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It was kind of lucky when we got our alliance with the Julii but they didn't help us out with the Gaul.. and when we walked through their land to get to Patavium, they cancelled the alliance and attacked us..
Try and get the alliance if you can, but don't don anything that might annoy them, as MajorFreak says: They are paranoid.
Okay, who's gotten the fancier retinue folk? i think the embalmer is a typo from egyptians. The others? dunno. Anyone else gotten the listed stuff?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinner
QUICK START
forgive me for not reading the guide listed in the first page. i've probably repeated alot of advice and i'll further add to repetition. But, i feel this way i can compare notes and give an honest critique later. Anyhows, on with it:
Relevant settings are medium campaign/battle difficulty; Most important issues at the very beginning areWhat you'll be doing is preparing to blitz through gaul (avoiding the alps) on your way to spain - Get upgrades to large towns as a priority, plus getting a blacksmith churning out archer chariots at london. Though i'm not really sure how fast you can do this...i'll get back on this subject later today.
- right off the bat, before you do anything else, disband the 2 mainland 'warbands', plus the 'slinger'
- secondly, move Cynfawr a tiny bit southwest to that 'beak' on the coast, and take the spy, plus the archer chariot at london, and send them to Cynfawr
- Take the general in europe and place him into the city there. Then move your ship due south to the coast and board that archer chariot standing near the shore. Pack them off to where Cynfawr is standing.
- move all other 'warbands' and 'slingers' to 'britannia superior' and disband them there (even the ones at london. The upkeep of troops you won't need right away is horrendous)
- at all cities queue up Brigantia shrine then Trader, if needed. At london, instead queue up a Port plus Brigantia, then Trader (roads are cute, but we won't need the movement bonus just yet.)
- Reduce all taxes to low
- queue up two diplomats at London
- Diplomat roaming...To make things simple, just send the starting diplomat towards approx location of the city, Trier.
SECOND TURN- with the diplomat, go get an alliance and trade rights with germany at Trier and then send him off to where Mogontiacum should be (the idea being to get a quick spot of the cities for future reference)
THIRD TURN- Build a boat
- Get the diplomat to Mogontiacum and then off to where Iuvavum should be.
- Now, all there's left to do is grab the shore army and unload at the irish fishing village, along the coast.
- you detach the spy first, from the unloaded army, and into Tara (25% chance to gain entry without siege gear)
- then, lay siege
FOURTH TURN- Diplomatic exodus: getting diplomats roaming around. One for italy/greece (head down south through Alesia). two for going straight east - one aimed at the black sea the other going across the top of the map. (they'll go clockwise around the map after that ending up at sahara; see earlier post for details)...i don't know what you'll do with the italy/greek diplomat (open up a bizarre at constantinopal when he retires?)
- Queue up a Trader at london, mines at Deva and Roads at Sama
- Attack Tara. You'll have enough time to pepper the enemy to death, and the new 1.2 patch lures the troops out chasing arrows enough to rout so you can get easy kills for your druids.
- Occupy option at victory screen, then build shrine of brigant plus a peasant
FIFTH TURN- You'll have a coming of age now, plus Sama will upgrade to next settlement type.
- grab the spy from tara and send him down south to europe to begin scouting/infiltrating towns (builds up his skill)...grab the other ship and send it to tara
- Now, you'll have a while before you're cranking out archer chariots so use Cynfawr to build watchtowers around ireland and britain just in case you spot a rebel force - i'd recommend setting them up along the coastline to spot ships too
- always check your diplomats...having them get "blocked path" during AI movement phase slows them down too much
SIXTH TURN- Queue up blacksmith then sacred grove at london
- shift governor from ebur to deva
- remember diplomats
- continue monitoring your spy movements and Cynfawr's tower building spree.
SEVENTH TURN- Queue up Port, Blacksmith and sacred grove at Sama...
I think the really large issue for this "blitz" strategy is the goal of also capturing high-end gaulish temples. I wonder how long it takes till they have them. guess i'll have to use spies and stuff...oh bugger, i spied around and Gaul's still holding mamma's apron strings. looks like any blitz will have to chuck the idea of grabbing advanced gaulish temples.
you'll have 7 archer chariots built from london and sama by turn 14 to add to your current 2 units. It's a shame the AI is so stupid when it comes to sieges because that's pretty much all you'll need to blitz Gaul and slam into spain. Heck, why not build a few more, split the force in two and use your heir and good ol' Cynfawr to pincer movement south then west into spain.:furious3:
- i think the seige AI problem doesn't have an easy solution, though stopping them parading in front of a mass of archers would be a good thing. not to mention giving those towers a better range and angle of attack would stop folks like me camping outside the main gates...the thought of rushing a mass of defenders hiding behind competent guard towers with only chariot archers isn't putting a smile on my face. Come to think of it, i'll bet they toned guard towers down because of the overly sadistic castles in Medieval:Total War
what really irks me is the way taxes were set up. there's no real disincentive to extermination (if pop is too high), setting tax to low, building a few cheap peasants, and continuing with the conquest a couple turns later. simply because of the law of diminishing returns that's been coded in
Priest of Andrasta is a good ancillary +1 command, 15%movement point bonus ~D
Yea, it's quite good, all the priests have positive effects but not many increase your generals' commanding talent.
i think they should have more traits and that in the expasion and me and craterus had a witch with one of our brittianna campagin but they seem to get all the same traits in our game i think it should be changed a bit!!!
I think there are enough trait and ancillaries.. I think the XP should improve AI and give AI factions a boost against the Romans. I mean Carthage actually have a chance against the Scipii, Greece have a chance vs. Brutii, Macedon vs. Brutii..
If it was 50/50 between these it would make the campaigns more unpredictable..
I know if I play 50 years without seeing any of the Brutii expansion and then I was to toggle_fow.. I know the Brutii would be in Macedon and Greece. And I know Scipii would be in Carthage.
MajorFreak, getting highend Gaulish temples is very hard. I've been waiting in my Roman games to see a Sacred Circle of Epona so I can get the really great +5 xp pantheon. Never happens in my games. I'm usually way past 50 provinces by that time. They don't quick build temples it seems.
Disbanding troops is unnecessary. Tech to port and boats. Head for Bordensholm and also ship across the channel to attack Alesia ASAP. That type of blitz would leave you as the dominant power in Western Europe.
Alesia is key as it cripples your main opponent the Gauls and also gets you a large town early on the front lines capable of producing chariot archers soon.
Here some comments about early units:
all your infantry is bad and you have no real cav. However you have some excentric unit types and there are three ways to win your battles:
1. applied psychology
Your units are made to freighten the enemy more than to fight it. With all your singing and screaming units, head hurlers and some chariots in their back the enemy sometimes is willing to route.
2. heavy chariots
they are undisiplined and hard to control. It takes time to turn them. They do not kill infantry as effective as other heavy cav, but they are very good against light cav. And they are beyond compare if you just want to break a frontline. So option 2 is to attack the flak or rear with heavy chariots, break the formation, make the enemy route and chase it with your inf.
3. a combination of 1 and 2
The Britons' line-up is in some respects indeed quite unique for a Western faction, and even more so for a Barbarian faction. Exploit this, and you will see awesome results. Your strategies work well, but if you allow I might add another one from a friend of mine:
4) Your heavy chariots are great for slaughtering the enemy cav and disrupting his infantry formations....but they fare poorly against spearmen and enemy javs. You have another option: Build armies consisting of the general and as many light chariots as you wish, maybe some heavies for protection...and you can take on almost any army westerners can field against you without a slight worry about being outnumbered 4:1. Light chariots are like horse archers, just better (because they are chariots and because they have a rather high missile attack), and no Western faction has an army that can match them.
The single weakness comes up if you face a large amount of foot archers, but the AI rarely uses them in masses. I'm feeling somewhat uneasy about wiping the floor with the Senate army while fielding only 2nd level units ~D That way, it's almost too effective. Oh, and cities you either have to starve out or wait until you have brought up some (chosen) swordsmen to clear the streets (never ever use chariots for this). But it's fun!
Actually, if it's non-phalanx, then smashing through with 6+ chariots could work.
As for killing Senate, what do you think Scythia has the luxury of doing? With lvl 1 units (Scythian HAs). Germania can also kill the Senate just spamming spear warbands again lvl 1.
I'm playing VH/VH as Britannia right now, making around 4000 denarii a turn. I'm less than two dozen turns in, but I already control most of Gaul (Cisalpine Gaul and Venetia aren't mine yet, along with the Gaullic portion of the Iberian peninsula), and I'm now making my way into Germania (and beating the crap out of them with a hundred-or-so less men, simply because my chariot generals are that good) after they stabbed me in the back.
Are you autocalcing? Chariot generals stink in combat that you fight out.
Not in my experience. With one chariot general and four or five warbands, I can easily take out that many spear warbands (along with wardogs and whatever other units are tagging along) without more than 10 total losses. Sicne the chariot general is such a "big" unit, the spear warbands almost invariably end up facing him with their phalanx, allowing your warbands to run into them from the side. At that point, run your chariot general around and run into them from the other side. It hasn't failed me yet.
a chariot general and 4 or 5 warbands?
that's far more than 100 men unless you are playing on small unit sizes.
Regular. Maybe it's different with large or huge units, but seeing as how I'm still using a GeForce2 in this day and age, that won't be happening any time soon.
And that was more of an example; I beat a full-stack Germanic army with a pair of chariot generals, 2 swordsmen, a slinger, and the rest of the half stack filled out with warbands last night.
ok that beats it. Spearmen should do it! Pure HAs though...I never attacked them with Scythia but customized a combat with an army of a couple of vanilla HAs plus two generals against what the Senate is likely to put up by the time you reach it...the infantry was easily outmaneuvred of course but my HAs could hardly shoot them to pieces because they were so busy evading their 5 general units. When they were finally killed I had too little missile cav left to effectively engage the Principes....I'm sure to have missed something but how are you dealing with this %&$§*#-load of family cav?Quote:
Originally Posted by katank
OMG OMG OMG!!!! ~:cool:
i have a great way to kick ass against the romans using chariots.....
so there i was...in the forest in etruria(arretium) and julii attacked me...this was me moving my whole civ to rome to start anew...andthe musta been spamming hastati cos all there army was was 10 untis of (huge) hastati and 1 unit of equites. so now i had all my chariots in one army and all my infantry/archers in another, the hcariot army was facing them. I thought i was going to lose cos all i had was bronze sword upgrade and most of them had no exp but thank god for crappy ai cos the marching they did one unit at a time and i surrounde them...best way to deafeat a roman??? break his tight formation up and send in your swordsmen woh are specialists at this...HAHA praise the smeg!!
To deal with family cav, you may need to resort to some lvl 2 HHM's or just use crap loads of your own family cav.
Hello All, this is my first post on this forum so Greetings from me!
I only started playing RTW recently (though I havent played in about 6 months because I've been away from home at Uni and without a desktop for some time).
Anyways, it seems I'm at odds with most on this forum as I seem to remember struggling on my Brittania campaign (my first ever RTW campaign). I remember that I had conquered the British Isles, as well as all of Gaul, Spain, Dacia and some of Germania and even some of North Africa, all without too much difficulty.
However, I have a few major problems. Firstly, I remember being at war with the Juli, and seem to remember having a serious man-power shortage trying to ward off their seemingly endless stream of full stacks (unfortunately they've just had the marius reforms I think) around the top of the Italian peninsula. I just can't seem to make any gains without losing them again to those damned Romans.
Secondly, I have a huge problem with my fleet of ships as even in stacks of 20 ships, the Roman ships are still far superior to mine - how the heck is one supposed to beat triremes, let alone better Roman vessels?
Thirdly, I dont seem to be able to build Woad warriors or Head Hurlers - do I have the wrong temple(s)?
On one sure and positive note that I can't believe no-one's mentioned, I solve the Britton's inherrent lack of heavy cavalry by hiring mercenary Bastanae (spelling?) cavalry. While initial costs are steep, they seem to have better morale than most units and are almost unstoppable against all but the most heavily armoured infantry - Bastanae infantry are also good if you can get ahold of them! Does nobody except me make use of them?
Anyways, yeah - please advise on how to beat Roman armies as I'm really struggling against them.
Although I won't be home for a few weeks, the time spent learning useful tips on this forum will hopefully allow me to blitz the enemy and perhaps even march on Rome...who knows???
Sorry for the looooooong post - I'm pretty tired so cant word it any better right now!
Cheers for the advice,
Biggles
Hi Biggles, and let me be the first to welcome you to the Org! Trust me, your thread isn't long... you should look at some of mine ;-)
Okay, firstly. The Julii full-stacks. You will have problems beating their legionary fullstacks, that is true. I will advocate plentiful bribing to remove those armies you can't fight. Assuming that by Marian times they will have 7-8 provinces (assuming, because no Roman faction has ever survived till the reforms before in any campaign of mine) it will be easy to take down their peripheral provinces to drive them into debt. If they don't, then their home provinces are there are, and if you defeat enough of their armies they will run out of population to raise any more new armies. That happened for me as the Julii against the Gauls. They kept sending 20-stacks, then slowly it dwindled to 15-stacks, then to 5-6 stacks that I just irritatedly bribed away. So it will be for the Julii. Bribe. If you've conquered so many places you must be making at least 20k a turn with full economic infrastructures up and running. Denarii were earned to be spent, so make them well-spent. Save your game before bribing any family member of the enemy, because once you fail he will never be bribable again. If you can't bribe him, then the price is simply not high enough. Save up more. You must be patient with the Julii. Don't try to make gains; just sit back and make Mediolanum-Patavium your frontier, building forts at every Po river crossing. The AI never sieges forts, so your frontier will be safe while you subtly undermine their capability for war. Meanwhile, expand elsewhere to get more money for ever more ambitious bribes. Don't fight the battles you can't win. To quote, 'Infinite gold are the sinews of war.'
If you really want to fight the Romans, lure them into bridge battles whenever possible. I recommend the one just west of Rome. For that, though, you will have to undertake a risk in transporting a full-stack army by sea behind the Julii lines. As long as you stand -on- the ford itself and allow an army to attack you, you will have a considerable advantage in merely defending the ford against any comers. When fighting that battle, simply mass your troops in a semicircle on the other end of the ford. If you cannot fight at a ford, then your battles are sure to be high-cost, but still winnable. In this case you would keep your chariots in the rear, all massed at one spot on the line. You must take the offensive even in a defensive battle if your troops are to stand up to the enemy. Stretch your line to match the length of the Roman line, and engage them along the entire length. Then, when all are engaged, hurl your chariots at weakest point in the enemy line, charging right through the enemy. Since Romans are sword infantry they will not have any bonus against cavalry/chariotry, so you can burst through them. Chariots can frighten infantry, so use that effect to the max. Charge and charge again. If you have light chariots, rain arrows. If you have heavies, then use them for their god-given purpose. After one unit routs, devote your tender loving care to the ones next to them. The more units rout in a short time, the better since the higher the chance the rest of the army will rout. Your chariots will take great maulings, but they are your decisive arm and since in one-to-one combat you cannot beat legionnaires, the only way to kill them is to make them run. After a victory, retreat and retrain your chariots. Then return for more. After you destroy a few of their stacks and you can see there are only one or two left, begin the besieging of their settlements. Keep using bribe if you can to make your life easier. Remember your objective isn't to win every battle, but to capture provinces. So if you can avoid a fight, well and good.
My strategy against the Romans is, despite all that typing, only theoretical, because as I said, I have never faced legionnaires except in the Roman civil war. Otherwise, I make Rome my first priority for conquest so they cannot get Marian reforms. Furthermore I have never played Britannia before, but I have fought them in many campaigns and squared up against Romans as Gaul, which is pretty close I daresay.
Secondly, Large Boats, buildable at shipwrights. They are your only answer (if an inadequate one) to Triremes. Don't get yourself into a naval battle if you can help it. Build only what ships you need to accomplish your transport objectives. That is the lot of a barbarian navy. They are simply -not meant- to engage civilised fleets. Not at such a late stage when they have good ships. Alternatively, if you -really- want to sink a few ships, use multiple fleets. 3 20-stack fleets of large boats will certainly be enough to destroy one 20-stack fleet of triremes. To ensure the enemy does not live to fight another day after his defeat, place each of your three fleets on one of the 8 red squares surrounding the enemy fleet, then put one ship into each remaining square. Being completely surrounded, an enemy fleet once defeated will sink and never surface again. That's the only naval trick you can use without naval battles being played out.
Thirdly, I think you have the wrong temples. Try the one for the god of war or something to that effect. Reading the long description of the temple will give you some good clue to what they can build, since it is not apparent from the description of shrines at the beginning. Alternatively, just google 'RTW + temples list' or something to that effect, and download whatever spreadsheets and PDFs come your way. I have one that is really very good--tells you all the traits, effects, bonuses, and buildable units come with each temple all on one excel spreadsheet which is a little hard on the eye at font size 7 but tells you everything.
Fourthly, there is no such thing as Bastarnae cavalry. I assume you mean Sarmatian cavalry? That's the only heavy cavalry mercenary unit I know of. Sarmatians are good starter troops for shock cavalry-poor factions like Thrace and the Scythians. But after you develop your own cavalry capability they will almost surely be outclassed by your own buildable models. Bastarnae infantry are good mainly because of their 2HP, and I regularly use them in tandem with their brother mercenaries the Thracians, as general-hunting forces. I attract the general to charge, then position them in depth right astride the enemy general's path. They can cut a bodyguard cavalry into pieces in no time.
Hope this has been useful, cheers! Take two bridge battles and see me in the morning. ;-)
1. This is a problem we all had to deal with. I guess you hold these two Gaulish towns north of the Julii. Defend them and gather your armies there. Once you cleared the suroundings go south. You should have three independant corps and some smaler cav units as well as spies. Try to attack the Julii towns simultaneously. If a field army comes to free the town - retreat. Only fight if you are sure to win. Watch all their armies and keep them busy with your cav units. Use spies to take the towns at once. Block all their ports. :duel: :army: :rifle:Quote:
Originally Posted by Biggles20
2. Avoid the sea. Might be hard for Britons but you can fight them at land.
3. Take a look at post No 62
Good luck!
Yeah, Franc and I have the same way of thinking. Great minds think alike, way to go Franc!
But a question. What are your views on the Britons leaving Gaul alone and expanding into Germania as the campaign AI always seems to do?
Pez,
haven't tried that. There might be some difficulties:
- You can form a lasting alliance with Germania; you cannot do this with Gaul.
- Gaul will attack Sambarovia. If you do not want to bother you have to give it to them.
- Germania is so damned poor. You will not make enough money. Gaul pays.
- If you are at war with both, Germania and Gaul, this will effect your seatrade.
Good thing is that in my last campaign Gaul never tried to cross the channel.
I think you can reach the Med going through Gaul as fast as by going through Germania.
If you do not want to attack Gaul first you can chose a more British way and attack Spain. It takes some time to bring your army there.
Another idea would be to leave even Spain alone. Ship all your armies to the Med and attack Carthage, Sicily, Rhodes or whatever you like to. Takes time before the fighting starts, but then it will be fun, I'm sure.
I've heard lots of people complaining about British chariots and Generals Bodyguards. I agree that they are dreadful against infantry, so as part of a MOD I call the realism MOD, I have given most chariots around 20 attack and charge bonus, and increased the attack of the swordsmen on them. This makes them capale of actually defending themselves against infantry. I used to lose tons of chariots fighting against rubbish infantry like Warbands. If anyones interested in downloading my realism MOD, it should be in the download section of RTW Heaven fairly soon.
Hardly. I realise that it's the mount defence and mount armour that kills most of the time, because a lot of my test chariot battles show that it's the chariots that are destroyed first, not the swordsmen. You need to increase the protection on the chariot because once the chariot goes, so does the entire crew, and so what if they have 3-4 HP? It'll be run down in a moment with such crappy armour and defence.
I increased the Swordsmens attack and armour. AS WELL as that, I increased the chariots HP. British Heavy Chariots now have 5HP, and light chariots have 3HP. Along with the increased chariot attack, this made chariots decent against infantry.
No need to upgrade British chariots. Once you get used to them they will win every battle for you. Currently I fought all Roman factions. Usually I try to flank them with two heavy chariots and hit them in the flank or rear. In the meanwhile my ranging troops soften them and the infantry is passive. Firts eliminate all enemy cav. Heavy chariots work very well. Then attack the inf. They will retreat at once. You cann roll through theír lines from one side to the other. When they start routing let your infantry chase them.
But Chariots should be used for more than just running round infantry to knock them over while your infantry attack from the front. Chariots should be able to fight at least half-decently by themselves. Normally, Heavy Chariots would lose to units like Warbands if they charged them.
Precisely. And that's where the whole mount armour and defence comes in. Increasing HP isn't going to work and it's not realistic because chariots and horses couldn't take all that many hits. It's more realistic to leave the HP as it is but increase the amount of armour slabbed onto the battlecars. Chariots by right were not used as flankers but as shock forces. So the armour of your chariotry should reflect that. As to using ranged troops to soften the enemy, how'd you do that Franc? Every time I try to use ranged troops to soften up ANY enemy, as long as they were not archers, they would be immediately chased by the enemy's cavalry before they even had a chance to fire a volley, forcing my cavalry/chariotry to come out to save their necks.