Roman: Julii

[littlelostboy]

Why do you say that?

Going south for Carthage is actually a excellent strategy - slow down the Scipii, gain a rich province and a foothold in Africa. Great for your economy, especially if you get Lilybaem as well.

East? Well, again depends what your overall objectives are.. Dacia, Thrace, eventually Macedon.. where there is tons of denarii, anyway.

Why restrict yourself to poor Gauls and weak Spanish?

I don't really mean to say that ignore North Africa totally. What I've meant is that you should not be so engross with North Africa when your Northen, Eastern and Western borders are covered with full of hungry factions. As I said earlier, as a Juli, you would come into contact with Carthage early in the game. So I suggest taking that island near you, taking Carthage itself and yes Lilybaem too. Basically, YOU will be responsible for destory Carthage because when you take over Spain, you are going to take over one of Carthage regions too.

Therefore, I recommend taking the two Carthagians cities in North Africa and their two small island so that you will have total control over the whole of the Western Midderterrran! Don't worry about Numidia, let the Scipii deal with them. But becareful about the Eyptian, they might want to attack you!

At your service, LLB,

[littlelostboy]

Okay, now Part II: To become the Imperator

Senario: Whole of Europe Conquered, Alantic Ocean Guarding Your Backside, North Sea Guarding Your Head. East boredered with Thracians and the Brutii in Greece. Senate and the other factions in Italy all aiming their legions at you. South is surrounded with the Brutii, who should by now capture most of North Africa except the two Carthagians regions that you are holding.

Okay, so as I said in the earlier post, you have to send most of your army to the east because that is when the Brutii will start pouring their armies in. Send diplomats and assassins so as to bribe some army off and also to kill the generals. Italy should be fine as long as you send your best armies with your best generals to take Rome and the other factions' cities in Italy. But the major battle is in fact, fought at sea.

Yes, the blue blue sea.

Land battles are not everything. If you had build up a huge navy, you are a force to be reckoned with. Cause with your navy, you can blockade the ports of all the other Roman factions and by doing that, you will cripple their economy and with less money, they cannot churn out many troops. So remember, navy is just as important. But don't forget, the other factions will try to do the same and so reserve some pow-wow ships to fight with those ships that are trying to blockade your ports.

Now it is logistics, you have to ship some of your troops to North Africa. I recommend doing that way before the Senate outlaw you so as that when you fight the Scipii, you can strike hard and fast.

Remember the big picture, you want to be Imperator. I always think in that way when playin the game so that all the decisions I make, is to help me become the Imperator (or shall we say, Emperor?)

Now that the pieces are set, the wheel of war will start turning and it will be showdown time. I can assure you that you will conquer the whole of Italy and also North Africa because the Scipii have to fight on two fronts, one with you and another with Eypt. The Brutii are a lot harder to crush since they are secured in Greece. So to crush them, after the war in Italy, send some armies through the land to attack them from the west and another bunch of armies through the seas to attack them from the south. In that way, they have to defend two fronts. It is best to ally with Thrace (if you had not wipe it out yet) so that Thrace MIGHT (i say might because the AI make notouriously poor allies) help you in your war against the Scipii.

That's it, the condensed and way way simplifed version of the Juli!

LLB,

[Haudegen]

This belongs here:

If you play as the Roman: Julii family, send a spy into Gaul territory. Let one of their cities grow to Minor City (level 3). Check if they have a Sacred Circle to Epona, (the horse god). Take the city. Grow to 12000 ASAP.

Wait for a 'your roman people have embraced Epona as their god'. This happens if you leave the temple alone long enough (dont destroy it, repair it if damaged).

You can now build the Awesome temple of Epona and the Pantheon to Epona, giving your legionary cohorts 4 xp (1 silver), or 5 xp (2 silver) as 'raw' recruits!

I did a search and havent found this tip anywhere so here you go. Added to the Julii walkthrough as well. (and on the org)

Just stumbled upon this very interesting feature. I started a game as Julii and took two spanish cities (Osca and Carthago Nova) with lvl 3 Epona temples. I also upgraded them to large city level very soon. Since I´ve been waiting for about 30 turns but nothing happened.

I´d be very interested to know how long you had to wait before the embracement message appeared.

I´m playing v 1.3, maybe there have been some changes?

Bastard Operator

[gardibolt]

I believe that this loophole has been fixed in 1.3. Sorry.

[Haudegen]

But if it was only a bug (= loophole?) why should there have been a special announcement in the game? To me this sounds like a feature which was intended by the designers.

The Readme-File of 1.3 shows no hint about any changes in this point.

However it´s a fact that meanwhile I have played another 20 turns and nothing happened so far ....

[gardibolt]

That's why I said "loophole." I wasn't sure if it was a bug or a feature that the designers reconsidered. Most likely the latter.

[Haudegen]

I´m very glad to tell you that I found a solution for the problem mentioned above!

After some quick testing with the 1.0 and 1.2 versions I found out that the larger Epona can be built by the Julii, just as sunsmountain said. Then I took a closer look at the Data/export_descr_buildings.txt file. In the earlier versions of the file (1.0 and 1.2) there were two lines with this content:

temple_of_horse_awesome_temple requires factions { roman, }

and few lines lower:

temple_of_horse_pantheon requires factions { roman, }

Now guess what was missing in the file of version 1.3! The "requires factions { roman, } " was deleted here. I simply put it back where it belonged and everything was fine! Just upgrade the settlement to the "large city"-level and you can upgrade the temple.

By the way: Since the faction requirement doesn´t seem to be specific for the Julii, I see no reason, why the Scipii, Brutii or even the senate shouldn´t be able to do the same.


Bastard Operator (very satisfied with himself )

[TimStarboy]

Being a fan of MTW AND Roman history I couldn't wait to get RTW. But my very first attempt for Julii made me give up the game for half a year. Cos like on 15th turn I took Carthage. And it was sooo disappointing (easy!!! it should never had happened so easy!!!) that I gave up the game for half a year.

Now I am back and I decided to play as a "loyal" "history-based" player. Alas I haven' t read the guides so my style was very different from the ones mentioned here.

1. I strictly went to Gaul as I was supposed to - not blocking other Romans, so I expect a fun ending.
2. No bribes policy.
3. All senate missions are fullfilled
4. No extermiantion or enslavement.
5. Cities growth is my priority so low tax and farming. (I didn't know of maximum size of the city problem - well I'll have to deal with it)
6. And vs Gauls I found very useful to use velites and archers and pilums of my hastati. I mean... it really works. Gauls never get a chance to properly engage - I beat them from the distance and who cares about heavy infantry size 12 men?


So. here are several questions:
1. Since missle troops are so important for me, I enjoy a Gaulish temple in of my cities in charge of production of velites and archers cos I get a bonus for all missile troops produced there. Do you think it is worthy of it?
2. I split the production of units - say in one city I develop legionary infantry, in another missile, and the third is producing cavalary. Actually it comes from MTW time when I place the apporiate baracks in the provinces that game bonuses to this or that unit produced in it) Do you think it is a nice idea?
3. I never storm cities, always wait out. Am I wasting time? Or am I safing lives which will be probably lost during the storm?
3. Brutii and Scipii factions are doing pretty well. Will I be able to compete with them if they have rich Greece and Africa and me only poor North-Western Europe?
4. Is there a chance that Brutii or Scipii will rebel against the Senate ealier than me? Will I be able to fight together with Senate against them? What happens after Senate and I get rid of them?

[Haudegen]

Welcome TimStarboy,

I am a fan of upgrading my settlements to the utmost as well, I think it´s called the "Civilization-Style". However I don´t agree about completing all senate missions. For the reasons see below.

Your questions:

1. In general that´s no problem. The gallic temples provide very little public order compared to the later pantheons, you can build at huge city level, but since gaul is very close to your capital, public order shouldn´t be a big problem at all. Especially because you as a Roman can boost public order immensely by holding games and/or races.

2. That is a good idea to save money in the beginning. To me it is important however that the city, which is closest to the enemy has the facilitities to retrain my battle forces. But in most cases, the gauls have built those barracks before you conquered the settlement.

3a. It is a matter of taste, I think. If you like to keep the game slow, you can do so. And you´re probably saving the lifes of some of your soldiers. However in my experience the besieged settlement will sally out in most cases, so you usuallly don´t get the city without a fight. But this kind of fight is generally easier than storming a settlement, especially if you have a bunch of archers in front of the city gate.

3b. Of course you can compete with the other Romans. If it comes to a civil war, make sure you have some high quality armies ready in Italy and then give them hell! Their forces are usually widespread over Africa and in the east. Beat their armies one by one.

Although they have richer provinces than you have, you should be able to afford the troops necessary to win.

4. My favorite question I have written down my ideas about this in a thread in the Entrance Hall, named "Being the underdog in a Roman civil war". As you will see there, completing all senate missions can be quite counterproductive. To your question what to do with the senate after you´ve wiped out the outlawed faction: You must take the City of Rome to win the game. However if you´re lucky then the outlawed faction will have done the dirty work of killing the senate for you. As long as the outlawed faction doesn´t control 50 provinces, this is nothing you could worry about.

Bastard Operator

[TimStarboy]

Operator, thank you for the quick reply.

Nice to see somebody having similar approach.

I don't know for sure but I feel that fighting against strong Roman faction swill be more fun than crushing Greeks and Carthage.

Do you think Scipii will get Egypt? Because that is the only option I am considering after conquest of Gauls. I've heard that fighting vs Egypt will be fun cos they come in sheer numbers and hot troops. In my game Britain conquered 90% of Germania, but we are allies so I don't wanna attack them.

I also hope that the more high-tech troops I will get in my Italian core cities will beat bigger but more backward armies of other Roman factions. They will also have pilums... Ouch... this is a terrible weapon!

As for building of military I usually destroy the barracks previously build by Gaulls after the border is moved to the next town. I am saving on upkeep but allowing lower taxes for my people.

Well if this magic 24k squallor problem is as hard as they paint I will probably have to conquer a couple of cites and re-settle my peasants from Core to the Frontier (which is cool)

[Haudegen]

I´m always happy to help!

I agree that the Roman civil war is a most interesting challenge, since the barbarians aren´t a real threat after the gauls are crushed.

I´m not so sure if the (AI-controlled) Scipii will reach Egypt. As far as I have seen, they have become quite pathetic since the 1.3 patch. In my 1.3-games they never made it farther than Sicily. However the Brutii are great competitors, they never fail to conquer greece and after that there is nothing that could stop them from taking eastern and central Europe (unless you choose to do so ) Fighting other Romans on the battlefield is tougher than most enemies, but generally in RTW the human player has always a very good chance to beat an equivalent AI-controlled army. Striking the enemy flanks with massive cavalry has never failed against the computer

Squalor: I´ve never seen this as such a big problem. Most factions have temples that increase population growth. I don´t think it´s annoying if a city reaches 30 or 40 thousand people. No other culture has such good means to keep public order as the Romans have (games & races).

Lower taxes: This is a bit double edged. They help population growth and public order, but they make bad governors. A governor in a city with low taxes tends to develop negative administration traits. A governor who takes highest taxes will get positive skills. (See Aesculapius´"On the feeding and breeding of governors and generals" in the guides section).

Bastard Operator

[pezhetairoi]

I feel it about right to boast about the epic Roman battles I have fought here. :)

I was playing as the Scipii just the other day, and I decided to initiate the Roman civil war in Greece by attacking the Brutii. I must have been sleepy or something, because I used my 18-unit army to attack a Brutii fullstack that had another 2 fullstacks in the neighbouring squares. It was quite a frantic battle against 60 units, but thankfully the reinforcements are all coming from the same direction as the defending force so I didn't have to split my forces.

Anyway. I accomplish a defeat in detail for the defending army, while the reinforcing 40 units stroll their way to me. This takes place in a valley, where there is no terrain feature that either side can really take advantage of. Anyhow, I was mildly alarmed to realise that the 40 units had formed up into a very strong double line. I figured I would lose maybe 2, 3 units before they managed to break, because by now all my troops were either tired or very tired, while the enemy was warmed up or fresh, and coming at me all at once (so no Napoleonic defeat of one wing before the other). Imagine my complete surprise when I ordered a general charge at the enemy line and all of them turned white almost instantaneously! My cavalry had a field day since most of the enemy was infantry.

I suspect my 3 units of flaming archers had something to do with it.

I fought 3 of these triple-full-stack battles in that civil war, as well as one with Carthage at the same time, in which I lost my entire left-wing cavalry before winning.

[GreatEmperor]

Wow, that's luck! Or maybe you're just a great general :)
One of my cities I captured with Julii (I believe it was Antioch) was attacked by a full stack Egyptian army. I nicely positioned 5 Legionary and 3 Praetorian Cohorts behind the pieces of wall that were likely to be attacked. I positioned Auxilia Archers with flaming arrows behind a Praetorian Cohort in front of the gate. Then I grouped my infantry and I saw I could put them at Fire At Will.
When the Egyptians broke through my walls and gate, 6 units already routed because of great unit loss of the arrows.
Then they began to charge the wall and I put my Infantry at Fire at Will.
Before they even reached me, 9 other units routed.
Than I just killed of the General and the 3 other units.

Didn't now war could be that easy :P

[Monarch]

"1) Hastati(80)(440d/170d) - will be the initial backbone of the army.(Only option against the Gauls)."

Question when you say '80'. How many hastati do you have to train to get 80 men? Maybe that wasnt very well put, I mean when you train a unit correct me if im wrong but you dont train x number of men you train a unit of them, how many men go into one unit?

[YAKOBU]

Hi Sovereign

There are 4 settings for the size of your units in the game that you can alter in the options menu before the game starts (It may be advanced options). Large size will give you Hastatii at 80 men per unit I believe. If you are still on default I believe it gives you 40 men per unit.

Hope this helps.

[Monarch]

Oh okay thanks alot for that information :D

Large unit size it is then :)

[Monarch]

Hey,

I have been pretty bored recently in waiting for Christmas so I can finally start playing (well I've actually played the prologue to check it all worked, but ya know...) so I read some of you strategys and was wondering what you thought of this one.

As the Julii I was thinking of sacking Patavium and Segesta then fortify the alps border, pretty much going on the defencive against the Gauls. Then I would quickly swing east and attack through Illyria, then pretty much according the the map I can start attacking the greeks, and more importantly their prosperous rich cities. This would obviously have to be executed quickly in order to beat the Brutii into Greece.

My main worry about it is overstrecthing. If the Gauls did try something (I would be at war since i would have taken a couple of their towns) then the bulk of my armies would be in Greece, they come up against my amazing peasants and town watch, slaughter them and i'm out the game. Also Dacia would be close. So any ideas of how to strengthen this strategy? I suppose I could try some sort of settlement with gauls and go by boat to greece (Patavium really is the key to Greece imo) but thatd mean building up a navy which adds to costs.

If I got reasonably lucky and Gauls were preoccupied with Germans and Brits do you think i would beat the Brutii into Greece? Could it work? How could this strategy be improved? I know this strategy will bring me up against greeks (obviously), possibly Dacians but what other tribes are around there? Anyone powerful?

Basically I want to be Julii, god knows why I just do, but I want the Greek cities without building up a navy, best plan i could think up.

[gardibolt]

That plan works pretty well, especially if you build forts in the passes of the Alps leading to Gaul and Iuvavum. With the cash in hand from Greece, the Gauls should be easy prey, and the Brutii should be weak indeed when the civil war comes.

The tricky part is that if it's your first game, the Macedonian phalanxes can be much tougher than the barbarians. Having lots of missile weapons can certainly help that (don't forget to set your Hastati on Fire at Will---they're dead meat otherwise).

Don't forget to send out diplomats in every direction. If you don't patch the game, you can send a diplomat to the Carthage area, bribe the Scipii army that's threatening it and use them to seize Carthage yourself without building any significant navy at all. That will only work on 1.0, though, since later patches make bribery practically impossible and certainly not cost-effective. I'd recommend playing through your first game that way. It adds a level of hilarity lost in later patches.

[Monarch]

Okay thanks alot, il be playing on easy and such as its my first so hopefully itl be okay. I do not plan to patch, at least at first and only if I myself are noticing some clear 'what the hell is that AI doing' moments.

[saxon_maik]

The latest patch has made playing as the Julii interesting again. Brutii and Scipii expand aggressively, making the civil war a worthy challenge.

Several observations (playing on H/H):

1) In the past the Dacians weren't much of a threat or even challenge. Not so this time: Dacia took Aquincum and Segestica very quickly. After wresting Patavium from the Gauls I sent an army to take Luvavum from the rebels. Dacia already besieged the town but couldn't take it because of the strong rebel garrison. I waited for over ten turns in which the Dacians repeatedly attacked, failed, and then immediately besieged with reinforcements. I finally caught a break and was able to lay siege to the city and take it.

Dacia must have really wanted the place because on the next turn they attacked me and then also sent an army towards Patavium. I wasn't prepared for this war and it delayed my drive into Gaul territory. Dacia paid the ultimate price and I ended up with their not-so-great provinces without ports.

2) The Gauls are still relatively easy to defeat, except for taking the last province in Spain. The Spanish still tend to declare war on the Julii with the amusing demand of 160 denari or we will attack. My mistake was to not deal with them decisively enough and their navy turned into quite the pain for my economy. How many single ship fleets can one track when they keep blockading my ports? They even blocked Kydonia and Rhodes - quite annoying because they allied with the Scipii during the civil war.

3)The Scipii took all of North Africa, except for the Egyptian provinces. Whenever I played ANY Roman faction and took Cyrene and/or Siwa, the Egyptians always went to war with me. Not so with the Scipii - they remained neutral throughout the entire cicil war so far (20+ years). That allowed the Scipii to focus their war efforts on me. Bummer!

4) What's up with the Germans? The Britains still mopped the floor with them rather quickly. Ultimately the Britains attacked my formerly Dacian provinces and not my Gaul possessions. Weird. Why do the Brits keep after Germany when their campaign goal is the elimination of Gaul? Now I feel I should have attacked Germany myself early on, after taking out Dacia - if nothing else to contain British expansion. The prospect of even more poor and portless provinces was not appealing, though. And fighting the Germans is no fun either.

5) Civil War: The other Roman factions now use more of their temple line, not just Saturn or Hermes only.

6) Very early on the Senate gave me a seemingly never-ending string of missions to help the Brutii by blockading Greek ports. I never saw such persistence before. This was annoying because I effectively got no rewards for taking on the Gauls. Grrr.

Overall much more fun than before the 1.3 patch messed things up.

[Monarch]

I am currently doing a campaign with the Julii. My plan was to sack north 'modern italy' so Patavium and Segesta before switching to sweep East and go for Greece and Macedonia.

However Macedonia had a few good armies floating around, no thanks! So instead I noticed Dacia looking pretty vulnerable and declared war. I sacked all their towns and so they are currently out the game.

I have also sacked quite a few rebel cities and even bribed a couple off the Gauls using my best diplomat to keep the price low. I did have a treaty with Germania but they betrayed me which scrapped all my plans to go into Scythia and then Spain. I am now manouvering armies up towards the Germans and Gauls. First of all I plan to take out Germania's ally, the Gauls, so they do not attack me as I attack Germany and then I plan to take out the Germans themselves. The rerasopn for Gauls first if they only have 3/4 terrortories left.

Elseware I decided I will probably not fight in Africa throughout the game, Julii are better at fighting on mainland europe imo. As a result I have trade agreements with most the Africans and an alliance with the Seluecids. I did have more alliances but the decision to take a Scythian town cost me Macedonia's loyalty and the Germans betrayed me for no reason.

I am liking the mercenaries, I was once heavily outnumbered by a Dacian army but I swelled my ranks with mercenaries and managed to win the battle.

[Mamba]

I have played this faction 4 times now, on increasing difficulty, peaking with VH/VH.

Several things I have not seen mentioned with regards to the VH/VH campaign.

1) Keep spies in your Italian cities. Always. Or your Roman 'friends' will incite rebellion and you will lose them.

2) It would seem that pretty much all factions have abandoned their individual goals and decided to attack you. By around turn 20, all coastal cities (Carthage, Greece, Macedon, Gaul, Britain, Egypt, etc.) had declared war on me. It quickly became impossible to field navies and I suffered because of it. So, basically, you can try to keep up with the AI (impossible) or take a pretty much strictly land route until you make it to Britannia and use the Northern sea. Once there you can begin leapfrogging.

3) It will be EXTREMELY hard to blitz Lilybaeum/Carthage before the Scipii can. Carthage sucks THAT bad. And forget about the Brutii. They tear Greece up like there's nothing else, since Greece is busy harassing your navy. The only conceivable way to win the Civil War without mucho frustration is to KEEP EXPANDING. By the Civil War, Corsuca will likely be your only island (I managed to take Palma, too).

4) Prepare for war on many fronts and try not to overextend yourself. By around turn 15 *all* of the barbarian tribes (Gaul, Britain, Germany, Dacia) were clamoring for my head. I was forced to maintain a meticulous balance of offense and defense with my limited funds.

5) Use Diplomats only to bribe enemy diplomats. From my recent experience I lost about 5000 good men within a few turns to diplomat bribes. Get them before they get you.

[Pretorian Guard]

Hello everybody. first of all I've been reading this forum for over a year and I feel I pretty know the people here. I've played the game for 2 months with several campaings but I have some questions with the Julii.
I've created a kind of western empire with Britain, Gaul and Spain under my command but the other roman factions are growing too powerful and I'm trying to slow them down using lots of spies and assessins. but i can't make the cities revolt!!! Loyalty drops down to 0 and they still don't revolt!! I cannot yet openly fight the other roman faction and the game is getting really long!! I'm like in 170bc or something. The brutii are fihgting against the Scythians and getting into their lands!!! the city of Tanais was just conquered and a sent a spy in... loyalty dropped to 0 but they don't revolt!!There are only 2 units in the city. Somebody suffered the same???btwI did manage to take Corinth out of the brutti with a sharp amphibious attack the moment the city turned rebel full of peasants.

[gardibolt]

The AI cheats on rebellions. Simple as that.

[Ludens]

The AI cheats on rebellions. Simple as that.

But it is possible to make a city tebel by a combination of spies and sabotage to happyness buildings. However, the relation public order - rebellions for A.I. held cities still eludes me.

In your case: you can provoke a civil war by failed assassination attempts or by going on a massive conquering spree. Either one should make the senate afraid enough to declare you outlaw. If you have prepared well, you should have two or more large armies ready to take over Italy. Strike quickly at the A.I.'s core cities (Italy, Sicily, sometimes Carthage and Greece) and victory will be yours.

[Pontifex Rex]

Fifteen years into a new Julii campaign and I have all of northern Italy, Noricum, Illyria, Dalmatia, Trans Alpine Gaul, Corinth, Sparta and Crete for some 12 provinces. The 1st Legion is on Crete preparing to go for Rhodes, the 4th is forming in and around Corinth and Sparta, the 3rd is split into two parts fighting rebels in Illryia, Dalmatia and Noricum ( a just completed pacification campaign) and the 2nd has just reppelled the second major attack (another can be seen forming in Narbonesis) by very large Gaulish armies in the mountains of Trans Alpine Gaul.

My Brutii allies have taken Appolonia, Thermon and Thessalonka while the Scipii are still trying to drive the Carthaginians from Sicily. The Roman navies are sweeping the seas around Greece of Macedonian and Greek shipping and both seem doomed for pages of history. No movement destected yet from the Germans or Britons but Spain has gone to war with Carthage and has taken Palma and Corduba (perhaps more, spies are en route).

I do not normally directly "interfere" with other factions expansion but I do not mind sending a few coins to their opponents to keep the fight interesting (spies and assasins on occasion as well,...this is Rome after all). I plan on grabbing all the *Wonders* and a few more of the best coastal provinces for the 'Family' and any from a foreign power that declare war on me. With some luck the empire will be mine by 225 BC.

[Avicenna]

I've finish the campaign with many years spared. Is there a way I can continue the campaign because the Brutii still exists.

there should be the option of continunig after you complete it..

[rotorgun]

there should be the option of continunig after you complete it..

Even if you elect not to continue the campaign when the victory cutscene plays, you could continue as long as you haven't deleted the autosave gamefile for the current campaign.

I hope this was helpful to Lestat.

Rotor

[Pontifex Rex]

I've seem noticed some major improvements in the game with the 1.5 patch. Perhaps it is my imagination but the AI seems to actually make a few more intelligent decisions in some tactical decisions.

It is now 25 years into the campaign and the Julii have reduced the Gauls to Alesia and Numantia but their attacks seemed more corrdinated than with 1.3. The Gauls came at me with nearly full hosts of 20 units and southern Gaul is now littered with at least 5 "major battle" sites. Roman casualties were somewhat heavier than previously seen due to the 2nd Legion having to fight two or more large fights per turn plus the seige battles. The 6th Legion, sent as reinforcements to Gaul was swung south into Spain after the abrupt and surprising declaration of war. It has just concluded a series of 3 major battle at or near Osca in which the city was captured and the local Spanish armies routed. In both legion's cases they need a period to rest, refit and reorganize before pushing on to Alesia and further into Spain. A new legion, the 8th, is forming in central Gaul and it will be tasked with security of the newly conquered provinces.

Noricum, northern Italy, Dalmatia and Illyria are still quiet after the 3rd Legion's pacification program some ten years past but I noticed that, in some cases, the rebel bands were larger than previously seen. Down in Greece, Sparta, Corinth and Athens have been "Romanized" and are now becoming economic powerhouses of the southern empire as well as providing ship building facilities for the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean squadrons. naval losses were somewhat high as the Greek and Macedon navies were both large and experienced.

On the other side of Aegean, the 1st and 4th Legions have just finished a lightening campaign that destroyed the "Greek Cities" and captured the island of Rhodes as well as the 4 most western provinces in Asia Minor. Both legions are refittiing while the 5th Legion forms to join them for the next campaign against Pontus.

In general v1.5 is much more enjoyable than the previous versions and I have noticed the AI combining fleets into larger stacks for factions and rebels (pirates). Larger stacks seem to be the order of day for armies as well and the smaller forces only seem to make an appearance once the faction involved has been "broken" economically and demographically. This game is still enjoyable even after two years.

Cheers.

[Garvanko]

Im enjoying my Julii campaign so far.

Conquered all of Gaul and am pounding my former Allies Germania. It helps that the Brutii have expanded as fast up north as well - should be an interesting end game with them in a couple of decades. My next major targets are taking the whole of Britain and Spain. I have two armies training in Narbo/Alesia and Londinim.

Ive got spies everywhere. Im making 57k per turn. Katank!