A Quick Strategic Map Guide & Primer to RTW

[vodkafire]

Another thing I've noticed is that the Brutii temple of Juno halves cuture penalty instantly! Also, any suggestion for Scipii temples? They don't seem to have any "super happiness" or culture penalty reduction temples. Saturn isn't anything special(same as Jupiter basically) And Neptune is good for navy and Vulcan for army. So I basically build Saturn in small conquered cities for max happiness and Vulcan in larger conquered cities for troop production, and Neptune in Carthage, my naval headquarters, to get the corvus quinqureme. I was also thinking of demolishing all my Saturn temples in Italy and Sicily, where corruption and happiness isn't too big of an issue, and replace them with Neptunes, for fleet building.

Btw, there is a problem with Bacchus, and that is they give your governor really bad drunkeness traits.

[Quietus]

Hey Vodka,

I've updated and revised the Guide. I'll include the other Roman temples later, but i've included the bacchus effect to the changes. Thx for the infos and keep 'em coming.

[TheDuck]

Something not noted yet in this quick primer... the issue of plague.

Normally when plague happens, one or more of your characters is a carrier. It is paramount that you isolate that character from same stack contact with any other units. If you right click on the character's card, it will show a skull in the upper left of the popup that says 'plague carrier'. Isolate that boy. Normally you will lose troops for the first couple of turns, then the major portion of the plague will be over.

[Silver Rusher]

What about the issue of protectorates?

[Ellesthyan]

Although this is a very useful post, I absolutely don't agree with you about Forts being useless. Sometimes it's better to defend a few mountain passes with a few peasants, rather then keeping a huge, powerful garisson. A nice example would be Tarsus, but there are numerous other places were this is possible.

This takes advantage of a little flaw in the AI: It rarely attacks forts and apparently grosly overestimates their power. Besides, forts delay invasions and allow the player to get up some defence in time.

It's true that larger walls will defend your province more effectively than any number of forts. However, this does not take into account the devestation and time factors; A city under siege will suffer from devestation penalties and won't trade at all. Strategicaly built forts will keep the enemy from attacking your cities directly and therefore allow you to maintain a larger income. Also, it will be next to impossible for the AI to do "raiding", sending a little army to siege cities, with as goal to sap your treasury.

Seeing you don't have any definition for devestation yet: Devestation occurs when an enemy army sits in your province for a number of turns. It lowers income drasticly, and it takes a long time before it dissapears. It's shown by black, burned, spots on the map.

[Slaists]

you can use forts for extra advantage building them on the "enemy side" of the narrow mountain passage. causing devastation to their land :)

[Quietus]

Thx to all the additional comments!

@TheDuck - I did made some points about the plague. I'll try to elaborate more on it if it is more helpful.

@Silver Rusher - Many Folks at the Colosseum point to the Protectorate system as bugged. I personally haven't tried it yet seeing no strategic advantage to it. We'll see if it is useful when patch 1.2 comes out

@Ellesthyan - Yes. I've already formulated the equation for Devastation Values here. I'll include it in the next update.

Also, I'll try to work your fort argument into the next update. My main gripe with forts is though is the unit upkeep. Enemy armies can be easily blocked by your main forces with the help of scout agents.