Last night I finally got around to installing RTR, and immediately started a game with a faction listed as "Very Hard" (Thrace) on VH/VH settings.
I ended up playing right through the night until well into the next morning. (Damn! I hate doing that). Every time I thought I was on the cusp of establishing a solid foundation for my faction, some new crisis would occur and I'd have to start over again.
For instance, fairly early in the night's proceddings I was just two turns from taking a rebel city which would have given me a solid income, when sneaky Dacia declared war and I had to cancel my invasion to protect my territory. Then I found that my income plummeted substantially whenever the Dacians besieged one of my cities, which was every couple of turns. So I kept running out of money and couldn't build the troops I needed to go on the offensive.
Finally after a series of hard fought battles, I found myself a turn away from taking a second Dacian city and easing the income squeeze, when the blasted Macedonians stabbed me in the back by declaring war as well.
Anyhow, I'm having a great time with RTR so far, much more so than with the vanilla game, the battles seem to last longer and melee appears to have more logical outcomes, although of course, the AI still does some dumb things. In fact this is the first time I've faced defeat in an RTW campaign.
So congratulations to all those guys who worked so hard on RTR. Judging by my experience last night, you've done a terrific job.
But getting back to the point, both Dacia and Macedonia on different occasions offered to make me a protectorate. I declined because I didn't know if it is equivalent to surrender, but if it isn't, just what happens when you become a protectorate? Can you still attack other factions and take their cities? Can you attack rebel held cities? And what happens if you can't pay the tribute that presumably the protector faction expects from you?
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