Pointless playing Romani?

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?

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.

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

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

Originally Posted by 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?

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.

Originally Posted by konny

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

Originally Posted by konny

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.

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

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

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

IMO, no faction is pointless, especially in EB

Maion

romans are fun, but Maks are better =P

ALL HAIL MAKEDONIA!!!!

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... ]

Play on VH/VH. It will give you a consistent challenge until you reach the marian reforms. You will lose at least a quarter of the battles you fight and find you need to change any well worn strategies you have come to rely on. Clocked in 70+ hours of challenge on my campaign until I got CTD around 128BC. Would've played it to 14AD.

You know guys, you don´t have to conquer a lot of land just because the VC´s wants you too.

Wouldn`t think of playing anything but!
At 223 BC now of H/H Romani Campaign, NOT being responsible AND loving it! Working hard to subjugate the Mak/Epeiros alliance, winning 90% of battles (hills are your friend) , have Ambrakia, Epidamnos, Thermon and Pella, but Mak is spawning stack after stack of Spear fodder...oh, well. At least I`m putting pressure off KH, which is holding on for dear life!
On the western front, couldn`t help pouncing on a docile and seemingly (at first glance) weak Carthage. After easily invading Sicily Corsica, Sardania, I decided to go for the jugular and easily took Kart, but the lion woke up and sent 2 stacks to boot me out of Africa. Thought I could afford two fronts by making peace w/ the gaul tribes, but their infighting create a power vacuum up north which, if it helped me, unfortunately also helped the Sweboz become a major power! but I have a legion up there well versed in defensive warfare to keep the Krauts at bay of Mediolanium (again, thanks hills). Why do they all hate me so...

Great fun, though my GF might not have the same opinion. She hates EB and wants her BF back! ;)

Originally Posted by zemaniak

Wouldn`t think of playing anything but!
At 223 BC now of H/H Romani Campaign, NOT being responsible AND loving it! Working hard to subjugate the Mak/Epeiros alliance, winning 90% of battles (hills are your friend) , have Ambrakia, Epidamnos, Thermon and Pella, but Mak is spawning stack after stack of Spear fodder...oh, well. At least I`m putting pressure off KH, which is holding on for dear life!
On the western front, couldn`t help pouncing on a docile and seemingly (at first glance) weak Carthage. After easily invading Sicily Corsica, Sardania, I decided to go for the jugular and easily took Kart, but the lion woke up and sent 2 stacks to boot me out of Africa. Thought I could afford two fronts by making peace w/ the gaul tribes, but their infighting create a power vacuum up north which, if it helped me, unfortunately also helped the Sweboz become a major power! but I have a legion up there well versed in defensive warfare to keep the Krauts at bay of Mediolanium (again, thanks hills). Why do they all hate me so...

Great fun, though my GF might not have the same opinion. She hates EB and wants her BF back! ;)

similar situation to my campaign, 238 BCE and despite my best efforts, the averni have been obliterated, and ever year i have to fight off at least one full stack army from sweboz and another from epeiros in cisalpine gaul, then the aedui try to send an army to try and take massalia, keeps me busy to say the least, thankfully with the polybian reforms the settlements i can recruit hastati etc... have increased

No more pointless then say, Carthage, Ptolemaics, or Baktria. No hard campaigns really, *especially for the first two* but can still be a lot of fun.

Originally Posted by Maion Maroneios

IMO, no faction is pointless, especially in EB

Maion

I agree completely


Personally, I enjoy playing slow and steady instead of blitzing the map. It's much more enjoyable for me to spend a couple years building up my cities and economy, while the ai expands and become more powerful. That way I've got a couple empires with powerful armies to destroy that will take years to conquer, instead of a dozen small kingdoms that I can wipe out in a few turns.

I think the Romani are the ones for the long game especially if you aim to one day get to14AD. Add some of the mods like City growth and Allied legions and play semi-historical, though don't be a slave to the timeline!
My fundamental house rule is only fight when attacked or to keep the balance of power, think spheres of influence. Try to keep all the other factions "alive", lots of big gifts and forced diplomacy help here, currently I'm at 209BC and all the other factions are still going, though the Saka are besieging the last Pahvla settlement! Difficulty is M/M which seems to help diplomacy and slows AI growth.

Originally Posted by zemaniak

I have a legion up there well versed in defensive warfare to keep the Krauts at bay of Mediolanium (again, thanks hills). Why do they all hate me so...

Perhaps because they want revenge for the 2006 World Cup.

I'd use a large flexible wrapping army against them, completely surrounding their troops, with one or two cavalry groups engaging those who manage to flee. ;)

I may play defensively, but I never could play with house rules, which is why I could never play the Romans for very long.

Originally Posted by Connacht

Perhaps because they want revenge for the 2006 World Cup.

I'd use a large flexible wrapping army against them, completely surrounding their troops, with one or two cavalry groups engaging those who manage to flee. ;)

yup, with my slingers obliterating their range units beforehand while they plow up hill. When their main force hit my line, my triari and cavalry contain the flankers, then my 2-3 units of PE go around and engulf them. The rout usually follows and of course my cavalry goes medieval on their ass (pun intended).

The Maks have been getting tougher as they field more and more quality troops. Makes for very entertaining battles. One of those next to Thermon felt like a Classical version of Gettysburg with I defending little round top

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.

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

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

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

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!

I'm playing as makedonia with ALEX.exe and the luso are making amphibious assaults on the carthies, must be the spirit hand of chirugion guiding them =3

Originally Posted by 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.

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

Originally Posted by Space_Ed

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.