Some questions.

[Sp4]

I just started playing the RTW campaign seriously for the first time (I played mostly quick battles and M2TW campaign before)

I'm playing on Hard atm.

So uhm, when can I go and make myself emperor? I thought I needed some control over the senate and such...



I can't attack Rome yet thought =(

Also, I am in a war with the Macedons after having thrown out the Greeks from Greece (lol) but somehow the Macedons always manage to cover me up to my neck in hoplites, no matter how many of them I kill. I think phalax infantry is the most annoying thing to fight...

I've had the 4th full stack thrown at me now and they only have like 2 cities which I also sieged twice. Do they get armies out of thin air?

I was also told by the senate (that'd be myself I guess) to go and conquer Rhodes and wipe out the Greeks, so I prepared an army and a fleet and when I got there I found that tiny Rhodes has 3 full Greek armies and 9 family members
What should I do to kill them lol? Whenever I land anything there, I get into a battle with all 3 armies and the garrison of the actual city since the island is so small =(
I tried bribing armies but it wont work.

Last question: When (Year) can I start recruiting actual Legionaires or however you spell that?

Thx in advance.

Sp4

[Sp4]

Update: I managed to conquer Rhodes by landing 3 stacks of Principes and Light Cav on the island and mopping up the greek stacks.

I also managed to kill 3 more stacks of the Macedons and have taken 2 more of their regions. They are on their last two now. I will kill them off completely and then see what I can do next.

I might invade Egypt.

Still, when do I get Legionaires? =(

[A Nerd]

Still, when do I get Legionaires? =(

I don't know the specifics, but I believe in order to get legionaires, one of your cities has to reach a certain population level and then you will have the option to build a certain government structure. This will allow for the production of legionaires and the like. Marian reforms or something to that effect? I haven't played RTW in some time so I cannot remember exactly.

[Brandy Blue]

You can get the legionaries auxillaries etc. after the Marian reform. That happens when at least one Roman controlled city has the most advanced possible government building. I think you need a pop of 24,000 for that to be possible. Probably you will be able to do this before the other Roman factions, but that is not such a big advantage as you might think. This is because as soon as one Roman faction gets the Marian reforms, the others get it free.

As for attacking other Roman factions, you cannot do it until either your popularity with the people is high enough for you to get the "bid for power" event, or the Senate becomes so afraid of you that they order your faction leader to commit suicide. Just refuse and they outlaw you. To become that popular with the people (or unpopular with the senate) just keep capturing more provinces. I think you need about 20-30 but I'm not sure.

As for becoming Emperor, well I never actually completed a campaign but I think you need to accomplish 2 goals:

1: control Rome
2: control 49 other cities of your choice

[Lord Reid of Britannica]

All of the above is true that was said by Brandy Blue... (haha rhyme)

Except you don't need to wipe out the other Roman factions to become emperor, you just need Rome and 49 other provinces.

[Brandy Blue]

Thank you for the correction Lord Reid. If I'd known that, I might have actually bothered to finish. I have edited my post to remove the mistake.

[Sp4]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yes, I figured I'd get the Legionaries (proper spelling now I think) after upgrading the first city with the Imperial Palace structure (at least that is when the 'A New Man' event (Marius' reforms) is triggered.

It is actually going quite well hehe. I never played as the Brutii before, only did the Julii because imo, red fits Rome better than green although green is my favourite colour =P

I can say now, that the starting ground for Brutii is awesome. In the beginning I took everything I had in SE Italy and shipped it to Greece and conquered that over the next 15 or so turns. Since then I have been slowly advancing north, getting into a war with the Macedons and Thracians and at the same time have been upgrading all my cities along the coast, recruited thousands of peasants from my starting provinces to ship them to the new settlements to give them a head start.

Now after just about a day of playing, I am controlling the entire Eastern Mediterrenean coast, save for the Egyptian coast to the south and I am getting a net profit of ~40,000 denarii per turn from massive sea trade. I am floating around 900,000 denarii in total and have started a war with Pontus and started invading modern day Turkey after taking Byzantinum from the Thracians.

I never thought playing the campaign on Hard could be this easy, I remember failing as Julii on Medium because of 'budgetary constraints'... I guess, if it were diplomatically possible, I could probably buy my way into Rome hehe.

/me lights another cigar and watches the thousands of trade ships and wagons go about their business.

[gollum]

Controlling both sides of the Agean is like having a licence to print money. When you reach about 30 provinces or there abouts the civil war will start. Marian units are too powerful. Brutii is the most easy Roman faction for me. When playing as the Julii i take time to invade northern Greece and Asia Minor to get a piece of the pie from the Brutii. Rhodes has the Colossus that augments trade profits by 40% overall if memory serves - another super boost. Basically, the only real opponents are the Egyptians, which the player can grind to dust in a war of attrition eventually despite the panzer chariots. Easy as pie. Try very hard. Once you wipe out a faction it will become available to play. If you win a campaign all playable factions become available. Either that or you can edit manually the edt strategy file and make them available yourself. Many other fun factions to play, like Pontus, Armenia, Macedon, Germania, the Gauls, Carthage, the Seleucids. Enjoy.

[Myth]

Never ever have more then 50,000 denarii in your treasury or your line of succession will become so corrupt they will be virtually useless. That's why i only build temples to Mars as the Brutii nowadays.

[Sp4]

Is there anything you can do in thsi game without it having any negative effects?

[Sp4]

Didn't find edit button =(

I now have somewhere around 2.5m denarii and I am at the point where I always end up after a while... my population doesn't like me, I have lowest tax rate and daily games across all settlements and started moving in a garrison of ~2500 soldiers into every city now.

Army upkeep is around 130,000 by now.

Profits per turn: -30,000

On a sidenote, how do you gain popularity with the people (to overthrow the senate)?

[ReluctantSamurai]

Never ever have more then 50,000 denarii in your treasury or your line of succession will become so corrupt they will be virtually useless.

I used to try and achieve that when I first started playing. With non-barbarian factions, you eventually get to a point where you simply cannot spend more than you are earning unless you just give it away......not always a recommended thing

Once I figured out how to attain ZPG for most of my cities, there was no need to keep governors, so no need to worry about corruption. You will have collected a bunch of ancillaries that counter-act things like corruption, poor farmer, poor trader, and all the other myriad of traits that lower income/loyalty/law&order.....etc.

Law and order are the biggest issues after your cities reach 24k, anyways. I'd rather be making 30-50k per turn, and spending what I want, when I want, than worrying about corruption. I send my best family members out to fight the enemy, rather than baby-sit a bunch of ungrateful peasants, anyways

My last campaign....some while back.....as Armenia, I had in excess of 3,000,000 denarii in my account. But I could maintain an unbroken line of Legendary Cavalry generals with 10 command stars and a list of good traits longer than his sleeve for over 100yrs. Just keep 'em out of the cities.........

That's why i only build temples to Mars as the Brutii nowadays.

One has to be very selective with the Mars temple as it leads to some bad anger management problems that can be even more crippling than corruption. When I was still playing Roman factions, I only built it in Croton and a few selected cities in Greece that I used as training centers for the +3 exp bonus. Juno and Mercury both give better ancillaries than Mars, and Juno at the Pantheon level will give +2 exp, anyways.

[Lord Reid of Britannica]

Didn't find edit button =(

I now have somewhere around 2.5m denarii and I am at the point where I always end up after a while... my population doesn't like me, I have lowest tax rate and daily games across all settlements and started moving in a garrison of ~2500 soldiers into every city now.

Army upkeep is around 130,000 by now.

Profits per turn: -30,000

On a sidenote, how do you gain popularity with the people (to overthrow the senate)?

To gain popularity with the people you just need to keep conquering cities which also helps with paying for army upkeep as you have more income.

If your cities aren't liking you it may be due to the proximity to capital factor, is your capital still in italy and all your cites to the east? Cities are happier when they're closer to the capital of the empire so try changing your capital to a nice central place like Sparta, Corinth or Halicarnassus.

[ReluctantSamurai]

A good suggestion from Lord Reid about relocating your capital to a more central location. I would add my own 2denarii by suggesting you attempt to attain ZPG (Zero Population Growth) for as many cities as you possibly can. If the population isn't growing, neither is squalor and therefore neither is discontent. At this stage, governors with law & order traits and high influence are at a premium, as are ancillaries to that effect. It's probably impossible to get every city to ZPG, but for every one that you do, that's one less city where you have to massacre the population to get things under control.

And as an addendum, I would tear down as many 'cultural' buildings as is feasible when you capture a city, particularly for very large or huge cities (and, although many folks recommend against it, I always exterminate large and huge cities when I capture them, particularly those that carry a hefty culture penalty, just to give me time to convert as many city structures as possible---particularly the temple---to my culture type.) I find I have much less problems this way. For the Brutii, the Temple of Juno gives you the best results for law & order as it has benefits for both law and happiness.

City garrison will only take you so far in keeping unrest below outright rebellion, but for those places far from the 'front-lines' and not likely to be attacked, peasants and/or town watch will suffice. No sense wasting trained legionnaires with much higher upkeep on such a menial task. Choose governors with high influence even if they have no management skill. At this stage, you are making huge amounts of money anyway, so a few thousand extra denarii won't make that much difference. Ancillaries can make up some of that lack of management....of paramount importance is keeping the population stable and happy enough to stay out of rebellions ('green-face, yellow-face, blue-face'....it doesn't matter, as long as they aren't rebelling.)

I used to keep my best field generals out fighting the enemy until they died, but nowadays I 'retire' them at about 50 or so and send them to my least loyal city or one that I'm having trouble with. These generals tend to have very high influence along with their command skills, so they do very well at keeping a troublesome populace happy. They will only be around for another 10 or 15 yrs. anyways, so they tend not to acquire very many bad traits.

Again, just my 2denarii............................

[smooth_operator]

To become the Supreme ruler of Rome, you will need a huge dominion which of course is bigger than you rivals. Also, watch your standing with the locals. See the image that you posted?Click on the Senate tab and click on the Senate floor tab. there you will see your standing among the Senate and the Locals. All you have to do is win many a battle to raise your rep among the locals in Rome. One thing I noticed is that it's almost automatic that when my rep among the mob becomes high, the Senate becomes displeased(probably envious of my achievements) so no need to worry. As an ultimatum(in my case), the Senate gave me a mission in which my faction leader was to commit suicide. I refused so I got outlawed and that was my go signal to land my invasion army that I was formed up in Greece.(I was the Brutii).