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.
