Are satrapies unfair ?

[bisthebis]

For hellenistic kingdoms, there's 2 kinds of government trees :
-The "dynamic" government tree for Ptolemaioi, Makedonia, Epeiros and Pergamon : the government tier is based upon the presence or absence of poleis and greek colonies : The best government requires level 3 polis and level 3 greek colony, the 2nd best require a polis and a colony, no matter the level, and the 3rd best just requires a polis. If there's not polis, you get crappy government : at the best, you can get native administration and, once you've build an eastern colony, supervised natives. This gives no recruitement and you must rely on eastern colonies to get troops.
-The satrapic government for Seleucids and Baktria (once they get independant) : It works about the same way with the addition of 2 governments : The satrapy, wich is between the best and 2 best government of others hellenistic kingdoms but can only be built in the provinces owning the "satrapy" hidden_ressource (there's 19 satrapies in the map) and the hyparchia (requires the hyparchia hidden ressource, I think nearly all provinces of alexandros' empire that aren't satrapies are hyparchiai) wich provides good buildings level but doesn't give troops withouu a colony or a polis giving some. The best government (the one requiring lvl 3 polis and colony) is only available as an upgrade of satrapy.

The satrapic government has pros and cons :
+When you conquer a satrapy, you can build a strong government faster than other factions no matter of the level of polis or colony in the region
-You can't build Basilike Patris (best government) without a satrapy

So :
Is it "fair" to let factions like ptolemaoi build a Basilike Patris everywhere (if they meet the requirements, which is rather hard to do in most provinces) while Seleucids cannot build Basilike Patris excepted in the 19 satrapies ? I think the satrapy resource should be a requirement for basilike patris even with non-satrapic factions. On the other side, I like the idea of being able to build Basilike Patris everywhere if I spend enough colonists and money.
Maybe it should be possible to build a satrapy in provinces with a Metropolis, so we could "create" new satrapies by buildings metropoleis.

[bisthebis]

I've done a painted map with all the satrapies and hyparchiai. We can see the satrapies (in black) : they are rather numerous and sometimes contiguous, but sometimes there are great "holes" only filled with hyparchia (grey) and we can play almost the entirge seleukid game without taking a province being neither satrapy or hyparchy. (This map may contain a mistake or two)

[Kull]

@V.T. Marvin - Please take a look at this when you get a chance.

[V.T. Marvin]

I believe it balancs out in effect - one can hardly buid 20+ Basilike Patris govs in any given campaign as Macedonia or Ptolemaioi anyway. And it helps to distinquish otherwise fairly similar Hellenistic faction a bit more from one another. Also the Satrapy system for AS might support a nice trait/ancillary system of Satrapal titles and offices once somebody actually gets into coding it.

[bisthebis]

one can hardly buid 20+ Basilike Patris govs in any given campaign as Macedonia or Ptolemaioi anyway

Indeed, the population requirements are so huge it would be impossible to build much of them.

On the other side, building a level 1 colony + minor polis nearly everywhere as macedonia is engough to get a fairly good government. If we don't have colonsits and there is no polis a conquered province in ex-achemenid empire, we can use Laarchia, so it seems OK to me.The only exception I see is Bithynia : there is no polis and you can't build Laarchia, so you're forced to build a polis before getting a government

Also the Satrapy system for AS might support a nice trait/ancillary system of Satrapal titles and offices once somebody actually gets into coding it.

Oh yeah !

[Tolg]

Slightly of topic but digging through the files I have noticed another problem: tier two and up Hellenic colonies can only be built in provinces with the satrapy resource. The colony building require tier 3 farms which require at least tier 5 government (satrapy), effectively capping Hellenic culture spread in hyparchies at 30%.

This makes a degree of sense for the seleucids and their giant empire (Hellenic culture only establishing itself in regional centres etc. etc.), but it has some really weird consequences for baktria which can spread its culture to settlements half a world away but not to the cities right next to their capital.

Worse even, the tier 6 government (supervised Hellenic administration), which can only be built in regions with neither of the two satrapy resources, allows you to build better farms and in extension better colonies meaning that - if they can grow their cities large enough - baktria can hellenise nomadic and "barbarian" backwater provinces, but not Oxeiane (Oskobara), the province that even the regions flavour text names as an essential part of the baktrian heartlands.

I'm not sure how to fix this, maybe just change the requirements of the baktrian farms, but I do feel that Baktria is suffering from having a system that was blatantly designed for the western Greek factions.

[bisthebis]

On the same kind of problem, it is nearly impossible to build an hyparchia in Ephesus : we must either build an eastern colony (impossible due to polis) or a greek colony (but seluekids don't own a metropolis at the start) so we must build an hellenic administration.
I think we should make a thread with all buildings requirements related problems

[Thoras]

For hellenistic kingdoms, there's 2 kinds of government trees :

There is also the Bosporan variant they don't need colonies or poleis at all, just Hellenic culture.

[bisthebis]

Yes, I knew it but I always forget Bosphorus :D