What a disastrous campaign...

**Tricky Lady** · 10-02-2004, 22:22

I got RTW yesterday and immediately started playing.

For a first game I figured it would be best to pick one of the so-called easy factions, the Julii. Selected hard/hard mode, and started my conquest of the world... which ended rather prematurely.

First I went into the red very quickly. I captured Segesta and Caralis (senate mission) but then I couldn't ward off the Gallic hordes.
I got defeated in a rather silly way, but it says also something of the improved AI in this game. I fought a Gallic army in the open (with some forest to the edges of the map), 600 (me) vs 800 (more or less). I thought that I would easily win. I had my faction leader + 2 promising generals in the stack + some hastati, town militia, war dogs and some equites. A fairly good army I thought. The Gauls started marching towards my positions, and each second I felt more comfortable about the outcome of the battle. But then I saw that my equites unit turned red, and a little later the routing flag appeared. What the heck??? And then I saw it. When the frontal Gallic charge had begun, I noticed that one unit of Gallic cavalry had managed to sneak behind my lines through the forests and now attacked (crushed) one of my hastati units. Aw aw aw!!! I tried to recover the situation, but my units were soon to be overwhelmed by the barbarians... My faction leader and his two sons got killed, and it was a crushing defeat.

I was close to relaunching my campaign, but I thought, okay let's try to get out of this embarassing situation.
A few turns later I had an army ready for ambush near my capital. A full stack of Gauls was marching to siege my capital so I saw a good opportunity to ambush them. And yes... -victory!- it worked, they got ambushed. But then -big let down- my army got "discovered" by a second Gallic army (some 200 men) who attacked me. So it was me (some 400 men) vs 200 men with 1400 men in reinforcement. Got overwhelmed again. My two main armies depleated, and in the mean time I was at -1800 denarii and there were only 3 family members left (the governors of all but my capital).... Now THIS was what I call an unrecoverable situation. So far for my first campaign.

And now off to *really* conquer the world!

Anyone else had such an (embarassing) situation too? Or am I the only one who is so silly to get crushed by the

Gauls so early?

**Dorkus** · 10-02-2004, 22:39

great story. haven't given up on a campaign yet.

But I did lose a 10 star general in egypt to a fleeing chariot, heh.

**Lazul** · 10-02-2004, 22:51

a tip is to start as Egypt, great economy and good units. I got tired of the romans so i downloaded some textfile and started as the Germans at first... got my ass handed to me by the britts and their huge armies... haha, i lost town by town but never gave up. in the end i only had the northern most town, what ever its called then I gave up hehe!
The AI is realyy improved i must say! both on big map and on the battlefield!

**Thoros of Myr** · 10-02-2004, 22:59

My first campaign nearly ended that way

I completly underestimated the sheer numbers of the Guals.

In a last ditch effort I was able to capture Patavium & Mediolanium. That proved to be vital in my continued existence and getting out of debt.

**frogbeastegg** · 10-02-2004, 23:12

I started a Julii campaign and I was doing great. My faction leader was something like 8 stars with plenty of great battle related virtues. I only had one army in the field, 6 hastatii, 1 velite, 1 archer, 1 slinger and the general. I was suffering a minor finacial crisis because I didn't understand the economy, so there were no reinforcements, or even potential to retrain this band of heroes. Anywho, after a lot of glorious battles (I've not been defeated yet!), quite often several per turn as the Gauls were invading like mad, and the conquest of a couple of Gaulish cities I finally close on the major city pouring out troops at a great rate of knots.

So, there's my army, my only hope lead by my superhero, camped outside the major threat to my faction. Yet another substantial Gaulish army is close on my heels, so I have to assault now or risk being trapped between two larger armies. So, off I go. To cut a long story short, the battle goes well. I knock holes in the walls with my rams and my hastatii pour in and fight like the veteran angry hero dudes they are. Meanwhile my general and his 84 man bodyguard of really tough dangerous dudes on horses charges in to take on a unit of skirmisher warband near the town square. Remember that unit of velites I mentioned earlier? Guess who was near my general as he charged. Guess who threw a badly aimed javelin. Guess what happened. Yup, my heroic general got killed by a blind velite! I won the city with very few losses, but without my super general I couldn't continue.

Moral of the tale: fire at will is not nearly as good as it was in STW and MTW.

And then there's the story of the general in the tutorial campaign, poor bastard got torched by a flaming catapult shot because I forgot I had ordered my onagers to fire at a unit of infantry. I did have to laugh at the cutscene though, poor general charges in valiantly just as the big flaming ball hits down, right on his head.

I have improved quite a lot now; my new Brutii short campaign is going well.

**Dorkus** · 10-02-2004, 23:38

lol, that's a great story too.

have yet to use an onager in the campaign yet. tested them in custom battle and didn't find them accurate enough.

will have to try them, for comic reasons if nothing else.

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

I started a Julii campaign and I was doing great. My faction leader was something like 8 stars with plenty of great battle related virtues. I only had one army in the field, 6 hastatii, 1 velite, 1 archer, 1 slinger and the general. I was suffering a minor finacial crisis because I didn't understand the economy, so there were no reinforcements, or even potential to retrain this band of heroes. Anywho, after a lot of glorious battles (I've not been defeated yet!), quite often several per turn as the Gauls were invading like mad, and the conquest of a couple of Gaulish cities I finally close on the major city pouring out troops at a great rate of knots.

So, there's my army, my only hope lead by my superhero, camped outside the major threat to my faction. Yet another substantial Gaulish army is close on my heels, so I have to assault now or risk being trapped between two larger armies. So, off I go. To cut a long story short, the battle goes well. I knock holes in the walls with my rams and my hastatii pour in and fight like the veteran angry hero dudes they are. Meanwhile my general and his 84 man bodyguard of really tough dangerous dudes on horses charges in to take on a unit of skirmisher warband near the town square. Remember that unit of velites I mentioned earlier? Guess who was near my general as he charged. Guess who threw a badly aimed javelin. Guess what happened. Yup, my heroic general got killed by a blind velite! I won the city with very few losses, but without my super general I couldn't continue.

Moral of the tale: fire at will is not nearly as good as it was in STW and MTW.

And then there's the story of the general in the tutorial campaign, poor bastard got torched by a flaming catapult shot because I forgot I had ordered my onagers to fire at a unit of infantry. I did have to laugh at the cutscene though, poor general charges in valiantly just as the big flaming ball hits down, right on his head.

I have improved quite a lot now; my new Brutii short campaign is going well.

**Soulflame** · 10-03-2004, 02:27

My first try as Scipii is going well. The campaign for Sicily was very easy, and once a mighty army of Carthage was defeated in a heroic battle, in which they had elephants and very good cavalry, they were essentially lost. After letting my 5-city nexus (Lilabeaum, Messana, Carthage, Thapsus and Syracuse, I launched a new campaign against the Numedians. Both Cirts and Lepcis Magna fell easily, but it took a while to cover the distance to Tingi. The people didn't like my taxes then, but my family was really enthusiastic about this early succes, while the Brutii had stopped after a small effort when they signed an alliance with the Macedonians. The Julii continously expanded at the Gauls, but a bit less then me.
After order was once again reinstalled, the campaign continued into spain. A scout group of equites from Thapsus surveyed Nothwest Africa for additional ground and after a long (long) search found some small Numedian cities in the form of Dimidi and Nepte. After Nepte was taken (before Dimidi) the Senate wanted the capitulation of the Numedians, but they were stubborn, so our house decided to wipe them out instead.
A new campign was launched by Marcus (Later known as Marcus the Magnificient and Marcus the Victor) into Spain. Which were annihilated after a fast offensive. Currently he is at the border of the Gauls, and the faction is discussing plans with the Julii to wipe out the Gauls for good. The Macedonians have taken a few Greek Cities, but are still holding the Macedonians tight with an alliance.
Plans have been made to upgrade the army by Maurius. Rumors in the house lead to speculation about the next target, which is said to be Egypt and it's rich lands.

**afrit** · 10-03-2004, 04:28

Good work soulflame.
Be careful though with your expansion and population!
I had a good start

on my Julii campaign but now it looks like I will abandon it

Started with Julii on medium. Blitzed the Gaul holdings south of the Alps, then invaded Gaul followed by Spain. I also got Balearic Islands and Tingi (morocco) from Carthage, but Scipii beat me to the main prize (it's now about 250 BC or so). Meanwhile Bruti looked about to destroy Macedon. Trying to prevent them from getting too strong, I beat them to Corinth and then used that as a stepping stone to capture western Turkey and Sparta from the Greeks. I also expanded a bit towards Dacia. About 230 BC or so things were looking peachy. I had about 30 provinces. Although I had no money in the bank, I figured it will soon start flowing from all the Greek trade.

Then I ran into MAJOR problems. It turns out my economic strategy was totally flawed. I always expanded farms early to get revenue and increase the population so I get upgrades. Well, I ended up with the now notorious "population explosion" . Most of my main settlements were getting yellow and blue and red. I kept up for a while by decreasing taxes, which EXACERBATED the problem (population up, my money down!). THen I used garrisons. Heck I even had some with all 20 slots filled with Town Watch and they still wanted to rebel!!!. I built as many happiness buildings as possible. More money gone. Although I was making 80K a year, I could only spend 3-4 K per turn. The rest disappeared into corruption and other venues.

Well, that was not totally unsalvageable. But then Marius happened, and soon after the Senate started being nasty with me with threats of "do this or we will investigate you". Unfortunately, I did not have the troops (the new Marian ones) to take them on (no money), so I tried to follow the senate missions. When they asked me to suicide my leader, however, I felt they crossed the line. I refused and now I find myself fighting much stronger Brutii clan.

So there are many ptifalls on the way to Emperor. Good luck!

Afrti

**bighairyman** · 10-03-2004, 05:20

Didi you exterminate every town/city you conquered? Slaughtering the pop is a great way to 1) get money, 2) control happiness!

**Oaty** · 10-03-2004, 05:26

Why go as far as to stop the rebellions? I've found it better to keep the popuation happy for an extended amount of time and then when they start getting to rowdy I jack there taxes let them kick me out and exterminate them. Corduba has to be the worst one and about every 20 years there is a massacre. and hey nothing like knowing they'll be looted for about 15k every 20 years

**Quietus** · 10-03-2004, 07:52

Tricky Lady,

If wish, you can read my Julii campaign primer in the RTW Guide section. A couple of things I can impart now is first, don't take on the Caralis mission until you have taken a significant portion of the Gaul territory. They will flood you you with stacks upon stacks of attacks. So, the best thing is thing is to cripple or limit their troop production capabilities first by taking away their towns.

Secondly, if you have to take on the Gauls badly outnumbered, use a bridge. What you do is put your army unit in the middle of the bridge. When you get attacked. You get to defend a bridge. I do this when i'm waiting for reinforcements and there is a stack ahead detected by my agents (diplomat and spy). It doesn't matter which side you are approached, you still get to defend the bridge

**Tricky Lady** · 10-03-2004, 10:15

Did it now.

But "unfortunately" I've decided to obey the Senate and capture Caralis already (became a mission shortly after I conquered Padavium and Mediolanium). Now my army is marching to Narbo Martius.

Perhaps I should abandon Caralis and let it rebel?

**Dark_Magician** · 10-03-2004, 10:27

Well, I had a town/city in southern france whatever it is called, when huge gaulish force finally arrived, actually two stacks. I had to get out of city and defeat them, because the leader of faction in that town was crucial. My units werent too bad, scirmishers, couple of archers, even couple of small siege pieces etc. But this was no way to win this battle, believe me, I tried. The gauls had scirmishers, cavalry and heavy infantry. If my forces went out of the gates the battle was over in like 3 minutes with the gauls simply charging in quite disorderly manner and squashing my units at the gates. Any flanking maneuvres with my general could not help, they just killed him, after all those gauls have no proper education in the fine art of warfare

Finally a cheat-like tactics worked: get out your archers, shoot a little, when they charge (and they are here in no time) withdraw behing the gate, they wont follow you inside, but would not stay just outside so you could shoot at them, you have to get out. Then accept defeat, when out of ammo. Then, when campaign map re-appears, attack sieging forces againg - archers have they missiles stock reloaded. This way the gauls were gradually reduced to sizeble force and eventually all the gaulland was mine.

**Gustav II Adolf** · 10-03-2004, 14:04

I captured caralis in some of the first senate missions and i have never been attacked by carthage. Its a bit wierd becase they sail around with giant fleets but never wants to engage me and my few boats. Interresting to hear that others have been massivly assulted by them.

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