Tips for Baktria

[TunaMaker]

Does anyone have any tips for playing Baktria? I usually play Carthage or Pontos but the other day started a game as Baktria and was hooked. The history, units, and position were all so appealing to me. Unfortunately I am not doing so well. I'm playing in hard campaign/medium battle difficulty, made it to about 265BC. I almost immediately declared war on Seleukiea taking their 2 provinces north of me by the Saka and 2 provinces to the south leaving Antioch-Margiana as a buffer between me and Pahlava. Was doing pretty well defending my initial gains, but now the Seleukids are sending quarter and half stacks along a wider front than I am able to defend. I am considering a restart. Am using FMs (only a couple) and eastern slingers as line infantry due to a lack of funds. Tips anyone?

TM

[Strategos Alexandros]

If you do restart then don't attack the AS immediately. Take Kophen and then try to get their two provincs to revolt using spies.

[socal_infidel]

Yes, make nice with the AS. Give them a tribute if you have to. I wouldn't worry about the two northern provinces. Let the Saka and AS fight over those ones while you remain tight with AS.

Take Kophen. It's relatively easy. The garrison of HA's in the other settlement north of Kophen seems tough. What I did was send two units of slingers or merc Persian Archer-Spearmen up there to whittle down the garrison slowly. I had to do this numerous times over the years but eventually I took that settlement.

Then concentrate on sending spies to the two AS settlements south of you to get them to revolt. Then take them. Try to stay buds with Pahlava. So when AS turns on you (and they will) they will be embroiled in a war with you Saka & Pahlava. You should have a decent economy by then.

I like to use a four-man squad of Dahae horse archers available from Baktra to whittle down any large invading AS force before they get to my lands. Empty quivers. Retreat. Repeat. As many times as you can before they get to your lands. Then send your main army to mop with the rest. The AS armies in the East tend to be comprised of poorly armoured troops so HAs can do serious damage to them.

When your strong enough, you can begin your conquest of India. Again, I like to send spare slingers, archer-spearmen, archers and heavy skirmishers as the preliminary forces. Empty your quivers on the garrisons and retreat. Repeat. Once the garrison is whittled down, then you can send in a FM-led army for the glory!

[darkness_rising]

Dont declare war on AS, this early on youll be defeated through a war of attrition. I allied Saka to put them off attacking me should they get through, while expanding east,taking gava haomavarga and Kophen. Then use spies to cause AS settlements to revolt. Careful tho, AS tend to get aggressive and declare war even if you do take one of their ex-settlements when its revolted.

I grabbed the settlements below the mountains underneath Baktra on the map after making them revolt. AS did then attack me, but I had the resources to beef up garrisons while expanding further.
Hint: When you do eventually go to war with AS, try to have at least 4 units of archers on stone walls in settlements; good for killing siege weaponry.

[Bumbar]

I only played one campaign with Baktria, but it was quite successful, so here's what I did. I used starting funds to build some more troops and one building (can't remember which one). I ignored the north completely. First city I attacked was Kophen, then I went south to Alexandropolis. I ignored Gava - Haomavarga until later in the game, for two reasons. It's defenses are quite formidable and it opens a border with Saka, so you'd have to put decent garrison there, draining your income. Instead leave it neutral, let Saka whittle it's armies by trying to take it. Once I had three cities I increased garrison in Baktria and improved it's walls. This way I was able to defend main province with very effective phalanx + slingers garrison and southern border with my army. I was still in process of strengthening myself when Seleucids declared war. My garrison in Baktria repelled all attacks there, while my army attacked from south and captured Propthasia and Alexandreia - Arana. By that time, Saka started attacking Baktria from Marakanda, but just like Seleucids failed to take it, so with Baktria secure and additional funds flowing in treasury I finally reinforced my offensive army and marched them south to Pura, Karmana and Persepolis. Parthia conquered Gabai and Hekatompylos, so since I was allied with them, it allowed me to focus my defenses in only two cities, freeing my income to build an army large enough to invade India and still leave adequate forces behind for defense against Saka, Seleucids and if needed Pahlava. After I took India, my income was enough to do pretty much anything I wanted to do, so at that point further conquests become a matter of personal preference. I went after Saka, because they were really annoying me with constant attacks, but I guess it would be better to either take down Pahlava or advance further into Arche - Seleucia. I planned on using spies and assassins to take Seleucid cities without dowing them, but as I said, they attacked me pretty early on, so I abandoned that strategy and just took their cities by force.

Edit: One more tip, when you invade India, don't forget skirmishers :P. That mistake cost me heavy losses during siege of second Indian city. That general elephant unit is unstoppable.

[TunaMaker]

So the consensus seems to be don't attack Seleukids right off, and concentrate on taking a few independant cities. The reason I attacked the Seleukids right off was cause I wanted to avoid debt if possible, and their garrisons were so week in comparison with the nearby Eleuthoroi. Perhaps I shouldn't be that concerned about it.

TM

[V.T. Marvin]

I would just add: try to ride this situation over WITHOUT restarting your game. If you have overstretched yourself, cut the front, accept some territorial losses - those could be regain later - and consolidate. As Dakness_rising has said, archers (not slingers - archers can burn down siege engines) on the stone walls allow you to withstand most attacks.

At least, you are quite lucky that AS is active with you in your current campaign, because the challenge is the reason why you play the game after all. It happens quite often (to me for instance in my current H/H campaign as Pahlava) that AS focuses all its attention to the west and one is almost ashamed to grab those undefended cities which just wait to be taken, while the AS hurls full stacks against the Ptolemaioi and Pontus without much regard to its losses on the eastern front...

[darkness_rising]

I have to add though, always have archers, but later on slingers as additions are v useful as AS send elite units like Argyraspides and those accursed walking tanks i.e. the basilikou agema dudes, cant remember the full name. Arrows dont touch them.

[STuNTz2023]

Mines were very important in my Baktrian campaign.

[Kromulan]

Expansion into India gets you some cool regionals.
The Indian guild infantry and longbowmen both have AP melee weapons with wicked-high lethality, which are great for reducing those AS walking tanks.
And, of course, elephants once you get enough cash, but I pretty much stuck with the infantry to complement my native cavalry and phalanxes. Elephants (to me, at least) are a status symbol. No eastern monarch can be considered successful unless they can carry a few on the payroll.

[Cristian]

first take kopen. build 2 or troops of skirmishers invade india.
with that initial army and 23 troops o mercenaries o the last citi i took all of india.
by th way build archer-spearmen in baktra to hold out against selukos. when fighting saka i used an invelopment tactic, i built a strong army in baktra but dind take anticheia-margiane, in stead iwent and took the eastern and northern provinces so now saka is soruinde by my full stack army from the north adn my full stack army that just took antiocheia-margiane. i waited a long time to take margiane to avoid having a long border with pahlav with witch i am war for about 50 turns. the bastards betrayed me.

[Narog]

If you do restart, blitz the two rebel towns to the east with all your starting units except for one family member left to govern Baktra. Also send an emissary to the Sakas to make peace.
Queue up some phalangists as reserves, in fact queue up as many units as your treasury allows because you will go into negative numbers in a few turns anyway because of the army upkeep.

Take Gava-Haomavarga first simply because it's the toughest of the two settlements. You want to do that with fresh troops. You will probably be attacked by a roaming rebel army full of horse archers as well before you reach the town, but stick to the forests and let them impale themselves on the pikes. After the town is sacked and all population massacred, destroy any non-usable buildings to make the treasury go up to around -6000. :)

Then march south and do the same with Kophen, which should be easy enough to do with the remainder of the first army plus maybe one of the reserve units from Baktra.

After this I normally disband the army and leave one phalanx unit and one archer unit in every town, maybe two phalanx units in Gava-Haomavarga since the Sakas are unreliable.
Then wait. The income will be around 1400 per turn so it will take some turns to get out of debt. :)

[Grriffon]

I had a lot of luck in my last campaign as baktria by going a different route. I went straight for AS. I advanced steadily eastward, since most of the AS settlements in that direction have mines, and income is your only limiting factor as baktria. i used mainly cavalry archers and FMs, supported by footarchers whose main job was usually to use a battering ram. this kept me friendly with pahlava and saka rauka till very far into the game, and since i had taken 4+ settlements from the AS, they would usually agree to a ceasefire in dire emergencies. otherwise i would stick 1-2 units of phalangites in a stone walled town and let their armies beat their head against the walls and spears. i really enjoyed playing them this way, although it took FOREVER to finally advance into india.

[Ravenic]

A couple of observations as a man who has played a half dozen Bactrian campaigns and, while not having finished any of them, has a good idea how to start them. There are three strategies that I have come up with, and you can feasibly combine two and three.

1. Rapidly expand, pretend you're playing Pontos and you have a large army burning a hole and your pocket and you need to throw it at something - go for Kophen, take it easy for a few years, and then invade Seleukeia if it looks like the Parthians are doing well against them, or in-particular if they appear to just be getting torn at from all sides - the big daddy is going down and you best grab a piece before its all gobbled up.

2. Sit back, relax. Disband your entire army, yes your entire army and chill with your family members in Baktra - read a book, play for about twenty years and build up as the 'single city state MO', and in turn you might be able to watch events unfold, pick and choose your battles or never fight them at all.

3. This is a very interesting thing that I found out just by experimentation, keep in mind that I last tried this a few versions ago, so who knows whats changed. Arche Seleukeia is willing to sell off large tracts of land for relatively cheap prices. What I do is I send a diplomat to AS, asking 'Can I have province -x-, and what is your offer to our reasonable demands?' sometimes they'll counter with just a few thousand, or even less mnai in exchange for one of their provinces. In this way I gobbled up far more of their empire faster than I ever could have with military expansion, all with remaining their ally (Keep in mind that it is vital to this strategy to stay allied with AS at the beginning, rather than turning on them with the rest of their allies on turn two).

[Aemilius Paulus]

AI selling land? Wow! I have only succeeded in buying territories in RTW, where I was the Bill Gates of the Ancient World. The EB diplomacy, especially the financial aspect, is much harder. I need to try what you did. Was it only the AS who was willing to give away land? Were you allied with it at the time of the transaction? (if you're allied, then your allies are more willing to deal with you)

[Ravenic]

As I said in my post, it Arche Seleukeia willing to sell me the land, and I was allied with them. They're the only ones I tried, since afterall Parthia had only two provinces which I didn't particularly want anyways.

My theory is that the A.I. is smart enough to realize what a trouble his eastern provinces are, and is willing to sell them for reasonable amounts of money to fill his coffers as well as get rid of extra land that has few economic benefits in return for a good deal of riots. Also, the fact that AS simply has so much land probably helps too. Whereas you probably couldn't get Epirus to give up Epidamnos, or even Pella for any amount of mnai you could get a great many of Seleukeia's Eastern provinces...for the right price.

Of course, what I didn't mention was that in doing this the Seleucids eventually backstabbed me, but at this point I literally had eight or ten provinces with borders stretching from Baktria to the Indian Ocean. Not bad, since I got all of that in the span of about two or three years.

[Elmetiacos]

Disbanding your entire army is going a bit far, but definitely disband that horribly expensive cavalry unit and perhaps one or two infantry, depending on how much you trust your skill as a general. Use the remaining units to take Kophen. Fetch your spy back from that city in the middle of nowhere (what's it called?) and don't try to attack it yet - it's tough and there's a very large stack of Eleutheroi waiting nearby.

[NeoSpartan]

I haven't played in over two weeks, but last time I did I started a Backtria campain.

that sh**** was hard. I had to restart 'bout 3 times.

H/H difficulty, and NO Fatige. (which looking back is not really the best idea when you have to relly on archers a lot and making the AI run around a lot to get tired)

1st time I sent part my army to the northen settlement, it was not strong enough to fight the rebels who popped out of nowhere. Tried to pull back, didn't work. Lost the army. Restart.

2nd time, sent the whole army and took a good position on top of a hill. I won! But I took too many losses. A few years later I trained a new decent army and though about sneaking into Saka, when AS decided to attack. I went after them & they retreated after I got them to do a ceasefire. Went back to Saka, AS attacked again. Beat them. And then Saka attacked.
--I saw Saka and Pavhla (sp) rolling some heavy ass cavarly. So I decided to restart.

3rd time. Went straight for AS! Took 2 other settlemtent, got the spy to revolt the other 3rd, but had to retreat for taking the 4th settlement. AS snuck an army on me! Beat it. All was going good, Pavhla (sp) declared war on AS, they were kicking butt. But I didn't ACT!!! I wanted some $$ 1st. Well AS beat back Pavhla and came after me.
--I was pissed I could have taking the 2 main Pahvali settlements with mines and all with no problem.

Restarted.

Haven't played since.

[Nachtmeister]

Yea, tough but not invincible - though I wouldn't try at hard battle difficulty. Rather set campaign difficulty to VH and battle to medium... Your army is bound to be outnumbered during the first battles and with Baktria, it's only archers, not slingers until you recruit your first custom-built army... Doesn't work in the offensive and in defence only once you have stone walls in Baktra.
Disband the cavalry unit and the two units of persian archers (not the archer-spearmen).
Decide whether to pull the rest into Baktra for retraining (blacksmith and +1 exp) or to go straight for Kophen. Either way, make Kophen your first conquest. The Eleutheroi army mucking about in the canyons adjacent to it will attack within two years if you don't take it out right after taking the city and at this point you can't afford to leave a large garrison behind.
During this time, train slingers in Baktra (and maybe another unit of Pantodapoi Phalangitai), and build for population growth (taxes! Once AS backstabs you, the trade income at baktra is gone for at least one turn.)
Set up a type 3 government in Kophen and move on to the province south of it (one of the Alexandreia-places). Make sure you have enough units to keep the army there from sallying or have at least 2 units of Phalangitai and 2 flankguard-melee units (peltasts) plus general and preferrably 2-4 units of slingers.

Use diplomacy to the max.
Egypt usually comes sueing for peace soon after you take Kophen.
Don't just give it to them - make them pay big time for it, at least 6000Mnai x 2 turns if not more.
When you beat back an AS army, use your diplomat - propose peace, trade rights and a tribute (paid to you by them, of course ^^). The AI is amazing in this respect: attacks, gets beaten, pays big time, attacks again... That way you can make some money.

And if you feel like taking a bigtime early game challenge, take the Indian settlement east of Kophen, it has ~9000 population and a gold mining center (not level 1 mines, level 2 mines!). That will take care of financing an army, but bring lots of peltasts (for the angry elephants and to have at least something that vaguely resembles sword infantry) and starve them out before you attack, even if some of your people start eating their boots due to bad logistics. They have 3 units of indian elephants in there (the general is an elephant) plus 2-3 units of guild warriors (AP weapons, don't engage in melee unless you feel very lucky), some heavy cavalry unit and lots of longbowmen. Absolutely no point in trying to take it with a straight fight on the walls at this time. (Unless you can somehow get by a unit of rhomphaioi/tindanotae...)
And the archers don't seem to have much effect on the elephants, even with flames - I tried it, but they refused to go berserk until they had mopped the floor with about half of my other infantry.
The main tactical advantage (beside the money) of taking Kandhara (sp?) is that you don't need to garrison the place heavily as there seems to be no path across the mountains between it and the Saka.
In case the AS should beat you at Baktra, it is a good thing to have a goldesel stone fort capable of producing perfect anti-AS armies...

Always set up type 3 gov't wherever you go - it will be decades before you can afford high level MICs and in the meantime that gov't type gives you an easy raise of tradeable goods and population and most importantly - roads(!) without the wages for a client ruler. You can then later role-play a reform of a consolidated Baktria by turning them into type 2...

If instead you decide to blitz AS, don't go directly west or north - keep them there as a damper for Pahlava and Saka as Baktra is the best place to set up a defense due to the high factional MIC there. Work your way through the two southern territories (they are close by and already have roads, important as you can't retrain there at first) and then west to Persepolis, which has favourable terrain for blocking the grey death with forts for a few years to allow for a phase of consolidation/MIC building.

Baktria so far is the only faction that ended my campaign with a persistent CTD.
But it is also the most fun faction to play right after the very, very surrounded, heavy action, killing-spree and absolutely BEAUTIFUL KH.
Don't know about Hai, Sab'yn, Lusotannan, Casse, Arverni, Aedui, Sweboz, Getai and nomads though. But since they don't have spartans... They just don't stand a chance.