What Happened to the Romans?

I'm playing the Sweboz, and it's about 186BC now. For the last few dozen turns I've been warring the Romans.

Here's the back story first:

While I was conquering Gaul, the Romans betrayed me and took Viennos, but that was about all they did for years. I watched them the whole campaign as they spread their tendrils slowly over the Mediterranean. They captured all of Sicily, then moved north to Mediolanum. They went west, Massalia, Gergovia, Viennos, Tolosa...into Iberia, making headway, piercing right into the heart of the Lusotannan, scattering Famous Battle markers about the landscape like Tacks. They captured Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics and landed a large army in the heart of Epeiros. I watched fearfully, because I knew I'd have to face them fairly soon, and they seemed to be doing far too well for my liking.

Then, Makedonia captured Taras and began sending armies into Italy. The army in Illyria disappeared. Carthage took back Sardinia and the Balearics. The war in Iberia came to a stop, halting to a bloody stalemate. By that time it was my turn, having eliminated the Arverni and Evicting the Aedui from Gaul, letting them develop an Illyrian empire. My spy noticed the Romans had already achieved the Marian Reforms - I saw the stats on the cohors reformata and a chill went down my mouse cord. I don't have anything to match that, save for my bodyguards, and my only counter to it is sheer numbers and exposed genitals. So I began reformatting my armies, raising two full stacks of the finest, most skilled and heavily-armored men of all the Swebozez. I retired my archers and replaced them with slingers. I put my spearmen away and gathered men with armor-crushing clubs and axes. I picked out men with Warcry instead of Shieldwall. I visited Cisalpine Gaul and equipped myself with naked spearmen. I hired mercenary Celts trained in phalanx-style fighting.

I was ready for action, scared about the insane defense stats on the Marian legions. My screaming barbarian horde poured down from Gaul, blitzing Viennos and Gergovia, capturing Tolosa and burning the neighboring city on the east coast of Iberia. I cut off the Romans' Iberian holdings from Italy, leaving the forces remaining there for the Lusotannan. I waited for the endless train of full stacks to come marching from the east, full of cohors reformata. Nothing came but some scattered Gallic mercenaries headed for the Lusotannan. After the new territories settled down I headed east, taking easily a nearly undefended Massalia. I waited some more, and nothing came. I charged further east, besieging Mediolanum, trapping inside it a fairly large force, but composed of vigiles, accensi and Gallic troops. My other army, feeling restless and hungering for Roman blood headed south, into the heart of Italy. Nothing was there. The cities each defended by only a governor and a unit of vigiles. I besieged Roma immediately, then noticed Capua was completely undefended, its gatekeepers waiting to welcome me in, so I took it and I burned it to the ground. I went back and re-sieged Roma, taking it and burning it also to the ground. After I left the two cities revolted of course, giving my restless army a taste of Roman blood at last, as the army that spawned contained a bunch of cohors reformata as well as cohors evocata, and the ones with the blue ovular shields, which chased me to Arpi, where I got trapped and was forced to do battle. But their flanks collapsed easily, their veteran soldiers routed, they became surrounded and I crushed them. Now the full stack Apeleutheroi Army of Doom is headed my way as I try to escape back to my own borders with my booty.

So, what happened to this faction? They were doing really well for a long time, got both reforms and hired the troops that came with them, expanded effectively and at a high speed and waged wars with many nations. They have all kinds of financial resources on that peninsula and fully-developed cities. But when I went to fight them, expecting epic battles, a long bloody war and hard-won booty, they just kind of rolled over; bent over and took it with little resistance. I just moseyed my way into their land, plundered the riches and destroyed the wonders of Rome, and packed up and headed home. I was supposed to go back to my people saying I wrested the bull to the ground and slit its throat, not that I went cow-tipping and didn't get shot by farmer Jenkins.

How would this happen to an AI faction, particularly the Romani?

This is weird, had this with some factions as well, they just go into a coma and awake 20 years later.

Wow very weird, sad you didnt get your own Arausio.~D

I have also encountered what Skullhead says, a blitzing faction suddenly goes into a coma.

Well I remember my war with the Marian Romani. They were quite good at first, sending a lot of legions to my lands. But after I took half Italy I only encountered armies of vigiles, some generals some mercs and some scattered polybian troops.

This was a standard result of fighting a 100% vigile army.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i594.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1263132956

Maybe they lost all their troops fighting the Makedones and Lusotani?

~Fluvius

I had a similar experience in a Carthage game. I abandoned almost all starting settlements, letting them rebell or giving them away. Slowly spread out across Africa again, took Iberia, and sat on it until I hit Carthage's reforms. Then I build armies of Heavy Iberians and Libyan spearmen, supported by Belearic Slingers and an elephant unit....only to face a couple pathetic Vigiles stacks when I invade Italy (and like in your game Rome had been expanding quite well previously). :sweatdrop:

@Fluvius Camillus

Interesting. Well, in my case I didn't take half of Italy. I didn't conquer any of their homeland provinces or in any way inhibit their war machine from functioning. I just kind of walked into the peninsula, raped, pillaged and walked out with an intact army.

But I'm going to go ahead and assume it has something to do with the Lusotannan and Makedonians. They had a good force in Iberia, and the Makedonians probably did some damage with the half stacks they kept sending up Italy. But from reading other people's experiences with trying to invade the Roman homeland, I wouldn't think they'd have crippled them like that.

On my Sweboz game I had a while ago, I had a similar experience, kind of. All of Italy was basically unoccupied, but I built a spy and sent him to Sicily, and the Romans had like 3 huge armies. I was overconfident, and my army got destroyed, but I boosted my economy by completely destroying everything in Italy. The general who died in Italy, his son came of age in Capua before it rebelled, and I hired a full army of mercenaries and continued my pillaging.

Carthage likes to do that too. They often leave Africa completely unguarded and just have a huge army in Iberia, doing nothing.

I have been stuck fIghting stacks of pedites and trarii in both my Casse and Carthage campaigns, I'm just glad Roman cavalry is terrible.

I have a mini theory (and that's all it is)..

If you notice, the ai will move it's capital around as if it meant nothing. I was playing a Baktria game with FOW off, just so I could actually see everything that was going on in the West. Rome moved North, West, East and South, and looked like an unstoppable Juggernaut. They had taken All of Italy, most of Gaul (all the way up to the English Channel), East across almost to Hungary.

Carthage held on in Lilybaum, and suddenly started turning first Sicily, and then Southern Italy white. And while this was going on, I noticed that the Roman capital was now Viennos. They didn't seem to care that their Italian homelands were being rampaged. Then Rome was finally carted out of Italy, and of course with no "real" factional troops left, the Getai and Sweboz started to pick away at their provinces too.

It was the complete empathy, that the ai Rome seemed to show about Carthage rampaging through Italy that bemused me. And it's not the first time I've seen this.

So the mini theory, is maybe there is some hidden weighting somewhere, that causes the ai to give more value to defending the territory around it's capital, even when it's capital is somewhere completely unimportant, because it's moved it around.

Just an out there theory ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drewski

I have a mini theory (and that's all it is)..

If you notice, the ai will move it's capital around as if it meant nothing. I was playing a Baktria game with FOW off, just so I could actually see everything that was going on in the West. Rome moved North, West, East and South, and looked like an unstoppable Juggernaut. They had taken All of Italy, most of Gaul (all the way up to the English Channel), East across almost to Hungary.

Carthage held on in Lilybaum, and suddenly started turning first Sicily, and then Southern Italy white. And while this was going on, I noticed that the Roman capital was now Viennos. They didn't seem to care that their Italian homelands were being rampaged. Then Rome was finally carted out of Italy, and of course with no "real" factional troops left, the Getai and Sweboz started to pick away at their provinces too.

It was the complete empathy, that the ai Rome seemed to show about Carthage rampaging through Italy that bemused me. And it's not the first time I've seen this.

So the mini theory, is maybe there is some hidden weighting somewhere, that causes the ai to give more value to defending the territory around it's capital, even when it's capital is somewhere completely unimportant, because it's moved it around.

Just an out there theory ;)

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Doesn't sound too out there to me. It makes sense that the AI would be programmed to be savvy to distance-to-capitol penalties, and makes sense also that they would leave undefended cities that have no unrest, regardless of military threats.

To counter these threat, we should let some factions had good factional troops available everywhere, so when they switch their capital, they still get a considerably good army... but... the AOR :sweatdrop:

The scrip for Marians gives you free barracks in all cities and breaks the old ones. The AI is probably just throwing all of it's money into repairing the old buildings only to have the script wreck them again. Only the repair them the next turn and so one. The result is a once rich faction wastes all it's cash. As far as I can tell the AI ALWAYS spends it's money on repairs first. That's my theory anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sdragon

The scrip for Marians gives you free barracks in all cities and breaks the old ones. The AI is probably just throwing all of it's money into repairing the old buildings only to have the script wreck them again. Only the repair them the next turn and so one. The result is a once rich faction wastes all it's cash. As far as I can tell the AI ALWAYS spends it's money on repairs first. That's my theory anyway.

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So should we remove the damaging barracks script for the SPQR?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sdragon

The scrip for Marians gives you free barracks in all cities and breaks the old ones. The AI is probably just throwing all of it's money into repairing the old buildings only to have the script wreck them again. Only the repair them the next turn and so one. The result is a once rich faction wastes all it's cash. As far as I can tell the AI ALWAYS spends it's money on repairs first. That's my theory anyway.

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If that is true we have a serious problem which should be removed in EBII.

~Fluvius

There wouldn't be any troops in Italy, because it would be assumed that as Italy is snuggled away nice and safe away from nasty foreigners, and that soldiers are on the borders. Evidently, they got the last bit wrong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fluvius Camillus

If that is true we have a serious problem which should be removed in EBII.

~Fluvius

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That would be quite a serious problem. But in my experience that isn't the case. When I took Roma I damaged the walls. That was a number of turns ago, and they still haven't fixed them. I believe I also remember that their barracks were damaged when I got there, but I'm not sure. If so, then this problem wouldn't be the case. I'll take Bononia for the Hell of it and report what I find when I get there.

I took Italy very easily on my Eperios game. Completely undefended because all of the romans were up in cisalpine gaul. I had more trouble with Sicily and Carthage. They like sending elephants from Africa, but Indian elephants are bigger.

Conquering Bononia revealed damaged barracks, but I just realized that obviously that's not to say the script hasn't been doing it every turn and the AI hasn't been repairing them.

It's easy to establish:- you just need a good spy to check out...and you could use a good assassin to sabotage barracks yourself.

Might start a new campaign Thurs Night, I'll try and remember to check it out myself :)

Small update (as if anybody cares :P). Ravaging Roma, Capua and Bononia and forcing peace with them seems to have awakened them. Now they control only Italia (minus Taras and Lilibeo), but a few years after I made peace with them, seven full stacks have come spewing from the peninsula, much to my chagrin. They didn't learn...

I had trouble taking Italy on my old Carthage game. Rome was completely undefended, I think they just had their faction leader in there, so I took that easily. The rest of Italy was pretty well fortified though, so I just held up in Rome with my crazy elite army and elephants and took Rhegion with reinforcements from Sicily.

this is what happened in my current mak campaign. i made an alliance with Rome, and concentrated my efforts on the east after securing my border along the Danube. all went well for some 40-50 years. i was well into Asia by then, figthing AS and paying off the ptolemaids to have a secure flank. i was friendly to Pontus who had only 3-4 provinces. Rome did well in the west. my spies reported they held all of Italy minus Tarentum which was in Epirote's hands for the entire game, despite them losing their homeland. they held most of Gaul parts of Iberia and central Europem waring with the Sweboz and Getae. the romans got first their polybian reforms and then their marian reformes about 40 years into the game. and then they sneak attacked me in Dalmatia despite our alliance and their current wars. this is when i stoped my campaign and left in for 1-2 months. when i started playing again before new year, i got lucky and repelled the roman invasion at the city walls and i invaded cisalpine gaul whicj i used as a choak point to fend off wave after wave of postmarian cohorts mixed with mercs for some 10 years or so. they even menaged to overwealm me with 3 full stacks after which i was forced to retreat my main force south into Italy and let them take cisalpine gaul with their 8star faction leader.

after that i built a small fleet and sent reinforcements to my troups composed of my faction hair, several spies and half a stack of macedonians (phalanx and cavalry). when they got in northen Italy i reinforced them with local mercs and went back north to cisalpine gaul, this time with 2 full stacks (the old and the new army). i had no cities in Italy and fought my way through their full stacks which were composed ever more of vigiles and less and less of cohorts. just out of curiosity i sent 2 spies down the main Italian coastal roads and found it (as you did) without any deffence except for 1 elite light legionay, 1 first cohort and 1 postmarian in the extreame south that were there a decade before. i turned 1 of my stacks south and plundered all of Italy in 5 years or less without them recruiting a single unit to opose me. it seamed like their recruitement base has moved into Gaul and they were spamming vigiles like there is no tommorow only. naturally these guys die way to easy to be a mtach against profesional soldiers, let alone veterans.i fought engagements against as much as 6500-7900 men with my less tehn 2000 stack in the north and still won heroic after heroic never losing more then 100-200 men (in the worse battles) even tehn mostly in the light mercenaries that i replaced afterwards. after 2 years of constant vigiles slaughter i got bored and made 2 punitive raids into southern Gaul and east Iberia and burned 3 bordering cities to the ground living then to rebel teh next turn. they turned eleutheroi after which the galic golden shevron rebels made a good buffer betwean roman Gaul and macedonian Italy where i replaced my mercs with camilian hastaty.

what happened to the romans and why did they stop training profesional troups? why did they start spawning vigiles? i had the hardest war ever in the norht Italy and then after a period of 2-3 years it turned into a big slaughter house....

a BORING slaughterhouse. It happened to me too.