Any advce for Roman buildings? Economy, culture penalty etc

[vollorix]

All you need is a capable gouverneur for those towns, at least for the first couple of turns when the unrest is high. The theater in Taras will give your sharp and charismatic FM good anti unrest ancillaries ( like: Orator -2 unrest, Musician -1 unrest etc. ). It also depends on the temple - actually Ceres Temple is the best one in the long terms ( decent public order, great trade revenue from the larger versions, and a place for your "populares" to do something for the people ). The most important thing is to get rid of Greek gouvernment building - upgrade it to the next level asap. Concerning enslavement: i do not see it as massacre, just kind of proscriptions against anti Roman elements, while extermination is really ugly and doesn´t belong to the Roman way concerning the Greeks, actually. But you still can keep decent public order in Syracuse if you put taxes on "low" and got a high influence/skilled administrator gouverneur there. Client rulers ain´t an option for Italy ( or Sicily ), imo, unless you want to roleplay Syracuse beeing your ally during the First Punic War ( but i have to dissapoint you - there will be almost no resistance from Carthage against you in Sicily except one big battle once you move towards Lillibeo, since they are too busy conquering villages in the Sahara.... ).

[econ21]

...( but i have to dissapoint you - there will be almost no resistance from Carthage against you in Sicily except one big battle once you move towards Lillibeo, since they are too busy conquering villages in the Sahara.... ).

Thanks for the good advice. You were right about Carthage's lack of resistance in Sicily, although as a RTW veteran, I was not expecting much. I am still disappointed in how the AI is coping with the lashings of money it is getting. Carthage sent a lone FM to Messana (after sending a lone Caetrati infantry, after sending some sad depleted quarter stack etc). I've heard of economy of force, but this is ridiculous. The Gauls are doing the same around Mediolanium. I guess I will have to break out into central Gaul and Greece, where the AI settlements are more numerous, to get a fight.

I'm wondering whether to use the BI exec to get a more active strategic AI, although I did not like the nuisance naval landings from that much either.

I did try Sinuhet's better formations sub-mod last night and that seemed to improve the battlefield AI a bit. When I lined my spears and slingers to face the Carthaginian cavalry on my left, they redeployed to the right, which was nice. On another occasion, the AI sallying form a city seemed to be massing a little to form a semblance of a line rather than coming at me piecemeal.

Back on topic about what to build - digging around the building tree, it looks like the forum is a useful building, unlocking the more advanced schools. I'd missed that linkage in the building browser. I also had not realised the order benefit of roads until Taedius mentioned it, although I do instinctively prioritise roads as just seeming such a "Roman" thing to construct. I'm also going for temples, although I don't ever recall getting a priest ancillary in EB. The Mars ancillary sounds tasty (+2 attack), even if the Mars temple does not give the promised morale benefits.

[bobbin]

I once had a lone Carthaginian general land on Sicily in one of my Roman campaigns, he then proceeded to hire the entire merc pool which was at full capacity, gave me one hell of a shock but also one of the funnest battles I've ever fought (a real slug fest).

The BI exe does seem to improve naval invasions, I haven't noticed much else though.

If you want a more challenging fight with the AI I recommend slowing your expansion considerably, this gives them time to build up their settlements so they can churn out better units. In my last Roman campaign I didn't move out of the Italian peninsula until 200bc, to keep myself entertained during the wait I conducted punitive raids against factions that were getting too large for my liking, for example intervening in Greece when the KH looked like they were going to wipe out Epeiros and Makedonia.

The culture penalty is cause by the presence of buildings of another culture being present in one of your settlements, not your own. To get rid of it you either have to demolish or upgrade those buildings.

[vollorix]

The funny thing is, i´m right now playing a Sweboz campaign ( a must after that preview on EB2 forums! ^^ ), and Romans just exploded, invading everything in their reach within about 20 years: they even took Baleares! Now, you all should remember an agressive Roman AI ( mostly the Scipii ) in vanilla, when the Romans used to invade the hell out of Africa, and if one wasn´t quick enough Roman armies would swarm everywhere down to Sahara. The reason i mention that is simple: why the Carthage never does the same thing? I mean yes, they send pathetic armies to the coast of Capua, great..., but why don´t they use their navy as efficient as the Roman AI in vanilla used to, trying to reconquer Sicily back? ( a half stack Carthaginian army, led by a FM, is lingering on Sardinia for years now - and it´s war between Carthage and Roma!? - something wrong with initial diplomacy settings perhaps? ). Could it be the construction time/costs of the ships? Could it be the unit size of the ships per se? ( very low, so it doesn´t seems worth of building from AI point of view? ).
Last but not least, imho, the best thing to make Carthage really tough to fight against would be to take away those 2 ( at least ) Sahara settlements adding it to the Eremos province, block the passage towards Egypt ( like RTR used to do ), and tweak the ships a bit, though i don´t exactly know how... This would also have a positive effect: ( at least ) 2 new settlements could be placed somehwere else. That would be a great thing for the 1.3 fixes, and yes, i know, it´s all about EB2 for now, but hey - that project we all are waiting for might take another year, while those fixes might take just couple of weeks ( the community might offer some moding assistance, too, i think ).

[econ21]

If you want a more challenging fight with the AI I recommend slowing your expansion considerably, this gives them time to build up their settlements so they can churn out better units. In my last Roman campaign I didn't move out of the Italian peninsula until 200bc, to keep myself entertained during the wait I conducted punitive raids against factions that were getting too large for my liking, for example intervening in Greece when the KH looked like they were going to wipe out Epeiros and Makedonia.

Maybe I should try that - I've been keeping more or less to QuintusSertorius's timetable. Starving out settlements and coping with unrests to naturally put a break on things (heck, the real Romans made faster progress than me around the start of the first Punic war). But now its around 254 and I am getting ahead of history - just took Mediolanium after suffering my first defeat. I got cocky and send a quarter stack out on a march alone and the AI finally snapped into action. Is it just me or do Gallic swordmen eat legionnaires for breakfast with their 0.22 lethality swords?

[stratigos vasilios]

If you want a more challenging fight with the AI I recommend slowing your expansion considerably, this gives them time to build up their settlements so they can churn out better units.

I've sped this up with the process_cq and add_population command for the AI. So far it's been successful in speeding up their expansion and ability to build better units.

[Ice]

Anyone know the command to move units on the map? I'm playing as the Romans with BI.exe, and Carthage decides to land an entire army right near Capua while we are allies. I have a small contingency I left in Rhegion, but most of my army is fighting the Gauls in Northern Italy. I send most of the Rhegion garrison to Capua to fight behind my stone walls and protect my capital from direct attack if Carthage wanted war. With a few mercs and recruits, I manage to get a sizable garrison there under the command of a rather competent governor, but the oddest thing happens... Carthage retreats to the ship, but next turn they come back out. They repeat this behavior over and over again. How can I move them back to Sicily as I believe they are broken.

[Ca Putt]

move_character "[name of the chap]" [X],[Y]

with spaces replace stuff in brackets

to find a suitable location you first have to point at it and type: show_cursorstat

I hope that works

[Ice]

move_character "[name of the chap]" [X],[Y]

with spaces replace stuff in brackets

to find a suitable location you first have to point at it and type: show_cursorstat

I hope that works

Thanks! I wish there was a diplomatic command I could use, because I'd rather not attack them and start a war.