What are your cheapest core units to defeat Rome?

[QuintusSertorius]

if i was any good with the console i would play a syrakousai game just for the hell of it

I've just demonstrated all the commands you need and how, give it a try with an Epeiros game.

[QuintusSertorius]

Not relevant...

[zenisar]

So I continued in my testing Arverni campaign in the meantime. The year is 230BC, I built 3 armies for deploying various units and see how they perform:
- a northern-gaul army - with units recruited north of the Alps,
- a southern-gaul army - with units recruited from Cisalpine Gaul,
- and a kelto-hellenic army - from units recruited from Massilia and maybe later Emporion as well.

But the Romani still did not get their Polybian reforms because they did not take Syracuse yet. It seems they use all their resources to attack Arverni in Cisalpine Gaul, sending army after army rather than finishing conquest of Sicily. This is how the composition of their armies frequently looks like:



While waiting for Polybian reforms I took Patavium as well, and plan to bottle Romans in Italy. Hopefully this does not contradict with the reform conditions. Busy with battles in northern Italy like this one:



While fighting in Liguria, one unit fighting for the enemy actually catched my attention: Gaemiae Liguariae. My general was better than theirs, my army outnumbered theirs, some quality units like Principes and Pedites were already in flight, while a unit of Ligurian infantry still held their line even when being surrounded from 3 sides. Actually, they were the last to rout:

[zenisar]

Because waiting for the Polybian reforms takes ages and I am concerned when and if it will ever happen, I became curious with another question. See, originally I wanted to "assimilate" whole Europe and make it a nice green natural area of Celts living in their villages in harmony with nature ... environmentally friendly ... ecologic ... whatever ... BUT as the Celts miss the highest level of cities, it shortens their time and forces to rush. Otherwise, some huge cities like Roma will build level 4 government building after reaching 12.000 population limit and their Roman culture cannot be overrun anymore in game. So I became obsessed with questions like:
- How can I prevent it?
- Do I have to conquer Rome?
- When can I conquer Rome the earliest?

So I set on another campaign, forking the current one just after defeating Aedui in Gaul, and started MARCH ON ROME immediately!

The journey was a dangerous one, full of perils, difficult to replace losses, grabbing every available unit I could get, and never having enough men. And this is what I achieved in 260BC:



BUT the bloody Romani have already built level 4 governement - what a dissapointment! All I did was for nothing! I was too slow! I cannot make Rome a nice Celtic village anymore! Now I am wondering: Could I conquer Roma even sooner?

[moonburn]

yes anphibean operation half a stack or even 1/4 stack build latters and storm the city (don´t worry with rams they always catch fire )

there´s always some windows of opurtunity and more then what one would expect the romans only leave 1 general to control and defend the city half of the times without any other unit whatsoever so depending on how close is their available field army if done correctly you can get 3 turns until the nearest roman field army can reach you

burn down the city and all structures who are useless to you (barracks notably and their goverment type must always go ) and once it´s done set up a type4 goverment with an allied general

eventually you´ll have to have a full stack of rorarii to control the city even with your client ruller at 8 prestige points but thats the priçe of keeping rome

[athanaric]

Rome will only build a Type IV government in their Italian cities if their default Type I has been destroyed previously by an invading faction (most likely you, if you're playing Gauls). So you'll face Polybian troops eventually, as long as you don't conquer too much of Italy.

[Empire*Of*Media]

thats why the romans burned the persian capital on 2 ocasions

crassus made a mistake when he trusted his scouts and was missinformed about the kind of catrphact he would be facing since he assumed he would be facing armenian cathraphacts wich weren´t as armoured or disciplined as the parthians

also the parthians inovated with their camel caravan suply train or they would be out of arrows and forced to face the romans in melee before they where in disaray

simple comparison:

well 2 times capital was taken yes but we should see the POSITIVE side as 2 times capital was sacked and destroyed but the Romans could not Advance toward Mesopotamia & Iranian Plateau! because Parthia unlike Sassanids & Romans was a Federalical System that no one ruled all the things and Romans faced heavy resistance of local Armies and disciplined ones of course thats why they did never defeated Parthia.

unlike this Romans 2 Times their Capital was Sacked and taken and gradually gradually suddenly the whole Western Roman Empire Fell!

simple......

i dont understand most of you react to Rome and Iranian Plateau Kigdoms & Empires like Rome is your Father's Empire!!
and many of you say Crassus was fool! ok we suppose he was fool but rome fought 300 years against Parthians and 300 years against Sassanids!! so dont tell me that there was not at least 1 good general in the whole great Empire even succeded by Cassar's and others Legacies & Traditions......!!!

if Rome was better than Parthia or Sassanids, simple, they could penetrate and destroy the whole of their Empire, and believe me they would go until china! so we see otherwise.....


and if Parhia would not fell to Totalitarian Sassanids or Sassanids would continue the same Government System, Arabic Muslims could never conquer and abuse Those lands.........
(Sassanids were more powerful and equal to Rome unlike Parthians, but were easily broken as the king would fell and there would be no more local Resistance due to lack of governship and morale)

[moonburn]

rome was the father to western civilization

as for the rest of what you said romns used heavy infantry the parthians and sassanids used heavy cavalry so on the plains they won but had rome decided to keep conquering the sassanids and the parthians would have had a fight of a lifetime but when it came rome was already fractured within and no true great roman could afford to spend so much time away from the city without loosing influence and being betrayed and sold out not even emperors

wierdly enough it was crassus demise who created the 1st unbalance that gave cesar the oppurtunity to try and outgrowth everyone before him before crassus demise cesar relied on crassus and pompey to keep a balance beteween the diferent roman factions wich meant he could spend 10 years away from rome conquering without being forced to return for whatever reason (and the senators did try to get him to return and face trial for his crimes )

[d'Arthez]

Because waiting for the Polybian reforms takes ages and I am concerned when and if it will ever happen, I became curious with another question. See, originally I wanted to "assimilate" whole Europe and make it a nice green natural area of Celts living in their villages in harmony with nature ... environmentally friendly ... ecologic ... whatever ... BUT as the Celts miss the highest level of cities, it shortens their time and forces to rush. Otherwise, some huge cities like Roma will build level 4 government building after reaching 12.000 population limit and their Roman culture cannot be overrun anymore in game. So I became obsessed with questions like:
- How can I prevent it?
- Do I have to conquer Rome?
- When can I conquer Rome the earliest?

The earliest you could take Roma is probably in (late) 271 BC, but that would require serious powergaming. In all likelihood you have to take Roma before 265 BC, to prevent the Romans from building level four governor's building.

The easiest way to make that happen would be a naval invasion, since AI tends to be very bad defending against those. As a bonus you get to avoid a couple of difficult (and thus time consuming) battles, for Mediolanum / Segesta, Bononia and Arretium, before you can get your hands on Rome.

A problem is that you start the game without ports, and having to deal with the Aedui. To commit a serious portion of your troops to a Southern campaign will come with its own challenges.
I am not sure if Tolosa has the naval harbor at the start of the game. If it does, your best bet may well be to take Tolosa, build a ship there, and put a general with some units on there. If you are lucky + somehow manage to save some money, you might be able to start a siege of Rome.

[Empire*Of*Media]

rome was the father to western civilization

as for the rest of what you said romns used heavy infantry the parthians and sassanids used heavy cavalry so on the plains they won but had rome decided to keep conquering the sassanids and the parthians would have had a fight of a lifetime but when it came rome was already fractured within and no true great roman could afford to spend so much time away from the city without loosing influence and being betrayed and sold out not even emperors

wierdly enough it was crassus demise who created the 1st unbalance that gave cesar the oppurtunity to try and outgrowth everyone before him before crassus demise cesar relied on crassus and pompey to keep a balance beteween the diferent roman factions wich meant he could spend 10 years away from rome conquering without being forced to return for whatever reason (and the senators did try to get him to return and face trial for his crimes )

yes indeed despite all those corruptions and barbarous wildery of romans, im obssessed with all those advanced technologies and high civilization lifestyle. i see USA as New Rome!

but for the thing you said, yes Parthians used heavy cavalry instead of Infantry, unlike rome. but Sassanids were a balance of heavy infantry & cavalry

because as time passed both Rome & Sassaanids (Easterns) realized and found out both of their weaknesses! Rome's weakness was in Heavy Cavalry so they made as little equal to Eastern Cataphracts (Calbinari - Armenian Cataphract);

even so as for Sassanids found out Weakness in Heavy Infantry so they made nomerous heavy infantry units such as Sughdians, Dylamites (they mostly attacked by Sudden Strikes and smashing through lines), Kushan Axmen, Kamandare Shahi (King's Bowmen), Gilanis, & ...... many other.
they even expanded their heavy cavalry to not only simple cataphract but also Super Heavy Irak (Iraq) Cataphracts, Pushtigban (Bodyguards), Zhayedan ( Immortals), Kardakan (Kurdish Lancers), & ....many other.

and please dont say in 700 years no Good Roman generals were there!! Pontus and Parthia were like each other even Pontus was very better in infantry but they fell and not Parthia!!
but as for sassanids they were a highly troublesome Great Citadel For Rome to go for easterners and China & India! and also a very equal enemy as they even conquered many roman cities and never lost Armenia & East Syria unlike Parthians. they even Sieged Capital Constantinople and Conquered Jerusalem and Damascus and Antioch once!!


its ok for you to have bias toward Rome, because your European and you think ther's only and ONLY Rome and even hellenics in the world's history!!!! but its your Bigotry that deny other civilizations & Empire's greatness.

as a say, says War makes Advancements! in war if for example 2 sides have a long conflict they will soon find out their Powerful and Weakness Points......

[moonburn]

i don´t even like rome too much but the trufh of the fact is that the sassanids particulary relied mostly on roman disunity to secure their western border then on their own might one constant concern of the sassanid foreigh policy was always not to give the romans an excuse to forget their internal rivalerys and unite against 1 single enemy

along other reasons being that romans where richer and had greater manpower then the sassanids themselfs thus the reason why they had to create heavy infantry to defend their cities if they ever went to war with rome as they did quite a few times and everytime they got cornered they knew they where screwed since cavalry without mobility ...

also for the easterns their greatest source of income was trade and trade altough it means high tax revenue it´s also incostant and in case of war they couldn´t sell to the romans and their 400 million citizens market

also the romans homogeneized their population for the most part due to their constant urbanization plans while the sassanids still had alot of heterogenity so they needed the cash either to bribe off local rulers into staying in line or to pay their soldiers to keep those less homogenous people in line

my bias is relative there´s civilizations i like more others i like less the easterns are not particulary less liked by me actually the achemid empire or the hitite empire are 2 of my favourites one for what they created the other for the misteries it still contains

i can read more of your drive by the way you make some statements then whatever piece of information you think you know about me you gave an emotional reply i gave you the facts

rome was the father of the western civilization kaiser emperor or czar are all the same cesar the 1st emperor even tough the world emperor already existed as the military leader of a region after him it became the byword for political leader of diferent people/nations under 1 ruler

as for in 700 years no good roman general as i stated earlyer if you had bothered to read what i said instead of just skimming it feeling enraged and replying in an overly emotional way roman leadership problem was keeping their status and so they couldn´t afford to spend 10 years away from rome (demagogy sucks but it´s highly effective to get rid of your political enemies ) and as you can check both times the romans went on the offenssive against the "easterners" where they burned down ecbatana it was always a blitz campaign and the loot those generals made had to be used then to apease their population and political adversaries so they could regain their status

thus as what i said earlyer had a true war broken out and the sassanids would have had 3-5 generals leading armies into sassanid lands and a multi pronged attack against the sassanids would have put them to panic since the sassanids couldn´t afford to split their forces or else the brother of the king or the nephew could decide he would be a better ruller then the current ruller (another side effect of carrhae )

basically the sassanids where weak defenders and strong on the offenssive