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frogbeastegg
09-28-2004, 10:07
Guide.

Quietus
09-29-2004, 02:11
Here's the initial argument for Julii (very hard/very hard, unpatched): Two choices.

1) Strictly North (Gauls & Rebels). Easier but offer less denari in the future.
2) Go North and South (Caralis, Carthage, Thapsus etc.). It is a tougher campaign, involving more coasts and trading possibilities. It is more financially and geographically secure in the long run. Do it when you have enough denari to fund such expedition and make it coincide with a Senate mission to get the reward. One cautionary note: Carthage owns the sea early in the game.

Initial troop selection (Large unit size)(base cost/upkeep cost):
1) Hastati(80)(440d/170d) - will be the initial backbone of the army.(Only option against the Gauls).
2) Town Watch(80)(150d/100d) - will form half of the back bone (They are cheap to train and excellent fodder). You lose half of your Town Watch you only lose 75 denari.
3. Equites(54)(390d/110d) - These are your flankers and chasers. Spread them 2 ½- 3 ½ deep to cover.
4. Velites(80)(270d/170d) - These are special troops useful only when you outnumber the Gaul army. Use them with your Equites and hit the Warbands along the extreme edge. When they give chase, you can sandwich for an easy rout. Their loose formation makes them a liability and the upkeep isn't welcome as well.
5. You may receive an archer as start up troop. Preserve them! They are excellent when besieging Gaul and Rebel settlements.
a) Hit the troops behind the gates.
b) Hit the troops inside the city square, once you have them surrounded. That way, you won't lose too many soldiers when melee starts. You can also use Hastati to let lose with their pila. But make sure the enemy is noncommital to charging.
6. Wardogs (680d/50d) Two turns. I'm gonna try using some of them because of their cheap upkeep. I'll post some more about them later. So no comment yet.

General direction of attack: Segesta, Mediolanium, Patavium, Massilia, Narbo Martius, Lugdunium, Condate Redonium, Alesia....It doesn't have to be in this exact direction or order, but the point is don't spread too wide and utilize chokepoints. For example, you can defer the conquest of Rebel Lugdunium as a buffer against Gaul, while you take out Narbo Martius, Lemonium etc.

You can also go attack Caralis down south then Thapsus (because Carthage is heavily defended). Build your troops down there and send reinforcements if possible. Be careful, because Carthage has a large Navy. If the Carthaginian army leaves the capital and you don't have enough troops to fight. It is suitable to just bribe it (they will disperse). Bribe, ONLY when you have much disposable money and if convinient! Finally, you can attack with your army. However, don't bribe them once they are inside the city or else the city will revolt!!! I bought Lepcis Magna from the Numidians and they revolted after one turn. You have to conquer with your army.

City development:
1) Don't over rely on one province to supply troops you must spread them in deference to their relative population, population growth and distance from the next settlement cap relief upgrade.
2) Always construct trade buildings in coastal provinces, the port will increase trade dramatically.
3. Roads add to trade too.
4. Farm first if the farming profits are very high. Just assess for each province which you should prioritize: farming or trade
5. Build Shrines and Temples to keep you population happy.
6. Build public health buildings. This is the second most important when you conquered a largely populated province, after the shrine.
7. Walls and Enclosures also bring happiness and security, so build them afterwards

Others:
1. Destroy any heretofore Shrines/Temples of other cultures and replace them with your own culture's, so the population becomes converted over time.(edit: other temples oddly lower culture penalties too, however, they cannot be upgraded)
2. Use your selected Heir in battles, when they become the faction leader. Retire him to the Capital. Do the same to your selected Heir.
3. Use a spy to enter enemy settlements. They may open the gate when storm the city.
4. Use Spy or a Diplomat to scout ahead of your army to prevent ambushes.
5. Position at least one diplomat in the proximity of your roman allies. They may be useful in a tight situation. You can ask them to attack a faction, such as the Carthaginians in Lilybaeum while you assault their main settlements in North Africa.

That is all for now. I'll edit later as the game progresses.

~:)

Morindin
09-29-2004, 03:40
War Dogs are extremely useful against the Gauls I've found.

Currently I own all of France, Half of Germany, Caralis, Illyria + its neighbouring areas, and heading into Macedonian territory. The tricky part is that now I have quite a large space to defend (France + German territory).

Alliances are the key. Have one ally on your borders and spread the other way. This is easy if you ally with the Scythians or whatever because they box in Germany, and the other Roman factions never war with them. Im also allied with Spain to anchor that front.

The Gaul citys are quite poor and under populated but they hardly ever give me any problems with revolts etc due to this.
In general the Gauls are easy and can give you over-confidence.
The Germans have spearmen cable of beating your Histari and even Principes in a front on fight, and the British have chariots that scare the heck out of your troops.

d6veteran
09-29-2004, 22:47
Hard/Hard

I am going to increase it next time. I think I lucked out starting with the following strategy as it has been easy going:

Quickly took the two Gaul settlements in N. Italy and then built 3 forts along the mountains to block the Gauls from coming in. I really thought I would have to fight to sustain these forts but they have never been attacked. I think that might be a bug. Why would they attack settlements with 100s of men and not a fort with a small garrison?

I then pushed west, leapfrogging with my navy and secured some of the islands in the west med. I got lucky with a windfall of Senate missions to blockade ports in the west med.

I then used the following tactic to assist in subduing the Gauls -- park my largest army on Gaul settlements and then use a diplomat to demand tribute. I didn't attack but kept demanding money and then just built up a second and third large army.

Then I moved those through Gaul in a counter clockwise motion and used to lots of assassins to kill off faction leaders ahead of my attacks. It was a spy who actually ended the Gauls as a faction.

To manage all the settlements I had taken I used my family member with the highest management rating and took him on a tour of conquered settlements, which allowed me to make detailed adjustments on each settlement he visited. To get a really good governor, build academic buildings in one of your core settlements and leave a selected family member there to have his management abilities and retinue increased.

After killing off Gaul, I launched an attack from the forts in the alps and east from Gaul against a large large Germanic army positioned in a settlement. I used Ballistas to knock four holes in the wall and then switched to flaming bolts to drive them away from the breaches. I find that Ballistas are much more effective against wooden walls than battering rams, plus you don't have to stall a turn to build them. Once I poured in through 4 gaps I was able to put my Principe in bottlenecks and run my cavalry through the streets to flank. I massacred 18 Germanic units with a smaller sized Roman force.

After the Germans lost that army I was able to begin demanding payment. Plus I clogged up the forests with forts to funnel any attack they tried to make to my large army ... which they would withdrawal from.

Using the money I extracted from Gaul and Germany, I built 30 units of ships in the Med. With the help of the Senate fleets I was able to defeat the Greek and Carthage navies and then blockade their ports.

I've had a generous amount of families members through the last 20 turns.

I am now at 222 BC.

I think these things are key:

Forts in bottlenecks.
A roaming Governor skilled in management.
Coupling a large army with a skilled diplomat and demand tribute.
Use spies and assassins as the vanguard of your army. They not only trip up the movement of the enemy forces, but act as scouts. Assassins in small groups will wreak havoc on enemy family members.

++++++++++++++++++++

Tonight I begin my invasion of Briton. After reading all of Simon Scarrow's novels how can I not? :)

Quietus
10-02-2004, 07:33
Julii Campaign Part 2: Second Phase – Western consolidation.

The campaign has only begun. But by know you would have chewed a sizable chunk of the Gaul realm. In North Africa, you should have already taken Carthage and Thapsus. It is time for the next operations.

Sign trade agreements with the Britons and the Germanic tribes. If you can, sell them map information for a nice profit too. NEVER accept alliance with them. It is time to pay attention to the Iberian peninsula to fight Spain and the last of the Gauls. Target provinces: Osca, Carthago Nova, Numantia, Scalabris, Asturica, Corduba

In North Africa. It is the Numidian’s turn. Depending on where they are strongest, that’s where you first strike. Now that you have a strong foothold in N. Africa, striking big is now doable. You have to take out the Numidian’s power base first This is opposite the Carthaginian approach because you have really weak troops at that time. By now, you would access to more units.

Second phase unit Selections

1)Principes(81)(490d)(170) – This will be your stiff frontline. Three to six units will suffice defending on the enemy and size of battle.

2)Hastati – They cheaper by 50 denari. You can still bring 2 to 3 of these units with that price difference.

3)Town Watch – It is now more difficult to fight with these units. They are now more appropriate for garrison. Against the Numidians, bring just enough to start garrison immediately.
4)Archers(80)(250d/170d) – Each army of yours must now have an archer. You can use them to bait the AI into charging and decimating defenders during sieges. Be careful with friendly fire. Once the melee start, halt them immediately (disable autofire and put on guard mode in prebattle setup). Shooting any missiles behind your troops in now discouraged due to extremely excessive friendly fire, resulting in your own soldiers routing first. However, you are still free to shoot enemy troops that are not engaged.

5)Ballista(24)(?/100d) – The RTW ballista is now an effective weapon. They have tremendous range and power. Use them during bridge battles to create fear and confusion amongst the enemy. With a ballista in an army, you don’t have to wait a turn to construct a siege weapon, you can attack right away, since they ably break down gates. One downside to this is that they move slowly in the strategic map, bogging down your whole army along with it. You might have to abandon them when you have long ways to travel.
For quick or surprise attacks, for example in attacking an island town such as Palma, they are indispensible.

6)Cavalry Auxilla(54)(?/110d) – Much like Velites, the C.A. is a special unit. It is weaker than the Equites. But it can distract enemy heavy cavalry and other shock troops. Against the Numidians, you can position them along the extreme edges of your army and distract some of their heavy cavalry on Cantabrian Circle mode, while you take out their weak infantry with your regular units and Equites. They can be a problem in forced melee due to their unnecessary, squiggly volitions. So watch out!.

7)Triaarii(80)(500d/210d) – You may get access to these heavy spearmen troops on a limited fashion at this point of the campaign. They are tough enough to hold off barbarian shock troops and cavalries, thus they are best put at center. You can put one in the side with conjuction with cavalry and barbarian mercenaries for a sweeping flank. But more on them later.

Mercenary Units: You will likely encounter these units during your campaign. Mercenary units are very useful. They may be expensive but they shore up your weaknesses and can help you when you need them most.

1)Barbarian Mercenaries(120)(800d/200d) – these shock troops will help you fight with much needed counter attack against the Gauls and the Spaniards. When stacked with fearsome shock troops, the only measure you can do is counter attack. They will charge nearly simultaneously, thus your only option is to hold the middle and counterattack with these mercenaries. When used to flank they are able to quick rout the flank the AI just in time to save your middle from breaking down. One other option is to fight headon while the fast cavalry does the devastating flanks. Thus, it depends on your army composition.

2)Balearic Slingers(80)(800/200) – They substitute for archers if you don’t have one or you need a second one at once.

3)Libyan Mercenaries – Similar to Velites but more susceptible to routing

4)Barbarian Cavalry – A mix between Equites and Cavalry Auxilla. Can be used for flanking and harassment.

There are other mercenary units that you will encounter during the campaign up to this point, but these best supplement to the roman army.

General Strategic Map tactics:

- Build Watchtowers to in between your cities to monitor AI enemy movement
- Use your Spies and diplomats to scout upfront when in foreign soil (you can’t build watchtowers).
- Parking your army between a bridge is ideal. This is a necessity when your army is much weaker than your opponents or when you are still waiting for reinforcements and expecting an attack. This way, you can defend the bridge. I’ll post a bridge defense scheme later. In essence you, you have to hit the enemy units from all sides to make them rout. It is a much different than MTW.
- Switch retinues with an intermediary to best fit your Governor and Army commanders.
- Split your army to trap the enemy. Drop a calvalry or two and a couple of infantry behind your enemy, then attack with your main army. In the battlemap, they will appear as reinforcement, behind the enemy’s back.

Economics strategy:
- Use roaming diplomat/ships to secure trade agreements in other lands.
- Delay farm upgrades in smaller cities, to reduce squalor. When you run out of structures to build (aside from military ones), that means you are ready for the next tech level. At that point, you do the farm upgrade to increase your population for the next tech level.
- In larger towns with governors, they can supply the military force for your army. Use this in conjunction with Enslaving the Population. Enslaving disperses people among the Governor cities ONLY, ensuring steady supply of soldiers.
- Chase off and destroy rebels that are sitting in your trade routes.

That’s all for this edition. Next will be against the terrifying Dacians and the pullout from the Iberian peninsula and N. Africa to open a new front up north.

~:)

Inuyasha12
10-03-2004, 22:35
Im currently at war with thrace, after taking much of the gallic cities. If Thrace becomes powerfull, try to let the brutii fight them for awhile. Shadow brutiis armies with yours and let them do the fighting. Once there worn down u can take the cities from the thracians. This also denies the brutii access to the balkans and russia. Try not to spread yourself too thin, i did and i had revolts everywhere! After some hard campaining try to look for a way to get money out of your enemies(offer alliance and ask for tribute) when you've build the captured cities up a little attack again!! :charge:

Sethik
10-04-2004, 04:36
When fighting against Gauls War Dogs are your best friends. They tear un armored warbands to pieces. They are especially useful in seiges. Just send them in as soon as the walls come down and let them make enough space to let your other troops file in. Another great thing is that it doesnt matter if your dogs die so long as the handlers remain alive. The only problem with this is the handlers are the ones who gain experience, not the dogs. Don't let them go up against Druids or Armored Cavalry because they'll be turned into mince meat.


In one city seige early on im my Julli campaign they proved irreplacable. It was 1500(me) vs 3000(Gauls). After breaking down both walls (I attacked from two points) ONE unit of war dogs held FOUR units of warbands. I won the battle with 300 loses. No enemy was left alive. My war dogs alone (I had two untis) kill around 900 some-odd men.

sapi
10-04-2004, 07:53
I don't find war dogs to be that effective, just hastali, principles and maybe some triarii!

Bhruic
10-04-2004, 09:38
I don't find wardogs to be particularily effective at killing units. But I find they are exceptionally good distractions. The fact that losing them doesn't matter in the slightest (because they seem to have endless supplies of dogs) means that I can unleash them even on cav/heavy inf. They do the initial charge, and take the brunt of the losses, but they hold the unit(s) so that my real troops can do the damage. Also, I can continue to fire on the conflict with missiles, because I really don't care about friendly fire.

Poor doggies, but I'm just cruel that way. ~;)

I found as the Julii that because the Gauls are so easy to wipe out, it's easy to overextend, and try and take on too much at once. That's not a problem with the Gauls, but if you get into any other wars at the same time, you can become quite vulnerable. Once the Gauls are down, I like to pause and build up my cities before moving on. It gives me a chance to figure out how the rest of the wars are shaping up, and see who is vulnerable to attack.

Bh

TinCow
10-04-2004, 18:33
Wardogs are exceedingly good at killing unarmored units such as warbands. They are also highly effective at holding up enemy units and giving you room to maneauver. One final use for them is as a cavalry sponge. If you have a unit or two of wardogs that have not been released and you find yourself being charged by enemy cavalry, loose the dogs straight into the charge. Even heavy cavalry such as the Noble Cavalry of the Gauls will come to a screeching hault moments after the dogs reach them. For some reason, dogs simply do not seem to take the huge charge hit that other units do. Then you just have to charge in your infantry and cut down the vulnerable riders.

TN[ KrAzY!
10-07-2004, 13:37
dogs also make exceptional ambush troops, wherever you have armies hiding in woods waiting to ambush any enemies make sure you got at least 2 units of dogs, as soon as you start the ambush send em straight in. esp against gauls and britons etc.

Quietus
10-10-2004, 03:06
Julii Campaign Part 3 – New Fronts.

If you have decided to take the North African route too (see Part I), your trade networks by now would be bustling. Up north you’d be trading with the Britons. You’d be trading trading with your own settlements from North to South and of course you’d be trading with other factions in the Mediterranean.

With North Africa taken cared of (from Lepcis Magna to Tingi), you are now free to open new fronts! In this example, Dacia decided it should be against them, by attacking me. It makes sense because they are close to the Julii capital.

Regions in question: Luvavum, Aquincum Segesta, Campus Lyzages, Porrolissum etc. Again, the order of attacks is up to you; just take into account buffer zones that prevent you from being flanked in the future. At the same time you should be deciding who should be next to fall in the North: Britons or Germans? I’ve decided that the Germanic tribes should be eliminated because attacking Britain would spread me too far with Germania sandwiched too deep, which will cause horrible logistics problem in the future.

Part 3 units selections: By this time, you would have access to the penultimately powerful Roman Units. There may be units that aren’t here but this are the units I have used so far. The strongest units I will touch upon in the next episode. Here’s a short breakdown:

Triaarii(80)(500d)(210d) – These are tough spearmen. They should always be your center line (pre-marius). You can also put one in your extreme sides to stabilize a swinging flank. Always charge with this unit for the best effect. Against the great dacian melee units, they are the ideal pinners as you flank with Cavalry, Principes, Hastati or other Triaarii units.

Archer Auxillia(81)(430d/170d) – Put them in front of your middle line. As with the earlier archers, use Guard Mode and turn off Fire-at-will. When the AI is baited, move them quickly to the back. With a Chirugeon retinue (or similar types), they heal superbly, thus bring at least 2 units.

Auxillia(81)(430d/170d) – After the Marius event, the Triaarii cannot be trained anymore. However, these are very capable replacements. Because they are cheaper, they can be your replacement frontline fodder. You can do the similar moves as with Triaarii when confronted with melee units.

Light Auxillia(80)(290d)(170d) – They the are the replacement for the Velites. Therefore, they are similarly a special unit (see Velites).

Roman Cavalry (54)(500d)(110d) – For their upkeep cost, these are very fine cavalry. They are mightily effective flankers and especially useful against Phalanx/Pikemen units later (against Thrace). Make sure the enemy phalanx units has their Sarissa(?) lowered against your frontal units BEFORE you charge from the back. If not, your desired effect wont be complete and you will lose much units.

Legionary Cohort(81)(740d)(210) – They are your current elite units and should be conserved in the back. With a 20% discount on unit training, you should build a lot of these units. Let your cheap fodder units such as the Auxillia handle the heavy casualties while you use these conservatively. You just size up your enemy before battle. If you face a significantly tough opponent, it makes sense to put a number of them in the middle and upfront . In normal battles, you can put one of these in your flank for overpowering pincer movement with the help of the Roman Cavalry.

Early Legionary Cohort(81)(610d)(210) – A tad cheaper but also more vulnerable than the Legionary Cohort. In my opinion, their weaker defense isn’t worth saving the denari. However, if needed, they are more useful than a plain Auxillia.

After defeating much of Dacia, it is ideal to take on Thrace too. Why? The Brutii will try to expand there as well. It is better to cut them off before they get too large in the region. The general idea is to have an empire that is defensible in the future, especially in a impending or foreseeable civil war amongst Roman factions.

Once, you’ve consolidate the North by erasing the Germanic tribes, you only have to worry about the Britons. In an event of a civil war, you are free to confront the other rivals, without the consequence of being hit from your backside. Your economy also won’t suffer as much with that conglomeration coastal sea trades and land routes.

Keep in mind of presence of Rebels and Bandits inhabiting your trade routes. I can’t emphasize it enough to root them out by military force or bribery. They do much damage to your trades. Use watchtowers as well as diplomats and spies to discover or spot their location.

Lastly, I planned on posting a bridge battle scheme; however, I am not able to getting around to this yet. I’ll post as soon as I am able to. Also, I won’t be posting anymore strategic map bits and tips since I’ve resolved to put that in my Quick Strategic Map Guide & Primer (already posted!!).

This is the end of third section for now. Part 4 may be fittingly last portion and it will involve the ultimate Roman units and the civil war. Hope you enjoyed reading and found some use for it.

sapi
10-10-2004, 05:31
Civil war is much easier if you attack the senate when your allies troops are out of the Italian Penisula. You can decimate their capitols and main production cities and their unit production power will be halved. The only thing to watch out for is trade - you will lose most of your trade once the other roman factions declare war. I forgot to have a big navy and now the brutii and senate (rebel - 1300 men) navies are chasing me around!

Hurin_Rules
10-12-2004, 08:11
Quietus,
You said 'walls bring security and happines', but I've never heard anyone else say they had any affect on happines (?order?). Have you or anyone else seen a demonstrable effect on happiness from walls?

Cheers

Quietus
10-13-2004, 22:52
Oops. Thx for pointing that out Hurin. I meant to remove that here, but I forgot (hence it wasn't in my A Quick Strategic Guide....) It was based on my very early tests, that now prove just coincidental to either governors gaining retinues/virtues, riots calming down or culture penalty fading. I'll edit it out when I post Julii section 4. ~:)

Hurin_Rules
10-14-2004, 18:15
Oops. Thx for pointing that out Hurin. I meant to remove that here, but I forgot (hence it wasn't in my A Quick Strategic Guide....) It was based on my very early tests, that now prove just coincidental to either governors gaining retinues/virtues, riots calming down or culture penalty fading. I'll edit it out when I post Julii section 4. ~:)

Thanks for clearing that up, and also for all your hard work on the game. We all appreciate it.

~:cheers:

Belenus
10-14-2004, 21:58
The Julii have the easiest access to land out of the three factions. All that stands in their way are the Gauls, brits, and germans.

On your first turn you should get a mission to take Segesta, so take it garrison it with some troops, and move on. On your border should be a small Gaulish army, on turn two attack. Some people may some wait but the longer you wait the stronger they become so you have to move fast. Take Mediolanium then first, that will cut off pativium, then take pativium. Doing this will really hurt the gauls economically and give you good cash.

For the homefront concetrate on building hastarii for now, while working on getting stables, for cav.

Ok, after you've licked your wounds from taking the first three provinces, move in and take masilla. It's rebel held so it shouldn't be so tough. After that, move a part of your army towards lugdunum, it also should be rebel held. Now you're have the gauls by the threat, and this is what you should do:

If you see any gaul family members around bribe them, you should have enough money if you have a good economic plan(I won't tell you how to build, except to concetrate on getting markets, roads, and stables built,) and after you bribe them, have either a relief army join them or have them hire mercs.

Now if you bribe one near Narbo Martus have him move in on it quick, it should be easy to take, but be careful, the Gauls most likely have a big army in numantia.

For Alesia, get your best army and move in on it, expect a tough battle, for it's the gaulish capital. Once you take it the Gauls should switch their capital to numantia, so get your army in narbo, make your general hire some mercs, and move them out, (making sure to leave some TW in narbo). Your army may encounter a few large Gaul armies so take them out. Don't let them escape. They also may have a fort on near the bridge leading to the town so take it out. Once you reach numantia, lay siege to it, attack it when you're ready, and the gauls should be finished. Take over the rest of their lands if they're rebel or gaulish,(if they survived). It took me 28 turns to defeat them and this is a very rough guide.

PS: Don't forget to try yo bribe Caralis from the carthagians.

EDIT: Guide to take on the british and germans coming up after I beat them. ~;)

mzhang23
10-15-2004, 09:40
The Julii start out with the worst potential economy, so the easy thing is to take what the Bruti and Scipio have:

1. Start out taking the Gaul towns north of you. Take enough and you'll cripple them for the rest of the game. As soon as you tech to wardogs, Gauls are no threat.

2. Immediately take the carthaginian town on sicily with an army as soon as you can make biremes. Use diplomats to bribe the Scipio army into reinforcing your attack force if necessary.

3. Move on down into Carthage. Wardogs here will make short work of most of their troops, including elephants. Meanwhile, pressure the rebels and gauls up north by taking a few more towns. Gaul towns don't generate much money, so don't spread thin and try to take too many towns. Once you take Carthage, exterminate the population.

4. Take the Carthaginian town south of Carthage. If the Scipio happen to be trying to seige it, wait a few turns and they'll call off the seige for no reason at all. Then move in and take it yourself.

5. Once Carthage is taken start building troops using Carthage's highly teched buildings (triarii, Legionary cav, etc) and be ready to ship them to Greece. Ready a huge force in mainland (bribe armies, as that's cheaper) and get ready to invade Greece.

6. Now it's simply a matter of taking Greece city by city. Try to go for Thessalonia then Corinth, Athens, Sparta, etc. Corinth first gets you the Zeus wonder, helping lower dissent in your newly captured towns. Always enslave or exterminate, and be sure to demolish their temples to reduce cultural difference.

7. At my point in this Julii game the Scipio basically have nothing while the Bruti only have the western Greek coast towns and Crete. I own everything else. This severely cripples the economies of the other two factions and lets your income soar by 240/230 BC when you own just about everything in North Africa and and Greece.

Good luck! Just because the Gauls and Germans are next to you doesn't mean that you have to take them.

And always remember, use and train diplomats! You can bribe over your allie's full stack armies for about 3-5k, which is a great deal when you need reinforcements out in North Africa and Greece.

P.S. Income is over 10-20k per turn by the end if you follow this strat and do it right.

It is 229 BC right now in my game. Greece, Carthage, Macedonia, and Gaul are now gone. But the most important thing is that the rival Romans only own 11 total provinces - they're asking to get trounced once I go for Rome.

Sunfire
10-15-2004, 23:53
I played around with the Julii several times by now and can agree, that they have a disadvantage when it comes to ecomomy.

What mzhang23 says sounds really good, my own strategy is only slightly different.

At the first turn take all your troops and your very best General to greece. Build new ones in your home privinces to take Sagesta. Land your army right in front of Thermon and take it. Don't try to get Apollonia, the Brutii are faster than you are. After Thermon take Larissa. From there, capture Corinth and the Zeus Wonder there. Then Athens ans Sparta. Reinforce Larissa because of the Mecedonians which come down from Tessalonica. Next capture Tessalonica and wipe the Macedonias out.

Meanwhile proceed with your war against the Gauls. When you are finished in Greece, thake your troops back, you'll need them. From then on it's simple. Wipe out the Gauls. Garmans and Britons should be at each others throat in no time, ally with one of them, ignoere the other. Go for Spain next, then Britain or the Germans.

Greece will be your primary source of income and you'll deny the Brutii most of Greece. If you have the time and the resources try to get Carthage, but chances are that you can not hold it for long.

In no time you'll get 20k+ denarii per turn. The Plebejans will love you. The senate won't. But you know what to do against that ~;)

I think that it's far easier to capture towns in your enemies lands than to concentrate on the Gauls. In my first game I went 'by the book' (Gallia, Hispania, Britannia, Germany) and it was a real pain at the end.

Greece is really nice for money, aside from that Wonder there ~;)

Leodegar
10-16-2004, 19:58
I'm posting rather my experiences with battles of pre-marian armies against babarians (Gauls, Germans, Dacians, Britons), than a guide for the strategic game, so, dear moderators, feel free to move it, if you think it doesn't fit here...
In my opinion it is a guide for playing the Julii, because you are most likely to face these enemies right from the beginning of the game. I don't know what experienced players will think about my considerations (feedback very welcome!!!), but perhaps it will be of some help to new players...
I went for the poor northern provinces, Gaul in particular. So I'm very short with money (perhaps not the best strategy, see the other posts!). So my overall plan for battles was to minimize my losses of expensive units.

In most battles against babarians you will face spear-warbands, swordsmen, cavalry and some archers. Additionally the Britons will field chariots, Germans and Dacians some special charge units with strong attack, but weak armour and defence (Axemen, Falxmen).
If you are the defender, in about 95% of battles, babarians will simply charge, perhaps after fireing some arrows. If you are the attacker, just move your army towards your enemies, they also are very likely to charge as you come closer. If they don't, just close up and start to throw pilae, then they definately will charge. So basically your army's task is to minimize losses from arrow fire, then to hold their charge, bring them to stop, flank and encircle them, rout and kill them.
Considering that, I came to the following army composition. Velites to take arrowfire and disorder their charge, Hastatii and/or Principes as main battle lines, to absorb the charge, Equites and Wardogs to flank, rout and pursue them. Helpful are some archers (a must against German Spearmen!) or spearmen (Triarii or Barbarian Mercenaries) if the enemy has a lot of cavalry. I basically deploy my forces like that:


---Velites--- ---Velites---
-Hastatii- -Hastatii- -Hastatii- -Hastatii-
-Equites- -Principes- -Principes- -Principes- -Principes- -Equites-
-Wardogs- -General- -Wardogs-


Archers are best used in the front row (if the enemy has very few cavalry), on the flanks, or behind the main army (if facing a lot of cavalry). Spearmen I usually deploy either on the flanks or behind the Principes.
Of course you can use only Hastatii or only Principes, as they are very similar. I normally deploy them 4 lines deep, but if you want to cover more space or have only 3 or 2 infantry units in one line you can also use them 3 or 2 lines deep, but be aware that they are more woulnerable to cavalry charges then. 4 or even more lines deep, Hastatii and Principes can absorb even heavier cavalry quite well.
I set the first line of them to fire-at-will mode, so they will welcome the charging babarians with a lot of thrown pilae. The second line of infantry, must not be set to fire-at-will, as they would throw their pilae at the enemy when they are engaged with your first line, and you would take severe losses yourself. I did it several times and after the battle the stats screen said something like: I lost 250 men, and my enemies only had 150 kills.

The idea is: Use the Velites to take the arrowfire, perhaps in loose formation. The won't take too many losses. And they are cheap. Then, when the enemy starts to charge, start to move your flankers forward. Your enemies might send one of their units to their flanks, to counter your cavalry. A very easy manoever seems to work here, just evade them by moving your Equites away to the outside. If they don't follow them, you just call your cavalry back in to continue the flanking. If they follow your horsemen, just let the dogs loose, which should have been following your cavalry on the flanking operation! Then charge your Equites in. This should be enough to rout the unlucky enemy unit on his flank protection mission. Now you can go on flanking their main army.
Meanwhile, you have a decision to make concerning your Velites. To skirmish, or not to skirmish. If you feel that you have everything under control, the flanking goes well, and you are sure to withstand the charge, just let your Velites skirmish and save them. Let your first infantry line receive them with a pilae shower. As soon as melee combat starts, charge in your Wardogs and Equites from the flanks and the rear. If it is necessary you can additionally send your second infantry line into the fight. Again, don't let them throw their pilae, use alt+mouseclick. That really should be enough to rout them.
If the situation looks more dangerous, and the enemy has a lot of strong units (chosen swordmen, axemen, heavy cavalry,...) and/or is countering your flankers and delaying them, you can decide to let your Velites stand and fight instead of skirmishing. They will get massacred, but they will stop the barbarians for a moment. At pilae throwing distance from your main battle line! This really should stop them, giving your flankers time to complete their duty.
If your opponents have not charged in their whole army, just move your second infantry line to the front, as they still have their pilae. Wait for the second charge or march forward yourself.

This tactic worked very well in my battles so far (very hard setting). I often don't use my second line at all but I have the impression their presence encourages my first line and gives them more staying power. If I was short on units, and could only field one line, they sometimes happened to rout...
If you enemy brought a lot of cavalry, it is nice to have some spearmen. But also your General's Bodyguards are well able to counter any Babarian Cavalry.
Against German Spearmen it is best to use a lot of archers and careful flanking. Never attack them head on!
If I happen to have archers in my armies, I try to have at least one of them, good aims for them are axemen or falxmen. They are quite dangerous in close combat, but have little armour and will take heavy losses from arrowfire.

LestaT
11-09-2004, 14:13
Still haven't finish with my first campaign yet... Har... Har... Har... Replaying Julii for the 3rd time...

One question, when I sacked Britons & Germans cities I usually destroyed all buildings (which can be destroyed ) and rebuild with Roman works. Anyway I realize tavern aren't replaceable (or am I wrong ?)

Should I leave the taverns or those are the place that breeds rebellion ( got happiness bonus there if not mistaken ).

Cherioo....

econ21
11-09-2004, 14:58
I am not sure you need to destroy British and German buildings. In my campaign, the cities were pretty small and so were not that unhappy. I think you can "overwrite" them with your own buildings when they expand in size anyway. The only building I have heard about destroying is the Temple - doing so reduces the culture penalty, although even there I don't rush and often only destroy it when I want to upgrade it to a bigger Temple of my own kind.

jjnip
11-10-2004, 04:26
Roman Factions: Julii

Pre Marius

Peasants Gov. House O pop
Town Watch Barr 0 pop
Hastati Mil Barr 2000
Principes Leg Barr 6000
Triarii Army Barr 12000

Velites Prac Range 2000
Roman Archers Arch Range 6000

Equites Stab 2000
Cav Aux Cav Stab 6000
Roman cav Cav Stab 6000
Leg Cav Hippodr 12000

Wardogs Stab

Post Marius

Peasants Gov House 0
Town Watch Barr 0
Auxilla Mil Barr 2000
Early Leg Leg Barr 6000
Legionnairy Army Barr 12000
Preatorian Imp Palace 24000
Urban Cohort Urb Barr 24000

Light Aux Prac Rng 2000
Archer Arch Rng 6000

Roman Cav Stables 2000
Cav Aux Cav Stab 6000
Leg Cav Hippodr 12000
Pret Cav Circ Max 24000

The above is a breakdown of the minimum population you need in a city before you can A) make the appropriate governor house B) make the appropriate military training facility. Once you have the population then you can make the governor house then the military building then the unit.

So your strategy and consequently armies are built around your cities populations. You have to keep in mind your best cities by the nature of their high population are your main factories for units, but you do not want to be too handicapped by fighting with your armies to far from your factories. Why? You need to be able to retrain these units once they take casualties in combat. So keep that in mind when you have Principes that require a Leg Barr and consequently a 6000 pop city before you can retrain them. Off in the wilds of Gaul, Dacia, Brittania, Germania you might not find such good pop cities.


Pre Marius lasts from around 279bc to around 240-220 bc, wich is when the reforms take place. So for these first 40-50 years you will be using Pre Marius units. During this time you will probably get about 25-35 provinces. You will probably have 4-5 cities near about 12000+ in pop.

Mostly you use Peasants and Town Watch to keep civil unrest down, they perform garrison duty.
Hastati, Velites and Equites are your main fighting force during this time.

Hastati Mouse/Key Commands for Combat

With Hastati highlighted right click once on the enemy and the Hastati will walk until close enough then throw a pila and then charge to attack.

With Hastati highlighted double right click or right click and hit "r" on the enemy. The Hastati will run to distance needed, stop throw pila, and then charge for attack. Difference is "walk" vs "run".

If you want the Hastati to attack/charge the enemy quickly without throwing pila, then hold "alt" and right double click on the enemy.

Sometimes a good thing to do is highlight a Hastati unit and make it run at a 45 degree angle to the enemy then have them turn around and attack the enemy in the rear and flank. This is easier if they enemy is already pinned in action. The angle is for distance and also to get the Hastati completely unengaged.

If you are being attacked, it is often good to put Hastati on guard mode. Guard mode seems to increase their defense at expense of attacking power. When Hastati are in guard mode and you are on the defensive then it is good time to have Hastati "fire at will". They will throw their pilas as soon as the enemy close.

Velites

Some people like to put Velites out in front and let them be on Skirmish mode, some like to put them out front and use them as "Arrow fodder" and "bait". I like to put them in "2 deep" stretched left to right formation, with fire at will behind my Hastati. If you are concerned about friendly fire you can pull them back and away once the enemy engage.

Sometimes when the battle is almost over and I sense the enemy route coming I position my velites on my left or right in a position to attack the fleeing enemy. Once the enemy start fleeing, highlight the Velites and hold "alt" and double right click on the enemy, to get them to run/attack draw their daggers even if they have javelins left.

Equites

I used Equites alot, they are monsters, very powerful. The trick is too "not" commit them to early. Do not let them get stuck attacking a unit out in the open, especially a unit you did not want them to attack in the first place, that is the beginning that you did something wrong.

Basically the enemy attacks, once the infantry forces are good and engaged, its kind of like 1-2-3 ok I sense I am winning, I see a clear path to my left around the enemy and behind them. I could attack their enemy in the rear with my equites. So you highlight your equites and right click on the ground at a 45 degree angle as necessary to avoid getting into combat at the main line and hit "r" so they run or just double right click. Its kind of out, up and back.

During my Julii Long Campaign pre Marius I usually had a Army consisting of
4-8 Hastati
2-4 Velites
1-3 Equites
1-2 Merc troops
1 General

Marius Reforms happened for me around 241 bc.

Post Marius

After the Marious Reforms recruit Early and Leg and better Cav. Always good to have a few Archers, Mercenary troops to round out the force.
Early Leg Leg Barr 6000
Legionnairy Army Barr 12000

Around 230-220 bc when I was finishing up my long campaign I had almost 2 cities near 24000+ to give you idea.

221 bc for top 5 Cities:

Patavium 23,216
Mediolamium 22,076
Arretium 15,956
Arriminum 15,442
Corduba 15,212

After I had about 35 territories I attacked Rome and continued down Italy and exterminated every city in Italy and used the money to build my armies to finish off Brutti and get my last 15 faction territories. In fact I exterminated every faction after 35, I needed the money badly.

If I had gone slower, put more money in my cities, waiting a few turns before I attacked I could of built probably a better infrastructure, had a fewer higher population cities and eventually gotten the better units, but that would of pushed me back to probably around 200 bc for endgame and of course everyone else would of been stronger.

I had the money so I spend it and built armies, of
15-18 Hastati, Early, and Leg
1 General

By the time I got into position to take Brutti on after taking Rome I noticed they had about 7-8 full stacks. So I was like give me legion and early and its all I recruited. Any Hastati I had left were from pre. So from then on it was 90% early and leg. It would of been more cost effective and prob more effective to have had:

9-12 Hastati, Early, Leg
2-3 Roman and Leg Cav
3-4 Archers
1 G


There is so much I am leaving out I am sure, for example how could you mention a Roman Julii Campaign without mentioning Barbarian Mercenary Cavalry. These guys rock and I found them to be most effective.

I also found Barbarian Mercenary the ones with the shield and spear (not the peltasts), to be most effective at holding their own, especially in guard mode. The Barbarian Mercenary Peltasts are good too, effective javelin throwers and decent attackers.

The Reforms
One thing I wanted to point out is after the Reforms you cannot retrain your Hastati, that facility now trains Auxilla which is a pretty decent defensive unit. So any and all Hastati you have left will now get merged by you to keep them at full strength, because you cannot retrain them.

So where as before you were pumping out Hastati when you needed them with a Mil barracks, now your next decent unit and brunt force of your army requires a Leg Bar and a 6000 pop city and is called a Early Leg unit. You can win the game with Leg Units but you will want to make Army Barracks in your 12000 pop cities so you can make Legionnair Units. Leg Units are a little better than early leg units.

Only thing better than this Inf unit are Praetorian and Urban Cohorts but they require a 24000 pop city, Imp Palance (praet) and Urban Barracks (urban). You can win with just regular Legionnair units.

Cntr-l S
I kept a copy of my saved game, at some point I will probably go back and load it up to make some Praet and Urban and conquer the rest of the world. Just do a cntrl-s during the video with you marching to victory in the senate to save it for later. Load it up and save it under a new name, like finalbattle something.

LestaT
11-10-2004, 11:28
I am not sure you need to destroy British and German buildings. In my campaign, the cities were pretty small and so were not that unhappy. I think you can "overwrite" them with your own buildings when they expand in size anyway. The only building I have heard about destroying is the Temple - doing so reduces the culture penalty, although even there I don't rush and often only destroy it when I want to upgrade it to a bigger Temple of my own kind.

I destroyed the building only for economic reasons. I terminate all population and building to recoup all the war cost unless while 'liberating' other Roman cities. It's easier to manage from scratch anyway.

LestaT
11-11-2004, 09:30
I've finish the campaign with many years spared. Is there a way I can continue the campaign because the Brutii still exists. :furious3:

YAKOBU
11-11-2004, 10:43
LestaT: see my comment on this thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=39568

:charge:

LestaT
11-11-2004, 13:08
Thanks. Danke schon... will try after I finished all the factions...

ZIM!!
12-22-2004, 17:32
I just finished my Julii campaign I had won the game over a month ago but I let Rome rebel and then allowed the Scipii to take it so I could conquer the map it took a long time and a couple of times I was put on the ropes by the Scipii and the Parthians , but I finally conquerd selucia and those elusive cities in Persia that you kow are there but have to search for and at last I trapped the Parthian King in that city due North of the Caspian sea. I had to send calvary scouts to find it when I did the Pathian King was holed up in a huge city with large walls totally unlike any other city in this part of the map he had a huge army with 3 units of Elephants. I waited for years building up my forces shipping them from persia across the caspian sea that had two big stacks of parthian navies in it constantly harassing my convoys of troops, also marcing them across Europe from Germany and shipping them across the black sea from Nicomedia and byzantium even then it was a miserably slow march to get there.. I had to bring in flaming pigs from the balkans it took well over 10 years finally I ran out of paitence and decided to not wait for the flaming pigs to arrive and just hired mercanaries to supplement my meager Roman force by

by the time I reached this point in the game there were no more large cities to conquer (outside the occasional rebellion) to fuel my war machine , my units on the russian steppe were depleted from years of fighting barbarians in Europe and the persians

but crutched with mercanaries including greek hoplites and eastern infantry Samaritans from the black sea javilans from North africa Barbarians from Gual and Briton I thought I would give it a try.. I had units from all over the empire and it was a brutal fight the Elephants gave me a hard time for a bit but I was able to corner them in the narrow city streets.. at the end I won but was so decimated I lost the cirty to rebels the next turn but I eventually recaptured it because the force was mostly peasants. however the capture of this city lead me to the discovery of the last province I was to capture... at the very edge of the world the fabled kingdom of the Amazons.

it was pretty neat it was so far away and hard to get to it literaly to years to march there from the closest city I marched thier with one Roman General and an Army entirely made up of mercanaries as no Roman units were availible or could be spared this far north I finally got there after scouting the city out the year before my army marched in tandem and a unit of Amazon chariots wiped out a straggling unit of mercanaries

it was kind of cool to have this be the last place conquerd a mythical city that took years to get to and a march over hostile territory with a harsh enviornment kind of like the holy grail.. but I was determined to let no land or people go unconquered. The seige was not too bad the city just had wooden walls. the sythced chariots with the amazon archers gave me a hard time before I broke through the walls they are super deadly they just about completely wiped out my units on the rams.. but oh well theyre just mercanaries.... after that I rushed the city the chariots routed a couple of units but they didnt last to long against the cavalary in the confines of the city
The Amazon warriors had a few units of Slave "men" as peasant units but they were just fodder for my blood thirsty mercanaries

so after all this effort to get there and reach this mythical magical city with its proud noble race of beautiful women warriors with a vibrant culture and the great fight to subdue them .. what you ask did you do with these noble and beautiful female warriors?? ... I let my filthy smelly barbarian mercanaries have thier way with them ...got drunk ...then slaughtered them all....
....there was no reason at this point to step out of character....

the Scipii left in Rome were easily defeated of course I had the port blockaded for over a decade I surrounded the city with heavy onagers and destroyed as much of it as I could .. very dramatic .. the rushed in to the burning city through open gates(spies ) and of course slaughterd everyone


The end

BlackStrider
12-24-2004, 00:29
The one thing that I can say about the Julii campaign is to rush fast into Gaul. This campaign is mostly about expanding quickly into Europe. Germania wont attack you and are pretty quiet. If an alliance can be made, they will help you beat back Britainnia, who will almost certainly attack you.

Romulus Augustulus
01-16-2005, 00:23
This may or may not be helpful, but I've found something out about fighting the Germans. Those spear warbands of theirs can be beaten with light infantry. During the deployment phase, take all of your light infantry, and deploy it in one place, one unit on top of another. If you have light cavalry, use it to kill archers and warlords, and, when their spear warbands are locked in mortal combat, pounce from the rear. I used this to defeat a good sized German force near Trier, which I took a turn later, or so.

Zizka
01-20-2005, 09:04
playing the Julii on a hard/hard mode, I found that the first thing to do was secure northern Italia, and take Massina, with an army on the bridge closest to the rest of the Gallic lands you can rack up famous victories for your Family members. With northern Italia secure, forts in the passes (five forts can secure the entire area), your offensive armies are free to take the islands in the western med, and the take and easily secure Iberia. Three forts in the Pyrenees secures Iberia from again the Gallic lands. From Northern Italy one can easily snap up Narbonensis and Lugdensis, and from Iberia northern Africa is easy meat. I have found that leaving the majority of Gallic lands in the hands of the Gauls gives your family members a boarder area filled with large fairly weak armies to combat and thus earn their name as a great general, before retiring to sire children and take on the task of govenorship. One member at Cordoba is all that is needed to keep Iberia running smoothly and it should be a vast money maker. Britannia may be another step but I don't see why, the British and Germans are a pain to fight and their lands contain nothing. With eleven more well placed forts one can cut off then Iuvavum, Lovisice, Aquinicum, Segestica, Campus Iazyges, Porrolissum, and Salona, from their all of Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace are within easy stiking distanace, and promise a good long hard war, with plenty of booty (two more forts on the borders of Dacian and Thracian lands with Scythia secure all of Southern Europe and free your offensive aremies for campaigns in the East. this is actually in keeping with the actual extent of Roman expansion (sort of) and it does make sense when you are constantly looking for tightly securing your borders.

- Nothern Italy (forts in the passes and at the bridge near Messina)
- Western Med. Islands
- Western then Eastern Iberia (cutting off the passes in the Pyrenes as soon at possible, After taking Osca as first conquest if possible)
- Northern Africa
- Dacia and the northern and eastern slopes of the Alps.
- Greece and Macedonia
- Asia Minor

sunsmountain
01-25-2005, 03:22
This belongs here:

If you play as the Roman: Julii family, send a spy into Gaul territory. Let one of their cities grow to Minor City (level 3). Check if they have a Sacred Circle to Epona, (the horse god). Take the city. Grow to 12000 ASAP.

Wait for a 'your roman people have embraced Epona as their god'. This happens if you leave the temple alone long enough (dont destroy it, repair it if damaged).

You can now build the Awesome temple of Epona and the Pantheon to Epona, giving your legionary cohorts 4 xp (1 silver), or 5 xp (2 silver) as 'raw' recruits!

I did a search and havent found this tip anywhere so here you go. Added to the Julii walkthrough as well. (and on the org)

Herakleitos
01-25-2005, 10:37
Does this 'embracing' work for every god, have you for instance ever seen it happen with Greek gods?

(Goeie tip trouwens! ~:cheers: )

sunsmountain
01-25-2005, 19:56
Nope, only the Julii (dank je ~:cool: ). This gives them the best temple in the game, for which you need a little help from the AI.

And no, i havent played too much Zelda: Ocarina of Time, though i can still remember the song you use to call her (Epona).

Dib
01-26-2005, 11:40
Suprisely I have used the wardogs against falangas. Walls of greeks shields and lances became weaker and thereafter very vulnerable standing not as strongly in the formation.

roman god's
02-18-2005, 00:58
well what i did was do what the cover said "total war". i fought everybody :duel: no mercy was spent to anybody i usually exterminated the settlement and got tons of money. to was fun but hard. with money drains and rebillous settlments it gets hard

by the way i'm new ~:cool:

McDoogle
02-26-2005, 09:28
Hey,

:help:

Does anyone know what triggers the army reforms?

Most of my games where i take over Gaul, they come in between 215-224B.C

However i have just choosen to wait in a new game on med/hard. it is now 208 B.C and nothing :furious3: . Is there a thing you must do to trigger it?

E.g take so many provinces or something?

Remus
02-26-2005, 16:10
It depends on a couple things.

First you must build an imperial palace in Italy somewhere.

The second thing is it must be at least 220 BC, but the actual date is randomized. For me it happened usually somewhere from 205 - 195.

As far as any other triggers I am not aware of any.

RollingWave
02-28-2005, 08:59
o_O Really? u can embrace other gods??? only as the Juliies?? so unfair

13th warrior
03-04-2005, 17:34
:bow: The Guals at first may seem a unstoppable force, that you would need many armies. But i found a cheaper faster way of takening them. its very simple looking at their units, you can see that, there isn't a single unit that can stop even the lowest cavlery units :charge: . so use this to your advantage. In the starting the senate will tell you to take the town of Segesta, which is an easy target to attack. you should have one army already outside the cities. take some from the cities into that army and go siege the town. Now that you took that town, you build your real army. build stables in both your starting towns. when they are finished, make all the Equites that you can buy. now during this time the senate may ask to do random missions. i personally don't do them because they waste to much time, for to little of a profit. But thats your choice. now when your army is done put all of them together with all your left over generals and march them into gaul. when it comes to seiges just buy some mercs and leave them in the city after. for battles just run right into them. they won't stand for long. Some would say that goeing for gaul will stretch you, but haveing a calvery army, they can move twice as far. Gaul should be yours in no less then 40 turns if you do it right. By this time the Senate loves and the people adore you. So start your march to rome, this is when you can build a proper army of infantry and archers. your two starting cities should be huge, making it easy to overpower the other romans :duel: . From there it is in your hands.
PS tell me what you think :bow:

McDoogle
03-05-2005, 09:59
Gauls is easy to conquer, cavarly isnt everything, Rome's early infantry slaughters the Gauls. cavarly you have constantly charge to get a good effect.

You take the towns near the alps, then you block the hill passes and build up your armies. what i find a good and easy way is you build on main army that attacks and lays siege to the gaullic cities and always have a general with four units of town guard come in and take over the city right afterwards.

Luckily for me the Germans were already at war with them and i managed to con them into furthering their expeditions, and they took alesia, however they had lost some of their provinces to Dacia which i had taken and thus a nice trade was made.

I tend to then moveon to spain and britain, get them over with and there you go. you can turn your attention onto germany. however in my game the sciipio had taken all of Dacia and most of the sythians lands.

However i was given the choice of attacking rome, i used a force of 18 thousand legioners. ha, i must say i won that. didnt bother commanding it because it would have destoryed my pc.

Romans are probably the easiest faction but because of the senate life becomes hard. all other factions you can take a settlement and exterminate then leave to rebels, which always helps slow down a war. but the senate demand you take it back and if you dont they will keep demanding it.

Sas_Legion
03-05-2005, 14:00
in my game with Julii I blocked the passes in N. Italy and take massila holding the bridge with a sutable army .. the famely member leading that one gain about 10 stars and senshorial position in the senete so this bridge train your generals keep that and you got nice famely members .
another idea I have found that compagining in Gaulia will be a strong adventure for a good famely member . So I build an army of about 4 equites and 10 hastati and 1 roman achers and 2 velets then enterd Galia with that army lead by a 2 star general and fortfiy in Gaul's land demanding money and when they refused I made THE HELL ON THE EARTH destroing thier armies , killing thier famely members and blocking thier ports finally agreed and I took 15k den for the cost of that war and a general with a 10 star and nice retinu ~:cheers:
finally u can consider Gaul's land as practice battlefield but don't take any city becuase of the old-idiot men ( yah the senete ) well make life hard demanding retaking that city if u left it :duel:
I blocked all threats for the Brutii and Scipio by deplomacy and war ??
by deplomacy like allying with mecedonians and preventing any possible war with them even from the senete is there a mission taking a mecedian city I ignor that another thing by bribing any real force for the Brutii , Scipii and the senete itself so u gain a freazing setuation until u prepare for compagining in Greace and sicely also ~;) for example I positoned 3 deplomates in sicely and S.Italy and near the senete .. any force going to take the cartheginan city in sicely should be bribed specilly if they had exp. bonus and say thx Scipii .. the same for Brutii . a good idea taking some nice famely members for u cities from them ~;) so the Brutii will have only 3 cities ( 2 starting cities + Apollonia ) ~:cool: and Scipii had only his starting cities .
Next I prefer taking Greace then Iberia and heading the Egyption lands and Selocidia also :duel:
( sorry for my bad English language ~:) ) any reply is welcome .

General Carnage
03-05-2005, 15:04
Gaul is not that hard to conquer. The trick is to take the first few towns rapidly, then consolidate by building guard units such as town watch just to prevent a takeover with no opposition. This leaves your legions free to take more towns.

I realise that a few units of town watch could not repel a siege, but it gives you time to raise a large army to break the siege.

scipio the even younger
03-15-2005, 19:50
QUOTE[Fighting the Germans. Those spear warbands of theirs can be beaten with light infantry. During the deployment phase, take all of your light infantry, and deploy it in one place, one unit on top of another. If you have light cavalry, use it to kill archers and warlords, and, when their spear warbands are locked in mortal combat, pounce from the rear.]

a easier way is to just send in javerlinmen and because spears are so frikkin slow they wont catch u wen u hurl javerlins into them.i used this to isolate and destroy and german spears wen i was out numbered.i didn't win cos y general thought it would be fun to charge the spears,still i killed one hell of a lot more than they did.


a bad general lets success go to his head,
a good general leaves it behind.

General Carnage
03-16-2005, 22:17
Once you take Carthage, exterminate the population.

Once Carthage is taken start building troops using Carthage's highly teched buildings (triarii, Legionary cav, etc) and be ready to ship them to Greece.


Having sacked Carthage, it will take quite a while before it is possible to build any troops at all, no?

Imperator
03-25-2005, 15:52
The most important thing with the Julii, like all Romans, is to push your advantage immediatly. The Scipii have the best ships, as well as Syracuse (Minor city) just waiting to be taken in Sicily. The Brutii have the best position, invulerable to attack with the best of the civilized world ahead of them, including all 7 World Wondors. The Julii have the worst of it as far as map position or cities are concerned. However, they have the strongest acting army in the early game, and if you can exploit that, they will quickly rise to the top. The two gallic cities in Northern Italy are vulnerable. You already have a large enough army to take them before the Gauls know what hit them. (Just sent two hastati to siege Sagesta, it can only last 3 turns under siege. Once you have taken those two cities HOLD THEM! The gauls will send massive armies, but if you can build forts in all the mountain passes, it will slow them down. The computer doestn't ever seem to attack forts. Once you are secure in Italy just advance your cities, they are all large towns and can train hastati, equites, and velites. Then just send army after army into gaul, remember, the only big advantage the Gauls have over you is the terrain, and their numbers. Try not to fight during winter, and NEVER fight in a forest. If the Gauls are too strong to invade from the South, simply play the role of a Viking. Sail up to one of their southern coastal cities, capture it, exterminate the population and destroy all the buildings. Then run. It makes you thousands of Denarii and cripples the Gauls who are stuck rebuilding their cities.
(Note-Whenever possible built blacksmiths. I always thought them trivial until I saw what superior weapons and armour could do! The tiniest advantage will show when locked in a close battle.)

Coccum_Pugnus
03-26-2005, 19:26
My stratety was pretty strait forward, but I have ended up over extended my self slightly.

All I did was Bliz. all the way to spain, and I think the Marius effect happens after you have gained a certain amount of land or wealth or something, because I never got acess to the Triaria (sp?) :furious3:

Right now I am making preporation for the invasion of Brition and am moving my diplomats into Roman controlled areas for the final push.

Craterus
03-27-2005, 18:51
you need an imperial palace in Italy for the Marian Reforms..
to be able to recruit Triarii, you need the best army barracks and you need to be before the Marian reforms!! ~;) ~D

katank
03-27-2005, 21:58
You don't need the best barracks. You need army barracks which is large city level and that is less than urban barracks which is huge city level.

In 1.0 and 1.1, an imperial palace anywhere will do. However, in 1.2, you need an imperial palace in Italy after 220BC.

cunobelinus
03-31-2005, 10:05
roman wardogs are really week there only good for routing enemys .there infrantry are strong well displined men .i found gauls not that easy to fight they never give up they are easy to take but are always a problem .i have never completed a game with julli so i cant say that much

Craterus
03-31-2005, 16:12
I agree littlegannon, the Gauls are tough fghters and they don't tend to give up. I have never completed a campaign with the Julii either.. but none-the-less they are an exciting roman faction to play.

cunobelinus
03-31-2005, 21:25
they are esciting but i think theya re the hardest faction out of the romans to play as so i may make a game as them as a bit of a challange

Craterus
03-31-2005, 21:28
I beleive it's their starting position.. There is only a few routes they can take and the main one is up into Gaul. And with the Senate ordering you around to do missions, it's quite tough to get anywhere..

matias
04-12-2005, 01:42
hi all,
i've seen that often the gaul's faction heir is in the town of Mediolanum, just crossing the river at the north of your cities (the Po).
Is there a way to capture him and use it at your advantage?? maybe to ransom him or use him to force a treaty?

it would be cool, right?

thanks,
regards

matias

oompalumpa
04-12-2005, 02:51
hi all,
i've seen that often the gaul's faction heir is in the town of Mediolanum, just crossing the river at the north of your cities (the Po).
Is there a way to capture him and use it at your advantage?? maybe to ransom him or use him to force a treaty?

it would be cool, right?

thanks,
regards

matias

No, sadly there is no kidnapping or anything. You could assisinate him with an assasin, but it would take a while to tech up to that level. If you are really desperate to kill him, bring an army with like 5 equites and as soon as the battle starts charge them all at the general. You will loose the battle of course, but you have a very good chance of killing him.

pezhetairoi
04-12-2005, 07:08
I always thought there really wasn't a need to go straight for the family members like that. Forgive me for sounding completely daft, but what's the point? If you kill him, you kill him. (And the AI most usually ensures you kill him, since he charges straight for you eventually.) And if he escapes, well, he escapes. So what's the fuss? If you play Julii you're eventually going to sweep the map clean of Gauls anyway, so why worry? Besides, I always found it more fun to let him escape... family members always come back with armies so I get to fight some more, kill some more :-D Bloodlust is not exactly a Julii characteristic, but it's useful when you can't help but win every battle you fight ;-)

matias
04-14-2005, 21:18
I always thought there really wasn't a need to go straight for the family members like that. Forgive me for sounding completely daft, but what's the point? If you kill him, you kill him. (And the AI most usually ensures you kill him, since he charges straight for you eventually.) And if he escapes, well, he escapes. So what's the fuss? If you play Julii you're eventually going to sweep the map clean of Gauls anyway, so why worry? Besides, I always found it more fun to let him escape... family members always come back with armies so I get to fight some more, kill some more :-D Bloodlust is not exactly a Julii characteristic, but it's useful when you can't help but win every battle you fight ;-)


Hi ,
i thought that since the game is so realistic, maybe i could do something like kidnapping a family member, and then ransom him ($$$) , or use it to rise your influence when negotianing with that faction, like "i demand xxx town and i offer your little son" ... jeje
in medieval you could ransom nobles and get some florins...

anyways...
thanks and regards,

matias

pezhetairoi
04-22-2005, 07:52
well, you gotta realise, CA has its limits. Not -that- realistic. I mean, after all, which faction would send armies of a few thousand men at one another in real life? THey were all 5-digit armies in reality.

Craterus
04-22-2005, 15:41
There were battles on all scales but battles were generally larger, like 5 digits, but not always.

pezhetairoi
04-25-2005, 04:03
true, true. But in gaul at least they were on an epic proportion (eg 200000 gauls involved at Alesia), but heyhey, who's to say, eh? CA has to make a game that's easily controlled and won't be played with an incredible lagtime.

Craterus
04-25-2005, 17:07
I like the game how it is, and I'm really bored of most of the criticisms..

Any improvements however, i.e. hard-worked mods are welcome and I admire those that put so mch time into huge projects such as those.

The more men you put on the battlefield, the longer the battles will be. You want to put 200,000 men in a battle? It will take a huge amount of time to win that battle and units would have plenty of time to recover from routing. It would add another strategic level to the game I admit, but I don't think there's an machine capable of supporting RTW graphics on that scale.

pezhetairoi
04-26-2005, 02:03
I completely agree...realised that too, which was why I gave CA credit for finding a good balance as it is between the two considerations earlier mentioned. On the topic of Julii, though... I've been toying around with the idea of leaving Gaul untouched and heading north for Germania/east to Greece instead. Any comments? In my current Scythian game for some strange reason Corinth was Julii, and possible Sparta too (though it's still fogged-of-warred)... So d'you think that's a good alternative strategy? I mean, Mediolanium-Patavium-Caralis is getting boring for an expansion direction, and Caralis-Narbomartius-Osca has been tried, too...

Franconicus
04-26-2005, 06:37
Pezhetairoi,

there are several good reasons to attack Gaul:
1. You have to attack Gallico Cisalpini in the early game anyway!
2. You make much more money that you would in Germania
3. Senate wil probably send you anyway.

But I agree that it is getting kind of boring.

Why not conquering the Mediteranian. You could rus the Gaulish border, invade Spain, take the islands from Carthage and maybe land in Northafrica. This would be a complete different game and I guess much fun!

pezhetairoi
04-26-2005, 07:47
Hmm, sounds worth a try. :-) I shall try a quick campaign with it and see if I can reach Carthage. Stand by for some interesting news. :-)

Craterus
04-26-2005, 15:59
I think those Scipii will beat you there.. (carthage)

pezhetairoi
04-27-2005, 01:28
oh....true. Oh yeah... the quick campaign states I have to defeat Gaul. No fun there, and I don't plan to try a Julii long campaign again until I've played 5 other factions... oh well. experimentation'll have to wait till my next redskirt campaign.

katank
04-27-2005, 02:45
Scipii wouldn't beat you to Carthage. They are quite slow. You should have minor force headed to Gaul, conquering only as fast as the Senate dictates (small force). Another should be on a boat to Carthage. Don't attack Caralis, head straight for Carthage. Then sack Thapsus and Lilybaeum in that order.

If you are feeling extra adventurous, send a third expeditionary force down to Greece and try to beat the Brutii to Sparta and Corinth if not Thermon. It's quite possible as the Scipii to take Thermon before the Brutii without hindering regular expansion patterns.

pezhetairoi
04-28-2005, 01:25
Hahaa, i used to do that on small scale. Block out the expansion paths of the other Roman factions. Fun. Once I lock them into their provinces, I bribe away all their armies (the Scipii unluckily had four 20-unit armies sitting around Thapsus that were bribed away by me in one turn flat... the idiots had only one family member (who was publicly loyal) for 4 armies, so I got 4 armies for free...)

katank
04-28-2005, 19:55
Bribing is fun back in 1.0 or 1.1. What is especially good is if you race your diplomat to Rome at the beginning of the game. On turn 2, the senate army splits into 2 with a captain led stack consisting of roughly half the senate's troops.

As the Julii or the Scipii, you can bribe that force away and get some nice 3 xp troops that early in the game, often with cash from the Senate mission for taking your first objective. This can be used to take on the Senate and sack Rome quickly or be sent as expeditionary forces to take remote objectives.

pezhetairoi
04-29-2005, 01:07
devious... I never saw that happen in my game though. Maybe the captain headed south instead so I didn't see him.

katank
04-29-2005, 03:55
True. It was very repeatable and I did it in my second Julii and Scipii games. For around 4k, you net about 6 hardcore melee units. That on the in game is crazy.

The captain is usually right on the Rubicon, slightly north of the Senate. This condition lasts only for a turn (turn 2) so watch for it and you may profit provided it's not patch 1.2.

pezhetairoi
05-03-2005, 01:50
That's IT. I'm patch 1.2.

Marcus Maxentius
05-03-2005, 17:10
If you are feeling extra adventurous, send a third expeditionary force down to Greece and try to beat the Brutii to Sparta and Corinth if not Thermon. It's quite possible as the Scipii to take Thermon before the Brutii without hindering regular expansion patterns.


Haha, I might be able to take thermon instead of the inept Brutii. I just got a mission to take Appolonia since the retarded Brutii left the door unlocked and got it bribed away from them. Their expansion has been halted for the last 40 years because of the siege bug. Right now it's 230BCish and the AI seems to be making up for lost time because it took corinth and athens simultaneously and now is laying siege to sparta and thermon(for the millionth time).

Catullus
05-03-2005, 17:31
Haha, I might be able to take thermon instead of the inept Brutii. I just got a mission to take Appolonia since the retarded Brutii left the door unlocked and got it bribed away from them. Their expansion has been halted for the last 40 years because of the siege bug. Right now it's 230BCish and the AI seems to be making up for lost time because it took corinth and athens simultaneously and now is laying siege to sparta and thermon(for the millionth time).


Whats the "siege bug"?

pezhetairoi
05-04-2005, 01:17
It's the bug that causes cities being besieged by the AI when you save the game to become un-besieged when you reload it. I.e. if it's sieging your city when you save it, when you reload it the siege will be lifted by the army will be in your city's red zone. Dumb bug, until you patch it.

Craterus
05-04-2005, 17:21
I thought they turned around an went home for the siege bug, I've seen it now, doesn't annoy me too much, I play for long periods though so it rarely affects things too much.

Catullus
05-05-2005, 17:11
Thanks for the siege bug note.

Currently playing "long" Julii having done the decadent Seleucids and hairy Brits. Trying to do the South East route with least possible Gaulish activity, partly to be different and partly because Greece etc is where the MONEY is...

Now got Illyria, Dalmatia and Pannonia, but not planning on provoking Brutii in Apollonia, and Macedon currently too strong to take on at that distance.

Current plan is therefore amphibious 2 city assault on the Greeks (who have so far been very well behaved allies, bless 'em). Thermon and Corinth together or maybe Thermon and Laconia. Anyone tried this? Are they tough to hold afterwards?

As a general point, does flagrant treachery of this sort make a big difference to negotiations elsewhere?

Craterus
05-05-2005, 18:38
Yes, I heard that betraying allies gives you a bad reputation for ceasefires and alliances later in the game. You should cancel the alliance just before you land. Then you won't get a bad rep.

pezhetairoi
05-06-2005, 01:15
Yeah. Even selling map information seems to net you even less money after that. Not Corinth and Laconia at once, no. Laconia, if unconquered, still has its Spartan Hoplite garrison, and if you're hastati-based, then it is definitely not a good idea to split your forces. Take Corinth for a base, then move on Laconia. The Greeks are not an aggressive faction so there is no fear of attack from them. Leave them be until you clean up Macedonia. Thessalonica is just as, perhaps far more, well-developed than Sparta. And it's easier to take.

katank
05-07-2005, 02:29
Depends, I find it possible to siege Sparta and then have the Spartan lured out in a field battle.

Jog them around the map with velites. This tires and attrits them. Then gang up on them with 3-5 hastatis from all sides and cav from rear results in insta rout of those famed warriors.

Also, use the pila to pila em to death.

Craterus
05-07-2005, 23:08
Yeah and missile fire, that seems the best way to take Spartans.

katank
05-08-2005, 03:10
The Spartans are really weak against missiles due to 3 armour.

Surprising what 2 units of starting Macedonian archers can do to a spartan unit before it even makes contact.

Craterus
05-08-2005, 11:38
I always shoot Spartans, rather than make contact with them.

pezhetairoi
05-09-2005, 03:58
The only time I come up against Spartans is when they are standing in the city square, and my archers don't do as much damage to them as I desire because they take their own friendly fire, so I just charge and end it all, constantly reminding myself that I should not have done that >.

roman god's
05-22-2005, 05:11
I to like to throw what ever i got. The spartans have the hopilets and can crush your calvary and if their good your main army. So i like to pick them off before i crush them.

katank
05-22-2005, 18:46
Friendly fire??? Just don't stack your archers on each other.

Note that there are 4 sides to a town square. Lining up archers on each of the sides and firing allows for a nice crossfire.

Even 2 sides allow you to reduce the shield effect and drop the spartans really fast.

With a single unit of 1 missile upgrade cretan archer, I shot a unit of Spartans along with a general's BG unit to oblivion with some ammo to spare.

pezhetairoi
05-24-2005, 04:25
haha, those were the days when i didn't know better. I think I only really got the hang of Rome in Scythia, and I'm still perfecting it in Greece. I think I'm refining my siege battles, so that will probably never happen again :-) With just two Cretan archer units and 2 militia hoplites two weeks back I got a heroic victory against 3 units of militia-hoplite rebels holed up in Cyrene, zero casualties, and you can guess why :-)

katank
05-24-2005, 21:54
Figures. Also, in siege battles, the enemy units will often march back and forth in phalanx mode. This means that your Cretans get free shots at their slow moving flanks. Unarmored units like milita hops get absolutely cut up in 2-3 volleys.

pezhetairoi
05-25-2005, 01:37
Totally agreed. I was storming Sidon and their sole unit of Libyans was marching to contest the breach, but with 2 units of Cretans and 2 of Rhodians they quickly lost formation and became totally scattered as the AI rapidly kept switching their direction to try and avoid my volleys. After 3 combined volleys I just withdrew my ranged troops and used cavalry to scatter them. Not a single man lost.

katank
05-26-2005, 23:27
The AI will often park units in front of the breach to guard it. Rotating Roman pila infantry into position right before but not into the breach allows for nice target practice that will decimate the waiting enemy units.

Archers and slingers are naturally still nice to gun down everything else.

pezhetairoi
05-27-2005, 06:18
Not true about parking units... the AI in my game has wisened up and decided to -flank- the breach instead of stopping right in front of it. While my troops are entering the breach to contest it they charge me partially in flank, resulting in higher casualties than I should have. It can be troublesome as hoplite factions, and your pila will have no way to get to them unless you move away from the breach.

The Stranger
05-27-2005, 17:16
so true

katank
05-29-2005, 18:53
The point is you are not in the breach but near it. They are also near it. Shadow their unit diametrically so your pila can reach them. I've had great success mauling enemy defenders this way.

Another method is to have a unit of cav fly through the breach before their flanking unit has time to engage. Then charge your infantry through the breahc with the cav flanking the enemy infantry.

crazybastard
06-05-2005, 06:39
Does anybody knows when the Marius reform will take place? I think the pre-reform Roman infantries suck against well-experienced warbands and swordsmen. Please don't tell me it's gonna be in 101 BC or else I'm dead meat.

katank
06-05-2005, 15:09
If in 1.2, you need to have an Imperial Palace in Italy and it occurs at a random date after 220BC.

In 1.0 or 1.1, imperial palace anywhere is fine.

gardibolt
06-24-2005, 17:34
I was playing as Julii and I got a Transgression message from the Brutii; they didn't approve of my current behavior. I've bribed a couple of their smaller armies away, and also invaded the Greek Cities, which they were working on. I also hit them up for 3500 denarii to attack the Greeks, which I was going to do anyway. Was it the bribery or the invasion or sucking them dry that ticked them off? Are there any actual consequences to Transgression messages? Or can I continue merrily bribing and invading so long as I don't murder their family members?

pezhetairoi
06-27-2005, 03:39
As far as I see it, they're pissed that you're in their territory to attack their destined empire. Never mind the fact that they paid you to fight for them, they're pissed that you're successful. Stupid Brutii.

I say it can't be the bribing of the armies, because once as the Julii in Africa I bribed four Scipii full-stacks massing to march on Egypt, and they didn't do a thing against me. So.

gardibolt
06-28-2005, 23:54
Does anything happen as a result of these messages? Will I get outlawed early or something, or is it a warning without any teeth at all? Do I get a warning from the Senate that they'll fine me or something?

pezhetairoi
06-29-2005, 01:00
Well, you could save your game, try ignoring the messages and see what happens, then load the old game and start again :-) I honestly have no idea, though, because a turn later I'd finished what I came for and left Scipii territory with 4 new fullstacks......

gardibolt
06-29-2005, 17:21
I have started bribing my other brethren with entertaining effects. I spotted a large stack of Scipii heading towards Carthage; they had tried assaulting once before and been beaten back. I couldn't beat that army to Carthage with my own stack over in Cirta, but I did have a diplomat in the area and a couple thousand denarii handy. A quick bribe, and I sacked Carthage myself, with the Scipii's troops, exterminating the Carthaginians since I knew I'd never be able to hold it without a governor. What a hoot! And what a pile of money! :charge:

pezhetairoi
06-30-2005, 04:53
See, a new convert to the Joys of Bribing. Damn, I could write a book about it :-) Gives a whole new meaning to monetary policy and fiscal expansion, doesn't it? ;-)

Franconicus
07-06-2005, 10:30
You mean 'Dollar Imperialism! ~:cool:

GreatEmperor
07-06-2005, 14:57
As far as I see it, they're pissed that you're in their territory to attack their destined empire. Never mind the fact that they paid you to fight for them, they're pissed that you're successful. Stupid Brutii.

I say it can't be the bribing of the armies, because once as the Julii in Africa I bribed four Scipii full-stacks massing to march on Egypt, and they didn't do a thing against me. So.

I don't think that's true, because I conquered whole East-Europe except for Athene and Thessalonica and they didn't complain.

GreatEmperor
07-06-2005, 15:07
That's why I find it easier to conquer East-Europe first and afterward the Gauls, so the Brutii haven't got many cities and after you conquered whole East-Europe it should be easy to defeat the Gauls, Britians and the Germans.

pezhetairoi
07-07-2005, 01:11
same thing done as the Brutii, but in reverse. I completely surrounded the other Roman houses with my territory and bribed liberally, raising 4 new fullstacks from Julii and Scipii troops and family members. :-D When the time came for the civil war I ended it in 4 turns flat: 1st turn besiege all cities except Rome, 2nd storm all cities, 3rd turn besiege Rome, 4th turn fight a sally-cum-defending-a-river-crossing battle. Beautiful :-D And all without offending the other Roman houses once, despite bribing away half their population.

GreatEmperor
07-07-2005, 08:33
But how can you besiege all Roman cities without offending them?

Mahrabals apprentice
07-07-2005, 08:58
He brough tea and biscuits :balloon2:

gardibolt
07-07-2005, 17:30
Why are the Brutii so much more wealthy than me? I've (as the Julii) seized the Greek Cities for myself and wiped out Macedon, essentially cutting them off from further development to the east, and hold Carthage, and as well have wiped out the Gauls. I hold three Wonders, including the Colossus. I've built roads, ports, trading facilities. I have trade agreements with half the map that I'm not at war with. I have 25 or 26 territories, and they have 7. But their income is 4-5 times mine. What am I doing wrong here?

I also seem to have screwed something up diplomatically; no one, absolutely no one, will buy map information, or ally, or agree to be bribed, or agree to a cease fire. I did abuse the Brutii a bit by charging them money to attack the Greek Cities (and got a transgression warning), which I was going to do anyway, but is that enough to tick off the entire globe? :furious3: Any way to get back into others' good graces? I didn't violate any ceasefires or alliances, so I'm not sure why everyone's so alienated. Maybe the two are interrelated.....

pezhetairoi
07-08-2005, 01:59
As to why you're earning so much less money than the Brutii, one possible reason is that you have considerably a larger army:settlement ratio than the Brutii have, so you earn less NET profit than the Brutii because the Brutii pay less in upkeep. But hey, you're actually making tons more money than the Brutii. Just disband one fullstack and see the miracle.

As to how I besieged all the Roman cities without offending them, well, I didn't. That is to say, they were offended as HELL, but knowing they were going to die the next turn and knowing there was bloody-hell nothing they could do about it, it didn't really matter. I mean, it's a Roman Civil War! How do you fight a civil war without offending your fellow countrymen I ask you?

GreatEmperor
07-08-2005, 07:36
I don't know, that's why I asked you, because you said:
And all without offending the other Roman houses once, despite bribing away half their population.

Garvanko
07-08-2005, 18:32
Haha.

katank
07-09-2005, 03:29
Frankly, don't worry too much about those fools. You should focus on economic expansion which then drives the military. Be sparing with raising armies and keep them busy at all times.

1 or 2 peasants is enough to keep any city happy. I rarely used more than 5 field armies and this is with expansion in all directions, sacking cities every turn.

The Senate is useful for the initial cash infusions that is by default 5k that can jumpstart your economy.

From then on, the units etc. are a nice perk but not too much with exception of first cohorts and merc war eles. Kill them when they get annoying.

I have many times restricted the other Roman houses to their 2 starting cities while draining them by bribing away stacks. Makes the game too easy though as the civil war is not an exciting event at the end game.

Better to gift them some cities to keep them competitive till the end. WIthout 5-8 cities, they cannot keep up a decent expansion rate.

Mahrabals apprentice
07-09-2005, 09:58
It sounds like your cash problems are definately becasue of your far larger military. I usually build arnies constantly and then find i have a lot of silver chevronned hastati when the reforms come along, which isn't really a bad thing, but i menas i have difficulty affording the hordes of legionary cohorts i want.
However in my current brutti game i am being more conservative, I found that 1 stack was enough to take southern greece, then i built a second the help take everything south of the danube, and i built a 3rd to take crete, rhodes and then off to the east to seize turkey.
I have stopped my expansion and growing my, somewhat small, empire in to a cluster of ubercities, so when i get the marius reforms I cvan go into go cohort crazy mode :duel:

I find that if you are sensible in the early stages you can be a little extravagant a little later

Slon
07-09-2005, 22:23
Julii: Medium/Medium Patched 1.2

The Julii campaign is rather simple since you will be fighting against poorly equipped barbarians with your solid legionaries. They really stand no chance. The problem is that the settlements which you capture are worthless, undeveloped (can't retrain good troops) and have terrible population growths (can't train troops at all). In the north, your main concern is patavium, the province to the west of it and that small city bordering your capital. First thing you do is take that small city (obviously). Once you have it, upgrade infrastructure and set taxes to low so the pop can grow. Get trade agreements with Gaul to avoid fighting with them early on. You need to build up your cities first. Don't bother upgrading training facilities to train Principes or the heavier horsemen just yet. Equites and Hastati are more than enough for now. Also, be sure to keep save your archers for later. Be careful to not let them take ANY casualties since you won't be able to train/retrain archers for a while. Once you have enough forces to hold the bridges in the north, ship your troops to caralis. Once that is taken, launch a sneak attack against Carthage using some troops and a ship. Train any reinforcements at caralis/other provinces and keep shipping them down to carthage. Another strategy early on would be to take any part of Sicily that is left (Scipii take it rather quickly). In my game, they already controlled all of the island (all 3 settlements) by the time I was ready to attack those juicy money makers. If you manage to take Carthage, enslave the populace, build your own shrine, and build up some troops for the attack on Thapsus. Once you have Thapsus, you have successfully stopped Scippi from getting too greedy and taking those settlements. So, they are basically screwed since all they have is Sicily and Capua.

In the north, if conflicts have begun to mount, start pumping out troops. If you aren't ready to attack Patavium, just put your soldiers on the two bridges. Gaul won't be able to defeat you on a bridge battle if you have at least 3 units of Hastati per bridge. Patavium is really important to take as soon as possible because it is a REAL money maker. The population practically explodes the second you take it, even though it isn't quite as good as Carthage. Don't worry about the southwest: Carthage has no strength over there, Numidia serves as a cushion against Egypt (Tripolitania), and Numidia won't be able to launch an attack on you since their settlements are horrible compaired to Carthage and Thapsus. But, if you are really worried, you can make a sizeable army and take Numidia (capital) from them. Then, just blockade some of their ports and eventually they will accept ceasefires/trade rights. Unfortunately, you will need all the money from carthage to finance your northern wars and will therefore be unable to take all of thr sourthwest.

Up north, your priorities are the two settlements north of your original position. Once you have them, you can just plug the bridge west of them to keep Britannia/Gaul out with a fairly small force. Then, all you have to watch out for is an attack from the north (easy since you have large settlements to train troops here) and the east is safe since Britti are probably busy taking over illiria. Now that you are secure south and North, it's time to focus your attention on the east. Once you have a good income, make a force of Hastati, some horses and archers. Get your best general (or two) and load them on ships headed for Thermon/Sparta. Take whichever settlements are left, but pay special attention to Sparta, Athens and Rhodes (VERY important wonder) especially. Your goal here is to take as many settlements east of Brutti/Scippi expansion as possible so as to stop their progress. I managed to take Sparta, Athens, Rhodes and Halicarnasus. This put a dead stop on Brutti eastern expansion, although they were still struggling with the Macedonians and eventually turned north towards the useless Scythian provinces. At once point, they screwed up and allowed a just city northwest of Athens to be retaken by the Macedonians. So, I quickly took that as well.

Once the other romans are stopped dead in their tracks the game gets really simple since your ownly remaining (dangerous) adversary is Egypt. The next few turns spend all your cash on infrastructure and schools and organise your family members to be governors of the important cities. Upgrade whichever largest city you have to Huge City and contruct the largest barraks that you can to get the Marian Reforms. Then, transition from old troops to Early Legionary Cohorts, Roman Cavalry and Archer Auxilia. For city defence, use 4 units of Auxilia and the rest peasants as you need them (public order).

Once you are ready, begin a number of simultaneous campaigns. Build an army from carthage and get it to capture everything southwest of Carthage. Don't bother using Legionary cohorts: it is almost impossible to retrain anything above Early Legionaries. Numidians are just too weak to oppose you. Save Tripolitania for later. Set taxes to low in the tiny provinces (occupy them) and keep the force near carthage to make sure that area doesn't get invaded. As a general rule, if a city is a minor city or greater, exterminate. If smaller, occupy. ALWAYS destroy their shrine the first chance you get to build your own (Ceres if population growth is low, Baccus if it is alright).


In the north, start expanding west into Gaul (finish them off) and then go into the Iberian peninsula. They should be easy pickings. Take the Carthaginian settlement there as soon as possible and upgrade it to Minor City ASAP. This is required for retraining your troops (this is why you shouldn't go higher than Early Leg/arch/romcav). These guys almost always use LOTs and LOTs of wardogs, so archers are a must. Continue until the Iberian Peninsula is yours. Also, the Britons will probably be kicking your troops around near Logdunum. It is VERY important to take that city and hold it. Make a strong stand immediately by stationing a tough army there with a good general (Britons bribe settlements very often, bribed that city 3 times). Protect those bridges and just survive their attacks. Masillia plays a huge role here, since you will need this settlement to retrain your troops. The settlement west of Massilia should be upgraded to minor city ASAP as well.

As for the east, just finish off the weak Seleucids (if there are any left) and take all the easy pickings (Halicarnasus and the northern settlement there). As always, look for opportunities. If an important faction (which you can't attack yet, such as the romans, pontus or egypt), quickly take the settlement. They won't care if you take is as long as you didn't take it from them! Usually, these will be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities so keep an army ready and pay attention to each area every turn. As usual, you don't need to go higher than Hippodrome (for races), archery range and legion barracks. Also, don't forget about the settlements east of arretium. If Macedon or rebels take any once of them, be ready to pounce to keep the romans from getting there first.

Now, make sure you have good relations with pontus. Send them money occasionally and make sure they are holding their own against the egyptians, which will probably be near halicarnasus by now. If they get slaughtered, you are next on Egypt's list! At the same time, keep a trade agreement with Egypt. Don't think you can just finish off pontus and then be trading buddies with Egypt. They will backstab you as soon as pontus is out of the way. Slowly start building an assault army on Rhodes to attack Egypt (as well as a strong navy). If cyprus gets toppled by rebels, take it (this happened in my game)!

Now, as for Brittania, stack two armies and attack the settlements north of Logdunum. Send the other army straight for Britannia's island and take over that entire area plus Ireland. Use the other army to conquer everything west of logdunum and then proceed east towards Germania (who are probably too weak to defend themselves).

In the east, once you are ready, make sure you have two armies. Once should be in rhodes and the other in Halicarnasus. Send the Hali army to take out the pontic areas. Send the other on a trip to Alexandria. Once you are ready (small garrison in each newly acquired pontic settlement), attack Egypt from Halicarnasus AND Alexandria at the same time. Move the eastern army east and the southern army south to take the big 3 settlements (Alex, memph, and the settlement south of that). Once this is done, Egypt will be hurting. Just hold them off and wear them down from here.

Anti-roman strategies later when I get to that part.

Tips: Always destroy enemy shrines and build your own.
Standard garrison: 4 auxilia rest peasants/town watch
Army: 6-8 ELC, 2-4 roman cavalry, 4+ archer auxilia. If you want, you can also get 4 heavy onagers.
Always wait until last turn to complete senate missions.
Build schools to get some experiences governors
If a huge settlement is just getting bigger and bigger, keep taxes Very high to stop the pop growth and instead launch races/games to keep loyalty above 75%.
Build baths/piping ASAP to avoid plague.
Watch your ports and upgrade Ports, roads and markets first, making sure you have an arena in the area.
Only upgrade farmland to get to a huge city. You don't need any more.
Keep your roads cleared of rebels. If you don't pay attention, a single tiny army of rebels can block off a major road and stop all trade.
Keep at least 4 spies in each settlement to keep unrest down.
Hire a few units of mercs to use a cushion for your real troops. Mercs can't be retrained anyway so have them tie up the enemy while your archers take pot shots at them. Sure, they will probably rout, but then your legionaries will mow down the remnants with their pila. Just make sure you tell your archers to stop firing once the enemy get near your legionaries (to avoid friendly fire). I once defeated a huge Numidian army with Mercenaries alone. Granted, one of my merc units was war elephants ~;)

Slon
07-09-2005, 22:28
Does anybody knows when the Marius reform will take place? I think the pre-reform Roman infantries suck against well-experienced warbands and swordsmen. Please don't tell me it's gonna be in 101 BC or else I'm dead meat.

They take place as soon as you build a huge with the best infantry barracks. This is why Carthage is important: because it grows the fastest.

Deus ret.
07-10-2005, 20:19
hmmm are you really sure about that? no random trigger after 220BC plus an Imperial palace somewhere in Italy?
would be good to know for sure...

Slon
07-11-2005, 00:20
hmmm are you really sure about that? no random trigger after 220BC plus an Imperial palace somewhere in Italy?
would be good to know for sure...

It happened the second my final barracks was constructed in Carthage.

gardibolt
07-14-2005, 21:31
OK, I just received the message that the People of Rome are ready to accept me as emperor. How many turns do I have before the Senate starts demanding suicide from my faction leader? Do I need to head my armies back immediately, or do I have some time to consolidate things out in the boonies? Do I have at least 4 turns to build stone walls around my capital?

Skott
07-14-2005, 22:10
In my experiences with it once the Senate demands your faction leader to commit suicide for the good of the republic thats the que that the civil war is about to begin. If you refuse the senate declares you outlaw and the civil war starts at that point. If you accept they keep asking each new faction heir to commit suicide. Obviously you dont want to do that so at that point do not accept and start fighting for the throne.

There is a minimum date requirement but not sure when that is. For me it happens alot around 140BC but its not a firm date. It varies each time depending on the date and every Roman faction's standing with the senate and the people. Mainly your faction's standing. Thats why its wise to have your starting cities ready anytime after 170BC.

Once you play the Romans in a couple campaigns you'll get a feel for when things are ripe for the civil war. Keep an eye on your standing and how many factions you have destroyed.

gardibolt
07-14-2005, 22:20
Geez, it's only 236 BC. Am I safe for a while, or has my high standing with the People doomed me before I'm ready? I've destroyed the Macedonians and the Gauls, and am on the verge of wiping out the Spanish, Greeks, Numidians, Carthaginians and Thracians (they each have 1-2 provinces), and I have about 30 provinces myself. Was the 30 provinces a trigger?

Krauser
07-15-2005, 00:31
Geez, it's only 236 BC. Am I safe for a while, or has my high standing with the People doomed me before I'm ready? I've destroyed the Macedonians and the Gauls, and am on the verge of wiping out the Spanish, Greeks, Numidians, Carthaginians and Thracians (they each have 1-2 provinces), and I have about 30 provinces myself. Was the 30 provinces a trigger?

Around 30 provinces your standing with the Senate will slowly go down until civil war occurs. You probably got a message that you have enough support from the people to march on Rome but you're not required to until much later like Skott said.

pezhetairoi
07-15-2005, 01:16
But I find it much easier to do it once the message comes out than later. Like when the message appeared, I had already been getting ready for the war for about 10 turns, so I had diplomats at every Roman city, and three armies within striking distance. All it took me was another 3 turns for necessary concentration and accelerated bribing, and I finished the civil war in 4 turns, crushing the Julii and Scipii (I was Brute) in Turn 2, and SPQR between turns 3 and 4 when they attacked my besieging force.

Skott
07-15-2005, 03:43
I should also point out my play style a bit concerning Senate Missions. In the beginning I used to try and do everything they asked of me. What a pain that was. After a while I figured 'Heck with them! I'll do what I want!" Ever since then I do what I want and rarely ever do a mission they want me to do unless I happened to be planning to do it at the time they send the message.

There's going to be a civil war either way so I might as well do what I want at my own pace instead of trying to please them. So usually my standing with the Senate isnt good throughout the campaigns I play. Thats just my style though. Its not necessarily better or worse just different.

pezhetairoi
07-15-2005, 07:12
It's useful nevertheless, I'm sure you'll agree, to go for missions where you will be rewarded; 10k or 5k d are always useful no matter how much you're earning, and if you're earning enough that these amounts are nothing to you, then the Senate should have been dead by that time anyway...

Krauser
07-15-2005, 10:46
I just finished the campaign as the Julii. I was building up for about 30 turns. I had a full army at 3 Scipii settlements and 2 Brutii settlements. I also had 2 full armies standing next to Rome both containing 4 onagers to take out the epic walls. I built up my navy too. I had a ship ready to blockade every one of their ports in North Central Africa and all of Italy. I'm sure that hurt a bit. I had a few ships who went out and attacked there's while my weaker briemes blockaded. Going into this with 45 provinces in one turn I took 5 new provinces and Rome. The whole thing was overkill but it was great.

Mahrabals apprentice
07-15-2005, 18:16
But I find it much easier to do it once the message comes out than later. Like when the message appeared, I had already been getting ready for the war for about 10 turns, so I had diplomats at every Roman city, and three armies within striking distance. All it took me was another 3 turns for necessary concentration and accelerated bribing, and I finished the civil war in 4 turns, crushing the Julii and Scipii (I was Brute) in Turn 2, and SPQR between turns 3 and 4 when they attacked my besieging force.

Why go for a quick and easy war, i try to let it develop into a 3 way bloodbath, its a lot more fun than winning a war with diplomats and wads of cash

Slon
07-16-2005, 06:41
Why go for a quick and easy war, i try to let it develop into a 3 way bloodbath, its a lot more fun than winning a war with diplomats and wads of cash

Speaking of bribing, did anyone notice the changes in 1.2? It's almost impossible to bribe anyone in that version. I found a rebel family member that could only be bribed for 86,000! And for some reason, the Britons have no trouble bribing my cities.

Craterus
07-16-2005, 14:53
I got a Roman (Julii, in fact, and wow I'm in the right thread) General for 19360, but he had a small army with him too.

Too bad, he was crap.

Kralizec
07-17-2005, 19:29
What's really ridiculous is that rebel armies now seem to be no cheaper then "national" armies. Often multiple k's for crap armies :furious3:

Craterus
07-17-2005, 21:00
Guess what? 15000 for a Greek General and Peltasts, this general had 0 command stars, 1 influence, and 0 management. That is crap. I want the bribing from 1.0 back!

Skott
07-17-2005, 23:08
Which version you running Craterus?

pezhetairoi
07-18-2005, 01:11
That's it, I'm reinstalling 1.2. I bribed a 3-family-member Armenian fullstack plus spy attached for only 17k, and we're talking about 2-3 command stars each. Something is VERY wrong with my 1.2.

Craterus
07-18-2005, 17:16
I'm using 1.2.

To be fair, this guy was a spartan and probably had a lot of bribe increasing traits, but surely it shouldn't have cost that much?

Deus ret.
07-18-2005, 17:55
craterus,
that doesn't seem to be too much. 15k denarii for a family member... that sounds pretty decent actually, given the fact that in the meantime I have to pay at least 26k for two peasants and an archer and the like. ok it's in late game but you can imagine that under these conditions it's pretty awful to bribe rebel family members.
bribing cost also seems to depend upon your general income....rebels are generally far overpriced, though.

Craterus
07-18-2005, 18:05
Maybe, I only want a cheap general for my conquest of Asia. After I've conquered Italy, I'm going to fortify my position from the Gaul and then set off on Alexander's route on conquering Asia.

My plan is that the 50th province I take will be the city Alexander built (and the city where he was buried), Alexandria. It would be a nice finish to the game.

If I really wanted to follow Alexander's route, I would make the barbarians to the north become my protectorate, and make Greece my protectorate, but I would rather eliminate them.

Deus ret.
07-18-2005, 18:16
well have a nice conquest then! ~:cheers: :charge: :charge:

Strappy Horse
07-21-2005, 09:39
In my current campaign as the Julii some interesting things are happening. The Britons were pushing south with full stack of silver and gold chevron-troops, led by their 9-star faction leader.
After losing several battles in a row against them, I decided to get the Senate more involved and to create a buffer.
So I offered Lugdunum as a free gift to the Senate.

They went on a wild 'shopping' spree, bribing the northern half of Gaul, including 2 provinces.
My short term goal was reached, the Britons never invaded Jullii lands with that monstrous army.
About the long term consequences... they've got four stacks of Senate armies running around Gaul...wel I guess it makes the coming civil war a bit more interesting.

gardibolt
07-21-2005, 17:34
I thought I was about to be outlawed; my Senate popularity was down to 3 chits, but then they said I needed to blockade a particular rebel port or they would investigate my finances. I really didn't want that, so I complied. Surprise to me, my popularity shot back up to five chits. So I wiped out three factions and knocked another one to its last city, and still five chits. I really want to get the suicide message so I can thumb my nose at them, but nothing yet. Closing in on 40 provinces.

Fear me, damn you! Fear me, I say! ~D

Well, we'll see how much of the map I can take before they get exercised. I know I could start the civil war but I want them to make me. Problem is the next convenient enemies are Britain and *gulp* Egypt. At least I'm pretty well poised to make a strike at the Cities of the Nile, thanks to the Scipii conveniently building full stacks for me to bribe away. :duel:

pezhetairoi
07-22-2005, 00:18
Hahaha that's just like me. Scipii full-employment policy. ^_^ Egypt actually isn't much to fear from the Roman POV because the Romans are well-armoured which pretty much negates their advantage in archery. You'll take far less damage than my Macedonians did while fighting armies with as many as 4 units of bowmen. It was nearly 20% casualties I took. Chariots will also pose little problem to you as long you form your cohorts deep. Bring along some gladiators and velites, they are the most effective, as the thread says earlier.

gardibolt
07-25-2005, 21:30
Beat the Imperial Campaign as the Julii for the first time Saturday using Pez's Scipii Full Employment policy. ~:) I did FINALLY get the suicide message when I took the 40th province and promptly told the Senate to piss off. Once the civil war started and I took Rome, I tried to abandon the city and let it rebel so I could keep on going, but they loved me too much and I couldn't get the public order down below 150% no matter what I did. :dizzy2: I hadn't wiped out either the Brutii (they had one province left) or the Egyptians, who still held a dozen, and the Scipii still owned all Sicily so I opted to continue forward, especially since I had done it in 221 BC and still hadn't tasted the the Marian Reforms at all. I did the save on the Victory Screen and went forward from there. I'm down to 218 BC and just got the Reforms, so I'm itching to try a new army of these guys once the hastati & principes I have wear down a bit.

Taking & exterminating one or two cities per turn makes things go pretty smoothly for funding and the empire is all quite happy so far though I'm starting to get a little stretched for family members. That's especially the case in Egypt, where I'm taking a three-pronged attack to keep them from assembling any army too large in one place: from the north in Antioch, northwest to Alexandria and southwest into Thebes. Memphis and the pyramids will have to wait since I see they have the plague and I'm going to wait till it burns itself out. The population there has been dropping by 10-12% each turn, so there may be no one left to conquer.

I just decided to go after Britannia since they've been tying up troops to my north for far too long and I need the money, and they've proven to be pretty little challenge so far---wiped out a half stack with 15 casualties, mostly from friendly fire. I don't know what they did in Trier, though---when I took it the city had a grand total of 11 citizens. I think I missed a bunch of massacres. Pontus is probably next on my list; although I'm allied with them (which provoked Egypt to declare war on me in the first place), their armies keep wandering into my provinces of Asia Minor. I may need to teach them a lesson about keeping their hands to themselves. Besides, what good is owning only one side of the Bosporus?? I've been building flotillas of quinquiremes and pretty much rule the seas, although the Scipii still have some formidable navies that will need to be taken care of. There are also a few rebel navies that are apparently the remnants of the once-proud fleet of the Brutii. Only three more port cities are left on the Mediterranean mainland that aren't in my greedy hands, and that situation won't last long if I have anything to say about it. The Scipii also have the plague in 2 of their 3 cities, which is keeping me from wiping them out at the moment. "You're lucky to have the plague" does sound odd, doesn't it?

Two notable things the AI did late last night:

1. Outside Alexandria, two large armies met me and crossed the battlefield in an confusing X pattern. Some of them routed under a hail of fire arrows, and in the fracas I lost track of everyone, but some troops had apparently doubled back and hid in the nearby woods (woods in Egypt? huh?) and surprised my pursuing troops. Lost a bunch of men that way. Clever move.

2. I've been bribing the Scipii armies mercilessly since they build convenient full stacks. Having taken the entire boot of Italy I was surprised to find that they sent a ship over from Sicily and landed an army on it with a family member. Excellent, I thought, a family member to be bribed--I could use one of those. He sold out very pricily and only then did I realize he had the plague! The AI screwed me over, since he died next turn and infected the rest of the stack (at least I didn't move it into a city!) Whether the AI intended that, it was a pretty effective little germ warfare maneuver that also lightened my treasury significantly. That little trick did warn me to check the cities on Sicily for plague before invading, however, so I did get some benefit out of it.

One really irritating thing: After the battle outside Alexandria mentioned above, one family member, Numeris Cerealis (who had besieged Memphis until he saw they also had the plague--his name always makes me hungry) went after a tiny stack of 8 Egyptian archers (not units, one unit with 8 pathetic little men) that were off by themselves for some reason. Since I outnumbered them over 50:1 and it was getting late I figured what the heck, autocalc it. Bad, bad, bad idea. Poor Numeris was branded a coward and lost a command star. At least the AI didn't kill him outright. No more autocalc for me, no matter what (on land, obviously).

Unfortunately my audio crapped out during the last battle before the victory screen, so I had no sound (well, actually, a voice saying "Siege, Siege, Siege, Siege" over and over so I turned it off) at that point. Is there a voiceover, or special music or anything at that point? I did get the little animation,though it just kept repeating and didn't actually get the man to the throne to become Imperator....is that how it's supposed to look?

pezhetairoi
07-26-2005, 01:18
that's how it looks... there's a really grand fanfare though, in the actual thing. Just turn on music.dat from the sound folder and play it in windows media player to hear it... it's about 20-30 minutes in, I believe.

gardibolt
08-12-2005, 18:53
I'm now in the waning days of my first Julii campaign. Last night I eliminated the Armenians and the Egyptians (getting Pontus to pay me to do both, the suckers). That just leaves the Germans with two little territories with nominal armies that will be crushed momentarily, plus the Scythians, who have been fairly aggressive but as of yet haven't attacked me, and my longtime allies in Pontus and Parthia. Unless my allies backstab me (and my diplomats have been busily bribing any of their armies who come close to make that very, very diffiicult), I'll save them for later and take on the Scythians next. Anything I should know about them, other than their territories are far too large? Do they have any sizable cities? When I get down to the last few territories will I have a big problem with unrest like I understand is the case in MTW? I find lots of guides talk about the early game and few discuss the late game of conquering the entire map--I guess because at that point it's a breeze and no one wants to hear about it? I was shooting for finishing by 200 BC, but I don't think I'm going to quite make that since I'm in 204; it took me far too long to move my armies into Germany from my military-producing cities, and the Egyptians were more than a handful, and Scythia alone is too much territory to cover, not to mention Parthia. If the cities were closer together it'd be no sweat.

The Egyptians' final conquest was particularly gratifying, though. They made a well-intentioned sally out of Jerusalem, their last stand, outnumbering my forces by 50%, and very much outgunning mine too--I hadn't really meant to attack them with that army, which was mostly mercenary Arabs, but thought, what the heck, I'll start the siege until the nearby 3/4 stack can get here in a turn or two. Bad idea. Things were going fairly badly for me, with many of my units routing and my newly-bribed ex-Pontic general getting killed early on by an arrow. But his bodyguard fought on valiantly nonetheless, routing the foot archers in turn and chasing them inside the city, somehow dodging the boiling oil.

Things were exceedingly desperate outside the walls, with a chain reaction of routing from my mercenaries under the chariots' arrow fire. But after the bodyguard killed the routing archers they had pursued, I realized the city was completely undefended, and high-tailed it to the city square. Since the Egyptians had defeated most of my army, their chariots were merrily racing down the routers, and apparently paying no attention to the timing slowly ticking down from 3:00. Having won on a technicality, and having few troops left (ummmm 14) I exterminated the lot and that was that for the proud pharaohs. Amazingly, I got a green happy face....I guess Jerusalem really didn't mind the conquest and ensuing slaughter..... ~:eek: .

Deus ret.
08-13-2005, 17:59
Anything I should know about them, other than their territories are far too large? Do they have any sizable cities? When I get down to the last few territories will I have a big problem with unrest like I understand is the case in MTW? I find lots of guides talk about the early game and few discuss the late game of conquering the entire map--I guess because at that point it's a breeze and no one wants to hear about it?

You can find decently populated Scythian cities on (if they conquered it) and near the Crimea: Campus Scythii, Tanais and Cherxxx benefit from insane grain imports/resources.
Even Campus Sarmatae can make up for a nice pop thanks to the land trade (grain) with Tanais....oh, and beware of their Noble Archers, but after having finished off the Armenians you should be used to annoying missile cav.
Another nuisance are those HeadHuntingMaidens which have an AP attack.

As for the end game....I tried to conquer the whole map only once, as Armenia. It wasn't really a challenge on the military side of things, it just became a serious problem administratively. Put your capital in the middle of the map (as far as possible, don't let your homelands go rebel like I did) and exterminate especially all settlements at the periphery. Conquer speedily enough to not let the Egyptian Nile cities (which also are on the periphery) revolt; alternatively, destroy all military facilities there and slaughter at first some uber-peasants and then the population when recapturing the city.
:smash:
In any case I didn't really think it to be a "breeze". In MTW I had MUCH lesser problems of this sort, mainly due to me tending to wipe all possible rivals for naval domination from the seas as soon as possible --- as long as provinces are somehow "connected" to your king, they are unlikely to revolt. This is no longer sufficient in RTW...

Skott
08-14-2005, 03:35
One of the things I like about RTR 5.4.1 is that city management is much easier and less of a hassle. No more of a city constantly unhappy to the point of always rebelling. RTW 1.0 has so many towns constantly rebelling its just a royal pain in the butt. Not to mention very unrealistic. RTR does give you more towns and provinces to control though. It makes the game much more interesting.

Also the three Roman factions are replaced by one single Roman faction. The Senate still exists though. The Roman faction in 5.4.1 is much more challenging and more enjoyable than in RTW 1.0. IMHO. Very challenging but not to the point of being too hard. The mod team struck a good balance with it I think. Give it a try after you finish RTW.

Rome:Total Slayer
09-05-2005, 03:39
I have noticed that when playing as the Julii it is best to take as many sea provinces as possible it will greatly improve your Denarii count. Almost imidiatly after taking Caralis move and take palma let this grow as fast as can. then move and take Narbo Martius and Massilia. This way your trade will rise and so will your income. If you feel so inclined you may take Carthage. My advice is to enslave the populance. Because you will have a rebellian on your hands faster than you can breathe.Then if all goes well you move to the west and take anyother sea provinces. once you've compleated that build up your armies and invade in any order you want. :duel: :charge: ~:cheers:

Rome:Total Slayer
09-09-2005, 02:55
wait until your able to train arches to engage the Germans. the Phalaxed Spear warbands are tough to beat unless you are able to loosen them up and make them rout. I've found that using your archers to make them pull back away from the walls is an exelent wat to get lots of troops in before the melee gets nasty. :duel: charge a phalax and see what happens. Personly Princepes are best used in the Noth. They have better armor and attack than most barbarian units. ~:) ~;) ~D ~:cheers:

Claudius the God
09-19-2005, 00:47
if you're fast enough as the Julii, you can capture Carthage before the Scipii do...

heck, on this campaign (medium/medium) i've conquered at least 50 provinces including Rome and the other roman factions, before the marian reforms even occurred, and before i've been able to build onagers of any kind

i started by expanding as much and as quickly as possible, into Gaulish territory, the balkans, carthaginian territory. going to war with the Spanish, and the Greeks, then the Macedonians.

i wiped out the gauls, the greeks, the macedonians, the spanish, the carthaginians and then the Dacians before starting the roman civil war, taking rome and the scipii and brutii territories (about 5-6 provinces each) to gain over 50 provinces... including rome.

Alexanderofmacedon
09-19-2005, 02:06
I'm a very slow moving person. I concentrate all my forces on one nation (until rescently I've been forced into more) and break them. I also very rarely take more than one enemy city in a span of two hours. During the campaign map, I look at every single city...

Slow, but fullfilling for me...

spartakis
09-20-2005, 01:18
hey im new here but im far from new in rtw. my julii short campaign m/m went rather strangely. first couple turns gaul decided to attack me. i quickly sent all my troops to attack and easily got rid of the threat for the time being. using the other roman factions as a way to protect my city's that i started with i quickly moved on to gaul territory. i started from the east and moved west as it seemed easyer at the time as i had an aliance with spain. gaul were fairly easy as their tactics arefairly simple to figure out. using a bunch of cavalry and a wall of archers in the back, i quickly and easily took anything in my way. the germans were too busy with britania to care about attacking me like they did in previous campaigns and as i moved toward the middle, i saw spain had broken our treaty. i went around spains troops and just took small army's as to not disrupt my plan. i sent spy's and assassins to spain's larger army's and then right after i killed their entire family i quickly attacked and spain was no more a threat. using wat assassins i had left i kileld off the gaul leaders and easily kileld them off. all in all i found the senate missions a bit of an annoyance and if i wasnt hard pressed in money in the begining i wouldnt have built portsor a fleet. i dont like playing as roman factions as they can be quite easy with the multiple ally's in the beginning.

GreatEmperor
09-23-2005, 15:27
the Phalaxed Spear warbands are tough to beat
No they aren't, just charge them with 2 cavalry units but just before they hit the warbands quickly break them (one going left, one going right) the warbands start to turn, but because they're slow you've got the change to flank 'em on both sides.

Ariplatostophanes
09-24-2005, 02:23
Hey, my first post on the Org! Cool. I'm here b/c I'm playing Julii though my questions are pretty general. Here's the backround:

Julii M/M (Hey, its' my first time thru though I must admit the AI is not very aggressive). 246 BC, 14 regions, 27 wins 4 loses (all naval to Carthage but they're not a problem anymore ~;) )

Began in usual Julii faction by taking Pata, Medio, and Segesta. Then Caralis. As the Gauls weren't pressing me, I moved on Carthage. I was able to do this by following a diplomatic trick noted on this forum and bribing the captained Senate army on turn two for 2500D. Well worth it, even on turn two. Carthage severely dented two units of Hastati but I won in the end. Also moved down and took Thapsus. Carthage lost their other provinces to Spain and Scipii respectively and I finished them off on Palma. Bye bye Carthage.

I then pushed on into Gaul after taking the two rebel towns north of Pata. I plan to continue on into Spain and take the peninsula. I am allied with the Brits so I don't anticipate war on that front soon. They are warring with Germany who I have only a trade agreement with. Numidia is also neutral so they aren't bothering with my north African towns. I am hoping that after I defeat Spain (currently at war with Numidia), I will be able to turn the Numidians toward Egypt. I don't anticipate trouble from them on the battlefield but I don't really want to have to hike thru all of north Africa to chase them down. Alpine passes are well fortified.

My other plan is to take the remaining Greek towns. The Scipii have done alright for themselves in Sicily and Italy but they have no other regions. The Brutii likewise have their starting two and two across the Adriatic. I allied with Macedonia early and they have most of the rest of Greece/Maced. The Greeks are left with the Pelop, which is where I plan to proceed. I am confident with my current financial situation and allies that i will be able to wage a two front war in Spain and Greece. Which leads to my questions...

1. If I take the remaining Greek cities, I will have essentially boxed in the Brutii and I am concerned that they will turn on Macedonia (the two are allied now). I just recently found Tamur's diplomacy guide so I will offer them a few gifts to keep them going. Macedonia borders me near Pata. Of note, Germany and Dacia just allied, with Germany on my border and Dacia on Maced's. I have a gut feeling that my Maced alliance may last and may benefit both of us greatly if it does. Will it all fall apart if the Brutii declare war on them? Will they not trust me anymore? Will the Senate get mad if I maintain and even encourage the alliance? Should I just dump it if the Brutii attack them?

2. I have an itching to take Sicily from the Scipii. Can I accomplish this using spies and assassins? Will they have the same effect in an ally's city as they do in an enemy's? The plan is to swoop in after the towns rebel and take them for my own, taking advantage of the fact that we all have military rights and I will be able to park my army right outside the city.

3. Simple question: ladders vs siege towers? I used towers during the Carthage siege. It seemed to take forever for my unit to make it to the top. Are ladders faster? I'm assuming they are but offer less protection against missiles. Dummy me, I didn't infiltrate so I didn't know that Carthage wasn't fielding archers.

Thanks to everyone who has posted on the forums. You all have helped me in one way or another during my first campaign. The only advice I can give to other new players is to read ALL the forums. You may be playing as Julii but you will find something on the Egyptian forum for instance that just might save your life.

Seamus Fermanagh
09-24-2005, 03:37
1. If they attack, you probably shouldn't keep the alliance -- unless you want the civil war immediately. You can capture rebel cities and sell them to the Macs or buy maps from them at exorbitant prices to prop them up without an alliance.

2. Spies and Assassins can break up the towns and engender rebellion, and then take the rebellious towns, but if you are caught it's civil war immediately.

3. I've heard folks call for both. Start the Siege towers forward and as they draw the fire send your ladders in elsewhere to swarm the walls and sweep them clear. Apparently this takes a bit of timing.

Seamus

GreatEmperor
09-24-2005, 14:01
Simple question: ladders vs siege towers?
Dont use both of them, use tunnels! The only problem of tunnels are that you can't place them but with a bit of luck they stand in good positions.

Garvanko
09-24-2005, 14:17
Ladders or seige towers?

Neither..

Send a spy in, and hope he can open the gates.. Then seige, and wait for them to sally.

Craterus
09-25-2005, 22:24
I'm finding the prologue surprisingly fun...

I've been told I have the support to take Rome, so this should be fun...

GreatEmperor
09-26-2005, 16:19
Ladders or seige towers?

Neither..

Send a spy in, and hope he can open the gates.. Then seige, and wait for them to sally.

Don't do that, if the enemy has got a phalanx unit they will put it in front of the gate. If you destruct to walls by tunnels or catapults or something like that, you got 2 or more ways you can enter and in that way you can flank them.

Garvanko
09-26-2005, 18:57
Yes. But I try to do that when I have two huge armies. One with Onagers (at least 4), the other using sap points. Best let the AI control the second one. The walls crumble like its dominoes.

Do this in Italy and especially against Rome. Its epic, believe me. ~:cheers:

Ariplatostophanes
09-26-2005, 19:30
Thanks to everyone who replied to my earlier questions. I will be testing the siege strategies (ladders vs towers vs saps) against the Greek cities. First an update, then some questions:

Spain helped me out by bribing the last Gaul settlement and ending the faction. Fortunately, I was less than a turn away. It rebelled and I was able to take it before they did. It is the region right in the middle of Spain, which will come into play in my question. I stayed there a turn or two to regroup and establish a garrison before furthering my plan to attack Spain and take all the peninsula. Then - Germany attacks me, in Gaul, where I am weak. Ahh the best laid plans... I was only able to post a close victory by outrunning them. It is a fun little story: One of my kids acquired the nickname Decius the Mad due to his being a "hypochondriac" and "dangerously mad". As all his traits are essentially in the negative, I was using him to tour the empire and build forts and watchtowers where appropriate. He just happened to be nearby as I noticed the Germans crossing the border. I expired his movement by moving him to the outskirts of Alesia. Fortunately they attacked him (instead of the town) and the weak garrison were reinforcements. The garrison got trounced but he was able to run around for twenty minutes to secure the victory (COWARD!!). They didn't attack again that turn and he was able to buy some mercs before heading into town.

Needless to say, my two armies in Spain pulled out to head for the German border. I landed three armies in Greece and have simultaneously laid siege to Sparta, Corinth, and Athens. I am going to attack rather than wait it out, as they have small garrisons and I need the money. It'll be a fun turn tonight - probably take an hour or more!

So my newest questions:

1. After I took the rebel settlement in Spain, Numidia offered alliance and I took it. It seemed like a good thing as they surround me in N Africa and have a border with Egypt. They are at war with Spain and I'm assuming they saw me take the rebel region in the middle. I'd like to strengthen the alliance as I'd like to steer them towards Egypt and away from me in Carthage. The region isn't worth much to me so I'm thinking of gifting it to them. Obviously they will lose it to rebels and then to Spain before they can garrison it. Will I lose any diplomatic ground if I gift it to them knowing full well that they will lose it anyway? Or is it not my problem after I gift it and I get the benefits of doing a nice thing for my ally? I can't afford to leave a gov or a dip there so there is a good chance it would be bribed away by Spain anyway. Any thoughts?

2. No one - even far away civs like Scythia and Pontus - will buy my map info. If I leave negotiations open or offer to trade map for map they respond that they have nothing to offer. Any ideas?

Garvanko
09-26-2005, 20:24
No one - even far away civs like Scythia and Pontus - will buy my map info. If I leave negotiations open or offer to trade map for map they respond that they have nothing to offer. Any ideas?

You'll have to buy map... likelihood of trading map decreases the more you get into the game. Most are unlikely to buy yours, though.

Seamus Fermanagh
09-26-2005, 21:55
1. After I took the rebel settlement in Spain, Numidia offered alliance and I took it. It seemed like a good thing as they surround me in N Africa and have a border with Egypt. They are at war with Spain and I'm assuming they saw me take the rebel region in the middle. I'd like to strengthen the alliance as I'd like to steer them towards Egypt and away from me in Carthage. The region isn't worth much to me so I'm thinking of gifting it to them. Obviously they will lose it to rebels and then to Spain before they can garrison it. Will I lose any diplomatic ground if I gift it to them knowing full well that they will lose it anyway? Or is it not my problem after I gift it and I get the benefits of doing a nice thing for my ally? I can't afford to leave a gov or a dip there so there is a good chance it would be bribed away by Spain anyway. Any thoughts?

If its in rebel status, send a force to take Cyrene and give that to the numis. Anything that focuses them on the East is good.

As to rebel spain, you can sell it/give it to Numid, but then you're just aiding the Spaniards a few turns later. Might want to give it to an Egyptian opponent -- maybe they'll ally with Spain and get your Numis into it. Or you can sell off the good buildings and purposefully under-garrison it. Spain will take it but you can bleed them a bit and so on.

Seamus

Ariplatostophanes
09-26-2005, 22:19
Thanks for the explanation Garvanko. Note to self - sell maps early. I didn't get that dip over there until just recently so I'm a fair way into the game at this point.
And Seamus. Yes Cyrene is still rebel. I tried to bribe it about 10 turns ago but I don't think I had enough D at the time 'cause they couldn't be bought!! So my dip moved on to get trade rights from Egypt. Unfortunately, I can't really spare an army to take it right now, what with war against Greece and Germany. I may be able to field something small from Carthage and Thapsus (sp?) but I'll have to build as I can't afford to pull away the garrisons.

The only enemy of Egypt right now are the Seluecids (I think), but won't they be in the same boat as the Numids if I give or sell to them? I also don't want the Numids to go after Egypt just yet as I fear war with both Spain and Egypt will annihilate them. AND THAT JUST LEAVES ME :embarassed:
I think I will try to hold it with a reasonable garrison. I'll try to build a dip and ship him from Italy so he'll get there a litle sooner than walking. At least that will raise the bribe price. I'll also look into demolishing any buildings that I can. I'll at least get rid of the roads that I built when I first arrived so they can't use those.

YAKOBU
09-26-2005, 22:56
Hi Ariplatostophanes ~:wave:

Unfortunately roads are one of the few things you cannot demolish for cash, along with farms and governor class buildings.

:charge:

Ariplatostophanes
09-27-2005, 12:38
Thanks Yakobu. I'd never tried so I didn't know but now I do. ~:)

I've decided to hold it. I spent a few turns recruiting peasants then sent my general to build some forts at the passes. We'll see. The worst that could happen is Spain attacks me instead of me attacking them, which is just fine. It turns out the German threat isn't as strong as prev thought. I think I will use a combo of bribing and attacking to take out some armies there and maybe a town, then I'll ceasefire and return to Spain. I'll give my new German region, when captured, to my ally Britain to act as a larger buffer.

War in Greece was a humble experience. I got whooped on the walls of Sparta. It was the first time I ever reloaded after a battle. I won, but at the cost of a general and 3/4 of a full army. I've since gone back to sieging it. Battles for Corinth and Athens went better but they had smaller garrisons there. For some reason, while the Greek navy is large, they are almost all single ships and they don't seem to be coming together. With all the other Romans in the area, I have help on almost every naval battle.

GreatEmperor
09-27-2005, 15:46
I've got a question too...
Can Rome rebel if you set fire to their buildings with that special unit?

Lord Winter
09-28-2005, 16:46
What i did on my campain on VH/VH
Went north taking all the gauls coastal settelment. Spain then backstabed me so i had to distroy them whille fighting off full stacks of guals. After spain was distroyed I finished off the guals. I am now ready to invade germany.
I found that a usful strartagy for geting senete offics is to kill off other romen family members with assins.

Seamus Fermanagh
09-28-2005, 16:51
What i did on my campain on VH/VH
Went north taking all the gauls coastal settelment. Spain then backstabed me so i had to distroy them whille fighting off full stacks of guals. After spain was distroyed I finished off the guals. I am now ready to invade germany.
I found that a usful strartagy for geting senete offics is to kill off other romen family members with assins.

So you rather enjoy the challenge of an unplanned for/impromptu start to the civil war?

Or have you modded your assassins to a base 140% effectiveness level?

Seamus

GreatEmperor
10-03-2005, 14:48
Can someone please answer my question:
Can Rome rebel if you set fire to their building with an Assassin?

Craterus
10-03-2005, 16:09
Never seen it happen.. I doubt it would. You have to beat the Senate in battle, they can't be beaten otherwise...

GreatEmperor
10-03-2005, 19:15
Ok, thanks~:) But I find it's very good to sabotage the forum because it drops the population increase (to -0,5 in my case), so the Senate can't get to their highest tech level. They can't recruit the best soldiers now while I can.

Craterus
10-03-2005, 20:17
Good point, but the Senate are very rich and will buld another forum quite quickly. Sabotage is great for training up assasins.

GreatEmperor
10-04-2005, 14:34
Hmm... are you sure? In my game (Julii 198 B.C. H/N) I've been sabotaging the Senate for ages but still they aren't getting experience. So if I want to train them I'll let them kill Rebels.

GreatEmperor
10-04-2005, 14:37
Are you sure? Because in my game (Julii H/N 198 B.C.) I've been sabotaging the Senate for ages but still they won't get experience. If I wanna train my Assassins I'll let them kill off some rebel.

GreatEmperor
10-04-2005, 20:40
Are you sure? I find it better to train them on Rebels, because in my game I'm sabotaging the Senate for ages and still none of them has gotten much experience.

Ariplatostophanes
10-04-2005, 22:29
So, war in Germany has gone well. I had been distracted there (I was planning to move into Spain). Germany has settled down after I've taken 4 regions and are sending fewer and smaller armies. I have a Senate mission to take a fifth but I don't think I will follow thru. It's 232 BC and my Senate standing is still pretty good. It is only for a "minor exotic unit" that will appear in my capital, miles away from any front line. I'm going to siege the German town, then force a ceasefire. I plan to offer two of the conquered regions to my ally Britain, giving me a nice buffer between a now neutral (yet probably hostile) Germany and Julii red Gaul. Then I'll pull those two armies south and head back towards Spain.

Meanwhile in Greece, I apparently defeated the last Greek family member when he sallied out of Sparta. After his defeat, their 4 remaining regions went rebel and I got the faction eliminated message. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough and Thrace took Larissa before I could get there. Now I'm sieging the city in the SW (the one just south of Appolonia). The army that took Rhodes is now sieging the rebel province in the SW of Turkey (The one with the wonder. Sorry, no map here to recall the names). Then he'll move north by sea to take the other rebel region across from Byzantium (which is owned by Thrace).

Now to my latest question: my next logical expansion is north from Greece into Thrace. If I do this, it won't leave much for the Brutii. Neither of my Roman brothers have distinguished themselves so far. The Brutii, contrary to what I've seen in other posts, have big stacks all over their Italian regions and very little across the Aegean. It wasn't like I charged into Greece early on. I gave them a good 25 years to do something there before I moved in. I need some suggestions for getting the Brutii out of Italy in the near future without having to give up conquesting the Thracian towns. I've been putting off building my final level palaces so I can get good use out of my standing armies, particularly against Spain. But squalor and pop is building up quick in Patavium and Carthage. Once I swoop thru Spain I will be dangerously close to the magic Civil War number. Help me get the Brutii out of Italy ~:)

GreatEmperor
10-05-2005, 15:29
If you've got 30 provinces, the civil war won't be declared immediatly. I've got 41 provinces now and still my standing with the senate is very good, no signs of the civil war starting has been given (except for the message that you can attack Rome now). At first, Brutii and Scipii had a lot of armies swarming through Italy, but now they've been gone. Just wait long enough 'till they are gone or get 49 provinces and attack Rome then.

GreatEmperor
10-05-2005, 15:38
If you've got 30 provinces the Civil war won't start immediatly. In my game i've got 41 provinces now and still no sign of the Civil War has reached me (except for the message that I can attack Rome now). My standing with the Senate is high, there was a time when there were full stacks of Brutii and Scipii everywhere in Italy, but after a while they dissapeared. You've actually got 3 choices:
1. Wait for them to leave Italy and then attack their homelands.
2. Bribe them all away.
3. Get 50 provinces and then attack Rome.

Ariplatostophanes
10-05-2005, 19:09
And another question: Last night I got the "People are sick of the old men and ready for you" message. Any thoughts on this. I am pre-Marius at the moment but I'm playing 1.0 and just started building the final palace tech level in Patavium, so my understanding is the reforms will occur when that is complete in six turns. I am at 24 provinces after giving two to my British ally so Civil War hasn't begun. Should I wait or should I storm Rome now? What conditions would make a difference?

Seamus Fermanagh
10-05-2005, 20:17
At least two schools of thought on this.

1) With only 24 provinces, you should delay civil war while building yourself up to the point where smashing Italy gives you the win. Your opponents will build up, but your overall econ base should be bigger and stronger.

2) If the Brutes and Skips aren't built up too much then blitz the whole place. This should leave you with 35-40 provinces and a relatively simple war against the Germans or Dacian/Thracians for the win. This is riskier, however, if the Senate cripples your field armies (win or lose) and sets up a good Brute/Skip counter.

Seamus

Garvanko
10-05-2005, 21:00
Wait six turns for the reforms. Build up your army. Wait to be outlawed.

Sand
10-05-2005, 22:37
Id say go for it. You dont get any benefits from taking Rome (other than a nice city obviously) but why wait? Once you get the Marian reforms your army will be obsolete ( wont be able to retrain Hastatii etc) so use them up taking Rome/Italy over the next 6 turns and then replenish your legions with the brand shiny new Marian troop types. Also it increases the challenge of fighting and defeating the Senate army, which should be a highpoint of the game rather than overkill.

And for your first question, I wouldnt encourage the Bruttii to get out of Italy. Easier to beat them when they only have two cities. The AI can break down when you leapfrog their objectives. I took Libyeuam and Syracuse as Julii, before the Scipii did. They sat in their cities for the rest of the game, most likely because holding Libyeum was a condition for invading North Africa.

Ariplatostophanes
10-06-2005, 14:52
Aye, thank you one and all for some great replies.
Sand, you're definately and emphatically partially right (just prodding you friend ~;) ) on the second point. I stole Carthage and Thapsus from right under the Scipii's noses in about turn 5-6. Carthage was particularly a tough fight but I held on. That left them Sicily, which they took pretty early from Carthage and Greece. Since then they've just been sitting around, inhaling lava fumes. But the Brutii, I just don't know. They had years to march thru Greece and Thrace but never did. So they have their starting two and Appolonia. I may have created a problem for them early on by allying with Macedonia. The Macs have somehow held on. Last night, after a turn, Cyrene in N Africa turns Mac orange and black. It was like yeah, go little Mac go. They had been down to just one region along the Aegean coast for years.

I'm also realizing that I currently don't have a requisite army to take Rome anywhere nearby. I would either have to build one, which seems silly being now 4 turns away from the reforms. Or I need to ship one over, which screws up my other bigger plans. I think I will ride it out for awhile as Garvanko and Seamus suggest. It's only 229BC so there's lots of time.

How about encouraging the other Romans to attack Egypt? It would give them something to do and something to spend their money on. I only have one small border with Egypt in Asia Minor so I'm not too worried about invasion in my own lands. Egypt is already at war with Numidia, Seulucids, and Parth I think. To be frank, they are tho only faction I have any fear on these days.

GreatEmperor
10-06-2005, 18:32
That might be a good idea however, there's only a small chance that they will accept it. You should always try though. If you can get the other Roman Factions to fight the Egyptians that would really be great for you because you've got the time to concentrate on your bigger plan and eventually make a big army so you can take Rome.



BTW Sorry for all the double posts but something went wrong on my computer.

Ariplatostophanes
10-07-2005, 18:07
So who can advise me on this one? I want to end the war with Germany so I can properly wage war on Spain. By the time Spain is done it will probably be Civil War time so I don't want any distractions then either. I want to end war with Germany so that Britain can continue fighting them and I won't have to deal with either one for awhile.

After taking now 5 succesive towns from them, my first attempt was: Ceasefire and you pay tribute 5 turns/ 2000D. Turned down as "We have nothing to offer in return." I figured, ok, I asked too much.

Second attempt was Ceasefire and pay lump payment of 1000D. Turned down, same reason.

The final attempt was simple Ceasefire with nothing in return. Turned down again as "We have nothing to offer in return."

What does that mean? Are they simply not interested? My final alternative is going to be an Accept or we will attack Ceasefire, but that would mean I have to move a good army even deeper into Germany. I think they have only 2 regions left now but I can't be sure as I can't see the extreme northeast of the world map. This has been a very easy and rather boring war for a well-rounded Roman army and I really don't want to have to move on Britain and have to deal with transporting, etc. I've actually been gifting Britain regions to keep them afloat for just this reason. Any ideas or alternatives?

Ariplatostophanes
10-07-2005, 20:04
Me again with two more questions:

1. How come I only think of these questions when I'm at working and getting paid by someone else to do something else? Is this game consuming me after only a week or so of playing? :dizzy2:

2. I noticed around Carthage there are little camels around. The cursor says I can recruit camel mercs here but I haven't seen any yet. I have a old and rather spiteful governor sitting in Carthage. If he sits outside near the camels long enough, will he eventually be able to recruit some or are they only for the Carthage faction? Frankly, I don't know if I'd have much use for them as all of my fighting has been on the European continent so far. Mostly I'm just curious.
Thanks.

Deus ret.
10-07-2005, 21:39
1. How come I only think of these questions when I'm at working and getting paid by someone else to do something else? Is this game consuming me after only a week or so of playing? :dizzy2: Because having to work usually is not one of the things designed to keep you mentally entangled in it, not to speak of interested....don't worry, others share the same fate. ~;)
2. I noticed around Carthage there are little camels around. The cursor says I can recruit camel mercs here but I haven't seen any yet. I have a old and rather spiteful governor sitting in Carthage. If he sits outside near the camels long enough, will he eventually be able to recruit some or are they only for the Carthage faction? Nope. One of the game files deals with the chances of appearing of mercenaries. Some are quite common and easily replenished (e.g. Eastern Mercs in vanilla) while others may virtually take centuries to show up (like elephant mercs).
If I remember correctly, though, camels were among the more common mercenary types around, at least in the Egyptian/Palestinian area in vanilla.

Sand
10-07-2005, 22:11
So who can advise me on this one? I want to end the war with Germany so I can properly wage war on Spain. By the time Spain is done it will probably be Civil War time so I don't want any distractions then either. I want to end war with Germany so that Britain can continue fighting them and I won't have to deal with either one for awhile.

Best of luck tbh - in my experience diplomacy is effectively pointless. Enemies rarely agree to make peace, rarely stick to alliances, rarely trade world maps after the first few turns, even more rarely accept protectorate status and so on and so forth. Apparently there are means to force them to agree, if youre blockading all their ports, have 12 full stack armies seiging their last city, and their down to a 1 unit peasant army - but if youve gone to all that bother why call the whole thing off with a peace deal?

Diplomats are only good for bribery (less so these days), selling maps for cash(less so these days), protecting your armies/cities from bribery and getting trade rights early on - before the AI begins its aeons of unending war with you.

My advice to you in this case would be to hold on Spain for a tad, use the army you have in Germania to take the last two cities, exterminate them - The screams will help relieve the frustration of having to waste time in Germania, believe me - and give them to the British as gifts. It probably wont stop the British stabbing you in the back, but we can dream. Anyway, Londinium and Sambrovia run very profitable trade routes between each other so it might be worth the investment of time in that particular case.

The other option is to offer the Germans peace, all the regions you took, 400,000 dennarii and your first born children as sacrifices to their dark gods and perhaps then they might agree to make peace with you. Maybe. If the stars align and the anceint prophecies are fufilled.

Yes Im bitter about the insane AI demands for peace. :furious3: Its like theyve all got William Wallace on retainer as a consultant negotiator, with his demands for the enemy to kiss their own arse as part of the peace deal.

gardibolt
10-07-2005, 22:17
Yeah, there's virtually no way to get a ceasefire diplomatically. Your only real hope of ending the war is extermination of the faction. I'd wipe out the Spanish to secure the Iberian peninsula and then concentrate on the Germans. That way you can shift excess troops from Spain to Germany and then down to your starting cities (or directly to your starting cities if you're doing OK in Germany); the other way round is awkward and you end up moving spare troops away from Rome where you know you're going to need them.

One extremely costly alternative would be to gift all regions that border on Germany to the Britons, and hope they actually come take them before the Germans get there, but that really is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

GreatEmperor
10-08-2005, 08:45
And if you can't see the northeastern part of the worldmap try to buy map information from the Scythians or maybe the Germans.

Emperor Aurelius
10-09-2005, 20:02
I am playing my own julii campaign.I have taken all of gaul,britain,spain(with the exception of corduba which is still held by the carthaginians who actually STILL HAVE THE BEST ECONOMY IN THE GAME!),ireland,germany(well the brutii hold the southern part of germany,denmark,parts of russia,parts of northern Italy,and sardinia.

Right now im fighting against carthage.Carthage only owns palma and corduba but they have the strongest economy in the game!They have sacred band infantry.3 attempts to capture corduba have failed and my expedition force sent to capture palma is now trapped outside the city of palma after temperorarily gaining control of the city being forced out by rebels.The city was retaken by a carthaginian army.

This may sound surprising that carthage is still a power after losing all of Afirca.Even though the scipii still control most of Africa carthage is actually still wreaking havoc on them!A carthaginian army landed on north africa not too long ago.They defeated 2 scipii armies and cost the scipii like 1,500 casualties!~:eek:

The carthaginians may only hold 2 provinces but they are as dangerous as ever.I tried allying with them thinking that in case of civil war with rome they may prove to be a useful ally.They allied with me but betrayed me shortly after.They actually launched a full scale invasion of the 5 provinces in spain that I control.They even came close to capturing carthago nova itself!So right now I have decided that carthage must go.Im making every effort I can to take them down.:furious3:


There are no more enemies in the north except scythia to deal with.So im thinking of taking down carthage.Then bribing some scipii cities in Africa to defect to me.I did it several times to them and boy was the senate angry.They ordered me to give back all cities stole.I refused of course.~D


Brutii power is strong as ever.They control most of russia and are allied with macedon which is VERY strong in the game im playing.They control nearly the whoel balkans!Brutii are now attacking the crimea and are fighting a drawn out war against scythia.Despite heavy losses the brutii just took one of the scythians main provinces and it will not be long before scythia too is extinct.
So macedon adn brutii are hte 2 big boys east of the Italian penninsula in Europe and Russia that is.

Scipii are considered a joke now.The own an empire that has part of Italy,all of Sicily,all of north Africa except the Saharra,and parts of Egypt.Problem?Why are they considered a joke?Because they cannot compltley take control of Egypt.Egypt controls a vast empire and the 3 egyptian territories are constantly in revolt and the Egyptian army keeps send more and more soldiers in from Jerusaleam and Sidonand other areas.This is a problem for hte scipii who at the same time have to deal with frequent revolts in Africa.So if I bribed some African cities it would only be too easy.~D

Ariplatostophanes
10-10-2005, 17:25
Thanks for all the responses.

Sand and Gardibolt: You're right. Germania won't accept ceasefire. I surrounded them down to one province, then gave all the conquered regions to the Brits. It will hopefully keep my alliance with the Brits strong and now there is a British border between the sole German region and me. It was hard giving up provinces but it has bought me time to raise armies in Italy to get ready for pending Civil War. The Brits lost one b/c I gave it to them before they could garrison it. I had to retake it. It held on the second time I think b/c I exterminated again. Then gifted and they were able to hold it.

Great Emporer: Instead of spending money on maps that I could use to bribe away other Roman armies, I've sent a rather worthless dip to just wander the Northeast. Cheaper and accomplished the same thing, just slower.

Emporer Aurelius: Glad to see someone else is playing with me. I love that your game is much different than mine. The Macs are barely holding on with two provinces and one of them is in N Africa LOL. The three powers are Egypt (of course), Thrace, and me. The last turn, all the other Romans declared war on Thrace. I haven't yet and am ignoring the Senate mission to block Byzantium and be forced into war. I'm hoping the other Romans will concentrate on Thrace and weaken themselves back home for Civil War time. When that's over, I can clean up what remains of Thrace. The Seleucids are holding on somehow, despite war with Egypt, Thrace, Pontus, and Armenia.

As far as advice on Carthage, have you tried assasins with spies? Have your assasins strike revenue-producing buildings (ie markets, forums, etc). This will help slow their economy. Then damage the military buildings. You can use a similiar tactic against the Scipii towns. Use assasins to hit "happiness" buildings like temples. You may get the cities to revolt and can them take them yourself. B/c you are taking a rebel city, you won't get negative messages from the Senate. You will need to have an army close by though or the evicted Scipii will take it again. As far as Palma, take the town again and exterminate like I did in Germany above. The second time around, they will be less likely to rebel against you. You may need to keep your army in town until you can build a garrison.

Keep me posted. I am almost done in Spain and am just starving out the last three towns. Otherwise, with Germany contained in the north, I am concentrating on bribing away other Romans in Italy and weakening their economy and military building capabilities with assasins.

Emperor Aurelius
10-14-2005, 00:57
Well arip I have annihlated Carthage but taken heavy losses in the proccess.

Let me fill you in on whats happened so far:

As said before I told youi everything I had taken over.So I bribed ANOTHER oneo f my allied brutii cities.This time the senate was furious!They decided that enough was enough and that it was time for my faction to go bye-bye.They told me I would be outlawed if I did not give back the city from the brutii.I am a newer player tothis game.So I did not know what they meant when they said outlawed.
I basically looked at the message and laughed and thought to myself "ya thats nice you guys do nothing again.As soon as this whole thing blows over I'll be sure to keep on bribing you."

The senates declaration passes and sure enough a civil war ensues.I only have 31 provinces and not the usual 50 to start the civil war!~:eek:
So the civil war came earlier than usual...

It took me completly by surprise!I had not expected civil war this early!My italian cities hated my guts and my economy was getting poorer and poorer each turn!But nevertheless I was determined to take down the brutii first.Immediatly I began to construct a strong army in corduba for the invasion of north africa from the scipii.I did the same In Germany,Gaul,and my Russian provinces.

However the brutii had other plans.Instead of waiting for met to attack they took the fight right to me.The city I recently bribed was recaptured.Tehy defeated 2 then 3 and then 4 of my poorly equiped and outnumbered forces in southern Germany.They defeated 2 more of my armies in northern Italy and then took arretium in Italy.An army of mine dispatched early on in the civil war to take Rome itself was attacked by the senates army who had no intention of letting rome fall to me.In a battle I saw the senates weaker units and foolishly became arrogant and used poor tactics.My entire army was over-taken and 90% of it was annihlated.

The first 10 turns of the civil war had only one success:Russia.I managed to take one province in Russia that had a small population and my great "army of the north" which was stationed in Russia inflicted 2 great defeats on the brutii.
In the meantime my economy got worse and provinces along the Rhine revolted.

So 5 years of civil war went quite poorly right?Well I decided to change the outcome.I deployed 2 armies to north africa.They took both tingi and Carthage from the scipii.This was the perfect time to do so due to the fact that a revolt in the saharra of Africa had won independence from the scipii and that the Egyptians were launching a massive counter attack against the scipii.
Also macedon declared war on the brutii.They won several battles and took over part of dacia from the brutii.Another province was lost to the brutii in Italy and both me and the brutii fought over the city of patavium.After the city changing hands 7 times in 15 turns the populations had gone from 42,000 to 15,000 and most of the buildings had been damaged.

In response tothe heavy damage inflicted on northern Italy a large army was deplotyed from central Germany(controlled by me) into southern Germany and Dacia.It attacked a brutii city and once they took it they burnt all of the buildings to the ground adn then left.This led to an immediate revolt and now the brutii are facing rebels and are fighting over a war torn city...

So the war is mainly now a stalemate...but I am not sure to continue.

You see a funny situation has occured.Both myself,the scipii,brutii,and macedon have now all gone broke.Yes thats right the 4 great super powers of the west are now all broke.Each of us now has a negative economy and cannot produce any more soldiers.Parts of scipii controlled africa,brutii controled dacia and russia,and parts of julii(myself) controlled Germany,Britian,Italy,Gaul,and spain,and parts of the macedonian empire have now revolted.

So now the great offensives have stopped.Our empires can no longer produce any more soldiers.No more offensives are being launched.Instead our 4 great empires are just going defensive and fighting wars against rebels!

Hey Arip ever have a problem like this?You and another empire/s have been fighting one another and then everyone goes broke and is fighting rebellions?It kinda sucks but it can be fun at the same time.

At first I wasn't sure why we all went broke but then it came to me:before the war the 4 of our empires were allied including macedon.Now since alliances are gone all trade agreements are gone.Now since trade is gone all of our economies are now rubbish.Theres really no one to trade with....
But anyway its kinda like 1950s cold war thoughts.Everyone thought all the super powers would nuke ach other into oblivion and people would be living in a ruined world.Thats the way it is here in my game.All 4 of us superpowers have spent at least 45 turns fighting one anotehr in almost like a world war.And now we have basically destroyed each others empires.So now instead of having one power become the ultimate winner of the war all 4 of us lost!

Garvanko
10-14-2005, 08:06
Sounds like fun, Emp.

Seamus Fermanagh
10-14-2005, 15:24
Is this a v1.3 campaign? The AI actually seems to be taking a semi-rational approach.

You have two basic choices left, as I see it.

1. Send a couple of armies on prolonged extermination/(enslaving if used in combo with #2) raids to build up funds.

2. Collapse inward on the 5-6 best economic and decently geographically grouped provinces you have. Disband many of your troops to build population and decrease cost, "creaming" the rest to leave you with 1-3 stacks of superb forces. Your enemies will expand, but probably not pare down forces. This should leave you, after a period of time, with overextended enemies who you can then mangle as you expand from your newly profitable again stronghold. Drop all mercs unless they are gold valor, hefalumps, or silver plus heavy cav -- too costly.

-- might be possible to combine 1 & 2 and still return to the black in decent time.

Seamus

Ariplatostophanes
10-14-2005, 16:05
Wow, Emp Aur!!! I can't offer any suggestions as I've never been in your situation. Seamus' advice seems strong though. Pull everything home to a few central provinces. Personally I would demolish as I pulled back and let those cities rebel. Your enemies can take them if they want but they won't be worth much. Once you are strong and concentrated, then proceed. It would almost be like staring over, only with experienced troops instead of greens.

My game went completely different. I started the Civil War myself by attacking Rome (I broke our alliance first). The final straw was when I failed to complete their mission to blockade Campus XXX in the Black Sea. That would have meant war with Thrace (a superpower in my game) and I didn't want that. So they investigated me and I went from approx 10,000D in the black to -17000D in the red. I didn't waist any time at that point. I manuevered my armies and was able to siege Rome and everyother Roman city except one on Sicily. I've been at that point now for about two days b/c each siege takes awhile to play out, what with stone walls and all. With my last taking last night I'm at 39 provinces with Rome and three more Italian regions yet to play out. Once I free up an army and siege the last city on Sicily, all the Romans should be gone. Then I can regroup and breathe again.
I can see now that it is best to start the Civil War yourself rather than wait for it to happen. BUT you must have a plan for dealing with the other Romans quickly. The loss of income isn't tolerable for long.

lukezter
10-16-2005, 01:35
"One thing I wanted to point out is after the Reforms you cannot retrain your Hastati, that facility now trains Auxilla which is a pretty decent defensive unit. So any and all Hastati you have left will now get merged by you to keep them at full strength, because you cannot retrain them."

Uhm, how do I merge the units? I have a bunch of Hastati and Principes left in half-strength formations with varying degrees of experience...

Thanx in advance,

Lukezter

Garvanko
10-16-2005, 01:49
Highlight the units you want to merge, then Ctrl + M.

lukezter
10-16-2005, 02:46
Highlight the units you want to merge, then Ctrl + M.

Thanks...that should make for a easier time organizing my stacks...

Sand
10-16-2005, 11:50
Collapsing back in seems a little drastic, youre basically abandoning massive revenues from taxation and farming in the provinces you abandon which make it all the harder to get back in the black. I cant see there being any advantage because you dont even pay maintence on the buildings in those settlements. Cities that might have a negative income on the map might be your best cities for making cash - your army wages get split up between cities depending on the cities population as a fraction of your factions population. Thats why small cities are always positive cash and large ones usually negative on the campaign map. If you abandon the "negative" cities the army bill is still there, it just gets assigned differently now. Youve got what sounds like a basic finance problem, more going out than coming in. Rather than quitting your job, the best thing to do is examine your outgoings and seeing where you can cut back.

Just go through your armies and start disbanding everything except what you *need*, replace garrisons with peasants, make sure your trade boosting generals and retinues are in the cities that do the most trade etc etc. If you need a short term cash boost then go through your cities and demolish everything you dont need, I.E. inferior troop production far from any enemy, health buildings in settlements with 400 people, law and order temples where the PO is 200% anyway. Jack your taxes on every settlement up as high as they can go. Blue faces, all the way.

Then if youre still not raking in the cash, attack. Whilst peace+trade deals a can be used to trade with rivals, the best option is to own the cities so that the trade doesnt stop suddenly. Send your armies to take the trade rich regions. I assume you have Carthage-Sicilly, thats one. So is Corduba-Tingi. Northern Europe isnt exactly trade rich apart from Sambrovia-Londinium so if possible send a stack or two to take the Aegean which is litterally the El Dorado of R:TW.

lukezter
10-16-2005, 14:03
Highlight the units you want to merge, then Ctrl + M.

Thanks again for the tip Garvanko. I'm still playing my first game and I am already at 190bc without having wiped out the germans, brittons and spaniards. I was hoping someone could point me to the right forum where I can learn what units are best against the others, how to USE your units and governers effectively etc.

Thanx in advance...

GreatEmperor
10-17-2005, 08:23
Well, Cavalry is great against infantry, but when fighting against an enemy that has spearmen you should really be careful using them as it can result in losing lots of them if you dont flank.
When fighting against Elephants you should use archers with fire arrows because that will drop down the morale of the elephants which will make them rout and if that happens they will turn and destroy their own units.
I'm not an expert on this so you should better read Frogbeastegg's and Quietus' guide to Rome: Total War. It's full of good tips.

Craterus
10-18-2005, 20:53
My computer can't take fire arrows in a big battle, so when the Carthagian stack with Ele's came along, they were quite destructive. Merc hoplites make short work of them though, so the battle was won and Carthage is almost mine!

GreatEmperor
10-19-2005, 08:01
Finally I've completed the Julii Campaign. With only me, Seleucid and the Egyptians left I completed it. The Egyptians had the whole southern provinces with exception of Carthage which was mine. The Seleucid had the east and almost all of Scythia territory. Is it normal for those 2 to expand so much? In other Campaigns they never last long.

Craterus
10-19-2005, 18:49
In many of my campaigns, Seleucids are knocked out by Egypt, and Egypt continue to take the rest of Asia Minor and proceed into Africa. Seleucids never last long, but Egypt seem to have a talent for surviving :evil:

pezhetairoi
10-20-2005, 05:08
hello craterus! Haven't posted here in a really long time :) I see from your pic that you're getting older. Oh well.

Egypt has a talent for surviving indeed, even after installing Mundus Magnus. I really wonder why. In MM they're all over Africa already, despite my crushing 3 of their fullstacks.

littlelostboy
10-20-2005, 15:03
Yep, Eypt always have a knack of surviving, no matter what. That is why you need to crush them hard by taking their captial and major cities with full-stack armies and always use a extremely large navy to blockade every single port of theirs. Trust me, it worked in RTW h/h when I played as the Selucids. (Almost had a nervous breakdown, well not true, but almost). :sweatdrop:
But this is a Juli guide so I'll stick to Juli. As a Juli, your main aim is not to worry to much about those African factions, Numidia, Eypt and Carthage (although as a Juli you would come into contact with them early in the game). Leave this people to your brother (and soon to be enemy) Romans, the Scipii. Instead, lay waste to Europe! Most important is to control the whole of Spain, central and Western Europe. With that, you will have two fronts secure, with the Alantic Ocean covering your backside, (and no, there is no case of an Alantis faction yet, not in my case anywhere) and the North sea and the isle of Britainnia covering you head, all you have to worry about is the east and the south. So remember, when playing as the Juli, remember this maxim:

North and West good, South and East bad

Simple.

Now that you had those two fronts covered, concentrate on the east because there lies those hungry Thracians who are willing to eat your lands! Not to mention those Brutii in Greece. By then, you should have over 40 regions under your control. Baby Senate would feel threatened and would ask your faction leader to commit sucide. (NO!) So you, of course, decline and immediately you would be outlawed. No worry, relax, all is not lost. Before the Senate had sent you that message, you should move two full stacks army with your very best generals and surround Rome. Also, the majority of your troops should be stationed near the East to prepare for the onslaught by the Brutii. Use forts to block all narrow roads, send in the ASSASSINS! Yes, you heard it right, assassins are good, they'll make things easier by killing off some of the generals first so you can have a nice, easy fight later.

Diplomats are important, they can bribe whole armies away and you can get extra troops. Now that you are prepared, you can fight the Romans. Don't care about the Scipii because they'll be too busy trying to save their skins fighting the Eyptians. And this is just part I, II coming later.

I know that there is a guide but this is just a very condensed and simplified guide for all those beginners all there on how to fight back you enemies and remain the Imperator!
At your service, LLB. :bow:

Seamus Fermanagh
10-20-2005, 15:58
hello craterus! Haven't posted here in a really long time :) I see from your pic that you're getting older. Oh well.

Egypt has a talent for surviving indeed, even after installing Mundus Magnus. I really wonder why. In MM they're all over Africa already, despite my crushing 3 of their fullstacks.

Hey Pez', long time no post indeed. Did EB purchase you outright?~;)

I think there is a one word answer for Egypt's success -- even when the anachronisms are modded out -- money. It may not cure all ills, but.....

Craterus
10-20-2005, 16:01
hello craterus! Haven't posted here in a really long time :) I see from your pic that you're getting older. Oh well.

Egypt has a talent for surviving indeed, even after installing Mundus Magnus. I really wonder why. In MM they're all over Africa already, despite my crushing 3 of their fullstacks.

I thought that picture looked young :sad:. Oh well. Good to see you back.

And on the Egypt issue, it's possible to mod the game so they start with a huge debt. Let's say -1000000 denarii would be fine. That way, the Seleucids might have a chance.

Garvanko
10-20-2005, 19:44
North and West good, South and East bad
Why do you say that?

Going south for Carthage is actually a excellent strategy - slow down the Scipii, gain a rich province and a foothold in Africa. Great for your economy, especially if you get Lilybaem as well.

East? Well, again depends what your overall objectives are.. Dacia, Thrace, eventually Macedon.. where there is tons of denarii, anyway.

Why restrict yourself to poor Gauls and weak Spanish? ~:confused:

The Stranger
10-20-2005, 20:38
I thought that picture looked young :sad:. Oh well. Good to see you back.

And on the Egypt issue, it's possible to mod the game so they start with a huge debt. Let's say -1000000 denarii would be fine. That way, the Seleucids might have a chance.

that would be ruining the game...the real thing is...egypt starts off with 5000 and seleucia only with 3000. if you equalised it they have a better chance...also egypt position is way favored above seleucias wich can be attacked by alot of factions, not to forget that their good units come late. enable pike phalanx to be trained earlier gives them a even better chance

Craterus
10-20-2005, 20:53
-1000000 is an exaggeration. If you want to see the Seleucids have a chance against the Eggy's give them a cash boost, or make the Eggy's start on -8000 or something. The Nile Delta is rich enough anway, it'll only stunt them for a few turns, so you had better hope the Seleucids make use of their advantage.

littlelostboy
10-21-2005, 00:27
Why do you say that?

Going south for Carthage is actually a excellent strategy - slow down the Scipii, gain a rich province and a foothold in Africa. Great for your economy, especially if you get Lilybaem as well.

East? Well, again depends what your overall objectives are.. Dacia, Thrace, eventually Macedon.. where there is tons of denarii, anyway.

Why restrict yourself to poor Gauls and weak Spanish? ~:confused:

I don't really mean to say that ignore North Africa totally. What I've meant is that you should not be so engross with North Africa when your Northen, Eastern and Western borders are covered with full of hungry factions. As I said earlier, as a Juli, you would come into contact with Carthage early in the game. So I suggest taking that island near you, taking Carthage itself and yes Lilybaem too. Basically, YOU will be responsible for destory Carthage because when you take over Spain, you are going to take over one of Carthage regions too.

Therefore, I recommend taking the two Carthagians cities in North Africa and their two small island so that you will have total control over the whole of the Western Midderterrran! Don't worry about Numidia, let the Scipii deal with them. But becareful about the Eyptian, they might want to attack you!

At your service, LLB, :bow:

littlelostboy
10-22-2005, 01:36
Okay, now Part II: To become the Imperator

Senario: Whole of Europe Conquered, Alantic Ocean Guarding Your Backside, North Sea Guarding Your Head. East boredered with Thracians and the Brutii in Greece. Senate and the other factions in Italy all aiming their legions at you. South is surrounded with the Brutii, who should by now capture most of North Africa except the two Carthagians regions that you are holding.

Okay, so as I said in the earlier post, you have to send most of your army to the east because that is when the Brutii will start pouring their armies in. Send diplomats and assassins so as to bribe some army off and also to kill the generals. Italy should be fine as long as you send your best armies with your best generals to take Rome and the other factions' cities in Italy. But the major battle is in fact, fought at sea.

Yes, the blue blue sea.

Land battles are not everything. If you had build up a huge navy, you are a force to be reckoned with. Cause with your navy, you can blockade the ports of all the other Roman factions and by doing that, you will cripple their economy and with less money, they cannot churn out many troops. So remember, navy is just as important. But don't forget, the other factions will try to do the same and so reserve some pow-wow ships to fight with those ships that are trying to blockade your ports.

Now it is logistics, you have to ship some of your troops to North Africa. I recommend doing that way before the Senate outlaw you so as that when you fight the Scipii, you can strike hard and fast.

Remember the big picture, you want to be Imperator. I always think in that way when playin the game so that all the decisions I make, is to help me become the Imperator (or shall we say, Emperor?)

Now that the pieces are set, the wheel of war will start turning and it will be showdown time. I can assure you that you will conquer the whole of Italy and also North Africa because the Scipii have to fight on two fronts, one with you and another with Eypt. The Brutii are a lot harder to crush since they are secured in Greece. So to crush them, after the war in Italy, send some armies through the land to attack them from the west and another bunch of armies through the seas to attack them from the south. In that way, they have to defend two fronts. It is best to ally with Thrace (if you had not wipe it out yet) so that Thrace MIGHT (i say might because the AI make notouriously poor allies) help you in your war against the Scipii.

That's it, the condensed and way way simplifed version of the Juli!

LLB, :bow:

Haudegen
11-01-2005, 11:34
This belongs here:

If you play as the Roman: Julii family, send a spy into Gaul territory. Let one of their cities grow to Minor City (level 3). Check if they have a Sacred Circle to Epona, (the horse god). Take the city. Grow to 12000 ASAP.

Wait for a 'your roman people have embraced Epona as their god'. This happens if you leave the temple alone long enough (dont destroy it, repair it if damaged).

You can now build the Awesome temple of Epona and the Pantheon to Epona, giving your legionary cohorts 4 xp (1 silver), or 5 xp (2 silver) as 'raw' recruits!

I did a search and havent found this tip anywhere so here you go. Added to the Julii walkthrough as well. (and on the org)

Just stumbled upon this very interesting feature. I started a game as Julii and took two spanish cities (Osca and Carthago Nova) with lvl 3 Epona temples. I also upgraded them to large city level very soon. Since I´ve been waiting for about 30 turns but nothing happened.

I´d be very interested to know how long you had to wait before the embracement message appeared.

I´m playing v 1.3, maybe there have been some changes?

Bastard Operator

gardibolt
11-01-2005, 17:15
I believe that this loophole has been fixed in 1.3. Sorry.

Haudegen
11-01-2005, 17:32
But if it was only a bug (= loophole?) why should there have been a special announcement in the game? To me this sounds like a feature which was intended by the designers.

The Readme-File of 1.3 shows no hint about any changes in this point.

However it´s a fact that meanwhile I have played another 20 turns and nothing happened so far .... ~:mecry:

gardibolt
11-01-2005, 21:45
That's why I said "loophole." I wasn't sure if it was a bug or a feature that the designers reconsidered. Most likely the latter.

Haudegen
11-04-2005, 21:08
I´m very glad to tell you that I found a solution for the problem mentioned above! ~:cheers:

After some quick testing with the 1.0 and 1.2 versions I found out that the larger Epona can be built by the Julii, just as sunsmountain said. Then I took a closer look at the Data/export_descr_buildings.txt file. In the earlier versions of the file (1.0 and 1.2) there were two lines with this content:

temple_of_horse_awesome_temple requires factions { roman, }

and few lines lower:

temple_of_horse_pantheon requires factions { roman, }

Now guess what was missing in the file of version 1.3! The "requires factions { roman, } " was deleted here. I simply put it back where it belonged and everything was fine! Just upgrade the settlement to the "large city"-level and you can upgrade the temple.

By the way: Since the faction requirement doesn´t seem to be specific for the Julii, I see no reason, why the Scipii, Brutii or even the senate shouldn´t be able to do the same.


Bastard Operator ~:joker: (very satisfied with himself )

TimStarboy
11-10-2005, 09:14
Being a fan of MTW AND Roman history I couldn't wait to get RTW. But my very first attempt for Julii made me give up the game for half a year. Cos like on 15th turn I took Carthage. And it was sooo disappointing (easy!!! it should never had happened so easy!!!) that I gave up the game for half a year.

Now I am back and I decided to play as a "loyal" "history-based" player. Alas I haven' t read the guides so my style was very different from the ones mentioned here.

1. I strictly went to Gaul as I was supposed to - not blocking other Romans, so I expect a fun ending.
2. No bribes policy.
3. All senate missions are fullfilled
4. No extermiantion or enslavement.
5. Cities growth is my priority so low tax and farming. (I didn't know of maximum size of the city problem - well I'll have to deal with it)
6. And vs Gauls I found very useful to use velites and archers and pilums of my hastati. I mean... it really works. Gauls never get a chance to properly engage - I beat them from the distance and who cares about heavy infantry size 12 men? ~:)


So. here are several questions:
1. Since missle troops are so important for me, I enjoy a Gaulish temple in of my cities in charge of production of velites and archers cos I get a bonus for all missile troops produced there. Do you think it is worthy of it?
2. I split the production of units - say in one city I develop legionary infantry, in another missile, and the third is producing cavalary. Actually it comes from MTW time when I place the apporiate baracks in the provinces that game bonuses to this or that unit produced in it) Do you think it is a nice idea?
3. I never storm cities, always wait out. Am I wasting time? Or am I safing lives which will be probably lost during the storm?
3. Brutii and Scipii factions are doing pretty well. Will I be able to compete with them if they have rich Greece and Africa and me only poor North-Western Europe?
4. Is there a chance that Brutii or Scipii will rebel against the Senate ealier than me? Will I be able to fight together with Senate against them? What happens after Senate and I get rid of them?

Haudegen
11-10-2005, 10:05
Welcome TimStarboy,

I am a fan of upgrading my settlements to the utmost as well, I think it´s called the "Civilization-Style". However I don´t agree about completing all senate missions. For the reasons see below.

Your questions:

1. In general that´s no problem. The gallic temples provide very little public order compared to the later pantheons, you can build at huge city level, but since gaul is very close to your capital, public order shouldn´t be a big problem at all. Especially because you as a Roman can boost public order immensely by holding games and/or races.

2. That is a good idea to save money in the beginning. To me it is important however that the city, which is closest to the enemy has the facilitities to retrain my battle forces. But in most cases, the gauls have built those barracks before you conquered the settlement.

3a. It is a matter of taste, I think. If you like to keep the game slow, you can do so. And you´re probably saving the lifes of some of your soldiers. However in my experience the besieged settlement will sally out in most cases, so you usuallly don´t get the city without a fight. But this kind of fight is generally easier than storming a settlement, especially if you have a bunch of archers in front of the city gate. ~;)

3b. Of course you can compete with the other Romans. ~;) If it comes to a civil war, make sure you have some high quality armies ready in Italy and then give them hell! Their forces are usually widespread over Africa and in the east. Beat their armies one by one.

Although they have richer provinces than you have, you should be able to afford the troops necessary to win.

4. My favorite question ~;) I have written down my ideas about this in a thread in the Entrance Hall, named "Being the underdog in a Roman civil war". As you will see there, completing all senate missions can be quite counterproductive. To your question what to do with the senate after you´ve wiped out the outlawed faction: You must take the City of Rome to win the game. However if you´re lucky then the outlawed faction will have done the dirty work of killing the senate for you. As long as the outlawed faction doesn´t control 50 provinces, this is nothing you could worry about. ~;)

Bastard Operator

TimStarboy
11-10-2005, 12:49
Operator, thank you for the quick reply.

Nice to see somebody having similar approach.

I don't know for sure but I feel that fighting against strong Roman faction swill be more fun than crushing Greeks and Carthage.

Do you think Scipii will get Egypt? Because that is the only option I am considering after conquest of Gauls. I've heard that fighting vs Egypt will be fun cos they come in sheer numbers and hot troops. In my game Britain conquered 90% of Germania, but we are allies so I don't wanna attack them.

I also hope that the more high-tech troops I will get in my Italian core cities will beat bigger but more backward armies of other Roman factions. They will also have pilums... Ouch... this is a terrible weapon!

As for building of military I usually destroy the barracks previously build by Gaulls after the border is moved to the next town. I am saving on upkeep :bow: but allowing lower taxes for my people.

Well if this magic 24k squallor problem is as hard as they paint I will probably have to conquer a couple of cites and re-settle my peasants from Core to the Frontier (which is cool)

Haudegen
11-10-2005, 13:46
I´m always happy to help!~:)

I agree that the Roman civil war is a most interesting challenge, since the barbarians aren´t a real threat after the gauls are crushed.

I´m not so sure if the (AI-controlled) Scipii will reach Egypt. As far as I have seen, they have become quite pathetic since the 1.3 patch. In my 1.3-games they never made it farther than Sicily. However the Brutii are great competitors, they never fail to conquer greece and after that there is nothing that could stop them from taking eastern and central Europe (unless you choose to do so ~;) ) Fighting other Romans on the battlefield is tougher than most enemies, but generally in RTW the human player has always a very good chance to beat an equivalent AI-controlled army. Striking the enemy flanks with massive cavalry has never failed against the computer ~;)

Squalor: I´ve never seen this as such a big problem. Most factions have temples that increase population growth. I don´t think it´s annoying if a city reaches 30 or 40 thousand people. No other culture has such good means to keep public order as the Romans have (games & races).

Lower taxes: This is a bit double edged. They help population growth and public order, but they make bad governors. A governor in a city with low taxes tends to develop negative administration traits. A governor who takes highest taxes will get positive skills. (See Aesculapius´"On the feeding and breeding of governors and generals" in the guides section).

Bastard Operator

pezhetairoi
11-25-2005, 06:40
I feel it about right to boast about the epic Roman battles I have fought here. :)

I was playing as the Scipii just the other day, and I decided to initiate the Roman civil war in Greece by attacking the Brutii. I must have been sleepy or something, because I used my 18-unit army to attack a Brutii fullstack that had another 2 fullstacks in the neighbouring squares. It was quite a frantic battle against 60 units, but thankfully the reinforcements are all coming from the same direction as the defending force so I didn't have to split my forces.

Anyway. I accomplish a defeat in detail for the defending army, while the reinforcing 40 units stroll their way to me. This takes place in a valley, where there is no terrain feature that either side can really take advantage of. Anyhow, I was mildly alarmed to realise that the 40 units had formed up into a very strong double line. I figured I would lose maybe 2, 3 units before they managed to break, because by now all my troops were either tired or very tired, while the enemy was warmed up or fresh, and coming at me all at once (so no Napoleonic defeat of one wing before the other). Imagine my complete surprise when I ordered a general charge at the enemy line and all of them turned white almost instantaneously! My cavalry had a field day since most of the enemy was infantry.

I suspect my 3 units of flaming archers had something to do with it.

I fought 3 of these triple-full-stack battles in that civil war, as well as one with Carthage at the same time, in which I lost my entire left-wing cavalry before winning.

GreatEmperor
11-29-2005, 20:06
Wow, that's luck! Or maybe you're just a great general :)
One of my cities I captured with Julii (I believe it was Antioch) was attacked by a full stack Egyptian army. I nicely positioned 5 Legionary and 3 Praetorian Cohorts behind the pieces of wall that were likely to be attacked. I positioned Auxilia Archers with flaming arrows behind a Praetorian Cohort in front of the gate. Then I grouped my infantry and I saw I could put them at Fire At Will.
When the Egyptians broke through my walls and gate, 6 units already routed because of great unit loss of the arrows.
Then they began to charge the wall and I put my Infantry at Fire at Will.
Before they even reached me, 9 other units routed.
Than I just killed of the General and the 3 other units.

Didn't now war could be that easy :P

Monarch
12-04-2005, 11:33
"1) Hastati(80)(440d/170d) - will be the initial backbone of the army.(Only option against the Gauls)."

Question when you say '80'. How many hastati do you have to train to get 80 men? Maybe that wasnt very well put, I mean when you train a unit correct me if im wrong but you dont train x number of men you train a unit of them, how many men go into one unit?

YAKOBU
12-04-2005, 11:40
Hi Sovereign ~:wave:

There are 4 settings for the size of your units in the game that you can alter in the options menu before the game starts (It may be advanced options). Large size will give you Hastatii at 80 men per unit I believe. If you are still on default I believe it gives you 40 men per unit.

Hope this helps.

:charge:

Monarch
12-04-2005, 11:48
Oh okay thanks alot for that information :D

Large unit size it is then :)

Monarch
12-06-2005, 22:53
Hey,

I have been pretty bored recently in waiting for Christmas so I can finally start playing (well I've actually played the prologue to check it all worked, but ya know...) so I read some of you strategys and was wondering what you thought of this one.

As the Julii I was thinking of sacking Patavium and Segesta then fortify the alps border, pretty much going on the defencive against the Gauls. Then I would quickly swing east and attack through Illyria, then pretty much according the the map I can start attacking the greeks, and more importantly their prosperous rich cities. This would obviously have to be executed quickly in order to beat the Brutii into Greece.

My main worry about it is overstrecthing. If the Gauls did try something (I would be at war since i would have taken a couple of their towns) then the bulk of my armies would be in Greece, they come up against my amazing peasants and town watch, slaughter them and i'm out the game. Also Dacia would be close. So any ideas of how to strengthen this strategy? I suppose I could try some sort of settlement with gauls and go by boat to greece (Patavium really is the key to Greece imo) but thatd mean building up a navy which adds to costs.

If I got reasonably lucky and Gauls were preoccupied with Germans and Brits do you think i would beat the Brutii into Greece? Could it work? How could this strategy be improved? I know this strategy will bring me up against greeks (obviously), possibly Dacians but what other tribes are around there? Anyone powerful?

Basically I want to be Julii, god knows why I just do, but I want the Greek cities without building up a navy, best plan i could think up.

gardibolt
12-06-2005, 23:56
That plan works pretty well, especially if you build forts in the passes of the Alps leading to Gaul and Iuvavum. With the cash in hand from Greece, the Gauls should be easy prey, and the Brutii should be weak indeed when the civil war comes.

The tricky part is that if it's your first game, the Macedonian phalanxes can be much tougher than the barbarians. Having lots of missile weapons can certainly help that (don't forget to set your Hastati on Fire at Will---they're dead meat otherwise).

Don't forget to send out diplomats in every direction. If you don't patch the game, you can send a diplomat to the Carthage area, bribe the Scipii army that's threatening it and use them to seize Carthage yourself without building any significant navy at all. That will only work on 1.0, though, since later patches make bribery practically impossible and certainly not cost-effective. I'd recommend playing through your first game that way. It adds a level of hilarity lost in later patches.~:joker:

Monarch
12-07-2005, 18:09
Okay thanks alot, il be playing on easy and such as its my first so hopefully itl be okay. I do not plan to patch, at least at first and only if I myself are noticing some clear 'what the hell is that AI doing' moments.

saxon_maik
12-19-2005, 05:23
The latest patch has made playing as the Julii interesting again. Brutii and Scipii expand aggressively, making the civil war a worthy challenge.

Several observations (playing on H/H):

1) In the past the Dacians weren't much of a threat or even challenge. Not so this time: Dacia took Aquincum and Segestica very quickly. After wresting Patavium from the Gauls I sent an army to take Luvavum from the rebels. Dacia already besieged the town but couldn't take it because of the strong rebel garrison. I waited for over ten turns in which the Dacians repeatedly attacked, failed, and then immediately besieged with reinforcements. I finally caught a break and was able to lay siege to the city and take it.

Dacia must have really wanted the place because on the next turn they attacked me and then also sent an army towards Patavium. I wasn't prepared for this war and it delayed my drive into Gaul territory. Dacia paid the ultimate price and I ended up with their not-so-great provinces without ports.

2) The Gauls are still relatively easy to defeat, except for taking the last province in Spain. The Spanish still tend to declare war on the Julii with the amusing demand of 160 denari or we will attack. My mistake was to not deal with them decisively enough and their navy turned into quite the pain for my economy. How many single ship fleets can one track when they keep blockading my ports? They even blocked Kydonia and Rhodes - quite annoying because they allied with the Scipii during the civil war.

3)The Scipii took all of North Africa, except for the Egyptian provinces. Whenever I played ANY Roman faction and took Cyrene and/or Siwa, the Egyptians always went to war with me. Not so with the Scipii - they remained neutral throughout the entire cicil war so far (20+ years). That allowed the Scipii to focus their war efforts on me. Bummer!

4) What's up with the Germans? The Britains still mopped the floor with them rather quickly. Ultimately the Britains attacked my formerly Dacian provinces and not my Gaul possessions. Weird. Why do the Brits keep after Germany when their campaign goal is the elimination of Gaul? Now I feel I should have attacked Germany myself early on, after taking out Dacia - if nothing else to contain British expansion. The prospect of even more poor and portless provinces was not appealing, though. And fighting the Germans is no fun either.

5) Civil War: The other Roman factions now use more of their temple line, not just Saturn or Hermes only.

6) Very early on the Senate gave me a seemingly never-ending string of missions to help the Brutii by blockading Greek ports. I never saw such persistence before. This was annoying because I effectively got no rewards for taking on the Gauls. Grrr.

Overall much more fun than before the 1.3 patch messed things up.

Monarch
12-28-2005, 15:59
I am currently doing a campaign with the Julii. My plan was to sack north 'modern italy' so Patavium and Segesta before switching to sweep East and go for Greece and Macedonia.

However Macedonia had a few good armies floating around, no thanks! So instead I noticed Dacia looking pretty vulnerable and declared war. I sacked all their towns and so they are currently out the game.

I have also sacked quite a few rebel cities and even bribed a couple off the Gauls using my best diplomat to keep the price low. I did have a treaty with Germania but they betrayed me which scrapped all my plans to go into Scythia and then Spain. I am now manouvering armies up towards the Germans and Gauls. First of all I plan to take out Germania's ally, the Gauls, so they do not attack me as I attack Germany and then I plan to take out the Germans themselves. The rerasopn for Gauls first if they only have 3/4 terrortories left.

Elseware I decided I will probably not fight in Africa throughout the game, Julii are better at fighting on mainland europe imo. As a result I have trade agreements with most the Africans and an alliance with the Seluecids. I did have more alliances but the decision to take a Scythian town cost me Macedonia's loyalty and the Germans betrayed me for no reason.

I am liking the mercenaries, I was once heavily outnumbered by a Dacian army but I swelled my ranks with mercenaries and managed to win the battle.

Mamba
01-15-2006, 03:02
I have played this faction 4 times now, on increasing difficulty, peaking with VH/VH.

Several things I have not seen mentioned with regards to the VH/VH campaign.

1) Keep spies in your Italian cities. Always. Or your Roman 'friends' will incite rebellion and you will lose them.

2) It would seem that pretty much all factions have abandoned their individual goals and decided to attack you. By around turn 20, all coastal cities (Carthage, Greece, Macedon, Gaul, Britain, Egypt, etc.) had declared war on me. It quickly became impossible to field navies and I suffered because of it. So, basically, you can try to keep up with the AI (impossible) or take a pretty much strictly land route until you make it to Britannia and use the Northern sea. Once there you can begin leapfrogging.

3) It will be EXTREMELY hard to blitz Lilybaeum/Carthage before the Scipii can. Carthage sucks THAT bad. And forget about the Brutii. They tear Greece up like there's nothing else, since Greece is busy harassing your navy. The only conceivable way to win the Civil War without mucho frustration is to KEEP EXPANDING. By the Civil War, Corsuca will likely be your only island (I managed to take Palma, too).

4) Prepare for war on many fronts and try not to overextend yourself. By around turn 15 *all* of the barbarian tribes (Gaul, Britain, Germany, Dacia) were clamoring for my head. I was forced to maintain a meticulous balance of offense and defense with my limited funds.

5) Use Diplomats only to bribe enemy diplomats. From my recent experience I lost about 5000 good men within a few turns to diplomat bribes. Get them before they get you.

Pretorian Guard
02-22-2006, 18:35
Hello everybody. first of all I've been reading this forum for over a year and I feel I pretty know the people here. I've played the game for 2 months with several campaings but I have some questions with the Julii.
I've created a kind of western empire with Britain, Gaul and Spain under my command but the other roman factions are growing too powerful and I'm trying to slow them down using lots of spies and assessins. but i can't make the cities revolt!!! Loyalty drops down to 0 and they still don't revolt!! I cannot yet openly fight the other roman faction and the game is getting really long!! I'm like in 170bc or something. The brutii are fihgting against the Scythians:inquisitive: and getting into their lands!!! the city of Tanais was just conquered and a sent a spy in... loyalty dropped to 0 but they don't revolt!!There are only 2 units in the city. Somebody suffered the same???btwI did manage to take Corinth out of the brutti with a sharp amphibious attack the moment the city turned rebel full of peasants.

gardibolt
02-22-2006, 21:49
The AI cheats on rebellions. Simple as that.

Ludens
02-24-2006, 11:34
The AI cheats on rebellions. Simple as that.
But it is possible to make a city tebel by a combination of spies and sabotage to happyness buildings. However, the relation public order - rebellions for A.I. held cities still eludes me.

In your case: you can provoke a civil war by failed assassination attempts or by going on a massive conquering spree. Either one should make the senate afraid enough to declare you outlaw. If you have prepared well, you should have two or more large armies ready to take over Italy. Strike quickly at the A.I.'s core cities (Italy, Sicily, sometimes Carthage and Greece) and victory will be yours.

Pontifex Rex
02-25-2006, 15:12
Fifteen years into a new Julii campaign and I have all of northern Italy, Noricum, Illyria, Dalmatia, Trans Alpine Gaul, Corinth, Sparta and Crete for some 12 provinces. The 1st Legion is on Crete preparing to go for Rhodes, the 4th is forming in and around Corinth and Sparta, the 3rd is split into two parts fighting rebels in Illryia, Dalmatia and Noricum ( a just completed pacification campaign) and the 2nd has just reppelled the second major attack (another can be seen forming in Narbonesis) by very large Gaulish armies in the mountains of Trans Alpine Gaul.

My Brutii allies have taken Appolonia, Thermon and Thessalonka while the Scipii are still trying to drive the Carthaginians from Sicily. The Roman navies are sweeping the seas around Greece of Macedonian and Greek shipping and both seem doomed for pages of history. No movement destected yet from the Germans or Britons but Spain has gone to war with Carthage and has taken Palma and Corduba (perhaps more, spies are en route).

I do not normally directly "interfere" with other factions expansion but I do not mind sending a few coins to their opponents to keep the fight interesting (spies and assasins on occasion as well,...this is Rome after all). I plan on grabbing all the *Wonders* and a few more of the best coastal provinces for the 'Family' and any from a foreign power that declare war on me. With some luck the empire will be mine by 225 BC.

Avicenna
02-26-2006, 22:14
I've finish the campaign with many years spared. Is there a way I can continue the campaign because the Brutii still exists. :furious3:

there should be the option of continunig after you complete it..

rotorgun
02-27-2006, 19:16
there should be the option of continunig after you complete it..

Even if you elect not to continue the campaign when the victory cutscene plays, you could continue as long as you haven't deleted the autosave gamefile for the current campaign.

I hope this was helpful to Lestat.

Rotor

Pontifex Rex
02-28-2006, 14:02
I've seem noticed some major improvements in the game with the 1.5 patch. Perhaps it is my imagination but the AI seems to actually make a few more intelligent decisions in some tactical decisions.

It is now 25 years into the campaign and the Julii have reduced the Gauls to Alesia and Numantia but their attacks seemed more corrdinated than with 1.3. The Gauls came at me with nearly full hosts of 20 units and southern Gaul is now littered with at least 5 "major battle" sites. Roman casualties were somewhat heavier than previously seen due to the 2nd Legion having to fight two or more large fights per turn plus the seige battles. The 6th Legion, sent as reinforcements to Gaul was swung south into Spain after the abrupt and surprising declaration of war. It has just concluded a series of 3 major battle at or near Osca in which the city was captured and the local Spanish armies routed. In both legion's cases they need a period to rest, refit and reorganize before pushing on to Alesia and further into Spain. A new legion, the 8th, is forming in central Gaul and it will be tasked with security of the newly conquered provinces.

Noricum, northern Italy, Dalmatia and Illyria are still quiet after the 3rd Legion's pacification program some ten years past but I noticed that, in some cases, the rebel bands were larger than previously seen. Down in Greece, Sparta, Corinth and Athens have been "Romanized" and are now becoming economic powerhouses of the southern empire as well as providing ship building facilities for the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean squadrons. naval losses were somewhat high as the Greek and Macedon navies were both large and experienced.

On the other side of Aegean, the 1st and 4th Legions have just finished a lightening campaign that destroyed the "Greek Cities" and captured the island of Rhodes as well as the 4 most western provinces in Asia Minor. Both legions are refittiing while the 5th Legion forms to join them for the next campaign against Pontus.

In general v1.5 is much more enjoyable than the previous versions and I have noticed the AI combining fleets into larger stacks for factions and rebels (pirates). Larger stacks seem to be the order of day for armies as well and the smaller forces only seem to make an appearance once the faction involved has been "broken" economically and demographically. This game is still enjoyable even after two years.

Cheers. ~:cheers:

Garvanko
03-01-2006, 15:34
Im enjoying my Julii campaign so far.

Conquered all of Gaul and am pounding my former Allies Germania. It helps that the Brutii have expanded as fast up north as well - should be an interesting end game with them in a couple of decades. My next major targets are taking the whole of Britain and Spain. I have two armies training in Narbo/Alesia and Londinim.

Ive got spies everywhere. Im making 57k per turn. Katank!:viking:

Avicenna
03-01-2006, 17:34
Im enjoying my Julii campaign so far.

Conquered all of Gaul and am pounding my former Allies Germania. It helps that the Brutii have expanded as fast up north as well - should be an interesting end game with them in a couple of decades. My next major targets are taking the whole of Britain and Spain. I have two armies training in Narbo/Alesia and Londinim.

Ive got spies everywhere. Im making 57k per turn. Katank!:viking:
do you mean 57k income or profit?

Garvanko
03-01-2006, 18:18
Income. Profit is between 8-12k per turn so far. Though that is likely to drop as I build up my forces again.

Im good on the economic side, but not that good! Should have clarified. My apologies.:bow:

Pontifex Rex
03-04-2006, 01:17
240 BC

Thirty years into the campaign and the Gauls have been defeated and their former lands are being absobed into the Empire. Spain, despite yet another defeat refuses to make peace and appropriate action may have to be taken. The VI and IX Legions are now in Spain and the II Legion is en route. The VIII Legion is being left behind in Gaul to fill the security needs of the provinces and watch the Britons, who seem to be gaining the upper hand in Germania.

Our Brutii allies have begun a war against Dacia and the family has decided to send elements of the III Legion from Illyria and Dalmatia to take Panonia and secure the line of the upper Danube River. The remaining province of Thrace has agreed to join the empire as a protectorate of Rome under the supervision of the Brutii.

Over in Asia Minor, the Pontic king seemed to have gone mad. Despite already being at war with Egypt and Armenia, he declared war on Rome and launched his armies against the family holdings at Lycia and Ionia. After defeating a number of Pontic thrusts and depriving Pontus of the provinces of Phrygia and Bythinia the king still refused generous offers for peace so it was decided to remove the threat entirely. The full weight of the I, IV and V Legions launched an invasion that destroyed the remainder of the Pontic Kingdom. Only Assyria has not been conquered and rumour has it that it has fallen into rebellion and has declared itself independant. We shall see.

The empire holdings under Julii control has grown quite rapidly over the last five years and the fear is there is more territory than troops to guard it. Danger now looms in the east as Egypt, Parthia, Armenia and Stygia have formed an alliance and their troops press up against the borders of the Empire from Tribus Getea around Mare Nostrum all the way to Syria and Cilicia. Spys and Diplomats have been dispatched to see if they can ascertain the intent of this powerful group of eastern kingdoms.



https://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f163/Gerryp1/Julii240BC.png

Garvanko
03-04-2006, 02:27
Ive started recruiting Samnite Gladiators, but Im unsure how to get the best out of them in the impending Civil War. Any ideas?

Its 200BC. Ive got all of Western Europe except three provinces in Spain (I hold Carthago and Osca), as well as Palma. Gaul and the Britons are crushed, Germania is on its last legs, and I hold about 28 provinces.

Taking Osca alone took about twenty five turns of brinkmanship with the Spanish. Heavy duty stuff. I even had to bring in my Faction Leader from Arretium just to shore up morale in the final push.

With the Brutii all over my Eastern front, and the Scipii in Africa, Spain offers the only real expansion unless I open hostilities with my Roman brothers. Taking all of Spain will probably trigger suicide calls from the Senate so Im quickly mobilising three major armies in Italy, my acadmies and Scriptoriums are training my Generals, and I await the call to arms with baited breadth. Ave.

Screenshots:

The war effort in Spain reaches a high point at Carthago.
https://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2558/carthago6mo.th.jpg (https://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=carthago6mo.jpg)

Talk about influence. Faction Leader and Heir are Pontifex and Censor respectively..
https://img82.imageshack.us/img82/83/senateoffices2vu.th.jpg (https://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=senateoffices2vu.jpg)

I took Corduba and Numantia early this morning, so I now have 30 provinces.

Avicenna
03-04-2006, 15:30
Garvanko: perhaps the gladiators, as your supposedly best hand-to-hand fighters, could man the siege towers and cut down the defenders on the walls?

Garvanko
03-04-2006, 16:02
Using Largue Unit size, I only get 40 per unit, Tiberius. Not sure they're best employed on the walls. Won't they get overwhelmed by enemy cohorts?

I do think they could prove excellent flanking units.

Ludens
03-04-2006, 20:32
Using Largue Unit size, I only get 40 per unit, Tiberius. Not sure they're best employed on the walls. Won't they get overwhelmed by enemy cohorts?

I do think they could prove excellent flanking units.
Actually, small but powerful units like gladiators are excellent on walls because there numbers mean less and raw power more. They do especially well defending against ladders or covering the flanks of other wall-guards, but when attacking they will also do a good deal if damage if you sent them first into the breach or onto the wall. Just make sure that you have a second unit ready to follow them.

Seamus Fermanagh
03-06-2006, 04:23
I generally don't bother with the gladiators, except when using the Brutii version against chariots/hefalumps.

They have high morale and 80 hit points, but only 40 figures. This can be an advantage where speed of deployment counts.

Going up ladders -- unit is complete much quicker and fights more cohesively on walls.

Siege towers/rams -- fewer figures and double HP mean slower attrition from missile weapons on walls (which love packs of 120 to shoot at).

No alternate weapon -- just point click and attack, makes them easy to use.

Fun at parties.

Avicenna
03-10-2006, 17:38
Brutii gladiators are the worst though. Surely their lack of any armour means they get killed off by the archer towers before reaching the walls?

Seamus Fermanagh
03-11-2006, 04:11
Brutii gladiators are the worst though. Surely their lack of any armour means they get killed off by the archer towers before reaching the walls?

I lose very few folks on most wall attacks. Most of the city lay-outs feature sections which are poorly covered. By carefully programming a path using shift and right click, I can often bring a ladder unit or a tower to the base of the wall with few/no casualties -- sometimes surprisingly close to a gatehouse. The Brutii gladiators do suffer from the lower armor, but the 2hp thing seems to go a long ways.