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Thread: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

  1. #1

    Default Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Guide.
    Frogbeastegg's Guide to Total War: Shogun II. Please note that the guide is not up-to-date for the latest patch.


  2. #2
    Sand
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Ive only been playing over the weekend so Im just going to contribute a few points that have become apparent as I played. The WREs position seems nice on the strategy map but its a complete mess. No cash, no trade net work to make it, a huge army bill thats spread out across the map so youve no concentration of force, and practically all cities on the verge of revolt due to religious schisms. And thats even before the barbarians show up.

    Be brutal - All the cities in Spain except for Corduba need to be demolished as much as possible for loot, and abandoned to revolt. Just before you go build Christian Shrines there, as when they revolt they seem to go 99% Christian if theres a Christian shrine there. This can be useful later.

    Similar deal for the likes of Salona, Avaricarum, and similar cities that just arent going to make it. Loot them, leave them. Some cities can be saved, even by steps as simple as moving the governers in them out of the city, Carthage can go from Red to Green in the first turn for example. Youll need to micromanage and experiment with various tax/games and whatever settings. Theres far too much to go into here and most people should know by now how to deal with a tough city. Your Emperor is Christian and that means a 10% public order penalty in Pagan cities, which can tip the scales in the big cities. Wherever possible build christian shrines and move characters as appropriate (Valentinus in Rome, and the 24 year old General in Hungary are born again evangelists, really useful for fast conversion). Christian regions reinforce each other, likewise Pagans so dont skate uphill in places like the western frontier. Some you should leave alone for now - like Eburcuam (York...), Massilla and Syracuse are just asking for trouble when youve got enough already.

    Your army bill is insane (for what you can support anyway) and youll need to dump about 25% of it as soon as you can. Get it down to under 30K or less if possible. Trash every troop producing building outside Rome in your first turn. You need the cash, and Rome produces the best troops you can make anyway. Then start disbanding units of troops - I favour dumping Foederatti Cavalary and the Comitatenses, the first because Light Cavalry isnt the most useful troop type around, and the second because its far, far, far too expensive for you to maintain. You need to keep a small army in North Africa (I favour building peasants in Syracuse, then sending the 2 Comms 2 Archers stack to Cartage whilst disbanding the other Comm - this takes a few turns), and similar sized armies in Spain, the Balkans and Britannia. A larger army is needed in Western Europe obviously, but dont let that Nero chap command it at the end of the turn - hes useful for a quick attack, but move him out of the stack at the end of the turn because hes a treacherous so and so. After army disbandments your forces will be paper thin, and you wont be able to retrain them anywhere but Rome, but skilled Generals will still win handily where they need to. Your navy also needs to be disbanded. Two ship stacks need to be one ship stacks, and you need them only in Corduba, Londium, Syracuse and the Adriatic. Everything else disband in a port.

    Keep your taxes as high as you can, youre aiming for blue faces. Im the first couple of turns everything is about cash, and making it. Caralis and Londinium seem to be the two cities that are most worth investing in in terms of markets and trade etc. Prioritise them for money making first. After all my looting and disbanding I was actually able to turn a profit on my first turn - you will be hurt when the Pagan cities rebel on the 2nd turn but its short term pain for long term gain.

    At this point you should have a couple of thousand denarri, and several cities especially in Spain are going to riot and then revolt. Let them. They will only have peasant armies (if you destroyed all troop making buildings). Move in the next turn and seige them and then exterminate them. Ive done this about 5 times now and you make usually 10K a city, sometimes 5 or 6K. The population is sometimes magically tipped to Christian since rebelling (build those shrines in the first turn), and the squalor which was such a mess before is not a problem now. You should have a much better chance of building and holding these cities now, if not push them into revolt and exterminate them again. Pop boom should keep them happy.

    The Allemani can also be bushwhacked easy enough in the first couple of turns, and again exterminated and looted. Then demolish for loot, push them into revolt, leave and theyll swing to the Western Empire rebels, which can be a useful buffer. There are other rebel barbarians on the frontier that can be exterminated for loot so whilst youre waiting for the barbarians to show up help yourself. Dont get too worried about the barbarians, theyre coming, but they havent made any hostile moves in my campaign yet.

    Ive fought one battle against the Berbers and wasnt impressed - light infantry, light cavalary: I beat a Berber army of four inf/cav units +general with a unit of foe spears and a unit of Lim + the Gen in carthage with practically no casualties. They seemed to have no morale, maybe the gen in question but either way, not a concern.

    Be careful where you build your agents, Christians seem to be recruited from Christian cities and they have an effect on conversion, a lot of Christian diplomats and spies can maybe tip the balance in a pagan city and vice versa.

  3. #3
    Merkismathr of Birka Member PseRamesses's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    "Consolodating"

    Turn 1:
    Destroy all pagan buildings. Destroy all military buildings (except in Rome). Disband units like priests, bucellarii, all cavs and all fleets except 2 (Britain and Sicily). This will bring your treasury up to well over 19.000 dinarii. Set all taxes to low and build peasant and christian shrine (1 turn) in all settlements.
    You have 5 ZoD (zone of defence): Iberia, France, Balkan, Italy and Africa. Pull all expendable troops together into 5 armies within thoose areas.

    Turn 2:
    Continue removing expendable troops from settlements into the 5 armies as lyalties goes up. Single out the one settlement in each region that has the lowest loyalty and pull all troops out and make shure loyalty goes down to 0%. Theese 5 settlements are the first that you will terminate. In all other settlements build a christian chapel (2 turns) and more peasants for garrisoning, 2-4/ settlement will usually do.


    +"Liquidating"

    Turn 3:
    Lay seige to the "5" settlements that you singled out. For me it was actually 4: Aduatica?/ Iberia, Avaricum/ France, Salona/ Balkans and Mediolanium/ Italy.
    Your treasury should now dip well below -5.000 d.

    Turn 4:
    Take theese settlements and exterminate the population. This will bring some 40-50.000 d. into your treasury. All chapels are now built so you can move on and sacking remainding settlemnts that still won´t hover around 100% with 4 garrisoning peasants and NO general. Repeat, repeat and repeat again until all "pagans" arer rooted out of your new christian empire.

    = "PseRamesses´3-turn key" to increased cash-flow


    In less than 2 years you´ve now turned a sprawling civil-war prune empire on the edge of collapse into a cash-making machine and just 10 years into the game you´ll make well over 15.000d/ turn. Bring on the hordes!

    Now you´re all set. Cash is coming in with 10k/ turn + from exterminating/ enslaving troublesome settlements and you can rebuild the infrastructure you initially destroyed. Don´t worry about other enemies, they won´t come wandering into your lands until they have troops to spare. Guard your border-bridges since a small defensive force can protect it easily. Haven´t even had any major difficulties with the hordes this way.
    Be ware though of the commanders you have with pagan beliefs - they are easily bribed, and the barbarbarian factions start out with a lot of cash; 10-15.000 d. This is the reason why I want my garrisoning to work without any generals. Send them to Rome and some monastary (sp?) teachings for a while. Thoose that don´t convert, "hang" as many pagan vices around their necks and send them on suicidal missions.
    From here I tend to build, build and build with my focus on defending. When done with this and evrything is solid I expand, usually into ERE-lands and I let the pestering little barbarians stay alive even if they won´t agree on a ceasefire or protectorate deal. Anyway, a good bridge slaughter now and then is always healthy and keeps my armies alert, right?!

  4. #4
    Member Member Sand's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    One other point - (I only registered just there) - Corduba is "paired" tradewise with Tingi, which starts the game as the Berber captial, and theyre at war with you. In typical frustrating Total War style this means they never see a reason to make peace with you, until theyre dead. Peace and mutual benefit from trade isnt attractive to them it seems. So make it a point of order to send an army from Carthage ( the one originally from Syracuse will be well able to beat anything the Berbers can muster ) and deal out some Pax Romana to the locals. There are other draws to Tingi apart from making cash - its Christian, and its got decent troop production which youll have missed in Iberia/North Africa until now. Reinforce those battered legions, then send them north to help out on the frontier when order is restored in Iberia.

    And a correction to what I said above about Shrines tipping rebelling cities to Christianity...they dont. Though the swing in Tarraco to Christianity is indeed miraculous if you leave them alone for 3 -4 turns. Its still worth building shrines in rebelling cities though, as they force the region to be officially Christian, which reinforces conversion in your own remaining regions that are neighbouring them. Ive also begun heavily converting the frontier by capturing and exterminating barbarian settlements on the frontier and building shrines before I abandon them or gift them to a local faction for brownie points. Helps my provinces to convert, or at least stop converting to Paganism. Agents as I said above help, but its not automatic that a Christian city produces a christian agent - Ive yet to see a pagan one produced in a Christian city, but a fair few are neither.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I think I got totally lucky. I was also very persistent. I did not worry about changing any cities religion. Those places that I could not adjust to get over 60% at the beginning, I let them revolt and took them back later. I did not disband any armies, I just pulled them together in certain regions for defense and some (very Little) offense. I did have problems for 75% of the game with cities (unrest). I always did just enough to keep them in the blue and some even in the red. 1st building priority was temples/shrines/church etc, whatever the city was majority wise. Then entertainment and health. Those cities that were happy I did the money and health upgrades.

    Since I did not disband I had good army strength to defend and to put down revolts. I cashed in on all military buildings except for a few well placed cities. Kept 4 - 6 peasants per city, except those on border with a neighbor kept some better troops to defend and foray out if need be.. Only upgraded military buildings in Carthage and Rome. I fell in the negative alot but would always estermiante a neighbor to get money back up.

    Took England and the celts quick. Took troops from syracuse to help Carthage defend. Got lucky when the Berbs wanted peace for a small time. When they attacked next, was always able to fend them off. My navy was beat up early except for small fleets east of Rome (helped me ferry troops to east border), and near carthage. I built a small enough fleet to take more men to England to deal with Celts and them bring them back. Took the Berbs out when I built up an army big enough. Owned the whole Left 1/3 of map.

    Hordes came.... WOW!! Hard but man was it fun. Army was strong enough to take out 4 different hordes as they tried to come through my land. Good thing they all never came at the sametime. Any 2 hordes would have been more than I could handle. Had to deal with East Rome the whole time but they only wanted (can't think of city name) city just east of Rome. I was able to ferry troops over when needed to keep beating them off. Was able to catch small pieces of the horde when they are not adjacent to the whole group. Lots of battles where I was out numbered 2 to 1. Used 6 to 7 groups of archers defended by inf. and cal. with a couple of mounted archers. Up to 668 archers helped me to desimate any mounted archers that came to bother me. I have them in losse format and choose certain untis to attack certain groups and let them take them out. Once charged I tighten back up their formation and pull them back to saftey behind my lines. This worked like a charm even though I would lose 100 or so archers some battles. Easy enough to replace them (cheap).

    Franks caused me problems for awhile. I beat them pretty bad till they were down to one city. They then turned into a horde (someone must have took out that last city. Until I had the strength I just kept the river between me and them and they were never brave enough to come across. I built a new army with all the finest and with a new general I just bought. I used 3 full stacks to wipe the Frank hoard.

    By this time 98% or so of my cities are in the green and I am rolling in dough. Took Theselonia from East, then Athens. Army in Africa rolled all the way over and took Alexandria. Extermiante these cities and my surpluss of money was approaching 50,000. I beat the game in the year 421 with 44 territories. I will continue to play till the whole map is red.

    Like I said I got lucky with not changing my whole empire to one religion (would not recommend that). Only played that round on Medium. Will now try the west on hard and will use some of the ideas above.

  6. #6
    Member Member Sand's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    More to add: The rhine and the danube are your best friend. Without them keeping Western Europe civillised would be impossible, instead of merely extremely difficult. There are just over half a dozen bridging and fording points along their lenth. Build your army towards having a small border army on each bridge (Im working with 4 Limitanei and 4 Archers, though some are underutilised and Ill be disbanding them as the horde threat recedes), and then build two field armies with all the good stuff and sit them centrally to reinforce any bridge that comes under threat. Get them led by a general with good movement bonuses. With highways built ( midgame priority) youll be able to move along whole frontier in one turn. Best way to discourage hoardes whilst keeping your army bills down. Then your down to some good old fashioned bridge massacres!

    In my game Ive so far annialated the Goths and the Vandals (theyre still around, just not worth anything). The Vandals were seiging the Frankish capital, and I was considering my options when the Vandals forced my hand by suddenly crossing into Roman land via a ford just north of the Alps that I hadnt seen and thus hadnt defended. Cue panic! Anyway, the interloepers were driven out, but better still was the night attacks led by that treacherous cur Nero to lift the seige of the Frankish capital by the Vandal stacks. I could take each stack singly because of night attacks and thus managed to beat them all with a scratched together army. The real benefit of lifting the seige on the Franks was stopping them from "hoarding" and thus making the Rhine to hot to hold. Nero and Spuris Flavius ( Acquinium) are extremely useful for cutting down the hordes to manageable numbers with their night attack ability.

    Dealing with horse archers is a pain, but I favour heavy cavalry over archers against them. Youll take losses using your archers but your generals ( esp when retrained in Romes foundry) will be practically invulnerable to horse archer fire. Takes some micro management (and a few generals on hand) to "herd" horse archers against a red line and massacre them but its the most cost effective way to do it ( gens regenerate, archers do not). It also helps your gens develop good traits/stats from all that killing.

    Right now, there are only two hoards still active - the Huns whove taken a few beatings on their way to me I think, and the Samartians who are probing to find an unguarded bridge. This is something you can manipulate - when the Vandals crossed into the Alps the Samartians were queing up to follow them across this ford. By this time I managed to get an army to the ford, and pulled another army off the bridge north of Acquinium - Samartians turned straight around and made a beeline for the unguarded bridge, giving me the turn I needed to beat the Vandals and I was still able to garrison the bridge again before the Samartians arrived. The hordes really dont like guarded bridges.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Dealing with horse archers is a pain, but I favour heavy cavalry over archers against them. Youll take losses using your archers but your generals ( esp when retrained in Romes foundry) will be practically invulnerable to horse archer fire. Takes some micro management (and a few generals on hand) to "herd" horse archers against a red line and massacre them but its the most cost effective way to do it ( gens regenerate, archers do not). It also helps your gens develop good traits/stats from all that killing.
    I will have to try that Sand. I am not having any money problems anymore but in the early to mid game your way sounds very good.

    I now own 2/3 of the map and have wiped out 6 different hordes now. It is only a clean up job now to turn the rest of the map red. I will then grow up and move up to Hard/hard or even very hard/very hard.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Just a thought but playing as a Roman faction you might want to consider having a good general as Emperor. As the Western Roman Empire, I made Nero Flavius, Count of the Saxon Shore (with a command rating of 5) heir to the throne and when Valentinus the Wrathful died, I had no problems with rebel Roman factions emerging after he took over. I think the fear of having a skilled general ruling over the empire was enough to put fear into potential usurpers.

    In the original RTW, who you made faction heir didn’t really matter. Sullust the Baby Killer could be made faction leader and no one would care because loyalty wasn’t a factor. With Barbarian Invasions, loyalty is a huge concern. The Western Roman Empire starts with 2 or 3 governors/generals with questionable loyalty. Fix this by giving them political titles (found in the retinue) from Generals who already have good loyalty. For example, the holder of “Count of the Saxon Shore” was given to an idiotic gambler family member who was already loyal enough. So instead I gave the titles to Nero Flavius since he was a good general who lacked loyalty and this raised his loyalty enough to not rebel. If you feel that any family member will rebel, put them under the control of a powerful general who is loyal. This will keep them from rebelling.

    Also, many Roman governors start out with terrible vices that wreak havoc on an already devastated economy. Consider removing the bad ones from important cities like Rome and Carthage and make them governors of economically poor regions like Londonium. Or alternatively if any family member has no redeeming factors whatsoever, just reduce them to cavalry officers under the command of a good general.

  9. #9
    Resident Northern Irishman Member ShadesPanther's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    This happened with my ERE campaign but is still relevant here. Be very careful who you make faction heir and be very very careful and do not remove a family member from the position of Heir (which can be a big problem when your Emperor dies as it give heir to anyone) Because they get a really bad trait and possibly even more bad loyalty ones. It happened to my mid level general who was in Asia minor at the time quashing a revolt, so he joined them along with the biggest army in the region

    "A man may fight for many things: his country, his principles, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mudwrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a stack of French porn."
    - Edmund Blackadder

  10. #10

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    http://www.russiananimation.com/export_des...cter_traits.rar

    This file makes it impossible for roman FACTION LEADER to go disloyal. The only thing that could lower faction leader loyalty is "Deceiver trait" and that has command bonus on highest level

    All i did was added "Factionleader" as antitrait to all loyalty penalty traits. they only influence loyalty directly or influence in one instance. and since influence is not used in BI i thought it was of no consequence

    no other modifications were made to this file. your generals still can go land become drunkards if you want.

    below find a "No_Disloyal_faction_leader_nodrunk_gluton.rar" traits file.

    this is the one i use as i hate moving my generals every single turn from every single setlement to prevent them from becoming fat slobs.

    http://www.russiananimation.com/No_Disloya...runk_gluton.rar

  11. #11
    Senior Member Senior Member econ21's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I followed some of the advice given here and in the Colosseum {EDIT: a lot of my points seem to be common to advice by Dorkus}, and had no problems with money or loyalty. You don't have to give up a single city. This has only been tried on M/M difficulty, but I'm going to see if works on higher levels.

    To deal with the money problem:
    (1) Lower upkeep: Disband most fleets (I kept one near Britain, one near Gibraltar, and one near Carthage). Disband cavalry (I kept the Samartians) and priests.
    (2) Get a lump sum to invest: destroy all troop buildings except those in Rome. You have a big enough army to start with and just want the high tech troops you can get by upgrading buildings in Rome. You can get lower level buildings when you take enemy towns.
    (3) Exterminate the Allemanni city for an early cash boost. The Pictish one and any nearby rebels are other targets.
    (4) Sell trade rights to any neighbours (200GP for 6 turns). I decided not to sell my map in the hope that this keeps the AI in the dark.
    (5) Micromanage taxes - maximise them subject to keeping blue faces until things get comfortable.
    (6) Prioritise economic buildings - especially ports and mines. (Actually second priority after loyalty buildings in red faced towns).

    To deal with towns' low loyalty:
    (1) Move the capital to Massila. This lowers the distance to capital penalty for many towns.
    (2) Match the religion of governors to the religion of towns.
    (3) Build the appropriate temples for the town's religion. I kept the Empire divided in religion. This meant effectively Italy was Christian but the rest of Western Europe was pagan.
    (4) Raise units of peasants as garrisons where doing so would raise loyalty.
    (5) Build amphitheatres for larger towns.

    I have not had the Western Roman rebels emerge nor loyalty problems with any generals. Maybe winning battles raises loyalty like in MTW? I did give an office to a low loyalty high command general (Nero Flavius?).

    Militarily, the early game has been quiet. I lost my British army in the Irish sea (doh!). I destroyed a Samartian horde on the bridge north of Salona (it also lost 1000 men taking Salona from two units - two stacks marched around the city walls to the front gate). I wiped out the Berbers. Now I'm facing depleted Vandal and Hun hordes, then I will make a push to Constantinople to secure the victory conditions.

    I would prioritise roads and highways in the mid-game. The Empire is so large, it helps to be able to traverse it quickly.

    I also built up decent fleets to deal with annoying pirates, but that was more for psychological reasons.

    In terms of armies:
    1) Archers are still very good buys (3/stack is good) although the crossbows I am not so keen on - they are outranged by bows.
    2) I have found limitanei to be poor choices for front line field armies - the AI zeroes in on them. Better to keep them for garrisons and hunting rebels.
    3) Comitatenses are fine troops and the core of my armies, but suffer against general's heavy cavalry (a downhill charge by one general's unit killed 50 comitatenses within a few seconds) - a couple of units of foederati might be a help here.
    4) Mid-game targets are plumbatari to replace comitatenses and auxilia palatina to replace foederati. The Samartians are better than the Scholae Palatina, so don't need replacing.
    Last edited by econ21; 10-10-2005 at 21:52.

  12. #12
    Guest Dayve's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Some of the guides here really are terrible, especially ones that tell you to demolish buildings and exterminate everyone...That's ridiculous. I've never done that as the WRE, and i have at least 6 thousand denarii by turn two, and i play on vh campaign...

    The first thing you need to do is disband all foederati infantry and cavalry. You can create more on turn two if you like, but for turn one just disband it all. Don't even think about messing with religion yet, if a city is pagan, leave it alone, if a city is mostly christian but has a pagan shrine, pull it down and put up a christian church and vice versa, but that's it...No trying to convert from turn one, unless of course you absolutely want to have a really challenging campaign, challenging to the point where the chances of you being able to win are virtually nil.

    Anywho, once you've disbanded all foederati's, lower taxes so that your city faces are at least blue, and if they are still red then make the games monthly, or daily if needs be. If they're still red, (corduba and burdigala) then you have a choice of either letting them rebel and taking them back then exterminating, or queing up peasants and hoping that brings some order. I can't use peasants since i use the SPQR minimod.

    Now, the Celts will NEVER attack you in Britannia even though you are at war with them, so disband everything except for city garrisons in Britannia, and just keep enough to make your cities yellow or at least blue. You should be able to raise taxes here a little too...

    In Gaul, you have lots of archers in your cities, so put them into your 'army' which you start with in Gaul...You don't need all 7, so disband 4, unless you really want them...

    In Iberia just disband everything except for city garrisons. Lots of rebels will popup here, but for now you'll just have to leave them be. In Sicily and Italy, you have a lot of Comitatenses in your cities, so make them all into an army. You might want to send them to the east near Aquincum to defend it, or to Salona to defend that, which can be a very profitable city with a little building... Or you might want to send them to defend North Africa, but i wouldn't recommend this. You'll almost certainly lose Carthage to the Berbers unless you send some Comitatenses there, and Lepcis magna will probably revolt, but when you have a little more money you can make a small army and go back over there to re-claim them.

    After all this is done, you'll have at least 6 thousand denarii by turn two, so now would be a good time to start building the cheapest economic buildings...Ports cost only 800, you could build 7 of those, or 5 markets, or 4-5 paved roads, take your pick...I'd go for the ports. Alternatively you can que up Comitatenses and go on the offensive...Allemanii is weak, and their single city is fairly juice...10,000+ people to be massacred ...I think you can take over from here.

  13. #13
    Merkismathr of Birka Member PseRamesses's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    Some of the guides here really are terrible, especially ones that tell you to demolish buildings and exterminate everyone...That's ridiculous. I've never done that as the WRE, and i have at least 6 thousand denarii by turn two, and i play on vh campaign...
    Me too and with +15.000 around the 10th turn and a treasury hovering around 50k by the 20th I do belive my initial slash-and-burn tactics is the most profitable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    The first thing you need to do is disband all foederati infantry and cavalry. You can create more on turn two if you like, but for turn one just disband it all. Don't even think about messing with religion yet, if a city is pagan, leave it alone, if a city is mostly christian but has a pagan shrine, pull it down and put up a christian church and vice versa, but that's it...No trying to convert from turn one, unless of course you absolutely want to have a really challenging campaign, challenging to the point where the chances of you being able to win are virtually nil.
    You´re dead wrong. Building shrines from turn one will bring your empire into order faster than leaving a mix of beliefs. I´ve tried every approach of the WRE campaign so believe me I know what I´m talking about. BTW, what difficulty level are you playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    Anywho, once you've disbanded all foederati's, lower taxes so that your city faces are at least blue, and if they are still red then make the games monthly, or daily if needs be. If they're still red, (corduba and burdigala) then you have a choice of either letting them rebel and taking them back then exterminating, or queing up peasants and hoping that brings some order. I can't use peasants since i use the SPQR minimod.
    Now, the Celts will NEVER attack you in Britannia even though you are at war with them, so disband everything except for city garrisons in Britannia, and just keep enough to make your cities yellow or at least blue. You should be able to raise taxes here a little too...
    In Gaul, you have lots of archers in your cities, so put them into your 'army' which you start with in Gaul...You don't need all 7, so disband 4, unless you really want them...
    In Iberia just disband everything except for city garrisons. Lots of rebels will popup here, but for now you'll just have to leave them be. In Sicily and Italy, you have a lot of Comitatenses in your cities, so make them all into an army. You might want to send them to the east near Aquincum to defend it, or to Salona to defend that, which can be a very profitable city with a little building... Or you might want to send them to defend North Africa, but i wouldn't recommend this. You'll almost certainly lose Carthage to the Berbers unless you send some Comitatenses there, and Lepcis magna will probably revolt, but when you have a little more money you can make a small army and go back over there to re-claim them.
    Consolodating + liquidating

  14. #14
    Guest Dayve's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I'm playing on vh/m. If i demolish temples and try to convert my empire into one religion from turn one, by turn 3 one half of my empire revolts against me. The only city i had to change the temple in as far as i can remember was the one next to Aquincum in the east, it had a pagan temple and the majority of the city were christian, so i tore it down and put up a church.

    I guess your way may work, but it's unrealistic to slaughter the population of every city you own...So i try the more realistic and harder approach. I try to hold on to them rather than just slaughter them all...

  15. #15
    Merkismathr of Birka Member PseRamesses's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    I'm playing on vh/m. If i demolish temples and try to convert my empire into one religion from turn one, by turn 3 one half of my empire revolts against me.
    If you´re going to change religion it´s better to do it from day one to catch that window of oppurtunity before the hordes comes on their self invited tea time. It´s also realistic due to history as christianity was the state religion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    I guess your way may work, but it's unrealistic to slaughter the population of every city you own...So i try the more realistic and harder approach. I try to hold on to them rather than just slaughter them all...
    I partially agree with that. OTOH christianity is the bloodiest religion in the history of man IMHO so it´s not that unrealistic. The main problem IMO is the rigidness of the game itself. Most provinces has an outrageous growth rate, you simply can´t keep up. And there´s no way, in the long run, to solve this problem other than either build peasants like a madman or do some extermination from time to time. At a growth rate of 5% a city of 2400 will grow by 0% if you build a peasant unit every turn. A city with 20.000 will outgrow you by 880 people/ turn still if you buy a peasant/ turn. The time it takes to build the top 5 buildings takes 25 years and by that time your city will have grown to 71.113 people - mission impossible.
    I usually keep as many peasants in a city to maintain maximum level of taxes. It´s a good thing they only cost 14d. in maintenance so keeping 20 in a city only costs what two regular spearmen do. And when you simply can´t keep up with the growth rate and loyalty drops below 90% with 20 peasants garrisoned, just pull them out and let the buggers revolt. As your tag sais: "It´s not a bug - it´s a feature!"

    Playing a mixed religion game will however give you unrest penalties. I can´t remember the numbers but some 5-10% drop of loyalty is expected. I do hope you pull it off and wish you an epic game m8!

  16. #16
    Member Member Sand's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    No trying to convert from turn one, unless of course you absolutely want to have a really challenging campaign, challenging to the point where the chances of you being able to win are virtually nil.
    Conversion to Christianity doesnt require the temple in the settlement to be Christian. The surrounding regions, characters in the settlements and agents have far more effect usually than the 5-10% you get from the level 1/2. I would never try and force a Christian Shrine on a population that isnt already 50% (ish) Christian, but you should be trying from turn 1 to convert your cities populations simply by concentrating Christian characters in the right spots. the Emp and Spurius Flavius are excellent for this. Your emperor is Christian and thats a 10% public order penalty which can be the difference between blue and red faces in the big cities, especially on top of distance/squalor penalities.You cant do much about the last two, so why waste time fixing the 10% penalty you can rectify?

    Anywho, once you've disbanded all foederati's, lower taxes so that your city faces are at least blue, and if they are still red then make the games monthly, or daily if needs be. If they're still red, (corduba and burdigala) then you have a choice of either letting them rebel and taking them back then exterminating, or queing up peasants and hoping that brings some order.
    And Salamantic (sp?), and a lot of other cities which simply cannot be prevented from rebelling - esp when youre disbanding their garrisons to save cash. Simplest and least time consuming to loot them, retake them and exterminate them. By the 6th-7th turn at the latest youre all done. Then you dont have to waste so many garrisons to nursemaid ingrates and can concentrate your efforts on the frontier.

    Anyway, your giving the same advice in the case of Corduba and Burdigala that you described as ridiculous at the top of your post.

    Now, the Celts will NEVER attack you in Britannia even though you are at war with them, so disband everything except for city garrisons in Britannia,
    Perhaps in your game they did not. I would not take your game as the rule however as they did attack me in my game - with a full stack army. If I had disbanded my army there, Id have lost Britannia as I could only possibly have reinforced it from the frontier, which was weak as it was. And the Londinium -Sambrovia trade is nice to have.

    I guess your way may work, but it's unrealistic to slaughter the population of every city you own...So i try the more realistic and harder approach. I try to hold on to them rather than just slaughter them all...
    The Roman Empire wasnt the land of chocolate, rainbows and kittens. It was kept together by governors terrorising local tribes and any and all troublemakers with the local military. The most realistic way to deal with rebelling locals from the Roman standpoint was to slaughter them in battle, then crucify the survivors and their families. Firm, but fair.

    At a growth rate of 5% a city of 2400 will grow by 0% if you build a peasant unit every turn. A city with 20.000 will outgrow you by 880 people/ turn still if you buy a peasant/ turn. The time it takes to build the top 5 buildings takes 25 years and by that time your city will have grown to 71.113 people - mission impossible.
    Most of the farming buildings (and agricultural temples) cause far more problems than they solve. I hardly build any of them. The squalor at 24,000 is 8% so if you can aim for that growth rate total, then should net to 0 growth when you hit 24,000. Slows growth, but like you said takes decades to build up each city level once you get past the first two levels anyway. Only thing that screws up the above is things like food imports, which mean Carthage and Co always run way out of control.

  17. #17
    Guest Dayve's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Killing the trouble makers may be realistic, but letting a city rebel and then slaughtering everyone, trouble makers, non-trouble makers etc. 75% of the population is unrealistic. When in the Roman empire did they let every city they owned rebel, then take it back and slaughter 75% of its population? They didn't...

  18. #18

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    When in the Roman empire did they let every city they owned rebel, then take it back and slaughter 75% of its population? They didn't...
    You can bet they wanted to do so, regardless :>

    With the implementation of squalor as it is in game, there is really no way to go about handling large populations. There were obviously historical cities of similiar or larger size that were not constantly in a state of insurrection. This is a feedback game mechanic that really has nothing to do with history, it's only there to curb the power curve of population.

    Would be nice if there was some sort of penalty for killing your own people, it's simply too encouraging to pillage your own cities after you get the last level of buildings. Perhaps a mod that only allowed recruiting decent troops above a certain size -- that would even be historically accurate as it was extremely difficult to maintain large standing armies prior to the Industrial revolution due to the relatively tiny fraction of the population you could afford to have away fighting instead of working.

  19. #19
    Guest Dayve's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    But once cities reach a certain size they get the plague anyway...This trims down the population nicely... I think it's more realistic and more of a challenge to try to hold on to your cities rather than letting them rebel, because then it's more fun to slaughter them knowing you tried to hold the city and are now exterminating as punishment for rebelling against you, and to set an example to the rest of your empire to show them that rebellion will not be tolerated...Plus i honestly don't have a problem with holding cities, the farest i've played so far was 400AD. I got bored after that as i was unstoppable and able to win any war simply by throwing money and men at it, since i had the population and cash to do that...I was able to steamroll any opponents...Plus even at 400AD, a lot of my cities had over 30,000 population and i kept them happy with monthly/daily games, normal and low taxes, and relatively small garrisons...The largest garrison i had was 8 limitanei in Corduba. I don't use peasants as i find it too unrealistic.

    So when an earth quake hit Corduba and killed off 9 thousand people i was happy. <- that's how i looked. The city face was green for the first time in the campaign haha. I've gone off track... Where was i? AH yes, it would be nice if there were penalties to exterminating a city, but there should be bonuses to doing it too...If other cities found out you slaughtered a city for being rebellious, wouldn't it calm them down? Also exterminating a city should make that city useless and unprofitable and should really have an impact on your income...But it doesn't...Sometimes it's even the opposite in this game.

  20. #20
    Member Member Sand's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Killing the trouble makers may be realistic, but letting a city rebel and then slaughtering everyone, trouble makers, non-trouble makers etc. 75% of the population is unrealistic. When in the Roman empire did they let every city they owned rebel, then take it back and slaughter 75% of its population? They didn't...
    Well, in the ancient world "payment in kind" for an army was to be let loose on the population of a captured city. People like Alexander the Great, who is viewed as either heroic or at least exceptional in most Western accounts, features as a demonic figure in Zoastrian (theyre actually still around today in parts of Iran, along with their fire which has apparently never been let go out in at least 2,300 years...) and Biblical/Islamic texts (apparently Alexander will return to lead the armies of Satan or somesuch) due to the massacres his army meted out to the empire they conquered. Realistically, as an emperor of a large, dispersed and unwieldy empire where it might take months to relay even news of a rebellion back to the capital you rule by making rebellion as unattractive as possible. That definitly includes nailing people to crosses if theyre so passionate about the sewer system overflowing that they take up arms about it.

    Either way, to play the WRE campaign realistically youd have to engineer your ultimate defeat and overrun by the rampaging barbarian hordes. If the Romans made the right choices in the late 4th century, study of the Roman Empire might be current events rather than ancient history. We have the chance to "game" a potential alternative to their decisions, however inaccurate and unrealistic the rules of the game are. And the rules are hopelessly unrealistic to begin with anyway.

    Would be nice if there was some sort of penalty for killing your own people, it's simply too encouraging to pillage your own cities after you get the last level of buildings. Perhaps a mod that only allowed recruiting decent troops above a certain size -- that would even be historically accurate as it was extremely difficult to maintain large standing armies prior to the Industrial revolution due to the relatively tiny fraction of the population you could afford to have away fighting instead of working.
    Perhaps a permantly higher level of unrest in the aftermath of an extermination? The locals keeping alive the memory of some past crime against them by "the man" leading to sympathy with future rebellions. Another 10% with every extermination or something. Extermination becomes a short term solution for dealing with an irretrievable situation but it increases long term instability...

    Mind you its long been a bug bear of mine that the distance to the captial penalty should be offset by ports/paved roads etc etc. Surely the penalty should be based on "lag" in communication rather than simple distance alone. Bah, If we started poking holes in the logic of the Public Order mechanics we'd be here for weeks.

  21. #21
    Merkismathr of Birka Member PseRamesses's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Dayve,
    I too feel a bit awkward having to slaughter my own people and it´s a last resort but the game simply don´t give you enough options to handle this problem. You can rest ashore though that IF the WRE had to face this situation, that we do in the game, they would have spared no expense to root out the rebellion, kill the instigators and crucify all participants.
    In my "3-step formula" I also kind of RP the scenario into a major change in religion, from paganism to christianity, which is quite historical. This way you can simply look at the exterminations as a kind of "holy war" against the pagans. After the initial "cleansing" I can´t recall having to do this again in my many games. One could raise all health related structures and invite the plague too if things spiral out of control.

    So how is your "mixed game" evolving?

  22. #22
    Epirot Greek Member SIGNIFER,LEGIOVIICLAUDIA's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayve
    Killing the trouble makers may be realistic, but letting a city rebel and then slaughtering everyone, trouble makers, non-trouble makers etc. 75% of the population is unrealistic. When in the Roman empire did they let every city they owned rebel, then take it back and slaughter 75% of its population? They didn't...
    Remember,Dayne,that Roman Empire of 4th-6th centuries A.D. was not the same as that of the Republic or the imperial Rome under the dynasty of the Antonini(Trajan,Adrian,Antoninus,Marcus Aurelius..).The Emperors could easily slaughter their own people in order to supress a rebellion
    I can remember from history how the rebellion in Constantinople was supressed by Justinian.The same slaughter had also happened earlier in Thessalonica where 15,000 Romans were slaughtered by the Romano-Gothic army of Theodosius.

    The same events must have happened throughout the empire at that times..

  23. #23
    Epirot Greek Member SIGNIFER,LEGIOVIICLAUDIA's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by SIGNIFER,LEGIOVIICLAUDIA
    Remember,Dayne,that Roman Empire of ....
    Sorry Dayve,I misspelled your name.

  24. #24

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Good stuff from everyone!! As this is a pretty deep game, there are many options to winning. I don't think anyone here gave bad advice. I have used a bit of everything I have learned and am only about 20 provinses from taking the whole world over.

    I will continue to read the advice from here as I will be trying VH/VH next.

  25. #25

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    This is one thing I dont like about what people think about ancient rome.They arent as bad as everyone makes them out to be.I have read various books on them.You would be surprised at how much the romans cared for the people they conquered . In judea for example, Jews were exempt from paying specific taxes and such.

    Although by 400 A.D. ancient rome was no longer being ruled by enlightened despots and by just plain despots who lacked intelligence and integrity.

  26. #26

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Interesting stuff. Im about to start a WRE campaign and am grateful to everyone's comments on this difficult faction.

    Just one question though.. why does the empire have to be converted to christianity, as most of you did? Why not go for paganism? None of you seemed to go for that approach, especially considering the temple bonuses you get from them, plus the fact that any barbarian regions you conquer will mostly be pagan anyway..

  27. #27
    Merkismathr of Birka Member PseRamesses's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by Garvanko
    Just one question though.. why does the empire have to be converted to christianity, as most of you did? Why not go for paganism? None of you seemed to go for that approach, especially considering the temple bonuses you get from them, plus the fact that any barbarian regions you conquer will mostly be pagan anyway.
    I´ve played both ways and in the end you can go either way. I think most players changed religion to portray history. However the differences lies in technology and buildings. It also seems to me that it´s easier to have a loyal population with christianity but I´ve no stats to confirm that statement so it might be a bit subjective. You can also play a mix with both religions based upon what beliefs are in majority in each settlement. However you will get a small unrest penalty.

  28. #28

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I just finished taking over the whole map (only on Med/Med though). Whatever religion the town was I kept as long as it wasn't Z------- (sp). I tried my best to put governors in that were of the same religion since you will get a mixture of both. So the only unrest usual comes from the emporer and neighboring provinses. I had problems with unrest all throughout the game, but not enough to lose any sleep. I kept small mercenary only armies in key areas to help deal with any uprisings. I kept 6 groups of peasants in every city. If a city was having issues I would take them out and add them to the small mercenary group in the area. Let the city turn. All army buildings are destroyed so the majority of the rebels are peasants. It is an easy thing then to take the city back with your peasant mercenary group.

    I will not go this route in my next campaign though. For fast advancement this was the way to go but I am going to take it slower now that I have upped the difficulty. I am now doing Goth on Hard/Hard. Most of the family members/generals are Christian so I have changed every cities religion accordingly. So far, much happier cites!!

  29. #29

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by PseRamesses
    You can also play a mix with both religions based upon what beliefs are in majority in each settlement. However you will get a small unrest penalty.
    I thought about this, but Im not too sure I want to go THAT deep into micromanagement just yet. I think I'll go with Paganism for this campaign, though.

    My thanks.

  30. #30

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Well, Ive started my WRE campaign, fully prepared for the onslaught of riots, rebellion and little grean flags popping up left, right and centre. Of course, I immediately began a strategic retreat and rapid demilitarisation of my Empire, focusing specifically on Ebaracum, Aquinum, Salona, Augusta Treverum and Colonia Agripina. Tore everything down, moved every unit out and set taxes to very high, of course. They rebelled (WRER) a couple of turns later. I was looking to create buffer zones in Brittania, Eastern Europe and central France.

    In Spain I gave up Salamatica. Unfortunately, Tarraco rebelled from me, as did Ravenna and Lepis Magna - a result really of low public order even though I had placed temples in the que and was looking to build a few units of peasants in each. I entered turn 2 in the black (surprisingly), though that would surely not last.

    Nevertheless, I decided to go on the offensive straight away. I built an army in Spain and went straight for Tingi; had a large army in Europe with three Christian generals, including the famous, and potentially rebellious Nero Flavius (more on him later), a five star night fighter, which I sent to kill off Allemani. I also looked to take back Ravenna and Lepis so as to consolidate my grip on Italy and Africa.

    A couple of points:

    1. Ive kept a mixture of Pagansim and Christianity, and havent really suffered much rebellion. Italy is christian, as is Africa and parts of Spain, while the north is mainly pagan. Ive also set my faction heir to be pagan. Eventually I hope to make the whole Empire (apart from Italy) pagan, but that will need some careful man management.

    2. Nero Flavius and his son Titus Flavius (at least I think its his son), are the two most lilely to rebel from your faction. Indeed as soon as I seiged Vicus Allemani, Nero's loyalty went from +2 to +1. The only way not to lose this valuable general is to transfer the office of Master of Soldiers from another General in the area (cant remember his name), and Nero will gain +2 loyalty, which should keep him in line for a while. Titus is more difficult. Im actually hoping he gets killed when I attack Lepis.


    Currently, Ive done about six years. Ive retaken Ravenna. Ive gained Tingi and Vicus Allemani, and Im planning on getting Tarraco back - it is, after all, one of the victory conditions. I was in the red at -20000d, but Ive recovered economy wise and am just shading 1000d. I need a cash boost soon, as the hordes are coming.

    Im playing H/H.

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