OMG! The Riches of the ERE!!!

**marceror** · February 11, 2016, 02:25 PM

It's actually my second time playing as the ERE. I played as them shortly after Total War Attila was first released. But I don't think I fully embraced the +5% interest on treasury in that run through. In my current campaign I made this a focus, and every turn I ensured that my treasury was increasing. Some turns I wouldn't spend any money at all in order to increase my treasury.

I'm currently less than 100 turns into the game, and I now have a treasury that is approaching 2 million florins and a monthly income of more than 100,000 florins! And rising... quickly! This is crazy. Money is absolutely never going to be an object for me in this game again. Corruption from expanding my empire? Who cares? I could stop taxing all of my provinces if I so desired, and be way in the green.

This is cool, on the one hand. But it's a bit game breaking on the other.

**PeonKing** · February 11, 2016, 03:10 PM

Yeah the ERE definitely has the strongest faction trait in the game. If you can play the first twenty or so turns conservatively, you won't ever need to worry about money again. It's game breaking, but it sure helps in the war against the endless Sassanid stacks.

**marceror** · February 11, 2016, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by PeonKing

Yeah the ERE definitely has the strongest faction trait in the game. If you can play the first twenty or so turns conservatively, you won't ever need to worry about money again. It's game breaking, but it sure helps in the war against the endless Sassanid stacks.

Very true. And, all the other stacks as well. I'm playing a very military oriented campaign, and am very much honoring my alliance to the my WRE brethren. Unless I have a "really" good role-playing reason for not doing so, I'm going to war against all of the WREs enemies. At the moment my at war list has at least 24 factions in it! So, having strong armies and navies is pretty important. That said, when I send my legions to my military centers, or create new ones, they are for certain getting what I believe is my ideal mix of troops, damn the costs. Same for my navies. I really haven't expanded too much. I have Arabia Magna (a great military center by the way) and Asoristan, and a few other regions here and there. I spend a lot of time sending naval expeditions over to WRE coastal enemies and doing a lot of sacking and raiding to keep these foes weakened. I also have armies that will help patrol Italy and a bit of southern Gaul -- about as far as I'm willing to extend my legions. I'd like to see the AI WRE succeed in this game. In my previous ERE game they were down to 2 regions in Tripolitana by this point in the campaign.

I'm also giving the ERE periodic generous gifts, and have even done this with my client states a couple of times. Just call me the resident sugar daddy for Rome and its allies!

I hope to be in much better position with the Huns, than I was in my recent WRE campaign at first. So far, ERE and WRE are at peace with the Huns, but it's only a matter of time before that changes. And when the Huns attack WRE, they get to tangle with ERE as well.

**emcdunna** · February 11, 2016, 07:13 PM

And huns too.

You get invaded by endless hordes of 5-6 sassanid stacks from the east and 5-6 hun stacks from the north. You need that money so badly.

Just abandon all your settlements but the ones in greece, rake in that 100 grand in money, and start earning 5 grand a turn on your interest alone (plus your corruption drops a bunch)

**marceror** · February 11, 2016, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by emcdunna

And huns too.

You get invaded by endless hordes of 5-6 sassanid stacks from the east and 5-6 hun stacks from the north. You need that money so badly.

Just abandon all your settlements but the ones in greece, rake in that 100 grand in money, and start earning 5 grand a turn on your interest alone (plus your corruption drops a bunch)

Nah, I'm holding onto my settlements just fine, and I'm proud of that fact. I had a few challenges with this earlier on in the campaign but quickly recovered any losses. I have everything I started with, and as previously mentioned have added Arabia Magna and Asoristan (plus a couple of other regions - Nisibis to complete Osroene and Tosp for wood). Armenia has been destroyed as well as the Sassanid ally from Caucasia. The Afrighids are begging for peace, but thus far I've not granted them their wish. They should have considered their course better before joining that Sassanids against me in the first place.

Out of my 12 legions I have 5 of them stationed out in that area, and the Sassanids and friends have provided lots of opportunities for my forces to test their mettle. The Huns haven't been aggressive yet, but I have 5 additional legions in the north for when they decide to start causing problems. And at that point I'll likely become more aggressive with the Sassanids and start razing rather than sacking their settlements. I'm definitely on the offensive with them. Not the other way around, excepting a few well pulled off surprises by them.

So I say, keep the settlements rather than abandon them. Add any additional lands that are of strategic value. And otherwise focus on keeping Rome intact, strong, and fortify for the coming storms. My guess is that's much closer to how a real Roman Emperor would want things to be done.

My game is all about keeping Rome intact: the ERE of course, and to the extent that I can help, the WRE as well. Though, I think I'm really just slowing the inevitable with the WRE.

**emcdunna** · February 12, 2016, 12:00 AM

Maybe by the time the WRE falls, you can defeat the sassanids entirely, then focus on reconquering all of the WRE while you fight off the huns.

Yeah I bet doing excessive sacking with ERE would give you so much gold (to then earn interest on) that it might even be better than abandoning everything.

I guess it's just intimidating to have like 5 fronts to fight on. When I played ERE, I abandoned everything but greece and turkey, then for about 100 turns I basically fought off the huns and sassanid stacks while turtling.

**marceror** · February 12, 2016, 12:20 AM

Originally Posted by emcdunna

Maybe by the time the WRE falls, you can defeat the sassanids entirely, then focus on reconquering all of the WRE while you fight off the huns.

Yeah I bet doing excessive sacking with ERE would give you so much gold (to then earn interest on) that it might even be better than abandoning everything.

I guess it's just intimidating to have like 5 fronts to fight on. When I played ERE, I abandoned everything but greece and turkey, then for about 100 turns I basically fought off the huns and sassanid stacks while turtling.

Sure, I can see that being viable, and it's certainly a way to go. Personally I like to challenge myself to "role play" these games, and in this case it meant I need to try and defend Rome's long held territories. For me, that's just a more enjoyable way to either succeed or fail. I guess a key factor in my campaign is that the Huns requested peace shortly after I defeated the Visigoths (did I rattle them?), which I accepted. And I noticed soon after that they were at peace with the WRE. Had this not happened, my campaign would have shaped up quite a bit differently. My lands in Greece have been relatively untouched by war since the Visigoths, and the couple of legions I left stationed there ended up helping the WRE against attackers primarily. Mostly I've just fallen to raiding.

I'm 100 turns in now, and still have peace with the Huns, and have been focused on getting my military research up so that I'll have my best units available when the fighting starts. The only real upgrade still needed is Tagmata Cavlary, and Eastern Auxilia Palatina. And I will have those in another 18 turns. Oh, and I need to start getting gold level weapon/armor/ranged/cavalry upgrades to my legions for extra good measure.

I think this is the most fighting I've ever done in a campaign, since perhaps Medieval 2. The stats page says I've fought 230 battles so far. That's rather high for 100 turns in my opinion. It's common to have 3 - 5 battles per turn. It's been a pretty great campaign, all things considered.

**Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus** · February 12, 2016, 12:56 PM

Here's a situation even more utterly broken: having an ERE puppet state, especially on higher difficulties when the AI gets tons of cheat money. You will get so much money that they will not even matter anymore. You can buy peace with every faction, you can puppet state your worst enemies....

**marceror** · February 12, 2016, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus

Here's a situation even more utterly broken: having an ERE puppet state, especially on higher difficulties when the AI gets tons of cheat money. You will get so much money that they will not even matter anymore. You can buy peace with every faction, you can puppet state your worst enemies....

How high does the difficulty need to be for this? I'm playing on hard, and what I'm receiving from Lazica and Nobatia is fairly insignificant. Is this more of an issue with Legendary?

**emcdunna** · February 12, 2016, 11:29 PM

So if you make the ERE your puppet, they get boatloads of money, earn loads of interest on it (and therefore make more) and then give you loads of money since they're your puppet?

**marceror** · February 12, 2016, 11:53 PM

I clearly misread that. But, if they are weak enough to consent to becoming your client state, wouldn't that imply that they are extremely weak and not in a position to rack up insane money? I guess over the long haul they still can, perhaps?

Still, not sure how that is more broken than playing the ERE directly. I'm currently making almost 400k per turn and have 8,000,000 in the bank. My goal is to clear 100 million at some point in the campaign.

**emcdunna** · February 13, 2016, 01:35 AM

Did you just build the maximum number of full stacks of tier 3 troops? Lol

**marceror** · February 13, 2016, 04:12 AM

Basically, though not necessarily all tier 3. I prioritized a balanced army, and only a few unit types can be recruited as tier 3. But each of my 12 legions are full stacks, as are each of my 6 navies. My basic legionary setup is:

General
5 - 6 spear infantry (I just got the tier 3 versions. They are godly)
2 sword/axe infantry (mostly I keep these to deal with high tier enemy sword infantry, where my spears are at a disadvantage... and/or I use them to flank)
4 - 5 ranged infantry (these are about the only thing that are really effective at taking out fast Hunnic horse archers... and I'm favoring crossbow infantry).
4 - 5 cavalry, with at least one ranged cav and one shock cav. And I just got Tagmata Cavalry as my core melee cav.
2 Large Onagers. None of my legions have any standard Onagers in them any more.

**Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus** · February 13, 2016, 12:08 PM

Nah, trust me it works so well because:
Sassanids gets +100% of their vassals income. (doubles than other factions)
ERE gets a huge income by simply having money, so if you give them 20.000 solidus then they will have 1000 interest (so 200 more income for yea)
By this logic you just need to pay a ton of money to the ERE for them to become your vassal, then you will get 1% of that each turn. And wait, because they won't spend it all, you will get more and more money each turn, till it spirals out of control. Literally they will act as your bank, they can have only one region and still give you a ton of money if they have lots on their disposal.

**marceror** · February 13, 2016, 12:14 PM

Okay, but I'm still not sure how that makes it more broken than playing as the ERE directly. I'm currently making nearly 500,000 florins per turn, 130 turns into the game. How is anything more broken than that?

**Aeratus** · February 14, 2016, 10:34 AM

Yeah, that faction trait is completely OP. After a certain threshold, money becomes irrelevant.

**marceror** · February 14, 2016, 12:10 PM

I'm nearing 1,000,000 profit per turn. Yes, that's after expenses. Can I create the first billionaire empire?

**Daneboy** · February 16, 2016, 01:02 AM

I tend to spend a specific amount each turn on Construction. Say I have 50.000 a turn in profit, I spend for example 30.000 on Construction, a good chump on improving relations with potential partners and the a little added to the treasury. The Investment in my provinces ensures that my tax income increases each turn.

I wouldn´t want to take full advantage of the 5 % interest, it just feels kind of...gamey..

**RangerGxi** · February 16, 2016, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by Daneboy

I tend to spend a specific amount each turn on Construction. Say I have 50.000 a turn in profit, I spend for example 30.000 on Construction, a good chump on improving relations with potential partners and the a little added to the treasury. The Investment in my provinces ensures that my tax income increases each turn.

I wouldn´t want to take full advantage of the 5 % interest, it just feels kind of...gamey..

Nah, If anything it accurately reflects the Byzantine Empires legendary administrative power.