Slitherine

I used a lot of Diplomacy in the Burgundi campaign. So much so, that I ran out of rivals to make into Client States. So I switched to the Quick Game set up and won with twice the Legacy of my nearest opponent.

You start with one crappy island in the North, so it took me over 80 turns just to build an army to conquer the starting province. After that, I took what is Denmark and made the Pictes my CS. I was able to use Diplomatic transactions to eventually gain Italia Superior and Inferior, as well as the Capital and objective regions of Antigonids. Rome became my CS and the Antigonids then collapsed. After that, I expanded into Britain and Hybernia. I spent about every 20 turns making a different faction into my CS, eventually gaining Nubia and Aethiopia. I had gained the Nile Valley provinces in transactions with Aegyptus when I won the short game. Diplomacy can be a game changer.

Hey, nice ideas. I won't go into details here and just post my results so far (mb I will do in-depth AAR later). It's a different very active Burgundi strategy, where you are going for active play since turn 1. Played on Suicidal difficulty with Remote Regions mod integrated (part of EU Barbarorum) too.
Current state of affairs as of turn 31. We are walling off with the powerful factions (and reducing Decadence gain that way too) we will be trading with. If you want to be passive you can do so by disbanding most of your army and stationing 2 light horse stacks in regions aligned to Cheruscii, but that's not my style, cause I want to have constant action. You can also use neutral regions to control your partners by activating them with 1 throwaway unit. For example, that region that I'm transferring to Seleucids belonged to Averni 3 turns before. They started losing all their wars, so I activated neutrals and recaptured this region back:

Diplomatic map, Sparta can't fit in the list. We DOW'ed Cherusci 3 turns ago, while returning our forces from the successful Gothones expedition. Marcomani jumped them, so we will be going into war with them too when it's a perfect timing. Right now we will opt to spend two turns trying to sell them our provincial units (75x2=150 gold in exchange for 400 gold with 20+% chance).

Our invasion army with 1 elephant gifted by Carthage for free (23% chance). We will be splitting to 3 armies. Elephants and 4 speed units go north and then in the center capturing two regions, 5 speed units should be able to capture 3 regions in 2 turns (first turn is big river crossing ending up in the forest region), light horses run around trying to hold off any counter-advances and merge in to fight against main enemy army:

Typical transaction with Rome. Remember that 1 unit costs 75 gold. I hope you can do simple math:

Our first victim, Goths on the turn of DOW'ing them:

4 turns after that:

Typical Province development:

Some extra graphs:







Future plans:
Getting Old as fast as possible for Legacy gain (10 objectives, 3 from government status and more based on age, at least 4 palaces and 1 World Wonder to be at the top of Income) after taking the next objectives while building up all provinces. After that choosing one of the too:
- getting one or more regions from one of our friends Epirus, Macedonia, Athenes or Sparta (if they make any progress) by Diplomacy, buying mercenaries and conquering Greek World Wonders;
- advancing to Boii and making invasion fleet there, which I will proly do, since it's the most active, cheap and immediate option. Along the way switching to Decadent status for further Legacy increase.

Turn 41 state of affairs:

We are cutting through the Boii to get a quick Peace treaty and advance our main invasion force to the region I bought from Rome couple of turns later. We are disassembling all Boii structures and use Pillage command while advancing further into their territory to set them back:

For some reason Burgundi can't build any ships and after seizing merchant fleet nothing appears too, so we have to plan our invasion properly. If I had 50 turns win condition it would be an easy W after invading Carthage, Kyrene, Egypt and Belgae (possibly forming an allience with Macedon and moving through Alans and Seleucids later) to Humuliate them. All of them are in top 10 and you transfer their Legacy points on Peace treaty for easy 3x win. Since we have to survive for 100 turns I need to keep Belgae alive for longer (no threat to me and will harvest more Legacy points) and killing off Carthage meanwhile. Another reason is that we have to keep large stack around, cause our Ruler health is Poor (73 years old, closing in to 80) and Civil War will break out soon. Some extra graphs:








War against Cheruscii and Marcomani on Suicidal difficulty:
Turn 32:

Turn 33:

Turn 34:

Turn 35:

Turn 36:

Best fight of the war:


Tips on micromanagement: check how much production your province produces. Now make decisions on what do you want to build and how much Production Points you need to build that structure in reasonable time. Don't build anything in the other regions to not focus your efforts on one or two regions instead of 5. Dedicate pop from the less developed regions to growth or extra hammers. Usually you want cheap 35 PP food building (think as cheap extra pop on food) and roads in your region before moving on to that strategy. You can wait on roads tho cause the PP cost is too much, you have to make that decision (later in the game you can disassemble bad structures). Focus on infrastructure and loyalty/culture first, while ignoring most of the military buildings completely (walls, mercenaries and equipment buildings are great). Food and Commerce buildings are secondary and worth building for bonuses.

Jackpot:

Another update. I had to do 11 turns this time, cause the next turn is Civil War (I passed the turn already) and I want to save it for the next post. I ditched my previous idea of making peace with Boii as soon as I saw that their Capital doesn't have any walls and become my objective. So, first of all the most interesting part, some stats and future plans next:
Turn 41

Turn 42

Turn 43

Turn 44

Turn 45

Turn 45 (they DOW'ed me and won't sign a peace treaty after 77% and 86% rolls)

Turn 46

Turn 47

Turn 47 (my client state for food and fleet, as well as the perfect place from where I will launch Greek invasion in the future)

Turn 48:

Turn 48 (showing my civil war prep, 2 real 10+ unit stacks with elephants and noble cav and 2 light cav + Gothones Heavy Infantry in the north, where civil war stack spawns risk is low):

Turn 49:

Turn 50:

Turn 51:

Turn 52 (Carthage in flames):


Some graphs to show how I'm doing in economy, culture and Legacy departments compared to Suicidal AI:

Tip: we start to focus HCV after the initial pop growth/building priority. You want to get all your regions to 6 citizens at least before paying any attention to culture. Culture buildings will be growing your stockpile meanwhile, since you are going wide.
Think about buildings in terms of extra pop, e.g. farm with bonuses is equal to having 2,5 pop on food and the cost is less than growing extra pop if we funnel all Production Points to build it in one turn, while other regions can spread out between growth and culture without building anything. Remember that PP spread evenly across all build queues in the Province (100 PP towards 1 bulding or 25 PP to 4 at the same time), while Food spreads unevenly and prioritizes region where it being produced.

HCV.

Legacy (we will be draining 400+ points from Carthage soon and getting to the 2nd place even without that next turn):

Pop growth is priority as in any 4x game. Switch to culture/science later:

Just some history to showcase exponential growth.

Diplomacy map. From top units roster we don't have access to Armenian Cataphracts (Pontos, Kartli and Seleucids splitting province there and all of them our allies), Britonic Warbands (province split between 3 fractions), Comagene Cavalry (Antigonids and Comagenians splitting it, both hate us), Galatian Infantry (Antigonids and Pharphagenians, same deal here), Indian Chariots (they hate us), Lugii Noble Lancers (Gothones should be destroyed soon by our friends), Sarmatian Cataphracts (they constantly lose that one province..):


What is my checklist for the next turns?
- Deal with civil war and try to not fall into Decadent state too early (proly Dynamic Difficulty starve me on objectives on purpose for the last 10 turns to force Old Age);
- get Sardinia, one region in Spain and drain 400+ Legacy from Carthage;
- invade Greece with civil war stacks and Egypt with Carthage stacks at the same time;
- help Belgae to survive civil war to finish them off later in the game;
- get bunch of fun units from the other nations and get Peace Treaty with Arabs to attack Seleucid's through their territory after crushing Egypt (about 250+ Legacy) and Kyrene (another 400+ Legacy points)
- finish off Rome after Greece conquest. Let them grow more to get more challenging fights. Diplomacy allowed me to control their resources so far, but they are Young Empire now anyway with exactly 10 regions.

Since I'm very busy right now and update won't come for some time I decided to share my tactics on FoG 2 exported battles and how do I beat them clean.



Delayed Oblique Order attack means initial full frontage advancement, feigned retreat of one wing and a center (when there are about 6 squares between armies left) and advancement of one heavily reinforced flank.

It's the most effective tactic for beating both default AI and Rise of AI. I don't remember last time when I lost more than 2% of my forces in Empires Exported Battles. And the thing is you are down on quality and numbers there, since I'm playing on Suicidal Burgundi with 0-1 General against 1-2 2-2 when I'm on the attack, so this concept is bulletproof.

You never rely on terrain, cause dice roll are still too random and comparative advantages are insignificant. Basically what happens is that you shift (and split to kite) your line while being pursued by superior forces (learn the power of fallback and turn around) and therefore never engage with most of the enemy line until about turn 15-16 if you still wouldn't able to rack up 40% due to their numbers superiority.

Your reinforced flank 2nd rank slightly shifted to the outer side to make envelopment faster and easier. You never rely on pushbacks-breakthrough strategy, cause they are too random and slow. You aiming for guaranteed cohesion auto-drops instead. As you can imagine you don't cover full frontage at all and trying to put as many forces towards reinforced flank as you can.

Avoid doing 3rd rank, cause it's too slow and proly wouldn't end up mattering in the grand scheme of things. It's viable during development to make a column of about 4 ranks and stretch it out wide, gradually turning clockwise to envelop enemy, but again it can be too slow and I don't like this braindead approach much.

2% usually comes from sacrificing 1-2 light horse units for tactical tricks like taking away ZoC's to get into enemy rear super fast, blocking front squares to move in into proper position with right facing 1 turn faster, setting up flanks on HI on the next turn (they won't turn immediately if can be charged by mounted or non-lights on the same turn), blocking fallback squares for both yours and enemy cav, putting up ZoCs to prevent fallback action, body blocking secondary ZoCs to alter your troops path, flank attacks etc.

OFC you gotta know mechanics well. I mean stuff like: can I make this intermediate move after taking away enemy ZoC to execute that trap to take away my cav bounce fallback square and then move in front of my infantry to enable them put up Primary ZoC at >90 degree. Or can I charge this not engaged enemy after moving to this intermediate square first. Rise of AI has some troubles with miscalculating this, default AI don't ever use any of this and humans I rarely see make any intermediate moves.

Its chess terminology BTW. It is an unexpected in-between move that interrupts an apparently forced tactical sequence and changes the outcome of the game.

It's a follow on the previous post. It should give you an idea that I will be continuing this AAR soon, possibly on these weekends. Here's my fight against the main Spartan army during one of those turns. Its brief, but straight to the point:

Positioning:








Typical trap:








End results:

This time I won't write much info, but screenshots should be self-explanatory. I start this off by collapse of Antigonids Empire:

Meanwhile civil war happened in Burgundi country:




Our war with Carthage followed:






Epiros invasion and war with Sparta:







Future plans:


Diplomatic relationships:


Other economic stats:

SuitedQueens wrote: ↑Sat May 01, 2021 1:19 pm

What's that with Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedonia, et al, holding regions up there? How did that happen?

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 8:46 am What's that with Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedonia, et al, holding regions up there? How did that happen?

It's an active diplomacy strategy. Starting on turn 1 you review bottom of the detailed Diplomacy report for the other nations. Who's in war with who and then check battle reports on the world map (not in the log, it's too long) to see who's winning. Insult losing side every turn to get +5 Relationships with winners and bigger nations in general with Antigonids being an exclusion there. Top 5 trading partners are Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedonia and Seleucid's in no particular order.

After hitting 25 threshold trade (give away for free) one of your extra regions to reduce Decadence gain, form shield wall and choke points against your potential enemies and enable trade. You gain gold by selling provincial units and manpower by focusing on pop growth while optimizing Production Points distribution (remember that PP overflow works and you don't need to build in every region). You can see that I'm able to stay afloat and maintain constant wars/snowball because of that. And look at that Diplomatic map too.

Another tip is to use Medium Infantry and Light Cavalry to reduce upkeep/increase mobility and never assault besieged cities. Or use Heavy Infantry mercenaries (they have siege trait too) as a meat shield for that purpose.

SuitedQueens wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 1:17 pm

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 8:46 am What's that with Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedonia, et al, holding regions up there? How did that happen?

It's an active diplomacy strategy. Starting on turn 1 you review bottom of the detailed Diplomacy report for the other nations. Who's in war with who and then check battle reports on the world map (not in the log, it's too long) to see who's winning. Insult losing side every turn to get +5 Relationships with winners and bigger nations in general with Antigonids being an exclusion there. Top 5 trading partners are Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedonia and Seleucid's in no particular order.

After hitting 25 threshold trade (give away for free) one of your extra regions to reduce Decadence gain, form shield wall and choke points against your potential enemies and enable trade. You gain gold by selling provincial units and manpower by focusing on pop growth while optimizing Production Points distribution (remember that PP overflow works and you don't need to build in every region). You can see that I'm able to stay afloat and maintain constant wars/snowball because of that. And look at that Diplomatic map too.

Another tip is to use Medium Infantry and Light Cavalry to reduce upkeep/increase mobility and never assault besieged cities. Or use Heavy Infantry mercenaries (they have siege trait too) as a meat shield for that purpose.

And what do AI Rome, Carthage, Egypt, Macedonia, et al, benefit from that, since they're accepting the gifts of regions far away from their homelands?

This is not intended as any criticism at all against you. I'm only curious to understand to which extent this development is possible, since it goes against my own personal philosophy of a good, historically plausible game that these countries would suddenly gain control over a landlocked province in the other side of the world, and as such it's a criticism of the game mechanics themselves which allow such an ahistorical development to be possible. I very much like these types of games to also constitute historical simulations of some sorts.

Is this development of scattered region ownership common in other games and part of AI's own strategy?

When Diplomacy was added to the game at players' request, I developed a strategy for its use.

1. Acquire a region near to a target by trading money, manpower and metal in a diplomatic transaction. This allows your faction to offer special provincial units in a transaction, because you are now neighbors. Some of these units are worth more than a dozen Bargain Points each.

2. Next, do a more effective transaction for the target faction's objective regions, which slows their advance in Legacy points. It is also possible to take a faction Capital this way.

3. Acquire the rest of the regions in the provinces of those objective regions and form the provinces.

4. Move or build an army there and finish off the weakened faction.

This may not suit your idea of historical realism, however, if you play a small faction, like Burgundi, then a major faction can win the game before you can do anything militarily to stop them. The AI may have been updated to play this strategy as well.

Gray Fox wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 10:28 pm When Diplomacy was added to the game at players' request, I developed a strategy for its use.

1. Acquire a region near to a target by trading money, manpower and metal in a diplomatic transaction. This allows your faction to offer special provincial units in a transaction, because you are now neighbors. Some of these units are worth more than a dozen Bargain Points each.

2. Next, do a more effective transaction for the target faction's objective regions, which slows their advance in Legacy points. It is also possible to take a faction Capital this way.

3. Acquire the rest of the regions in the provinces of those objective regions and form the provinces.

4. Move or build an army there and finish off the weakened faction.

This may not suit your idea of historical realism, however, if you play a small faction, like Burgundi, then a major faction can win the game before you can do anything militarily to stop them. The AI may have been updated to play this strategy as well.

Thanks Gray Fox: I can't see that it involves giving away regions for free though, the way SuitedQueens described? But the result would be the same?

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 4:45 am Thanks Gray Fox: I can't see that it involves giving away regions for free though, the way SuitedQueens described? But the result would be the same?

Not at all. Regions, especially developed regions cost a lot of Bargain Points. You just don't have resources sub-turn 30 to do that and chance to do that is relatively low too and you can't afford transaction failing when you are going for turn 100 victory.

On suicidal difficulty your neighbors gain a lot of economical benefits and will try to be way more aggressive against you. On that difficulty your Decadence gain is extreme and almost impossible to offset if you are go into midgame and further. Therefore you give up your low pop extra regions, especially if they are not part of the province or you conquered them from someone else. They won't contribute anything in a short run except for Decadence and Loyalty troubles to the neighboring regions, and serve as easy targets for your more developed neighbors.

By doing that you also gain Neighbor bonus with distant factions, which makes getting Cooperation Treaty chance very reasonable and unlocks trading possibilities. If you check my previous posts then you will see that I acquired African Forest Elephants from Carthage. The main point here is getting stable money income by trading with 10+ nations at the same time and building diverse armies for fun and efficient conquest.

When you roll high value units (very rare) like Gothones Heavy Infantry, then you go for something more ambitious. I traded them for Rome, Carthage and Epirus regions to launch overseas invasions and got Dalmatae as my Client State. The thing is — buying non-native regions will get you nowhere economically, cause you will have about 0 loyalty there. When you are blitzing you want to sweep nations under the rag without absorbing them while they don't have a lot of fortifications, cause that's bad for Civil Wars (they will spawn giant stacks) and your economy/decadence. I just have to destroy Sparta cause Dynamic Difficulty made their heavily fortified regions into my goals.. Now I'm facing extra challenge of splitting my armies again, sending cavalry only to Paphlagonia and keeping all the infantry away to get +6 on sieges.

SuitedQueens wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:01 am Not at all.

These are two different strategies; yours and GrayFox's?

SuitedQueens wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:01 am Therefore you give up your low pop extra regions...
... serve as easy targets for your more developed neighbors.

These distant countries (Rome, Carthage, Egypt, etc) were already your neighbours when you gave those regions to them? Because what caught my attention was that their landlocked Germania regions were so far away from their (normal) heartlands.

Thinking from an AI perspective: How would owning the regions in question benefit them, causing them to accept that gift?

Also from an AI perspective: Have you seen the AI itself conduct this type of strategy?

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:22 am

Gray Fox strategy is geared towards endgame where you have tons of spare resources if you developed your economy right beforehand. It's valid but to passive and if I understand right Gray Fox gains relationships by sending gifts which is costly and slow endeavor, since you get only 1-3 friends at a time. Insulting allows free Relationship improving with 10+ nations every turn starting on turn 1.

You can give up/get any region anywhere when your Relationships get to +25 and they will eagerly accept your gift. Giving up any region for free always has 100% chance of happening.

SuitedQueens wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:30 am You can give up/get any region anywhere when your Relationships get to +25 and they will eagerly accept your gift.

Ah, ok: so distance between the two countries don't matter, as long as +25 relationship?

SuitedQueens wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:30 am Giving up any region for free always has 100% chance of happening.

Also interested in the following from an AI perspective:
How would owning the regions in question benefit them, causing them to accept that gift? (Is it only because it's free?)
Have you seen the AI itself conduct this type of strategy?

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:34 am Ah, ok: so distance between the two countries don't matter, as long as +25 relationship?

Yes, there is nothing more to add.

kronenblatt wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 6:34 am Also interested in the following from an AI perspective:
How would owning the regions in question benefit them, causing them to accept that gift? (Is it only because it's free?)
Have you seen the AI itself conduct this type of strategy?

I see very strange behaviors being practiced by AI on Suicidal difficulty. They almost never finish off their opponents and don't want their regions after peace deal. That's perfect for me too, cause it's difficult to trade with AI when they are in wars, cause their gold always below 100.

I didn't see AI ever used this staregy, but I learned a different one from them. Sometimes they randomly lose a battle against neutrals and neutrals start spawning armies after that. These armies attack the weakest regions around and you activate them by sending one light horse unit. This strategy helped me to conquer Gothones faster, free up Carthage and Averni regions I gave them for free. Usually these regions on the outer rim of your Empire, so it's easy to implement (Rome being exception to the rule here).