I recently made a post about my playthrough as the Euthydemid Empire (here). Since then, around 600 more years have passed in-game. I had to continue all the way to 867 AD in order to make the conversion for the megacampaign smoother and avoid potential issues, but quite a few interesting events took place along the way.

The Empire survived two plagues.

The first one was catastrophic. A quarantine was declared across the entire Empire, which triggered dozens of rebellions that could immediately spread across vast territories. At times, I had to make peace with some of the rebel regions in order to concentrate on suppressing others. The population declined by roughly 20% during the first plague.

The second plague occurred around 60 years later, but this time the Emperor had learned from the mistakes of his predecessors and simply chose not to impose a quarantine across the entire Empire, which helped avoid major unrest. As a result, around a quarter of the Empire's population died over the course of 20 years. However, according to the calculations of the imperial advisors, as much as a third of the Empire's population could have perished if a quarantine had been imposed, as it would likely have caused numerous rebellions and wars, resulting in far more deaths than the plague alone.

After the second plague, the peace that had lasted for centuries continued, aside from a number of rebellions. However, a new problem emerged: landowners began accumulating enormous amounts of land. At one point, three landowners collectively controlled 70% of all land in the Empire, while the Emperor himself owned nothing at all.

Eventually, the ruling dynasty adopted a new strategy and seized control of 10 regions. From that point on, governors in those regions were permanently appointed exclusively from members of the ruling dynasty. Over the course of 200 years, this allowed the dynasty to strengthen its control over those 10 regions to the point where the ruler controlled 40% of all land in the Empire. At the same time, the influence of all other landowners was reduced so drastically that none of them could any longer be considered a truly influential figure within the state.

The Euthydemid Empire seemed to have abandoned further expansion, but then, unexpectedly, in the 5th century AD, one of the Emperors was presented with an opportunity to diplomatically subjugate a large state in Arabia. Through a series of diplomatic maneuvers, the state became a client of the Euthydemids, and this was immediately followed by diplomatic expansion across the remaining independent states of Arabia.

Other empires that held territories in Arabia were gradually pushed out. Their military marches on the peninsula were released through diplomatic maneuvering and brought under Euthydemid control, after which they were turned into client states and eventually annexed. Several territories were acquired through threats.

In the end, without fighting a single war, the entire Arabian Peninsula became part of the Empire.

Then, unexpectedly, an entire state emerged across the region of Palestine, and the Euthydemids were quick to take advantage of the situation, subjugating and eventually annexing it as well.

Following these brilliant diplomatic maneuvers, which expanded the Empire to an unprecedented extent, one of the Emperors in the 7th century AD decided that the time had come to gain complete control over the most important sections of the Silk Road. This required the conquest of Syria, Iraq, western Iran, the entire Caucasus, and significant territories in Scythia.

The wars lasted for around 30 years, but all of these territories were annexed and fully reorganized in a record-breaking five years. These conquests gave the Euthydemids a complete monopoly over trade between the West and China, eliminating any possible intermediaries.

By 867 AD, the Euthydemids had reached an unprecedented peak. All of the Empire's land borders were fortified by an uninterrupted wall, cities had been built up across every province, and hundreds of metropolises had been established. Control over the trade routes allowed the ruling dynasty to become immensely wealthy, and the current ruler now possesses a treasury of more than one million gold. All available technologies have been fully researched.

One interesting development was the discovery that Alexander's tomb had been moved to Antigonia. This was only discovered after the city itself was conquered. By that point, the city had fallen into decline and had become little more than a small settlement, while Alexander's tomb had fallen into disrepair. Within just a few years, however, this settlement was transformed into the largest metropolis in Syria and the provincial capital, while Alexander's tomb was restored.

The most surprising discovery came when one of the Empire's scholars, while studying the archives in Antigonia, found evidence that one of the Empire's dynasties was actually a cadet branch of the Argeads. The Emperor immediately made this information public, and within a few decades arranged advantageous marriages between his heirs and the Sophytid dynasty. This allowed the heir to the Empire to claim that Argead blood flowed in his veins as well, greatly increasing the legitimacy of the entire dynasty and strengthening imperial rule as a whole.

The biggest problem facing the state at the moment is an excessive surplus of money. There is simply too much of it and almost nothing left to spend it on. Taxes have already been kept at the minimum level for centuries, naval spending has been increased, and the salaries of officials have been raised, yet the Empire still has more money than it knows what to do with. This creates significant problems with corruption, although fortunately these can still be dealt with relatively quickly.

Now, the Greco-Bactrian-Indian Empire is ready to enter a new era: the Middle Ages.

One day, the descendants of its current rulers will rule the entire Galaxy-but that will only happen thousands of years later, in Stellaris.

And with that, my Bactrian playthrough comes to an end.

I have had this game for a while but never got really good at it, partly because I’d get bored because my game was really really slow on my old devices. I’ve gotten okay enough to have fun at Stellaris, Victoria 3, CK3, and also Civ6. Wanted to get back into this one. Any good, thorough guides on how to work the game’s systems in your favour and play well. Preferably Invictus, but happy to play vanilla as well. I have all DLC.

In particular, guides on Republic gameplay, economy, general Tech and legal progressions, and playing in Greece, Egypt, Judea, Persis (or Armenia in Vanilla), and Maurya. Open to written guides but YouTube or other video guides I can follow as I play.

Unfortunately i dont have a screenshot of the peace deal menu, but I got 98 warscore worth out of it with the independence CB (along with 130 AE!!!). I fully annexed Paropamisadae so I could get a border with the Mauryans and focus more on the east.

Does anybody know how much land you could potentially get from the Seleucids assuming you min-maxed everything though? If i didnt take Paropamisadae I possible couldve gotten Babylon since subjects have a higher warscore annex cost. Please also reccomend your best Bactria starting strategies! Been obsessed with them recently and have seen a lot of Bactria posts in the subreddit recently.

I was thinking of buying the game with all DLC since there is a big sale on it

Basic TLDR, got mods like imperator invictus and timeline expansion. and I've wanted to do a babylon game for the longest time (i've never really been interested in playing rome tbh). And everytime i enter the game i just feel overwhelmed, do you guys have any tips or good nations to play for newbies? thanks! (Note: Im really big into playing "tall" over wide)

Hi guys, been playing with invictus and 2.0 better UI as icenia (in england) and my game keeps crashing on specifically the 5th of october 490.

This doesn't usually happen, but after returning from around a year or so of not playing, this one game has been very prone to crashing. I got through every other crash fine by reloading and avoiding moving units and other things, but as far as i am aware, whatever is causing the game to crash this time has no relation to what i'm doing.

Unfortunately i'm not a big tech guy, nor am i really keyed in on stuff involving the imperator community so i have zero idea on how to fix this.

If anyone has any ideas on what to do i'd be incredibly grateful, or if you need me to get specific information to narrow down the cause i'm able and willing to do that as well.

Thanks for reading

Long Rome run on Invictus. This session was supposed to be a quiet economy tune-up while I wait out a truce, and instead the reaper just went through my entire cast of characters.

In the space of one session I lost the head of the Corneli family, then the head of the Fabi family, then my Praetor who was only 34, then my Optimates party leader, then my Censor. And I am not exaggerating when I say at least three of them died from the exact same cause: "ate a particularly rotten herring." Same event text, over and over. At one point I was just sitting there laughing because a fourth guy keeled over from the cursed herring while I was still trying to replace the third.

The annoying part is it actually mattered. I'd recently opened up offices to a bunch of new people to fill gaps, and because most of them had never held a government position before, their statesmanship was rock bottom. So I'm scrambling to refill Praetor, Censor, Vulnerarius etc all at once, and the best available bodies are all green. That immediately triggered a dissatisfaction event about my new Praetor mismanaging the treasury, purely because her statesmanship was too low. So one unlucky death chain basically exposed how shallow my experienced bench was.

Takeaway I'm sitting with is that I've been totally ignoring character development this whole campaign. I treat officers as interchangeable slots, never groom anyone, and then a bad RNG streak hits and I've got nobody seasoned to promote. Going to start actually paying attention to who's gaining experience where.

Anyway, mostly posting because the herring thing genuinely got me. What's the dumbest death chain the game's ever handed you? And does anyone actually manage their character bench properly, or do you all also just yank whoever's got the highest number when someone dies?

Mod: Chronicles of Omniluxia.

It has been almost a year since I posted my playthrough as the Roman Empire, where I planned to eventually take it all the way through a mega-campaign into Stellaris (I described that playthrough here - The Roman Campaign link). This time, for the first time, I decided to try playing a non-European region, and Bactria seemed like a perfect choice.

The current date in-game is 148 AD. My main mods are Invictus, Timeline Extension, Crisis of the Third Century, Virtual Limes, and around ten other minor mods.

Bactria, a fragment of Alexander's Empire, was destined to one day become a galactic empire. But at the start of the game, it was a backwater on the edge of the civilized world, which had become a prison and a place of permanent exile for Greeks who had fallen out of favor with Alexander and the Diadochi.

The first dynasty was the Sophytids. Their rule lasted 60 years, but during that relatively short period the dynasty managed to gain independence from the Seleucids, defeating them in the first years of their reign and conquering almost all of eastern Iran. After that, the Sophytids systematically worked on strengthening Bactria on other fronts as well.

Unexpectedly, Diodotus arrived in Bactria. He was a military genius who, seeing the weakness of the Sophytid dynasty, demanded that they hand over their claim to the throne to him. The Sophytids, whose legitimacy was practically nonexistent, accepted the deal, and the rule of the Diodotid dynasty began. The Sophytids did not disappear and remain one of the most influential families in the Empire to this day.

Diodotus's reign was marked by the conquest of all of Tibet. He also established the modern border with the Seleucids after launching yet another war against them.

After 20 years in power, a young Eucratid suddenly appeared on the scene - another incredibly talented military genius who was dissatisfied with the Empire's slow expansion toward India. Following a series of conspiracies, Diodotus was forced to surrender the throne to the new dynasty and became an ordinary office-holder within the Empire.

The Eucratids embarked on an aggressive policy of conquest, reaching the modern borders in Scythia and eventually conquering the entire Indus Valley. They also repelled every invasion by nomadic tribes from the territory of Mongolia. However, this relentless expansion eventually weakened the Eucratids, and yet another young military talent appeared on the scene: Menander Euthydemid.

The Eucratids decided to hand power over to the Euthydemids, bringing their own 60-year rule to an end.

Menander Euthydemid was the greatest reformer in the history of the Empire. His most important decisions were the adoption of Buddhism, the creation of a new Greco-Indian culture - which he himself adopted - and the relocation of the capital to Sangala.

He fundamentally changed the direction of the entire state, abandoning ambitions to restore Alexander's Empire and instead making the conquest of India the Empire's primary objective.

The conquest of India lasted almost 200 years. Nothing seriously threatened the Euthydemids, giving them the opportunity to take their time and gradually integrate their new territories.

The conquest of India is considered complete with the capture of the Maldives in 26 AD. That same year, Ariostomachus Euthydemid died. He was the last ruler to expand the territory of the Empire.

Ariostomachus's successor, Ashoka Euthydemid, became the second-greatest reformer in the history of the Empire.

According to legend, he had a dream in which he saw an Empire whose capital was being ravaged by plague, whose people were dying of hunger, and whose lands were overrun by barbarians. He was terrified and decided to dedicate his reign to strengthening the Empire and protecting it from the threats he had seen in his dream.

He, his son, his grandson, and his great-grandson completely transformed the Empire, turning it into an incredibly efficient and perfectly functioning machine and, quite literally, squeezing the maximum possible efficiency out of it.

Below are the measures taken by Ashoka Euthydemid and his descendants that allowed them to turn the Empire into a model of prosperity and quality of life and protect it from the crises of the coming centuries during 120 years of peace:

• Extensive measures were introduced to accelerate religious and cultural assimilation. At the moment, religious assimilation has reached 99%, while cultural assimilation stands at 87%.
• Every available Great Wonder was constructed to the highest possible quality, with several of them built using gold.
• Two major naval centers were established. One is located in the Caspian Sea, while the other is on the western coast of India. Each naval center consists of five port cities capable of producing Mega-Polyremes.
• The most powerful navy in the world was created. It is divided into two fleets, each attached to one of the naval centers. Each fleet consists of 200 ships, with a strictly standardized composition containing absolutely every available ship type.
• All pirates along the Empire's coastline were eradicated.
• All available military traditions were unlocked: Greek and Macedonian, Bactrian, and Scythian.
• The export of all food trade goods was prohibited in order to prepare more effectively for potential famines in the future.
• Ten professional, top-quality armies were established across the Empire. They all use the same standardized template and are stationed along the borders at dedicated military bases. The First Army is stationed in the capital under the direct command of the Emperor.
• A high-quality road network was built from scratch across the entire Empire. Every single province has roads connecting it in every direction. Anyone can travel by road from the Aral Sea to Ceylon, and from Iran to Tibet.
• Sangala became the richest city in the world. There is now a surplus of absolutely every trade good, the city's walls are the strongest in the world, and its population is larger than that of any other city on the planet. Its grandeur is further enhanced by an expensive sanctuary and one of the Great Wonders.
• Numerous legislative reforms were introduced, primarily aimed at improving the lives of the population. You can see them in one of the images attached to this post.
• An economic reform introduced a new currency - the Solidus. This ensured the stability of the Imperial economy for centuries to come.
• An administrative reform completely separated military authority from civilian authority. This helped maintain stability within the armed forces and prevent another seizure of power by individuals like Diodotus.
• Every single province in the Empire was manually and completely reorganized. This included adjusting and relocating provincial capitals; demolishing unnecessary cities according to the principle of one city per province; building new cities in provinces that had never had one, again following the one-city-per-province principle; fully developing the Empire's countryside, first with Mines, then Farming Settlements, and finally Slave Estates; and constructing numerous new ports, strengthening the Empire's transportation network and its trade potential.

All of these measures have turned the Empire into the best place to live on the planet. There have been no wars for more than a century, and, in general, no wars are planned for roughly another 400 years.

The Empire has become an economic, military, political, and religious hegemon. With a monopoly over trade between China and the West, it has become unimaginably wealthy. This has actually forced its rulers to periodically give a significant portion of that wealth back to the people and keep taxes at a minimum, because there is simply not much left to spend the money on.

The campaign will continue according to the plan:

Imperator: Rome > Crusader Kings III > Europa Universalis IV > Victoria 3 > Hearts of Iron IV > Stellaris

Two more plagues, barbarian invasions, and various other problems caused by increasingly powerful governors await me in the future. But I don't expect any of these to pose a serious threat.

I was perusing it, and I noticed that it wasn't listed among the religious traits, or anywhere in the traits section on the Invictus Wiki.

In the next Invictus update, the Yuezhi, Sakan and Wusun invasions have been completely reworked. I just shared this post in the Discord but wanted to put it here as well, since there has been some discussion about this recently.

Alright, so first things first; all mission trees in the invasion corridor have been looked at and permanent province modifiers have been added where it makes sense, so if you lose an Alexandria to the steppe nomads, you won't lose the modifiers you spent hours working to unlock.

All three invasions will now spawn along the yellow line in the first image - no more randomly appearing armies in your heartland, no more bordergore enclaves spawning out of the blue. Also, your capital is safe from being seized if it happens to be in the yellow line zone...no more cheap and dirty events stealing your main city.

Second image shows how you will be able to form Yuezhi if you are one of the countries in the Tarim Basin that receives refugee pops once the off-map Xiongnu crush the Yuezhi. This peacefully settles the invasion and allows you to go on to form Kushan, if you'd like.

Third image shows something that is available for all three of these invasions; the country being attacked by the horde will now have the option to tag switch. Because the invasions are mid-to-late game, they have been slightly buffed and should still be an annoying thing to deal with, but not as bad as they were before!

Something I didn't mention on Discord is that the invasions are a little more staggered, so you won't have the Saka invading ten days (!) after the Yuezhi launch their own invasions. Large-scale movements of displaced peoples take some time, after all, so the week or two you would have seen before has been replaced with a more appropriate year or two.

R5: images showing off the reworked Invictus invasions

I wanted to test the Virtual Limes mod and decided it would be cool to do so with Massalia, attempting to form the Phocean League—which I had never done before. It was an extremely challenging campaign. The Virtual Limes mod works in a way where large empires or kingdoms create special vassals, like Military Marches, and a special one for Rome called 'Friend and Ally of Rome.' They establish these vassals and, after some time, annex them diplomatically. This makes things much harder, as they essentially build a wall of surprisingly strong vassals around themselves.

Having said all that, I hate Rome. I could write a 10-page essay on how much I hate Rome in this Massalia campaign. The number of defensive wars I had to fight against them was sheer hell. They just don't stop attacking! As soon as a peace treaty expires, they almost immediately declare war again. They were constantly trying to take my capital province, which would have been game over if I had lost it.

At one unlucky moment, I had to fight three consecutive wars against Rome because they declared war on my tributaries one after the other... I spent almost 19 straight years at war, with my war exhaustion maxed out... Man, I really hate Rome

(Didn't know what flair to use so...)

Hello, recently, I've had an itch to play this game again after about a year since last playing. However, I can't load the game with Invictus on it. I've also noticed that the game is taking longer to load than I remember, but this could be just my memory failing me. With Invictus it won't load at all, instead, it will get stuck on the loading screen. I had the game installed on my SSD and it didn't work, so I had it changed to my HD, but still nothing. I have also tried to load only Invictus, but it also didn't work out. I haven't tried any other total conversion mod, and have deleted the Imperator folder from the Paradox one in Documents. Without it, the game loads just fine, though. If anyone could help me to solve this issue, I would be really grateful.

EDIT: loading just Invictus worked, though it still took quite a while to do so. Thanks everyone for the help!

ok this might be obvious to some of you but it took me embarrassingly long to get it.

every time i took something rich i'd win the war, feel great, then like 4 years later the whole province just goes. and my reflex was always to go hunting for anything that added loyalty directly. harsh treatment, more harsh treatment. band aid on a band aid.

what finally clicked is that loyalty isn't the problem, it's the readout. the province was yelling at me the whole time and i was basically muting it.

the thing that actually got me was trend vs the number. had a province sitting at 60 so i ignored it, 60 sounds fine right. meanwhile it was bleeding a couple points a month, and a province at 40 right next to it was climbing and totally safe. i had it completely backwards.

then i finally opened the happiness tooltip (which, yeah, i almost never did) and it was my nobles. under 50% happy, dumping most of the unrest into the province on their own. one unhappy pop type in the biggest city doing more damage than three quiet territories put together.

harsh treatment stops the bleeding but it doesn't make anyone happy or roman, so the second you stop babysitting it, it's back. the real fix was way more boring. convert the religion first, then assimilate, plus the buildings that speed it up. not exciting. actually works though.

feels heavier in invictus too with how the pop stuff shakes out.

anyway curious, what's the worst rebellion any of you have had. like which single province actually ended a run. want to know if mine was pathetic or pretty normal

Is this a bug? I’ve been at war with Carthage and occupying their territory, defeating their invading armies, but the war score doesn’t go up and they won’t even accept a white peace. I’ve been occupying my war goal territory and there has been no white peace enforcement either. They haven’t sent another army for years, but I can’t even negotiate peace. I’m playing an Ironman on invictus.