Post-BI Imperial Campaign v1.3

[Xiahou]

I'm currently playing an imperial campaign as the Julii(H/H) where the Brutii seem to be doing quite well. They've finished off Macedon and are seiging Sparta, after which, the Greeks will be gone from Greece (i've been funneling thousands of denari to the greeks hoping they'd make life tougher for the Brutii, but it hasn't paid off). As others mention, the Scipii seem bewildered after conquering Sicily and arent doing much.

On the balance, I'm enjoying the post-BI imperial campaign more than before- but I haven't really spent alot of time playing it so your mileage may vary.

[Garvanko]

For me, two full stack Scipii 'hordes' decided to go walkabout in Russia, even though they still haven't left Sicily. Perhaps they're on a Senate mission. Its ridiculous, really.

[Puzz3D]

I'm at 191 BC in my RTW v1/.3 (M/M) Julii campaign. Brutii has done very well defeating Macedon and Greeks early in the campaign. They now have 16 full armies in Greece, and I can see two 4 star generals. I have four territories which seem to block Brutii from expanding north from Greece. The Greeks were hanging on with a single city, Rhodes, for a long time, and attacked Pontus in Asia Minor, but were thrown back. Brutii attacked Rhodes in 192 BC, and it looks like the Greeks might loose.

Scipii has still not invaded North Africa. Carthage is the dominant sea power, but there are not a lot of ships around. Scipii can only support about 6 full armies. They sent two full armies out of Italy up to the northeast part of the map. One of these armies is near Thrace who Scipii was at war with for a long time, but they never attacked Thrace. Now for the last 20 turns or so, Brutii, Scipii and SPQR have been alternately declaring war with Thrace and then getting a cease fire on on every turn. They are in some kind of diplomatic oscillation with Thrace. Interestingly, Thrace wouldn't accept a cease fire with me after I took one of their cities although I tried for the entire 20 turns since I got two senate missions to establish peace with Thrace.

Dacia has been recently eliminated, Parthia has one city, Spain two cities, Numidia seems to be fighting battles with Carthage, and Egypt and Pontus are fighing each other while Britannia, Germania, Scythia and Thrace are dormant. All of the AI factions spend all of their money except SPQR. I failed to complete about half of the senate missions. With 22 cities, squalor is an issue for Julii, and I'm in the process of garrisoning all but a few of my cities in Italy with town malitia so that economically I can go on the offensive and expand further.

I've been auto-resolving battles vs rebels, and haven't lost a single one. Auto-resolve is giving resonable results. I do take more casualties using it than if I fought those battles, but it would be a bit tedious to play them all out. I find the number of rebel armies to be occuring at a reasonable rate.

I looked at a 220 BC savegame of an RTW v1.2 Julii (M/M) vanilla campaign I had played back in Feburary. I used the same style of play in both campaigns which is to slowly expand Julii by land in a rather conservative way. I can't see the eastern most factions in the v1.2 campaign, but the factions I can see have almost exactly the same distribution as in my present RTW v1.3 (M/M) campaign in 220 BC with the one marked exception that the exact same regions Carthage owns in North Africa in the v1.3 campaign are owned by Scipii in the v1.2 campaign.

[player1]

I've found a workaround to a bug then brutii and scipii try to load units in transport and then unload them back in next turn.

It seems if you save/load game, after ship is loaded, that naval units won't be bugged. Continue save/loading until they unload them at enemy shore, since otherwise they'll be bugged again and go back.


Brutii condition now seems the easiest to fix.
Just save/load at 2nd turn of the campaign and they'll take Apolonia.

[Jambo]

Hi Puzz, a reason for this odd Roman behaviour has now been discerned and a partly workable solution put forward by player1. The problem with the AI Brutii and Scipii early expansions has been linked to yet another issue with saving and reloading, the only difference this time being that saving and reloading appears to HELP correct naval transport AI....

The thread and all the information available on this issue can be found here:

http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...art=81&stop=92

Now that the problem hasd been isolated, I'm sure that as time goes by the problem and potential working solution will become even more clear.

[Puzz3D]

Now that the problem hasd been isolated, I'm sure that as time goes by the problem and potential working solution will become even more clear.

It's fortunate that there is a workaround because I see in that thread someone is reporting that The Shogun has said there will be no more patches to RTW/BI. I'm not surprised that CA is drawing the line here, and I even predicted it.

I'll play another RTW v1.3 campaign saving and reloading on every turn to see if there are any other effects, but first i'm going to finish my present campaign.

Thx for the workaround player1. Nice find.

[player1]

I've seen that someone has reported that something Shogun said too.

But, on the other had, I haven't seem a single thread in which Shogun actually said something like that.

Plus, at mods forums Jerome talked about 1.3.1/1.4.1 that is supposed to fix save game compatibility problems and probably something else.

[Puzz3D]

Plus, at mods forums Jerome talked about 1.3.1/1.4.1 that is supposed to fix save game compatibility problems and probably something else.

Maybe The Shogun made his statement before this problem with naval invasions was known, and CA will reconsider patching it.

[Jambo]

It shouldn't be too bad doing "ctrl s" then "ctrl l" each turn. However, let's just hope that saving and reloading each turn doesn't have its own ramifications....

They've now moved that thread to the Bug Repository so that's the last we can post in it over there. I'd be interested to hear people's feedback on this, particularly with regards to the Scipii faction and whether it really helps them. The Brutii really only need to get across to Apollonia and then they're fine from then on. The Scipii are arguably more complicated.

[HoreTore]

The AI for the Brutii has worked VERY well in 1.3, in my current Julii campaign(started out as a short campaign, as I didn't bother to unlock the other factions manually as it's been a looong time since I played the Romans).

The Brutii almost beat me to taking 15 settlements before me, if they had gone after the remaining greeks in asia minor instead of whacking the Thracians, they would have beaten me to it. I wasn't too focused on whacking the Guls(bloody senate sending me on damnable missions on the other side of my empire...), but still...

The Scipii have stopped expanding after taking Sicily however, their MASSIVE army is camped in Capua. I've changed prefers_naval_invasions to yes, so I'll see if they'll move out... On a side note, if the civil war erupts now, I'm definitely toast :P

Oh, and I play on VH/VH.

[phred]

I'm playing Julii M/M and the Brutii haven't taken any new cities. Scipii has taken Sicily and Corinth (!??!). They marched a half stack all the way from Capua to Corinth and took the city from Macedon. Go figure.

Bruttii has marched armies to Greece, but they haven't taken any cities.

I tried to jumpstart Brutii by giving them the town north of Appollonia but they wouldn't take it. I didn't try to trade for it; I gave it to them as a gift and they wouldn't take it! The Senate wouldn't take it either, nor would the Scipii.

I'm allied with Macedon, and when Bruttii attacked them, the Senate and Brutii broke alliances with me. Scipii also attacked Macedon and then broke their alliance with me.
After they broke the alliance I tried to start the civil war but the game wouldn't let me (not popular enough).

[Garvanko]

Phred.. A Scipii stack is likely going to wander all the way through Scythia, Parthia, Seleucid country and end up somewhere near Pergamun. And then its going to walk all the way back.

First thing Im going to do when the civil war starts, Im going to kill a similar Scipii stack in my Brutii campaign.

[Jambo]

Well, good news. I gave Scipii Cyrene and that accompanied with the occasional save/reload can really kick-start the Roman factions into action.

It seems Brutii and Scipii have trouble with the initial order for seabound invasions, but a quick save/reload seems to trigger them into action. If you see stacks hanging around the coastline doing little, possibly repeatedly getting on and off ships without apparent purpose or progress, then a quick save/reload seems to solve the stagnation.

Good work for noticing that player 1.

Now if we can only find a cure for the AI not using pila, etc, before attacking...

[Puzz3D]

Well, good news. I gave Scipii Cyrene and that accompanied with the occasional save/reload can really kick-start the Roman factions into action.

It seems Brutii and Scipii have trouble with the initial order for seabound invasions, but a quick save/reload seems to trigger them into action.

An occasional save/load isn't enough to fix this problem. You're going to have to save/load on every turn. In my Julii campaign in 191 BC, Brutii had invaded Rhodes (no doubt due to reloading from a save) but needed reinforcements to beat the Greeks there. They put 6 units on a ship and sent it towards Rhodes, but just as player1 said, on the next turn, that ship returned to the Athens area where it came from. Then I decided to save/load on every turn. On the first turn, Brutii sent the same 6 units toward Rhodes. On the second turn, the ship didn't move, but on the third turn the ship landed the 6 units on Rhodes. On the next turn Brutii beat the last Greeks on Rhodes using those reinforcements. It's as player1 said that you have to keep saving and loading until the voyage completes, and in my campaign Brutii must make naval invasions after conquering Macedonia and Greece since I cut them off across the top of the Balkan peninsula.

I started another Julii campaign not doing anything except saving and loading on every turn. Brutii took Apollonia and sent reinforcements. The Greeks shipped some units from the Peloponnesus to reinforce it's more threatened cities to the north. Carthage semed to ship troops to Sicily and Sardinia, but I don't see them possibly because they are hiding in ambush. Scipii shipped 6 units to Greece, but didn't unload them. They brought them back to Italy and landed them near the Brutii city of Croton. It's 265 BC, so I'm only 10 turns into this campaign, and already there has been a lot of naval movement of troops.

[Jambo]

When I had given Scipii Cyrene, I only needed one reload and sometimes I didn't need to reload at all to get them to take units from Capua or Sicily to Cyrene. Once their ships were on their way across the Med, I didn't need reloads for them to continue to their destination.

Maybe, this issue is strictly for naval movement to "enemy" territory? After all, once the Brutii take Apollonia, they don't seem to have problems landing further troops there (or at least not as many problem as when it's a rebel province)...

[player1]

Yes I think it is issue with naval invasions not just naval transport.

[Puzz3D]

In the campaign where I was saving and loading on every turn, Scipii did send troops to Greece by ship, but they turned around before reaching land and went back to Italy. It looks like they were at war with the Greek Cities the whole time. It's interesting that Scipii is allied with Carthage.

[Garvanko]

It's interesting that Scipii is allied with Carthage.

Personally, I think it's scandalous.