Romans

[clayton ballentine]

Why are the Romans more powerful than any other faction? And they usally win almost all the time.

[Mahrabals apprentice]

Why are the Romans more powerful than any other faction? And they usally win almost all the time.

You may want to read a history book

[gardibolt]

Or look at the name of the game. Hint: Not "Parthia: Total War."

[BobTheTerrible]

Or it could be the fact that the Romans are not just 1 faction, but 4 allied factions.

[Colovion]

Why are the Romans more powerful than any other faction? And they usally win almost all the time.

Because the game is unbalanced.

[antisocialmunky]

... history is unbalanced too.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As others have implied, life is not fair.

The game is, probably, more balanced than real life. Version 1.0 cavalry rules would leave the Romans hurting if the AI was even halfway as good as most of us would like to see.

Historically, the answer to Rome's strength centers on a number of issues:

Discipline -- few if any of her opponents had the military discipline Rome instilled. Undisciplined troops are wheat before the scythe of a disciplined force.

Insitutional Strength -- when a good King died, his empire often went with him. Rome's oligarchical republican institutions, even adulterated by the Empire, gave it profound strength

Persistence -- Romans never gave up. It took Marius years to break the Numidians and years more just to build the road to get to the Cimbri properly --- so he did. Hannibal wandered Italy for decades, so they waited him out and sent a decisive strike force after his home base.

Engineering -- Roads, aqueducts, nightly fortifications, and superior siegeworks. Romans did more to further their empire with picks and shovels than with their gladii. Infrastructure begets economy, economy begets increased tools for warfare and money to fight. The brave warriors of Gaul were, to some extent, beaten by the Vie Appia et Salaria et Brutia, because commerce flowed along those roads and supported the power of Rome.

SF

[Colovion]

... history is unbalanced too.

At this time in history the game depicts the Romans were not gods among men - they were merely another grouping of tribes. The game is unbalanced according to history. The game portrays the Romans, in terms of overall strength, as the epitome of their Imperial Might - when in reality at the game's beginning they were nothing of the sort. There's a reason why the game starts when it does, because it gives the majority of the factions a decent chance to gain local dominance and then ability to branch out from there. It is disgustingly boring to throw up one's hands and proclaim "history is unbalanced, so we shouldn't care" because this is a game - and it should be fun and challenging. The current state of unbalance does not procure that needed gaming pleasure to produce a sustaining and fulfilling gaming experience. This reason, and the historical reality of the historic faction's strengths at the game's beginning both fly in the face of the game's current balance.

[Mongoose]

... history is unbalanced too.

Yes, but the game is more unbalanced then history. The punic wars almost destroyed rome. in RTW, it's a quick easy strike and carthage falls apart after 20 turns.

10 if it's a human player

[antisocialmunky]

Jumping to conclusions are we?

I was responding to Clayton's question and Colovion's reply. To expect every faction 'balanced' evenly in real life is not realistic so stop taking it the wrong way.

As we know, all empires are not created equally.

[Mongoose]

What i am trying to say is that the game is very unbalanced, and not for historical reasons.

If anything, if would be much more realistic if the romans were less powerful....

Why are you so upset? It's not like their was any flaming in my post

[antisocialmunky]

I don't like to be mobbed by people because they misunderstood or I wasn't clear in my post.

[Colovion]

I don't like to be mobbed by people because they misunderstood or I wasn't clear in my post.

perhaps you should extrapolate

[marcus aquila]

Hey Clayton,
If you would like more historical information on why the Romans were so strong, use Limewire to download files by a professor Garrett Fagan on Roman history- he explains in detail why they were so strong historically.
Enjoy playing this great game!

[King of Atlantis]

The romans should be strong, but not as strong as they are in the game. The roman families usually take on greece,macedon,carthage, and gaul all at the same time, yet they manage to clobber them

Yes rome should win more times than not, but has anybody EVER seen the Ai wipe them out?

[sapi]

no, but as stated before this is probably due to the fact that they are 4 factions and thus have 4xproduction power

[pezhetairoi]

I would say yes to the 4x thing. If we had just the Senate trying to push out its boundaries, we would see some instant AI fun =\

[player1]

I say romans are not strong enough.

If you leave AI control to them, they will hardly ever overpower neighbour factions. Scipii would probably be the best and take Sicilty acn Carthage, Brutii will take just a few territories in macedonia, and Julii will somethimes even not expand from starting provices.

Doesn't sound like historic expansion of roman republic.

[Conqueror]

To my experience, if you play a faction that doesn't fight the romans early, then you'll find that by the late game they have pretty much wiped out the gauls, carthies and maccies & greeks. It's not uncommon to see at least one of the roman factions having turned hugely powerful, both economically and militarily.

[caesar44]

If TOTAL WAR was a game with Martians and Neptunians (whatever) , than yes , all the factions should have been balanced , but , it is a game based on history , so yes , the Romans were the strongest for 650 years , and the game represent it . simple as that .

[Marquis of Roland]

Why Romans are so good in the game....

They are 3 powerful factions allied to each other, which does a lot more for commerce than actual fighting. Even playing as Julii I never had money problems playing a Roman faction. Of course your home provinces will never be threatened, so you can support your army unimpeded.

Their starting provinces are not poor.

Roman troop's defense is way too high early in the game.

Their stamina allows them to kill effectively for the entire time of a short RTW battle (yes they should slow the game down, its like MTW on meth).

Carthage is too passive. Suggest changing the des.strat file to a more aggressive AI (dunno what it is now but sailor/napoleon would be nice I think). Their troops suck compared to Romans other than elephants, so they should get better generals.

Macedonians and Greeks attack each other instead of forming a united front against the Brutii.

right.....

[antisocialmunky]

I say romans are not strong enough.

If you leave AI control to them, they will hardly ever overpower neighbour factions. Scipii would probably be the best and take Sicilty acn Carthage, Brutii will take just a few territories in macedonia, and Julii will somethimes even not expand from starting provices.

Doesn't sound like historic expansion of roman republic.

The only faction the AIs can be sucessful with are the Eggies...

[Enjoi_BlackHawk]

yeah, by the time i got over there to egpyt they concured all of minor asia, Middle East, and right up to thamus