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Guide.
Ive only been playing over the weekend so Im just going to contribute a few points that have become apparent as I played. The WREs position seems nice on the strategy map but its a complete mess. No cash, no trade net work to make it, a huge army bill thats spread out across the map so youve no concentration of force, and practically all cities on the verge of revolt due to religious schisms. And thats even before the barbarians show up.
Be brutal - All the cities in Spain except for Corduba need to be demolished as much as possible for loot, and abandoned to revolt. Just before you go build Christian Shrines there, as when they revolt they seem to go 99% Christian if theres a Christian shrine there. This can be useful later.
Similar deal for the likes of Salona, Avaricarum, and similar cities that just arent going to make it. Loot them, leave them. Some cities can be saved, even by steps as simple as moving the governers in them out of the city, Carthage can go from Red to Green in the first turn for example. Youll need to micromanage and experiment with various tax/games and whatever settings. Theres far too much to go into here and most people should know by now how to deal with a tough city. Your Emperor is Christian and that means a 10% public order penalty in Pagan cities, which can tip the scales in the big cities. Wherever possible build christian shrines and move characters as appropriate (Valentinus in Rome, and the 24 year old General in Hungary are born again evangelists, really useful for fast conversion). Christian regions reinforce each other, likewise Pagans so dont skate uphill in places like the western frontier. Some you should leave alone for now - like Eburcuam (York...), Massilla and Syracuse are just asking for trouble when youve got enough already.
Your army bill is insane (for what you can support anyway) and youll need to dump about 25% of it as soon as you can. Get it down to under 30K or less if possible. Trash every troop producing building outside Rome in your first turn. You need the cash, and Rome produces the best troops you can make anyway. Then start disbanding units of troops - I favour dumping Foederatti Cavalary and the Comitatenses, the first because Light Cavalry isnt the most useful troop type around, and the second because its far, far, far too expensive for you to maintain. You need to keep a small army in North Africa (I favour building peasants in Syracuse, then sending the 2 Comms 2 Archers stack to Cartage whilst disbanding the other Comm - this takes a few turns), and similar sized armies in Spain, the Balkans and Britannia. A larger army is needed in Western Europe obviously, but dont let that Nero chap command it at the end of the turn - hes useful for a quick attack, but move him out of the stack at the end of the turn because hes a treacherous so and so. After army disbandments your forces will be paper thin, and you wont be able to retrain them anywhere but Rome, but skilled Generals will still win handily where they need to. Your navy also needs to be disbanded. Two ship stacks need to be one ship stacks, and you need them only in Corduba, Londium, Syracuse and the Adriatic. Everything else disband in a port.
Keep your taxes as high as you can, youre aiming for blue faces. Im the first couple of turns everything is about cash, and making it. Caralis and Londinium seem to be the two cities that are most worth investing in in terms of markets and trade etc. Prioritise them for money making first. After all my looting and disbanding I was actually able to turn a profit on my first turn - you will be hurt when the Pagan cities rebel on the 2nd turn but its short term pain for long term gain.
At this point you should have a couple of thousand denarri, and several cities especially in Spain are going to riot and then revolt. Let them. They will only have peasant armies (if you destroyed all troop making buildings). Move in the next turn and seige them and then exterminate them. Ive done this about 5 times now and you make usually 10K a city, sometimes 5 or 6K. The population is sometimes magically tipped to Christian since rebelling (build those shrines in the first turn), and the squalor which was such a mess before is not a problem now. You should have a much better chance of building and holding these cities now, if not push them into revolt and exterminate them again. Pop boom should keep them happy.
The Allemani can also be bushwhacked easy enough in the first couple of turns, and again exterminated and looted. Then demolish for loot, push them into revolt, leave and theyll swing to the Western Empire rebels, which can be a useful buffer. There are other rebel barbarians on the frontier that can be exterminated for loot so whilst youre waiting for the barbarians to show up help yourself. Dont get too worried about the barbarians, theyre coming, but they havent made any hostile moves in my campaign yet.
Ive fought one battle against the Berbers and wasnt impressed - light infantry, light cavalary: I beat a Berber army of four inf/cav units +general with a unit of foe spears and a unit of Lim + the Gen in carthage with practically no casualties. They seemed to have no morale, maybe the gen in question but either way, not a concern.
Be careful where you build your agents, Christians seem to be recruited from Christian cities and they have an effect on conversion, a lot of Christian diplomats and spies can maybe tip the balance in a pagan city and vice versa.
"Consolodating"
Turn 1:
Destroy all pagan buildings. Destroy all military buildings (except in Rome). Disband units like priests, bucellarii, all cavs and all fleets except 2 (Britain and Sicily). This will bring your treasury up to well over 19.000 dinarii. Set all taxes to low and build peasant and christian shrine (1 turn) in all settlements.
You have 5 ZoD (zone of defence): Iberia, France, Balkan, Italy and Africa. Pull all expendable troops together into 5 armies within thoose areas.
Turn 2:
Continue removing expendable troops from settlements into the 5 armies as lyalties goes up. Single out the one settlement in each region that has the lowest loyalty and pull all troops out and make shure loyalty goes down to 0%. Theese 5 settlements are the first that you will terminate. In all other settlements build a christian chapel (2 turns) and more peasants for garrisoning, 2-4/ settlement will usually do.
+"Liquidating"
Turn 3:
Lay seige to the "5" settlements that you singled out. For me it was actually 4: Aduatica?/ Iberia, Avaricum/ France, Salona/ Balkans and Mediolanium/ Italy.
Your treasury should now dip well below -5.000 d.
Turn 4:
Take theese settlements and exterminate the population. This will bring some 40-50.000 d. into your treasury. All chapels are now built so you can move on and sacking remainding settlemnts that still won´t hover around 100% with 4 garrisoning peasants and NO general. Repeat, repeat and repeat again until all "pagans" arer rooted out of your new christian empire.
= "PseRamesses´3-turn key" to increased cash-flow
In less than 2 years you´ve now turned a sprawling civil-war prune empire on the edge of collapse into a cash-making machine and just 10 years into the game you´ll make well over 15.000d/ turn. Bring on the hordes!
Now you´re all set. Cash is coming in with 10k/ turn + from exterminating/ enslaving troublesome settlements and you can rebuild the infrastructure you initially destroyed. Don´t worry about other enemies, they won´t come wandering into your lands until they have troops to spare. Guard your border-bridges since a small defensive force can protect it easily. Haven´t even had any major difficulties with the hordes this way.
Be ware though of the commanders you have with pagan beliefs - they are easily bribed, and the barbarbarian factions start out with a lot of cash; 10-15.000 d. This is the reason why I want my garrisoning to work without any generals. Send them to Rome and some monastary (sp?) teachings for a while. Thoose that don´t convert, "hang" as many pagan vices around their necks and send them on suicidal missions.
From here I tend to build, build and build with my focus on defending. When done with this and evrything is solid I expand, usually into ERE-lands and I let the pestering little barbarians stay alive even if they won´t agree on a ceasefire or protectorate deal. Anyway, a good bridge slaughter now and then is always healthy and keeps my armies alert, right?!
One other point - (I only registered just there) - Corduba is "paired" tradewise with Tingi, which starts the game as the Berber captial, and theyre at war with you. In typical frustrating Total War style this means they never see a reason to make peace with you, until theyre dead. Peace and mutual benefit from trade isnt attractive to them it seems. So make it a point of order to send an army from Carthage ( the one originally from Syracuse will be well able to beat anything the Berbers can muster ) and deal out some Pax Romana to the locals. There are other draws to Tingi apart from making cash - its Christian, and its got decent troop production which youll have missed in Iberia/North Africa until now. Reinforce those battered legions, then send them north to help out on the frontier when order is restored in Iberia.
And a correction to what I said above about Shrines tipping rebelling cities to Christianity...they dont. Though the swing in Tarraco to Christianity is indeed miraculous if you leave them alone for 3 -4 turns. Its still worth building shrines in rebelling cities though, as they force the region to be officially Christian, which reinforces conversion in your own remaining regions that are neighbouring them. Ive also begun heavily converting the frontier by capturing and exterminating barbarian settlements on the frontier and building shrines before I abandon them or gift them to a local faction for brownie points. Helps my provinces to convert, or at least stop converting to Paganism. Agents as I said above help, but its not automatic that a Christian city produces a christian agent - Ive yet to see a pagan one produced in a Christian city, but a fair few are neither.
I think I got totally lucky. I was also very persistent. I did not worry about changing any cities religion. Those places that I could not adjust to get over 60% at the beginning, I let them revolt and took them back later. I did not disband any armies, I just pulled them together in certain regions for defense and some (very Little) offense. I did have problems for 75% of the game with cities (unrest). I always did just enough to keep them in the blue and some even in the red. 1st building priority was temples/shrines/church etc, whatever the city was majority wise. Then entertainment and health. Those cities that were happy I did the money and health upgrades.
Since I did not disband I had good army strength to defend and to put down revolts. I cashed in on all military buildings except for a few well placed cities. Kept 4 - 6 peasants per city, except those on border with a neighbor kept some better troops to defend and foray out if need be.. Only upgraded military buildings in Carthage and Rome. I fell in the negative alot but would always estermiante a neighbor to get money back up.
Took England and the celts quick. Took troops from syracuse to help Carthage defend. Got lucky when the Berbs wanted peace for a small time. When they attacked next, was always able to fend them off. My navy was beat up early except for small fleets east of Rome (helped me ferry troops to east border), and near carthage. I built a small enough fleet to take more men to England to deal with Celts and them bring them back. Took the Berbs out when I built up an army big enough. Owned the whole Left 1/3 of map.
Hordes came.... WOW!! Hard but man was it fun. Army was strong enough to take out 4 different hordes as they tried to come through my land. Good thing they all never came at the sametime. Any 2 hordes would have been more than I could handle. Had to deal with East Rome the whole time but they only wanted (can't think of city name) city just east of Rome. I was able to ferry troops over when needed to keep beating them off. Was able to catch small pieces of the horde when they are not adjacent to the whole group. Lots of battles where I was out numbered 2 to 1. Used 6 to 7 groups of archers defended by inf. and cal. with a couple of mounted archers. Up to 668 archers helped me to desimate any mounted archers that came to bother me. I have them in losse format and choose certain untis to attack certain groups and let them take them out. Once charged I tighten back up their formation and pull them back to saftey behind my lines. This worked like a charm even though I would lose 100 or so archers some battles. Easy enough to replace them (cheap).
Franks caused me problems for awhile. I beat them pretty bad till they were down to one city. They then turned into a horde (someone must have took out that last city. Until I had the strength I just kept the river between me and them and they were never brave enough to come across. I built a new army with all the finest and with a new general I just bought. I used 3 full stacks to wipe the Frank hoard.
By this time 98% or so of my cities are in the green and I am rolling in dough. Took Theselonia from East, then Athens. Army in Africa rolled all the way over and took Alexandria. Extermiante these cities and my surpluss of money was approaching 50,000. I beat the game in the year 421 with 44 territories. I will continue to play till the whole map is red.
Like I said I got lucky with not changing my whole empire to one religion (would not recommend that). Only played that round on Medium. Will now try the west on hard and will use some of the ideas above.
More to add: The rhine and the danube are your best friend. Without them keeping Western Europe civillised would be impossible, instead of merely extremely difficult. There are just over half a dozen bridging and fording points along their lenth. Build your army towards having a small border army on each bridge (Im working with 4 Limitanei and 4 Archers, though some are underutilised and Ill be disbanding them as the horde threat recedes), and then build two field armies with all the good stuff and sit them centrally to reinforce any bridge that comes under threat. Get them led by a general with good movement bonuses. With highways built ( midgame priority) youll be able to move along whole frontier in one turn. Best way to discourage hoardes whilst keeping your army bills down. Then your down to some good old fashioned bridge massacres!
In my game Ive so far annialated the Goths and the Vandals (theyre still around, just not worth anything). The Vandals were seiging the Frankish capital, and I was considering my options when the Vandals forced my hand by suddenly crossing into Roman land via a ford just north of the Alps that I hadnt seen and thus hadnt defended. Cue panic! Anyway, the interloepers were driven out, but better still was the night attacks led by that treacherous cur Nero to lift the seige of the Frankish capital by the Vandal stacks. I could take each stack singly because of night attacks and thus managed to beat them all with a scratched together army. The real benefit of lifting the seige on the Franks was stopping them from "hoarding" and thus making the Rhine to hot to hold. Nero and Spuris Flavius ( Acquinium) are extremely useful for cutting down the hordes to manageable numbers with their night attack ability.
Dealing with horse archers is a pain, but I favour heavy cavalry over archers against them. Youll take losses using your archers but your generals ( esp when retrained in Romes foundry) will be practically invulnerable to horse archer fire. Takes some micro management (and a few generals on hand) to "herd" horse archers against a red line and massacre them but its the most cost effective way to do it ( gens regenerate, archers do not). It also helps your gens develop good traits/stats from all that killing.
Right now, there are only two hoards still active - the Huns whove taken a few beatings on their way to me I think, and the Samartians who are probing to find an unguarded bridge. This is something you can manipulate - when the Vandals crossed into the Alps the Samartians were queing up to follow them across this ford. By this time I managed to get an army to the ford, and pulled another army off the bridge north of Acquinium - Samartians turned straight around and made a beeline for the unguarded bridge, giving me the turn I needed to beat the Vandals and I was still able to garrison the bridge again before the Samartians arrived. The hordes really dont like guarded bridges.
I will have to try that Sand. I am not having any money problems anymore but in the early to mid game your way sounds very good.Quote:
Dealing with horse archers is a pain, but I favour heavy cavalry over archers against them. Youll take losses using your archers but your generals ( esp when retrained in Romes foundry) will be practically invulnerable to horse archer fire. Takes some micro management (and a few generals on hand) to "herd" horse archers against a red line and massacre them but its the most cost effective way to do it ( gens regenerate, archers do not). It also helps your gens develop good traits/stats from all that killing.
I now own 2/3 of the map and have wiped out 6 different hordes now. It is only a clean up job now to turn the rest of the map red. I will then grow up and move up to Hard/hard or even very hard/very hard.
Just a thought but playing as a Roman faction you might want to consider having a good general as Emperor. As the Western Roman Empire, I made Nero Flavius, Count of the Saxon Shore (with a command rating of 5) heir to the throne and when Valentinus the Wrathful died, I had no problems with rebel Roman factions emerging after he took over. I think the fear of having a skilled general ruling over the empire was enough to put fear into potential usurpers.
In the original RTW, who you made faction heir didn’t really matter. Sullust the Baby Killer could be made faction leader and no one would care because loyalty wasn’t a factor. With Barbarian Invasions, loyalty is a huge concern. The Western Roman Empire starts with 2 or 3 governors/generals with questionable loyalty. Fix this by giving them political titles (found in the retinue) from Generals who already have good loyalty. For example, the holder of “Count of the Saxon Shore” was given to an idiotic gambler family member who was already loyal enough. So instead I gave the titles to Nero Flavius since he was a good general who lacked loyalty and this raised his loyalty enough to not rebel. If you feel that any family member will rebel, put them under the control of a powerful general who is loyal. This will keep them from rebelling.
Also, many Roman governors start out with terrible vices that wreak havoc on an already devastated economy. Consider removing the bad ones from important cities like Rome and Carthage and make them governors of economically poor regions like Londonium. Or alternatively if any family member has no redeeming factors whatsoever, just reduce them to cavalry officers under the command of a good general.
This happened with my ERE campaign but is still relevant here. Be very careful who you make faction heir and be very very careful and do not remove a family member from the position of Heir (which can be a big problem when your Emperor dies as it give heir to anyone) Because they get a really bad trait and possibly even more bad loyalty ones. It happened to my mid level general who was in Asia minor at the time quashing a revolt, so he joined them along with the biggest army in the region
http://www.russiananimation.com/export_des...cter_traits.rar
This file makes it impossible for roman FACTION LEADER to go disloyal. The only thing that could lower faction leader loyalty is "Deceiver trait" and that has command bonus on highest level
All i did was added "Factionleader" as antitrait to all loyalty penalty traits. they only influence loyalty directly or influence in one instance. and since influence is not used in BI i thought it was of no consequence
no other modifications were made to this file. your generals still can go land become drunkards if you want.
below find a "No_Disloyal_faction_leader_nodrunk_gluton.rar" traits file.
this is the one i use as i hate moving my generals every single turn from every single setlement to prevent them from becoming fat slobs.
http://www.russiananimation.com/No_Disloya...runk_gluton.rar
I followed some of the advice given here and in the Colosseum {EDIT: a lot of my points seem to be common to advice by Dorkus}, and had no problems with money or loyalty. You don't have to give up a single city. This has only been tried on M/M difficulty, but I'm going to see if works on higher levels.
To deal with the money problem:
(1) Lower upkeep: Disband most fleets (I kept one near Britain, one near Gibraltar, and one near Carthage). Disband cavalry (I kept the Samartians) and priests.
(2) Get a lump sum to invest: destroy all troop buildings except those in Rome. You have a big enough army to start with and just want the high tech troops you can get by upgrading buildings in Rome. You can get lower level buildings when you take enemy towns.
(3) Exterminate the Allemanni city for an early cash boost. The Pictish one and any nearby rebels are other targets.
(4) Sell trade rights to any neighbours (200GP for 6 turns). I decided not to sell my map in the hope that this keeps the AI in the dark.
(5) Micromanage taxes - maximise them subject to keeping blue faces until things get comfortable.
(6) Prioritise economic buildings - especially ports and mines. (Actually second priority after loyalty buildings in red faced towns).
To deal with towns' low loyalty:
(1) Move the capital to Massila. This lowers the distance to capital penalty for many towns.
(2) Match the religion of governors to the religion of towns.
(3) Build the appropriate temples for the town's religion. I kept the Empire divided in religion. This meant effectively Italy was Christian but the rest of Western Europe was pagan.
(4) Raise units of peasants as garrisons where doing so would raise loyalty.
(5) Build amphitheatres for larger towns.
I have not had the Western Roman rebels emerge nor loyalty problems with any generals. Maybe winning battles raises loyalty like in MTW? I did give an office to a low loyalty high command general (Nero Flavius?).
Militarily, the early game has been quiet. I lost my British army in the Irish sea (doh!). I destroyed a Samartian horde on the bridge north of Salona (it also lost 1000 men taking Salona from two units - two stacks marched around the city walls to the front gate). I wiped out the Berbers. Now I'm facing depleted Vandal and Hun hordes, then I will make a push to Constantinople to secure the victory conditions.
I would prioritise roads and highways in the mid-game. The Empire is so large, it helps to be able to traverse it quickly.
I also built up decent fleets to deal with annoying pirates, but that was more for psychological reasons.
In terms of armies:
1) Archers are still very good buys (3/stack is good) although the crossbows I am not so keen on - they are outranged by bows.
2) I have found limitanei to be poor choices for front line field armies - the AI zeroes in on them. Better to keep them for garrisons and hunting rebels.
3) Comitatenses are fine troops and the core of my armies, but suffer against general's heavy cavalry (a downhill charge by one general's unit killed 50 comitatenses within a few seconds) - a couple of units of foederati might be a help here.
4) Mid-game targets are plumbatari to replace comitatenses and auxilia palatina to replace foederati. The Samartians are better than the Scholae Palatina, so don't need replacing.
Some of the guides here really are terrible, especially ones that tell you to demolish buildings and exterminate everyone...That's ridiculous. I've never done that as the WRE, and i have at least 6 thousand denarii by turn two, and i play on vh campaign...
The first thing you need to do is disband all foederati infantry and cavalry. You can create more on turn two if you like, but for turn one just disband it all. Don't even think about messing with religion yet, if a city is pagan, leave it alone, if a city is mostly christian but has a pagan shrine, pull it down and put up a christian church and vice versa, but that's it...No trying to convert from turn one, unless of course you absolutely want to have a really challenging campaign, challenging to the point where the chances of you being able to win are virtually nil.
Anywho, once you've disbanded all foederati's, lower taxes so that your city faces are at least blue, and if they are still red then make the games monthly, or daily if needs be. If they're still red, (corduba and burdigala) then you have a choice of either letting them rebel and taking them back then exterminating, or queing up peasants and hoping that brings some order. I can't use peasants since i use the SPQR minimod.
Now, the Celts will NEVER attack you in Britannia even though you are at war with them, so disband everything except for city garrisons in Britannia, and just keep enough to make your cities yellow or at least blue. You should be able to raise taxes here a little too...
In Gaul, you have lots of archers in your cities, so put them into your 'army' which you start with in Gaul...You don't need all 7, so disband 4, unless you really want them...
In Iberia just disband everything except for city garrisons. Lots of rebels will popup here, but for now you'll just have to leave them be. In Sicily and Italy, you have a lot of Comitatenses in your cities, so make them all into an army. You might want to send them to the east near Aquincum to defend it, or to Salona to defend that, which can be a very profitable city with a little building... Or you might want to send them to defend North Africa, but i wouldn't recommend this. You'll almost certainly lose Carthage to the Berbers unless you send some Comitatenses there, and Lepcis magna will probably revolt, but when you have a little more money you can make a small army and go back over there to re-claim them.
After all this is done, you'll have at least 6 thousand denarii by turn two, so now would be a good time to start building the cheapest economic buildings...Ports cost only 800, you could build 7 of those, or 5 markets, or 4-5 paved roads, take your pick...I'd go for the ports. Alternatively you can que up Comitatenses and go on the offensive...Allemanii is weak, and their single city is fairly juice...10,000+ people to be massacred ~:) ...I think you can take over from here.
Me too and with +15.000 around the 10th turn and a treasury hovering around 50k by the 20th I do belive my initial slash-and-burn tactics is the most profitable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
You´re dead wrong. Building shrines from turn one will bring your empire into order faster than leaving a mix of beliefs. I´ve tried every approach of the WRE campaign so believe me I know what I´m talking about. BTW, what difficulty level are you playing?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
Consolodating + liquidating ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
I'm playing on vh/m. If i demolish temples and try to convert my empire into one religion from turn one, by turn 3 one half of my empire revolts against me. The only city i had to change the temple in as far as i can remember was the one next to Aquincum in the east, it had a pagan temple and the majority of the city were christian, so i tore it down and put up a church.
I guess your way may work, but it's unrealistic to slaughter the population of every city you own...So i try the more realistic and harder approach. I try to hold on to them rather than just slaughter them all...
If you´re going to change religion it´s better to do it from day one to catch that window of oppurtunity before the hordes comes on their self invited tea time. It´s also realistic due to history as christianity was the state religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
I partially agree with that. OTOH christianity is the bloodiest religion in the history of man IMHO so it´s not that unrealistic. The main problem IMO is the rigidness of the game itself. Most provinces has an outrageous growth rate, you simply can´t keep up. And there´s no way, in the long run, to solve this problem other than either build peasants like a madman or do some extermination from time to time. At a growth rate of 5% a city of 2400 will grow by 0% if you build a peasant unit every turn. A city with 20.000 will outgrow you by 880 people/ turn still if you buy a peasant/ turn. The time it takes to build the top 5 buildings takes 25 years and by that time your city will have grown to 71.113 people ~:eek: - mission impossible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
I usually keep as many peasants in a city to maintain maximum level of taxes. It´s a good thing they only cost 14d. in maintenance so keeping 20 in a city only costs what two regular spearmen do. And when you simply can´t keep up with the growth rate and loyalty drops below 90% with 20 peasants garrisoned, just pull them out and let the buggers revolt. As your tag sais: "It´s not a bug - it´s a feature!"
Playing a mixed religion game will however give you unrest penalties. I can´t remember the numbers but some 5-10% drop of loyalty is expected. I do hope you pull it off and wish you an epic game m8! ~:cheers:
Conversion to Christianity doesnt require the temple in the settlement to be Christian. The surrounding regions, characters in the settlements and agents have far more effect usually than the 5-10% you get from the level 1/2. I would never try and force a Christian Shrine on a population that isnt already 50% (ish) Christian, but you should be trying from turn 1 to convert your cities populations simply by concentrating Christian characters in the right spots. the Emp and Spurius Flavius are excellent for this. Your emperor is Christian and thats a 10% public order penalty which can be the difference between blue and red faces in the big cities, especially on top of distance/squalor penalities.You cant do much about the last two, so why waste time fixing the 10% penalty you can rectify?Quote:
No trying to convert from turn one, unless of course you absolutely want to have a really challenging campaign, challenging to the point where the chances of you being able to win are virtually nil.
And Salamantic (sp?), and a lot of other cities which simply cannot be prevented from rebelling - esp when youre disbanding their garrisons to save cash. Simplest and least time consuming to loot them, retake them and exterminate them. By the 6th-7th turn at the latest youre all done. Then you dont have to waste so many garrisons to nursemaid ingrates and can concentrate your efforts on the frontier.Quote:
Anywho, once you've disbanded all foederati's, lower taxes so that your city faces are at least blue, and if they are still red then make the games monthly, or daily if needs be. If they're still red, (corduba and burdigala) then you have a choice of either letting them rebel and taking them back then exterminating, or queing up peasants and hoping that brings some order.
Anyway, your giving the same advice in the case of Corduba and Burdigala that you described as ridiculous at the top of your post.
Perhaps in your game they did not. I would not take your game as the rule however as they did attack me in my game - with a full stack army. If I had disbanded my army there, Id have lost Britannia as I could only possibly have reinforced it from the frontier, which was weak as it was. And the Londinium -Sambrovia trade is nice to have.Quote:
Now, the Celts will NEVER attack you in Britannia even though you are at war with them, so disband everything except for city garrisons in Britannia,
The Roman Empire wasnt the land of chocolate, rainbows and kittens. It was kept together by governors terrorising local tribes and any and all troublemakers with the local military. The most realistic way to deal with rebelling locals from the Roman standpoint was to slaughter them in battle, then crucify the survivors and their families. Firm, but fair.Quote:
I guess your way may work, but it's unrealistic to slaughter the population of every city you own...So i try the more realistic and harder approach. I try to hold on to them rather than just slaughter them all...
Most of the farming buildings (and agricultural temples) cause far more problems than they solve. I hardly build any of them. The squalor at 24,000 is 8% so if you can aim for that growth rate total, then should net to 0 growth when you hit 24,000. Slows growth, but like you said takes decades to build up each city level once you get past the first two levels anyway. Only thing that screws up the above is things like food imports, which mean Carthage and Co always run way out of control.Quote:
At a growth rate of 5% a city of 2400 will grow by 0% if you build a peasant unit every turn. A city with 20.000 will outgrow you by 880 people/ turn still if you buy a peasant/ turn. The time it takes to build the top 5 buildings takes 25 years and by that time your city will have grown to 71.113 people - mission impossible.
Killing the trouble makers may be realistic, but letting a city rebel and then slaughtering everyone, trouble makers, non-trouble makers etc. 75% of the population is unrealistic. When in the Roman empire did they let every city they owned rebel, then take it back and slaughter 75% of its population? They didn't...
You can bet they wanted to do so, regardless :>Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
With the implementation of squalor as it is in game, there is really no way to go about handling large populations. There were obviously historical cities of similiar or larger size that were not constantly in a state of insurrection. This is a feedback game mechanic that really has nothing to do with history, it's only there to curb the power curve of population.
Would be nice if there was some sort of penalty for killing your own people, it's simply too encouraging to pillage your own cities after you get the last level of buildings. Perhaps a mod that only allowed recruiting decent troops above a certain size -- that would even be historically accurate as it was extremely difficult to maintain large standing armies prior to the Industrial revolution due to the relatively tiny fraction of the population you could afford to have away fighting instead of working.
But once cities reach a certain size they get the plague anyway...This trims down the population nicely... I think it's more realistic and more of a challenge to try to hold on to your cities rather than letting them rebel, because then it's more fun to slaughter them knowing you tried to hold the city and are now exterminating as punishment for rebelling against you, and to set an example to the rest of your empire to show them that rebellion will not be tolerated...Plus i honestly don't have a problem with holding cities, the farest i've played so far was 400AD. I got bored after that as i was unstoppable and able to win any war simply by throwing money and men at it, since i had the population and cash to do that...I was able to steamroll any opponents...Plus even at 400AD, a lot of my cities had over 30,000 population and i kept them happy with monthly/daily games, normal and low taxes, and relatively small garrisons...The largest garrison i had was 8 limitanei in Corduba. I don't use peasants as i find it too unrealistic.
So when an earth quake hit Corduba and killed off 9 thousand people i was happy. ~D <- that's how i looked. The city face was green for the first time in the campaign haha. I've gone off track... Where was i? AH yes, it would be nice if there were penalties to exterminating a city, but there should be bonuses to doing it too...If other cities found out you slaughtered a city for being rebellious, wouldn't it calm them down? Also exterminating a city should make that city useless and unprofitable and should really have an impact on your income...But it doesn't...Sometimes it's even the opposite in this game.
Well, in the ancient world "payment in kind" for an army was to be let loose on the population of a captured city. People like Alexander the Great, who is viewed as either heroic or at least exceptional in most Western accounts, features as a demonic figure in Zoastrian (theyre actually still around today in parts of Iran, along with their fire which has apparently never been let go out in at least 2,300 years...) and Biblical/Islamic texts (apparently Alexander will return to lead the armies of Satan or somesuch) due to the massacres his army meted out to the empire they conquered. Realistically, as an emperor of a large, dispersed and unwieldy empire where it might take months to relay even news of a rebellion back to the capital you rule by making rebellion as unattractive as possible. That definitly includes nailing people to crosses if theyre so passionate about the sewer system overflowing that they take up arms about it.Quote:
Killing the trouble makers may be realistic, but letting a city rebel and then slaughtering everyone, trouble makers, non-trouble makers etc. 75% of the population is unrealistic. When in the Roman empire did they let every city they owned rebel, then take it back and slaughter 75% of its population? They didn't...
Either way, to play the WRE campaign realistically youd have to engineer your ultimate defeat and overrun by the rampaging barbarian hordes. If the Romans made the right choices in the late 4th century, study of the Roman Empire might be current events rather than ancient history. We have the chance to "game" a potential alternative to their decisions, however inaccurate and unrealistic the rules of the game are. And the rules are hopelessly unrealistic to begin with anyway.
Perhaps a permantly higher level of unrest in the aftermath of an extermination? The locals keeping alive the memory of some past crime against them by "the man" leading to sympathy with future rebellions. Another 10% with every extermination or something. Extermination becomes a short term solution for dealing with an irretrievable situation but it increases long term instability...Quote:
Would be nice if there was some sort of penalty for killing your own people, it's simply too encouraging to pillage your own cities after you get the last level of buildings. Perhaps a mod that only allowed recruiting decent troops above a certain size -- that would even be historically accurate as it was extremely difficult to maintain large standing armies prior to the Industrial revolution due to the relatively tiny fraction of the population you could afford to have away fighting instead of working.
Mind you its long been a bug bear of mine that the distance to the captial penalty should be offset by ports/paved roads etc etc. Surely the penalty should be based on "lag" in communication rather than simple distance alone. Bah, If we started poking holes in the logic of the Public Order mechanics we'd be here for weeks.
Dayve,
I too feel a bit awkward having to slaughter my own people and it´s a last resort but the game simply don´t give you enough options to handle this problem. You can rest ashore though that IF the WRE had to face this situation, that we do in the game, they would have spared no expense to root out the rebellion, kill the instigators and crucify all participants.
In my "3-step formula" I also kind of RP the scenario into a major change in religion, from paganism to christianity, which is quite historical. This way you can simply look at the exterminations as a kind of "holy war" against the pagans. After the initial "cleansing" I can´t recall having to do this again in my many games. One could raise all health related structures and invite the plague too if things spiral out of control.
So how is your "mixed game" evolving?
Remember,Dayne,that Roman Empire of 4th-6th centuries A.D. was not the same as that of the Republic or the imperial Rome under the dynasty of the Antonini(Trajan,Adrian,Antoninus,Marcus Aurelius..).The Emperors could easily slaughter their own people in order to supress a rebellionQuote:
Originally Posted by Dayve
I can remember from history how the rebellion in Constantinople was supressed by Justinian.The same slaughter had also happened earlier in Thessalonica where 15,000 Romans were slaughtered by the Romano-Gothic army of Theodosius.
The same events must have happened throughout the empire at that times..
Sorry Dayve,I misspelled your name.Quote:
Originally Posted by SIGNIFER,LEGIOVIICLAUDIA
Good stuff from everyone!! As this is a pretty deep game, there are many options to winning. I don't think anyone here gave bad advice. I have used a bit of everything I have learned and am only about 20 provinses from taking the whole world over.
I will continue to read the advice from here as I will be trying VH/VH next.
This is one thing I dont like about what people think about ancient rome.They arent as bad as everyone makes them out to be.I have read various books on them.You would be surprised at how much the romans cared for the people they conquered . In judea for example, Jews were exempt from paying specific taxes and such.
Although by 400 A.D. ancient rome was no longer being ruled by enlightened despots and by just plain despots who lacked intelligence and integrity.
Interesting stuff. Im about to start a WRE campaign and am grateful to everyone's comments on this difficult faction.
Just one question though.. why does the empire have to be converted to christianity, as most of you did? Why not go for paganism? None of you seemed to go for that approach, especially considering the temple bonuses you get from them, plus the fact that any barbarian regions you conquer will mostly be pagan anyway..
I´ve played both ways and in the end you can go either way. I think most players changed religion to portray history. However the differences lies in technology and buildings. It also seems to me that it´s easier to have a loyal population with christianity but I´ve no stats to confirm that statement so it might be a bit subjective. You can also play a mix with both religions based upon what beliefs are in majority in each settlement. However you will get a small unrest penalty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garvanko
I just finished taking over the whole map (only on Med/Med though). Whatever religion the town was I kept as long as it wasn't Z------- (sp). I tried my best to put governors in that were of the same religion since you will get a mixture of both. So the only unrest usual comes from the emporer and neighboring provinses. I had problems with unrest all throughout the game, but not enough to lose any sleep. I kept small mercenary only armies in key areas to help deal with any uprisings. I kept 6 groups of peasants in every city. If a city was having issues I would take them out and add them to the small mercenary group in the area. Let the city turn. All army buildings are destroyed so the majority of the rebels are peasants. It is an easy thing then to take the city back with your peasant mercenary group.
I will not go this route in my next campaign though. For fast advancement this was the way to go but I am going to take it slower now that I have upped the difficulty. I am now doing Goth on Hard/Hard. Most of the family members/generals are Christian so I have changed every cities religion accordingly. So far, much happier cites!!
I thought about this, but Im not too sure I want to go THAT deep into micromanagement just yet. I think I'll go with Paganism for this campaign, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by PseRamesses
My thanks.:bow:
Well, Ive started my WRE campaign, fully prepared for the onslaught of riots, rebellion and little grean flags popping up left, right and centre. Of course, I immediately began a strategic retreat and rapid demilitarisation of my Empire, focusing specifically on Ebaracum, Aquinum, Salona, Augusta Treverum and Colonia Agripina. Tore everything down, moved every unit out and set taxes to very high, of course. They rebelled (WRER) a couple of turns later. I was looking to create buffer zones in Brittania, Eastern Europe and central France.
In Spain I gave up Salamatica. Unfortunately, Tarraco rebelled from me, as did Ravenna and Lepis Magna - a result really of low public order even though I had placed temples in the que and was looking to build a few units of peasants in each. I entered turn 2 in the black (surprisingly), though that would surely not last.
Nevertheless, I decided to go on the offensive straight away. I built an army in Spain and went straight for Tingi; had a large army in Europe with three Christian generals, including the famous, and potentially rebellious Nero Flavius (more on him later), a five star night fighter, which I sent to kill off Allemani. I also looked to take back Ravenna and Lepis so as to consolidate my grip on Italy and Africa.
A couple of points:
1. Ive kept a mixture of Pagansim and Christianity, and havent really suffered much rebellion. Italy is christian, as is Africa and parts of Spain, while the north is mainly pagan. Ive also set my faction heir to be pagan. Eventually I hope to make the whole Empire (apart from Italy) pagan, but that will need some careful man management.
2. Nero Flavius and his son Titus Flavius (at least I think its his son), are the two most lilely to rebel from your faction. Indeed as soon as I seiged Vicus Allemani, Nero's loyalty went from +2 to +1. ~:eek: The only way not to lose this valuable general is to transfer the office of Master of Soldiers from another General in the area (cant remember his name), and Nero will gain +2 loyalty, which should keep him in line for a while. Titus is more difficult. Im actually hoping he gets killed when I attack Lepis.
Currently, Ive done about six years. Ive retaken Ravenna. Ive gained Tingi and Vicus Allemani, and Im planning on getting Tarraco back - it is, after all, one of the victory conditions. I was in the red at -20000d, but Ive recovered economy wise and am just shading 1000d. I need a cash boost soon, as the hordes are coming.
Im playing H/H.:duel:
FYI, playing WRE campaign on H/H.
This point was already mentioned in a couple threads, but is important for WRE. In the mid to late game, you probably want your best army (or armies if you lucky) under the command of a loyal general (this fact applies even if they are the faction leader).
Alternatively, you can use captains only for full stack armies or switch generals frequently.
I'm not sure if my game is just extra hard, but I lost Spain not due to insufficient troops or money, but lack of loyalty. Twice my campaign army sent to Spain to recapture the provinces decided to mutiny. The final time, I sent a captain and took over the region and moved into France without problems.
That being said, the final army I sent was very experienced (retook Africa and defended against 2 hordes near Rome) and well equipped though still in the lower tier Roman units, so having a general would have been icing and not necessary to win battles.
I was thinking of disbanding ALL forces , destroying ALL buildings except in Italy and start from the beginning as is in pre-republican era. Don't know how long it will last. Has anyone tried it before ?
I have a save game that I return to on a regular basis that fit your description however I kept the 4 Italian cities, Carthago, Syracuse, Caralis and Massilia. I raised all buildings in all other settlements, pulled the troops out and retook them and exterminated its population before leaving them completely. This generated som much cash that I was able to fill up the building- and unit building ques completely and still have around 50k in my treasury. I kept enough troops to have one stack holding the bridge in the Poo-valley and another the one outside Massilia.Quote:
Originally Posted by LestaT
Been playing for over 50 years and the Vandals have settled in Iberia, the Goths in south France, Franks have taken the rest of France, the Huns are settled in former Goth lands and Sarmatians has evicted ERE from Constantinople and Greece. My spies inform me that all the hording faction has atleast three settlements each and no horde units left with pretty decent garrisons so the are defenitely settled. I´m waiting to see if the Vandals actually will make the jump to Carthage and Goth will move on their target provinces.
My goal now will be to retake the Balkans and Greece so that Danube will be my NE border. I bribed three settlements in the N.Black Sea and gave them to the Sarmatians so they will not turn into a horde when I take Greece from them but rather move back to their former homelands, he he.
BTW, has anyone else noticed how hard it is with 1.3 to give away a settlement?
there is on one of those split screen things while loading etc, a group of men in HORNED HELMETS with axes and shields destroying a villiage.
I have search through the custom battle thing and havnt been able to find these units. Does anyone have any ideas as to who they are and who they belong to?
I really like this idea, looking at the map the Po valley is the natural line of defence for italy, while Massilia can help secure the valley from invasions form the west, wow i am hooked gonna try that tonight....Quote:
Originally Posted by LestaT
I was thinking of disbanding ALL forces , destroying ALL buildings except in Italy and start from the beginning as is in pre-republican era. Don't know how long it will last. Has anyone tried it before ?
I read a post on the CA board that said it is easier to sell settlements than give them away. Has anyone tried this? If it works, that would be a killer WRE strategy.
I can’t even get the computer to accept settlements for free. There is something seriously wrong with diplomacy in BI. It’s nearly impossible to get the AI to accept any terms. I can’t even get trade rights accepted.
I've been able to give trade rights away, but no one will pay for them any more. ~:mecry:
The first time I played the WRE within 3 turns half the empire rebelled ~:joker: suffice to say I gave up there and then.
Anyway I started again earlier on H/H and im at 375 and ive held onto most of my territory, there was a rebellion in which Lepis in Africa, Salamancia (sp?) in Spain, a territory in central Gaul, Pannonia and Dalmatia were apart of. However i'd destroyed much military infrastructure so they were low class armies. BTW i'm using the Pax Britannia mod so the WRE starts without Britain and the Romano-British have it, anyway.
Religious problems were dealt with immediately by destroying 90% of pagan buildings, except in provinces where this was to risky and moving pagan and christian generals about. Rioting was fierce in Spain however in time this died down.
Ecnomically by destroying many buildings I propped the economy up along with disbanding many Foederati infantry and cavalry and a large percentage of my fleet.
Loyalty wise I moved the capital from Rome to Massilia, bang smack in the middle of the empire which has helped stopping Spain from rebelling totally. Things in Spain got better still when the territory which had earlier rebelled came back over to me peacefully through a loyalist revolt. This left the Gallic rebel territory isolated and within 5 years this territory and 2 others in the east were recovered from rebels and plenty of money was made.
Militarily, well I had no standing field army so I created provincial armies, small mobile light forces to deal with local rebellions and border skirmishers, this was the backbone of the raid which resulted in the destruction of the Alemanni after the conquest of their capital. Which so many cities exterminated I was able to build vital infrastructure, roads, trading posts, ports, farming, sewers and later military infrastructure in key locations.
After 10 years I was in a position to allocate serious funding to the army, my 1 field army was comprised of most of the garrison from Rome and other Comis and Foed (inf and cav) from the eastern provinces and is currently stationed east of the Alps to deal with the Frankish raids of Pannonia. In the west my provincial armed forces were designed purely for a holding action to keep the frontier stable without doing anything dramatic and they achieved this very well for very little expense
Navy, again after about 10 years the fleet with rebuilt to deal with the pirates which blockaded Syracuse (which I later allowed to rebel then exterminated) now I have control over the central med and adriatic again.
I've only gotten to 375 and done well I think, my treasury is currently at 10,000d making a modest profit of 1500 or so, in the last 1 or so though things have gotten harder. The Berbers reacted to a failed attack on Tingi by seizing Carthage after a bloody assault on the city, the Franks have also crossed the Danube and raided the territory heavily necessitating the constant presence of the I Italico legion to remain peaceful. The Franks have now began raiding the Rhine frontier which isnt guarded as heavily as I would like, but financial restraints are making it difficult to raise enough troops.
WRE is extremely enjoyable to play im glad to say ~D
Notes for two games with WRE.
1st. Took it easy, prevented rebellion, didn't attempt to christianize those that where too pagan until things were stable. Economy acceptable, but boring and with many pagans left to cause trouble.
2nd. Tried too enforce Christianity from beginning, not as easy as for the ERE (where it can be done in 1 turn), revolts, about -50k when profits where finally made (retook cities taken by WRE rebels), but more fun, and when things settle, economy was actually quite good (relatively speaking).
One important note whatever way is choosen, when you can build ports in those provinces that lacks them. And never forget the hordes, they will probably cause trouble sooner or later.
I'm happy to say things have gotten alot better for me since i've been playing today, the main stumbling block is diplomacy though, i've offered ceasefires for 20 years to about 7 different factions and never had one accepted ~:confused:. Which is incredibly annoying and highly unrealistic especially when I offer great terms like territory for hordes etc. ~:confused:
Anyway my major enemy has been the Franks but in the last 8 years they were largely dealt with, the by now imfamous Nero Flavius was the commander of my eastern army with a alarming loyalty of 2. He crossed the Sava defeated the Franks multiple times then seizing campus quadi and campus marcomanni before exterminating them then abandoning them.
As this went on my western field army sought to relieve pressure on the Rhine by crossing the river and defeating 3 Frankish armies the marching north cleared the countryside of other Frankish armies before turning to Tribus Frisii which was captured and exterminated.
I never remained in these territories longer than 1 turn simply to replace lost troops, i'd then abandon it to the western roman rebels, who have created a buffer state from the Rhine to the Danube for me by using this policy. By now the Franks were a horde, having no more territory and soon enough they migrated to the Rhine this time though they are fighting the rebels and not me so I can sit back and reflect on enormously successful campaigns along the Rhine and Sava :duel: ~D.
Economy wise its still touch and go i've had to exterminate a few cities including Corduba to make money, and since the ERE blockaded my ports trade has plummeted and there is also war with the Huns in the east. I'm currently raising a small army to clear the birgands within the empire and then invade north africa for a quick raid before campaigning beyond the Rhine yet again. All in all its been far more fun than my old ERE saves ~D
Here are my thoughts on the Western Roman Empire, which in my opinion is the second or third hardest faction to play as:
As you start off your campaign you will see a lot of red angry faces in most of your towns. When you investigate why, you will notice that 25-45% of the population in France and Spain are Christian and the rest Pagan. There is also huge capital distance penalties.
Further investigation will also tell you that most of your settlements lack even basic ports! Your family members are a mix of Christian and Pagan, adding even more problems in certain towns where they are governors.
Seems pretty bleak so far right? Don't distress, there are three strategies available to us. I haven't tried them all, but I will "theorize" on possible strategies.
1. Leave your empire a mixture of Christian and Pagan towns: this is the strategy I chose. This gave me the least amount of rebelion. Only Carnuntun, and Salona rebelled. Ravenna rebelled because I was silly enough to convert it to Christianity first turn. Move Titus Flavius away from Lepcis Magna(or is it num?), you can keep him as a mobile reinforcement to both Lepcis and Carthage. Keep Lepcis as Christian.
Now you have to go to each city and adjust their tax rates, but before you do that move your capital to Massilia like everyone else has told you. Destroy military buildings to get some cash, and train some peasants to help keep your cities under control.
Carnuntun and Sallona are lost causes, destroy all buildings, build Christian temples and leave them to the rebels. That's my advice. It hopefully creates a buffer between you and the hordes. In Aquincun there is a mighty Christian general that you might want to move towards Ravenna. So you might want to leave Aquincum to the rebels also.
Also disband all fleets that you deem unnecessary. Chances are you will be in the red for a while. You have to try and get rid of as much of the fat in your military as you can.
Once you finally have turned most if not all cities to blue constipated faces you are ready for your next turn. Ok, now you are probably hemorraging money. Look at all you cities again, between Rome, Mediollanium and Ravenna you should be able to raise a nice sized army without throwing these cities into open revolt. You have three immediate enemies, the Franks, the Alemanni and the Saxons. Unless you have a modded game, the Alemanni don't form hordes. Kill them quickly. Your next mission is to prepare for a very likely Frank attack. I will assume you are a better player than me and know how to do this better.
As Christianity disappears from Spain and France you will be able to raise the taxes, and by capturing the Alemanni capital get a good cash boost from looting. After some 5-10 turns you should be breaking even or making some money. My priority as soon as I made some money was to build ports. After I built ports in all my cities I was bringing in about 8k per turn. After that The goal is to keep the Berbers at bay, I was at war with the Franks and I captured his capital with troops brought up from Italy (your major troops producing region after you destroyed your military buildings for cash in the beginning). Things were going ok, but it was still hard to raise an army since my focus was mainly economical buildup. I also figured out that using spies in combination with assassins can be a potent fun combination. I severly crippled the Franks by destroying their troop producing buildings in the town he got from me. Beware of Paladin bodyguards, they make short work of Foederati and Limitanei, 4 units of them will made short work of my garrison.
With a good economy it shouldn't be too hard to beat back the Franks and prepare for the other hordes. The Christian general from Aquincum can converts cities to Christianity in a flash so you can eventually turn most of your empire into Christianity if you choose.
Now for the next two options, and some heavy theory:
2. Turn your empire Christian on the first turn: this option has the least appeal to me. Basically you turn all of Spain and France Christian leaving yourself only Italy and North Africa. After doing this you could form armies in Spain and France with your generals in these regions and go around beating the crap out of the rebels. By looting the rebel cities you should make a good amount of cash.
With this cash surplus you can effectively build a solid economy and military. I just don't like loosing over half my empire and have to go around recapturing it all. It's like I am walking backwards.
The benefits of this strategy is that you have effectively turned your empire Christian, gave yourself nice juicy targets to loot and dealt with rebellion problems for a while. Hordes are invariably Pagan, so they will have issues taking your Christian cities because the AI doesn't destroy existing buildings. Your pagan generals will be used for the fighting so inevitably one or two will die in battle, and eventually they will die off. In my Frank game I switched to Christianity by assigning my only Christian member as King. After that all my new Generals were Christian. So you shouldn't have more than one or two new generals come as pagan.
I think this is the most challenging scenario.
3. Turn your empire pagan: if you have a mod that takes care of your Emperor becoming disloyal this can be an effective way of keeping Nero Flavius in check and be able to use him. Make him your heir, now you can use the same strategy as the first option, but now over time even Italy will be turned pagan. Use your Emperor as the lead against the Alemanni and see if you can't kill him on a suicide charge.
The benefits of going pagan is that most of your empire is already pagan anyways. The Mithras temple gives you experience bonuses, and with Nero as your emperor you have a good General to lead your armies without the risk of him going rebel on you.
Conclusion: I like the first and third methods. I prefer the historical slow Christian conversion. If you like a challenge I would go Christian right away, lots of looting and fighting to be done as you reconquer your empire. Of course you can vary any of these strategies to your liking. Perhaps you rather only sacrifice Spain to Christianity, or maybe just France and Britain. In short there's a lot of options for the WRE, and I don't think any one of them is the correct one. I do think that keeping a mixed empire until you can get the economy going is the easiest.
Apparently I made a mistake. Nero Flavius is Christian. Also I tried to turn the Empire Christian the first turn. That was a mess. Even after taking back most of my Empire I just couldn't make enough money to get out of the red. The looting money wasn't enough to cover my army's upkeep. And I didn't want to eliminate them outright.
I guess I will just go back to option 1.
Not sure whether or not I should be happy at the moment im upto 422 and after the Franks horded in Central Gaul I had to chase 4 full stacks down with only 1 stack. Smashing them in 3 seperate battles and then wiping up the remaining Franks they were totally destroyed relieving me of 1 major threat permanently. Which was great of course.
Things elsewhere though have deteriorated, the Saxons breached the Rhine frontier and seized Germania Inferior and then exterminated the population, the city has been retaken but its now in ruins. Pirates now sail unchallenged throughout most imperial waters, one hastily gathered fleet was crushed on the coast of Gaul by a pirates fleet of some 18 ships. With the expense of training a fleet and building aqueducts etc i'm effectively bankrupt, having to resort to allowing corduba to rebel to exterminate it and get money.
The Berbers gained more territory against me in North Africa leaving me with the city of Tingi as my last outpost and Sicily seems hellbent on rebelling, to make matters worse throughout all the chaos of the Frankish invasions I didnt have time to keep my authority over the brigands who have popped up throughout the empire again.
I'll give BI this, it keeps me busy alright ~:joker:
I tried it today and it won't work for me. I pulled out my troops, destroyed all the buildings, and let it revolt. A few of the cities become the Western Roman Rebels and the others just kill soldiers and citizens. They don't become regular rebel cities. And many of the Western Roman Rebel cities flip back to me. I can't give the cities away to anybody, not even allies. I am now about 50,000 in debt and can see no way out of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by LestaT
Don't just disband everything haphazardly. Disband systematically, and keep checking the financial side. The first turn needs total micro-management - its your most important phase as the WRE.
You should disband most of your cavalry and Foederati infantry they cost to much and arent that useful anyway, your generals units are more than powerful enough and foederati infantry are pathetic you need to aim for 30,000 den army upkeep for the army to be financially viable. Also get rid of some of the navy, you just cant maintain the size of the armed forces you currently have.
Right. If you go for the Italy only option you have to get rid of your fleet, and all of the armies of the cities you are deserting. They should all turn to the WRER. All you need are your family members to take those towns back if you got rid of all buildings in them.
I decided to try turning my empire Christian in the first turn and was quite successful. I am not turning a 6-8k a turn profit with two field armies. I have already defeated the Gothic hordes and the Alemanni. I drove the Franks away and only Burdigala and Eburacum are in the hands of the WRER. Unfortunately Carnuntun, Salona and Aquincun were sacked by the Vandals. Until I get rid of them I won't bother getting them back.
The downside of using your Generals to do all your fighting, you don't get many heirs. The huns seem to always settle in Tribus Lazyges after they sack Campus Dacia and force the Goths into a horde.
The trick to being sucessful with the WRE is cutting your forces down enough so that you can keep your cities content, but turn a profit in a reasonable time. The first couple of turns are key.
You only need to defend the frontiers cities from invasion, its bad because that means the interior of your empire is very soft, but you cant afford it so thats just to bad.
Some people fall into the trap of attacking brigand armies, you have the men to beat many of them, but you dont have the money to replace men or retrain them. So you'll just have to accept the fact the brigands dominate the countryside for now, peasant stack cities in the heart of your empire, central gaul, spain and southern italy, basically areas relatively deep inside your empire therefore less likely to be attacked. Make sure the Alemanni are destroyed immediately just get an army and take their single province, problem solved right there.
Aslong as you hold the frontiers and have sufficient archers in walled cities you should hold 90% or so of your starting territory, depending on your religious policy and the subsequent western rebels appearance and how many provinces go over to them. Just make sure atleast 1 field army is present on the Rhine at all times, you'll also need atleast 1 for the eastern provinces along the Sava (very hard to hold so dont be to worried if you lose it) aside from that most of your enemies are to far away or to small to be dangerous alone so aslong as the frontiers are well guarded you'll survive.
If brigands become a problem and seriously drain trade, then make an army from local garrisons and a spare general and try defeating them that way, just dont waste men and money on trying to eradicate them all though. Brigands tend to hire veteranii mercenaries (sp?) who are as good as Comis so are extremely good heavy infantry. Also do what you can against the pirate fleets, you cant afford a big fleet it just costs to much to train ships in the first place so just do what you can.
I went back and tried to turn my empire Christian in the first turn. I left Mediolanium, Arles, Massilia, Rome, Ravenna, a city to the North of Mediolanium, the heel city (Tarentum?), Carthage, Lepcis Magna, Syracuse, Caralis and Londinium alone. I then disbanded every army in the cities that I was going to turn Christian and give to the rebels. I also destroyed everybuilding that I could.
With that money I built Christian shrines, and peasants wherever I needed to keep the population in check. The family members that were in France and Spain were herded together to form two armies. In Spain I went on a Reconquista. In France I was determined in wiping out the Alemanni, and hopefully the Franks.
It took two turns for my empire to split. The Reconquista took longer than I thought it would, mostly because I underestimated the WRER's ability to produce massive amounts of peasants. I quickly smashed the Alemanni, but the Franks had already taken two cities to the east. I then took Vicus Franki from them.
In the mean time I tried to put together an army at Ravenna to deal with the incoming hordes. To lead this army I used the General that was stationed at Aquincun, who thankfully has the night fighting ability.
Once I took Vicus Franki, I left an able general in charge and took Nero Flavius, now caesar, on a tour of France. By this time I got Colonia Aggripina on a revolt.
The hordes are at my doorstep now. The Vandals and the Goths go into war, but never fight each other, so I have to start trying to kill them both. Thanks to a series of forts I was able to hinder their movement and kill them one stack at a time with my night fighting general.
One thing that I noticed about the WRE, is that you really don't need high level troops. The Sarmatian Auxilia and the Comitatenses are more than enough to conquer the world. Though the carriage ballistae are very fun to play with.
Ok, so by this time I have beaten back the Franks, the Hordes are thining out and most of France is in my possession. This is about the time that I decide to turn back towards the Saxons, because they decided to attack me. The Reconquista is in its last stages.
Through all of this the Berbers have kept annoying me at Carthage. But their troops really suck, so they are not a problem.
Nero Flavius conquers the Saxons, while I try to finish off the Vandals. The Goths were quickly anihilated on their attempt at penetrating my very soft empire. I mean if you get past my army, all you had to deal with were peasant garrisons.
By the time I dealt with the Saxons, killed off the Vandals and Goths, the Franks had a nice little Empire of four provinces going. Time to take it down. At this time the Lombardi decided that they needed to take the only Burgundian town. And there I was stuck trying to take care of yet another horde! Nero Flavius to the rescue. This guy lived to be like 72, and everytime he exterminated a town, I got like 50% more cash. He was also the highest level general I have ever used. I think he was a 9 star General? I don't remember lol.
I finally retake Burdigala leaving only Eburacum to the WRER. From here on out it was very easy going. The Franks didn't offer much resistance, the Burgundians were a walk over, and the ERE's only attempt to take Aquincun failed miserably at my walls. They had a superior army, but couldn't capitalize on it.
I marched on to take Sirmium and then Constantinople.
Ah, this was easier than trying to play as Sarmatia. The trick to the WRE is the beginning. Once you start turning a profit it's not hard to win the game. You have two night fighting generals which help immensily when fighting the hordes. And you have four factions around you that don't horde, which are not very hard to eliminate. Well the Celts never attacked me, so I never fought them, but I doubt that they are much tougher than the Saxons.
Are there any guides for the Western Roman Empire Rebels?
A good Plan B to have as the WRE is to take your legions and cavalry from Rome, send them to Africa to crush the Berbers. The Berbers only have two cities with one coastal city. If you take out the coastal city their pretty much screwed and then you can move into the interior and destroy their last city. This ensures that Africa is completely in your control so if something happens to Rome and such, at least you'll have a good place to fall back to with the ocean covering as distance.
Once the Berbers are crushed, just send the remaining troops back to Italy. The Berbers are not that hard to take on with your heavy legions.
I decided to take a different path-rather than convert the empire to Christianity I decided to revert to paganism. Most of what I do here can be applied to most divided religion factions in either end of the fence.
To start with I switched my faction heir to the most prominent pagan within the empire and after transferring all his cronies to this heir I sent him on a suicide mission to hold the eastern provinces against the oncoming hordes. By using Christian characters as generals rather than governors I avoided the issue of cross religion clashes in the Empire. To compensate for the limited amount of pagan characters I trained several at Rome who all turned out pagan. In regards to choice of temple I recommend your ‘strong points’ (major cities you plan to garrison with a large army as a base of operations in the region) have Mithras temples. Allowing for meaty bonus’ for the army in terms of experience allowing them more clout to fight the invasions. In non-key cities I recommend sol invictus for the superior law bonus to keep the population happy.
I actually found paganism reversion to be easier than Christian consolation. This I suspect is because of how easy it is to control the Christian cities since they're all close to the Imperial core. I built a monastery before trashing the cathedral in Rome allowing me to build priests despite my now 100% pagan population...if anyone asks they're priests of Mithras (ahem) and if anyone disagrees with me I know where they live and I'm the emperor ~:pat: . I did however keep Carthage Christian. This was because of its distance from the capital (moved further north). It also gave me somewhere to 'deport' Christian governors with their bits of the one true cross, john the Baptists underpants and all those theologians. The vast wads of cash I receive having fully revitalized cartages economy make this worthwhile.
This combined with my tendacy to hire 'pure' roman units is and repaired economy is gradually sending the roman empire on the road back to the its old glory.
dun dun dunnnnnn duh du du du
dah dah duuuuuunnn.....
more to come as the game progresses
IIRC there are a lot more pagan generals than Christian. Though the Christian generals seem to be better. I think as long as you can make the Empire turn a profit it doesn't matter what religion you choose.
Hey I tried this! It was really interesting, instead of pulling your hair out from all the problems popping all over the empire, why not start from a more manageable position then build up from there, right? First, however, you have to CREATE that situation. :2thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by LestaT
EVERYTHING other than the cities you want to have left MUST be forced to rebel. Disband every unit in every city outside of Italy (personally, I chose to retain Syracuse, Lepcis Magna and Caralis?) and crank taxes up to very high. Retain a sizeable force for defense though. At the next turn, your money will get a boost of around 20,000, along with most (if not all) those cities going rebel. :laugh4:
However, I almost immediately realized that this situation created all new problems. Now you get significantly smaller income, and pirates are all over the place disrupting what little trade you get. I decided to lose the emperor, and get a new one. First, consolidate your navy in one place so they can defend better. Next, get a better faction leader. The governor of Caralis (don't remember his name), has 6 or so management scrolls, and I set him as the faction heir. Meanwhile, all my other rebellious, nearly talentless generals (including the faction leader) were placed on a solitary brireme, and were set out to sea to look for pirate ship stacks that would sink them. I placed the new faction heir in Rome. :2thumbsup:
While you're doing this, you can actually go red or have little income for 10+ years, struggling to develop your trade. Cities will constantly join with you, only to go rebel again after a few turns. I suggest not to invest into any loyalist revolts unless you can make sure you can maintain control of the city. The Eastern Roman Empire will almost always go to war with you, but they have bigger fish to fry and so you can expect that you won't be number one in their list. The big picture is that almost everyone else will be at war with someone, and so you have a small margin of safety during this vulnerable phase. Remember that force you didn't disband? You're going to need them in case anyone starts knocking. Choose a religion: either be Christian or Pagan, I don't really care much but I personally hate those "Virtue of Poverty" traits that devoted Christian family members almost always get. Armies fielded by the Green WRE Rebels will contain many peasants, and provided you have sufficient skill, you can fend off every attack they send. Maintaining happiness in the cities you have left will also be your primary goal. Along with trade buildings, you should also get buildings that improve happiness. Considering how expensive all of this is, it will be a while before you get to a stable situation.
In my campaign, I had to wait 20+ turns to get a constant income of 5,000 per turn. Only then did I send two 3-quarter stacks to recapture Mediolanium and Greece. I have two stacks of 10 briremes and 2 triremes each, and at least my part of the sea is secure. I'm only on this part of my campaign right now, Italy is happy and secure, and I'm only beginning to stretch my iron fist once more. This is version 1.6 at just M/M, and though I'm confident that I'll win, there will probably still be setbacks. When I finish this I'll try again at VH/VH :2thumbsup:
Only saw this now after my earlier post... :oops::sweatdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by masuro
Try doing it at M/M first, that's what I did. Don't just pull out your troops, disband them. You won't need all of them at once anyway and they're expensive. Crank the tax rate to VERY HIGH in the cities you want to rebel, this gives you an immediate cash influx that you can use to set construction cues to the cities left to you. This also ensures that they WILL rebel. You will be forced to have only one defensive army probably in Italy because of your low income, and your skill in battle will be essential because it will be a while before you can send out grand legions in a mission to conquer the world. Your first turns will be defensive. Try getting a faction leader with better management skill (the guy on the island west of Rome is a good candidate). In case of a loyalist revolt, don't invest on it, chances are it will go rebel again anyway. Hope this helps. :2thumbsup:
Oh and BTW, I don't think Roman cities in BI ever turn to normal rebels so that's one thing you have to contend with.
I've found an effective and cheap method of crushing the early revolt/s is to sepertate your empire into five areas: Italy, spain, france and Briton. Abandon the south eastern provinces (put the emperor there if you wish to revert to paganism: suicide mission). Then pull all good (Foederati Infantry and above) troops in each region to the command of it's most loyal general while disabanding all Foederati Cavalry. Wait for the 'hit' to occur and then move on the most prominant cities in each area. Once these are taken systematicly retake all cities in each province and exterminate/enslave the populace. This will make it easier to convert them to your chosen faith as a bonus as well as providing nice meaty injections of cash to your struggling economy this should help beat the empire into a shape in which it will be able to realisticly oppose the hordes. The fact that your army generals and legions will now be battle hardened halps as well.
The north eastern provinces must be protected at all times The gaul army instead of being used to put down the revolt should be used to defend the borders. Have the spanish army move into Gaul once spain is consolidated and put down the uprisings with that. Always have a large army or crack troops in Nothern italy at all times. The barbarians will pour into nothern italy, my map is doted with major battle markers is a testement to this. After consolidation have a small siege army in every sub-section (3comitares, 2 archers and 2 siege engines) to put down any further revolts
The south eastern provinces will fall. However if you let them revolt then that will mean that their will be a miltary presence in the area when the horde comes buying you time to beat your empire into shape.
Quick tipes
-obliterate the Burbers and saxons quickly, if you can't hold their cities simply obliterate the faction and then move on they won't horde so their demise will lighten the load for you without hording.
-primary building targets are economic ones: Roads, harbors, trading posts
from the writtings of Augustous Maximus-the butcherer of christians and small kittens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithras
Minor correction- the fith region is africa You, only really need to hold on to carthage as a waypoint for the latter african invasion for trade
In general, when playing as the WRE the idea is to be able to get yourself out of your initially disastrous position while maintaining most (if not all) of your provinces. This in itself is quite a challenge and requires quite a bit of skill to pull off, even in M/M.
I've decided to play differently though, and instead play pre-republican style: pulling back to Italy and expanding again once my position has stabilized (LestaT posted about a similar idea and I was encouraged more when I saw someone else talk about it :laugh4:), essentially "rebuilding" the empire. I had an old M/M game playing this way and I was successful with it. I didn't finish it and decided to start a new one on VH/VH. I'm really enjoying this method right now and I'll post a more thorough guide about it in a couple of days once I've progressed significantly (with screenshots :2thumbsup:).
OK I know this is a worthless post but I'm so excited I had to put it in, please bear with me.... :sweatdrop: ... :shame: ... :laugh4:
It's been two weeks since my last post :sweatdrop:, and I was trying to do the earlier idea of disbanding everything outside of Italy and trying to conquer the world from there (like in the Republican campaign). I had moderate success with a M/M game but it wasn't the same in VH/VH. :no:
I played, overall 4 WRE campaigns on VH/VH and disbanded everything and tried to conquer from there. The first one I was sucessful, but it wasn't until 450 AD until I was able to conquer the cities NEAREST me. The second one was also successful, but it wasn't (again), until 450 AD when I began conquering. The next two I tried to be more aggressive, but I utterly failed. When hordes started knocking I was barely able to keep them out, and then another set of hordes started coming, it was crazy :dizzy2:.
I wanted to create a more comprehensive guide (I said I'd do it in a couple of days :embarassed:), but until I get a satisfactory outcome I'll postpone it. Overall, this is NOT a recommended way to play. It is a huge chore to do and it's probably better to micromanage your way into keeping your empire intact from the beginning (unless you want things even harder). I'm starting my 5th game and hopefully I'll get it right :wall:. Cheers all! :laugh4:
After getting BI, naturally, the first campaign was the WRE, on VH/M.
So, instead of the historical route of conversion to Christianity and an attempt to maintain the entire Empire, I decided to retreat back to Italy, disband all forces outside it, and attempt to restore my Empire once the core has become stable.
First thing ... I razed all buildings in all cities outside Italy. The new border went through the Alps. The Emperor wrote a nice, heartfelt letter to the rest of the Empire where he said: you're on your own.
On the first few turns, I had to micromanage Italy to prevent rebellions. Keep one army in Italy (preferrably an elite one, but any can do in a pinch), fill the other cities with pesants (or Limitanei if you feel that pesants are unrealistic ... like I do). If any city seems close to rebelling, level the military buildings, retake it, and exterminate the population. Also, concentrate on building up trade, as well as happines buildings.
Within a decade, the core provinces should be rich, powerful and stable. At this point I decided to convert to Paganism. Several turns of nail-biting and Christianity was officialy gone in the WRE, as was the old Christian Emperor. The new Emperor was Pagan, one of my best governors.
The Western Roman Empire soon became a power (again), and the WRE rebels were no more than a nuisance, usually being broken on the walls of Massilia. Around this time, my main field army policy was switched from being in command by a General to being commanded by a Captain, after one General decided that he was the better Emperor than the current one and joined the WRE rebels. He immediately departed for Gaul to gather more troops for a march on Rome itself. Around that time, the Vandals invaded Gaul for the first time, thus saving my skin, and buying me time to recruit another field army.
Since that time, I have driven back the Alemanni, and taken their cities north of the Alps, securing my northern flank. The western flank was secured after my forces took another province, relieving the pressure from Massilia. The Vandals also helped, as they settled in Gaul and took to battling the WRE rebels.
On the east however, the ERE has been wiped out, holding on barely to Egypt, the islands of the Mediterranean and a scattering of other provinces. The Asian parts of the Empire were taken by the Sassanids, the European by the Huns. In an effort to aid my old allies who still held the western coast of Greece, I marched on Salona. The city fell easily, but the Huns managed to take it within several years, while my main army was busy in Northern Italy.
By now, the Saxons have been wiped out (by the Slavs), the Sarmatian hordes were crushed in Northern Italy (by me in one huge battle) and the Alemanni are now fighting the Huns and Goths in Pannonia.
The Romano-Britons have not appeared yet, as the WRE rebels seem to have an alliance with the Celts. The Celts have three full stacks waiting around in their territory, faced with only a few hundred WRE rebels. Kept me quite confused when my spy reached the province after a very long boat trip.
One of my most entertaining campaigns, ever.
Is there any way to keep hold of the provinces and not abandon them? While getting some income. Or is the income so bad that you MUST abandon Europe and disband units in order to protect yourself sufficiently without going thousands into debt?
You can keep all provinces. It's tricky, and your treasury will go into the nether regions ... but it offers a greater base of power should you succeed. To attempt to restore money in the treasury, you must adopt an agressive policy toward barbarians ... take their towns, exterminate, raze all buildings, leave. Also, destroy buildings you don't need in your provinces (such as barracks in Hispania, etc.).
You won't be able to keep all of your provinces ... it is likely that at least a few will rebel ... take the towns and exterminate ... it will bring in money, and you will teach those rebellious scum a lesson.
It is likely that you will be overrun in at least some areas ... North Africa and Brittania are the most likely candidates. Leave them be, they can be retaken later.
Use the money you've made with your raids to build up roads, ports, traders, and other buildings to improve income. Once you do these things ... you have a steady income and can begin retaking lost areas ... and unifying the Empire once again.
Once you have stabilized the Empire and have a steady cash flow coming in, you can get to converting your Empire to either Christianity (it offers some impressive bonuses, but the population growth it offers is problematic, you have too much population as it is) or Paganism (Mythra offers some advantages to military units, Sol Invictus has exceptional bonuses to happiness). This will likely cause unrest, and possibly, revolts. You cannot allow these religious fools to destabilize the Empire, capture the rebelling cities and exterminate them to teach them a lesson (plus, it makes conversion go more easily).
Afterward, you really shouldn't have much of a problem ... once you get past the initial problems, you are easily the most powerful faction around, as the sole opposition to the West are inferior barbarians (watch out for the hordes, once they come, you are in deep, deep trouble, and they will come if you attempt to keep the entire Empire intact), while the East will likely be busy with the Sassanids and the Huns (if not completely overrun). The only civilized faction likely to oppose you are the Romano-British, but they can easily be subdued.
Along those lines, you should get any general with Night Fighting ability over to the eastern end of the empire to head an army quickly to deal with the hordes when they come. Night fighting and defending sieges behind stone walls are the best ways to deal with them.
Nero probably wouldn't stay Flavian for long... and go rebel if he has too many victories under his belt. Should a new, younger general be trained and Nero killed after mopping up some Eastern stacks for Greece?
Reclaiming Romes glory by maximus the imdomable, mithratic raven
Overview: Rome has not done well over the last century. Since the reighn of the five good emperors the empire has torn itself apart and been stappled back together by Diocletian, argueably that last great emperor. The arrival of christianity under Constantine has divided the people further. After the fall of the last pagan emperor the empire is set to explode through overstreched burgoning military, being sliced in two, economic collapse and religious styfe. It will take an emperor on par with Marcus auralius or Octavius Augustus to make rome great again.
playing as western roman pro's & con
Pro's
Despite Romes weakness there is still potential for greatness. Rome's troop choice, despite diluation with unwashed barbarians, is still very good and offers a broad variety of tactical styles and is still one of the upper teer armies of the campaigh. The economy if repaired, could churn out huge wads of cash every turn and ultimatly ,if you want a challenge this is as tough as rome:total war gets.
Cons: the empire is a primed grenade in your hand- you have no room for error and even if you make all the right moves it's still gonna hurt. All sections of the empire have been deliberatly set up to implode even before the hordes start showing up. Religious strife is tearing the empire apart,. the economies a wreck and your military might is dispersed into all over the empire in low tech (useless) units. Even if you whip your empire into shape you'll still have to worry about hordes, loyalty and religious issues. But then again if the empire had been easy to defend we'd still be speaking latin!
Religion
I've noticed that many player take one look at the monestery and jump on the Jesus bandwagon. Despite the obvious perks of sighning up for the Jehova it isn't as simple cut as it initially looks. Their are perks of both sides and which faction you choose is a lot more complex than a 15% happyness bonus. It's also worth noting that the situation varies from faction to faction on a number of differant ratios rather than trying to access religion as a whole it's better to study it faction by faction.
Paganism
Pro's
paganism has access to two very good temples within the empire-mithras and solar invictus. Now despite my opnion that their isnt enough time and detail put into either of these shrines (they should both easily have 5th teer production and Mithras should have loads of awsome personality traits and unique retinue members) both the pagan temples are very useful. Mithras is not only a warrior shrine but also gives a nice loyalty boost to law and happyness which means that pagan settlement armies will usually unit for unit be superior to their christian counterparts. Solar invictus is a good solid public control shrine with a very meaty bonus to population loyalty in fact it's slightly better than the christian ballicia (although the latest patch evens it out more). Theirs also the consideration that the bulk of your cities are pagan meaning that it's easier to consolidate. Due to you initial religious distribution of faiths in the map your mostly pagan barbarian pals easier to pacify when you start marching across the rhine to remind them of the good old days. The bulk of family members are pagan so if you do switch back then you'll be saving most of your members who would have otherwise been problamatic when governing with the wrong shrine or even finding themselves in the Rebel camp becouse of internal uprisings. Finally games seem to be in favour of the old ways and logicly this means they function most fluidly in a pagan empire.
Cons
No priests: although not as devstating as missing say...paladins, the absence of priests is still something to be noted. ultimatly christianitys happyness bonus is way higher than paganism's meaning that overall christianity makes for a happier population. Plus you don't get theological goodies as pagans ( 'artifacts' found by constantines mum and weird theologicans in your retinue) which are very useful for law and happyness. finally you'll have to deliberatly kill your emperor and change the faction heir if you want to go Pagan loosing one family member and damaging one (former faction heir trait) weakening your already unsteady empire.
Christianity
Pro
Christianity gives the player access to the monstery ladder. allowing for a usefull 5-15% bonus to happyness and access to monks which are useful in the low tech cannon fodder you may be forced to field early on. The started emperor is christian, as is his heir which of coarse makes christianisation all the smoother. Christian temple are also the highest teer temple allowing for the most bonus' to population in general. The christian sturctures have population growth bonus' which allow for rapid climbing on the governor building ladder. You can also gain a huge and often vital cash boost from trashing all those pagan sites to help get your economy back on the road. barbarian factions tend to be pagan meaning they will have a hard time dealing with your christian cities if you capture one. Finally christians get all kinds of cool retinue stuff famous theologians, bishops and bits of the cross all come with fairly nice features such as law bonus' .
Cons
Firstly the bulk of your empire is ultimatly pagan, the bulk of your cities veiw christianity the same way I veiw jehova's witnesses:avoid at all costs. If you attempt to convert your empire too fast and to carelessly you will suffer a truly brutal uprising resulting in the emerging green rebels becoming a full fledged faction within your own borders: very very bad. If your going to christianise do it slowly and gently, starting in italy spreading out into Gaul while waiting to the pagan/christian family member ratio to slip in your favour. Unit for unit pagan Mithratic armies are better than christian armies: the priest simply doesnt have the same clout as the experiance bonus (although better still why not combine both?). The population growth bonus while usefull can often be something of liability if you don't have the money to upgrade goverment buildings as it constantly pushes up the poverty bar through population at the highest tier of buildings. Finally, something that George bush is living proof of (just kidding) christianity creates negative charecter traits. Large numbers of my christians (about 2/3rds at one point) join one or another heresy increasing unrest or make those damnned vows of poverty cutting my cash flow.While I think that their are negative pagan traits they're not on par with the problems christianity causes to family member personality (although I could be wrong they may be religious caused even if they don't look it) although it should noted their are quite a few 'good' christian traits to help ease this problem.
Overall both christianity and paganism have solid perks and problems. I believe it's ultimatly up to the discretion of the player which one he chooses. One thing I will say that you must choose. trying to balance the empire between christian and pagan requires resoarces beyond your capability although you can maintain some shrines for the opposite religion. You will have to favour one for simply practical purposes. I choose pagan intially becouse I wanted a differant experiance to what i did with the eastern empire (to which most of what has been said here can be applied).
Side notes
1)A little trick I picked up on was that once a monestery is built it doesnt matter what religion you follow in the region. Meaning in a number of formally christian sites still had the happyness boost when I converted them: also allowing me access to priests from a 100% pagan population which I dubbed priests of Mithras......if anyone in the empire comments on this I'll remind them I'm the emperor and I know where they live.I assume this is simply the pagans taking control of areas when they've reclaimed them from christians
2)If I was going for a smash and trash attack or if a region was about to fall I'd build a shrine opposite the religion of the people making it very hard to hold for whoever set up shop when they took the region.Especially if the conversion is still lower than the overall conversion bonus for other faiths: I remember being darkly amused watching the Allemani tribe have to fight a constant battle to keep their capital.
3)Whichever faith you choose to favour keep 2-3 of your cites of the other faith. This will give you somewhere to drop of family members of that faith and allow you limted access to the perks of that religion (priests or experiance bonus) good areas for christianity are north africa and for paganism great britain.
4)For love of all that is sacred do not decide who to side with on what religion you follow in life!
a) data streams do not have souls
b)combine the most radical terrorists and weird apocalypse cults of the modern world and that's what the christians of the 4th century looked like: not only really voilent and intolerant but also completly insane.
c)Pagans are almost as bad and in some repects, worse.
d)Neither religion resembles their modern counterparts very much.
Choosing which religion to side with should be a pure strategy, terms of challange or at a pinch asthetic preferance. If you're deciding how to play computer games on what god/s think then I'm probably going to avoid you if i see you one the street. Choosing religion on asthetic preferance is fine choosing religion out of spiritual concerns is just plain weird.
5)If you're pagan keep and eye out for any really good shrines in barbarian lands and retrain your armies there: you may even get lucky and pick up some good retinue followers.
6)Trash any Zorostrian temples you get immediatly.
7)try to make sure Generals are of the lesser religion: that way they won't have personality defects from spending time with the wrong temple.
Loyalty/titles
A serious issue in the western empire. Not only do revolts cause disruption but also cause defects in family members and fully functioning enemy factions within your lands squandering vast amounts of precious resoarces to quell them. Firstly keep an eye on loyalty bars, try to make sure that powerfull generals and governors have a title and watch them. A good trick I found was to make the emperor head of at least one army ensuring that at least one army (usually the best overall) would never betray me (latest patch emperors can't defect). I also found keeping a small but potent army led by a captain in spain, italy, britain and other geographical blocks meant that if a family member defected their would be someone to restore roman law in any region.Fighting rebels will be discussed below: these are more measures to prevent or react to rebellion.
Units
peasants
As in all total war games: pathetic cannon fodder. Their uselessness is magnified in this game since they can't be relied on to control populations anymore. The only real use I could find for them is as sappers and arrow shields. Simply put if any other unit is available it does not matter what you want just use anyone else instead
Limitanei:
the 'limes' are very simular to the town watch in the first game. the limes fufill the role of cannon fodder and guarding cities from internal stife and external assaults. Useful for defending cities from sieges where their throwing spears can cause some nasty casualties while forcing the enemy to waste time and lives on the walls. I wouldnt recommend using them in the field as they will be outnumbered by their barbarian low-tech counterparts and outgunned by non-peasent units. use in cities or to break bandits. Leaving real soldiers free to fight proper battles.
Archers:
Bog-standard archers: you know what to expect here. Unfortuantly they're the only archer unit you get so they'll be the ones you use. good at defending cities and supporting fire. They're usefull in fighting horse archer armies and whiddling down the enemies numbers prior to attack or their attack. They can also be used to shoot damned horse archers very. Since their the only archer unit you have their the ones your stuck with. On the bright side their numbers are easily refreshed due to their low tech level so their field time is far superior to a number of units they'll be fighting along side.
Foederati
As much as I hate filthy barbarians, The foedereti are the first good unit you get. Able to fight quite well They'll be used extensilvly in early game where you'll need them to make up the numbers of your commitares with these guys. Use them as standard spearmen: to engage cavalry, hold positions or defend walls and you can't go far wrong. I would recomend replacing them with auxilerie palicia in mid game (less barbarians more romans!) since their superior in everyway. Very usefull as local defence militias against bandits and rebels, not so good against hordes.
Foederati Cavalry
You'll have loads of these at the start but you should disband them imediatly becouse they cost too much money and are frankly rubbish. They're usefu in the bog standard sort of way for standard light cavalry roles: flank attack, killing light infantry and running down the enemy when they rout however they cost to much, and you need that money elsewhere. By the time you're able to afford them Samatian cavalry is more largely available. which are far better in every respect (plus they look cooler). Simply put don't bother.
Priests
An interesting unit. Let me ask you question why would druids not be as useful to a roman army than they were to the Gauls? answer: Becouse romans have high moral and good fighting capabilites so don't need a bunch of chanting weirdos to hold them together. The same applies here: the higher teer roman units don't need a priest, especially if they're raised in a mithras settlement. Simply put for Romans you're better off having another unit of comitatanes in the field or more acuratly, raising two units of comitatanes in the time it takes to raise one unit of priests. That said, for low tech or city guard armies the priest comes into his own with half hearted pansy squad you'll probably be forced to use in the initial stages of the campaigh (all troop types listed above this unit) they need the priest to boost their dubious combat ability. They're also usefull in sieges where they boost the resolve of the men on the walls who usually suck anyway. Overall I would consider this unit a novelty in big league Roman armies but more useful in low tech forces. Still on the bright side they look very cool.
Comitatanes/plumbatarii
As both these units are very simular we shall discuss them as one. The meat of the roman army the 'legionare' infantry while not on par with their preddessors they are still formidable. very simular to the pre-marian pricipes in style and combat capabilities. They can't form tetsuo but can throw javelins prior to attack and can be counted on to fight well in most battles. Deploy as your standard infantry as soon as possible they'll can be relied on to win most fights they encounter-especially when theirs loads of them. The plumbatarii are simular to the Comitatanes but slightly better (the game developers should have made the gap larger or made them more differant) and should be deployed in your best army instead of the Comitatanes. However in for most of your armies I would recomend Comitatanes since their a tier lower on the military tier and are thus easier to replenish when on campaigh.
Comitatanes 1st cohort
Banner boys for the army. Slightly better than regular Comitatanes and their banner boosts moral, I try to have one in every army as a tough core to the army. I tend to place it behind the main line ready to engage the enemy should any units rout The high requirements mean they'll be hard to replenish when out in the field
Auxilia palitia
The elite unit for the West roman army. Probably the best spear unit in the game with combat capabilities far out classing their usually low level colleages. Despite this they should be treated in a simular manner to all spearmen and deployed and used as usual: to engage cavalry and protect flaks and in street city fighting. They just do it better than everyone else! Can form shield wall boosting their defence.
Bucellarii
an odd unit, armed with crossbows you'd be forgiven for treating them like their medieval pals but they seem to function differantly, They can hold their own in close combat resonably well and can fire short range but fairly effective bolts. This makes them ideal for sieges where they funcition well as shooters and wall fighters. Their tactical flexibility seems their greatest advantage allowing them to be used as a light infantry unit or a tactical infantry unit. However they're quite high up on the ladder so my usage of them was limited by the need to raise other more key units but if you have the time and money they seem a sound investmant. Very fragile to cavalry attacks.
Praeventores
Another odd unit, a sneaky unit for want of a better word. I found them very good at flank attacks were their ability to hide pays off. Best deployed in small skirmishes and ambushes were their meaty attack rate shines. However the time they take to produce and the limited usefulness of the unit mean they were a rare sight due to the the large scale battles I was forced to continously fight: where their use is limited. best used in small skirmishes or as ambushers.
Samatian cavalry
medium/Heavy cavalry and in all likelyhood the only cavalry you'll need. Good solid unit which can be relied on as shock troops and flank attacks. I found them useful in engaging enemy cavalry units were they u
I am playing VH/VH with the West and will use alot of what you have mentioned here.
I beat the whole map on M/M with the West, but found that was kindergarten compared to VH. I didn't even change most of the cities religion and still managed to take over the whole map. That is impossible on VH. I am on my second try and feel that I may have to start over even though I am into the middle game.
I was trying to make the empire Christian but I think I will go with Paganism the third time around.
On Med. I kept my whole army and it worked out. On VH I think that in order to get cash I will have to get rid of the expensive Foederati Cavalry and then build back up. I will make my Christian members my generals and they will have to be my cavalry in the beginning.
Very good read!! I will employ somem of your other strats as well!!
Well, on my third try I won the campaign in the year 409. Using strats from this forum helped alot. I never stop there as I like to take over the whole map.
After that I don't know what to try as I hear West Rome is probably the hardest on VH/VH.
The first thing i would do would lower squalor in your home field. then immediatley secure your european border make sure the cities on your frontier are prepared for invasions. honestly if you do that then you should work on economy and territory
Assassin squads are useful as well, looking at the WRE Re-unification PBeM: apart from a single character killed in a battle, the whole Slavic faction was wiped out by assassinations and just disappeared.
If you do not defeat the germanic tribes then they will be a problem later. what i did was make some armies ans attack celts, saxons etc. this secured my rule in europe and got me better prepared for the invading hordes
They're not major and impossibly difficult problems though, as even with the house rules preventing their destruction in the PBeM I mentioned in my previous post, they're succeeding and have destroyed a few hordes, and almost taken the whole Eastern Empire as well as retaining the Western half. The Germanic tribes are actually quite useful, as if you can just keep a ceasefire, they will act as a buffer zone to weaken the oncoming hordes, while themselves being weakened. The Celts (who aren't Germanic!) aren't in the hordes' way though, but they aren't a major problem so destroying them is optional. Their sieges of Eburacum should be futile, with a stone wall there.
Well for me the alemanii, celts, franks etc kept attacking my cities and armies
Try and make them agree to a ceasefire every time. Or, if you wish, put a full stack next to them, to make them retreat. They're useful buffer zones against the hordes that are going to attack you. The Celts should be destroyed though, or at least driven off Britain.
ARGH.
I keep on trying this faction, and I keep failing. Just on H/M, destroyed the Vandal horde with Nero's stack while losing only four units. And then, I get a nice little surprise. The massive Hunnic horde is at my doorstep, and they just took the Gothic settlement of Vicus Gothi. That's right, I'll have to destroy at least EIGHT stacks to get rid of the Huns and Goths. It'll probably be more, since they're all stuck together. I'll also have to choose between letting the Huns in and destroying the Goths or destroying the Huns first and trying to build an army in Italy to combat the Goths. I've got no night fighters in Italy though, which could be a problem. Gratianus is a governor and is a major morale sapper of his army, and Spurius converted to the Rebels. That means no chance of doing much conversion now, two hordes, and only two stacks for me to command. I really can't believe that I'm always this unfortunate, getting the hordes all at once all the time.
Strange for me the Huns always go to greece. Only when i push them out do they take the gothic settlement
Well it seems I've finally got a WRE campaign up and going. Admittedly it's only at H/M, so it's less of a challenge than the others described. However, I'm proud to say that I have only lost 2 settlements so far. Carnuntum, which rebelled, and then reverted back after a while, fully Christianised. I also lost Samarobriva (unsure about the name), when I overlooked a Saxon army which bypassed my forts by naval means. It was quickly snatched back, though.
Right now, I have destroyed the Alemanni, and Vicus Alemanni is inhabited by a bunch of normal rebels. The Franks are down to a few units, but strangely the large Lombard stack which has stood next to it for a few years hasn't made a move. The Berbers were too annoying, so I chose to destroy them. I'm still at war with the Celts, but no battles have been fought yet. I have destroyed three hordes: Marcus the Gambler destroyed the Huns single handedly, Nero Flavius destroyed the Vandals, and they both contributed to the destruction of the Goths, who sadly took the life and army of Nero Flavius.
I'm at war with the Eastern Empire , and I've taken the settlements of Athens, Thessalonica, Constantinople, Kydonia and am currently besieging Cyrene. I'm reluctant to move to Asia Minor though, and I'm probably going to go on the defensive and establish a few border legions in Europe. The many fleets of the Byzantines are also helping me make this decision.
Finally, religion. Even though Spurius Flavius and his 50% bonus was lost in a rebellion, he's now a nice rebel happily standing in Carnuntum, and is what keeps the place Christian. I have a 'Christian Conversion Army', the CCA, composed of around five Christians who include an executioner and a great manager. They've so far converted Ravenna, Mediolanium and are working on Augusta Vindeloricum (once again unsure. it's the province above Mediolanium).
After a long period of infertility, under the reign of Marcus the Gambler I'm pleased to announce a huge baby boom and around three or four quick adoptions into the family, all being Christians. :2thumbsup:
Then again, it's just H/M :embarassed:
Since I can't edit right now, I think I'll post my officially completed but unofficially (my own targets) uncompleted WRE campaign:
Marcus "the Gambler" Flavius Hunnicus Gothicus, Roman hero who crushed the Hunnic horde in half a year and proceeded to destroy the Goths as well. Augustus at this time:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...rio/Marcus.png
The Empire at the time of the official victory:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...onario/WRE.png
Wow. You are doing quite well. I enjoy seeing the screenies. Keep them up.
Lost a Christian 'Man of the Hour' at sea :sad:
But the worst thing about this campaign is the constant problems. Sure it's challenging, but it just gets so frustrating.
1) Financial and internal problems as soon as you start. It's over, then you think you'll cruise the rest of the campaign with such a large empire. Wrong.
2)The Vandals arrive, and require destroying. Then, when they're finished, the Huns and Goths arrive. The huns are good boys, attacking my army constantly and essentially condemning themselves to death in half a turn. The Goths, however, maraud around your territories, converting some back to paganism. They run around and are smarter, and take a while to destroy. All while this happens, the Eastern Empire attacks you and makes so of your men either dead or trapped in a city, away from the hordes. These two hordes are dead as well, and you rejoice, as the Sarmatians and Franks seem settled. Wrong. The Lombard and Burgindii go beserk in the barbarian lands, knocking out both the Franks and Sarmatians, all the while having a peace. The Sarmatian horse archer hordes are mobile and quite annoying, and run all around the place. When you seem to have them dead with one member remaining, they'll just pop out two random family members. Kill them and leave one, another two pop out. This is the first time I've actually had to destroy the horde and not their leaders. The Franks have now arrived too, with quite a lot of densely packed stacks, and a whole load of pagans. Grr. Luckily, only one full stack and a half stack actually have family members. The heir is stranded on his own as of now, somehow being all the way down at Serbia.
3) Once I manage to destroy them, I'm very sure that the Lombards and Burgundians will commence a war. One will be destroyed, and horde yet again.
4) In the middle of all this, you've got to take territories from the Eastern Empire as well. When you've taken the Eastern Empire, the Roxolani will most likely horde against you or be a constant annoyance.
5) One final note: the Slav horde will eventually attack as well. Fun fun fun.
That's why I destroy the helpless factions as well, namely the Saxons, Alemanni and Berbers. Anyone who attacks. The WRE might seem fun at first, but the constant pressure to destroy is quite taxing.