Tips for Baktrian Campaign

[Grriffon]

I just put my Roman campaign on pause and started a Baktrian campaiign. I'm maybe 20 turns in, and have restarted once or twice. This time, I'm allied with Pahlava against Seleukia. I have no qualms about starting over again though this early into it. I was just wondering if you guys have any advice for getting started and/or playing Baktria in general. Thanks :)

[Irishmafia2020]

I am going to cut and paste my advice on Baktria here so that I don't have to rewrite it:

Baktria is a fun game, but you have to use your starting money to preorder up three or four more units that can be used as reinforcements to your starting army (I usu go with Levy Phalanxes). Then, take that army and conquer Kophen and that other city in the Valley to the northwest. Fight the Elutheroi stack there (or they will be aggressive and attack your cities), and you will have an army that is literally decimated. That is good, since they will not cost you anything to maintain, but they can quickly be retrained to full strength once you send them back to Baktra. You should be making 3-4 thousand per turn at this point, and you will be out of debt within a year (by 269 BC probably). Immediately, when you make a profit, train soldiers in Baktra. I know that their upkeep will cut into your profit, but the AS is opportunistic. They send reinforcements past Baktra to their two cities in the north. If you have a decent garrison they will not attack you, but will continue to their destination. If you have only a single unit or FM, then they will lay seige to Baktra, and you pretty much just lost the game. Therefore, you should train 2-3 decent units in Baktra as a garrison as soon as you can afford it. When your decimated main army returns, just pack them into Baktra proper, and reinflate (retrain) them when you need them again. In the meantime, use your profits to save up money every turn to buy mines. Every province in that region has mines, and usually the second level is available as well. That means that you will eventually be one of the richest factions in the game if you are patient and invest well. I think of the Baktria campaign as a "wild west" type scenario. You are an outpost of civilization drawn to the area by gold, and wealth, but you have to fight the fierce and independent natives to survive (Saka and Pahlava in this case). Altogether Bactria is an interesting campaign, but you have to micromanage your first 12 turns to get a decent start in 1.1 - I even had to restart a campaign after 10 years with 1.0"
One final piece of advice, Archers, especially Subeshi archers are effective against HA's. Place your Subeshis behind a phalanx, or better yet, Persian Archer Spearmen. The subeshis outrange the HA, and the concentrated fire of 6-8 archer units (persian archers, archer apearmen, Subeshi archers) will destroy the horse archers. They will charge, but if you have a phalanx and the archer spearmen you will destroy them. Keep your heavy infantry available for AS and use archers against the HA armies.

Generic advice:
You should try to take Gandahara (city named taxil... whatever) when you can, as that will be a good base for you to retreat to if you get knocked back by the AS or Saka. You can also recruit Indian elite units, elephants there and it is the only province from which Indo Iranian Heavy cav can be recruited. Kophen can be a decent recruitment center as well if you build up your MIC. India spawns rebels with elephants, so watch out for the innocuous half stacks there. India also has a good fall back economy. Your Goal should be to find a way to maintain stable borders with forts and regional levies who actually fight off invasions until you become strong enough to destroy the pesky barbarians, Persians, and Selucids who surround you. Remember that your land armies are ten turns away from defending your homeland when you ship them out on a campaign. The style of warfare is different than in the Mediterranean basin where you can ship your armies around in a year or two...

[/Bean\]

Thanks mafia, this has inspired me to start a new Baktria campaign if i get annoyed with my Romani campaign any time soon. Good detailed though not too personal advice for the early campaign, and i like the note about the different style of warfare than the Med. I know that hit me hard when i first tried Baktria many a year ago. Havent played with them in a while, so thanks for the advice and inspiration. :2thumbsup:

[Ice]

Thanks mafia, this has inspired me to start a new Baktria campaign if i get annoyed with my Romani campaign any time soon. Good detailed though not too personal advice for the early campaign, and i like the note about the different style of warfare than the Med. I know that hit me hard when i first tried Baktria many a year ago. Havent played with them in a while, so thanks for the advice and inspiration. :2thumbsup:

Use spies. Make all the AS cities around you rebel. The AS will be less inclined to attack you if it has to go after it's own cities that just rebelled. I also gave the AS a 100 each to turn to try to hold the alliance. Walls are also a good thing.

I actually took Kophen and from there invaded India. I'm still allies with the AS currently and it is around 240 BC.

[Grriffon]

I am going to cut and paste my advice on Baktria here so that I don't have to rewrite it:

Baktria is a fun game, but you have to use your starting money to preorder up three or four more units that can be used as reinforcements to your starting army (I usu go with Levy Phalanxes). Then, take that army and conquer Kophen and that other city in the Valley to the northwest. Fight the Elutheroi stack there (or they will be aggressive and attack your cities), and you will have an army that is literally decimated. That is good, since they will not cost you anything to maintain, but they can quickly be retrained to full strength once you send them back to Baktra. You should be making 3-4 thousand per turn at this point, and you will be out of debt within a year (by 269 BC probably). Immediately, when you make a profit, train soldiers in Baktra. I know that their upkeep will cut into your profit, but the AS is opportunistic. They send reinforcements past Baktra to their two cities in the north. If you have a decent garrison they will not attack you, but will continue to their destination. If you have only a single unit or FM, then they will lay seige to Baktra, and you pretty much just lost the game. Therefore, you should train 2-3 decent units in Baktra as a garrison as soon as you can afford it. When your decimated main army returns, just pack them into Baktra proper, and reinflate (retrain) them when you need them again. In the meantime, use your profits to save up money every turn to buy mines. Every province in that region has mines, and usually the second level is available as well. That means that you will eventually be one of the richest factions in the game if you are patient and invest well. I think of the Baktria campaign as a "wild west" type scenario. You are an outpost of civilization drawn to the area by gold, and wealth, but you have to fight the fierce and independent natives to survive (Saka and Pahlava in this case). Altogether Bactria is an interesting campaign, but you have to micromanage your first 12 turns to get a decent start in 1.1 - I even had to restart a campaign after 10 years with 1.0"
One final piece of advice, Archers, especially Subeshi archers are effective against HA's. Place your Subeshis behind a phalanx, or better yet, Persian Archer Spearmen. The subeshis outrange the HA, and the concentrated fire of 6-8 archer units (persian archers, archer apearmen, Subeshi archers) will destroy the horse archers. They will charge, but if you have a phalanx and the archer spearmen you will destroy them. Keep your heavy infantry available for AS and use archers against the HA armies.

Generic advice:
You should try to take Gandahara (city named taxil... whatever) when you can, as that will be a good base for you to retreat to if you get knocked back by the AS or Saka. You can also recruit Indian elite units, elephants there and it is the only province from which Indo Iranian Heavy cav can be recruited. Kophen can be a decent recruitment center as well if you build up your MIC. India spawns rebels with elephants, so watch out for the innocuous half stacks there. India also has a good fall back economy. Your Goal should be to find a way to maintain stable borders with forts and regional levies who actually fight off invasions until you become strong enough to destroy the pesky barbarians, Persians, and Selucids who surround you. Remember that your land armies are ten turns away from defending your homeland when you ship them out on a campaign. The style of warfare is different than in the Mediterranean basin where you can ship your armies around in a year or two...


I've tried AT LEAST 10 Baktrian campaigns now. So far all have ended in failure. Most I have tried according to this strategy. I build a caravan guide, and 3 native phalanx at the start. I take Kopen and the small mountain town you suggest. No matter what I've tried so far, both AS and Pahlava betray me and siege any city my army isn't near. At this point I am 10-15,000 in debt, and making about 500 mnai per turn. I have no clue where you are getting 3k. So now, I have a small army, a pathetic income, and enemies all around me. It's getting supremely discouraging, and unfun.

[socal_infidel]

I've tried AT LEAST 10 Baktrian campaigns now. So far all have ended in failure. Most I have tried according to this strategy. I build a caravan guide, and 3 native phalanx at the start. I take Kopen and the small mountain town you suggest. No matter what I've tried so far, both AS and Pahlava betray me and siege any city my army isn't near. At this point I am 10-15,000 in debt, and making about 500 mnai per turn. I have no clue where you are getting 3k. So now, I have a small army, a pathetic income, and enemies all around me. It's getting supremely discouraging, and unfun.

Did you stay allied with Pahlava against the AS? In my last Baktrian campaign, I stay allied with AS and they didn't betray me until 240 (at which point I had already expanded into India and was rolling in a steady income).

I think I went with Persian Archer Spearmen mercs instead of phalanxes in the beginning. I left a family member and a unit or two behind in Baktra and proceeded towards Kophen with the other two family members and the main army. You should be able to take Kophen fairly easily with the initial army plus the two Persian Archer Spearmen. At this point, I hunkered down in Kophen and Baktra. Consolidated forces and disbanded unneeded troops.

Now what I did was instead of making a dash for the town (whose name I forget in the Northwest) with a large army. I recruit a unit or two of slingers or archers and send them in a fairly steady stream to basically whittle down the garrison there each turn. It doesn't matter if they all die as long as you keep killing a goodly number each turn

Basically, this strategy allowed me to devote excess cash to units to garrison Baktra. I just needed a cheap garrison in Kophen of eastern units. I could spend money on better troops in Baktra. I think (although who knows) the AS will get opportunistic if they see Baktra undergarrisoned and then they betray you. Also, to the extent you can, pay tribute to the AS.

The key to a Baktrian campaign is how long you can forestall the inevitable AS betrayal. It's a challenging start that depends on a lot of luck but once you get going, Baktria has one of the best rosters in the game.

[Woreczko]

I took the opposite approach with Baktria. My first moves:
1. Retrain the starting army + train 1 unit pantodapoi
2a. Put faction leader + 1 trained unit of patodapoi on guard duty in Baktra.
2b. Send all remaining forces to conquer Margiane (war with AS).
3. After easy conquest of Margiane, I took Aria, still with minimal losses (couldn`t retrain due to being in debt)
4. Went after Drangiane (mines!) but this time opposition proved to be too much to handle.
5. Fought a not-so-heroic battle defending the bridge in Aria from AS counterattack.
6. Sued for peace for 2000 mnai.

At this point things "took off", and so far AS wasn`t able to seriously threaten my existence. I have lost a couple of battles, I even lost Aria to treacherous backstab attack on AS part, but overall the wars with AS go in my favor. Pahlava has been a very loyal ally all the time, despite timidity of my northern garrisons.

[Irishmafia2020]

Wow... I am sorry! That strategy worked for me, and i refined it from several false starts. I hope that you can find a way to survive the early campaign. It is definitely a challenge, but you do need to have a little luck in that the AS has to keep the peace with you for a while. Alternatively I suppose you could capture the AS city near Baktria, and then you have twin cities, but a war with AS. I am sorry that your campaigns have been so disappointing, since I am such a fan of this faction...

[Bumbar]

I don't remember ever failing with Baktria, it's really not that hard. Pontos is much harder in my opinion. Anyway, to strategy. Use starting money to buy as many of those cheap phalanx units you can. Leave 2 of them for defense of capital, together with 1 archers and one general. Send rest to take the city east of you, but avoid the eleutheroi stack that's prowling the countryside. Ideally that stack should head towards your capital, so just defend against their attack. It's not an easy battle, but they don't really have any units capable of penetrating phalanx and once you kill the general, they will rout.

Once you have the city east of you, turn your army south and capture the Eleutheroi city down there. If I remember correctly, you should be making small profit now. It'll take a while to get out of debt, so you're left with 2 choices. You can either wait to get out of debt, improve the defenses of your capital and then attack AS, or attack them right away. Decision should depend on what forces they have in the area, so spend at least couple of turns spying on them, you can do that while you're sieging the southern city, but whatever you do, don't be afraid of attacking AS. They have multiple fronts and they usually keep most of their armies in western half of their empire, leaving east to be divided between you, Pahlava and Saka. If you wait for too long, Pahlava will conquer easter AS and they are much harder foe to defeat, than AS. Once you attack AS just advance northwest with your army and defend the capital from possible attacks. Once you take those 2 cities that separate your army from your capital, slow your advance down, it's time to consolidate your gains. Improve walls at least in your capital, but you might consider doing it in all cities that are open to attack. Build mines wherever you can, if they aren't built already. Increase the garrison in capital, reinforce your army and make sure other cities have adequate garrisons. Once you're set defensively invest some more money in economy and send your army south to take coastal cities belonging to AS. Once you have them, march upon Persepolis and Gabai. Capture them, leave army there for defense and start recruiting another army for conquest of India. Don't forget to include some skirmishers including javelin cavalry in this army, to take down Indian elephants. Also don't forget to leave strong garrison in Baktria, at least half a stack of phalanxes and archer-spearman. You can get attacked there by both Pahlava and Saka, so be prepared to defend yourself. Don't try to counter any of them on open field, you'll suffer far less casualties if you let them assault your cities. Cities south of Baktria should depend on 5-6 unit garrisons for defense and southern lands around Persepolis should be defended by 1st army. After you conquer India you'll have more than enough money to do anything you want. You can advance further into AS, invade Pahlava, or attack Saka. I also recommend building third army by this time and use it wherever you decide to attack next. If you like role playing, leave Indian army there, to defend against imaginary invaders from off-map India, otherwise just send them back to Baktria for retraining. I usually like to build an army composed of Indian units, to defend those Indian provinces.

Unit usage should be pretty straightforward with Baktria. You're not rich in the early turns, so don't try to get some fancy elite units. Use archer-spearman and cheapest phalanxes. If battle goes wrong, don't be afraid of sacrificing archer-spearman in melee combat, to buy yourself some time, they're cheap. Once you get some solid income coming in, expand your army to include some more advanced units, like horse archers, skirmishers and those offensive spearman, whose name eludes me now. Don't bother with cavalry early on (except for family members of course), phalanxes and archers are really more than enough to defeat Eleutheroi and whatever AS throws at you in those early turns, but later you can include some heavy cavalry, once you can afford it. Don't bother recruiting balistas and catapults in Baktria, they cost too much for what they offer. Use elephants if you like them, once you can afford them, but there's really no need to do so. City defense is also no-brainer. Cheap phalanx + archers on walls should be enough to send any AI army running for the hills.

Here's a map, displaying paths of my first 2 armies, blue one is starting army, burgundy one is Indian army.
http://home.amis.net/zerajima/razno/baktria.jpg

[Justinian II]

I've tried AT LEAST 10 Baktrian campaigns now. So far all have ended in failure. Most I have tried according to this strategy. I build a caravan guide, and 3 native phalanx at the start. I take Kopen and the small mountain town you suggest. No matter what I've tried so far, both AS and Pahlava betray me and siege any city my army isn't near. At this point I am 10-15,000 in debt, and making about 500 mnai per turn. I have no clue where you are getting 3k. So now, I have a small army, a pathetic income, and enemies all around me. It's getting supremely discouraging, and unfun.


Exact same thing happens to me; I'm thinking the next time I try a Baktrian campaign, I'll take Kopen, and then push to Gandhara, which is more valuable than that mountain town anyway.