Provicianal Campaigns Faulty????

[chazap]

i was playing the Pyrros campaign... and i actually had to play about 16 times before i was able to get a successful campaign going (i kept reaching upwards of -150,000)...and in the successful campaign i actually hit -100,000 dinari before turning a profit...and then i had to wait until i erasd my deficit before i could actually rebuild and/or hire/train new soldiers..

right from the start i am in the negative!! and i don't understand...thriving cities should be making money, not losing it...it wasn't until i conquered the 10th city (not an easy task with only 2 stacks of soldiers and no reinforcements for about 30 turns).. so, is it designed this way??? or does this seems a little ridiculous?

settings
Campaign: very hard
Battles: medium

[Mathais]

One thing you have to remember units in this mod have high coast plus the Provicianal Campaigns are hard than the Imperial Campiagn. One thing i have learned is you have to manage you money like a bank accountent in this game. Pluse the Prov Campaigns are meant to be a blizt fest pretty much in order to make it I would either just lower the difficultly setting or give your self money unitl you get the feel of those Campaigns.

[CaesarVincens]

The Pyrrhus campaign is supposed to be very hard.
Yes, you start with a huge amount, but you also start with a large army, and only two cities. It is possible to skirt the negatives with some luck and planning.

Obviously, you need to take out Decius Mus's army right away. Then your best bet is to take the cities up to and including Rome, at that point Rome will be ineffective versus you and you should be able to turn a profit.

Macedon, Rome, Carthage, all of them will want a piece of you. And you have but one army and next to no money to fight them. It's tough, but it's fun.

[aznflea]

target the weak cities. you need to last a couple ten turns with only 2 stacks.

or you cna just disband and make your cities populous

[htismaqe]

As someone who has finally turned the corner playing Provincial Campaigns, I can say with a some amount of certainty that playing with Campaign difficulty set to Very Hard is suicide.

The recommended setting for most of the XGM campaigns is Hard. It even says in the XGM Readme that some of the campaigns might be unbeatable on Hard. If that's the case for Pontus or Saba, then it's fourfold true for the Provincial campaigns because you start with only one city and an army that can't viably be supported.

My first recommendation would be to lower your Campaign difficult to at least Hard, and maybe even Medium, depending on how you play. (I might also suggest upping Battle difficulty, but that's just me.)

After that, there's several things you can do. You could disband armies, but I've found that strategy doesn't work for me. I've had moderate success by spending every last dime of my starting money on more troops.

Sure, it's going to exascerbate the problem of having negative income early on, but I've found that negative income is pretty much inevitable in the Provincial campaigns. You're not going to be able to retrain your existing troops in the early going because you won't have any money, so you might as well recruit while you can. That will allow you to take more cities in that early period where you can't retrain troops and in the long run, your economy should be on a more solid footing.

Just my 2 cents, I haven't actually FINISHED a Provincial Campaign yet, but I have failed at them more than a dozen times!

[CaesarVincens]

The easiest provincial campaign I've played so far was the Pergamum one. You start in a relatively safe position, and can even snatch up a few cities with no retribution.

[Scutarii]

Syracuse was very easy for me personally, I see some others had problems though... I plan to try the Cyreneica one next.

[htismaqe]

Syracuse was very easy for me personally, I see some others had problems though... I plan to try the Cyreneica one next.

Good luck with that!

[Webba]

Bosporan campaign is pretty easy on H/H too. You can get a good economy going by taking the two closest rebel cities then remove the Scythians from the game before they get any nasty powerful units. After that it gets a bit harder but you have a prosperous economy to work with by then.

[Double X]

Bosporan campaign is pretty easy on H/H too. You can get a good economy going by taking the two closest rebel cities then remove the Scythians from the game before they get any nasty powerful units. After that it gets a bit harder but you have a prosperous economy to work with by then.

Agreed, I was playing VH/H and it was manageable, except I moved south to Pontus and incited attacks from Selucids and Armenia. And then Scythia eventually attacks me. Facing Selucids in the south, Armenia in the Northeast and Scythia in the North/Northwest, I had to slowly succumb to them because I could not hold off a three war front (plus Armenia and Selucids were allied) even though I had a decent economy.

[Scutarii]

They basically just require some early economy management skills and some blitzing to balance the sheets... It may take you a few times to master that, but once you've got it down, the early game shouldn't be much of a problem.

[chazap]

i have a successful campaign going with Pyrrhos...it took 12 plus tries, but i finally did it!! as I previously stated, in every campaign i went negative 150K--except for the current one, which i went negative 100K before turning a profit... i just waned to know if this was normal...i mean, i conquered city after city and still was going negative...somehow it doesn't seem right...

[htismaqe]

If you've trained that many troops, it's definitely possible. Money just works alot differently in XGM.

[chazap]

If you've trained that many troops, it's definitely possible. Money just works alot differently in XGM.

actually i couldn't train any troops for about 25 plus turns.....in fact, i disassembled about 5 basic units...and had to conquer those other cities with whaever was left of my army... it wasn't easy!! but its all good now...

[htismaqe]

Well, my Cyrenaica campaign proved to once again be impossible, even after taking Alexandria. I was stuck, couldn't train more troops, and the Egyptians eventually started to overwhelm me.

Of course, the PC gods decided to grant me mercy when the game started to CTD and ultimately my PC went all BSOD on me. The savegame is now corrupt, so I'm done.

I think it's off to Pergamum with me.

After I reinstall the game again, of course.

[htismaqe]

Hey, I thought I would dredge this up to, I guess, complain in the opposite direction.

I've tried the Massalia and Cyrene campaigns and they are both very, very hard. It sounds like all of the Provincial campaigns are for the most part. Or at least they're supposed to be.

I can say with certainty that the Pergamon campaign is NOT hard. In fact, it's ridiculously easy.

You start basically surrounded by the TSE and that in and of itself should pose a problem.

Except that the TSE cities are lightly garrisoned and Pergamon starts with nearly a full stack of troops (double the high-quality troops that Cyrene starts with).

I took the three TSE cities on the first 2 or 3 turns, eliminating my border with them, so that they were no longer a threat. Within 15 turns or so, I was cranking out more than 20K denarii per turn. I had so much money that I was building new buildings in my cities based on AVAILABILITY rather than need because I didn't want to hit the 50K mark. It made the battle for Nicomedia rather boring because I had a full stack to annihilate their 5-unit stack.

[CaesarVincens]

Thanks for the input, I think you'll find the campaign harder soon.

[htismaqe]

Thanks for the input, I think you'll find the campaign harder soon.

How so? I'm interested to hear your thoughts, since I probably won't ever play that campaign further.

I really only started it out of frustration with my 6th failed attempt at playing with Cyrene, so all it did was boost my confidence enough to start the Cyrenaica campaign for a 7th time.

[Scutarii]

I think CV means he'll tweak it to make it harder... CV you did make that one? I know you made the Epirus one, but then I'm confused as to who made which prov campaign between you and Dime.

[htismaqe]

Ah.

If that's the case, he's another observation that might help:

All of the provincial campaigns are setup so that at least 1, if not 2, rebel cities are close to the player's starting territory. However, those cities are garrisoned by somewhat tough troops, usually with upgraded weapons, starting experience, and even Generals. The AI-controlled faction cities, on the other hand, are lightly garrisoned - Ipsus and Ephesus have like 2 Doryphoroi each and that's it.

I know the rebel cities are there to give the player an early target. However, those cities are alot harder to take than faction cities.

In fact, after I realized this, I took the tactic to the Cyrene campaign and lo and behold - it worked. I forgot about Ammonium in the first few turns and instead hit the Egyptians at Salamis. The one city made the difference between by first 6 attempts failing and my 7th starting off with a bang.