Dynasty by Dynasty a Cooperative Seleucid AAR

[Hyding]

This was originally posted by mistake in the FGII AAR section

I plan on submitting an AAR from the perspective of the first ruler and then open it up to the first person who asks for the job of successor. Upon my death I will post a final memorial entry and a save file of the start of the turn where my death is announce by the game. We will allow 5 days for the next person on a list to state they will take up the AAR before allowing the next person on a list to take up the tale.

The most important thing will be to pass on a save of the turn after you pass away but it would be nice to include the end turn saves of each of your turns at some point. Everyone should post some type of AAR a brief summary of your entire reign or a detailed turn by turn including screenies. As long as it moves the Seleucid timeline along. we will have better and worse tellers of this AAR just like we will have better and worse players.

We may have some hick-ups and we may have some trolls but at worst we can always back up to an earlier save file and drive on.

I think that at the worst we can get some fun and good discussions.

With a game of this length this can go on for a long time so I might have to bump folks down the list if they don't take up the tale when their tiurn arrives or if they let the AAR stop for to long. But overall as long as we generate content discussion and entertainment it will be good for the game/forum and probably informative along with the rest of it.

I will set up the order of succession based on the order that people make posts asking for a spot. but feel free start posting securing your spots in the succession.

[Coolio_slith]

Hello, been a while since you posted but i would be interested. I used to do something similar with Crusader Kings II and it gave way to some interesting AARs.

Im still kinda new to Empires, would that be an issue?

[Hyding]

Sorry for the extended break I am just recovering from covid. I have not even been reading AAR or watching youtubes let alone playing and games myself.

But am back to normal other than being weak with low endurance.

I

[Hyding]

I did get some play in before I got ill and will be posting updates over the next couple of days.

[Hyding]

Hello, been a while since you posted but i would be interested. I used to do something similar with Crusader Kings II and it gave way to some interesting AARs.

Im still kinda new to Empires, would that be an issue?

Currently Coolio you will run the second Seleucid ruler.

Nothing wrong with being new. A mix of skill levels among our rulers will just make things more interesting....we can hope for great player getting the parts of long lived rulers but that wont be completely in our hands.

When t is your turn just leave us some record of your rule ....turn by turn or a summary.....it might be a good way to pick the brains of readers by asking advice from your court (other players)

[Hyding]

Seleucos the starting ruler of the Seleucid Empire is and impressive leader. Charismatic, Superior Military abilities and Very Good Administrative abilities all give him a wide range of useful modifiers.

Seleucos had several times been appointed satrap of Babylon during the shifting politics and struggles of the early Wars of the Diadochi but ultimately aroused the ire of Antigonos and fled to Ptolemy with a mere 50 horsemen as companions. After serving as an admiral for Ptolemy in the Aegean, Syria and Cyprus with up to 200 ships Seleucos fought with Ptolemy at the battle of Gaza and defeated the son of Antigonos and the southern Antigonid forces invading Egypt.

As Ptolemy prepared to advance into Syria against Antigonos he gave Seleucos 800 infantry and 200 cavalry to reestablish his satrapy in Babylon. Gathering 2000 additional men enroute to Babylon, After arriving he defeated the combined armies of two local Macedonian generals in a surprise night attack killing one of them and convincing almost all of their 17,000 men to join him. With these forces he quickly secured the loyalty of the eastern regions of Alexander's empire. He was very popular with Macedonian and Hellenistic troops and leaders left in these areas. Seleucos brought these areas back into the struggles of the Diadochi as more than just revenue sources.

Seleucos brings us up to the game start by adding regions west and northwest of Babylon that had come to hate Antigonos for the devastation he had inflicted in his multiple campaigns against various opponents through the area.

Antigonos has many enemies but has developed a serious dislike for Seleucos....but this time Seleucos will have an army almost as large and an empire of 13 provinces instead of a single satrapy.

[Hyding]

Turn Two 309 BCE

My apologies but I'm unsure how to post images to these forums. I have done this many times in the Matrix forums but I'm missing something here. I would appreciate a little advice.

In the meantime I am going to move forward with some text based discussion just to get this long delayed AAR going.

After playing the first turn we still have 13 provinces and 52 provinces. Our overall loyalty is good at 84 but we have more slaves than citizens165/179 in our population and long term that will cause issues. Our ways to adjust that are growth in free citizen population, freeing slaves or selling slaves. Selling slaves would generate income but would decrease our overall population. I hope adjust this quickly enough by growth and emancipation.

We start at war with the Antigonids they will be our first target and the concentration point for most of my forces. My western forces will concentrate towards Charboras. Light troops primarily archers will be raised along the route to join the main armies and ensure all frontline troops will have support units in any battle. Additional hoplites and phalanxes will be forwarded as they are raised. I will avoid battle with the main Antigonid force until I have scouted it and ensured good odds in any battle. I hope to allow it to suffer attrition in movement or sieges and will cut supply lines for a few turns before engaging if possible.

I expect the Mauryans on my Eastern borders to attack me almost as soon as our peace expires so I only have about 5 years to gather an army to at least control them. I will probably have to use a Fabian strategy and try to take or retake provinces away from their main army to keep the war score close and try to generate a peace in our first war close to the initial status quo. Hopefully by a second war we will be able to handle our western neighbors and have an army to deal with the Mauryans at a war's start.

Heavily moved population into culture production in the first turn but I still lost 10 places (to 44th). My Historical Cultural Value improved by 98 and decadence increase was small but to many other nations are apparently doing better. I have invested heavily in culture buildings but they will arrive slowly over the several turns. I will have to take extreme steps with my population allocation to try to stay out of the bottom levels of the CDR list.

Speaking of producing culture buildings....of my 52 provinces I set 12 of them building culture/loyalty, 14 to agriculture and 15 to infrastructure. Six were set to military projects 5 walls and a single stable. Only five regions undertook financial projects in the first turn.

[Hyding]

Again any help on how to post screenies in the Slitherine forums would be great.

[Gray Fox]

Take the screen shot by using the "Prnt Scrn" key on your keyboard.
Open the directory where your screen shots go. Mine is Documents\My Games\FieldOfGloryEmpires\SCREENS
Open the screenshot file with Paint.
Edit the picture and save it as a .jpg to make it smaller.
When you post at slitherine, to the bottom left of the screen where you enter the text is a menu with "Attachments".
Click this to enter up to three pictures.

[Hyding]

Thank you Gray Fox. I had tried to use the insert image button at the to of the reply screen.

I had tried to use the attachment button but I messed something up.

Your post made me look at it again..

Thanks.....and thanks for the quick response!

[Gray Fox]

You're most welcome! Good luck with your AAR!

[Hyding]

The tactics and decisions of army movements and battle prep may not be of interest to those of you who have played hundreds or thousands of turns but I thought it might have value to new players or those who are just scoping out the game.

I show a lot of hours of game play on steam but I tend to leave the game running for days on my laptop and just play the occasional turn as RL allows. This highlights how very stable this game runs. Even on a very low capacity laptop this game can sit for days and then run without a hitch after only a maybe slight delay after restarting the first turn. I have never really seen anything that matched this. Koodoes to the team and a thumbs up for the engine.

Seleucid armies have the green banners.

Antigonid Push T3.jpg (449.7 KiB) Viewed 3543 times

Well it appears the Antigonid main army Army #1 makes it appearance at Corsote. I thought at first I had over looked Antigonus taking Phaliga on turn two but no...the Antigonids blitzed two Independent regions from Syria in a single turn. They each should have had 9 units to defend themselves. Their army # 1 seems to have taken about 4 hits but the question remains about whether of not there is a second Antigonid force in Phaliga that I have not yet detected?

I am able to evaluate the composition of the Antigonids main force and as expected it's heavy troops have an edge in quality to my main force. I have an advantage in archers and a slight advantage in the quality of my cavalry but overall I think it would take really good luck to secure a win.

I did expect a move towards Babylonia as the most likely course for Antigonus and planned to cut behind them and let attrition weaken them. In the end I blink i expect Army 1 under Azinacas (a 2-1 general) to move towards Babylonia but decide not to risk any chance of Azinacas catching portions of my forces before they unite. I decide to use the Euphrates between us and pull back to allow newly raised forces to safely join my main force. I can then decide to cut his supply lines or follow his army to Babylonia or Chaldea which should be able to withstand several turns of siege. The region I decide to use is the Thiaibus region which will allow me to add armies with 2x Armored hoplites 2x Citizen hoplites and a phalanx along with two each javilen cav and provincial archers to join my main army. That force should have a clear advantage with early archery plus support in the main combat and flanking advantages...it should overcome Azinacas advantages in the central hoplite fight. Whichever force manages to be the attack will also have a slight advantage since the general of each force is rated 2 for attack and 1 for defense.

[Hyding]

T3 Mauryan Border.jpg (422.13 KiB) Viewed 3527 times

The cavalry units I moved to my eastern borders have spotted two Mauryan armies which based on the ledgers should be all the forces they currently have. This is my first look a Mauryan army in this game.

They look a little scary to me at first since most of their melee troops are also excellent archers. On the other hand I have games against the Roman legions and their pila and the Mauryan armies don't have that kind of melee ability. Unfortunately I have few hoplite units in the east. A couple of armored hoplites and a few citizen hoplites are scattered around the east. I have a good start of various provincial cavalry units are converging on the border along with enough eastern archers to match the missile power of the smallerof the two Muaryan armies.

It is heavy troops i will be lacking. Any additional armored hoplites will be trickling in and will be unable to arrive before my peace with Maurya expires. It actually seems as quick to send heavy troops from Persian Gulf ports near Babylon as it it does to march them from Persis. The Mesopotamian recruiting areas can at least produce units quicker. Since the cost of Phalanxes increase with each additional one built I have reached a ceiling on those units until I can increase my treasury. equipment, manpower and metal are not a problem it is the cash.

[Hyding]

I converted almost every available population to culture production last turn and managed to double my Historical Culture Value increase. In spite of this I plummeted 24 places in the HVC standing placing myself deep into the bottom third of the current 77 nations. Just to make it better I get stuck with an aging token.

Of the other Diadochi states Antigonos is 8 places above me and his decline and problems closely mirror my own. Macedon is near the top of the of the list and is stable and the Ptolemies are just below the top third. My eastern rivals the Mauryans also get the benefits of being in the top third.

There seems to be no quick way out of the basement. I will have to await for culture producing buildings begin to finish. I will need to avoid any decadence increase whenever possible and jump at any chance to decrease decadence.

My building choices will only shift slowly as existing choices finish. Culture buildings will continue to be the priority with more emphasis shifting slowly towards income production.

HCV T3.jpg (158.61 KiB) Viewed 3516 times

[Hyding]

The attachment Antigonids chase my army T4.jpg is no longer available

First of all I'd like to mention that I overlooked the very direct land connection between my province of Charboras and the Syrian independent province of Phaligia. While i thought it was not likely I was worried about a second Antigonid army located in Phaligia. actually if there was an army there my forces Charboras would have spotted it...but I was not aware of that.

I was surprised by the Antigonid general Azinacas moving into Busaria I had expected a move towards #1 Babylonia or Chaldea, or #2 Charboras with Busaria as a third possibility. It seems Azinacas targeted my small reinforcement column that he had sight of. Basically I was chicken stuff. I was afraid if I had concentrated at Charboras or Busaria there was a possibility Azinacas might have been able to have fought them ln two separate battles. I concentrated at Thilibus because it let two of my three reinforcing columns safely join my main army under Philometor even though it would cost an extra turn if the enemy moved moved towards Babylonia.

Faced with Azinacas north of the Euphrates I realize that I can probably engage him before he can dodge combat or be joined by any help from south of the river. On the other hand the center of his line will still enjoy a qualitative edge. Almost a third of my force will lose a star of experience since they need a turn to adjust to the command they have only joined this turn, His army has 17 units so they can cover the 14 unit frontage allowed by the open terrain. He has as edge in the middle....my cav is slightly superior and some of his cav will face some of my weaker hoplites....but I outnumber him 32 units and most of my superiority are missile troops. Those will be able to get a first shot to tire or exhaust his frontline before we engage in melee combat and then almost all of my combats will be resolved with a +2 for having support troops and only a few of his will. I think this is a probable win and decide to strike before he makes another move that surprises me or before additional Antigonid forces show in the area.

I now expect a win but am afraid it might be expensive and Antigonos has fa morer more funds to recruit units with.

Antigonids chase my army T4.jpg (411.15 KiB) Viewed 3434 times

As it turns out we each lose two units killed in the main combat...the Antigonids loss two cav units and I lose a cav and a lower quality hoplite. The key remained my large edge in the early missile exchange and the much larger number of combats where i had an advantage with a +2 support modifier in the combat. Between the initial lowering of the enemies combat abilities and my edge in support I was able to win 9 of the 14 engagements in this battle in spite of an overall quality edge that the enemy held. There was also a certain amount of luck to come out as cleanly as I can.

[Hyding]

Hmm

I slipped with my editing and lost a couple of screenies and decided it was easier to just post them here,

First Battle.jpg (401.92 KiB) Viewed 3432 times

This screenie porperly belongs with the previous post and shows the situation at the start of the battle once I attacked the Antigonids main army.

T5 Antigonid survivors.jpg (209.92 KiB) Viewed 3432 times

The second screenie shows an Antigonid army now under Theopomes a 1-2 offense/defense general. I do not now if the previous general was killed or just replaced. Ten of their seventeen units were destroyed but one of their phalanxes and the Silver Shields and Companion cav survived. All surviving units are badly damaged.

They did withdraw south across the Euphrates and the river allows him to completely break contact when I attempt to pursue. What I do get out of pursuing is an Antigonid province. I am so deep in the hole with my Historic Cultural Ratio (HCR) that a few hostile regions won't have much short term impact. The peace with Muaryan will expire soon so I need to generate more positive war score instead of just waiting for the Antigonids to grow tired of fighting. So even though I do not want to permanently take Antigonid regions at the moment I need to take them to increase the chances of forcing a peace more quickly.

[Hyding]

I have actually completed the rule of Seleucus and I will be posting start file for the next ruler for interested parties closer to the end of my portion of the AAR. I decided to game up to Seleucus Nicators passing instead of waiting and playing at the pace of my AAR posts. I think this will also help my AAR move along a bit more quickly.

I have already sent a PM to coolio-slith offering to send him the start turn file for the next ruler at once. That way he can get a head start on playing out his rule.

Coolio has been to only one so far to express interest in carrying this AAR forward.

[Hyding]

We do need somebody to step up to take up AAR after the second ruler passes or if coolio does not still wish to post an AAR for the second ruler.

Hopefully coolio will have a long and productive rule but it COULD end after just a few turns so it would be helpful if we knew who the next players would be.

To repeat what has been said earlier all you need is the game and a willingness to post at least a summary of your rule and post your last turn file or the start file for the next rule.

Your skill or experience level is unimportant. New players will have a chance to ask questions of or be coached by more experienced players in this forum while they making posts on their part of the AAR. Experienced players could give advice and explanations of their play if they wish. Part of the point of this Cooperative AAR is to have different levels of play through the game instead of having one of us running hundreds of years of single minded policy. Even if skill levels of all of our players are similar there can be differing ideas on how to approach differing problems. If you make changes will there be time for them make real impact before you have to pass the torch? You will be able explain your ideas and plans your successor. Of course they will not be beholden to continue them.

if anyone wishes to continue an AAR past the death of their ruler feel free to do so. Just do it in a different thread to avoid confusion.

[Hyding]

To be clear opportunities to take the role of one of our rulers will be offered in the order folks request them. So chime in soon.

[Hyding]

I think this is a good time to discuss the objectives that the game has been setting for me. Winning the game is based on scoring Legacy points for your faction. Each of the objectives you hold will score you a Legacy point each turn. This is a good way to score legacy points early in the game and you have the added benefit of removing an aging token each time you gain an objective.

Objectives are assigned based somewhat on an expanding circle of targets of historic or logical importance to your faction. You are not forced to take them but after a few rulers the objectives will begin disappear after 20 years/turns and you will lose their potential benefits. As you gain objectives or they disappear the game will slowly assign new ones moving to keep your current target objectives at four. You can accumulate a large number of taken objectives.

Judea: The first Objective the game gave me was Iudea which I have no interest in pursuing during my rule. At the quickest I would have to take 5 regions to get it. While I would threaten other Antigonid regions I would need another field army to protect my main frontier if I divert a substantial force to open this new front. In addition it would put me into contact with at least three potential enemies; iudea, the Nabatenes and the Ptolemies in addition to the Antigonids.

Issus: This is a more practical early objective. Depending on the route chosen it can be taken by conquering 3 or 4 regions. I am reluctant to keep any regions after making peace until I can get my HCV at out of the bottom third of all factions. Recently conquered regions tend to have low loyalty and contribute adversely towards decadence with little of no culture value to offset it. It is probably my target for this war but I do not expect to keep it or any Antigonid regions in the first war. The Mauryans can start a war at any point. I will probably just settle peace quickly with the Antigonids with as much tribute/indemnities as possible.

Lycia: this was actually the 4th objective the game assigned me. This objective is 9 regions and a minimum of 8 turns of unopposed marching from the current frontier and further from our armies current positions on the Euphrates, Not a target during this war.

All three of these objective will be around more than 60 turns before they lose their objective status. I can leave them for a later war or one of my successors. Of course I regret any legacy points lost for the turns we do not hold these objectives. When my HCV values make my country more stable and my treasury permits two or three strong field armies these objectives will become much higher priorities.

Path to Lycia Obj.jpg (232.56 KiB) Viewed 3391 times

Mohenjodaro: The 3rd objective assigned to me is in the east. It turns out be the on map capital of the Mauryans and it is adjacent to our border. If I can get an advantage in the war I will take this objective as soon as possible...if I can hold the line until I can build up an army in the east quickly enough.

[