Roman: Scipii

[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

[pezhetairoi]

Managing all your cities on your own is crucial. I manage all my settlements myself, so in my campaign record notebooks I actually can plan development schedules for individual cities, ensuring construction crews are kept busy every turn. You should do the same. It's a lot of work writing down every building and units commissioned and completed, but it's enabled me to raise full-stacks of good troops in minimum time, and keep my cities developing nonstop.

[Jason]

Yes managing your cities is very important which is why I always had goveners in each one until the mighty Franconicus showed me the error of my ways.

At this point I am doing what I like to call 'regional development' rather then the far more impressive and complicated empire planning you do Pezhetairoi. I pick a fast growing (or already largely upgraded) city in a particular region and I give it the works. For the scipii this is the temple of vulcan (or neptune depending on the situation, sometimes I even switch over if the regional production center is far enough behind the lines) and all the blacksmith lines and anything else that can improve my units. This then becomes the city that produces all my units for the area.

Ex. Saracyuse is my regional production center for Sicily. It has a temple of vulcan and all the upgrades and I take population off the top of other cities and ship them to Saracyuse so it will grow faster. This city is always getting first priority in the area. Saracyuse is the production center for the entire area of Sicily and for my invasion of Carthage. However once the city of Carthage is taken *it* becomes my regional production center for that section of the front and Saracyuse gets the temple of neptune for ship production (which also get all the benefits that the land troops got minus the temple of vulcan).

All the other cities in the area only get what is needed to keep them relatively happy. Greece however is an odd setup as I have a production line of cities rather than one regional production center. When I captured sparta it had a large temple of Nike, which I left for the valor it gives the troops that are produced there. The missle troops are produced in Corinth with the captured temple of artemis that gives them gold ammo. Then everyone heads up to Athens where I have the temple of Vulcan and everyone gets the weapon and armor upgrades. Its a long drawn out process but the troops you get as a result are almost all 3 valor, silver weaponed (except the missles which are gold), silver armored troops who can lay the beat down on just about anyone

What amazes me is how much money everyone seems to have all the time. Perhaps Im just doing something wrong but the AI never seems to want to buy anything have to offer. The only way I get large 'donations' from other factions is senate missions, exteriminating cities, and if I make them pay large tributes for a ceasefire. How do you guys come up with all that money?

I also run by the general rule of thumb about armies and thier costs. I have worked it out that a generally balanced army (1 general, 3 archers, 2 veleties, 2 triarii, 3 equites, 8 pricipes and 1 onager) cost roughly 4.5k (pre-marian) to recruit and about 3k to upkeep (12k to recruit a similar make up post-marian and about 4k to upkeep). Using that general rule of thumb its easy to see when you can afford another army. When I double that amount of income I usually put together another army and send them out to harass my enemies. Those numbers do not include the upgrade costs of course but those are one time charges (and I dont have any numbers on them) so I dont really count them.

Jason the Newb