[House rules] Tell us about yours

I know a lot of people play with them, I don't think you'd be going to the trouble of searching out something like EB if you just wanted to win the game in the fastest time possible without any limitations. For anyone unaware, house-ruling is when you make yourself little restrictions, like "in this game I will not retrain any units", and so on.

So what are yours? Do you have any general ones that apply no matter what you're doing? Do you have any faction- or game-specific ones?



I'm playing a new transplanted faction game (Epeiros-as-Pergamon again), this time with 1.2. I'm trying to keep things slow, I've only got two provinces so far, and I can only have a type II government in Pergamon itself. Everywhere else I have to use type IV.

There's a little roleplaying in that, I'm reasoning that rather than expansion and control, Pergamon is instead expanding its network of alliances with the local kingdoms. Invasions are thus sponsored by one of the factions in the target province, and thus once the fighting is done one of their people is put in charge. Someone who happens to be amenable to the Pergamene throne.

I like to use raids and punitive expeditions rather than straight up conquest. It's 262BC in my game and I've had two wars with the Seleukids. In the first I defeated their invasion and raided Ipsos, in the second I raided Sardis. What I do in a raid is take a settlement, destroy all the buildings, then use Force Diplomacy to get a ceasefire and hand it back in that truce. Has two positive effects; slows them down by destroying infrastructure and wrecking their local economy, and nets me some cash as a reward for beating them.

Punitive expeditions are when I do that across a swathe of land, focusing on defeating their armies more than raiding their provinces. In both instances the house rule is defeat but don't hold. And sue for peace when they've lost any real ability to respond. Feels much more like the conduct of nations, wars with discrete beginnings and ends, not all-out conquest or annihilation.

I also keep a pretty heavy regional and mercenary mix in my army, and don't use phalanxes (because apparently the Attalid kingdom didn't). All my cavalry is regional/mercenary.

I just try not to have to many elites in my army , and try to use historical army compositions . Also sending reinforcments instead of retraining in towns .

my daughters become priestessses of some cult where they can´t get marry and man of the hour and adoptions are a no chance 1st houserulle

2nd destroy a faction only if they refuse to become a protectorate once i´ve been betrayed by them if not i play my game and develop my economy as much as i possibly can until i can net profit enough to pay for all my setlement buildings every turn and everytime i pass that limit (depends alot on wich faction i´m playing with) i build a new army

if playing as koinon hellenon epirus or makedonia all my youngesters go into the agoge independently of their traits and origin´s and all must be at least 4 turns in athens for the secrets before they become part of what i call "the council" that runs the empire if not none of them can lead and army or govern a city (except for athens ofc)

As Sweboz :

1 - Core army of levies and medium infantry (like 50 - 50%)
2 - No army without general
3 - only one full sack at a time, german armies being mostly levy in time of war.
4 - i try to follow the evolution of my FMs and play them on the battlefield (if he got the "coward" trait, I'll not throw him on the first line in the center, like I do for every other FMs
5 - blitz for germany, but stay in germany until the 120's, then expand (appard I permit myself, once a year, to raid several gaul towns along the river, pillaging them, then leaving
6 - disband every levies after a raid or an expedidion of greater amplitude
7 - ... i don't remember exactly, it's been long since I played any game!!!!!


they seems a lot, but they're easy to follow and make the game more fun. I devlop all temples giving moral and exp bonus, and blacksmith everywhere is possible. as I use a lot of levies (and 2 elites by stack MAX) it helps to have levies that kill like terminator!

Limited the number of slingers early on to 4 in total. Now have about 16.

Always allow the AI to have either the biggest army or the best army in any battle I fight myself. Biggest means more men than me (obviously) and best means with mostly higher quality units than me.

Never retrain units, just merge them with new ones (losing some experience in the process).

Am only allowed 1 slinger per 10 units, so even a full stack will only have 2 slingers in it. And slingers have to have a clear line of sight to the enemy, any friendly unit in between means the slingers aren't allowed to fire, they have to run and outflank the enemy first if that happens.

Archers can only use flaming arrows from a single pre-determined position on the battlefield. What that means is, once the archer unit starts firing flaming arrows, the unit can't move anymore - if it does, it is not allowed to use flaming arrows anymore and has to go back to ordinary arrows. (This is to simulate the archers using a non-mobile flame source to light their arrows, like small fires on the ground or heavy iron braziers of burning coals. No matches in EB timeline, sorry.)

Am only allowed 1 elite unit per 10 units, not counting FM bodyguards.

Never destroy wonders - no matter how much money they are worth.

Try to use the Paradox Interactive idea of a Casus Belli for a reason to declare war on a faction and depending on how 'strong' that reason is determines how much I do to them. Unless my faction leader is insane or something I tend to avoid wipeing any faction out wholesale in the first round of war.

Further, I keep the bloodline pure. No adoptions. And the majority of the girls go unmarried unless the suitor is very good, young and the bloodline itself is in danger of dying out....for example when I go from a Sauromatae game with invincible bodyguards and then play a Casse game and forget to change my tactics and wipe out the entire family line except for a 55 year old with 4 daughters. I like monarchies....

I never destroy Wonders
As Pahlava: FM's with the "Lives on the move" are Generals, not Governers
As the romans: to field an army i must have the historical correct army...
i never betray an allied

As Hayasdan, Faction Leader and Faction Heir must be from House of Yervanduni. And I rarely adopt characters from other houses to become son in law.

I'm considering instituting a "don't take advantage of bridge crossings" rule after my last battle. Bigger Pontic force with four family members (including FL and FH) which I massacred at the loss of 3% of my force. Killed three of those four family members, too. I'm now thinking I should have set up a distance from the bridge and let them cross and form up, so I could have a proper battle.

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i never betray an allied

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Neither do I... Too bad they constantly betray me... :no:

Honestly, I don't have much in the way of absolute house rules... I tend to be fairly flexible in that I'll mostly use the "build new units and merge into old ones" reinforcement method, but I will retain if the opportunity arises (which actually happens seldom the way I play EB).

I do, however, have a general play style that in some ways masquerades as a set of "house rules":

For one, I don't load up on good ranged units even when I could. I almost invariably use four long range units in each of my main armies, generally two units of factional slingers and two units of factional or merc archers in each main army depending on what's available. I also tend to only use a few cavalry units and few skirmishers (usually two units). I also avoid loading up on any particular unit that I like too much (which for me, oddly enough, means Thureophoroi and Rorarii, crazy as that might sound). I am not, however, the sort of player that limits himself to Phalangitai Deuteroi when Pezhetairoi are available...

I also limit myself to one "main" (full stack) army per "front" (generally, one full stack fights against each faction I'm actively fighting). This allows me to play the game in the sort of "slow blitzkrieg" style that I have always played RTW in. It tends to give enough time for the AI to pull its socks up enough that it's a genuine threat, but isn't so slow that I end up bored stiff (and don't get me wrong, I love roleplaying, I just don't tend to do it much in EB... I do not, for instance, use the Force Diplomacy mod).

I've also experiment with various unusual "blanket policies" in my settlement building. In my current Makedon campaign, for instance, I never build any buildings that boost population growth unless the city has stopped growing or has fallen into negative growth and I always build the cheapest available building (skipping over any population growth ones of course) unless the next governor's building is available (I.E. The settlement is ready to increase in size) or I am in dire need of something else (which happens seldom). This is in contrast to the Casse campaign I played before I stopped playing EB for some time (as it had stopped working and I couldn't be bothered going through the reinstallation process), where I'm pretty sure I went for all the population growth buildings first, as I plan to with the Sweboz campaign I'm going to play when I finish the Makedon campaign (my definition of "finished" meaning having fulfilled the victory conditions provided by the game).

I am, however, rather prone to blithely exploiting mercenaries to provide the garrisons I need in newly captured provinces, a habit I am doing my best to break as it just doesn't make any sense realistically speaking and always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm thinking of making a house rule that says that only one in every three or four units in any given garrison can be mercs or something along those lines.

Oh, and I always leave the capital where it is when you start the game...

I've forgotten some of my others. Never use a full stack, I tend to cap at around 14 units at most, otherwise it's too easy to beat the half-arsed armies the AI throws at you. Sometimes I'll spawn additional units in their stack to make for a proper battle if I can't see them getting anything else to me soon.

I usually don't use strict rules, but I tend to orientate on this "master rule":

Don't do anything without in-character reason.

This may lead to derived rules depending on faction, family member and mood.

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Originally Posted by Lysimachos

I usually don't use strict rules, but I tend to orientate on this "master rule":

Don't do anything without in-character reason.

This may lead to derived rules depending on faction, family member and mood.

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I second to that. I would do things that would coincide with the character's traits. Other stuff are based on historical common sense.

For RP purposes, I also make the new basileus stop whatever he's doing and run back to the capital (with his army in tow...heh heh) to 'solidify' his claim to the title. If he's in the middle of a campaign then it makes the pacing of the campaign a lot more fun...

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Originally Posted by Basileus_ton_Basileon

For RP purposes, I also make the new basileus stop whatever he's doing and run back to the capital (with his army in tow...heh heh) to 'solidify' his claim to the title. If he's in the middle of a campaign then it makes the pacing of the campaign a lot more fun...

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That's a good one, I do that too. Sometimes an old-age faction leader will be spending his dotage in the capital, with the heir to the throne there with him, waiting impatiently for the old man to die....meaning that neither of them are available for campaigning!

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Originally Posted by intifadanyz

As Hayasdan, Faction Leader and Faction Heir must be from House of Yervanduni.

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Thanks, I've adopted this rule in my new Hayasdan campaign :smiley2:

A couple of other rules that I'm experimenting with:

"If you're really good, you get to go home": If one of my units gets so much experience that it's unstoppable, despite the fact that I'm using a "reinforce instead of retrain" rule, then it gets retired to garrison duty in the heartlands. From that point on it's strictly defensive, except when a local governor needs the aid of veteran soldiers to fight rebels.

For example, in my Hayasdan campaign my six Scythian horse-archer units retired with double-silver chevrons after fighting off the might of the Seleucids (three heroic-victory markers in the same valley!). They are now death-on-horseback to any rebels foolish enough to appear within my empire, while younger, fresher Scythian riders take the battle to the treacherous Ptolemaioi.

"Remember the Marmertines!": When I raid an enemy city to cripple it rather than conquer it, I leave it in the hands of mercenaries from my conquering army. They destroy all military and economic buildings and as many of the happiness and population buildings as possible while still keeping the population under control (sometimes I need to hire a couple more units to help them do this). They'll probably be besieged and slaughtered within a year, but the enemy will lose forces and time doing so, instead of gaining a garrison if I just let the city rebel. And if the mercenaries can survive long enough to form an allied government, recruit a local leader, and rebuild to where they can recruit a local garrison again, then maybe I'll let them into my empire in a decade or two :smiley2:

This one is really fun to role-play. It has great historical precedent (e.g. the mercenary Marmertines taking over a city on Sicily), and lets you play out a mini-story within your empire (can a bunch of mercs in an isolated unhappy city hold out long enough to survive?). Naturally none of your other armies will come to their aid until they're "civilized", and you'll probably get to fight out at least one heroic victory or doomed last stand on the city square with a bunch of battered mercs.

I have 1 house rule i try to adhere to: Maximum of 2 generals in an army, and only 1 governor in every a town (his sons may be present though). (this rule is however not enforced, if I'm Pontus or Hayasdan, I normally don't have enough cities/the bodyguards cost too much to maintain, but once the initial danger is over, the spare ones are given places to govern).

Other than that, I try to balance my army, which means not too much cav ;)

I try to avoid setting up lower level governments for "farming" local speciality units. After all, I see it more reasonable that if the ruler(s) had the chance and wealth to centralize power in a large part of their kingdom, they would do it.

I try not wipe out factions unless forced to, I try to keep older FMs to use as generals and Governors and keep younger ones back in Rome or Sparta or wherever mycapital happens to be.

I'm not really a good enough player to do many of the unit houserules, except in my Rome game, where my mostly historically-composed Legions absolutely slaughter stacks of Gauls and Sweboz, expecially when defending a city.

I can't use Force Diplomacy as I'm playing 1.1, otherwise I totally would.

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Originally Posted by Madoushi

I can't use Force Diplomacy as I'm playing 1.1, otherwise I totally would.

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Eh? There's been a Force Diplomacy mod for every version I've been playing (since 1.0).

Having just tried shield wall in a siege defense for the first time (yeah, I'm a little late to the party!), I might need to ban it. It seems... unfair.

Situation: as Koinon Hellenon, I got Massalia by rebellion from the Romans, complete with a couple of units of Celtic Lesser Kings. I've never played with these before, and come the first Roman siege I'm wondering what to do with them. Their formation looks too loose for my standard street defense tactic, which is to put a beefy unit on guard mode in front, with some spearmen behind (so that if enemy cavalry pushes my beefy unit back into the spearmen, the spearmen get all stabby-stabby with their spears). I figure what the heck, I'll put one unit of Lesser Kings up front in this shield wall thing and see what happens.

A 3/4 Roman stack approaches the walls, thinned down by slingers and towers to maybe a half-stack by the time it reaches my main street - basically a full Roman legion. At this point I'm expecting my Lesser Kings to be pushed slowly back into my waiting levy hoplites. But no! The Lesser Kings proceed to push UP the street in shield wall formation, forcing the Roman horde back with every step. By the time the mass has been pushed back to the end of the street, it's exhausted and shaken, but starting to seep in around the edges of the shield wall. So I charge in with one unit of hoplites, tell the Lesser Kings to go to town (off shield wall, off guard mode, attack) - and they rout the lot.

Shield wall turned the battle from the usual tense "will they push me back far enough to disrupt my formations and end up as a slogging match" to something of a joke. I mean, two infantry units routed a legion. Seems unfair to the AI :smiley2:

But Celtic Lesser King is a unit of superb warriors, not a bunch of pre legionaries ( and i assume there were Camillian troops - so no swords for Princeps ). Also, not sure, but, iirc, they´ve got a higher mass. But yes, shield wall is tough to break, but at the same time Roman units can do it too, it´s just they only seem to use that ability when outnumbered and surrounded ( i´ve experienced this in one of my Aedui games, when 1 unit of Princeps and 1 of Triari were confidently winning against my entire army, after their comrades were routed and their general got killed^^ ).

OT:

I´m trying to maintain halfway plausible armies, perhaps having 1 elite per half stack.
Not too many FM in one army, max. 3 with Faction Heir/Leader, and mostly to gain some battle taste. Actually only at the beginning, where i´ve got no money for extra cavalry ( exception: Sweboz, of course ).
I´m also trying to role play with my FM´s concerning their traits and heritage ( but unselfish character doesn´t mean the high taxes are going into own pockets, but for the "crown", the King and country :s )
I have not yet played a game where my treasury went over 100k, since i hate it when my good guys are turning into corrupt idiots, but it also may be the case, since i never actually complete any campaign, once i´ve got a dominance over AI, and all i have to do is to fight endless battles and manage near 100 settlements.... just getting bored and decide: i´ve won! :P

That wasn't unfair, really, it was just a bunch of superbly equipped and trained Gauls with maybe a bit more luck than they need.

We know that most of the Celtic armies the Romans faced were overwhelmingly comprised of part-timers with questionable discipline and even more questionable armor (even when their morale and weapons might be good), and the Romans' Pila took out their otherwise good shields, leaving them to fight as unarmored light infantry against well-protected heavy infantry.

In your situation, you had some of the finest warriors of southern Gaul - certainly its finest warriors who predominantly lived in a urban environment (their petty king's town, or large village, where they would enforce order) - holding onto a narrow position with little chance of being flanked. They had strong shields and the very tough double chain with big pauldrons of the latter-day Celtic elite. Essentially they were the Brihentin of city fighting.
The Romans, I'm guessing, didn't really make use of javelins (which are not as effective in the game as IRL pila to begin with) but simply charged at them.

The Gauls were stronger, larger men, used to fighting and with all the confident arrogance of any proto-aristocrat, wearing better armor and wielding better swords (or at least swords of similar quality but more length and weight), thinking that the Romans are lesser men than them. They were faced with seemingly overwhelming numbers, but the Romans could not use them effectively and much of the push of the rear ranks would be dissipated as men were pushed against the walls of the buildings on either side of the street. They were also probably less experienced than the bodyguards of two Gaulish petty kings, and when it came down to the close fighting, the heavier weapons of the Gauls would beat down the Romans' shields, heads and shoulders with great force, while the heavier chain of the Gauls could probably turn aside a short sword or dagger stab well enough.
The leading ranks of the Gauls would probably charge in between any Roman spears, breaking them and forcing their wielders to draw their aforementioned swords, which would be awkward in the crammed conditions, providing an extra chance for the Gaul in front to beat the Roman's skull in. It would take a direct and central hit with the spear point to maybe hurt or kill the Gaul. Easy for an experienced warrior to deflect with a shield, if only enough to have it glance harmlessly off his helmet, or a shoulder, or the right side of his torso.
While the Gaulish king's bodyguards, probably as close to urban ruffians as the Celtic society ever got on its own turf, would be right at home in such a situation, the Romans, unable to deploy their fancy formations and to use their numbers, should become demoralized and tired, and when the Gauls are reinforced with Hoplitai and start to attack more rather than defend, they might very well break and run.

The Celtic Lesser King's bodyguard are Neitos, who are very good. In a post-Marian Roman army, and possibly even sooner, they'd make sense as a unit of Gallic auxilia.

Thanks all for the background. I think I'll role-play the two Celtic Lesser King units as the two nobles who inspired the rebellion, and who will now always defend the city (i.e. they aren't available for any aggressive activity). The Romans are sieging again with a full stack, but I've had time to recruit Celto-Hellenic Hoplites and Massalian Hoplites - and since there are two roads onto the square, I can test them both in shield-wall formation in the same battle :smiley2:

More house rules, mainly for enjoyment of the game:

1. I use FRAPS to take lots of screenshots, both in battle and of strategic events such as diplomatic changes. Any given campaign probably won't become an AAR, but you never know -- and it helps with the next item.
2. All important game info (battle results, war and peace, new units, in-game justifications for specific actions) goes into a notebook. This keeps the role-playing aspect alive (c.f. the Celtic Lesser Kings now being restricted to Massalia's defense), and also makes it much easier to pick up a campaign that I haven't played in a while.
3. Every summer I toggle FOW, take a screenshot to get an accurate worldmap, and watch the AI movements. Partly to contribute to the AI progression thread, partly just to enjoy seeing what all the other factions are up to.

Some more fun role-playing with Massalia: when I first got it via rebellion (with a spy in there to help), the city was on the verge of another rebellion. I had to fill the build queue with levy units to reduce its population and get it back to merely 'blue', while I built a Type IV government. Role playing justification: my spy had promised jobs in the army to all the young men of the city! Then I got the Type IV, put a client ruler in the build queue... and stupidly deleted the levies from it. The population promptly riots, couple of buildings damaged, some troops lost - and my spy is dead! I figure he was lynched when the population saw he'd gone back on his promise :smiley2:. So the newly-recruited client ruler promptly filled the build queue again, and kept the peace. He's a Spartan who's been to the Agoge: I'm role-playing that as the result of the two Celtic Lesser Kings sending to Sparta for help.

Edit: the Celto-Hellenic Hoplites on the main road went 7-343 against Pedites, Hastati, Ligurians, Hoplites, and Celtic levies, but a fair number of those kills were against routers. The Massalian Hoplites on the side road went 8-106, mostly against Triarii. Those were my only ground infantry units engaged in the entire battle. My two units of slingers on the walls killed 539 between them (including the Roman general), and my Spartan client ruler and his cavalry got 486, almost all in the rout. Overall losses were 29 dead for KH, and 2952 dead for SPQR - yup, a 100:1 kill ratio. The other 1478 Roman dead (half their losses!) were by my arrow towers and boiling oil, because Massalia has one of those twisty layouts that forced the entire Roman army to walk past multiple arrow towers. Brutal, just brutal.

After the battle I was worried that Massalia was going to be the bloodbath of the Roman empire, and they'd never get to the March of Time. But then I noticed that it's already happened: Sparte and Athenai can recruit Greek Phalangites. So the blood-letting can continue :smash:

It's a bit stretched to expect the city to accept a newly arrived guy from Sparta, who nobody knows, to become Archon (or Basileios, or whatever title he has). Especially in a Hellenistic town, he'd need to have made a name for himself in or around Massilia and to have put in work against the Romans.

Now, not to let this derail too widely:

I've just come back to EB after a long while with a Hayasdan game and I haven't really used any house rules (my army is full of archers for example) but I do suppose I'll have to impose some limitations on myself. Such as this:

I will not try to take enemy faction territory even when they attack me, until at least 12-20 years into the game, to give the AI time to sort itself out.

Exceptions:

With Aedui / Arverni, if an early war breaks out it will not be started by me (don't remember if they start at war or not), and I reserve the right to chase their armies, pillage their lands, and sack a city (generally not destroying anything) every 2-3 years if I can; if I'm really angry, or the leading family member is a sanguinary bastard (or I want him to be), I might Expel the population and/or destroy a building.

If I play Koinon Hellenon or Epeiros, I'll try to take out Makedonia or cripple it. If I play them Maks, I'll try to crush at least one of them.

Preying on the Arche Seleukeia is OK if I'm Pontos (up to 3 provinces), Baktria (up to 2 provinces) or ye Ptolemaioi (up to 5 provinces, but I won't attack Seleukeia or Babylon)

As the Romani, Taras is goin' down.

As Nomads (including Pahlava), I will sack enemy factions' cities at will but not keep them.

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Originally Posted by FriendlyFire

Having just tried shield wall in a siege defense for the first time (yeah, I'm a little late to the party!), I might need to ban it. It seems... unfair.

Shield wall turned the battle from the usual tense "will they push me back far enough to disrupt my formations and end up as a slogging match" to something of a joke. I mean, two infantry units routed a legion. Seems unfair to the AI :smiley2:

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I think the historical way to use shieldwall is as an entirely defensive formation. That's what it was used for.

Which means not combining shieldwall with attack orders. Shieldwall is not for attacking and killing the enemy troops - it's for blocking them and stopping the enemy's advance. Then when the enemy are tired and worn down, you break out of the shieldwall and finish them off.

The way to use shieldwall is to put your unit where you want it, turn shieldwall on, and then just leave the unit alone. Don't tell it to attack the enemy. Just leave the unit standing there doing nothing, and let the enemy just run into it. The unit's men will still defend themselves very effectively when attacked, they will take very few losses thanks to the shieldwall defence bonus, and they won't get tired either. It's the enemy who will get tired out beating futilely on your interlocked shields.

When you want to attack the exhausted enemy, turn shieldwall off first, then attack. Since your men will still be Fresh at that point, you'll slaughter the enemy easily.

Combining shieldwall with attack is really an exploit against the AI, giving your unit defensive bonuses it doesn't deserve in an attacking situation.

I don´t quite agree, at least in case of hoplites. Their formation was supposed to push the enemy, not just defend! Assaulting a settlement i put my hoplites in the shiled wall formation and let them move towards or behind the enemy. That way, once they have clashed with their foes, i let them do their job and can focus my attention outflanking and encircling enemy troops. Actually this works quite well in field battles as well, as long as the shield wall units are not surrounded by fresh, high lethality sword infantry.

I think that every shield wall using unit in the time frame had no moral objections about marching forward in shield wall; but for the sake of the AI, maybe instead of ordering them to attack in shield wall, order them to walk to a point behind the enemy?

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Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato

I think the historical way to use shieldwall is as an entirely defensive formation. That's what it was used for.

Which means not combining shieldwall with attack orders. Shieldwall is not for attacking and killing the enemy troops - it's for blocking them and stopping the enemy's advance. Then when the enemy are tired and worn down, you break out of the shieldwall and finish them off.

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That's how I used it - the problem seems to be that even with no attack orders, when a unit with shieldwall in guard mode is itself attacked, it starts (slowly) advancing against the enemy, which in a city street means that it gradually grinds them down. If you choose a street that's long enough, with no wider sections where your shield wall can be flanked, then you can just sit back and watch 5 minutes of slow slaughter (with occasional bursts of excitement where you actually lose a man). Maybe it's purely a unit mass thing, maybe the defensive bonus is too overpowered, maybe Massalia's layout is adding to the impact, but the overall effect seems unbalanced in my experience so far.

At this point I'm pretty sure I could defend Massalia with two slingers on the walls (to cut down any cavalry who might break the shield wall), two hoplites of any flavor (to block the square entrances in shield wall), and my general (to throw in a final charge and get 500 kills in the rout). The rest of my force just sits around on the square twiddling its thumbs and moaning about how much blood there'll be to mop up...