Roman: Scipii

[nameless]

173 BC on my campaign, my empire streches from the North of Spain, the last spanish city as a protectorate, to the southern borders of Africa and all of the islands through Egypt right in front of Antioch. The Julii have conquered Northern Europe with the Brutii from Thermon (I had Athens to Sparta), all the way into Scythia terrority. Fortunately the Brutii have suffered several gladiator revolts which the sentate sent me to take out and have captured a few of their cities.

I'm hoping the Julii will move into England and the Brutii will continue expanding until they reach Armenia. I have the Selecuids, Pontus, and the Parthians to deal with which I haven't yet due to their alliance with Spain.

I'm hoping that the civil war will start once only the SPQR, Julii, and Brutii are left standing. Another thing to note is that the Brutii's standing with the Senate is REALLY down, like 1 point(I'm highly favoured by the Sentate since I've been doing their dirty work...for now), can they get outlawed by the senate?

[Jason]

Ah the scipii...

I have to say Im enjoying this faction a good bit at the moment. I am playing on VH/H and normal sized units I believe (though dont quote me on that).

I didnt have any particularly amazing strategy but it has turned out to be a very interesting game so far. I was, of course, told by the senate to attack saracuse right off the bat. I left a family member in Capua to keep an eye on things and sent everyone else off to sicily. They arrived on the second turn and joined the army which I then sent off to sit on the greek border for a turn, the concept being to see if one of the other two would do something stupid The greeks sent a small army to the carthaginian border and to my surprise the carthginians took thier army off of sicily entirely when I got trade rights from them. So I sent in my spy to saracuse and the army followed right after only to have him open the gates for me. So I charged right in and took the city and then exterminated the population. I of course started building temple of vulcan in all of my towns and preparing for the thrust into Lilybaum. I scouted the area carefully a few turns before and learned a valuable lesson about recon. ALWAYS DO IT! Because I found a sizable carthaginian army in ambush. However once again I waited a few turns and the army went away So I attacked Lilybaum, put it to seige and on the next turn took it enslaving the population. I then made peace with both the greeks and carthage and aquired trade rights and sat back to grow some armies.

The senate kept trying to get me to go blockade carthage but I ignored all of these silly ideas. I built an army and sent with it a few generals and landed the army on the coast of Sparta. My timing was once again perfect (though I would expect nothing less ) and the Greek army in sparta has just gone and lain seige to Corinth. On that same turn the macedonians sallied forth from Corinth and spanked the Greek army hard elimiating the only threat to my seige of Sparta. So I attacked Sparta which was only defended by a single unit of Spartan hopolites. I took down the gate and ran through the city to the city center where the Spartan Hopolites were and I let my archers have at them for a little while. I admit that I played the AI for a fool here much to my everlasting shame as I brought up my calvary from the other end of the plaza and had them set foot in the plaza every time the hopolites approached my archers thus turning the hopolites around to go after my calvary. As soon as they were close enough I would then have my calvary step out of the plaza and the hopolites would then start the long trek back to my archers. All of this however was simply a stalling tactic till my hastati could get there. When they did I simply lined them up on either side of plaza and had the calvary set foot in the plaza once more and set my hastati on 'fire at will' mode. Sure enough the AI told the Spartans to march straight for my calvary between the lines of hastati who then used thier pila to exterminate them. The Spartans died with out causing me a single casulty. I occupied the city of Sparta and began setting about making it my primary troop producing city in Greece.

The Greeks however were not done and managed to capture Corith which I quickly took away from thier belugred forces. Alas the city was infested with plauge. The first son of my original faction heir died sonless of old age and the second and last son died of the plauge before he could even marry finishing off a whole section of my family tree. I allied myself with the Macaedonians who then obliged me by taking thier armies to go fight the remaining Greeks in Thermon and eventually the Brutii. For thier troubles they lost Athens but eventually agreed to a ceasefire and trade rights helping my coffers out a good deal. The Greeks after being pushed out of Thermon no longer had a foot hold on southern greece but randomly managed to drop a full stack of armored hopolites with a general and archer support near Corinth. The stack was full of units that all had 3 chevrons of xp or more and almost all of them had bronze armor and weapons. I quickly raised an army of my own partially from the front lines and partially from the city garrisons and stood in front of them waiting for them to attack. The did not but rather moved back into the penisula to the south of the isthmus and waited. I pushed foward into thier red zone and again waited for them to attack. After four turns, and the coming and going fo a fleet twice, it became apparent that they were not going to attack but neither were they going to leave. So I was forced to attack them. Unfortunatly my army only conisted of my general, 3 equites, 10 pricipes, 2 hastati, and 4 archers. However the units all had at least one chevron of xp and most have 3 bronze with a few scattered silvers. They also had silver weapons (except the archers who were gold, yay temple of artemis! ) and bronze armor. I played this battle a bit different and I think it bears repeating here because of how much fun it was

I made a line of my calvary in the center and put my archers out in front of them. Then I made two long lines of the pricipes and the hastati on either side of the Greek line almost but not quite perpendicular to the Greeks in the hopes of drawing them into breaking thier wall of hopolite spears. The AI being a bit smarter than the last time saw no reason to break a perfectly good line of spears and held his ground. So I began to slide my units up along his flanks to encompass his line and moved my archers into range and put my calvary right behind them. The archers were, as expected virtually useless shooting armored hopolites from the front. However soon the AI realized that exposing his flanks to my infantry was an untennable postion and broke his line into 3 smaller ones to face my three lines. Each line had about 5 or 6 hopolites and turned to face my lines respectively. What ensued was the biggest game of cat and mouse I have ever played. I used the speed and mobilty of the legions to out manuver and pick off the hopolite units one by one. It was by no means a simple task however. I started by taking my infantry lines and breaking them up even further. I had six infantry in each line and the two on the left broke away and tried to run around the flank as did the two on the right, while the two in the center feignted toward the spear heads and then dropped back without engaging, just to see what the hopolites would do. And sure enough true to form the units broke up and began to chase the seperate units. From then on it was just a matter of out mauvering the hopolites and managing to smash 3 or 4 units into the flanks and rear of one hopolite to make them route and going back to manuvering around the others. I assisted the left flank of the battlefield with my calvary who were playing a similar game with thier line of hopolites only they were not actually engaging the line as equites get eatin alive in a slugging match with heavy infantry. Meanwhile the archers had skirmished away from the enemy line and were simply standing there pounding on anything in range. The right flank was complicated somewhat by the fact that the Greek general and the archers were conentrated here. The general found though that his charge got stopped by my pricipes and they did not route so he was eventually slain on his third charge into my troops. This did make manuvering harder and my infantry on that flank suffered as I manged to get a couple of units pinned on hopolite spears once or twice. I simply smashed the flanks and rears of the hopolites and they soon let go of my belgured units. The enemy archers were the last to route as I left them till I had the hopolites on the run. Soon they were all routed and pushed into the sea. This was by far one of the most fun battles I have played in this game yet.

Back to the campain... I built up a silver armored silver weaponed army in sicly and took Carthage and Thaspus and crippled the Carthaginians. I then lowered the taxes and made as many growth related buildings in Capua as I could to induce growth and make a race for an imperial palace and hopefully the Marian reforms. I have also torn down the temple of Vulcan in Saracuse and have put in temples of Neptune for those glorious ships. I have made the temple of law (I forget the god's name) in the Carthaginain cities because... well they need it, badly. I am however somewhat troubled as I dont have enough governers for my cities. I have heard of a tactic of 'farming' generals but I dont know how to do it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My plan after this is to expand further into greece and from there I am undecided. Once the reforms kick in I should have no trouble with just about anyone out there and I will continue on to my goal of covering the whole world in scippian blue

Jason the Newb

[Deus ret.]

you don't need governors in every settlement. In fact, putting a family member on the dead track as governor of a minor provincial town will greatly contribute to his degeneration, provided he remains there. use them strategically, e.g. to calm down a newly captured larger town for a while with his shining influence or the like.

having less governors also means more heavy cavalry to throw into battle...even if they are of no use for anything, they make formidable units.

anyway, if you need more family members, go and fight some decent battles with captain-led armies. Go for heroic victories if possible and watch your captains become "men of the hour" and thus a worthy addition to your family. If they suit you and are not too old, adopt them. note, though, that his new brothers might not be too glad to have another competitor for father's heritage (or the faction throne), and develop bad traits (see the character development guide for that).

sometimes a message will propose you a "suitable candidate for adoption". this generally happens when your number of family members is rather low, so don't rely on that.

[pezhetairoi]

Me, the only time there are governors in my settlement is when a new factioner comes of age in my capital, or when I've jsut conquered it with a general-led army. Otherwise, I've always been able to pacify them with a generous building programme of law and order and a generous dose of Town Watch/Militia/Barbarian Peasants/Eastern Infantry.

[Jason]

The only reason I like to keep governers in all my cities is that the AI managment scheme tends to drive me into debt for some reason. They use up all the money on every turn (not really a bad thing when it comes to building buildings) and then build army units (usually ones I dont really need) until my budget cant support any more. This doesnt really stop me from doing as I like but it is really an annoyance. And of course the slider that tells the AI not to spend anything doesnt seem to work

Jason the Newb

[Franconicus]

Jason, you can manage all your cities all by yourself w/o governer there. You have to mark it when you start a campaign.
Use this option. It is a lot of work but it pays!

[Jason]

Jason, you can manage all your cities all by yourself w/o governer there. You have to mark it when you start a campaign.
Use this option. It is a lot of work but it pays!

All of the sudden I feel really stupid....

Of course being a profesional Newb I know this feeling very very well

Thanks Franconicus, I will do this on my next campain. In the mean time I will do my best to salvage this one because... well Im just a glutton for punishment

Jason the Newb