Finding Baktria hard

I'm an experienced EB player but I have usually just played Romani, Makedonia and Getai. I recently tried a Baktrian campaign and I'm finding it really hard! I somehow ended up at war with AS, Pahlava and Saka within 10 years and I only have a 3/4 stack of fairly average units.

I'm thinking that all is lost right now because I failed to expand east, but I don't really know how to prevent all these enemies from surrounding me again if I start a new campaign.

What are your top Baktria-starting tips?

Recruit spies and get em to make the surrounding settlements revolt, keeping whatever army you have nearby to siege without declaring war on anyone you don't have to

I tried Baktria.

I immediately attempted to take the North-Eastern Eleutheroi settlement with all available forces.

I was defeated.

The Eleutheroi left their homelands and counter-attacked Baktra with a military ratio of 50:3.

My campaign ended.

Mind you, several people find the Gauls impossible to win out with on either side - but as I have found out after choosing a new campaign - the Gallic tribes have victory set up for them!

With every faction - you simply have to match your playing style to it.

I can't play Makedonia yet - or the KH. I'll work something out though.

Take Kophen first after retrain the troops and get some more, use the mountain to cover the moving of your army and take Alexdropolis and Pura.
Don´t make the cites of the north revolt, this will make the Pahlava to control of the region, and horse archer will by your :skull:.
Take SA south cites after the revolt, the SA is two buzzy facing Pahlava to go after you, most of the time the send small army.

I finished Baktria campaign(on VH) and you can find progression here if you are interested :

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...=101742&page=3

***Potential spoiler:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Stay away from Alexandreia-Eschate , Marakanda and Antiocheia-Margiane, because it will take you quite a bit of resources that you don't have early in the game to hold them and build them.
Plus will get you into war with AS , Saka and Pahlava right away.This way you only need to concentrate defending Baktra(build biggest walls that you can) , instead of 2-4 places early, which i found much more strategically and financially sound.

I found that AS has a fetish thing about those 3 provinces.So i left them to fight over them with Saka and Pahlava.In return all 3 left me alone.


I took Kophen, and left that rebel stack there to "guard" my border, and Gava-Haomavarga rebels to keep my North safe for time.Then i built up till i could have afford to take Taksashila and other India provinces( they are safe and you don't need tons of troops to garrison them.Then i took Alexandropolis.

After that, use 2-3 spies and assassin to cause rebellion of AS towns south of you, and then take them.AS will attack you, if they didn't by then.

Try to stay out of Pahlava zone of interest till you are ready to fight them.

And this is not 100% sure win tactics, but with Baktria no tactics is 100%.

It's just most financially efficient one that i have found

Hope this helps.

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 order 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 oppurtunistic. 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 phalank and the archer spearmen you will destroy them. Keep your heavy infantry available for AS and use archers against the HA armies.

xD just give up and bow to the mighty morphing Steppes Rangers!

Saka ftw.