Rome 2 Tips and un-/under-documented features

Things that might be obvious or explained in the prologue (which I skipped) but I only discovered after hours of play:

Tooltips - the panel to the left has tooltips if you mouse over most icons. When presented with three agents to hire, I didn't realize there was anything to differentiate them; then I discovered mousing over an icon on the info panel for each one showed me exactly what traits and associated bonuses they had. Same thing with armies: all active effects are shown when you mouse over the icons in the info panel.

Province Details tab - another easy to miss info panel, the Province Details tab shows you a breakdown of various effects influencing income, unrest, culture etc. along with projected values. Good stuff to know when planning builds.

afternoon chap.

700 - 1000 per turn is what I aim for. Not Romans because they start with loads of towns but with Iceni and sparta (starting with just 1) I tried to spend down to 1000per turn then go killing when I hit that mark. This seems to keep in good stead until I was up and running with trade agreements and a few provinces when Iit was more like 2kp/t just because I had x4 the income and only needed x2 the men to keep on trucking

I haven't had gravitas issues yet, you can't control the first ones you get so don't sweat it. I would like to know the answer to this too, I have asked for definitive answer but not found anything yet. From playing I have the following assumptions but would like them verifying

1 - leaving you faction leader in the pool seems to give decent + gravitas return
2 - having family member go killing in your main army means levels and + gravitas
3 - doing the same as 2 with other families isn't a great idea
4 - not using any other families is a non starter - they get grumpy and it gives you a -gravita penalty

So how I am rolling at the moment:
youngest family member is main general going out getting levels
trying to put competing family members in small homebound reserve forces so they are in armies but not fighting
recruiting young generals to go fighting and adopting them when they are up and running and have 3 traits

You can load armies onto fleets like in previous games. (you may need a large enough fleet, but you don't need a one-to-one army/navy unit ratio)
Saves you the trouble of moving the fleet and the transports separately.
In a naval battle the transports show up as reinforcements.

Naval artillery is great for taking out walls in those coastal provincial capitals.
I loaded my army onto a fleet and had lots of fun taking Alexandria.

Up to date additions to under documented things

1 - when you take a town the garison slowly builds up over 4-5 turns, highlight the picture of a castle under the relevent town in the province screen and it will say (plebs 80/160) etc. If there are enemies around you may want to sit in a city for a turn or 3.
2 - Naval battles are a joke - essentially ramming wins - 3 small 67p/t upkeep ships will kill 1 267p/t assult legionaires ship, you will lose whichever they board but 2-3 rams and its dead
3 - weak AI factions will try and defensive ally you - make sure you look at their enemies before you accept!
4 - when you caharcter fails but hinders the enemy agent it means they lose their next turn
5 - still struggling to find a decent use for dignataries other than helping convert population - they seem to suck
6 - noob error - I had 0 happiness per turn so didn't upgrade towns.... It was 0 because i was at +100 total and it doesn't show the +10 per turn once you get to +100. lost a lot of turns from that

Rome units wise
war dogs are amazing vs ai and cheap unkeep - they will slaughter any unarmoured unit which is always what they lead with - big battle last night (20 vs 20 I had 0 cav and he had 4 heavy cav + general) I had 2 dogs units kill over 300 slingers and pull all kinds of units out of the line vs gauls

Gladiators - I have new found love for the swordsmen - same battle last night I had a couple of units as a hangover from an emergency recruit from earler in the game

Javelins Javelins
dogs dogs dogs
spears legion legion legion spears
glads and couple of balista

as soon as I realised AI was holding cav back for flanks and back and I was facing a melee line the 2 units of gladiators ran through the legions and took a unit each... then another each and still had 50% left when I won

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by benjywa

5 - still struggling to find a decent use for dignataries other than helping convert population - they seem to suck

---

Here are their bonuses excluding traits, and typical manipulate , assassinate, demoralize stuff:

I'll break it down. All % or +/- will be at rank 3 (highest rank).

Deployed in your territory

• Cultural Conversion +9 / +18 (2 different skills one in the authority tree, the other in zeal. This also works in enemy territories)
• +15% tax rate to local province (When Deployed)

In your army

• -18 % Upkeep Cost on Military
• +18 % Movement Range
• They also give you a little defense versus enemy agents

Deployed in the enemy territory

• -15 % Tax Rate
• + 90% public order penalty due to local presence of foreign authority
• - 30% Wealth from all commerce buildings
  

My most common use is to deploy them in my highest grossing provinces for the extra tax. They usually end up with traits that will give bonuses to public order. After that, I usually go for evading enemy agents, and assassination since it's built into the "Politics" talent.


Edit: Also a cool thing I don't see mentioned yet. By way of manipulation you can have more than the maximum allowed agents. Dignitaries are the "Masters of Manipulation" and sort of the anti-champion. Other factions agents will also sometimes have specific bonuses that come from their faction.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Spoonska

Here are their bonuses excluding traits, and typical manipulate , assassinate, demoralize stuff:

I'll break it down. All % or +/- will be at rank 3 (highest rank).

Deployed in your territory

• Cultural Conversion +9 / +18 (2 different skills one in the authority tree, the other in zeal. This also works in enemy territories)
• +15% tax rate to local province (When Deployed)

In your army

• -18 % Upkeep Cost on Military
• +18 % Movement Range
• They also give you a little defense versus enemy agents

Deployed in the enemy territory

• -15 % Tax Rate
• + 90% public order penalty due to local presence of foreign authority
• - 30% Wealth from all commerce buildings
  

My most common use is to deploy them in my highest grossing provinces for the extra tax. They usually end up with traits that will give bonuses to public order. After that, I usually go for evading enemy agents, and assassination since it's built into the "Politics" talent.

---

they can also persuade an enemy agent to your side. You can actually exceed the agent number limits.
I have 4 military agents but my limit is 3.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by phred

they can also persuade an enemy agent to your side. You can actually exceed the agent number limits.
I have 4 military agents but my limit is 3.

---

I was wondering whether or not that was the case, cuz I haven't been able to do it when I'm at the limit even when my chance of success is 80%+. Thanks for clearing it up.

I also wanna mention that when you Loot a captured settlement, as opposed to Occupy or Raze, the slave populations in your provinces increases by as much as 30%. Since I don't see population totals tracked anywhere in-game this may have to do with population surplus? Not sure what affects this. It is mentioned in the Encyclopaedia, but no details as to specifics.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I was wondering whether or not that was the case, cuz I haven't been able to do it when I'm at the limit even when my chance of success is 80%+. Thanks for clearing it up.

---

If I have the same odds for assassinating and persuading, I feel as though I have a much better chance to succeed with the assassination than persuade them to join my side.
But that's purely anecdotal - I haven't tried tracking actual occurrences.

Usually which one do you use more? From the info above and from my previous experience it seems assassinating is usually the preferred method.

I like converting them. I only ever assassinate faction members.

Also on the point of dignitaries sucking... yeah there's a little too much they are able to do and be helpful with for them deserve to be called sucking =P They can help with public order, conversion, tax rate and that's only the sort of things they can do at home =P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

Usually which one do you use more? From the info above and from my previous experience it seems assassinating is usually the preferred method.

---

As for myself, under normal conditions I'd prefer assassination cuz if successful that stops the AI from deploying an agent on another mission for at least 2 turns (since they can't be deployed when recruited), and when they do of course it'll be minus any abilities their previous agent managed to acquire. However, persuading them to your cause is really useful, especially in the early game, since you only have a single spy to work with. I've never been able to pull that off though even when the chances are high :confused:

There's also the consideration that if an agent is susceptible to persuasion once, they might be vulnerable to it again when working for you. Can a rat ever be trusted?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

Usually which one do you use more? From the info above and from my previous experience it seems assassinating is usually the preferred method.

---

I tried persuading and it often didn't work, and then just switched to assassination, which "seems" to work more. But assassination often just wounds someone and takes them off the map for a short period, so I could just be imagining more successes with assassination.
I think it was just last night or the night before that I tried persuading on a whim and it gave me military adviser over my limit.

Has anyone been using the agents to start rebellions?
There are a couple of regions I'd like to take without starting another war.
It was a bit overpowered in Shogun II (but fun).

RoTS agents were worth several elite armies if they're leveled up. (A bit weaker in Sengoku but still powerful somewhat)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by phred

Has anyone been using the agents to start rebellions?

---

Yes, constantly. I use the spy's that don't start off with wealth bonuses to rough up nearby enemies, and territories. Fully talented a spy will drop public order by 60 I think ? You will get negative diplomacy for agent actions against the nation, but I've never seen the penalty go past 15. Once the revolt happens its a bit of a coin toss if it will work out. On the first turn of a revolt they will only have 1 unit the General. Every turn after that they slowly start to build. Sometimes the AI will will act and snuff it out, sometimes the AI doesn't have an army in sight and it works out. Then you're okay to steam roll it. A good example of a place to use this is during a Sparta Campaign since going to war with Athens might not be something you want to do for your province capital.


And also to tack on to this tip.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by phred

they can also persuade an enemy agent to your side. You can actually exceed the agent number limits.
I have 4 military agents but my limit is 3.

---

Enemy agents sometimes have faction (maybe culture) bonuses that are unique to them. There's one of the celtic tribes (I think) that will give you increased charge bonus from a champion. When you convert them you get that unique bonus not. Not forever though , just as long as that agent is alive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by phred

...Has anyone been using the agents to start rebellions?
There are a couple of regions I'd like to take without starting another war...

---

I was working on this very thing when my best agent kicked it from old age. Now I gotta work with a couple of rookies, I'll report if it goes well. There's a huge flashpoint brewing in my campaign that would literally draw 5 factions into war... and I'd like to engineer it :sneaky:

I do not know if other factions have access to these buildings, but at least as Rome there's one of the aqueduct line that gives extra agent levels to all agents recruited in the city. At the moment I have two of them in different regions, and those cities are where I get all my agents now. As it stands I'm getting rank 3 agents out of the gate, and in the campaign I'm closing in on being able to recruit rank 4 spies and dignitaries with rank 5 champions (I built the Colosseum).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quillan

I built the Colosseum.

---

Good man.

I haven't used agents to make rebellions yet, or let's say I tried but didn't see any results. I was sort of trying to do it like in Shogun, where you make rebellions and then go in with your army to take regions without officially declaring a war but so far, that has not worked for me yet. I did go and conquer a few towns where I tried to make a rebellion before and suddenly had them rebel while I was there, which was a little amusing. It made my conquest of Italy a little more exciting, since the rebels put up more of a fight than the Romans >_>

Is it still possible to "stun lock" your neighbours with agent actions?
In S2 you could render opponents powerless with a combination of sabotage and "sales" of access.

Does the research upgrade from temples of minerva and libraries only count once or do the bonuses add up when more are built? Sorry if this is in the wrong area, haven't seen it addressed yet. Thanks.

Does the research upgrade from temples of minerva and libraries only count once or do the bonuses add up when more are built? Sorry if this is in the wrong area, haven't seen it addressed yet. Thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VAE VICTUS

Does the research upgrade from temples of minerva and libraries only count once or do the bonuses add up when more are built? Sorry if this is in the wrong area, haven't seen it addressed yet. Thanks.

---

They add. You can't have more than one in the same city, but you can build multiples in different cities/provinces, and the bonuses all add together. I think I'm about 176% research speed currently (two scriptorums, one archive, several Minerva shrines and one or two bonus traits).

An interesting read on what the parameters for difficulty setting are:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...pdated-9-11-13

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny

Is it still possible to "stun lock" your neighbours with agent actions?
In S2 you could render opponents powerless with a combination of sabotage and "sales" of access.

---

I could stunlock enemy stacsk with my awesome ninja, I remmeber that. But it wa sexpensive and SII's economy isn't designed to spiral out of control. In Rome II money is not such a big issue so one could probably stalemate the enmy with such action. Plus, there is a limit to the number armies a faction gets, so it's entirely possible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

An interesting read on what the parameters for difficulty setting are:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...pdated-9-11-13

---

Good stuff, thx for link. Kinda surprising to me, the differences between difficulty levels are apparently quite mild, and in secondary areas. Impacts agent actions more than anything else. Doesn't seem to affect one's own economy very much. The AI factions obviously get some pretty good bonuses on higher difficulty levels, particularly in allowing the build of more (or rather, larger) armies...but then the AI is so wonky in using those armies, it's not a big deal. What the heck, I might try Legendary for my next campaign.

People have said 'put Champion in your main armies' but not why: Its because the Champion will train your troops, can be a level or two per turn -> quickly makes that army a powerful veteran force.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hoom

People have said 'put Champion in your main armies' but not why: Its because the Champion will train your troops, can be a level or two per turn -> quickly makes that army a powerful veteran force.

---

Just to echo this point, putting a champion in my main force brought everyone up to 3 gold chevrons very quickly. Seems kinda cheap to me, but oh well.

Also, the champion unit itself will level up and you can take a skill that improves movement points WHILE he trains your army.

Saw this in the loading text today:
You can set "flag-points" (don't remember what they actually called it) on the campaign map with shift+ F9-F12. After that you can jump to those points using the appropriate F-key. You can not delete these points but you can overwrite them.

Don't know if this is something new but I never knew this...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FesterShinetop

Saw this in the loading text today:
You can set "flag-points" (don't remember what they actually called it) on the campaign map with shift+ F9-F12. After that you can jump to those points using the appropriate F-key. You can not delete these points but you can overwrite them.

Don't know if this is something new but I never knew this...

---

It was in Shogun 2. I learned it the same way there, from a tip on a loading screen.