Roman: Scipii

[katank]

@crazybastard, are those Libyans experienced?

On H/H, if you use siege towers, principes can take on Libyans without much problem at all. Make sure you keep a steady stream of units up the tower though.

[crazybastard]

those libeyan spearmen were in fact three or two bronze chevroned, and I guess spearmen have an advantage combating on walls.

[Garvanko]

Playing on H/H as Scipii, I realized several things.

First, that the chance of SPQR electing one of your family member to be part of their little circle of power in Rome is microscopic. So far only my heir has been elected as the lowest rank (Praetor or something concerning $) and is kicked off the next year, only to be replaced by the Brutii.

Second, equites are pretty useless against long shield cavalry

Equites are pretty useless against anything IMO.

As for the senate offices list, I held all the offices except Consul a couple of turns back last night. As long as you keep you faction leader and key generals conquering...

[katank]

Spearmen have no advantage on walls. Their superior experience is the thing. Also, you may not be streaming guys up steadily. Your troops need many buddies coming up behind to not panic.

Defenders always has a slight advantage on the walls just from attrition due to towers on approach, fatigue, and also that even siege towers doesn't necessarily deliver the whole unit at once.

[Deus ret.]

Equites are pretty useless against anything IMO.

don't underestimate them. Historically, Romans were a very infantry-heavy faction, as were the Greeks; now compare Equites to Greek cavalry (which is one level higher) and I bet you're lucky to have them. Of course, their usefulness is rather limited, but then again wait for the post-Marian units.... awesome. and extremely unrealistic.

[katank]

Not true. Equites are quite overpowered for the Romans. They already have killer infantry and equites aren't much worse than longshields in stats.

They can eat greek cav and roundshields. Romans should not have access to such good cavalry. Realistically, the Roman cav should be their native heavies with something like Gothic cav mercs available at very steep price.

[nameless]

Not true. Equites are quite overpowered for the Romans. They already have killer infantry and equites aren't much worse than longshields in stats.

They can eat greek cav and roundshields. Romans should not have access to such good cavalry. Realistically, the Roman cav should be their native heavies with something like Gothic cav mercs available at very steep price.

Unfortunately the Romans need some sort of calvary unit in the game. Roman Legions are good but their not that good, they need help when it comes to dealing with phalanx units and calvary/chariots. THey don't have anything else that can run after fast units(Arcanis are expensive and long to make) Spartans and Sacred bands can still beat back legions themselves. One time I had 4 Hastati encircling a Spartan unit and they lost alot of men despite circiling them.

Though regardless of the situation I always keep a good number of calvary anyways. They basically determine the outcome of most of my battles.

On M/M in my Scipii campaign I found myself a little overstretched with Corinth, Carthage, Thapsus, Scilli island, Athens, and Sparta and Crete in the first part of the game. Not sure if this has been noted but is it a good idea if you have infantry set to loose formation when dealing with calvary, chariots and elephants? I tried javeliners at times but it just doesn't work, chariots move way too fast for the javeliners to track and elephants just rampage through them. I'm beginning to think Fire/Archers are the only way and maybe wardogs and pigs.

I think the romans should've been given a unit that can lay down obstacles that ruin chariots, at least that's what I heard they did back then.

[crazybastard]

nameless, force attack your infantries (alt+right click) on the chariots and elephants w/ at least groups of three of four principii (or cohorts at a later game) and cross your fingers and pray. Or bring your best general behind your infantries and they wouldn't rout that easily.

[Deus ret.]

to let units fight in loose formation usually is not too good an idea. Ok, they cover more area and the immediate losses particularly vs. elephants are lesser, but units fighting in loose formation get a morale penalty. This penalty, although slight, undermines what most units are made for: hold their position and kill as many as they can before they die themselves or rout. If they rout, which they will do more likely on loose, only they (and not the enemy) will suffer more casualties.
Additionally, the chances of killing those elephants are better if the beasts are forced to run into a thick wall of, well, preferably spears. Against chariots try everything to keep your formation together; they will whoop it up anyway but if your men stay close they will most likely win through.

[nameless]

Wow imagine playing on ARCADE MODE

Speaking of which, are Mirmillo gladiators actually stronger than Samnite gladiators? Last I checked the Samnite has 14/14 while the Mimillo has 12/14, is there something I'm missing?

[Craterus]

Samnite (Julii) - 14 attack, 14 defence
Velite (Brutii) - 12 attack, 14 defence
Mirmillo (Scipii) - 12 attack, 14 defence

In conclusion, Samnites are better, unless they have a worse charge bonus? I don't know all the particulars.

[katank]

@craterus, the mirmillos are fast. The velites are just most accessible on the tech tree.

Grouping units and packing em tight is optimal. Stop the charge cold and you have pretty much killed the chariots/elephants.

Use all your pila. Velites are nice. Just mass em.

[nameless]

When you meant fast do you mean like they run fast or they have a faster attack rate?

Velites have a bonus against calvary units though so their good spearmen, better than the typical roman spearmen but I would still go for the Auxilla, better than nothing.

Another goody thing about the Scipii are that they have those special boats which come with Neptune, man when you look at it the Scipii are probably the strongest out of all the roman factions. Julii is like the third.

EDIT: I just checked out the stats for the Mirmillo and Samnite

Samnite 14/14
Charge Bonus - 4

Mirmillo 12/14
Charge Bonus - 7

This makes the Mirmillo's attack 1 point higher if both charge.

Not sure if this is correct but do please correct this if its wrong and if there's anything else to add.

So the tip of the day guys who play as Scipii is make sure your Mirmillo's charge to get their butt kicking skills in place.

[Deus ret.]

"fast" usually refers to a unit's movement speed on the battle map.

if I'm not making a mistake myself, velites get a bonus against only one type of horses... those pulling a chariot. And elephants of course. Ever tried taking a heavy cavalry charge w/ velites? I bet you wouldn't have many of them left afterwards. Seriously, what reasonable way would there be to kill them if they had a bonus against your cavalry, which is most likely to catch them?

Apart from that, your observations are correct. Gladiators are great units if you don't wait too long to build them.

[katank]

They are fast in movement on battle map. Thus, better for flanking.

Velite glads don't have bonus vs. cav and their small unit size gets them killed against a cav charge in the open.

However, gladiators in woods are quite able to slaughter waves of cav.

[nameless]

173 BC on my campaign, my empire streches from the North of Spain, the last spanish city as a protectorate, to the southern borders of Africa and all of the islands through Egypt right in front of Antioch. The Julii have conquered Northern Europe with the Brutii from Thermon (I had Athens to Sparta), all the way into Scythia terrority. Fortunately the Brutii have suffered several gladiator revolts which the sentate sent me to take out and have captured a few of their cities.

I'm hoping the Julii will move into England and the Brutii will continue expanding until they reach Armenia. I have the Selecuids, Pontus, and the Parthians to deal with which I haven't yet due to their alliance with Spain.

I'm hoping that the civil war will start once only the SPQR, Julii, and Brutii are left standing. Another thing to note is that the Brutii's standing with the Senate is REALLY down, like 1 point(I'm highly favoured by the Sentate since I've been doing their dirty work...for now), can they get outlawed by the senate?

[Jason]

Ah the scipii...

I have to say Im enjoying this faction a good bit at the moment. I am playing on VH/H and normal sized units I believe (though dont quote me on that).

I didnt have any particularly amazing strategy but it has turned out to be a very interesting game so far. I was, of course, told by the senate to attack saracuse right off the bat. I left a family member in Capua to keep an eye on things and sent everyone else off to sicily. They arrived on the second turn and joined the army which I then sent off to sit on the greek border for a turn, the concept being to see if one of the other two would do something stupid The greeks sent a small army to the carthaginian border and to my surprise the carthginians took thier army off of sicily entirely when I got trade rights from them. So I sent in my spy to saracuse and the army followed right after only to have him open the gates for me. So I charged right in and took the city and then exterminated the population. I of course started building temple of vulcan in all of my towns and preparing for the thrust into Lilybaum. I scouted the area carefully a few turns before and learned a valuable lesson about recon. ALWAYS DO IT! Because I found a sizable carthaginian army in ambush. However once again I waited a few turns and the army went away So I attacked Lilybaum, put it to seige and on the next turn took it enslaving the population. I then made peace with both the greeks and carthage and aquired trade rights and sat back to grow some armies.

The senate kept trying to get me to go blockade carthage but I ignored all of these silly ideas. I built an army and sent with it a few generals and landed the army on the coast of Sparta. My timing was once again perfect (though I would expect nothing less ) and the Greek army in sparta has just gone and lain seige to Corinth. On that same turn the macedonians sallied forth from Corinth and spanked the Greek army hard elimiating the only threat to my seige of Sparta. So I attacked Sparta which was only defended by a single unit of Spartan hopolites. I took down the gate and ran through the city to the city center where the Spartan Hopolites were and I let my archers have at them for a little while. I admit that I played the AI for a fool here much to my everlasting shame as I brought up my calvary from the other end of the plaza and had them set foot in the plaza every time the hopolites approached my archers thus turning the hopolites around to go after my calvary. As soon as they were close enough I would then have my calvary step out of the plaza and the hopolites would then start the long trek back to my archers. All of this however was simply a stalling tactic till my hastati could get there. When they did I simply lined them up on either side of plaza and had the calvary set foot in the plaza once more and set my hastati on 'fire at will' mode. Sure enough the AI told the Spartans to march straight for my calvary between the lines of hastati who then used thier pila to exterminate them. The Spartans died with out causing me a single casulty. I occupied the city of Sparta and began setting about making it my primary troop producing city in Greece.

The Greeks however were not done and managed to capture Corith which I quickly took away from thier belugred forces. Alas the city was infested with plauge. The first son of my original faction heir died sonless of old age and the second and last son died of the plauge before he could even marry finishing off a whole section of my family tree. I allied myself with the Macaedonians who then obliged me by taking thier armies to go fight the remaining Greeks in Thermon and eventually the Brutii. For thier troubles they lost Athens but eventually agreed to a ceasefire and trade rights helping my coffers out a good deal. The Greeks after being pushed out of Thermon no longer had a foot hold on southern greece but randomly managed to drop a full stack of armored hopolites with a general and archer support near Corinth. The stack was full of units that all had 3 chevrons of xp or more and almost all of them had bronze armor and weapons. I quickly raised an army of my own partially from the front lines and partially from the city garrisons and stood in front of them waiting for them to attack. The did not but rather moved back into the penisula to the south of the isthmus and waited. I pushed foward into thier red zone and again waited for them to attack. After four turns, and the coming and going fo a fleet twice, it became apparent that they were not going to attack but neither were they going to leave. So I was forced to attack them. Unfortunatly my army only conisted of my general, 3 equites, 10 pricipes, 2 hastati, and 4 archers. However the units all had at least one chevron of xp and most have 3 bronze with a few scattered silvers. They also had silver weapons (except the archers who were gold, yay temple of artemis! ) and bronze armor. I played this battle a bit different and I think it bears repeating here because of how much fun it was

I made a line of my calvary in the center and put my archers out in front of them. Then I made two long lines of the pricipes and the hastati on either side of the Greek line almost but not quite perpendicular to the Greeks in the hopes of drawing them into breaking thier wall of hopolite spears. The AI being a bit smarter than the last time saw no reason to break a perfectly good line of spears and held his ground. So I began to slide my units up along his flanks to encompass his line and moved my archers into range and put my calvary right behind them. The archers were, as expected virtually useless shooting armored hopolites from the front. However soon the AI realized that exposing his flanks to my infantry was an untennable postion and broke his line into 3 smaller ones to face my three lines. Each line had about 5 or 6 hopolites and turned to face my lines respectively. What ensued was the biggest game of cat and mouse I have ever played. I used the speed and mobilty of the legions to out manuver and pick off the hopolite units one by one. It was by no means a simple task however. I started by taking my infantry lines and breaking them up even further. I had six infantry in each line and the two on the left broke away and tried to run around the flank as did the two on the right, while the two in the center feignted toward the spear heads and then dropped back without engaging, just to see what the hopolites would do. And sure enough true to form the units broke up and began to chase the seperate units. From then on it was just a matter of out mauvering the hopolites and managing to smash 3 or 4 units into the flanks and rear of one hopolite to make them route and going back to manuvering around the others. I assisted the left flank of the battlefield with my calvary who were playing a similar game with thier line of hopolites only they were not actually engaging the line as equites get eatin alive in a slugging match with heavy infantry. Meanwhile the archers had skirmished away from the enemy line and were simply standing there pounding on anything in range. The right flank was complicated somewhat by the fact that the Greek general and the archers were conentrated here. The general found though that his charge got stopped by my pricipes and they did not route so he was eventually slain on his third charge into my troops. This did make manuvering harder and my infantry on that flank suffered as I manged to get a couple of units pinned on hopolite spears once or twice. I simply smashed the flanks and rears of the hopolites and they soon let go of my belgured units. The enemy archers were the last to route as I left them till I had the hopolites on the run. Soon they were all routed and pushed into the sea. This was by far one of the most fun battles I have played in this game yet.

Back to the campain... I built up a silver armored silver weaponed army in sicly and took Carthage and Thaspus and crippled the Carthaginians. I then lowered the taxes and made as many growth related buildings in Capua as I could to induce growth and make a race for an imperial palace and hopefully the Marian reforms. I have also torn down the temple of Vulcan in Saracuse and have put in temples of Neptune for those glorious ships. I have made the temple of law (I forget the god's name) in the Carthaginain cities because... well they need it, badly. I am however somewhat troubled as I dont have enough governers for my cities. I have heard of a tactic of 'farming' generals but I dont know how to do it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My plan after this is to expand further into greece and from there I am undecided. Once the reforms kick in I should have no trouble with just about anyone out there and I will continue on to my goal of covering the whole world in scippian blue

Jason the Newb

[Deus ret.]

you don't need governors in every settlement. In fact, putting a family member on the dead track as governor of a minor provincial town will greatly contribute to his degeneration, provided he remains there. use them strategically, e.g. to calm down a newly captured larger town for a while with his shining influence or the like.

having less governors also means more heavy cavalry to throw into battle...even if they are of no use for anything, they make formidable units.

anyway, if you need more family members, go and fight some decent battles with captain-led armies. Go for heroic victories if possible and watch your captains become "men of the hour" and thus a worthy addition to your family. If they suit you and are not too old, adopt them. note, though, that his new brothers might not be too glad to have another competitor for father's heritage (or the faction throne), and develop bad traits (see the character development guide for that).

sometimes a message will propose you a "suitable candidate for adoption". this generally happens when your number of family members is rather low, so don't rely on that.

[pezhetairoi]

Me, the only time there are governors in my settlement is when a new factioner comes of age in my capital, or when I've jsut conquered it with a general-led army. Otherwise, I've always been able to pacify them with a generous building programme of law and order and a generous dose of Town Watch/Militia/Barbarian Peasants/Eastern Infantry.

[Jason]

The only reason I like to keep governers in all my cities is that the AI managment scheme tends to drive me into debt for some reason. They use up all the money on every turn (not really a bad thing when it comes to building buildings) and then build army units (usually ones I dont really need) until my budget cant support any more. This doesnt really stop me from doing as I like but it is really an annoyance. And of course the slider that tells the AI not to spend anything doesnt seem to work

Jason the Newb

[Franconicus]

Jason, you can manage all your cities all by yourself w/o governer there. You have to mark it when you start a campaign.
Use this option. It is a lot of work but it pays!

[Jason]

Jason, you can manage all your cities all by yourself w/o governer there. You have to mark it when you start a campaign.
Use this option. It is a lot of work but it pays!

All of the sudden I feel really stupid....

Of course being a profesional Newb I know this feeling very very well

Thanks Franconicus, I will do this on my next campain. In the mean time I will do my best to salvage this one because... well Im just a glutton for punishment

Jason the Newb

[pezhetairoi]

Managing all your cities on your own is crucial. I manage all my settlements myself, so in my campaign record notebooks I actually can plan development schedules for individual cities, ensuring construction crews are kept busy every turn. You should do the same. It's a lot of work writing down every building and units commissioned and completed, but it's enabled me to raise full-stacks of good troops in minimum time, and keep my cities developing nonstop.

[Jason]

Yes managing your cities is very important which is why I always had goveners in each one until the mighty Franconicus showed me the error of my ways.

At this point I am doing what I like to call 'regional development' rather then the far more impressive and complicated empire planning you do Pezhetairoi. I pick a fast growing (or already largely upgraded) city in a particular region and I give it the works. For the scipii this is the temple of vulcan (or neptune depending on the situation, sometimes I even switch over if the regional production center is far enough behind the lines) and all the blacksmith lines and anything else that can improve my units. This then becomes the city that produces all my units for the area.

Ex. Saracyuse is my regional production center for Sicily. It has a temple of vulcan and all the upgrades and I take population off the top of other cities and ship them to Saracyuse so it will grow faster. This city is always getting first priority in the area. Saracyuse is the production center for the entire area of Sicily and for my invasion of Carthage. However once the city of Carthage is taken *it* becomes my regional production center for that section of the front and Saracyuse gets the temple of neptune for ship production (which also get all the benefits that the land troops got minus the temple of vulcan).

All the other cities in the area only get what is needed to keep them relatively happy. Greece however is an odd setup as I have a production line of cities rather than one regional production center. When I captured sparta it had a large temple of Nike, which I left for the valor it gives the troops that are produced there. The missle troops are produced in Corinth with the captured temple of artemis that gives them gold ammo. Then everyone heads up to Athens where I have the temple of Vulcan and everyone gets the weapon and armor upgrades. Its a long drawn out process but the troops you get as a result are almost all 3 valor, silver weaponed (except the missles which are gold), silver armored troops who can lay the beat down on just about anyone

What amazes me is how much money everyone seems to have all the time. Perhaps Im just doing something wrong but the AI never seems to want to buy anything have to offer. The only way I get large 'donations' from other factions is senate missions, exteriminating cities, and if I make them pay large tributes for a ceasefire. How do you guys come up with all that money?

I also run by the general rule of thumb about armies and thier costs. I have worked it out that a generally balanced army (1 general, 3 archers, 2 veleties, 2 triarii, 3 equites, 8 pricipes and 1 onager) cost roughly 4.5k (pre-marian) to recruit and about 3k to upkeep (12k to recruit a similar make up post-marian and about 4k to upkeep). Using that general rule of thumb its easy to see when you can afford another army. When I double that amount of income I usually put together another army and send them out to harass my enemies. Those numbers do not include the upgrade costs of course but those are one time charges (and I dont have any numbers on them) so I dont really count them.

Jason the Newb

[gardibolt]

What's a good way to take on the Numidians? I just got slaughtered by a near-full-stack of their missile cavalry without even giving them a scratch. They're led by a family member so bribing isn't an option.

[Jason]

Only solution Ive found to numidian calvary and horse archers are your Roman Archers or Archer Auxillia (or cretian archers if you have them). They have a longer range and the hourses make good targets for your archers.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

In my scipii campeign i sent a useless, well insane, family memeber and a couple of units of hastati to invade the crimea, where they send back a nice stream of horse archers and samatian cavalry

Welll atm they are all helping out my invasion of pontus, but you can get a stack over to numidia and give them a taste of their own medicine

[Garvanko]

I tend to concentrate on regional development too.

[Deus ret.]

What amazes me is how much money everyone seems to have all the time. Perhaps Im just doing something wrong but the AI never seems to want to buy anything have to offer. The only way I get large 'donations' from other factions is senate missions, exteriminating cities, and if I make them pay large tributes for a ceasefire. How do you guys come up with all that money?
Jason the Newb

well, in the first place it's about consequently building and upgrading your trade buildings. Not only trader, market etc., but also better roads for land trade and (more importantly) ports for sea trade, your real cashcow. The rule of thumb is: the closer two ports are, the higher the amount of trade between them will be. This is why areas with separated provinces, i.e. islands, usually are extremely profitable. E.g. the strait between Lilybaeum and Carthage is able to generate a nice amount of trade. Capturing Rhodes will give you a nice wonder for sea trade.
Concentrate on the construction of these buildings in a good part of your cities, and as long as you have overseas trade routes, your finances will flourish. Also make sure to get trade agreements with whomever you are not at war with, it will increase trad considerably as long as your main trade lines are not running within your empire.
Of course, it also depends on your general spending policy, but I don't think you're keeping excess garrisons which considerably feed on your income.
For a more in-depth analysis of economics, see Secion VI of Frogbeastegg's Guide here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38382
good hunt

[Rome:Total Slayer]

a usful tip on defeating elephants in a large city.
Use your far supirior infantry to capture the gate. Then batter it down us a group of fast, cheap infantry to run in and get the all to eager elephants to follow you back though the gate (which is now yours) and boiling oil will finish them off. Yes its not the quickist way but it is enteraining ang reletively cheap for a new aspiring empire.