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Let me start by saying I love the TW series, I ve got all of them.
Nevertheless, as the game goes along, I get overwhelmed with the management possibilities.
Does anybody have any method or formula they use to keep things straight.
I know I can use auto management which I do quite a bit, but even then it can be rather daunting keeping track of it all.
THANX
I start off by managing each individual settlement, eventually, I get kind of bored by this - and I set them all to auto-manage (but I order them not to recruit). As long as I leave it on cultural or balanced it's fine. If I need a building built, I disable the auto-build and queue that building up where I want it. I don't do this early on, because I don't feel the computer will spend within my limits. Once I have an empire capable of sustaining a few shocks, then I allow the computer to take over.
So far I have done several long campaigns including two complete maps (103 settlements), and I have never used the automanage function. They always set tax low and build crap facilities I never need. Indeed manage all yourself is very tedious, but you can simplify it by applying some rules.
Here are some simple rules I use:
(1) Always use peasants for garrison. Always garrison only as many as required to keep order >= 75%, with the highest tax possible.
Note: You can right click on the town tab (center bottom of the screen, then hit on the text "public order" to sort your towns based on public order. This way you can see which towns need your attention).
(2) Always sell all military buildings in settlements that I don't train troops. This gives me a lot of income boost.
(3) Always build the law/health/max. happiness temple in all settlements except for the military centers, where of course you build the military-related buildings (nothing for Julii and some other clans).
(4) Never leave idle family members in any settlements except for very high pop. cities (their influence help). Send them out to follow the expansion army and build watch towers along the way.
(5) Leave health/farm to the later, when I have too much income and don't want my family members develop bad habits due to inflated bank account. Also never build fancy walls - totally useless. (my style is more on the extreme expand side)
Building priority: Always build economy first except for troop producing centers. ~:) Now every town just look like another. ~:cheers:
1. Take your time.
2. Start with the tabs on the bottom, and go from right to left: Move agents first They're the ones I'm most likely to forget if I get in a hurry. Click on each one's name. Build more agents if you have cities without spies, etc.
3. Next comes the town list. Click on public order until they are arranged from least orderly to most orderly. Lower taxes, increase garrisons, order happy buildings or whatever to the towns that need it. At the other extreme, raise taxes, disband lousy garrison units, whatever.
4. Starting in your capital, go through all the cities while in the construction screen. I roughly follow the order: "happy" buildings first; economy second; military upgrades third. However, I usually play the Parthians. Other factions have more of a need for advanced units.
5. Back at the capital after all construction is ordered, then I build units. Be sure that retraining units is a priority. Now you can finally move your armies. (Obviously, this order can change if you need to move an army first so you can drive off an enemy besieging one of your towns, and so forth.)
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One really annoying trait of the stategy map lists is how they'll snap back to the top of the list when your agent or army has finished moving. You lose your place in a long list.
One way to get around that is to leave your mouse cursor in the spot where the dot was in the scroll bar. When the list snaps, click that spot and the dot, or indicator, will return. You'll be back where you were, roughly. If you have to, you can select the agent or army on the strategic map. Then the agent will be highlighted, and you can go to the next one.
Everyone's playing styles are different, so there'll be quite a bit of variation in build orders, what to look for and how best to micromanage. I believe my playing style is not too different from Maltz and I certainly agree heartily with his tips. However that being said, you should find your own style of management that suits your style of conquest best.
Below are some points on how I manage my turns/games.
I usually start off each turn with battles, I try to fight them all as best as I can and then save. In case the game CTDs or something else goes wrong, at least I don't have to refight them. Then, I decide as a whole on where next to move troops and finally comes town management.
The first thing I usually do for any newly conquered region is to get it stabilized. I tend to move troops towards the next conquest as soon as I can, so stabilizing public order for a newly conquered region is of high priority. Law temples are usually a good bet for a first structure and mostly my default choice, though if the region is geared at producing troops I sometimes opt for temples which increase XP or have weapons/armor upgrades, provided public order can be maintained successfully without additional Law bonuses. Alternatively, if the region is rich in trade or needs a growth boost, I might even try out Trade and Growth temples.
If Law temples are not available to that faction, Happiness temples are a doable substitute though not quite as good.
Basic roads usually come next as they are fast to build and being able to transport troops faster will definitely expedite efforts to get troops to the border where they are needed most. Of course if the region is on a small island or a desolate area where the next town is miles off and the main mode of travel is by sea, I might even skip roads altogether.
Next, I try to prioritize whether I want the city to focus on income or military aspects.
Income means building ports ASAP, then probably mines (especially if there are gold deposits), followed by L1 farms, then possibly paved roads and a L1 trader if base trade values are sufficiently high.
For upgrades, port upgrades are a nice boost but I usually delay the other upgrades as they don't really give that much bang for the buck. Too many farm upgrades can cause growth and squalor problems later whereas mine upgrades are very expensive, so after a port upgrade I usually concentrate on getting Temples upgraded. Upgrading Law temples means less corruption and therefore more net income. Upgrading Trade temples boosts trade at slightly less cost as compare to upgrading the actual trade structures, though the effect is the same. After that comes the actual trade structure upgrades.
Health (sewers), happiness/law (odeon/execution square) can be safely postponed till such time where you are in need of a public order boost to keep garrison costs down.
Military means focussing on a certain troop type. Usually if the settlement already has some military buildings built, I just continue along those lines to save time. I like to have a good mix of units to provide flexibility, especially for towns bordering on enemy territory as reinforcement from core cities may not reach in a timely manner. Some upgrades provide more important changes, ie Peltast/Velites to Archers. On the other hand, upgrades like Hastati to Principes are certainly nice to have but aren't all that essential that you need to get them at first opportunity.
Getting Blacksmiths aren't particularly important though they are certainly nice to have. Building the next military structure level will almost always provide more benefit in terms of troop quality. It might be worth getting a Blacksmith at a border town if you know that transported troops will definitely pass through it as this gives you an opportunity for upgrades by retraining
While having Peasants may not be altogether logical as the best town garrison force, they certainly give the very best bang for the buck and I very rarely use anything else for garrison duties. This keeps maintainence costs down. I try to weigh whether getting an extra peasant(s) units for garrison, which will cost 100 denarii in upkeep will enable a raise in taxes. From my experience, for lightly populated towns, usually an extra unit or two enables you to raise taxes up a peg or two, thereby covering the upkeep adequately with slight profit to boot, while maintaining public order at about the same level.
Special structures like Academy are only of use if a governor is in town and it may take a turn or two before retinue members appear, so towns which are rarely visited by governors will not have need of one.
One final parameter to think of is population growth. In general, just make sure population growth is enough to support troop production and you should be fine. If in need of a quick boost, I usually resort to slavery (though some players may think that a tad cheesy). I consider getting a L2 settlement (Large Town) an important milestone, especially for regions bordering the sea as that opens up the possibility of building a port, as well as getting your basic ranged and cavalry units. Having a 2000+ population also stabilizes the population pool enough that making troop units every turn or so will not result in depleted populations, provided the settlement has decent growth rate. Beyond that, I usually let things progress at their own pace.
So in short, city growth/management for every city will be tuned towards building up military or income or more rarely a mixed set, while maintaining a public order above the riot level and a decent population growth.
Also have a look at frogbeastegg's guide. It's a nice, helpful read.
Thanx for all of the answers gentlemen. I think that my style will be some basxardized version of your suggestions. This certainly is a deep game. With alot to consider.
I'm similar to Doug-Thompson.
In a given turn I usually do all of the following:
1) Fight critical battles/move armies
2) Scan the map for rebels, fight them if it makes sense
3) Order new troops/retrain (late game If I have excessive wealth I'll queue up whole armies and use way points to deliver them to a port)
4) Look for construction ops (If money is short, I scroll through each city window and make individual decisions, if money is long I just queue up all the health, happiness, and economic buildings I can and scan for idle cities.)
5) Move agents/sell maps (when I'm moving an agent long distances I always click them a path a few turns ahead so if I forget them they still move)
I probably do all these just about every turn, though not necessarily in the same order.
As the empire gets big, I tend to manage by exception a lot more. This means scanning the map and using the city icons. I just look for cities that don't have a green face, an active build project, and or active troop production if they are a troop producing city and deal with them directly.
I found an easy way of managing the building process. I only put one building in each queue. At the beginning of the turn you only have to look at the construction report to see which towns are idle (because they just finished their building). You give these towns a new build order and you're fine.