First Time Strategist

[grwn]

Hi guys,

I seem to have run into a giant brick wall, which I can't smash :no: . Rome : Total War is the first real strategy game I've played after Command and Conquer : Red Alert 2, which was mostly about building the biggest base/army and attack.

Now with RTW this seems to backfire at me. All I do is build enormous armies, even in the begin, and just start attacking. The problem with this is that I'm not able to think up strategies, because my armies are either too big, or consist of weird units. I am, most of the time, not even able to take Mediolanium and Patavium, without sacrificing close to 30.000 denarii on troops, and thus crippling me immensely.

I've been reading the starter guides as well as the Julii guide in the guides forum, but I still have really bad luck, even when I greatly outnumber them.

Now I'm wondering if you guys have any tips to developing any strategic viewpoints, so I can at least finish the storyline.

cheers,
grwn

[The New Che Guevara]

I know how that feels, but I started on MTWso I was used to the idea in RTW and it was so different to the setup in command and conquer, although still a good game. When seiging a wooden defense, the ram can go anywhere, if you can build two and try to split the enemy's forces in two, standard divide and conquer. When you get stone defenses, Seige towers will put enemy troops onto the walls. They are hard to hit, so instead, try and use onagers to try and take down the wall. Then if you can get this right, you can get through the gap in the wall and corner them as they march out of the towers to battle your forces.

open battle, position yourself in the highest position you can and then have a main line of force backed by missile troops, the marching up the slope (if you're lucky) and the "peppering" by the missile troops cut down the numbers leaving your main line of troops to mow them down. One of the problems with hastati as some might agree, they fire missiles before going into combat, which means you have to remember to set their skirmish off? (I'm not too sure)

If you have cavalry (as you should have for mowing down routers), missile cavalry is the same as missile units, but normal cavalry that can form wedge is always good as they form a hole in a line and then proceed to weaken it further.

Different factions tend to need different techniques. As Greek Cities, just line up hoplites in Phalanx position and just let the enemy charge bravely into them, especially the horses keeping missile units behind them.

I usually tend to put cavalry at the sides of my army to go around and attack for the rear. I'd like to know what everyone else does.

If you want more tactics, I'd suggest looking at World War two tactics as we got the pincer movement in the D-Day landing and the Normandy Brakeout and the battle of the bulge was a good tactic, a constantly moving defense.

[Quintus.JC]

Welcome to the Forum mate. It’s always hard the first time. Seeing that you played Red Alert you should know the building part. What’s brilliant about Total War series is what you are allowed to do on the battlefield. Making strategic movements that put you in the boots of real time commanders’ centuries ago.
My advice for the starting campaign for Julii (some of them are quite basic, but I thought I’d mention them anyway):
1. Take Segesta on turn 1 (There’s no need to wait, the rebel settlement have no fence, make sure your Triarii, archers and Velites don’t get hurt, you won’t be able to retrain in some time. Let you faction leader do most of the killing will be fine) and occupy (there’s no need to kill anyone; the town has a tiny enough population already). This will bring you steady income from the town, also a hefty bonus cash prize from the Senate. Which will surely contributes to you early treasury.
2. Get as many trade rights as you can. Send your diplomats (train more of these) in all directions. Sell map info for cash as well, and one more way to make money as the Julii is…………..
3. Extortion. Send you most experienced diplomats to Syracuse ASAP. The Greeks will be in a war with the Scipii, they will desperately want an alliance with you, because all the other Roman factions will be busy beating the crap out of them. Ally with them, for a price of course. This alliance won’t last but you do get a nice amount of income. Later on the option of alliance won’t be allowed, when you do have navy, occasionally block their port, thus declaring war and then send diplomat to ask for ceasefire, for a price. If the price is reasonable then the Greeks will agree. I always had fun dealing with these cultured folks. They financed more money for my struggle against Gaul than the actual money I made myself.
4. Don’t let the Gauls be able to build Meet Hall, this allows them to train Swordsmen. Which is superior against Hastati. Don’t send large armies made of town watches against them; use Hastati as the core of your army. They can break warbands easily. Flank them with cavalry. You might not be able to train Equites but you do have a few generals who could take part in the fighting, namely your faction leader and heir. Try to kill their generals first to cause chaos within the enemy. Let no one escape, if sieges aren’t your cup of tea then you could wait for the enemy to starve or send reinforcement. Your choice.
5. The early period will see aggressive expansion by the Julii. I think you will need at least Arretum, Arriminum, Milan, Padua, Segesta, Caralis before you could think of a period of peace. These are the core cities and will be crucial in your struggle against your fellow Romans later on. You can build superior troops after the early northern Italy campaign and finish the rest of Gaul later on.
That’s all I got to say for now, hope these helps.

[Telys]

Edit: Damn, too slow. Quintus beat me too it.


Well I'll try to help as much as I can. When playing as the julii (or any faction for that matter) there is a number of ways to play. I prefer taking northern italy and waiting. Building my economy and armies, but thats getting a little ahead of things. First you want to take segesta. I usually take my faction leader and the unit of archers to take it. You say you've tried to take patavium so i assume you already have taken segesta. You want to attack patavium asap before it has time to build a decent army. What i do is take the 2 units of hastati in arretium and put them in the main army. I usually have quintus lead the army as he is the most able general. I'll then recruit a unit of town watch in arretium as garrison and then que up some more hastati. Now you have a couple options. You could attack now or wait a couple turns. If you wait you may encounter a larger force or gaul may have reinforcements nearby. Sometimes i wait so i can send a small force to mediolanium at the same time and have a large force to take patavium. Now, when you attack build some battering rams with your army thats besieging patavium. If no one attacks that army when you end the turn i would wait, because if you are besieging mediolanium at the same time the relief army coming from gaul will stop there first, in which you could retreat or fight. As a beginner it would be best if you could get patavium to sally and attack you. Always play your first battles in a game, autoresolve can only hurt you this early in the game. In battle its always about out flanking your enemy. If you can try and recruit some barbarian calvary mercenaries to help flank. In these battles dont be afraid to flank with your general and charge into the back of an enemy unit. If you flank with your general pick a unit on the end of your line to flank. That way when that unit routs you can send the infantry unit that was fighting the enemy unit to support the unit on their left or right, depending on which side you flanked, then send your general to the other end of your formation and rout the enemy on that side. Once the end units are gone you'll be able to surround the enemy. If the enemy out numbers you with unit, not men, dont be afraid to spread your line thin. You'll just have to be quicker with your general. If this works and you also take mediolanium, which should have a minor garrison send an army to the bridge that connects italy to gaul to give you time recover from these battles and make some more money. Hopefully this helps. Feel free to ask questions, as I'm sure everything I have written may not make sense. Oh, and if nothing else, remeber this. When palying as the julii do not wait to take patavium. Take it as quickly as you can.

[grwn]

Oh, thats fast ~:thumb:

Thanks guys, I'll start up RTW to try these right away.

What I usually do in the beginning is sending the faction leader to my capital, is this a strange move? Should I put him in the battlefield?

Normally you would think the faction leader should be somewhere safe, or am I thinking C&C again, where you had to protect your valuable assets?

cheers,
grwn

[Quintus.JC]

Use your faction leader in battle is what I would do. They have more bodyguards and probably have some other advantages. That does depends though, at the start Flavius is sort of a military guy with more commands than management, but your faction heir Lucius is a financial genius who in 10 years will have 10 managements. But what I do is make sure all my faction leaders and heirs are superior military commander rather than superior governor, like making Quintus faction heir instead of Lucius. Although that’s just opinions.

[Telys]

Oh, thats fast ~:thumb:

Thanks guys, I'll start up RTW to try these right away.

What I usually do in the beginning is sending the faction leader to my capital, is this a strange move? Should I put him in the battlefield?

Normally you would think the faction leader should be somewhere safe, or am I thinking C&C again, where you had to protect your valuable assets?

cheers,
grwn
Your faction leader in the beginning can very helpful in battles. He has more bodyguards than his sons and usually more experience. Also, he won't produce anymore sons, so dont be afraid of losing him. For your capitol i would put lucius (the bald one) as he is the best at managing a city and will help you make more money in your capitol. I forgot to mention raise the taxes in arretium and aminium to very high at the start of the game. If unrest becomes a problem recruit a couple of town watches in each settlement to reduce unrest.

Edit: I really need to type faster.

[grwn]

4. Don’t let the Gauls be able to build Meet Hall, this allows them to train Swordsmen. Which is superior against Hastati. Don’t send large armies made of town watches against them; use Hastati as the core of your army. They can break warbands easily. Flank them with cavalry. You might not be able to train Equites but you do have a few generals who could take part in the fighting, namely your faction leader and heir. Try to kill their generals first to cause chaos within the enemy. Let no one escape, if sieges aren’t your cup of tea then you could wait for the enemy to starve or send reinforcement. Your choice.


How would I go about doing this? Letting a spy infiltrate the cities?

Segesta is taken by the faction leader and the archers, quite a bit easier then I expected, I only lost 15 men or so. I've sent the rest of my army up towards patavium and will send 2 units towards Mediolanum as a distraction.

cheers,
grwn

[Quintus.JC]

Letting the spy to infiltrate the city is one option. But of course he may be killed in the mission or kicked out. One trick is you could place the spy just outside of the settlement. The spy will still be able to see what’s going on in there.

[Quintus.JC]

How would I go about doing this? Letting a spy infiltrate the cities?

Segesta is taken by the faction leader and the archers, quite a bit easier then I expected, I only lost 15 men or so. I've sent the rest of my army up towards patavium and will send 2 units towards Mediolanum as a distraction.

cheers,
grwn

What sort of army is heading for Patavium? You want your faction leader to be with them, also the archers and Triarii. Take Quintus as well.

[grwn]

Whoo, Patavium is taken :laugh4:

I sent Quintus with all the hastati I had, the triarii and the archers. But there was some reinforcement around the city, so I had to fight them as well. I built two battering rams and used the divide and conquer strategy which worked quite well.

I sent Quintus towards the reinforcements and once they were taken care of, and the rams were breaking the gate, I sent him after the warlord cavalry. Most of the Gaul's were running away after that, so I blocked the gates with my hastati, triarii and archers. Bye bye Gauls, hello Patavium.

cheers,
grwn

[Telys]

Segesta is taken by the faction leader and the archers, quite a bit easier then I expected, I only lost 15 men or so. I've sent the rest of my army up towards patavium and will send 2 units towards Mediolanum as a distraction.

cheers,
grwn
Segesta is fairly simple to take with just the archers and your faction leader. If you have the patience you can take it with no casualties on your end and all of the enemy killed.

Also, I'm glad to see things working out for you.

[Quintus.JC]

Patavium will be both your military and economic powerhouse later on. With an amazing population growth it will also most likely to be the first Italian city to reach huge city, thus triggering the Marian reforms.

[grwn]

I'm gonna have to disband most of my patavium sieging army though, most of the units are below 30 :sweatdrop:

I'm gonna focus on taking Mediolanum next, afterwards I'll upgrade my army, build some forts to protect myself from the Gauls and improve my economic status.

cheers,
grwn

[Quintus.JC]

Don’t disband! Retrain. They might of gained experience through battle, which makes them tougher soldiers (+1 attack, +defence and +on everything else+).

[grwn]

:wall: Glad you told me, would n't have wanted to waste some perfectly good soldiers :clown:

cheers,
grwn

[Quirinus]

Welcome to the Org, grwn! ~:wave:

Nothing much to add here, except that if you're unsure about battlefield tactics, it helps to read a bit about the battles of the period, especially those of Hannibal. Then try out the tactics in custom battle.

An alternative would be to, I guess, use good ol' common sense-- if something feels like a good or bad idea, it probably is. For example, it's a bad idea to send cavalry charging into a bristling array of spears, but is a good idea to charge into the back of units. Or consider this: arrows kill more people if you fire them into the side where they're not holding a shield. It probably takes a little trial and error, but I find that for the most part, battlefield tactics are intuitive once you get used to the game. That's the beauty of RTW, in my opinion. ^^

[Spartan198]

If money's a problem,you could always use the money cheat. I was using it all the time at first,but now I only use it to give myself a 20K boost every 40 or 50 turns.

add_money 40000 (Gives a 40,000 dinarii boost each time it's inputted)

[Emperor Mithdrates]

Hi guys,

I seem to have run into a giant brick wall, which I can't smash :no: . Rome : Total War is the first real strategy game I've played after Command and Conquer : Red Alert 2, which was mostly about building the biggest base/army and attack.


I try and build up all the same units, normally as greece or macedonia, and use an N shaped Phalanx. It isnt very expensive but really effective.

[grwn]

Hmm, is it just me, or are the Equites much weaker then Gaul Warbands? I've been conquering some more settlement, but everytime I use my cavalry on those warbands, they get completly slaughtered.

I tried the wedge formation, flaking from the sides and attacking them from behind.. still getting slaughtered. I'm losing some big armies and battles right now.

cheers,
grwn

[Quintus.JC]

Right, Equites are relatively weak cavalry and are never expected to engage in a battle against masses of spearmen and win. They are used to chase router and also kill off enemy archers and skirmishers. If you are experience with cavalry then you can think of flanking and attacking from behind, although I would not advise this since you only just started.

[grwn]

Which units would you advise to kill Warbands then? Just plain Hastati?

cheers,
grwn

[Ibn-Khaldun]

These warbands are one of the easiest units to beat IMO...
What you need is one unit to hold the line (mercenary warbands are actually very good ones for that cause you can easely replace them with new unit:yes: ) and then attack them from the rear .. general is the best one for that .. but hastati can is also a good choise .. at least in the beginning of the game ...
to cripple the gauls you need to take mediolanium and patavium and also alesia as fast as you can .. the other gaulish towns are small so the only units you will see after that are the same warbands ...
my army that conquered the gaul consisted mainly mercenary warbands and barbarian cavalry plus some hastati and velites .. so it was weird to listen the battle speaches where general was talking about "brave romans" :inquisitive:
also after taking Narbo Martius you can take a trip to spain and recruit some spanish mercenaries and balearic slingers(you just got to love those guys:2thumbsup: )

[Tratorix]

Which units would you advise to kill Warbands then? Just plain Hastati?

Hastati should work well enough on warbands. Make sure to put them on fire at will mode so they will chuck their javelins before they charge.

[Quintus.JC]

Just plain Hastati will whack any warband the Gauls can send you. Send your equites after the router. Your hastati won’t beat swordsmen head on; you’ll need principes and Triarii for the job.

[Quirinus]

Hmm, is it just me, or are the Equites much weaker then Gaul Warbands? I've been conquering some more settlement, but everytime I use my cavalry on those warbands, they get completly slaughtered.

I tried the wedge formation, flaking from the sides and attacking them from behind.. still getting slaughtered. I'm losing some big armies and battles right now.

cheers,
grwn
Spearmen have quite a large bonus versus cavalry, of which equites are one of the crappiest in terms of stats.

Warbands are normally a breeze to beat, but watch out for their warcry ability. If you see them "Taunting", you should either charge them immediately if you're close enough, or disengage and wait for about 30 seconds. Their warcry ability gives the warbands +10 attack for 30 seconds, IIRC, but if you disrupt their warcry, it will only last a short while.

That's why I don't take warbands lightly. I once lost quite a big Roman army because of just that.


EDIT: By the way, what difficulty are you playing at?

[grwn]

Thanks guys, you're great ~:thumb:


By the way, what difficulty are you playing at?

I'm playing on Medium/Medium.

cheers,
grwn

[Quirinus]

Oh..... I see. Try a game on Easy/Easy, or at least Medium/Easy first, if you're just transiting from a straightforward RTS like Red Alert II to RTW. When you're confident that you've gotten the hang of things, then play a game on Medium.

[guineawolf]

Use your faction leader in battle is what I would do. They have more bodyguards and probably have some other advantages. That does depends though, at the start Flavius is sort of a military guy with more commands than management, but your faction heir Lucius is a financial genius who in 10 years will have 10 managements. But what I do is make sure all my faction leaders and heirs are superior military commander rather than superior governor, like making Quintus faction heir instead of Lucius. Although that’s just opinions.
As Guintus said ,use your faction leader to lead is a good idea,first there can gain popularity in the senate for their vitories,second as Quintus mention faction leader got more bodyguards,even he is dead in the battlefield you still got his heir to continue the campaign.
For my advice,i will recommend you always use your general bodyguards attack from your left,so your general won't be the first charge into enemy line,and won't be too deep into enemy line that make him killed.
Always get 1 or 2 unit of cavalry(anykind) accompany your general,coz the enemy will try to killed your commander in the field too!When enemy cavalry charge towards your general,hold them with your cavalry.

For the campaign,i suggest you use hastati as your main fighting force,let them do all the fighting job,even fight with enemy cavalry.If you can get principes,replace those hastati with principes(they are the early republic legionaries).As your basic mindset as Romans,your legion(hastati,principes and classic legion) is the combination of heavy infantry and javelinmen(for historically,the legionaries can be spearmen as well with 1 of their pilum can use as spear),they can throw their javelins to soften enemy lines before engage with enemy hand to hand,they can hold enemy cavalry charge too when they stand still.They are wall of iron.When go into batttle,put them as block formation(square) and all of them in double line,other unit(javelinmen,archer,cavalry and artilery) place behind the legion line.Then wait for enemy approach if you defend,the legion's pilum can take out most of enemy before can fight hand to hand,the enemy will be wavering,.After killing some enemy,the enemy will start to rout.Then it is the time for your infantry to advance,just infantry to rout the remainders,then send your cavalry to take all them out.No other infantry can fight legionaries 1 on 1.

Use your cavalry when there is enemy archers(Javelinsmen,archers,horce archers) on the field only,coz those units will keep some distance from your infantry,and your infantry won't be able to chase them down.Wait until your infantry take out all enemy melee units,then charge your cavalry in!Or you can charge in your cavalry in at the start when you confirm that your army can overwhelm enemy.

Dun let your enemy get a chance to charge your army back,that way can cause your troops easier to rout.



Hmm, is it just me, or are the Equites much weaker then Gaul Warbands? I've been conquering some more settlement, but everytime I use my cavalry on those warbands, they get completly slaughtered.

I tried the wedge formation, flaking from the sides and attacking them from behind.. still getting slaughtered. I'm losing some big armies and battles right now.

cheers,
grwn
that is becoz the equites only equip with spears but no sword for close engagement(read the text about the units).Here i will suggest you get to cavalry stables(you will get cavalry auxilia into your unit roster) as fast as you can so you can recruit cavalry auxilia,they are equip with 6 javelins to throw at enemy,a short sword and small shield for close combat,they are very good at killing those missile units.

if you can't get cavalry auxilia for a short while and force to use equites,then use them well,since they just arm with spears(used for charge),charge them into enemy line,get them out immediately,then charge again,repeat that until the enemy rout.

Different of cavalry:
-cavalry with spear can only thrust frontal enemy,but need to turn around to engage side enemy.
-cavalry with sword can fight enemy in the front and both sides without turn ing their horse that make them very effective to fight in close combat.

If you have cavalry arm with spear and sword,then you must activate the alternative attack(using secondary weapon like sword to engage enemy) by pressing ALT while ordering your unit to attack enemy.

[Quirinus]

I almost never use my faction leader in combat as the Julii-- although he is indeed quite a good general, he is also a good administrator, which is much rarer. His son Quintus has a martial bent-- in almost all my Julii games he became a great conquerer and slayer of barbarians.

[Caius]

I'd add that you don't need to rely on numbers, rely on good soldiers.

If you have 500 peasants against 100 hastati, dont expect that the peasants win.

[Quirinus]

But then again, 500 warbands can also defeat 100 triarii. :beam: