Rome Total Pillage

I decided to start a new campaign and would not expand past the points needed for the Polybian reforms and just build up my cities. The only exception to this was I would be allowed to attack other cities and pillage them but I must immediately leave after.

So I took a young general, level 20, 2 units of Triarii, 3 Equites and 14 Principees and moved him by ship to the west and attacked my first city. He took the first, then the second, then the third, then the 4th and laid waist to Arverni and 3 full stack armies of barbarians outside of his cities. Besides getting 6 command stars and huge morale bonuses and a ton of retinue he also got "Hates Smelly Barbarians", "Triumphus" and Warmonger".

The one thing I noticed about Warmonger is you can't stay in a city long or you take a -4 penalty to happiness and get an unhappy warmonger trait. The trait leaves as soon as you go for another battle though.

Oh one more thing the five cities I took I either let rebel again, One became Arverni and one Hellen, or gave to one of the galllic factions. I gave one to Gedai and two to Arverni which signed a treaty immediately after with me. Even though I was laying waste to Arverni I didn't want to beat him completely as I want him as a buffer against Gedai.

Maybe this should be moved to EB Gameplay Guides and AAR's subforum...

I don't know if you could use this as a game play guide as normally by this point, playing Rome, I would have expanded into Carthage, Hellen, Makedon and Epiros by now and have another 10-15 cities. I just wanted to see if I could wait the 30 years, for the Polybian reforms, before expanding beyond the four cities needed to start them.

Because I was going to wait I wanted to see if I could make some very powerful generals inbetween so I sent one west and one east and laid waste to rebel settlements and then sent a third, the 20yr old, west and began attacking more rebels and Arverni before bringing all back to Italy again. I ended up with one descent general, one very good general and one awesome general. The two previous ones are in their mid 40s so they will just stay put in their frontier cities now but my awesome general has now launched attacks against Carthage and has taken two more cities from them and is close to another Triumphus.

My goal was to quickly overrun Africa once the reforms took place but I faught two huge armies in Sicily which greatly reduced one legion and a second legion was destroyed when the ship carrying them to Africa was sunk.

I still have Sicily and Sardinia and have taken two cities in Africa but I now need to recruit more legions to recover from those two large losses.

I will start up EB and get the city names and post how I got him from green to a veteran in under 4 years.

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Originally Posted by Gunzak

I will start up EB and get the city names and post how I got him from green to a veteran in under 4 years.

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Doesn't every general, who has commanded more than 5 battles get the veteran trait?

Yes. The Green - blooded - veteran - grizzled - seen the elephant traits function as a counter for the number of battles a family member has commanded.

He was actually grizzled after 9 battles. I had the wrong word. Since then he has won another 6 battles and conquered 4 more cities but I haven't checked to see what he's at yet.

His story so far is below.

What happened is I created a full stack army, 1 general, 3 Equites, 2 Triarii and 14 Principes, and sailed to Emporion. I laid siege to Emporion and Arverni sent a full stack to break the siege. I won the battle and the next turn I killed the defenders in the town and sacked it. I then moved towards Tolosa and faught a small force before attacking and sacking the city. I now had 4 battles won. I then moved towards the Arverni capital, Gergovia, and faught 2 full stack armies, one at a time, before attacking the town and again sacking it. I then faught another small force and attacked Massalia, which had become Hellen, and had I think 14 units in it. I was able to take the town but my army was almost all but destroyed by the time I took it. 9 battles won, 4 cities conquered and no retraining or mercenary units.

After taking Massalia and bringing a general and some reserve units there to hold the city I brought him back to Rome for his Triumphus. I retrained the army and replaced 2 Principes with 2 Ascensi.

The Polybian Reforms took place in 242 BC so that freed me to move on to Carthage. Since the reforms took place I would now hold every city I conquered so I would take the city and not leave till a general and 6 secondary units arrived to pacify the town. This made it slower but gives me a lot more income.

On to Africa and the destruction of Carthage.

I boarded ship and sailed south and attacked Korali. Upon a relief force arriving in Korali I boarded ship and sailed to Africa and laid siege to Atiqa. Atiqa was lightly defended and fell quickly. I waited for a relief force and then moved the army west towards Ippone. I had to fight a large battle before Ippone, 1 large force with 2 small sets of reinforcements, but I was victorius and I conquered Ippone. A few turns later a relief force arrived and freed me to march again.

I then moved the army south to Kirstan but Carthage placed a large army in between the city and me to block me. I was able to destroy the blocking army and then attacked Kirstan and took the city. My general is currently there waiting for a general and a few secondary units to arrive so I can move the entire army west towards Siga.

The current army in Kirstan has not been retrained or reinforced and still has the original units, though in much smaller numbers after 6 battles.

So far this general has won 15 battles and conquered 8 cities. I believe hes only 31 or 32 having started at age 20.

I think the next level requires 20 or 25 battles, can't remember exactly.

Siga will be the last battle I fight with the current army as all my cities in Italy are building new baracks to get access to the reformed units. Since the army is very depleted in units I will have enough to attack Siga but won't be able to retrain them and it will be an ineffective force after. I do have a large force of Pre Polybian Principes in Adrumeto but those are all 0 or 1 chevron while most of my current army is 3 or 4 chevrons. I don't want to lose all their experience from adding inexperienced reinforcements.

I am surprised that after 15 battles the army doesn't have more experience. Anyone know how many kills/battles it takes to hit gold chevrons? I did this with a general once as he massacred retreating units and some times gained 2 chevrons from a single battle.