Advice for Bablyon

[david.brewster]

I'm having trouble getting use out of the chariots, medium Babylonian infantry, and their cavalry units, mostly against Egypt. Any advice for the military side of things, playing as Babylon?

[Surt]

So you have defeated Persia?

[duirixuanyan]

3 level government first, then update your military unit. After this, make a lot of units and declare war to the countries which have less combat power.

[Surt]

Alternatively build larger armies than the enemy, remember to stock up on flankers/cavalry and battle in plains so your army has a larger frontage than the enemy. This only works at the start of the game and at some special situations later.

[Pocus]

I'm curious to know how you'll fare in the long term against Persia!

[Surt]

I'm curious to know how you'll fare in the long term against Persia!

Me too, haven't yet been able to survive against Persia as Babylon, even on balanced.

[Surt]

I just had to restart as Babylon, and defeated Egypt with a 1000 legacy ... I will get them back Farao!!! then time to defeat the Persians ...

[Surt]

Short AAR of a balanced Babylon game.

Build up:
Go strongly for culture with a lot of pops from the start, to stay in the green zone.
Build a lot of culture and building that would give culture once they got the bonus goods.
Build some food and infra to support building more culture.
Build some defensive military buildings to prevent too many regions to just be overrun.
I used the army before getting into the first war to fill out provinces or create new provinces where I had too few regions in. Basically a stripe of regions along the desert.
Here I should have gone for Cilicia also as it has archers, did that after some time.
Build up an army that can go to width 16 include 6 cav/chariots, fill up with skirmishers. The chariots are the most powerful units for a long time.

First defensive wars:
Persia always seems to dow as soon as we have a common boarder or they take Assyria, Egypt usually dows after the Persians have.
The Gherha (just south of Babylon) usually want to ally, but in this game joined with Persia and Egypt dowing me.
Here I chose to ignore Egypt and try to stop Persia, sometimes you can kill off their army if they are not yet fielding 16 wide armies.
I managed to kill off the first army, but the second contained 8 Immortals and was full width which too a lot of attrition to defeat, the third army then made mince meat of my main army.
At that point I peace out quickly to Persia and Egypt using whatever including legacy, but not territory.
Taking down Gherha.
Saba joined the fun at some point, had to buy them off as I wasn't making any progress before the next dow on me.

Post war:
Getting to glorious solves the problem with Persian sniping my regions.
Here I took the 3rd region in Cilicia I think so I could make archers.
Split my army and filled up so I had some (4-8?) archers in both and added front line units to make them 14-16 wide nearly 2 rows deep, slightly smaller than my usual 40+ units at around 24-30 units.

Economy:
Gold drives the war effort, so build some mercantile building.
Babylon has little metal so a part of the commerce building should be metal producing. Having a large metal surplus gives a handy income when selling it, I didn't get to do that a lot in the first part of the game.
No special focus on manpower building as your gold income soon limits what you can build.

2. round of wars.
Persia and Egypt attacked once again and I peaced quickly out with Persia and tried taking on Egypt. The war apparently needs to run a few turns before the attacker can be bought off at a reasonable price.
Saba joined the fun at some point.
As I was making no progress against Egypt I peaced out with them too a lot cheaper than first time. They had a better economy/MP than me.
Continued war with Saba until they gave me a few regions to fill out my provinces, didn't take any region that couldn't join a province.
Added a 3rd army

Post war:
At some point I improve to an new empire level where the I dump to the bottom of the legacy gain.
Here I should have put more pops into culture and avoided going to old.
Took some more desert provinces.
Build a lot of military building too in a try to get better generals, should have concentrated on fewer regions to get to level 6 there for the military academies.

3. round of wars
Only Egypt and Saba attacked, Persia didn't surprisingly.
Held out against Egypt for a time, then peaced out.
Took more regions from Saba to fillout or create Provinces I already had regions in.
Also getting frustrated that I only had strength 2 infantry and noted that merc Hoplites actually were 3 times better which I should have noted after the first wars (too expensive for the first 2 defensive wars).
Had to build Merc recruiters as I apparently didn't have any anywhere!!! which too some turns to get one offered, should have build one much earlier.
Filled out depleted armies with Merc Hoplites, as many as I could afford, at start 4 per army, then 8 and 10 later.

Post war:
Build a navy in the mediterran to intercept Egyptian invasions and blockades.
Steady increase in empire.

Pacification campagns in Saba.
Took a province and some lose regions in effort to make them a client state, didn't succeed in the first war but in the 2nd.
Finally got into the green zone again, dumping down a lot of times.

Revenge wars on Egypt
With Sabe pacified it was time to attack Egypt.
My 3 armies slowly worked themselves in to Egypt taking the capital.
At that point they ended a war in the south and moved north retaking some provinces.
They also had some insurrections which cost them 3 regions that I promptly too.
Then I decided to cash in for 2000 legacy (around what I had payed them off in earlier wars) and 3 objective regions.
Lot of regions without provinces now.
The 2nd war was a repeat of the first, but taking out border regions and 2 objective regions.
At this point I was in the lead with legacy.
Made a 4th army to hunt Egyptian raiders.


Final wars
Persia attacked again near the end of the game with Egypt joining a few turns later.
Finally was able to stand head to head with Persia with my heavy infantry, yes the immortals were still stronger.
I was able to win most battles and started a march on Persepolis, Armenia and Anatolia with a holding force in Assyria.
Got to golden age at some point.
Had to send one of the armies to Egypt to hold them back for a few turns.
Liberated Taurus as a client state, got the Comagene province, Elam and the remaining Phamphylia, the latter was gifted to my new CS.
Didn't manage to settle with Egypt.

Won with twice Persia and Egypts score.
But I think I could have done much better with:
building a single Merc recruitment center much earlier.
Keeping out of old kingdom would have gotten better units and golden age much earlier.

I wonder if there is no elite Babylonian unit like the Immortals?
There was no replacement for the chariots when upgrading to a new tech level.

[poesel71]

Thanks for that but what does 'to dow' mean?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dow doesn't make sense.

[Surt]

Thanks for that but what does 'to dow' mean?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dow doesn't make sense.

dow = declaration of war.

I've started an AAR in the AAR forum to try to document better, but of course its not running anywhere like this first game ....

[Pocus]

You (mostly) did it!!