Don't you suffer from "bad tax assessor" traits causing a long term income penalty, keeping taxes so low?
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Don't you suffer from "bad tax assessor" traits causing a long term income penalty, keeping taxes so low?
only if you put it on LOW tax, keeping it at normal gives you bonus' if not nothing at all. on cities without a governor put it up to the highest possible taxation.
Is that Brutii specific (or may be playing difficulty)? Because that's not what I found generally in the Vanilla 1.5 game, there if your population was too happy, you caught the trait rather frequently. There are mods that alter that, think bugfixer is meant to make the annoying bad tax trait less frequent.
My experience is, as long as you either cannot raise the tax rate (ie, already Very High) or raising the tax rate will cause red faces, you're safe. Anything less than that, you risk running into the bad taxman traits. I've had a family member get useless assessor in a city where the taxes were High instead of Very High, because I didn't hit the triangle button the last time I clicked it.Quote:
Originally Posted by RLucid
I will thus raise taxes as high as I can while a family member is in residence, and drop them to low taxes as soon as he leaves to get the population up quickly. Well, unless it's a city where I don't want it growing quickly, in which case I keep taxes as h igh as I can regardless of whether any governor is present.
Me to, and it's annoying as pursueing pop. growth seems perfectly legitimate to me, and it means moving Governors about more often, to take advantage of discounts, or enslavement pop growth (which is then counter-acted by need to raise taxes to avoid the trait).Quote:
Originally Posted by Praetor Rick
Bugfixer helps supposedly with this, but leaves your files incompatible with othes online.
in my experience any tax regime higher than normal turns your governor into a total asshole:dizzy2:
That's why I use them for conquering the world and not sitting in a little town some place on the edge of the world ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
haha, good call good call, but sadly your largest settlements require a governor present, or else all hell will break loose. Plus some men are just not fit to die on the field of battle.:no:
And still others are such useless gits that they become the third general in the army, functioning as self-regenerating cavalry until they've either died or become some kind of killing machine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Celtic_Punk
All these anti-Governor practices, basically show why mods have attempted to fix this bug.
Part of the game design, is building up influential governors, not just fighting generals, in order to be able to manage large cities' rebellious tendencies later on.
May be "useless assessor" is not actually in practice harmful to Brutii, as it postpones corruption issues caused by being stinking rich. But lowering taxes risks over-population issues later, which trouble many players.
But with the Corinth massive loyalty bonus wonder, in the Brutii's natural domain, I really wonder if anyone has a real problem with all of this. I kind of got the impression from the introductory film, that the Brutii were a bit barking, and they weren't breeding much either, so do these "angry man" tendencies actually pose significant difficulty towards fulfilling victory conditions?
well i am absolutely stinking rich, (well i shot all 160 grand on cueing up buildings across my vast empire) and the scipii have corinith. and im doing alright, my cities are not having problems with unrest (except the damn thracian settlements, ive chased thrace to the northern end of the baltic, :duel: and their homelands continue to bitch at me for no reason.)
by the way, is it odd that the julii have conquered what was nazi europe?
minus poland which happens to be in my possetion...:chinese:
has anybody else had the senate assign them to take Patavium?
the Senate assigned it to me right as the Julii were sieging Mediolanium...I took it, the Julii lifted their siege and the Gauls sued for peace with me. I said, "No way unless you give me Mediolanium", and the Gauls caved.
So now I've got these nice territories in Northern Italy, and the Julii are stuck having to take the long walk through the mountains to get to the Gauls...they still don't have the guts.
Is it just me, or in other people's games are the other Roman factions wimps? in my Julii game the Scipii only had Sicily, the Brutii two provinces in Greece, this was in like 236.
Now I've got all of Greece as the Brutii, while the Julii only have the 3 Italian provinces and the Scipii two of the three provinces in Sicily...250 BC. I'm pretty much walking all over Greece into Thrace and the other Romies don't look to be problems. Is it because I'm playing M/M?
It could be that your playin M/M. On E/E the Roman Factions take around 1/4 of the map and destroy 3/4 factions so i guess M/M is giving those factions space and time to become hard enemies.
Have you changed the files? Another reason is that you could have changed the Romans personalities.
nah, just vanilla v1.3, with the exception of unlocking all the factions...
that could be true, I'm also thinking though of some of the people playing on H or VH who have the other Romies taking a chunk of the map.
maybe CA has it written up somewhere that there's only a total number of territories that Rome is supposed to have at a given time, and if the player is exceeding that, then the other factions become wimps.
or maybe M/M makes the armies more cautious...
other thought is that I have been blocking some of the other factions a little bit, in my Brutii campaign I took the two N. Italy provinces, so that's kind of preventing the Julii from expanding...which is weird because they constantly have an army shuttering back from the coast to the gap in the mountains to stare at the Gaulish provinces.
and in my Julii campaign I took Cirta, but the Scipii took an army and sent it to explore the Thracian territories? it's just wondering around in Scythia/Dacia, a full stack of Scipii. nowhere close to any of their lands in Sicily:inquisitive:
In my first Brutii M/M game, which I intended to be just a quick run through of first 5 yrs or so, to "scout" the ground, the Scipii rapidly took Sicily and broke out into Carthage, as I was crushing the Macedonians. I had early on moved up the Adriatic, to take the mines, and seen off a small Gaullish force. When the Julii besieged Mediolanum at last, I besieged Patavium, and got attacked by the main Gaul army which I destroyed to take the town. The Julii, took Mediolanum much later, and was very sluggish to move against Massilia.
If the Scipii had had an early setback, and had difficulty breaking out of Sicily I would be agreeing with your experience. As it is, though I feel the Julii are a harder faction to play well than Brutii (due to their diverse strategic interests, with natural land expansion into poorer lands), I think how well the AI factions do is partly down to luck, and where/how the rebel interventions come disrupting the faction strategy.
Do you have Barbarian invasion installed eliterun? That makes RTW version 1.3 instead of its original version 1.5. That also destroys the Superalliance features and makes it almost like a normal alliance. That could have an effect on the Romans.
id just like to tell you all about a battle that amazed me. i was brutii on normal/normal large unit size. i had about 400 troops. 2 hastati 2 velites and 2 generals. the enemy(macedon) had 1400 troops. he had a heaps of phalanx pikemen, macedonian cavalry, light lancers and levy pikemen. a few of the cavalry were way out in front so i destroyed them. then macedon had just a heap of phlanxes and levys and using hit and run tactics i destoyed his troops.
DEATH TOLL-losses-men remaining
brutii(me)- 220 184
Macedon- 1432 0
I found an interesting strategy in my last Brutii game. I decided to toss things up and after taking Apollina, Syracuse, Dalmatia and Illyria like usual I decided to avoid Greece and go after Carthage. I destroyed Carthage and Numidia, but the real benefit here was that the Scipii were never able to expand. In addition to their two starting provinces they only ever captured Sardinia/Corsica. When civil war came I was faced with a Scipii faction only slightly more advanced than it was in 270BC. Of course, this tactic comes at the price of delaying a Greek conquest, but neither the Julii nor the Scipii attempted to attack Greece in my case.
Thats what I did and scipio went for Greece, I had to abandon Carthage and blitz Greece. but not in time to stop scipio jumping over to Turkey. I made short work of their laterally expanded empire though in the civil war. Though my greek campaign, I took over sicily first and scipio never moved out of Italy... This was all on M/M
As soon as you think you can predict AI behavior, they go and do something totally different!:frog:
I had lots of success with the Brutii when I started a campaign last night. I managed to do a series of successful assaults on all Greek held cities in Greece, and I'm slowly moving up to Macedonia. Ill just tell you what I did:
I grouped both starting armies you get together and got a boat over to Appolina, I took it in the first turn. I then sent a spy and a diplomat down to Thermon and with my army following I demanded they give me Thermon in return for an alliance, trade rights and some map info. Realising that the Scipii would break the alliance before I did, I quickly attacked the Greeks who had left the city and got a Heroic victory.
I then allied with Macedonia and walked on to Sparta. The Greeks has left a garrison of some hopilites, some armoured hopilites and some Spartans. I quickly got rid of these and took Sparta. When I took Sparta I realised I had taken a city with Principines ready to be trained. So I quickly began training some for use on my attacks on Macedon. I also built up a fleet to keep the large stack of Greek troops from leaving Rhodes, I will get rid of them soon. Also there is another Greek city near Pontic lands, but I'm not too worried about it.
I built up a few units of principines and sieged Corinth. I managed to take it with minimal casualties and killed 2 Macedonian generals. I find that the key to defeating Macedonian cavalry and phalanxes is:
1. Use phalanxes to engage cavalry on equal ground, if it is uneven then just use your generals bodyguard to kill the cavalry.
2. For phalanxes, just engage them and hit them from behind with your light or heavy cavalry. You colud even use a trick that I use in cities when I have two cavalry units. You make the phalanx head for one unit, then hit it from behind with the other. Then when the pikes are lifted hit it head on with the unit facing the phalanx.
Anyway, I sent a spy into Athens and the gates were open when I attacked. I didn't fight this battle particularly well and lost much more men than usual. The phalanx blocking the gate held for a long period of time, and the towers wiped out most of my archers. However as soon as the phalanx at the gate broke I wiped out the enemy with principines and heavy cavalry.
Oh and I sent a small force to secure Salona so the Macedonians couldn't capture it.
This is where I am now, I've been quite fortunate in my campaign, the Greeks have offered no resistance and the Macedonians are doing badly economically.
I have had even more success as the Brutii. I have managed to fight my way right through Macedon, and their faction is now extinct. I captured Larissa, Thessalonica and Bylazora, and have sent a small army to capture Byzantium whilst using my larger army to cross into Asia Minor and to secure Pergamum. The Selucids are down to their last settlement, Sardis, in which I have let them stay and have made an alliance with them. I took the city south of Sardis, and then declared war on Pontus as they are allied with Greece.
I have fought my way through Asia Minor, taking 3 Pontic settlements and leaving them in their capital and another settlement to the south. Whilst doing this I have also made another small army and took Kydonia. I have left the Greeks in Rhodes as I dont have the money to spare to eliminate them just yet. I have allowed the Scipii and the Julii to expand, as I want the civil war to be an epic struggle.
I had an incredibly annoying situation with Brutii today. Was going back to RTW for nostalgia, now that ETW is out, and scouring the Greeks and Macedonians from the face of the earth. The turn I took Thessalonica was the turn the plague broke out. I knew it was coming, of course, but I didn't remember exactly when - I figured I'd at least have a chance to move my army and my legion of spies out of the city before it came.
Sigh, really put a cramp on my campaign plan. I just marched my horribly diseased army up and took the last Macedonian city with it, then had to levy up a new army just to jump over to Asia Minor and thrash the Pontics.
The moral of this story is, I hate the plague. I know there's all kinds of fun things you can do with it, but it's so annoying. Plus, the idiot Thracians keep infiltrating spies into my plagued cities so the plague never goes away. Not really keen on taking on Thrace just yet, but if they keep this up, I'm gonna have to explain that biological warfare is off limits.
Also, remember, Thessalonica gets the plague in 256 bc, or at least it did for me. Don't put family members you care about in the city around then, even if you figure it's only for a turn. I lost a perfectly good faction heir to that, not to mention some really nice armies.
The plague is an event which is pre-determined by your decr_strat file. the date can be altered at will.
I find with the Brutii that the danube is a very good natural frontier, expand to there and a few good armies can defend from the barbarians at choke points so you can direct your attention someplace else.
I knew the plague was a pre-scheduled event, I just didn't remember the exact date. And got boned because it hit the exact turn I conquered the city, so a bunch of stuff got infected that I had intended to move out of the city next turn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alp Arlsan
Also, Thrace is now dust. We virtuous Romans frown on the use of biological weapons. Well, we frown on their use by our enemies. Which includes pretty much everybody.
Hah, same here. Im replaying brutii as Ive never finished laying as them.
Ive started this game several times though and like turtling in the following:
Grab the rebel coast towns quickly, keep up on senate quests usually telling you to thrash greece (and maybe sending you to gaul territory). Once I'm making bank with some rich greek citys whose perfumed noses I just cut off, I send a stack off to romp across Gaul to get some generals xp and GIFT the territories back to jullii to bolster them.
I'll turn on my macedon allies then hop to the turkish penisula, gift gobs of gold to the armenians to keep them in the game.
Slow pace game, but fun. This time I WILL take 50 territories with bruttii though.
My first sentence should read more like :Hah, I hate the plague to. Macedon plague drives me batty.
Couldnt find the damn edit button anywhere.
Mate, you know your'e replying in a thread thats been empty for a few months right? (just checking cause my first post was in a thread that was pretty inactive and i thought i did something wrong when no one replied) :laugh4:
Anyways welcome to the .org
As to the brutti i like to do basically the same thing. (i help out the romans because i like a tough fight in the end). Personally i love the turtle game, it maintains a tougher ai in the long rin, than does a quick steamroll, i believe personally.
Oh and the edit button is in the bottom right corner of your post
Greetings fellow brutes!
I realise this is not a terribly active and wellread thread and most things have been said already, but I wanted to share some tips and pointers on the Brutii that come from my latest campaign:
* You may want to think both once and twice about taking over Segestica, the rebel settlement up north from Salona and Appolonia, at least at the beginning. Even with mining possibilities it's not a terribly profitable province and both the Dacians and Gauls seem keen to take it as well. Holding a decent army up there with at least 2 years to the closest military hub can prove difficult at the start.
* If you act very quickly you can send an army westwards to Caralis and take it from the Carthaginians before the Julii get there. Islands with ports do wonders for your economy, and as the only ones that seem to attack them are romans they'll be safe for quite some time. Mind the pirateships though, anything less than 6-7 biremes will be beaten to a pulp if you run into them.
* The Brutii have access to very profitable provinces right from the start, so hiring more mercenaries than usual can really help you out even from the start. One unit you should get any time it is available is Cretan Archers, the best bowmen in the game (Pharao's aside) pre-Marius. Despite their name you can get them from any territory in southern Greece it would appear, but they're rarer to spawn than other mercenaries it would appear. Also you have a chance of gaining one of the best retinues in the game (Mercenary Captain, +1 command, +2% denarii from looting and -10% recruitment discount) every time you hire mercs, which helps even more at the start of a game.
Oh, and mercs are usually dressed in green which matches your main troops nicely!
* The Greeks and Macedonians do sport some mean hoplites, but seeing as the AI usually sends them against you one or two units at a time you can work them down to nothing easily with minimal losses on your side using these two tactics:
1) Hunt them down with skirmishers as they advance, or let the archers behind your main battleline hit them as they advance. Seeing as hoplites are slow in formation (which they always stay in, it seems) you can probably use all your ammo on them before they reach you, if you please.
2) Surround them with your own infantry and rush them from behind when you attack. Also note that using your units' pila (throwing spears) before attacking can reduce the hoplite unit by as much as 25% in one go, so make sure you have used this before rushing. As the AI isn't the brightest you can usually let the unit facing the hoplites move around in circles and let some other units sneak up behind the hoplites for the charge, without them reacting to it.
* The plague in Macedonia is scripted and can't be avoided without altering your files, but there are some tricks you can play to stop it from reaching your provinces. Judging by my latest campaign you don't seem to get the plague even from bordering provinces if they belong to the a faction you are at war with. Of course you should wait until the plague is gone before conquering it as well, as the plague will most likely affect any invading army and may even start on a new timer. I'm not sure about the effects of public healthbuidlings (Sewers, Public Baths etc) but they appear to reduce the length of the plague if nothing else, so if you do get the plague make sure to start building that.
* Your diplomatic relations will be tense no matter how you play it, so think long and hard on which way you want to go. The juicy provinces in Greece are held by both Macedonia and the Greek Cities so any offensive there will probably bring you to war with both of them. Taking Salona will make the Gauls angry and send armies down the coast, at least if the Julii are friendly with the Gauls like in my campaign. The Senate really does hate Carthage and will give you missions to block their ports and maybe more, but you should probably weigh the benefits before accepting these missions. Hauling a precious navy way off your mainlands just to get games thrown in your honour might just not be worth it.
Hope this helps, and sorry again if I just repeat what has already been said!
Kind regards
Good solid points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bellicin
I often send the army for Caralis to Syracuse first. Many times, I can let the first wave of Scips take all the casualties while the Bruti take the city. That army (with a few mercs) can often re-embark and STILL reach caralis ahead of the Julii -- or at least in time to do the same thing I did in Sicily (let them start the siege, but YOU start the siege assault, let them bleed on the walls, but take the city for the profits yourself). I do this with one bireme (which NEVER has troops still on it at the end of a move after turn #2).
Welcome to the org!
One of my favorite games was one in which the Carthaginians took messana. then i took over all of Sicily. Trust me sicily looks far better in green. :2thumbsup:Quote:
Good solid points.
I often send the army for Caralis to Syracuse first. Many times, I can let the first wave of Scips take all the casualties while the Bruti take the city. That army (with a few mercs) can often re-embark and STILL reach caralis ahead of the Julii -- or at least in time to do the same thing I did in Sicily (let them start the siege, but YOU start the siege assault, let them bleed on the walls, but take the city for the profits yourself). I do this with one bireme (which NEVER has troops still on it at the end of a move after turn #2).
I've also just dusted off RTW and set out with the Brutti. I managed to nab Syracuse, Lilybaeum, Patavium, Mediolanum, Massilia and Caralis before the Julii and Scipii moved. Now I have all of greece while the Julii have a huge stack drink wine in Palma and the Scipii have Thapsus. Good luck to them during the civil war. (h/h).
actually it is easier to win :egypt: you just need to press ` in the game and poof you got your place to type cheats :skull: just type add_money 40000 (this is MAX amount) on the cheat sheet and u have extra denarii :shame: you don't nid to attack carthage............ if you attack they will crush your navy and use phalnx formation to cut throght your battle line...................
THIS IS WHAT I DID :oops::oops::oops::oops::oops: error T_T lol i went to use 10 min to pump up my money with add_money 40000 then i transferred aulus brutus to my capital and hired menceneries NEXT....... i build up my navy and train equites ....... guess how i buld my stable.... CHEAT ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! type process_cq (city name) example:::: process_cq rome :2thumbsup::2thumbsup: haha then i used add_population 4000 (max) and this guy called Gaius Marius went to help me upgrade my soldiers to legionaries and you can conquer the WHOLE Mediterranean.......... on my last campaign i did a mistake i left 1 unit of tranii on italy and rebels attacked me............... and i conquered all the lands in barbarian invasion with roman (eastern empire)
gauls will attack you and take pativium and miediolum from you :thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thu mbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsd own::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown: :thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thu mbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown:Quote:
Originally Posted by Joszen1
I managed to nab Syracuse, Lilybaeum, Patavium, Mediolanum, Massilia and Caralis before the Julii and Scipii moved. Now I have all of greece while the Julii have a huge stack drink wine in Palma and the Scipii have Thapsus. Good luck to them during the civil war. (h/h).
I managed to nab Syracuse, Lilybaeum, Patavium, Mediolanum, Massilia and Caralis before the Julii and Scipii moved. Now I have all of greece while the Julii have a huge stack drink wine in Palma and the Scipii have Thapsus. Good luck to them during the civil war. (h/h).
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As if the Gauls are any threat. Nothing beats Roman infantry if they're organized and you guard your flanks. I once fended off a full stack of Carthaginians with nothing but two Hastati and a unit of Principes, just by setting my guys into defense mode and using town streets to hold the flanks.
I find that a few units of Equites will rout most Gallic armies. The Gauls are very fragile when it comes to morale. Just being engaged by cavalry in the flank or rear seems to turn them into cowards.
I don't know what you guys are doing fighting Gauls as the Brutii, this faction has the best possible expansion prospects out of any Roman family.
Step 1: Take your good general and all the units, diplo and thief over to Greece. Milk the Greeks and Macedons for gold.
Step 2: Take Appolonia and subseqently the Greek controlled town below it. Jump on a boat.
Step 3: Build a solid navy and lurk around Sparta. The Spartan king has a habbit of sailing East most ofthen than not.
Step 4: Either wait for the Greek forces at Sparta to be divided or sail away. Isolate the peninsula with your navy, attack the stack of archers/peltats that has a habbit of walking around the hillside next to Sparta.
Step 5: If you can, bait the Greeks in to attacking you so that the units of Spartan Hoplites come out of the town and charge at your Hastati. Get some Veities at their backs.
After you capture Sparta head down and comfortably take Athens and then start a war with Macedonia buy taking Corinth. From then on I personally have not had any problems, as gold is plentiful and your two cities in Italy + Athens, Sparta and Corinth can supply supperior troops while you conquer the rest of the world.
hehehe...build a fort near one of their stacks...the AI is a sucker for forts (and since a spy keeps it alive...well, you get the idea)Quote:
Originally Posted by katank
wow...never knew that. will have to try that next time i play...maybe i'll patch to 1.5...heck...i even have BI disk gathering dust. lolQuote:
Originally Posted by bubbanator
I've belatedly realized the prime use for gladiators is to take out chariots - just amazing results! Although, uhm, as far as dealing with the missile fire from the damned things i'd go with merc elephants (more on that later...first off i got about 10 more pages to read. lol)Quote:
Originally Posted by Garvanko
good use for assassins at key points on the frontier, once they're too old for counterspying, is to run assassination attempts/sabotage to reboot the randomizer when reloading a save game cuz your best general got the plague when you hit 'end turn'Quote:
Originally Posted by pezhetairoi
hmmmm...i did that too...about a HUNDRED years ago. lol. I don't think rome has hired any replacements. funniest thing ever i suppose...i'm assuming they're going to make troops once the civil war starts?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickius Buttius
that's pretty much what i'm doing...with an emphasis of keeping below 50,000gp treasury. Although i "wall off" at Antioch just so i am in easy reach of elephant mercs or "ellies" as everyone here seems to prefer. I ignore the senate unless they offer up major exotic unit rewards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
difficulty is VH/VH. After rushing the Aegean and enslaving any large city (with all slaves going to only one city at a time), i pretty much turtled around the temple of artemis in Larissa (my new capital) while i built up my army stacks to keep the treasury contained. I next took crete then rhodes then rescued Pontus from extinction by taking the southern half of Asia Minor to Antioch then stopped. At that point Marius reforms took over (although i didn't retire my old style armies for fear of losing control of the revenue balance. I had about 6 stacks by then) After a while I overran Thrace after they'd built pantheons to Ares and a couple of theatres. Next it was Dacia for their temple of farming. It's currently 100BC and i'm wondering what to do next...do i try to please the senate which is begging me to attack Egypt for a few decades now in hopes of a 3rd first legionary cohort, or cause a civil war and play a defensive strategy in hopes germany/spain take out julii and Egypt counterattacks Scipii?
I'm also playing unpatched to simplify general generation. Oh, and i play with 'small' unit sizes just because i hate weird stuff happening to pathing in cities, although some of the bugs are really annoying it's mostly cosmetic. The capital being the only place heirs pop up creates a situation where i really don't let my generals stray, so all of my Seleucid holdings have captains only commanding. I'll probably end up leaving only captains in my northern territories as well, or maybe letting them all rebel so that germany or scythia start rampaging...hmmm
meh...all i know is i'm going to try the realism mods next game
First of all, great guide, thanks to Doug-Thompson. Second of all, whenever the plague comes from Thessalonica, that's when you just go rampant and invade most of Greece in 5-10 turns, and end up with 200,000 denarii and Macedon's extinction, with around 150-160% public order in most cities, especially if you move the capital to Athens until the Civil War, because taking Larissa on turn 24 guarantees a plague-carrying general if he's in the city. And believe me, plagued cities do whatever you want, I was able to keep most of them at either High or Very High taxes, and they still had at least 150% public order.
Greetings!
First I just want to say that the information in this thread is quite excellent, I have learned quite a bit reading only a few pages of posts! Thank you to the creator and all contributors.
I would like to submit my own strategy regarding The Brutii Family.
Firstly it's best to discuss some methodology, as i play the campaign with a high level of meticulousness.
Aside from the two starting cities, Croton and Tarentum, I don't like it when cities aren't pulling their weight, so the assimilation process of any city begins with setting up it's economy. I build roads, farms and traders as a priority. The earlier you get them the better off you are in the long term, though it puts a damper on military units you could have potentially made. However, these things quickly start to pay off as your trade, and population growth all benefit. If ports can be built, they are also seen as a priority. Later in the game things like sewers and arenas are also prioritized, as getting these things prevents riots and the plague. If you do these things early, later in the game you will find yourself able to take care of your entire domain and then make war with your excesses.
This is all probably common stuff, but it illustrates a philosophy of steady and sustainable growth. Now onto the strategy specifics...
Instead of fighting Greece and then Macedonia, pit them against one another. It requires playing a very thin political game with groups of allied nations. Flood the map as much as you can with spies and have diplomats available wherever you may need them. Secure trade rights with every nation, and ally with the allies of your enemies. (Thrace, Scythia for example).
Ally with Macedonia, even though they are treacherous backstabbers :) . If you can dissuade Greece from attacking Appolonia, tension will build between Macedonia and Greece, and with luck (or skilled bribery) they will begin warring with one another.
This involves ignoring a lot of senate missions, but to be honest i don't think it matters a great deal. They still seem to give me plenty of office positions anyway...
Politically you want good relations with Greece and better relations with Macedonia (as they have won in the past when i attempted this strategy)
While Macedonia and Greece fight it out, you are free to conquer Dacia, given the right political setting (If Greece is allied with Dacia, it might thin your relationship with Greece by attacking Dacia, but the Dacian regions are the natural place for the Brutii to secure once the Aegean port cities are secured (save for the one Scipii port). The senate will ask you to take Patavium, and after you take it recommend a ceasefire with Gaul.
Take any Barbarian cities that you can. (hopefully after Dacia takes them, thinning itself out in the process)
Ally with Germania and then Dacia will become completely surrounded by your allies, which is an excellent time to conquer it entirely. Because you are allied with all your new neighbors, the risk of invasion is a lot lower, so you can hold your new provinces with less.
Throughout the early, mid and late game, knowing where every other nation is at politically is essential to success. Most of the time for me, the choice of who to conquer next is usually made by finding out who the targets allies are and what network of alliances they are in, and then choosing the side which creates me the fewest potential enemies.
Once Greece and Macedon have thrown their stronger armies at one another, you can consider conquering them. Once i tried to actually ally with Greece and take out Macedon together, this didn't work very well as Thrace and Scythia seem to be pretty tight with Macedon.
Finish off Greece, and then you can take on Macedon.
Once fighting Macedon, the problems i have ran into are that Thrace and Scythia then decide they are my enemy, but I'm not sure if this would always occur.
The benefits of this style and strategy are that you can take out weaker cities with smaller armies and hold them with smaller armies. You take cities faster because you can do so with less, and your political arrangements make you safer and better off than any arms race with an opposing nation. Because you make sound investments early game, your relatively large number of cities equates to huge amounts of money. At this point, you can keep doing the same thing. Analyse political webs and extend yourself as far as possible wherever possible.
You will still likely need to create larger focused armies to take specific towns you want and manage your expansion campaigns, or to defend against your enemies, but for the most part you will operate with very thinly spread and strategically placed small groups of units, which primarily serve the function of routing rebels. When it comes time to turn on an old ally and conquer a new frontier, using all your wonderful paved roads and your relatively powerful navy out of the Aegean, swinging units from one frontier to the next can be done fairly rapidly.
Thrace and Scythia, Pontus and Armenia become enemies as you move into the black sea and toward the upper right portion of the map. Having the sea-line from the Aegean to around Tarsus represents a potent chunk of sea trade, and Securing the edges of the map provides a boarder that you don't need to defend. At this point you can expand down towards Arabia and over through Germania.
Personally i enjoy this style because since everything is so thin and meticulous, the decision making becomes more fun than the actual playing of battles (which i only do if i feel i need to to win, or if i need excellent attrition). In the mid and late game, there is so much going on that it can literally take more than an hour to play a single turn, and the level of complexity in your decisions depends on how thoroughly you choose to investigate things.
Has anybody else played a similar style? And especially, can anyone see any major flaws in this strategy?
I've searched but apparently there's nowhere to boast about this:
https://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y1...0bcfullmap.jpg
That's the whole map in 80 turns. Could've saved several years if I'd thought to send a few idle stacks towards the steppes while I was mopping up Rome.
Started off with a blitz, hemmed the other families in by taking Sicily, North Africa and the Gallic provinces around the Alps. And after that, I just kept going. Alliances with Thrace and Armenia lasted a surprisingly long time allowing me to focus on other factions. Probably most useful in dispatching the Egyptians so quickly but I guess the sheer speed of the campaign meant that even they couldn't build too many of those pesky axemen and chariots.
And conquering Egypt went a long way towards providing an economy that could handle my large military spending.
I found the best strategy with the brutii is to take southern greece and use their usually superior infantry production facilities, inlcuding a shrine for weapons upgrades in sparta, to mass produce hastati. Send a few to mop up greece and macedon, then sned everything you can at egypt. Attacking jerusalem should give you a nice and easy foothold. Then continue this blitz to alexandria and the other nile territories. This will give you excellent cities for cheap for egypt usually has its armies far afield. After these territories are taken, The rest of the campaign is easy. This was on veryhard/veryhard btw. I conquered about 27 territories before the marian reforms.