Lazy factions

[Satsuma]

Hey all

I'm slowly working my through my second RTW campaign and I'm noticing that the other Roman factions are pretty much sitting around in Italy enjoying the scenery, drinking the wine and doing bugger-all else.

In my first game as Julii the other Roman factions aggressively spread out across the map and for the first thirty years or so I was constantly getting messages of "so and so faction destroyed" as they crushed the uncivilised hoards under their sandals.

This game (as Brutii) they don't seem to be doing much at all.

Scipii has finally taken Sardinia and Corsica and one province in Carthage, but looking at their stacks took a pretty heavy beating doing so.
Julii have taken Segestica and have built a fort two minutes march from their capital and have had almost a whole stack (and their faction leader) sat inside it for the last ten turns.

I've spread out East and taken all of Macedonia and got the "Perfumed Greeks" down to one city.

Looking at the status of them at the moment the Civil War would be a cakewalk, which would be a bit of a shame really.

I do get messages stating that the Julii are the richest faction, but it looks like they aren't spending their cash on anything (apart from wine) because they simply aren't doing anything!

Is this normal? Have people experienced the same thing?
I'm up to approx 200BC if that helps.

I'm hoping they are building their power for a big push, as I could do with the Julii having a go at the cheeky Gauls who keep sticking their hairy noses across the borders and seem to wander about with impunity.

Cheers!

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I'm not sure if it's just me, but the Romans have often fared less well in campaigns were the campaign map difficulty is set on hard+. I've seen the Brutii get wiped out through the death of their family and the Julii struggle to get past the first few Gallic settlements which, admittedly, was rather odd. It's impossible for the AI to enter Italy for some reason, which was the one thing preventing everybody from being totally defeated.

The question is, henceforth, what difficulty level are you playing on?

~:)

[Satsuma]

Hi Omanes

I'm playing on H/H difficulty this time around.
First game as Julii was on E/E (noobish me! :laugh4: )

To clarify, the Gauls aren't entering Italy, just the two provinces on the southern alps (sorry, can't remember the names). I've taken the eastern one as Brutii but the Julii are camping out in the field nearby but seem very reluctant to engage (even though their diplomacy scroll states that they are at war).

There seems to be a lot of activity amongst the Eastern factions, Thrace, Scythia, Egypt, Pontus etc, but Western Europe seems to be pretty quiet at the moment.
It's tempting to try to pin the Julii in and take a bit of Southern Gaul, just to prevent them expanding too much come the civil war.

Cheers

[Alerion]

I also have gotten the experience that it has to do with difficulty... on easy they tend to rule the world quickly and on hard+ they are stuck...

[ReluctantSamurai]

.......and not just the Romans. After a certain amount of time (usually 100-150yrs.) all activity by the factions remaining seems to cease. Even those supposedly at war with each other (and in some cases with rival cities within spitting distance of each other) just sit in their cities and don't even sally to take care of brigands................:inquisitive:

[The New Che Guevara]

this has happened with me. The senate asked me to take patavium, and I'm currently defending against the macedonians who bretayed me. The greeks are holed up in crete and rhodes. Next move, athens, and the gauls have sieged me in patavium. Also, Scipii is doing a lot of conquering in africa, which is odd. the julii are just loitering and have only taken segestica and palma which is odd. Meanwhile, Carthage is singled out with Corduba.

[Alerion]

yep... i guess when AI controlled tha Julii somehow have the biggest probability of sucking...

[Quirinus]

This happens to me as well, partly. (I play on M/M.) Normally (I find), as the Julii, the Brutii will expand fairly steadily, normally heading north after Greece. The Julii decimate the Gauls and Spanish, and some Germans, but in my experience are usually not as successful as the Brutii. The Scipii are the most useless, I don't think I remember ever seeing the Scipii out of Italy and Sicily, other than perhaps Caralis.

[Emperor of Graal]

On H/H Generally the Romans in my experiences are Lazy And The east and and western factions are on Speed enhancing drugs. As the brutii
After I'd captured Greece and Turkey Rome acted very peculiar and errected vast armies and started
attacking and a civil war started.The Julii were crushed and Scipii were continuing to take Africa and heading into Egypt. SPQR kept on asking me to take Gaulish and Spainish lands.
Generally Quite Ordinary I think

[Wausser]

The Romans are kicking ass at M/M, I(Brutii) own everything east of Germany and Italy, while Scipii owns Sicily, Africa and Spain. Julii owns the rest of West Europe(Germany, Low countries and France). The Brittons own GB and Ireland, but they do not play a role of importance anymore....

[Darkvicer98]

Editing the personalities in the descr_strat.txt file changes the way each faction behaves. Giving The Seleucid Empire "craftsman caesar" makes them keep hold of their settlements and giving Carthage "sailor caesar" makes them aggressive as long as they have strength in their armies.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45212

It may work by changing the Diplomacy between factions in the descr_strat.txt file. Make factions hostile or at war can improve how aggressive they are.

[Satsuma]

Hi all

Quick update on my game (H/H)

After the first 50/60 years of inactivity from the other Roman factions it seems to have pretty much settled into the normal order of things from what I gather. I (as Brutii) have continued expanding east and south to Egypt. Scipii have taken Africa, and Julii have taken some of Gaul and Spain. Interestingly, the Britons are holding approx half of the Gaul provinces and seem to spreading east across the top of the map, taking the Germanic provinces.
Think the Civil War is looming. Julii have moved a large army back to Rome and Scipii are slowly building a couple of armies in Sicilly.

One thing that came to mind the other day was that perhaps I perpetuated the stagnation of expansion somewhat. This is my second full campaign, and in my first I didn't really use diplomats a great deal, apart from bribing annoying armies and securing trade rights. This game I aggressively persued alliances with everyone apart from my immediate neighbours/targets (Greece & Macadon). I don't know if this prevented Julii and Scipii from waging as much war as they would have wanted to.

Would this of had much effect, or do they normally ignore whatever treaty I have in pursuit of their own ends?

[ReluctantSamurai]

Editing the personalities in the descr_strat.txt file changes the way each faction behaves.

Good advice Dv98. I'll have to try that one. Unlike some folks, I don't have any overwhelming urges to blitz the map (not criticizing those that do, mind you...) and having played just about every faction several times, I feel no need to even finish the camp by holding 50 provinces + Rome.

What usually dictates how long I play a particular campaign is how much fun I'm having with it, and what new developments are interesting to watch unfold. For example, my last camp as Carthage (starting out with the shortened camp of 15 provinces) requires that both the Scipii and Spain be eliminated. Well, Spain asked for, and got, an alliance from me very early in the game and by the gods they honored it repeatedly. They helped me squash the Gauls and I gave them one of the conquered Gallic territories for their efforts.

After knocking out the Scipii, the SPQR, and the Julii, and banishing the Brutii to Thessaly, I fought a 20 yr. defensive campaign along the eastern Adriatic coast against endless stacks of green. I almost quit then and there after leaving more than a dozen famous battle-site markers all up and down the coast, but then Segestica revolted (IMHO there should have been much more of this factor built into the game.....I mean how many crushing defeats would any populace in any time period tolerate before throwing out the current rulers?...a 5% popularity penalty across the board for each crushing defeat would put a stop to the 'endless-stack' syndrome and force more of those troops to have to stay home as garrison for an increasingly hostile populace) and went to the Greek Cities (for some reason:dizzy2:) who immediately asked for an alliance, which I granted.

I had much more denarii coming in than I needed, so I started funding the GC, even to the point of capturing Kydonia & Pergamum from the rebels, restoring them, and giving them back to the Greeks. Of course their over-all rating curve shot up dramatically, but like most alliances, this one was doomed when the new faction leader decided to back-stab (very ironic, because I had earlier saved his butt personally during a GC assault on a heavily defended Sardis with a supporting expeditionary force.......and yes I know HE didn't order it....the fool-hardy AI did:laugh4:)

So after crushing their newly re-built navy and taking Segestica and Kydonia for myself as well as reducing the Brutii holdings to just Byzantium and Bylazora, I started funding the GC enemy, Pontus. A lot of fun to watch my former "allies" get slowly over-run:2thumbsup:

However, on all other portions of the map, noone was doing anything. Nada, zip, nothing......not even chasing away brigands within shouting distance from a city. Factions supposedly at war did........nothing. So how long will editing personality traits last for?

[Megas Methuselah]

I like how you play, dude. Blitzing ruins the game, IMO. Anyways, if I ever notice a lazy faction early in the game, I go and conquer a nearby settlement and gift it to them. This usually wakes them up. Moreover, if someone is dying out, I'll give them a settlement across the map in the hope of giving them a fresh start(I use Mundus Magnus' map, so there's plenty of room). However, I'll usually just let the Romans die out... :crowngrin:

[Quirinus]

Good advice Dv98. I'll have to try that one. Unlike some folks, I don't have any overwhelming urges to blitz the map (not criticizing those that do, mind you...) and having played just about every faction several times, I feel no need to even finish the camp by holding 50 provinces + Rome.
Same here, friend. Much of the appeal of RTW for me is the empire-/nation-building aspect... there's nothing I like more than making the Greeks migrate to a godforsaken corner of the world and carving a civilised nation out of the barbarian wilds. My personal favourite is when I took the Greeks to Britannia, I had tons of fun with that, only giving up when I reconquered Greece after also taking Gaul, Italy, Iberia, Dacia and a bit of Africa.



However, on all other portions of the map, noone was doing anything. Nada, zip, nothing......not even chasing away brigands within shouting distance from a city. Factions supposedly at war did........nothing. So how long will editing personality traits last for?
Darkvicer98 is right, editing the personality traits do make for a much more interesting game-- for example, in my last test game (using the -ai suffix so that I don't interfere with the results) the Greek Cities actually became a power, uniting Greece and wresting control of Asia Minor from the Seleucids (okay, I was using VBM, but still...). Factions like the Dacians were briefly powerful before being gang-raped by Germania, Rome and Greece, while the Armenians got themselves a decent piece of the East.

But I digress. The problem with editing the personality traits do not alter their laziness-- some factions were just sitting around doing literally nothing for years and years. The Greek Cities in that last test game, for example, mostly sat on their holdings in Greece before exploding across Asia Minor in a matter of four or five years, and then sitting on them again for a decade.


Methuselah: How do you gift cities to AI factions? They never seem to accept any from me even wehn it's in their obvious interest to do so.

[Megas Methuselah]

I demand map information, and offer the city and, if neccesary, money(1k-20k) in exchange. Yeah, it's weird that they don't accept gifts.

[Quirinus]

Does this always work, or do they sometimes refuse? (Sorry for peppering you with questions, but being able to reassign cities really would open up lots of roleplaying possibilities for me... )

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Editing the personalities in the descr_strat.txt file changes the way each faction behaves. Giving The Seleucid Empire "craftsman caesar" makes them keep hold of their settlements and giving Carthage "sailor caesar" makes them aggressive as long as they have strength in their armies.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45212

It may work by changing the Diplomacy between factions in the descr_strat.txt file. Make factions hostile or at war can improve how aggressive they are.

Thank you for the link! I looked it a long time ago but didn't find it(because I searched from the wrong place!). :bow:

[Megas Methuselah]

@Quirinius: Yeah, it always works, even with enemies. Sometimes, though, it won't be enough of a good deal(meaning they had alot of map information), so they may want more cash. Moreover, map information can only be traded once per turn. So, if you want to "gift" the AI with several settlements in a single turn, it would all have to be in one proposal. :yes:

[NorthernMonkey]

looks like a perfect time for a civil war. most times when i play as any of the roman factions i get the civil war started pretty early, or when the other houses are preoccupied with, well, anything. i mean, what's the point of taking orders from them pink senators, when you can kill them all and do whatever you wish? ^^

[Wausser]

Well I had pretty fun in trying to postpone the civil war as long as I could. I attacked when the Senate gave me an impossible mission with the punishment of a Quastor looking at my finances...