Roman: Julii

[Quietus]

Julii Campaign Part 3 – New Fronts.

If you have decided to take the North African route too (see Part I), your trade networks by now would be bustling. Up north you’d be trading with the Britons. You’d be trading trading with your own settlements from North to South and of course you’d be trading with other factions in the Mediterranean.

With North Africa taken cared of (from Lepcis Magna to Tingi), you are now free to open new fronts! In this example, Dacia decided it should be against them, by attacking me. It makes sense because they are close to the Julii capital.

Regions in question: Luvavum, Aquincum Segesta, Campus Lyzages, Porrolissum etc. Again, the order of attacks is up to you; just take into account buffer zones that prevent you from being flanked in the future. At the same time you should be deciding who should be next to fall in the North: Britons or Germans? I’ve decided that the Germanic tribes should be eliminated because attacking Britain would spread me too far with Germania sandwiched too deep, which will cause horrible logistics problem in the future.

Part 3 units selections: By this time, you would have access to the penultimately powerful Roman Units. There may be units that aren’t here but this are the units I have used so far. The strongest units I will touch upon in the next episode. Here’s a short breakdown:

Triaarii(80)(500d)(210d) – These are tough spearmen. They should always be your center line (pre-marius). You can also put one in your extreme sides to stabilize a swinging flank. Always charge with this unit for the best effect. Against the great dacian melee units, they are the ideal pinners as you flank with Cavalry, Principes, Hastati or other Triaarii units.

Archer Auxillia(81)(430d/170d) – Put them in front of your middle line. As with the earlier archers, use Guard Mode and turn off Fire-at-will. When the AI is baited, move them quickly to the back. With a Chirugeon retinue (or similar types), they heal superbly, thus bring at least 2 units.

Auxillia(81)(430d/170d) – After the Marius event, the Triaarii cannot be trained anymore. However, these are very capable replacements. Because they are cheaper, they can be your replacement frontline fodder. You can do the similar moves as with Triaarii when confronted with melee units.

Light Auxillia(80)(290d)(170d) – They the are the replacement for the Velites. Therefore, they are similarly a special unit (see Velites).

Roman Cavalry (54)(500d)(110d) – For their upkeep cost, these are very fine cavalry. They are mightily effective flankers and especially useful against Phalanx/Pikemen units later (against Thrace). Make sure the enemy phalanx units has their Sarissa(?) lowered against your frontal units BEFORE you charge from the back. If not, your desired effect wont be complete and you will lose much units.

Legionary Cohort(81)(740d)(210) – They are your current elite units and should be conserved in the back. With a 20% discount on unit training, you should build a lot of these units. Let your cheap fodder units such as the Auxillia handle the heavy casualties while you use these conservatively. You just size up your enemy before battle. If you face a significantly tough opponent, it makes sense to put a number of them in the middle and upfront . In normal battles, you can put one of these in your flank for overpowering pincer movement with the help of the Roman Cavalry.

Early Legionary Cohort(81)(610d)(210) – A tad cheaper but also more vulnerable than the Legionary Cohort. In my opinion, their weaker defense isn’t worth saving the denari. However, if needed, they are more useful than a plain Auxillia.

After defeating much of Dacia, it is ideal to take on Thrace too. Why? The Brutii will try to expand there as well. It is better to cut them off before they get too large in the region. The general idea is to have an empire that is defensible in the future, especially in a impending or foreseeable civil war amongst Roman factions.

Once, you’ve consolidate the North by erasing the Germanic tribes, you only have to worry about the Britons. In an event of a civil war, you are free to confront the other rivals, without the consequence of being hit from your backside. Your economy also won’t suffer as much with that conglomeration coastal sea trades and land routes.

Keep in mind of presence of Rebels and Bandits inhabiting your trade routes. I can’t emphasize it enough to root them out by military force or bribery. They do much damage to your trades. Use watchtowers as well as diplomats and spies to discover or spot their location.

Lastly, I planned on posting a bridge battle scheme; however, I am not able to getting around to this yet. I’ll post as soon as I am able to. Also, I won’t be posting anymore strategic map bits and tips since I’ve resolved to put that in my Quick Strategic Map Guide & Primer (already posted!!).

This is the end of third section for now. Part 4 may be fittingly last portion and it will involve the ultimate Roman units and the civil war. Hope you enjoyed reading and found some use for it.

[sapi]

Civil war is much easier if you attack the senate when your allies troops are out of the Italian Penisula. You can decimate their capitols and main production cities and their unit production power will be halved. The only thing to watch out for is trade - you will lose most of your trade once the other roman factions declare war. I forgot to have a big navy and now the brutii and senate (rebel - 1300 men) navies are chasing me around!

[Hurin_Rules]

Quietus,
You said 'walls bring security and happines', but I've never heard anyone else say they had any affect on happines (?order?). Have you or anyone else seen a demonstrable effect on happiness from walls?

Cheers

[Quietus]

Oops. Thx for pointing that out Hurin. I meant to remove that here, but I forgot (hence it wasn't in my A Quick Strategic Guide....) It was based on my very early tests, that now prove just coincidental to either governors gaining retinues/virtues, riots calming down or culture penalty fading. I'll edit it out when I post Julii section 4.

[Hurin_Rules]

Oops. Thx for pointing that out Hurin. I meant to remove that here, but I forgot (hence it wasn't in my A Quick Strategic Guide....) It was based on my very early tests, that now prove just coincidental to either governors gaining retinues/virtues, riots calming down or culture penalty fading. I'll edit it out when I post Julii section 4.

Thanks for clearing that up, and also for all your hard work on the game. We all appreciate it.

[Belenus]

The Julii have the easiest access to land out of the three factions. All that stands in their way are the Gauls, brits, and germans.

On your first turn you should get a mission to take Segesta, so take it garrison it with some troops, and move on. On your border should be a small Gaulish army, on turn two attack. Some people may some wait but the longer you wait the stronger they become so you have to move fast. Take Mediolanium then first, that will cut off pativium, then take pativium. Doing this will really hurt the gauls economically and give you good cash.

For the homefront concetrate on building hastarii for now, while working on getting stables, for cav.

Ok, after you've licked your wounds from taking the first three provinces, move in and take masilla. It's rebel held so it shouldn't be so tough. After that, move a part of your army towards lugdunum, it also should be rebel held. Now you're have the gauls by the threat, and this is what you should do:

If you see any gaul family members around bribe them, you should have enough money if you have a good economic plan(I won't tell you how to build, except to concetrate on getting markets, roads, and stables built,) and after you bribe them, have either a relief army join them or have them hire mercs.

Now if you bribe one near Narbo Martus have him move in on it quick, it should be easy to take, but be careful, the Gauls most likely have a big army in numantia.

For Alesia, get your best army and move in on it, expect a tough battle, for it's the gaulish capital. Once you take it the Gauls should switch their capital to numantia, so get your army in narbo, make your general hire some mercs, and move them out, (making sure to leave some TW in narbo). Your army may encounter a few large Gaul armies so take them out. Don't let them escape. They also may have a fort on near the bridge leading to the town so take it out. Once you reach numantia, lay siege to it, attack it when you're ready, and the gauls should be finished. Take over the rest of their lands if they're rebel or gaulish,(if they survived). It took me 28 turns to defeat them and this is a very rough guide.

PS: Don't forget to try yo bribe Caralis from the carthagians.

EDIT: Guide to take on the british and germans coming up after I beat them.

[mzhang23]

The Julii start out with the worst potential economy, so the easy thing is to take what the Bruti and Scipio have:

1. Start out taking the Gaul towns north of you. Take enough and you'll cripple them for the rest of the game. As soon as you tech to wardogs, Gauls are no threat.

2. Immediately take the carthaginian town on sicily with an army as soon as you can make biremes. Use diplomats to bribe the Scipio army into reinforcing your attack force if necessary.

3. Move on down into Carthage. Wardogs here will make short work of most of their troops, including elephants. Meanwhile, pressure the rebels and gauls up north by taking a few more towns. Gaul towns don't generate much money, so don't spread thin and try to take too many towns. Once you take Carthage, exterminate the population.

4. Take the Carthaginian town south of Carthage. If the Scipio happen to be trying to seige it, wait a few turns and they'll call off the seige for no reason at all. Then move in and take it yourself.

5. Once Carthage is taken start building troops using Carthage's highly teched buildings (triarii, Legionary cav, etc) and be ready to ship them to Greece. Ready a huge force in mainland (bribe armies, as that's cheaper) and get ready to invade Greece.

6. Now it's simply a matter of taking Greece city by city. Try to go for Thessalonia then Corinth, Athens, Sparta, etc. Corinth first gets you the Zeus wonder, helping lower dissent in your newly captured towns. Always enslave or exterminate, and be sure to demolish their temples to reduce cultural difference.

7. At my point in this Julii game the Scipio basically have nothing while the Bruti only have the western Greek coast towns and Crete. I own everything else. This severely cripples the economies of the other two factions and lets your income soar by 240/230 BC when you own just about everything in North Africa and and Greece.

Good luck! Just because the Gauls and Germans are next to you doesn't mean that you have to take them.

And always remember, use and train diplomats! You can bribe over your allie's full stack armies for about 3-5k, which is a great deal when you need reinforcements out in North Africa and Greece.

P.S. Income is over 10-20k per turn by the end if you follow this strat and do it right.

It is 229 BC right now in my game. Greece, Carthage, Macedonia, and Gaul are now gone. But the most important thing is that the rival Romans only own 11 total provinces - they're asking to get trounced once I go for Rome.