence, I am starting to believe that the problem is not so much the AI not knowing how to run a large empire, but the AI being set on Aggressive. On Aggressive, probably the AI loathes having idle stacks and they also diplomatically (and intelligently) focus on one front so all their armies are there fighting.
If they get attacked on another front they would need to March some stacks back home... But in DEI that takes forever. Fleets, instead, are much faster and they do come back to defend.

I know and remember why the ai was set to aggressive though, and I don't think that the solution would be to tone down the aggressivity. Maybe change the ai to something less aggressive once an empire reaches a certain size? Can it be done?
This would effectively "cap" an empire's size but it might defend more effectively. Of course ideally we would "tell" the ai that their core provinces are more valuable in some way, so that they would prioritize defending them, but with aggressive ai behavior maybe defense is just not something it considers, but to defend a large empire in this game, given the slow movement on land, you effectively need to have idle armies.

I also had another idea that might help Carthage and other large empire with a lot of navies. I suspect that the current balancing of navies (high stats for marines but large land penalty when disembarked) might make those empire's think that sending the navies back to fight back the player's invasion is enough... I noticed Chartage being pretty overconfident of their navies' abilities, especially against land armies.
What might help (and it might convince the ai that navies' are not sufficient, so call back armies) is to balance navies' the other way.

Make marines horribly weak very low armor, no shield, low-ish attack/defense... (Who wears armor/shield on a ship? That's a sure fire way to drown). Then eliminate the penalty for marines when disembarked (they will perform exactly the same on land) but make the penalty for land armies at sea huge (-90% to all stats seems reasonable).
That way the balance is preserved (marines can't take garrisoned cities... As they shouldn't, and even elite land units lose combat with strong marines at sea)

[jonhgalt]

I am currently playing Rome and I just started my invasion of Carthage around turn 100.

Very early in the game they got attacked by Syracuse and I observed the 60 turn long war very carefully.
Syracuse had free reign in land in Sicily, as we observed many times in a large empire, all of Carthage's army were in Spain fighting. Syracuse attacked Akragas many times but failed because... Chartage had 2 full stack fleets defending the city and counterattacking. Finally, 40 turns after the war started, a full stack appeared in Sicily and Chartage won.

Now that I started my invasion, a similar pattern emerged. No stacks to be seen (Carthage has been fighting all of Spain since the beginning of the game, all their stacks are there and they are slowly winning).
BUT: 4 full stack navies are fighting me very effectively, keeping my invasion force at Bay and plundering every undefended city. I have no doubt that, was I going to loiter in Africa conquering very little for a couple of dozen turns, eventually the army will show up, like it happened during the Syracusan war I just described. The problem is that the player will use those turns to conquer most of their empire, crippling them.

Given the above, and many other campaign's evidence, I am starting to believe that the problem is not so much the AI not knowing how to run a large empire, but the AI being set on Aggressive. On Aggressive, probably the AI loathes having idle stacks and they also diplomatically (and intelligently) focus on one front so all their armies are there fighting.
If they get attacked on another front they would need to March some stacks back home... But in DEI that takes forever. Fleets, instead, are much faster and they do come back to defend.

I know and remember why the ai was set to aggressive though, and I don't think that the solution would be to tone down the aggressivity. Maybe change the ai to something less aggressive once an empire reaches a certain size? Can it be done?
This would effectively "cap" an empire's size but it might defend more effectively. Of course ideally we would "tell" the ai that their core provinces are more valuable in some way, so that they would prioritize defending them, but with aggressive ai behavior maybe defense is just not something it considers, but to defend a large empire in this game, given the slow movement on land, you effectively need to have idle armies.

I also had another idea that might help Carthage and other large empire with a lot of navies. I suspect that the current balancing of navies (high stats for marines but large land penalty when disembarked) might make those empire's think that sending the navies back to fight back the player's invasion is enough... I noticed Chartage being pretty overconfident of their navies' abilities, especially against land armies.
What might help (and it might convince the ai that navies' are not sufficient, so call back armies) is to balance navies' the other way.

Make marines horribly weak very low armor, no shield, low-ish attack/defense... (Who wears armor/shield on a ship? That's a sure fire way to drown). Then eliminate the penalty for marines when disembarked (they will perform exactly the same on land) but make the penalty for land armies at sea huge (-90% to all stats seems reasonable).
That way the balance is preserved (marines can't take garrisoned cities... As they shouldn't, and even elite land units lose combat with strong marines at sea)

I have to refute your position. first, for some reason the IA of carthage seems to be one the better scripted, specially in the early game. it took for me like 150 turns to take carthage completly out of the map, and from the moment i attacked siccily, to the moment i get the last spain city, they defended with everything they have. I have observed that the AI behaves worse when their empire is splitted by sea, but that doesnt happen with carthage, or rome. (at least until turn 200). Maybe this is becouse they are speccially treated due to being the center of the game? i dont know.

But it the case of Makedon, in the Wrath of Sparta Mod. They just doesnt move, i have use the no fog of war mod, to see what happens with makedon in different moments of time, and i can say: they dont recruit, dont focus, dont defend dont attack. i suspect that this happens becouse they they are spplited by sea. (apart from being a huge empire). i have seen in some campaigns the movement of other IAS. And it is very interesting, for example, in my campaign as ptolemaic, by turn 150 leugoz have a huge nation in europe, and they dont seem to be recruiting anything. but in my actual game as Rome, the IA is behaving FAR better. (as i say i try to see what is happen in the world every 50 turns).

i would really love to know, how your campaign advances.

[PietrolEremita]

What you said does not refute my position in any way, just points out that there seems to be campaign specific issues with a specific campaign.

Are major (Rome, Chartage) and minor factions using different AIs?