Hunh... well, I've never seen that before.

After about 15 years of trying to organize an expedition to take back Mazaka from the Ptolemaioi I finally did; then executed the population for their failure to revolt back to me and for their low level of public order. This happened on the AI's turn when the Ptolemaic garrison sallied forth to attack. Naturally, I crushed them, but what surprised me was that during the Romani turn I got this offer:

http://abou.heliologue.com/uploads/diplomawhat.jpg

Maybe diplomacy isn't so buggered.

Naturally, I accepted the offer, but was very surprised. I imagine it has happened to someone else before, but I have never seen it. Looks like Rome will be getting a longlasting tribute for being so awesome to me.

Nice. Yeah, sometimes random things like that do happen, but only occasionally. It's good when they do though. That's a pretty sizeable sum they've offered too, usually it's something in the hundreds.

Yeah, it'll make a nice addition to your 400,000+mnai. By the way, how/why/when/wtf did Romans conquer the Aedui capital in the middle of Gaul?! Seems like Legio 101st at work here.

How did you get 400,000+ mnai by 249BC? In my Seleucid game I've been short of cash forever.

For me, the trick was to build economic buildings as much as possible except in high risk settlements that needed barracks. Once I kicked the Ptolemaioi off the cost of Phoenicia they really slowed down and so that reduced army costs. A few turns later I could build my first mine and each mine becomes cooperative after that, being easier and easier to build. Right now, I think that all of my cities which can have mines have both developed levels.

Don't feel bad though, it took me forever to have some actual spending cash. Lots of nail bitting turns

I gave up on my VH/M 0.8 Roman campaign and decided to sissy out with a M/M 0.81 campaign. There's a huuuuge difference between how my African war is progressing in these two setups. M/M is (too) easy, but 0.81 still had a nice surprise in store for me.

My spies noticed a half stack Carthaginian army slowly advancing towards Lepcis. The very slow advance made me curious so I took another look. Turns out the pesky Carthaginians had built a huge catapult that they dragged along. I had no idea that some factions had siege artillery so that was a nice touch.

rgds/EoE

I guess it must be because my military is too massive. Could you post a picture of your financial page so that I could take a look at your army upkeep?

I'll make sure to upload it when I get back from class later tonight.

http://abou.heliologue.com/uploads/financial.jpg

Wow, I see that mining income brings in more cash than all the other economic aspects. No wonder I am so poor; been holding off building those mines because of their incredible cost and build time.

I held off saving for mines because of the fear of them becoming targets for surrounding factions, but after a while I noticed that to grow I really needed them. Once I managed to get to about 10,000 mnai a turn I started building them. As I said before, their cooperative like hemoglobin. Once the first mine is made the second one is easier, the third is even easier, and so forth.

The Seleukids definitely had a lot of money - they needed to in order to afford the massive military they could muster when needed. So whereas Egypt's wealth was farming from the Nile delta and valley, Syria's could definitely come from mining. Once I work my way into Armenia, I'll have even more money from their powerful mines.

Also, the tribute cost your seeing is to the Sauromatae to keep them off my back. So far it is working pretty well, but may need to be renewed soon.

Okay, thanks for the help.