Playing Style - Long Campaign

[chemchok]

I'm curious to know how everyone plays the long campaign.

I'd imagine that at one end of the spectrum are the rushers, who try to conquer provinces as quickly as possible, and basically keep rolling over the AI with large stacks. The combat oriented players, I suppose.

At the other end would be the slow expansionists. They tend to try to keep alliances intact, even if it halts their easiest path to expansion. I would assume that they're also more interested in city building than the former group.

Then there's the players in who lie somewhere in between...

So, what's your playing style in RTW and what year do you usually end up at when you finally conquer 50 provinces?

[m4rt14n]

I rush fast, hard, enslaving as I go, all the while building my main cities as troop production cities. Then I stop the campaign around 35-40 cities, and start a new one. It gets really boring after a while.

[FURRY_BOOTS]

slowly does it for me, i usually wait for marius reforms before i go for it.
sometimes you just have to take settlements nearby for your finances,as population grows you have to make armies to reduce squalor, more soldiers means more expences! also, i know its sad but i try to capture lands that was conqured historically at the time.

[a_ver_est]

I am always at war, at least with one faction, sometimes with two or more.

I like have allies but in this game find a true ally is very difficult.

Most times you can't expect any help from them, in fact you have to be cautios and keep them well controlled.

[The_678]

I usually start with a good rush till I have a good finacially secure base then I build up. Once I have full high-tech armies with onagers I go at conquering again and rush till the end, with my base provinces all money and troop producers. My core provinces are still my main troop producers though.

For example as Brutii, I'll rush and take all of greece and Macedonia, then build up till the marius reforms then attack with brand new 20 stack post-marius armies and steamroll till the end.

[HopAlongBunny]

I prefer going slowly, but this game seems built for rushing.

Cranking out units and constant expansion works as a bit of population/squalor/unrest control.

[Pellinor]

I normally rush - in fact, it took me several games of STW before I managed to build heavy cavalry before winning the game.

I have just started a new campaign with a self-imposed handicap which has completely changed that, though. There are two aspects to it:

1) Conquered cities are only to be occupied, never enslaved or exterminated. We're bringing civilisation, after all ( I may be confusing the Roman empire with the British )

2) Legions are made up of Roman citizens: that is their glory and their strength. Only citizens of pure Roman cities are given Roman citizenship. Therefore, legionary units may only be recruited or retrained in cities with NO culture penalty to public order. This includes hastati, principes, triarii, equites, and the various flavours of post-Marian cohorts and cavalry. Non-citizens may be recruited into ships, artillery and auxiliary units: peasants, town watch, velites, archers, and anything post-Marian with "auxilia" in the name. Mercenaries may of course be employed as normal.

The net effect is that I can send a couple of legions (each of three units) plus some mercs to take a city, but I have to keep it for quite a while before that army is able to move on to the next. Legionaries are precious - they can only be replaced by shipping out new units - and so should be reserved for critical moments, the brunt of the fighting being absorbed by mercenaries. Mercenaries are now required to make up armies, rather than being expensive and unecessary luxuries - previously, it has always been cheaper and more effective to build troops than to hire them, except for Cretans of course.

It is now 240 BC in my Scipii campaign, and I only have about 10 provinces. Marius has not yet made an appearance, and I have had several reverses and close calls due to not being able to make troops, nor ship them out to where they're needed, fast enough. This is unprecendented - it's nice :-)

Cheers,

Pell.R.