Rome 2 Tips and un-/under-documented features

[Hooahguy]

If I had to guess its the political events. But to then go and reload and avoid it seems like cheating to me. Part of the fun is deciding if you need the money or if saving the reputation of that family member is more important!

[Sp4]

The annoying thing is... they only happen if you have the money to pay for them. Just about. Seems like it was made to be annoying. If they happened all the time and put you into negative cash, that would be cool and less.. oh you're doing well? Here, have a branch between your legs :D

[Hooahguy]

That seems to be true actually. I am always upgrading something so I rarely have an excess of 5k cash so they dont come too often. Annoying when they do though. I really wish though I can check my list of generals so I can make an informed decision.

[Nelson]

I understand how CA assigned the building slots, but the result underplays the great cities. Rome with five seems smaller than many towns or cities that get six builds and leaves me wondering why I must choose between the Coliseum and the Circus Maximus.

Rome should have room to at least build the most famous of her structures. I think the great cities of the time like Rome, Alexandria and Athens should get extra slots.

[Mhantra]

I understand how CA assigned the building slots, but the result underplays the great cities. Rome with five seems smaller than many towns or cities that get six builds and leaves me wondering why I must choose between the Coliseum and the Circus Maximus.

Rome should have room to at least build the most famous of her structures. I think the great cities of the time like Rome, Alexandria and Athens should get extra slots.

Hmm, this might help the large, more historically important, factions stay in the game longer. Some of the large, famous cities get a bonus spot or two. This would affect strategy too, making it more desirable. Interesting...

[Sp4]

I understand how CA assigned the building slots, but the result underplays the great cities. Rome with five seems smaller than many towns or cities that get six builds and leaves me wondering why I must choose between the Coliseum and the Circus Maximus.

Rome should have room to at least build the most famous of her structures. I think the great cities of the time like Rome, Alexandria and Athens should get extra slots.

But that doesn't work with all the streamlining! :D

[Slaists]

If I had to guess its the political events. But to then go and reload and avoid it seems like cheating to me. Part of the fun is deciding if you need the money or if saving the reputation of that family member is more important!

No reloading involved: just canceling construction ;)

And, yes: those are the "political events" that seem to serve the only function of emptying your treasury. Surprisingly: those events tend to happen right at the moment when you successfully accomplish a mission giving you + cash...

[Sp4]

Yes, the way these things delay a plan of yours by one turn is infuriating.

[Slaists]

For a short intro to how gravitas and politics work try this. Roll as Suebi. You start with 1 general, 2 statesmen from your faction and one general from the opposition. Check that none of your generals/statesmen have any negative gravitas traits. If they don't you're fine. Replace your faction's general with a candidate from the opposition (you should have one in the waits). Check if the opposition replacement has no positive boost to gravitas per turn; check if the old opposition general has none. If they don't, you're fine to proceed. If not, you might have to re-roll (to see the test to completion).

If all is well, scroll through a few turns doing nothing. Your generals will be playing politics (and gaining gravitas) at home while the opposition will be sitting in the field doing nothing (gaining no gravitas). Observe the changes in gravitas and the change in influence. Profit... You can go from the starting 67% influence to high 70'ies in no time.

[Slaists]

Maximizing your general's xp gain per turn: fight the armies camped outside the city first

Frequently, when you arrive at barbarian cities, they have one stack sitting inside the city and another one (or two) right next to the city. If your agent's carry out a sabotage mission on the army outside the city, it will not join the fight when you attack the town. However, that said army will retreat from the walls after you take the city. Your army led by the general whose xp you ant to maximize will be stuck inside the city for a turn and won't be able to reach the enemy stack (or two) that retreated.

In order to optimize xp, it is better to disable the army inside the city (and possibly also the one outside in order for it not to be able to retreat from battle) and attack the one outside first. That way, the city garrison will join (and can be annihilated in a field battle) but you will have at least one more battle for your general on that very turn: when you take the city. Of course, you have to plan your move points well to be able to pull this off. Even better if there are 2 enemy stacks next to the city. Then, you can have 3 battles instead of 1 (on the turn you take the city).

The disabling I mentioned above can be done by any of the sabotage missions of any of your agents. If you succeed at any sabotage attempt, the target army loses either half or all of its move points and cannot reinforce a battle. A side effect of a successful sabotage is that the AI seems unable to retreat battle either if it feels your force is superior.

Another tip: generals joining a battle as reinforcements earn gravitas too.

This is something I noticed recently. The generals who join your battle as reinforcements do not earn battle experience. However, they DO earn gravitas. Thus, if your main general wins the battle and earns gravitas, yet your reinforcing army was led by an opposition general who also gained gravitas, the total impact on your party's influence could be nil (both party's earned +1 gravitas creating a wash situation unless the ambition differential of generals skews it one way or another). So, better have your own party's general leading the reinforcing army if you have one.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Actually, with patch 7 the re-inforcing generals will earn experience too now.

[Bramborough]

Yep. Can be a bit of a pain if one is trying to manage internal faction politics, but otherwise a great help to developing general's capabilities.