conquering every province

[seleucid empire]

Hey guys i want to know if anyone here has been successful in conquering the whole map
Just post your stories here including the difficulty, The faction and the length of time taken as well as any mods you may have used to make it happen

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Did that once in Vanilla R:TW, but never in EB. Been happy with achieving the factions' victory conditions.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Do a search for Fluvius Camillus. He enjoys conquering the whole map.

[seleucid empire]

cant seem to find his posts and im new to the forum. I just remember this one post about someone using carthage i think who had a picture of his campaign and he had conquered the map in around 20 years. That was really fishy for some reason especially since he claimed he did it on VH/M. In very hard campaign mode, even as Carthage you could probably only afford 2 armies and reinforcements (especially since he did it in 20 years and thus couldn't have had time to build economy). also his army consisted of 10 units of those elite iberian infantry and 4 of those Spanish cats
If you do the math
1. to conquer to the end of the world using that army would require building up to that level of barracks in spain to access those units which took me about 4 years and then you have to train an army of those units which takes a few years
2. to conquer the world you have to face an assortment of troop types and use different tactics which didnt seem possible with the army he had (only had heavy infantry and cav)
3. in vh mode the ai spam stacks of phalangites which would make siege assaults almost impossible so you would have to wait it out
4. the distance from his capital makes pacification impossible
5. 1/4 seasons is winter which means you basically cant move your army
6. it takes one turn to build siege equipment and your spies are never lucky enough to open gates for every siege so you have to build siege equip which takes one turn
7. there are 199 provinces and you start with 8 which means 191 turns of building siege equipment = more than 20 years
8. you have to build pacification and level 4 gov and an allied general before you can move on = 3 turns 3x191 = 500 seasons =120 years

i mean do these people just change the date using cheats to show off or something??? the quickest world domination ive seen is like 79 years using sarmatians and that wasnt even all the provinnces just most of europa and asia minus the islands. now i would be willing to believe that but srsly the whole map with carthage in 20 years is a bit sus. I know there are some amazing players out there who can actually pull of a world domination by 200 bc but anything less than 70 years would be quite impossible. If anyone has done a world domination can i have tips plz :)

sorry about the bad maths btw im tired and just doing estimates. the time to actually pacify the region should be more like 600 seasons

and by elite iberian infantry i meant the regional ones not the assault ones which come with reforms

[d'Arthez]

I think the screenshots were of 234 BC, so almost 40 years of playing.

It is possible to conquer the whole of Europe with the Romans in about 10 years without any cheats, whilst simultaneously building the economy. It does involve some serious exploits of the game engine, and even for the best player amongst us, a lot of reloading to get the desired results. If you are even willing to alternate between "arcade" and "realistic" modes (with fatigue, ammo limits), etc, the results can even be more spectacular. For example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That is in Spring 268.

1. Besiege a city with a small army, and the enemy will sally. AI is completely hopeless at sallies, and you can exploit that handsomely. You can easily gain 3 or 4 provinces every turn defeating stupid AI.
2. Opening gates is semi-random. You can run turn 2, get into turn 3, and you can see if your spies will be successful opening the gates. If they are, you can play turn 2, with the full knowledge that the gates will be opened on turn 3. This can be extremely useful as well.
3. Move armies without the general in the winter. Movement penalties occur because of the general, who "infects" the rest of the units with the same penalty (or bonus, such as the 'Intrepid Explorer' Retinue). Thus in Autumn, move your general ahead slightly. He'll be able to catch up on long marches anyway.
4. Asia will be a bit trickier, since you will have to negotiate bigger distances, and at the same time higher distance to capital penalties. You could move around the capital from turn to turn, to at least ensure none of your settlements revolt.
5. Make use of mercenaries. They are expensive to hire, but they do not require to be transported from say Iberia to Judea. Every turn the upkeep of such recruits eats away at your funds as well.

[stratigos vasilios]

Do a search for Fluvius Camillus. He enjoys conquering the whole map.

He enjoys killing the game. Someone should make a FC difficulty, Very Very Hard or Fluv Hard.

[seleucid empire]

WOW how did you do that?? thats 4 years
what difficulty are you playing and how many armies did you have in that campaign?

[seleucid empire]

the most ive conquered in 4 years with Rome was the alps and sicily

[d'Arthez]

VH/M, Huge unit sizes. No modifications. Always playing with unlimited time on the battlefield.

It is not hard to take Taras with only one FM, one unit of Triarii and one unit of Leves / Hastati / Rorarii. Anything more, and they won't sally, which would mean you miss out on the income from Taras for a turn. Not to mention the population boost that either Arretium or Arpi should get.

Just let the Epirotes sally. Triarii take up a strategic position on the hill (on the northwestern side of the map), Leves will act as a distraction (just put them on the edge of the map, near their retreating point - they should be able to throw their javelins / pila on the approaching enemy, retreat afterwards), and the FM will deal with the unit of archers. Make the archers rout, follow them into the city. It is important that the Tarantine cavalry is close to the unit of Triarii else they will beat you to one of the entrace gates to the city. Take control of all entrance points and then of the town square. If you do it right, the only casualties you will sustain are some units of your FM cavalry, and potentially a few of the Triarii.
The entire Epirote garrison can be defeated by such an army (AI is stupid after all), but naturally it will cost you a few more men. The best I managed is the loss of about 60 men of the Triarii, and practically the whole FM unit. But you would lose men you will need against Carthage and Syracuse (though it does not make much of a difference, since you will pay less upkeep, and you can hire some mercenaries to replace them).

In a similar fashion you can take the whole of Sicily with the starting army near Arpi, perhaps bolstered by one or two mercenaries / Akontistai / Hoplites recruited in Rhegion. Field battles do not give you much bang for your buck and should be avoided unless you have a clear terrain advantage and you can minimise losses, or when you have to wipe out elephants.

Don't use much of armies. Because for every 4 Triarii you have, it will cost you about 1500 Mnai / turn to maintain them. Not so much of a problem if you need them directly for combat (and casualties will mean less upkeep - so the "penalty" of having less Triarii available is somewhat offset by having to pay for fewer Triarii), but it is a bit of a problem when they need to march from say Roma to Aventicos first. By the time they get to their destination you are 4 or 5 turns down the line. You could instead do much more with your money, such as developing the economy and recruitment options of Aventicos. Making use of regional units such as Lugoae and Iosatae is crucial.

Make units useful from the moment you recruit them. Rather than sending a unit of Leves from Rome to Aventicos, send the unit from Rome to Arretium (can be done when Paved roads are built), and then send through the various garrisons from Arretium to Bononia, Bononia to Mediolanum and Mediolanum to Aventicos. Same result but it takes two instead of 4 or five turns.

AI is terrible at defending its cities. Approach them with a FM, make of use of spies (and knowing beforehand they will be successful will make a lot of difference), make use of your regional recruits (if possible), recruit the necessary mercenaries and take the city. This is especially true when you are operating with a cavalry based army. Leuce Epos are epic for this purpose, especially in Eastern and Central Europe provinces were garrisons are a lot smaller. Kallatis should also be mentioned as a prize, since you can recruit some horse archers there ...
This can be extremely deadly if combined with naval invasions. I wiped the Epirotes out when their armies were standing outside of Ambrakia and Epidamnos.

Now if you are even willing to exploit the "Arcade Mode", spies become even more deadly. When they open the gates, AI is utterly incapable of sallying, even if they would be able to defeat the attackers without even breaking as much as a sweat. Since ranged units will have an unlimited supply of ammo, you can imagine how deadly slingers are ...

For the outcome it would not make much difference, since you can defeat just about any AI sally provided you are not totally outnumbered by enemy cavalry, and as long as there are some units on the battlefield with weaknesses against cavalry. But winning three battles with a 10% chance of success on the roll at the AI turn is of course much harder than winning three battles with a 25% chance of success, but with an opportunity to save after each and every successful battle.

It is beneficial to build regional barracks in Celtic lands and Syracuse in particular. Akontistai can pacify large swathes of the population, whilst Iaosatae are much better than the Roman Accensi. Otherwise Rome, Capua and Arretium will be churning out Leves to serve as garrisons in newly conquered settlements with low population bases, and the occasional spy to assist the various family members in conquering provinces. You will have to send a constant battery of Leves and the like to garrison the newly conquered settlements; and designate a few of those as regional recruitment centers - supply can hardly keep up with demand in the first few years.

Scipio takes Taras on turn 1, stays there for a few turns, and then crosses the Adriatic to deal with the Greeks.
Cotta takes Rhegion on turn 2, deals with Sicily and then crosses to Kart-Hadast in 270 or so.
Dentatus takes Segesta and moves along the Mediterranean coast.
Asina takes Bononia on turn 1, Patavium on turn 2, and then chooses appetizing targets. This will be a cavalry based "army." There is no point in taking infantry along since it will slow you down drastically.
Blasio takes Mediolanum on turn 2, and then it is probably best to take Aventicos and deal with the Gallic factions - you will be outnumbered since you only have the starting army from Arretium at your disposal, but evidently it is doable.

Note, this is not a fun way of playing in my book. It is just showing how bad the AI is. If you want the savegame, I think I still have it.