Mini Guide: Getting started with Rome II

[Suraknar]

Really good! Thanks.

Personally what I have been doing is, Put a barracks in the Capital and Auxiliary camp in one of the settlements.

Then Temples go in capital, as well as Aquaducs, Forums etc.

I have not built any of the Military Training Camps...I lack space. But maybe due to the Barracks.

I will have to rethink this approach and put barracks in minor settlements (just not Ariminium, that place has had 4 earthquakes within 60 turns my campaign)...really good point.

The Trading ports this is very good too!

Also, I did not upgrade to legionaries fast. I played 80 turns with Pre-marian units, pretty good units still, and I like the fact that we can field all three Hastati, Principes and Triarii in comparison to Rome:TW ...so I enjoyed my early campaign greatly with them.



My Question is in relation to industrial buildings, are these worth it? Especially the Brick Makers, it would seem these only benefit the province so..is it worth it having them?


Cheers!

[Bramborough]

Really good! Thanks.

Personally what I have been doing is, Put a barracks in the Capital and Auxiliary camp in one of the settlements.

Then Temples go in capital, as well as Aquaducs, Forums etc.

I have not built any of the Military Training Camps...I lack space. But maybe due to the Barracks.

I will have to rethink this approach and put barracks in minor settlements (just not Ariminium, that place has had 4 earthquakes within 60 turns my campaign)...really good point.

The Trading ports this is very good too!

Also, I did not upgrade to legionaries fast. I played 80 turns with Pre-marian units, pretty good units still, and I like the fact that we can field all three Hastati, Principes and Triarii in comparison to Rome:TW ...so I enjoyed my early campaign greatly with them.



My Question is in relation to industrial buildings, are these worth it? Especially the Brick Makers, it would seem these only benefit the province so..is it worth it having them?


Cheers!

My approach has been to concentrate military buildings in just one province, to "contain" their economic impact. As Rome, I've been doing this with Magna Grecia, because with 4 settlements, three of which are ports including the capital, there's enough slots to support 4 military buildings, maintain public order, and remain food-self-sufficient (Syracuse being a grain town helps). The downside, of course, is that M.G. income is gimped, I'm negating one of the richest provinces available to Rome in the early-mid game. I've toyed with other options, however, and this seems to me the best way to do it (or at least one of the best).

The four buildings I build/maintain are:

- Barracks in capital.
- Training field in capital. I'm not sure it has to be in the capital, but I believe I read somewhere in these fora that training field has to be co-located in same settlement as barracks to get the bonuses for troops recuited there.
- Aux barracks in minor settlement. This one's debatable, but it's Rome's only indigenous source of spear infantry, plus I just like Socii Equites Extraordinarii (whether they're actually any good or not is a completely separate question).
- Workshop in minor settlement. The bonuses from this building, unlike training field, are available to units recruited (or even just located) anywhere in the province. Plus one can recruit field artillery, it's always nice to have a ballista in the legion.

Being Rome, I develop both the training field and workshop along the melee infantry attack lines, bolstering the legionaries' inherent strengths. The barracks & field I stick in the capital mainly because Brundisium has 6 slots, so I can put 2 military buildings there and still have room for a temple and circus. In addition, it allows development of the core barracks to Level IV later in the game, whereas I see no great benefit to pushing aux barracks or workshop past Level III.

With several provincial slots taken up by military construction, I build fishing ports instead of commercial ports, to keep M.G. in the positive for food. Later in the campaign when I take over Africa and/or Aegyptus, however, these provinces are capable of gigantic food surpluses, and I can let M.G. go modestly food-negative and shift over to commercial ports.

I follow a somewhat similar approach with naval recruitment, using Corsica et Sardinia as the "fleet builder". The two port slots are military-wharf and shipwright. The advantage of using CeS vice Italia or M.G. for fleets is that both ports are on the same sea region, allowing a fleet to recruit all ship types anywhere in that sea. Like M.G., CeS' economic output is hit hard, but the province is so small anyway that it isn't ever going to be a huge cash cow regardless of how it's developed.

With the imperium-constrained army cap and the system requiring a general's presence to recruit, keeping military (or naval) buildings confined to just one province makes sense to me, and has worked well in both my Rome campaigns. A viable alternative, however, might be to spread these across multiple provinces for an "assembly line" approach. For example, barracks/training field in M.G., aux barracks in Italia, and workshop in Cisalpina. Form the legion at Brundisium and recruit the melee infantry there, then move them up to Italia for cavalry/spears, and finally to Cisalpina for a ballista and the equipment bonuses. You get the same "standardized & centralized" benefits, while red-slot economic impacts are spread across multiple provinces. I might try this at some point in a future campaign (or just re-work my slots later in the current one when I have enough money to do so).

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I really haven't "broken the code" either on the value of industrial buildings. Sometimes I'll build one in a slot where I can't really find (or need) anything better. But that's not very often. Brown-slots are definitely not a part of my "core" building strategy. I'm sure there's some sort of synergy possible with these in some cases to significantly boost a province...but I really haven't had inclination to figure it out yet.

No kidding about Ariminum...earthquake central. In my first Rome campaign, I never had an earthquake or a plague; didn't even know these existed in the game. On my second campaign (begun yesterday), I've had an earthquake and 3 plagues hit in the first 30 turns. WTF? Not in the patch notes, but feels like Patch3 increased the chance of these occurrences (both campaigns same difficulty level).

[Myth]

Traning camps can only be built in the capital of a province. They do, however, provide their bonuses to the entire province (see my ss below where I show the Pretorians I can recruit now with a tier 3 armidoctor. At tier 4 they will go over 100 morale...)

Regarding temple choices - if the province has 3 or 4 ports it's better to go for Neptune. The temple doesn't consume food but it boosts sea trade. Plus in big provinces you'll have enough public order due to the circus line of buildings and the B&G edict. A free slot in a 3/4 port province should also go to an Amphora factory if you have excess public order.

For landlocked provinces you can be much more liberal with temple choices. Resarch is good. Hermes is also good if you plan on getting a tier 4 Brickworks. 600 gold from industry is something the barbarians can dream about. Anyways here are some of my provinces. I'm in the process of switching Jupiter to Neptune here and there and I haven't maxed them out in terms of optimal PO usability (not all of them anyway) but I'm pretty happy with the result for now.

It's late though, so I'll make some screenshots tomorrow..

[Quillan]

My final setup in my first Rome campaign had Italia as my main recruiting province. I had the training field in Roma (these are provincial capital only), plus the Colosseum, Pantheon, and a level 4 library. The barracks was in Ariminium, auxiliary barracks was in Neapolis, and level 3 armorer was also in Ariminium. I think the rest was only enough temples to maintain neutral public order and the rest food, with a permanent "Bread and games" edict going. It was my most valuable province, earning nearly 5000 per turn.

[Bramborough]

Ah, never noticed the Trg Field can only go in a capital...I guess because I'd never tried to build it anywhere else.

[Myth]

Updated the guide some. I'll probably do a specialised Avernii guide next (applicable to all barbarian factions of which the Avernii have the toughest start I think)

[MadKow]

Updated the guide some. I'll probably do a specialised Avernii guide next (applicable to all barbarian factions of which the Avernii have the toughest start I think)

I look forward to it. I have been starting a few Arverni campaigns and so far have had trouble coming up with a solid opening, both regarding targets for expansion and tech tree progression. All i can say so far is "horses are your friends". But even that could change past the early game.