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

[DaciaJC]

No, the EB Team has made it clear that doing something like that would be favoring the Roman faction. Besides, they're not in the business of making factions that aren't playable.

[Macilrille]

You're misunderstanding me. I never play as Romans - I play as Carthaginians or Dacians, but the Romans not carrying out major invasions of Carthaginian territory, including by sea, is simply unhistorical.

Treating all factions as equal is also unhistorical and they dont really treat them all as equal in EB at all. Baktria is not equal in power to the Seleucid Empire in EB for instance and if it was it would be ridiculous and not historically accurate. Similarly not making the Romans have far more armies available to them than other factions is simply unhistorical. I'm all for not under-rating other cultures and not over-rating the Romans (who picked up many of their 'inventions' from other cultures), but making Roman manpower the same as other factions' is taking avoiding Romano-centrism to an extreme that becomes historically inaccurate.

The mod doesnt need to recreate exactly what happened historically - Rome could fail to conquer the Mediterranean in the end and be replaced by Carthage or a Celtic kingdom or someone else, but it should have at least one major war with the Carthaginians, which should include it shipping troops all over the Western Mediterranean. If it isnt a major struggle against the odds to beat the Romans as Carthaginians, with only the players' better intelligence against the AI making it even vaguely possible, it's not historically accurate. If the Romans don't have twice the number of men in the field Carthage has while they control most of Italy, it's not historically accurate.

The AI in EB never invade by sea. However, if you install Alex.exe it does. I have not, for I am not certain of how to go about it.

[The General]

The AI in EB never invade by sea. However, if you install Alex.exe it does. I have not, for I am not certain of how to go about it.

The AI does naval invasions with BI exe too, search EB Unofficial Modding Projects for information how to get those working.

[Dunadd]

The General's right - It definitely invades by sea on BI. I played on Alex.exe from 272BC to 245BC - not one sea invasion.

I'm much less far into an EB for BI campaign and the Romans have already invaded Corsica by sea twice and the Epeirots have just landed an army in Sicily (historical accuracy ftw )

[Azathoth]

The AI in Alex does invade. It especially likes to ferry troops around, though. I've only been invaded once by sea, but the AI do it to each other all the time - Rome was once captured by a Carthaginian fullstack in a Sweboz game.

[Quintus Fabius]

Yea, I've been playing Alex.exe and I haven't been invaded by ships at all (235BC)..but on BI I heard they do invade but only with 2 or 3 units.

Odd that you have not. Well, the AI is probably busy elsewhere. In my games, the AI is always launching see invasions (alex.exe). As for BI, yeah, naval invasions are brainless in that .exe.

I love the fact how the posts are mixed up

[seienchin]

One of the main problems in EB is that many faction cant build ships, because the k.i. rarely builds any military harbours or their are none availlable. THe koinon hellenon in my game is my ally since 70 years and they still have a fullstack on Rhodos. Why? They controll minor asia, but minor asia nearly has no options for a port. WTF?
The seleucs rarely build ships, because they are expensive and their invasions are mainly focussed to the east. Only around egypt you encounter enemy ships sometims because the ptollis got bored.
And of course the useless roman level 1 ships and carthagian weak ships... :(

[Kevin]

Yea, I've been playing Alex.exe and I haven't been invaded by ships at all (235BC)..but on BI I heard they do invade but only with 2 or 3 units.

[Lysimachos]

Personally, I'm a bit surprised about the discussion regarding too little manpower for the Romani. In my experience in most games they are the faction that amasses the most armies (which are of decent quality, too). Granted, they often don't use them too well.

[The General]

Yea, I've been playing Alex.exe and I haven't been invaded by ships at all (235BC)..but on BI I heard they do invade but only with 2 or 3 units.

Sometimes the AI does invade with 2-3 units, but more often than not, with half-stacks and larger armies, from what I've seen, for example, with two three-quarters-stacks, or a smaller army of 2-4 units and a larger with 8-15 units.

Personally, I'm a bit surprised about the discussion regarding too little manpower for the Romani. In my experience in most games they are the faction that amasses the most armies (which are of decent quality, too). Granted, they often don't use them too well.

Indeed, SPQR is very rich and often sports several fullstacks, but sometimes seems all too passive. There's just something deterring them from crossing the strait into Sicily even if they're at war with the Qarthadastim...

(*Does a theatrical facepalm as he realizes he could've edited this answer into the previous post*)

[Dunadd]

The first couple of armies the Romans landed in Corsica on my EB on BI game were very small - but after that they landed a big army on it and the Epeirots landed another big army in Sicily - and have another one ready to land.

[Blxz]

Ok - maybe more cities isnt the solution. As i said above maybe the easiest way would be to use the solution vanilla RTW used - more than one Roman faction. Have two Roman factions, so at the start one goes North and the other goes South and they're allied to each other.

As a Roman player you can only control one of them - and the other will have the same poor AI the other computer player factions have, so it won't make it too easy.

Not sure if you realize. Apart from favouring roman's too much, or in your case favouring the human player challenge for the Carthies. There are no more faction slots available in EBI. In order to create an evil twin of the romans you would have to completly remove another faction. (And if I had my way it would unfortuanetly be your damn carthies.)

As for manpower, I think you might mean population that can be used for making armies. The AI factions have UNLIMITED manpower. Everytime they recruit a unit they get somewhere around 200 or so people added to their city. If your unit size settings are really low then the cities can actually grow much faster than is normal.

Everything you have suggested to fix it is impossible or has already been dealt with in another way. Its unfortunate, but the AI is being asked to do something way more complex and out of its league than what it was programmed for. And sadly cannot be modded to fix this. Keep in mind that some AI modding is possible in M2TW. i recommend you have a look at Broken Crecent for some pretty decent diplomacy AI especially in regards to alliances. EB2 is being made now and hopefully the team will do everything they can to get the AI working the way they want for that mod. We can only wait and see.

[Andronikos]

As for manpower, I think you might mean population that can be used for making armies. The AI factions have UNLIMITED manpower. Everytime they recruit a unit they get somewhere around 200 or so people added to their city. If your unit size settings are really low then the cities can actually grow much faster than is normal.

Very good post. I am surprised that nobody mentioned that.

The only problem remains AI and that cannot be solved. RTW AI tends to prefer northern direction of invasions. If you want to have some challenge against Romans, pick a Gallic faction. In all campaigns I played as Aedui or Arverni, Romani were the worst nightmare, they sent stack after stack especially after I took some city in Italy. My defenders there were the most experienced soldiers commanded by the most experienced generals of my faction thanks to all battles they had to fight.

[Ludens]

The only problem remains AI and that cannot be solved. RTW AI tends to prefer northern direction of invasions.

It's true that the A.I. favours a northern direction of expansion (maybe because the EB team located the original Roman province in the north?), but its first priority seems to be to go after the player. Worse than that, factions that are at war with the player tend to get cease-fires far more easily.

[Cute Wolf]

Bet that Romans get many enemies against them, so they must divide their force....

[mountaingoat]

using alex.exe ,have had several full stack sea invasions from carth when playing as KH in my invasion of magna grecia.

[Weebeast]

I've had Macedon conquered Rhodos and even Pergamon by boat though it took them a while. They seemed to forget what they were doing and sieged the city like couple years after they landed. I've had an AI Aedui lifted a siege at Vienne once. I'm just gonna speculate that it was because I destroyed every building as the city was falling to them. Clearly it wasn't because they had to attend a wedding of some Arvernian relatives! As for Pergamon, I think it's because Byzantium was owned by someone else allied to Macedon, kinda like vanilla Roman families "blocking" each other. So in conclusion, I think the AI is a lot smarter than we think. It's just sometimes they know too much and we don't.

edit- Has anyone tried putting a land bridge connecting Sicily and Africa? Well no one builds ships anyway and the pros might outweigh the cons here. Honestly who here bought RTW for naval battles? Also I'm not sure if the "warning you're entering Sicily" script deters Rome AI from crossing but it should be looked at if we haven't.

[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.

[antisocialmunky]

As Romani, the 1st Punic War got pretty bloody with the Carthiginians ferrying full stacks of reformed units into Sicily one turn after another to contain me to Messana as I was iron-manning with high taxes only 10 unit size legions.

Funnily enough they also accepted peace after I took Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica away. :-D

[Zim]

I've seen a the Romans a bit weak playing as Carthage as well (BI .exe) but I can see how improving them would make them less interesting as a player faction...playing as Rome they have great manpower.

[Scutarii]

An aggressive Rome doesn't seem to be a problem for me. In all my four games they've steamrollered the Gauls by 35 years and have chased the Quarthadastim out of Iberia by 50.

I'm playing as Getai and as of right now I'm watching 6 almost full stacks march towards me.

I now must face them with Doryphoroi, Drapanai and Komatai (and a smattering of others).

I'm looking forward to the challenge but am annoyed at the recruitment methods of the AI. I find it hard to believe that the most common troops in the Roman army are the Pedites Extraordinarii and yet playing this game you'd assume that was the case.

Are there any mods that are out there doing as much historical accuracy (and game balance be damned) as possible? I'd rather face armies that matched history rather than had the elites forming the bulk of the forces.

[Marcus Ulpius]

In most games I played, Romans were recruiting armies that had 40% PE and 30% Triarii. I don't know why, because apparently no other faction saturates their armies with elites to such extent.

[Macilrille]

In most games I played, Romans were recruiting armies that had 40% PE and 30% Triarii. I don't know why, because apparently no other faction saturates their armies with elites to such extent.

No the Romans are crazy in that respect, and annoying. But AS is almost as bad in my Roman games with many stacks being 50% leets.

[DaciaJC]

Meh, the Qarthadastim are just as bad, if not worse.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

They've been spamming full-stacks of Elite African Pikeman, Sacred Band Infantry/Cavalry, Elite Liby-Phoenician Infantry, Elite African Infantry, Iberian Assault Infantry, Iberian Heavy Infantry and elephants for nigh onto a decade now. They wiped out the Romani before I even conquered Ak-Ink, so I can't comment on Roman elite-spam.

[Apázlinemjó]

Meh, the Qarthadastim are just as bad, if not worse.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

They've been spamming full-stacks of Elite African Pikeman, Sacred Band Infantry/Cavalry, Elite Liby-Phoenician Infantry, Elite African Infantry, Iberian Assault Infantry, Iberian Heavy Infantry and elephants for nigh onto a decade now. They wiped out the Romani before I even conquered Ak-Ink, so I can't comment on Roman elite-spam.

Wow, quite insane Karthadast AI expansion by 186 BC