Scythian economy messed up?

[YourStepDad]

Greetings,

first of all, i'd like to say that the quality and effort put into this mod is mindblowing. it's basically it's own game, one that i've been oblivious of until very recently, rome ii might just not top it, for my tastes.

that said, it seems that some factions have been slightly neglected, gameplay wise, as more attention was given to rome and it's legions.

i've started playing scythia on vh/vh and was delighted with all the portraits, ancillaries, sprites and of course, the units. it finally is the scythia i was looking for.

the troubles, however, started as soon as turn 2, perhaps turn 3 at most. with conquering only a single independent village, and adjusting taxes in my towns to very high with no penalty whatsoever, i had an income of 21 000. i should mention that i also built several units in those few turns.

now i don't know whether scythian economy is made developed to reflect their success in trade, or for roman gameplay point of view, so that scythian economy does not crumble in several turns, so that they can be a respectable faction and not get eliminated in a few turns.

in any case, i think this can be easily solved, first and foremost by making their nomad towns less developed. they have a lot, if not most of the buildings in their starting cities, which, imo, they should not. a positive deficit of 200 to 500 denarii per turn would be alright to reflect them as a flourishing faction in trade, but that's it. their towns should be difficult to develop, and that most of their potential for development should be fullfilled with conquest, starting with smaller raids on small settlements and later on conquering bigger towns. something like europa barbarorum, i feel they executed the economy for nomads just right.

so in short

- much, much less developed towns in the beginning
- much less income overall
- smaller starting armies, much more difficult maintenance of larger armies

if this is so to help the ai economy playing scythia, can files somehow be altered while launching the game, similarly to how the menu is if you choose to play a different faction, so we could have the ai scythia with an economy bonus when not playing as scythia, and having player appropriate economy when playing as scythia?

i hope you understand what i mean, if not, just start playing scythia and you'll see what i'm talking about.

if you are aware of this, can you recommend a submod or a workaround or anything that should improve my overall experience with scythia?

p.s.

does scythia start out with all of it's units unlocked? because that would be a bit of a bummer, as i'd have slightly less to strive for. no biggie, as the unit roster is awesome, though i'm used to starting with smaller rosters and prefer to expand, it is much more rewarding and fun, and in my opinion, just makes more sense for factions that don't start out small.

do tell if scythians can get new units later on though. if not, perhaps altering them to start with solely horse archers and little to no infantry, then getting hellenic influenced units later on? or simply by having to build a costly building to train them?

thanks, looking forward to a response, though i may not be able to answer for several days.

[tone]

One turn our zero turn recruitment?
Thanks for the feedback

[YourStepDad]

I believe it was the zero turn campaign, the default one. It didn't occur to me it had anything to do with recruiting, thought it had to do with season/game length or something.

[Imperator753]

I wonder how many factions OP has played as. I have messed around with a number of factions in different areas including Scythia and it appears to me that Scythia is much less developed than the other factions. I mean the capital isn't even a fortified & economic center. Maybe I'm misunderstanding OP but I think he's saying he would like to see Scythia's economy nerfed? If OP has only played Scythia then s/he should look at the other factions capitals making ~30,000 to start out. On a 0-turn I don't see how much lower you could make Scythia's income be without them getting destroyed by surrounding nations making much more. You're going to want that income because buildings/units are quite expensive as compared to vanilla and other mods out there (from my experience).

Also, the capital doesn't have the full recruitment tree, it appears as though it is in the building browser but there are a number of hidden buildings.

[YourStepDad]

I have only played Romans, though rather extensively. Their economy is spot on, and everything is a real struggle in the beginning.

To see faction such as Scythia start out with so much, I don't know, it just feels like too much. I'll give them another shot soon enough, oh how I wish it was just the illusion of big numbers.

[xsithspawnx]

The Romans start out in one of the most difficult times of their history at the beginning of this mod. It makes sense for them to start in dire shape economically, but with a little work they can be rolling in the dough in no time. As far as the Scythians go you will start to feel their lack of development once you start expanding a bit. In this mod your home regions, especially your starting capitol, will provide the vast majority of your income early on, while cities you conquer (particularly those of other cultures) will be somewhat of a drain on your economy until properly developed.

In practice this means that while you stick to your home regions you will usually be doing quite well for cash. Once you start expanding however, unless you really work on your infrastructure you will start to see your funds being stretched thin. This helps to represent the difficulties of maintaining far flung empires and helps discourage blitzing tactics common to vanilla RTW and many other mods. It's a different economic feel starting with so much money, but it definitely balances out and makes your decisions feel a lot more significant than the simplistic economy in the original game did.

Honestly, I'm somewhat biased as I always thought it was rather silly how many mods started you in instant debt, like you were taking over the worst run country around and having to either conquer a crap ton of places or disband half your army just to stay in the black.