Patience or faction: why am I bored with my game?

[KRALLODHRIB]

Well. I am a bit past halfway through my first sustained campaign (long, h/vh) with the Julii and I am a not nearly as excited as I was in the first 20 turns or so. Fighting the other Roman factions is interesting (thought other observations about the realism of hard and vh in battlle are certainly true--that these settings are not even remotely relative, I mean I've got all post Marius troops while the Ai has pre-Marius type troops and they are holding their own!) . So, what's left?

I've got 30 regions and have all but conquered Rome, while the other Roman factions are restricted totheir original colonies. I've got just about everything on the Latin peninsula and am wondering where's the challenge?

I mean I love the battles while my empire was growing but I sort of expected a much more challenging rise to he top!!!! Is it the faction or am I just to impatient?

[Sid_Quibley]

Same experience here.

Ive got 4 campaigns running Pontus/Greek/Brit/Selucid once youve beat off the initial challenges and got the money rolling in you just know your going to win and it all seems a bit pointless.Even with the realism mod im killing 10/20 to 1 in battles.Any experienced mtw player should find rome a cakewalk.

The ai in battle and campaign seems fundamentally flawed,from what ive read the 1.2 patch will address this.

Hope it does.

[R'as al Ghul]

Is it the faction or am I just to impatient?

I think it's mainly the faction. I guess Julii is the easiest of all factions.
Go to the R:TW guides section and have a look at what other people report. As far as I know the hardest rated factions are Numidia and Parthia. Thrace seems to be challenging as well as Spain.
Veterans who've played the other games of the series, will have little problems to win, that's why they are veterans. We know the basic game-mechanics since years and so have a flying-start. Just look at Maltz blitz tactics and try to copy them. That should be a challenge. I also would recommend to play on VH/VH. Even though the stats are %&$?* up, battles sure are a challenge. Even the AI's vanilla units will be better than yours. Only superiour tactics can help.

R'as

[Empedocles]

I must also complain about how easy the game was for me. I played the Brutii and after I learn to defeat phalanx and get use of the new tactical system it all went uphill to me!
All my enemies do is moving their armies forth and forward and allowing themselves being surrounded in cities. Macedon was powerfull enough to get me out of Greece but they only moved around and their AI in battles was frustrating.
Pontus owned all Asia minor and it's wealth and they never attacked one of my armies. Egypt was hard to conquer only because I was also fighting the last Pontus cities (I started a 2 front-war because it was damn easy!)
The only city one enemy army sieged was one in north asia minor, because thracia attacked me and they were my allies! But I lift the siege (their army was roughly 400 men) and conquered them in less than 7 turns!
Now I'm moving west to attack rome, and decided to let parthians, armenians, and The seleucid at my back hoping they will attack when I'm stuck in Italy and north Africa!
I don't think it should be a matter of saying: "play the numidians in VH/VH because they are the hardest in the game!!" You should pick whatever faction you like, select the difficulty you like and mess with it!
In MTW we even had faction reborn with thousands of troops in the other point of the map that challenged you a lot! Now we see rebels armies of naked warriors that are softer than a panda bear!

Diego, from ARgentina

PS: And guess what are the other romans factions armies made of..... Princeps and with luck... triarii... I'm in 205 bc!

[Commodus]

PS: And guess what are the other romans factions armies made of..... Princeps and with luck... triarii... I'm in 205 bc!

I thought once a Roman faction had the Marius reforms, all factions get access to it. Am I mistaken?

[Empedocles]

You Are Not Mistaken, But They Seems To Prefer Fighting With Triarri And Princeps Than With Good Legionaries!!!
Spqr The Same!
Although They Have A Navy That Will Give Me Some Headaches!!! (i'm Still Fighting The Rebel Hugee Navy The Egyptians Left Behind)

Diego, From Argentina

[Bob the Insane]

I think it depends on how much fighting there has been... I don't think the Roman Ai factions will disband any existing units on purpose, but if they are fighting loads then those pre-marian units will eventually get all used up...

I have seen the Brutii if full stacks of legionaires and other post-marian units in my last scipii game, whereas in my present Julii game where pretty much all of my pre-marian units have been recycled into legionaires, but the SPQR faction is still all pre-marian units...

[MonkeyMan]

I think it depends on how much fighting there has been... I don't think the Roman Ai factions will disband any existing units on purpose, but if they are fighting loads then those pre-marian units will eventually get all used up...

I have seen the Brutii if full stacks of legionaires and other post-marian units in my last scipii game, whereas in my present Julii game where pretty much all of my pre-marian units have been recycled into legionaires, but the SPQR faction is still all pre-marian units...

I think bob's got it there, the ai will certainly build new decent units as they expand or their existing units are killed off. However I don't think the ai will disband an outdated but full strength unit and replace it with a new unit. So if the roman factions stop expanding, they will undoubtably end up with outdated units. The senate which i've never seen fight a battle obviously therefore ends with the army it built in the first few turns of the game.

Has anyone seen the ai retrain a unit?

If so maybe making pre-marian units retrainable in post marian versions would solve this.

[Sinner]

Unfortunately it's not possible to mod the game to upgrade units from one type to another.

The general's bodyguard is meant to be upgradable - the Roman's have an early and late version, for example - but that's the only occurence. At it seems to be bugged and not working anyway.

Ideally each unit would have an upgrade path, with an upgrade perhaps costing double the difference between the two unit costs and reducing the experience by a level or two so that it isn't a free lunch, but at least you get to keep your troops in a more usable form.

[Vikings]

Yeah we all get that samn ol' feelings, next time try a different factions, something you never done before with a different strategies.

Some can play as horde of spies and assassins and they'er interesting agents.

If you havent noticed, try placing alot of good spies into neutral/enemy settlements let them riot into rebel's barbarians. That way you can avoid war by taken out the rebels.

It may sound lame, it also can be fun sometimes.

Always try something new to keep yourself happy, but of course it can be stupid or not worth it. Who cares, only a game, just try to enjoy it!

-Vikings

[Sin Qua Non]

One thing I have been doing is trying to make and keep strong allies. As the Selucids, I'm attempting to unify as many of the remaining non-roman factions against the Romans. Me and the remnants of Macedon vs. Scipii has been very interesting. I've given money, military alliances, and regions to them. It's very interesting seeing what makes them strong.

Or in other terms, let me shout some buzzwords at you.

SHIFT THOSE PARADIGMS, BABY! TO THE MAX!

[Watchman]

I've gotten the impression the AIs of all TW games have a thing against disbanding units, no matter how obsolete and how much they eat up upkeep. At least the pre-Marian stacks are more fun to fight than the crap spearman piles you saw in MTW...

It seems to cheerfully combine damaged units, though. That or the Scipii armies I bought off in Sahara had somehow been fighting a serious string of really succesful battles, with those silver chevrons and all... Doesn't quite explain where the thumb-twiddlers of the SPQR got those double-silver Urban Cohorts and Triariis from, though.