Roman: Julii

[jjnip]

Roman Factions: Julii

Pre Marius

Peasants Gov. House O pop
Town Watch Barr 0 pop
Hastati Mil Barr 2000
Principes Leg Barr 6000
Triarii Army Barr 12000

Velites Prac Range 2000
Roman Archers Arch Range 6000

Equites Stab 2000
Cav Aux Cav Stab 6000
Roman cav Cav Stab 6000
Leg Cav Hippodr 12000

Wardogs Stab

Post Marius

Peasants Gov House 0
Town Watch Barr 0
Auxilla Mil Barr 2000
Early Leg Leg Barr 6000
Legionnairy Army Barr 12000
Preatorian Imp Palace 24000
Urban Cohort Urb Barr 24000

Light Aux Prac Rng 2000
Archer Arch Rng 6000

Roman Cav Stables 2000
Cav Aux Cav Stab 6000
Leg Cav Hippodr 12000
Pret Cav Circ Max 24000

The above is a breakdown of the minimum population you need in a city before you can A) make the appropriate governor house B) make the appropriate military training facility. Once you have the population then you can make the governor house then the military building then the unit.

So your strategy and consequently armies are built around your cities populations. You have to keep in mind your best cities by the nature of their high population are your main factories for units, but you do not want to be too handicapped by fighting with your armies to far from your factories. Why? You need to be able to retrain these units once they take casualties in combat. So keep that in mind when you have Principes that require a Leg Barr and consequently a 6000 pop city before you can retrain them. Off in the wilds of Gaul, Dacia, Brittania, Germania you might not find such good pop cities.


Pre Marius lasts from around 279bc to around 240-220 bc, wich is when the reforms take place. So for these first 40-50 years you will be using Pre Marius units. During this time you will probably get about 25-35 provinces. You will probably have 4-5 cities near about 12000+ in pop.

Mostly you use Peasants and Town Watch to keep civil unrest down, they perform garrison duty.
Hastati, Velites and Equites are your main fighting force during this time.

Hastati Mouse/Key Commands for Combat

With Hastati highlighted right click once on the enemy and the Hastati will walk until close enough then throw a pila and then charge to attack.

With Hastati highlighted double right click or right click and hit "r" on the enemy. The Hastati will run to distance needed, stop throw pila, and then charge for attack. Difference is "walk" vs "run".

If you want the Hastati to attack/charge the enemy quickly without throwing pila, then hold "alt" and right double click on the enemy.

Sometimes a good thing to do is highlight a Hastati unit and make it run at a 45 degree angle to the enemy then have them turn around and attack the enemy in the rear and flank. This is easier if they enemy is already pinned in action. The angle is for distance and also to get the Hastati completely unengaged.

If you are being attacked, it is often good to put Hastati on guard mode. Guard mode seems to increase their defense at expense of attacking power. When Hastati are in guard mode and you are on the defensive then it is good time to have Hastati "fire at will". They will throw their pilas as soon as the enemy close.

Velites

Some people like to put Velites out in front and let them be on Skirmish mode, some like to put them out front and use them as "Arrow fodder" and "bait". I like to put them in "2 deep" stretched left to right formation, with fire at will behind my Hastati. If you are concerned about friendly fire you can pull them back and away once the enemy engage.

Sometimes when the battle is almost over and I sense the enemy route coming I position my velites on my left or right in a position to attack the fleeing enemy. Once the enemy start fleeing, highlight the Velites and hold "alt" and double right click on the enemy, to get them to run/attack draw their daggers even if they have javelins left.

Equites

I used Equites alot, they are monsters, very powerful. The trick is too "not" commit them to early. Do not let them get stuck attacking a unit out in the open, especially a unit you did not want them to attack in the first place, that is the beginning that you did something wrong.

Basically the enemy attacks, once the infantry forces are good and engaged, its kind of like 1-2-3 ok I sense I am winning, I see a clear path to my left around the enemy and behind them. I could attack their enemy in the rear with my equites. So you highlight your equites and right click on the ground at a 45 degree angle as necessary to avoid getting into combat at the main line and hit "r" so they run or just double right click. Its kind of out, up and back.

During my Julii Long Campaign pre Marius I usually had a Army consisting of
4-8 Hastati
2-4 Velites
1-3 Equites
1-2 Merc troops
1 General

Marius Reforms happened for me around 241 bc.

Post Marius

After the Marious Reforms recruit Early and Leg and better Cav. Always good to have a few Archers, Mercenary troops to round out the force.
Early Leg Leg Barr 6000
Legionnairy Army Barr 12000

Around 230-220 bc when I was finishing up my long campaign I had almost 2 cities near 24000+ to give you idea.

221 bc for top 5 Cities:

Patavium 23,216
Mediolamium 22,076
Arretium 15,956
Arriminum 15,442
Corduba 15,212

After I had about 35 territories I attacked Rome and continued down Italy and exterminated every city in Italy and used the money to build my armies to finish off Brutti and get my last 15 faction territories. In fact I exterminated every faction after 35, I needed the money badly.

If I had gone slower, put more money in my cities, waiting a few turns before I attacked I could of built probably a better infrastructure, had a fewer higher population cities and eventually gotten the better units, but that would of pushed me back to probably around 200 bc for endgame and of course everyone else would of been stronger.

I had the money so I spend it and built armies, of
15-18 Hastati, Early, and Leg
1 General

By the time I got into position to take Brutti on after taking Rome I noticed they had about 7-8 full stacks. So I was like give me legion and early and its all I recruited. Any Hastati I had left were from pre. So from then on it was 90% early and leg. It would of been more cost effective and prob more effective to have had:

9-12 Hastati, Early, Leg
2-3 Roman and Leg Cav
3-4 Archers
1 G


There is so much I am leaving out I am sure, for example how could you mention a Roman Julii Campaign without mentioning Barbarian Mercenary Cavalry. These guys rock and I found them to be most effective.

I also found Barbarian Mercenary the ones with the shield and spear (not the peltasts), to be most effective at holding their own, especially in guard mode. The Barbarian Mercenary Peltasts are good too, effective javelin throwers and decent attackers.

The Reforms
One thing I wanted to point out is after the Reforms you cannot retrain your Hastati, that facility now trains Auxilla which is a pretty decent defensive unit. So any and all Hastati you have left will now get merged by you to keep them at full strength, because you cannot retrain them.

So where as before you were pumping out Hastati when you needed them with a Mil barracks, now your next decent unit and brunt force of your army requires a Leg Bar and a 6000 pop city and is called a Early Leg unit. You can win the game with Leg Units but you will want to make Army Barracks in your 12000 pop cities so you can make Legionnair Units. Leg Units are a little better than early leg units.

Only thing better than this Inf unit are Praetorian and Urban Cohorts but they require a 24000 pop city, Imp Palance (praet) and Urban Barracks (urban). You can win with just regular Legionnair units.

Cntr-l S
I kept a copy of my saved game, at some point I will probably go back and load it up to make some Praet and Urban and conquer the rest of the world. Just do a cntrl-s during the video with you marching to victory in the senate to save it for later. Load it up and save it under a new name, like finalbattle something.

[lukezter]

"One thing I wanted to point out is after the Reforms you cannot retrain your Hastati, that facility now trains Auxilla which is a pretty decent defensive unit. So any and all Hastati you have left will now get merged by you to keep them at full strength, because you cannot retrain them."

Uhm, how do I merge the units? I have a bunch of Hastati and Principes left in half-strength formations with varying degrees of experience...

Thanx in advance,

Lukezter

[Garvanko]

Highlight the units you want to merge, then Ctrl + M.

[lukezter]

Highlight the units you want to merge, then Ctrl + M.

Thanks...that should make for a easier time organizing my stacks...

[Sand]

Collapsing back in seems a little drastic, youre basically abandoning massive revenues from taxation and farming in the provinces you abandon which make it all the harder to get back in the black. I cant see there being any advantage because you dont even pay maintence on the buildings in those settlements. Cities that might have a negative income on the map might be your best cities for making cash - your army wages get split up between cities depending on the cities population as a fraction of your factions population. Thats why small cities are always positive cash and large ones usually negative on the campaign map. If you abandon the "negative" cities the army bill is still there, it just gets assigned differently now. Youve got what sounds like a basic finance problem, more going out than coming in. Rather than quitting your job, the best thing to do is examine your outgoings and seeing where you can cut back.

Just go through your armies and start disbanding everything except what you *need*, replace garrisons with peasants, make sure your trade boosting generals and retinues are in the cities that do the most trade etc etc. If you need a short term cash boost then go through your cities and demolish everything you dont need, I.E. inferior troop production far from any enemy, health buildings in settlements with 400 people, law and order temples where the PO is 200% anyway. Jack your taxes on every settlement up as high as they can go. Blue faces, all the way.

Then if youre still not raking in the cash, attack. Whilst peace+trade deals a can be used to trade with rivals, the best option is to own the cities so that the trade doesnt stop suddenly. Send your armies to take the trade rich regions. I assume you have Carthage-Sicilly, thats one. So is Corduba-Tingi. Northern Europe isnt exactly trade rich apart from Sambrovia-Londinium so if possible send a stack or two to take the Aegean which is litterally the El Dorado of R:TW.

[lukezter]

Highlight the units you want to merge, then Ctrl + M.

Thanks again for the tip Garvanko. I'm still playing my first game and I am already at 190bc without having wiped out the germans, brittons and spaniards. I was hoping someone could point me to the right forum where I can learn what units are best against the others, how to USE your units and governers effectively etc.

Thanx in advance...

[GreatEmperor]

Well, Cavalry is great against infantry, but when fighting against an enemy that has spearmen you should really be careful using them as it can result in losing lots of them if you dont flank.
When fighting against Elephants you should use archers with fire arrows because that will drop down the morale of the elephants which will make them rout and if that happens they will turn and destroy their own units.
I'm not an expert on this so you should better read Frogbeastegg's and Quietus' guide to Rome: Total War. It's full of good tips.

[Craterus]

My computer can't take fire arrows in a big battle, so when the Carthagian stack with Ele's came along, they were quite destructive. Merc hoplites make short work of them though, so the battle was won and Carthage is almost mine!

[GreatEmperor]

Finally I've completed the Julii Campaign. With only me, Seleucid and the Egyptians left I completed it. The Egyptians had the whole southern provinces with exception of Carthage which was mine. The Seleucid had the east and almost all of Scythia territory. Is it normal for those 2 to expand so much? In other Campaigns they never last long.