Eastern Roman Empire (BI faction) [Archive]

Azi Tohak

10-03-2005, 08:38

I started this one as my first campaign in BI. Right off the bat you have to deal with a few cities that are suffering from some redness of the face if you get my meaning. That's because the settlement's official religion is Pagan, and it has a majority of Christians. Wreck the Pagan temple and build a Christian shrine in those cities. Stabilizing your internal situation should be your first concern, then you should worry about the Sassanids. You're at war with them at the start of the campaign.

Yup, breaking the Pagan temples also gives a little money, but the main thing is then moving your newly released troops (because no more religious problems) up to the front to deal with the inevitable Sassanid Army.

For me, the biggest problem early on is how to deal with the darned Katanks (err... Clibanarii... yeah... that's it). With their fantastic (or dreadful) armor, they can stand up to any missles you try to chuck at them (the laugh at pilum!). But the good news is that they are NOT killing machines. They do not kill very quickly (their rolling pins are not good at much besides bread you see). However, the Persians don't have very many, and won't for a long time (high on the building tree). The best you can do in battle is match your best infantry against the Clibanarii (Comitatenses etc), try to encircle them, and use your lousy infantry, missles, and your own general's cav (you DID remember to include a general right?) to smash the rest of the Persian army. After you chase that horrible infantry off the map, you can then just smash the Clibanarii with numbers. It won't be pretty, but it will work eventually.

In term of strategerie, I like to hamstring the Persians ASAP. Meaning I break their initial invading armies (and their Clibanarii too!) as fast as I can. I did notice for me that the Persians like to go after Caesarea. Since I have an MA of 200, not the standard 80, I can quickly relieve it from Antioch, but that is something to keep an eye on. Then I take Hatra (enslaving) and then, after I have smashed armies trying to relieve Hatra, I go and sack Ctesiphon, destroying as many buildings as possible! Bad Azi :embarassed: But hey, it works! If you hold onto Hatra long enough (religious problems in Ctesiphon make it unpleaseant to hold), you might get lucky enough to have the ERE rebels appear. I likes my buffer states!

Now then, you have smashed Persian power right? The next problem are going to the hordes. Personally, I HATE fighting smoke (aka Horse Archers) so I like to let the AI besiege Constantinople or Thessalonica (I usually just abandon Sirmium), and then crush their armies against the edge of the battle map. Is it fair? Nope! But it works.

To be honest, once I get here... I start to get bored... I'll be back later with more advice.

Azi

Prometheus00

10-10-2005, 02:42

Eastern Roman Empire BI

In RTWBI, the Eastern Roman Empire may seem extremely vast and unorganized at first glance but this isnt the case. The ERE is actually quite fluid and easily controlled once you sort out some initial problems.

First, you must destroy all Pagan shrines and convert all cities to christianity as this will surely help you control your empire and prevent riots at the start.

Immediately after converting your empire to christianity it would be wise to consolidate your military forces in each region using a border defense strategy. Meaning, you should consolidate your Northern border units, Stirmium to Constantinople, by fortifying each bridge crossing with a fort and medium size garrison. The same strategy can be employed at your Eastern border, Antioch to Jerusalem, albeit with slightly greater intensity~;)

I prefer a medium size stack in each fort, as opposed to placing 1-2 giant stacks in key locations which will result in fewer engagements with relatively easy fights, and a screening force beyond the crossing. In my opinion, using the bridge fortifying startegy and placing several medium size stacks in each fort will allow more control of your empire and result in more fights; generally more exciting and challenging. Also, if you build the forts infront or before each bridge crossing this will allow emplacement of a small screening force on the bridge itself to slow and wear the enemy down before the major battle.

So, after you have converted your empire to christianity and consolidated your military along your Northern and Eastern borders it's time to manage your cities and build your empire! I prefer to build my Empire economically rather then militarily, which will definately prove useful later in the game. I first build all financial type buildings in each city with a focus to stay unified and not let any one city flourish or outpace each other, comparatively speaking. This strategy, when playing the ERE, really provides your Empire with more fighting ability later in the game by ensuring you have the funds to continually train units.

When playing ERE, I build in this order:
Roads
Markets
Docks
Land clearance/Farming
Mines
Academies - Advanced Religious buildings

Thus, after you have completed all financial and growth oriented building then it would be wise to start construction of your military infrastructure. Now, there is a few exceptions when playing the ERE, in regards to military type buildings. It's wise to set Constantinople and Antioch as your major military providers at the start of the game and continue with this approach until your ready to march on Italy.

As for tactics, the bridge crossing strategy will work wonders in your Northern border against the Vandals and/or Huns. Generally, at each crossing you sould build the fort infront of the bridge and then deploy screening forces to slow down or deter the enemy from using this route/bridge.

I prefer to use a mixture of archer cavalry (2-3x), light cavalry (2x), and spearmen (2-3x). I use small size armies to accomplish the screening tactic, which saves alot of cash but it still very effective.

Well, after you sort the mess above it's time to march North (Italy) and East (Persia) and fulfill your conquests. I will post once I have beaten the campaign on very hard. (Im at about the beginning-end atm)

darsalon

10-11-2005, 14:51

Having read up on a couple of beginning posts with the ERE I started a game with them and have now hit probably mid to end game with them.

I'll reinforce what other people have said with getting rid of the pagan temples and killing off the Persians asap. With the concentration on the eastern front I have merely carried out a holding action against the few attacks I have had to contend with on the western front. Maybe because I've been playing it on Medium level but the hordes have barely touched me so far.

Anyway, the Persians. Watch Caesarea in central Turkey as that's one I've found the Persians were going for a lot, even when I was knocking on the door at Ctesiphon. There is an ideal route from the Persian regions in the northeast to Caesarea that needs to be watched. For invasion, as previous posters again mention, Hatra, Ctesiphon and then swing round in an anti clockwise direction to mop up. I sack them each time myself. None of this enslaving rubbish ~D . Wipe em out so it makes it easier to then get the survivors onto Christianity asap.

In battlefield fighting Persian infantry is normally levy spearmen when you face them so most units you have will be able to deal with them ok. The main threat is the Cilibrani (however you bloody spell that!) which requires a couple of lines of legio lancieri or higher to soak up the initial charge before then charging in cavalry or another infantry unit behind them. When they're getting crunched from all sides then eventually you'll get them.

Western Europe area. That's been reasonably peaceful. I gave up sirmium fairly easily after the Huns rolled through and left it as a rebel city for around 30 years. That's been a buffer zone whilst I've built up a network of alliances with most of the barbarian factions which has held fairly well for most of the game. As a result I haven't had the "fun" of fighting horse archers yet and also has meant my military buildings aren't as highly developed as in the east. Therefore this stage of the game is a combination of economic growth in the east and military buildup in the west to take the Rome and Carthage target regions.

Really I've found this faction to be good fun but not that challenging once the Persians have been dealt with. From there on in it's economic/military powerhouse time ~:cool:

Afro Thunder

10-11-2005, 22:38

Speaking of Caesarea, in my campaign the Sassanid faction leader decided to place the city under siege, all by himself. What was he thinking?

Prometheus00

10-11-2005, 23:22

Having read up on a couple of beginning posts with the ERE I started a game with them and have now hit probably mid to end game with them.....

Really I've found this faction to be good fun but not that challenging once the Persians have been dealt with. From there on in it's economic/military powerhouse time ~:cool:

Agreed.
I've been playing on VH/VH and I have to agree that even on this difficulty the ERE are quite easy to maintain and develope but are still an exciting, stable faction to play.

I also agree the Northern border from Sirmium to Constantinople is fairly easy to defend against the Hordes. I prefer to "defend" the Northern border and "attack" the Eastern border (Persia).

Love the expansion, just wish they would come out with a multiplayer campaign version based on the RTW.

Sleepy

10-12-2005, 12:53

I've just won an ERE campaign and here are some of my thoughts:

At the beginning I changed the religion of many pagen cities to christianity. Though I left Athens and Thessalonica for the mid game and forgot about Kydonia for a while.

Like many here my initial strategic plan was to hold in the west whilst dealing with the Sassanids. For my eastern army I used a mixed force of infantry, eastern archers and horse archers with the occaisonal light cav for mopping up the runners.

However my expansion plans were restricted by my fixing the EREs economy by first building docks and roads, then other trade buildings. I only built military infrastructure at Antioch and Constantinople.

In the west I kept an army on the Danube, I didn't bother with forts. Most hordes avoided me on their traipse west. I did destroy the Vandals who sneaked across the river whilst my army was out of position. However a combination of attacking stacks who were detached from the main horde and the big Constantinople Garrison made short work of them. My western army was infantry, eastern archers and a few light cav. Later I added horse archers to the mix after watching the eastern armies success against the Sassanids.

During the mid game both the Lombards and the Slavs attacked however I was able to slaughter them at various bridges.

The WRE attacked me after I took the rebel controlled city of Salona which meant my plans to invade Italy were advanced by a decade. It was also the easiest campaign my armies ever undertook. Of the 6 cites I captured from the WRE the biggest garrison was 150 men.

A mistake I made was to over garrison my cities with lime(?) troops. 10 to 15 per city. This greatly reduced the profits I could invest per turn and also meant I could only afford 2 field armies. Later I disbanded most of them replacing them with peasant garrisons where neccesary.

Eastern Archers are excellent at destroying horse archers and as they develop experience become more effective against heavy infantry attacking from the front

Toxic hippos are excellent anti bandit troops, they also supply mobile fire power to field armies.

Carriage Ballistas are so over the top its unreal.

PseRamesses

10-12-2005, 14:23

ERE is all about bridges and is the easiest faction to play second to playing the Sassanids.

Eastern front:
Three bridges to protect and a wast rebel Arabia. I hold my bridges and while the Sass are concentrating on getting over to get Caesarea and Antioch I sneak a smaller force south of the river Eufrat emerging south of Ctesiphon which isn´t guarded. Sack it, exterminate and destroy every building and leave it! What happens now is that the AI is responding to this new threat and moves towards you - back off to the rivercrossing beside the city and hold it while your army at the Coele-Syria bridge moves on Hatra and the one holding the bridge east of Sinope moves on Artaxarta. In just a couple of turns the Sass will be history. Now take Colchis (if it hasn´t joined you already) and the rebel towns of Dumatha and Petra. Eastern border is now the Kaukasus moutains (4 bridges) and in the south the Libyan-Tripolitanian straits towards your ally the WRE.

Northern front:
Two bridges - easy kill! Only one border opening: to the west into WRE province. Have never got any incursions from this direction. Caution: the Sarmatians can, sometimes, materialize within your northern Thracian border so always keep some 6 archers and 4 good infantry in Constantinople.

Final push:
When I´m finished with the Sassanids and have secured my empire, have enough armies, manageble unrest etc. I strike at Lepcis Magna and Salona thus starting the last phase of the game - taking Carthage and Rome.

Garvanko

10-12-2005, 15:10

I agree on the ease of the ERE faction. Nevertheless, my main full stack has become bogged down around Hatra with pretty much the entire Sassanid army. Im trying to pick them off one by one, while consolidating my defence of the north above Constinople. I let Sirinum revolt, though.

~D I had a loyalist revolt to my side - the rebel city in the north east (can't remember its name). Anyone else experience this. Was pleasantly surprised, especially as the Sassanids were seiging it.

Still early game for me.

Sleepy

10-12-2005, 16:54

I had a loyalist revolt to my side - the rebel city in the north east (can't remember its name). Anyone else experience this. Was pleasantly surprised, especially as the Sassanids were seiging it.Seems to be a constant in ERE campaigns, it happened to me and to the poster above you.

Garvanko

10-12-2005, 18:30

Damn hordes! :furious3:

Had to give up Constantinople and Thessalonica. Basically i walked out before the Goths came in (huns and vandals were fast behind them). I did manage to shift two full stacks across into Asia Minor, and hope to use them to consolidate my growing powerbase in the east.

I can't get an Alliance with anyone. Im playing H/M.

ShadesPanther

10-12-2005, 19:05

Seems to be a constant in ERE campaigns, it happened to me and to the poster above you.

Well I completed a campaign and it happened and then in my latest campaign. It occurs when the Sassanids take the city

PseRamesses

10-13-2005, 12:41

Well I completed a campaign and it happened and then in my latest campaign. It occurs when the Sassanids take the city
It happens when they take it and can´t keep enough of garrison units to keep order. Kotais has a majority of christians and a shrine so it will take a lot of units to do that. The problem is that the AI doesn´t ever raise any buildings.

King Ragnar

10-13-2005, 20:27

Well in my campiagn money as hit an all time low and im having to withdraw all forces from the outskirts of the empire following a scorched earth policy, the Sassinids, Goths, Huns and ERE rebels are making this really hard.

Furion

10-13-2005, 23:06

Here is what I did with the eastern Romans...

First things first; the migrations. Build up forts to the danube crossing places so that the enemy will be slowed down by the fort, which the enemy has to besiege or assault in order to cross the river. Fill the forts with 2-4 units of limitanei (or more, I don't care) and then build a Comitatenses army (in the historical sence), which should be rather diverse in tactics (archers, comitatenses, cavalry). Also, build up highways to the frontier provinces so that your army can move faster to counter the migration (horde) that is besieging the fort(s) on the river crossings. I found this tactics to be highly, uh, profitable, since I needed only one army to protect the border, and I did so with relative ease. Once you've done this, you can center your resources to conquer the Sassanids.

Build up alot of trade facilities, education, docks, etc to increase your economy. If you have alot civil disorder, in Jerusalem or other cities for example, move your capitol more to the center, to Ancyra, for example.

The Illyria will probably revolt from the West, so take it.

Magraev

10-14-2005, 14:00

The Eastern Roman Empire have a very nice set of troops and excellent income. Very nice archers are a great asset backed up by lanciarii, comitanenses or even better plumbatarii. The cavalry are only worth it on the highest level, so make a city go straight for the Circus maximus - you won't be disapointed in the power of your heavy cav. The lower level cav are way overpriced (except maybe some dromedarii to fight clibanarii, but they'll drop like flies). Buy mercs instead - especially north of the danube. I'd advice around 6 archer-units in a full stack to fight the hordes - the same or a little less against the sassinids.

I started with the total disbanding of my navy except for the two unique ships (decere + corvus iirc). As soon as I could Limitanei were disbanded and replaced by peasants. Eventually several cities will need 20 peasants for garrisons - grr. Go fully christian immediately. As soon as the greek cities are under control move the capitol to Ancara - especially when you (hopefully) start taking the Sassinid towns.

Your success depends on two things - smashing the Sassinids and averting the hordes. Bridges are excellent for this task, but often a mountain pass will serve the same purpose. Try to ally with the vandals - they helped me beat the Goths north of Thessalonica. Don't expand in the balkans - leave that for the hordes and the WR-rebels.

In my game the huns pushed the sarmatians into horde and settled on the plains, the vandals pushed the goths into horde (and left for rome, but are too weak now to take it i think) and I exterminated the goths. The Sarmatians are fighting the germannic tribes now.

You should probably only use the emperor and his heir in your major wars. The other generals will get disloyal very soon with some victories and have to be put on ice. The battles against the goths turned a 4-loyalty trusty general into a 0-loyalty backstabber in a few years.

Garvanko

10-15-2005, 15:40

My ERE campaign is back on track. Although I lost Constantinople (Goths) and Thessalonica (ERER), it did allow me to focus fully on the Sassanids. Cestiphon has proved a tough nut to crack, though Im progressing well, having finally taken Hatra, and am currently sweeping through the Sassanids northern frontier.

Don't you just love Eastern Archers and Merc Alan Horse Archers? ~:)

Furion

10-15-2005, 22:56

ShadesPanther

10-16-2005, 01:05

About your post Furion. I find that when they move to Salona they can cross at the bridge just north of Sirmium. A fort just across the bridge usually discourages them but park your army on the bridge. (It doesnt have to be that good as the garrison can help you.) They also cross at the passes near Salona so put forts there and you should be completely safe from incursions and have an army that can help for any that slip through

Garvanko

10-16-2005, 01:23

Organize the defence of Europe like I did (post 16, this thread) and you wont lose constantinople, I think.:book:
I tried that, but all the hordes came for me right from the start. Huns, Vandals, Goths. I felt it made more sense economically and strategically to abandon the province, and consolidate in the East first. I still hold Athens, and was able to take Thessalonica from the ERER, so I have managed to maintain a presence there to some degree.

Ive been successful in destroying the Sassanids in the East, and am currently looking to push on towards Carthage, and from there launch a sea invasion of the Italian peninsula and Rome. I'll try to win the game by retaking Constantinople, thus securing my 34th province and domination.

Currently I hold 22 settlements and have a strong financial and growing military base.

darsalon

10-20-2005, 13:58

I tried that, but all the hordes came for me right from the start. Huns, Vandals, Goths. I felt it made more sense economically and strategically to abandon the province, and consolidate in the East first. I still hold Athens, and was able to take Thessalonica from the ERER, so I have managed to maintain a presence there to some degree.

Eeeep, that looks nasty!

Admittedly I've had trouble with hordes even at the end of a campaign with ERE. Had a horde of Burgundians sweep into sirmium (sp?) where I had only a few comitanenses as for defenders and the basic stone walls. Managed to slaughter 2,500 of them but just ran out of defenders on my side once the comitananses had gone because the horde swordsmen easily went through the other defenders I had.

On that note is it best to duke it out with attackers on the walls or just plug the roads to the main square with people? Thought it best to use the walls in my instance as I had only a couple of squadrons of cavalry in comparison with the burgundians' swarms. Guess their numbers would be controlled just by the city streets but thought I'd rather do that on the walls with them not fighting me!

Afro Thunder

10-20-2005, 14:02

Well, if you're facing a Hun horde, then you probably should defend the walls. The reason for that is that they have very poor quality infantry that even Limitanei can deal with to an extent. If the enemy can't capture the gate and all they have left is cavalry, you automatically win.

Alexis Campus Regis

10-20-2005, 19:00

econ21

10-20-2005, 20:25

Garvanko

10-21-2005, 14:51

ERE update.

Taken: All the Sassanid territories, Carthage, Syracuse and Tarentum. Retook Constaninople, and got a ceasefire from the Goths through their ceasefire with the WRE. Nice. ~:cool:

Lost: Kotais, for a while to the Roxolani, who have been sending stack after stack against me in the North-East. Ive just retaken it again, and am defending the two bridges adjacent to this crucial lil' province. :duel:

Targets: Take Rome, and consolidate my grip on the Italian peninsula, while dealing with the Berbers in Africa and the Roxolani - their Virgin Archers are great units! I need seven more settlements to win the game, and Ive finally been able to start building a Circus Maximus at Carthage!

Its 420 AD and I hold 25 provinces.

Sand

10-21-2005, 22:03

I've had similar problems. I beat Vandals on the bridge over the Danube- using troops from my fort - but the Huns turned up & their first horde went through my spearmen & comitanenses like a knife through butter. Has anybody got a bridge defence lineup that's effective against them?

Morale is how I won all my bridge battles. And fire arrows, which is basically the same thing. I had a very decent general who had some wonderful morale boosts - something like +4, +5 and he wasnt a hopeless drunk or a raving loon. Im aware this mightnt be replicated for everyone, but it does show the benefits of morale.

I lined up a unit of cheap Limitanei across the bridge, with one to either side as the AI tends to push out and around the blocking unit through sheer weight of numbers. You need to keep them pinned in. Had around 2 archer units on each flank. Concentrating all 4 units on one target using fire arrows as they crossed the Huns and Goths were broken often before they even reached my side of the river, soon as they break hit the next with 4 archers, and panic becomes an epidemic. This was on medium battle difficulty. The only real job then was massacaring them all as the Limitanei never broke, and the Huns/Goths broke *through* my lines rather than back the way they came.

Of course, they all "fought to the death" and theres a lot of them so you need infantry reserves behind the Limitanei to plug any gaps that start opening up, and again to keep the limitanei happy that "the flanks are secure".

Also be aware that Hordes have plenty of cavalry that can ford the rivers and will try to kill your archers so keep another spearman unit behind them as reserves when they try to ford.

The only sad thing is my heroic general got a few ideas above his station and ended his career banished to some forgotten part of the empire.

In similar vein everyone seems to use a strategy of only developing advanced military buildings in Constantinople and Antioch. Fine but how do you retrain / reinforce the units on the frontier quickly enough? (Huns arrived one turn after Vandals) Or do you merge weakened units and try to keep a steady flow of new cannon-fodder coming from Constantinople?

Constantinople isnt too far from the frontier with a good road tbh. But whilst you will be getting your elite units from Const/Antoich, cities on the frontier like Sirinum (sp) for example can be used (with low tech barracks) to retrain archers/spears who will be taking the vast majority of your casualties. Your elite high tech stuff shouldnt be taking too many casualties ironically enough because they should be doing the least fighting, thrown in when the battle is about to turn rather than the grindstone on which the enemy exhausts itself. Which is where the easily replacable Limitanei come in.

kataphraktoi

11-02-2005, 03:17

I've only recently gotten BI so here's my fledgling guide to the ERE:

From the start, you should:

- check the religious orientations of your cities
- check the public order and rectify that by either
- lowering tax rates
- destryoing pagan shrines/building christian churches
- know where your diplomats are (especially in the West)

In expectation of the hordes, you should actual ERE defensive measures by locking up bridges and passes with forts (garrison with limitanei or peasants).
Sometimes a horde will spawn within ur borders bypassing the forts near Constantinople so you have to be prepared. What I did was to construct an "Anastasian Long wall which covered Constantinople from the West. In addition, I constructed a line of forts up north to form a second line of fortifications. The Goths did spawn within my borders but never attempted to attack Constantinople. They eventually drifted somewhere else.

In addition, your diplomats should be north of your borders where hordes are expected to be. Make alliances with them if they worth it. If they are strong, even better because they are likely to capture a settlement. Once they do, just offer trade rights.

In the East, you should have similar line of fortifications against the Sassanids. Antioch and Caesarea are the most frequently attacked. Build forts on your own territory and on Sassanid territory. It will slow them significantly. In addition, you should block passes that lead to Sidon and Jerusalem because they will sometimes cross the desret unexpectedly.

All in all, this should allow you to:
- keep a smaller army
- build rapid mobile forces (commies) whenever a pass is threatened
- build your financial reserves for a major offensive (east or west)
- build a line of delaying forts to allow you to do train forces and/or concentrate forces around trouble area.

Basic tactics when attacking Rome:
One small army for building forts in the northern passes to hold off WRE army from coming to its rescue.
One large army for besieging Rome
One large fleet to prevent amphibious landings of troops.

Note: do not neglect ur fleet watever the expense, especially if ERE rebels hold a province with a port, it will annoy you when they build their fleets and blockade ur ports.

Trithemius

11-04-2005, 01:17

Northern front:
Two bridges - easy kill! Only one border opening: to the west into WRE province. Have never got any incursions from this direction. Caution: the Sarmatians can, sometimes, materialize within your northern Thracian border so always keep some 6 archers and 4 good infantry in Constantinople.

I had a problem with horde leaders fleeing from battles north of the river frontier and somehow retreating past my forts. No teleporting Sarmatians yet, although I've watched some Huns settle in Aquincum, then be displaced by the Goths, and appear in Illyricum et Dalmatia; I had used my friendship with the WRE to watch their crossings as well, in case they dropped the ball.

Trithemius

11-05-2005, 04:52

Well I completed a campaign and it happened and then in my latest campaign. It occurs when the Sassanids take the city

Mostly because the Sassanids aren't especially bright - when I played as the Sassanids I garrisoned the place heavily and had no problems, but in my ERE game its revolt made me go to war with Sassanids after I had fought them to a bloody standstill in and around Cteisphon.

I assume it is because the government building in Kotais is Roman culture that it happens; I guess the culture determines loyalty since I when I was playing as the Sarmatians and raiding, looting, and abandoning cities, a lot of them rebelled and went back to the WRE (which was a pain since it forced me to go to war with them and broke my lucrative trading deals). It's a pity there is no option to "install client rulers" in a city you don't want to govern (make it a neutral city).

Afro Thunder

11-05-2005, 16:08

Mostly because the Sassanids aren't especially bright

Obviously you mean that in the figurative sense of the word, not the literal meaning! ~;)

Trithemius

11-06-2005, 04:53

Obviously you mean that in the figurative sense of the word, not the literal meaning! ~;)

Yes, yes. :P

It seems the Sassanid faction leader is making his way past my border forts to Caesarea, alone. ~:rolleyes:
I have been letting him amble along and kept my field armies out doing their thing; I have recruited some cavalry as "chasers" in case he actually besieges the city.

Watchman

11-09-2005, 21:12

The Sassanids really do seem to have a bit of an obsession with Caesarea. Personally, I just annihilated all those odd stacks they sent wandering through the mountain passes; not that I was complaining, all the guys mucking around up there were off the more serious fighting around Antioch, and with Highways to march on (and dispposable forts manned by an even more disposable 120 peasants to tie them up) I could pretty much handle the entire front with one and same field army.

It would seem that the line infantry of choice for fighting against the Sassanids would be the Legio Lanciarii. Sure, the Commies are overall tougher, but they're also hideously expensive to maintain, require annoyingly high-level Barracks, are total overkill against Sassanid bulk infantry (whom, at least one Medium battle difficulty, I could see off with the puny Limitanensis without much trouble), and not actually all that effective against the single biggest headache, ie. the Clibanarii. The Lanciarii are both cheaper to field, easier to retrain (lower building reqs), see off Levy Spearmen with minimal casualties, and seem to do pretty well against even Clib Immortals (Commies make a decent showing, but with an unacceptably high casualty rate given the retraining issues). Their lower armour compared to the Commies doesn't amount to much anyway against the AP maces of the Clibs, and their staggering anti-cavalry bonus of 8 means they can actually cause some real damage.

Once the Clibs are bogged down in nasty spearmen the proper way to dispose them is to Alt-doubleclick them in the rear with Household Bodyguards. Those mean bruisers have maces (albeit rather strange looking ones) as their secondary weapons, and in my experience a Lanciarii/Bodyguard tag team will tend to rout even Immortals inside about twenty seconds.

'Course, a converging attack by more than one Bodyguard unit at once will tend to put paid to any single Clib pile right fast...

Dromedarii work, too. They don't do that well against the Clibs by themselves, but throw in the Bodyguards and the Immortals will tend to break and run in about ten seconds. Plus the buggers are fairly easy to retrain, make a decent showing as (somewhat slow) medium shock cavalry, and I for one consider them the choice unit for chasing off those pesky Camel Raiders whom they can out-fight just by sheer better stats. Better than accumulating unnecessary casualties to the Bodyguards who have better things to do anyway, certainly.

As a side note, is it just me or does the Asia Minor region seem to spawn annoying amounts of bandits ? And often pretty tough ones too, such as several Mercenary Comitatenses in the same stack. One time all the assorted little bandit packs lying around up and joined together into a respectably large army in the middle of the region, and it took a bit of preparing to demolish the damn thing as for obvious reasons all the real combat troops were busy on the Sassanid front or keeping an eye on the hordes puttering about in the north.

Trithemius

11-11-2005, 03:53

It would seem that the line infantry of choice for fighting against the Sassanids would be the Legio Lanciarii. Sure, the Commies are overall tougher, but they're also hideously expensive to maintain, require annoyingly high-level Barracks, are total overkill against Sassanid bulk infantry (whom, at least one Medium battle difficulty, I could see off with the puny Limitanensis without much trouble), and not actually all that effective against the single biggest headache, ie. the Clibanarii. The Lanciarii are both cheaper to field, easier to retrain (lower building reqs), see off Levy Spearmen with minimal casualties, and seem to do pretty well against even Clib Immortals (Commies make a decent showing, but with an unacceptably high casualty rate given the retraining issues). Their lower armour compared to the Commies doesn't amount to much anyway against the AP maces of the Clibs, and their staggering anti-cavalry bonus of 8 means they can actually cause some real damage.

Once the Clibs are bogged down in nasty spearmen the proper way to dispose them is to Alt-doubleclick them in the rear with Household Bodyguards. Those mean bruisers have maces (albeit rather strange looking ones) as their secondary weapons, and in my experience a Lanciarii/Bodyguard tag team will tend to rout even Immortals inside about twenty seconds.

And whatever is true of Sassanid clibanarii being tough, the clibanarii immortal bodyguards for their family members are worse. It's well worth using a lot of assassins to thin out the numbers of these guys (or at least to spread them out a little thinner). I faced a stack with three and half (one was a bit mauled, but escaped!) of these bodyguard units and they mutilated my comitatenses until I was able to use my bodyguards and some equites auxilia to pick them off one by one.

Wilhelm The Mediocre

11-11-2005, 03:56

Are the priests worth using at all? Does their purpose justify the upkeep and the occupied army space?~:confused:

Trithemius

11-11-2005, 03:58

Are the priests worth using at all? Does their purpose justify the upkeep and the occupied army space?~:confused:

Personally, I use First Cohorts as morale boosters - I don't know how their bonus compares to that of priests, but they are a large unit of heavy foot which is a damn sight more useful than some timid chaps in robes.

Wilhelm The Mediocre

11-11-2005, 04:04

Certainly sounds intelligent enough, but I wonder if their is a source somewhere where someone has researched the exact morale bonuses for units such as these.

Trithemius

11-11-2005, 04:42

Certainly sounds intelligent enough, but I wonder if their is a source somewhere where someone has researched the exact morale bonuses for units such as these.

They maybe have in the Ludus Magna subforum? Any research types out there know if there has been much investigation of morale enhancing units?

Quicci

11-15-2005, 16:51

Hi All,

The First Faction in BI I tried to play was ERE (VH/M), and I did not regret. Here is what I did...

1. turned all Byzantium to Paganism (2 exp on all trooops @ Mithra temple are worth it...)

2. quickly created buffer zone of ERE Rebels in Assyria and Armenia, then crossed the desert with special battle-traited General, wiper Sassanids out of the game. Rebels were surrounded and fell quickly. CavTanks are not as difficult if you engage them with Legions and repeatedly charge the mass with your general.

3. consolidated army in the meantime: upgraded Barracks to produce Plumbatarii - never seen a better unit!! Iron-clad Heavy infantry Long-Range Skirmishers!! With archers tweaked in BI this is by far the best backbone unit for ERE, supported with East Archers and Cavalry Auxilia (the light ones that can swim...) I was able to hold off all Hordes in Thrase and Moesia.

4. Treacherous WRE declared war on me, so I rampaged through Italy, leaving Gaul and Hordes for WRE to play with.

5. The only province I need is Africa, as I now have 33 provinces, and will finish this game this evening.

Exciting, stable, often against odds fought battles with great results... that is what my training in R:TW was good for :knight:

Q.

CXA

11-15-2005, 20:17

Have tried something new with my low loyalty Generals. This may not be new to most of you but I thought I would post it anyway.

I either keep them in an army with a higher ranking general and use them and another unit of cavalry or....

I send them out as scouts. I find cities that have a weak garrison. I then recruit mercenaries with the general and take over these cities. Exterminate and if the public is happy enough I then build a few units of peasants to keep it. If not I just leave it and let it revolt. I never keep the disloyal general in the mercenary group at the end of the turn just in case he decides to jump camp.

I have found this to be pretty effective for getting some quick money. It also helps me to keep track on whats going on outside my borders. Of course spies are better at that but they can't take a city.

If the General dicides to jump ship...whocares I have been lucky enough to take over at least a couple of cities before this even happens.

Oh and of course if you take a city and know you will not be able to keep it. Destroy all buildings for the loot and so that when it revolts it will have a weak force and economy. The only building I do not sestroy is the religious building if it happens to be the same as mine. If it has an opposing building destroy it and build the cheap version of your own. Later own when you have advanced that way you can take a city that is hopefully still religiously in your favor.

Quicci

11-16-2005, 11:00

Ad Generals:
as soon as he gets disloyal keep him at the capital city for a few turns and he will be prim and proper loyal again :o)

//at least seems to work for my people out there...

CXA

11-16-2005, 18:29

Thanks Q,

I will have to try that. Some generals I could care less about. But nobody likes losing a good general to disloyalty.

gardibolt

11-16-2005, 21:41

Ad Generals:
as soon as he gets disloyal keep him at the capital city for a few turns and he will be prim and proper loyal again :o)

//at least seems to work for my people out there...

Interesting. Do you have to have another more loyal general there to make him shape up, or can he improve himself all by his lonesome?

kalifah of watton

11-25-2005, 16:32

Not really a reply so much as some general comments.Well RTW/BI its pretty mind blowingly good id say as much as i love MTW .The big question is of course will CA ever re-vamp MTW to match the quality and format and Rome ?
Anyway played my first game on BI as the East Romans and immediatley felt at home as lets face it they are the Byzantines in waiting.Played on medium/medium and had no trouble seeing off the vandals goths and huns.In fact the huns took a city off me with massive losses due to boiling oil which then rebelled kicking them out.I spent most of the game fighting my own rebels and the WRE.The sassinds were a bit of a pain but eventually i crippled them.Did Lots of exterminating to get the cash to top up my mainly merc field armies who were constantly busy.Any way i won in 432 and carried on till 482 but gave up when my heroic leader went over to the rebels the swine.Oh yeah after reading these threads i will definatley try for a Christain Conversion policy next time maybe with WRE.Playing as the Greeks at the mo on RTW doing OK.Stop Press-Won with the Greeks,Being thrashed as the Parthians,won as the Saxons.Only playing the short campaigns on RTW.
Ciao.......The Kalifah Of Watton

_Aetius_

11-27-2005, 15:56

I've just finished my first go of BI a few minutes ago, i'm pretty impressed I have to say.

My campaign analysis so far.

I'm playing on H/H and at the beginning the very first thing I did was destroy all pagan temples and replaced them with christian churches etc, which reduced much of the unrest in the eastern provinces. Still getting a feel for the game I probably didnt train as many high quality troops as I should have and soon the Sassanids began raiding Syria and Cappadocia with modest sized forces.

After a few years of minor confrontations in the east it became clear that the Danube frontier was were my attention should be most of the time as the Huns rampaged against the Germanics. First the Sarmatians were pushed out of their homelands after the Vandals expelled them, the Sarmatians then expelled the Goths from their territory and then the Sarmatians and Vandals were pushed out by the Huns. So within 6 or 7 years there were 3 massive hordes on the frontier, thankfully they fought each other most of the time for now.

At around 368 things in the west looked somewhat bleak, constant rebellions pinned down my field army whilst the western Roman rebels seized Illyria, then my alliance with the western empire itself collapsed as I took Illyria from the rebels. Alarmed by this I increased the size of the western army whilst the eastern army campaigned against the Sassanids, Hatra was captured and Kotais (sp?) rebelled against the Sassanids and came over to me. So at this point despite the odd rebel army running around the east was secure and the Sassanids repeatedly defeated.

Its at this point things have begun to go wrong,the commander of the western legions was killed during the plague and my legions were severely weakened as the hordes began crossing the Danube.

First the Sarmatians crossed the unguarded frontier and lay siege to the city north of Salona in Pannonia, the city was lightly guarded and my field army was far to small to confront the Sarmatians who numbered some 4000. Second the Goths entered the empire and in the same turn lay siege to Constantinople, the Sarmatians stormed the city they were besieging and successfully plundered it, after 2 years Constantinople was stormed by the Goths and fell despite the Goths recieving 50% casualties (1500 men).

In one stroke the Imperial capital had fallen and the western provinces were totally isolated, whilst the Sassanids in the east renewed their assault on Asia Minor. To avoid a total rebellion in the east I moved the capital to Asia Minor instead of the much larger city of Alexandria then I left the game a couple of years later at 375 for a break.

I'm now contemplating my next move, I could attempt to retake Constantinople back from the Goths and try to salvage something of the western provinces or I could withdraw my western legions to Asia Minor where the campaign against the Sassanids could be pushed much further forward. Unwilling to sacrifice my 3 remaining western terrorities so easily i'm not to hyped on the withdrawel of the Balkans, however if the western legions are destroyed then i'll of gained nothing and the west will fall anyway and i'll have one less army at my disposal.

Its an interesting series of decisions I have to make, the big thing that is swaying me here is that I cant see how I can hold the Danube even if I retook it, eventually the much larger Huns will sweep down and remove me anyway. What shocks me most is that the Western empire is totally intact aside from losing north africa to the berbers and rebels, its actually conquered territory north of the Danube and is stronger than the east.

It's good to have these kind of problems for once unlike in RTW ~:)

_Aetius_

11-27-2005, 21:14

This campaign just gets more and more bizarre, following on directly from where I left off in 375 I decided to leave the western legions to defend my remaining territory in the west instead of withdrawing them.

The session began brightly when the western legions crushed a stack of Sarmatians in Moesia before giving the Vandals a serious mauling outside Thessalonica. In the east I made a big effort to destroy the rebel armies throughout asia minor scoring plenty of victories and finally securing the interior of the eastern provinces before pushing a campaign against the Sassanids.

Building an army mostly of Comis, eastern archers and mercenary alans and sarmatian horse archers, I pushed southwards to Hatra to relieve some of the pressure from the recently conquered city before moving northwards towards Kotais. Having collected additional troops along the way the eastern army heavily defeated the Sassanids in Armenia 3 times leaving Atraxarta wide open to attack. After bringing the garrison close to starvation the Sassanids desperately threw armies at me as I besieged the city, however beneath the walls of the city these were all swept aside and the city was exterminated.

The eastern campaign 378 - 383 had been a great success 3500-4000 Sassanids killed in battle to around 650 Romans, my recent conquests had been preserved and the vital territory of Armenia added to the empire.

At around 385 the Vandals and Sarmatians moved away from the Balkans the Vandals ending up as far away as northwestern Gaul as these barbarians moved against the WRE my western legions were reduced to keeping an eye on the Goths whos armies still vastly outnumbered my own although we were at peace. For a few years everything was quiet until the WRE started moving armies into my territory, as I was considering a pre-emptive attack on the WRE, disaster struck.

In 388 the eastern legions rebelled, the entire army in Armenia was lost as the Sassanids in coalition with the WRE invaded the empire together helping each other take Kotais. Another army was hastily raised in Antioch and Hatra to attempt to stem the invasions as the economy plumetted and soon was in the red, desperate for cash and with the empire falling to pieces I made what at the time felt like a crazy decision. Seeing that Tarentum had a tiny garrison I gambled and took the entire western army (leaving the west defenceless) and invaded Italy, within 3 years Tarantum, Rome and Ravenna had fallen to me and around 50000 denarii was gained. :charge:. Fortunately the WRE hadnt left significant forces in Italy so ive been able to hold onto these territories which are far more developed than my eastern provinces so much so I officially have the II and III Italica legions stationed in northern and central Italy.

As this propped up the economy my newly raised eastern armies have been running around defeating rebels and tiny WRE armies whilst trying to keep the Sassanids from invading Cappadocia. The problem is though that loyalty has become a serious problem in 391 Tarsus rebelled and went over to the rebels in Armenia. I needed another break after all this ~:joker: so I left it at 392 with pretty much everything in the balance.

Great to see TW is back on form ~:) ~:cheers:

Aetius22

11-28-2005, 00:30

Great post man! I haven't played with the Eastern Empire on a hard difficulty, but BI does seem to be more balanced than RTW with interesting unpredictable campaigns. On my campaign the Sarmatians struck first at Constantinople, but the walls and my comis proved to be too much for them. The Vandals were next at Sirmium, and again the walls saved me, as the AI spent all his foot soldiers trying to take them from me.

Unfortunately the Goths also came calling and I didn't have time to replenish my army. After nearly beating them back Sirmium fell. It's very hard to keep the West if more than one horde attacks you. It also means that the WRE has time to get its act together.

I think when I play them again my strategy will be to concentrate on holding Constantinople and the two Greek Cities. Maybe gift Sirmium to the Goths. Getting rid of the Sassanids seems to be the Eastern Empire's #1 priority. Once that's done things are so easy. And of course just as you did, conversion to Christianity is a must.

By the way did you move that Pagan General in Kydonia? He was the only General so far that I have come across with the Night fighting trait. Unfortunately I didn't notice that until he was too old to be a factor. I moved him the to front, but he died quickly.

_Aetius_

11-28-2005, 12:49

I hadnt noticed that guy in Kydonia, I wish I had nopw ~:mecry: i'll remember that for another time though thanks for letting me know ~:).

The Western provinces are hard to hold onto your right there, I think you have a good idea about sacrificing Sirmium to a horde, that way you stop the horde rampaging through your territory. Then allying with them you create a buffer against other barbarians north of the Danube, however allowing an entire tribe to settle in what was your territory is dangerous.

Remember what happened when Emperor Valens let the Goths settle within the empires territory? :duel: the Goths rebelled and smashed the legions at Adrianople, so its a risk but in hindsight one I should have taken it seems.

I'm going to continue my campaign now and try and salvage something from this mess ~:joker: hopefully i'll report back a much brighter picture of my empire when I return.

CXA

12-08-2005, 17:32

Great Post!!

I to am playing ER on H/H and have a similar story to yours early on. I decided though to leave the west. I lost a couple of big battles to the Huns. I hurt them bad but my losses hurt me more. I gathered all I had left in the west (military wise) and left. I brought them all East. I plundered all my cities and left them to the huns.

With all my forces in the east I was able to crush the Sassanids. I then moved North and took over all of the East side of the map. I then concentrated on turning all cities to Christianity and getting all cities in the green. I also used a small part of my money to upgrade a couple of my troop cities and build a little more advanced army. I alos built up my navy so I would be supreme on the seas. I also used this time to move armies around in order to make 4 offensive forces.

1. Would go north over the black sea and cause havoc there.
2. Would retake Constantinople and cause the Huns grief. Since I plundered all the cities, I knew that the cities the Huns took over would need alot of time and money to become any help to them. Mainly Const., Thess, and Athens.
3. Would attack via Athens and put Huns in a squeeze with my force in Constan.
4. My africa army. I want to run across the south and take all of Africa.

All worked like a dream.

Force 1 had it hardest dealing with Hordes of many names in that large area. I won every major battle but with cities being poor up there, I had to ferry over reinforcements all the time. I had to fight many battles with a battered force. I had my general hire many Mercenaries to march around harassing weak enemies and holding cities that I just took.

Force 2 took and held Constan. and started rebuilding it so I could use it for reinforcements. I ventured away from the city a few times to crush any armies/hordes that got close.

Force 3 took Athens easy enough and moved up and took Thess as well. After healing all wounds I then moved N and w to take (don't remember names very well) that city that we start with. I now owned all in the West that I had started with.

Force 4 did so well that I now own all of Africa, all the Island provinses and I even landed and took Rome and the city south of it.

I won the game as soon as I tool Rome because I already had 41 provinses. I am the type of guy who wants to take over the whole map though and will continue on. I did it with the WER on M/M and will have to do it with the EER. The challenge there is not militarily but with keeping everyone happy enough to get there.

This game is a blast.

I want to play VH/VH next. Anybody have any suggeestions on what Empire I should use for this?

Watchman

12-10-2005, 02:10

The Alemanni. On Huge unit size. ~D

Garvanko

12-10-2005, 12:51

Try the WRE on VH/VH. You'll enjoy that. Seriously.

Leaving the west early is the best strategy for killing off the Sassanids quickly as the ERE. Once that's done taking it back will be a piece of cake.

Sextus Caecillius

12-24-2005, 20:17

Any guides for the Eastern Roman Empire Rebels?

Byzantine Mercenary

12-31-2005, 23:03

can you play as them? how?

back on subject on VH/VH i sent all my western legions to constantinople and thinned out expensive garisons, i built armys of comatenses archers and eastern archers who rock at defending cities and forts build three full stack forts near hatra as bait to distract the Sassanids when they attack i just sally with my comatenses and leave me archers to support them safely behind the walls.

then 4 full stack armys arrived and constantinople, three sieged and one just stayed behind, the next turn they attacked, i had 2 units of eastern archers 1 archer unit some comatenses and limiti, i set my archers on flame arrows and burned their seige tower and ram, i won and they ran back but the forth army automatically sieged again, they kept doing this again and again i couldn't retrain but kept beating them back, very annoying. eventually id killed about a stack and they started stopping for a turn every now and then and gave me a chance to recover a bit. but in the end i lost it to a particullarly flame resistant siege tower...

_Aetius_

01-01-2006, 01:29

To summerise my latest ERE VH/VH game the year is around 440.

The West.

Suprisingly the western provinces were spared much devastation from the barbarians, the only major trouble came from the Huns who with 6 full stacks crossed the Danube and sacked Sirmium. They then began to advance on Thessalonica which if it had fell would of meant Constantinople was next and Athens soon after. My only field army in the west confronted one of the smaller Hun stacks but was comprehensively crushed in Northern Greece. To be amazement the Huns left imperial territory and moved westward, even though the western army had been destroyed the west didnt see trouble for some 35 years.

The East.

The Sassanids were finally destroyed in 415 after over 5 decades of warfare, my plan had always been to invade Persia via Armenia, I first attempted this in around 385 by capturing Kotais to the north and then besieging Artaxarta itself, having suffered overstretching of the eastern army and rebellions though this strategy began to fall apart. The Roxolani backed the Sassanids and Kotais fell to the Roxolani. :furious3:

A decade of economic instability followed until the Brigands who had effectively ruled the countryside of Asia minor were finally destroyed and trade resumed. For over 20 years already there had been sporadic warfare along the frontier ever since my capture of Petra in the south and my brief hold on Hatra until the eastern army rebelled against me. Along with the occassional besieging of Caeserea I had time to build my forces.

Finally I felt I had enough to strike one decisive blow against the Sassanids by attacking Ctesiphon itself, fully aware of the risk I took one stack of Comis and Hippotoxoi with some eastern archer units and headed straight for the Persian capital. Having won a couple of battles along the way I felt confident and soon reached the city which I besieged, after 1 turn though the Persians gathered a large army to face me and unfortunately after making a silly mistake mid-battle the battle was lost and the expedition destroyed. :oops:

The remnants of the army barely escaping back to Imperial territory, but this wasnt as bad as it looked the survivors were retrained and the Emperor himself led another more formidable army into Persian territory coinciding with Hatra coming over to me by rebelling against the Eastern Roman rebels. My economy was by now booming and yet another imperial army was heading north through the mountains to invade Armenia from behind.

Defeating the Persians in battle 4 times, I reached Ctesiphon which fell 5 years after the catastrophe of the last army that besieged it, soon Armenia fell to and the Persians were reduced to poor and underdeveloped territories cut off from one another. Suffice to say these were soon mopped up and the Persians totally destroyed.

Back in the west.

Id sent Diplomats out to every corner of the map getting map info to see what was going on, the WRE had largely been overrun, left with central and southern italy, corsica/sardinia, Sicily and parts of Africa. The faction which had gained most form this was the Franks who ruled much of Gaul and Germany. By the time I was finishing off the Persians the Franks shared a frontier with my own. I was more than abit alarmed when I saw a stack of Franks standing right on the frontier line :wall:

Fortunately the western army had been rebuilt in time and was now the 1st Claudia legion originating from Constantinople, I gathered some of the most experienced regiments from the eastern legions and hurried them as fast as possible to the west though I knew itd be atleast 4 years until they arrived as they were based in the far eastern edge of the map.

By this time Sirmium in Moesia and Salona in Dalmatia were apart of the empire having been captured by the 1st legion in 420, however plague had ravaged the army and the Franks invaded and captured both settlements. In a battle near Salona the 1st legion was destroyed after a close battle which the Frankish axeman proved to powerful for my Comis.

I retrained it and it became the 2nd legion but was to late to stop the fall of Thessalonica and again it looked as if the west was doomed, however the 2nd legion defeated the Franks outside Thessalonica and retook the city. Feeling confident that I could push the Franks out of Imperial territory as the Eastern regiments were near arrival I advanced upto Sirmium.

Again another Frankish stack V the western legion, the battle began brilliantly for me my onagers killed the Frankish general in its first volley and it looked as though the Frankish army would flee. However on my right flank the Franks launched such a fearsome attack with its throwing axes that when battle commenced proper, my right flank collapsed and fled. I had broken the Franks right flank also, but they had superior numbers of heavy infantry units and soon my line was rolled up and the 2nd legion was smashed much like the 1st.

Demoralised after being defeated so heavily by the Franks twice and Constantinople now under siege the situation was saved only by the arrival of the eastern armies 2 stacks landed near Athens. The Franks were defeated by the garrison in Constantinople and i'm no considering what I should do.

I've already suffered two horrendous defeats to the Franks costing me more than 1500 good experienced men and much territory Salona has been reduced to a population of 400 and Sirmium has been sacked twice. The Comis cant stand up to the Frankish axemen who have immense experience and high weapon and armour upgrades, I have superior cavalry but the economy is sliding again and its becoming very expensive.

Sextus Caecillius

01-01-2006, 05:00

Yea(Sorry off topic) WIth the mod Rebel Commander. I tried them but I was killed pretty easily. The are hard.

Sextus Caecillius

01-04-2006, 02:17

So can anyone give me some tips on what to do with the eastern Roman Empire Rebels?

Byzantine Mercenary

01-05-2006, 18:01

Hmmm well you would probably be best off concentrateing on defence and useing agents and family members to create religious unrest, and hopefully more rebellions. Assasins are good for that, sabotage religious buildings sewers ect... if the eastern romans come, concentrate on destroying their siege towers and rams.

Back on topic, im finnally beating back the sassanids and Constantinople is retaken, the western romans are all but gone, stuck in Caralis and South Spain. The Vandals have taken Italy and the franks have most of Spain and Gaul.

mikoyan

01-07-2006, 12:46

Sorry for the lame Q. I can't destroy the pagani temples. In fact i can't destroy buildings at all from the construction browser.:furious3: Please, help....:laugh4:

acambria

01-07-2006, 14:27

Unlike the WRE which is usually destroyed, has anyone ever seen the ERE get wiped out by the AI yet?

kataphraktoi

01-07-2006, 17:12

I started a new ERE campaign recently and decided to see what 7th century Byzantium was like. I withdrew my troops from the rich Eastern provinces except Anatolia and Cilicia across to various parts of the EMpire. I abandoned Sirmium and the Danube border to hunker down and build forts in the mountain passes.

It is quite an interesting challenge to fight the Sassies and EREbels while reducing your army ranks to make sure ur not in the red.

So far, I've defeated a few Sassies in the mountains of Anatolia jsut like the Byzantines did taking advantage of the mountainous passes that can hold up enemy advances. Right now I also have an army besieging Antioch. I hope to establish an outpost in the Crimea soon as well. Most importantly, I have to build up as many trade relationships as possible and develop my Empire into a tough little nut to crack.

Braden

02-03-2006, 13:48

I dived strait in on an ERE campaign when I got BI and although I’m a seasoned Rome player I’ve found even this “easier” campaign challenging. My experience does not appear to have been duplicated that often here though as my struggles have come from the fact that within the first 20 years I’ve been hit by THREE hordes – the Vandals, Huns AND Goths have all gone “horde” and struck out against me. The Samatians also went “horde” but only took a region I had just lost to the Huns (thankfully).

Thessalonica has been taken and sacked Twice so far but since this initial rush (and the Goths and Vandals settling North of Thessalonica and Constantinople) I have succeeded in gaining trade with them at least. I just couldn’t hold the hordes at the choke points purely due to sheer weight of numbers! Each horde had 6-8 full stacks where I could only muster perhaps 2-3 stacks of low level troops at the time. The Goths were the worse and included some nasty high level infantry (is it Chosen Warriors?), masses of horse archers where I had none and spear-bands etc. Although I managed to cull thousands in the battles, all I could do was give ground. Gladly though, they decided to “Settle”.

All this meant that the first attacks by the Sassinids were also a hard hit. Although they didn’t manage to take any settlements it has set my economy back by decades whilst I had to concentrate on building troops rather than money.

Now having dealt with the Sassinids finally (although experiencing a Roman rebellion continuously in the province in the far South East), I have started to focus on Money after all the really hard times before.

I only have a tenuous foot-hold on the edge of Europe with Constantinople and Thessalonica. So it’s a matter of building the economy to suit the long-term war against the now large WRE (we are nearly equal for land).

Relations with the WRE had been very frosty and broke out into sporadic fighting through the years I have managed to get back in with them and although I’m allied with some of their enemies (e.g. the Berbers).

I would like to know how to deal with Hordes though. I tried just about everything and although I managed to slow them down AND inflict casualties that would destroy any normal army I just got steam-rollered! I’ve managed to run out of arrows in battles as there are just so many targets (and this was with 8 units of archers on Large size).

It’s also all well an good defending bridges BUT if most of the horde can swim………this is what I’ve been faced with. However, and with luck, I won’t have to face a horde again as I’ll be able to crush their combat units in the field normally and the only “horde” left will be peasants.

I’m currently pursuing a campaign against the WRE as I have finally secured the East. I have had to disposes the Vandals of their single territory so I could secure my Western borders before starting completely.

What I am experiencing is poor loyalties in my Generals and now a lack of family members since I’ve suddenly lost 5-8 in quick succession. Some good news was that since a battle against rebels last night I did manage to adopt a Captain but I’m still waging a war in Europe without ANY Generals. To help keep troublesome Eastern provinces in line, what family members I have are having to say put in places like Jerusalem so I need to work on both Loyalty AND Happyness in the East.

Franconicus

02-03-2006, 14:55

Braden,
I have similar experience with my current game. I disbanded most of my ships to get a better cash flow. I fortified the crossings of the Danuba. This save me at the beginning from horde attacks. I concentrated on my eastern campaign and attacked the first Sassanid town (Hatra I guess) as soon as possible. No reason to wait, things get only worse. I assaulted the town and had to defend it against another army. These battles broke the backbone of the Sassanids. I advanced to Susa and even pushed further until I had all of their towns. Susa is an excellent production centre. Of cause these fights were difficult. The Sassanids frequently invaded Asia Minor. But finally I made it.
In the meanwhile a horde bypassed my defence and attacked Thessa. I built up an army at Konst. and reconquered the town. Then I used this army to take the rest of Balkans and then crossed the sea to attack Italy. Do this asap. The Italian mainland's defense is weak. You can take it and then have some first class cities. And you weaken the Western Roms - bloody bastards!

Braden

02-06-2006, 17:04

Thanks for the advice, I’ve progressed and gotten over that initial “hump” but now it’s the war against the WRE and it’s getting serious. I’ve cleared them out of Africa but I’ve not crossed into Italy yet – BTW: Rome is a Rebel state and has been for quite a while.

Think I’ll take your suggestion and cross over to Italy but whilst attacking from middle Europe (Aquincum – sorry using names from Rome map). I’ve suffered a large defeat trying to take the huge city here – defenders included a first cohort. But I’ve assembled 2 stacks to re-assault after losing a full stack on its walls previously. Canny AI though has put a fort at the bridge into the region from Campus Iazyges (again rome map name).

Obviously, things stalled initially due the sudden economic hit from going to war against the WRE. Although I was already “at war” with them, once I actually started a land campaign against them several allies and trading partners dropped connections to me so money is constantly tight (6k a turn only).

How effective are siege weapons against Epic defences? Or is it a matter of as many siege towers as possible?

The Barbarian tribes are still an issue but I now know my defences are reasonably firm – thank to the advice here – and I’ve been able to use Hordes to my benefit.

Herding: Using my army group of nearly three stacks of troops I’ve managed to displace and herd the Goths and the Vandals into WRE lands to cause as much pain to them as possible before I invade just behind them! After my defeat at Aquincum the Goth horde passed by Campus Iazyges and initially I placed my stacks to defend my own territory but as they avoided me I keeps moving the armies to push them West rather than South or North.

Although the WRE forces have defeated the Goth horde they have been weakened and I’m following right behind whilst the Goths keep moving West.

Obviously, I don’t think this tactic will work all the time but using a horde or two as your own blunt instrument of destruction and death is working for me currently.

Ha,ha,ha!

_Aetius_

02-06-2006, 19:51

Fantastic idea herding the barbarians to do your dirty work, if it works well you could find seriously depleted barbarian factions ripe for the conquering when your imperial armies follow their trail of destruction. This kind of tactic is a good way to go about a total conquest of the WRE and reunite the empire, which is near impossible any other way.

Braden

02-07-2006, 15:18

I’ve not been able to capitalise on this as yet as the Vandal Horde I was herding went right past one of the cities I needed, I had to besiege and take it, an operation that took much longer than it should as the city had a First Cohort defending it!

Anyway, all is not lost at the Horde stopped just North at the next barbarian held city. All I need to do is wait behind them to see what they do next.

If they take it and disposes another Horde, then I have several options. Either herd and follow the new horde or herd the new horde away and besiege/take the Vandals new city – causing them to horde again, so I have TWO hordes to Sheppard.

Truth is, after losing 5k men taking the first city, can I afford to send two/three stacks off into the wilderness….pillaging as they go?

I truly wish I can but I’ll have to see how many armies I’ve got left….

Franconicus

02-09-2006, 13:52

Horde both! You do not have to guide them completely. Just send them in the direction you want them to be (WRE is guess).
Herding has a big advantage: they soften your enemies and weaken the towns; but it has also some drawbacks: they are hard to control and the cities you get are already ruined.
So I guess a good compromise is to make them hordes, lead them into the right direction, take a town or two, and then leave them alone. Or send a spy to accompany them!

In my game I had some trouble with the Franks. As far as I could see they never horded. But they managed to build a big empire and attacked me at the Balkans with several armies. Even lost a town (the one at the Adria). The Rox controlled all of Russia and tried to invade me several times; but they were always weak and my garrisons could do the job.

But finally I made it. I pushed the Franks back. In the end I controlled the middle east, egypt, carthage, Crete, asia minor, the Balkans, Italy, southern france and corsica. :2thumbsup:

Braden

02-10-2006, 15:32

For a win now in my campaign I only need to take Rome officially (although I don’t have any forces in Italy yet to do this), I’ll obviously want to continue beyond this.

I had to land the substantial force in Syracuse, who were heading for South Italy as the WRE ships were too well placed for me to get past – so emergency land-fall in Syracuse (a rebel large city), which they took for little loss. I plan to build it for trade. However, I really need to get that army from the island, well at least the General as he’s the faction Heir! (if I could post the picture, I’d show you an island nearly completely surrounded by dozens of little WRE fleets)

I’ve also manage to get a few Merc units of Elephants from the Far South East of my Empire – I lost one the other night taking a WRE city which had far too many Sarmatian (sp) heavy cavalry units in it. I may have lost the merc unit completely but I shudder to think what damage those heavy units would have done against my poor infantry.

Hordes – The Vandals have been happily leaving a trail of rebel towns and cities behind them (three so far!), which I’m happy to snap up. However this is leading this army well into Germania so I may have to let the Horde travel without me soon. I’ve been careful to take out only one of the Two Goth settlement which remained, the last one is a nice buffer between me and Russia (i.e. the Balkens). AND it stops them “hording” on my Eastern front. I shall offer peace to them now.

However successful against the WRE I may be (and that seems to depend on how many Sarmarian (sp – again) units they have) I’m always thinking about when I’ll come into direct contact with a Horde again. My previous experiences were devastating, but I’m determined to overcome this.

SO, better concentrate now on securing my borders and building up my trade network. Anyway, I think I’ve got to that stage in the game where I’ve reached “Critical Mass” and although the BI game is likely to throw up possible bumps (Hordes, perhaps the WRE have been gathering their own troops just far across the border), it’s that point in the game where you look at the map and the quality and quantity of opposition just across your borders and think “I’ve won”.

Garvanko

02-12-2006, 21:45

I would like to know how to deal with Hordes though. I tried just about everything and although I managed to slow them down AND inflict casualties that would destroy any normal army I just got steam-rollered! I’ve managed to run out of arrows in battles as there are just so many targets (and this was with 8 units of archers on Large size).

It’s also all well an good defending bridges BUT if most of the horde can swim………this is what I’ve been faced with. However, and with luck, I won’t have to face a horde again as I’ll be able to crush their combat units in the field normally and the only “horde” left will be peasants.If you're playing the ERE, then you need to retreat (basically build your economy in Asia so that its strong enough to handle the sudden drop in income when you have to leave Turkey). The hordes will arrive in about 15-20 turns, so you have ample time. Then get out of Constantinople, Thessalonica and Athens. Destroy as many buildings as you see fit. Go and deal with the Sassanids. Then come back later when the hordes have worn themselves out.

This is the safe strategy. This is a strategy I use on H/H.

Otherwise you can take them all head on. Problem is, the Goths will come after you, so will the Huns, and the Sarmatians probably. Its not easy fighting hordes, and bridge warfare can only work so many times. :juggle2:

Braden

02-14-2006, 13:34

Three of the hordes landed on me (as ERE) within the first 10 turns so I didn't have time to prepare. However, that was long ago and although that's certainly put my campaign well back I was able to defeat one horde last night.

The Slav's tried to get across a bridge and I was lucky enough to have an experienced Cohort (full stack) right on it at the time. Five battles later (gods! that was boring) I'd utterly destroyed them. I guess I was very lucky though as they never tried to swim (had no capable units) as I don't think I had sufficient infantry to hold them if they'd done that.

I had 8 archer units and only 4 infantry units.

geoffrey

02-16-2006, 06:59

Hello all good people,
It's always intersting to hear what people say on strategy and how to deal with various factions. It always says alot about ourselves as individuals. I have found that unless you prepare quickly you will be hit from both sides. I have found the Sassanids to be extremely adventerous in their campaigning.

Waht I try to do is buy off barbarian factions while I deal with the sassanids. I have found the use of strategically placed forts very handy. even if they are only manned by one unit, or less, they give you three turns to rally your troops and prepare for invasion.

Another trick I have found is to allow my cities to rebel, then seige them, sack them for money, and then convert them to paganism. I have been successful in converting the whole ERE back to the old religion. Once you have enough money you can then start a counter offensive.

I have been using the strategies from the book "The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire" which I have found extremely well. Essentially by using well placed forts that are manned by Limitanai, then reinforced by legios and major cities, you can keep invaders pretty much contained. I have used this with great success along the Rhine and Upper Danube. Very very effective.

So the keys are:

well paced defenses
make alliances, trade etc,
get cash
establish postion of strength
counter attack

Cheers all

geoffrey

gardibolt

04-16-2006, 01:04

After finishing a Carthage campaign in 1.5, I decided to try ERE in BI, so I could have archers again. I'm not sure I should have bothered; something seems to have happened to degrade Roman troops badly in the intervening centuries. Two archer units (large unit size) can only kill one solitary levy spearman with every other volley, and they're pretty much useless against everything else--though they will kill camels if they're running away fairly effectively. Eastern archers have better range but an equally dismal kill count. My troops are woefully unable to deal with the Huns; fighting them defending a bridge with a bunch of my spear units, which should have been cake, I was massacred, and even rebel units that are about the same size as my army beat me half the time. Anyway, I've taken to fighting the Sassanids purely by outnumbering them; I narrowly killed a Cibinarii Immortal unit solely because I outnumbered it 450 to 45 (including my general), losing most of the army in the process. And I'm only playing on M/M---did ERE get seriously nerfed in 1.6 or something? Because everyone else in this thread says that they're really easy on H/H and VH/VH and I'm barely hanging on; I still have most of my territories but the Goth, Vandal and Hun hordes are all in my lands and my defenses are weak at best. The only positive is that I got lucky and managed to kill the ten-star Hun King, which caused that horde to retreat. But there are still three more out there....and my night-fighting emperor died 2 turns in, so that's not an option.

I did make the dumb mistake of destroying the Zoroastrian shrine in Hatra; the public order went from 60% down to 0 and now it's in constant rebellion. :wall: Gotta remember to check the population distribution before doing that in Sassanid territory.

Patriarch of Constantinople

05-13-2006, 07:36

Ok so the first thing i did was deal with the few red cities. after that i immediatly reinforced my borders against the Sassanids (i like calling them Persians) easier said then done. Think of horse archers with mail armour and youve got a challenge not only that but the Persians have elephants which were used in alot of my wars gainst them. so i take hatra and other sassanid cities and kept pushing until my army of 3000 men were defeated by sassanids of 2000. my mistake was making sure my men could withstand and kill elephants. most of my battle line was torn through and wasnt prepared for a wave of cillibinori immortals. so the morale of this story is be prepared for the sassanids horse archers and elephants.

gardibolt

05-15-2006, 19:51

Having plenty of spearmen available to deal with Clibinarii is pretty important. Once the Sassanids are out of the way, though, things are pretty much a walk in the park now. The WRE begged me for a ceasefire; I wasn't inclined to give it to them so I demanded Carthage. They agreed! Their former Carthaginian army has now trudged all the way around into the former Scythia on their way back home. I just need to kill the Berbers and this game is won.

Avicenna

05-15-2006, 22:38

Overpowered archers are ridiculous though. Anyway, the Romans are very effective if you can use them properly. Just their pila (darts for plumbatarii) are enough to rout a few units before they come into contact with your troops. Then, engage them with your line, and then use the remaining ones to flank.

The hordes can be held back with night battles, allowing them to be annihilated one stack at a time. Alternatively, you could send in the assassin squads. Or, best of all, combine the two tactics to efficiently rid yourself of the horde threats. The assassins should be easily affordable with the strong ERE economy.

gardibolt

05-16-2006, 17:14

I've been using assassin squads to good effect in my ERE game. Bloodthirsty, but entertaining. It certainly helped eliminate the Sassanid Menace...I'd much rather kill 2 of 3 Clibinarii Immortals via assassination than fight them on the field.

Finished this campaign the other night. I thought I would have trouble with the Berbers in Dimmidi (or the town that used to be Dimmidi, I can't remember if it's still called the same thing), since they outnumbered me and had a family member there and I was taking it on with a rag-tag group of cavalry headed by a mere captain. But the Berbers obligingly sent a force out to attack me just before I got there, and on the open field I was able to use my ballista and scorpion to good effect to break their ranks, allowing the cavalry to wipe them out. That left just the family member in the city, and he didn't last long.

Needing two more cities, I turned my attention back to the WRE, which I now had a ceasefire with thanks to their donation of Carthage. I soon got into a War of Assassins between Rome and Patavium (or what used to be Patavium; I am always calling cities and factions by their RTW names). They got lucky and killed my governor so I brought the hordes of death down upon their heads, slaying the family member, sabotaging nearly everything, then besieging. My spy opened the gates and mayhem ensues A reinforcing army approached, I slew the family member at its head, and they turned back. Heh. One more city to go. My army that landed on Sicily some 10 turns ago then went into action, besieging Syracuse. It wasn't quite big enough to get more than 2 siege towers built in a turn, but I went for it. Things were touch and go on the walls, since the WRE had a half-unit of plumbatarii up there, but I was eventually able to capture the gates as their plumbs fought on, and send the cavalry in, and that was pretty much all she wrote for Syracuse FTW.

In the meantime, the Franks decided to attack me in Thessalonica, so after saving the Win I sallied and utterly destroyed that army. No telling if I'll play on a bit; I'd like to wipe out the Goths, if I can, with my many now-well-trained assassins.

Lorenzo_H

05-26-2006, 13:48

Are the ERE generally one of the easier people on BI to win with, or are they a serious challenge? I would like to play a bit of BI (so far I've only really played around a bit with the Huns) once I have got a few games under my belt in Vanilla. If I do play BI, I will definitly play these guys, because I don't really like the barbarians: they're uncivilized smelly little buggers.

Avicenna

05-29-2006, 02:16

They're definitely easy compared to the WRE. Even if attacked by the hordes, just retreat behind the Aegean Sea/Black Sea and focus on the Sassanids. The WRE, on the other, hand, actually have no choice and must face the hordes. ERE is a walk in the park compared to the WRE, because it is targeted by less factions, and has powerful cavalry. It is also pretty much unified in religion, with hardly any pagan cities in the beginning.

Lorenzo_H

05-29-2006, 10:23

Avicenna

05-29-2006, 10:38

Lorenzo_H

05-29-2006, 11:47

Sarmatian Cavalry on vanilla Rome are very good mercs.

Avicenna

05-31-2006, 14:16

Sarmatian Auxilia in BI are better. They're recruitable from any city with level 3 stables, are more tightly packed, and thus deliver a more dangerous charge. They're also cheaper and retrainable if need be.

And what can I say? Red just looks better than Green :thumbsup:

Lorenzo_H

05-31-2006, 15:10

Avicenna

05-31-2006, 16:38

In the campaign, the Clibinarii have the disadvantage of cost. They also take two turns to recruit. However, they're far more difficult to take down, and have super-heavy armour and armour-piercing clubs methinks. They're slower than the Sarmatian cavalry, and the numbers should be equal.

Lorenzo_H

05-31-2006, 18:28

Avicenna

06-01-2006, 09:36

Roman Clibinarii don't have arrows, and Cataphractii use swords, not clubs.

BHCWarman88

06-04-2006, 05:13

Roman Clibs are Good,but they are Expensive,holy hell........

Avicenna

06-04-2006, 09:54

When you've got the top economy in the known world, cost doesn't really matter.

Monarch

06-04-2006, 11:23

The WRE don't get Cataphractii, Clibinarii or Eastern archers. Instead, they have Praeventores (think arcani), Sarmatian Auxilia (fast, reliable cavalry) and Scholae Palantinae (expensive and not great cav).

Sarmies have the advantage of a lower tech requirement and quicker recruitment though. They're also cheaper. It's also strangely satisfying to butcher barbarian with barbarians.

Hmmm, ERE get Scholor Palintae too. I had some in my latest ERE campaign and they're avilablr to ERE in custom battles. WRE also get Auxilia Paltinae (best spearmen on the game) and ERE also get Legio Lanciarri (legionaires with a spear instead of sword).

Anywho,

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2608/desktop5om.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=desktop5om.jpg)

Meh, just on normal/normal. Quite fun, short of it is I kicked Sassanids into that crummy city in Russia, then took Tarentum on the end of the Italian Peninsula before moving up to Rome and expanding outwards from there. Then I realised it was in victory conditions to take Carthage so I sent a small expeditionary force out to take it from the small WRE garrison.

Avicenna

06-04-2006, 11:40

Hm, didn't know that as I play WRE instead. Anyway, difference is that the WRE have less uber cavalry, so some people might build the SP. In the ERE you wouldn't though, since they're so bad compared to the cataphracts or clibinarii in terms of cost:effectiveness in my opinion.

Interesting to see how easy it is in M/M: the Huns settling so early and the Franks not hording. Where are the Goths, by the way? :inquisitive:

Monarch

06-04-2006, 12:10

Erm, Goths where hording around Alemanni sort of territory. Sarmatrians sieged Mediolanum, I defended and after that they where hovering around in my lands (I think if I hadn't have won the game they'd have sieged in the next few turns)

To be fair to the Huns, they did siege Constantinople every turn lol.

IMO ERE campaign would be more fun if:

A)Sassanids could recruit Sughdians anywhere, their mass spearmen armies are simply easy to take down.
B)ERE had a faction to their south, surely there was some sort of faction around there in those times lol. IMO in vanilla the best campaigns where in asai minor sorta area due to all the successor states around you.

Avicenna

06-04-2006, 15:34

I don't think there was much of a unified African nation that was a threat to the ERE. I think there was more African in-fighting as opposed to fighting against the Romans, but I might be wrong.

The Sarmies should be destroyed immediately when they're in a horde, so should the Goths. Then you could go for unification :2thumbsup:

Unified Rome seems like the only true campaign completion to me, but that's just me.

The Huns should just be made to horde when you have a stack defending the pass. I did this on H/M, and the stack annihilated all the ultra-aggressive Hun, destroying them (they just kept sending stacks at me, which usually had family members. The lack of any characters ends their lifespan :thumbsup:)

Patriarch of Constantinople

06-15-2006, 04:12

In RTWBI, the Eastern Roman Empire may seem extremely vast and unorganized at first glance but this isnt the case

wow if you think that the ERE large and disorganized then you should look at the WRE

jhhowell

10-03-2006, 03:51

I noticed something interesting - it appears that horde aggression depends in part on whether they can see you. I had a diplomat visiting the Ukraine a few years after the start of the game, and he found the Huns in Sarmatia. When I chose to have him keep going and head through Dacia, both the Vandals and the Huns declared war and started moving their huge scary stacks my way. Having the diplomat run back out of sight towards Roxolani territory led to just the "Transgression!" message and DoW from the Vandals, with no visible movement in my direction (two turns later, one Hun stack just reached the edge of my watchtower field of view; I'm guessing they'll attack soon...). Lesson learned - don't screw around with diplomats up in Barbaricum!

I also have a completely unrelated question - why are limitanei and legio lancarii type "missile" rather than "light" or "heavy"? I find that very odd. Is this an error, or a deliberate gameplay decision to nerf them as much as possible (preventing blacksmiths from upgrading their attack)? I'm also unclear whether the fact that they're classified as "spearmen" on the battle map actually gives them any benefit against cavalry, considering that the unit description lacks the "bonus against cavalry" note one normally sees. Anyway, for supposedly elite troops, the lancarii are kinda lame... :)

Biggus Diccus

10-03-2006, 08:36

I also have a completely unrelated question - why are limitanei and legio lancarii type "missile" rather than "light" or "heavy"? I find that very odd. Is this an error, or a deliberate gameplay decision to nerf them as much as possible (preventing blacksmiths from upgrading their attack)? I'm also unclear whether the fact that they're classified as "spearmen" on the battle map actually gives them any benefit against cavalry, considering that the unit description lacks the "bonus against cavalry" note one normally sees. Anyway, for supposedly elite troops, the lancarii are kinda lame... :)

I was puzzled by this as well, so I checked in the unit_descr file. Legio Lanciarii get +8 attack bonus against cav with their secondary weapon (which is spear), and Limitaneii get +4 att vs. cav.

jhhowell

10-04-2006, 02:45

I was puzzled by this as well, so I checked in the unit_descr file. Legio Lanciarii get +8 attack bonus against cav with their secondary weapon (which is spear), and Limitaneii get +4 att vs. cav.

Thanks, good to know! With that and the nice pilum attack I guess the lanciarii are actually better than the WRE foederati spearmen. It appears that my anti-clibanarii approach of using comitatenses (or the Emperor's bodyguard) was not ideal; should have used more lanciarii in the Persian campaign. The last two Sassanid faction members (who were also their last two soldiers!) nearly repulsed my assault on the town square all by themselves. I probably would have lost had I not thrown the eastern archers into the meatgrinder as infantry, and I did lose my general, most of my regular infantry (no units lost, but most down to single digits), and all but one man from my hippo-toxatai. ~:(

On the plus side, I'm thinking a Sassanid game sometime would be a lot of fun, abusing these insanely powerful clibanarii immortals.

Is there any way to get back a title, if the person holding it dies? This particular general was the magister peditum...

More circumstantial support for the "horde attacks what they see" theory - the Huns DoWed the Goths as one might expect, rather than charging immediately towards the Danube as in that one save game with my diplomat standing right in front of their stacks. Still no sign of those Vandals who are theoretically at war with me.

andrewmuir

12-13-2006, 00:06

jhhowell

12-15-2006, 21:06

How do you wreck a pagan temple?:help:

Right click, then click on the hammer icon. Just like destroying any other building (aqueducts in Alexandria and Constantinople, for example - very very handy for some early cash while reducing excessive population growth).

I haven't tried this yet, but I think you can get away with keeping some of the pagan provinces as is, which would then allow you to upgrade troops at Mithras temples. I plan to try being as pagan as possible in my next ERE game. The one positive side of going all Christian is that it should strengthen the WRER - if Cyrenaica flips Christian, Tripolitania will revolt, while if Cyrenaica stays Pagan Tripolitania can remain Pagan as well. The western Balkan provinces can likewise push Salona into revolt if they go Christian.

Mithras

12-17-2006, 13:41

jhhowell

12-18-2006, 00:38

It's quite a good idea to have some temples of the opposing religion. not only for the perks of said temple but it gives you somewhere to pack family members of the 'wrong' religion to.

The same can be said for Pagan factions-simply use a Christian city as a priest factory.

What, exactly, to priests do? Is whatever bonus they give nearby units worth the bother? I've always disbanded the buggers on sight, and never even considered building new ones. Better to have that 100+ maintenance going towards limetanei, archers, 2-3 peasants, whatever. The monks in the Badon Hill scenario didn't have any effect strong enough for me to notice.

Personally I don't worry too much about the religion of individual governors. If they're good they're almost certainly worth the 5-10% unrest of a religion mismatch, while if they suck they shouldn't be governors at all. Loitering in the province is a good default task for bad governors of a minority religion, I suppose. Though I'm partial to getting them killed off fighting large rebel stacks, myself. :beam:

teja

12-18-2006, 22:27

What, exactly, to priests do? Is whatever bonus they give nearby units worth the bother? I've always disbanded the buggers on sight, and never even considered building new ones. Better to have that 100+ maintenance going towards limetanei, archers, 2-3 peasants, whatever. The monks in the Badon Hill scenario didn't have any effect strong enough for me to notice.

Well Romans do have units enought to stand against most threats without priests, but they are worth to use! For example I once used to play the Goths, which have only fair spearunits to defend a bridge, but are always close to get routed when under hard preassure and enemy missles. If you have some priests behind them making their songs those units will stand much longer and in most cases the spearmen will easier get anhilated insted to get routed. This way is easy to boost your defence with priests, which also scare the enemy a little bit. So always try to use priests to boost your defence. Mounted priests for Vandal armies are great as they can move fast to any point at the battle field...
So: Priests only boost own forces, but are no match alone. So test and judge for your own.

Mithras

12-28-2006, 02:04

They have their uses for low lever armies or barbarian forces. High tech Roman armies are better off with the Mithras experiance bonus.

teja

12-28-2006, 14:53

They have their uses for low lever armies or barbarian forces. High tech Roman armies are better off with the Mithras experiance bonus.

Yes, for pure combat experience this is right. But it is far easier to handle the empire if you convert to Christianity early on to keep your empire quite.
Using priests helps to let your nearby units fight as if there is no tomorrow.
So all over all I prefer Christianity to keep my ER-Empire running, even when I miss the boni of Mithras.
Maybe there is a compromise, when you convert an isle-province into a pagan city of Mithras-belivers. You will not have to deal with the influence of the churches of adjecting provinces and the open sea is great for to ship your units fast to their destiny.

Malkut

12-31-2006, 10:38

Hi, new member, and I just had a very interesting experience fighting for the Eastern Roman Empire. I’m not sure if I can offer a coherent overall strategy any diffrent from what's already out there, but I can tell you of a campaign that went off in a number of completely unexpected ways, and how I dealt with it.

At the beginning, having read all the guides here, I gathered up all the forces I could and sent them to block the incoming hordes at the Danube. After Christianizing my empire and fortifying Ceaseria, I concentrated everything I had on the Persians. I sent a wave of assassins and spies before my main force, targeting each and they wiped out everything, from rebel soldiers to Sassanid generals. Before long, one or two of them were “the Killer”, and were very, very good, indeed.

There was very little open combat against the Sassanids. It was the quietest war I’ve ever fought in this game. The only time my forces met the Persians directly were when one of us attacked a city. I took out their most powerful unit with assassins, so I only met armored horsemen a few times. They mostly tried to take Ceaseria, but I had begun building it’s defenses early, so they failed each time.

My main force took it’s time, concentrating on maintaining control and converting the population. Since spies have the “Christian” trait, I often sent a large number of them into an enemy settlement ahead of time, causing a nice deal of civil unrest, in a couple of instances. I used the money from looting and devastating cities to bribe one or two Sassanid family members. The presence of a local, Zoroastrian governor with helped ease the transition.

Finally, in an extremely fortuitous couple of turns, I managed to assassinate the Sassanid king, and the faction heir, which pretty much ended any serious resistence, although it was a little while longer before I finally came and finished them off.

I had no idea I could be so lucky . . . which is why I stupidly failed to anticipate a sudden change in fortunes.

The defensive line at the Danube failed. Somehow. While the Huns completely passed it by, they drove out the Sarmatians, When the Sarmatian hordes appeared, they appeared on my side of the river! I’ve never seen that happen!

My forces were too spread out and totally unprepared for anything of this nature. I drew back from the Danube, and defeated one of the Sarmatian armies, but several more reached Constantinople, and put the city under siege. The Vandals were on their way in through the gap, and I just decided to cut my loses. There was nothing I could do about the capital, but I managed to abandon the other northern cities, and retreat to Macedonia. :shame:

The siege of Constantinople was a grand thing, I must admit, and it was worth losing the city just to fight the battle. Hordes of archers bled their quivers dry, and drove back the first multi-horde attack with heavy losses on both sides. Not only did they buy me enough time to get my general out, and tear down anything that might be useful to the invaders’ military, but they also severely weakened the Sarmatians. The Vandals rushed in, and the two fought each other, making it impossible for them to concentrate on me. I surrounded the town above Athens with forts, sent spies north, and waited patiently.

While I waited, I concentrated on my Asian empire. I swatted down the last, pitiful Sassanid resistence in the mountains. I moved the Emperor to Alexandria, and made it a major military and religious fortress, surpassing what Constantinople had been. It would be my staging area for my later invasion of Africa. Christianity blossomed everywhere, and I swiftly became the richest and most advanced empire.

Finally, my fortune began to change once more. The Vandals moved south, but they were spred out, and were crushed one by one as their reinforcements got separated on the map. I pushed north with my old Danube forces, backed by new forces shipped in from Asia Minor. As I got closer to Constantinople, the weakened Samatians were thrown out of the city by a loyalist revolt in my favor! I couldn't believe it! :laugh4:

Before long, I had driven the hordes back north of the Danube, right into the waiting arms of the Goths, and re-established Constantinople as the center of my faction. The Empire had returned to the city, in triumph!

The three barbarian peoples battled each other, and turned the entire mess into an inescapable quagmire. Eventually, the Vandals and Goths settled down to avoid going extinct, starting a long, brutal war as neighbors that drained them both, so that I never even needed to bother crushing them. The Samatians somehow escaped into the West Empire, and set their home up far away from the true Romans of the East. Meanwhile, I seized control of all the sacked rebel provinces, regaining all my lost land and more, all the way to the Aegean Sea.

My Empire was whole once more, and stronger than it had ever been.

In rebuilding, the new governor of Constantinople gathered a huge retinue of sacred relics and sacred people and Christian conversion traits. I couldn’t believe this man’s ability to convert. He could turn a completely pagan city Christian in just three or four turns. I have no idea how I managed to make a character who specialized in that (building churches, monasteries, and libraries, I suppose), but he turned out to be a potent asset, later on. I tagged him as faction heir, knowing that having such a man with such powerful faith as Emperor would be useful.

From Alexandria, I sat out on my long-delayed quest to seize the land of the Berbers, and establish Roman dominance over Africa, when yet another reversal of fortune occurred. In spite of my rising fortunes and extremely generous donations to the Western Empire over the years, an arriving diplomat told me that they were breaking off their alliance with me, dividing the Empire! Outraged, I sent spies to learn more, and found out that, not only did the West not like me anymore, but that the Western Emperor was a Pagan! Christian persecution must have returned in the west.

Infuriated by this betrayal, I set to work reorganizing my forces into an army of the East. I drew from my army in the now-pacified Persian lands. I built my forces primarily around the idea that the West wouldn’t have experience fighting Eastern units. My new African army consisted of basic spearmen and cohorts, a first cohort, supporting a number of horse archers, Clibinarii, and Eastern archers, eastern mercenaries, and a set of onagers.

The war went very well: hardly surprising, since my army could crush just about anything. If the Berbers had ever caused trouble for the Westerners, I couldn’t see it. Most of the cities were defended by a few light infantry and cavalry, which my archers and heavy horsemen tore to pieces in moments. I exterminated the cities as revenge for the Westerners betrayal, and turned my eyes to the Berbers.

They had gathered a huge stack, short on archers, in a fort in the road on the edge of their territory. A mistake. Instead of blasting down the gate with my onagers, I waited a turn to build a ram and recruit a balista team. At the beginning of the battle, I deployed my many archers around the fort, and basically surrounded it. They had no place to run. As they hid behind their wall in fear of my cavalry, my archers and siege engines slaughtered the tightly packed fools like fish in a barrel. Hundreds died. By the time the ammunition ran dry, half more their force was dead, and the other was half essentially dying and completely demoralized. I rammed down the gate and massacred the broken survivors. After that, the Berbers fell quickly. I turned Tirigi into a fortress, to block any attempt to invade my empire from Iberia.

Africa was secure. To the East, there was nothing but sand. North of the Danube, the exhausted barbarians scurried to earn my favor, in a laughable attempt to get me to ally with them, turning the tide of their little war. Years of war and settling had bled dry their loot. They knew any army caught approaching the river would be slaughtered to the last man, and avoided my territory entirely. In Constantinople, the general, now Emperor of my faction, had almost become a saint; a one-man conversion team, and a potent weapon against the pagan Emperor of the West.

The time of the divided Empire was over. The time of the old gods was over. The Empire of old would be reunited, under my rule, under my church, rather they liked it or not.

My powerful navy gathered my scattered forces from Persia, Asia, Macedon, and Africa, and landed them in south Italy, under the command of the Saint, who was now the Emperor. Italy hadn’t been invaded in this manner since the early Republic, and it caught them completely by surprise. I occupied Tarentum after disposing of the token resistence, and the faithful, mostly Christian populace welcomed me with open arms. The rest of the population was swiftly converted by my Saint, and the next turn, I was told that Christianity was now the dominant faith in the world. My population had boomed, while the pagans and other barbarians in the north and west had slaughtered each other.

Two turns later, it was raining arrows in Rome. The surprised defenders fell in droves, and soon, my army marched into the center square and claimed the city, and the Empire. Rome’s advanced military infrastructure, combined with my other cities' income, allowed me to make my army even stronger. I swept over the rest of Italy, driving out the red Romans, converting the pagans, and winning both the war and the game in one fell swoop.

The Saint-Emperor died peacefully the very next turn, having lived just long enough to see the rise of the new Roman Empire. That seemed like a good place to stop.

Probably the best advice I can offer you is to use assass