Any WRE Turnaround Specialists Out There?

**Strongsword** · 09-30-2005, 19:20

The Western Roman Empire starts out in worse shape than post-Godfather Marlon Brando. It seems a shame to downsize so drastically in Turn 1 just to stem the red ink. There has to be a better way to survive than reducing the army to peasants and abandoning all cities north of Rome.

Any future Lee Iaccocas out there with thoughts or strategies on how to turn the tide early on (with barbarians literally at the gates)?

**Bob the Insane** · 09-30-2005, 20:11

I started my second go at WRE last night...

This time I was care to maintain and even reinforce the dominate religion in each settlement (building the approriate shrine, moving in a governer with an appropriate religion). I disbanded all but two of my naval units and a lot of cavalry when the public order level in the city allows it.

So far only one settlement has revolted and after a few turns I olny have 3 with red faces (only one serious on %40 public order) and my financial losses are tailing off at only -4k.

By comparision in my first game I choice to enforce christianity from the start. I lost all of spain, britain and north africa and all of gaul was in continual revolt and I was -30K.

More later...

**Garvanko** · 09-30-2005, 20:24

I almost cried after turn 1.

**Viking** · 09-30-2005, 20:53

In the beginning I lost 11K every turn until it stabilized at minus 140K. Now I`m getting +7K every turn, but still it`s a long way to go before I can actually build or train anything.
I`ve eliminated the Allemannii and reduced the Saxons pieces. All this without training a single unit. It might look difficult, but it`s much easier than what it looks like, I`m afraid. Once my treasury is in + it`s gonna be no trouble to win.

**gardibolt** · 09-30-2005, 22:59

Viking, please elaborate as to how you engineered that massive turn-around.

**Sam Adams** · 10-01-2005, 01:18

the key is you gotta get rid of a sizeable portion of your army the first turn. There are alot of cities that have more troops than they need to keep control of the masses. You need to be able to build up an inner trade core to get some real income. Also I have a feeling that having a single religion empire will be easier to run so im converting all my cities to churches.

So, disband almost all your navy and cavalry. Slowly replace garrison units with peasants. This way you start off with positive cash flow even though you might lose a couple cities. You can retake those cities, put the pagans to the sword, and then they should behave.

**Viking** · 10-01-2005, 18:14

Originally Posted by gardibolt

Viking, please elaborate as to how you engineered that massive turn-around.

The key is to try keep the settlements you have and try to conquer new ones. Occupy if you can, mostly you`ll need to exterminate. Keep the taxes as high as possible without the settlements revolting. The point where you suddenly get positive income will almost come by itself; the more battles you play the less soldiers to pay upkeep for, the more turns you play the more citizens you can tax.
I`m afraid my 7K boost did only last 2 turns, until Burgundii came and plundered my borders. Then of course the Huns wanted to plunder me too, so after that my income has been settled around +2K. My treasury is now at -21K denarii.