i'm currently playing as Spain, having done the edit of files to add all the factions as playable. i also tried the guys over on the right side of the map, but didnt like playing that one all that much and i wanted to play one that had been classified as 'unplayable'.
apparently, CA has listened to all the cries for modding. about the only thing 'unplayable' about the unplayable factions is that you wont see their territory on the menu display map when you choose their faction. the unlocked playable factions show up their territories, but the 'unplayable' dont. but that's about the only thing that doesnt work. even the unplayables have an intro movie, so looks like CA pretty much planned for our mods in more ways than one.
as you start going through the files of the game you'll see that they've planned for our modding even more than i had anticipated. i mean, there's a LOT of stuff in there.
but, that wasnt what i wanted to tell you, really. as spain you start with four cities, 4 armies, 1 spy and 1 diplomat on the iberian peninsula. but, you dont own all the provinces there. one is owned by the gauls and one by carthage. i didnt find any rebel cities there at all, which was a bit of a surprise. ok, fair enough, this seems like a decent start for a faction and the obvious first strategy is, take the entire peninsula. however, your cites are spread out, quite far away from each other, making putting together a good attack army a bit difficult, so i decided to take a different approach.
you'll find at least one of your cites in kind of poor shape. if you raise taxes your population growth will go negative, so you're income from that city is in the negative. the other cities are ok, but nothing to really crow about. so, first, i had to build up the cities. now, someone had a thread in here about farms, are they necessary. i'm here to tell you that sometimes they are not only needed, but that they're flat out imperative, as in the case of this one city that was hurting.
because i was spending so much money trying to build up the cities, i had little for armies. so, with my thinking going mostly towards money production, i simply decided to try a different strategy. i started selling whatever i could to other factions, alliances, maps, treaties and anything else i could. in one turn i finally accumulated enough money to convince the gauls to give me the central city of the peninsula. a few turns later i managed, with MUCH negotiation, to buy capula in the south from carthage! i've also bought out one rebel army and am working on another rebel army with an heir.
now, buying cities like this can be dangerous if you dont have an army right ready to take over the city. when you buy the city, the old army moves out, but are right next to your new city. the risk is that you've just paid all this money for the city but have no way to protect it yet. the old standing army could just march back in, take the city and your money. to prevent this, i try to make deals that involve delayed payments. this is one of the very nice new things with the game in the diplomacy area.
so, i bought the cities, the standing armies vacated, and the standing armies did not attack. in fact, they marched back to their respective homes. this was rather fascinating to me and showed a level of sophistication i'd not seen before in TW games and the AI's.
so, i'm now wondering if i couldnt play the entire game like this, make money, and buy the world! :) i have had zero battles so far and own all of the iberian peninsula. shld be interesting to see if it's possible.
oh yeah.... no annoying senate telling me what to do either :)
K.
