Thinking of starting up a new campaign... just 1 thing holding me back.

Rome with everything west of Sidon except Egypt up against Baktria with everything east of Charax is pretty hard. It is the lack of heavy elephants and kataphract cavalry to break up the phalanxes.

Rome has to juggle several logistical problems with recruitment of regional troops. Their lack of heavy cavalry and definitely the long supply lines going back to Brihentin recruitable provinces makes shattering phalanx armies a strategic challenge given the problems with logistics after suffering casualties. You can beat full stacks with Roman legions, that is no problems. It is chasing them down in the rout that requires cavalry.

And all of this is only somewhat offset by Marius Reforms. Not to mention the fact that your gold chevroned pedites suddenly become obsolete once the reforms kick in. That doesn't help with your ability to expand, either.

The house rule of requiring a family or general in every province along with some kind of local garrison means that even Rome's economy won't be pumping out too large a profit unless you upgrade every port to the max.

It is not that the battles are particularly hard, it is that getting the units you need to the front lines of Persia takes some finagling with the strategy map and also requires that you build highways everywhere.

One of your armies could win several battles in enemy territory, but eventually attrition will weaken your army so much that it won't be able to defend itself against Baktria's numerous full stacks. The use of multiple stacks at once then becomes a tough issue to manage. For Rome, not just enemies.

Baktria's strategic situation is much better. Their mines produce as much as their taxes. The common culture shared by Eastern Greeks also helps the conquest along. This doesn't apply to the Saka, of course, but the same thing applies to Rome. Rome suffers from always having a different culture, which makes holding new territories interesting after you hit the max distance from capital percentage.

That's funny. Getting your elite cataphracts at the Danube is pretty though too if you're the Phalava. Getting your Carnute Cingetos in southern Spain: not easy either as the Aedui.

What I want to say is: you talk end game. And some factions really, really have worse logisitical nightmares in that respect. As long as the core of the military is widely available you don't need to have that problem. As the Romans: you can get some pretty decent cavalry, on par or superior to the best the West has to offer in Greece. Especially if all you're really concerned with is dealing with routers...

<B>Getting your elite cataphracts at the Danube is pretty though too if you're the Phalava</b>

Why are you at the Danube with Parthians?

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Getting your Carnute Cingetos in southern Spain: not easy either as the Aedui.

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I don't see what that has to do with your disagreement that Romans don't have to conquer as much as others. Or even that the end game is not as hard for the Romans as others.

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And some factions really, really have worse logisitical nightmares in that respect.

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It does not really matter what problems other factions have or do not have, since it does not impact on the problems of Rome in the end game.

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As the Romans: you can get some pretty decent cavalry, on par or superior to the best the West has to offer in Greece. Especially if all you're really concerned with is dealing with routers...

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If you are refering to the greek cavalry hippeis, then I cannot really agree that a .15 lethality charge makes it a unit that one may call "pretty decent cavalry". That's not going to cut it against phalanxes and it will even slow down killing routers because of the low lethality.

If you are refering to the mercenary cavalry recruited in Greece, then that has its own associated problems.

Either way you cut it, you're going to take casualties as Rome and you're going to keep shuffling units to the front. Which is a consideration armored horse archers really don't have against barbarian infantry.

Not like you're going to face many 'Celtic' enemies as the Parthians or something though. Instead you'll probably end up seeing the Romans ... <_<

Lemme put it this way: it is fun fighting the Roman full stacks of Triarii or Predites Extraordinarii one or two times, if say, you are playing as the Aedui or Arvernii. Makes for a challenge. But essentially it is the same as with your dreaded phalanx armies: defeating them isn't the issue -- that they just keep on spamming is. What you seem to overlook there is that the Romans (or the Carthaginians) are to the West what the Ptolemies or the Baktrians are to the East atm: a superpower, worth to be reckoned not supposed to be easily defeated in one or two straightforward campaigns.

Mind you: I never said the Romans would never ever have a challenge on their hands; but it is simply not in the same league as what other factions have to face.

So to sum it up from my point of view: as the Romans you get an incredibly easy start compared to any other faction. As the Romans you will encounter nothing the others won't. But as the Romans you can always afford it if you don't neglect your economy - something that is just nigh impossible with most of the other factions. Hence the Romans can be considered to be easy compared to the other factions.

EDIT: I should note that this is my opinion. That's not the same as indisputable fact, for me it always worked out like that but others may have had a different experience. ~:)

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Not like you're going to face many 'Celtic' enemies as the Parthians or something though. Instead you'll probably end up seeing the Romans ... <_<

Lemme put it this way: it is fun fighting the Roman full stacks of Triarii or Predites Extraordinarii one or two times, if say, you are playing as the Aedui or Arvernii. Makes for a challenge. But essentially it is the same as with your dreaded phalanx armies: defeating them isn't the issue -- that they just keep on spamming is. What you seem to overlook there is that the Romans (or the Carthaginians) are to the West what the Ptolemies or the Baktrians are to the East atm: a superpower, worth to be reckoned not supposed to be easily defeated in one or two straightforward campaigns.

Mind you: I never said the Romans would never ever have a challenge on their hands; but it is simply not in the same league as what other factions have to face.

So to sum it up from my point of view: as the Romans you get an incredibly easy start compared to any other faction. As the Romans you will encounter nothing the others won't. But as the Romans you can always afford it if you don't neglect your economy - something that is just nigh impossible with most of the other factions. Hence the Romans can be considered to be easy compared to the other factions.

EDIT: I should note that this is my opinion. That's not the same as indisputable fact, for me it always worked out like that but others may have had a different experience. ~:)

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tellos, i'm with you on that. the start is incredibly easy, but moreover, you can mistakes at the start of a romani campaign and not suffer for them - in many other campaigns an early mistake = destruction or a severe penalty.

In regards to the running discussion between Tellos and Ymarsakar, I will just add this. . . in my experience, Rome has a more forgiving start. You can stumble over your own feet and still make do as Rome. Do so with Sab'yn or the Luistannon and you pay for it. In essence, I agree with Zooeyglass's previous statement.
To be sure, Ymarsakar has some valid points. And I will cede those. Specifically the pain in the @$# of trudging troops all the way to the other side of the map - constantly. I use more local troops to avoid that. But I do cede your point.
End Game strategies are not my strong point. So I will bow out of the dialogue from here out. Once I've got everybody beaten or on the ropes - i tend to look for a new challenge and start a new campaign. The list of campaigns I'm dying to try is WAY too long.

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Not like you're going to face many 'Celtic' enemies as the Parthians or something though. Instead you'll probably end up seeing the Romans ...

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Romans have all their homelands on the coast. Fatal disadvantage strategically and tactically, given AI inability to fortify towns if they aren't bordering enemy provinces.

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Mind you: I never said the Romans would never ever have a challenge on their hands; but it is simply not in the same league as what other factions have to face.

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If that's the argument you are trying to make for the Roman end game, then you are going to have to explain how any faction with their homelands open to sea invasion is harder to defeat in the end game than Baktria with their homelands that must be reached by land armies.

This is slightly beside the point of Rome's longer victory conditions, of course, but if you are trying to compare Rome's ability to conquer the world, when you say "end game", to a faction like Parthia's, then you are emphasizing factional expansion abilities over the objective difficulty of destroying a faction in the end game.

The objective difficulty for breaking a faction like Rome is made immeasurably easier by the option to bypass their land armies and strike directly at the Italian homeland. Razing their cities and destroying all their cultural/military buildings in as many Italian cities as you can, destroys not just Rome's military power, but every other faction's military power as well if their homelands are destroyed. The difference when you are playing Rome is that Baktria's homelands cannot be attacked from the Meditteranean sea. In point of fact, most provinces in the East can only be accessed by land armies. And given the distance, there's more time than usual for an Eastern superpower to raise another full stack after you have defeated two full stacks.

Provinces in the West are closer together, so you can often defeat a full stack and have two or more cities be undefended, easily reached within a few turns, especially with Roman highways built by them and used by you. Provinces in the East are larger generally speaking, thus any victory over the enemy is going to be hard to be decisive. It wouldn't be so hard if you could auto-calculate your battles more often with a higher chance of not losing many of your soldiers, but the only feasible way to do that would to be have to a general with more than 2 stars and a chirurgeon to heal casualties. And even in the end game, getting that kind of general is going to be pretty rare. And even if you did and could auto-calculate and preserve your soldiers, it does not decisively defeat enemy stacks. It just makes them run. Which means they will come back eventually, this time part of another full stack.

I recognize that Rome has a larger sphere of expansion with gov2 and recruitable heavy infantry near the front after Marius Reforms. The disadvantages that Rome has to face on the tactical, strategic, and logistical level when it is Rome the superpower vs the other superpower in the East, simply outweighs the advantages of gov2 and the ability to recruit Roman infantry near the front.

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that they just keep on spamming is.

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That's only a strategic and logistical problem. The tactical problem that really annoys me is that I only have 100 soldiers in a Roman infantry unit, while the phalanxes get 120. Thus not only do I have to get more units for the same attrition value, I can only control 20 units at a time. And phalanxes often beat lighter auxiliary troops in tactical or in auto calc, so I can't effective spam recruit axemen and have them carry the day. Maybe that would work for a few turns, but however you cut it, it is pretty messy and inefficient.

Space is a premium for each stack in the end game. Thus Rome is at an interesting tactical disadvantage because for every 2 units of Roman infantry, the East can get 40 more men with the same slots.

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What you seem to overlook there is that the Romans (or the Carthaginians) are to the West what the Ptolemies or the Baktrians are to the East atm: a superpower, worth to be reckoned not supposed to be easily defeated in one or two straightforward campaigns.

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My mention of the naval situation addresses that for the most part. Even if the Seleucids lose their coastal towns, they can still pump out phalanx armies. Baktria is in the best position of all. Their entire northern and eastern flank is secured.

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as the Romans you get an incredibly easy start compared to any other faction.

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I don't dispute that, of course.

The speed of expansion for Ptolemies, Seleucids, or Baktrians are faster than Rome's. Even though Rome has trade surpluses, Rome tends to need a larger garrison army for each town, given the number of spies being sent around due to the close location of enemy cities. That and the cultural difference between Rome and barbarians, Rome and semitic carthage, Rome and Greece.

Parthia's got a similar problem, but the tactical flexibility of their units makes up for it. Not to mention the fact that you can have an entire stack of horse archers and cataphracts, and thus gain a nice strategic and tactical speed advantage. It makes it easier to shuffle troops around.

Baktria and other Eastern factions do have problems early on, with razor thin margins for victory and defeat, but once their economy and borders are secure, they become much more powerful.

Rome's under a severe handicap in their reforms. They don't even get their best units with the larger recruitment area until past 200 BC. And their elites units before then can only be recruited from Italy.

This always made the Romani campaign fresh for me, but it also made it very unstable in terms of building up a really strong army. Since you are always switching out and moving around units, but it is not like Baktria where she moves her faction units from the capital to the front, for Rome it is the moving of all regional and factional units.

By the time you have moved to a new area, you have discovered that the regional troops you could recruit 5 years ago, no longer can be retained in your new provinces. So now you are building a new army and changing your strategy to account for the fact that you can't retrain your troops in conquered territory, even using regional troops.

The other factions have a more stable unit roster. Thus their unit and army management needs are much easier. Thus making the strategy part of the game less cumbersome.

How realistic would it be to use armies of regional troops in a Roman campaign? What i mean is, if i conquer northern Italy and build up the MIC's and level 4 (or 3) government, how unrealistic would it be to raise armies of 'barbarian' troops there? Not full stacks, half stacks led by a Praetor or something similar. The full stacks of proper Roman troops would be led only by consuls.

For instance, an invasion of Greece. 1 full stack of Roman troops, complete with Italian allies and led by a proper consul, and other half-stacks of Greek troops from Taras and Rhegion to support the main army led by the consul. I don't mind bending historical accuracy a tiny bit to make the game more interesting, such as not going into Asia Minor until the Marian reforms due to the fact that Polybian legions are completely inferior to phalanxes.

The classical hoplites are very useful, but they tend to get attrited very fast against phalanxes or when weird things happen like they get charged by cavalry from the back.

After about 2 to 3 autocalculation battles, 4 units of 80 men each will turn into about 2 and a half. Then your full stack becomes a half stack and your half stack becomes routed. My solution was to bring up 1 or 2 stacks of regional troops just to recoup my casualties. Problem was, they kept getting attacked...

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What i mean is, if i conquer northern Italy and build up the MIC's and level 4 (or 3) government, how unrealistic would it be to raise armies of 'barbarian' troops there?

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I don't understand what your question is asking for. Define "unrealistic".

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Originally Posted by Ymarsakar

The classical hoplites are very useful, but they tend to get attrited very fast against phalanxes or when weird things happen like they get charged by cavalry from the back.

After about 2 to 3 autocalculation battles, 4 units of 80 men each will turn into about 2 and a half. Then your full stack becomes a half stack and your half stack becomes routed. My solution was to bring up 1 or 2 stacks of regional troops just to recoup my casualties. Problem was, they kept getting attacked...



I don't understand what your question is asking for. Define "unrealistic".

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By unrealistic i mean, did the Romans ever do such a thing? Like when i look at accounts of the battles with Hannibal where the Romans got destroyed repeatedly, the layouts of the battle always show the same thing... A line of Hastati, a line of Principes and Triarii behind. Even when they were getting desperate and calling up everything they could it seems they still only used Hastati, Principes and Triarii. Same for the battles in Spain, Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, everywhere up until the Marian reforms.

Either the Romans only recruited units from Rome and the homelands of middle-Italy, or they brought in huge numbers of men from conquered cities and equipped them as Hastati, Principes and Triarii, because every single battle shows the Romans using only those units.

So, i feel like i'm doing something completely unrealistic when i use anything but Hastati, Principes or Triarii. It'd feel especially unrealistic if i raised an army of levy hoplites, classic hoplites, akontistai, peltastai, etc.

The war with Hannibal was fought in Italy and Rome didn't have much possesions elsewhere.

The situation in Spain was much different. Of course the army sent there was completely Roman (or Italian, if you like), but at the end of the campaign it was made up of about 1/2 allies and mercenaries.

In Africa the war was won by the help of a hughe body of Numidian cavalry, and there wasn't much more that could have been raised there.

The armies in Greece that fought against Makedonia and Asia against the Seleukids also consisted of large (as much as possible) numbers of local allies.

So, yes the Romans used a lot of regional forces.

<B>By unrealistic i mean, did the Romans ever do such a thing?</b>

As konny mentioned, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire made extensive use of regional troops. Especially barbarian cavalry and infantry. A lot of the Roman forces in the borders, like at Britania, were recruited from German or other barbarian provinces.

One of my house rules - NEVER sink an AI ship that carries troops. If you get attacked by one, use the console cheat to lose. Let the AI deliver its troops wherever it wants to.

More useful if you're using BI.exe.

I didn't read all the suggestions, so if this has already been mentioned or discarded, sorry...

But here's some ideas:

1. Do not initiate hostilities.
2. Do not recruit any military other than what's needed for city stability as a general rule. City stability forces must be lowest level force available.
3. Only recruit military expeditionary units for a set, pre defined, campaign purpose.
4. Decide on army make up prior to recruiting for a campaign and recruit only that army. No additional reinforcements. If army is defeated, campaign is failed. Must wait 2 full years before recruiting again for a retry at that campaign goal. Do not allow general to retreat from failed campaign battle. Failure equals death for general.
5. Disband all expeditionary forces at completion of campaign.
6. All invasions of your lands must be countered with punitive campaigns. All recruiting rules apply, as in pre deciding army strength and no reinforcements, but campaign continues until all area of the invaders' force is occupied.
7. Never more than 1 "frontier" army for rebel suppression allowed per front. Frontier army not allowed to have any foreign recruits or top line units, except for one native cav unit (local scouts). Forces for Frontier army must be supplied from home provinces except for the local scout unit. Frontier army never to have more than one half stack force strength. Frontier army not allowed into any village/town/city or habituated place. Frontier army must be kept in fort. Frontier army can not be used for happiness purposes. Frontier army may be used to retake cities that rebel.