Few question from MTW fan ...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Phalanxs. I've played as the Roman for the most part and I sucked big time using the odd mercenary hoplite, the only units against which they seem quite good to me were chariot. Otherwise even if I manage to get the phalanx tidy and all, it gets very quickly disorganised and those silly hoplites start using their swords with no great effect. Even when an heavy cavalry unit charge it head on, it does not get impaled on the spears but somehow manages to disturb the phalanx and turn it into mincemeat .... I have tried to find the answer on the forum but could not find an answer that was reliable enough ... Tried to start a Greek campaign to test things out but except when I faced infantry only I run into trouble each time because it was way too easy to flank me. Could someone point me in the right direction ?

Phalanx mobility in the game is terrible, so it is often best to focus on keeping all phalanxes marching in a totally straight line with avoidance of moving corners of any shape or form. If you keep them regimented, simply using them as a wall that just walks up to the enemy, you can't really go wrong. They work best in defence rather than the attack which is why, even if you are on the offensive, its best to force the enemy to attack you than you to have to engage with them - just stand close and wait for them charge onto the pikes. If that doesn't work, move the line closer so their spears will touch the enemy - never ever order them to actually attack - that's where their weakness is and when their lines start to bend and become disordered.

Games slow down eacg time I have played the game for a few hours. That's someting which I undertsood was to be remedied by patch 1.5. but I still get the same trouble each time I play a bit too long ... Any way to solve that ?

The memory leak never really was ever fixed - the problem was very slightly improved, but not by a very significant amount. Beyond installing extra RAM to cope with the game's hunger for memory, there isn't really much you can do. You could also try disabling RAM hogging services as described here, but the positive effect felt here often isn't very large. Sorry

Hope this is useful

[Jxrc]

Phalanx mobility in the game is terrible, so it is often best to focus on keeping all phalanxes marching in a totally straight line with avoidance of moving corners of any shape or form. If you keep them regimented, simply using them as a wall that just walks up to the enemy, you can't really go wrong. They work best in defence rather than the attack which is why, even if you are on the offensive, its best to force the enemy to attack you than you to have to engage with them - just stand close and wait for them charge onto the pikes. If that doesn't work, move the line closer so their spears will touch the enemy - never ever order them to actually attack - that's where their weakness is and when their lines start to bend and become disordered.

If I understand correctly, I basically should let the enemy charge or have the phalanx bump into the enemy ? Seems tricky stuff but I'll give it a try.

The memory leak never really was ever fixed - the problem was very slightly improved, but not by a very significant amount. Beyond installing extra RAM to cope with the game's hunger for memory, there isn't really much you can do. You could also try disabling RAM hogging services as described here, but the positive effect felt here often isn't very large. Sorry

Is there an amount of RAM that is sufficient to satisfy the game's appetite or will "eat" whatever amount of RAM I will "feed" him ? I've got to restart the computer after 4 hours of play so it's not that bad anyway

Hope this is useful

Sounds promising. Many thanks indeed

[Quirinus]

If I understand correctly, I basically should let the enemy charge or have the phalanx bump into the enemy ? Seems tricky stuff but I'll give it a try.

Yep, pretty much. IMO it's not too difficult once you've gotten it. As a rule of thumb the less you move a phalanx the better, especially when using the Macedonian/Seleucid phalanx. Just move them close to the enemy to intice them to attack, then if they don't just sorta inch forward little by little until either they do, or you 'bump' into them.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Is there an amount of RAM that is sufficient to satisfy the game's appetite or will "eat" whatever amount of RAM I will "feed" him ? I've got to restart the computer after 4 hours of play so it's not that bad anyway

I'm not too certain, but I think that the amount of RAM the game can chew up is only limited to the size of the RAM itself. More of it/preventing other programs from taking it just allows you to play longer without noticing the slowdown problems.

[Jxrc]

Another small question ....

When playing as another faction as the Romans, squalor seems to get out of control quite rapidly. Played as Carthage last week end and the combination of the "distance from capital" and squalor made it almost impossible to hold a "huge city" even with a full garrison and no cultural difference malus (got thrown out of Cordoba which I had always owned ...) ... Only solution I have found (but that's not really one indeed), is to get out, let rebels take control, move back in and slaughter the entire population ... The money is nice but it's a problem if it happens to a city that was onwed by another not yet destroyed faction. I took Alexandria, enslave the population and the city got out of hand few years later. When I got out the city got full of Egyptians and it could have been a mess if the AI had not decided to charge out of city the next turn in an attempt quash the besieging army ...

Any tips to manage a 0% population growth ?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Squalor is generally lessened by prevention of the population getting to such higher proportions. Growth buildings probably should be destroyed to help the population growth go down and, although you can build farms, which are indestructible, it may be wise to observe the farming base rate as shown on the advanced settlement details scroll. That base rate is a massive contributor to growth and adding to it with something which cannot later be removed could be quite devastating.

If your struggling with the distance to capital penalty, if you haven't tried it already, you do have the ability to move your capital. Simply go to the settlement details scroll and, among the buttons in the bottom left hand corner, select the option to move your capital to that settlement. If you make the capital as central as possible, this allows you to keep everybody as happy as possible.



BTW, when you exterminate a settlement and you notice at face value a higher income, you are actually getting a lower income than you would without the extermination. Tax income is calculated based upon the number of people based in a settlement, but the way the game calculates military upkeep, the larger the population the more they pay to the armed forces. This gives the illusion of the largest settlements loosing money when actually they are your biggest earners. In the game it is actually impossible for a settlement to loose money.

A better view of real settlement wealth can be gained by going to the advanced settlement details scroll (the one with the pictograms) by activating one of the buttons on the bottom left hand corner of the standard settlement details scroll. On the income section, add up all the factors on the "+" side and then subtract all of the "-" factors excluding military upkeep.

[Jxrc]

Squalor is generally lessened by prevention of the population getting to such higher proportions. Growth buildings probably should be destroyed to help the population growth go down and, although you can build farms, which are indestructible, it may be wise to observe the farming base rate as shown on the advanced settlement details scroll. That base rate is a massive contributor to growth and adding to it with something which cannot later be removed could be quite devastating.

Since the growth increase generated by "health" facilities (city plumbing and the like) is probably compensated by a reduction in squalor, I suppose that only temples that give growth bonus should be destroyed (and replaced) after they have served their purpose (Tanit and Ceres AFAIK) ? Or is there any kind of builing I am missing ?

If your struggling with the distance to capital penalty, if you haven't tried it already, you do have the ability to move your capital. Simply go to the settlement details scroll and, among the buttons in the bottom left hand corner, select the option to move your capital to that settlement. If you make the capital as central as possible, this allows you to keep everybody as happy as possible.

The thing is that I run into problem when my captial Carthage was pretty much in the middle of my kingdom that stretched from Spain to Jerusalem and I still got the maximum penalty (80% ?) form loads of cities so that any move closer to one edge would create havoc at the other end. Been building temple of Baal everwhere, upgrading facilities buit by previous owner and police HQ but it seems not to be enough. In another campgain as the Julii, I took everthing in Northern Europe, a big chunk of Spain and small pieces of Russia without trouble and even moving my initial capital so that it seems to me that "distance between capital" is actually measured on the basis of the distance between point A and B rather than on the number of provinces between those. Makes senses but quite a penalty for faction involved in "huge desert provinces" warfare (Scipii, Carthage, etc). Pehaps building huge armies and being broke all the time is the solution to both the squalor and 50,000 denarii problems ...

[Quintus.JC]

I suppose that only temples that give growth bonus should be destroyed (and replaced) after they have served their purpose (Tanit and Ceres AFAIK) ?

Most definitely, or better yet, don't build them at first place. Except if that region has a extremly poor population growth (e.g. Dumatha, Themiskyra, Nepte etc. etc.)

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Since the growth increase generated by "health" facilities (city plumbing and the like) is probably compensated by a reduction in squalor, I suppose that only temples that give growth bonus should be destroyed (and replaced) after they have served their purpose (Tanit and Ceres AFAIK) ? Or is there any kind of builing I am missing ?

I'm uncertain about those "other growth" buildings, but they do not reduce squalor - they only counteract it through an extra population boost and a happiness bonus. Regardless of this however, in the end, logically it seems that although they do increase overall squalor, they manage to counteract that increase at the same time due to the happiness bonus. This may make them fairly useless in the end game, but, from that perspective, unless you need the cash, I wouldn't say that they need to be destroyed.

[RLucid]

I'm not too certain, but I think that the amount of RAM the game can chew up is only limited to the size of the RAM itself. More of it/preventing other programs from taking it just allows you to play longer without noticing the slowdown problems.

One of the fixes to (IIRC 1.5) the game is for memory leak, which would gradually use more virtual memory, but 'dows should page out unused pages into the swap file, so it's not really 'chewing up RAM'. The game can only release that VM when it exits.

In general the RAM use would be asymptopic, rising fast initially then reaching a plateau slowly, with increase only due to 'leaks' where memory is grabbed and not freed correctly.

Most programs stabilise with a smaller working set of pages in RAM, than their apparent Virtual Memory requirements, which is the reason M$ recommend using swap files.