As a Carthaginian, Romans to weak in manpower and too passive

[Dunadd]

I've tried playing EB as Carthaginians on RTW 1.5, on BI and on Alexander.

In general i like the mod a lot.

However the Romans are too weak and too passive in it. Historically the Romans had massively greater manpower than most of their enemies due to their system of conscription and allied legions. They beat the Gauls not because Roman armies were superior, but because they outnumbered them by a factor of at least 5 to 1 in the Telamon campaign and at least 2 to 1 in the battle of Telamon (according to WRG Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars).

They beat the Carthaginians for a similar reason - they could field armies simultaneously in Northern Italy, Southern Italy, Spain, Sicily and Africa.

Because of this making the Romans' cities just proportional to the population of Italy massively under represents their actual military manpower, which was out of all proportion to Italy's population.

It would make the mod more historically accurate and more fun to play to increase the number of cities in Italy and under Roman control at the start of the game in order to represent this.

(I say that as someone who never plays as the Romans, but as Carthaginians or Dacians)

Then Roman forces could fight in several countries at once (as they often did) and it would be a challenge to fight against them, rather than a bit dull.

The problem may be partly the Alexander engine here, but the trouble is that only Alexander has half-decent battlefield AI. BI and RTW 1.5 have aggressive naval invasions but very poor battlefield AI (in 1.5 especially generals often just kamikaze into the middle of my army just to kill some skirmishers).

Some of the AI problems could be fixed in EBII if Medevial II AI is moddable (?) , but more cities in Italy to represent Roman military manpower might be the best solution (that or having more than one allied Roman faction as in RTW vanilla)

[Julius Augustus]

Bad idea. More cities in Italy would horribly unbalance the game. It would lead to Rome stampeding the Gauls. Have you ever noticed how the roman armies tend to go not south, but north. More cities would just lead to rome destroying the Gauls and Germans.

It might have some historical accuracy, but due to the unbalanced AI, it would do more harm than good.

[Dunadd]

Then the solution might be to make the Gauls North of the Alps stronger, to make the Romans go South to conquer Southern Italy and intervene in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica first, as they did historically.

[Kevin]

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment?

[Julius Augustus]

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment?

'Cause it's insanely historically innacurate. Armies took several years to raise. It would solve the problem of passive Romans though.

@Dunadd-Lets hope that there is a good AI for EB 2.

[Kevin]

eh, pretend they aren't getting trained but instead getting prepared. Didn't Romans already have to server in the military for a certain number of years? They would have already trained before you recruit them :/

[Kasperl]

According to what I read in Livy's History of Rome, at least it didn't take the Romans years to raise a new army. In those years, Rome didn't have a standing army at all. Romans are citizen soldiers, not veteran mercenaries.
For example, only a few months after the conclusion of second Punic war, when the Romans determined to march against Philip, king of Macedon, and at the same time chastise the Gauls who ravaged northern frontiers, they first disbanded all their armies which had served in the former war, and authorized the two newly elected consuls to raise six new legions, two for Macedonian war, two to Gaul, and two as reserves. At the same time, several secondary officers such as praetors and propraetors were to raise a few small armies of several thousand men to act as garrison in several important provinces such Sicily.
All the deliberations, debations, prepararions were done in merely several months, and then the Romans were defeating Gauls and Macedonians at the same time.
So I really believe if we give at least the Romans in their Latin cities the ability of 0 turn recruitment, it will only be more historical. So the player will be able to raise a huge army in no time when face a serious war, and disband them as soon as the crisis is over, as the Romans did in history.

'Cause it's insanely historically innacurate. Armies took several years to raise. It would solve the problem of passive Romans though.

@Dunadd-Lets hope that there is a good AI for EB 2.

[DaciaJC]

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment?

Regardless of historical accuracy, I don't believe this is possible because the AI queues only one unit at a time. Or so I read in another thread on zero-turn recruitment.

[AqD]

Instead, why not make the Romans have like 0 turn recruitment?

It wouldn't help much from my experience (in my mod ) AI only schedules at most 3 units into the queue at the same time, and for some reason the queue is not always in use... The recruitment speed thus depends on the number of settlements, if money and populations are unlimited.


So they cannot be aggressive unless you give them like 20 regions.....

[king of thracia]

I've nary seen a ship as the Arche Seleukeia under alex. I have the run of the Eastern Mediterranean. Back in the day as Getai under BI iirc I saw fleets with massive armies ravaging the coasts of Italy and Greece. That said, in the AS alex campaign Epirus did reinvade Taras (and Romans reconquered) a while back, and Carthage is now currently in southern Italy.

[Julius Augustus]

Not sure if there is a way to force the roman AI to go south though. Game engine limitations. The Romans also never invade Sardinia and Corsica as soldiers have an odd tendency to avoid getting on ships. Stupid AI.

[Dunadd]

They do on EB on BI with ferromancer's installer. They invaded Corsica quite early in the game, though only with 2 units. I didnt see how much they did it later as i switched to EB on Alexander as the battlefield AI on it is a bit better. If you could just combine BI campaign AI with Alexander battlefield AI that would be nice - maybe in EBII it'd be possible with modded Medieval II AI - i don't know (not a modder or even close to understanding it)

[fleaza]

Bad idea. More cities in Italy would horribly unbalance the game. It would lead to Rome stampeding the Gauls. Have you ever noticed how the roman armies tend to go not south, but north. More cities would just lead to rome destroying the Gauls and Germans.

It might have some historical accuracy, but due to the unbalanced AI, it would do more harm than good.

well to be fair rome was a strong country. i think it would be fair for the romans to have multiple romes.

[A Very Super Market]

Read your statement again. Consider the reason why the EB team does not have multiple Roman factions. If you mean to suggest having multiple copies of the same city, I implore you to read your statement with exceeding scrutiny.

[king of thracia]

According to the in game graphs Rome is already provided plenty of money which they use to train the largest army in the world.

There is a win conditions mod which alters descr win conditions .txt and is useful for directing AI expansion priorities. BI and Alex.exe have naval invasions, although KH seemed to capture Helicarnassus more often under vanilla RTW in my experience; not sure if it is rebelling to them.

[Ca Putt]

one could make the alps uncrossable, that would forse the romans to expand southwards

Helicarnassus rebels to KH, at least that's what happend everytime I played KH.

[fleaza]

Read your statement again. Consider the reason why the EB team does not have multiple Roman factions. If you mean to suggest having multiple copies of the same city, I implore you to read your statement with exceeding scrutiny.

to represent all factions fairly. yeah i dont know what i was thinking when i suggested that, but i still think that rome is just a bit too...errr pussy, to say the least, for my tastes. historical rome was a beast. they waged war constantly for centuries. they fought and won against massive odds. EB rome is a shadow of its real self.

[A Very Super Market]

The EB Rome with the tendency to swallow up Gaul and Iberia within 50 years? (Whilst leaving Taras and Rhegion completely alone.)

[mlp071]

to represent all factions fairly. yeah i dont know what i was thinking when i suggested that, but i still think that rome is just a bit too...errr pussy, to say the least, for my tastes. historical rome was a beast. they waged war constantly for centuries. they fought and won against massive odds. EB rome is a shadow of its real self.

Rome does always take Taras right away in my campaigns and most of the times Rhegion is next. And they expand into Gauls and Illirya, then into coastal Iberia rather fast. After that they are pain to deal with it, so i don't see that they are underpowered at all.Recruiting part is not that brilliant though, mostly mercenaries, triarii and PE.

There are some weird things that happen in rare occasions(i just posted another thread about that ), but if i play anyone in west , i end up dealing with them way before i would like to(early in campaign).

[antisocialmunky]

I've tried playing EB as Carthaginians on RTW 1.5, on BI and on Alexander.

In general i like the mod a lot.

However the Romans are too weak and too passive in it. Historically the Romans had massively greater manpower than most of their enemies due to their system of conscription and allied legions. They beat the Gauls not because Roman armies were superior, but because they outnumbered them by a factor of at least 5 to 1 in the Telamon campaign and at least 2 to 1 in the battle of Telamon (according to WRG Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars).

They beat the Carthaginians for a similar reason - they could field armies simultaneously in Northern Italy, Southern Italy, Spain, Sicily and Africa.

Because of this making the Romans' cities just proportional to the population of Italy massively under represents their actual military manpower, which was out of all proportion to Italy's population.

It would make the mod more historically accurate and more fun to play to increase the number of cities in Italy and under Roman control at the start of the game in order to represent this.

(I say that as someone who never plays as the Romans, but as Carthaginians or Dacians)

Then Roman forces could fight in several countries at once (as they often did) and it would be a challenge to fight against them, rather than a bit dull.

The problem may be partly the Alexander engine here, but the trouble is that only Alexander has half-decent battlefield AI. BI and RTW 1.5 have aggressive naval invasions but very poor battlefield AI (in 1.5 especially generals often just kamikaze into the middle of my army just to kill some skirmishers).

Some of the AI problems could be fixed in EBII if Medevial II AI is moddable (?) , but more cities in Italy to represent Roman military manpower might be the best solution (that or having more than one allied Roman faction as in RTW vanilla)

The Romans have a perfectly fine ability to muster man power. Its just that all of it is being thrown at the massive naked garrisons of the Po River Vally...:sweatdrop

[Aemilius Paulus]

Well, I have the same complaint about the Carthies as the OP has about the Romans. In my Romani games, Qarthadastim are beaten in a giffy, with maximum ease.

[mlc82]

In my EB w/ alex.exe campaigns, the Romans have always spammed the hell out of principes and pedites extraordinarii, then headed north as others have said.

One thing you could try is use the "toggle_fow" cheat, find a Romani family member with an army, then try to use the "move_character" cheat to stick him in sicily or N. Africa or wherever you want him that the AI is too dumb to ship him to.

If they're too weak overall, use the "add_money" cheat to pour cash into the Romans so they can spam principes and pedites.