Goals: for Non-Romans

I'm well into my Egyptian campaign, I've extended my empire as far as the Bosphurus in the North and Tripoli in the South. I have secure borders and alliances with Parthia and I have naval bases on Cypres, Rhodes and Crete.

My Empire is at war with Rome but they aren't doing very well and I expect to throw them out of North Africa in the next few years. I might leave them the Sahara Desert just for fun.

But after that I'm nt sure what to do. I don't want to do the capture the world thing which seems a bit OTT. Has anyone come up with an alternative ambition for a non-Roman faction?

I thought about, explore the entire world and obtain trade rights with every nation. Massed spies and diplomats.

One of my favourite STW campaign was what I called the 'War of the Shadows' where I had to win without attacking anyone except rebels.

"mare nostra"
Capture every province that borders the mediveal sea - but as litte else as possible.

I've got one that's proving to be a bit of a challenge:

Rome: Total Peacekeepers

Goal: You have to play the game all the way through to AD14 and at that point the political map has to be identical to 270BC.

That means you can't let any faction be destroyed, any land that's taken you have to conquer and return to its original owner and the only land you can permanently hold is that which was originally owned by rebels.

I'm trying it as Egypt at the moment, as I thought they'd be the only faction with the starting wealth to make it viable. I've got an army in Parthia protecting my borders, I've got an army in Turkey trying to protect Pontus against the Armenians and the Seleucids, I've got an entirely mercenary army in North Africa protecting the Numidians and the Carthaginians from the Scipii and I'm desperately trying to put together another force to rescue the Macedonians before they get wiped by the Greeks and the Brutii. All from a faction that has only about twice the number of its initial provinces.

I only hope Western Europe can take care of itself before I can spare enough men to get over there.

I started to play a variation of that, Epistolary Richard. My goal was to leave each faction with its starting capital and nothing more, everything else had to be mine before I would allow myself to conquer Rome. Unfortunately I got bored once I got to that usual stage where you have so many regions and troops that you just outpower everybody else combined.

I've played Zorn's 'mare nostra' type campaign too, only allowing myself to grab costal regions, although that's still a large number of regions and again you hit the superpower tedium zone.

Another variation is to never destroy temples in captured settlements. This can be a real headache with culture issues, but it does add to the challenge. It also makes it very tempting to avoid conquering settlements until they're built up so as to get the effects of the higher level temples when you finally capture them, which results in enemy factions lasting longer and fielding more advanced armies, again adding to the challenge. This could of course be combined with another variation.

Then there's the 'no walls' or 'no stone walls' mod campaign, which can make life really exciting for city defenders. ~:)

flying columns of extermination:

destroy a faction. as soon as that is done, you have to destroy all the builldings in what use to be their cities and evacuate them. so that they all go rebel. you can only be in their cities for as long as it takes you to wipe out that faction. the only things you can build in an occupied city are things that help you maintain control for as long as it takes you to wipe out the faction. then move on to next faction. the map becomes a sea of gray.

As the Parthians my goal is to restore the persian empire of Darius. As the Seleucids and Macedonia restore Alexanders empire. As the greek cities and Carthage and Numidia, survive mother fucker ~:eek: . As the barbarians kill as many people as I can conquer as much territory as I can, and do all this whilest so drunk I can barely stand.

Well as Gaul you already have an objective from the starting intro - no peace with the romans! - eg: wipe them. Bit stuffed for suggestions after that though.

How about get every faction to become a protectorate. Now that WOULD be hard (and probably impossible, 'cause i seem to have trouble getting any of the buggers to ward off my wrath).

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Originally Posted by KyodaiSteeleye

How about get every faction to become a protectorate. Now that WOULD be hard (and probably impossible, 'cause i seem to have trouble getting any of the buggers to ward off my wrath).

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protectorate is bugged in 1.1 - u loose all your many to a protected faction eventually.
otherwise, it will be very nice.
On a side note, CA should understand than "conquer the world" is a least attractive gameplay mode because it becomes absolutely boring when your faction becomes powerful enough.
it can always be an option, but not the only gameplay mode. we need more winning conditions except conquer the 50 provinces idea.

Yeah we need GA back.

I think that short campagin is close to GA but i would still like to see some no military objectives to come back.

Anyway you still can play Bush style game.
That means: when you play lets say as Eggys you say that Brits want to attack you ( immediate danger ), so you must start preemptive strike :charge: .
Now try to do that in 10 years that should be some fun ~D

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Originally Posted by lars573

As the Parthians my goal is to restore the persian empire of Darius. As the Seleucids and Macedonia restore Alexanders empire. As the greek cities and Carthage and Numidia, survive mother fucker ~:eek: . As the barbarians kill as many people as I can conquer as much territory as I can, and do all this whilest so drunk I can barely stand.

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Hmm, admirable. However my understanding was that Rome: Total War was played from the seated position.

/plays pretty lit most of the time, too.

I'm not sure anybody has mentioned this, but you can have a change every different day by giving money to the poor. Think about charity, people! From whatever side of the map you are on, there is going to be a really, really bad-off, poor-start faction on the other side. Find this faction and do anything you can to make it become a large power. Give them money, settlements that you have that may be near to them, attack factions they are at war with, and so on until in the endgame you are now fighting a huge faction you never expected to ever become so big. Example: You a the Parthians, and for a challenging endgame you send a diplomat to Spain. You give everything you can. You bribe rebel cities nearby and give them to Spain as gifts, you offer them regular tribute, once you explore enough you even give them your map free!! And then when you realize carthage is at war with them, you send a couple of ships over to blockade them.

Oh, and then there is of course my favourite one which I completely forgot to mention.

Colonial empire! Just send huge fleets around everywhere with loads of men on board to find any random coastal rebel provinces and colonize them! Best faction for this: Macedon, as at the start you have nobody on your tail except for the romans.

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Originally Posted by Sinner

I started to play a variation of that, Epistolary Richard. My goal was to leave each faction with its starting capital and nothing more, everything else had to be mine before I would allow myself to conquer Rome. Unfortunately I got bored once I got to that usual stage where you have so many regions and troops that you just outpower everybody else combined.

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I know the feeling, but you never hit that point with Total Peacekeepers because you're very limited as to the territory you can take. And you always have to side with the weaker faction over the stronger, even if you just spent the last ten years defending the stronger faction from even bigger ones!

I reckon this one will go down to the wire. Unless I can convince to kiss and make up for a couple of hundred years.

My aims are usually to just make a nice sizeable empire, then once you have enough money build a gargatuan civil defence project. An ancient version of the maginot line. And then, start feeding 100,000D to all enemies of rome or poor countries, every turn. It makes for a very interesting game. I now have a border with a large Armenian empire, which is slowly expanding into northern africa. Meanwhile, i have kept the Dacians going for a while, so that they can act as a buffer zone in between me and the julii. They are a power to be reckoned with, the Dacians....

I know this thread is supposed to be for non-romans but still, here is what I like to do as romans. It's something I like to call Rome, Total Republic. Each time the Senate sends you on a mission to get a settlement you have to give it to the senate at the end of the next turn (just enough to restock your armies). Settlements you take on your own, you can keep for 10 turns before having to hand them over to the senate. Essentially what you end up with are some huge armies in senate territory. This works even better with that single-roman-faction mod that's out there.