So how is your campaign going?

[Hooahguy]

So its been over three weeks since launch. How are people's campaign's going?

You know how mine is going from my AAR, but I want to hear about yours.

[Bramborough]

Finished first Rome (Junii) campaign, which was essentially the "learning curve". Hopefully briefly (I know I often go TL;DR without really meaning to), some quick bulletized highlights and take-aways:

*** Ended 10BC, so 262 turns. Military Victory. Normal Difficulty.

*** CW occurred just as I entered 4th Imp level, spawning 6 armies / 4 fleets of Loyalists in Karalis. They took Alalia and Lilybaeum before I corralled them up; took 10-12 turns. I took "Republic" option at CW end (-10% recruitment cost, +2 recruit slots each province), which is a good bonus for building more legions rapidly. But not NEARLY as good as the Empire option (-10% upkeep, -25% corruption).

*** Used MAs and CSs pretty extensively (26% of total settlement count at game end). As game wore on, gradually realized that they were more a butt-pain than they were really worth. During endgame when I was trying trying to get last few settlements, kept fluctuating between 125-135 because MA/CSs would lose territory to rebels, or DW each other, making me choose between them.

*** Rome starting family attributes aren't well balanced...Junii is clearly much better than other two (ag & PO bonus best of the families, while Junii negative trait is less of a big deal than the others). Wanted to try different family for 2nd go...but after looking at them, just couldn't bring myself to do it.

*** Never built Level IV barracks for the top troops, never really felt I needed it. Even with just Level III barracks, I didn't use Praetorians or 1st cohorts either, very much. Veteran legionaries worked just fine all the way through the game as backbone of my armies. That said, I never had to face larger Hellenic or Eastern factions in mid-late game. I had CS'd Sparta and Athens very early. Macedon and Egypt just disappeared before I ever met them. Pontus agreed to be my military ally fairly early, and grew very friendly. Seleucids, Parthia, and Persia just did the endless arise/destroyed/arise/destroyed cycle and never got powerful. Pontus actually did quite well for an AI faction; they never had to respawn, and slowly grew...up to 15 settlements by game end, which I think is pretty good. If they'd been an adversary instead of a friend toward the end, I'm not sure my only-halfway-developed unit tech would've fared very well against them.

*** Kinda fumbled my way through trying to learn economy...overbuilt temples, didn't emphasize commercial ports enough. Myth's guide helped tremendously. By campaign end, could also have easily met all the requirements for eco-victory, EXCEPT the "20 trade agreements" requirement...easily the toughest of the economic conditions.

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Even though I got to a victory before 0AD, didn't really feel like I'd "mastered" Rome as a faction, and wasn't tired of playing them yet, so Rome again in current (2nd) campaign. As mentioned, going Junii again...to my mind, really the only viable choice. About halfway through now (actually a little further than halfway, at about 110BC).

*** Just for RP reasons, trying to match historical limits of Roman expansion. i.e., don't intend to go beyond Rhine and Danube (except maybe Dacia late), will take Britannia at some point but not go up into Caledonia, etc.

*** With experience of last campaign and Myth's guide, economic development has been much smoother and more robust this time around. The basic format: 1) Use Africa as the "breadbasket"; maximize this province for food (including fish ports), and you just really don't have to worry about maintaining a food surplus anywhere else. 2) Build commercial ports in every port slot (other than fleet production province). 3) Build grain and resource towns up as high as feasible, but leave non-resource minor towns at Level I (or II at most). 4) Typical provincial capital build: 1x circus, 1x temple (usually Sacred Grove line), 1x wine market. Final slot is Amphora Factory for larger coastal provinces (ie., 3+ commercial bldgs), or library-line for smaller or landlocked provinces.

*** Prioritizing military tech development this time, just to see if I can tell a real difference between armies of Evocati Cohorts vice Veteran Legionaries. Hoping that Pontus does as well this game as last, will leave him alone for a while so I can have a big dust-up with him in late game, replicating the Mithridatic wars. Perhaps a decent-sized Parthia or Persia will be around as well. Also, have built a Level IV aux barracks in Hellas, just so I can have a few Cretan Archers...loved those guys in R1.

*** Already had CW. Paid very little attention to politics this time, just decided to let it come whenever. Only real preparation I made was ensuring I had 9 full legions as soon as I entered 3rd Imp level, and always trying to keep a couple of them under-committed only 1-2 turns' march from Rome. Also limited myself to only one active enemy at a time. Once I had that, I just took my 3-ambition family general and turned him loose in Spain to get lots of victories and precipitate CW. The war erupted 129BC about halfway through 3rd Imp; the Loyalists spawned in Massalia. 5 armies / 3 fleets this time (appears to be tied to Imp level). They took Tolosa, Genua, Alalia, and besieged Medhlan before I could get to them...strangely, they took 3 full stacks and just parked them up in that mountain pass heading toward Switzerland (which wasn't mine, it's still Helvetii/Raetii); they could easily have taken Velathri and threatened Rome before my legions caught up. Also, Loyalists were aggressive enough in taking under-defended settlements, but then blithely ignored defending them. In any case, they were history by 123BC; definitely took Empire this time. Thought: one loses agents when CW erupts...but Loyalists don't seem to get them. Bug? AI factions can be pretty slippery in using agents to immobilize one army so their stacks can gang up on another un-reinforced army. Loyalists would be a bit more challenging if they had agents and could do this.

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After this campaign, will definitely be time to try someone else. Don't know yet who that'll be. Probably a Hellenic faction with good missile units.

[Sp4]

Originally I started one as Gauls but I abandoned that cause it was too easy and since they were patching/changing things every day, I did not feel like continuing it at the time.
Here's my only current running campaign: Rome, hard. I started about two weeks ago.



In Germania, I'm at war with the Lugii but they're dying now. Lupfurdum was taken by rebels but the Suebi are dead as of a turn ago or so. The Lugii are actually giving me quite a fight and as I push into their northern territories, they started pushing into Pannonia as you can see. In Hellas/Macedonia, the Odrysian Kingdom just died and then I killed Sparta which had owned Athens for about two years. The only thing I am fighting there now is public order and rebellions after conquest. Another legion is on the way to Pannonia to push back the Lugii that way.
The war in Britannia is about wrapping up now after about 20 turns of us just peacefully coexisting there after making someone my client state and trade agreements with the others. Then the remaining two 'free' factions on the islands went to war with each other, leaving only one of them standing, which I am fighting against now. Originally, I had dropped two armies, one in Camulodunon or whatever you spell that and one in Eborakon or Eildon, whichever the capital is and took both provinicial capitals in the same turn. Then I built them up to convert the rest of the island to my culture as soon as possible, while sending all but one legion to go and help in the East.

Mesopotamia was a stupid call on my part and the only reason I am there is because the game gave me this stupid objective to go and rampage around there. Politically, I am now at war with all but two or three remaining factions down there, which is not making the push East any easier. 2 Legions are trying to hold on to the province, but every battle they are fighting, it's usually a combined battle against multiple armies from the Seleucids, Dahae, Pergamon and somebody else. With the way the province is right in the middle of the three powers though, my legions are stuck there, running between settlements to try and hold on to them while a legion from Alexandria is going to fight its way through to them and taking out the Seleucids on the way. (I had that plan originally with the second legion that is now in Mesopotamia but I needed to hurry them up and just force marched through the Seleucid territory)

3 Legions originally in Northern Africa were sent off to modern day Greece and are wrapping that up now while I am probably going to use my navy that is all sitting around there as well to go and conquer the islands between Athens and Antioch.

Economically, I am doing fine although I could probably be doing better but between figuring out how stuff works, I'm running into public order issues and even food shortages now and again since I am in the process of teching up to level 4 farms and level 4 everything else.
My biggest fear is that the public order problems get out of hand and I start having rebellions in Spain. My most stable provinces are Italia, Aquitantia, Mesopotamia, Africa and all of Britain. Spain is not sure whether it should rebel or not, Germania is a mess after lots of back and forth and blitzkrieging entire provinces in one turn, which spawned rebellions behind my legions, stalling progress a lot.

Militarily, I am doing pretty well. I usually don't make armies that are made up of 90% praetorians, even though I could probably afford it and I have the tech. Most of my legions are in fact pretty old and could use overhauling while only 4 of my 15 actually have armoured legionaires and the like and I am only now coming up to equipping some of them with fancy artillery (ballistae really did the job for the entire campaign so far but I wanna play with the big guns so I am making a point of having at least two 'high tech' legions running around).
Usually my armies are made up of 5-7 legionaires, including a unit of Eagle Cohort for lol RP ^^, 2-4 auxiliary infantry (or anything with spears, some of them have by now swapped the auxiliary for gladiator spearmen, since those are the units I can recruit everywhere and they can replace losses quicker than me running the legion all the way back to rebuild it), 2-3 cavalry, usually legionary at this point, though there are some that have Socii Equites. Most legions have a couple of units of velites or some other auxiliary ranged stuff but it's not a strong point and then all of them have 1-2 ballistae which are probably the biggest killer of my campaign.

I did apparently capture a Dacian onager while conquering the Odrysian Kingdom. No idea how that worked and I wasn't paying attention but that is sort of cool ^^ Or at least it was until it got destroyed during the siege of Larissa, where some Scorpion killed it.

My greatest defeats.. and so far I can count them on one hand, which is a little meh, but okay... I lost one of originally three legion sent to Britain by fighting a horde of Ebdani in a 6500 vs 1700 situation. The problem there being that even though I was outnumbered, which I usually am, the quality of my army was ten times that of the Ebdani but yeah... I guess I sort of drowned in the masses rather than actually being defeated.
I lost a legion to a similar horde of Germans coming over the Danube in what should have been an easy defend this river crossing and be home for dinner situation but the Germans had a Scorpion that just did not want to get hit by my Ballistae and the stupid thing forced me to pull my units away from the river crossing and then they came over and it was a lot of them... In addition, for every unit of theirs I shattered, another came in from the edge of the map for about 20 units or so and sneaky and devious as they were, they saved the berserkers for last.

There were some other defeats but these are the two that cost me the most and ended up with me losing lots of territory.

-E- Oh yeah civil war... civil war happened when I was invading Gaul as my first major goal after taking Italia, Cisalpina, Magna Graecia and kicking the Carthagenians out of Northern Africa. The civil war started in Rome with 6 full stacks of legionaires and stuff, no fleets. The rebellion was contained and dealt with over the course of 5 or 6 turns. Magna Graecia spent the next 20 years being annoyed about my rule with several rebellions but eventually it all came under control.

[AntiDamascus]

I've been playing a bunch of short versions of campaigns over different factions to see what I can do in terms of economy and military. I'll try to go to war with a side and then not the next turn and see what happens. I've gotten a lot of good tests done but I'm basically waiting for the end of the major patches before I try an honest campaign all the way to the end.

[Myth]

My Rome campaign is pretty well in, around 130 turns from the start I own Africa, Greece, Macedonia and am preparing to invade Egypt and push past the alps.

I'm now tinkering with the Gauls (Avernii) but I want to really refine my starting strategy.

Anyone who says the Avernii are too easy hasn't tried them on Legendary after patch 3.

[Sp4]

No, I haven't. Problem? The game is too unstable for me to not be able to save after doing anything essentially.

[Myth]

No problem but you talk and talk how the game is too easy and people who don't have the game yet get the wring idea. I consider myself a total war veteran and I can tell you that on Legendary and on patch 3 the Avernii have a hard start. Not impossible, but not a steamroll either.

As to stability issues, the game autosaves on Legendary, and actually it is more likely that you will have to replay more battles if you rely on yourself for saving than the game itself, since Legendary saves before and after each battle, before ending the turn and after the new turn starts.