Augustus Campaign -> !Help! /Empire maintenance, Emperium effects/

[AwayMender996]

So I have started a Marc Antony campaign with DEI.


When I started the campaign I had 85% Empire Maintenance (Starting with a rather big empire and no tech), making me capable of fielding 1 full army if I still wanted to have some money left to develop my provinces.
The 'expansionism' modifier also made it very hard to make use of my client states (I have secured Egypt by throwing a lot of money to make them declare war and Armenia as they start at war with Persia). The rest of them refuse to join any wars. the first turns howerver I could manage, defeating Persian (and its allies) armies with my only army.

After conquering 2 procinces (the Palmyria province) I entered the next imperium level (maybe 12-15 turns in?), this made my EM 105%, making my income non-existing (with expansionism making trade also very hard). I B-lined governors en I have 5 generals just to reduse banditry and upgrade the governor-tree. Having reduced EM to 85% and highering tax rate, I'm now able to field 2.5 armies. Being at war with Octavian (he declared) and Persia I have 1 for every front.

While I like the game to be challenging (It's why I like DEI so much). I find that the only thing I'm doing is to try and reduce EM and avoiding my client states to leave. I'm scared to conquer any new provinces as they would increase EM again . This creates a situation in wich I can keep on to my own territory and defeat army after army from the enemy, but trying to retake italy would just ruin my economy...

I could really use some help, cause this takes the fun away as it becomes a tedious boring slog.
(And I don't want to use the soft-mod, I like the AIs to be hard, just not me very weak)

[~Seleukos.I.Nikator~]

Hey @AwayMender996 and welcome to the forum!

Please, have a look at this post that I wrote recently in response to an inquiry about economical advice in the Augustus campaign that was made by a guy playing as Pompey.

You may find some of these points valid for your own campaign, as well.

Some months ago I started a campaign with Octavian and given the size of his territory, the balancing of the economy was a pretty tedious act at the beginning, as well. And I played that campaign the Alternative Economy submod which made it even tougher.

Nonetheless, if you make the right decisions from the start of the game it will go much smoother and I assure you that after 40-50 turns you will be swimming in money!

I haven't really played with Anthony, so it's a bit hard for me to tell you exactly what you should do and where, but I'm sure there is a lot of potential in the provinces that you currently have in your possesion.

[AwayMender996]

Thanks for the response!