Taksashila tips

[myarta]

Hey guys,

I'm playing my first map as Taksashila, and it seems like a real bear of a starting position. You get a huge army, but it costs a fortune, plus you get a script-based big tribute to the Mauryans every 4 turns. I expanded over into Orthospana, and had to reload from save and exterminate, since otherwise the public order was unmanagable. Now I'm deeply in debt and the only thing I can think to do is just disband my army and wait for who knows how long before getting strong. But I'm supposed to be rebelling against the Mauryans soon, unless deciding to stay loyal can be re-visited each year when tribute is asked for. If that's the case, then I guess I can turtle in my two cities for a while, but I feel like that will be a losing proposition.

I did notice a 2500 upkeep elephant unit, which went into a fort to make it free on the very first turn, but I'm not used to playing in deep economic holes, and I fear that if I disband heavily I will never recover before all the nearby territory is snapped up and I have to fight people 10x stronger for the land.

[myarta]

Okay, I see one problem is rebel stacks crossing my borders and causing massive devastation financial penalties. So perhaps I should just not expand right away but go spend my army on smashing the roving stacks, then let the economy recover before expanding.

[QuintusSertorius]

Elephants have massive upkeep; stick them in forts whenever you're not using them. Or indeed just disband them - you have elephant bodyguards for your FMs.

Make as much use of Greek mercenaries as you can (grab them before the Baktrians get them). Things will be improved some in the autumn release by the addition of two levy units to the Indian roster, which should expand capability and give you some cheap troops for garrisons as well.

[myarta]

Okay, thanks.

A word about those rebel stacks: The AI for Eleutheroi seems to leave its general in a settlement alone and take all the troops out under a Captain and go roaming.

[Genghis Skahn]

Hey guys,

I'm playing my first map as Taksashila, and it seems like a real bear of a starting position. You get a huge army, but it costs a fortune, plus you get a script-based big tribute to the Mauryans every 4 turns. I expanded over into Orthospana, and had to reload from save and exterminate, since otherwise the public order was unmanagable. Now I'm deeply in debt and the only thing I can think to do is just disband my army and wait for who knows how long before getting strong. But I'm supposed to be rebelling against the Mauryans soon, unless deciding to stay loyal can be re-visited each year when tribute is asked for. If that's the case, then I guess I can turtle in my two cities for a while, but I feel like that will be a losing proposition.

I did notice a 2500 upkeep elephant unit, which went into a fort to make it free on the very first turn, but I'm not used to playing in deep economic holes, and I fear that if I disband heavily I will never recover before all the nearby territory is snapped up and I have to fight people 10x stronger for the land.

As someone who has briefly played as Taksashila a LONG time ago, my advice might be less than reliable than most, but I would suggest taking the city to your east first, then follow up by uniting as much of India/Pakistan as you possibly can given the forces you have. Debt is going to be perpetual until you have more cities under your belt. Leave Orthospana to the west alone until then so as to not overextend yourself too early in game; it will be much easier to defend against Baktria and the Mauryans with a united India under your belt. As well, conquering orthospana puts you into conflict with Baktria's sphere of influence too quickly, IMO.

I dont recommend disbanding heavily in the early game, it's likely that you will stagnate and die off before you recover. Disband after you've made sufficient conquests to support yourself economically, and then rebuild a more cost friendly army if you like. Or just keep using the starter army until it dies/cant possibly conquer more until it's been reinforced.

[Tuuvi]

My last campaign was as Taksashila, I made it to turn 170 before updating to 2.05. I tried turtling at first too but I couldn't make any money because of the Mauryan tribute and devastation caused by the army in Orthospana so I restarted and conquered all the Indian provinces before disbanding. Even though I declared independence the Mauryan armies never spawned which was a mixed blessing; I don't know how I would have defeated them because my army was really depleted and I was heavily in debt but I was also unable to get the reforms which was a bummer.

[myarta]

Hmm, yeah. Something might be a bit odd about that. I also haven't seen a Mauryan army come to try to kill me yet. I think I was on turn 50 or so, and I rejected the tribute. It's supposed to wait until turn 20 and then have like a 40%-50% chance of spawning each turn, but it doesn't appear to be functioning. Anyone else had the Taksashila Mauryan armies spawn for them lately?

[Tuuvi]

My campaign was on an earlier version and they've increased the chances of the armies spawning since then, hopefully you just need to wait a bit longer.

[Ribtickler]

I took the two settlements east and west of your capital. And I seem to remember fighting some heroic battles to keep the western settlement. I then disbanded as much as loyalty would allow and saved up for a mine. After 50 turns or more I could afford an army to get rid of the rebel stack and take the settlements south, right to the Indian ocean.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

Hi,

I tried this faction several days ago and they are fun. The only thing is : I regret the way you managed to consider that a longbow was so powerful. I understand that you could consider that they are "more" powerful than a recurve bow (even though I don't agree with that) but the numbers you put there are overwhelmingly powerful. 12 instead of 4, 5 or 6 is just insane.

I plead you to consider the historical facts, not the opinion of some fanatics that you could encounter who will come with flawed examples of "who is the most powerfull, the oliphant or the rhino ?" and who would always want something overpowered because of nationalist or ignorant admiration of a weapon, a culture or a system. That's exactly why EB1 has been made in the first place : to counter the simplism of SEGA's game with burning pigs, "legion-like" units and other supernatural features.

Take care.

[HarkonRules]

"Pleading the EB2 team to consider historical facts over fanatical fanboyism"? You do realize this is probably the dev team that takes historical accuracy the most seriously, they have historians on deck for that very vetting process? Get your facts straight and people might just pay some attention to the content of your posts.

Take care.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

"Pleading the EB2 team to consider historical facts over fanatical fanboyism"? You do realize this is probably the dev team that takes historical accuracy the most seriously, they have historians on deck for that very vetting process? Get your facts straight and people might just pay some attention to the content of your posts.

Take care.

Sorry my fellow, but precisely, history is based on KNOWLEDGE, meaning it has to understand and to confront data, not to camp on one's position or to serve political interest.

Now EB team has a lot of work to do and is not always able to work on everything and they need HELP for that.

[QuintusSertorius]

That's enough of the insults both of you. Don't make me have to use some actual moderation powers.

[excubitor]

"Pleading the EB2 team to consider historical facts over fanatical fanboyism"? You do realize this is probably the dev team that takes historical accuracy the most seriously, they have historians on deck for that very vetting process? Get your facts straight and people might just pay some attention to the content of your posts.

Take care.

well in a thread about why not add ethiopia as a faction he claimed that the team could make more space for new cultures by merging the roman and greek ones because,he said,they are all alike
so after that you cant take anything he writes seriously.

[V.T. Marvin]

and here is what our chief statter has to say on this issue:

The attack of 12 is not arbitrary, nor calculated out of any sensationalism. It's based on the only source I have on these weapons in EB2's time-frame: Arrian. He describes 3 cubit-arrows, being shot from bows as tall as a man, and from the garbled description it appears they were back-shooting. This gives the bow tremendous amounts of power--certainly at close range. And being 3 cubits, the arrows are very heavy--further adding to the power of the weapon. This is why Arrian commented that no armor or shield could resist the arrows of these people (and I'd assume this includes solid bronze). Seeing this, and giving them a mean attack (so 5-7) would simply make no sense. Besides, if I did this, you'd have some other guy coming around telling me about Arrian, and asking why I ignored an otherwise reliable historian. And he'd actually be in the right, since at least he has a source I can use.

So here's the thing: I don't have any other sources than Arrian. I have searched online. I have asked historians--I've grilled them over that: we've even created a dedicated thread specifically for verifying every factions bow and arrow types. It's gotten to the point that I and a friend of mine at work even came up with an excel spread-sheet specifically designed to calculate missile attacks based on the energy of the weapon and its other properties--yes, I'm that hardcore about this being right.

Now, if anyone (yourself included) can find out more about these bamboo longbows and what they were actually like 2200 years ago (preferably from Indian sources), I'd be more than happy to integrate it, just as I did newer and better information on European self-bows, Sabaean bows, and so on, which has led to a decrease in both their ranges, and an increase in their attacks. I've even corrected the Sarmations based on new input from Arjos, and added 1-2 points for the Parthians and other factions, based on further input.

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

well in a thread about why not add ethiopia as a faction he claimed that the team could make more space for new cultures by merging the roman and greek ones because,he said,they are all alike
so after that you cant take anything he writes seriously.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about. The "culture" of Medieval 2 total war has nothing to do with actual "culture"s and Sabatean "culture" is the same as Taksashila "culture" in EB2 while those two factions has nothing in common.

and here is what our chief statter has to say on this issue:

As I said, I have nothing against "more power". You just doubled the power because of one (one...) source. Thinking that way will make katana cut armours and shields...

But clearly I will stop here because it seems that the answer I have are those or ignorants instead of those of historians wishing to SHARE KNOWLEDGE instead of insult each others and fanboying.

M2TW is a good thing that end user can edit the files... Instead of sharing, I'll chose my own way and stop facing people that clearly don't want to THINK and prefer blind faith on dev team, which is never good for dev team or users.

I participated in helping on the reform decripting and testing, not for myself but to help, and I wished to share not for myself (I can edit files for myself easily) but to help.

And moderate what you wish, I clearly don't care. I'll do the same.

[excubitor]

from the thread
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-faction/page4

Floren stated that

A greko-latin culture would not be damaging for any of the two cultures.

then

So, here again, we put nabateans, sabateans and cartage in the same group, but we are affraid to do so with romans and greeks.
We put Aedui, getai and Sweboz and lusotans (hell, they even didn't speak the same language !!!) in the same group, but the same is not possible with Romans and Greeks.
Hayasdan, Pontos in the same group, but hey, they are all the same, those non-greeks and non-romans !
I won't even speak about Pahlava, which is quite a difficult subject because of iranian culture, comming from mede culture, comming from nomadism (probably) and parthian culture, an iranophone nomadic culture close to sakae and Sarmates. It is a very difficult subject.
But sorry, if you agree only to put Sabateans and Carthage in the same group, you can't deny that making a slot only for roman is ridiculous.
Unless you think that Rome is more important than Carthage and it hurts more to see Rome assimilated as something else.

but of course Floren we await your historical evidence about the indian longbows.

[LusitanianWolf]

from the thread
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-faction/page4

Floren de whatever,stated in all his expertise that



then



but of course Floren we await your historical evidence about the indian longbows.

Well, he might be acting over agressive about the longbowman stats (its just a number, and by any means doesnt represent the full effectiveness of the archer unit, since there is also range and accuracy, and maybe shooting speed from the animation) but I could fully agree with his opinion on the culture slots. Still this is a mod to a game, not a time machine and its up to the EB team to make their own decisions based in whatever evidence they can base their work in and in convenience for gameplay sake.

So, evidence and opinions may be helpful to improve the mod, ranting and quarreling is not, so lets keep it civil folks.

[Tuuvi]

In the description for the Indian longbowmen it says they would plant the bow in the ground and use their foot to stabilize it while shooting, to me it sounds like the draw weight for these bows was so high they couldn't be aimed and shot in a normal style, which justifies their high attack value in my opinion.

[alex33]

Jezus if you guys want to discuss historical things about bows could you at least be decent enough to open up another thread instead of derailing this one? I'm no mod or the police but this has nothing to do with the op.
Sadly i myself have no experience with taksashila