If they want you to become their protectorate , accept!,. you will get full alliance , military etc and it doesn't cost a thing apart from perhaps giving away 1 city you have recently captured.

So what do you really get?.

-1 border secure so you can concentrate elsewhere
- ability to enmesh this faction in all your wars
-ability to do covert war on them

Eg. As Selucs gave back Sidon for 16k den and became their protectorate. I also gave them Crete to get them into the scene of action(cost me a small rebel bribe only). Then used their Navy to take on the Greeks/Thracians/Sycthians/Romans Navies, that alone saved me a packet. Meanwhile I'm training my spies and assassins at their expense sabotaging their buildings and assassinating their people. Once the Romans are deadmeat I'll send a stack of armies and simultaneously seige their 6 cities, the ultimate in backstabbing. Oh and I forgot still selling my map info to them for higher than usual prices every few turns.... Donald Trump eat your heart out.

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A nice trick I just used... When attacking stone walls with onagers, see if you can spot enemies on the wall that don't have immediate access to a tower. Then, knock down the walls on either side of them. They are now nice and stuck. Note: Doesn't work well vs archer units.

Bh

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Playing as a Roman, send a team consisting of a general and a diplomat, and maybe a bireme, into the area of operations of each of the other factions and subvert their offensives.

Use the diplomat to persuade the AI's troops to join you, and maybe get some mercs too. Once you have a small army, join in with your ally's attack on a city. The AI will lose troops in the assault, but if you play your cards right you will take very few. If you initiated the attack, you get the city.

You now have a new city to repay the bribe/recruitment costs, especially if you exterminate it. You can then use any income from the cities to fund more bribes, so you get a whole new theatre of war at minimal initial outlay. It is also much quicker and cheaper than building your own troops and shipping them out, and doesn't interfere with your normal unit production for your main thrust (ie with 2 cities you're normally limited to 2 units per turn; this way, you could get a dozen or more).

You have also stymied the expansion of the AI faction: if they don't have borders with their usual enemies, they tend to sit around doing nothing.

I've been trying to make my two extra theatres entirely self-financing (keeping rough track with pen & paper), apart from sending more generals over to exploit the successes, and it seems to be very profitable. Basically, I'm playing all three factions at once :-)

Pell.R.

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Yes Pellinor as Julii I followed with a diplomat to Carthage, watched a few unsuccessful seiges and when it was obvious the next Scipii attack would succeed bought their army and took Carthage straightaway.... really a cheap exploit , if I was Scipii I would really be pi$$ed at the Julii, but they took it on the chin....

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Here are 4 levels of evil usage of forts:

[Defending Attackers]

Small evil: When you advance into a hostile territory, you can always make a fort when your movement runs out. The AI will attack weaker, unfortified stacks, but will let the fortified stack slip through. Note: You can't make a fort beside a building, nor an agent.

Medium evil: When you see an enemy stack on the field, you approach it and build a fort right beside it. Then you can attack it as a "sally". If your army is stronger than the AI, the AI will camp out waiting for your advance. However, since you now have some place to hide your vulnerable units & a little town center to retreat to, you have a better chance to succeed. If possible you can also lure them to your (tower's) firing range!

Large evil: The real evil comes if the AI is siginificantly stronger than you. They will rush towards your fort as soon as your men come out (then go in.). If you have much more missle units than the AI, you can enjoy a shooting festival. However, you don't want to do this if the AI have much more missle units than you. You will become their shooting practice. Nobody can escape their fire because the fort is small. They will kill you faster than your tower kills them.

Huge evil: When you see an enemy defending a bridge... build a fort just in front of it and sally forth. You will never have to attack a bridge anymore.

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[Sorry, changed my mind.]

Quoted from other sources and tested: Population growth out of control? Give - as a gift - this settlement to your enemy, then claim it back with the original garrison nearby. You can enslave or exterminate the residence to bring them back to happiness.

[Enslave & population boom]

Huge-scaled enslavement of multiple settlements in a region actually makes the entire region very happy - through the population boom it brings.

For far-away lands where distance to capital kills, enslavment is certainly a better option than extermination. For every enslaved settlement, you will have slaves as a resource. Through trading slaves you have population growth bonus, from 0.5% to 6.5% (the highest I have seen so far, might go even higher). The pop. growth bonus effect seems to be accumulative - the more slave trade there is in that area, the more population growth bonus you get.

Then you get a nice public order boost of "population boom". That will help you stablize the settlement a lot... probably because everybody is busy at night, and don't get enough sleep to discuss revolting during the day.

If you have too much population, then just give the settlement away (the previous evil tip) and claim it back to enslave again. The effect on population is then same to extermination. evil evil.

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A well-known bug I belive but its worth repeating.

To disable the battle timer in your new campaign, click 'historical battles', then click the icon to go back to the menu and now choice the campaign option. Set your settings to your liking and start the campaign. The battle timer should now be disabled for your campaign.

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this is soooo wroong....

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