Roman: Brutii

[frogbeastegg]

Guide

[Doug-Thompson]

The Brutii Blitz

Your goal is to conquer Greece. Therefore, your enemies are the Greek cities and Macedon.

Take everything that isn't nailed down or can be pryed loose and attack Apollonia immediately. This definitely includes your spy, your diplomat and your very best general. The rebel town is just across the straits and the Senate should give you the town as a mission objective anyway.

You will have to leave some garrison troops in Italy, of course, but keep it to a minimum. None of the other Roman factions want to start a civil war yet.

Take the Greek city of Thermon just south and east of Apollonia. When you can, take troops and build a fort at the mountain pass just north and east of Apollonia. The correct fort site will be one-turn's march for a town guard unit. Once it's built, a couple of town guards will be enough to convince the Macedonians not to break through -- if you keep them busy elsewhere.

At some point early in the game, the Senate will give you a mission to take a Carthaginian town in Sicily. Take the mission and capture the town with new troops recruited in Italy, but then massacre the inhabitants and destroy every building you can. Then put your troops back on the boats and sail them back to the real war in Greece.

I don't recommend barbarity as a rule, but this is a case of necessity. The last thing you want to do this early in the game is tie down a large garrison in a town that's in the Scipii zone of control and is just going to get you into a running fight with the Carthiginians and their navy. Do the job and get out. Furthermore, the complete looting of the town will make you very rich in early game terms. This is a very important factor. It gives you a big head start and is almost necessary to successfully fight the relatively powerful Greeks and Macedonians.

Now that the "Sicilian expedition" is over and the troops are in Greece, drive on the Macedonian town of Larissa. You have now split the Macedonians into Athens and Corinth in the south and Thessalonica in the north. Keep attacking the Macedonian armies, beating them in detail and inflicting losses while rebuilding your units every turn in Larissa.

In army jargon, you are using "interior lines" to inflict a "favorable rate of attrition" on the Macedonians by beating their little armies with your one big, army led by your best general. Also, keep pouring garrison troops out of little Apollonia. You'll need them.

When the Macedonians are weak enough, take Corinth and Athens from them. Taking Corinth will give you the Zeus wonder in Greece and some nice prestige.

Beware the Greeks who are left in Sparta. Pound them down with attrition tactics, rebuilding in Corinth and preventing revolts in Corinth and Athens with all those garrison troops from Apollonia. Take Sparta.

Now you're ready for the endgame in Greece. Force the Macedonians out of the north end of the Larissa valley. You may want to build a fort at the north end to hem the Macedonians in Thessalonica before your final push. When you're ready, take Thessalonica and then the town north of there. Any Macedonians who are left will be some fragment at an overseas colony somewhere.

Congratulations; Greece is rich, populous and the source of endless wealth and good troops. Build highways and a navy, and everything else. Build lots of "happy buildings" too. Collesiums give you the option of yearly, monthly or daily games. Frequent games are very expensive but can save you from a revolt. Don't stop attacking, though. There are still more rich provinces to be had.

I like to finish wars that I start, so I always go for the Greek provinces just across the Aegean Sea on the west coast of Asia Minor. There are no less than three wonders there (including the one at Rhodes). Capturing them will greatly enhance your prestige.

Once again, be sure to take a diplomat. Bribery is very helpful. Captains in particular are cheap to bribe. The Greeks are on their last legs by now, allowing you to pick up some family members with their small remnant armies that are cheap to bribe.

Where you go from there is up to you.

[Lonewarrior]

hmmm yes its all so clear now

[Doug-Thompson]

Thanks, Lonewarrior.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

DONT OVEREXTEND YOURSELF BECAUSE OF THE SENATE
I made that mistake (attack Carthage blah blah blah) and I went from a 30000 tresury to the negatives.

[Tzar Kaloyan]

There is an alternative path on Lilybaeum. This is what I did:

1) When the Senate gives you the mission, act quickly -- otherwise Scipii will get there first.

2) Take the city -- fairly easy battle if you brought your Greek army (which is what I did).

3) Enslave the population -- gives you ~2,200 people to distribute to your 3 other settlements as well as ~400 dinarii. This is MUCH better than killing the population over the long term -- i.e. the added people will help your cities reach the next level faster and your tax income will be larger EVERY turn from now on.

4) Sell ALL the sellable building in Lilybaeum and abandon the city. This gave me another ~900 dinarii.

5) When (and if) the Senate gives you the mission to blokade Carthage, go do that (defeat the closest two fleets, but stay away from their large fleet to the west -- it is 3.5 times larger than yours!)

6) On the way back, stop at Lilybaeum and repeat steps 2-4. This gave me another ~1,100 people and ~900 dinarii, plus I achieved a Heroic victory against the storms of peasants (very cool for your general and unit experience).

Overall, the little Sicilian adventure was a nice and very profitable diversion!

Playing on vhard/vhard.

[scipio the even younger]

The Brutii Blitz

Your goal is to conquer Greece. Therefore, your enemies are the Greek cities and Macedon.

Take everything that isn't nailed down or can be pryed loose and attack Apollonia immediately. This definitely includes your spy, your diplomat and your very best general. The rebel town is just across the straits and the Senate should give you the town as a mission objective anyway.

You will have to leave some garrison troops in Italy, of course, but keep it to a minimum. None of the other Roman factions want to start a civil war yet.

Take the Greek city of Thermon just south and east of Apollonia. When you can, take troops and build a fort at the mountain pass just north and east of Apollonia. The correct fort site will be one-turn's march for a town guard unit. Once it's built, a couple of town guards will be enough to convince the Macedonians not to break through -- if you keep them busy elsewhere.

At some point early in the game, the Senate will give you a mission to take a Carthaginian town in Sicily. Take the mission and capture the town with new troops recruited in Italy, but then massacre the inhabitants and destroy every building you can. Then put your troops back on the boats and sail them back to the real war in Greece.

I don't recommend barbarity as a rule, but this is a case of necessity. The last thing you want to do this early in the game is tie down a large garrison in a town that's in the Scipii zone of control and is just going to get you into a running fight with the Carthiginians and their navy. Do the job and get out. Furthermore, the complete looting of the town will make you very rich in early game terms. This is a very important factor. It gives you a big head start and is almost necessary to successfully fight the relatively powerful Greeks and Macedonians.

Now that the "Sicilian expedition" is over and the troops are in Greece, drive on the Macedonian town of Larissa. You have now split the Macedonians into Athens and Corinth in the south and Thessalonica in the north. Keep attacking the Macedonian armies, beating them in detail and inflicting losses while rebuilding your units every turn in Larissa.

In army jargon, you are using "interior lines" to inflict a "favorable rate of attrition" on the Macedonians by beating their little armies with your one big, army led by your best general. Also, keep pouring garrison troops out of little Apollonia. You'll need them.

When the Macedonians are weak enough, take Corinth and Athens from them. Taking Corinth will give you the Zeus wonder in Greece and some nice prestige.

Beware the Greeks who are left in Sparta. Pound them down with attrition tactics, rebuilding in Corinth and preventing revolts in Corinth and Athens with all those garrison troops from Apollonia. Take Sparta.

Now you're ready for the endgame in Greece. Force the Macedonians out of the north end of the Larissa valley. You may want to build a fort at the north end to hem the Macedonians in Thessalonica before your final push. When you're ready, take Thessalonica and then the town north of there. Any Macedonians who are left will be some fragment at an overseas colony somewhere.

Congratulations; Greece is rich, populous and the source of endless wealth and good troops. Build highways and a navy, and everything else. Build lots of "happy buildings" too. Collesiums give you the option of yearly, monthly or daily games. Frequent games are very expensive but can save you from a revolt. Don't stop attacking, though. There are still more rich provinces to be had.

I like to finish wars that I start, so I always go for the Greek provinces just across the Aegean Sea on the west coast of Asia Minor. There are no less than three wonders there (including the one at Rhodes). Capturing them will greatly enhance your prestige.

Once again, be sure to take a diplomat. Bribery is very helpful. Captains in particular are cheap to bribe. The Greeks are on their last legs by now, allowing you to pick up some family members with their small remnant armies that are cheap to bribe.

Where you go from there is up to you.

thanks but i find it eaiser to go in all guns blazing.
the wise go to war,
but dohtarts don't. [rory llewelyn]

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Well, the House of Brutii, is my first long campaign (I've played mostly short ones). I started with large unit settings medium/medium difficulty, v1.2. Here's how I played. Firstly, of course, as you mentioned I've taken all my best troops from Italy and landed in Greece taking Appolonia. I must say I used population movement strategy with peasants quite effectively. Soon I was at war with Greek Cities and later Macedon. I thinks this is the hardest stage of Brutii campaign and once these 2 nations are eliminated Brutii is the easiest faction and my favourite as romans in RTW IMO. So I've taken Thermon, later cut Macedons in 2 pieces by taking Larrisa - I had quite tough battles with Macedon (those buggers have way too much good cavalry!) Started building up my navy. When all of the Greece was mine, it was really easy. Now I have 25 provinces (including Thrace as my protectorate) in 240 bc, I'm bathing in money 150k. The real fun with civil war will soon begin... My army: hastati later princepes and triari as a backbone (at least 60 % of army), 4 equites (or 2 equites + 2cav aux) 2 war dogs (they're funny :)), some artillery if available and a powerful navy is all you need as Brutii to conquer the known world...
Good luck to you all!

[Coccum_Pugnus]

This was the first faction I finished. It was all pretty much a blur from the begining, I have to say that I love highways, I found them very useful for my Unreleting blitz. strategy., I didn't stop untill I got Egypt in my grasp. This faction in my opinion is the easiest one to play, there 'natuarl' expanison is east and so they never run out of land to conquer where as the other two do. Also they become rich quick, and I put all that mony to good use bribing the other factions armies. All in all I beat the game as this faction in 202 BC.

[orcorama]

i agree that brutii is easy after you wipe macedon off the map.
also when the senate asked me to take lilybium i did and then went on to get carthage and thapsus.
my aproach to macedon was i took appoliana and salona and the illyria province.
meanwhile i had my main army led by my uber 8-10 star general to take thermon then i went to sparta but i was defeated there so i left my army in a boat right next to it and signed a ceasfire with greek cities.
also i had arranged sold trade rights/allience/map info/mutural military access with macedon. you are thinking "what is he doing???" this let me concentrate on sparta and then build up a massive army there to swarm corinth and athens. i took sparta then i built an archery range for balistas. since macedon betrayed me i stormed corinth(which i was going to do anyway) and moved right up to athens. the next turn i took athens and voiala(sp) i had macedon contained to the upper section of greece. i quickly took larissa and after a few more turns took thessilonica and the next turn the last macedon city above it eliminating macedon as a faction.

now it is 256 BC :
i have about 70k and make money every turn. i have taken the two gaulish provinces in northern italia and massila i am sieging lugdunum. i have also taken citra from carthage. i havetrade right with just about everyone.
the julii are sitting outside caralis not sieging or anything just sitting there. they have taken narbo whatever and segesta.
the scipii have syracuse and thats it. they do have a 2/3 stack moving towards lecis magna but my diplomat will get them.
i got mapinfo from numidia and they have every thing else in africa except fot egypt starting lands.

I have taken all of numidia except for tingi spain got that first. I have taken two of the tracian cities and crete and rhodes. i own gaul except for narbo martils up to lemonum and lugdunum.
numidia has one town. gaul has one town. thrace has one town. greek cities has one town i believe. i cant see all of parthia. im ready to finish of thrace and then get dacia. after that ill seriously attack seleulcid and egypt from both directions.
i have about 30 provinces and its looking very good. scipii and julli are still extremely weak thanks to my bribing.
edit after more progress
now i think ill take the rest of gaul up to britannia and either attakc or just sign a treaty.
will update later

[Maltz]

In my current Brutii campaign (VHard/VHard) I am about 15 years into the game, and I have 20 provinces & 150k in the bank. It is probably the easiest fraction I have ever played. Here is what I did:

[Stage 1]: City 2 -> 4

Occupy the rebel town (Senate mission) in turn 1, then occupy the rebel town just north of it. Ship all available armies, diplomat and spy east to the Balkan pennisula. Turn one of the starting cities into a troop producing base.

Note: Senate asked me to blockade the Carthagians on Sicily; I ignored.

[Stage 2]: City 4 -> 7

Arrange an alliance with the Macedonian, attack and enslave all Greek (not Macedon) settlements there incl. Athen. Turn Sparta into a Principe mass-production base for its already-built 2nd level barrack, and sign a ceasefire with the Greek. Move your capital to Athen for its already-built Academy. (Good for young family members)

Note: Senate asked me to blockade the Greeks on Sicily; I ignored.

[Stage 3]: City 7 -> 11

Break the alliance and attack Macedon with everything. Exterminate every town from this point (unless its population is < 1000) and destroy Macedon as soon as possible. Quickly generate a lot of troops from the Macedonian cities. There will be a plague in the old Macedonian capital at about 250BC (which I haven't encountered), so don't leave family member(s) there.

[Stage 4]: City 11 -> 14

Field a 2nd army to occupy the Crete Island. Hire as many Crete archer mercenaries you can because they are the best archers you will have for dozens of years. Then, land 2 armies simultaniously to the Greek cities on the east side & Rhode to avoid all the struggle with the might Greek navy. Declare war to the Greeks again and occupy both cities in one turn. Cease fire (and ally) with the Greeks again.

[Stage 5]: City 14 -> 20 (I am at this stage now)

In the meantime, field a 3rd army to the northeast for Thracians & then Scy*ians (sorry can't spell). Field a 4th army, which also heads north but turns west to handle Dacian. Field the 5th army to expand towards Sicily. In my game the impotent Roman Scipii hasn't expanded any further in Sicily.

Continue the eastern expansion with army no.1 & 2. Declare war to the Selucid Emprie and Pontus and keep going east while picking up rebel colonies. Ally with the Egyptians and Numadians to stay out of naval threat.

Hope this helps.

[Imperator]

When I played with the Brutii I found that my biggest problem was the Macadonians. The Greeks only own about 2 cities in Greece, and they never seem to take a serious offensive against you. But the macadonians get all the cities north of Athens. Sometimes the Greeks still have Thermon, but that city is never very well defended. The Macadonians are supposed to be like the Greeks in their fighting style, phalanxes galore, but they aren't. With me, (I'm playing on hard/hard) they kept making light lancers, which are highly mediocre cavalry. They had a little infantry, but I always found myself staring at 5 or 6 regiments of those light cavalry, but those things will just get slaughtered by an organized regiment of precipes, or even hastati sometimes. () So my campaign was long and difficult, but not all that hard once I got how to beat them. Let them throw their light cavalry at you, once they are engaged with your infantry, quickly send your equites to charge (send 2 regiments to charge the same target at a time, that scares them out of their minds.) all you have to do is get their cavalry regiments to rout one by one, and since they almost always seem to throw their general in that charge, try to kill him too. But once all their cavalry is gone, it is easy to get their infantry to rout. then mop up the fleeing infantry with your exhausted cavalry. Easy. After you finish off Macedon and Greece, the Dacians might or might not attack you. If they do, throw everything you have at them. They aren't tough, they just have a few really really big armies, bribe the smaller ones, and then gang up on the big ones. The next real campaign will be in Egypt. The Egyptian cities are huge, and almost untakable. Make a beachhead in Libya, then march your armies on Memphis, NOT ALEXANDRIA! Alexandria looks cute and undefended, but they will just throw you out the minute you take over, no matter what you do. Memphis will be tough, but the Egyptians aren't very good against heavy cavalry or spearman. Use Legionary cavalry to run over their chariots, and maybe flank any spearman they might have. Once you are sieging Memphins wait about five turns or just starve them out. It is EXTREMELY difficult to take the Egyptian cities by a full scale invasion because of all their archers, they will tire all your men out, then run over them with chariots. (the best way to take their cities if you must is with sapping points) Bribe their smaller armies with diplomats and slowly take all their lands. It won't be easy, but hopefully after you have taken Egypt from the Egyptians, they will run out of steam. Once Egypt is crushed the world is yours. by then you should have seen Marius come and go, and you should be able to march on Rome. Do it. Lots of land to be had, take the Lands from the Julii and Scipii, much closer to home, and no culture penalty. Then just take a few more settlements and you shoult be at 50 settlments.

Good Luck!

[Dutch_guy]

my Brutii campain was by far the easiest I have ever done.
Once you get Athens Corinth and Sparta it get's really easy.
the only problem I had with the Macidonians was with the city Larissa, I captured it, but they sieged it the next turn with their best army ( commanded by a family member ) and they got their city back, for the moment
I then ( in a hard fun battle ) killed their main army ( marked by a famous battle marker on the battle map ) and tooke larissa, Thessalonica and Bylazora from them.
I was by that time making good money and expanded to asia minor ( Peragarum ) and destroyed the greeks. by the time the marian-reform started i was filthy rich and could afford to built every building and maintain many armies.
At that time the senate orderd me to kill my faction leader, which I of course didn't do, they outlawed me and I sacked Rome in a matter of turns, with their Scipii friends, the Julii actually held out for a long time.
I didn't even have to go to egypt, since I got 50 regions after I finally eliminated Macedon ( who were still holding a settlement in Libia : Cyrene )

if you expand fast you will encounter little resistance from Macidonians and the greeks. and even less frm the Dacians. I didn't take Thrace because of our aliance whitch lasted for about 25 years