'whack a mole' seriously dampening my enthusiasm
By now I have started to play every available faction (with Odysseus at the bottom of enjoyment) and I am seriously getting put off by the interminable whack a mole play. Right now it's Achilles I am playing and I am at about turn 90. There isn't a single faction in the neighborhood, apart from the other three playable factions, that hasn't declared war on me during the course of the game. Well, those two 'saga' factions haven't, but only because of scripting I am guessing and they got confederated shortly after their events.
I mean, seriously? A one region faction with mildly positive attitude and no negatives (and no allies) declares war on me when I hold second rank? They didn't even have a shared province, so what's the deal? One of them was actually allied with Mycenae (fourth rank) and they happily joined their side as I hadn't pushed for an alliance with them in true Achilles style. Needless to say that I loaded an older save...
So between whacking them, thereby exterminating every faction in Greece except the 3 playable factions, and sending Achilles of to his duels I haven't been able to proceed with my 'saga' (defeat three Trojan armies at present) when my antagonist decides it's time to get into the mix as well. And does that with 6 full stacks within three turns of announcing so. So much for 'pax achillum'
They all lump together nicely so no chance of sniping the odd stack and as I can only field 2 attacking armies against their 3 defending (fairly well composed) armies I am looking at massive losses of highly experienced units if I attack. Top that with me having just defeated the faction leader (Lycia) 4-5 turns earlier when he came on a lonely visit and now he's back with an even better stack.
Did I mention that the antagonist is holding far less regions than me and that I simply cannot field more then 4 stacks? I nearly got caught with my pants down the first time Achilles went on a trip (removing his faction wide upkeep\food bonus) and the second time when he went into the scripted rage, which got immediately followed by the next white rage (the next 'saga' had already been completed and was queuing up) and resulted in 20 turns of 30% deduction of everything while I had to recapture regions on opposite sides of my empire. That included two vital food producing regions...
While I appreciate an aggressive AI this whack a mole\kamikaze business simply doesn't make sense and I am starting to appreciate that I got the game for free because right now I am in no mood to continue playing.
Last edited by Gigantus; August 27, 2020 at 10:27 PM.