How do you play Baktria?

[Publius Quirinus]

I've recently downloaded XGM, and because I've always been partial to the Baktrians, I chose to start a campaign of Baktria. The last time I played this was on RTR, where I attacked the Seleucids immediately and managed to get to the Mediterranean before attrition rolled back my fragile new empire and doomed me.

So this time I tried an altogether different strategy-- I resolved to keep the peace with the Seleucids for as long as possible, as the Baktrian intro in the readme suggested. I concentrated on building economy buildings like mines, markets and Buddhist temples. I expanded in the north, and was expecting a war with the Parthians pretty soon..... War did break out with Parthia, but not before the Seleucids, who attacked me on 272 BC.

Are there any general guidelines to playing this faction? Am I supposed to expand into India? Rebel Taxila has close to a full stack, which means I won't be able to take it for some time-- I can barely afford a half-stack, and even if I could the Seleucids are a priority.....

By the way, since this is the first time I'm playing XGM, am I supposed to leave my settlements at Eastern Civilised for the early game? Converting them to Western Civilised doesn't seem to be an option at this point (271 BC) in the game.

[Kara Kolyo]

Bactria is generally a hard faction to play and if you want to make your life a bit easier, i suggest to have the AI bonuses off.

Indeed you have two options at the start - blitz the seleucids or go for India. Last time i decided to go for Taxila and leave the seleucids. Pretty soon they allied with the parthians and attacked me. You can win most battles but you won't have spare money to build second army and invade them. If you go for India however don't stop at Taxila, take the entire place.

This rebel stack is not so scarry if you let them attack you. An army of 4 levy phalanx, 2 thureoporoi, 2 bactrian archers, a general and some cavalry was enough to destoy it. Just stand up on a hill, kill the elephants and let the spearmen exaust themselves on your pike line and mop up the remains with the cavalry.

In my next campaign i'm going after TSE however

[Scutarii]

The best strategy as Baktria (although its a little cheap and I only know it works from a test campaign) is to take all your starting troops and march straight into Parthia. Auto-resolve any battles, as they have horse archers, undervalued in Auto-resolve and a frickin' nightmare to fight against. They only have three cities, so your starting troops (maybe with some mercs) can take them all in the first 3-5 years of the campaign. Of course, if you want a fair fight, I would take the fight to the closest TSE cities, (merv, phra, etc.) then close in on Parthia. You don't want them expanding into the northern steppes, as they're bloody hard to kill up their and it takes a long time...

[Publius Quirinus]

I considered that in the beginning, but don't the Parthians horde?

And yeah, horse archers suck in auto-resolve, I've beaten two besieging horse archer armies with auto-resolve. But their heavy cavalry is no pushover, and their high number in each unit makes them a nightmare to fight. My faction heir died defending Chighu (sp?) against those people.

If you go for India however don't stop at Taxila, take the entire place.

This rebel stack is not so scarry if you let them attack you. An army of 4 levy phalanx, 2 thureoporoi, 2 bactrian archers, a general and some cavalry was enough to destoy it. Just stand up on a hill, kill the elephants and let the spearmen exaust themselves on your pike line and mop up the remains with the cavalry.

Thanks, I'll try that. I've seen the rebels venture out, but they moved back into Taxila when I neared, so I took the northern lands instead.

[Webba]

I've always found going for the Seleucids to be the best option for Baktria. They are the same culture as you and all the ai factions can build faster than the player so you're taking cities that are well developed, reasonably happy to see you and can train all your troops. Before you get to their capital it's likely you'll be conquering cities with army barracks and 100% western civilised population.

Seleucia will almost certainly attack you sooner or later, as will Parthia so its usually best to go for them first and preserve any other alliances you may have made. Incidentally you also have to kill them to win. Besieging enemy cities is a great way of getting them to leave yours alone and you need them to leave yours alone because you can't afford to not have the full income. If you can't hold onto Parthia's cities burn them to the ground but leave a token garrison to delay them and rebuild a trade temple there to prevent them getting equipment or experience upgrades and to help you out when you come back. Eastern Kingdoms seem to be a reliable and non aggressive source of trade income so it really doesn't make sense to go for India at all - at least until after you're on top of your other two neighbours.

Unit wise Baktrian horse archers are good value for money against other Greeks. A half stack of them with a good general can decimate just about any army until you start facing Silver Shields in large numbers. Remember that you can sally during a siege and even if you don't break his army you can cause serious damage for very little risk. My unit of choice against Parthia is Baktrian Archers who can both take the charge of anything less than Cataphracts even when spaced out to reduce missile casualties and can outshoot horse archers. Back them up with some javelin throwers for hurting anything that gets too close and counter charging and some horse archers for mopping up and you have an army that works well in both auto resolve and on the field.

You need to get your trade and tax income up quickly as well. Farming is probably more important then trade temples to start with but they should both go everywhere. You'll probably want a weapons upgrade temple and city barracks in your capital as soon as you can afford it for the archers and the hoplites. It will be the only city you can do that in for a while. Since I had my generals in the field for every advantage they could give I found I needed to use diplomats to keep to place western civilised. It seems like an expense till you realise how much tax income that unrest is costing you. I wouldn't bother trying to culture switch your other cities till you hit the tide of western civilisation coming your way from the middle east. It takes too long and costs too much and it is much easier to do it when you have neighbouring regions helping out.

Baktria is about my favourite faction in XGM since it has a great roster and a challenging and interesting starting position. I usually set a personal goal for myself such as 'Capture Sparta and make it my capital' for the fun of it too. I hope you have a lot of fun playing them!

PS. Final thought is that if you use the Alexander or RTW.exe then Parthia doesn't horde. If you kill their generals before taking all their cities then Parthia doesn't horde. If you make sure their last settlement is the top left hand one then they may horde into Scythia which is amusing for everyone concerned.

[Publius Quirinus]

If you go for India however don't stop at Taxila, take the entire place.

This rebel stack is not so scarry if you let them attack you. An army of 4 levy phalanx, 2 thureoporoi, 2 bactrian archers, a general and some cavalry was enough to destoy it. Just stand up on a hill, kill the elephants and let the spearmen exaust themselves on your pike line and mop up the remains with the cavalry.

I screwed up on the 'kill the elephants' big time, and pretty much got my ass kicked by the Indians. I'll be back..... but not in the near future, I don't think.

Besieging enemy cities is a great way of getting them to leave yours alone and you need them to leave yours alone because you can't afford to not have the full income.

Ack, yes, I found that out the hard way, the Seleucids and Parthians have been besieging Bactra and Phra every turn, so that I can barely keep up with retraining dead troops, let alone investing in infrastructure.... I'll try taking the war to them instead.

Unit wise Baktrian horse archers are good value for money against other Greeks. A half stack of them with a good general can decimate just about any army until you start facing Silver Shields in large numbers. Remember that you can sally during a siege and even if you don't break his army you can cause serious damage for very little risk. My unit of choice against Parthia is Baktrian Archers who can both take the charge of anything less than Cataphracts even when spaced out to reduce missile casualties and can outshoot horse archers. Back them up with some javelin throwers for hurting anything that gets too close and counter charging and some horse archers for mopping up and you have an army that works well in both auto resolve and on the field.

Thanks for the detailed advice, now at least I know what troops to build.

Since I had my generals in the field for every advantage they could give I found I needed to use diplomats to keep to place western civilised. It seems like an expense till you realise how much tax income that unrest is costing you. I wouldn't bother trying to culture switch your other cities till you hit the tide of western civilisation coming your way from the middle east. It takes too long and costs too much and it is much easier to do it when you have neighbouring regions helping out.

Yeah, I've been using diplomats to assist in the conversions as well.... I wanted to use spies, but spies don't have cultures, apparently. D:

If you make sure their last settlement is the top left hand one then they may horde into Scythia which is amusing for everyone concerned.

That's a thought........



I'd rep you, but I don't think I can at the moment. D:

[Webba]

Thanks for the detailed advice, now at least I know what troops to build.

I'd rep you, but I don't think I can at the moment. D:

Not to worry, its a pleasure to help. Hope you find it useful advice!

[Barend]

In my Bactrian campaign I was allied with the Parhians. Together we were attacking TSE, until the Parthians saw it fit to betray me and attack me together with TSE. As I only had four cities, 1 standing army and no many or manpower to train another one, I abandoned the campaign. But I will try a new one soon. Maybe I'll try to take India before moving towards TSE.

[Scutarii]

Unfortunately theirs a river blocking access from the Parthian side of the steppes to the Scythians so you'll probably have to fight them yourself...

There is a small opening in between the few rivers (for the player), but the AI never figures out how to get through (why it was put there).

[Webba]

Well I don't know how they managed it but Parthia's invaded the steps in two of my campaigns now. I assumed they walked since I've sent diplomats that way before. If they really can't do that then all I can think is that they used boats. Is that even possible?

[DimeBagHo]

Well I don't know how they managed it but Parthia's invaded the steps in two of my campaigns now. I assumed they walked since I've sent diplomats that way before. If they really can't do that then all I can think is that they used boats. Is that even possible?

Might be boats - the Parthians do build ships in the Caspian. I also added some traits a while back that give temporary extra movement points to AI generals who seem to be 'stuck'. That might be helping them to find their way across the steppes.

[Webba]

Might be boats - the Parthians do build ships in the Caspian. I also added some traits a while back that give temporary extra movement points to AI generals who seem to be 'stuck'. That might be helping them to find their way across the steppes.

Could it have something to do with the Alexander AI? I know it was improved and I realised the other day I only started seeing it when I reinstalled XGM to use that. In my current campaign Parthia has declared war on Scythia and using toggle_fow I caught a couple of stacks overland through that territory.

An update: I played more of my Baktrian campaign, and I got raped by Parthia and the Seleucids. Parthia, especially, had stacks that did very well in auto-resolve and even better on the field, while the Seleucids' main contribution to my doom was their thrust from the south. My high water mark was holding Harmozia and preparing to take Ishtakr (or something) before this stack with a six-star general, elephants, agyraspids and thorakitai appeared out of nowhere. Since my army had mostly levy phalangites, theuro[-something], Indian spearmen and a couple of Baktrian horse archers, I was overmatched.

I think my mistake was going north to Campus-something and Kashgar earlier on, when I should have blitzed the Seleucids or taken the Indian cities. Pretty much all my generals were 'the Mighty' or 'the Conquerer', but that Syracusan in the loading screen was right, money is what drives war... =( I had access to elephants and Indo-Hellenic hoplites, but I could never afford enough of them to make a difference.

Will try again after I play a GCS campaign.

Sorry to hear it Quirinal. What difficulty was that on?

[Publius Quirinus]

An update: I played more of my Baktrian campaign, and I got raped by Parthia and the Seleucids. Parthia, especially, had stacks that did very well in auto-resolve and even better on the field, while the Seleucids' main contribution to my doom was their thrust from the south. My high water mark was holding Harmozia and preparing to take Ishtakr (or something) before this stack with a six-star general, elephants, agyraspids and thorakitai appeared out of nowhere. Since my army had mostly levy phalangites, theuro[-something], Indian spearmen and a couple of Baktrian horse archers, I was overmatched.

I think my mistake was going north to Campus-something and Kashgar earlier on, when I should have blitzed the Seleucids or taken the Indian cities. Pretty much all my generals were 'the Mighty' or 'the Conquerer', but that Syracusan in the loading screen was right, money is what drives war... =( I had access to elephants and Indo-Hellenic hoplites, but I could never afford enough of them to make a difference.

Will try again after I play a GCS campaign.

[Publius Quirinus]

M/M, Reduced AI Bonuses On, Fatigue On, Reduced Movement Off. It was fun while it lasted, though..... I can't get enough of the cool Baktrian units and faction colours.

[Webba]

The exact same settings that I play on. I can only imagine how hard that campaign would be on VH/VH I wonder if anyone's done it...

[zedestroyer]

The exact same settings that I play on. I can only imagine how hard that campaign would be on VH/VH I wonder if anyone's done it...

A few weeks ago I won a Bactrian campaign- Hard/Hard.
I accepted to be a protectorate of Scythia after the first battle against Scythians, that was a bloody and hard battle.
So I could concentrate my forces against Parthia, crushing the Parthians before they could raise stronger units. After that I just destroyed the eastern Seleucid cities, I took them, exterminated the population, destroyed all buildings and abbandoned them.
The campaign against Seleucids gave me the money and time to take all Indian territories, while I was expanding my Empire to the East, the Seleucids were busy taking their lost cities and reconstructing them.
When I launched a conquest campaign against the Seleucids, my elite army was unstopable: 5 Agema Hoplites, 1 unit of Indian Elephants, 3 Cataphracts, my great general, 6 Bactrian Archers and 4 Bactrian Horse Archers.
At some point I used the same strategy than before, I just destroyed the frontier cities of the Seleucids and attacked Scythia. After a few strategic attacks, using boats to deploy my army near the Scythian coastal cities, the Scythian empire started to fall. After that, it was easy to finish reconquering Alexander's Empire.

[Achtung!]

I've never played a Baktrian campaign before. I just saw them as a target for my Seleucid Phalanxes. Now however I think I know what my next campaign will be.