Getting Low on Threads

[Emperor Mithdrates]

I believe people have either exhasted all their knowlege or their opinion on all threads currently available and we're now scrapping the edges of our tactical brains to think of something to write.
I'm posting this new thread because We need a new conversation topic.
This is going to have a wide range of answers but it's worth it.

Out of the whole game what is your favourite city (and why) and your favourite unit (and why)?

[Quintus.JC]

Favourite city is rather hard. I think the answer could only be personally, for me it will to be Rome. City of eternity. I do really like Athens, it never fails to do it’s job. I normally plays on hard and Athens, under civilised control always makes more than 5K per turn. Absolutely superb trading site the maritime wealth is unbelievable. Good source of money from mines and land trade. Along with a nice temple to trade (Hermes, Mercury, Milqart. Etc.etc), it’s unstoppable.
Favourite unit is a really hard one. Mmmmmmmmm…… I’ll have to think about that.
I do like an nice conversation. Thanks

[Brave]

Alexandria is a rather nice city, it has a population which is immense, combine this with lots of trade income plus high fertility and you have a city which can support vast armies of elite troops and still make money. Plus the grain export aids nearby settlements.

[Quintus.JC]

Some of the richest Settlements are located around the Aegean and Nile delta.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Halicarnassus, nice climate...

Seriously probably Antioch, just because it was my capital as the Kingdom of the Parthians.

Unit would be Cataphracts, they may not be the most effective unit (they're not bad though!) but I'm just a bit of a romantic sometimes, I just like them!

[Spartan198]

(Choices taken from Extended Greek Mod,not vanilla Rome)
Favorite city: Sparta. Can't stand not having it under my banner,irregardless of what faction I'm playing as. Partly because I dread being the target of a Spartan phalanx or syntagma.
Though I also consider Pella to be somewhat of a prize. But I do kinda miss Themiskyra and those rebel Amazons.
Favorite units: Spartan Royal Guard & Greek Armored Cavalry tied,with Spartan Phalangists a close second. The Spartan Royal Guard are uber fierce (and expensive: 8K a unit!),and Greek Armored Cavalry are the perfect hammer to compliment the anvil. Spartan Phalangists are the anvil in domestic armies (defending Greece only).

[Flavius Merobaudes]

I believe people have either exhasted all their knowlege or their opinion on all threads currently available and we're now scrapping the edges of our tactical brains to think of something to write.

I felt something like that for quite a time. There are increasingly fewer people posting here, not only in the RTW section, but also over at MTW2. Twcenter is draining our resources.

Favourite city:
Depends on which faction I'm playing, but overall it would be Athens. I nearly always make it my capital - that's why I prefer to have a temple of Athene there. More fitting too.
Eastern factions and Seleucids - Antioch
Scytians - Themiskyra and its gold mines
Massilia and Londinium can be great cities, too, if a civilised faction starts to build them up. Both of them are real trading centers.
In XGM, it's always Bactra, no doubt.

Favourite unit:
Heavy horse archers like Scytian Noble Archers or Cataphract Archers in vanilla. Clibinarii and Clibinarii Immortals in BI.
Spartan Royal Guard of course in XGM. They give you that heroic feeling you only get when obliterating a whole stack with a single unit. And Bactrian Archers.
Best overall and cost-effective unit: for me German Spear Warband. Upgraded at a temple of Wodan, it's a great unit that comes at low costs and can be trained anywhere.

Best modification: XGM (Extended Greek Mod). I've been willing to try EB but it's somewhat lagging on my computer.

[Rhand]

Scytians - Themiskyra and its gold mines

Why exactly? I used to have it conquered when I was playing with the Brits and it was one of my biggest moneyspenders. I think I never ever earned money in this city, so I don't really understand why you see this as your favourite city.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

It's a misconception that any city actually loses money, and is a serious flaw in the method R:TW uses to show settlement income. All cities earn money and contribute to your funds and a loss of any city will remove financial gain from you.

The problem with the system is that the end result subtracts military upkeep off of each settlement's displayed overall income. The larger the settlement's population, the more it has to contribute to military upkeep costs and the more money is taken off the end result.

This makes larger settlements look as if they pay less into your coffers than smaller settlements. Realistically it is the opposite - the larger the populace, the more taxes they pay.

Due to this "bug" a better view of individual settlement income can be gained through performing your own calculations without the military upkeep factor being considered.

To do this you firstly need to open the settlement details scroll. Double click on the settlement to do this.

Then select the button which opens a scroll containly multiple pictograms next to the one you have currently open. The buttons on the bottom left hand side of the scroll are the ones you need - sadly I can't remember/am unable to check exactly which button it is right now - sorry

Once you have the scroll open, move your mouse to the income/financial/something along those lines, section.

Then simply look at the figure to the far right of the top (+) line. After that, subtract the figure to the far right of the bottom (-) line.

Once you've done that, hover your mouse over the images which represent military upkeep on the bottom (-) line. Add the figure displayed onto your current total.

Once you've done that, the settlement's real contribution to your treasury is shown.

Full details of your entire financial situation can be gained by looking at the end of turn details scroll which appears as a button to the side of the screen at the start of every turn. You can also look at this data on the financial details scroll accessable by clicking on your faction's coat of arms in the UI.

[Spartan198]

I set all my army upkeep to zero in the EDU,so I can attest to what Omanes is saying. The larger cities do pull in the greater income. I've got Pella bringing in over 4K per turn,with the rest of my cities no lower than 1K,in my current Macedonian campaign.

[Emperor Mithdrates]

Stupidly just relised that i havent posted myself!

Favourite City: I like Eastern and southern cities for their astetics.
In other words, their mud brick walls and palm trees,
and i guess my favourite city out of them is........NICOMEDIA.
some people might not remember it but its the city located near Byzantium or near modern day Istanbul. I like this city because of its slaves, mines and tactical possitioning. Its right at the crossing point of the Black sea and Agean sea and therefore perfect for trade and building up navies. From that base I can conquer Greece and macedon, or Scythia, Dacia, Armenia and Parthia....or both at the same time.

Favourite Unit: mmmmm?!
its a cross between the Spartan Hoplites (Greek cities), Sacred Band Hoplites (Carthage) or Bronze Shield Pikemen (Pontus). I simply like Hoplites and I believe their the hardest for the romans to beat. No matter how good the discipline, running onto 10ft long spears with only dinky swords is suicide...even for romans.

[Praetor Rick]

I'll have to go with Byzantium and Nicomedia. Beyond the fact that Byzantium was the captial of the only remaining Roman Empire after the western portion collapsed, it and it's sister city across the strait, Nicomedia, are the gateways to the Black Sea, which is astonishingly prosperous, with tons of internal trade.

[salemty]

ive got a question. if im playing romans what would be a good order for me to build my buildings in to balance military, public order and income. also after ive got a population of about 12000 i never seem to know what i should build. can someone help me plz.

favourite city: Athens

Favourite unit: armoured hoplites

[Quirinus]

It really depends on your plans for the city. Is it a front-line/troop-producing settlement? Or is it a cash-cow settlement?

As the Romans, your most important military buildings are the barracks, as Romans have good infantry. The stables and archery range can wait, though you might also want to invest in stables, as you can hold races in a hippodrome (similar in purpose to the arena, raises public order).

Otherwise build the markets. If you have mines, build those as well-- they provide a nice fixed income. If you are a coastal province, build ports as soon as possible-- sea trade is very lucrative.

Public-order buildings I generally build when needed-- i.e. if you public order is 150% at the highest tax level, then public-order buildings are obviously not a priority. I do invest in arenas just in case though-- you never know what may happen, and the gladiatorial games are a nice fallback in case public order suddenly plummets. Plus, you get to build gladiator units, which, although not particularly useful, are cool as hell.

[RLucid]

It really depends on your plans for the city. Is it a front-line/troop-producing settlement? Or is it a cash-cow settlement?

As the Romans, your most important military buildings are the barracks, as Romans have good infantry. The stables and archery range can wait, though you might also want to invest in stables, as you can hold races in a hippodrome (similar in purpose to the arena, raises public order).

Yes, the Hastati are the mainstay in the early part of the game, so the militia barracks are a priority. However, at 440dn they're expensive enough early game, not to be wasted so I attempt to minimise casualties.

So it's best to field balanced forces, with strong missile arm as well as cavalry units. So I think a Practice range in a fast growing town is the next priority (fast growth due to desirability of the Archer unit), and the low production cost of the Velites.

Therefore, even the trade settlements can usefully produce (retrain) ancillary units, like Equites & Velites, who compliment the HI.

As the Jullii, the main lack against Gaul is spear-men in the early part of game to counter enemy noble Cavalry. Whilst deploying General's cavalry aggressively to shape the battle in early phase works well, sometimes 3 opponent family members join forces with addition of barbarian light cavalry, meaning the Roman cavalry has to fall back on infantry support. So Town Watch (used in squares to act as charge blockers), and Barbarian Mercenary Spearmen are recruited usefully to. It is possible to avoid mercenary spearmen early on in game, but an aversion will probably lead to an unnecessary defeat later in game, sometime during push on Lugdunum, Alesia & Narboensis.

The missile units, Velites & Illyrian mercs, reduce Hastati casualties, and add offense to the defensively deployed weakies, like Town Watch who usefully push Battering Rams etc permit immediate garrison post-siege, so the main force can immediately march on (without the General) to invest the next target. They also force if deployed forward as skirmishers, the poorly armoured (no helmets) barbarians to charge, rather than rest prior to engaging; a small but significant advantage to the front-line Hastati who can throw pila & counter-charge, confusing warbands who are attempting to attack the fleeing skirmishers.

A side benefit, is that Captain led force, may be attacked in open field, getting to fight a primarily defensive battle in a strong position, with light cavalry. You may even get free recruitment via adoption of a useful HC unit.

Against low quality barbarian forces, combining the weakest units, Hastati, Velites, Equites & Town Watch, as the backbone of the forces; eases retraining considerably.

In comparison a preoccupation of mine, is keeping the initial Archer & Triarii, out of trouble where they're likely to take casualties, as they're too useful.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

ive got a question. if im playing romans what would be a good order for me to build my buildings in to balance military, public order and income. also after ive got a population of about 12000 i never seem to know what i should build. can someone help me plz.

To add to what Quirinus has said, you can estimate the viability and worth of each individual structure by examining the settlement details scroll.

This can be activated by double clicking on the selected settlement and then selecting the (what I think is) middle icon on the bottom right hand corner of the scroll. It activates a scroll with a load of pictograms on it.

Once you are in, select to construct a building, any building, on the right hand (original) scroll. When you do, faded icons should appear on the "+" level of any of the pictograms. Hover your mouse over them to see the bonus it provides to this statistic.

The "-" level may also have some icons which repeatedly fade out. These icons are existing penalties which will be removed by the selected building's effects. Hover over them to see details.

Different buildings provide different levels of benefits. Those which provide the highest benefit to something which the settlement needs to do better are probably worth building first. Those which are not so useful probably need building last.

Do bear in mind that the "+" side of some statistics are not always good. High levels of population growth can eventually result in a large populace, henceforth resulting in squalor which dramatically reduces public order.

[Motep]

hmmm....

My favorite city would have to be Syracuse. I dont really have a reason, I am just biased to that city for some random reason I dont really understand.

My favorite unit would have to be the armoured hoplite. It is a useful unit, and I just plain like the skin. It doesnt help that they are the mainstay in my armies of global conquest, and that I have reused the skin in modding many times.

[Spartan198]

My favorite unit would have to be the armoured hoplite. It is a useful unit, and I just plain like the skin. It doesnt help that they are the mainstay in my armies of global conquest, and that I have reused the skin in modding many times.

Armored Hoplites are mainstays in my vanilla & XGM armies as well (but I must admit,the XGM version looks unusual without the corinthian helmet).

[Motep]

Armored Hoplites are mainstays in my vanilla & XGM armies as well (but I must admit,the XGM version looks unusual without the corinthian helmet).

You just have to love that helmet.

To be honest, that is one of the reasons why I did not get XGM, the other one being that I am too lazy.