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Sarmatian Auxilia in BI are better. They're recruitable from any city with level 3 stables, are more tightly packed, and thus deliver a more dangerous charge. They're also cheaper and retrainable if need be.
And what can I say? Red just looks better than Green :thumbsup:
Are Clibarnii better?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
In the campaign, the Clibinarii have the disadvantage of cost. They also take two turns to recruit. However, they're far more difficult to take down, and have super-heavy armour and armour-piercing clubs methinks. They're slower than the Sarmatian cavalry, and the numbers should be equal.
Aren't you refering to Catrafractii?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
Roman Clibinarii don't have arrows, and Cataphractii use swords, not clubs.
Roman Clibs are Good,but they are Expensive,holy hell........
When you've got the top economy in the known world, cost doesn't really matter.
Hmmm, ERE get Scholor Palintae too. I had some in my latest ERE campaign and they're avilablr to ERE in custom battles. WRE also get Auxilia Paltinae (best spearmen on the game) and ERE also get Legio Lanciarri (legionaires with a spear instead of sword).Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
Anywho,
https://img155.imageshack.us/img155/...ktop5om.th.jpg
Meh, just on normal/normal. Quite fun, short of it is I kicked Sassanids into that crummy city in Russia, then took Tarentum on the end of the Italian Peninsula before moving up to Rome and expanding outwards from there. Then I realised it was in victory conditions to take Carthage so I sent a small expeditionary force out to take it from the small WRE garrison.
Hm, didn't know that as I play WRE instead. Anyway, difference is that the WRE have less uber cavalry, so some people might build the SP. In the ERE you wouldn't though, since they're so bad compared to the cataphracts or clibinarii in terms of cost:effectiveness in my opinion.
Interesting to see how easy it is in M/M: the Huns settling so early and the Franks not hording. Where are the Goths, by the way? :inquisitive:
Erm, Goths where hording around Alemanni sort of territory. Sarmatrians sieged Mediolanum, I defended and after that they where hovering around in my lands (I think if I hadn't have won the game they'd have sieged in the next few turns)
To be fair to the Huns, they did siege Constantinople every turn lol.
IMO ERE campaign would be more fun if:
A)Sassanids could recruit Sughdians anywhere, their mass spearmen armies are simply easy to take down.
B)ERE had a faction to their south, surely there was some sort of faction around there in those times lol. IMO in vanilla the best campaigns where in asai minor sorta area due to all the successor states around you.
I don't think there was much of a unified African nation that was a threat to the ERE. I think there was more African in-fighting as opposed to fighting against the Romans, but I might be wrong.
The Sarmies should be destroyed immediately when they're in a horde, so should the Goths. Then you could go for unification :2thumbsup:
Unified Rome seems like the only true campaign completion to me, but that's just me.
The Huns should just be made to horde when you have a stack defending the pass. I did this on H/M, and the stack annihilated all the ultra-aggressive Hun, destroying them (they just kept sending stacks at me, which usually had family members. The lack of any characters ends their lifespan :thumbsup:)
wow if you think that the ERE large and disorganized then you should look at the WREQuote:
In RTWBI, the Eastern Roman Empire may seem extremely vast and unorganized at first glance but this isnt the case
I noticed something interesting - it appears that horde aggression depends in part on whether they can see you. I had a diplomat visiting the Ukraine a few years after the start of the game, and he found the Huns in Sarmatia. When I chose to have him keep going and head through Dacia, both the Vandals and the Huns declared war and started moving their huge scary stacks my way. Having the diplomat run back out of sight towards Roxolani territory led to just the "Transgression!" message and DoW from the Vandals, with no visible movement in my direction (two turns later, one Hun stack just reached the edge of my watchtower field of view; I'm guessing they'll attack soon...). Lesson learned - don't screw around with diplomats up in Barbaricum!
I also have a completely unrelated question - why are limitanei and legio lancarii type "missile" rather than "light" or "heavy"? I find that very odd. Is this an error, or a deliberate gameplay decision to nerf them as much as possible (preventing blacksmiths from upgrading their attack)? I'm also unclear whether the fact that they're classified as "spearmen" on the battle map actually gives them any benefit against cavalry, considering that the unit description lacks the "bonus against cavalry" note one normally sees. Anyway, for supposedly elite troops, the lancarii are kinda lame... :)
I was puzzled by this as well, so I checked in the unit_descr file. Legio Lanciarii get +8 attack bonus against cav with their secondary weapon (which is spear), and Limitaneii get +4 att vs. cav.Quote:
Originally Posted by jhhowell
Thanks, good to know! With that and the nice pilum attack I guess the lanciarii are actually better than the WRE foederati spearmen. It appears that my anti-clibanarii approach of using comitatenses (or the Emperor's bodyguard) was not ideal; should have used more lanciarii in the Persian campaign. The last two Sassanid faction members (who were also their last two soldiers!) nearly repulsed my assault on the town square all by themselves. I probably would have lost had I not thrown the eastern archers into the meatgrinder as infantry, and I did lose my general, most of my regular infantry (no units lost, but most down to single digits), and all but one man from my hippo-toxatai. ~:(Quote:
Originally Posted by Biggus Diccus
On the plus side, I'm thinking a Sassanid game sometime would be a lot of fun, abusing these insanely powerful clibanarii immortals.
Is there any way to get back a title, if the person holding it dies? This particular general was the magister peditum...
More circumstantial support for the "horde attacks what they see" theory - the Huns DoWed the Goths as one might expect, rather than charging immediately towards the Danube as in that one save game with my diplomat standing right in front of their stacks. Still no sign of those Vandals who are theoretically at war with me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Afro Thunder
How do iou wreck a pagan temple?:help:
Right click, then click on the hammer icon. Just like destroying any other building (aqueducts in Alexandria and Constantinople, for example - very very handy for some early cash while reducing excessive population growth).Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewmuir
I haven't tried this yet, but I think you can get away with keeping some of the pagan provinces as is, which would then allow you to upgrade troops at Mithras temples. I plan to try being as pagan as possible in my next ERE game. The one positive side of going all Christian is that it should strengthen the WRER - if Cyrenaica flips Christian, Tripolitania will revolt, while if Cyrenaica stays Pagan Tripolitania can remain Pagan as well. The western Balkan provinces can likewise push Salona into revolt if they go Christian.
It's quite a good idea to have some temples of the opposing religion. not only for the perks of said temple but it gives you somewhere to pack family members of the 'wrong' religion to.
The same can be said for Pagan factions-simply use a Christian city as a priest factory.
What, exactly, to priests do? Is whatever bonus they give nearby units worth the bother? I've always disbanded the buggers on sight, and never even considered building new ones. Better to have that 100+ maintenance going towards limetanei, archers, 2-3 peasants, whatever. The monks in the Badon Hill scenario didn't have any effect strong enough for me to notice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithras
Personally I don't worry too much about the religion of individual governors. If they're good they're almost certainly worth the 5-10% unrest of a religion mismatch, while if they suck they shouldn't be governors at all. Loitering in the province is a good default task for bad governors of a minority religion, I suppose. Though I'm partial to getting them killed off fighting large rebel stacks, myself. :beam:
Well Romans do have units enought to stand against most threats without priests, but they are worth to use! For example I once used to play the Goths, which have only fair spearunits to defend a bridge, but are always close to get routed when under hard preassure and enemy missles. If you have some priests behind them making their songs those units will stand much longer and in most cases the spearmen will easier get anhilated insted to get routed. This way is easy to boost your defence with priests, which also scare the enemy a little bit. So always try to use priests to boost your defence. Mounted priests for Vandal armies are great as they can move fast to any point at the battle field...Quote:
Originally Posted by jhhowell
So: Priests only boost own forces, but are no match alone. So test and judge for your own.
They have their uses for low lever armies or barbarian forces. High tech Roman armies are better off with the Mithras experiance bonus.
Yes, for pure combat experience this is right. But it is far easier to handle the empire if you convert to Christianity early on to keep your empire quite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithras
Using priests helps to let your nearby units fight as if there is no tomorrow.
So all over all I prefer Christianity to keep my ER-Empire running, even when I miss the boni of Mithras.
Maybe there is a compromise, when you convert an isle-province into a pagan city of Mithras-belivers. You will not have to deal with the influence of the churches of adjecting provinces and the open sea is great for to ship your units fast to their destiny.
Hi, new member, and I just had a very interesting experience fighting for the Eastern Roman Empire. I’m not sure if I can offer a coherent overall strategy any diffrent from what's already out there, but I can tell you of a campaign that went off in a number of completely unexpected ways, and how I dealt with it.
At the beginning, having read all the guides here, I gathered up all the forces I could and sent them to block the incoming hordes at the Danube. After Christianizing my empire and fortifying Ceaseria, I concentrated everything I had on the Persians. I sent a wave of assassins and spies before my main force, targeting each and they wiped out everything, from rebel soldiers to Sassanid generals. Before long, one or two of them were “the Killer”, and were very, very good, indeed.
There was very little open combat against the Sassanids. It was the quietest war I’ve ever fought in this game. The only time my forces met the Persians directly were when one of us attacked a city. I took out their most powerful unit with assassins, so I only met armored horsemen a few times. They mostly tried to take Ceaseria, but I had begun building it’s defenses early, so they failed each time.
My main force took it’s time, concentrating on maintaining control and converting the population. Since spies have the “Christian” trait, I often sent a large number of them into an enemy settlement ahead of time, causing a nice deal of civil unrest, in a couple of instances. I used the money from looting and devastating cities to bribe one or two Sassanid family members. The presence of a local, Zoroastrian governor with helped ease the transition.
Finally, in an extremely fortuitous couple of turns, I managed to assassinate the Sassanid king, and the faction heir, which pretty much ended any serious resistence, although it was a little while longer before I finally came and finished them off.
I had no idea I could be so lucky . . . which is why I stupidly failed to anticipate a sudden change in fortunes.
The defensive line at the Danube failed. Somehow. While the Huns completely passed it by, they drove out the Sarmatians, When the Sarmatian hordes appeared, they appeared on my side of the river! I’ve never seen that happen!
My forces were too spread out and totally unprepared for anything of this nature. I drew back from the Danube, and defeated one of the Sarmatian armies, but several more reached Constantinople, and put the city under siege. The Vandals were on their way in through the gap, and I just decided to cut my loses. There was nothing I could do about the capital, but I managed to abandon the other northern cities, and retreat to Macedonia. :shame:
The siege of Constantinople was a grand thing, I must admit, and it was worth losing the city just to fight the battle. Hordes of archers bled their quivers dry, and drove back the first multi-horde attack with heavy losses on both sides. Not only did they buy me enough time to get my general out, and tear down anything that might be useful to the invaders’ military, but they also severely weakened the Sarmatians. The Vandals rushed in, and the two fought each other, making it impossible for them to concentrate on me. I surrounded the town above Athens with forts, sent spies north, and waited patiently.
While I waited, I concentrated on my Asian empire. I swatted down the last, pitiful Sassanid resistence in the mountains. I moved the Emperor to Alexandria, and made it a major military and religious fortress, surpassing what Constantinople had been. It would be my staging area for my later invasion of Africa. Christianity blossomed everywhere, and I swiftly became the richest and most advanced empire.
Finally, my fortune began to change once more. The Vandals moved south, but they were spred out, and were crushed one by one as their reinforcements got separated on the map. I pushed north with my old Danube forces, backed by new forces shipped in from Asia Minor. As I got closer to Constantinople, the weakened Samatians were thrown out of the city by a loyalist revolt in my favor! I couldn't believe it! :laugh4:
Before long, I had driven the hordes back north of the Danube, right into the waiting arms of the Goths, and re-established Constantinople as the center of my faction. The Empire had returned to the city, in triumph!
The three barbarian peoples battled each other, and turned the entire mess into an inescapable quagmire. Eventually, the Vandals and Goths settled down to avoid going extinct, starting a long, brutal war as neighbors that drained them both, so that I never even needed to bother crushing them. The Samatians somehow escaped into the West Empire, and set their home up far away from the true Romans of the East. Meanwhile, I seized control of all the sacked rebel provinces, regaining all my lost land and more, all the way to the Aegean Sea.
My Empire was whole once more, and stronger than it had ever been.
In rebuilding, the new governor of Constantinople gathered a huge retinue of sacred relics and sacred people and Christian conversion traits. I couldn’t believe this man’s ability to convert. He could turn a completely pagan city Christian in just three or four turns. I have no idea how I managed to make a character who specialized in that (building churches, monasteries, and libraries, I suppose), but he turned out to be a potent asset, later on. I tagged him as faction heir, knowing that having such a man with such powerful faith as Emperor would be useful.
From Alexandria, I sat out on my long-delayed quest to seize the land of the Berbers, and establish Roman dominance over Africa, when yet another reversal of fortune occurred. In spite of my rising fortunes and extremely generous donations to the Western Empire over the years, an arriving diplomat told me that they were breaking off their alliance with me, dividing the Empire! Outraged, I sent spies to learn more, and found out that, not only did the West not like me anymore, but that the Western Emperor was a Pagan! Christian persecution must have returned in the west.
Infuriated by this betrayal, I set to work reorganizing my forces into an army of the East. I drew from my army in the now-pacified Persian lands. I built my forces primarily around the idea that the West wouldn’t have experience fighting Eastern units. My new African army consisted of basic spearmen and cohorts, a first cohort, supporting a number of horse archers, Clibinarii, and Eastern archers, eastern mercenaries, and a set of onagers.
The war went very well: hardly surprising, since my army could crush just about anything. If the Berbers had ever caused trouble for the Westerners, I couldn’t see it. Most of the cities were defended by a few light infantry and cavalry, which my archers and heavy horsemen tore to pieces in moments. I exterminated the cities as revenge for the Westerners betrayal, and turned my eyes to the Berbers.
They had gathered a huge stack, short on archers, in a fort in the road on the edge of their territory. A mistake. Instead of blasting down the gate with my onagers, I waited a turn to build a ram and recruit a balista team. At the beginning of the battle, I deployed my many archers around the fort, and basically surrounded it. They had no place to run. As they hid behind their wall in fear of my cavalry, my archers and siege engines slaughtered the tightly packed fools like fish in a barrel. Hundreds died. By the time the ammunition ran dry, half more their force was dead, and the other was half essentially dying and completely demoralized. I rammed down the gate and massacred the broken survivors. After that, the Berbers fell quickly. I turned Tirigi into a fortress, to block any attempt to invade my empire from Iberia.
Africa was secure. To the East, there was nothing but sand. North of the Danube, the exhausted barbarians scurried to earn my favor, in a laughable attempt to get me to ally with them, turning the tide of their little war. Years of war and settling had bled dry their loot. They knew any army caught approaching the river would be slaughtered to the last man, and avoided my territory entirely. In Constantinople, the general, now Emperor of my faction, had almost become a saint; a one-man conversion team, and a potent weapon against the pagan Emperor of the West.
The time of the divided Empire was over. The time of the old gods was over. The Empire of old would be reunited, under my rule, under my church, rather they liked it or not.
My powerful navy gathered my scattered forces from Persia, Asia, Macedon, and Africa, and landed them in south Italy, under the command of the Saint, who was now the Emperor. Italy hadn’t been invaded in this manner since the early Republic, and it caught them completely by surprise. I occupied Tarentum after disposing of the token resistence, and the faithful, mostly Christian populace welcomed me with open arms. The rest of the population was swiftly converted by my Saint, and the next turn, I was told that Christianity was now the dominant faith in the world. My population had boomed, while the pagans and other barbarians in the north and west had slaughtered each other.
Two turns later, it was raining arrows in Rome. The surprised defenders fell in droves, and soon, my army marched into the center square and claimed the city, and the Empire. Rome’s advanced military infrastructure, combined with my other cities' income, allowed me to make my army even stronger. I swept over the rest of Italy, driving out the red Romans, converting the pagans, and winning both the war and the game in one fell swoop.
The Saint-Emperor died peacefully the very next turn, having lived just long enough to see the rise of the new Roman Empire. That seemed like a good place to stop.
Probably the best advice I can offer you is to use assassins on the Sassanids,watch the Danube line closely, keep a strong force of archers, spearmen, and light cav behind it in Constantinople as a backup . . . just in case. Trust me, you'd rather have it and not need it, then need it and not have it. If I did it over again, I'd send those same kinds of units over the river, led by a night-fighting general, and pick off some of the hordes, one at a time.
I always destroy all churches and send my christien generals in to battle and I build pagan tempels and use the pagan generals in immportant battles. is it only me that does that.
Wow, very lucky there Malkut. Welcome to the ORG. The only campaign i won in BI was as the franks, and they are pretty easy. ERE sounds like a fun campaign from how you described it. Just one question, what difficulty level were you playing on?
I hadn't played the game in a while, but I wanted a bit of challenge, so Hard/Medium. The strange difficulty probably accounts for some of the weirdness that occurred. I wouldn’t try repeating, since I’m still confused about what caused some of those things to happen! How often do loyalist revolts in your favor happen on Hard?! The barbarians must have really screwed over the people of Constantinople.
They're a fun faction, combining my favorite things about vanilla RTW from the Eastern factions with my favorite things from the Roman factions. It gets a bit easy, once you defeat the Persians. Maintaining control over your far-flung empire can be a bit problematic, as no matter where you put your capital, there’ll be unrest on the other side of the map. I had to put down ERE Rebels or rioters every now and then seemingly regardless of what I did. I guess that’s what empires are for.
It’d be nice if you could have two capitals, but I guess that’s what caused this mess in the first place.
Plus, in a week or two, I’ll pick up Mediaeval 2, and pick up where I left off, with the Byzantines!
I'm currently playing as the ERE and I'm getting increasingly infuriated by the WRE. Despite my sending them 3500 denarii a turn, reconquering their lost territories and giving them back to them (with money too!) and sending valuable troops of mine to assist in defending Italy against the Vandal hordes, they decided to blockade my main naval port at Kydonia (with 4 quins, 4 tris and 4 bis) with a single ship with only 12 men. The WRE can rot in hell now, ungrateful gits.
LB
I usually just keep any territory ther was formerly owned my the WRE, lower cultural penalty.
Yes, but I was hoping if the WRE stayed strong that it would be able to stand up against the hordes, then I would have less of them to fight when I finally moved east.
Maybe they saw through my plan!!
LB
ERE really is very-very easy. The entire campaign boiled down to staving off Hordes and WRE to the West (via defensive/night battles) while concentrating the offensive power against the Sassanids. After the last Sassanid city fell, the rest of the game was just a mop up. I guess I got a bit lucky as the Huns instead of hitting Goths or me just aimlessly wandered the steppes. By the time they decided to attack my borders they were facing stacks of fully upgraded Plumbatarii backed by Eastern Archers with a sprinkle of First Cohorts... Needless to say, Huns' fate was rather painful.
Speaking of the unit roster....I never bothered training a single mounted unit. Just infantry/achers all the way with a couple of family members as cavalry support (who spent most of their time twiddling their thumbs).
On the battlefield, aside from the Persian Clibinarii no other unit was able to do much harm to my armies. Even Hunnic heavy cavalry had its charges broken by the waves of plumii and arrows. As far as Clibs go, I would mob them with Legio Lanciarii andsmack them down with General's cavalry. For some reason they seem to lose to general's cavalry rather quickly while being just about invulnerable to anything else. Never saw a single Elephant unit....never let the Persians have the luxury of building them, even though it took me some forty odd turns to smash the Sassanid Empire.
WRE managed to hold together all along until it was their turn to die by my sword. Despite being bigger they never managed to put together a single high tech stack that would look even remotely threatening.
On the religious front, I went Christian all the way, but left Crete as Pagan and Ctesiphon as Zoroastrian just for variety's sake.
Overall it was the smoothest and easiest campaign I ever played.
I love to play ROME Total War and I just finish ERE campaign. I follow some of this posts, but I guess a I was lucky. I found out soon it isn’t a good idea to fight a horde in a classic battle. So, I reinforce Constantinople and Sirmium fast and I raised two full armies (main force of heavy infantry (commies, limitanei, later replaced with legio lanceri, lot of eastern archers, few light cavalry units, heavy mercenaries units). This armies was placed on the northern bridges and the hordes have something against it. The hordes attacked every turn this bridges and I won most of the battles. Remember this: YOU HAVE RESERVES, THEY DON’T. After many turns the barbarian were out of heavy troops, the only remains was horse archers and generals. Now I detached the cavalry units, I make a single army and go after them. Soon, I destroy the Goths, the Vandals, the Sarmatians and, finally, the Huns. I was lucky when at the beginning the hordes battle each other. I make an alliance with the Goths and destroy the Sarmatians. The Vandals were decimated by the Huns and I hunted down the remaining forces. The Huns were the hardest one to battle, but I have already experienced units at my disposal and a take fewer casualties as at the beginning. At the same time, I have to deal with the Sassanids. I applied the same “bridge tactics”, but the main Sassanid armies were a joke. The Clibinari was responsible for 90% of the causalities suffered in the battles. I was able to purchase 2 Ballistae and I go on the Clibinari hunt. The Sassanids were easy to conquer, but hard to keep. I have revolts in all the settlements and this blocked my eastern army for the rest of the game. The Western Empire was disintegrated in to several Rebels towns. Rome, Salona, Carthage and others was this kind of towns and I go and besieged them without going to war with WRE. After I conquered Rome, WRE attack me, but it was to late for them. With two huge and full armies (Onagers, repeating ballistae and others “goodies”) I take the rest Italy and several others towns.
For military purposes I upgrade Constantinople, Sirmium, Antioch and by mistake Alexandria. With the army of Alexandria I take Carthage and go to Rome. One of northern armies landed in Italy at the same time and Game Over.
For the rest of empire I make money.
Use Assassins to kill enemy diplomats and generals. Make alliances with the Hordes but don’t let them pass the bridges in your territories. Blocked them with the armies.
Hey all, I just got the game about a week ago, due to my "underestemating games cloud" I didn't play it for a few days because I thought it was a rubbish buy, however now I realise its the part of Roman history I love. No offence to the Romans, I just simply love them guys! :beam: , but the fall of the West peaks my interest and this game allows you to play it woo!!! Oh from a few of the posts, much appreciated people!! :2thumbsup: the forts idea at all entries to your empire really helps in the East! Anyway I thought I'd play as the Eastern Empire, but I'm not too sure now... the West looks good but so does the East... can anyone give me advise on who to play first? and is Testudo formation in the game? :help:
Thanks
Also, any advise on handling hordes? I put too much effort on bettering the economy and hordes run through the armies posted in the forts... :help: :wall: A real head banger that is, as Yoda would say lol.
Oh sorry forgot to add, Does anyone know how to make Victoria, the adviser, repeat what she says at the start about the Roman faction you play? I would like to know if its possible to hear her everytime I start the Western Empire or the Eastern Empire again because heard her the first time mention how bad the state was of each Empire. So if anyone knows i'd be grateful, sorry I didn't know if this request should be posted here, again very sorry.
Hey Gizmo04, and welcome to the .org!
I'd recommend that you play the eastern emipre first purely because they are easier to play as. The WRE has serious financial and loyalty problems that make it a challenge for even the best players. The east on the other hand, is (relitivly) rich and has fewer loyalty problems.
One piece of advice that I found very helpful is unify your empires religion first thing, if you are the east you should only have 2 pagan generals, they should go on a distraction/suicide mission deep into sassnid territory, and destroy all pagan temples in your cities replacing them with Chrisitan ones.
As for hoards, I'd recommend posting your armies on bridges in the north west of your empire, they make amazing choke points on the battle field. Use archer/Horse archer heavy armies and let them come to you (make them cross the bridge on the battle map) I've had much success with this tactic.
Watching guys dodge tons of arrows just to get a pila in the chest is funny in a sick sorta way, LOL.
I'm not sure about Victoria though, hopefully someone here can help with that
:2thumbsup: Woo! Thanks Stuperman that was... more information than I expected. Ok then I'll play as the Eastern Empire first, they looked cooler anyway because I always preferred the Romans with the purple colour. Reds cool aswell but theres something about purple that makes them cooler...
Oh and I'll try your army tactic on the bridges that should do some damage but those horde stacks have LOADS of missle cavalry (most of the renegade factions) What about the Western Empire? Roman against Roman... er... that will hurt my own morale... but anyhoo War is war. Also I tend to focus on my economy more than army sometimes TOO much and keeping up with the incursions becomes lacking.
I must admit so far I've taken a "Lose battle quit and restart campaign" policy. Again any suggestions sorry this is turning out to be a psychology thing. I was never like this in Rome:Total War. :help:
fighting the WRE isn't a bad Idea, thier cities have all roman buildings so there is less cultural penalty for taking them.
As for Horse Archers, IIRC the computer under rates them hugely in autoresolve battles, you could try and auto resolve a battle or two to find out.
I always have a save called 'battle' that I save ofer before overy battle, as my computer has a tendence to lock up after a few hours of heavy 3d, you could do the same....although this is a bit cheap.
Have you considered cooling problems? It might be something to look into if you have fan problems, a poorly sited tower, or a laptop. I -always- run a desk fan under my laptop, to prevent CPU, memory and GPU temperatures from going over ~70 celsius. Without the fan they can easily get into the 90s which is dreadful for their longevity and can cause instability.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuperman
There is a popular Dell laptop temp/fan monitoring program called I8kfangui that I highly recommend to anyone who games on Dell laptops.
well, no it was a dodgey mobo I think, the NB would get insanely hot, and my HD had a problem or 2, it wouldn't de-frag cause it said it wasn't formatted correctly (my boot drive). I ran checkdisk and it came back fine, I've changed all the HW this past weekend and it is going goodQuote:
Originally Posted by GM1940
I am playing ERE H/H and I find it to be challenging and rewarding - money is no problem with some adjustments - defend the northern frontier and kick the Sassinids right off the map. I have just eliminated the Sassinids from the game and I am in the process of moving three large armies to staging points for my move westwards. The hippotoxi are awesome as mobile artillery and very effective at wearing down an enemy - I typically have about 4 units of them with each army stack. The cities with ports are now building a few boats that I will use to move my armies across the Mediterainian and poor old WRE is not going to know what hit them. Great fun and lots of free time spent playing this game.
mornin all. need a little bit of advice on my ERE campaign.i might as well go through how ive played it so far, to give you guys a better idea.
I started the game, making all the towns christian ofcourse, then i spent some time getting to grips with the game. After a decade or so, i had achieved little, and the hordes descended on Greece and i lost most of my territory there, including Constantinople. This basically forced me to concentrate on my Asian offensive. I used Alexandria as my main troop-producing facility, and sent one or two legions (full armies/stacks ect.), into Asia, wiping out the Sassanids in quick measure. Then, after producing another 3 legions, i descended into Europe, where i took back Greece and managed to secure a good foothold in mainland Europe. I also took carthage and Italy, thus completing the game.
This, believe it or not, was the highpoint in the game. After securing this beachhead in the mainland, i fell victim to a horrible financial crisis. I lost one hundred and sixty million dinarri (160 000 000!!!) in around a few decades and went bankrupt. I managed to recover (a process im still "enjoying" to this day), but it took a long time. After i could afford to purchase another Legion, i renewed my European Crusade. I invaded the closest settlements, hoping to establisha defensive line before i could concentrate on wiping out the Berbers in Africa, who were begining to become annoying.
I seized Carnuntum, Campus Quaddi, Campus Marcomanni, Campus Lombardii and Campus Burgundii. I fortified these towns, and then established a supply line (a strategy im rather proud of).
https://img515.imageshack.us/img515/...pplyjk4.th.jpg
(Purple line : supply line
Black circle : fort)
If any of the towns were seiged, and won the battle, but took casualties, the nearest twon to them, would send 5 units over to compensate, and the next town would send 5 to that, all down the line, to a total of four troop producing facilities behind the front lines. This allowed me to allways keep a large army at the fortress towns.
However, before i could complete this, the celts invaded. The bloody celts and twenty full strength armies.
I had completely underestimated the celts. I thought i was facing the Vandals, who i had bested in Russia during the first crusade, and i thought the celts were holed up in Britain. I was wrong. the celts came at me with loads of armies, all taking advantage of the horrible pagan experience bonus, thus besting my untrained troops.
I tried to hold them off, but the supply line wasn't finished, so i couldn't reinforce my towns in time. All of the fortresses fell in quick sucession (only Carnuntum remains), and the celts lead a spearhead into Russia and Greece. I lost everything i had worked three hundred years for in just a few turns.
I attempted to send my Legions off to combat them, but, since i was still recovering from the massive drop earlier on, i couldnt afford to send more than one legion. So, my untested armies were destroyed peacemeal (I use a strong core of lanciarii, backed up with lots of mercs and generals), and the celts continued.
Now, theres no way i can stop their advance. I falling back to my last ditch defence plans. Im fortifiing Constantinople with comitatenses (a very rare purchase for me) and bolstering my remaining towns in Russia.
I've developed a last resort plan, where i let the towns of Kotais, Artaxarta, Phrsaspa and Arsakia rebel, thus forming a buffer between me and the celts so i can build up some armies behind in Antioch, Ctesiphon and Hatra. I see the celtic advance into Asia inevitable, and if i lose my holdings around the mediterainian, its game over. I'll never recover withouth the trade they bring in. So, i need a little bit of help. Am i right in my plans at the moment, or should i try something else? Much appreciated. c4st
The map at the moment. All the celtic land used to be mine. Note, the vandals dont control all that territory anymore.
https://img146.imageshack.us/img146/1330/map1lk6.th.jpg
ps. its around 660 AD.
Rome was meant to fall dude.
But if you still think the world needs Caeser, and if ur short on money, take half the garrison of EVERY city you have and put them on the border and form armies. Trust me, ur in for a real slugfest, no way this is gonna be easy.
Also, attack from ur bases from italy, attack that barbaricum province (the north russian province). and surround their lands.
I think the problem is in the type of infantry you're using. Legio Lanciarri are an excellent choice for fighting the light infantry/heavy cavalry armies of the hordes and Sassanids but they're no good against heavy infantry. Start replacing them with Comitatenses or preferably Plumbatarii infantry; the Plumbatarii are similar to the Comitatenses but carry longer ranged javelins with more attack and ammo so they'll be able to kill more of the Celtic infantry before they reach your lines...their only downside is that they need an Army Barracks in order to be recruited. As long as the Plumbatarii/Comitatenses infantry are supported by Eastern Archers and Cataphracts/Clibinarii (or Scholae Palatinae if you can't afford the other heavy cavalry) they should be able to beat any Celtic army they face. You could also build Foundries in some of your cities if you can afford it since units trained/retrained there will get a +2 bonus to Armor and Attack which will cut down on casualties by alot.
Btw, if you have any Urban Barracks then you can also train Comitatenses First Cohorts which are similar to the Comitatenses except they are bigger units, better at melee fighting, have somewhat higher defense stats, and raise the morale of nearby units. I always have 2 of them in any of my armies when I can but they are generally more of a luxury unit than anything else and cost quite alot.
Hope this helps.
Anyone else thinking that those ERE's repeating chariot-mounted ballistae are way overpowered? It's like having machine guns back that age...
It's about 750CE now things have gotten worse, but contained. I've lost all my settlements in Europe, including Italy and Greece. Constantinople still stands, the last beacon of Roman glory in Europe. I reinforced it with about 15 Plumbatarii, which are now all silver experience. The Celtic offensive managed to breach Asia at Kotais, but i managed to resist. I fell back to my "buffer-state" strategy, sacrifising the four towns there, though im moving to recapture them currently.
At the moment, the Celts are preoccumpied trying to take Constantinople, though ive won every siege so far. Also, the berbers have launched a push into Africa, taking Carthage and besiegeing Ludgis Magna (?).
I'm still suffering from financial problems and have around 70k atm. I attempted to build a large cavalry force to re-take Europe but i lost loads of Denarii.
Overall, im holding the Celts back in Europe and am begining to fortify Alexandria for a possible berber invasion.
Will try an post some maps later.
(also, any idea when/if the game ends? I've come so far now im actualy the Byzantine Empire :beam: )
I also adopted a very effective "scorched-earth" strategy, where i demolished all the buildings in a town which looked to fall halfway through a siege. This lets me take all the denarii from a town (usually around 10k) and let the Celts deal with it. So, if i ever get round to re-capturing them, they will have already built it up again.
For anyone still intrested in my Celtic war, heres a quick update.
Since im now in the late 700's, i felt it prudent to change my faction to the Byzantine Empire. After a quick overhaul of mini-modding, i have have a pseudo-Byzantine Empire under my control, complete with new modernized units.
After years of celtic oppression, the thinkers of Constantinople have decided upon a long-term strategy to defeat the celts.
https://img265.imageshack.us/img265/...hreeex8.th.png
The Triplasios Dieythynsi plan ([from] three directions) utiliseses all the rescources avalible to the Byzantine Empire at present. Attacking from the three major power bases left in the Empire - Asia Minor (inc. Constantinople), Northern Asia (inc. Antioch, Hatra, Jerusalem, Sidon and Ctetisiphon) and North Africa (inc. Alexandria, Jerusalem) - three seperate crusades will be launched.
The first crusade, named the Third European crusade, will be formed in Northern Asia, where two specfic anti-celt legions will recapture northern Europe and Germainia, before finnaly stopping at the Frech Coast.
The second Crusade from Asia minor, with similar forces to the first crusade,will push through Greece and into Italy, taking back Rome, before linking up again with the first crusade in Frace.
The last crusade will be smaller, and based on quantity rather than quality. One (or more) large armies will smash the weakened Berbers aside and take their provinces in Northern Africa. When that objective has been completed, they wil lcross via boats into Spain, and then finnaly up into France, linking up with the other two expeditions.
This will effectivley destroy the remaining enemies of Constantinople. The Celts will be cut off in England, ready to be destroyed at will, whilst the Berbers and any other remaining factions will be swept aside with ease.
Ofcourse, it cannot all be done at once. The campaigns, though fast, will not be a blitzkrieg. Time will be taken to consolidate each town and strengthen the supply lines (see one of my previous posts which details a supply line on the European front, and imagine it about 10 times bigger).
Each crusade will feature two legions (1 general, 4 light cav, 5 eastern archers and 10 lanciarii), along with up to 10-20 spies, 10 assassins, ~peasant armies for quick garrisoning and one army of 5-10 generals to complete the supply lines.
***
Whilst im here ill detail the anti-celt tactics i mentioned earlier. (it only works i when attacking. a defensive plan is being drawn up now).
Take your 10 lanciarri units (L) and array them in a line. Then place two units of light cav (LC) on either side. Take five units of Archers (A) and place them behind the centre six lanciarri units. Your general then stays in the rear.
LC LC LLLLLLLLLL LC LC
AAAAA
G
The celts (a typical army of 1 gen, 2 cav, 6 gallowglasses, 6 pictish spearmen and a few kerns) will stand in range of your archers (???) and begin to get mowed down.
Advance your LC and then the pictish spearmen will move to enagage them. Draw them back and then they will stop and form a shiledtron, easy kills for your archers.
LLLLLLLLLL
LC LC AAAAA LC LC
G
Next, the enemy gallowglasses (X) will attack your L in force.
XXXXXX
LLLLLLLLLL
LC LC AAAAA LC LC
G
Move your cavalry behind them and pin them against your spearmen. Your cavalry will make short work of the swordsmen and theyll flee in seconds.
LCLCLCLC
XXXXXX
LLLLLLLLLL
AAAAA
G
Then, pull back to your normal formation and let your archers deal with the rest of the enemy. Should you run out of ammo and some yet live, advance your massed L and seize the day.
This tactic relies on the Lanciarii units (limitanei could even be used) to hold a protective line in front of the archers, whilst they eliminate the deadly spearmen, and your cheap cavalry destroy the otherwise amazing gallowglasses. You'll allways take minimal casualties and most of your units will come out without a scratch. (overall average fifty casualties)
interesting, but ere have such darn hot infantry, the first cohortes and plumtari, it is a same not to put them to use.
loyalty is my current problem. the emperor is busy crushing the Sassanids so the Danube frontire depends on a scion with low overall dependability. can he rebel outside a city, do you think? if he does rebel, hopefully the crew holding Constantinople will stay loyal.
oh, and be careful to hand over any offices from junior officers who go into battle to someother character in anice safe city. if the character holding the office is killed, you lose the office.
another difficulty with the ere is training governors. you need managers with all the big towns. but most of the family couldn't manage a piss-up in a brewery, pardon my french.
also the ostrogoth rebels hold a province where i could build a profitable port. they do look like a curious hornets-nest. i wonder what happens if i run up and poke them with stick?
Mastering the ERE faction is very easy (VH/VH with huge units and no mods). Destroy all pagan shrines and convert to Christianity, everywhere except Salamis. Set taxes here to low to boost the population and build the temple to Mithras. Also, centralize the capital at Salamis and this should get you about two thousand more denarii each turn by decreasing the distance to capital for most of your richest provinces. Put the pagan diplomat and any weak pagan FM’s there to convert the Christians quickly. Since it’s an island, this won’t interfere with the religion of any other settlements. Tweak the taxes and add peasant garrisons elsewhere and you should never even have a riot. You will get a great deal of income to upgrade your economy.
To secure your empire, build a fort at the two crossing points on the Danube east of Sirmium, the bridge between Antioch and Hatra, by Caesarea and Sinope and also in the pass NE of Tarsus. Eventually, I fortified the passes in Greece as well. One lemitanei unit is enough to garrison them. Keep a good garrison in Sirmium or at the bridge to its north, as it can not be fortified.
I concentrated my military production in Antioch (cavalry and foundry), Sidon (eastern archers and onagers) and Jerusalem (plumbatarii and first cohorts). Upgrade Salamis with military buildings and eventually an Awesome Temple. Now your units can be upgraded to silver weapons and armor at Antioch and then ferried to Salamis for an increase of two skill levels. I built up Sirmium with basic structures to maintain an army to defend the Danube.
Eliminate your navy except for a bireme at Constantinople and Antioch to be used as a ferry. Keep an army at the Danube and send everything else to Antioch. You should have enough starting units there to get two armies with two legio lanciarii, four lemitanei, six eastern archers, four hippo-toxotai and two cavalry each. Send one army along the Black Sea to Kotais-Artaxarta-Phraaspa-Arsakia and the other to Petra-Dumatha-Ctesiphon. These two prongs will draw the Sassanids away from Hatra, where the third army (that you must build) can easily be victorious. I swapped some military retinue around to get three generals that each had four stars, one for each army. I make one other stack with as many Christian FM’s, diplomats and spies as I can scrape together and just send them around to convert the heathen conquests by their presence. I usually put the best two administrators in Constantinople and Alexandria, again with economic retinue.
Conquer the Sassanids, as well as Petra, and Dummatha, then the two rebel provinces to the north around the Caspian Sea. Now move your armies west, or raise new ones, so that you can blitz the WRE. You want to take Lepcis Magna and then Carthage with one force. At the same time, take Salona and ferry another force to Italy. Take Tarentum, Rome, Ravenna and then Mediolanium for the final victory.
I was wondering about something with the Eastern Roman campaign. Is it inevitable that the Western Roman Empire will turn on you fairly early in the game? I remember I was allied with them until like 20 to 25 years after the start and they suddenly backstabbed me and declared me an enemy. I don't think I did anything to offend them, but then again I might have crossed into their territory without agreeing to that through diplomacy or maybe it had something to do with alliances with other factions that were incompatible.
The Eastern Roman campaign starts off pretty tough I think, since you almost instantly lose Constantinople and northern Greece to the Sarmatian and Gothic hordes that seek a new homeland, and it takes a while to take them back. At the same time you're facing constant pressure from the Sassanids to the east who pretty much only have you as their main enemy and obstacle. The whole pagan/Christian thing can also further complicate things when money and men are being used for other purposes early in the game. Later on though, after you deal with the barbarians and Persians, it becomes smooth sailing for a while. I have yet to play with the Western Empire, but apparently it's tougher.
It was my favorite faction to play with in BI and got pretty far into it, like around 500 AD, before I accidentally overwrote the save file with a Frankish campaign that I started :furious3:
They turned on me pretty quickly too. I suspect that may be hardcoded or at least there's a strong inclination in that direction, in order to mimic the circumstances of the Fourth Crusade, which ended up with the west sacking Constantinople.
The main reason why ERE is no easy is that their Governor buildings have an additional bonus in public order. If one takes that out and incraeses the required regions for victory to include Gaul, Iberia and North Africa in their entirety, as well as mod out the hugely overpowered equites clibinarii and nerf the also overpowered eastern archers, ERE can be lots of fun.
For some reason I can't find this discusses anywhere on the Internet, so I'll ask here.
Almost done with my vanilla version of BI ERE campaign, only need 6 more territories including Carthage, but I've noticed something distressing. The Emperor is a complete badass, with excellent stats, very good traits, great retinue. He has lead the same comitatenses units in conquest from Antioch to Arsakia and then back all the way to Rome. This guy has seen the empire grow under his rule from a poor, religiously divided, on the brink of annihilation territory to the biggest power in the known world that no one dares to challenge, and yet his loyalty is dropping like crazy.
So, can the taffing Emperor actually betray you and join the ERE rebels? To me, that sounds completely stupid and illogical. It makes perfect sense for a general with a good military career to decide there's more to his name than the mudholes in Armenia, proclaim himself emperor and go rebel with his troops, but will the actual Emperor of ERE do that if his loyalty gets too low?
If I remember correctly, if the Emperor is your faction leader or faction heir, he cannot turn Rebel. I know faction leaders/heirs cannot be bribed.Quote:
Originally Posted by wooly_mammoth
Started both a Frank campaign and an ERE campaign. Abandoned Sirmium and am using that army combined with the one north of Constatinople to attack Salona. Figured that Sirmium would come under attack too quickly to defend (taking Hadrian's idea, abandoning untenable parts of the empire), and Constantinople can hold off any hordes who attack. I can retake Sirmium later.
My only gripe is, why are all the Roman towns so basic, especially the barracks situation?:huh: I am having to build a lot of starting Barracks in my starting towns.:wall: I mean, even in Tarsus, for Pete's sake. If those towns existed in RTW they should be more advanced to start BI.
Note: you don't want Antioch to come under much attack, otherwise your finance will tank. Good idea to go after Hatra, I think, so that is what I will do.