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Thread: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

  1. #1

    Default A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide: Formerly-"A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide". (On KukriMan's suggestion, I changed the title to "Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide"). A guide dealing with the Single Player Campaign of Rome: Total War. Reference: Patched to v1.2, Brutii, VH/VH. This is a major revision of my Quick Strategic Map Guide & Primer to RTW and A Quick Economics Guide & Primer to RTW, along with additions of A Quick Battlemap Guide & Primer to RTW and Introduction sections. (Formatting and grammatical tweaks remain. Any other revisions and additions are pending research).

    (Ave! You’re all lovely. Comments, questions, corrections, requests and suggestions are welcomed – Quietus).

    Main Index
    1. INTRODUCTION.
      1. Overview
      2. Controls
      3. Options
      4. Interface
      5. Others
    2. STRATEGIC MAP.
      1. General Features
      2. Agents & Retinues
      3. Military
      4. Diplomacy
      5. Family Members
      6. Sea Regions
      7. Buildings
      8. Cheap Exploits
    3. ECONOMICS.
      1. Introduction
      2. Maintenance
      3. Taxation
      4. Farms
      5. Trade
      6. Mining
      7. Misc. Factors (Rebels, Governors, Trade Rights etc...)
    4. BATTLE MAP.
      1. General
      2. Sieges
      3. Open field
      4. Bridge Battles
      5. Sea Battles
      6. Cheap Exploits
    5. MISCELLANY.
      1. Miscellaneous Info
      2. Bugs


    I.Introduction: Rome: Total War is the third full game in the Total War series (preceeded by Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War).

    1. Overview
    2. Controls
    3. Options
    4. Interface
    5. Others


    A. Overview: Single Player Overview.

    Prologue – The game’s campaign tutorial.

    Imperial Campaign – The single player campaigns. To unlock the other 8 playable factions, you must win the Roman Grand Campaign. Alternatively, you can unlock it in your RTW folder (see Unlock Factions).

    Grand Campaign –Win 50 provinces as the campaign victory condition. .

    Victory Conditions –Victory conditions in the battlefield.

    An attacker has won the battle if:
    • all the enemies have routed.
    • all the enemies are killed.
    • the town square is held for 3:00 without the physical presence of the defenders.


    A defender has won the battle if:
    • all the enemies routed.
    • all the enemies are killed.
    • the battle timer runs out.
    • the attacker’s siege engines breaks or run out of ammo before penetrating the walls or gates during sieges.


    The battle is a draw if:
    • the (attacker) besieger’s timer expired during siege.
    • the sallying army’s timer expired.

    Turns –One turn is equal to 6 months (Winter and Summer per year). Hitting the Turn button progresses the campaign by that amount of time.

    B. Controls:

    Left Click –Use the left click button to select units in the ma.

    Movement Arrows –Left click the strategic unit once, then drag the arrows. Each shade of color denotes a single turn. Example: three colors meant it will take 3 turns to complete the move.

    C. Options:

    Maximum Resolution Fix – (Credit and big thx to Centuri0n of the .COM forum for this; I’ve simply fleshed out his find and added a table). The auto-detect option doesn’t pick the best resolution of your machine, thus you have to tinker with it yourself.

    This is extremely important to your RTW experience. Go to RTW>data>descr_auto_optimise_options.txt. Open the file.
    The autodetect gives you a designated/assigned code or numbers according to your machine.

    Using my system as an example: Vertex Shader 1.1, 2.2 ghz, 640 MB RAM, GeForce4 4200 Go 64 MB video card, I get “1.1, 3, 4, 1 “ as assigned values.

    Once you’ve obtained you assigned numbers, look for your designation in the text file horizontally (the first four rows of values)(diagram 1.1).

    Diagram 1.1 Quietus' old resolution setting:
    Diagram 1.2 Quietus' new resolution setting

    Moving to the right of your assigned values, you’ll see the two sets of resolution. The first is for the Strategic Map, the second the Battle Map. Using, “1.1, 3, 4, 1”, I see mine as 1028x768 & 1028x768. I changed them both to 1280x800 (diagram 1.2), my max resolution, and SAVED the txt file. I load up RTW and the settings are now available in the video options. (I’ve finally figured how to do this after a long while and the results are amazing. Wow -Q).

    Unlock All Factions – In RTW, some factions are playable, some are unlockable and some are unplayable. This is how you unlock and play all the factions (thx to littlecheese07 of TWC for this idea).

    Go to your folder, RTW>world>maps>campaign>imperial_campaign>desc_strat.txt. Simply move all the factions under the “nonplayable” and "unlockable" that you want play to under “playable”. Thus, in this list, Egypt to Greek_cities are unlockable, Roman_senate to Slave are nonplayable (it is advisable from other players NOT to touch or play the “roman _senate”) and Romans_Julii to Romans_scipii are playable. After you’ve arranged the text files, do not forget to SAVE. You may now play the new factions when you load RTW.

    campaign imperial_campaign
    playable
       romans_julii
       romans_brutii
       romans_scipii
    end
    unlockable
       egypt
       seleucid
       carthage
       parthia
       gauls
       germans
       britons
       greek_cities
    end
    nonplayable
       romans_senate
       macedon
       pontus
       armenia
       dacia
       scythia
       spain
       thrace
       numidia
       slave
    end

    Minimum GUI – Players have the option to use the more open Graphic User Interface, synonymous with older Total War games. In the Preference.txt file of your RTW folder, change “MINIMUM_UI:FALSE” to “MINIMUM_UI:TRUE”.

    Disable Green Highlights –To disable the green unit highlighting arrows, open the Preference.txt file of your RTW folder. Change: “DISABLE_ARROW_MARKERS:FALSE” to “DISABLE_ARROW_MARKERS:TRUE”.

    Battle Timer –Players have a choice whether to use battle timers. When the battle timer runs out and the winning conditions aren’t met, then the attacker loses. (see Victory Conditions).

    Reinforcement Delays – (Thx to A. Saturnus for the idea). Perpetual Reinforcement delays are caused by limitations set in the preference.txt file

    Go to RTW>preference.txt

    UNLIMITED_MEN_ON_BATTLEFIELD:FALSE (reinforcement delays)

    UNLIMITED_MEN_ON_BATTLEFIELD:TRUE (no reinforcement delays)

    Don’t forget to save the file after making changes.

    Your own reinforcement will always arrive at the beginning of the battle - as well as the enemies' - however, the limit of 20 units you can control is still active. If you let the AI control your reinforcement (by checking the box), then they will cross the red border and join immediately.

    Manage All Settlements –Check if you wish to control and micromanage all training, construction and taxation in your domains. (Recommended).

    Anti-Aliasing –Softens and diminishes jagged lines. It could severely affect performance (thx to Kraellin for the warning).

    Arcade Style –Checking this option means there will be no morale, no fatigue and no limited ammo (exactly like an arcade game).

    Camera View –
    1. RTS Camera – set up like a traditional RTS in isomeric view.
    2. TW Camera – set up like the original TW view. (Not recommended). Whenever a unit is double-clicked, the camera focuses down to the ground and the angle of view can’t be fixed because every time you adjust, it reverts back after double-clicking the unit.

    Unit Sizes – Selected unit sizes for each setting found in Video Options>Advanced Options.
    • Huge – Peasants: 240 units. Barbarian: 240 units. Regular: 160 units. Cavalry: 108 units
    • Large – Peasants: 120 units. Barbarian: 120 units. Regular: 80 units. Cavalry: 58 units
    • Normal – Peasants: 60 units. Barbarian: 60 units. Regular: 40 units. Cavalry: 27 units
    • Small – Peasants: 30 units. Barbarian: 30 units. Regular: 20 units. Cavalry: 14 units.

    D. Interface:

    Tabs – Right-click the campaign map tabs for a culled and complete list of Armies, Fleets, Agents, or Cities. They can be arranged in order by left-clicking on each heading. (i.e. in the Cities scroll, click income to arrange them by income size; descending or ascending order are toggled

    Settlement Scroll – (action: Double left-click the settlement).
    • Governor – The governor is shown (if available) and his age.
    • Command – Military rank and ability of your Governor. How good he is in the battlefield.
    • Management – Management rating of your Governor. How well he runs the city.
    • Influence – Influence rating of your Governor. How he is perceived by others.
    • Income – The net income of the settlement. How much denari the city earns every turn.
    • Public Order – The general attitude and behaviour of your population reflective by their happiness level. It is equivalent to the colored face icons in your settlement.
      i. green face >100% happiness. Happy citizens.
      ii. yellow face 85-100% happiness. Content citizen.
      iii. blue face 75-80% happiness. Discontented citizens.
      iv. red face < 75% happiness. Unhappy citizens. This will lead to riots even rebellion if not remedied within the turn.

    Settlement Details – (action: left-click the lower left button - below the building browser button - on the Settlement Scroll) Tracks down factors in Population Growth, Public Order and income. The negative factor(s) are subtracted from the positive factor(s) to equal the net number.
    • Population Growth –
      + growth factors: Base farming & upgrades, trade buildings, public health buildings, low tax rate,
      – growth factors: squalor, plague.
    • Public Order –
      + order: entertainment buildings, health buildings, law buildings, governor’s influence, wonders, low tax, garrison, population boom (+5% public order for every +5% population growth starting at 5.5% pop. growth base).
      – order: unrest, culture penalty, distance from your capital, squalor. No-governance penalty (when a city has no garrison or a governor; -15%).
    • Income – (see Economics for more info)
      +income: Trade, Taxes, Farming, Mining.
      –income: Corruption, Military upkeep, Agent upkeep. (There are also negotiated incomes such as tributes, map selling, and protectorates. See Strategic Map>Diplomacy for more info).

    Strategic Overview Scroll – (action: Left-click the large circular button – bearing your faction insignia – at the lower right of the strategic map screen).
    • Diplomacy Tab – Where you can see the relationship of each faction, to each other, including yours.
    • Financial Tab – Summary of your earnings and expenditures.
    • Faction Tab – Overview of your faction including number of provinces, battle wins & losses. This is also a place where you can turn on or off general automanage setting. Spend means, the AI will build and train liberally while Save is the exact opposite.


    • Automanage –Check if you wish the AI to manage the cities. (Not recommended).
      Tax Rate – The tax rate affects happiness inversely.
      1. Low tax – +30% happiness
      2. Normal tax – No bonus or penalty.
      3. High Tax – -20% happiness
      4. Very High Tax – -20% happiness)


    • Construction Tab – (action: left-click to order contruction in queue ; right-click in queue cancels; left-click (hold) and drag to move the priority). The place to Queue your construction plans. Cost is automatically deducted from your treasury. Right-click to remove from the queue and you will be fully reimbursed. Once the construction has begun, you can only receive a partial cost of the building if you decide to cancel. If you want to delay an on-going contruction of a structure, you may move it to the right a queue line and the next structure in-linewill be constructed (thx to therother) (find ratio).
      When automanage is selected, there is a slider bar that customizes how much your AI construct buildings.

    • Recruitment Tab – (action: similar to Construction ). Troops to be train will come from the settlement itself. Their number will be automatically deducted from your total population. Some troops take longer time to train. Recruitment can also be cancelled from the queue. When automanage is selected, there is a slider bar that customizes how much you wish your AI can train troops.

    • Retrain Tab – Troops can be retrained. Depending on the buildings constructed in the city, the retrained unit(s) can be afforded extra/bonus experience, armor or weapons. To retrain a unit to full strength, the city must have buildings that can train the particular unit. Retraining does not dilute a unit’s experience if the city only trains regular units with no upgrades, as opposed to the old STW and MTW system.

    Building Browser –Shows the player the building tech-tree and what is currently available for construction.

    Culture Penalty – Culture penalty negatively affects public order (see Settlement Details).

    The ratio of foreign buildings and your own determine initial culture penalty. (thx to Je’Rome Grasdyke for the info). Thus, make sure to erect new buildings on newly conquered provinces. Upgrading the necessary buildings and destroying he unimportant ones also work. You may use this action to lower the culture penalty and hence increase public order in your newly conquered province.

    The maximum culture penalty is 50% when ALL (100%) of the structures in your newly acquired settlements are foreign based

    Roman Faction Scroll –The Romans have a special Faction scroll that includes a Senate tab.

    Senate Floor Popularity: Factors from observations.
    • Fulfilled Senate Missions
    • Failed Senate Missionss


    Popularity with the People: Factors from observations.
    • Conquests & Expansion.
    • Fulfilled Senate Missions.
    • Failed Senate Missions.

    E. Others:

    Night Battles –Night battles are only available on custom battles.
    Last edited by Kekvit Irae; 09-12-2006 at 22:12.

  2. #2

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    II. Strategic Map:

    1. General Features
    2. Agents & Retinues
    3. Military
    4. Diplomacy
    5. Family Members
    6. Sea Regions
    7. Buildings
    8. Cheap Exploits


    A. General Features & Strategy:

    Battle Square – The battle square consists of the Red Zone tiles and the Center tile. There are 8 red zone tiles and 1 center tile. In all situations, the defender is always situated in the center tile while the attacker and any reinforcements – from either side – are taken from the 8 red zone tiles surrounding the center (see Reinforcements and Enemy Trap).

    The Battle Square:

    C = Center Tile (defender). RZN = Red Zone Tiles 1-8 (attacker and reinforcement tiles for both defender and attacker).

    Movement – Movement range aren’t equal for each units. For example, horse units move farther than infantry while ballistae move slower. Therefore, be mindful of your army composition when traversing the map since the whole army moves at the speed of its slowest unit. Building roads increases your movement rate (Roads & Highways).

    Be careful parking in the enemy’s red zone (around the unit) for this automatically cancels your movement ability even with much movement points (and your army is stuck; a bug).

    Whenever moving to a block area by overtaking one of your army, your unit will look for a much longer pathway avoiding your blocking friendly troops, thus try to merge units instead.

    There seemed to be a bug affecting movement speeds in some Cavalry (Eg. Roman Cavalry). Clicking the unit card gives them extra movement range as opposed to clicking the unit itself.

    Watchtowers – (Cost: 200 denari Upkeep: None)( Action: left-click General > Construction > Fort > check button). Only generals can order Watchtower constructions (limited to within your territory thus agents as scouts are required in foreign lands). They can be used as your eye in tracking enemy movements and bandits, rebels or brigands that disrupt your trade routes (see Economics>Rebels/Bandits/Brigands).

    They have an eleven (11) tile range, thus space them out evenly. They cannot determine enemy army composition, see AI spies or assasins, nor see across mountains. You must complement them with agents (see Agents).

    Forts – (Cost: 500 denari Upkeep: None Garrison: Yes) ( Action: left-click General > Construction > Fort > check button). Only generals may order Fort constructions. They may be used as a temporary land blockade against your enemies (in bottlenecks such as narrow passes).

    In able to remain standing, a garrison must be present (any number of soldiers or agents will do) or else it will disappear the next turn.

    Overuse of forts can be viewed as an exploit against the weak AI, but they have legitimate uses, such as the one outlined above.

    Roads & Highways – Roads not only increase the flow of trade by a large margin but also benefit the speed of your troop and agent movements. Likewise, your enemies are equally free to use your roads to their end and purpose. (see Economics>Roads).

    Be wary of enemy units sitting on top of Roads, for they lower your land trade by as much as 67% (see Economics>Rebels/Bandits/Brigands).

    Sea Transports – Soldiers and agents likewise may be loaded unto fleets. Regardless of fleet size, it can carry up to 20 units. To get the most out of sea transports, load your soldiers/agent(s) to the ship/fleet. Click on the ship/fleet, then click on the unit card(s) of the ship and receive the movement points for the ship.

    Manage All Settlements – press Escape > click Game Option > check Manage all Settlements. With this feature, you can control all unit and building production to your specification, efficiency and efficacy.

    Garrisons – Garrisons are effective in increasing happiness in newly conquered cities. They act as a stopgap while you build happiness buildings. They gradually lose effectiveness as your population increases.

    Whenever invading or conquering, always have a complement supply of Peasant garrison tailing your army. This enables your troops to move in and out quickly without spending too much time appeasing the newly occupied cities. Gradually disband your Peasant garrisons as your public order increases over time (see Introduction>Settlement Details>Public Order) and (see Riots)

    Plague – Quarantine cities with the plague to prevent it from spreading. Build Public Health Buildings if you haven’t already done so. Reduce the tax rate to offset the public order penalty of the plague. Plagues are primarily caused by high squalor (which is the function of overpopulation). This is the same reason why you must train troops from your over-populous cities. With a PHBs, the plague only last a short number of turns.

    Infected units that contracted it from other cities can be quarantined at sea using a depleted ship to prevent it from spreading to other towns. Before you assault a plague-cured enemy settlement, make sure the enemy governor and soldiers are also clean or else you will contract it when you occupy the city. (see Public Health Buildings for more info on plague).

    Riots – Riots give very palpable happiness hit. Unless you have a governor, the best measure is to lower taxes or garrison (if the population is low). Keep building and upgrading until you get enough happiness-structures to even things out.

    A fixed percentage of troop garrisons die during riots. It is NOT dependent on garrison size itself. (formula pending research). Thus, do not use your precious professional and veteran troops to garrison, but utilize peasants instead.

    If the public order is too low (~ < 50%), your troops, no matter numerous, will be removed from the city the next turn, and the city reverts back to its former owners or to the rebels that forced you out. This means you have to take the city again. More reason to always pay attention to your provinces’ happiness ratings.

    During riots, repairing or construction of buildings is halted (pending more research).

    Revolts – Revolts are riots where your army is kicked out of the settlement. The revolting army will be trained up to the level of military building contained in the city. Thus, if you destroy the military buildings beforehand, then they can only train peasants at best.

    Devastation – When army units park in an another faction’s region for at least two turns, this results in farming devastation. Your army can devastate the AI lands, and so can they to you.

    Devastation is the sum of all the devastated lands (tiles) you have. Each devastated tile is equivalent to 1/10th or 10% of your farming income. Thus, the equation is:

    Devastation (after Trigger) = (Base Devastation Value) x (Severity of Devastation)

    Devastation (after Trigger) = (10%Farm Income) x (Number of Tiles Devastated)
    Where,
    Trigger = Base number of turn before a tile is devastated = 2 turns.
    Base Devastation Value = 10% of Farm Income.
    Severity of Devastation = Number of Tiles Devastated.
    Duration before Devastation fade = (pending research)

    Combining Fleets – Left click the weaker fleet with no command stars and and right-click-combine with the target fleet. Note that ships with a command star cannot be absorbed by another fleet with a command star.

    Macro-Expansion – Due to the effects of corruption, plan your expansion in reference to your capital. Either move the capital or expand close to it. However, put your Capital close to the sea where there are much trade, hence more income. If the capital is deep in-land then those high income province at the coasts will be heavily penalized.

    Trade Rights – Use a depleted ship (see Depleted Ships) to transport your Diplomat and seek trade rights in regions that:
    • you have no possibility of attacking/encountering in the immediate future.
    • have swaths of coast
    • are not in closely danger of being absorbed by another faction.


    Trade Rights doubles sea exports (see Economics>Sea Exports).

    Depleted Troops – Use depleted troops to garrison happy provinces, instead of a full unit. You will save denari and won’t be completely caught unaware by slithering enemies that attack by surprise, especially when there aren’t enough Family Members to go about.

    Senate Missions – (Roman Factions Only). When doing minor senate mission, if possible, wait for until the last turn in accomplishing the task. Therefore, you lessen the amount of missions you do over a period of time.

    Famous Battles – Famous battle sites are marked by a crossed sword icon. Here are some observed factors:
    1. Odds of winning the battles.
    2. Your number of troops in the battlefield compared to your total armies (from CA).
    3. How well you did in battles (the kill-ratio, as indicated by colored bar under the battlefield mini-map).


    There are limited number of slots for these markers, thus as you notch up new famous battles, you also lose the older ones. Placing your cursor over the cross gives description of the battle that took place. (look for ceiling).

    Senate Mission Failure – (Roman Factions Only) Failures will lose your popularity with the People. Always do the Senate missions or else you will never get support of the Peoples of Rome.

    Your Senate clout also suffers. Check the Senate floor tab to check your standing. Once you hit the lowest grade, you will be outlawed by the Senate and Civil War will commence.

    Civil War –The Roman civil war can be caused by:
    1. Aggressiveness against the other Roman Factions ( via Assassins or Military action).
    2. Losing all your popularity in the Senate Floor (see the Senate Floor)
    3. Failure to commit suicide when ordered by the Senate.
    4. Cancelling Trade rights or Military access with the Senate. (thx to katank).

    Trade Disruption – Trade disruptions are caused primarily by Rebels and Enemy units situated along your province and trade routes. (see Economics>Rebels/Brigands/Bandits). Try to remove them by military force as quickly as possible (highly escalated bribery costs after Patch 1.2 makes bribery option no longer practical).

    Another possible trade disruption is damage to your trade buildings. Buildings can be damaged during riots (see Riots). And damaged buildings lose their effects. Check your buildings every time there is a riot event.

    Corruption – It is evident by investigating trends that corruption is caused mainly by your settlement’s distance from your capital. The farther your capital’s radius emits to your cities, the higher the corruption you should expect. The corruption will present itself progressively as you move further out from your capital. If feasible, you can move your capital to a very central location. Another source of corruption is your governor’s gained Vices. A definitive test by therother have shown that the Corruption/Gross Income ratio increases linearly with distance-to- capital (see Economics>Corruption).

    Squalor – Squalor is caused by overpopulation and inadequate Public Health Buildings. If you let your population explode unchecked, your Squalor levels will fly like a runaway chariot.

    A reason being is compound rate:
    A 24000+ person town with a 1% growth will gain 240 new individuals the next 6 months.
    A 24240+ person town with a 1% growth will gain 242 new individuals the next 6 months.

    Using “huge units” is ideal since you train more civilians, thereby reducing squalor. It is essential to cull your troops from your most populous cities with the object of attenuating squalor. (see Farm Upgrades and Troop Production). Whenever you conquer a new settlement, the first to build are Public Health Structures.

    B. Agents and Retinues: Agents are special units in the Campaign map, each having special functions. Like your regular armies and characters, they can move around the map, ride ships, contract the plague and even die.

    Spies – Spies are your eyes. They can gather and reveal information about cities, armies and even agents.

    Whenever inside a town, they have an ability to open gates during sieges. The higher the Spy’s rank, the higher is his probability of opening the gates. (The siege scroll will show if the Spy has opened the gate). Use them along with a diplomat or assassin to scout ahead of your armies to reveal valuable reconnaissance. They also must enter before a siege. One warning: they can be killed in the line of duty.

    Assassin – Assassins are used to kill enemy agents, generals or faction leaders. Normally, newly recruited ones they aren’t effective in assassinating family members. However, you can train them and hone their skills using easy target practices (thx to lar573 for the suggestion).

    General order of assassination difficulty by lars:
    • other assassins < green spies < rebel captains < experienced spies < green diplomats < captains from other factions < experienced diplomats < green family members < experienced family members < faction heirs < faction leaders.


    You can also use them to sabotage enemy structures and building. This is useful against towns you are planning to attack. Assassins need to know the buildings first before it can act, thus a spy is necessary for this endeavor. Sabotage the buildings that train the tough AI units. Like Spies, they can die during missions.

    Lastly, before building an army of assassins, you must consider their upkeep of 200 denari per turn. If a player is to train five (5) or more, you can easily fund a mini-stack of military units with the same amount and take out the enemy in the field and even take settlements by force. Thus, you must have specific purposes for assassins before training them en-masse.

    Diplomats – In able to inititiate negotiations, you need a diplomat. Just like a regular army, they can move around. Right-clicking an Army, Agent or Settlement will enter you into the negotiation screen for that particular faction.

    Make sure you have enough to go around. The higher your Diplomat’s influence, the higher his powers of persuasion is.Thus, use your most adept Diplomats during important negotiations (see Diplomacy). However, when bribing units, influence doesn't appear to factor (see Bribery).

    Retinues – A family member can hold up to eight (8) retinues or ancillaries. Ancillaries confer different bonuses to a family member.

    You can switch retinues around to match your Generals and Governors. The retinues must be at the same stack for the exchange to take place. (Action: Left-click source family member to open the scroll. Left-click (hold) and drag the retinue of the source to the unit card of the family member you wish assign it.

    You may take good retinues from older governors and generals and give them to the younger ones. Give worthless retinues to dying generals/governors. For example: Bonus command against Carthage is useless when the faction is already eliminated. However, there are certain retinues that does not mix with each other, thus cannot be combined together (thx to Captain Fishpants of CA). In addition, you may only have one (1) retinue of the same kind per family member.

    Family members can pick up retinues even if not the governor of a city, so long as a Learning center or temples are present. The types of retinues you receive depend on the type of Temples or Learning Centers you build. (see Sinner’s Temple Guide).

    C. Military & Strategies:

    Reinforcement –All the troops along the red square will be treated as reinforcement. The center of reinforcement square is always the defender. A player has an option to let the AI control reinforcement in the battlefield. Uncheck the box to control all the units. If the total units exceed the maximum of twenty (20), the reinforcement will arrive only when replacing a withdrawn or routed units.

    Besieged armies cannot be part of reinforcements.

    Enemy Trap – A player can drop units enemy (the red box outline), then attack with your main forces (with the General). Those units will appear as reinforcements (see Reinforcements). A player can also completely trap the enemy.

    The Red zone consists of 8 tiles surrounding the 9th tile (the defender’s position). Blocking each of those tiles precludes the enemy from EVER escaping. If enganged, they will be put in a fight-to-the-death situation. This is signified by the Sword & Skull icon under the enemy army portrait in the battle scroll.

    Those tiles can also blocked by other physical objects such as a dense forest or a mountain. Thus, try to trap the enemy and force them to fight (since when the enemy feels it won’t be able to win, they will retreat). Attacking the enemy the second time also precludes them from escaping. But what if you only have enough movement points for a single attack? Then surrounding the enemy is the best option.

    The exact combination of troops to use in trapping is up to the player and the combination is only limited by the army composition itself. Cavalry, for example has more range, they are good candidates. Trapping isn’t always useful. Make sure you can actually win with a divided army. Also keep in mind delays in reinforcements when using large armies and if you ever allow the AI to control friendly units (see Introduction>Reinforcement Delays).

    Ambuscades – Ambushes occurs when an enemy crosses the red zone of the ambusher. In a complete surprise ambush, a player cannot deploy and are placed in the center of the special battle map while the enemy surrounds them. In a partial ambush, a player can deploy.

    Attack Twice – Attack the enemy the second time whenever it retreats. It cannot fall back the again and will be forced to fight.

    A Tad Short Attack – – There will be times when your whole stack will come up a tad short when attacking a town. Ctrl-Left- Click all the cavalry and use them to lay siege. Then click the remaining infantry units to combine with the cavalry units.

    If the infantry comes up a bit short and the enemy AI sallies, your infantry will be the reinforcement since the defending units are always the center of the battlefield square and the units in the peripheral red zone are the reinforcements

    Siege Points – A single full strength unit equal 15 siege points. Thus, the maximum per army is 300 siege points (=20 unit x 15 siege points/unit). Siege points are also based on percentage strength of a unit.

    120 peasants (out of possible 240 full strength) = 50%

    (15 siege points/100% strength unit) x (50% unit strength) = 7.5 siege points = 8 siege points (rounded up).

    If the enemy is relieved from the outside and if they lose, the siege will continue. It is ideal to catch a large army garrisoned before you attack since they AI will sally so long as they have superior numbers and good odds of winning.

    Certain retinues give a general's army more than their usual Siege Points (ex. Archimedes).

    Siege points are given every turn, thus the longer you siege the more equipment you can build. However, If you are short of siege points, necessary to what you are planning, hiring a mercenary unit instantly gives you +15 more points. If your siege is broken, then the equipment you built will be dismantled.

    Quick Siege – Once you have Ballista and Onagers. You won’t need to wait a turn to construct other siege machines and contraptions. Instead, you will be able to storm at once. One balancing downside to this is that they move slower than normal infantry (see Movement). A quick siege is highly effective in sneak attacks in coastal towns.

    A spy with high skills can be used since they have a better probability of opening the gates; therefore taking a city is doable in a single turn (see Spies).

    Sallying Enemy –A besieged that enemy sallies from within the settlement are in a fight-to-the-death situation (denoted by a sword and skull icon). If they lose, the city is yours.

    Bridge battles – Bridges are fine chokepoints. To utilize bridges, one can park their troops right in the middle section. Whenever you are attacked from either side, you will get to defend the bridge. This is most important when you are vastly outnumbered by the enemy. (see Battles Map>Bridge Battles)

    Conquest Options – Whenever you militarily vanquish an enemy city, you are given three conquest options:

    i) Occupation –The city will be occupied as is and no buildings will be damaged (recommended).
    Pros:
    • Faster upgrade possibilities (city level upgrades are tied to population).
    • Bigger population mean bigger taxation income.
    • Shorter supply lines mean your newly conquered province can supply your basic troops and not have to come from specialized regions.
    • Overall, a better long term economic development.

    Cons:
    • High incidence of riots requires much short-term high-garrisons.
    • If Public Order is lower than 50%, the citizens are most likely to revolt (and remove you from the city).
    • The farther (from your capital) and more populous the province the harder it is to keep. At this point, you can resort to Enslavement.


    ii) Enslavement – This allows you to enslave half of the population. Slaves will be distributed only among cities that have governors for 20 turns. Some buildings will be destroyed but will earn you denari through lootings.
    Pros:
    • Slaves can be used to populate your cities supplying the troops.
    • Useful when your newly conquered city is too far from the Capital (thus will incur high distance-to-capital public order penalty). Use this only after Occupation is prohibitive (resulting in 0% public order even with garrison and other measures).
    • It reduces the required garrison size.

    Cons:
    • The slave trade presents the likelihood of rebel slaves appearing near your settlement.
    • The city Level will drop corresponding to the population drop.

    .
    iii) Exterminate – Two thirds of the population will be killed. A player receives the most denari loot value in this option.

    Pros:
    • Instantly manageable cities with little or no garrison.

    Cons:
    • Results in a long term economic loss due to loss of population and economic structures. This meant a player will start the growth and upgrade cycle once again. Every city added to your side increases income regardless. Thus, do not exterminate if you notice income signs shown by the settlement is lower (see Economics>Wages & Military Upkeep).
    • Loss of recruitment base meant importing soldiers from other settlements.
    • Longer supply lines and possible dependency on Mercernaries. This may be useful when taking a very far away province where the distance-to-capital public order penalty is high.

    Troop Production –

    Two schemes:
    1. Troop production must occur in your most populous provinces, preferably under governors with troop recruitment discounts. However, make sure to construct (or at least initiate the contruction of) the upgrade level Government buildings first. They are necessary in enabling building-upgrade capabilities.

      Reducing the population lowers your squalor levels. Do not overdo this, however and try to spread your military production over a range of cities. All your newly conquered cities must be occupied (unless it is overpopulated, foreign in culture or you little means of immediate garrison, then this exception calls for enslavement). This is setup is very effective whenever you choose “huge units” as your unit size option.
    2. Alternatively, you can enslave your newly conquered town and use the governor cities are your specialized production cities. These troop production cities can supply your soldiers as their population pool is replenished through the slave trade. Be wary of you population, however, since this can easily lead to high squalor especially once it becomes a Large City (see Squalor).


    Regardless where you build, you must have governors that have troop discout retinues (ie. “Decorated Hero” gives a 20% discount). You can erect troop-upgrade buildings (see Troop Upgrade Buildings) as well as temples that give them experience chevrons (ie. Temple of Nike).

    When training troops pay attention how they transport to the frontlines. Upgrade the roads to increase their movement rates (see Roads and Highways). You can also use depleted ships to transport troops (see Transport Ships).

    Troop Upgrade Buildings – (pending research).

    Combining Units – Combine units with like chevrons. You can drag a unit card with no upgrade to another upgraded unit however, the resulting unit will NOT receive any of the weapon or armor upgrades. But the Chevron upgrades are diluted.

    Merging Armies – Armies can be can merged up to the maximum of twenty units, thus it is essential to combine units. Agents can also merge with your army and can be located in the agents tab while the particular army is selected.

    However, your army cannot merge with the agent (and can actually block your army by one movement tile if your destination is the same area). Thus plan where you put your agents since they occupy space.

    Experience Chevrons – A unit’s experience is denoted by chevron. It can be gained in battles or during their recruitment training (or retraining).
    Unit Experience Progression: No experience, Bronze (1-3), Silver (1-3, Gold (1-3).

    Depending on the number of healed units after battle, experience gained by survivors can be diluted.
    Factor(s) contributing to gaining experience: from observations. (now confirmed).
    • Number of kills. (hence, use your general to chase routers to gain experience). There is a 20% chance router-kills count as a kill (thx to Je'Rome Grasdyke). If you consider the high volume of pickings in a mass routs, that number is high!

    Increasing Ranks – Increase your General’s military ratings (stars) by winning battles. Do not use overwhelming force all the time and always try for a “crushing” victory.

    Do not try to kill all the routing troops at once, instead use your General to chase and kill them for experience chevrons and higher ranking trait bonus. The objective is to rout the enemy first then make your kills afterward.

    Mercenaries – Availability is limited to a particular province or region (example: once you cross a bridge or a border, mercenary units may change). They are expensive and their upkeep is a shade high but are very useful in tight situations (just make sure you know what you are looking for in an army supplement/complement and read their descriptions first).

    Example: whenever your lightly garrisoned city is besieged without warning: you can take out your other governors, hire mercenaries, split (them from the hiring governors) and quickly drop the all the units beside the besieged settlement. Then, sally forth with your General from inside. Your mercenary units and such will appear as reinforcement. It is expensive but less so than losing a large city to a large enemy contingent.

    Another example: if you know your lightly garrisoned province will be attacked, you can take out your general and hire a couple of mercenaries. Return back to town and build a unit for another turn to discourage the enemy from storming while you wait for reinforcement.

    Letting the enemy take a city without resistance is far more expensive. As a Roman, You will be given a mission to retake the city with 5000-10000 denari as reward. However good, this mission can also lead to exploitation of a serious game design flaw.

    In general, mercenary troops are worthwhile in campaigns. They can complement your army depending on their needs or supplement unforeseen insufficiency in the reinforcement chain (notably after large casualties in a major battle).

    Rebels, Bandits & Brigands– Rebels will frequently pop up along your territory and molest your trade routes (see Trade Buildings and Ports). It is crucial to detect their presence quick to avoid trade losses. Bribing rebels are now prohibitively expensive after patch 1.2. Thus, a military solution is the only way. You can use family members that are bad governors (who lower province incomes) to be your specialized rebel hunters. Alternatively, you can use captains and go for the “Man of the Hour” event (see Promotions).

    Hidden rebels’ locations can be revealed by their devastation marks. They create dark, splotched, devastated tiles when in the same position for at least two turns.

    D. Diplomacy: Diplomacy is practically nil after patch 1.2. Map Selling is curtailed and Bribery cost was increased. However, the protectorate was fixed (research pending).

    Map Information – Version 1.2 practically disables map-selling (which was an easy exploit pre-patch1.2). However, you can now exchange maps with the AI. Exchanging maps is important. It helps you plan your expansion.

    Bribery – Bribery costs differ from turn to turn. From tests, it is evident that is a function of Income.

    Tests support that unit cost and a base value is being factored. The base values change every turn while the factors do not. Thus, the higher the income means the higher the base value and the higher the bribes.

    Current equation:

    Bribery cost = (Unit Recruitment Cost/10) x (Base Value) x ( Bribery Factors),
    where the Base Value is a function of income (whether gross or net is still up in the air). More tests are needed for an exact equation linking Base Value and Income.

    Example: Bribery cost for 1 unit of peasant. Where Base Value is 100 and Factor is 1. You can use this equation to find the Bribery Base Value of a particular turn so long as the units are (full strength, devoid of generals and lacking any chevron upgrades; This simply meant it doesn't factor in the equation and technically the units' Factors = 1).

    Bribery Cost = (Unit Recruitment Cost/10)(Base Value)(Factors).
    Bribery Cost= (150 denari/10)(100)(1)=1500 denari.

    A factor simply meant any positive number that is not 1. Unit Recruitment cost is an example of a factor.

    Current Bribery factors: More tests are needed to quantify exact impact.
    • Unit strength (full strength)
    • Unit Experience
    • Presence of Generals

    Currently NOT a Bribery Factor (from tests):
    • Diplomat influence.
    • Unit Armor 1 & Weapon 1 upgrades


    Finally, bribery of diplomat suggest different factors than of unit bribing but tests show that the base value is being calculated as well! (Supporting data: Investigation of Bribery Costs).

    This is definitely a mechanism put in by CA to curve rampant bribing. Since the base value increase as the income increases, the richer you become the higher the bribes will be.

    Taking Regions – This isn’t very ideal unless you have a huge garrison and a Governor with high Management skill nearby, ready to occupy the town. However, if ever you get thrown out of the town, the Senate will give you a mission to retake the town for about 5000-10000 denari reward depending how fast you do it. Don’t try to pay for regions. The AI gives away provinces easily early in the game, under the determination that you will be thrown out of town by rioters anyway.

    Alliances – Alliances is a prickly subject when it comes to Roman factions. A good rule is not to form any alliances with non-roman factions since you are mandated to follow Senate policies. You don’t want to get in the crosshairs with the Senate early on. Another rule is: as in STW and MTW, DO NOT form alliances with your neighbor. Form alliances with your neighbor’s neighbor, for two reasons:
    1. Your Ally will not be able to attack your without moving along your neighbor’s regions. You get a good buffer zone in a possible double cross.
    2. Your neighbor will be foolish to attack you with your ally flanking them. If you ever get into a war with your non-ally neighbor, your ally can aid you military, making the conquest easier. It is a win-win strategy.

    Trade Rights – Trade rights increases your Sea Exports by 50% to the particular faction (see Economics>Trade Rights). With roaming diplomats, secure all the trade rights you can get for a healthy economy. Do it to all factions for it will benefit you first and foremost.

    Whenever war breaks out between the faction and you, Trade Rights are nullified. But, in an event of a ceasefire, always secure trade rights again.

    Protectorates – (pending research).

    E. Family Members:

    Age Limit – The age limit seem to be 128 years. (thx to ArgonautJ of the .COM forums). His faction leader, upon turning 128 years of age, reverted back to 0 year old!!! Thus, the age seemed to be cycled after 128 years! Dutchof CA remarked at the same thread that “is he dead yet?” checks start at the age of 65, thus the faction leader survived 62 years of checks, then was eventually looped back to 0 year old for another 65 years before the series of checks continue.

    Governors and Generals – only family members are allowed as Generals and Governors. A Captain is not a family member unless he is promoted.

    Promotions – whenever a Captain leads his men and successfully wins an odd-on battle, he can be promoted to General. The easier the battle, the least likely your captain can be “The Man of the Hour”. The more noteworthy the win, the likelier he gets a a promotion. Factors include low strength army ratio vs. the enemy and the manner of the victory itself.

    With your approval this worthy Captain becomes a General and an adopted Family Member. Thus, you can increase family members by using Captains to sweep the numerous rebels that pop up along the map.

    There is a hard cap on promotions, depending on the current ratio of family members vs. number of settlements you own (thx to Oaty). From tests it should be less than 2/3 ratio. But more tests are needed.

    Adoption – you can approve the suitor of a female family member when they come of age. Approve as much, but just be picky enough especially regarding their age: the younger, the better; the older, the worse.

    The stats of your family member can be raised via traits, retinues through battlefield or governance experience. Therefore, the primary consideration is age (ideally 16 to early 20s).

    You may also receive “A Candidate for Adoption” option. This is similar to “Man of the Hour” but it involves no battles. It seem to be a result of having too little number of male family members.

    Heirs – An Heir will be automatically selected; however as the faction leader, you are allowed to pick the most suitable Heir to your liking. Just go to the Family Tree scroll. It is wise to use hone your chosen Heir’s skills by letting him lead in battles. In addition, he will gain valuable Virtues.

    Eventually, when he becomes the leader, you can retire him to the capital and with the right retinues build discounted troops and buildings, as well as keep things in order. In addition he can receive good Virtues from upgraded Academies. Repeat the same cycle with the new Heir.

    Heirs:
    • At least 20 years younger than the current Faction Leader.
    • And ideal length of rule is 25 years.


    The former heir will receive a Disinherited trait conferring a -1 influence. Thus, avoid changing heirs too often.

    Bribed Generals – Bribed Generals will also join your Family. There are certain enemies that cannot be bribed (example: Ex senate family members).

    Specialize Family Members – Decide and distinguish early on whether you plan to make a family member a General in the battlefield or a career Governor. This way you specialize their abilities.
    1. Governors – Preferably very young so they can stay in their position for a long time.
    2. Generals – After picking the governors, the leftovers will be your pool of Generals. They need not be very young since their stats are easy to raise.

    F. Sea Regions:

    Ships – Position you ships close to your allies’. In an event of an enemy attack, you get their much needed reinforcement.

    At least double the enemy ships to get a high probability of winning.

    Sea Movements – (pending research)

    Longer Transport –To get the most range out of sea transportation, load your soldiers/agent(s) to the ship/fleet. Left-click on the ship/fleet, then click on the unit card(s) and receive the movement points for the ship.

    Transport Ships – Use your ships with depleted soldiers to transport troops. To do this, recombine your sailors until you get a ship with the least sailors. They cost less if on standby.

    Military Ships – Use your stacked ships as your strong arm in the sea. In the early stage, a 3 to 4-ship stack is enough to control your sealanes. This does not mean you can’t use them for transport, but their primary function is to drive away enemy ships.

    Blockades – Aside from normal port blockades, you can also blockade enemy ships from dropping off enemy troops along the shore. The red areas indicate blockading range of your ships. A neutral fleet can also blockade you if you hit them along the path unaware. Thus, it is ideal to not hug the coast too tightly when traveling.

    A ship inside a blockaded port can escape as long as it is not enclosed by the red borders. In addition, military ground units may also be used to blockade an enemy port. Simply left-click the port using the units within proximity of the port to be blockaded (thx to mfberg).

    Storms – On infrequent occasions, your fleet or ship will be caught in a storm. This will result in a loss of crew even death of the admiral of the fleet.

    G. Buildings:

    Shrines- Shrines not only increase happiness thus public order, but they also confer particular retinues (See Sinner’s Temple Guide for a complete list). Whenever faced with a foreign shrine, you have the option of destroying them - since they are primarily non-upgradeable or keeping them (along with the bonuses they give). Defacing the shrine effectively wipes out all the happiness bonus they give so be wary of your total public order before doing so.

    The shrines’ effects aren’t always positive; they can also give negative traits. (give example).

    Public Health Buildings – Health builds increase happiness and reduce likely hood and spreading of plagues. Whenever, you capture a province, you will always inherit in an overpopulated, unsanitary city with high squalor (meaning a high risk for a breakout of the plague). Build a Public Health Building as the first order of the day. In addition build a peasant unit to garrison and reduce population. You do not want the city to get a plague for it will lead to riots.

    Farm Upgrades – Delay farm upgrades to avoid untimely, massive population increase and consequently, high squalor. Make it the last structure to build in successive tech levels (military buildings notwithstanding). Once you are done building all useful structures, you are ready for the next tech level. Thus, the increase in farm production will also increase population to help you get to that next city size. This way, you can control city growth, and balance out squalor with happiness effects of the buildings you construct.

    In military towns (see Troop Production) it is acceptable to build farms especially when they rake in a lot of profits. The population boosts also help in the unit training pool. As a bonus, it also aid in ushering you to the next tech level population requirement quickly to get access to higher and higher quality troops (see Squalor and Troop Production).

    Trade Buildings and Ports – These are your most important economic structures. Coastal towns MUST always have ports quickly. While you wait for ports to become accessible (by meeting population requisites), you can construct shrines, roads, public health building, walls, an academy, a trader and even a farm upgrade. These ports can be upgraded to a corresponding increase in trade.
    Rebels, Bandits, Enemy (and possibly Friendly allied units) will disrupt trade when they stay along the roads or trade resources.

    Learning Centers – The academy and its upgrades allow Governors favorable ancillaries depending on the Temples.

    Amphitheaters – A place where races and gladiatorial games are held to distract the plebians from discontent and increase public order). Races and Games can held yearly, monthly or daily and provide incremental happiness at corresponding increase of costs. Their incremental maintainance cost doesn’t justify their low happiness effect. However, the bigger the upgrades, the higher their base effect.

    Wonders – Wonders are special buildings in the strategic map which confer different bonuses. You receive the bonus as long as you own the province where the Wonder is located. However, their effects diminish by time:

    Collosus of Rhodes: Initially adds 40% to trade of all owner’s settlements. But in time, the bonus plateaus down to 10%. Eventually, the bonus disappears altogether.

    Mausoleum of Hellicarnasus:

    Damaged Buildings – Buildings damaged by riots or military action will invariably lose it’s effects.
    Examples:
    • Damaged trade buildings will lose its trade bonus effects
    • Damaged public health buildings will lose its public order bonus.


    Currently, any damage above 11% will erase all the building’s effects until it is repaired. More observations are needed to pin the exact cutoff number.

    Repair – Buildings and structures can be repaired simultaneously. Just choose a new building first then add all damaged ones. The new building will be constructed the next turn, while the damaged will all be repaired.

    Construction Discounts – Use the same governor with building discounts traits/retinue to reduce construction cost. You must have good roads in able to him to travel back and forth within a turn. This is useful whenever you don’t have enough family members.

    H. Cheap Exploits: Exploits that needed to be remedied in the Expansion Pack(s)
    Last edited by Kekvit Irae; 09-12-2006 at 22:15.

  3. #3

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    III. ECONOMICS
    1. Introduction
    2. Maintenance
    3. Taxation
    4. Farms
    5. Trade
    6. Mining
    7. Misc. Factors (Rebels, Governors, Trade Rights etc...)


    A. Introduction: Each turn, incomes and costs are calculated.

    Sources of Incomes
    • Continuous income: Trade, Taxes, Farming, Mining
    • Negotiated income: Tributes, Single Payment.

    Sources of Costs:
    • Continuous costs: Governor, Military and Agent wages, Games & Corruption.
    • Negotiated costs: Tributes, Bribes, Single Payment.


    B. Maintenance: Costs and upkeep.

    Wages & Military Upkeep –Wages and Upkeep are based on your settlement population ratio vs. the total population.

    Example:
    Settlement A has 10% of the total population, then
    Settlement A pays 10% of aggregate governor wages, and
    Settlement A pays 10% of total agent wages, also
    Settlement A pays 10% of total army upkeep.

    This refutes a popular misconception that taking in a new city reduces income. The game simply re-distributes the costs. The income pie is bigger but the distribution of cost is different. Adding a new settlement ALWAYS result in an increase of income.

    Example:
    You have 10 provinces. The costs will be distributed 10 ways.
    You have 11 provinces. The costs will be distributed 11 ways.
    However, the cost is constant, since you've only added a city.

    Entertainment Buildings –gladiatorial games and races can be staged Yearly, Monthly, or Daily. Only the base yearly games differ in happiness effect/public order bonus:

    Base Public Order Bonus:
    • Arena = +5%;
    • Amphitheater = +10%;
    • Colisseum = +15%


    Example:
    Arena:
    • Yearly Games – No upkeep incurred. Effect = + 5% public order (Base).
    • Monthly Games – 400 denari per turn upkeep. Effect = Base + 20% public order
    • Daily Games – 400 denari per turn upkeep. Effect = Base + 30% public order.

    C. Taxation:

    Taxation – (Big thx to therother for plotting ALL those numbers for the linear graphs just to get the equations).

    There are four (4) Tax Levels: Each depending on the population (and Game setting difficulty).
    where P = Population #, and T = Tax
    * the first Tax Level comprise of three subset tax levels. (thx to Zhuge for this). To make the table simple, it is combined to a single level.

    The Difficulty Level Adjustment factors are multiplied to the Normal Tax value depending on what difficulty you are playing.

    These set of linear discoveries by therother is another reason why it is important to occupy instead of exterminate. Not only do more people mean more taxes, but more people meant higher tax levels as well.

    D. Farming –

    Farming Income –Farming income is based on farming levels, e.g. Land clearance, Communal farming, Crop rotation, Irrigation, Latifundia and Harvest (Poor to Excellent).

    Upgrades depend on the harvests, which can vary from turn to turn:
    Poor Harvest = + 64-65 denari when upgraded.
    Average Harvest = + 68 denari when upgraded.
    Excellent Harvest = +73-74 denari when upgraded

    Upgrading: (see above).
    Level 0 (Base farming value) – Depends on Settlement and Harvests.
    Level 1 ( Land clearance) – Depends on Harvests.
    Level 2 ( Communal farming) – Depends on Harvests
    Level 3 (Crop Rotation) – Depends on Harvests
    Level 4 ( Irrigation) – Depends on Harvests
    Level 5 (Latifundia) – Depends on Harvest

    Only the base values differ in each province.

    Devastation – is deducted based on damaged farming area (tile). Each tile damaged is equal to 10% of farming income. Thus, the more tiles damaged the more income is deducted. Devastation is caused by enemy armies sitting on a tile for at least 2 turns. More tests are need to quantify how long they last and peripheral tile damages incurred after more than 2-turn devastation.

    Example:
    Settlement A farming income = 100 denari
    Devastation Value = 40 denari
    Tiles devastated = 40 denari (1 tile devastated/10% of 100 denari) = 40 denari(1 tile/10 denari) = 4 tiles devasted

    E. Trade:

    Trading Income –Trading income is divided into three parts: Land Export/Import, Sea Imports and Sea Exports. They are affected by different factors such as number of natural resources, trade buildings, road types, port type, governor traits and retinues, blockades, and rebels sitting along your routes.

    Land Export/Import – It is lumped into one inseparable income. Thus it is difficult to harness specific equations for this.

    Roads – Roads ONLY affect the land trade of the settlement from where it originated. Roads neither affect Sea Exports or Imports.


    Land trade bonus affects only the originating city where it was constructed. Land and Sea Export trade can also be disrupted (see Economics>Rebels/Bandits/Brigands).

    (In my test, only 3 of 5 got the increase, the two lowest values didn’t increase. There maybe a) a distance limit how far a highway upgrade is effective (the two farthers didn’t get a boost) or b) only a fraction of the land trades get a boost (3 of the 5 were the highest values). Neither sea exports nor imports were affected by the upgrade. Currently, I’m leaning towards choice a).)

    Sea Trade –Sea trade is divided into 2 parts: Sea Exports and Sea Imports.

    Sea Imports – Sea import income is ALWAYS 20% of the exporter income.

    Example:
    Settlement A has a 100 denari export income for exporting to Settlement B;
    Settlement B gets 20 denari Sea Import income as a result.

    This is regardless of roads, trade buildings, ports, governors or any other factors that are involved in the trade. There can be possible limits to this relationship (see Sea Import Routes).

    Sea Exports –The exact equation to figure out its value is still unknown. However, they are obviously affected by trade buildings.

    Ports – The types of port can affect your Sea Export income, not Sea Importation income. Each port corresponds to a number of routes. Each route correspond to a provinces involved in a trade.
    • Fishing Village: 0 Trade route (but can receive imports).
    • Port: 1 Trade route
    • Shipwright: 2 Trade routes
    • Dockyard: 3 Trade routes.

    Sea Exports Routes – You can see them by which directions the trade ships are moving. Trades are automatically picked by the computer, depending how many export routes are available.

    Factors:
    • Distance between trading cities. No exact values have been determines thus far.
    • The Population of exporting cities. More population mean more export income.

    Sea Import Routes – You can see them by which directions the trade ships are moving. There are instances that Sea Import income isn’t being reported, despite a Sea Export to that settlement is being reported in another town. Thus, there may be some cap that limits how much can be imported by a town. Unlike, sea exports where the number of routes are determined by port type, this is not so in sea imports. More tests will be needed.

    Trade Buildings – You need to progressively build them to increase trade. There will be a base trade value even without a trader.

    In lower values, it is hard to pinpoint a good narrow range due to unexplained fluctuations when doing tests on small incomes (see Trade Fluctuations). Every turn, while building, I check all the individual trade incomes of the test settlements. A tiny, 1 denari fluctuations can actually alter a good percentage when testing for Level 1 & 2 upgrades since not all incomes concurrently fluctuate. Thus, so far, these are the values I come up with using Roman trade buildings:

    • Level 0 (Base trade value)
    • Level 1 (Trader) – Land based trades increase by 8.1% (see Trade Fluctuations)
    • Level 2 (Market) – Land based trades increase by 8.0% (see Trade Fluctuations)
    • Level 3 (Forum) – Land based trades get a ~ 8.2% increase from Market.
    • Level 4 (Great Forum) – Land based trades get +7.5-7.8%;
    • Level 5 (Curia) – Land based based trades get +5.4-5.6%

    • Level 0 Base (Base Trade Value)
    • Level 1 (Trader) – Sea Exports increase of
    • Level 2 (Market) – Sea Export increase of
    • Level 3 (Forum) – Sea Export increase of
    • Level 4 (Great Forum) – Sea Exports increase of +7.9%
    • Level 5 (Curia) – Sea Exports increase of +5.5-5.8%


    I’ve done retests and the levels still vary. However, the general increase is around same range..

    Damaged Trade Buildings – Damaged trade buildings will lose its effect until the building is repaired completely.

    F. Mining:

    Mining – Mining is lucrative in that you can earn from these twice: a) from the mining gold or silver itself and b) from trading the silver or gold that is being mined.

    Silver Mine = 200 denari per turn.
    Silver Mine +1 = 350 denari per turn.
    Gold Mine = 300 denari per turn.
    Gold Mine +1 = 525 denari per turn.

    Mining +1 increases mining income by an additional 75%. Mining upgrade does not increase trade in any way. You can get governor traits that increase mining income.

    Mining Retinues – Settlements with mines must have Mining bonus retinues. A Mining Engineer gives an extra 25% bonus.

    G. Miscellaneous Factors:there are other factors that affect your general income.

    Negotiated Incomes – These are incomes that derive from negotiations with other factions. (see Strategic Map>Selling Maps, >Protectorates, >Tributes).

    Rebels/Bandits/Brigands – Rebels will frequently pop-up in your territory along your trade routes.

    Effects of Rebels on trades:
    • Reduces land trade of the affected route from 1/3 to &#189; to 2/3 (33%-50%-67%). From observations, the closer the Rebels are to the affected settlement, the higher their effect. Rebels must be sitting atop a road to affect the land trade.
    • Reduces Sea Exports by 1/3 (33.3%). Unlike land trades, Rebels DO NOT have to be on the road to affect income; they simply have to be within the territory of the affected settlement.


    Need more tests:
    • If cities share the same roads, only a single land route (with the highest trade value) is affected.
    • land trades on simple roads are not disrupted even if it is connected to a highway originating from a trading partner.

    Governors – Governors affect trade income by virtue of retinues or traits. The effect can be negative or positive.

    Trade Rights – trade rights increase Sea Export income by 50% when trading with the particular faction. Your trading partner will also get a 50% Sea Export increase which translate to a corresponding Sea Import increase to you (since Sea Import = 20%Sea Export; see Sea Imports). Land trade increases by 3 fold (300%). It is possible that different variables can change this percentage.

    Corruption – is the leading income cutter in the game. This is due to the fact that it is omniscient with relation to increasing distance to capital.

    The farther the settlement is from the capital, the higher your percentage of corruption relative to the settlement’s income. There is also a grace distance where there are no corruption penalties. You can observe this where your Capital’s neighbor doesn’t incur any corruption penalties. (Thx to therother for all of these).

    From therother’s linear graph data: (note grace distance of ~16 tiles w/o corruption;and ~68% seem to be the ceiling where the percentage will not go any higher).

    Law buildings also reduce corruption penalties. (Thx to Soulflame for this idea). Via tests, their canceling effect appears to be 1:1 linear to that of corruption, thus 10% law will knock off 10% corruption.

    More specifically, the amount of corruption reduced is based on (0.3 x Gross Income) for every tier of Law Temple you construct in your settlement, where Gross Income = sum of all income of your settlement before costs are deducted.(Thx to Zhuge for this equation).

    In Zhuge’s Example:

    Settlement A has Gross Income = 1300 denari and Corruption value = 338 denari. If you construct a level 1 Law Temple,

    0.3 x Gross income = Corruption penalty (in denari) removed per level of Law Temple.
    0.3 x 1300 denari = 39 denari. Thus,

    Initial Corruption value – Corruption penalty removed = Resultant Corruption value
    338 denarie – 39 denari = 299 denari.

    Building a Level 2 Law Temple decreases corruption by another 39 denari and so on.

    Learning Centers –Academies can bestow your Governor retinues or traits that factor in your income. Lists of retinues and traits will be forthcoming.

    Trade Fluctuations – There is an inherent, unavoidable phenomenon in RTW where trade incomes can rise by increments of 1 denari for no reason at all. I suspect, every time the computer calculates a trade value, it gets rounded up. Not every values rise simultaneously though and in rare occasions, trade actually diminishes by 1 denari. In other rare occasions, it can rise by 2 denari for no visible reason at all.

    Blockades – because the AI never seem to blockade ports it is difficult to assess. I may have to buy a port that is being blockade to find out. I will look for an appropriate situation.(find blockade penalty).

    Blinking Icons – Blinking icons are limited to pre-patched games and has been fixed by CA.
    Last edited by Kekvit Irae; 09-12-2006 at 22:16.

  4. #4

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    IV. Battle Map

    1. General
    2. Sieges
    3. Open field
    4. Bridge Battles
    5. Sea Battles
    6. Cheap Exploits


    A. General Battle Features:

    Grouping Units– Always group your units during deployment (ctrl+left-click units then press g). A great basic grouping is Group I (left flank), Group II (center), Group III (right flank).

    Groupings should reflect the physical arrangement of your troops in the field. This way, you won’t be confused during battles and your attack or defense will be better organized.

    Just remember, flanks are generally for offense, while the center is generally defensive. Ultimately, it depends on your troop composition (which varies per faction) or even your own style (that you are most comfortably using). Lastly, Grouping doesn’t mean you have to order them together. You still have order them individually for a more effective battle.

    Charge Bonus – A double-right click attack is a charge (barring units that cannot charge, i.e. Hoplites). Your unit will receive a charge bonus to their normal attack. Right-click on the unit card to see the value.

    Shaken Units– these units are about to rout. Strike them once again to break them. Your own units should be blinking (in red numbers) if they are wavering or shaken. You need to pay close attention to them since they can rout at any moment. The faster the blinking the closer the unit is to its threshold.

    Put a unit on “hold” or Guard Mode when wavering, especially during melee to make them last a little longer.

    Grouped Archers– They do not fire on the correct units when ordered as a group. (Thx to hoom for noticing this first). You must order them individually.

    B. Sieges:

    Assaulting:

    Pre-assault: Before assaulting, always have a spy enter the settlement. Clicking the settlement with the spy shows you the probability of him opening the gates. During the siege, there is an Icon to show you if the gates are open and the assault button is enabled.

    Siege Weapon Units can also be used instantly, so you can assault city immediately without waiting for a turn to construct the Siege Engines.

    Siege Points: Siege points are your army’s ability to construct siege weapons. It is proportional to the number of units in your armies. The more units you have, the more siege weapons you can construct.(see Strategic Map>Siege Points).

    No Enclosure: A player is able to attack immediately when a city has no enclosure whatsoever.

    Wooden Gates/Palisades: Use battering ram. Position your skirmishing units (on hold formation) in shooting range to drive the blocking enemy.

    Wooden Walls:

    Use battering rams. They also provide a second entrance to facilitate flanking. Make sure to breach close enough to the gate to avoid the archer towers. This is useful when the city have many defenders. Repair the wall after a successful siege.

    Here’s a sample use of one battering ram.

    Keep missile units close by to drive out defenders parking in front of the entrance (especially the phalanx and spear units)(diagram 3.1). Be wary of enemy Heavy Cavalry, for they easily rout units in a single charge. Once the enemy leaves the gate, run your high defensive units opposite the direction where defenders are retreating (diagram 3.2). This way, when the retreating defender comes back (diagram 3.3) - and attacks those defensive units you put inside - you can flank from the gate entrance with your other units(diagram 3.4). Note that the Hastati in the illustration should be on fire-at-will mode so they shoot the passing enemy. The archers and Velites you can order to shoot but once melee starts, halt them. Make sure that no enemy can flank your defensive units from behind as well (in this case, the Triarii1).

    Diagram 3.1

    Diagram 3.2

    Diagram 3.3

    Diagram 3.4


    Stone Walls: Arrow Towers: There are two types: wooden and stone wall towers. The wooden towers cannot be turned off but they won’t shoot at your troops once they are inside. The stone wall towers can be turned off by running your troops through after climbing via ladder, a siege tower or through the wall itself.

    Turning off these towers is crucial whenever facing a heavy opposition. They decimate troops at a tremendous rate.

    Large Stone Walls: Ladders cannot be used on Large and Epic Stone Walls. Thus, do not bother building one as the build option is available. The ladder(s) will not appear in the battlefield (even if you construct them).

    Epic Stone Walls:

    Siege Engines: Be sure to study enemy composition and wall type before storming a city. (see Siege Factors). Generally, the smallest of units can operate any siege engines.
    1. Battering Rams– Useless on any stone walls or gates. They are easily burned by fire arrows and never get close to the gates. (see Wooden Walls).
    2. Ladders – Ladders are fast and useful when climbing lightly or un-defended walls. Troops climbing ladders are vulnerable to enemy fire, thus move them quickly. Use them to climb undefended walls section close but not beside the wall entrance.

      Make sure every single soldier have climbed off the ladder before ordering them to move again or the soldiers still at the ladder will climb down. Once on top, troops can fight hand-to-hand against any enemy defenders. There are three goals:

      1) Troops can turn off the arrow towers by simply walking through them.
      2) Remove any enemy skirmishers on top (they are deadly and can cause mass rout).
      3) Flank enemy defenders at the gates by climbing down any of the towers.

      You can help your troops by using Achers against the soldiers on the battlements. Make sure you position them out range of Arrow towers that are still active. All of these enable your main forces to enter the city gates. However, NEVER drop the ladder during deployment. There is a bug that prevents some units from picking it up again.

      Lastly, when approaching the walls, try to be perpendicular so the units won’t spend much time with the animations and ladders getting stuck to each other.
    3. Siege Towers –They are far less combustible than the battering ram. Use them to reach skirmishers at the battlements and to turn off arrow towers. They are only useful when you have to force your way into the battlements. If there are many open sections, ladders are more than sufficient. In addition, ladders cost much less siege points.

      (Note that ladders are can only be used on small stone walls.(see Large Stone Walls)

      If you use a skirmisher unit (on fire-at-will) to push the siege tower, their projectiles will automatically shoot units within range!
      (see Arrow Towers).
    4. Sapping Points – These are tunneling points constructed by your engineers. By far, the most useful when taking down stone walls.

    Siege factors:
    1. General’s rating – It determines whether you’re free to divide your troops and attack on numerous sides. Since only generals can rally troops and they give extra morale when they are close.
    2. Troop composition – A balanced army means an effective siege.
    3. Enemy Enclosures – The stronger the fortification, the harder it is to use battering ram. They burn easily. Archers on the battlements need to be taken out as well. Thus, scan your enemy troops with a spy before you attack.
    4. Unit width –When storming a city, it is best to reduce your units’ width during deployment. It will reduce their tendency to clip walls and walk slowly since they try to reform all the time. The wider your formation, the harder the troops tend to navigate in tight corridors.

      Instead of this formation,

      WWWWWWWWWWW
      WWWWWWWWWWW
      WWWWWWWWWWW

      use

      WWWWWW
      WWWWWW
      WWWWWW
      WWWWWW
      WWWWWW
      WWW

    Siege Tips:
    • Opened Gates –When the gates are opened by spies, spread your troops. Put one unit to at least one of the gate (just as a ruse, but they aren’t meant to attack). The enemy will automatically spread their troops whenever the gates are opened. But concentrate on the main gate. This is especially useful in diverting enemy cavalry or phalanx units that
    • Check the Timer – Always check the time whenever your battle timer option is enabled. Remember, you need to hold the city square for at least 3 minutes or kill every defender to win.
    • Arrow Towers – Arrow towers that have been captured will automatically shoot at enemy units that are within range. You must pass your unit through of the towers in able to capture it.
      When doing melee on the wall, stay close to the arrow towers you have captured, and let them come to you so it will shoot at the enemy at the same time.
    • Wall Collapse Trap – Enemies would invariable put their soldiers on stone walls. Try to force them to go atop the sapping point. You can position your soldiers near the sapping point thereby inducing the enemy to close-in. As the walls collapse, the enemy is taken down with it.
    • Specific Path – Cities have specific pathways or walkways (units will avoid open spaces and limit themselves to narrow road). The units will always use this when you use the Right-click move function. To skirt this pathfinding limitation, use Right-click (hold) and drag mouse function (see Unit width). Therefore, you can specify where your troops are going.

      Especially in barbarian towns, Units will go around buildings when there are no specific roads. You can right-click drag and place them on a tight space (i.e. in-between houses). Once in position, they will move forward and not go back and use a runaround.

    C. Open Field –

    General Army Formation – It is a advisable to have a cohesive formation before battles to ensure a higher probabability of winning as well as lower casualty rate.

    Here is a sample Roman Army Formation:


    Note that the three archers should be layered and stretched into long thin lines enough to cover the 3 Principe. Due to limitation of the format, I have to write them separately. The Triaarii functions as the secondary blocker (see Blocker), that will serve to reinforce the Principe frontline when they waver.

    You can also group them: Left flank as Group I, Center as Group II, Right flank as Group III. This way it is easier to manage battles (see Grouping Units). Of course, you can personalize your own formation and grouping depending on your style and army compostion. The message here is to combine Grouping with army formation to ease your micromanagement of troops in battle.

    Note that this is not meant to be a historically accurate formation, but one that I’m using and that I find very effective. The basic idea here is to flank the enemy from both or either side. The center MUST hold at all cost for flanking to work and you can make that happen by using the blocker and pressing “guard mode” for the center units so the hold longer. This pincer movement is very important in TW games.

    Double Envelopment:

    A typical Roman engagement:


    Rout and swallow the enemy. Note that the Velite is not to melee but to harass the enemy. In this case the Velite will shoot at Enemy1 and Enemy 7 while the Hastati and the Equites do the flanking.

    Triarii’s role is to reinforce units that is wavering Your General can also do this if needed. If possible you can also use the General to help do the flanking. However, do this when the enemy has already commited to melee. You do not want your general’s life in a long arduous fight.




    Special Formations –
    • Wedge – Unit turns into a wedge-shape. While this is a good formation chasing down troops, it is not at all helpful in actually melee. Unlike STW and MTW, wedge isn’t ideal for flanking, since they do not penetrate through units ( and thus have very little impact if any).
    • Cantabrian Circle –
    • Warcry –
    • Phalanx Formation –
    • Testudo Formation –

    Skirmishers –
    • Long range –(Archers, Slingers, Ballista). These units excel behind defensive troops as well as troops have a secondary pila weapon. The strategy behind long range archers is to let the enemy come to you. They are also useful in targeting the enemy general from afar. In addition, concentrating long range firepower on a singe unit can significantly cause it to rout.

      Always have a defensive blocker for which the Archers to hide on. They must have a fairly good defensive ability so they can withstand enemy charges.

      Layer your archers from overlapping to prevent their own friendly fire (shooting each other). If you have different archers or slingers: The shorter range archers should be upfront, the long range at its back and the cavalry archers (if you wish to use them stationary) should be at the very back.
    • Medium range – (ex. Velites, Peltasts). These skirmishers excel in small city assaults with wooden walls. They also very effective working behind powerful defensive units, like the phalanx. They work even better against phalanx units.

      “skirmish mode” OFF: Against other Medium range units (eg. Velites vs. Peltasts) or else they would not be able to shoot but only move away every time they are in enemy range.
      “skirmish mode” ON: In an open field periphery where they evade melee units on their own. Use them to lure enemy shock troops to your own shock troops on the wings. It is ideal to charge them from their back. Once engaged, charge them once again (preferably with Cavalry). Time your charges so they rout quickly.
    • Short range – To properly use the pilum, do not right-click attack. Instead, enable Fire-At-Will and disable Guard Mode, then right-click drag to position them within striking range of the enemy. They will automatically fire.Although, you still need to micromanage them since they tend to charge on their own after two volleys.

    Melee Tips –
    • Clipping – Avoid clipping enemies by adjusting unit width. Clipping and enemy will usually drag that unit into battle and when you try to pull away, the unit makes some unnecessary maneuvers in and around the clipped enemy unit, resulting in their rout.
    • Chase the Routers – Only cavalry has enough speed to chase down routers. Right-click (drag) and spread their width to cover enough ground. When routers are close to the red boundary line, overtake them, they will change direction 180 degrees from your current position. You can re-charge and again to clean up completely.

      Enemy units that rout will follow the general direction of the flag bearer. Usually, it is confusing to follow where a routing unit is headed under a mess of tangled units.

      Much like you own troops, routers will not rally (and reform) when there are enemy units close by. Especially on major battles, don’t lose sight of routing units (most importantly when the units are scattered all over the field. However, the more decimated they are the less likely they will rally.

    Skirmishing Tips –
    • Grouping Archers – whenever you group archers, click on them individually, and then order them to fire. There is a bug preventing them from firing at the correct unit whenever ordered in group.
    • Right-click drag/movement – whenever you right-click-drag archers, make sure the fire-at-will mode is off, or else they will start firing whenever an enemy is within range and your move is cancelled.
    • Retreating Enemies – Whenever the AI feels that it cannot win, it will withdraw its troops. Cautiously attack them at this phase. Charging at those retreating troops indiscriminately will force them to fight.

      For example, do it if it is Cavalry vs. Archers. But don’t just drive cavalry at the back of a full-strength Spear unit for it will fight back. The AI can also even decide to cancel its retreat and your troops will be caught out of a cohesive formation and it will cost you a lot of soldiers and even worse the battle.

      Always think of a scenario of what-if-the-AI doesn’t-completely-retreat? This way, you will be always prepared and successfully counter any of their abrupt maneuvers.
    • Blockers – I would use this term for units that protect your foot archers/slingers and skirmishers. They must have high defense to be able to withstand enemy charges.

      To protect a long line of archers (see Skirmishers), you need about three blockers in deep rows, lined side by side to cover the archer’s width. The blockers and archers along with the generals would make up your army center.

      A secondary blocker should be positioned behind the archers to reinforce any blocker that is wavering or shaken. Your general can also be a secondary blocker. But do not use him early on, unless you are sure you can protect him or he is far from danger of quick death. Think of him as the last resort blocker since his primary melee role is to flank not to block.

      Blockers can also be used to protect cavalry. Since cavalry has an excellent charge bonus, they are best for flanking (for an instant rout and minimum casualty). Have a blocker close by your cavalry. Move your cavalry away for the charging enemy unit and then block. Then quickly drive your cavalry at the enemy’s back.

      Lastly, in all cases above, and barring phalanx units, ALWAYS charge back. Don’t let the enemy charge at your units while holding still (except for phalanx units). Meet their charge with your own charge, and then put your unit on “hold” or “Guard Mode” as soon as the charge bonus wears off.

    D. Bridge Battles:

    Attacking Bridges – The AI is easy to exploit during bridge battles. They will always chase your unit towards your side if you bait them.

    Defending Bridges –
    1. Line up your best defensive troops parallel to the mouth of the bridge. Use your shock troops, preferably with high charge value perpendicular to the mouth created by your parallel line of troops. Face the archers to the bridge mouth on “hold” and disabled “fire-at-will”.Line up your Velites behind the defensive wall parallel to the bridge. The length of your bottleneck/corridor depends on how many units you have.

      The idea is to create a box and constrict the enemy at the right time. In this variation, your troops parallel to the bridge are the defensive walls. While the troops perpendicular to the bridgemouth are your counter-attackers.


    2. Alternatively, if you have a powerful, defensive unit – such as hoplites – then place them perpendicular to the mouth, instead, and your shock troops parallel. Hoplites serve as the bottle cap. Doing this without a highly defensive unit increases the risk of the unit breaking and routing. Hitting the enemy on both sides is more powerful than capping a single opening.


    3. In addition, you may use ballista, onager or other similar contraptions to harass incoming troops and bathe them in fear. Be wary of friendly fire once melee begins and aim them at enemy troops that are farther detached from yours (preferably those still crossing the bridge.

      In the end really boils down to what troop types you have. Be creative in making the most out of your army.

    4. Be wary of the presence of a second crossing point (river fords). The enemy can cross these points thereby endangering your army of being flanked if not noticed early on. (Thx to Oaty for first finding this).However, whenever the AI uses this, it recognizes when you they will be ganged up on the other side and will withdraw from crossing.

    E. Sea Battles – The Sea battles section is in the Strategic Map.

    F. Cheap Exploits: That are needed to be fixed in
    • Siege Baiting The enemy will move out of the city when they are greater in numbers.
    • Bridge Baiting The enemy will chase your units to your side of the bridge.


    V.Miscellany

    Miscellaneous Info
    • A) Units – RTW>Data>Export_desc_unit.
    • Temples – Sinner’s Temple Guide
    • Buildings – RTW>Data>Export_desc_buildings
    • Retinues – RTW>Data>Export_desc_ancillary.
    • Traits – RTW>Data>Export_desc_characters_traits.
    • Agent Retinue – RTW>Data>desc_agent_ancillary.

    A. Bugs: Bugs that needed to be fixed in patch 1.3 or in the expansion pack (to date yet-unannounced)

    Major:
    • Castle Siege Cancel – Whenever loading a game, any castle siege by the AI is cancelled.(find credit at .COM forum).
    • Movement Cancel – Movement is automatically cancelled whenever your armies or agents halts on the red-zone at the Strategic Map. Army pieces cannot move backwards.

    Minor:
    • AI Bridge routing – The AI always rout to the player’s side during bridge battles, making the battles less challenging.
    • Port blockade bug – Units cannot be blockaded inside a port unless surrounded. (Thx to hoom for noticing this first).
    Last edited by Kekvit Irae; 09-12-2006 at 22:20.

  5. #5
    American since 2012 Senior Member AntiochusIII's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Brilliant, but, err...Quietus; may be you should post/move it to the Guide forum? So it can get stickied.

  6. #6
    Dux Nova Scotia Member lars573's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Your conclusions about assassins and spy's are a bunch of crap. Assassins much more than spys need training before there worth a damn. Spys only die on missions if your target city has a spy in residence and/or the fmaily member has a high personal security value. Every time you send a spy into another city with a spy in it he will be caught and killed. The only time this didn't happen was when I sent a spy with a level 8 subderfuge level into a city with a green spy. To train a good assassin you need to send him after easy targets. What are easy targets, other assassins and other spys are the easiest targets. Most every times you send an assassin after another one the chances of sucess are 95%.

    Assassin sucess rate chart from easiest to hardest

    other assassins
    green spys
    rebel captains
    experienced spys
    green diplomats
    captians from other factions
    experienced diplomats
    green family members
    experienced family members
    faction heirs
    faction leaders

    The best way to use spys and assassins is in tandem with each other. The spy detects other subderfuge agents and the assassin takes care of them. Also the spy can scout out good family member targets, look for ones with low or no personal security traits/ retinue members. A good rule of thumb for assassinatiing a family meber is to stay away from one with a chance of sucess lower than 45%. Below that your just going to lose your assassin and give the target a personal security trait and make him that much harder to kill the next time.
    Last edited by lars573; 03-23-2005 at 17:30.
    If you havin' skyrim problems I feel bad for you son.. I dodged 99 arrows but my knee took one.

    VENI, VIDI, NATES CALCE CONCIDI

    I came, I saw, I kicked ass

  7. #7
    Master of Few Words Senior Member KukriKhan's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Hey lars573 let's go some easier on someone whose effort produced such a volumnous tome. If you have a dispute with the author's analysis and conclusions, characterizing his/her view as 'total crap', right from the start, is the surest way to get your own input disregarded.

    Maybe, instead, start with "I disagree with...my experience tells me it's this way...".
    Be well. Do good. Keep in touch.

    Member thankful for this post:



  8. #8
    Dux Nova Scotia Member lars573's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    And I would have done that had his remarks about assassins not angered me the way they have. The subterfuge agents are one of my favorite parts about RTW. All of Quietus's guide is well researched laid out and logical. But the way he dismisses assassins and spy's as some how less than useful, well I haven't quite calmed down yet.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quietus
    Spies – Spies are your eyes. They can gather and reveal information about cities, armies and even agents.

    Whenever inside a town, they have an ability to open gates during sieges. The higher the Spy’s rank, the higher is his probability of opening the gates. (The siege scroll will show if the Spy has opened the gate). Use them along with a diplomat or assassin to scout ahead of your armies to reveal valuable reconnaissance. They also must enter before a siege. One warning: they can be killed in the line of duty.

    Assassin – Assassins are used to kill enemy agents, generals or faction leaders. However, they aren’t effective in assassination.

    You can also use them to sabotage enemy structures and building. This is useful against towns you are planning to attack. Assassins need to know the buildings first before it can act, thus a spy is necessary for this endeavor. Sabotage the buildings that train the tough AI units. Like Spies, they can die during missions.
    These 2 paragraphs are what set me off, but the part I've bolded is what threw me into a rage. You can see how he glances over and dismisses spys and assassins.
    If you havin' skyrim problems I feel bad for you son.. I dodged 99 arrows but my knee took one.

    VENI, VIDI, NATES CALCE CONCIDI

    I came, I saw, I kicked ass

  9. #9
    Research Fiend Technical Administrator Tetris Champion, Summer Games Champion, Snakeman Champion, Ms Pacman Champion therother's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Hi Quietus. Useful guide. A few quick comments/additions, based on a first glance:

    [table 1 2 2]
    There is no reason why you can't use < or > in a table|just don't put anything directly after < or it will be cut off.
    [/table]

    The unit sizes you quote seem a little off. For instance, what you have as medium is, IIRC, the figures for large.

    Low tax gives a 30% happiness bonus; you have 25%. Might be worth mentioning that the penalty to Public Order for higher tax rates is cumulative.

    About the Construction Tab, you might want to mention that you can 'postpone' a partial construction without penalty by moving it back in the queue. They will pick up on construction when you move it back to the top of the queue. The same is true for recruitment.

    Are you sure "Culture penalty erodes over time"?

    The "enemy’s red zone" cancelling movement is, I think, a feature rather than a bug.

    You get a 15% Order penalty for having no garrison in a settlement.

    "Retinues –Family members can pick up retinues even if not the governor of a city, so long as a “learning center” is present." Not sure what you mean here: family members don't even need to be in cities to pick up retinue.

    Siege Points: generals can add points via traits as well as retinue. In my experience, generals add more than 15 SPs, although I haven't done much testing.

    Experience Chevrons: routed troops don't count as much for XP as fighting troops.

    Sea Movements: you travel faster if you stick close to the shore. Probability of winning sea battles is heavily dependent on campaign difficulty level.

    Skipped the battlemap section – in a hurry.

    Tax income has been pretty much solved - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37831

    About the 3 of 5 getting the road increase, I believe this is due to the other provinces not having a comparable level of roads. To get the bonus from paved roads, the neighbouring provinces need at least basic roads. Similarly, to get the bonus from Highways, the neighbouring provinces need paved roads.

    Shorter distance is better for sea exports. Distance is calculated by the actual length of the route itself, not straight-line distance.

    Your numbers for Trade Buildings are different from mine. I've no explanation for why: it's a while since I did the research.

    Effects of Law on corruption: I think zhuge did quite a bit of work on this: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38146
    Last edited by therother; 03-24-2005 at 06:25.
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  10. #10

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    lars,

    Thx for the input! I'll add it to the guide soon (and give you proper credit).

    However, I did extol the virtues and use of spies throughout the guide! (see Watchtowers, Quick Siege and Merging Armiesamong others).

    As for the assassins, I was referring to family members but failed to blurt it out loud. Admittedly, I only use 1 assassins per campaign (due to their high upkeep of 200 denari). And when I use them on enemy generals, they either die or fail. It didn't occur to me that you can raise their stats through target practices (as denoted by the nether regions of your list):

    Quote Originally Posted by lars573
    other assassins
    green spys
    rebel captains
    experienced spys
    green diplomats
    captians from other factions
    experienced diplomats
    green family members
    experienced family members
    faction heirs
    faction leaders
    And keep it coming if you have some more!

    @Antiochus, I've already requested to KukriMan that it be moved hours ago.

    @therother, I'll reply to you right away just a minute (I didn't see your post and I was replying to the last post and the preview button is going bonkers, I have repeat again and again. )

  11. #11

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Quote Originally Posted by therother
    Hi Quietus. Useful guide. A few quick comments/additions, based on a first glance:

    [table 1 2 2]
    There is no reason why you can't use < or > in a table|just don't put anything directly after < or it will be cut off.
    [/table]
    Awesome! See below, the thing erased a portion of my post!

    The unit sizes you quote seem a little off. For instance, what you have as medium is, IIRC, the figures for large.
    I'll recheck, Thx.

    Low tax gives a 30% happiness bonus; you have 25%. Might be worth mentioning that the penalty to Public Order for higher tax rates is cumulative.
    Now why did I write that?

    About the Construction Tab, you might want to mention that you can 'postpone' a partial construction without penalty by moving it back in the queue. They will pick up on construction when you move it back to the top of the queue. The same is true for recruitment.
    Not sure what you meant by the second sentence.

    Are you sure "Culture penalty erodes over time"?
    you mean foreign buildings is culture penaly? Must have been an old text yet revised, since the idea at the time was temple give the penalty and over time even without destroying the temple, the penalty diminishes. I'll erase it soon.

    You get a 15% Order penalty for having no garrison in a settlement.
    Whoa, CHUNKS of my post was deleted thanks to the < after 75%

    Everything between "red face < and > see Diplomacy" for info was cutoff, that's why the whole Strategic Overview Scroll didn't show up.[/quote]
    "Retinues –Family members can pick up retinues even if not the governor of a city, so long as a “learning center” is present." Not sure what you mean here: family members don't even need to be in cities to pick up retinue.

    Siege Points: generals can add points via traits as well as retinue. In my experience, generals add more than 15 SPs, although I haven't done much testing.

    Experience Chevrons: routed troops don't count as much for XP as fighting troops.

    Sea Movements: you travel faster if you stick close to the shore. Probability of winning sea battles is heavily dependent on campaign difficulty level.

    Skipped the battlemap section – in a hurry.

    Tax income has been pretty much solved - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37831

    About the 3 of 5 getting the road increase, I believe this is due to the other provinces not having a comparable level of roads. To get the bonus from paved roads, the neighbouring provinces need at least basic roads. Similarly, to get the bonus from Highways, the neighbouring provinces need paved roads.

    Shorter distance is better for sea exports. Distance is calculated by the actual length of the route itself, not straight-line distance.

    Your numbers for Trade Buildings are different from mine. I've no explanation for why: it's a while since I did the research.

    Effects of Law on corruption: I think zhuge did quite a bit of work on this: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38146
    I will read and address these soon! Thx therother.

    Edit: I've fixed the < being too close to 75% making the Settlement details section disappear up to the > Diplomacy.

    On corruption, I've already credited Soulflame, dating back to the old economics guide, for linking the Law and Corruption. I'll revise it soon and credit Zhuge for the additional equation linking Gross Income and Temples.

    For the tax income I'll include it in the new version with full credit since that was relic from the old guide (as soon as I can).

    For the trade income bonus from structures, they change for every test I did, there's no solid number to rely on.
    Last edited by Quietus; 03-25-2005 at 14:45.

  12. #12
    One of the Undutchables Member The Stranger's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    i thought you was kidding about the guide. well it is a good one, why didn't you came up with this earlier than maybe i could've used it.

    We do not sow.

  13. #13
    Dux Nova Scotia Member lars573's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Quote Originally Posted by Quietus
    lars,

    Thx for the input! I'll add it to the guide soon (and give you proper credit).

    However, I did extol the virtues and use of spies throughout the guide! (see Watchtowers, Quick Siege and Merging Armiesamong others).

    As for the assassins, I was referring to family members but failed to blurt it out loud. Admittedly, I only use 1 assassins per campaign (due to their high upkeep of 200 denari). And when I use them on enemy generals, they either die or fail. It didn't occur to me that you can raise their stats through target practices (as denoted by the nether regions of your list):

    And keep it coming if you have some more!
    Most I can give, besides what i've said already, are some rules by which to use an assassin.
    1.Never try to assassinate a family member with an assassin with less than 8 subterfuge points, it's a waste of the assassins life and your money
    2.Sabotage doesn't raise the subterfuge level very fast, if ever
    3.90% of the time the best success chance you can hope for when killing an enemy family member is 50/50, only time you can hope for better is if you send assassins after green generals (under 25)
    4.Assassins need training beyond recruitment, send them after "soft" targets to build their stats, targets like
    other assassins
    green spys
    rebel captains
    experienced spys
    green diplomats
    Last edited by lars573; 03-24-2005 at 17:27.
    If you havin' skyrim problems I feel bad for you son.. I dodged 99 arrows but my knee took one.

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  14. #14
    Tired Old Geek Member mfberg's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Blockades – Aside from normal port blockades, you can also blockade enemy ships from dropping off enemy troops along the shore. The red areas indicate blockading range of your ships. A neutral fleet can also blockade you if you hit them along the path unaware. Thus, it is ideal to not hug the coast too tightly when traveling.
    (normal port blockades) Seaports can be blockaded from land or sea. Place the land unit inside the port or move the ship to attack the harbor.

    mfberg
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    Brain : The same thing we do every night Pinky. Try to take over the world!

  15. #15

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Thx everyone for the feedback and suggestions.

    I'm still taking in comments, questions, corrections, requests, suggestions and contributions!

    KukriMan and I have agreed that the Guide will be moved at a later date while feedbacks and revisions are still coming in.

    Quote Originally Posted by Emperor Umeu 1
    i thought you was kidding about the guide.
    At least there's no cliffhangers like the Fashionable Dacian.

    edit:
    @ therother: the siege points was already mentioned except for the traits; tax income i'll update soon; the no-governance penalty infor was truncated by < and > (see above). The rest have been revised or about to be, except for the roads. In the interest of space, let's move that discussion to Ludus Magna (Research: Effects of Roads)
    Last edited by Quietus; 03-25-2005 at 14:40.

  16. #16
    Master of Few Words Senior Member KukriKhan's Avatar
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    Default Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Placeholder. Awaiting merged thread. This post will self-destruct when actual content arrives.
    Be well. Do good. Keep in touch.

  17. #17
    Member Member bmolsson's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Just a comment on slingers. They seems to hit your own troops when standing behind them.

    Also a question, has anyone seen if their is an multiple effect on counter spying when having more than one spy in your city (to uncover enemy spies).....

  18. #18
    Amanuensis Member pezhetairoi's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    That's because slingers are low-trajectory missile troops. Putting them behind your standard troops just means you're shooting them in the back of the head.


    EB DEVOTEE SINCE 2004

  19. #19

    Default Re: A Comprehensive Rome: Total War Guide

    Quote Originally Posted by bmolsson
    Just a comment on slingers. They seems to hit your own troops when standing behind them.

    Also a question, has anyone seen if their is an multiple effect on counter spying when having more than one spy in your city (to uncover enemy spies).....
    LOL Have you been reading my post in the tavern Backroom pet peeves thread . Prankster, very funny, now confess!!

    On a serious note: about the slingers, how far back are they when they hit the frontal troops?

    Also, I particularly don't use or recommend spies in home cities due to their high 100 denari upkeep. You can just lower the taxes to counter the enemy spies' effect.

    Hence I haven't done any particular tests on counterspying.

    Lastly, if you build continuously, you won't even be bothered with loyalty problems nor you would need garrisons (only on really far,far away cities).

  20. #20

    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    As far as slingers and shootig your own troops, the same happens with archers, at least in the v1.0 i play. I'll refer first to archers, it seems they start to cause casualties to you, halfway their shooting range, which is quite a lot of men 'till the enemy reaches your line. The game certainly changed since MTW (and shogun) where positioning your archers a little (like a 2 men width line) behind your spearmen wouldn't cause casualties untill the enemy reached your line when it was natural for some arrows to hit their comarades. Slingers on the other hand are like Xbowmen or Arballesters or Gunners of MTW (shogun). They will shoot through your troops inflicting not a few, but a LOT of casualties. Thats why i always position slingers in front of my lines and then retreat them. They shoot almost parallel to the ground. Then i dont use them at all, or try to flank them. The same thing i do with archers, in front of my troops and then i relocate them further back and order them to shoot at some of the enemies who are still to close on my troops. That way when the arrows go over my first line soldiers, travel at quite an altitude.

  21. #21
    Weird Organism Senior Member Drisos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Well, I never played anything but STW, but I decided to take a look at the famous 'Quietus guide to Rome'.

    I think many new RTW-players appreciate this great work, Quietus.

    I think you did a very great service to the .org with this! !

    - Chu - Gi - Makoto - Rei - Jin - Yu - Meiyo -

  22. #22
    Patriot Member IliaDN's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Indeed he did!

  23. #23

    Default Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Hey I'm new 2 this game and had a stupid question to ask. How do I disable the AI's control of my reinforcements in the game. I did the unlimited men on the battlefield mod, but AI controls my reinforcement. Where and when do i uncheck that box that you guys were talking about up there or is there anything I can do ? The comp's so stupid....and they call it intelligence.

  24. #24

    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Quote Originally Posted by Warfanatic
    Hey I'm new 2 this game and had a stupid question to ask. How do I disable the AI's control of my reinforcements in the game. I did the unlimited men on the battlefield mod, but AI controls my reinforcement. Where and when do i uncheck that box that you guys were talking about up there or is there anything I can do ? The comp's so stupid....and they call it intelligence.
    Hello Warfanic! Your first post! Welcome!

    First of all, there are no stupid questions only stupid answers.

    Ok, a player has the maximum ability of controlling 20 units. The rest of the units will be reinforcements, always.

    There is computer icon/picture with a box beside it in the battle scroll (in the strategic map when combat is initiated). Left-click the box the tick/untick the option.

    ticked box = The AI will control all your reinforcements.
    unticked box = The player will control all the reinforcements, with deference to the 20 unit max rule.

    unlimited men on the battlefied: TRUE = no reinforcement delay.
    unlimited men on the battlefield: FALSE = reinforcement delay depending on how good is your PC.

    Now if you combine the unticked box and unlimited men, then so long as you have 20 units on the field the reinforcements will arrive but will not cross the red border in the battle map. Was that clear?

    Thx for all the replies, comments, suggestions, and contributions, guys (drisos, IliaDN, pez, bmolsson).

    Amazon, I noted that archer has to be layered long with enough space so they don't inflict damage to the other units. I've very protective of my archers.

    I'll have to test the slingers on how much space will they need to be most effective when shooting behind troops, that's why I'm asking. Thank you.

  25. #25
    Weird Organism Senior Member Drisos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Welcome to the .org, Warfanatic!! Please give us a (short) introduction in the 'HAIL New Members (introductions) II' thread. That way you'll become a full member soon.

    Quote Originally Posted by Warfanatic
    Hey I'm new 2 this game and had a good question to ask.
    Remember this: The are no stupid question, Warfanatic There are stupid answers, but certainly not in this thread. (AdrianII told me the same story once )

    The comp's so stupid....and they call it intelligence.
    I totally agree. The AI can be very, very stupid sometimes.
    - Chu - Gi - Makoto - Rei - Jin - Yu - Meiyo -

  26. #26

    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Quote Originally Posted by drisos
    Remember this: The are no stupid question, Warfanatic There are stupid answers, but certainly not in this thread. (AdrianII told me the same story once )
    Dris, that's because Adrian heard it from me!

  27. #27
    Weird Organism Senior Member Drisos's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    it's been a while since I checked this thread, but he! there another reaction!

    Quote Originally Posted by Quietus
    Dris, that's because Adrian heard it from me!
    Really? Well said!
    - Chu - Gi - Makoto - Rei - Jin - Yu - Meiyo -

  28. #28
    Member locked_thread's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Thanks for the guide, Quietus. I'd like to add: POPULATION DRIVES YOUR ECONOMY.

    Most people know that taxation is proportional to population. But so are trade and farming. When a city doubles in size, it also doubles trade and farm income. If you want more money, get more people. This explains turn-to-turn trade variations, since population tends to increment upward.

    Huge bloated cities can rake massive cash despite few economic improvements. It's not obvious, because the city is allocated a large amount of public debt based on headcount. And big cities are often inefficient moneymakers per capita, so they appear not to be pulling their weight. But the city as a whole IS pulling its weight and more.

    A 20% trade bonus applies only to trade income. A 20% farm bonus applies only to farming income. But a 20% population increase applies to tax income, AND trade, AND farm income. Thus population growth should have priority over trade/farm upgrades.... (handily enough, trade and farm upgrades DO increase growth)! Sewers are ideal because they accelerate growth while countering the inevitable unhappiness growth will bring.

  29. #29

    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    Big cities always make a loss. The best money-making populations are between 1000 and 6000. Anything above that and you'll be losing money every turn.

  30. #30
    Member locked_thread's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide

    The net income shown is extremely misleading. Open the economic details window of the city. Put the mouse over the various types of expenditures and you'll see why the city appears to be losing money. Big cities are arbitrarily assigned more maintenance. This is for show only, it has no effect on your actual economy.

    Suppose a big city loses population due to plague (for example). Some of it's troop maintenance will be reassigned to other cities. The plagued city will appear to make more money but the rest of your cities will be shouldering more maintenance - your overall economy will be weaker.

    If you ignore maintenance and compare income, a 24,000 city does make far more money than a 6,000 city.

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