Strange twist

[Grimmy]

I played RTW campaign (not BI) with all the currently available patches and the latest patch fixer last night. No other mods installed in this copy of RTW.

I was playin the green Romans (Brutii I believe).

It was fairly early in the campaign (med/med btw) and I had, as per Senate orders, taken the towns along the coast accross the gulf from my starting possition.

I had watch towers up along the way, all the way up towards patavium (used to play Julii alot so I know that town name). I had a fort established and manned in the pass accross the mountains to the direct east of my first siezed town.
All was going good. Started building up a bit of an army to go after the first greek town that the Senate usually sends me after.

Suddenly, I get a diplomatic message from the Gauls asking if I'd rather avoid wholesale death and destruction and just become a protectorate and let them take care of me for the rest of my days...I said, thanks but no thanks.

Then I looked at the map. Both Julii starting cities were under siege by full stacks each.
The Macedonians (those horse molesters!!) were massing and were preparing to lay siege to my fort in the mountain pass. The Greeks were still layin chilly tho so I decided to try whompin the Macedonians (loved by horses, all of em!!) before they pushed me off the coast and I had to start all over. I had faith in my fellow romans. No way the Julii would let a bunch of long haired hippy Guals beat em down!!

Well, I did beat back the Macadonians (checked the corps' and yep, horse hair in all the wrong places!!) and took the city immediatly to my east from them. It was a good fight. Lots of killing, lots of running around and killing, with a bit of light killing on top, just for recreation.

Well, stupid me. The Julii did not hold out and were now, all the sudden, confined to that one small island town to their west. A couple full stacks of guals (still long haired but not quite as hippy seeming now) were ambeling towards my home cities and, I had precious little there to defend em with, but I did have combat garrions so didnt quite panic, yet.

Then the Greeks show up. Show up big. My army is refitted and refurbished by now but I've still lost some units and not as strong as I was before the Macadonians tricked me into wearing out my troops by chasing them all over and killing them. The Greeks storm up and cut me off from the coast, so no evacuation is possible.
I fight, lose some battles, win some battles and end up with that Macadonian city (sieged by a new, improved Macadonian army) and that small town just to the east of patavium (not the one on the coast, the other one just east of that).
I've got a tired army with no resupply or refit available. The Julii are exiled from Italia and still just a small town on that island (the larger island to their east, not the really tiny one over by Spain)

The Scipii are fighting the Gauls in Itally, and Rome is sitting around with their thumb up their collective poopers.

If this had been a normal game, I'd have just been consolidating my hold on Thermon and still doing the various port blockaid missions in the Sparta, Corinth area.

Anybody else ever had a standard issue campaign go sideways so fast on em?

[Upxl]

Great campaign.
I've seen only the Bruti get wooped once.
But then my campaign was with the Gauls.

[Grimmy]

LOL, Dont know if I'd call it great or not. I was wiped out before I could recruit my first legion unit. I think one city, Capua I think, grew once before it fell to a siege.

[Upxl]

I always found it very frustrating that the other Roman factions were also unstopable.
Would love to defend Rome from other (barbarian) Factions.

Does the senate give you missions to recapture those Julii towns?

[spanakoryzo]

There's nothing to worry about! After playing (and wreaking havoc) with the Seleucids and the Egyptians I decidec to try the Dacians. I thought I was a great commander by then. Yeah, right! My directly offensive strategy was met with a triple invasion of Germans (full stack), Scythians (half a stack) and Thracians (about two stacks), all working together in bliss and harmony. I've never seen anything like that in any other TW game. I was dead and gone in 20 turns. It really hurt at the time!

[Grimmy]

I always found it very frustrating that the other Roman factions were also unstopable.
Would love to defend Rome from other (barbarian) Factions.

Does the senate give you missions to recapture those Julii towns?


I dont remember the Senate giving me any missions after I was booted off Italia. It may have, and I might have just ignored them since I was down to one city and one town. The city was Macedonian, Thessalinca? or in that area. My fleet was gone, the city was sieged by a full stack of Mac's with Greeks lining up behind and I had baddly battered units (about half a stack of hastati, with 2 cavs at less than half strenght, no general). I did manage one sally from that city and managed to force the Macs into a temporary retreat but was sieged on the very next turn by a full stack of Greeks. I burned the city and left the defenders to hold out as long as they could before surrendering after that.

The town had my only remaining general, a couple cavs and 4 hastati. This town was latteral to patavium to the east. I could recruit town watch and peasants only in that town. I managed to dance with the gauls for a few turns before I finally got beat down enough to have to fall back into the town and just die from siege starvation and surrender.

I dont think the entire game lasted more than 20 turns lol.

I had played the Brutii many times. Always managed to do well, almost had a "pattern of advance" that would lead me to a good steady win over the greeks and macs, then I could explore around with other ways of teachin other folk the goodness of proper Roman grammar and hygene.
This was the first time I'd gotten hammered like that and it was due to a sudden collaps fo the Julii to a gaul invasion down the Italia peninsula.

I was flummoxed lol.

This was my first game after installing the patch fix. did that fix increase nonplayer faction aggressivness?

[phred]

What difficulty are you playing?

edit: oops, never mind. I see you included that info in your first post.

[Grimmy]

Dont get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I sure as all heck dont take the opening moves for granted anymore in the game. That's renewed the fun in that phase of play.

But my reason for the post is, has anyone else had the game behave so radically different than usual on them? Was this just a wierd "one off" that occurred? or can I look forward to occasional changes in general behaviour in my AI opponents like this?

I've been playin off and on since the game was released. I'm not a game saver, so I play until I cant stand sitting at the computer anymore then quit the game, so have no clue what its like in the end phase of the game.

[Ludens]

Bugfixer does not change the A.I., so I don't think it's responsible for your twist. I myself have never seen the Romans getting trashed (unles I was doing it myself), but I think there was a thread about the subject some months ago in the Colosseum.