Saka Rauka, I'm always penniless...

[SilkRoad]

Hi guys,

some help would be appreciated with Saka Rauka.
After the conquest of 3-4 neighbouring villages my armies are worn thin but im still not able to cover my debts, slowly falling about 500g/turn.

What are the best steps to a somewhat working economy?

Thank you for your answers and sorry if this has been posted before.

[bovi]

The Saka are nigh-impossible. You may find that another faction may be more suitable for your skill.

I'm currently playing a VH/M Saka campaign myself, and I keep myself alive by using lots and lots of cheap horse archers combined with the badass bodyguards. Attack three cities and raze every building you can, then return to the one you took first and try to hold that. The other cities you razed will provide a buffer before the enemy can raise a decent army to retake the first city again, and you will have decent order there so you can go on another raid.

It will give you a lot of money to raid the seleukid and baktrian cities this way. You may want to be nice to your ally Pahlava, unlike me who decided to raid them once they took all the neighbouring AS cities. They are now allied in an unholy trinity with AS and Baktria in order to smack my raiders back to the steppes.

[SilkRoad]

Thank you for your quick answer,

pity that they are so hard, just fell in love with their units ( no damn phalanxes ).
I'll check out their neighbours.

Have a nice Saturday.

[Barry Soteiro]

I think they are the most difficult EB faction.

[craziii]

every faction with the nigh impoosible dificulty is all about surviving the first few years financially. once you do, you are set.

I played pontos, once I added 3 cities to my starting one, I was set, even when AS started atacking me. I then proceeded to take over all their provinces in anatolia which had mines already built, needless to say I was rolling in money when I took over their 5 cities in anatolia. I may have been lucky with the mines not sure. once this happens, it is a normal campaign.

[MerlinusCDXX]

What I did was to stack all my FMs together with the rest of my starting troops and go straight for Chach , the eastern AS lands and Baktra. I let the regular troops get depleted until they were all gone, and took any marriages or adoptions offered. I'd besiege a town and then hire 1 or 2 of the cheapest mercs available, and assault if I had cash. If I had no cash I'd sit there, and force a sally. The ai will sally out if your army looks small or weak, but a stack of even as little as 3 Saka FMs can beat the tiny garrisons the AS has in the east. I'd suggest not wasting time on the steppes as of yet, since you basically need to blitz Persia with your FM stack to get your economy able to support an army. Once you've taken Persia, and can afford an army, create one and get the mountain lands behind Baktra and start heading to N India. This should get you to a point where you cant start dealing with the steppes.
I've been fending off AS attacks with a stack of 6 FMs for many years now, and am finally getting some regular troops in with them, but they have been beating the crap out of the slow AS infantry on their own. By now they are all gold chevroned tanks. Use those FMs, they are some tough mofos.

[anubis88]

i just started playing with them, i have 6K in the bank, 5 settlements, the year is 268bc, and i already got the reforms:2thumbsup:

[White_eyes:D]

i just started playing with them, i have 6K in the bank, 5 settlements, the year is 268bc, and i already got the reforms:2thumbsup:
That's just nuts.....:skull: , on my Saka-Raka campaign VH/M I toke over most of the steppes and have north India in my empire. And my cash is at 1K barely, I have about 15 FMs(My stack of elites:2thumbsup: ) hardly enough to hold it all,
yet just enough......:smash: