Thinking of starting up a new campaign... just 1 thing holding me back.

[Dayve]

EB is fantastic, it really is, couldn't ask for more from a mod... or at least not anything any modder can fix. I really want to start a new campaign but after a short while i get really pissed off because there's nothing there anymore, i have too much money to spend, i can pump out army after army and steamroll anything in my path... blah.

What really gets me the most is my armies have no importance whatsoever. Losing a full stack, with huge unit sizes, should have consequences. It should have loyalty consequences within cities, it should have monetary consequences, political consequences, all sorts of consequences, but it just doesn't. I click a few buttons and in 2 turns i have another full stack and it hasn't even dented my treasury at all.

Does anybody have any ironman rules to make it more interesting? I thought of... sort of... not allowing myself to recruit a new army for like 5 years after one gets destroyed, but that just isn't realistic i don't think. I'll be playing as the Romans by the way, i don't play other factions. I know they had the ability to churn out army after army but there would eventually come a point where they would have no armies left to conjure, whereas in this game that point never comes. Money never runs out and neither does population. Once you have Italy, you've won, no matter how many battles you lose or anything.

So... suggestions? :whip:

[General Appo]

Ehhh.... don´t play as Romans? They are the easiets faction in the game after all.

[Dayve]

They're also the most interesting and fascinating of the time, for me at least. I will play as the Romans, i said that in my original post. If you don't have something useful to say... Well, you know the rest.

[abou]

So let me get this straight:

1. You state that you want the game to be a more of a challenge.
2. You state that you will play as Rome.
3. You state that the game is easily won once you take Italy.
4. You reafirm your position to play as Rome.

Dayve, if can't make a useful thread then... well, you know the rest.

[Subedei]

T If you don't have something useful to say... Well, you know the rest.

Well, you asked us. It is your problem you don´t wanna give any other faction a try...not our problem. I was about to state: "Try Saka!" if U needs "a challenge".

So maybe go role-playing or try to reconstruct the historic developement of the Roman Empire....or make an AAR...many ways to alter the gameplay/ perspective.....:2cents:

[zooeyglass]

Well, you asked us. It is your problem you don´t wanna give any other faction a try...not our problem. I was about to state: "Try Saka!" if U needs "a challenge".

So maybe go role-playing or try to reconstruct the historic developement of the Roman Empire....or make an AAR...many ways to alter the gameplay/ perspective.....:2cents:

excellent response. if you are definitely stuck on romani and none of the other 19 factions, then the above tips are excellent - try playing in step with the actual dated history, or follow one unit's growth.

what difficulty are you playing on? have you considered VH/VH?

[Dayve]

Usually VH/M, but i was thinking of trying M/M this time because on VH/M i end up having to fight 10 battles per turn which gets very annoying very quickly.

I know it's impossible to play as Rome and have a challenge, what i'm asking is if anybody has any rules that they use to MAKE IT challenging. I don't enjoy playing as other factions and i always follow the historical expansion of Rome in every campaign, it's what i enjoy doing.

[zooeyglass]

Usually VH/M, but i was thinking of trying M/M this time because on VH/M i end up having to fight 10 battles per turn which gets very annoying very quickly.

I know it's impossible to play as Rome and have a challenge, what i'm asking is if anybody has any rules that they use to MAKE IT challenging. I don't enjoy playing as other factions and i always follow the historical expansion of Rome in every campaign, it's what i enjoy doing.

how about also using the historical (as far as possible) set up of the legions?

also, how about trying M/VH - to give you the challenge in battle but not the overacting hunting AI....

I appreciate you don't enjoy playing other factions, but perhaps you could explain in a bit more detail why that's the case - there's surely another that might suit you a little bit more, esp as you've said you feel the game's won once you hold italy. perhaps a radical change to saba or baktria would spice things up?

[The Celtic Viking]

Uhm... if it's impossible to play as Rome and have a challenge, there's no way to make it challenging. Even if you write "make" in caps. So in other words, you're asking us to do help you do something that, by your own words, cannot be done.

Anyway, you could of course make your own soldiers cost much more to train and keep. You could also edit the script so that when you get more than x money, y money will be removed from your coffers until you've got less than x again. Or you can take off those Romani blindfolds and try another faction. If you won't edit this, and won't just choose to wait with creating a new army, and won't play as another faction, and... just... won't... then this thread serves no other purpose than for you to mask your bitching and whining about there being no challenge under the guise of a plea for help.

I'm sorry if I'm being too much of a Frank here, but it just feels too much like you're complaining about a problem that you've brought on yourself.

[The Wandering Scholar]

A comedy of errors from Dayve. So you say it is too easy, so you reduce the difficulty? Something wrong there Dayvey. Why don't you try using armies of peasants?

[Obelics]

hi dave, try to use this:

- never Retrain troops as Romans, just merge it, even the troops you use as garrison inside the towns, that make more challenge. If you have not the money to train a new unit you cant merge it with an old one.
- always start a siege the turn just after you attack the town.
- before to siege a town, try to pur a spy there inside so he open the gates, and you have to take the town with no siege engines, that's really difficult!
- dont attack a faction that is neutral, never betray an ally etc.
- leave chartage the time to grow up as a power.

- never do sea invasion for luck! for example you cant just put all your best trined troops on a single transport ship and sent them to take Chartage...
You have to disembark in the neighbours of a province you want to attack, and you can just siege the town, 1 or 2 turns after. So wait 2 turns before to start the siege of a town in a province you invaded via sea.
- you can't do naval invasion, like above, with just a transport ship, but you have to gain Talassokratia (dominion of the seas) at first! That means that i cant invade chartage if i have not the wealthy to afford a great flot of war-ships, and i "must" have control of the sea, at last for the sea-part between me and the province i want to take.

- try to use some thought stacks, this means, not all Triari, or principes stacks, but use allied units and skirmishers too.
- Just one unit of Slingers! Not more! If you can train some archers, try to use them instead of slingers.

i dont know if this can be useful, that's what im using at last in my current campaign. Hope there is something that can be of some use. It was just what come in my mind now BTW.

salut!

[LorDBulA]

I know it's impossible to play as Rome and have a challenge, what i'm asking is if anybody has any rules that they use to MAKE IT

To add to Obelics post:

VH/VH difficulty.
Huge unit size. Only General Camera, even in sieges.
No river battles ( unless attacking ).
Dont use captains to do battles.

This will make campagne very hard, and long.
I just dont know if you can handle this.

There is always a way to make it more challenging if you really want to do.

[Redmeth]

Once 1.1 is out I've been thinking of starting a Roman H/H campaign using general camera, the problem with general camera is that you miss out on a lot of great angles of troops fighting but it sure does increase the challenge...

[LorDBulA]

But you get unique perspective on the battlefield.
Plus lots of great cavalry charges from close up :) (for mounted generals).
Actually I see more close up combat while playing with General Camera since with TW camera most of the time I spend high up in the sky.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

EB is fantastic, it really is, couldn't ask for more from a mod... or at least not anything any modder can fix. I really want to start a new campaign but after a short while i get really pissed off because there's nothing there anymore, i have too much money to spend, i can pump out army after army and steamroll anything in my path... blah.

What really gets me the most is my armies have no importance whatsoever. Losing a full stack, with huge unit sizes, should have consequences. It should have loyalty consequences within cities, it should have monetary consequences, political consequences, all sorts of consequences, but it just doesn't. I click a few buttons and in 2 turns i have another full stack and it hasn't even dented my treasury at all.

Does anybody have any ironman rules to make it more interesting? I thought of... sort of... not allowing myself to recruit a new army for like 5 years after one gets destroyed, but that just isn't realistic i don't think. I'll be playing as the Romans by the way, i don't play other factions. I know they had the ability to churn out army after army but there would eventually come a point where they would have no armies left to conjure, whereas in this game that point never comes. Money never runs out and neither does population. Once you have Italy, you've won, no matter how many battles you lose or anything.

So... suggestions? :whip:


Sounds like you are playing a slow, historical expansion of Rome in the campaign. So that's not the problem.

It's the battles. You are finding the battles boring because you are winning too easily.

Several possible solutions:

1. Pump up the Battle difficulty level to Hard or Very Hard. That will give you more of a challenge.

2. Restrict your viewpoint in battle to the General's View. This is in the game options. Making it hard to see what's going on, and if you send your cavalry haring off the field after some routers, you won't be able to direct them to do something different.

3. If you don't like the AI beating you because of 'cheating uber stats' in VH, then ROLEPLAY your generals during the battle.

What I mean by this, is fight the battle as if you were the particular general you're using. For a young, inexperienced general, fight badly. For an average one, fight conservatively. For a great general with lots of stars, fight as you would normally.

If the general has never fought a battle before, fight the battle like a rookie. As if you were playing R:TW for the first time and didn't have a clue what you were doing! Just march your troops head on at the enemy and fight. A rookie general only has a Plan A and hasn't even considered what the enemy might do, so he'll have no Plan B at all, which means his troops won't react to enemy maneuvers. If the enemy outflank you and you've got no reserves to engage them, then just charge your general at them (even if they are a phalanx!) and watch the results. If the battle is going badly, then if your general is a bit cowardly, just withdraw your general off the battlefield and leave your troops to manage without a general.

For an average general who has fought a couple of battles, you can start to react to what the enemy do during the battle, but only slowly - your general is still unsure of himself and needs time to think. (And of course, while he's trying to think, the battle is still continuing, and probably things are getting worse and worse.) Finally he reacts, and half the time he does the right thing, half the time he makes a mistake.

Only if your general has lots of command stars and is greatly experienced would you fight a battle anywhere near as well as you would normally.

Other ideas:

Issue as few orders as possible. In real life, issuing orders to units took a long time, orders had to be taken by courier or by signal. Make a battle plan before the battle starts, decide what all your units are going to do, and then stick to that plan no matter what the enemy do in response.

Cavalry can react to new orders quicker than infantry as cavalry commanders are more enterprising and have a greater sense of initiative. But infantry should basically stick to the original battle plan almost as if it was set in stone, and only react if attacked from an unexpected direction.

If a unit is actually fighting the enemy in melee, don't change its orders. Don't send it off to attack another unit. Leave it alone until the enemy it's fighting routs.

Fighting battles like this is a lot more realistic. Your losses will be higher, and you won't be able to exploit the stupidity of the AI anywhere near as much as you usually do.

[woad&fangs]

I know that there is a give money cheat. Is there a take money cheat? If there is than you can penalize yourself if you lose a legion.

Edit: or you could just give money to the faction that destroyed your legion.

[Dayve]

hi dave, try to use this:

- never Retrain troops as Romans, just merge it, even the troops you use as garrison inside the towns, that make more challenge. If you have not the money to train a new unit you cant merge it with an old one.
- always start a siege the turn just after you attack the town.
- before to siege a town, try to pur a spy there inside so he open the gates, and you have to take the town with no siege engines, that's really difficult!
- dont attack a faction that is neutral, never betray an ally etc.
- leave chartage the time to grow up as a power.

- never do sea invasion for luck! for example you cant just put all your best trined troops on a single transport ship and sent them to take Chartage...
You have to disembark in the neighbours of a province you want to attack, and you can just siege the town, 1 or 2 turns after. So wait 2 turns before to start the siege of a town in a province you invaded via sea.
- you can't do naval invasion, like above, with just a transport ship, but you have to gain Talassokratia (dominion of the seas) at first! That means that i cant invade chartage if i have not the wealthy to afford a great flot of war-ships, and i "must" have control of the sea, at last for the sea-part between me and the province i want to take.

- try to use some thought stacks, this means, not all Triari, or principes stacks, but use allied units and skirmishers too.
- Just one unit of Slingers! Not more! If you can train some archers, try to use them instead of slingers.

i dont know if this can be useful, that's what im using at last in my current campaign. Hope there is something that can be of some use. It was just what come in my mind now BTW.

salut!

Thankyou very much. I was getting tired of the barrage of crap people were throwing at me up until this post, this is all i really wanted, you know, what i asked for. :2thumbsup:

Big thanks to Titus as well, i'll definately try that in battled, never thought of that before. :)

[konny]

Does anybody have any ironman rules to make it more interesting? I thought of... sort of... not allowing myself to recruit a new army for like 5 years after one gets destroyed, but that just isn't realistic i don't think. I'll be playing as the Romans by the way, i don't play other factions. I know they had the ability to churn out army after army but there would eventually come a point where they would have no armies left to conjure, whereas in this game that point never comes.

Yes, Rome certainly had these problems in the late Republic. That was the reason for the "Marian Reforms". Certainly, Rome never had a problem with population itself, neither would you have in the game. But she had problems with finding enough men qualified for military service (i.e. of the required wealth), able to replace all the casulties.

You can try the following: every town can muster a maximum of 10% of the population for military service. That would be, for example, Rome with 20,000 inhabitans can recruite 2,000 men; inculsive retraining and replacements.

Recruitement is done the following way:

Note the recruitement pool of every town and the recruits left every 5 years. That would be in, example 270:

Roma 2000 (pool) // 2000 (left)
Capua 1000 // 1000
Arpi 800 // 800

usw.

When you rectuite units in a town or retrain a unit in a town substract the number from the "recuites left" and also note the new recruitement pool after recruiting (10% of the actual population).

In our example, say you raised all 2,000 men in Rome, 100 men cavaly in Capua and nothing in Arpi. Rome's population would have dropped from 20,000 to 18,000 what would make your recruitement pool 1,800. In Capua from 10,000 to 9,900 (pool then: 990) and Arpi unchanged:

Roma 1800 // 0
Capua 990 // 900
Arpi 800 // 800

Now, you see that you can only recruite or retrain in Capua and Arpi, what also requires you to maintain the appropriate barracks in all these towns becaus there can be no cheating: these units must be recruited in the respective towns, else the pool wouldn't be correct and you would start recruting "negative" population of the "recruites left". For retraining it doesn't matter where a unit was raised, so you don't need to keep track of your units.

After 5 years you make a Census to check for population growth and new recruites. Say in our example the population in Rome in 265 would be 20,000 again, in Capua 12,000 and Arpi 10,000. That would make for the new pools:

Roma 2000
Capua 1200
Arpi 1000

You see that Rome has the same number than in 270 BC; but because you have drafted 2,000 men the population has in fact grown by 2,000 men to be on the same level again. That means you have 200 new recruites in Rome (10% of the growth). The same would be in Capua with 210 men and Arpi with 200.

The formula is

[POOL NEW] - [POOL OLD] + [RECRUITES_LEFT OLD] = [RECRUITES_LEFT NEW]

That would be

Roma: 2000 - 1800 + 0 = 200

Capua: 1200 - 990 + 900 = 1110

Arpi: 1000 - 800 + 800 = 1000

Roma 2000 (pool) // 200 (left)
Capua 1200 // 1110
Arpi 1000 // 1000


Looks a bit compliacted, but you just have to check the population of your towns every five years, divide that by ten, substract it from the old pool and add what was not recruited so far. About a minute of work per town.

With every Reform the pool is rested in the towns that are affected by the reform as soon as the new barracks are built. That would be, when Rome has population of 30,000 when the Polybian Reforms appear the pool is set to 3,000 fresh recruits regardless of what was recruited in Camillan times.


I have been using this rule in two Roman campaigns now. The effect is that you won't really run out of soldiers, due to population growth, but that losses badly hurt. And that you have to use regionals much, much more. Because when there are no more Polybian recruits left in Rhegion you'll have to raise Greeks in Messana, for example.

[Pobs]

One thing I have tried is to assume you can only be present with one army per move, all the other forces have to autocalc their battles... certainly increases the difficulty rating and makes you think hard about which battles are most important to you.


cheers,


Pobs

[Narhon]

give large amounts of tribute to the other factions. :beam:

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Good post, konny.

I operate a much simpler system with Rome.

Towns can only raise 1 unit every 2 years (1 every 8 turns.)
Large towns can raise 1 unit per year (1 every 4 turns.)
Minor cities can raise 2 units per year (1 every 2 turns.)
Large cities can raise 4 units per year (1 every turn.)

[antisocialmunky]

The easiest way to not be rolling in dough: Never set your taxation above normal or high. It works pretty well for the Hellenic Factions atleast and its what I always use. It works pretty well, you'd be surprised at how much taxes Very High rakes in compared to everything else.

[Long lost Caesar]

hey i reckon the romans can still be a challenge, just because they have more units than most doesn't automatically make them easy to play as. why does everyone seem to think the romans are a cake walk?

[Megas Pyrrhos]

I know that there is a give money cheat. Is there a take money cheat? If there is than you can penalize yourself if you lose a legion.

Edit: or you could just give money to the faction that destroyed your legion.

You could take money away by typing in add_money -25000 or w/e amount up to 40k. I do this sometimes, like if I lose a key city that I might imagine contains a sizable portion of my empire's treasury.

[Tarkus]

I second Titus' statement -- great post, Konny!:2thumbsup:

After reading through your logic, this only reaffirms my desire to add in the City Mod to my next campaign...by this, I mean the mod that restricts the growth of cities to a more reasonable level (not sure this is the right name for it). I'm growing a bit weary of North African outposts like Kirtan and Siga growing into huge cities so quickly...

Thanks again!!

[Tellos Athenaios]

hey i reckon the romans can still be a challenge, just because they have more units than most doesn't automatically make them easy to play as. why does everyone seem to think the romans are a cake walk?

Because, compared to every other faction, the Romans are the easiest to play as. Neither economy nor military, will every really present you with a challenge... :shrug:

EDIT: Of course it's pure opinion. But the fact of the matter is no other faction will give you fully developped baracks at the start. No other faction will have to do as little to survive as the Romans. No other faction really can lay back and say 'we've got our economy covered' right from the start- apart from Carthage & Ptolemaioi (but they still need to build everything up...). No other faction gets such a wide AOR of its military back bone.

[LorDBulA]

But also no other faction has to conquer so much to achieve victory.
So although start with romani is easy winning game is not.

[d'Arthez]

Ya, but a lot of those cities that need to be conquered are quite closeby to Rome, for the distance to capital penalty, assuming you stick to Rome as the historical capital. Only at the west coast of the Iberian peninsula, and beyond Asia Minor (including the Levant) you will be suffering from higher than 40-50% penalties. Which is not bad at all. It also means you can have a lot of settlements generating huge incomes (with lvl2 govt this is a bit easier as well), to pay for the garrisons in the more rebellious cities.

However, if you are playing in the east, even in a stable empire, your penalties are increasing much faster as the cities are a lot farther apart from each other. The economy there is represented as much poorer in comparison with the West. It is much harder to conquer everything the Romans don't need for their VC (even if we exclude Britain, Ireland, and most of what nowadays is Germany and Poland), than to conquer what is needed for the Roman VC.

I am well aware that this is to represent the difficulty in maintaining order (and deal with rebellions etc.), but effectively you are penalised twice for the same thing.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

Dayve,
Great question and too bad it got snirky at the beginning. But it looks like people are giving you some good "house rules" to make the game more challenging. I, myself, was inspired to play the Romani after viewing Konny's recruitment guide :
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=93896

In general, you will find Rome a great challenge if you add some historical accuracy to it. I run a quick and easy spreadsheet of my FMs (Family Members) by their rank in the Senate. Wiki has a quick to read and easy tp understand explanation of the "Cursus Honorum" (aka FMs political path).
I would be happy to share my own House Rules if you are interested.
For starters, try this. Create historically accurate legions. 10 units to a legion. Now 20 units is a Consular Army - i.e. 2 legions and it can only be lead by a Consul. Praetors have "imperium" and can thus lead legions (10 unit armies) - no problem. With only 2 Consuls and 2-4 Praetors on average , you can see how quickly you have to scale back your armies and thus expansion plans. NOW, you have a challenge.

If you are interested, I can PM you some of my house rules. Either way, enjoy!

[Tellos Athenaios]

But also no other faction has to conquer so much to achieve victory.
So although start with romani is easy winning game is not.

Hmm. I don't really agree there.

[Ymarsakar]

Rome with everything west of Sidon except Egypt up against Baktria with everything east of Charax is pretty hard. It is the lack of heavy elephants and kataphract cavalry to break up the phalanxes.

Rome has to juggle several logistical problems with recruitment of regional troops. Their lack of heavy cavalry and definitely the long supply lines going back to Brihentin recruitable provinces makes shattering phalanx armies a strategic challenge given the problems with logistics after suffering casualties. You can beat full stacks with Roman legions, that is no problems. It is chasing them down in the rout that requires cavalry.

And all of this is only somewhat offset by Marius Reforms. Not to mention the fact that your gold chevroned pedites suddenly become obsolete once the reforms kick in. That doesn't help with your ability to expand, either.

The house rule of requiring a family or general in every province along with some kind of local garrison means that even Rome's economy won't be pumping out too large a profit unless you upgrade every port to the max.

It is not that the battles are particularly hard, it is that getting the units you need to the front lines of Persia takes some finagling with the strategy map and also requires that you build highways everywhere.

One of your armies could win several battles in enemy territory, but eventually attrition will weaken your army so much that it won't be able to defend itself against Baktria's numerous full stacks. The use of multiple stacks at once then becomes a tough issue to manage. For Rome, not just enemies.

Baktria's strategic situation is much better. Their mines produce as much as their taxes. The common culture shared by Eastern Greeks also helps the conquest along. This doesn't apply to the Saka, of course, but the same thing applies to Rome. Rome suffers from always having a different culture, which makes holding new territories interesting after you hit the max distance from capital percentage.

[Tellos Athenaios]

That's funny. Getting your elite cataphracts at the Danube is pretty though too if you're the Phalava. Getting your Carnute Cingetos in southern Spain: not easy either as the Aedui.

What I want to say is: you talk end game. And some factions really, really have worse logisitical nightmares in that respect. As long as the core of the military is widely available you don't need to have that problem. As the Romans: you can get some pretty decent cavalry, on par or superior to the best the West has to offer in Greece. Especially if all you're really concerned with is dealing with routers...

[Ymarsakar]

<B>Getting your elite cataphracts at the Danube is pretty though too if you're the Phalava</b>

Why are you at the Danube with Parthians?


Getting your Carnute Cingetos in southern Spain: not easy either as the Aedui.

I don't see what that has to do with your disagreement that Romans don't have to conquer as much as others. Or even that the end game is not as hard for the Romans as others.


And some factions really, really have worse logisitical nightmares in that respect.

It does not really matter what problems other factions have or do not have, since it does not impact on the problems of Rome in the end game.


As the Romans: you can get some pretty decent cavalry, on par or superior to the best the West has to offer in Greece. Especially if all you're really concerned with is dealing with routers...

If you are refering to the greek cavalry hippeis, then I cannot really agree that a .15 lethality charge makes it a unit that one may call "pretty decent cavalry". That's not going to cut it against phalanxes and it will even slow down killing routers because of the low lethality.

If you are refering to the mercenary cavalry recruited in Greece, then that has its own associated problems.

Either way you cut it, you're going to take casualties as Rome and you're going to keep shuffling units to the front. Which is a consideration armored horse archers really don't have against barbarian infantry.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Not like you're going to face many 'Celtic' enemies as the Parthians or something though. Instead you'll probably end up seeing the Romans ... <_<

Lemme put it this way: it is fun fighting the Roman full stacks of Triarii or Predites Extraordinarii one or two times, if say, you are playing as the Aedui or Arvernii. Makes for a challenge. But essentially it is the same as with your dreaded phalanx armies: defeating them isn't the issue -- that they just keep on spamming is. What you seem to overlook there is that the Romans (or the Carthaginians) are to the West what the Ptolemies or the Baktrians are to the East atm: a superpower, worth to be reckoned not supposed to be easily defeated in one or two straightforward campaigns.

Mind you: I never said the Romans would never ever have a challenge on their hands; but it is simply not in the same league as what other factions have to face.

So to sum it up from my point of view: as the Romans you get an incredibly easy start compared to any other faction. As the Romans you will encounter nothing the others won't. But as the Romans you can always afford it if you don't neglect your economy - something that is just nigh impossible with most of the other factions. Hence the Romans can be considered to be easy compared to the other factions.

EDIT: I should note that this is my opinion. That's not the same as indisputable fact, for me it always worked out like that but others may have had a different experience. ~:)

[zooeyglass]

Not like you're going to face many 'Celtic' enemies as the Parthians or something though. Instead you'll probably end up seeing the Romans ... <_<

Lemme put it this way: it is fun fighting the Roman full stacks of Triarii or Predites Extraordinarii one or two times, if say, you are playing as the Aedui or Arvernii. Makes for a challenge. But essentially it is the same as with your dreaded phalanx armies: defeating them isn't the issue -- that they just keep on spamming is. What you seem to overlook there is that the Romans (or the Carthaginians) are to the West what the Ptolemies or the Baktrians are to the East atm: a superpower, worth to be reckoned not supposed to be easily defeated in one or two straightforward campaigns.

Mind you: I never said the Romans would never ever have a challenge on their hands; but it is simply not in the same league as what other factions have to face.

So to sum it up from my point of view: as the Romans you get an incredibly easy start compared to any other faction. As the Romans you will encounter nothing the others won't. But as the Romans you can always afford it if you don't neglect your economy - something that is just nigh impossible with most of the other factions. Hence the Romans can be considered to be easy compared to the other factions.

EDIT: I should note that this is my opinion. That's not the same as indisputable fact, for me it always worked out like that but others may have had a different experience. ~:)

tellos, i'm with you on that. the start is incredibly easy, but moreover, you can mistakes at the start of a romani campaign and not suffer for them - in many other campaigns an early mistake = destruction or a severe penalty.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

In regards to the running discussion between Tellos and Ymarsakar, I will just add this. . . in my experience, Rome has a more forgiving start. You can stumble over your own feet and still make do as Rome. Do so with Sab'yn or the Luistannon and you pay for it. In essence, I agree with Zooeyglass's previous statement.
To be sure, Ymarsakar has some valid points. And I will cede those. Specifically the pain in the @$# of trudging troops all the way to the other side of the map - constantly. I use more local troops to avoid that. But I do cede your point.
End Game strategies are not my strong point. So I will bow out of the dialogue from here out. Once I've got everybody beaten or on the ropes - i tend to look for a new challenge and start a new campaign. The list of campaigns I'm dying to try is WAY too long.

[Ymarsakar]

Not like you're going to face many 'Celtic' enemies as the Parthians or something though. Instead you'll probably end up seeing the Romans ...

Romans have all their homelands on the coast. Fatal disadvantage strategically and tactically, given AI inability to fortify towns if they aren't bordering enemy provinces.


Mind you: I never said the Romans would never ever have a challenge on their hands; but it is simply not in the same league as what other factions have to face.

If that's the argument you are trying to make for the Roman end game, then you are going to have to explain how any faction with their homelands open to sea invasion is harder to defeat in the end game than Baktria with their homelands that must be reached by land armies.

This is slightly beside the point of Rome's longer victory conditions, of course, but if you are trying to compare Rome's ability to conquer the world, when you say "end game", to a faction like Parthia's, then you are emphasizing factional expansion abilities over the objective difficulty of destroying a faction in the end game.

The objective difficulty for breaking a faction like Rome is made immeasurably easier by the option to bypass their land armies and strike directly at the Italian homeland. Razing their cities and destroying all their cultural/military buildings in as many Italian cities as you can, destroys not just Rome's military power, but every other faction's military power as well if their homelands are destroyed. The difference when you are playing Rome is that Baktria's homelands cannot be attacked from the Meditteranean sea. In point of fact, most provinces in the East can only be accessed by land armies. And given the distance, there's more time than usual for an Eastern superpower to raise another full stack after you have defeated two full stacks.

Provinces in the West are closer together, so you can often defeat a full stack and have two or more cities be undefended, easily reached within a few turns, especially with Roman highways built by them and used by you. Provinces in the East are larger generally speaking, thus any victory over the enemy is going to be hard to be decisive. It wouldn't be so hard if you could auto-calculate your battles more often with a higher chance of not losing many of your soldiers, but the only feasible way to do that would to be have to a general with more than 2 stars and a chirurgeon to heal casualties. And even in the end game, getting that kind of general is going to be pretty rare. And even if you did and could auto-calculate and preserve your soldiers, it does not decisively defeat enemy stacks. It just makes them run. Which means they will come back eventually, this time part of another full stack.

I recognize that Rome has a larger sphere of expansion with gov2 and recruitable heavy infantry near the front after Marius Reforms. The disadvantages that Rome has to face on the tactical, strategic, and logistical level when it is Rome the superpower vs the other superpower in the East, simply outweighs the advantages of gov2 and the ability to recruit Roman infantry near the front.


that they just keep on spamming is.

That's only a strategic and logistical problem. The tactical problem that really annoys me is that I only have 100 soldiers in a Roman infantry unit, while the phalanxes get 120. Thus not only do I have to get more units for the same attrition value, I can only control 20 units at a time. And phalanxes often beat lighter auxiliary troops in tactical or in auto calc, so I can't effective spam recruit axemen and have them carry the day. Maybe that would work for a few turns, but however you cut it, it is pretty messy and inefficient.

Space is a premium for each stack in the end game. Thus Rome is at an interesting tactical disadvantage because for every 2 units of Roman infantry, the East can get 40 more men with the same slots.


What you seem to overlook there is that the Romans (or the Carthaginians) are to the West what the Ptolemies or the Baktrians are to the East atm: a superpower, worth to be reckoned not supposed to be easily defeated in one or two straightforward campaigns.

My mention of the naval situation addresses that for the most part. Even if the Seleucids lose their coastal towns, they can still pump out phalanx armies. Baktria is in the best position of all. Their entire northern and eastern flank is secured.


as the Romans you get an incredibly easy start compared to any other faction.
I don't dispute that, of course.

The speed of expansion for Ptolemies, Seleucids, or Baktrians are faster than Rome's. Even though Rome has trade surpluses, Rome tends to need a larger garrison army for each town, given the number of spies being sent around due to the close location of enemy cities. That and the cultural difference between Rome and barbarians, Rome and semitic carthage, Rome and Greece.

Parthia's got a similar problem, but the tactical flexibility of their units makes up for it. Not to mention the fact that you can have an entire stack of horse archers and cataphracts, and thus gain a nice strategic and tactical speed advantage. It makes it easier to shuffle troops around.

Baktria and other Eastern factions do have problems early on, with razor thin margins for victory and defeat, but once their economy and borders are secure, they become much more powerful.

Rome's under a severe handicap in their reforms. They don't even get their best units with the larger recruitment area until past 200 BC. And their elites units before then can only be recruited from Italy.

This always made the Romani campaign fresh for me, but it also made it very unstable in terms of building up a really strong army. Since you are always switching out and moving around units, but it is not like Baktria where she moves her faction units from the capital to the front, for Rome it is the moving of all regional and factional units.

By the time you have moved to a new area, you have discovered that the regional troops you could recruit 5 years ago, no longer can be retained in your new provinces. So now you are building a new army and changing your strategy to account for the fact that you can't retrain your troops in conquered territory, even using regional troops.

The other factions have a more stable unit roster. Thus their unit and army management needs are much easier. Thus making the strategy part of the game less cumbersome.

[Dayve]

How realistic would it be to use armies of regional troops in a Roman campaign? What i mean is, if i conquer northern Italy and build up the MIC's and level 4 (or 3) government, how unrealistic would it be to raise armies of 'barbarian' troops there? Not full stacks, half stacks led by a Praetor or something similar. The full stacks of proper Roman troops would be led only by consuls.

For instance, an invasion of Greece. 1 full stack of Roman troops, complete with Italian allies and led by a proper consul, and other half-stacks of Greek troops from Taras and Rhegion to support the main army led by the consul. I don't mind bending historical accuracy a tiny bit to make the game more interesting, such as not going into Asia Minor until the Marian reforms due to the fact that Polybian legions are completely inferior to phalanxes.

[Ymarsakar]

The classical hoplites are very useful, but they tend to get attrited very fast against phalanxes or when weird things happen like they get charged by cavalry from the back.

After about 2 to 3 autocalculation battles, 4 units of 80 men each will turn into about 2 and a half. Then your full stack becomes a half stack and your half stack becomes routed. My solution was to bring up 1 or 2 stacks of regional troops just to recoup my casualties. Problem was, they kept getting attacked...


What i mean is, if i conquer northern Italy and build up the MIC's and level 4 (or 3) government, how unrealistic would it be to raise armies of 'barbarian' troops there?

I don't understand what your question is asking for. Define "unrealistic".

[Dayve]

The classical hoplites are very useful, but they tend to get attrited very fast against phalanxes or when weird things happen like they get charged by cavalry from the back.

After about 2 to 3 autocalculation battles, 4 units of 80 men each will turn into about 2 and a half. Then your full stack becomes a half stack and your half stack becomes routed. My solution was to bring up 1 or 2 stacks of regional troops just to recoup my casualties. Problem was, they kept getting attacked...



I don't understand what your question is asking for. Define "unrealistic".

By unrealistic i mean, did the Romans ever do such a thing? Like when i look at accounts of the battles with Hannibal where the Romans got destroyed repeatedly, the layouts of the battle always show the same thing... A line of Hastati, a line of Principes and Triarii behind. Even when they were getting desperate and calling up everything they could it seems they still only used Hastati, Principes and Triarii. Same for the battles in Spain, Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, everywhere up until the Marian reforms.

Either the Romans only recruited units from Rome and the homelands of middle-Italy, or they brought in huge numbers of men from conquered cities and equipped them as Hastati, Principes and Triarii, because every single battle shows the Romans using only those units.

So, i feel like i'm doing something completely unrealistic when i use anything but Hastati, Principes or Triarii. It'd feel especially unrealistic if i raised an army of levy hoplites, classic hoplites, akontistai, peltastai, etc.

[konny]

The war with Hannibal was fought in Italy and Rome didn't have much possesions elsewhere.

The situation in Spain was much different. Of course the army sent there was completely Roman (or Italian, if you like), but at the end of the campaign it was made up of about 1/2 allies and mercenaries.

In Africa the war was won by the help of a hughe body of Numidian cavalry, and there wasn't much more that could have been raised there.

The armies in Greece that fought against Makedonia and Asia against the Seleukids also consisted of large (as much as possible) numbers of local allies.

So, yes the Romans used a lot of regional forces.

[Ymarsakar]

<B>By unrealistic i mean, did the Romans ever do such a thing?</b>

As konny mentioned, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire made extensive use of regional troops. Especially barbarian cavalry and infantry. A lot of the Roman forces in the borders, like at Britania, were recruited from German or other barbarian provinces.

[Visitor13]

One of my house rules - NEVER sink an AI ship that carries troops. If you get attacked by one, use the console cheat to lose. Let the AI deliver its troops wherever it wants to.

More useful if you're using BI.exe.

[Grimmy]

I didn't read all the suggestions, so if this has already been mentioned or discarded, sorry...

But here's some ideas:

1. Do not initiate hostilities.
2. Do not recruit any military other than what's needed for city stability as a general rule. City stability forces must be lowest level force available.
3. Only recruit military expeditionary units for a set, pre defined, campaign purpose.
4. Decide on army make up prior to recruiting for a campaign and recruit only that army. No additional reinforcements. If army is defeated, campaign is failed. Must wait 2 full years before recruiting again for a retry at that campaign goal. Do not allow general to retreat from failed campaign battle. Failure equals death for general.
5. Disband all expeditionary forces at completion of campaign.
6. All invasions of your lands must be countered with punitive campaigns. All recruiting rules apply, as in pre deciding army strength and no reinforcements, but campaign continues until all area of the invaders' force is occupied.
7. Never more than 1 "frontier" army for rebel suppression allowed per front. Frontier army not allowed to have any foreign recruits or top line units, except for one native cav unit (local scouts). Forces for Frontier army must be supplied from home provinces except for the local scout unit. Frontier army never to have more than one half stack force strength. Frontier army not allowed into any village/town/city or habituated place. Frontier army must be kept in fort. Frontier army can not be used for happiness purposes. Frontier army may be used to retake cities that rebel.