Your house rules for EB

[Mooks]

Whats your favorite house rules for playing EB? Just some general ones that make the game harder, but are realistic and accomplishable.

[SwissBarbar]

1. Not to accept every MotH and Promising General - dude, only Sharp/Charismatic/Vigourous ones, or if it fits in some other way into your roleplay.

2. With non-celtic or -germanic factions: no fullstacks

3. With barbarian factions: at the beginning not too much tactical moving, just go forward and slaughter them or get slaughered (of course you try to ambush and stuff)

4. don't just conquer everything for no reason but wanting to rule the world. Think of good reasons why to attack them, defeat them and then bring peace to your land. Dispand parts of your army (they want to go home) and just keep 1 regular defense army back, and wait until you get attacked or RP some other reason after a couple of seasons, to attack another city. Recruit new armies etc.... Mainly: Don't go ahead and roll every region, one by one, down.

5. RP civil wars

[Mooks]

1. Not to accept every MotH and Promising General - dude, only Sharp/Charismatic/Vigourous ones, or if it fits in some other way into your roleplay.

2. With non-celtic or -germanic factions: no fullstacks

3. With barbarian factions: at the beginning not too much tactical moving, just go forward and slaughter them or get slaughered (of course you try to ambush and stuff)

4. don't just conquer everything for no reason but wanting to rule the world. Think of good reasons why to attack them, defeat them and then bring peace to your land. Dispand parts of your army (they want to go home) and just keep 1 regular defense army back, and wait until you get attacked or RP some other reason after a couple of seasons, to attack another city. Recruit new armies etc.... Mainly: Don't go ahead and roll every region, one by one, down.

5. RP civil wars

1) already do that, and only ones below the age of 30

3) I have yet to play a barbarian faction besides pahlava and saba

4) I try to send my veteran troops home. Doesnt always work out so well (Hard not to use silver chevron troops). It does feel good roleplaying that though, sending veterans who have served above and beyond what they were required back to their family and lands.

What are you general excuses for invading lands?

[SwissBarbar]

Follow my AAR I'll update it tonight, and I'm coming up with such an excuse to invade lands

[Mediolanicus]

I think my main rules would be

1 Every army must be in a city, in a fort or laying seige during winter (or summer in arid regions) when possible.
2 Take it slow, don't blitz the map and don't blitz your enemies in war. Only attack when you have a reason (AI always attacks you so there's no shortage of reasons).
3 Use balanced armies. Don't spam slingers, archers, elites, heavy cav,...
Between 8-14 units per army. Full stacks are only allowed in emergencies and the additional units must be levies or cheap mercenaries.
For example: my 2 newest armies in my Romani campaign.
My consular army: General, 1 Velites, 4 Hastati, 2 Principes, 1 Trairii, 1 Pedites Extraordinarii, 1 Equites Extraordinarii.
My Illyrian/Greek army to fight Macedonian fullstacks: General, 2 greek levy archers, 2 Akontistai, 3 Illyrian Thureophoroi, 3 classical hoplites, 2 Illirian Light Cav.
4 Disband your armies in peace time, except for a small defensive force.
5 Use levies as garrison troops.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

For me, these House Rules apply only once the economy is in the black and making a tiny profit each turn. (Priority Number One in every EB campaign is to get the treasury out of debt.)

Rules are:

1. Building up economy (construction) always takes priority over building up the army except when your territory is being invaded.
2. Buy as few troops as possible. Only when you really need reinforcements.
3. Buy troops based on value for money, or to follow historical army composition for your faction. Don't build the best and most expensive troops unless absolutely necessary, or unless the treasury is overflowing and you can afford it easily.
4. Keep taxes as low as possible (especially for small towns). Once making a large profit, lower taxes. Growing town populations always takes priority over higher profits. Towns should always be growing.
5. Manage with as small an army as possible. Let the enemy outnumber you by 1.5 to 1 when planning a battle. If the enemy force has 9 units, attack them with 6 units or less. If your troops are much better than theirs, assume they will be a pushover and let them outnumber you by at least 2 to 1. Only if your troops are much worse than theirs can you have equal numbers as the AI force.
6. If your treasury is overflowing with many thousands of mnai, but you don't have excess population, hire mercenaries whenever possible instead of recruiting troops from your towns. (If you have loads of mnai, why not spend it? And why let your own people die in battle if you can afford mercenaries to do the dying for them?)
7. Don't attack another faction without good reason. Have a clearly defined, and limited aim in mind if you do - not total extermination.
8. Attack Elutheroi as often as you like - these guys are always your enemies. They should be the primary target for most factions at the start of the game.
9. Don't expand beyond your faction's objectives, until all those objectives have been taken first.

[Maion Maroneios]

My house rules are the following:

1. Roleplay. Try to roleplay your characters according to their traits/ancillaries and character in general. This includes simulating civil wars by disloyal/selfish characters.
2. Divide your armies into royal ones (led only by FMs of the Royal Family, not adopted ones), regional (with regional unit compositions, used for defending regions) and skirmishing (for harassing/confusing enemy armies).
3. Never have your Basileus leave too far from your capital, unless he has people of his favor there.
4. Building priorities for conquered regions are as follows: Regional Pacification -> lvl3 government. Afterwards, Katoikiai -> lvl2 government (if there is a good Hellenic population). After that, chose between a military or economically-based region by building the corresponding buildings.
5. All cities must be kept happy (green face) at all costs. This means lowering taxes and building happiness buildings where needed.
6. War is only declared formally on an enemy faction after one of the following reasons: Attack on an ally, attack on a naval/land unit of your faction, siege of [one] of your cities. 'Minor' reasons of aggressiveness from an enemy faction (ie blockade of a port, failed assassination or spying mission) will first be dealt diplomatically. If no solution is found, proceed to answer military.
7. All campaigns of any scale are to be led exclusively by a FM. This includes members of the Royal Family, as well as hired generals and adopted members/marriage candidates.
8. 'Border guard' armies are to be placed in every city that is close to an enemy faction. When borders expand, so do the armies move to protect the new border city-ies.
9. One army has to be present in every region as to efficiently counter any signs of rebellion (spawned armies) and generally to roleplay public order.
10. Every major army is to be accompanied by a diplomat (for any negotiation/bribing along the way), a spy (for scouting for enemy armies and spying enemy cities/fortifications) and an assassin (for killing weak enemy FMs, diplomats, assassins and spies). All agents are to be trained in a city before attached to an army.
11. Never expel or enslave/exterminate a Hellenic city. Even if it belongs to your worse enemy.
12. Only enslave/exterminate populations of non-Hellenic cities, only if the faction they belong to has done great harm to your faction. Or for roleplaying reasons (mad FM).

Those are the rules I follow in my Makedonian campaigns. I find that, upon following those houserules, I get smooth and slow gameplay that gives me maximum gaming pleasure. It also makes sure my faction has always a solid defense and there won't be any economical 'cracks' at any point due to excessive amount of trained troops by just raising armies without any pre-thoughts or a sudden breakdown of your empire by an AI faction that decided to exploit your state of confusion.

Maion

[Dayve]

Most of the rules i play by are here in this thread already in one post or another.

One I've come to love is not using full stacks, but instead half stacks. The only factions where this isn't feasible are:

Hayasdan - Because you need every unit you can get for the first 30-40-50 years of campaign.
Pahlava and the steppe factions - Because 10 units of HA isn't enough arrows to defeat a full stack of anything.
Rome - Because of the way a legion is laid out. 10 units isn't enough to form a triplex acies.

But every other faction, 10 units is enough to give you a front line of heavy/medium troops, some light supporting troops, 1 unit of missiles, 1 unit of cavalry and a general, and that is more than enough to defeat the stupid RTW AI, but not too much that you are always guaranteed a win.

I'd go a step further even and reduce that number to 8 units, if you were playing as, for example, Epeiros, and went to war with Rome, or even better... Gauls or Germans or Dacians.

Barbarian factions had a habit of hugely outnumbering their enemies on the battlefield... only using 8 units against them when playing as a phalanx faction would represent that quite nicely.

[SwissBarbar]

You could also roleplay a revolt by giving one or two of your regions to your enemy.

[gamegeek2]

@ Swiss, :p I'm already invading the Romans...

[SwissBarbar]

and I'm slaughtering the Aedui

[Olaf Blackeyes]

Honestly i follow about three or so house rules when play ANY TW campaign:

1. Keep as many troops alive on the battlefield as possible, DONT be wasteful with them.
2. ALWAYS have construction queues going. DONT EVER not be building or recruiting anything if u can help it, cuz otherwise i RP it as an economic collapse.
3. ALWAYS seek revenge for FM murders/killings, even if it destroys your faction, do it. And believe me i have lost several good campaigns due to this one.
4. Always have at LEAST a lvl1 barracks in all of your settlements in case of emergencies.

Now for EB specific ones:

1. Expand to your factions "historical" area b4 blitzing everything. EX, Germans stop at the Rhine, and take everything on the eastern bank b4 even CONSIDERING crossing it.
2. Always rush to natural barriers; mountains, rivers, ect...; in order to get safety for your faction, both RP wise and strategically.
3. When i go to war to the death i MEAN it, the opposing faction MUST die!!!

[satalexton]

the opposing faction MUST die!!!

WAAAAAGHH!!!!!!!

[Dayve]

Honestly i follow about three or so house rules when play ANY TW campaign:

1. Keep as many troops alive on the battlefield as possible, DONT be wasteful with them.
2. ALWAYS have construction queues going. DONT EVER not be building or recruiting anything if u can help it, cuz otherwise i RP it as an economic collapse.
3. ALWAYS seek revenge for FM murders/killings, even if it destroys your faction, do it. And believe me i have lost several good campaigns due to this one.
4. Always have at LEAST a lvl1 barracks in all of your settlements in case of emergencies.

Now for EB specific ones:

1. Expand to your factions "historical" area b4 blitzing everything. EX, Germans stop at the Rhine, and take everything on the eastern bank b4 even CONSIDERING crossing it.
2. Always rush to natural barriers; mountains, rivers, ect...; in order to get safety for your faction, both RP wise and strategically.
3. When i go to war to the death i MEAN it, the opposing faction MUST die!!!

The point of houserules is generally to make the game harder for yourself... the first 4 of your houserules would make it way too easy.

I like to build slowly. A trader up until 6000 population, then a market. Large market at 12,000, and that's where it stops except for exceptionally wealthy provinces. So, for example, Athens, which makes an immense amount of money from trade, would be allowed to have the final tier of trade buildings, whereas Sparte, which does absolutely abysmally shit trade, would stop at market and basic port.

[Maion Maroneios]

the opposing faction MUST die!!!

If it's the Romaioi, then yes ram them to near-death, beat them to the mud, smash their skulls with a fire extinguisher, burn them alive, skin their bodies and sell it for toilet paper, snap their bones and throw them to the dogs, make an omelet out of their smashed (with a hammer) genitalia and last - but not least - pee and poo on their reduced-to-dust-after-burned remnants.

I got a bit carried away there, didn't I?

Maion

[gamegeek2]

Well, leave the women be...I'm sure they'll be fine, free of those wretches they called husbands...

[Mooks]

If it's the Romaioi, then yes ram them to near-death, beat them to the mud, smash their skulls with a fire extinguisher, burn them alive, skin their bodies and sell it for toilet paper, snap their bones and throw them to the dogs, make an omelet out of their smashed (with a hammer) genitalia and last - but not least - pee and poo on their reduced-to-dust-after-burned remnants.

I got a bit carried away there, didn't I?

Maion

Of course not. Using all the body parts for a constructive reason, like a native american, sorta.


Im about to start a romani or pontic campaign (I despise phanalaxs.). Thanks for all the house rules.

[Subotan]

Always have the eldest son of the eldest son become heir, and the line to transmit along the family name, unless the guy is a supreme douche,

[Olaf Blackeyes]

If it's the Romaioi, then yes ram them to near-death, beat them to the mud, smash their skulls with a fire extinguisher, burn them alive, skin their bodies and sell it for toilet paper, snap their bones and throw them to the dogs, make an omelet out of their smashed (with a hammer) genitalia and last - but not least - pee and poo on their reduced-to-dust-after-burned remnants.

I got a bit carried away there, didn't I?

Maion

@ Maion: Did i ever tell u that u r my hero?

@Dayve: Well normally yes that is true but in many of my games I find these actually make stuff harder. But this is due to my play style more than any reality. I mostly play as the "doomed" factions, i.e. the ones that did not make it historically. Scotland, Byzantium, Gaul, Aedui, Averni, KH, WRE, and the Aztec are my favs in this category. As for all time favs mine are the Sweboz, KH, WRE, and Aztecs

[Cyclops]

I have a few general ones:

No more than 4 foot missle units (archers or slingers) per stack.

Huge/VH-H/General cam on, no pausing (unless its urgent eg phone rings or need to pee).

Disband non-professional or non-elite units between missions.

No mercenaries unless I have a city with that unit's culture. eg no gallic mercs for Pontos until they have Ankara, no greeks for Lussotannan until they have a hellenic city (with a type IV gov).

Armies based around leaders. "Royal armies" for FL and heir with elites (and maybe some elite allies). provincial armies for lesser generals. allied armies for allied generals eg in my Lusso campaign, the type IV gov in Massilia is nominally Greek, so he's a greek merc general with only hellenic troops.

Pillage in a culturally appropriate manner: eg celts will burn the temple of Jupiter in Rome but respect Stonehenge, Romans will drain the lakes in Gaul but respect the Parthenon.

For my "less civilised" campaigns (ie barbaroi) I add a few:

No more than 4 units of one type per stack (variegated hordes): this forces me to manage a mix of unit types and diversify to build bigger stacks.

no long sieges: either you seige assault after one turn or you walk away ("the tribes got bored").

can't expel civilised populations (not compatible with the babrabarian home population).

I try to RP a growing state with babaroi (otherwise the faction would collapse with every FL death) so eventually certain elites become regular army and don't have to disband: for Lussotannan its Scorto's and Balearic slingers. I have tied with the idea of tying state run granaries with the ability to support a standing army, but its not a hard and fast rule, just a flavour I've added.

I tried to RP a "revolt against Rome" where I sent a general into Latium, and allowed him to recruit italic units once I controlled 2 italian cities but it turned out a bit of a fizzer as the Rome garrison sortied to support a single unit attck on my besiegers, and got routed.....so Rome fell without even a decent street fight.

[kekailoa]

Always have the eldest son of the eldest son become heir, and the line to transmit along the family name, unless the guy is a supreme douche,

Hahaha...

Douche.

On-topic, I always try to simulate raiding parties, such as sending small cavalry squads into enemy territory to ambush and devastate. Preferably your douche-like family members with some merc cavalry.

[Dutchhoplite]

I use Konny's houserules a lot:

For factions that are either republican like early Rome or Karthago or that do not represent a real "state" like the Sweboz or KH I use the following system:

The 1/2 income of a town's farming is used to raise their "peasant" units. These are units that are the faction's cheapest (normally under or about 200-300 mne in upkeep). For example slingers, archers, cheap spearmen
The 1/2 income of a town's tax is used to raise their "citizen" units. These are the most common units the faction (or town's original faction) fights with. Normally between 300 and 500 mne in upkeep. For example hoplites, lesser phalanx, peltastai, or most of the spearmen of the Barbarians.
The 1/2 income of a town's trade is used to raise their "noble" units. These are horsemen, better phalanx, any barbarian "special" units like the "Wolfes of Wodan" etc.
The 1/2 income of the overall mining is used to raise the factions "royal" units - if any; for example Sacred Band, Spartan Hoplites etc. There will be not more than one "royal" unit of every type per each city that can raise them. So, actually there will be not more than one or two of these units.
Ships are maintained only when needed by the sea cities useing their 1/2 income from sea trade (what reduces their ability to raise "noble" units)
This makes the "standing army" of the faction; no mercenaries allowed. A faction with 4 or 5 cities should be able to field a full or at least 3/4 stack of decent units by drafting from the above still haveing sufficent garrisons in every town. Be sure to note what units you have taken from which city to prevent from raising new ones for soldiers that are allready there.

In "times of need" the above can be doubled; for example when the enemy attacks with multiple stacks from different directions or if you are at war with several other factions.

To make things even more complicate, you should keep in mind that those forces of the individual towns represent their army. The same army that they would use to fall on their neighbours if they had not happend to be bound to the same faction.

It is quite easy to realize it with KH and the cities of Athens and Sparta: Let's say in the early game each of these has a tax income of between 600 and 700 mne, making roundabout 300 to 400 mne (you shouldn't be to strict) for citizen units. The Athenians fight as Iphocratians in EB and will raise a phalanx. Now, it would be fine to field a unit of Peltastai from Sparta for this phalanx. Don't do it! The Spartan citizens would regard the idea to run around with javellins screening an Attike phalanx simply as offensive. They will raise a unit of classical hoplites instead. Both towns raise a unit of Akontistai as skirmishers each.

Later both cities grow and are now able to maintain two units in this class. The Spartans still refuse to fight as scirmishers and will raise a second unit of hoplites. Athens on the other hand will now have her Peltastai, disbanding the Akontistai and raise, for example, two units of Toxotai in return. Drafting from these cities for war you would now have a phalanx screened by a unit of Peltastai with a unit of Hoplites on each wing and a unit of Toxotai (the other peasant remain in their towns as garrison) for support; plus anything that can be raised in the noble class plus additional generals.


--------------------------------------------------------------

For the "Military Kingdoms" (the successors, Epeiros or later Rome) living is much easyer up to a certain degree:

Basicly, you have two armies:

1. The "Royal Army". That is maintained by 1/2 of the overall tax income plus all mining income. It's composition is at your choice and might as well contain mercenaries. It can not be raised above the given limit because the rest of the tax income is used to keep the central goverment running.
2. The local militia. Those are maintained by the 1/2 farming and the 1/2 trade income of each city (the latter used for "citizen" units this time not "noble"). They are the garrisons and may only be used inside their home province or any adjecting. They might be mixed with the army then. The militia can be doubled in times of need.

Besides these rules i have some houserules for each faction.

[Olaf Blackeyes]

Holy CRAP!!!! What do you have a calculator out when u play EB or WHAT?!?!? And how long do u take per turn?

[Dutchhoplite]

Well, i have simplified some of these rules ;)

[Connacht]

My only house rule is:

- enjoy the game!

However, if you want a more detalied rule, I might say this:

- do anything you want to do, be it total steamrolling/blitzing/extermination or slow and role-played gaming, until you enjoy doing it. It's only a videogame and you are playing it for pleasure. Feel free to enjoy EB in the way you want, even try to experiment different choices (from limiting your KH recruitments as Konny suggets to spamming full stack accensi armies everywhere). Let your imagination break free and have fun in the way you prefer.

[Dutchhoplite]

Wise words

[Olaf Blackeyes]

Wise words

QFT

[Dayve]

What's the point of the whole army based on cities trade/tax income thing? Tax and trade income constantly changes, so you must have to spend 5 minutes each turn (with a small empire) with a calculator working out what you can recruit and crap like that... i would get bored so fast. I can't even imagine what you'd have to do with a game as the Seleukids.

I basically just try to do everything to put me at a disadvantage. Adding to what i've already posted in the thread, it's good to command armies based on your generals abilities. A green general with maybe 1-3 stars, just line your troops up and don't do anything fancy... maybe a cavalry charge or two. The more stars he gets, the more creative you can be.

[Tristuskhan]

no pausing (unless its urgent eg phone rings or need to pee).

To make the battles harder I also use this rule too, but I have one more: no double or triple game speed. Never. It simulates impatience.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I do use pause, but only in city battles where it's hard to see what's going on. When I attack a city, my attacking forces are always split up into two or three divisions, so there's a lot of scrolling around the map.