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.

[seleucid empire]

thanks for the advice d'arthez. and guys im just wondering, is it harder to control cities when ur playing on normal unit size cause i always play on huge. with normal you have 1/2 the garrison you would have in huge yet in a lot of the pictures i see of people conquering half the map they use normal unit size and their cities have yellow happiness (this was someone conquering spain i think with seleucids)

[d'Arthez]

Unit size does not make it harder or easier to control cities. If two units of Leves are enough on huge to get the maximum 80% order bonus, then two units of Leves are enough on normal unit size to get the same 80% bonus.

Huge has the advantage that you can limit population growth somewhat easier (by recruiting), but as a downside, you have to be very careful with recruiting in smaller settlements, else they will end up as ghost towns.

There is little point in aiming for green faces - you want to earn all the money you can get. The downside to having yellow and blue happiness faces is that there is a higher chance of rebels spawning in such provinces.

[seleucid empire]

thanks for clearing that for me. but what i meant was how did he get a yellow face int he first place? when i conquer anything west of Sicily its immediately a red face even after i exterminate

[d'Arthez]

Some generals are good governors (influence), and have traits that reduce unrest. They also bring along a garrison of some sort sorts (the conquering army) which will help (to a max of 80%). EB really rewards players who manage their FMs well, and if you play your cards right the FM alone can contribute more than 80%.

You can also change tax rates. The difference between Very High and Low is 70%, with low being 30% better than normal.

The penalties you are combating are mainly culture (50% max) and distance to capital (80% max).

[seleucid empire]

thats the bit i dont understand lol, why is influence better than management for unrest

[Ca Putt]

Is it really?(apart from larger bodyguard)
Anyway I would understand that the Unrest in a province would be limited by Large influence of the Fm as They all tremble as he may do the same to them as the ... or are simply awestrucken. This all happens before he does all the clever things(management) that increace happyness.

[Arjos]

Afaik management improves income (maybe also helps against corruption), while influence improves happiness...

[Ludens]

Afaik management improves income (maybe also helps against corruption), while influence improves happiness...

Yes, although it's law rather than management that reduces corruption.

[seleucid empire]

so always conquer new lands with faction leader or heir? they usually have the most influence

[d'Arthez]

EB rewards you when you train your FMs in cities with Schools, the right temples, and if you are able to levy high or very high taxes. This will give them better traits and ancillaries. Of course it depends on the faction you play, the traits of FMs (the most important are the Sharp / Vigorous / Charismatic traits, and the Optimistic / Unselfish / Loyal) and some luck as well.

You can acquire several bad traits as well in the process. As always, you need to carefully consider how to train your FMs. Even if they are useless at governing, they may still be very useful at fighting.

[seleucid empire]

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

ok i tried blitzing with Seleucid and its going very good so far. i now own armenia, half of macedon, thrace, epirus, asia minor and all of egypt and nubia and i also kept the east intact (the parthians havent taken a single city of mine so far). I took your advice and played on unlimited battle time, however this has lead to a huge problem. When the greeks besieged pella they outnumbered my forces however i placed my units very well in the city and the ai seems to have sensed this and refuses to attack. it just sits with its battering rams outside the city and i cant wait them out cause its infinite battle time and i cant sally cause my army is too weak

[seleucid empire]

ive even tried luring them in by sacrificing a unit. the have a unit of thorakatia sittign right outside my gates and they dont follow me into the city when my unit routs. this is worse than a ctd

[seleucid empire]

oh and it gets worse, i just saw a unit of projectile throwers in the enemy army. they cuold have attacked ages ago

[d'Arthez]

That is why it is always prudent to have ranged units available. Probably the best way to deal with such stalemate sieges is to march a phalanx or other heavy infantry outside of the walls. And position them out of reach of your enemies ranged units. The ranged unit needs to shoot / sling to lure enemy units forward. The role of the infantry is to protect your missile units, but ideally you would end up drawing a unit to chase you around the towers. As long as the towers are yours, they'll use the enemy unit as a pin cushion. If you have stone walls, it does not hurt to put ranged units on them, near to the enemy lines.
If the enemy has cavalry available, use a cavalry unit instead. FMs are usually a good bet for such maneuvers, though sometimes it can be prudent to use Prodomoi or the like. If you do not have cavalry available, your heavies need to deal with the cavalry once they are lured, since they will outpace any infantry (duh!).

Slowly you should be able to whittle them down. After a certain point the attacking army will retreat (since it considers itself to be outnumbered).

Projectile throwers are a major nuisance in such situations, since they have enormous ranges. You will have to risk some cannon fodder then.

[seleucid empire]

lol it didnt work cause after they rout my infantyr they stand just short of the gate. i had a unit of cretans and 2 slingers with 2 phalanx and 2 theurophi. the enemy had 3 units of one gold chev hoplites (wtf i thought ai didnt retrain????) and a general with silver chevs plus thoratkai. I ended up just going around the side and facing them in the open. i had a unit of prod which saved my life. i had around 150 units left by the end of the battle and my barracks finished next turn :)

[XSamatan]

ok i tried blitzing with Seleucid and its going very good so far. i now own armenia, half of macedon, thrace, epirus, asia minor and all of egypt and nubia and i also kept the east intact (the parthians havent taken a single city of mine so far). I took your advice and played on unlimited battle time, however this has lead to a huge problem. When the greeks besieged pella they outnumbered my forces however i placed my units very well in the city and the ai seems to have sensed this and refuses to attack. it just sits with its battering rams outside the city and i cant wait them out cause its infinite battle time and i cant sally cause my army is too weak

BAI bug, search for an enemy unit that shows 'moving' as description but does not move at all. Most of the times the captains of this unit (or sometimes the general) are moving ahead of their troops in a stop-go (broken) animation.

XSamatan

[moonburn]

there´s always the old trick of besieging a city with just 1 family member (sarmatians phalavas and saka´s are great for this ) pick out the enemy army weakest lowest moral unit break them and then fallow them inside the city conquer the 4 gates and wait 3 minutes in the city square

only dude i´ve seen conquering the all map was someone playing with epeiros and he only used deutoroi and family members

as for conquering the whole map in 20 years just set it to 12 turns per year tpy for shorts and it should be easy also if you got 3 months of your life to waste use arcade mode where there´s no time limit and i think no ammo limit so you can destroy entire armies with a single unit of horse archers

[Alien of Germania]

Tried twice as Seleucids, actually Im trying again at slow pace (playing 3 hours a week). The problem is revolts. Moving capital, family members dying, et al. Its a mess.

[seleucid empire]

seleucids are actually as easy as Carthage or Rome imo. Their economy is actually quite good and if you bring all your forces together you have a large army and your still making 5k profit a turn (in Hard campaign). You can use this starting army to blitz ptolemies or to kill of pontus and armenia (which is harder)

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

The AS is only as hard as the Pahlava make it. If they push you hard you will have a tough time holding onto the eastern provinces since you don't get much that will deal with their bodyguard cav.

[d'Arthez]

About half the provinces on the map are in Europe, but they are much closer together than provinces in the rest of the world. If you control Italy and the Iberian peninsula you already have 30 provinces under your control. That is more than the Seleucid empire, but on a fraction of the area.

As a consequence, distance to capital penalties are far less severe to deal with.
Probably the easiest factions to go for world conquest are SPQR, Makedonia and Epeiros. The few provinces you start less with simply do not weigh up against the advantage of having a solid economy.

By the time you have a healthy portion of Europe under control, your economy should be rock solid.