Roman: Brutii

[katank]

I personally let my old armies die out fighting. No point to disbanding as that is as if I'm giving the enemy free kills. Frequently, I'm in the middle of military expeditions. Better to keep up the pressure with the old troops and maintain the tempo rather than wait for new troops to be brought up if they don't have to be.

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

I need a gudie for Spqr 3.0 for brutti?Healp?

[pyhhricvictory]

The same thing happened to me that happened to Oshidashi. I had taken Sparta, Corinth and Athens in Greece as well as Pergamum, Sardis and Halicanarsus. I get outlawed the next turn, so do the Julies and the Skippers. The Senate will take my alliance but will then immediately outlaw me again the same turn. I have no idea what happened.

[Craterus]

I think it would be funny if the 3 slaves of the senate (Julii, Brutii and Scipii) jsut eventually got so annoyed with their bossiness and destroyed them. Then there would be a battle for Rome. I tihnk Brutii or Scipii would win it.

[pezhetairoi]

Hey? why not the julii? Go Redskirts! *is a Julii fan*

[Craterus]

They don't expand so much, Scipii plow into Africa and get Carthage..
Brutii plow into Greece and Macedon and get good amount of meney from there..
Julii's advantage is that they have themost cities in the Roman peninsular and therefore troops almost immediately.. Scipii have only Capua but they have Sicily before long but that would still take time to move the troops across..

Brutii would have to march troops north from southern italy..

blah blah blah etc.

[pezhetairoi]

Ho hum... that may not be true, I found Julii in all sorts of weird places, like right now in the Scythian campaign Corinth and Sparta are red... O_o And in my Brutii campaign Western Dacia was red O_o and that's in addition to the usual suspects of Osca, Narbo Martius and Caralis.

[katank]

Scipii actually frequently fail at uniting Sicily and can be stuck with just Messena and Capua, then getting their army decimated by the eruption at Etna, making them quite weak.

The Brutii eventually crunches through all of Greece though it takes them a long time and are usually one of the strongest Roman factions.

With Julii, it can also be hit and miss but they are guaranteed northern Italy and Caralis most of the time.

In one of my Brutii games, they have those territories and then Condate Redonum, the Britanny area, must have bribed it. They do go weird places.

As for show down, my bet for the AI is on Brutii if they mobilize well. Else, it's Julii.

[Craterus]

In the leate part of my game, the Julii own all of France and are about to expand into Germania then Britain..

They were the last to stat expanding and yet they own the most land, followed by Brutii then Scipii..

[pezhetairoi]

It's just the AI's infantry rush at the beginning of the campaign...standard AI tactics, that. Once you break the initial tidal wave of warbands you're clear all the way to the English Channel.

[Rome's Total Ruler]

I conquered Apollonia and Thermon immediatly, then the senate gave me a mission to take over Salona, Patavium and Mediolanium. After I`ve cut of the Julii, they wanted me to conquer Athens, I did everything as they said, exept Patavium the first time, because I saw the Gaul having huge armies, so I 've build a 20 units army, that took a little long, but the next mission i've got was to conquer patavium, two times the same mission in a row.

Now, the Gaul constantly offer a ceasefire in trade for Patavium, I ignore every time.
The port of Athens is constantly blocked by Greek fleets. Every time I destroy the fleet, they come and desroy my fleet again. Now i'm building up my army to conquer first Sparta and then Corinth. I've got an alliance with the macedons from the beginning and they still never attacked me.

The greek keep annoying me with there port blocking of Athens and there attacks from sparta. I hope my army holds it against Sparta.

[pezhetairoi]

Ignore their blockades, take Sparta, then find some way to take down their provinces, hunt-and-destroy style. I used to do that as Germania versus the Roman factions. The Scipii were taken down even though they fled to Dimmidi. AFTER that, I turned my attention to the other factions. But not before.

[katank]

Blockades do little to truly hurt you. I've yet to seen AI blockades tight enough to choke off a significant portion of your income and also prevent your troop transporting.

The fact that they are spending so much on their navy means they dont' have much of an army. So sack their cities and soon they will be rebel fleets which are far easier to deal with.

[Craterus]

I have a decent Thracian fleet blockading my capital, my moneymaker, that crippled my economy and that's put me in serious debt, completely halting my advance into their territory. It was pretty effective.

[pezhetairoi]

Blockades do little to truly hurt you. I've yet to seen AI blockades tight enough to choke off a significant portion of your income and also prevent your troop transporting.

The fact that they are spending so much on their navy means they dont' have much of an army. So sack their cities and soon they will be rebel fleets which are far easier to deal with.

You don't HAVE to deal with rebel fleets. ;-)

To Craterus: Hmm, is the size of the blockading fleet commensurate with your income drop?

[Franconicus]

Why does he not have to deal with rebel fleets (I call them pirates)? I just had to attack one that blocked one of my harbors.

[Rome's Total Ruler]

My problem with the greek is solved, Athens grew, so I built some Quinquiremes and together with some old fleets I kicked them out of my harbors.

And I never had any problem with pirates before.

[Craterus]

No, but any fleets I do have in the Black Sea aren't powerful enough to defeat this Thracian fleet. And I don't have any money to build more ships. I'll just have to sack their towns with the army I've got and hope I get some cash to bring in reinforcements.

As with the Brutii, are they more exciting than other Roman factions? I didn't find the other two very fun.

[katank]

They get gladiators earlier with city level. Also, the velite glads get attack bonuses against elephants and chariots which is useful.

They get the +3 exp temple of Mars line. This is great. Also, their position is nice for an easy ride into Greece and the riches of the east.

[pezhetairoi]

Yup, I finished my Brutii campaign with the biggest treasury of my 3 Roman campaigns. Rebel navies block? Hmm. Mine weren't too intelligent, just sitting around in the sea. Oh well.

[katank]

Rebel navies do block but they don't get higher level ships like Triremes and Quinquremes IIRC. This means when the navy turns rebel, a lot of ships disappear. This makes for easier killing of the rebel navy.

[pezhetairoi]

cool, never knew that. Never had to engage a rebel navy before.

[DensterNY]

Greetings fellow RTS fans,

All is fair in love and war... and with that said let me contribute my support for Brutti and some effective tactics that I've stumbled upon.

First, the Brutti family is awesome and definitely in one of the best strategic starting positions of the Roman alliance. Two interesting things occured that have helped my campaign.

1). Thessalonia is almost guaranteed to have an outbreak of the plague before 250 BC so after one of my spies there contracted it I promptly sent him to visit the cities of my Roman allies. I kept him in a nice loop going back and forth between these cities to ensure that when the plague lifted from a city or my spy I quickly reinfected them. This has helped keep my allies in a weakened state and puts me in a better position for when the civil war breaks.

* actually the plague is turning out to be such a godsend (pun intended) I infected another spy and am sending him to visit some of my future neighbors way way ahead of my armies.

2). The Senate assigns me a mission to take Sparta so I land an enormous army and land off of its coast. In response Greece sent a large army but they couldn't land because my ships were lining the coasts (we were at peace at that moment). So I sent my ships to attack their lone ship and I killed off an army of 8 Hoplites, 4 cavalry and 3 archers with barely a drop of Roman blood shed.

Alright, well you guys have a great weekend...

Regards,

Dennie

[Craterus]

Welcome to the org

Nice tactic for the plagues, thanks, I'll use it in future. I tried to infect the Scipii with a diplomat but it didn't work. This diplomat travelled from Asia Minor (where he got the plague, he lived there for about 5 years with the plague) down to the Nile delta, on past Siwa, through Africa, past Carthage and made it to Cirta. Then he was cured of the plague, but if you think about it, that's at least 50 turns including the wandering about he did in North Africa trying to bribe Scipii stacks! So he survived with the plague for 25 years, in hot desert conditions where germs are prime for multiplication. WOW!

[DensterNY]

Thanks for the welcome...

Well the advantage of using a spy is that he can enter cities which makes them quite vulnerable to plague infection. I didn't really use him to try and infect armies though that would be a good strategy too.

My next target is of course Rome... I cannot describe how delighted it would be to bring them the plague, particulary those blessed Senators and their incessant demands. I'm sure everyone who plays RTW is smiling at the prospect as its almost as gratifying as invading Rome and putting the Senators to the sword.

[katank]

Plague bearing spies is certainly cool.

If you like this, you should consider putting the plague ridden spy on a ship. Then never have the ship go into port and you have a continual source of infection. Load spies onto it to get biological weapons locked and loaded.

Using the navy to sink the enemy army is indeed great.

BTW, I don't think that spies can actually infect enemy field armies since they don't actually enter the enemy stack.

[Craterus]

Yeah, they just look at it from distance, check out the men they've got. I don't understand how a spy can find out someone's (a character) traits by spying.

[katank]

They actually peer at it right next to the stack. That reveals the trait of the commanders and detailed info on all units.

If it's some distance away, there is a question mark for the actual details of the unit.

However, at no point does the spy actually enter the enemy stack, making it seem like it's not possible to give the plague to the enemy stack.

[Craterus]

If they never entered the army camp, then they would know the units, possibly, but they would not be able to find out the general's traits without getting close to him.

[MackBolan]

Im currently pretty far in my VH/VH Brutii campaign. I started off as most have described, taking Appolonia, Thermon, Greek cities and Macedon. As with this campaign, i have started a new little trend. Leave you enemies alive, dangling by a thread. It makes me feel powerful. Example: In my war with Macedon, I completely destroyed them in Europe, leaving one measly settlement directly south of the Sea, in Africa. I did this also with Rhodes and Greece, it is their only settlement. (I am aware of the Wonder on Rhodes, but I am currently producing no less than 3k per settlement, a goo dnumber of them making more. Athens itself is making a cool 7500 per turn.) I kinda jumped from Europe and when to modern day Turkey, taking Halicarnasus, Pergamum, and that city in between them. I began a small war with the Selucids and have Tarsus surrounded with Watchtowers and my settlements. All the other Selucid citys are MINE!!!! The next logical step seemed to be Egypt of course. Yesterday saw me take the final Egytian citys, Memphis, Alexandria, and Thebes. The island of Salamis is their only city.

The year is 214, my best general just died (89 years old) Full stars Full Influence. His eldest son is conquering the remainder of Africa, and his youngest has been ferried to Thessalonica to deal with the Thracian Threat. Marius reforms have yet to happen.

A few notes about things i did notice, it would probably be better to take Thrace out completely before you venture on. They become a big problem if you wait. Their mix of phalanxes and Falxmen is devastating to my Hastati. Pre-Marius efforts on Thrace should only be attempted with a decent general (4 stars at least) and nothing short of Principes. Believe me, those Falxmen will put the fear of god in your Hastati.