Pointless playing Romani?

[duncan.gill]

Does anyone feel that it is somewhat pointless to play a Roman campaign given the huge area needed to be conquered and the ease at which you are able to produce high quality troops?

[Brucaliffo]

I think you should play in an historical way: rather than spreading across the world, take one war at time. Think to historical war. First fight carthaginians or gaul, then illyrians, then iberics, then maybe again carthaginians, then macedons, and so on... maybe doing so you will have a more realistic feeling.

[QuintusSertorius]

Nope. I like playing out history, and taking my time.

[satalexton]

just limit yourself with house rules....and building a bunch of expensive fleets to keep you on your toes..

[konny]

Does anyone feel that it is somewhat pointless to play a Roman campaign given the huge area needed to be conquered and the ease at which you are able to produce high quality troops?

Unless you start spamming Extrordianrii - which should be kept extraordinary - the Roman units are solid good, but not high quality like the mass of elites the Greeks can recruite. The start of the campaign is easy with the Romans, but the game becomes much more challenging later on when the other factions are able to recuite their elites.

[QuintusSertorius]

Unless you start spamming Extrordianrii - which should be kept extraordinary -

the Roman units are solid good, but not high quality like the mass of elites the Greeks can recruite. The start of the campaign is easy with the Romans, but the game becomes much more challenging later on when the other factions are able to recuite their elites.

And if you're trying to take on some of the tougher factions before the Polybian reforms.

[NickTheGreek]

Definately not pointless, Romani is a great campaign and once you get going they have a really epic feel to them.

[Onehandstan]

Of corse it's pointless, if you think about it everything is pointless, anyway I digress, I am currently in a Romani campaigning and I am haveing a darn good time

[Roka]

not at all, limit yourself to historic expansion, and role play your generals, in my current romani game it is my most enjoyable campaign to date, its 245 and i have just recently took patavium (i know that's not historically correct but i had to do it as epeiros had it and they were sending stack after stack into italy to siege bononia), think i'll bide my time and wait for the polybian reforms before taking mediolanium and pushing into illyria

[Maion Maroneios]

IMO, no faction is pointless, especially in EB

Maion

[Tarkus]

Haven't written for awhile, but have been playing EB and visiting the forums alot...did ya miss me??

Anyway...I have to agree with the collective response. Playing the Romani is far from pointless! I'm into 186BC in my Romani campaign and I'm having a great time. My lands stretch in a continuous Republic from the entire Iberian peninsula to southern Transalpine Gaul to Illyria to the traditional Macedonian homelands (the Maks are now restricted to Asia Minor) to all of Greece. In the south I have coastal northern Africa from Sala to Lepki. While I'm bringing in about 60,000 mnai per quarter I'm trying to be restrained and disciplined in my economic and military approaches.

Militarily, I'm now restricting myself to occasionally hacking away at the Arverni in southern Transalpine Gaul around Gergovia -- Aulus Gallicus is awaiting his notification to return to Rome to receive his Triumphus. More importantly, in the East I'm in full "scorched earth" mode against the Ptolemaics -- have burned Tarsos and Side to the ground through raids from my naval base at Salamis(Kypros) and am fighting some fierce battles against seemingly infinite stacks of phalangitai and pezhatairoi on mutual border near Augila. Great fun..

[By the way...after taking Side I really wanted to give it to my Macedonian allies to help them direct pressure further eastward but, stupidly, I didn't have a diplomat in the area and the Yellow Death was approaching the gates of the now-smoldering city in force... ]

[Slim_Ghost]

Eh I don't understand why people say Romani are strong. If anything they suck compared to the other factions until they get to finally recruit legionnaires.

They can only recruit their strong units STRICTLY in the Italian peninsula. Anywhere else you are stuck with silly levies and at the most, medium cavalry.

If you happen to capture Carthage and then suddenly not able to expand further to Africa or provide additional troops from Rome, then yeah prepare to be raped to death. Enjoy your Numidian skirmisher vs Sacred Band battles.

[Cullhwch]

If you want a REALLY interesting Romani campaign, I'd suggest that you head straight for Crete and then Cyprus. Recruit local troops there and then sack Alexandria as hard as you can. An immediate war with the Ptolemies may be unorthodox, but crushing the Egyptians with machimoi is much more entertaining than beating the Gauls with legions.

[runner3434]

I find Romani a good faction no matter how you play it.

it faces a good mix of different fighting styles from the start.

[satalexton]

use local troops and mercs to create allied armies of different play style, i have a merc phalanx army guarding antioch for instance.

[Celtic_Punk]

in RTW.exe it might seem pointless since there are 99.99999% of the time no amphibious assaults. and you only have 2 EXTREMELY SMALL borders to hold (the toe and the top of italy) but as most people said, take it one war at at a time, forget about the glory of the roman empire, concentrate on being a small state at the time being, and as you expand change your strategy to match the size of your empire. good foreign policy is the key to a pointful (hehe) SPQR campaign.


speaking of amphibious assaults... the heel of italy in my current campaign (KH) has changed hands several times. this means epiros has launched several ambitious amphibious landings. This ended around 250 BC but for RTW.exe its quite an achievement!

[Space_Ed]

If you want a REALLY interesting Romani campaign, I'd suggest that you head straight for Crete and then Cyprus. Recruit local troops there and then sack Alexandria as hard as you can. An immediate war with the Ptolemies may be unorthodox, but crushing the Egyptians with machimoi is much more entertaining than beating the Gauls with legions.

I LOVE fighting the gauls with legions. It looks awesome. Really badass.

[Cullhwch]

I LOVE fighting the gauls with legions. It looks awesome. Really badass.

Yeah, but it's really been done to death, you know? Using a faction's own decent midgrade troops against them is so much more satisfying. A level 4 government in Alexandria can recruit all that you need. A mixture of machimoi, hippeis, and toxotai kretekoi proves to be startlingly cost-effective.

[fenix3279]

For a while, I always thought it was pointless playing as anyone but the Romani since they are one of the few factions that were actually able to reach their victory conditions in real life. Playing (and winning) with other factions seems almost ahistorical. For example, what if you play as one of the celtic factions? I, personally, prefer playing as a "barbarian" faction but does anyone really think that there is even the slightest chance that Gaul could have utterly defeated Rome in an all-out war? Maybe if they spent less time fighting themselves and were united under one banner then they might have put up a better fight but total victory is wishful thinking. Sometimes it's hard to get into a faction when they didn't fare so well in real life. Anyone else agree?