Strategy for Playing E/W Roman Empire in BI

[Doug-Thompson]

Years ago, I had a board game called "Imperium Romanum" that covered the same period of time. I played the Eastern Empire a lot.

I tried to juggle and balance the first couple of games, then realized my problems would be a whole lot simpler to solve if the Sassanid Empire was wiped out first. It was always threatening to declare war on me. You had to roll a die for it every turn. If I wiped it out instead, conquering the rest of the map was a snap.

The same preemptive plan might work here.

[econ21]

The same preemptive plan might work here.

Yup, in Total War, wiping out factions early is usually the most effective (and least exhausting) strategy. I wonder if I will have the stamina to simply try to "hold the line" as the W. Roman Empire and not move into other lines? I like turtling and this might be one set up in which such behaviour is historical.

[Doug-Thompson]

@SA

One interesting aspect of the "horde" option might be to make "blitz" openings less practical for the Western Empire. If you blitz some barbarians, they'll just turn into a horde and reestablish themselves somewhere else, either in your territory of somebody elses.

If so, that would be interesting and an improvement.

[econ21]

Yes, the "horde" feature sounds interesting, although it sounds more like something that will help barbarians biltz (no real estate to garrison) rather than protect them from pre-emptive blitzing themselves. I don't understand it completely, but from what I gather it does not seem to stop the player wiping out a barbarian faction in the few provinces it initially possesses. Kind of like defeating the Golden Horde on the turn they arrive in MTW (or indeed, stopping the Mongols early in MI). On the other hand, the over-stretched Romans probably aren't in much of a position to go charging into barbarian hordes in the early game (unless katank is leading them!) .

[Kralizec]

I simply don't see how such a rush would be feasonable. Like said, the WE consists of stretched, barely loyal provinces. If the game follows history reasonably well, most of these have to be abandoned. I'm probably going to ship all troops in Gaul to Brittain and fight the Saxons over it

[Conqueror]

@ Germaanse Strijder:

Now that's an interesting plan. If you can win the battle for Britain then you can use it as a base to build up an army and launch assaults against the barbarians. Coupled with an all-out defense of Italy on the Alpine mountain passes, you'll have the barbarians in Gaul squeezed between two fronts. That might cause problems though, since your empire will be split in two isolated parts, and if the loyalty mechanics in BI take such situation into count (hopefully it will) then you'll have a very real risk of losing britain to a rebellion.

[Probus]

Please keep your thoughts on any faction strategies coming...

I've just revisited the BI FAQs and revisited the campaign map screenshots at: http://www.gamestar.de/aktuell/scre...?galleryId=1172. As a result, I have noted the following:

1) The Saxons and the Alemanni do not possess the ability to Horde;
2) The strength of the 1/2 and 1/3rd strength WRE armies in Gaul, which are laying siege to the WRE Rebels in 366 AD, three years into the new campaign, which could be combined to make a formidable 3/4 WRE field army;
3) The starting strengths of the Saxons and Alemanni.

If these positions are as per the final game version, and again allowing for the fact that it is not known what level of difficulty the BI XP was being played in order to generate these screenshots, is it just me that thinks that the WRE rebels could be ignored for a few turns whilst going on the offensive to eliminate the above Barb' factions?

I may withdraw further forces from Avaricum in the first turns of the game and combine them under the leadership of the Marcus Flavius, who is apparently loyal, since he then is shown in the screenshot leading one of two WRE armies besieging the green coloured WRE rebel forces in Avaricum.

Even without additional forces from Avaricum, with a 3/4 strength WRE army I am confident that I could strike a knock out blow on the Alemanni when they head for Augusta Treverorum, before taking out the Saxons, thereby securing Gaul and Britain.

In play testing battles against all of the barb' factions using Rodeo BI App' I've found that with a strong WRE army, I can defeat any equally strong Barb' Army, even on the v' hard difficulty settings.

My conclusion, I hope the player generating the campaign map screenshots at gamestar was playing the BI XP on the easier settings, or that CA strengthen the starting strengths of the Saxons, Franks and Alemanni factions in the game when it is released in T- 1 month!