Best Campaign [Archive]

Quirinus

01-08-2008, 05:42

I'll start I guess.

https://img177.imageshack.us/img177/301/picture1kt1.th.jpg (https://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1kt1.jpg)

I had Macedon as a protectorate, but somehow they broke the alliance.
That was early in the campaign. I've progressed slightly since then.

https://img222.imageshack.us/img222/1852/picture3xk7.th.jpg (https://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture3xk7.jpg)

It's twenty some odd years after the other picture. I'm at war with most my neighbors, if not all of them. Egypt is dead, Numidia took there homelands. The Seleucids are my biggest threat. They have the largest military and the most territories right now. My best General. I've never had this title before. He's on his way to Rome to finish off the senate and the Julii. Hopefully he wont die before then.

I'll try and post some battles later.
Whoa. I've never seen Egypt destroyed and the Seleucids triumphant before, when I'm not actually playing the Seluecids. o.O By Numidia no less!

About your king: great guy..... what traits did you gain to get the 'Avenger' epithet? And your traits are all positive.... I always get at least some bad traits like Poor Farmer or Useless Assessor.

Nice campaign.

I think my best game was with the Brutii. My faction leader even got the trait 'Virtus', a step up from 'Good Honest Roman' (I think), which gave him the epithet 'Augustus'-- his name became 'Tiberius Augustus'. How cool is that? But then I popped off one too many Germanic princes, and his epithet got changed to 'the Killer' right before he bought the farm (or the Latifunda, or the Great Estates.... ;) ) :furious3:

Though now that game has gone to seed with widespread corruption and a streak of madness running through the family. As amusing as the description for 'Deranged' may be ('There are some who say that this man speaks like a deranged rock ape. The rock apes will take offence at this slur.'), seeing a once-great administrator neglect his duties to drown spiders ("....you treacherous little buggers...mutter....") in vinegar or the great conqueror of the Balkans whimpering about 'the Great Wine Pressing', is not amusing in the least. ~:mecry:

Telys

01-08-2008, 10:35

Yea, I'm using the vbm mod so egypt tends to not spread very far or die most of the time. My leader got a trait called avenger, and I'm guessing thats what gave him the title. The trait description says something about sweeping across enemies land leaving a trail of destruction or ruin, something like that. He did have one bad trait in that picture, it's towards the bottom of the list traits he had gained along the years, useless assessor. Now though, he has gotten old, his title changed, he is a plague bearer and he became minion :shame: .
https://img49.imageshack.us/img49/6633/picture14ed8.th.jpg (https://img49.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture14ed8.jpg)

I was trying to get him the great title, but i dont think he has enough time left for that. So I've started on a new general.

https://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1859/picture8wz6.th.jpg (https://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture8wz6.jpg)

I gave him pretty much an invincible army. Hopefully he will take all of asia minor, and then some.

Some screens of the battle
https://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8479/picture10po7.th.jpg (https://img181.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture10po7.jpg)
https://img242.imageshack.us/img242/5582/picture13vd6.th.jpg (https://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture13vd6.jpg)
I had more screens but they came out horrible, so that is all I have of this battle.

The Seleucids have been sending all there armies my way. I wasnt really prepared for that, but I've been holding up rather well. Carthage has started reclaiming there homelands now that the scipii are dead. The julii are almost dead. They anly hold caralis. Dacia has been attacking less and less, I think they are running out of men. I think germania is going to attack soon.
https://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5000/picture15ia0.th.jpg (https://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture15ia0.jpg)

That's a mighty fine mini-mod you seem to be using
Yes it is. I've made a few changes to the mod though, mostly just recruiting. I've noticed there is a problem with sardis though. It wont expand past it's original level no matter how large the population get, a little frustrating when playing as the seleucids.

Quirinus

01-08-2008, 12:48

Telys

01-08-2008, 14:31

Oh.... I see. What does the 'vbm mod' do? I see that it changes some city names too..... I don't recall Pella being the city in Macedonia.

On-topic, lol, your faction leader likes it in the butt. :listen: Still much better than my faction heir in one of my Egyptian games though. He has the trait 'Arse'. xD Is it just me, or do the Egyptians get these 'Minion' traits more often?

Doros the Brave doesn't sound too bad...... It sounds better than 'the Avenger', at any rate. :P I only got a 'the Great' epithet once when I was playing the Parthians, and were owning the infantry-heavy factions against overwhelming odds. But then it quickly got replaced by 'the Horseman'. ~:angry: I don't understand the logic of these things. One would think that being called 'the Great' would be the ultimate title.

I'm not sure exactly what it does, but i do know it makes it so brittania starts only in britannia so it takes a little while for them to expand, and it gives other factions like carthage, the seleucids etc a little extra push so they dont die so quickly. It also adds three settlemnts, one in asia minor for the seleucids, and two for carthage, one next to the city of carthage and the small island above caralis has a city. There are some other little changes that dont effect too much of the game.

The last couple of julii campaigns ive played, every single family member I had that stayed in a settlement for more than a couple years got the minion trait. I got angry so I quit the game. I've had the great title twice. Once in a greek campaign and one in a scipii campaign. In the scipii one I got it right before the general died.

mrdun

01-08-2008, 15:07

Telys

01-08-2008, 17:03

I have just started a Bosphoran campaign on Roma Surrectum. I'm not sure how I can expand as my economy is rather poor by RS standards and I am surrounded by free people with 1/2 stacks outside each settlement. I am trying to build up my economy so I can compete in troop numbers. I think it wil only take one settlement then I will be rather rich.

I've never played RS so I can't really give my opinion on the subject. If you post screens shots I might be able to share my ideas on your situation.

Barbarossa82

01-08-2008, 19:31

Yes it is. I've made a few changes to the mod though, mostly just recruiting. I've noticed there is a problem with sardis though. It wont expand past it's original level no matter how large the population get, a little frustrating when playing as the seleucids.

You're right - another user pointed out that problem and I've released a corrected descr_strat file over in the mod subforum.

Telys

01-08-2008, 21:18

You're right - another user pointed out that problem and I've released a corrected descr_strat file over in the mod subforum.

Thanks for the info Barbarossa. I'll definetely check it out.

mrdun

01-09-2008, 18:11

I don't get that much time on it at the moment :study: but one of the free peoples armies went somewhere so I quickly took their departed city :evilgrin: I think this will be a war of safe attacking and ruthless defending :2thumbsup: Very fun. What I am aiming for is to take all the cities around the sea, a bit of a trading empire :beam:

mrdun

01-09-2008, 19:54

https://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii195/1Man_On_Fire1/Untitled.jpg

I took my chance when for some reason they abandoned another settlement, leaving only a minimal garrison. Now I am in better shape. Pontus are expanding rapidly on the coastline and now border me. I think I will attack and lead an offensive. Hopefully giving me momentum to suppress them.

Telys

01-09-2008, 22:19

I see. If you're going for coastal cities pontis would definetely be a good target, seeing that they control the eastern half of the black sea. The only problem with holding coastal settlements is that you'll share your borders with many factions which will probably want those cities eventually, which will lead to many enemies on multiple fronts.

Well, I had to start a new campaign. I decided to go with the greeks again. I tried something new this time and abandoned everything except sparta and rhodes. Surpisingly I only lost money for about two turns. I formed an alliance with the romans and waited for macedon to attack, they did. Luckily a scipii army was in macedon territory, so now the romans are at war with macedon. I decided to see how far I can go with this alliance with the romans, probably not the best idea in the world.
https://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8653/picture10qn5.th.jpg (https://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture10qn5.jpg)
I gave all of the roman houses, including the senate, military access. Then the following turn demanded access in return. Surprisingly they accepted. I'm not sure how long this alliance will last. At the moment it seems to be a fairly stable situation.

Quirinus

01-10-2008, 09:45

I'm not sure exactly what it does, but i do know it makes it so brittania starts only in britannia so it takes a little while for them to expand, and it gives other factions like carthage, the seleucids etc a little extra push so they dont die so quickly. It also adds three settlemnts, one in asia minor for the seleucids, and two for carthage, one next to the city of carthage and the small island above caralis has a city. There are some other little changes that dont effect too much of the game.
I see..... I was wondering why a small part of Numidia (the territory) near Africa had a different colour.

By the way, in your screenshot, is Caralis owned by Dacia? I just noticed, but it seemed a little incredible-- I've never seen Dacia with any overseas settlements.

Barbarossa82, could you link me to that mod you're talking about? I can't seem to find it.

I got my faction leader killed on Rhodes in my Macedonian campaign yesterday-- by wooden wall defenses no less! How luckless can you get?

I'm starting an Armenia mission soon. Haven't got the urge to play the Eastern factions for a while, but I was inspired by Barbarossa82's AAR.:beam:

Barbarian

01-11-2008, 16:18

I have decided to start a new campaign with Greek cities. This one will be unusual. Usually, Parthia gets destroyed early in the game, and I have almost never played against AI Parthia. So, I changed the files to give them 1,5 million denarii (!!!:dizzy2: ). I hope this will be enough for them to invade egypt and take over the rest of the world. I have also set some important rules for myself:

1) No, world conquest. I will only take Athens from rebels and Corinth from Macedon. I will probably give away Syracuse to Scipii early in the game, to prevent unending fights around that settlement. Not decided wether I should take Kydonia and Halicarnassus, your comments needed.
After doing it, I will stop expanding and ensure peace with all factions. I will only fight defensive battles, and try to prevent war for as long as possible.
While other factions will be fighting their greedy wars, I will establish prosperity and growth in my settlements. So - I will have a small state with few cities, but it will be a paragon for other factions in Cultural level and set standards for civilized world.
I will only consider taking a new settlement, when all my former settlements will have reached the highest level and when all the possible buildings will have been built. But the settlement must be taken from enemies - no invasions of neutral lands.
2) My intention is also to act a lot via diplomacy to keep the factions of hellenic culture allied, or at least neutral.
3) Military. Minimum or no use of mercenaries or low-tier troops and levies. I will have a small but elite army, form the finest soldiers, hardened warriors in the best armour available.
Spartan hoplites must be trained only in Sparta, nowhere else.
4) Must work on the traits of family members, try to maintain a clear Greek, especially Spartan, bloodline, meaning no adoption. Faction leader, as well as any other family member must be an example for other troops in the battle. Fight in the first lines, not fearing glorious death: ask nothing of your soldiers, that you are not ready to do yourself.

All of this should make a very challenging campaign. I don't mind ending the campaign in the streets of Athens or Sparta, dieing under 1000 Parthian arrows, as I have never lost any campaign yet in any of the total war games..

PS: I just hope that Parthians will send a diplomat to me with a message: "Be afraid. Sparta will burn to the ground! The thousand nations of Parthian empire descend upon you!" :beam:

mrdun

01-11-2008, 16:41

Only have your daughters marry men with Greek names e.g. -_ _ _ of Athens

I always like a mess around campaign. My current is with Julii, no superfaction.

Omanes Alexandrapolites

01-11-2008, 18:42

Hullo Quirinus ~:wave:

...could you link me to that mod you're talking about? I can't seem to find it.You can find the latest version of the Barbarossa's Vanilla Balancing modification (v5) here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1654719#post1654719). The thread in question also contains two other similar modifications by Barbarossa82 for R:TW's expansions - BI (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1654721#post1654721) and Alexander (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1654722#post1654722).

~:)

Barbarian

01-13-2008, 23:07

A little update. Everything goes as planned. I have taken Athens and Corinth, have a plan to take Kydonia, but I won't attack Halicarnassus. I managed to prevent war with Scipii by giving Syracuse to them and leaving Sicily. I also got one extra army (the garrison of Syracuse) this way, which I used to defeat Macedonian reinforcements. I have decided to stop expanding now, but Macedonians do not accept ceasefire. Thats not a big problem - all their armies march somewhere north, to Dacia, it seems that the war with me doesn't seem important to them. And when romans will arrive, they will forget about me completely. I will just wait till their diplomat comes with the proposal of ceasefire.
Parthians are not doing much with their 1 500 000 denarii, they are too passive and their armies, which are quite huge though, simply wander around. However, they are wandering more and more closely to Seleucid towns :egypt:
But the real reason I made this post was to show you a rare sight - king of greek cities and king of Macedon meet in battle to fight a heroic duel:

https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/3030/rometw2008011210255298lt2.th.jpg (https://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008011210255298lt2.jpg)

https://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5038/rometw2008011210261339lj2.th.jpg (https://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008011210261339lj2.jpg)

guess who won?

https://img152.imageshack.us/img152/412/rometw2008011210260613tp5.th.jpg (https://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008011210260613tp5.jpg)

Quirinus

01-14-2008, 05:26

Whoa, you modded in Spartans as your general's bodyguards? Nice. Doesn't that mean that you lose your 'rally troops' ability, though?

Barbarian

01-14-2008, 05:53

No, but spartans, who are in general's bodyguard unit can't swich of their phalanx formation. But that is not a big problem.
I messed it up a bit, so also Macedonians and Seleucids have spartan bodyguards. However, it is not so bad, because now AI doesn't loose it's generals so soon - pikemen are a defensive unit, while cavalry is offensive.

Paradox

01-14-2008, 09:35

I like the way you managed to arrange a one on one battle between the generals, it's brilliant and cinematic, I have to try that sometime.

Omanes Alexandrapolites

01-14-2008, 13:21

Very interesting screenshots there Barbarian. I only wonder how you managed to prevent the Macedonian general's bodyguard from getting too involved.

:bow:

Quirinus

01-14-2008, 15:32

Maybe they were all slain. >:D

Paradox

01-14-2008, 15:42

Barbarian, can you tell me how you changed the general's bodyguard unit to Spartan Hoplites? And how did you make the two generals face each other without the troops interfering?

I have done this once while playing as the Julii, I advanced my general's unit to the Senator's (S.P.Q.R) bodyguard unit and made them engage each other while the other troops slaughter themselves. So they did fight, but some fool interfered and killed him. I forgot to mention this was a custom battle too, so it was much easier arranging it here.

Barbarian

01-14-2008, 17:51

First, I did nothing special to make it happen, so, it was a surprise for me to. Just following one of my rules,

Fight in the first lines, not fearing glorious death: ask nothing of your soldiers, that you are not ready to do yourself.

I sent general's unit agains't general's unit. Also because other units would take huge loses against them. Both generals just happened to be on the same flank, so, while their units fought with spears, they fought this little duel.

About how I changed the bodyguard unit: In export_descr_unit file there is an attribute general_unit, which is given to all units, who can be used as guard units. I removed this attribute from current bodyguard's unit, just to make sure they don't appear somewhere, and added it for spartan hoplites.
However, I already said that some other factions got spartan bodyguards as well, I have to check why it happened.
If you do this, any new generals get this unit. But the starting characters still have the cavalry unit. To change their units, if you want, you must assign them in descr_strat file. You could search the modding subforum, there were some 3 topics at least about doing it.

Paradox

01-14-2008, 18:06

First, I did nothing special to make it happen, so, it was a surprise for me to. Just following one of my rules,

I sent general's unit agains't general's unit. Also because other units would take huge loses against them. Both generals just happened to be on the same flank, so, while their units fought with spears, they fought this little duel.

About how I changed the bodyguard unit: In export_descr_unit file there is an attribute general_unit, which is given to all units, who can be used as guard units. I removed this attribute from current bodyguard's unit, just to make sure they don't appear somewhere, and added it for spartan hoplites.
However, I already said that some other factions got spartan bodyguards as well, I have to check why it happened.
If you do this, any new generals get this unit. But the starting characters still have the cavalry unit. To change their units, if you want, you must assign them in descr_strat file. You could search the modding subforum, there were some 3 topics at least about doing it.
I'm sure it applies for all Hellenic factions than, since none of the Seleucids, Macedonians, etc. are listed there.

Hannibalbarc

01-14-2008, 18:46

You could change it so that carthaginian generals are elephants, cool.

Paradox

01-14-2008, 18:48

That doesn't need modding, it's easy to do yourself. The general looks funny sitting behind the elephant rider though.

Hannibalbarc

01-14-2008, 22:37

https://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb102/db_b/imperialcampaign.jpg
This was quite a while ago, it was only on m/m but still a lot of fun, (because I was still a noob back then:beam: ) I had bull warriors everywhere and I wasn't having to much trouble beating the greeks, the egyptians where tough but I managed to take their cities anyway.

Barbarian

01-15-2008, 05:30

I have never seen the map beeing so brown:beam:

Maybe because I haven't done full campaign with spain

Quirinus

01-15-2008, 12:56

Whoa.... playing as Spain, didn't you have problems with squalor in your initial cities?

mrdun

01-15-2008, 14:07

micro management is key

Hannibalbarc

01-15-2008, 17:51

Whoa.... playing as Spain, didn't you have problems with squalor in your initial cities?
Only with cordoba, in the other cities the population growth was almost nothing so they all only minor cities.

Quirinus

01-16-2008, 05:26

The Egyptian cities, Patavium, Mediolanum have insane base farming rates......

Telys

01-16-2008, 20:27

My alliance with the romans went sour, as expected. I gained macedon as a protectorate. I've had them as one for several years now. SPQR just recently gave in. They asked for a cease fire after I took rome. I made a counter and demanded they become my protectorate. They countered and said they would for like 7900 denari. So they were my protectorate for about 3-4 turns until the scipii declared war on me again, in which they sided with their roman allies.
https://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9959/picture1gp4.th.jpg (https://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1gp4.jpg)

My faction leader, who's name is Menelaos, Ironically just had a son named Agamemnon.
https://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6526/picture4lb3.th.jpg (https://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture4lb3.jpg)
https://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2531/picture5qy6.th.jpg (https://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture5qy6.jpg)

Right now I'm closing in on the scipii. I have two armies who have just invaded sicily, and one army that just took lepcis magna. I plan on having the three meet at carthage. I'm still debating on whether or not I'd rather try to have the scipii or the julii as a protectorate. With the julii my northern border is secure and it creates a buffer between me and germania, but that also means I wont be able to control all the coastal cities. The scipii are larger. Which means I wont have to waste resources on the inland african provinces and concentrate on preparing for war against egypt but, I wont be able to take coastal spain and I'll also have to prepare for war against germania and march north, which I really dont feel like doing. I also want to go to war with thrace so I control the black sea and connect chersonesos with the rest of my empire, but if I go to war with thrace I'll lose macedon as a protectorate. So I'm kinda at a cross roads here. Anyone have an opinion on the matter?

Ibn-Khaldun

01-16-2008, 22:07

Wow! SPQR is your protectorate??
How did you take Rome and managed to spqr take capua??
I remember when once beeing the gauls I made the spqr my protactorate .. oh well .. those were good times ~:)

Telys

01-16-2008, 22:52

Wow! SPQR is your protectorate??
How did you take Rome and managed to spqr take capua??
I remember when once beeing the gauls I made the spqr my protactorate .. oh well .. those were good times ~:)

I actually had capua first, but spqr bribed it from me. So in return I sacked/surpressed rome. I'd rather have spqr dead. That way one of the other roman families may possibly became a protectorate. They have a less chance of cancelling it if another roman goes to war with me, and usually the other houses wont declare war for fear of losing an ally, if spqr is dead.

Barbarian

01-16-2008, 23:40

I didn't know that it increases the chance for forcing to be a protectorate:shame:
I also have rarely seen Thrace expanding so far. Must be a doing of the mod.

At the moment I have been following my plan perfectly. I do not expand anymore, but I do send armies to help others. For example, I saved Seleucids from being destroyed, their last city Damascus was already under siege by Egyptians, when I arrived with reinforcements. Egyptians retreated immediately, and do not dare to attack me or Seleucids now:

https://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3499/rometw2008011623253660fq3.th.jpg (https://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008011623253660fq3.jpg)

This army was gathered from all the troops that I don't need anymore. From now on, I have 800 armoured hoplites in each of my cities as a regular garrison, so I sent all the units that I don't need anymore to watch over other factions. Another stack is on it's way there. I have united all the hellenic factions + factions that are being terorrized by larger forces, like Carthage and Gauls. I want to keep balance on the map, so I do no support or even grant trade rights for factions who have imperial ambitions. Egypt is my greatest enemy, because I hate how they always destroy eastern kingdoms:

https://img401.imageshack.us/img401/6938/rometw2008011623283442yk5.th.jpg (https://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008011623283442yk5.jpg)

Oh, and Parthians.....well, they are just nice people!:yes:

I spent around 80 000 denarii to bribe Egyptian armies, making them weaker. This way I got a family member, which you see in the first screenshot. I hope he dies soon, and that he has no sons, because for many generations I have only had spartans in my family tree, I decline any marriage proposals or adoptions.
I have no intention on taking cities from Egypt or any other faction. They are allowed to live in their original cities, but they must not steal settlements from other factions. My army is only there to protect those, who are weak, not to conquer.
Greek cities, although they have small territory and few cities, are in the first place in overall ranking:

https://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9784/rometw2008011623314389sb7.th.jpg (https://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008011623314389sb7.jpg)

The chart is crowded, but you can clearly see the two highest lines- light yellow is the greek one, the dark yellow is the egyptian one.

mrdun

01-17-2008, 21:10

That is cool

Paradox

01-17-2008, 23:40

The Senate faction are definately one of the best campaigns in the beginning. Right now I'm not at home so, unfortunately, I'm not able to post the screenshots I saved.

(VH/VH)First I began by improving the city of Rome itself and strengthening my army, obviously. I decided, after this, that I should sail over to Sicily and assist the Scipii against Carthage. I smacked around the Carthaginian navy to the point that they stopped making ships (lol) and blockaded the ports of Carthage and Thapsus while besieging Lilybaeum with the two family members I sent in Sicily. The Julii were probably the best Roman faction serving me right now as their army conquered all Carthaginian islands to the west and their army was very very large, they scared Gaul away and, surprisingly, Gaul set its eyes on the Greek Cities.:inquisitive:

Meanwhile, the Brutii are sleeping in Greece, doing absolutely nothing while the Scipii have a sizeable army, bigger than mine. They currently own Syracuse and Messana in Sicily so I kind of ruined their Sicilian campaign. A couple of turns later I get a message saying that the Julii have commenced a civil war while I was still in the process of besieging Lilybaeum and blockading the Carthaginian docks. The Julii betrayal was followed by a Scipii and Brutii betrayal. Now all my closest allies were against me.

I assaulted Lilybaeum so I can manage my future plans against the Scipii and won the city. Meanwhile in Capua, I prepared my faction leader to attack the Scipii capital and killed 8 family members in one battle, my faction leader himself killed them in battle! Maybe not all of them, but most of them. The slaughter of the Scipii family proved to be a great loss for them, but they still had an incredibly large army in Sicily now. I beat the army with a few casualties but later lost to a captian with half the size of the one I previously faced.

Again, I smacked around the Julii navy as I did to Carthage and formed an alliance with Gaul, who are currently one of the most powerful factions in the west. I arranged a ceasefire with the Julii and they obviously accepted because of the Gallic threat to the north, I did this to target the Brutii, my plan was to kick them out of the penninsula until they're stuck in Apollonia, alone.

I'm still not done yet, and I'll post the screens as soon as I can.

Btw, does anyone know if the Senate are able to obtain any Legionary cohorts or even Auxilia for that matter?

Quirinus

01-21-2008, 15:30

This is my on-going Julii game. I've played as them a couple of times in the past, but it had been a very long time since I played one-- well over a year, in fact. I'm playing on M/M.

I was motivated to start playing as the Julii this time by, ironically, the barbarian cutscene-- I thought it would be cool to turn all those stinking Gauls (or at least their sons) into good Romans. :beam: So I set myself some ground rules and aims this time-- I will leave the Gallic cities alone and not exploit them-- I will make them Roman. I will also not regard any ceasefire or treaties with the filthy barbarians with respect. There can only be WAR! :skull: I will also not leave the barbarian lands for, say, Carthage or Greece before I have completed their subjugation.

At the start of the game, I took Segesta with Quintus Julius. It fell pretty easily. Then I took my faction leader (Flavius) and most of my troops to Patavium and besiged it. A Gallic general attacked me from the back, but I beat it back, and Patavium fell the next turn. As this city has insane base population growth, I plan to use this as a troop training city.

I took a couple of turns to train levies, and then took Flavius Julius out to attack Mediolanum. The faction heir of Gaul (I think) was in there. That same Gallic general attacked me again, I beat him back again, though I couldn't catch him. Mediolanum fell the next turn, so now I had two more core cities under my control. I set it to be my capital as soon as it outgrew its ugly barbarian town design.

The Gallic diplomat sued for peace the next turn, so I accepted, and then promptly took Quintus out of Segesta (he got the 'Minion' trait and I wanted to discourage that), newly reinforced with a few brand-new hastati, and attacked that pesky Gallic general. This time I destroyed his army, but without any equites, the bastard ran away again.

The diplomat, surprisingly, sued for peace again, but I was approaching a small Gallic army besieging Massila, so I didn't want peace. So I asked for Narbo Martius, and, guess what, they agreed! I was stunned, but as the old saying goes, don't look a gift horse in the mouth...... xD I immediately set out to transform Narbo Martius into a Roman town.

I was being so rich from not hiring mercs and from the Senate's bounty that I could afford to bribe Massila. I garrisoned it with some of Quintus' army. Quintus himself and most of his army started heading up north to rebel Ludugnum, but the Gauls, in their idiocy, attacked Narbo Martius with a small army. Where's the logic in that? The whole point of a ceasefire was to buy time to rebuild, and, with Narbo Martius in my hands, I was content to give them that time. Anyways, Quintus headed west and spanked the offending army (skirmisher warbands.... :shame: ).

After that I garrisoned Quintus in Narbo Martius and sent his promising son Amulius to Ludugnum. The Gallic diplomat- you guessed it- asked for peace. I told him where to go-- you want peace, hand over Lemonum. So I got Lemonum. :frog: With the unexpected 'acquisition' of another province, Gaul was now looking pretty carved up-- things were just cruisin'. And then I ran into a snag.

When I arrived at Ludugnum, a German army was one turn ahead of me, and had already besieged. Crap. I wasn't too keen on fighting the Germans, at least not this early in the game. While I was dallying and thinking about whether to attack the Germans -Ludugnum was pretty important- they attacked me.

Not in Ludugnesis, but in Noricum, where the Senate had already commanded me to take a few turns back. I did, with a guy called Spurius Cipius. The Germans besieged it now with close to a full stack and a 3- or 4-star general. Outnumbered and outclassed (half of Spurius' troops were levies), he couldn't do anything but wait.

Fortunately, learning of the plight of his son-in-law, faction leader Flavius came to his rescue with his army in Mediolanum (the starting one you get, with veteran hastati and triarii) and arrived in Noricum just in time-- the attacking army was building rams already.

Just as I was getting ready to get the attacker, the Germans lifted the siege. I attacked them anyway, and beat them, though not decisively. I chased them across the bridge into their own territory, and went from the defensive to the offensive. Spurius Cipius, grateful at having been relieved, led a relief force behind Flavius' main army.

Mogontiancum was a large town, meaning I'll be able to train hastati from there instead of constant shuttling and retraining from Patavium, a pleasant novelty in barbarian lands. Taking it would mean gaining a significant base for further expeditions against the treacherous and uncivilised Germans.

In the meantime, Ludugnum fell to the Germans, and then promptly fell to Amulius. ~:D Good ol' Quintus, garrisoned in Lemonum, was getting restless, so he took his reinforced army and besieged Alesia, capital of the tottering Gallic Confederation. It fell after a heated battle, and Quintus was awarded the 'Victor' epithet. He wasted no time in retraining, and after signing a treaty of alliance with the Britons, he invaded Germania Superior (Trier) from the west to draw off some of the German stacks from his father's drive to Mogontiancum, to no avail.

When this was happening the Dacians appeared out of nowhere into Noricum and besieged the leaderless town, forcing Spurius Cipius to march hastily back. The army was easily defeated and the general punished for his treachery, but now Flavius was alone in Tribus Chatti, surrounded by hostile German stacks.

Nevertheless, Flavius led his army to besiege Mogontiancum, which had a minimal garrison, but the inept spy inside failed to open the gates, so he was attacked by a half-stack of Germans under a five-star general. But Flavius was a great general too, with six stars, so he put them to flight, as well as massacring the garrison that came forth to reinforce the main force. But the massacre wasn't complete. In the confusion, 19 axemen were allowed to escape, so the city did not fall. Immediately after that Flavius was attacked again by a full stack, by another similar general.

Flavius' army was badly depleted from the previous battle, and, despite assistance from a few units of mercenary axemen (thank Jupiter for the MercenaryX pack), Flavius recognised that his army would be destroyed if he still gave battle, so he withdrew with his army mostly intact, vowing to return. And so Mogontiancum remained in German hands.

I'll continue with the treachery of the Dacians tomorrow.

mrdun

01-22-2008, 11:55

I say keep it coming.

Paradox

01-22-2008, 12:37

It's a bit unusual to expand eastward in a Julii campaign, but your descriptions of the campaign seem nice.

Barbarian

01-22-2008, 17:38

Paradox

01-22-2008, 19:43

WOW, how the hell did Parthia become that large? Could this mean that they actually have a chance to eliminate Egypt this early without any human player interference?

Barbarian

01-22-2008, 20:51

Well, actually there was an iterference - I sent a lot of money to them, as I have much more than I need. Those three cities in Europe I gave to the parthians as a gift. That helped them a lot.
But, although parthians have enormous armies, they are quite passive. Pontus is much more aggressive. They attack anyone in their way. Their fleets are blocking the ports of Brutii and Scipii. They got Armenia as their protectorate. It seems that the Egypt is doomed, because few minutes ago Pontus took Alexandria. I never thought that AI faction is capable of taking Alexandria or Memphis from Egypt :dizzy2:
Thrace is also much more powerful than it looks on the map. They have maybe full stack armies, they are attacking germans, and Scythia is their protectorate. Not mentioning that they were the ones, who defeated mighty Macedonians.

It seems that with my little interference I have dramatically changed the looks of the map. "The butterfly effect" :laugh4:

Punicus

01-23-2008, 02:23

Currently playing as Parthia. It is I believe 257 BC and I'm in a war with the Egyptians, Pontus, and Armenia. My allies are the Seleucids (who only have Antioch left), Numidia, and Carthage.

My main concern was the war with Egypt. I have managed to take Sidon and Jerusalem from them and am looking to invade Damascus and get Hatra back which I should be able to do because they do not have any stacks nearby (I decimated them all)

However problems arose when Pontus broke the peace with me which I was somewhat ready for, but not fully. Those scythed chariots are really a pain in the butt. It's a three-way fight for Armenia's former capital, I'm not quite sure how to spell the name.

I'm close to being able to make cataphracts and elephants in a couple of cities including my capital (which I probably should change considering it's so far off to the side).

I'll get some pics up later on.

Quirinus

01-23-2008, 09:16

That's true, and that is also what makes it interetsting even for me (I have played with Julii more than with any other faction :yes: )

Ok, I won't give a huge update of my campaign with Greek cities this time, I will only show the world map - some regions are quite interesting.

https://img166.imageshack.us/img166/7946/rometw2008012218204554qq9.jpg

Actually, most of the factions, who are usually destroyed early (carthage, parthia, thrace, pontus), now rule the world. The revenge has come!
Ooh. That's something. I've never seen Pontus rule the Levant before. I've seen Pontus dominate Asia Minor plenty of times, but the other Eastern factions usually keep them there.

About the Parthian territories in Illyria, though, wouldn't that be a liability and a drain on Parthia's resources instead? The Germans, the Julli, the Brutii, and even the Thracians will be gunning for those territories. Those territories are landlocked and have lousy population growth, making them unprofitable to hold on to. So why?

Cool game though, I'd be interested in seeing who comes out tops in the Eastern wars. What will you do, by the way, if Pontus starts dominating the entire East? Have they tried to attack Pergamum?

About my Julii game, meh, don't feel like going into detail anymore, the gist of it is, when my faction leader was marching north again after a few years, he died, so I withdrew my troops again. I finally took both Trier and Mogontiacum from the Germans with good ol' Quintus.

The Dacians.... well. I took Lovosice, and when I realised how puny the population was, I had a logistical nightmare on my hands-- maintaining the defense of Noricum was bad enough, but Lovosice is years away from Patavium, so I razed everything and abandoned it. When it rioted and returned to the Dacians, guess what? They got freakin' double gold chevron peansants. PEASANTS! With gold shields and silver swords! And then they also had a couple of single gold chevroned mercenary axemen. With this ridiculous army, the Dacians beat my hastati armies again and again. I lost Noricum briefly before retaking it again, but the Roman military collosus is not to be trifled with, as Hannibal learned. I brought the full military potential of Northern Italy to bear, and within ten years or so I was back on the offensive. Soon I was at the gates of Porrolissum. When I entered the capital, I exterminated the traitors. And that's another rule I set for myself-- if I am attacked without provocation, I will exterminate the faction's capital city.

In the west, too, treachery was the rule of the day-- just as I was prepared to finish off the Gauls, the Britons, who signed an alliance with me, and the Spanish attacked me. I was outnumbered by the Britons, but, with Quintus the Brave, I beat stack after stack of the disgusting woads. In about five years or so, I was at the gates of Samarobiva, where the last remaining Briton army on the mainland attacked me. I was badly outnumbered, and there were two chariot generals, but the bravery of Quintus (and his full ten stars) inspired the troops to victory, and only one hastati troop routed. Samarobiva fell soon afterwards, and I saw a famous battle indicator where I was standing. :beam: I got revenge of a sort, too, when I saw that Samarobiva had just a little more than 6000 people, which meant that it was to become Roman as soon as I built the Governor's Palace (or whatever it was).

The Spanish had a large garrison at Osca, so I mounted an amphibious invasion with Amulius, son of Quintus, straight at Carthago Nova, bypassing Osca completely. I know I took them by surprise, because there was only a family member inside. Still, by the time I reached the city, he had two Iberian infantries at his command-- the bloody Iberian landscape is hell. It fell anyway. The Spanish at Osca sent out half their army to retake Carthago Nova, which Amulius comprehensively defeated. Osca fell to an army from Narbo Martius after that.

Quintus was preparing for an invasion of Brittania proper when he died of old age. His son Augustus, who had come of age in Samarobiva, completed the preparations, and, after the final defeat of the large and experienced pirate fleet around the isles (that took a long while), Augustus besieged and stormed Londinum, and took great pleasure in putting the traitors to the sword. Sic semper proditor!

The rest of Iberia fell without much fuss. With two veteran armies commanded by good generals, the Spanish never had a chance. The Thracians had only Campus Getae left, and, when my spy at Byzantium spotted a large Brutii army heading north, I took my veteran army out of Porrolissum and established 'protective custody' over the Thracian remnant, blocking further Brutii expansion to the north. Now the only way for them to go was Asia Minor, where a powerful Greek presence in Pergamum (due to years of Julii financial support-- I had been giving them my excess cash to prevent exceeding 50000d) and the rest of Asia Minor under Pontus promised to make life very hard for them.

The Germans, in the meantime, having refused a ceasefire during my struggle with Brittania, was driven out of their ancestral lands as a result, with only a remnant presence in Domus-something. The Senate ordered me to obtain a surrender from the pathetic Dacians. I decided to take it literally, so Tertius Coriolanus, the stepson of Quintus the Brave who inherited his war against the Germans, marched his veteran Army of Germania into Pripet, where the Dacian remnant resided, and wiped them out. Apparently, the Scythians (my longtime allies) had been trying to do so for a long time, as there were many Scythian armies around in Pripet.

With the barbarians largely subdued --only the Scythians remained, and they had been staunch allies of the Julii ever since the time of Flavius-- I turned my attention to the inevitable-- the civil war. I set Patavium to churn out principes every turn, though I could have built triarii too. This was because principes have the same upkeep as hastati, and less than triarii.

In the meantime, the youngest son of Quintus, Cnaeus Julius, came of age, displaying great military acumen, so I stocked him up with military retinue and some troops, including his grandfather's single troop of veteran triarii, and sent him out to Carthage.

After about five years or so, when I felt confident enough, I took my army of principally principes from Arretium and Ariminum and besieged Rome with the help of Archimedes (+2 Command when assaulting walls, +1 Command when defending walls, +100 Build Points). The Senate, weakened by years of assassination and sabotage, fell the next turn. In the meantime, another army of principes attacked the Brutii from Patavium.

The Scythians, in the meantime, were getting peckish, and attacked me in newly-conquered Pripet as soon as I initiated the civil war. Tertius, of course, defeated them. The veteran Army of Dacia at Campus Getae quickly besieged Campus Scythii, and stormed it the next turn, exterminating the traitors. I also found to my delight that the Scythians' sacred grove gave +3 experience to troops. This, combined with the Scythians' excellent troop-training facilities, gave Campus Scythii an importance as a central troop-producing city, along with Londinum and Patavium.

Whoa. So I gave a very long, albiet rambling, description after all. Oh well. Anyways, here's how it is in my Julii game now. Rome is securely in my grasp. The Scipii are sending full stacks at me every turn, and I defeating them every turn. I'll be strong enough to take the fight to Capua soon. The Brutii are more problematic-- they own the whole of Greece, and they have at least as many troops as I have, only mine is all over the place and theirs is not. I expect to reap the fruits of assidiously developing the cities of Gaul, though. They might win some short-term victories, even take some territories in Dacia, but I'll bring the military manpower from all over Gaul, Spain and Germania to bear upon them.

On the Scythian front, I don't expect to make any progress any time soon-- the Italian and Greek fronts take precedence, so I'm playing a defensive game there-- they attack, I destroy their armies. Once the civil war is over, though, I expect I'll make the Army of Dacia stick to the cities on the Bosphoran coast. The pesky little settlements on the fringe of existence I'll probably leave to good ol' Tertius to do. On the African front, I expect I shall have to fight the Egyptians before long-- they hold East Africa all the way to Lepcis Magna. But for the short term, I shall concentrate on wiping the floor with the Carthagenians, and the Numidians if they are fool enough to break their alliance with me.

Barbarian

01-23-2008, 12:46

That sounds like an interesting campaign. I think I have never been at war with all barbaric factions at once, I usually ally myself with at least two of them and fight the rest. Your territory should be pretty large by now, as you have reached scythians.

Oh, and few answers:

About the Parthian territories in Illyria, though, wouldn't that be a liability and a drain on Parthia's resources instead? The Germans, the Julli, the Brutii, and even the Thracians will be gunning for those territories. Those territories are landlocked and have lousy population growth, making them unprofitable to hold on to. So why?

I actually bribed those settlements from Julii, who were becoming too powerfull and were disrupting the balance (I am the protector of the weak and the enemy of the strong). So, it is better that those settlements are owned by parthia than by Julli. Besides, Parthians have a strong alliance with Pontus, so they are not attacking them, but only building new armies and walking with them around their settlements. That is even more draining on their economy. Thus I gav them someone to attack to. They have already taken one more settlement from Germans. Julii doesn't care about those settlements, as they have a huge war with britons, Germans are too weakened to take them, and Thrace hasn't noticed them too. Moreover, when I gave these towns to Parthians, they got some of their best units there.

What will you do, by the way, if Pontus starts dominating the entire East? Have they tried to attack Pergamum?

Oh, they are attacking Pergamum time after time with 2 full stack armies, but that city has epic stone walls and really good garrison. I can't imagine an army, which would be capable of taking it.
But that is yet nothing, because most of the pontic armies are being sent against Egypt. That is a bit odd, because pergamum is much closer. It seems that they won't stop until Egypt is destroyed. If after that they start to concentrate on Pergamum, that will be frightening.

Btw, here are a screenshot with two pontic armies attacking Greeks on open field near Pergamum. I found this formation to be very useful against pontic armies:

https://img253.imageshack.us/img253/6729/rometw2008012220452535hr5.th.png (https://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rometw2008012220452535hr5.png)

There is no point where chariots or cavalry can charge it, and the casualties from missile weapons are minimum.

I think I will now take some cities from Julii and give them to poor Gauls, who have only one city left. Working on balance between factions! (do not look at the east, that's where my balance program heavily failed :egypt: )

Quirinus

01-24-2008, 11:37

That sounds like an interesting campaign. I think I have never been at war with all barbaric factions at once, I usually ally myself with at least two of them and fight the rest. Your territory should be pretty large by now, as you have reached scythians.
Yeah. I was actually quite surprised when, upon the fall of Porrolissum, I sat back and realized that I have made quite an empire for myself. I had expected the conquest of Gaul to last much longer, but as it turned out, I got two settlements out of ceasefires, so.....

Oh, the Britons did approach me with an alliance quite early in the game. The timing with which they betrayed me could not have been poorer. I had had Alesia in my hands for a few turns, and had trained up a few units to supplement my veteran core army. By then, the tide of the war in Germania had just turned in my favour. Had they attacked me when I was only at Lemonum, for example, I would have been overwhelmed. As it was, they sat on their asses while I subjugated their Gallic cousins, and paid for it. The Spanish, well, I guess I just assumed that they would be more disposed to be my friends, seeing as how I was at war with Gaul and Carthage, their principal enemies.

I actually bribed those settlements from Julii, who were becoming too powerfull and were disrupting the balance (I am the protector of the weak and the enemy of the strong). So, it is better that those settlements are owned by parthia than by Julli. Besides, Parthians have a strong alliance with Pontus, so they are not attacking them, but only building new armies and walking with them around their settlements. That is even more draining on their economy. Thus I gav them someone to attack to. They have already taken one more settlement from Germans. Julii doesn't care about those settlements, as they have a huge war with britons, Germans are too weakened to take them, and Thrace hasn't noticed them too. Moreover, when I gave these towns to Parthians, they got some of their best units there.
I see..... do you think there is any chance of the Parthians turning into a global superpower anytime soon? If they defeat Scythia, they just might......

By the way, it'll be interesting to see if Pontus remains loyal to Parthia when Egypt is gone. Pontus does not have a good track record of being faithful.

Oh, they are attacking Pergamum time after time with 2 full stack armies, but that city has epic stone walls and really good garrison. I can't imagine an army, which would be capable of taking it.
But that is yet nothing, because most of the pontic armies are being sent against Egypt. That is a bit odd, because pergamum is much closer. It seems that they won't stop until Egypt is destroyed. If after that they start to concentrate on Pergamum, that will be frightening.
Ahaha..... well, if that happens, would you consider taking someplace like Nicomedia or Halicarnassus? It was originally Greek, after all.

I think I will now take some cities from Julii and give them to poor Gauls, who have only one city left. Working on balance between factions! (do not look at the east, that's where my balance program heavily failed :egypt: )
:laugh4: Take Patavium or soemthing. The base growth rates there should be sufficient to turn it back into a Gallic bastion, provided that they can hold it against the initial wave of Julii attacks. Maybe some Greek gold might help? ;)

Barbarian

01-27-2008, 18:01

Ibn-Khaldun

01-27-2008, 18:31

My best campaign was my Julii campaign about a year ago .. sorry but I do not have any screenies from that game .. but because it was my first campaign where I conquered the whole world :2thumbsup:

After that I almost never had the patience for that .. so .. that was mu best campaign ever ~:)

mrdun

01-27-2008, 18:39

They rejected. Can anyone give some tips of how to make this work?
One tactic what I know of is to besiege evry city with a larger force then its Garrison/ place one outside. Then block all ports. At this point though it is easier to just kill them off lthough your campaign is not like that is it?

Telys

01-27-2008, 19:11

I can't figure out how anyone could get Roman factions as a protectorates. I besieged 2 of the 4 Brutii cities, to encrease the pressure and give a serious note to my words, and then offered this:

https://img100.imageshack.us/img100/7012/rometw2008012717494287xe2.png
They rejected. Can anyone give some tips of how to make this work?

Romans are one of the hardest factions to gain as a protectorate. Most of the time they wont accept until the senate is dead. If they arent dead the faction that is your protectorate wil just cancel the deal later cause their roman allies will most definetely declare war on you. So, it would be pointless to gain a roman as a protectorate if the senate is still alive, now with them dead and the other houses still alive I'm not sure how they would react if another house declares war on you. I've had the julii as a protectorate once and the scipii were still alive. In that situation the scipii never attacked me again but I ended that game a little while ago so I cant tell you exactly what would happen if they did. On a side note any faction, no matter how many territories they have or how large their armies are, will become your protectorate for 1 million denari. I learned that a while ago cause I was to lazy to invade africa, which was owned by carthage, in one campaign and had a lot of money and offered that which they accepted. I also have offered the same deal to the seleucids and egypt who also accepted immediately.

Edit: I forgot to mention. In some campaigns a faction will give up fairly easy, but in others the same faction will fight to the bitter end. So dont be discouraged if a faction never accepts your offers. Not everyone is willing to give up.

Omanes Alexandrapolites

01-27-2008, 19:38

The Romans and their automatic protectorate canceling is related to a hardcoded feature which applies to all AI controlled Roman factions - they automatically declare war upon whoever their Roman allies are at war with on the turn after war is declared, regardless of previous stances or agreements made. If a Roman faction agrees to a ceasefire/protectorate with another faction, and other Romans are still at war with it, the ceasefire/protectorate will automatically conclude the following turn.

The senate is, however, the item that is holding this system together. Destroying them gives all Roman factions full independent diplomatic status, which also can result in an early civil war.

If the senate isn't destroyed, however, there is a way out, but it's tricky. The faction has to offer every Roman faction (including the S.P.Q.R) a protectorate/other war canceling deal on the same turn, and every faction has to accept. This is nigh impossible, so you'll probably never gain a protectorate with any Roman faction at any point while the senate still lives on.

~:)

Gah! Telys sort of beat me to it. My fingers are aging too quickly!

Barbarian

01-27-2008, 19:38

Thanks for the info. I had considered the possibility of other Roman factions attacking me. But in this case, it wouldn't happen, as Julii can't get out of the Italy because of the angry britons, Scipii are no more, as they turned into rebels and the senate never leves the area near Rome. I could just destroy them all, but that is not my intention, just wan't to decrease their territory's to minimum and make them live near barbarians.

I will try the method of besieging all cities and ports on some faction later, but that means that it will be hard to contact and make the offer to them, the only way is to find their diplomat.

Quirinus

01-28-2008, 14:19

I saw it is a threat to Greek freedom, so I rejected this and assassinated the diplomat :laugh4:
I approve of your diplomatic style. :P

Other than wiping out the SPQR, a thread that I've read in the Colosseum seems to imply that the other factions might follow if you manage to make the SPQR a protectorate, the other Roman factions might follow suit.

Punicus

01-29-2008, 02:28

I decided I'm going to take a break from my campaign as Parthia, so I'll talk about that campaign later. Right now I'm more focused on this campaign, my Macedonian one. Difficulty is H/H.

Right now I have fended off Romans after a couple of close defeats and have managed to kick the Scipii out of Italy (rendering them helpless on Sicily with barely any military), captured Rome and am about to take the Julii by storm. I am also sending a stack to take care of Sicily. I'm disappointed because those defeats stalled my capturing off Rome and Italy a few years.

https://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m271/adonise_/test.jpg

Lucky me, Scythia and Dacia are at war. I took advantage of the fact that they are weakened militarily and I am capturing their cities. Shouldn't be long before they're both out of the picture.

Once I'm done with the Julii, I'll send an army up north meanwhile mustering up a stack or two to begin war in Asia Minor with Pontus who have become quite a power. They've held Egyptian expansion to a reasonable amount considering how late it is in the game (241 BC).

https://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m271/adonise_/macedonmap.jpg

Quirinus

01-29-2008, 10:15

Ooh, interesting-looking campaign you got there. I've never seen the Greeks get Sardinia before-- and trapped there, too.

How do you get the entire map revealed? I would post one of my current Julii game, but as it is now the map information in the East is outdated by about forty or fifty years.

Barbarian

01-29-2008, 11:33

Go into your preferences file of Rome: Total war, find a line fog_of_war (or something like that). Change TRUE next to it to FALSE. This reveals the map, and also removes the need of spies.

PS: Oh, but spies can still be used to find out exact numbers of enemy's force and for opening the gates during sieges.

Omanes Alexandrapolites

01-29-2008, 17:47

Although Barbarian's method works, for a more temporary solution you may wish to use the "toggle_fow" cheatcode in the console.

Firstly, open up the console by pressing the ¬ or the ~ key. Your computer's regional keyboard settings effect which key activates the console, so if one doesn't work you may wish to try the other.

Type "toggle_fow" into the console and press the return or the enter key. The map should reveal.

Then close the console using the same key as used previously.

Repeating this action with fog of war turned off will reactivate it.

Anyhow, back to topic - an interesting campaign you've got there Punicus. I'm rather surprised at Rome and Egypt's lack of dominance and the rather different path the British have taken. In all of my campaigns they usually rampage through Gaul rather than Germania.

~:)

Punicus

01-29-2008, 22:54

I'm rather surprised at Rome and Egypt's lack of dominance and the rather different path the British have taken.Yep, this one is definitely looking different than most other campaigns I've done so far. Pontus vs. Egypt is going to be interesting. I'm hoping that Pontus will be able to hold the Egyptians back until I'm ready to make my move on the Middle East and Asia Minor. If the Egyptians have 20 or more settlements by that time, they'll be spamming full stacks like nothing and I'll have a tough situation on my hands.

Anyways, I should be able to update with new pics later on. ~:)

EDIT: Here it is, an updated version of my campaign. The year is now 236 BC (five years have passed since my last post).

Take a look at the campaign map:
https://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m271/adonise_/macedonmapclose236.jpg

Here's what's going on. Firstly, I am conquering city after city in Italy, no problem there. There's only one major Julii army left, and they have two cities. I am about to engage in a major battle with them. I'm not too worried about it though. South of Italy in Sicily, we have a full stack of mine besieging the Scipii's last city (Lilybaeum - sp?). Italy is just a few turns away from being completely mine.

I have just gone to war with Pontus. I have one full stack in there with Macedonian cavalry and Phalanx Pikemen mostly. It seems they just keep on handing me gifts - firstly, they had no army in the vicinity of Asia Minor. Seems they were too busy fighting Armenia and preparing for war with Egypt. I'm hoping they will remain neutral so Egypt won't expand any more than they have. Asia Minor will be mine soon enough, as well as Rhodes which I haven't gotten around to capturing yet. From there I plan to finish Pontus off while creating some more soldiers that will finish off Armenia and Parthia, while the main stack I have in Asia Minor right now begins war in Egypt.

My only worry is the Dacian/Scythian war. We're in a three-way war, no one seems to be going anywhere. I have one stronghold in Dacian lands, with a decent military in it, however I am surrounded by 2 almost-full stacks. Not only that, but Campus Scythii is being attacked by a decent Sycthian army. I'm hoping my reinforcements can get up there in time.

That's all for now. Comments/suggestions are welcome. ~:)

Good Ship Chuckle

01-30-2008, 02:36

I would suggest attacking the Julii. You've already beat the snot out of them, so finishing them off shouldn't be such a big deal. Not only this, but it would open up a second front on the Dacians, which is your main source of contension at the moment.

Barbarian

01-30-2008, 03:11

It looks like you have all the strongest and wealthiest regions, execept Egypt.
Surprisingly, that Gauls still have so huge territory :inquisitive:

Quirinus

02-02-2008, 15:21

Whoa, I've never seen Gaul fend off the Britons and convince them to expand into Germania. Most games, the Gauls are crushed between the might of Brittania, Germania, the Julli, and occasionally even the Spanish.

Anyways, here's the map for my Julii game. It is now 215 BC, and about four years after the Marian Reforms.
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/julii_map_215_bc.jpg
Quite a lot has happened since my last update. My veterans under Oppius Scarface and Valerius Scarface at the Illyrian front and the Macedonian front respectively have been pushing back the Brutii armies-- by this time, my armies are full of silver-chevroned principes. It took a while, but Valerius finally took Byzlora and then Thessalonica. Illyria took even longer-- I only captured Salona in 216 BC, and Thermon fell just before I took this screenshot. All looks well-- I have advances on all three fronts, but the Marian Reforms have start to hurt.

Other than not being able to retrain my veterans (who, faced with identical Roman troops, do die a lot), the troops made avaliable by the Marian Reforms virtually negated the advantage of veterancy I accumulated painstakingly throughout many, many battles. A greenhorn legionary cohort is already a match for my single-gold-chevroned hastati, or silver-chevroned principes. I will have to take a few more years to train up post-Marian troops. In the meantime, I am transporting the veterans of Rome and Tarentum by sea to backstab the Brutii in lightly-defended Sparta. Their faction leader is there.

But as I predicted, the Brutii don't really stand a chance. The combined military and financial might of Gaul, Dacia and Italy proved decisive.

But as this war is winding down, another major one, long looming in the horizon, looks to be flaring up. An Egyptian fleet, who has been skulking for quite a while in the Bosphorus, declared war by port blockade on Campus Getae. Just as well, I guess.

In the meantime, good ol' Tertius Victor up in Pripet decided that enough was enough, and led his army up finish off the Germans, leaving his 18-year-old son Gaius Coriolanus in charge. Just as soon as he left Pripet, the Scythians besieged Vicus Venedae and stormed it the next turn. Tertius was too late, but he took the sorry little hovel of a town back anyway, and personally (or at least, with his bodyguard) killed all three Scythian family members in the army. The Germans were put out of their miserable half-life by an army of greenhorn hastati from their former lands about five years later. Talk about irony.

Now, all the former Gallic, Briton and Spanish lands, as well as the core German lands, have Roman towns/cities, which never fails to amuse me.

One thing about both the Brutii and the Scipii-- they have no surviving Brutii or Scipii left. All their family members are adopted, sons-in-laws or descendents of them, due to assassination. =D

Though truth be told, this campaign is getting a little boring, and since I've started a Scipii campaign, I don't expect I'll be touching this for long while.

I'll post up my Scipii campaign later, I guess.

EDIT: And so... here's my Scipii campaign. I've never played as the Scipii before, so the results weren't too spectacular. I found it to be consistently challenging, though, quite unlike, say, the Brutii after the first ten years. And, unlike the Julii or the Brutii, the Scipii are not pigeonholed into expanding in one region.

https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/scipii_map_234_bc.png
It may not be immediately obvious, but I own Sicily, Sardinia, the Balaeric Isles, Crete, Rhodes, and all Greece south of Epirus and Macedonia, in addition to Punic Africa, Cyrene and a bit of Asia Minor. It is now 234 BC.

I started off the traditional way: take Syracuse, and then Carthage. I was building up Messana and then Syracuse for a long, bloody fight for Sicily but building Temples of Vulcan and troop-building facilities, but after a Carthagenian full-stack and then a half-stack were disposed with, Lilybaeum fell with a whimper. Before that I had backstabbed the Carthagenians on Caralis, which also fell without much protest.

I made peace with the Greeks after I took Syracuse-- I needed the trade. Soon after the Senate ordered me to take Thapsus, I also sent a half-stack of principes/hastati with two young family members to Greece to take Athens, because I remembered how hard the Brutii were to beat once they had been allowed to dominate and turtle in in Greece in my Julii game, and I wanted to prevent that. I was just too late. When I landed, the Macedonians were one step ahead of me and had besieged it with a full-stack.

So I turned around, and, seeing Sparta so undefended, figured that I might as well start from the bottom. The Greeks were not too amused, but they had the Brutii and the Macedonian all over them, so they agreed to peace almost immediately after that.

After a few turns,Macedonian-held Corinth, just less than a turn's march north, was looking terribly defenseless --only one family member-- and tempting, so as soon as I had built up a large-enough force to be able to feel confident about repelling the Macedonian full-stack, I attacked and occupied Corinth. After a couple of years, presumably because of the deteriorating situation up in Thessalia and Macedonia, the Macedonians moved half their stack out of Athens to send it north. Only to be bribed by my diplomat. =D So Athens too fell into my lap, albiet after a pitched battle.

In the meantime, I sent one of the aforementioned family members down to Crete, and then, once Kydonia was properly settled down, over to rebel-held Halicarnassus. Within a few months of its capture, it was raking in more than 1000d a turn, almost entirely from trade with Rhodes alone.

So I was rather reluctant to declare war on the Greeks again, especially since there was no more trade with the Macedonians. I ignored a few Senate missions to blockade Thermon and Rhodes. It was a Brutii siege of Thermon that compelled me to take Rhodes. The Brutii siege was beaten back, but still. After taking Rhodes, I didn't bother making peace again with the Greeks. The Senate ordered me to take Macedonian Larissa, so I finally took it (the Brutii could have taken it, but for some reason, a Brutii stack has been wondering around north of Epirus for ages, doing nothing). Thermon fell to a Scipii army soon after that too. That was the end of the Greeks.

In Asia Minor, Pontus attacked Greek-held Pergamum many times, until it finally fell. The Seleucids, now restricted to Sardis, was next. I bribed away a few large Pontic armies, and even gave money to the Seleucids to delay Pontus and to create a sort of buffer zone until I'm ready, but the Seleucids died without so much as a whimper anyway.

With the closing of the war in Greece, I moved my best diplomats, spies and assassins to Asia Minor. To make a long story short, I bribed Sardis, built it up, and was sending a teeny garrison to Pontus-held Pergamum just prior to bribing the city too, and the garrison inside attacked me.

Which isn't too bad, I had been gearing up for war against them anyways, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. But then the Marian Reforms happened. Great timing, Marius, good job. SO I had to make do with a dwindling army of veterans while I quickly trained up a half-stack of early cohorts from Sparta, Corinth and Athens simultaneously. I had been teching up Corinth and Athens to prepare for the civil war anyway, so it wasn't too bad.

It wasn't as bad as when it happened in my Julii campaign, though. I only had two armies of veterans (one in Africa, the other in Asia Minor), and I had a bunch of troop-training cities very close to one another (in Greece), so I could put together a legion pretty quickly. Also, the civil war isn't happening anytime soon, so this means that by the time the civil war happens, I'll have lots of post-Marian troops avaliable. Well, actually, so will my fellow Roman factions, but oh well.

Once I got past that initial weaning period, the payoffs were spectacular. With my shiny new legionaries, I attacked a large army composed mainly of Eastern Infantry, with a few chariot archers thrown in, outside the gates of Nicomedia. It was, my general's pre-battle pep-talk tells me, about a quarter of Pontus' entire military might. There was no contest. Confronted by my legionaries, the eastern infantry melted away like so much snow on a hot morning. My general's bodyguard and the accompanying Roman cavalry had a field day. The battlefield, a gently sloping hill, was literally littered with thousands of Pontic corpses all the way to the red line. The view was magnificent. I took a few screenshots with FRAPS-- or thought I did: I forgot to run the application before starting RTW.

In North Africa (a virtual backwater these days, which shouldn't happen), my lone general, after conquering Numidian Cirta, was going south to take Dimmidi when there was a Senate mission to take Palma from the Carthagenians. As there was an almost-full stack in the city and another half-stack witha general just standing beside the city, I couldn't just send some hastily put together force, so I turned back up north and conquered the island. On the way back to Numidia, the Marian Reforms happened, but I went on anyway, though I recruited a unit of mercenary elephants just in case.

There were quite a few medium-sized armies sitting around Dimmidi, most of the with generals so that I couldn't pick them off with my diplomats beforehand. I conquered and enslaved Dimmidi, and killed all the family members, with the result that Tingi went rebel. Nepte, that grubby little town southeast of Dimmidi, I had bribed a few turns back.

Cyrene I attacked with a rebel general I bribed. The Egyptians have quite a few full-stack armies in Libya that, due to the chariots in them and occasionally generals leading them, I could not bribe. The Egyptians have been trying to extort me for ages-- asking for a few hundred denarii with ther terms "Accept or we will attack". They only made good their promise the last time, which was about a few years after Pontus declared war. So now I have both Pontus and Egypt at war with me, which is definitely not ideal.

So that's the situation as of 234BC. Incidentally, when I used toggle_fow a few times before to take screenshots, I noticed that Egypt had a rebellion in Egypt a while back-- Alexandria revolted and turned rebel, and Thebes followed a few turns later. Predictably, it was crushed, and, if I am interpreting the number of population correctly, exterminated. But still.

The Wandering Scholar

02-04-2008, 10:56

You might have inspired me to have a Scipii campaign, which temple is it which gives bonuses to legionaires? Vulcan?

Quirinus

02-04-2008, 13:01

Yep, that's the temple. A large temple of Vulcan combined with an armourer, which is not too hard to get to, gives silver weapons and armour. An awesome temple of Vulcan adds +1 experience to the bargain.

The initial fifteen years or so weren't that interesting-- it only got better when I took Sparta and then Halicarnassus. It may be just me, but the vast distances in Punic Africa means that it will never be anything but a peripheral theatre for me, even after the Egyptians declare war. As soon as the war with Pontus is winding down, I plan to build another legion to send by fleet to Egypt Proper, where I plan to burn Alexandria to the ground.

The Wandering Scholar

02-04-2008, 17:08

wow, the Vulcan...

Yh I find punic africa to be a bore. The only good thing is it changes a load of the map to your colour.

Quirinus

02-04-2008, 17:54

Haha, yeah, tell me about it. Before I took the Numidian lands and the regions in Asia Minor, my empire was looking pretty pathetic, especially when you look at the impressive chain of red in Southern Gaul that is the Julii. I mean, Laconia, Peloponessus and Attica combiend barely shows up on the unmagnified map!

The Wandering Scholar

02-09-2008, 13:19

I have just completed a short campaign blitz with the Scipii:

Amazingly I was nearing the Marian Reforms by 260bc. I did not even enslave, just externinated and moved on. Over 120k in the royal treasury and seeing as though I was just unlockin ghte other factions I auto-calced all battles. For this I just trained infantry seeing as though it is just an all out charge by both sides. I had Syracuse churning out Siver attack/defence Hastati then Princeps and also carthage doing the same. I might try a long campaign as I found them to be a lot of fun. Plus I want them giant killer legionnaires, Gold, Gold and exp!!

Vitellus

02-09-2008, 23:26

My very first campaign, with the Brutii, was probably one of my best - certainly the easiest. The details are a little fuzzy, but as I recall, I quickly learned that my hastati and principes were far superior to Greek hoplites, and that was swiftly overrun. I had no scruples about nuetral or allied factions - if I wanted their cities, I attacked.

In addition, I never waited in a city, at all. I was never on the defensive. I would storm a city, occupy/enslave/sack it, depending on the population, order up a few Town Watches as garrison, then the army would roll out, bound for the next province.

n_n What I liked best was my assault in Egypt: I had 4 or so full-stack armies on fleets just offshore, and 2 more on the ground in former Pontian lands. In a single turn, all my armies disembarked, besieged the nearest city, whilst the two land armies descended through the Cilician Gates and beat back their troops, and the fleets immediately blockaded every port. The poor Eggies never recovered from the suprise assault, crumbling in about 5 turns or so. I repeated the tactic against my Roman rivals, with similar results.

That campaign lasted only until 240 BC, which is the date I selected to start the civil war.

My best campaign, in that it was a hard-fought uphill battle, however, would have to be my Gallic one. I described that one as it was in progress over in the Gaul thread in the Guides section, so I won't repost it here.

Permenion

02-10-2008, 09:57

While looking at all these campaign maps, I was wondering why you guys need so much tactics.. because with the unmodified totalwar it's pretty easu to conquer I think. So those mods do make it more difficult to defend your cities? And do Ai controlled factions make bigger armies, because in the unmdified rtw I have never had more than 2 huge armies of one faction...

By the way, I liked this too
I had a campaign with the seleucids and my first faction leader, Antiochus, didn't want to die.. You know what, he lived until 82 years old!!! man i really loved that guy...
In the same campaign my economy rules : each city produces about 1000 - 4000 denarii a turn. Makes me win 20 000 denarii even when building the most costly upgrades and buildings and training the best units..
Really nice campaign

Telys

02-10-2008, 10:04

UltraWar

02-10-2008, 13:24

I set up a thread like this some time ago and was told that there was no interest in this at all...:inquisitive:

Telys

02-10-2008, 17:08

I set up a thread like this some time ago and was told that there was no interest in this at all...:inquisitive:
This is my second time starting a thread of the same title. They both seemed to work decently. What was your thread titled, cause the only reason I made this was to see how other people play the game. If I had seen a thread similiar to this I would have just posted in that one rather than make another one.

The Wandering Scholar

02-10-2008, 20:41

I need defence for situation like these. When I play I don't blitz. I expand when needed. Which tends to let my enmies grow financially and in military strength. So sometimes a little effort is needed on defence.
https://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4046/picture8ql2.th.jpg (https://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture8ql2.jpg)

That is what I am going to do, be agressive when agressed. Hmm, what is the best faction to do this with?

Telys

02-10-2008, 22:04

That is what I am going to do, be agressive when agressed. Hmm, what is the best faction to do this with?
Well I have my own preferences for factions. I usually play as greek cities or julii. With the julii I usually wait till the reforms before I start expanding and usually only follow senate missions occasionally taking certain settlements for strategic pruposes, to make a coherent empire or out of revenge. With the greeks I like to abandon certain settlements to avoid war at first. Usually syracuse, pergamum and sometimes even thermon. It really depends on what type of campaign you want. If you want to expand but dont want to initiate the wars the seleucids are a good choice as war with egypt is inevitable and parthia and pontus will most likely start war. Personally as the seleucids, if I was to play as them, once egypt started the war I would eliminate them. All the while trying to gain them as a protectorate which they would most likely never accept, but it never hurts to try. Once I gained the whole eastern side of the map, minus the northern territories, I would wait till the romans expanded. By then myself and the romans would have a large military and would make for a fairly entertaining war. Its hard to say what faction to pick for a fairly calm campaign. The romans are an obvious choice, but other than them everyone else has there guaranteed enemies. I really can't help in picking a faction as I am fairly bias when it comes to picking factions. I just thought I'd throw my opinion out there.

The Wandering Scholar

02-10-2008, 23:02

That Seleucid campaign sounds fun fun fun

Vitellus

02-11-2008, 05:35

A Seleucid/Roman match up is always fun, once you've given the Latins a good chance to expand and build up a military.

My war was 3 full-stack Seleucid armies fighting a holding action in northern Macedonia, slowly grinding through endless Brutii stacks to reach Thessalonica. That war was settled swiftly, however, once I landed 3 more full stacks all over the Peloponnese and devastated their logistical base. It's basically a gigantic war of attrition and manuever, especially if you try to always outnumber your enemy on the battlemap when possible, as I do. Leads to a lot of careful maneuvering with your armies to eliminate the hordes of Romans one at a time.

The Wandering Scholar

02-11-2008, 12:15

I suppose it would be fun with any faction when letting the Romans build up.

nara shikamaru

02-11-2008, 17:18

I don't have screenie, seeing as I lost any after getting my new harddrive, and I haven't reinstalled RTW yet, mostly cause it's a big tax on my comp anyway. But I do wish to share one of my most favored moments in RTW.

I was playing as the Julii, and I had conquered Segesta, and Caralis, and I think the senate either wanted me to blockade a Gaulic port, or to take Carthage, or possibly Thapsus. Well I think I was in the middle of either getting some new recruits for the job, or sending a force towards the African coast. Just as I can see my target in range, a Carthaginian diplomat comes to Arrinium(its the one that starts off as your capitol.) asking for a ceasefire, and for me to hand over Caralis. Now being the wise guy I am, I countered with a ceasefire, and giving them Caralis, for the rest of their empire, which was, Corduba, Thapsus, Carthage(I think), and that small Island off the Iberian(sorry forgot its name). I also offered either 10,000 or 20,000 denari. And to my surprise, they accepted, I believe that was the oddest thing I've ever seen, but I didn't complain, and I was able to keep all those cities, and build up to the Julii empire.

I'm sorry I don't have a screenie to back this story up, but I'm not making this up, I still wonder why the Carthaginians did this.

Anyone wanna give their 2 cents as to why this happened?

The Wandering Scholar

02-11-2008, 22:28

That old peach of diplomacy!!

Quirinus

02-12-2008, 08:52

https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_260_bc.pnghttps://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_260_bc_regional.png
^ It is now 260BC.

I am now playing a very interesting campaign with the Greek Cities-- at the start of the game (270BC), I began evacuating everyone from my initial starting territories to Gaul. There were some hiccups along the way: the former governer of Pergamum, Eumenes, got waylaid by a Julii navy, but by 265BC, most of the soldiers and family members have landed in Gaul. One of the armies also took Caralis along the way, because I anticipated that the trade would be crucial.

Massilia was under siege by a small Gallic force, which I defeated easily. I then laid siege to and captured Massilia within the year. My initial territories, which had been hanging on to loyalty, rebelled the turn after I set Massilia to be my capital.

I had been offering my cities to relevant factions: those in mainland Greece to Macedon, Syracuse to the Scipii and the Carthagenians, Pergamum and Rhodes to the Seleucids. Idiots that they are, all of them rejected the gifts except for the Seleucid Empire, which accepted Pergamum but not Rhodes. The turn after the Scipii rejected my gift of Syracuse, they sent an army down to attack Syracuse, though by then I had already evacuated the city. Where's the logic in that? The Romans, especially, I had been keen to keep as trade partners, but.....

As a result, I was losing money very turn after setting up a Greek republic in Massilia and Narbo Martius. It wasn't until I had less than 50 denarii left that I finally made a net profit, after taking Lugdunum. To cement my income, I took Osca, with its mines, from the Spanish.

The first ten years were challenging, to say the least-- with a rapidly dwindling treasury, lousy infrastructure (all the towns had only 1000+ population), and all four of my neighbouring factions at war with me (Spain, Gaul, Germania, Julii). I had to beat back a lot of Gallic armies using mostly lousy militia hoplites, though the single unit of Spartan hoplites helped a lot.

Now, with all my barbarian towns becoming Greek large towns, I don't anticipate any financial trouble anytime soon, but militarily, it is another matter. As of 260BC, toggle_fow tells me that the Spanish have a few medium-sized armies around Carthago Nova. The Gauls have a few good generals and big armies, though I spotted a Briton full stack cross over to Condate Redonum, which might help a little. The Germans, too, are a major problem, with it dominating central and eastern Europe as usual. Hopefully a war with Britannia will break out. But the biggest bogey of them all are the Julii. They haven't expanded past Segesta, but I spotted an almost-full-stack sitting idle in Etruria. I don't think it will decide to target me anytime soon-- I think they will go for Mediolanum first, but after that......

As previously mentioned, diplomacy isn't going very well at all. I repeatedly tried and failed to make peace with any of the factions at war with me-- the Gauls and the Spanish in particular seem to think very highly of themselves-- they have approached me a few times with demands for becoming their protectorate. I, of course, told them where to shove their demands. I did consider accepting-- it would end the wars and provide temporary respite, but in the interests of role-playing, I didn't.

The world map as a whole seems pretty interesting. The Gauls seem to have a firm footing in Illyria, and, with me acting a buffer between them and the Julii, it remains to be seen how Gaul -and the Julii- will fare. The Germans are up to their usual stuff, dominating central and eastern Europe and such.

In Macedon, it's the usual farce-- the Brutii haven't taken any Macedonian settlements yet, but it will, soon. I had hoped that abandoning my Greek settlements might yield a Macedon powerful enough to resist the Brutii, but the Macedonians seem to be a little lame in this campaign. They have repeatedly failed to take Athens, and no move at all has been made to take rebel, wall-less Sparta.

The situation in the East seems curiously static. The Egyptians are just sitting there, and so are the Armenians. Pontus has not been as successful in fighting the Seleucids, either. The Seleucids are doing fairly well-- their cities are relatively well-garrisoned, and none of them save Tarsus is under siege. Did my gifting of Pergamum to them make them stronger? It seems unlikely, but I don't think I've seen a game in which the AI Seleucids are still not reduced at all after ten years.

All in all, one of the most fascinating and unique campaigns I've started in a while.

The Wandering Scholar

02-12-2008, 12:54

Relocating to greek massilla. Sounds good. Possibly when you have consolidated yourself you can aim to take all greek settlements on the map?

Quirinus

02-12-2008, 15:35

Relocating to greek massilla. Sounds good. Possibly when you have consolidated yourself you can aim to take all greek settlements on the map?
I don't plan to go back to Greece Proper or go near any of the initial settlements in a long while-- probably not ever, if I don't have to.

It would actually have been somewhat easier to settle down in Spain-- Carthago Nova, for instance, since the population and population growth rates are so much better. Plus, I would only have to fight the Spanish, a little bit of Carthage and a little bit of Gaul. As it is now, I am the focus of the military attentions of Gaul, Spain, the Julii and to a lesser extent the Germans. Still, Because Massilia is supposed to be Greek, in the interests of roleplaying I decided on that place. I thought I would only have to take on mostly Gaul. :sweatdrop:

It has proved to be a most challenging game-- the Julii stack sitting in Etruria that I previously mentioned took a ship to Sardinia and stormed Caralis, taking me by surprise. But it was just as well-- I could never have taken it on anyway. In retaliation, I took Segesta. My ships spotted the bulk of the Julii army (with, as usual, four to five family members) boarding a single bireme. My navies have been chasing it around the western Mediterranean for a year. Hopefully I'll be able to sink the now-leaking bireme and the whole bloody army with it. I'm also praying fervently to Fortuna and Poseidon that they don't land on Gaul, because if they do, I'm pretty much screwed.

The Germans, too, have sent a half-stack full of very ahistorical spear phalanx barbarians, who, due to their large number, are proving to be a -beep- to defeat. I'm beating back Gauls, Spanish, Germans and the Julii every turn, but my finances aren't holding too well, I think. Every time I decide that the treasury is stable and I could invest on military infrastructure, it does a dip that has been scrambling for economic buildings. And since every one of my settlements borders an enemy region, I can't specialise.

And another thing I've rediscovered about the Greeks -- play all your battles. The auto-calc is not kind to phalangites.

The New Che Guevara

02-12-2008, 22:38

playing as julii (as I think I said earlier)

I finally got the civil war...

AFTER the Brutii actually have an effective force. At the moment, I was rebelled out of numantia, vicus gothi, that one right at the top and currently fighting thrace. oh, and samobriva was mine, until the britons decided, damn, let's take it back.

Spartan198

02-13-2008, 10:17

I don't have any screenshots,but my best campaign was definitely my most recently played with the Seleucids. I built some small defensive armies to cut off choke points and prevent my neighbors from attacking my cities (not that they didn't try,but an alliance with Egypt that held for an unbelievable 15 years helped),then set my coastal cities to continuously pump out ships while Damascus,Seleucia,and a few bribed rebel cities built up more defensive armies. Fast forward from 255 (I think) to about 210 with everything west of the Aegean under my banner. Mind you,my settlements have been continuously producing either ships or armies during this time,and by the time my starting cities had reached Huge level,I was rolling in over 100,000 denarii per turn with my lowest income cities pulling in around 8,000 each give or take,and enough ships sailing the Mediterranean to blockade every unfriendly port within and three full stacks left over to block Gibralter.

Believe it or not,that's my best campaign,and I haven't been able to duplicate it since.

The Wandering Scholar

02-13-2008, 13:17

Nice campaign, ou could use smackus maximus tacics with ease with that navy!

Good Ship Chuckle

02-17-2008, 20:08

The auto-calc is not kind to phalangites.

Actually you have to a have some strategy when autocalcing with hoplites. BE ON THE DEFENSIVE. As carthage I've been defeated in odds 4:1 in my favor by hoplites when I'm attacking. The hoplites are a defensive unit, and yeild best results when doing so.:rtwyes:

Quirinus

02-18-2008, 11:58

Isn't that due to the fact that the Carthagenian units capable of phalanx are elite troops in the first place though? I'm talking about relatively low-level hoplites like the militia hoplites or the Greek hoplites. The auto-calc forces them to fight in the melee i.e. without the spears. It's especially pronounced in lower-quality hoplites because the phalanx can hold off a lot more troops than without.

Whereas elite phalangites like Spartans or the Sacred Band are formidable fighters in their own right, even without the phalanx.

The Wandering Scholar

02-18-2008, 13:28

My most recent campaign is as Macedon. Fun fun fun. The greeks sat an army on the border of Larissa so I sat a betterone next to them. I got a 'transgression' warning so I decided that war was iminent. For a few turns I made peace with Thrace who were preoccupying Dacia and secured my economy. I weakend sparta with a spy who provoked riots and weakened the spartans. The Greeks finally attacked my army near Larissa (pah they were no match for my very long spears :P) This put them on the defensive and I besieged Sparta, which had walls :@.

They sallied and i had them spartans running for cover (walls AND running spartans:@) Sparta was mine. I am currently besieging Thermon and Athens (the latter is about to fall without a fight). The brutii are sending small stacks probably just scouting. I will hopfully have unified greece by the time they has mustered a force from home.

The New Che Guevara

02-18-2008, 22:36

Playing as the Gauls, I annihilated the Julii early on, while being attacked by Spain, Carthage and Britannia, then I went for Rome. (which I never got. I'd got bored) On my way, my army was attacked by a full stack of SPQR. The battlefield was with a river running through it, SPQR on one side, Gaul on the other. SPQR rushed across the river, (which I was expecting) and my army (which was stretched across the bank) just folded in on them. Cavalry, Warbands. Result? Fleeing SPQR and a site of Famous battle in Rome. Then led to the failed seiging of rome wherein my general leading the famous battle was killed.

Damn...

Telys

02-18-2008, 23:15

I havent' posted a campaign in a while. So I thought I would.
https://img88.imageshack.us/img88/65/picture18kf6.th.jpg (https://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture18kf6.jpg)
I got the chance for power message alittle while ago. I'm debating on whether or not I wanna take Rome now or wait for the Brutii to get outlawed.
https://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2678/picture17zo0.th.jpg (https://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture17zo0.jpg)
Right now I got three armies on the border of latium. One army In northern Italy near Patavium. One army in northern Africa near Thapsus. A half stack in Gaul and a half stack in Brittania. I have Gaul as protectorate separating me from the Brutii up north. Not quite sure if I should initiate the civil war or wait for the Brutii to get outlawed and possibly try to join their side.
https://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3829/picture15az7.th.jpg (https://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture15az7.jpg)

https://img88.imageshack.us/img88/7167/picture19fp9.th.jpg (https://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture19fp9.jpg)

This is just kinda weird. Not sure why they are all gathering right there. The Scipii have been acting strange the whole campaign. After they took Sicily they went straight for Greece. Forcing me to take out Carthage. Now they're expanding in to asia.

The Wandering Scholar

02-19-2008, 00:01

The Scipii have problems. They should be in one/two stacks fighting the Seleucids!

Omanes Alexandrapolites

02-19-2008, 08:33

Interesting campaign there Telys. Scpii expansion is fairly extraordinary since you didn't manipulate it yourself.

The mass Scipii unit gathering in that area of Greece seems fairly odd. I'm willing to blame pathfinding for the issue - it sometimes does generate fairly strange arrangements. Often these formation are quite interesting to watch and/or interfere with to see how/if they react.

~:)

Quirinus

02-19-2008, 15:27

I think you should wait for the Brutii to get outlawed-- simply because you seem to have a fairly unusual campaign up till this point, and initiating the civil war yourself would seem pretty standard, almost a letdown.

Now a map update from my exiled Greeks based in Massilia. The pic on the left is 260 BC, the one on the right 250 BC.
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_260_bc.pnghttps://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_250_bc.png

Zoomed in regional map:
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_260_bc_regional.pnghttps://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_250_bc_regional.png

Telys

02-20-2008, 00:29

Alright. I took the advice given and decided to wait. Then senate hates me, but not as much as they hate the brutii. Both the brutii and scipii have the option to take on rome now, I think. I may be outlawed soon. I've been getting threatning messages from the senate.
https://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9558/picture13ra9.th.jpg (https://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture13ra9.jpg)

https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7899/picture9ti1.th.jpg (https://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture9ti1.jpg)

I have the seleucids as a protectorate. They were allied with everyone not roman. So everything is kinda at a stand still right now.

https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7186/picture11lh2.th.jpg (https://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture11lh2.jpg)
The scipii finally consolidated that mass of units they had in greece. It made quite a few armies.

These last pictures are just things I haven't seen before. That rebel diplomat in the second picture asked me for a ceasefire. So I believe as of now I am at war with nobody. The one with the yubtseb elephants, I just like the description "the god of shiny things that man does not need but desires anyway'.
https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/4879/picture1hd5.th.jpg (https://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1hd5.jpg)
https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/3898/picture5fp6.th.jpg (https://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture5fp6.jpg)

Omanes Alexandrapolites

02-20-2008, 08:17

Yes, Yutseb Elephants do have a fairly comical description. It probably would be advisable to take that rebel town with some skirmishers or with archers. This would allow you to massacre the elephants/send them amock through enemy lines. Yutsebs are painfully powerful.

Rebel diplomats make an odd appearance in the later stage of the game. These diplomats were diplomats of now destroyed factions which automatically turn rebel when their last city was taken/their last family member was killed. Although they can barter with you, you can't organise treaties with them, making diplomacy a little one sided. I usually either refuse everything they say or assassinate them before they actually get round to talking to me. Any treaty you do make with them won't last long - the moment a settlement rebels to them (which is common at the stage) war is automatically declared.

On another note, your campaign seems to be progressing quite well. It probably would be advisable to keep the Selucids as a buffer against the Scipii, although up North you may have to develop a few forces/diplomats to guard/bribe troops away from the border.

~:)

Quirinus

02-20-2008, 13:22

Telys

02-20-2008, 22:38

Ok. I got a little bored waiting for the civil war and decided to try and destroy numidia with assassins. It didn't work. I did initiate a war though. So I took Dimmidi. Then went to war with the seleucids again, due to senate missions. So the seleucids and numidia are dead. The only factions left are the other roman houses, the senate, parthia (whom no one is at war with), and gaul (who is still my protectorate). The senate has stopped giving me missions, due to the fact that there is no enemy settlements near my borders. Half my settlements have built everything they can. The other half I try to keep as many buildings as it will allow qued at all times. I'm beginning to have a lot of money and nothing to do with it. I'm trying to just recruit a ridiculously large army to try and curb my income, but I think that might take a while.
https://img110.imageshack.us/img110/6240/picture4ij7.th.jpg (https://img110.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture4ij7.jpg)
I'm not sure why the civil war hasn't started yet. The brutii have had no popularity with the senate for sometime now but are still somehow not outlawed. I have a feeling the civil war won't happen unless I initiate it. If it comes to that I already have fifty provinces. So all I have to do is take rome and game over.

The Wandering Scholar

02-22-2008, 15:09

wow, if you take gaul, brutii takes bordesholm and parthia then the whole world is roman :P

The New Che Guevara

02-24-2008, 12:48

Playing as the Greek Cities. I've eliminated Macedon, Pontus and The house of Brutii and taken their lands and the entirety of Sicily. I'm currently at war against egypt, and the rest of the romans. I love it when the romans are putting armies on boats, I was blockading the Brutii while focusing on my other front. They egyptians have 2 provinces left, and I'm just waiting to rebuild my forces. Focusing on eliminating thier fleets. as I've taken thier coastal settlements. The next force I'm wary of is Armenia who have taken out the south Parthian lands and babylonia and another from the Selucids (who have died, like the parthians)

I've only had about three generals die in battle, One of them was being controlled by the AI. That really annoyed me.

Quirinus

02-24-2008, 16:27

I've been having some trouble with diplomacy in my game. I know its broken, but are there any tips on how to make deals more palatable to the AI? For example, what determines whether the AI would accept a ceasefire? I've offered ceasefires many times with various factions who clearly have a lot on their plate to worry about, and who are obviously the weaker faction, only to have them sneer "End the fighting? This is a good joke! Some of you may yet live!"

In my current Greek game, the Gauls and the Spanish are clearly beaten, and I have good reason to make peace with them: I want to keep Gaul as a buffer state against the Britons, Germans and, to an extent, the Dacians. For the Spanish, Carthage just declared war on me, so I'll need to concentrate on expelling the Carthagenians out of Iberia first. Plus, I have an escalating war with the Romans.
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/massilia_map_242_bc.png

Omanes Alexandrapolites

02-24-2008, 16:52

From my experiences, proposals always sound slightly more reasonable to the AI when money is involved. Offering settlements may have the same effect, but I'm in doubt since settlements aren't something I usually give away so flippantly.

A good method of maintaining alliances/ceasefires once you have them though, is a frequent tribute. At the start of the alliance I always go to my allies and offer them 100+ denarii per turn for 9,999,999 turns/other drastically ridiculous number of turns. It seems to make them more willing to maintain our treaties, which is why I don't necessarily think the diplomatic AI is fully detached from the military.

Although you may be losing money doing this, sometimes, if you send the AI an offer, they may randomly pay a proportion of what you've given them back. I've had this happen several times in EB, but not in R:TW (this won't make much of a difference though - the diplomacy is not/cannot be changed between the two).

~:)

Quirinus

02-25-2008, 10:27

I'll be sure to try that out the next time I play-- maintaining peace with a buffer state with less than the upkeep of an armoured hoplite seems pretty reasonable to me.

Other than Gaul and the Spanish, I might consider doing that to the Dacians as well-- the Dacians do seem to be quite a powerhouse in this game-- holding the Germans at bay, blitzing down to Macedon, even besieging rebel-held Patavium. Depending on how things go, I might give them some financial assistance so that they dominate the Greek peninsula.

If I have enough cash and the war against the traitorous Carthagenians goes well, I might consider propping up Armenia with cash to resist Egyptian hegemony in the east.

Parallel Pain

02-26-2008, 08:47

Posted this over at the .com
Best campaign in vanilla

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/TheRam/RTW/RomeTW2007-11-2403-37-33-48.jpg

Aaaaah
Nothing tastes like world anarchy for dinner:yes:

Omanes Alexandrapolites

02-26-2008, 09:26

Very interesting campaign Parallel Pain - I've never seen rebel domination before :bow:

Dodge_272

04-17-2008, 17:02

http://ourworld.cs.com/Carledwards15/victory.JPG

This was my favourite campaign ever. so many times I was close to defeat.

Omanes Alexandrapolites

04-18-2008, 12:28

Quite an achievement Dodge_272 :bow:

Praetor Rick

04-19-2008, 01:59

This was my favourite campaign ever. so many times I was close to defeat.

Hey, what mod are you using there? EB? I'm assuming it's a mod, because I don't recognize the faction colors.

Quirinus

04-19-2008, 05:28

Oh, no, that's Barbarian Invasion ('BI'), a legitimate expansion pack from CA. The red one is the Western Roman Empire, and the blue-ish faction dominating in the East is the Sassanid Empire.

Darkvicer98

04-19-2008, 09:50

Red is Western Roman Empire.
Light blue is the sassanid empire.
The green is roman empire rebels.
The purple is either burgundii or Lombardi.
The blue is Franks.
Yellow is Samaritans. Those are the factions left.

Dodge_272

04-19-2008, 19:36

Quite an achievement Dodge_272 :bow:

Cheers. Trying it again on a harder difficulty (last one was M/M this ones on H/M. This is how I'm getting on this time around.

http://ourworld.cs.com/Carledwards15/rtwbi222.jpg

Darkvicer98

04-30-2008, 17:44

Pretty impressive Dodge_272. Good luck. My best campaign is the one i'm currently doing,The Seleucid Empire. I own half the map. For more details see The Seleucid Empire Guide in the RTW Guides.

Quirinus

05-27-2008, 17:06

Whew, it's good to be back, both to vanilla and the Org after so long. I've started yet another 'migration' campaign with my favourite faction, the Greek Cities, though this time all the way to Brittania. This is where I'm at currently. The year is 235 BC.
https://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2541/cassiteridicgreeks07235vi1.png

To start, I gave my cities in Greece (Sparta, Thermon) to Macedon, and for good measure I bribed Athens and gave it to them too. I gave Pergamum, Rhodes and bribed Kydonia to the Seleucids, and set up camp in Sicily-- I bribed Messana and Croton, and together with Syracuse, began churning ships out furiously. When I was ready I gave Tarentum, Croton and Messana to Carthage. (I needed to keep Syracuse as the final city.)

Right. I forgot to say, I'm using the UniRomeNoS version of VBM, which is why the Romans are only one faction, and I have Tarentum at the start. And to aid in my migration, I used the add_money cheat liberally-- the other factions won't accept cities otherwise.

So the Carthagenians attacked me right after I gave them three cities and 100000 denarii, the ingrates. So when I reached Corduba I attacked it, set it as my capital (so that coming-of-age generals will spawn there instead of faraway Syracuse) and gave Syracuse (plus another wad of cash) away for a peace treaty.

The gist of it is that I reached the fabled isles of Cassiterides by 258 BC, attacked Londinium and Eburacum at the same time, and gave Corduba to the Numidians after I succeeded. As you can imagine I was very much in the red from all that army upkeep, so I used the add_money cheat to give myself a 100000d loan that I was to repay within 40 turns (house rule). I also scaled down my army and navy to one army/fleet each, and started to invest frantically in economy buildings.

It paid off surprisingly fast-- after the capture of Tara and then Bordeshlom on the mainland, I got into the black. I didn't need that huge loan after all, and I repaid 75000d of it about five turns after taking out the loan, and the rest in about twice that time. The British provinces are insane money-makers: even in the beginning, Deva's trade was approaching 1K, to say nothing of Londinium.

I had a military genius in my family and a large, highly-trained army (normal and Spartan hoplites), so the battles were a breeze, but upgrading the godforsaken hovels were another thing. They all had less than 1000 population, so I had to ferry peasants from Londinium every turn to swell their population. Once they were upgraded, though....... every single settlement was turning in a profit almost since the beginning. A benefit of them being all coastal provinces, I guess.

I never went to war with Germania, Germania Inferior was bribed by me. They seem to have had enough, though, I bribed a decent sized stack heading towards Bordeshlom the last turn, and they're spying at my cities already.

Macedon, being freed from having to fight with the Greek Cities and the Romans, have gone berserk, rampaging over the hapless barbarians. At the time of the above screenshot, that final Dacian city and the Scythian Chersonesus are under siege by Macedonian full stacks. The Seleucids haven't done too bad, either-- no doubt having the Colossus of Rhodes from turn 2 helped too. Egypt wasn't actually defeated by them-- the Numidians did it, but then the Seleucids drove them out. Miraculously, war between Macedon and the Seleucids haven't broke out yet, despite sharing a border. The Seleucids will probably win, but I'm still looking forward to witnessing this coming great clash of the Successors.

The Romans have an alliance with Gaul, and their mutual border is quiet-- virtually no troops, even garrisons in cities. There are quite a few Roman full stacks at the toe of the boot though, apparently in a staring contest with a similar amount of Carthagenian full stacks. Same with the Gauls and Carthagenians in Iberia, and the Spanish are doing exactly nothing.

So... yes. I'm thinking of stopping my Gallic conquests-- I don't want to fight the Romans yet. Maybe I'll expand into rich, rich Iberia, but maybe not. Now my main priority is building up to dismantle Germania. I'll probably take their core provinces and coastal Vicus Gothi and then stop there.

I was actually gonna do a limited-perspective AAR with the Spartan hoplite unit, but I got lazy, and abandoned it. It's up to two silver chevrons and down to 64/80 men now--damned forester warbands targeted and took out a whopping ten Spartans in my last battle with them..... I screamed, I did. Surviving a perilous journey by sea and countless battles, only to be fell by arrows? Imma kill every single one of them backwoods bastards. :furious3:

EDIT: I almost forgot, my current hegemon:
https://img185.imageshack.us/img185/5530/cleontheconquerercirca2me6.png
Meet Cleon the Conquerer, hegemon to the Cassiteridic League, vanquisher of Britons and Gauls, and obsessive-compulsive hand-soap fanatic.

anelious phyros

05-27-2008, 19:09

I don't have any screen shots but a long time ago I had ordinary vanilla and I decided to play as Greek Cities. I took over all of greece and Dacia then the whole seleucid empire and part of egypt? I also gained a couple regions on italy. But then I uprgaded to EB then Roma Surrectum, and now XGM. But it was still pretty sweet.

Quintus.JC

05-27-2008, 19:40

Welcome back Quirinus :beam: .
Interesting stuff you got there, I'd never seen a faction migrantion with the Greeks. Their infantry moves too slow plus their starting position is somewhat excellent. Anyway it'll be interesting to see what happens next.

Darkvicer98

05-28-2008, 00:52

Nice campaign,Quirinus. I haven't seen anyone do the same thing as you by immigrating to the British Isles.

WarMachine187

05-30-2008, 11:16

This is was my first carthaginian campain.It was so much fun.

WarMachine187

05-30-2008, 11:25

https://img50.imageshack.us/img50/3572/pharoahmyfirstproceratebz6.jpg (https://imageshack.us)
https://img50.imageshack.us/img50/3572/pharoahmyfirstproceratebz6.f867ecf769.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=50&i=pharoahmyfirstproceratebz6.jpg)

Quintus.JC

05-30-2008, 12:28

Very nice empire WarMachine, seems that your campaign is coming to an end. I've noticed that your treasury is way above 50K, although that doesn't matter too much. :yes:

Drunk-Monk

05-31-2008, 07:45

Nice, I have never seen the AI be that reasonable or did they back stab you the next turn?

Quirinus

05-31-2008, 08:50

I think it was because of the tribute, 8000d for ten turns is a lot of money.

Interesting stuff you got there, I'd never seen a faction migrantion with the Greeks. Their infantry moves too slow plus their starting position is somewhat excellent.
Yea, I love their starting position too-- Greece + Colossus = lots and lots of cash. But I wanted to see if I could carve a Greek empire out of the barbarian lands. It wasn't as difficult as my last Greek migration game to Massilia, where I was attacked on all sides by the Gauls, Germans, Spanish, Romans and Carthagenians. Travelling to the British Isles took a lot longer, but North Sea trade is -well, not as good as Greece proper, but not too shabby either. Every single settlement is making money, most of them in the thousands, each turn, and I've been fighting mostly Gaul (though it looks like Germania are joining the party soon).

WarMachine187

05-31-2008, 16:49

Thnx for the comments.they betrayed me the next turn,but that gave me an excuse to conquer them.Funny thing is the general i used to conquer italy was named Hannibal!

Quintus.JC

05-31-2008, 19:04

..... each turn, and I've been fighting mostly Gaul (though it looks like Germania are joining the party soon).

It's nice to see most of the faction are doing well, wouldn't be much fun if there are only a few domanent factions on the map.... which direction are heading next?

....Funny thing is the general i used to conquer italy was named Hannibal!

I once conquered Rome with Vercingetorix.... The guy had 9 commander stars before he was even 28 (I did help him with the retinues and all), but anyway RTW seems to have it's ironies. :laugh4:

Quirinus

06-08-2008, 09:25

Got a little further with my Cassiteridic Greek game, it is now 210 BC:
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/cassiteridic_greeks__11_210_bc.png

My little kingdom has now expanded into something more resembling an empire. The map is being carved up between the Greek factions: Greek Cities, Macedon and the Seleucids.

I was actually going to go west to take the German lands, but then Macedon destroyed Dacia and had sent an army into German territory. I hurriedly bribed that army and changed my plans-- I didn't want a border with Macedon just yet. A few turns after this the Macedonians made the Germans their protectorate, and most of the German armies are further east, so that border is secure for the time being.

I had intended on doing the same with the Gallic remnant-- by 225 BC Gaul still had a pretty large presence in Iberia, as you can see here:
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/cassiteridic_greeks__09_225_bc.pngThe world, circa 225 BC.
....but the rest of their settlements had minimal garrisons and their only roaming armies were pathetic little two- or three-unit deals which were easily bribed. I was still at war with them, but I hadn't intended to expand any further in the east. They were the perfect buffer state against the Romans and the Macedonians, neither of whom I wanted to fight yet.

But then Patavium went rebel (the 7% pop. growth was just too much, I guess) and the Romans moved to take it. I had to assassinate the general and bribe his army away. The Gauls eventually retook Patavium, but that was too close, so I bribed Mediolanum, Segesta and eventually Arretium, and built up a presence there. If we were going to have a border anyway, I'd prefer the border to be further east.

Then I bribed Capua too, and Capua revolted back to the Romans, which left me at war with them. That hurt, because Capua cost some 200000d to bribe. I just only recaptured Capua by 210 BC. I exterminated the ingrates with relish.

In the meantime, my longtime allies the Numidians backstabbed me in Iberia shortly after I took Numantia. That's okay, I guess I had been expecting it, but I don't really want to expand into Africa-- the public order'll be hell.

Right now my first priority is to pacify Italy. Next I'll probably build up in preparation for war against Macedon and to retake Greece proper. How to deal with the Seleucids once the Macedonians are gone, though, I have no idea. The Macedonians and the Seleucids have miraculously been at peace for so long, despite sharing borders. I might elect to turtle in and wait for war to break out between the two...... maybe.

UltraWar

06-14-2008, 13:27

This is my second time starting a thread of the same title. They both seemed to work decently. What was your thread titled, cause the only reason I made this was to see how other people play the game. If I had seen a thread similiar to this I would have just posted in that one rather than make another one.

Sorry for the late response: Rise & Expansion of your empire (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=70859)

WarMachine187

06-14-2008, 21:29

Quirinus

06-16-2008, 09:44

Yeah, I had a field day imagining the kind of Europe that might have emerged under Greek influence rather than Roman. As usual, though, I was too lazy to make anything of that. Amyways, here's my progress, it is now 192 BC:
https://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8320/cassiteridicgreek192bcfu4.png
Macedon turned out to be a paper tiger. All their main stacks were up north in Scythia and Pripet, so I loaded my veterans from the subjugation of Iberia to backstab them in Sparta. They were churning out phalanx pikemen, but the tiny distances of Greece and lots and lots of veteran spies to open the gates allowed me to storm through the Peloponese and up to Attica by the time the year was over. It was immensely gratifying to be able to train Spartan hoplites again.

In the meantime, I had taken Dacia and further east to the Euxine, seperating Macedon proper from their Scythian territories-- and their big stacks. I used a combination of bribery and violence-- I mostly bribed their stacks whenever I could, and those militia hoplites and peltasts were useful in garrisonning my new cities and freeing up my armoured hoplites (veterans of my Italian campaign) to kick Macedonian ass. Which they did, to those stacks I couldn't bribe. Those armoured hoplites really are excellent troops..... they're almost cheating. :laugh4: Bastarnae mercs helped a great deal too-- those barbarians are lethal little buggers (lol alliteration).

I had estimated about ten to fifteen years to subdue Macedon, but it took something like five to six, and I was slowed down for a year and a half or so at Pella because I didn't want to assault a plague-ridden settlement. By now I could afford bribing one or two stacks every turn because of my income. North Sea trade had been enough to support my early expansion, but lordy, Mediterranean trade is insane. I had a belt of maritime cities with Temples of Hermes from Osca to Massilia to Rome to Tarentum, and every turn almost every settlement was raking in cash in the thousands, even after army maintainace was deducted.

I had decided against expanding in Africa-- I had a good defensive position at Tingi, with both Tingi and Corduba with Temples of Nike and Tingi being so far from any other settlement. The Numidians attacked me a few times, but they were destroyed easily.

The Seleucids just attacked me, which annoyed me so much that I stopped playing. The Seleucids had had a border with Macedon for ages, but do they attack each other? Nooooo. They had a long-lasting alliance, but no sooner had I taken Byzantium than a Seleucid army crossed the Hellespont to attack me. I had intended to finish my campaign objectives, but..... oh well. It had been a most fascinating game while it lasted.

An interesting note about this campaign is that I never went to war with the Germans, yet I had acquired four of their nine territories through bribery and effectively relegated them to a third-rate power. If I ever pick up the game again I'm going to see if I can grease their palms a bit in exchange for a gift of earth and water. :smash:

Quirinus

02-09-2009, 17:28

Hurrah for necro-posting! I didn't want to start a new thread, so....

After taking a long break from RTW after my pathetically total failure in modding additional temples for Parthia, I loaded in my RTW CD and installed the game again. I felt like playing another vanilla game where I could subjugate and civilize the unwashed barbarians (I don't know, this is like a fetish of mine). I had played the Julii, Brutii and Greek Cities for far too long, and the Scipii colours look pretty cool, so I chose the Scipii.

One of my house rules, though, was to build only temples of Saturn everywhere at first-- building temples to Vulcan in military settlements the last time I played the Scipii bogged down the game because I keep wanting my troops to get the best weapon upgrades, which resulted in a lot of tedious and inefficient shuttling around.

https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/scipii_193_bc.png
The year is 193 BC.

I started by abandoning my original settlements and relocating to Massalia, allowing Messana to rebel and giving Capua to the Senate. Another thing I did to keep things fresh was to trigger the Marian Reforms from the start-- I cheated to get Capua to Huge City, and then gave it to the Senate by 268 BC.

I captured Alalia (Sardinia?) and Palma from the Carthaginians as soon as I could, which kept my revenue up. The Gauls attacked me almost from the start, in Lugdinensis, which I repelled with mostly my starting Hastati units.

Because of the Marian Reforms, I could not retrain these Hastati, but instead had only access to Auxilia, which are, I've found, vastly inferior to Hastati-- and the average warband. In the first fifty years or so years of the game, I relied very heavily on mercs, especially the Barbarian Mercenaries. I actually had to use tactics to win instead of just minimizing damage as is usually the case, since I had about the same quality of troops as the Gauls. The warcry ability + bridge-defending has time and again been the difference between victory and defeat. The post-Marian generals' bodyguards have also acquitted themselves honourably. If they are used carefully (i.e. not charging them headlong into a wall of spears), they are nigh unstoppable once they get silver chevrons.

So in general I conquered Gaul from the outside, chipping away at the little settlements by conquest, diplomacy or bribery, leaving Alesia to the last. Iberia fell pretty quickly as one thing led to another. The Germans I never went to war with, it was easy enough to obtain their settlements:

1) assasinate the governor, if any
2) bribe the settlement
3) swoop in with some mercs of mine that just happened to be around
4) swarm the new settlement with peasants
5) ???
6) PROFIT!!

At the end of this routine I get a new Roman town. Rinse and repeat. I like to think of this as German tribes allying with Rome and signing up the luxuries and prosperity of the Romans. After all, better this than utter ruin like the Britons (more about this below).

As usual, the Dacians were doing quite well, even annexing Pella at one point, until the Julii decided to get off their ass and actually take Patavium. After that they just collapsed inwards as the Julii exploded across Dacia. At some point the Greeks, who had wrested Apollonia from the Brutii a while back, joined in the gangbang as well. Now, though, the Greek Cities are being gangbanged in their turn by the Julii in the north and the Brutii in the south. I have been helping the Greeks some by supplying them with cash and men (by disbanding peasants in their lands) but I don't think they'll last long.

Nothing terribly special about the progression of this campaign, I think, other than my reavings into Brittania and Egypt. I tried out a new strategy in the campaign (well, new for me), inspired by the quote: "The Romans make desolation and call it peace" or something like that. The idea is to attack a faction with elite troops, exterminate their cities, destroy all their buildings, and generally cause havoc and destruction in the wake. I then leave the area depopulated and poor, with an experienced general at the head of hardened veteran legions.

Brittania prompted the wrath of Rome, or at least the Scipii, by attacking Samarobriva (bribed from the dying Gauls).... I responded by building a full stack of early legionaries from scratch at Lugdunum, Massalia and Mediolanum and then shipping it across the Channel from Samarobriva. There was fierce resistance around Londinum with about three full stacks and plenty of chariots, but post-Marian legionaries are..... well, post-Marian legionaries. When the Romans landed on Brittania, the Britons were a powerful people with a strong military and thriving economy. Within five years they had been wiped off the face of the earth, along with most of their buildings and smallfolk. (To make their defeat more total, before I left I kept recruiting peasants from the settlements until there were only 400 left.)

For the Egyptians, they didn't actually do anything... just that they were Egyptians. ;) After consolidating my grip on Gaul and Iberia, I was pretty much secure, with my eastern frontier covered mostly by the weak Germans and the Julii. I was drowning in cash from Mediterranean trade, so I decided to play God-- and Egypt was the obvious choice: they were populous and usually dominating the East in each game. I took a long time in assembling two stacks of early cohorts, one more of mercs, three large enough fleets and all the agents, but eventually I set sail for Egyptian lands. Egypt proper fell without much of a fight, it was around the Levant that I got the stiffest resistance: stacks in and around Sidon and Antioch. But of course Roman legionaries swept them all aside like so much flotsam. I had actually wanted to just blaze a trail of destruction into Egyptian land and retreat leaving them weakened, but when I saw how easy it was I just went one step further and wiped them out.

My popularity with the masses peaked about here, with me getting the "chance for power" message, but I didn't seize it at the time because I didn't have any legions in my main regions. Abandoning the ex-Egyptian settlements has cost me the affection of the people, though unfortunately the Senate's impression of me did not improve: it had dropped to one shield when I eliminated the Egyptians.

This 'removal' of Egyptian power has created an interesting power vacumn.. Pontus looks set to move in. Hopefully they will manage to consolidate their new lands before the Brutii or Julii come a-knockin'.

On the way back to Gaul the expedition landed in Punic Africa because the Carthaginians kept trying to extort me-- kinda like a fly making demands to a wolf, if I may say so. <3 So I gave them a taste of the steel they had been promising me. The Carthaginians put up more resistance than the Egyptians, with elephants in every other stack, but I subjugated them in the end, with some losses. I had also hoped that this Carthaginian adventure might make me more popular with the masses, as I now had stacks ready and waiting in Cisalpine Gaul. As of now it has remained constant at six shields.... I'm hoping the final destruction of the Carthaginians might earn me that coveted seventh shield.

Centurion1

04-14-2009, 21:25

Im gonna have to say that my favorite campaign of all time is the one i'm playing right now. I'm playing as the brutti and i made two major changes. first i removed the super faction setting of the Romans (meaning they have the potential to civil war at any time. Second, i altered the diplomacy, the carthaginians, Macedon, and the Seleucids are naturally inclined to like each other. I guess i did it because those factions always get run over early in the game. To add a little to that i let the Greeks and Thracians be best friends. I also made the eggies a little more hated, and monetarily pumped up the parthians and selkies. I am playing this game by historical lines, with the conquering of italy from traitors and false kings first. I have now taken all of italy (greatest battles i have ever fought, so much fun :laugh4:) I will move my forces against the carthies.
First punic War- i finished off the sicilies.
5 turns (approximately)
Second Punic War- I took over caralis and palma.

That is as far as i am mow. After this i will attack the gauls in the north, emulating Caesars camapign, then i will look east.

Alot of fun i recommend disabling the superfaction setting, leads to great pre-marian civil war. :2thumbsup:

Custodis Hellenius

04-29-2009, 16:13

https://img208.imageshack.us/img208/7822/greekgame01r.th.png (https://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=greekgame01r.png)
https://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5169/greekgame02.th.png (https://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=greekgame02.png)

These are of my recent Greek game, on which I applied the question; if I made it extra easy, how fast could I win the game? So, on an E/E game with liberal use of add_money, I set about with my diplomats.

So far, only 13 of my provinces have been taken by military force, leaving 39 "Bribees". I have a massive amount of diplomats now, including around 20 on the Italian peninsula itself. I started out by giving Syacrause to the Scipii, attacking Corinth and allying myself with all of the Romans. This worked for about 30 years; when I reached the 20 province mark, my "allies" decided to declare war. As seen above, all other factions are now at war with me, except Spain, Carthage, Gaul and Numidia, which i find surprising as these are all supposedly enemies of Rome and Diplomacy.

In the second picture, there's my pre-siege battle for Arretium, that acheived a "Famous" mark. Still don't kow why. I find it somewhat ironic that both participants were "Julius".

Armenia has just taken Campus Sarmatae. I'm not surprised, not after I took their capital. It and Vicus Veneadae (I can't spell these things...) were just empty during Scythia's rule. What's up Scythia?

Anyway. I'm gonna remove the Britons and try and close in on Dacia. Rome will fall, but I think after I eliminate those Brutii armies and settlements, and after I take Capua.

Samofrome

10-18-2009, 20:27

Oh.... I see. What does the 'vbm mod' do? I see that it changes some city names too..... I don't recall Pella being the city in Macedonia.

In Alexander times, it was the captial of Macedonia.

Lord Reid of Britannica

12-20-2009, 14:24

https://i979.photobucket.com/albums/ae274/musicsquid/britannia.png

This is my britannian campaign, not my largest empire but most stable and powerful. You can see my faction leader in his twilight years there, the Conqueror!

Even though egypt look strong they have almost no army and pontus looks like they'll be the controllers of the middle east soon. The Julii have a strong army coming out of Mediolanium looking dangerous.

I've nearly crushed Germany thanks to a conquest using mainly mercernaries Belenus carried out against them. Thrace are surprisingly strong. Dacia are a turn away from being crushed by the Scythians. Armenia and Parthia are sitting strong as is Greece. Gaul's prescence in Spain is soon to be gone.

My only ally is Gaul (surprisingly) who are weak. The Romans and Germany are my only enemies. Selucia is surprisingly still alive. My economy is strong and raking in thousands each turn, leaving me with the ability to hire massive Mercenary armies and bribe away small Roman stacks.

Will update later into the game.

Quirinus

12-21-2009, 09:02

Haha, an all-merc army, that's awesome! I don't think I ever did that before, the closest was recruiting a few units of merc cavalry to act as a governor escort. Are you going to annex the remaining two Gallic settlements soon or just head into Italy right away?

Lord Reid of Britannica

12-22-2009, 10:50

I'm currently just finishing off Germany, as they're being a persistent pain in my backside. Gaul are actually my allies and I'd like to keep it that way, using them for trade, so i won't get rid of them yet. The Julii are persistently attacking me in Massila so i'm looking to crush them in Mediolanium. Then into italy, take out spain and crush the Gauls.

pevergreen

12-22-2009, 12:27

Scipii still vainly trying to start the civil war. Julii have nothing, Brutii have a bit north of me, nothing major. Egypt is going to be a massive pain, they are hitting me with 2 full stacks a turn, I can see the trail of them. Nothing else is a threat.

Playing 1.5 vanilla with an expanded map.
https://img198.imageshack.us/img198/34/asiaminor.jpg
https://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2619/eastasiaminor.jpg
https://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9224/sicily.jpg
https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5930/uppergreece.jpg

Lord Reid of Britannica

12-22-2009, 13:43

Where'd you get the expanded map? Is it better to play with than the standard one?

pevergreen

12-23-2009, 01:19

Its a lot of fun. The game starts off pretty much as normal, minor changes in location. So many rebel territories it isnt funny.

I opted to install just the map, not new units. I'll grab a link when I get home.

Centurion1

12-24-2009, 05:15

eh the best part about rtw is all the mods. ive played the extended map its a good download.

Lord Reid of Britannica

12-26-2009, 10:44

Quirinus

01-31-2010, 12:41

I've started a Migration campaign like Quirinius, although this one with my favourite faction Macedon. Its a rather small one, simply over to southern Italy, although it hit a snag. Not a bad one though. I emptied all my greek settlements and took Croton and Tarentum and wiped out the Brutiians. I tried giving away my settlements to Thrace, who didnt accept. The settlements just sat there for turns on end, completely empty, with no one attacking, making me 1000d per turn. So i eventually just started training units. So now i have greece AND southern italy, and a 100,000d war chest.
That's awesome! Plus you don't have to worry about the Romans now. :laugh4:

Scipii still vainly trying to start the civil war. Julii have nothing, Brutii have a bit north of me, nothing major. Egypt is going to be a massive pain, they are hitting me with 2 full stacks a turn, I can see the trail of them. Nothing else is a threat.

Playing 1.5 vanilla with an expanded map.
https://img198.imageshack.us/img198/34/asiaminor.jpg
https://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2619/eastasiaminor.jpg
https://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9224/sicily.jpg
https://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5930/uppergreece.jpg
The Julii could grow into a powerful enemy though, if they eat through the barbarians like they usually do. Also interesting to see that the Seleucids still lose despite having all those extra settlements.

BTW, is this the Mundus Magnus map? I think I tried installing it a while back, didn't work. Is it a provincial campaign or does it overwrite vanilla files?

I just finished a rebel campaign on BI:
https://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8532/rometwbi201001311803075.png
The trick to playing the rebel faction, I've learned, is to be extremely opportunistic - if you see a settlement defended by only one or two units, don't squander the opportunity. The advantage of the rebel faction is that you don't need to worry about public order, and that you're pretty much impervious to hordes as long as you move your armies out of the way in time (though that is a huge if, I've lost some good armies because the Huns or whoever appeared out of the FOW without warning). Plus from time to time you get some reinforcements in the random places, so a deep strike is possible - at turn 10 my main bastions were Ravenna (N. Italy), Tarraco (Iberia), Campus Chatti (Germania) and Tarsus (Cilicia). The reinforcements are mostly rubbish, but I was able to combine some of the armies and siege lightly defended settlements.

The very worst thing about it though is that if you lose a battle or even simply withdraw to fight another day, you will lose your units, so extreme caution is needed. Even big armies will just melt away - one loss is all it takes. I learned that the hard way when I lost my veteran levy army against the Franks ( :bigcry: ), the next few turns saw me scrambling desperately for troops. One other significant disadvantage is that you only get low-tier units - about the best units I could recruit were the sword and axe heerbans from the Frankish settlements. In the Roman lands I could only recruit up to Foederati infantry and Sarmatian auxilia, which are decent, but against comitanses and other heavy infantry they die in droves. The steppe regions are the worst - only runaway slave spearmen and herdsmen - not even horse archers! I did get steppe archers from time to time, which helped immensely against the Sassanids, Lombardi and Roxolani. Also later on I got Vicus Sarmatae, which churned out double silver chevron slave spearmen, which was awesome.

The economy is a mess - at the start you get about 56K, but it is steadily depleted by turn 10. I made liberal use of the add_money cheat for the campaign.

I mostly expanded in the West - in the East expanding against the Sassanids were dangerous (clinibarii immortals! :furious3: ) to expand against and I was leery of expanding against the ERE for fear of the Sassanids overrunning them (and probably poor little me in the process) too fast. I let the hordes and Roman rebels do most of the heavy lifting - I limited my efforts to defence and taking lightly-defended settlements. The campaign became more difficult as time went on because the factions were all deploying their more advanced units, so I ended up paganising all my cities just to get the exp bonus. I would have continued playing after the victory, but tbh I would have gotten my arse handed to me, what with all the clinibarii and heavy infantry marching about.

Lord Reid of Britannica

02-01-2010, 10:31

You can play as rebels? I would really like to know how. Is it just the same as unlocking the other factions? I thought it CTD if you play as rebels.

Quirinus

02-01-2010, 16:40

I'm not sure about vanilla BI, as I am using professorspatula's BI Extra Hordes and Unlocked Factions (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?54943-BI-Extra-Hordes-and-Unlocked-Factions-Mod) mini-mod.

Lord Reid of Britannica

02-02-2010, 07:17

Thanks! :beam:

Quirinus

02-03-2010, 08:13

Just finished an Alemanni campaign on BI, probably going to be the last game I play in a while. =[
https://img39.imageshack.us/img39/516/rometwbi201002021928310.png (https://img39.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002021928310.png/)
https://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2362/rometwbi201002021934046.png (https://img525.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002021934046.png/)https://img641.imageshack.us/img641/2527/rometwbi201002021934095.png (https://img641.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002021934095.png/)https://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6280/rometwbi201002021934133.png (https://img31.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002021934133.png/)
https://img39.imageshack.us/img39/905/rometwbi201002021933501.png (https://img39.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002021933501.png/)

I used two mini-mods for this game: Epistolary Richard's Year Jump and professorspatula's More Hordes. I used the former to skip to the year 409 AD (would have skipped even further, but the year jump is limited by the Slav emergence event). It looked like this to start with:
https://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5015/rometwbi201002011546211.png (https://img6.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002011546211.png/)

I started with a non-existent military (a couple of horde units plus remnants of a spear warband) and no income to speak of - recruiting one unit of chosen archers put me in the red. I had no diplomats and no money to recruit them, and the Ostrogothic horde was parked right outside one of my two settlements. So when Augusta Trevororum fell to the Ostrogoths I horded up and headed for Italy.

One of the benefits of the year jump is that you start with a more organic family tree and more characterful family members - ripe for roleplaying. I had wanted to make an AAR out of this, but honestly once I settled in Italy it wasn't particularly difficult - I had a huge cash surplus pretty much from the start (an early trade agreement with the ERE certainly helped), and the cities of Italy could crank out superior troops like chosen axemen with incredible exp. and equipment (silver-chevron chosen axemen with silver equipment to start).
https://img39.imageshack.us/img39/7637/rometwbi201002021934229.png (https://img39.imageshack.us/i/rometwbi201002021934229.png/)
With these 'veteran' units I steamrolled pretty much everywhere - what retarded my development in the fifteen years or so was the arrival of the Franks, who loitered around in Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul for ages before deciding to attack Massalia. To compound that, the cities of Iberia were pretty much undefended. The heaviest fighting (other than the hordes) was in Germania - from Augusta Trevororum all the way up to Campus Frisii.

Some observations about the situation in Greece/Dacia/Sarmatia. The Huns actually built a fairly stable kingdom with the two Dacian regions and Constantinople, even repelling the Franks at one point. Then the Slavs came appeared and released the Sarmatians from their starting territory, also making the Huns lose their Dacian regions. For some reason Constantinople reverted back to the ERE and horded the Huns, I've seen this happen a few times in other games as well.

The Burgundii died soon after I took control, probably their family died out. Then the Lombardi took over their old lands and became fairly powerful in their own right. The awesome thing about this is that the Lombardi unit roster is almost(?) identical to the Alemanni one, and since I had such a huge cash surplus, I ended up bribing random Lombardi units and taking them back to my lands to free up the chosen axemen for some asskicking. I even bribed Campus Quadi at one point. Campus Marcomanni is next on the agenda, I've had my best diplomat waiting outside it for a few turns, but sadly the faction leader is inside, so I have to wait for him to die.

The Berbers have been my allies since the beginning, their trade helped my coffers immensely during the early years before I built up a decent trade network of my own. They actually conquered all of Africa up to Alexandria, but then stopped there with their armies. Shortly before this Cyrene revolted, and I think Alexandria also revolted and then got conquered by the Sassanids.

The other interesting thing is that I finally witnessed the WRR turning into the WRE after the latter's destruction. I've heard that such a thing happens, but it's the first time I've witnessed something like that in years of playing RTW/BI.

All in all, I highly recommend the YearJump/MoreHordes mini-mod combo, it certainly breathed new life into vanilla BI for me. I'm probably going to try a YearJump-ed WRE next, leading the Roman remnant to revive the Empire certainly sounds fun.

Megas Methuselah

02-03-2010, 23:29

Took pics from my old Thracian campaign. It's vanilla with an expanded map and personal modifications. I made a migration to the Crimean peninsula right at the start, took a settlement, utterly destroyed it, migrated a couple thousand citizens from Thrace to it, renamed it, and rebuilt it. Pytropolis is now full of ethnic Thracians and is the capital of the greater Thracian empire, which is composed of Thracians and Hellenes, as well as various subservient barbaroi. I enjoy roleplaying, especially with colonization. You'll notice that I settled large Thracian and Hellenic populations in various settlements throughout the empire, in what I like to think as a way to firmly entrench myself in the conquered land.

THE HEARTLAND. I recently put down a major Hellenic revolt in two heartland settlements. Ungrateful Greeks; the Hellenes in Olbia would have revolted too, if they hadn't been suddenly struck down with the plague. It's a mixed blessing, as the Macedonians are invading my south-western borders. Defending the river there is bad enough, but with Olbia full of diseases, the future looks bleak. The recent rebellious attitudes amongst the heartland Hellenes makes me question the loyalty of all Hellenes throughout the empire.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0005.jpg

NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES, the southern portion. Though a nearby colony of strong Thracians stand proudly at Russapolis amid the frigid hinterlands, their land is wrecked with indigenous rebellions. The nearby territories which have had the fortune of not being subject to colonizing efforts from the Heartland must instead suffer from Gallic and Germanic incursions, as well as the plague which is spreading throughout the empire. The whole of the western Thracian lands are insecure from both within and without. Not exactly a good place to live at the moment.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0007.jpg

NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES, the northern portion. Unlike the Thracians to the south who struggle against both indigenous and foreign enemies merely to survive, the Hellenic colony to the north at Hezbeneia has prospered in relative peace. There have been minor indigenous rebellions in the past, but they were easily put down. The Hellenes have since then focused on their economy through trade with the nearby conquered settlements overland and with barbaroi through the Baltic Sea. Their prosperity, which spreads to the local indigenous peoples, leaves the entire area content.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0008.jpg

COLCHIS REGION. Thracian settlers were quick to claim Colchis for themselves upon its bloody conquest. To the south, the people of Pontus war with the Armenians over the land. Though the Thracians and their local subjects are left in peace for now, they maintain a heavy garrison to intimidate any Pontines from replicating in the empire what they did in Armenia. By sea and by land, the Colchis Thracians, settled primarily in and near Commodopolis, retain close ties with the Heartland, and the region is considered an important asset by the Thracian Great King.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0009.jpg

NORTHERN TERRITORIES. In the early days, Thracian Crimea was quick to conquer the southern portion of these lands, and have been settled here for a couple generations now. They are, however, unhappy with their lack of recognition as a core region of the empire; their young men have marched and fought together with the Crimean Thracians throughout the empire's vast expanse of land, and have contributed immensely to foreign conquest and colonial gains. The patriots must be appeased soon, lest a civil war break out at the time when the western borders look as if they will crumble from external pressure. The local indigenous cities, though, are well on the way to hellenization, and appear quite content with their place in the empire.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0010.jpg

EASTERN FRONTIER. The local subjects on the eastern border stubbornly cling to their ancestral way of life, refusing hellenization. Though they accept Thracian dominion for now, their loyalty would be suspect if the Heartland should be greatly endangered. It is the locals' friendship with the Parthian nomads to the east that prevents any wild excursion from the horse tribes beyond the Thracian border. The Thracian Great King, however, sees the poorly-developed eastern frontier as the gateway to wealth and glory. If the troubles in the west can be overcome, the vast lands to the east lay waiting for the mighty Thracians to fulfill their manifest destiny. It is his dream to unite the long-lost Hellenes in Bactria under the shining banner of the Greater Thracian Empire.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0011.jpg

The Thracian Great King, however, lies on his deathbed in Pytropolis. The empire is, in practice, under the leadership of his grandson and heir, Mukazenis Russadir, who is currently raising an elite army in the Heartland to combat the advancing Macedonian and Gallic armies. One day this royal Thracian may inherit the kingship of the Greater Thracian Empire.

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0006.jpg

And finally, the Thracian garrison at Dacian Crete. The wild Dacians must be kept on a short leash. The garrison commander is no member of the royal family, but simply a warrior-aristocrat. Family members are deliberately few in number. Most commanders are, in actuality, various aristocrats and landowners who have something serious to lose should the empire suffer a setback (hired generals, lol; i like to trim my family tree and keep it small).

https://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff252/Methuselah18/0012.jpg