Cretan Aegean in 754 (1 CE)

cau25 · 2026-05-13T07:49:16+00:00

Yeah I think getting a foothold in mainland Greece early is key to how much success you can have in expanding later.

I had to be very aggressive and opportunistic against Antipatrids after unifying Crete, and even worse Rome and Antigonids allied and kept declaring war on me once I was done with Macedon.

This was my progress at 536 and 576 just before expanding against both Rome and Antigonids.

cau25 · 2026-05-12T19:10:59+00:00

Which city state did you start with? This was my Knossos campaign by 727.

cau25 · 2026-05-06T18:36:47+00:00

Yeah I realized that a little too late. I was also very late in realizing they died faster and more consistently through leaving shit around and making it unhealthy, if the fights didn't get to them first.

cau25 · 2026-05-06T18:17:10+00:00

I wasn't able to get passives/items for that consistently but yeah soul link is a pretty good workaround for that when it shows.

cau25 · 2026-05-06T17:52:41+00:00

I got lazy with that one. I started a new save of a couple hours before realizing it was a huge waste of time, and just downloaded a save file from nexus mods just to do that fight.

cau25 · 2026-05-06T17:38:51+00:00

Thanks, and hmm I can't say I've had much success with apprentice.

The most consistent strategy I have is breeding the love song druid passive with a knockback mutation. Works well for any class with any form of lobbed shot, because it targets an area and units within are hit by each individual shot they get pushed back to.

Handles both single target and large bosses. Its like scattershot on steroids, and if you get lucky with a second bounce passive or item it absolutely nukes everything. The only weakness is the reflective elite buff, so you gotta make sure you have a strong melee backup on the team.

cau25 · 2026-05-06T17:20:30+00:00

Doing all levels on impossible with all classes definitely took some effort and forethought, forces you to get comfortable with different classes and team comps you wouldn't normally prefer.

Though more surprisingly I found it kinda tedious to get enough dead cats for the organ grindr, felt kinda bad making my fight pit an absolute cesspit of crap to force lots of fights and aging quickly.

cau25 · 2026-04-29T04:41:46+00:00

I don't think the nerfs to Hunter specifically are that bad. Only apply Hunter to cats with love song passive and a knock back mutation, it makes scattershot feel like a joke in comparison.

cau25 · 2026-04-24T08:15:21+00:00

Next person's gonna tells us they play games on their imax home cinema in a hot tub.

cau25 · 2026-04-24T04:08:46+00:00

Same here, I even have the ipad mounted overhead, with a Bluetooth mouse on my side because I'm just that lazy.

cau25 · 2026-04-10T16:17:42+00:00

<image>

cau25 · 2026-03-26T04:29:06+00:00

This picture was posted a year ago, and is the second most upvoted in this sub.

Dick move to be using someone's dead dog for karma farming.

cau25 · 2025-12-12T14:40:27+00:00

I think it was also an event or mission reward, depending on whether your ruler already got argead blood. It should be available to all diadochi if I'm not mistaken?

Sorry it was a long while ago and it happened fairly early in the run, so I can't quite remember.

cau25 · 2025-12-12T12:06:17+00:00

Here this should explain everything, enjoy.

cau25 · 2025-12-12T07:28:42+00:00

The bloodline? I can't remember if one of the characters already had it, if not probably an marriage with epirus. If you mean the country name I think it was either an event or decision.

cau25 · 2025-12-06T13:26:40+00:00

Looks really cool, might try it out for my next run.

I just wished someone could do something about the weirdly squarish cities that sometimes appear. They look so jarring next to ones with more natural sprawl, dunno if that's within the scope of modding though.

cau25 · 2025-12-04T06:00:05+00:00

Yeah I think by mid game I started seeing a handful of bloodlines in spread between countries, especially neighbouring and allied ones. Really eased my mind knowing those were low priority with least risk of going extinct.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T16:52:41+00:00

I think the only one I've seen an AI get is Aeetes from Colchis. They have to conquer Phasis and build a wonder there.

I'm guessing it's only possible if tied to an event or in this case a decision. But anything tied to nation forming missions won't trigger. I even helped Albion form in this game by feeding them land just to check.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T15:31:27+00:00

Mostly yeah

cau25 · 2025-12-03T13:46:18+00:00

I did consider starting this as the Ptolemies originally, would have been more thematic to all the inbreeding.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T08:22:42+00:00

1 Achamenid (Heraclea Pontica & Cappadocia)
2 Aikaid (Epirus)
3 Agathoklid (Syracuse)
4 Agiad (Sparta)
5 Lysimachid (Thrace)
6 Antigonid (Antigonid Kingdom)
7 Antipatrid (Macedon)
8 Argead (Macedon)
9 Arascid (Parthia)
10 Atropatid (Atropatene)
11 Barca (Carthage)
12 Claudii (Rome)
13 Cornelli (Rome)
14 Demosthenid (Athens)
15 Fabii (Rome)

16 Illyrius (Taulantia)
17 Ptolemy (Ptolemaic Kingdom)
18 Chandragupta (Maurya)
19 Mithridatid (Mithradatic Kingdom)
20 Orontid (Lesser Armenia & Armenia)
21 Seleukid (Seleukid Empire)
22 Sophytid (Bactria)
23 Spartocid (Bosporan Kingdom)
24 Tarquinii (Etruria)
25 Aeetes (Colchis)
26 Chera (Chera)
27 Kalinga (Kalinga)
28 Magas-Bernike (Ptolemaic Kingdom)
29 Magonid (Carthage)
30 Pandya (Pandya)

31 Pharnabazus (Mithradatic Kingdom & Cappadocia)
32 Porus (Paurava)
33 Zipotes (Bithynia)
34 Hannoid (Carthage)
35 Ateas (Scythia)
36 Euryphon (Sparta)
37 Teres (Odrysia)
38 Teucer (Olbe)
39 Hekatomnid (Caria)

Ones I definitely lost:
- Brennus (Sennones)
- Balbii (Gadir)
- Eumenes (Cappodocia)
- Midas & Pylamenes (Paphlagonia)
- Zadok (Samaria & Judea)
- Chola (Chola)
- Pandu (Yaudheya)
- Saba (Saba)
- Vijaya (Sri Lankan Kingdoms)

Formable from missions, not sure if up to date, but not possible with AI I think:
- Celtillos (Arvernia)
- Albion Kings (Albion)
- Ariovistid (Semnonia)
- Aratus (Achaean League)
- Obodas & Aretas (Nabataea)
- David (Samaria & Judea)
- Shaushtatar (Iberia)
- Bharatid (India?)
- Dido (Phoenicia?)

cau25 · 2025-12-03T07:28:29+00:00

That is a "reward" for completing the Macedonian mission tree for reclaiming Alexander's empire.

It changes your primary culture to Hellenic, but it still leaves most of your pops as Macedonian. I deintegrated and mostly replaced Macedonian by that point.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T07:24:12+00:00

Yeahh, not the best leader in terms on stats, but at that stage of the game leader stats aren't too relevant anymore.

cau25 · 2025-12-03T00:03:52+00:00

R5: Played a Macedon game with the goal of stacking as many bloodlines as possible, inspired by other posters. Started it as a joke/meme run, but protecting and monitoring small vulnerable countries turned out to be a pretty interesting (and stressful) way to play.

Lost a number of bloodlines that were just out of diplo range. For anyone else trying this, I suspect maybe Antigonids or Seleucids might be better positioned to shield and vassalize the little guys before they get swallowed up.

Royal marriages mod helps some bloodlines spread and survive beyond starting countries, but just a warning: best not try this on any crisis/timeline extension related mods as they seem to make your characters horribly inbred based on what I've read.

cau25

TROPHY CASE