Brutii Giving up Sovereignty?

Hey guys...

I've been playing a 1.5/1.6 Julii campaign...I'm at 244 BC, and am progressing well (i think...for some reason I can't convert the TGA screenshots to JPG...they just stay all black) however several turns ago, and I noticed it immediately, the macedonians and Brutii seemed to be at war but then a message popped up at the beginning of a turn saying that the brutii and macedonians have become client kingdoms...abandoning all of their sovereignty. What the heck is this? The only logical thing I could think of was that the Brutii made the Macedonians become their protectorate.

IF this helps: I've been at war with the Gaul's since the 3rd turn...been at war with the dacians for about 15 turns...(never wanted to expand east, they attacked me when I started really turning the tides in my favor against the Gauls...looks like the dacians, gauls, and britons all have a pact going, and my allies up north are the germans who are down to what looks to be only 2 provinces (have had a long war with the britons...almost as long as my gallic war). The other Roman factions including the SPQR have gone back and forth at war with dacia during my war with them (never seen them do anything though) and have remained at war with gaul the entire time (same thing, never seen them do anything to gaul...but I play with FOW on). They've ALL been at war with carthage (except me) basically the entire game, and all roman factions including myself are really starting to blow up on the graphs...economically, militarily, production wise etc. The carthaginians as well as egyptians and Seleucid's are getting massively powerful as well (egyptians losing a slight bit of ground the past few turns). The britons up north are also getting more and more powerful, holding a large population of land and pretty close to finishing off the germans...my only true northern ally.

Just thought I'd give some brief detail as to where the diplomatic angles of things lie at this point. If someone needs me to go further in detail as to what's going on, I would be more than happy to do that...I just wish I could get my pictures up here, would tell the story much better.

What does the diplomatic screen show for Brutii and Macedon? Do they show up as at war there? I suppose it's possible that they both became protectorates of a third faction at the same time, but that seems highly unlikely. Are you sure it said both of them gave up their sovereignty?

i'd have to look quick, not positive if they're still at war, but when the sovereignty message arrived (same page that lists all faction diplomacy changes at each turn...who's at war, who's allies etc) they were at war with macedonia and it stayed that way at least for several turns. I would have to say yes, they're still at war if I remember correctly.

Yep, it’s basically the same way in my campaign.

Take advantage!
I attacked the Britons as soon as I conquered Gaull.

You can really run over them since all their forces are busy fighting the “Germans”.
Crossing the channel and taking Londinium in no time.
After that it’s basically very simple.
I use my all powerful assassins to reduce their chariot threat.

Status:
Their last two city’s are in the far east of modern germany.
Beated their final army in to a pulp and sieging their capital.

The “Germans” are stationed in modern N-Russia and eastern Europe.
They’ve been pushed back by the Britons wile I was conquering their territory.

For the moment I wont advance any further.
They are no more threat to the “Germans” or myself.
They have been allied with me since the beginning, and I’ve helped them alto Financially as well as military against the Britons.
But I know their going to stab me in the back as soon as I’m neighbouring with them.

ok I looked...ALL roman factions except me are at war with macedonians and there's not ONE protectorate in the game. Nobody has or is one.

Yeah I looked at it again...everything seems to be going the way it should (maybe my Julii are a slight bit more powerful than "they" (european romans) were at that time I'm guessing...I hold 13 provinces, about to be 14, have gauls down to one province, in spain...over the mountains (they're done) production has been pretty good, and I've done this with all provinces being at low taxes almost every turn. Pop is booming, expansion is inevitable, and I've had a big spike in military on the graphs last few turns...brits and I are lining up a very strong border though...know this one will be a very long, fun war (brits, julii)..this is my question:

forget about brutii situation for a moment, if I wind up in a war with Brits, Dacians, it presents a problem. I don't want the dacian provinces...it's too far east, I don't need that now. I want to focus on Brits/Spain (spain is longtime ally, map sharer, trader currently :laugh4:) and take the entire of western europe/spain/portugal/northern islands.

Is this something that is inevitable, or just inevitable at this point in my campaign?

Because the Dacians are crumbling a little bit too...

this is 1.5/1.6 vanilla hard campaign. This is my first shot ever at Julii, and my first shot at 1.5. I just don't know what the tendancies are and have any "checkpoint" for relevency, if you will.

I have never seen a "giving up sovereignty" message in my 2 campaigns. Never seen a Protetorate event. They are the same thing ..yes ?

I really dont know why a roman faction would give up its sovereignty. I cenrtainly dont expect that to happen to Brutll with my new campaign..I am Brutii.

In answer to the post above. This image is RTW V1.5 m/m. No Mods.
https://img131.imageshack.us/img131/...arch4rs.th.jpg
Some way to go yet. Strategy was to finish Spain, Balerics then work eastwards across North Africa using the forces released once Spain was beat. Was allied to Thrace who fought Dacia . So I didnt need to open a second front until I was ready. When I did Dacia and then long time Ally Thrace fell.

see, that's totally not how the hard campaign seems to go and I why I still won't play medium...it's almost a "guarantee" that you're going to reach that point before the marius reforms any time you use a roman faction. I actually have never heard of someone not winning on medium using the romans.

1) there's NO way you'd get anywhere near even 25 provinces by 240bc, because they never allow you to focus on one war at a time. I told you, it's like a timer, the minute you're ready to break the back of one faction, the other one attacks you hard enough that you have to totally forget about conquest on the other front, now you can just keep pressure applied...not go for the throat.

2) thrace and dacia didn't fight....thrace hasn't really done anything, although now the brutii are attacking them. The entire of europe/russia/asia has kind of worked together against all of rome's expansion, and the entire of carthage egypt (whole southern part of the world) has done the same, moving up north and east.

3) the britons start getting very very powerful and build a very long, well defended border over time, just north of you. I'm doing the same...that war will take a LONG time.

4) I am also using huge armies...population is very difficult to control...have had to use low taxes on virtually every settlement, every turn to keep my population and popularity with the people rising.

5) something I noticed in 1.5: the cpu actually uses it's intel on hard and vh, whereas on medium it still seems to not really use it's generals to set up watchtowers and forts, never seems to use the navy as a form of recon, and never bottlenecks crossings, trails.

6) They just flat out don't attack on medium, even with 1.5 it seems. You are always the aggressor...you don't seem to ever get into a situation where 1 or 2 factions works hand in hand to attack you on 2 fronts. I actually started up a medium last night just to look at the evolution after several turns and I just didn't see any expansion still other than the romans and that. It's almost like the AI gives you a "cushion" on your borders and doesn't really do anything about troop buildups by the player...just sits back and waits for it. On hard and vh (using 1.5...1.2/1.3 still was weak) they don't "cheat" perse' but they are regularly doing "things" that I would expect an actual opponent to do.

I have reached a point now where it seems as if I'm getting a little "backdown" on both fronts in my campaign. I've taken up to 15 provinces now, and am about to take several more (have a full stack +4 units getting ready to march over the Pyrannes mountains into spain as we speak). Dacia has lost another province and is really starting to fall apart...every aspect of their empire is weakening at this point. I'm just finally getting the opportunity to "boom" a little bit and get like 3 or 4 turns in a row to just sit tight, build up my armies, and boost production a little without another faction forcing me to spread myself so thin that I just KNOW someone else will attack the heart of my empire.

that's really what the major challenge on hard/huge thus far has been. Just getting spread out so amazingly thin that I find myself taking 5-10 minutes thinking about where to move a unit on the campaign map sometimes. It's actually like a "perfect" game heh. Working great.

as for the macedone issue...I don't get it still. All factions are still at war with them, but they have this one little province just sitting on it's own next to the mediterranean and that's it. Nobody is attacking it, nothing is going on. I've wanted to go and take it (it borders aquincum, my province too) for a decade but I simply cannot organize an army to attack over there. Just too tied up at the borders.

I got that "client kingdom" message too. I can not remember well and even though it's weird, I think, that no matter which of the two factions appearing in that message became a protectorate, this message appears. I mean for example carthage takes over numidia as a protectorate, you get this message, but you won't be able to tell from it, who is who. I've had that in a BI campaign. Someone can confirm that?

yeah the only thing I can think of is that the Brutii made macedon their protectorate, not the other way around because like I said on my last post, there's only 1 macedonian province left. However, I don't quite understand why the Brutii didn't just take it and finish them off.

I've noticed something else, the gauls actually "colonized" right over by greece/macedon (greece as a faction is already gone in my game, as are the germans apparently) by having one province set up, totally away from everything else, next to the water. They have that one province right in the middle of spain, and then that one over to the east of the roman starting spots. I'll have to clean that out at some point as well.

I've played many a faction and many a campaign over the course of the past year, although this hard/huge Julii campaign is by far turning out to be the most complex and challenging. Saxons on Hard/Huge BI 1.6 wasn't even this difficult (honestly...I had much much less pressure)

I'm never in a position that I have to worry about my own lands being attacked/marched on (no battle, other than rebels, has ever been fought on Julii lands as of yet :2thumbsup:) but I, as I mentioned in my previous, find the AI really preparing itself against my assualts and cohesively working together to apply pressure on me. I've never noticed that in any other campaign.

Any additional information on Julii campaigns would be appreciated...and thanks to all who have contributed so far :juggle2:

RTW V1.5 m/m Large unit scale

My first and only full campaign already posted above ended thus:
https://img97.imageshack.us/img97/49...p1342at.th.jpg

In the previous post I indicated a single front. Thrace V.s Dacia tied up those factions in conflict to the east of my Julii positions. I also Bankrolled Macedonia (who was broke) so they could fight harder against Brutii. Used Ships and agents verse Carthage. Sank ships with full army stacks on at least two occassions. But I let Carthage reinforce its region on Sicilly so it could fight Scipii.

With those fronts thus contained I fought in the North. I had Gaul, Britian and Germany against me at one stage. Gaul went first and because I wanted to eliminate the faction (to unlock it..or so I thought) I had a big force in Spain as the last Gaul province fell. My second big force rolled up through Brition. My third front was trouble against the Germans. I had no missile troops to speak of and their spear wielding infantry were a pain. I tended to fight small stacks and spent a lot bribing away big stacks. Only once Briton had gone my forces marched east to take out Germany. By then I was mopping up Carthage (in Spain) and then Spain itself.

By the time I was able to march on Rome (the previous screen shot) I was ready to finish Spain. Forces in Spain then attack south and roll up Numibia and Carthage in Africa. This would bring those forces back towards Italy ready for the final showdown. Meanwhile my weak forces in the far North East were against Sythia...but not at war. Persia was my ally so I think the Sythians thought twice about attacking my east exGerman lands because they would have an enemy on either side of it. Instead Sythia joined in the Thrace/Dacia conflicts.

When I was ready forces in eastern zones marched south, and from Patvium they struck east to assault a weak Dacia. Spies opened the gates most times so new fangled ballistae didnt see action because they couldnt keep up with the field army.

During the capture of Africa and Dacia/Thrace I was weak in Italy. I did not attack there. The idea was to capture 49 regions and make Rome the 50th. That way I never needed to fight directly the might of the other Roman factions.

A bungled assasination triggerred civil war just before I was ready to attack Rome and I had a couple of tense moves watching Brutii forces beseiging one of my cities whilst I fought for Rome.

The graph above shows the relative ratings. Pontus finished third.