Best way to play as Getai?

**Michaelis** · 05-23-2007, 19:50

Here's what worked for me:

1. Spend all the starting money on construction (palisade, roads) and new units (queue them up).

2. Capture every independent city you can until you run out of soldiers. Immediately hike taxes in every newly captured city as high as you can without killing population growth or causing revolt. Do not EVER exterminate cities - you're killing your tax base if you do. Remember that every new citizen of your growing empire means more tax money! Make a point to construct buildings that boost population growth, too.

3. Sign peace treaties and trade agreements with everyone you can. They'll attack you later anyway, but in the meantime you want to make as much money as possible and capture as many Eleutheroi cities as possible without getting into a war with another faction. One exception: Byzantion. Pontus will declare war on you when you attack it, but in both of my Getai games they agreed to peace immediately afterwards (I had my diplomat ready and waiting). Byzantion is nice, good trade income and you'll get some cool new units.

You should be out of debt sometime in 270 BC, and it should never get worse than around 12,000 mnai (VH/M). By around 260 BC, you should have an empire stretching from Bosphorus to the Alps. Sarmiszegethusa is a jewel - rich, big city with good unit mix. Move your capital there to minimise the distance-from-capital penalties.

You should be able to complete the campaign goals around 250 BC if all goes well.

**LorDBulA** · 05-23-2007, 19:56

You should be able to complete the campaign goals around 250 BC if all goes well.

Lol. If You blitz then Yes. But I dont recommend this type of playing, its just not fun. You loose a lot.
When I played Getai last time (0.74 VH/H ) I ended it about 220BC because of CTD and by that time I had Hellicarnassos and Ipsos only. Romans just kicked me out of my homeland

The whole game was a blast.

**bovi** · 05-23-2007, 20:02

I think you're wrong, I've seen no change in tax income from a 400 people village to a huge city. You can see this easily when playing with huge unit size, if you queue up 10 units you spend 2000 people and it never changes.

**LordCurlyton** · 05-23-2007, 20:08

I'm on the "don't exterminate side" as I'm damn sure that more peeps = more taxes. Sorry bovi, but I must disagree. I'll get around to actually checking sometime as well. Also, I must add that more peeps = closer to city upgrade and easier to queue up units due to spare bodies.

**paullus** · 05-23-2007, 21:19

Lordbula, I feel like I remember that campaign. Were you posting recaps of action in the AI expansion thread or something?

Let me begin by saying that I love to hear that people are playing the Getai and enjoying them. You'll be pleased then to hear that there are some new units and other things in store for the Getai in the next build, only some of which have been previewed.

It is possible to blitz with the Getai and get most of your conditions met within 15-20 years, but remember that, while the Getai controlled a total of 4 provinces not long before 272, they don't regain a unified territory that large for more than 100 years, as best we can tell. Now, that doesn't mean you can't blitz, go for it, it is kinda fun. But my most satisfying Getai campaign saw me with about 5 core provinces in 250, and then playing the Epeirotes and Maks off each other (Getic raiding armies are a lot of fun) until Pontos invaded Europe.

Anyway, I guess your question was primarily about the start. If you take 1 of the 3 provinces easily reached from your starting position (Kallatis, Naissos, and Sarmiszegethusa), and then disband most of your troops, you can be in the black pretty quickly. Taking 2 does it a little faster than that even.

**Redmeth** · 05-23-2007, 22:09

I keep waiting and telling myself that when 1.0 hits I'll play the best Getai campaign ever, but I want to be sure that all the features, units and great stuff are in to enhance the joy.
Good things come to those who wait...
P.S.: Please tell me it's true!!!

**bovi** · 05-23-2007, 23:06

Hehe, I'm on the "don't exterminate side" because I don't like the action of exterminating, but that's just my qualms

.

Anyway, I took a simple experiment, and started a seleucid game. I found out I was wrong: Karmana with 580 people yields 320 mnai at low tax rate. Reducing to 400 means it's reduced to 262, so that's a large impact. Interestingly, at 18522 the yield is 836 and at 19490 it's 848. That miniscule change is probably why I've thought it didn't matter before.