A Quick Strategic Map Guide & Primer to RTW

Rome: Total War – A Quick Strategic Map Guide & Primer

This guide is meant to break down the use of the strategic map portion and features of the game. It is intended for every RTW player. (My first ever imperial campaign: Julii, very hard/very hard, unpatched, was used as the standard thus results may vary; also see Notes at bottom of the post; Last update: 10/07/04).

Index:
I. General Features
II. Agents & Retinues
III. Military
IV. Diplomacy
V. Family Members
VI. Sea Regions
VII. Buildings


I. General Features & Strategy:

Movement – Movement range aren’t equal for each units. For example, horse units move farther than infantry while ballistae move slower. Therefore, be mindful of your army composition when traversing the map.

Watchtowers – Build them along your trade routes to monitor enemy movement and bandits that are disrupting your trade. They have a specific range, thus space them out evenly. You can only build them along your territory. Thus, in foreign land, you need agents as scouts.

Forts – They aren’t really very useful. They also need a garrison that you have to pay in upkeep. Instead, use that garrison in your city instead and put that money towards building better walls. Instead of camping out with your whole army, just keep attacking and don’t let up, because the more you protract, the more they can build troops. Use sabotage as well (see Assassin)

Roads & Highways – Roads not only increase flow of trade but also benefit the speed of your troop and agent movements. Likewise, your enemies are equally free to use them to their end and purpose.

Manage All Settlements – press Escape > click Game Option > check Manage all Settlements. With this feature, you can control all unit and building production to your specification, efficiency and efficacy.

Plague – Quarantine cities with the plague to prevent it from spreading. Infected units that contracted it on other cities can be quarantined at sea using a ship to prevent it from spreading to other towns.(see Public Health Buildings for more info on plague).

Riots – Riots give very palpable happiness hit. Unless you have a governor, the best measure is to lower taxes or garrison (if the population is low). Keep building and upgrading until you get enough happiness-structures to even things out.

Devastation – Mechanism for causes of devastation has yet to be elucidated. I will check for prevailing trends.

Trade Disruption – It is caused primarily by Rebels and Enemy units parked along your trade routes. This can be painful, since you can lose up to half of your trade income to bandits. I have lost 8-10 k denari per turn (that was about 1/3 income from 230-220 BC after cost of building, training, upkeep and corruption) for about 10 years until I was able to find out which corner they are situated in. It is apparent that the trade networks is far-ranging, since the effect was empire wide especially those with highly upgraded ports and trade buildings, as well as the obvious nearby settlements with good roads. It is to your economic advantage to seek out these rebels and eliminate them as quickly as possible (by military force or bribery).

Corruption – It is evident by investigating trends that corruption is caused mainly by your settlement’s distance from your capital. The farther your capital’s radius emits to your cities, the higher the corruption you should expect. The corruption will present itself progressively as you move further out from your capital. If feasible, you can move your capital to a very central location. Another source of corruption is your governor’s gained Vices.

Squalor – It is caused by overpopulation and possibly inadequate Public Health Buildings. If you let your population explode unchecked, your Squalor levels will fly like a runaway chariot. Reason being is compound rate:
A 24000+ person town with a 1% growth will gain 240 new individuals next 6 months.
A 24240+ person town with a 1% growth will gain 242 new individuals next 6 months.
Therefore, lower growth of your satellite cities is essential, while your military towns will need higher-than-usual growth rate in the early years (see Farm Upgrades and Troop Production).

Blinking Icons – A post at the .Com forum posits that blinking icons are only present in Shipwrights and Dockyards not in the Ports. This checked out fine. A further test I did reveals that putting the Shipwright in the building queue triggers the blinking icons. There are no definite answers yet to what is its ultimate function. At this point, CA purports that it points to a possible earnings loss. But, put your mind at rest since as far as indications are concerned, no trade values are being sloughed off (thx to Andrewt for this) and you are not losing money. One last note: the end-of-turn summary is brief and doesn’t break down the earnings report completely.

II. Agents and Retinues:

Spies – They are used to infiltrate and reveal information about cities or army units. When inside a town, they have an ability to open gates during sieges. So, always bring one with your army. Use it along with a diplomat or assassin to scout ahead to reveal valuable reconnaissance. They also must enter before a siege. One warning: they can be killed in the line of duty.

Assassin – They aren’t very effective in assassination. However, you can use them to sabotage enemy structures and building. This is useful against towns you are planning to attack. Assassins need to know the buildings first before it can act, thus a spy is necessary for this endeavor. Sabotage the buildings that train the tough AI units. Like Spies, they can die during missions.

Diplomats – They are needed for negotiations. Make sure you have enough to go around. The higher your Diplomat’s influence, the higher his powers of persuasion is. Thus, use your most adept Diplomats during important negotiations (see Diplomacy for more).

Retinues – Switch retinues around to match your Generals and Governors. Take the good retinues from older governors and generals and give them to the younger ones. Give worthless retinues to dying generals/governors. For example: Bonus command against Carthage is useless when the faction is already eliminated.

III. Military & Strategies:

Enemy Trap – Drop 1-2 cavalry along with a couple of infantry behind your enemy (the red box outline). Then attack with your main forces (with the General). Those units will appear as reinforcement. You now have the enemy surrounded. You may also drop troops anywhere along the red box outline (see Reinforcement) as well as make your own special troop combinations. The possibilities can only limited by the particular itself.

Bridge battles – Bridges are fine chokepoints. To utilize bridges, one can park their troops right in the middle section. Whenever you are attacked from either side, you will get to defend the bridge. This is most important when you are vastly outnumbered by the enemy. (I’ll post a summary on how to effectively use bridge [attacking or defending] in part 3 of the Julii guide section).

Troop Production – You must have a Governor in troop producing cities. Combine this with the Enslaving captured provinces. Slaves will be distributed ONLY between governor towns. In addition, that governor must have a “Decorated Hero” retinue (or similar types) that give discounts to troop recruitment and training. Your capital is the perfect and central place to train units. However, there must be other satellite cities that should produce troops, depending on the where the current war front is. Keep a doting eye on your population. Make sure they are under control once you hit Large City size (see Squalor).

Reinforcement – All the troops along the red square will be treated as reinforcement. If your captain attacks or is attacked and a general within the box, then you only get to control the captain’s units. When the general attacks or is attacked you can control the captain (provided you don’t exceed 20 units). Generals cannot control other generals. It is therefore a reason not to bunch generals close by and combine units as soon as convenienced.

Lastly, you must have highways to get those troops to the frontline quickly (see Roads and Highways).

Quick Siege – Once you have Ballista and Onagers. You won’t need to wait a turn to construct other siege machines and contraptions. Instead, you will be able to storm at once. One balancing downside to this is that they move slower than normal infantry (see Movement).

Mercenaries – Availability is limited to a particular province or region (example: once you cross a bridge, mercenary units may change). They are expensive and their upkeep is a shade high but are very useful in tight situations (just make sure you know what you are looking for in an army supplement/complement and read their descriptions first).

Example: when your lightly garrisoned city is attacked by surprise: you can take out your other governors, hire mercenaries, split (them from the hiring governors) and quickly drop the all the units beside the besieged settlement. Then, sally forth with your General from inside. Your mercenary units and such will appear as reinforcement. It is expensive but less so than losing a large city to a large enemy contingent.

Another example: if you know your lightly garrisoned province will be attacked, you can take out your general and hire a couple of mercenaries. Return back to town and build a unit for another turn to discourage the enemy from storming while you wait for reinforcement.

You might say: “Why not just let them take the province so I can retake it for 5000-10000 denari” as a senate mission. It is an obvious design flaw that ought to be patched, since it can be easily exploited to often.

In general, mercenary troops are worthwhile in campaigns since they are able to plug holes your army possess or supplement unforeseen insufficiency in reinforcement chain (especially after a big battles where you lose about half your soldiers or more).

Rebels, Bandits & Brigands – Rebels will occasionally pop up in along your territory. They will molest your trade routes (see Trade Buildings and Ports). It is crucial to detect their presence quick to avoid trade losses. You have a military or financial solution; choose wisely in a case to case basis.

IV. Diplomacy: This is a very complicated area and the AI progressively becomes unresponsive as you gain more and more territory.

Map Information – You can sell map information to friendly provinces however, map swap appeared to be not doable. The higher your diplomat’s influence, the higher price you can fetch. I’ve recently sold as high as 43,000 denari (definitely a patch consideration).

Taking Regions – This isn’t very ideal unless you have a huge garrison and a Governor with high Management skill nearby, ready to occupy the town. However, if ever you get thrown out of the town, the Senate will give you a mission to retake the town for about 5000-10000 denari reward depending how fast you do it. Don’t try to pay for regions. The AI give away provinces easily early in the game, under the determination that you will be thrown out of town by rioters anyway.

Alliances – Alliances is a prickly subject when it comes to Roman factions. A good rule is not to form any alliances with non-roman factions since you are mandated to follow Senate policies. You don’t want to get in the crosshairs with the Senate early on. Another rule is: as in STW and MTW, DO NOT form alliances with your neighbor. Form alliances with your neigbor’s neighbor, for two reasons
1) Your Ally will not be able to attack your without moving along your neighbor’s regions. You get a good buffer zone in a possible double cross.
2) Your neighbor will foolish to attack you with your ally flanking them. If you ever get into a war with your non-ally neighbor, your ally can aid you military, making the conquest easier. It is a win-win strategy.

Trade Rights – Don’t just give out trade rights. Tack them into enemy ceasefire requests (if it is beneficial to you) and even demand “tributes” or “single payments”. Always package your offers and demand a lot. When you receive a counter offer, keep modifying AI offers to your liking. Don’t overdo it though; just get the best offer you can. The AI is a generally tough negotiator, but when they are weakened (early in the game) they will give in to demands (try “accept or we will attack”). Starting at midpoint of the campaign though, the logic of their offers and demands becomes ludicrous.

Bribery – Bribery is useful when you don’t have enough troops to at the moment to kick off and annihilate Rebel troops from your trade routes and resources (see Trade Disruption). When you are in a pinch, you can bribe some of your allies’ soldiers in the field so they will join yours (I have done this once when my producing city was losing population due to low farm upgrades and it might drop in tech level and I haven’t build the city government upgrade yet). Rebels just disperse when you bribe them for a good price.

Early on, I was able bribe rebels popping up along my trade routes for less than training price and add them to my Capital nearby to increase the population pool. Killing two birds with one stone: a) early one population will be scarce especially with the wars being fierce b) get rid of trade income loss. Just be careful as the AI can also bribe your army and your agents.

V. Family Members:

Governors and Generals – Only family members are allowed as Generals and Governors.

Promotions – A captain, with your blessing, can be promoted to a general. This occurs when he proves himself worthy by leading and winning a tough battle. (I’ve had a captain promoted as high as a rank 4 general). Upon your approval this captain will become a General and an adopted Family Member

Adoption – You can approve the suitor of a female family member. Approve as much, but just be picky enough especially regarding their age: the younger, the better. The older, the worse.

Heirs – An Heir will be automatically selected, however as the faction leader, you are allowed to pick the most suitable Heir to your liking. Just go to the Family Tree scroll. It is wise to use hone your chosen Heir’s skills by letting him lead in battles. In addition, he will gain valuable Virtues. Eventually, when he becomes the leader, you can retire him to the capital and with the right retinues build discounted troops and buildings, as well as keep things in order. In addition he can receive good Virtues from upgraded Academies. Repeat the same cycle with the new Heir.

Bribed Generals – Bribed Generals will also join your Family.

VI. Sea regions:

Ships – Position you ships close to your allies’. In an event of an enemy attack, you get their much needed reinforcement.

Refuge - Enemy ships never attack your ships docked at home port.

Blockades – Aside from normal port blockades, you can also blockade enemy ships from dropping off enemy troops along the shore. The red areas indicate blockading range of your ships.

VII. Buildings:

Shrine/Temple of Bachus - Due to unrealistically rampant population growth, this is the best temple-series you can build. They bring happiness and reduce culture penalties over time. However, you must destroy any remaining foreign shrines first on newly conquered provinces. You will get an initial happiness hit depending on the shrine defaced, so make sure you have enough happiness first. You can increase happiness to by 1) training or putting garrison 2) lowering tax. One note however, the larger the town the less the garrison make an impact. This is most evident on tech level 4-5 settlements. There is one downside to Bachus shrines/temples : in that they give your governor negative vices. The point being, Bachus is the god of wine and wine entails moral laxity. (thx to Vodkafire for pointing that out its effect). More on the other Shrines and Temples later.

Public Health Buildings – They increase happiness and reduce likelihood and spread of plague. However, they also increase the population, thus in essence they promote squalor as well. There is very little evidence now that they reduce squalor.

Farm Upgrades – Delay farm upgrades to avoid massive population increase and consequently, squalor. Make it the last structure to build in successive tech levels (military buildings notwithstanding). Once you are done building all useful structures, you are ready for the next tech level. Thus, the increase in farm production will also increase population to help you get to that next city size. This way, you can control city growth, and balance out squalor with happiness effects of the buildings you constructed.

In military towns (see Troop Production) it is acceptably to build farms especially when they rake in a lot of profits. The population boost also help in the unit training pool. As a bonus, it also aid in ushering you to the next tech level population requirement quickly to get access to higher and higher quality troops (see Squalor and Troop Production).

Trade Buildings and Ports – These are your most important economic structures. Coastal towns MUST always have ports quickly. While you wait for ports to become accessible (by meeting population requisites), you can construct shrines, roads, public health building, walls, an academy, a trader and even a farm upgrade. These ports can be upgraded to a corresponding increase in trade.

Rebels, Bandits, Enemy (and possibly Friendly allied units) will disrupt trade when they stay along the roads or trade resources.

Academies – The academy and its upgrades allow Governors favorable gains in positive economic Virtues.

Amphitheaters – A place where races and gladiatorial games are held to distract the plebians from discontent. Races and Games can held yearly, monthly or daily and provide incremental happiness at corresponding increase of costs. They are upgradeable to grander and grander structures.

Repair – Buildings and structures can be repaired simultaneously. Just choose a new building first then add all damaged ones. The new building will be constructed the next turn, while the damaged will all be repaired. I observed a possible bug where rebuilt walls still are damaged when you inspect at your city during peace time (Click the magnifying lens in the settlement details parchment). I need more tests to check if it applicable to structures repaired at the same time.

Wonders Of the Worlds – will be discussed later….


(Note: As of 10/6/04, a multiplayer Patch 1.1 was released. And according to Je”Rome: Total War” Grasdyke – a CA Dev – this and future patches will be backwards compatible with saved games. I’ve also updated, revised the Guide as well as corrected spelling, grammatical errors and added bold format that was left out from Word Document. There are many inroads in figuring out economics behind the game, however, it is still widely incomplete. There will more to come about this later. Enjoy the reading and the game!- Quietus) ~:)

Good post!

Excellent post!

BTW - might it be a good idea to maximise population growth in your two original Roman towns; to get the Imperial Palace for the Marian reforms in one and quick access to higher tech specialist units (archers, onagers etc) in the other?

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BTW - might it be a good idea to maximise population growth in your two original Roman towns; to get the Imperial Palace for the Marian reforms in one and quick access to higher tech specialist units (archers, onagers etc) in the other?

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Yes and No. ~:) Early on it is ideal to keep growing. However, when you reach 24000+ populations, 1% of that is 240 and it gets compounded again next turn. The general troop size I train per turn on large unit setting is 80 soldiers. (The troop quality doesn't make that much of an impact since there's a limit of training per province per turn. And in essense two good units from other provinces can substitue for 1 great unit!)

So, squalor levels will really go high and overtake all the happiness points. Thus, it is much better to build all necessary structures to even things out to "content" levels or else the province will lose a lot of denari just for upkeep of garrison, (which progressively becomes ineffective as the population goes high).

In conclusion, IMHO, there must be a great period of growth early on (in military towns) then there must a be a slowdown as your population get larger. And this doesn't take into account the slaves are that are pouring in from newly conquered regions. ~:cool:

Nice, lots of answers there, thank you for posting this!

Thx Tamur, all!

Hello!? Moderators, may I request this be put in the RTW Guide Section?? ~:)

Another thing I've noticed is that the Brutii temple of Juno halves cuture penalty instantly! Also, any suggestion for Scipii temples? They don't seem to have any "super happiness" or culture penalty reduction temples. Saturn isn't anything special(same as Jupiter basically) And Neptune is good for navy and Vulcan for army. So I basically build Saturn in small conquered cities for max happiness and Vulcan in larger conquered cities for troop production, and Neptune in Carthage, my naval headquarters, to get the corvus quinqureme. I was also thinking of demolishing all my Saturn temples in Italy and Sicily, where corruption and happiness isn't too big of an issue, and replace them with Neptunes, for fleet building.

Btw, there is a problem with Bacchus, and that is they give your governor really bad drunkeness traits.

Hey Vodka,

I've updated and revised the Guide. I'll include the other Roman temples later, but i've included the bacchus effect to the changes. Thx for the infos and keep 'em coming. ~:cool:

Something not noted yet in this quick primer... the issue of plague.

Normally when plague happens, one or more of your characters is a carrier. It is paramount that you isolate that character from same stack contact with any other units. If you right click on the character's card, it will show a skull in the upper left of the popup that says 'plague carrier'. Isolate that boy. Normally you will lose troops for the first couple of turns, then the major portion of the plague will be over.

What about the issue of protectorates?

Although this is a very useful post, I absolutely don't agree with you about Forts being useless. Sometimes it's better to defend a few mountain passes with a few peasants, rather then keeping a huge, powerful garisson. A nice example would be Tarsus, but there are numerous other places were this is possible.

This takes advantage of a little flaw in the AI: It rarely attacks forts and apparently grosly overestimates their power. Besides, forts delay invasions and allow the player to get up some defence in time.

It's true that larger walls will defend your province more effectively than any number of forts. However, this does not take into account the devestation and time factors; A city under siege will suffer from devestation penalties and won't trade at all. Strategicaly built forts will keep the enemy from attacking your cities directly and therefore allow you to maintain a larger income. Also, it will be next to impossible for the AI to do "raiding", sending a little army to siege cities, with as goal to sap your treasury.

Seeing you don't have any definition for devestation yet: Devestation occurs when an enemy army sits in your province for a number of turns. It lowers income drasticly, and it takes a long time before it dissapears. It's shown by black, burned, spots on the map.

you can use forts for extra advantage building them on the "enemy side" of the narrow mountain passage. causing devastation to their land :)

Thx to all the additional comments!

@TheDuck - I did made some points about the plague. I'll try to elaborate more on it if it is more helpful.

@Silver Rusher - Many Folks at the Colosseum point to the Protectorate system as bugged. I personally haven't tried it yet seeing no strategic advantage to it. We'll see if it is useful when patch 1.2 comes out ~:)

@Ellesthyan - Yes. I've already formulated the equation for Devastation Values here. I'll include it in the next update.

Also, I'll try to work your fort argument into the next update. My main gripe with forts is though is the unit upkeep. Enemy armies can be easily blocked by your main forces with the help of scout agents. ~:)

One note on Watchtowers - They can see farther if they are built on the tops of hills. It is better to build a watchtower slightly father back, if you can do so on a hill.

Good post!

Just got Rome, and this helped me a bit!

Txs

I am not sure why I decide to post it here because the google search gave me this for "plague & ship". Argh~~ sorry if this is the wrong place.

Just one little extra thing: Admirals (of ships) cannot infect friendly cities port all by himself. However, he can invite some garrisons from the target city onboard for dinner, so they will share utensils, cups and hm... whatever. Then the plague will be passed to this poor garrison unit, which can bring the plague back to infect everybody. ~:)

Great info in this guide! really handy thanks!

One thing i would like to add is - Biologicial Warfare!

When a city gets 'the plague' spread the plague all over your enemy fractions cities before mounting an attack once the plagues gone.
Just get a few spies into the infected town/city then send the infected spies into all the cities of the fractions that you don't like!
You can infect a lot of cities in just a few turns this way and cause huge troop loss for the other fractions.
Beware this is like playing with fire so just be careful you don't burn yourself! Don't let them spread it back to your own settlements!

This works best when one of the other fractions cities is the 'plague starter' not your own.

well plague, if one of your family member is a plague carrier, keep him in a town without visitors(diplomats/spies) and he'll heal after a few turns providing you're willing to sacrifice some of your troops.

Bribing the other faction diplomats early in the game, far from home can provide a good long distance negotiating force.

Having a spy scout the road ahead of the diplomat means you can sometimes bribe enemy spiesand or assassins.

Always best to check the target's details before making a bribe and using the spy to get them increases their espionage skill.

I wanted to make a quick point about Assassinations that I have found to work out very well and that were not mentioned in the guide (which was very helpful otherwise...corruption was killing me). If you produce an assassin and have them attack rebel armies ever turn they should over the course of a few turns become excellent assassins that can take on faction leaders or heirs. I typically will leave a small rebel force around the area i produce my assassins, surround the army with assassins and every turn attack the captain (which will be replaced every time one is killed). Because it is a rebel army and controlled by a captain their % of success is higher and within a few turns all of you assassins should be amazing.

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Mechanism for causes of devastation has yet to be elucidated. I will check for prevailing trends.

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Devastation is caused solely by 2 causes:
- rebel armies or enemy armies not using their movement points, ie sitting still in your territory. By default, rebel armies do not move at all because of this (so they can cause devastation).
- exterminate population or sieging, either by you or done before you. This creates black squares around the city.

The only way to remove it is to wait: Time heals all wounds. The way to check whether devastation remains is to have some spies and have every square in your province visible to you. See any black squares? Then that city will always have devastation. See no black squares? Then that city will have no devastation.

Still see devastation in your settlement details, but no black squares? Sometimes the game doesn't clean up properly. Devastation will start to disappear after the causes are gone, and sometimes devastation from rebels in a neighbouing province near the border may spread some over to you, which is not cleaned up even after the source has left. Little you can do about this, except to quit and restart Rome:TW, and hope the devastation isn't remembered by the game.

Friends and Peeps,

Thanks for reading and the kind words. I haven't been able to update the guides since I've been busy. I will continue the testing tommorow, and looking forward to updating the stuff here.

Here is another link in case you haven't read my other guide: A Quick Economics Guide & Primer to RTW. It has been over a month since I've tested, and I'm going to pickup where I left off, like I said tommorow. I'll ask one of the mods to move it here.

I have updates to post, but I'll build on it first. Take it easy 'til then. ~:)

@Sunsmountain: scroll up to my last post before this and there's a davastation link there. ~:)

:charge:

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Originally Posted by Quietus

I'll ask one of the mods to move it here.

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I've sent you a PM regarding this.

OK, can someone please explain to me why, when I 'm disbanding a unit inside a settlement, the settlement loses income? With more citizens to tax, I should now be getting more, not less! Unless it gets back up next turn, which I haven't come round to figuring out yet...

Also, sometimes I see what looks like the old pre-patch Medieval bug, where a settlements' public order changes when you open its' pannel. Sometimes it happens after I place a unit or a building or two on the cue, sometimes when I simply click the info pannel... usually not at all.

Well? Is it a known bug?

Erm.. The "loss" of income is actually not a loss. The game distributes your expenses on settlements based on that settlement's population. It grows larger by the disbanded unit, thus, the "burden" of the expenses (building, training, upkeep, etc.) increases on that city alone. It will not reduce your income. Example: Carthage makes 10000 income a turn.. your overall payment is 50000. Carthage's population is 40% of all your land's populations. So the city has to pay 20000, making the number on the map(and details) -10000. If it population grows more negative number upon the city. While actually it is paying off for you more.

Don't worry, you get more tax income as usual. Forget the numbers. Just look at the overall numbers of your kingdom.

As for the bug, I don't know. ~:confused:

Thanks, Antiochus... So it was so simple as that. Eh, I 've never been one for the math...

Hi Everyone,

If you are reading this; this an older version of the Strategic Map Guide. Go to here: Quietus' Rome: Total War Guide for the latest version.

I will ask KukriMan to remove this Guide from this section at once.

Thx

i didn't know what Devastation was and i've got loads of rebel armies hanging around my territories.. these must have a reallbad effect on my public order... i'll remove them at once, thanks for the info!

@ Craterus

The Devastation effect from rebel armies will hurt your income, rather than effecting public order. Still worth killing `em though ~D

Now if only the frequency of rebel armies appearing was related to the settlement`s public order, it would make more sense and be easier to control their numbers.

@ Quietus

Thanks for a very helpful guide ~:)