Mini Guide: Getting started with Rome II

[Bellicin]

This guide gave me a good start to my first campaign in RTW II, so first off thanks for writing it! I've unknowingly used the same tactic as Bramborough and concentrated my military buildings to a few provinces in key locations (about every third province I totally control). Apart from some minor problems with public order it has worked like a charm so far, and rebuilding a slot here or there has taken care of any issues.

Here's a few pointers I picked up on along the way:

* Amphitheatres are an excellent way to control PO in military provinces (or anywhere really) seeing as they give you +6/+12/+24 PO in just one slot. As food is a global resource its cost can be compensated by building farms in another province. Additionally they give the option to recruit gladiators, which are pretty decent when sprinkled into your ordinary legions for damage.

* Sieges are fun! I used to autobattle them in the original Rome since they were so complicated and time consuming, but in my opinion they've fixed it quite nicely in RTW II. Of course the AI is still a bit weird from time to time, but I suppose sieges weren't really that co-ordinated historically. Also worth noting is that manually fighting sieges can really turn the tide compared to an automatic battle. For Rome both Rorarii and regular infantry troops can hold their own quite nicely in confined spaces so I've been able to hold off large forces with just the garrison.

* Ballistas are awesome, as noted above (I think). Not only do they inflict massive damage but using them is way more fun than I ever expected. Downside is the AI isn't really that good at using - or rather protecting - them.

* Always keep an eye on your army's movement, especially in coastal regions. They can take really strange routes to places, and apparently enjoy jumping into transports and attacking from the sea side.

* A few turns into the campaign I'm starting to encounter different sort of caps that I haven't seen explained anywhere and that don't seem very consistent or logical to me. For instance in some regions I can only 2 Farms and when I try to build another one in an appropiate slot the option doesn't appear (only Temple, Field of Mars and Workshop). In other regions I can only build Cattle Pens instead of Farms after getting a Villa. There also appears to be a cap of the research rate at 200% but I haven't tried that out extensively yet. Does anyone know if this is how it's supposed to work and what mechanic controls it in that case?

* Naval battles confuse me a lot, and I seem to be losing them most of the time despite the odds on my side. Does anyone have any recommendations about it or know of a guide on how it works?

Kind regards

[Maximus007]

Thank you thank you! for this superb guide I been playing Rome for a couple off days and I just couldn't find a good strategy. This all change after I read this guide now I'm doing really well.
Just have a dumb question regarding buildings. For example on the city of alalia I have a roman village, trading port, cattle pens, and a shrine. So let's say I have the shrine of minerva lv 3 and right above the icon I have convert/dismantle. If choose another shrine from the option do I keep both shrines or just the one, the same on the cattle and farms do I keep both or just one

Thanks

[Bramborough]

Ballistas are awesome, as noted above (I think). Not only do they inflict massive damage but using them is way more fun than I ever expected.

100% agree. I love using ballistae, they're a standard item in the vast majority of armies I build. Slaists, however, has pointed out that the presence of siege artillery significantly affects AI aggression, causing it to rashly attack en masse if the player has siege artillery and the AI does not (which is usually the case). Some experimentation on my part has convinced me that he's correct. I personally don't have much of a problem with this using Hellenic armies with pike units; enemy aggression is exactly what I want. It does, however, start to lead to a certain "sameness" as the battles start to resemble each other. If at some point you'd prefer for the character of the battles to become a bit more varied, try dropping the ballistae.

For instance in some regions I can only 2 Farms and when I try to build another one in an appropiate slot the option doesn't appear (only Temple, Field of Mars and Workshop). In other regions I can only build Cattle Pens instead of Farms after getting a Villa.

From this short description, I'm pretty sure what you're seeing is the fact that you cannot have duplicate buildings above Level I in the same city. So, for example, lets say you have a minor settlement with two open slots. It is possible to build two Villas in those two slots, because the Villa leads to multiple building types. Once one of those Villas has been upgraded into a Farm, however, then that leaves only the Cattle Pen available as an upgrade in the other slot.

Also worth mentioning, the agricultural building types are not available in provincial capitals for most "civilized" factions (barbarian factions are an exception).

Naval battles confuse me a lot, and I seem to be losing them most of the time despite the odds on my side. Does anyone have any recommendations about it or know of a guide on how it works?

I've worked up a rough draft of a naval warfare guide which is under some edit/review. I hope it will appear on this forum soon, so check back.

In meantime, a very short summary: Ram/board tactics require a lot of micromanagement. With fleets larger than say 5-6 ships, my own belief is that close-quarters "naval melee" becomes one of the very few things (perhaps only thing) at which the AI excels the average human player. So...fight naval battles at long range using artillery ships. Use a high preponderance of ballista-equipped ships (say, roughly half or at least a third of your fleet). Use jav/archer ships, with fire-at-will enabled and flaming projectiles chosen, as a screen to protect your ballista ships, which do the ship-killing.

So let's say I have the shrine of minerva lv 3 and right above the icon I have convert/dismantle. If choose another shrine from the option do I keep both shrines or just the one, the same on the cattle and farms do I keep both or just one

No, just one temple. You're converting that slot to different use, not building additional capacity. Same with agricultural buildings or any other type slot.

[Myth]

Glad this guide is helping people out! Yes, for building slots - you can have only one type of building BRANCH per settlement. You can have multiple branches from a TYPE of building within the same settlement.

So you can have two or even three temples, two civic buildings, two farm tier buildings etc. just not the same identical ones.

Public order control is great for the "civilized" factions due to the theater level buildings. It's not as easy to get a PO bonus with the barbarians. I've mentioned the PO boosting amphitheater in the tech part of the guide.

[Bellicin]

Thanks for the replies! Really cleared up the issues I had with buildings. Looking forward to your naval guide Bramborough, I'm betting you got it quite right above. Too bad naval battles are so tricky since they look sort of cool until your admiral's ship is sunk by a leves in a rowing boat...

As for there being a cap on researching bonuses I've discovered there is in fact none (at least not at 200%). Apparently I got stuck on that for a while, but am now at 202%.

Kind regards

[Myth]

As a Roman or Hellenistic faction there is no reason not to build a tier 4 research building in any province which is not dedicated to military recruitment.

[Monthar]

The guide has been quite helpful. However, I'm lucky to have more than about 2k income per turn. Sometimes it gets as high as 3k or drop as low as 1k. Part of the problem is I have only been able to sign trade agreements with 1-2 factions at a time, because everyone else hates us too much to sign one. This is playing as Junia. I'm currently just around turn 50-55. I've taken all of Africa, Secured the peninsula (all of Italy, Sicily and that 3 city provence north of Rome) and the 2 islands west of Rome. I made one of the cities to the east of Rome a client state.

My questions are.
How much should I be making a turn?
How can I get more trade agreements with everyone hating on me so much?