Roman: Julii

[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.

[Sunfire]

I played around with the Julii several times by now and can agree, that they have a disadvantage when it comes to ecomomy.

What mzhang23 says sounds really good, my own strategy is only slightly different.

At the first turn take all your troops and your very best General to greece. Build new ones in your home privinces to take Sagesta. Land your army right in front of Thermon and take it. Don't try to get Apollonia, the Brutii are faster than you are. After Thermon take Larissa. From there, capture Corinth and the Zeus Wonder there. Then Athens ans Sparta. Reinforce Larissa because of the Mecedonians which come down from Tessalonica. Next capture Tessalonica and wipe the Macedonias out.

Meanwhile proceed with your war against the Gauls. When you are finished in Greece, thake your troops back, you'll need them. From then on it's simple. Wipe out the Gauls. Garmans and Britons should be at each others throat in no time, ally with one of them, ignoere the other. Go for Spain next, then Britain or the Germans.

Greece will be your primary source of income and you'll deny the Brutii most of Greece. If you have the time and the resources try to get Carthage, but chances are that you can not hold it for long.

In no time you'll get 20k+ denarii per turn. The Plebejans will love you. The senate won't. But you know what to do against that

I think that it's far easier to capture towns in your enemies lands than to concentrate on the Gauls. In my first game I went 'by the book' (Gallia, Hispania, Britannia, Germany) and it was a real pain at the end.

Greece is really nice for money, aside from that Wonder there

[General Carnage]

Once you take Carthage, exterminate the population.

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.

Having sacked Carthage, it will take quite a while before it is possible to build any troops at all, no?