Very expensive units and buildings - how is this balanced?

[Aryleia]

I have been playing for a good time as the Parthians on medium/medium. Although it seems that I will succeed - I rule the fourth largest faction in the year 183 BC – it has been a tough experience, much tougher than playing very small factions on vh/vh in RTW vanilla or other mods (and I have my experience with that).

While I really like this epic mod very much I am a bit frustrated with the economic and social aspects of it. Whenever I played a small faction before I tried to keep a reasonable balance between expanding and developing the kingdom (and found that’s the key to success).
In my first longer EB campaign I found it near impossible to develop anything because of the very high cost of units and buildings – I just had to use my few precious units including the awesome Parthian bodyguards to defend against nearly overwhelming foes and strike back as possible. Nearly all sources of my income are just conquered (especially mines and harbours).

So I wonder whether I just missed the right moment to develop my economy because of military challenges and now have to run behind the events (what is also possible in RTW vanilla)? Are the caravan routes the key for Parthians? I build them whenever I had a few coins left, but I couldn´t see that they were too helpful.

Or is this cost barrier just as high as its feels and perhaps a bit overdone (at least for the small factions)? At first I was very fond of the idea that high building and unit costs would not only force you to use your few troops wisely but also lead to an epic game with slowly developing towns and fewer and smaller armies. It can be boring at a later stage of the game to have huge sites everywhere and an AI which lays 5 sieges every turn.

Unfortunately this seems to be only one part of the picture. As I learned in the forum the AI (especially the great factions) gets a lot of extra money every turn. And indeed the AI seems to build everything very early, develop large and huge cities everywhere and recruit a lot of full stacks and also can just bribe away a large city with a five units garrison (the Hai did in my campaign).
I had to fight back at least two dozens of full phalanx stacks of Ptolemeia in the region of Babylon and Antiochia (with about three full stacks of mainly cheaper troops but including several bodyguards) while I had also been at war with Arche Seleukia, Baktria, Saka, Sauromatae and now also Hai.

While I am not unhappy with a strategic challenge like this (victory is sweet then) there is another point which I found really frustrating. Everyone knows what happens when you try to hold a large or huge city with only a few troops, especially when you can´t build new structures very soon and fast. Yes, you get a civil revolt. And so it is in my campaign. First of all I learned that I have to exterminate most cities (what I hate) and then that I have to prepare for civil revolts nevertheless despite a governor and about a (at least) two units garrison. And then I exterminate the population again and get a short living relief. So I felt forced in a brutal playing style I don’t like – an ongoing bloody nightmare more than a developing kingdom. And my poor brave generals become “restless sleepers” because of that ….

If EB has a balance for this I couldn’t figure it out so far. You get your hard penalties (capital distance etc) and there is also a crowd of interlopers around. And then you look into your building list and see a “Persian garden” which gives you a small 5% bonus on happiness but takes 8 turns and costs 3000?
I also feel also insecure what to do with the buildings in a conquered town. Can I leave them intact or will they lead to unrest (e.g. foreign temples, hellenic school)? Meanwhile I destroy all granaries in conquered towns to hinder population growth and I wonder whether this is a good idea.

So if I didn’t just misunderstand the main game/Mod mechanics I could imagine that a few balancing changes would lead to an even more satisfying game experience.

- cheaper buildings (to allow a proper development of growing cities even in the times of never ending total war). Units and mercenaries could remain expansive to retain a harder challenge.
- much higher barriers for unrest and city revolts - they should reflect that you can´t recruit large garrisons.
- slower growth at all. The map is huge, so it would be great to have smaller cities for a longer time (would allow to improve them yourself not only conquer full fledged large and huge cities) and also fewer AI full stacks for a longer time.

I know balancing I tricky so please don’t be angry with me because of my suggestions just after my first campaign. But I wanted to give a feedback.
I am really excited with this mod and admire the huge amount of work in it. This large map, the fotorealistic landscape with those skies, the many factions and the historic units (except nude barbars in my honest opinion – thanks for the modesty patch) and the atmosphere at all. All is such a wonderful work!

[beatoangelico]

"you have brain. AI has money"
Without monetary aid AI will go into deep debt because it can't hand EB economy, it will just recruit units without develop cities and go into debt neverthless.
The slow pace is intended. If you want to develop, play defensively and don't build too many units. I'm playing H/M with "nigh-impossibile" Hayasdan and I don't find developing that difficult to be honest.
the pop growth is already slow, but you can try the City Mod minimod, it's in the unofficial modifications forum.

[QuintusSertorius]

It's not entirely true that the AI has lots of extra money. There's a script that prevents them going into the red. They're only loaded if you're playing on VH campaign difficulty, which by default gifts them with an extra 10,000 mnai every turn.

As to the map, there's a hardcoded limit on the number of provinces, I suspect EB is fairly close to that limit. But wholesale additions of newer, smaller settlements just isn't possible (even if it would make the game more interesting, although perhaps worsen the phenomenon of Siege: Total War).

I find the only way to prevent provinces revolting is to have taxes at low and sit a full stack in them while the transition to type IV government takes place. Then you move your FMs out sharpish, but have to leave your army for a while.

[Aryleia]

I find the only way to prevent provinces revolting is to have taxes at low and sit a full stack in them while the transition to type IV government takes place. Then you move your FMs out sharpish, but have to leave your army for a while.

What would you think of lowering the "penalties" in the cities to reflect the higher building costs and the fewer units you can have as garrison?

I think I often did what you said but got the civil revolts later then.

The flood of enemy stacks is not my main problem. As I said I am up for a challenge, but I feel that history (e.g. growing towns) in EB is developing a bit faster than I can follow and build things up to get a prospering kingdom

[Solar]

In general, I think the prices of buildings and units are very appropriate in EB. The port expansions are the only ones that stand out as really slow and expensive, but you can do those if you have are in a good financial situation.

It's not entirely true that the AI has lots of extra money. There's a script that prevents them going into the red. They're only loaded if you're playing on VH campaign difficulty, which by default gifts them with an extra 10,000 mnai every turn.

Not in my game, not so. The AI gets *a lot* of money every turn. Upon inspection, I find the script has several complex interactions with the AI's bank account (in section 5b), some for the first years of the campaign, others for later years, and some specific to some factions. In general, tho, they get 300 mnai for each settlement they have, which can change to up to 900 each in some situations. So a middle-sized AI empire, with 30 settlements is getting 9000 each turn, special conditions notwithstanding, no matter what difficulty level you're playing at. Which means they'll create a lot of elites and heavy troops, and will create them often, and they'll spam you with those.

When I did experiment changing the script to give them money only when in negative financial status, their treasuries plunged and after less than 10 turns they tended to be at the bare minimum money level allowed by said modification in the script (they already did have all those elites recruited in the campaign, so the drain to their economy was very fast).

[Irishmafia2020]

The province limit for both RTW and MTW2 is 199 plus one ocean. EB has 198 plus Sahara (unconquerable) and an ocean, so the only way to add a province is to eliminate another one. Just remember that Pahlava is a hard faction, and there are reccomended stategies in other threads for how to start your economic development in the early game. Also, on Hard difficultyat least, it is possible to defeat an enemy enough (down to one territory and no troops) so that they stop spamming you with stacks. The 10.000 mnai per turn is only on the VH setting. I personally like the epic style of the mod, as becoming a mere regional power, much less an empire is a legitimate challenge...

[Gotthard]

The port expansions do nothing, as trade_fleets is broken. Their only use is to take up cash so you don't go over 50k... in general, I find in the beginning, < 50 turns, money is tight, and then you can swim in it the rest of the campaign. I did a H/VH with Armenia, and grew bored after I took Babylon... later I found out the overpowered egyptians probably helped me take down the Seleucids, but it I never had a close battle, and had waaaay too much money to build every building I wanted. Mines help some, and just suck it up and build more than 2 garrision units... you'll thank yourself later when rebels come knocking, or random troops are spawned. Frankly, I've never built the persian gardens, or anything else like that. You're right, 5% for 8 turns isn't worth it. But get someone to rule the city, lower taxes, and enslave (not exterminate) everyone. Get rid of useless cultural buildings, etc. Trust, me, when you're economy starts rolling you'll be swimming in cash.

[Solar]

The port expansions do nothing, as trade_fleets is broken. Their only use is to take up cash so you don't go over 50k...

Oh, really? Good thing I only ever built a couple of those.. over 100k wasted on that, anyway, tho. O, well.

[Banzai!]

The question is: why are Parthia's units so expensive? These are nomads and they should get free horsemen units to reflect the fact that their warriors fought as they lived.

[beatoangelico]

parthian horse archers have the same cost of other steppe archers, and they get a discount on training too

[Watchman]

Plus, the Parthians got rather settled later on...

[Korlon]

Parthia gets a little hidden bonus to their money every time you buy a horse archer, so it's not really that expensive.

I played a Parthia campaign earlier (Actually, I'm still in the middle of it and post-poned it for now), I didn't find any problems expanding. What you need to do is to disband all unnecessary troops at the beginning. Make an all horse archer army. At the beginning, I only had money to make about 9 horse archers, so I added about 3 or 4 family members into my stack. In the back, I had a mini stack of infantry to man rams if necessary (I had a ton of spies recruited so I wouldn't have to build rams) and to garrison troops in the new city so I can keep going. The towns around Parthia are really loosely populated, meaning you don't really need that many troops to get the public order up. I certainly didn't have much problem. I easily took over almost all of the east side of the map in about 30 years. Just keep building those horse archer stacks.

I tend to go on a pre-emptive on Seleukia right away. Take their cities as their garrisons are very small, especially around the eastern side of their empire. Just keep a couple infantry in the frontier cities. Make sure to build watchtowers if possible. They tend to be focused on fighting with Ptolemaioi so they don't really seem to attack you that much. I think I was on VH/M by the way. I only had a couple instances of attacks on my cities, but they only really took one of my cities once. I took it back about ten years after. I had only one stack of horse archers as I really needed money to develop my towns.

Also, I really think the unit and building prices are pretty balanced. Usually, after I take a few cities, I get enough profit per turn that I can build things in every settlement anyhow.

[Agent Fransis]

What do you mean by ports doing nothing? I had observed several times my income increases when I build a small or medium port. I do however always see, in the details of my biggest cities, transperent trade simbols in the income line, as if the trade income will increase in the next turn. But it does'nt and it just stays that way forever. Is that what you meant?

Oh, and why should't I have more then 50k?

[QuintusSertorius]

What they're saying is that bigger ports do nothing. What they're supposed to do is increase your trade income, because each level up adds two more trade fleets. Only they don't, apparently.

50k was the trigger for bad traits in RTW, that might have been changed in EB.

[Ludens]

There appears to be a limit of 3 trade fleets per port. That means that the first level of port works as advertized, but the second level (natural or artificial) only adds one trade fleet, and the third none at all. At least, the extra trade fleets are not shown in the settlement info scroll.

[Korlon]

50k is still the trigger for bad traits, then 100k for about 1.5 times the chance for bad traits. 150k doesn't seem to change anything.

[QuintusSertorius]

I've noted more FMs picking up Wealthy, but that's about it so far.

[beatoangelico]

with Roma I've seen a lot of "nota censoria" traits (-1 influence IIRC)

[Korlon]

Nota censoria isn't actually a direct result from high treasury. More of a secondary due to the traits gained from a high treasury. Just search up treasury in the character traits file to find out about what it does.