why are most factions poor?

[athanaric]

2) you combine your troops into 1 or 2 punching forces that will take as many cities as fast as you can. dont care if you go into debt. you always use the sell into slavery option (extermination in vanilla) once you sack a city to get as much money as you can. and then leave as little garrison as possible behind while moving on to take the next city. You do this untill you have a positive income and are unable to safely take another city. most nations have an optimal blitzing path that allows you to take many cities within a few turns with minimal losses. provided ofcourse you use your spies and generals right.

I would actually recommend not sacking any cities at the start, unless you're planning to abandon them afterwards. For most factions, it's better to just occupy the settlement, raze the pre-built government building (and barracks if they don't work for your faction), and try to develop the economy ASAP. Mabe build a tier 1 MIC for the most basic units. This is (somewhat ironically) particularly valid for Barbarian factions. Also, Pontos generals get a really bad trait for sacking places with the "homeland" resource.

remember that archers, slingers and javelin troops are your friends in these early engagements when taking cities. phalanx units are nice too. but if you want to absolutely murder the ai, make use of horse archers whenever you can.

Definitely true; when storming enemy settlements, try to cause as many missile casualties as you possibly can, right at the start, by drawing out the enemy and shooting them to bits. 20% missile kills should be doable with some patience and good micro. When attacking settlements with tier 1 palisades, you can place javelin-equipped units directly in front of the walls. They will be able to cause horrendous casualties. This is important because assaults are a messy business and street fights are bugged, and you need as many men as possible to survive said battles.

[The Stranger]

ye pontus has to be careful what you sack.

i prefer to sack for 2 reasons, first you need the instant cash to buy mercs to replace fallen soldiers and to get into a positive cashflow to build some new buildings. and 2nd sacking cities makes them easier to rule early, you usually just need to leave 1 unit behind to occupy them without too much trouble. if you dont, then you will have to leave much more behind and this will slow down your initial blitz.

razing barracks and gov buildings is standard fare ofcourse. should always do it, whatever you do.

[Ca Putt]

the first few settlements you conquer generally tend to be homeland provinces tho and not only pontids get them nasty traits from sacking them. It surely varies from faction to faction and on how many Mercs you plan to hire but as a general rule of thumb I'd advise against choosing option 3 for homeland provinces, they normally are not that hard to keep order in (earlygame) and sewers or the like normally lift the approval high enough to raise taxes, well or you just keep taxes low to get some population grouth.

razing barracks and gov buildings is standard fare ofcourse. should always do it, whatever you do.

!this should be a pop up ingametip! It really is very usefull for getting a few coins in hand and slightly reducing the unrest

[The Stranger]

ive never really had any trouble with it. and its also not always true, for example as greeks i never got bad traits for sacking crete, which is a homeland province nonetheless.

ur both right that it does curb your early population growth, but this can easily be remedied by picking option 2 after a few conquests.

[moonburn]

back

well most factions are poor because their citizens don´t pay their taxs and don´t fill up tax forms so the best way to get out of debt depending on wich faction you pick is increase your tax paying base by adding new territories to your original ones

don´t enslave or exterminate people that makes their productivity low i mean a slave as hardly any incentive to give his best except for a few lashes (only idiots kill off valuable property because they are lazy anyway ) so when acquiring new territories just share their population between your other towns (all cities with a general will get a share of that population ) plus that "sharing" of population will grant that new conquered region a new trade resource this tactic is particulary usefull and required with maks and epirotes since your army training centers will tend to run out of population on quite a few ocasions

i love the balkans a bit tricky at the start but let me inform you that all those mines more then make up for it and once you develop it (it will take you 2/5 years to kick out the epirotes and the kh if you are the maks and 20 years give or take to develop all those mines ) you can easily suport 6/7 full stack armies and a powerfull navy filled with triremes and quinquiremes

[The Stranger]

its the way you want to play i guess :/

i love to blitz, see how many cities i can take within the least amount of time. you cant do an effective blitz without enslaving/exterminating because it simply creates more problems in terms of population happiness and you need the cash it gives. currently im trying to finish every campaign within 50 years :P i think its possible for most.

if you set yourself up for a longer game, then i guess its inadvisible to use exterminate unless a city is really over its pop limit.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

its the way you want to play i guess :/

if you set yourself up for a longer game, then i guess its inadvisible to use exterminate unless a city is really over its pop limit.

Assuming your treasury isn't empty, the way to deal with a large rebellious city without exterminating is to install a Type IV government and recruit a general to be a client ruler. Client rulers are expensive, but they are way, WAY better at dealing with unrest than your own family members. They cost a lot less than a 6+ unit garrison.