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]

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)

[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 :/

[Julius Augustus]

The Romans woudn't know how to fight before being trained. Just because you have to serve in the military before being a politician doesn't mean you already know how to fight before joining the army.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[ARCHIPPOS]

hey Dunadd what difficulty are you playing??? If you fix campaign difficulty at Hard or Very Hard the AI is going to shell you with stacks ... the majority of these will be mercenaries but you'll get to fight some core Roman infantry too i guess

[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).

[Dunadd]

Archippos wrote

hey Dunadd what difficulty are you playing??? If you fix campaign difficulty at Hard or Very Hard the AI is going to shell you with stacks ... the majority of these will be mercenaries but you'll get to fight some core Roman infantry too i guess

I've been playing on Very Hard. The Romans fight me when i'm in mainland Italy, but they never invade Sicily or Spain or North Africa by sea, which makes it pretty easy and predictable to fight them.

They did take Tarentum from the Epirotes, before i took it from them, but made no attempt on Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily or anywhere else overseas, even after they've had massive naval superiority for a decade (they have quadriremes and triremes, i only have pentekonters - and they have 4 or 5 times as many fleets as i do)

Could be due to playing on the Alexander engine, i'm not sure.

[mlp071]

Archippos wrote



I've been playing on Very Hard. The Romans fight me when i'm in mainland Italy, but they never invade Sicily or Spain or North Africa by sea, which makes it pretty easy and predictable to fight them.

They did take Tarentum from the Epirotes, before i took it from them, but made no attempt on Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily or anywhere else overseas, even after they've had massive naval superiority for a decade (they have quadriremes and triremes, i only have pentekonters - and they have 4 or 5 times as many fleets as i do)

Could be due to playing on the Alexander engine, i'm not sure.

You are going to see that very , very rarely with ALX.exe, not at all with RTW.exe. Only time you can be sure that they will do it (as well everyone else) is if you play with BI.exe. I did have QH and KH doing naval invasions of Italy with ALX, but never vice versa.

And even that is going to be ,most likely, small detachments , 1-5 units ,and not full fledged invasion. Best bet is , like someone mention to use move_character and move some stacks in Africa proper.

As for Sicily, take Messana and if that doesn't work, attack Rhegion(you don't have to take it). That usually gets their attention and they will turn south.

[Dunadd]

The solution that worked in vanilla Rome Total War was to have more than one Roman faction, allied to each other, so the Southern faction went South, the Northern faction went North and the Eastern faction went East, as those were the only borders they had with the enemy and they all had different victory conditions.

I'd like to see something like that in EBII as currently in EB the Romans' behaviour is just not historical and they are not nearly militarily strong enough compared to the historical situation.

[antisocialmunky]

Since the EB Team knows the names of the starting Roman FMs, they should auto-teleport them outside of Rhegion or Messana if they make aggressive moves North instead of South to more historically direct their aggression.

[mlp071]

The solution that worked in vanilla Rome Total War was to have more than one Roman faction, allied to each other, so the Southern faction went South, the Northern faction went North and the Eastern faction went East, as those were the only borders they had with the enemy and they all had different victory conditions.

I'd like to see something like that in EBII as currently in EB the Romans' behaviour is just not historical and they are not nearly militarily strong enough compared to the historical situation.

I believe that it will be much easier to recreate Romani behavior in M2TW. For one you don't have senate and 3 roman factions , that most likely have some hardcoded behavior in RTW(Romani in EB are original Seleucid faction , btw).

AFAIK, original RTW city of Rome is located on that tiny island of the Scandinavia, and that can explain factions desire to move Northwards first.Again, in my campaigns , Romani always got south, even in present QH campaign. Only problem that they have was not being able to conquer it in several dozen of tries.

Either way, EB is about all 16 factions and Romans are only one of them. Some mods are dedicated strictly to Rome (SPQR mod , RS) , but this one is not.From what i have read on these forums , they are proud of treating all the factions as equal.

So making EBII revolving around Rome is not something that they are interested , i believe.

[Dunadd]

From what i have read on these forums , they are proud of treating all the factions as equal.

So making EBII revolving around Rome is not something that they are interested , i believe.

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.

[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.

[Atilius]

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.

The problem is that the AI won't recruit more than one unit per turn, so this amounts to a vey significant (and unnecessary) advantage for the player.

On the general subject of increasing the number of Roman settlements at game start:

The Romans already get a large discount on recruitment costs, which was intended to represent to some degree the Roman ability to raise large armies. We already take a number of steps to strengthen the Romans when controlled by the AI, such as increasing the size of the army and placing a type 1 government in Umbria.

The suggestion of the original poster to increase the number of settlements controlled by the Romans at game start would certainly make the AI Romans tougher. But it would also make the game even easier when the Romans are player-controlled. That's one of the biggest gripes we see on this forum.

I'm afraid the OP's real complaint is against the game's AI. We have devoted a great deal of effort to circumvent undesirable AI behavior, but it's not clear we made much progress.

We ought to have more tools for influencing AI behavior in EB2.

[Dunadd]

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.