More challenge: Blood relatives only house rule

[afrit]

In an effort to make RTW more challenging , I made up 3 house rules:

1. Keep Settlements without governors on automanage. That includes buildings and units.

2. Refuse all adoptions and additions to family by marriage. All generals are therefore direct descendants of the faction founder (blood relatives only).

3. Autoresolve all battles commanded by captains. Only blood relatives get to command on the battlefield.

These 3 simple house rules change the character of the game. In particular, creating an army now takes time and thought, since you cannot order units in several cities simultaneously. Instead, you need a general making the rounds in the cities to raise the army. Ergo, armies are more valuable.

For those who thinkg the game is too easy, I recommend they try the above rules.

Anyone else plays like this?

[BalkanTourist]

I always have them on automanage if I don't have a governor. I never bribe and never ask for alliances. I don't attack unless I am attacked. I only use 1 general to fight 1 foreign faction the rest stay to govern. If the general dies the general with the most stars at that time who is not engaged with another war gets to take over and the army stays put until the new general arrives (try that when the army is in Italy and the general is in Egypt and you have almost no fleet. I lost 3 generals and it took a lot of isle hopping and taking some odd routes to avoid the sharklike fleets of the all 4 Roman factions). I always enslave till my 30th province, after that I kill them all. If I have 5 temple options (Egypt) I build one kind of temple per 10 provinces conquered. I never hire mercenaries. I always fight ALL my battles. I don't marry daughters unles the husband is younger or in the same age group with his bride- 20's, 30's and so on. I play every faction in order. After completing the long campaignes with all 3 Roman factions I moved to Egypt and today I am starting Seulecids. It makes up for a pretty interesting game and it takes about 1 month to complete. That way you really get a feeling for a faction. Can't wait to play Carthage!
P.S. I never auto resolve and never reload. I also get four tries per faction. The first one is usually the testing one when I try some opening moves. Then I go back to the guides and study my new faction.

[ChaosLord]

That rule would drive me nuts, I have to manage everything, wether there is a general there or not. I do try to keep all my cities governed, but that isn't always possible. Makes me wish for the ability to hand out titles again. As for autoresolve, I always play on very hard campaign difficulty so that'd make the results too lopsided. I do play by my own set of house rules though, here they are.

-1: No bribing(except rebels): As I figure its more of an exploit to fight the rebels and gain easy stars then it is to bribe them. This doesn't include rebel held cities obviously.
-2: True Succession: I keep the line of succession going, and all my faction leaders are directly descended from the previous. It makes you get attached to the family as it slowly builds up.
-3: No abusing trades: IE, the trade map for 5k or whatever to people constantly for cash. If I do any trades for maps, its equal (map to map) or with me paying.
-4: No reloading: Self explanatory.
-5: No exploiting the battle AI: Why some might not call this exploiting, I think of it that way. I don't field armies full of cav, or mass missile troops to bombard them while they sit there. Its just not fun for me.
-6: Pay attention to traits/ancillaries: While this is more of a guideline, it does affect how I play. Famous speakers might spend their time in my capitol while the crazy guys will be guarding my frontiers. Basically just assigning them duties based on their traits more then their abilities. I don't trust those crazy blood-thirsty guys to lead armies, even if they did end up with seven stars. Well, unless I needed a suicide mission ran.
-7: State religion: Once I pick a temple I stick with it and build the same. I figure I should devote my faction totally to one god, rather then spread it out.

Thats all I can think of right now, probably forgetting one or two. I'm curious to hear other house rules people use as well, interesting to read afrits and BalkanTourists.