Ironman R:TW Rules - Post em if you got em.

As with M:TW we've found expert or very hard really isn't all that hard so while we wait on patches/mods to try and correct that, how about some good old fashioned Ironman rules? These are of course set themed(mostly) restrictions to play the game by, heres a few to get things going.

The Royal Family: Since you're building an empire you should start treating your faction as one, by acting as if you had a royal family. What this means is that the first-born son of your faction leader always becomes heir, or his younger brothers if he dies, uncles, then cousins, etc...

In addition to this you do not assign the best family members to wherever you want. The closest family members get given the most authority(the current faction leaders sons, uncles, brothers, then step-brothers, then cousins). So commanding an army or governing the capital would fall most likely on his brothers or sons.


We don't need no stinkin' maps: Your King wisely declares the trade of maps(either way) as an act of heresy against Bob, the god of Misdirection. What this means is no trading maps to AI civs, or asking for them, you go blind.


My horse for a kingdom...: When playing one of the non-Eastren factions you wisely realize you have no place on a horse and make sure to use them only sparingly. IE, no Roman armies with mass cav. The exception to this would probably be Numidia/Carthage, and maybe Spain.


Beating the Clock: You have perhaps an extremely paranoid or cautious King who dislikes long sieges and orders the attack the moment the siege equipment is prepared. What this means is...no starving cities and a maximum of two turns spent building siege equipment.


The Honorable Warrior: Your head general is of an honorable sort, preferring pitched battles to the dastardly ways others practice. What this means is pretty broad, its no exploiting the AI. No using archers to wipe out city squares or units wandering back and forth behind the gates, no mass cav archers/heavy cav armies. Pretty much trying not to exploit the AI, meeting it on equal terms. This doesn't mean no flanking or anything of that sort, just no abuse.


Parallel worlds are for sissies: Your King in a fit of madness declares the alteration of time illegal. What this means is no reloading, no matter wether you made a stupid mistake or not.


Fortify this!: Your engineer union goes on strike, preventing you from building any forts. What this means is just what it says, no forts. The AI seems to have trouble dealing with them anyway.


The one true god: In a move sure to displease Bob, the god of Misdirection your King declares that the first temple built shall become the god of the state religion, and all temples thereafter will be dedicated to said god. What this means is you pick one temple and stick with it the whole game. It also includes demolishing all foreign temples apon capturing the city so you can bring them the true faith.


Paying through the nose: Growing ever madder your King once again makes a decree. He delcares that only rebels/brigands shall be bribed, and that no foreigners shall lay hands on our gold. What this means is no more bribing enemy armies, only the small stacks of brigands/rebels. Why I allow this is because is even more of exploit to fight them and gain easy command stars.


Scurvy be damned!: In an effort to put on a display of their strength your Admiral orders that ships only be allowed to stay in harbors when resupplying(retraining). What this means, is no more hiding in harbor except to retrain, otherwise your ships have to be out on the seas.


-Hmm, thats all I can think of for now. Post here if you've got any to add or if you've tried out some of the ones I posted. I'd like to see how the game goes. :)

And one last thing, don't post here to whine/complain about X part of the game, theres plenty of other threads for that.

Try fighting battles from the perspective of your general (down at ground level). I've only tried it a couple of times just for kicks and found it too hard, but it's certainly more realistic. Once you deploy your troops all commands have to be given without the use of the overhead perspective.

I too find it fairly easy after the initial money crunch on vh/vh.

i'm thinking of starting a game and hitting end turn 20 times before i take any action whatsoever. and if thats too hard then try 10.

Bring me my peasants!: Only train peasants into your armies and nothing else. Town watch is occasionally acceptible.

"Now go away, or we shall taunt you a second time!": When besieged, you cannot sally from the city until the last turn before surrender. Any rescues must be made from outside forces. No siege equipment may be used in defense of a city.

"What if we built a giant wooden badger?": When besieging an enemy city, you are allowed 1 turn to build siege equipment. You must then assault or lift the siege.

Great topic, Chaoslord! ~:cheers:

'If I say we shall all live in squalid, unadvanced hellholes then we shall!": Make sure that all towns and cities stay at the level they were at at the start.

"One of us is the equal of five of them!" No army can contain more than 10 units.

I remember a popular one:

"No pause, and only stick with the commander's view ("del" on the general/captain unit, and zoomed in to max.). I have no courage to try it yet ~;)

"My hide is precious...so you go and lead the army"

Only fight battles with captains not faction members, believe my this makes the game a bit harder (especially when the computer bribes your army)

some of these rules are getting a little crazy but most of them are good.

One I have carried over from MTW is no merging units unless they are less than 10 men, they have to be retrained. This applies especially to ships.

Units also have to stay with the general's army until he dies (not necessarily in same stack, just same region) - they cannot be swapped between different generals/captains. I actually really like this rule, it helps give some of the units character when they have been campaigning with the general since he was just a strip of a lad.

Show no love for mercs, use them as cannon fodder, care not if they die in masses.

(accualy i tend to do this with my eastern mercs. *evil laugh*)

No using sap points, the ai doesn't so why should we?


No targetting provinces with wonders, the ai doesn't so why should we?

Actually the A.I does use sap points, has done it against me on numerous occasions

"True men fight for honour, not for gold!" No mercs.

"We rule the waves!" No surrounding of enemy ship stacks (8 ships can take out anything and sink it straight away: DON'T) ie, straight attacks only.

"Mechanics are for cowards and wimps"
"Bows are for hunting!" No use of any missile or siege unit during sieges.

"The horsemen are of noble steed" 20% cavalry maximum, at all times.

"We all can't be kings, now can we?": Army composition must be at least 50% militia/conscript/levy. Roman pre marians must hold as close to historical hastati, princepes, triarii. Post marians must have a semi-historical composition also.

I use some fo the following rules...but not as many as I probably should.

"The union says I only have to do one thing per turn." Single move per unit/army/diplomat per turn. No attack, force retreat, then kill 'em all. No scurrying about with a diplomat talking to several people and making multiple offers. No attacking and killing of three or four armies in a turn with a single stack. No running back to the safety of your city on the same turn after roaming about the province killing enemies and rebels. [This would really put you on a par with AI strategic moves.]

"Pack up the Pachyderms." No elephants in your armies unless they are present at start. These are too easy to kill the AI with. Alternate: use very few, only one unit of base elephants with one or two armies. [I use this rule.]

"Remedial courses are for wimps!" Only allow retraining of one unit per turn in a settlement. After battle you are not allowed to retrain all depleted units on the same turn. [I should use this rule...but I'm weak...so I retrain the masses.]

"Bridges are for crossing, not fighting." Do your best to avoid bridge battles since they usually handicap the AI. [I use this rule.]

"Save the fire for the marshmallows." No flaming arrows unless you are targeting an appropriate structure. Don't use them for anti-personnel. [I follow this rule.]

"Rover stays home." No doggies on the battlefield unless given to you at start or by the Senate. [I've never built any, but I have used the ones I've been given.]

"Fight like Romans, darn it!" Build and use your Roman armies as if they were true legions. e.g. for Pre-Marius: Deploy as velites/hastati/principes/triarii with equites on the wings. To create scale a single legion might contain: 2 units of each, except for one unit of equites instead of 2 (perhaps only one triarii as well since they were smaller sized units, and you want to end up with multiples of ~5 to hit the 20 unit max.) Substitue merc Samnites for triarii until you can build them. Hold triarii in reserve and only use them to counter flanking or to support broken hastati/principes. [This actually could be somewhat fun and challenging, I think I'm going to try it in some fashion.]

"No L33t archers" Don't buy or build any elite archer/slinger units. The AI doesn't do well against them. As western factions, use only minimal base types of archers--base slingers are probably ok. [I've been limiting myself to a single unit of elite missiles per army in some campaigns...still a bit cheesy at times.]

"That's a job for the locals." Use town watch/militia only as permanent garrisons--do not allow them to leave their province of origin. Have separate garrisons and field armies. Garrison armies may only have base level troops and perhaps a unit of base archers/slingers/or skirmishers. This would make siege defense challenging.

"Don't lose your head." Leave the head hurlers at home.

"Peace and quiet." Leave the screaching women at home.

"I'm not pulling that heavy thing around." No heavy siege gear on the battlefield except for sieges. If you brought it for a siege, don't let it fire if you do battle outside the siege.

"Your horsie lost his ticket." Horses were very hard to transport by boat during this time. In the Punic wars seaborn invasions were often short of cavalry unless they hired local mercs or had time to acquire horses. Limit yourself to two units of cav when invading by sea.

"One passenger per seat." To transport a full stack army by sea should require a full stack fleet. One unit per boat. Multiple trips is OK if you have fewer boats, but only one unit per boat per trip. Sea based invasions were logisitically difficult to mount and very risky.

"Farmers are our friends." Build each ag level upgrade before proceeding to the next city level. Yep, it will add population growth that is hard to manage, but it is cheesy to have huge cities and no ag to support them. CA should add food in...we might all starve, LOL.

An aside for self imposed ironman rules that might interest a few:
Another thing I did to make the game a bit more historical that required modding was to increase upkeep cost for cavalry. (Added 60/turn for light horse, 80 turn for medium, 100 for heavy and 50 for general's bodyguard due to size. I added 40/turn for camels, and 60 for cataphract camel--expensive armour to maintain. Non-generals chariots require 50 pts. more upkeep per turn.) This kept both myself and the AI from building quite so much non-historical quantities of cav. Default upkeep costs encourage cav over infantry.

Go throught the entire game without a single wall. If you take a city with a wall destroy it.

You can't destroy walls, other than punching holes in them during battles.

the "follow the generals only" view should be there. sorry if it was posted already. i tried it today with macedon and boy, its goddamn hard XD. had to move around EVERYTIME, i need some lieutenants or someone to help me with my commands o.o;

As Romans only take territory from senate missions. Then when Egypt is in Greek lands and shaking hands with Carthage have fun

I'm playing as Julii, and doing the following:

First it's using the Rome Total Realism mod, which makes it a bit harder anyhow. What's really cool about this mod is that it really allows u to use the Roman armies in a historical manner by splitting up hastati, principes and triari into 3 versions, all being available at a barrack level, and getting better as the barracks is upgraded.

Here's the list: :bow:

1) I can only train legionary style units (those that were in this time period ethnically roman/italian) in my Italy provinces. All auxilliary units (all ranged units, and some cav units) can be trained anywhere.

2) All cities are garrisoned by a couple of town militia (1 unit per city size) and a governing general. This is to simulate the use of police forces to enforce order in cities.

3) Only capturing lands via senate missions, meaning that some times i can't even fulfill what they ask of me, cuz it's too far or strategically unsound. Romans traditionally were only supposed to fight in defense of themselves, never aggressively conquer. Thus all Roman conquests had to be "justified" one way or another.

4) Only declaring war on enemies of the state, or if factions attack me of course.

5) Non town militia troops (meaning regular army) are formed into legions and garrisoned in centrally located forts, with a faction member leading them. Armies were never really garrisoned in cities, but in army barracks just outside a city usually.

6) Still trying to decide on how many legions (field armies) to use. Currently after 10-15 years or so, i've only still got one, and hold 4 provinces. Maybe a maximum of 1 legion per 2 or 3 provinces? Right now i can't really afford another full army anyhow.

7) Legion makeup is currently 6 units of hastati, 4 units of principes and 2 units of triari, with at least 1 general. The rest are a mix of auxillaries (ranged units and horse), though i'm not using many of these at all, mainly my generals are currently being used as cavalry.

8) Was thinking of not capturing territies unless i've got the faction members to govern them...but if i lose a lot of leaders, i dunno how this will work. Either way, any city must have a governor as long as there are enough family members available for the duties.

9) This is a BIG one :duel: In the tactical battles, i'm using general's view camera, the only addendum is that if i have more family members, i can use switch between army leader's view and theirs to give out orders. *So far this has made the battles seem soooo much more realistic, and be much much more enjoyable.

So far i feel like i'm almost playing a different game, it's so much fun ~D

forgot some hehe...

11) No bribing anything non-rebel.

12) No buying or selling maps at all...no free cash for we. :furious3:

13) My diplomatic policy closely mirrors that of the other Romans, and especially the Senate...well for as long as I'm liked by the aforementioned Senate.

14) No sieges past two turns (that's enough siege equipment) and no use of artillery except to assault city walls and gates.

The General's POV camera rules well until you assault a city with stone walls.

"King of the Hill" Don't outflank the AI to take away the higher ground from it before melee starts (if the AI is positioned well on a hill.) The AI is bad about standing there with its cyber finger up its nose while my whole army marches parallel up hill past it, then it watches as my army turns to face it from the higher ground. Why it doesn't move its formation laterally to oppose my climb on favorable terms is one of RTW's great mysteries. I'm trying to stop myself from using this exploit

I really like the Generals View battles. All you have to do is hit the delete button to lock into the general after initial deployment. Remember you also get access to the +/- keys to rotate your view vertically when in hilly terrain.

I start with my general up front inspecting the enemy to allow optimum deployment of the army. I gallop the general to various spots for better views. It can get hairy if the enemy has archers.

Once combat starts, my general unit is rushed from hot spot to hot spot to allow easy access to committing units into battle. It is difficult to plot orders unless you are near the needed unit or the deployment location. So you must ensure your general moves near the most crucial action.

I really have to resist the temptation to commit my general to combat because he is usually at a spot where he could sway the tide. But it is smarter to call in reinforcements. You don't want your general pinned in one spot too long or even worse-killed.

Also the general's view directly behind major areas of combat can produce some awesome close range battle images-especially when the dust is swirling and multiple formations are launching charges. Reminds me of a painting.

It is great. Try it some time in a smaller battle against rebels or someone easy. Then work your way up to larger battles.

I love this. A lot of ideas that I had not really thought of and am going to start doing in my current campaign.

One thing for me though is I do not like the ones that make for MORE micro managment then before so I never do those.

Gonna try the General only view. Sort of scared tho. :)

It's been said before, but if you play on vh/vh and don't sell maps you should be in for a fight. Combine that with a slavish desire to please the Senate and the Julii have a fight on their hands. I was lucky to have a fertile family and used my extra leaders to turn the tide of many battles. It's been a challenge, it's been fun.

A couple more -

"It is an honour to be buried with my master" (or alternatively "He's your goddamn drunken uncle, not mine")
No moving retinue members between family members, not even if he's on his last legs. Immortality was for the gods, not for lackeys.

"Tele-conferencing, what's tele-conferencing?"
Coming out of only viewing battles from the POV of family members, you must auto-resolve any battles that do not have a general. Omnipresence was for the gods, not for you. You'll just have to get the bad news the old fashioned way.

Commanding the battles from the general's point of view would be tremendous fun if the battles would be slower.

Back to ironman rules:

No more rebel hunting with family members. Rebels are unworthy opponents for your noble family line, send your captains to do the task.

Family members shall fight only other family members. That is, if an enemy army lead by a captain then you shall send a captain too (and autoresolve!).

Diplomats shall not be used to "defend" chokepoints, bridges.

You can bribe only family members, or troops lead by family members. After all who wants unworthy barbarians when you have the best soldiers of the word (playing a roman faction that is).

No more mass extermination. You can exterminate only 1 newly councuered city out of 10. And of course, no more tricks letting one city to rebel only to recapture and exterminate.