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Thread: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

  1. #181
    Member Member Agent Miles's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Yes of course, but there is no need to slaughter your own citizens. As I have shown, you can actually govern them instead. I have plenty of money and my settlements don’t rebel. They are converting to Christianity and all is well. It’s that easy. I save extermination for my enemies.
    Sometimes good people must kill bad people to protect the rest of the people.

  2. #182
    Member Member Polemists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    If you want slaughter and Paganism:

    So in my game I went opposite of alot of the advice. I wanted a big long bloody civil war. So first turn I destroyed all christian buildings, built all pagans, and watched the chaos ensue.

    I mean WRE is a hard faction, and I want them as a hard faction.

    Anyway here is what happened.

    So first fifty turns were spent battling the disloyal, christians, and regaining lost lands. The benefit is while pagan traits were bad my general got some very nice retinue members for being pagan.

    I went directly against Eastern Rome while battling the hordes. The hordes provided good combat experience and in general I did not find Eastern Rome that hard to push back/take. This was on medium but bare in mind I did this example twice and each time your general out towards eastern rome with all the command and relics usually joins eastern rome.

    Once you have a good chunk of eastern Rome and the hordes beaten back it's just a matter of chosing what to conquer.

    The horde battles were difficult with smaller strating armies but not impossible. As hard as this was I found Lithuania in MTW2 Kingdoms a fair bit harder.

    The key to going pagan (with no mods and no city give aways or destroyed) is to just keep in mind most of your starting sons will rebel, I found the grandsons more useful though anyway.

  3. #183
    Member Member Agent Miles's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I found the WRE to be the easiest faction.

    This is my WRE blitz strategy (VH/VH, no mods and huge units). You don't have to abandon any of your settlements or butcher any of your own citizens or change anyone's religion. You start with 25 of the 34 settlements you need to win (as well as 3 of the 4 specific settlements). So do whatever you must to get at least blue faces everywhere. Move the capital to Masilia. Use urban renewal to scrape some cash together. Build forts blocking all crossing points into the WRE from the Rhine and the Danube and garrison them with a peasant unit. You can beat the Celts with what you have in England (hire mercenaries or add some local infantry if you must). Send the units in Syracuse to Carthage and the units in Spain to North Africa. You can easily crush the Berbers (again hire mercs). Disband most of the other units, except for an army on the Rhine and in Salona led by a loyal general. The Army of the Rhine takes out the Alemanni (who don't horde and aren't difficult to crush) and the rebel settlement to the north. Thessalonica and Constantinople are weakly held and can easily be taken by your other force at Salona. If you use spies to open the gates or onagers to batter them down, then you should be done before you can say eastern hordes. Victory after 16 turns in A.D. 370!

    https://s132.photobucket.com/albums/...370Victory.jpg
    Last edited by Agent Miles; 11-24-2008 at 19:17.
    Sometimes good people must kill bad people to protect the rest of the people.

  4. #184

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I noticed in the picture that you have what appears to be 2 units combined into 1 card, how do you do stack multiple units?

  5. #185
    Member Member Agent Miles's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    As I mentioned, I play with huge units. If that is what you mean.
    Last edited by Agent Miles; 12-09-2008 at 19:33.
    Sometimes good people must kill bad people to protect the rest of the people.

  6. #186

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Yep, I wasnt sure what huge units was, I thought it had something to do with the scale that the units are rendered. Reason I ask is that I'm having alot of trouble with the hordes as WRE, not so much defending my lands from them but not being able to destroy the horde after Ive taken their last settlement.
    Now the slavs have invaded and its kinda disheartening as there are huns, lombardis, slavs and goth hordes roaming everywhere and I seem to spend most of my money per turn keeping revolts down and recruiting peasants to keep up with the population growth. I'm playing on M/M and cant make enough money to create enough armies in order to expand past the hordes. I've been following a few of the strategies listed here, including trying to convert everyone to christianity(which led to nothing but a volatile mix of religions in pagan cities) and disbading units/demolishing military buildings. Also somebody wrote that if you leave a settlement to revolt and have destroyed all the military buildings the western rebels that appear will only be equipped with peasants, this is true but a general will also spawn in that settlement and they will have heavy cavalry bodyguards. How are you supposed to take these towns back so quickly if you've disbanded half your army??
    I will keep trying to build econ buildings and defend more, until i can get a decent amount of cash to raise a proper army, bridge defense works well but if your really outnumbered with cavalry they can just smash through your defensive line and trying to bottleneck them at the bridge wont work since you will get routes. Right now I have all the original settlements plus a few more that ive managed to capture but still dont have a clear idea on how to deal with hordes, especially after you capture their final settlement and they spawn 4 large armies.

  7. #187
    Member Member Agent Miles's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I did this and my empire was under control from the first turn without even one riot. First go through and eliminate all of your military buildings except in Italy, Carthage and England. If a settlement is mostly Christian (like Lepcis Magna) then build a Christian church and get rid of the pagan governor. Move the capital to Mesilia. Then go through one by one and lower taxes, or add to the garrison, or queue up as many peasants as it takes to get a blue face for each settlement. Send Spurius Flavius to Carnuntum. I think that Salona and Avaricum still were red, but had no riots and were under control by the beginning of the second turn. Eliminate most of your navy and most of the high priced units. If you don’t want to win quickly as I did, then you should fortify the crossings over the Rhine and Danube, and the eastern passes into Italy. If you are good at fighting your own battles, then put an army on a bridge or ford in the path of a horde. It's like a meat grinder. I slaughtered five stacks of Huns in two turns with minor losses. I hope this helps.
    Sometimes good people must kill bad people to protect the rest of the people.

  8. #188

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Amazing, moved capital to Masillia and it stopped all the settelments from rebelling, that freed up money to build econ buildings which created enough money to properly fund my armies, crushed two hordes, the huns and the goths after that. The goths horded twice because they had one settlement before i destroyed it and then again after they captured a rebel town. I thought if the faction had the wheel under their banner it meant they were hording and could be eliminated from the game, but i guess they cant have any settlements either because they will "settle in" and horde again after their last town is destroyed. Can anyone clear this up? Anyway thanks for the tips its definatley made this faction alot easier to play.

  9. #189
    Member Member kuroiya88's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I've never tried blitzing, sounds interesting. I get rid of my eastern provinces up to Patavium to serve as a buffer against Vandals and Huns. I use that general with the christian retinue and traits (marcella and splinter of the holy cross) and take him around the empire converting everything which helps public order a lot. I get rid of my expensive troops and by then start making 3000 a turn, which is enough to start building the traders and economic development.

    eventually your economy picks up right in time to fight back the huns. it's a more defensive strategy but that's my play style. and I find it a lot more historic than invading constantinope

  10. #190
    Member Member IceWolf's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    This is the hardest faction that I've played. I started out by setting taxes to low everywhere and disbanding all the foederati cavalry units (useless overpriced bugggers that they are). I built a christian shrine in Lepcis Magna but left the others alone. My empire is mixed pagan/christian. I consolidated the remaining troops into five army groups. Africa, Gaul, England, Italy and Salona. In the first round of revolts I lost most of spain and much of gaul. General Publius sold himself out to the rebels so I lost Cartago Nova as well. I then reqounquered the rebellious provinces, exterminating the populace in all. I managed to expand a bit in central europe and took vicus franki. I built up the army some more. I was making 6-7k per turn when the second round of rebellions hit, including London. I have now retaken the rebellious provinces again. The gallant Nero Flavius managed to reduce the Franks down to a harmless level and kicked the Alemanni out.
    The first horde to arrive was the vandals. I've reduced four of their stacks but had two armies decimated by doing it. The Goths took a couple of central european provinces while I killed off one stack before the ERE stabbed me in the back. I had to retake Salona and reform the army of Salona/central Europe. For a long time I kept a full stack standing like a scarecrow along the bridge by Ravenna waiting for the Huns who have yet to show up. The Sarmatians settled into Constantinople. The Octrogoths died and the Slavs have yet to show up. After going negative income during the second round of rebellions I am now generating 6-7k per turn again and am funneling all troops north to fight the vandals. The army of England retook London and is now heading north to fight the celts.
    To fight the hordes with HA I make a full stack with 1-2 gemerals, 1-2 Sarmatians, 6 foot archers and the rest commitenses. I whittle away at the HAs with the cavalry and the archers then turn the archers onto the main horde and send in the commitenses to win the battle. Once I've dealt with the vandals I'll head East to take out the Goths, ERE and the Sarmatians, in that order. This has been hard.

    Icewolf
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  11. #191
    U14 Footballer Member G. Septimus's Avatar
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    Smile Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    After seeing everything, I could say that
    THE EAST IS MUCH BETTER!!!!
    x2


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  12. #192
    Deranged rock ape Member Quirinus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I finished a WRE campaign on M/M a few days ago. It was.... okay. I enjoyed myself, but it's not something I have a keen desire to revisit, and I abandoned the game after attaining the victory conditions.

    In regular RTW games, where the motive is, almost invariably, expansion and conquest. Even somewhat large factions like the Seleucids follow this basic modus operandi. These games tend to still challenge me, as I am naturally cautious and inclined to turtle. So sometimes factions which have grown too strong may still give me a nasty surprise and send me scrambling. This style of play, however, suits the WRE to a tee. The WRE starts with the most territories by far -some 20-30 of the most advanced cities. So to dominate the campaign one basically needs to consolidate the empire, build up, and withstand the barbarian invasions. If you're not too badly-mauled after the Huns, etc, you basically win by overwhelming control of the campaign map.

    Which is exactly what happened to me. I blitzed the Alemanni and Saxons early on and wiped them out. At a later date I sacked the Frankish capital while it was lightly defended. Avaricum and Salmentica (sp?) rebelled, and many other settlements were always hovering around 70-80% public order, but otherwise the WRE rebels were not as large an issue as I expected. The Huns went straight for the jugular with their thrust to Italia, but I camped a hastily recruited small army of comitanses on the bridge northeast of Ravenna and held them there for a bit. I took huge casualties in my victories, to the tune of 40-50% losses per battle, and there were a few times when the bridge army threatened to rout, but as time went on and reinforcements arrived the Hunnic horde was shattered. They continued being nuisances in Italy/Apls for a few more years, but after the intense three turns or so they were no longer a serious threat. The only other horde I encountered was the Goths. I lost a city to them, but they were so badly-decimated by the siege-assault that a few more medium-sized battles with middling results ended them as an effective force.

    The ERE declared war by port blockade around the time of the Huns reached Italy, but they never launched any attacks, even towards Salona. toggle_fow tells me that they were probably crippled by the loss of Tarsus, Caesarea and Antioch to the Sassanids. The Franks, Burgundii and Lombardi were too busy slugging it out with one another to pose a serious threat to me, while the Berbers are no match for Roman legions.

    I never did fully convert my empire-- Spurius Flavius went on an evangelical spree, starting from Carnatum (sp?) to Ravenna, and then moving north alongthe string of cities starting from Mediolanum all the way up to Colonia Agrippina. And then he got himself killed in a riot in Samarobriva in the process of converting it. >.< I allowed it to rebel and then exterminated the... so-and-so's in retaliation.

    My campaign really just sort of fizzled out after breaking the hordes-- neither I nor the veteran defenders of Rome from the Hunnic and Gothic hordes had much trouble with the ERE and the northern barbarians.
    Last edited by Quirinus; 01-14-2010 at 10:49.
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  13. #193

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Indeed the WRE, the Sassanids and the ERE can be anticlimactic campaigns... with the vanilla victory conditions.

    I set both the Romans at 44 settlements, that encompass from Baetica to Antioch and Armenia and Egypt to Eburacum as victory conditions, and the Sassanids at 34, including Rome, Ravenna, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople.

    Then it gets far more interesting, and the Romans would do well to convert to Christianity in the long run as it gives the most bonuses in total in terms of happeness and law.

    By the way, the Monastery line of buildings provides with many relics of the kind Spurius has in the beginning of the game, and soon one can have more than one preachers spreading the word around.
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
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  14. #194
    Senior Member Senior Member econ21's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by Quirinus View Post
    I am naturally cautious and inclined to turtle. ... I blitzed the Alemanni and Saxons early on and wiped them out.
    I am seeing something of a contradiction there. I agree with your observations, but find the WRE campaign can be fun if you adopt a "no conquest" policy. Don't take any settlements beyond your frontier. That allows the non-horde barbarians to be grow and be a pain. Re-unification can be a long term aim, although again I don't start that fight.

    You might want to try the God mod for some extra detail and flavour, although to be honest it makes things even easier for WRE as they soon start to roll in cash.

  15. #195
    Deranged rock ape Member Quirinus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    Quote Originally Posted by econ21 View Post
    I am seeing something of a contradiction there.
    Maybe 'turtle' isn't quite correct, more like.... 'slow opportunistic expander'? I dunno. I meant I didn't go on a manic expansion spree, but if I see a lightly defended settlement and the faction doesn't horde...

    Quote Originally Posted by econ21 View Post
    I agree with your observations, but find the WRE campaign can be fun if you adopt a "no conquest" policy. Don't take any settlements beyond your frontier. That allows the non-horde barbarians to be grow and be a pain. Re-unification can be a long term aim, although again I don't start that fight.
    I recently downloaded professorspatula's More Hordes mini-mod, which probably makes the WRE harder to play, as the Alemanni and Saxons now do also horde. Might try staying pagan too the next time... though that might actually make the campaign easier. Hm.

    Quote Originally Posted by econ21 View Post
    You might want to try the God mod for some extra detail and flavour, although to be honest it makes things even easier for WRE as they soon start to roll in cash.
    Where do I get this mod?
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  16. #196

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    maybe econ was talking about the good mod:
    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=49504
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  17. #197

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    I just started my first serious WRE campaign (because I wanted to know the sensation of losing). I took a very unique approach. Here it is.

    Turn 1
    1. Convert all settlements by force to Christianity (besides Britannia and Syracuse, because you can't afford to lose too much of your empire)
    2. Then play around with the taxes in each settlement. If there is a 100% chance of rioting (aka 70% or lower public order) then raise taxes and cancel as much games as much as possible. This way, you will at least get a nice amount of money (for a turn). This is a risk, but you have to be very bold during this campaign. Then have your armies and generals step out of the revolting settlements. Therefore you'll have more strength for more important missions.
    3. Use the navy near southern Spain. Take the diplomat in Southern Spain to the Berbers. Fleece them by selling map information for 1-2k denarii.
    4. Do the same to the Alemanni with the Diplomat in Ger. Superior
    5. Send your third diplomat towards the Eastern Romans in Sirmium.
    6. Train a Diplomat in Augusta Trevorum, Aquincum, and Londinium (therefore you can fleece more Barbarian factions before they spend their war chest)
    7. Public order in Augusta Trevorum is going to be a problem. Take all Christian Family members close to the settlement and have then stand in the territory. It's tough to hold that settlement, but if you can resist attacking the Alemanni for a few turns, its worth it.
    8. Disband all navies but the one between Caralis and Rome, Syracuse and Africa, and the one west of Bordeaux. The others can be broken down.
    9. Use the southern fleet to remove the governor from Lepcis Magna and its territory, as you will lose the settlement if you keep him as governor or in the territory. Start moving him towards Syracuse.
    10. Speaking of Family members, your faction heir sucks. The governor of Corduba, Aquincum, and Caralis are better choices for faction heir. Either one is fine but there are drawbacks to each.
    11. Move the capital to Massilla
    12. Move the governor of Caralis to Rome with the fleet between each cities.
    13. Move the Emperor to Ravenna to help convert the place.
    14. Burn all military infrastructure in Spain to the ground.
    15. Burn all military infrastructure in Burdigala, Avaricum, Carnuntum, and Salona to the ground. Potentially Lepcis Magna as well.
    16. Do not move a single unit in Britain. Otherwise you risk Eburacum getting bribed. Wait for your diplomat to get trained.
    17. Send Marcus the Gambler close to the Alemanni capital with his army.
    18. Build ports/economic buildings with the rest of your money in settlements with nothing in the build queue.

    (i'll add turn 2 tomorrow)

  18. #198

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    There is another way. Cheat. You can bring up the cheat screen with the ~ key, then type "add_money 99999" repeatedly about 25 times and you will have a few million dinarii to begin with. Then you can move incompatible or very corrupt governors out of their cities. I usually move the Emperor and a couple of others out to form a basis for armies at battle sites I predict will occur. (I usually play the Western Empire, but occasionally the Eastern too.) The second cheat you should use is ~ then "process_cq" "city name" and it will build all the buildings you have in queue. Be careful to see what religion the majority of people have in each city and demolish the opposing religion's temples or churches and replace them with the popular religion's buildings of worship. If you don't use, "process_cq" cheat, your game will take forever since you will only build a few buildings each turn. Since I am 73 years old, I would be dead before I built all the buildings I needed for income, peace and military development. Forget the actual game rules and cheat. It is the only way to really work the chaos into some sense of order. But hey, if you want to destroy your cities in an attempt to survive, be my guest. Be warned though, I am an Italian and descended from the Roman tribe "Aemilia," the first tribe of Rome, and my ancestors, the Aurunci, who lived south of Rome, were given citizenship. So, I will frown upon any lost cities and provinces in the game!

  19. #199

    Default Re: Western Roman Empire (BI faction)

    bah!

    cheating takes away all the fun. I do not recommend it.

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