Financial problems with Baktria

[Boriak]

I downloaded the XGM mod a week ago and went to try playing with Baktria. After some success I've gotten in financial difficulties.

I'm in control of 7 provinces, most of it by conquering Eastern Kingdom and Rebel territories. The Seleucid Empire started to take interest of me, set siege to my capitol but I managed to repel them. They sent another small army but one that included a more powerful form of the phalangites. I met them on a bridge, believeing it would be a clean victory. Not so. I lost quite many phalangites of my own before finally winning.
To make things interesting, my faction leader died and my capitol was now in huge financial minus plus the public order went down significantly. I was forced to lower my taxes and now I'm -700 cash, going down 600 each turn. Every city has limited garrison and I own a single non-complete stack of an army.

The turn of events has become really frustrating. Would I be forced to abandon the Baktria game? I don't know how to continue. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I play on medium/medium as a standard learned from Vanilla.

[magraev]

The only advice I can give is self-evident stuff. Bactria is very hard to manage without financial difficulties:

1) Use cheapest possible troops for garrisons, and only just enough.
2) Tax your cities till they're blue.
3) Use the army you have to conquer new territory - you don't have to pay wages to dead soldiers, and a new city means more people to tax.
4) Disband the elephants (if you still have them, and cant use them to accomplish the above taking of new territory) - they're crazy expensive.
4) Make peace with the seleucids - even if it means becoming their protectorate. You need the trade-income.
5) Save up and build mines if you don't have them.

I hope this helps.

[Boriak]

1) Use cheapest possible troops for garrisons, and only just enough.

I do.

2) Tax your cities till they're blue.

I am.

3) Use the army you have to conquer new territory - you don't have to pay wages to dead soldiers, and a new city means more people to tax.

I am doing that except that I need the troops to get the Seleucids off my back. Also, I feel that Parthians will soon go at me as well, even though I'm paying them tribute (100 per turn).

4) Disband the elephants (if you still have them, and cant use them to accomplish the above taking of new territory) - they're crazy expensive.

Done on the first turn. I could read numbers as well as any.

5) Make peace with the seleucids - even if it means becoming their protectorate. You need the trade-income.

Already tried a couple of times so that would be quite a trick. I think it's time to use that forced diplomacy thing, although it doesn't make sense for them to accept it RP wise.

6) Save up and build mines if you don't have them.

Save what? I'm dead broke. I couldn't even afford the next level barracks or roads.

I hope this helps.

Me too. Thanks for putting up with me.

[Boriak]

Maybe I need to disable the AI bonuses so they can't throw full stacks at me. How exactly does one turn those bonuses off?

[Barend]

Magraev gave some good advice. What you can do also is place governors who are good at managment in your cities so they bring in more taxes. Every corrupt governor should be sent to the front, so they don't fill their own pockets and you won't lose money to them. Also try to sack cities you take, it gives a quick cash bonus and might enable you to retrain troops or even recruit new ones.

Good luck!

Edit: I was writing this post at the same time as your posts, and turning off the AI bonuses might help, but I don't know if you have to start a new game for them to take effect, you should ask one of the more tech-savvy guys around here.

[magraev]

Sorry there are no easy solutions. You can look forward to trouble all the way as, even if you manage to survive long enough, you have no elite troops to match the seleucid silver shields and hypaspists. So it's tough going all the way.

[snip]

Content deleted since I was apparently wrong =)

[Boriak]

The problem with my leaders is that my original faction leader died. All the others are either with no bonuses, are pathetic or at best they are decent fighters but mediocre administrators. And I've put the best living administrator into a newly conquered Eastern Kingdom province because they were rioting.

The initial idea of this campaign was to conquer all the nearby rebel settlements, move on to the Eastern Kingdom provinces and with the income of those take on the Seleucids. This I did. I've been an ally with Parthia all this time but they went to war with the Seleucids and asked for my help. I accepted and that probably pissed the Seleucids off. I had to pick one and since Parthians were more aggresive at the time, I choose their side.

So far I handled everything the Seleucids have thrown at me but their armies were getting stronger and I was forced to train additional units instead of building income structures. So here I am.

[DimeBagHo]

Actually you can switch off the AI bonuses just by reinstalling XGM and selecting the option, and you don't have to start a new campaign. Make sure you don't switch exe's, or change the loyalty setting though. That could mess with saved games.

You could try exterminating some enemy settlements, but Baktria is a really hard campaign and it's difficult to come back once you lose momentum.

[Fouch]

Have you captured Taxila? If not make it a priority. It gives a nice economic boost and the school there is perfect for beefing up your generals stats. Other than that just focus on your economic building blocks; land clearance, paved roads and, if possible, mines.

[AchillesXX]

I am currently taking a bit of a breather from my VH Saba campaign (talk about poor quality top end troops....). So, I started a H/H Baktria campaign. Here are a few things I noticed relating to what you have all said.

1. I did not start the game with a unit of elephants! Why o Why?

2. I am many years into the game and Parthia has amazingly held its alliance with me and the Eastern Kingdoms are not aggressive at all. The Seleucids are very aggressive, so that is where my focus is.

3. I don't know if I am lucky, but my Generals get a ton of Ancillary Characters, and all of my heirs have been ridiculously good. My original faction leader's grandson was born as a military genius with many other good traits. At the age of 27 with a gaggle of ancilaries he is a ten star general, about 5 management and 9 influence. Is this just luck of the draw? My Saba characters got less than great traits and poor ancillaries. Oh, I also got the coolest ancillary ever - the "Fallen Monk". Do generals come of age with totally random traits? If so, you could always just reload your game until you get what you want/need.

4. Also, I have not even built one city barracks yet as it is an eight turn diversion from economic activity. This forces you to use cheap armies, but it can be hard to beat Seleucid Thorakiti, Elephants, and the odd Silver Shield with Militia Phalangites! I use about 5 units of horse archers to tire the enemy out before the main engagement (fatigue on), which helps even the playing field.

5. I have personally never really played a campaign where I used armies recruited from any barrack higher than the city level. I have occassionally, but just for fun mostly. For example, in my GCS campaign I had a city level barracks army composed of Phalangites and Greek Hoplites. By the time I could recruit Armoured Phalangites or Sacred Band Hoplites my original army had so much experience that they were just as good, and cost less to maintain and no tax penalty. I think that you could get a good quality army with Phalangites at the core, Indo-Hellenic Hoplites on the flanks (or Theuruphori - the most under-rated unit in the game), Bactrian Archers (if they had long range arrows they would be the best archer in the game), Bactrian Horse Archers, and maybe some Bactrian Cavalry for a hammer. If you had a little extra money, you could throw in some Indian Elephants $$$. Use your forge temple and your experience temple to compensate for lesser stats. Such a composition is capable, with a good general, of beating any army in the game. I realize that this would be hard for you to afford at the moment, but perhaps down the road a little bit....

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Boriak]

My family members are worthless. And I know that I've had a save game just before one of them turns 16. He was the same every time and he was nothing worth talking about.

[Fouch]

It sounds like everything going against you. I hate to say it but you might want to start a new game.

[Suppanut]

AchillesXX, no, it not random luck that much. I think it is effect of School in Taxila(when come of ages) and temple of Buddha(for later ancillaries). Your character graduated from Taxila, right?

For those who didn't know where the schools are, here are the location...
Alexandria (Civilized school)
Athens (Civilized school)
Pergamum (Civilized school)
Isthakr(Persepolis) (Civilized school)
Taxila (Civilized school)

Here is more schools of ET3...
Rhodes (Civilized school)
Carthage (Civilized school)
Semigetuza(Kogainon) (Barbarian school)
Cenabum (Barbarian school)
Camulodunum(Anglesey) (Barbarian school)

[Boriak]

Sounds like there are tons of details about this mod that are not found in the readme. Are these details written anywhere?

[Suppanut]

There are a ton of mystery that didn't officially written in readme which mostly about traits and ancillary system of Ethnic Traits. The reason for it to not in readme is due to Ethnic Traits was created by me as submod before incorperated into XGM by DBH and I don't think that DBH is fully understand on how it work.

Hmm....perhap I may need create some briefing on Ethnic Traits to include into XGM readme.

...But if I explain it all it may have article as long as a page of daily newspaper due to its system's complicacy.

[Boriak]

Just started a new campaign with Baktria. Took what army I had in the eastern city and marched on Taxila. After the first turn a huge Hindu army materialized out of nowhere and attacked me.

How in hell does anyone win this with AI bonuses on?

[Tartaros]

Just started a new campaign with Baktria. Took what army I had in the eastern city and marched on Taxila. After the first turn a huge Hindu army materialized out of nowhere and attacked me.

Probably hiding in a forest.

How in hell does anyone win this with AI bonuses on?

I play without bonuses and just on M/M and i still find factions unplayable (Pontus, Massilia) basically because their economy sucks. Maybe you should just reinstall/remove bonuses...

[death to the romans]

Took what army I had in the eastern city and marched on Taxila. After the first turn a huge Hindu army materialized out of nowhere and attacked me.

I usually wait until the eastern kingdoms take it and then there is just a small garrisson. after that I conquer the rest of India. I haven't played baktria that much and when I did I did it on M/M

you can also try Germania. very enjoyable campaign

[Suppanut]

To wait for EK to take Taxila first maybe bad idea in future version as it may have garrison script.

[AchillesXX]

I am really loving my Baktria campaign. I have decided to spread Buddhism to the far corners of the world, so I am building Buddhist structures in all of my settlements except for a few forge and exp temples. I have also decided not to attack anyone who doesn't attack me first. So, I am currently fighting the Seleucids, and hoping that the EK will attack me so I can capture their settlements (like Taxila). Parthia has held its alliance with me for 25 years now - gotta be the first time this has happened in the years I have played RTW. I have been playing on H/H with bonuses and fatigue/increased movement, and I find it to be a good level of challenge. Not so hard I find it impossible, but not so easy I lose interest.