How do AI Romans perform?

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

Im just curious to know if anyone who has played a reasonably long campaign game can tell me whether or not the Romans show any signs of thinking about some kind of conquest some day, if theres nothing better to do?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

They're irritating me right now for sure. I'm allied (as Epeiros) with them and all they have done for thirty years is keep three stacks around rome itself and never even try to take one of those barb cities in the north of the peninsula. They're rebel cities for goodness' sake. And the Romans have enough men to do it - but they aren't even trying. Not once. They don't keep troops on my border to the south either - so they aren't too worried about me attacking it seems.

[LorDBulA]

When i was playing as Gatai they kicked my but.
They kicked so hard that i stoped in Asia minor at Halicarnassos. Quite long way from home.
By 220BC they where strongest faction.
So yea they can be a monster, but also sometimes they dont do much.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I have seen a few examples like that, where they did expand, but why in the world do they just sit there so much of the time? I think this is the more common occurrence. I don't want them to expand like crazy, but maybe taking one province in thirty years would be enough for me to not worry about it.

[BigTex]

In my Carthaginian campaign the romani have nearly conquered all of greece so far and all of illyria. This is after i had rampaged their southern towns, exterminating everything south of rome and destroying all buildings. Its only 217 bc but the romans and their triple gold chevron triarii are monsters. Also, i'm playing on VH/VH, might have something to do with it.

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

Oh, some encouraging responses there. It seems they do sometimes bother their arses to go ahead and take some land. Perhaps their just miserable because their late Triarii look so horrible. lol

[BigTex]

I personally prefer the polybian triarii to the early. Their more manueverable, faster and far better morale, they can pull off a bastogne with a couple chevrons. Only bad thing though is their attack and defense are lower .

[King of the dutch]

How is the ai coded in R:TW. I thought in M:TW you could give them basic commands in the file like:
expansionist or something like that. Is this also in R:TW

[Keba]

It is, but I haven't looked into the EB files. Not that I really care ... the Romans have been attacking me for a while now, trying to drive across the Alps through the passes near Massilia. They are turning out to be a bit of a problem ... with the Germans massing dangrously on my borders, and the Iberians cleaning up what's left of Carthaginian holdings. I'm playing the Arverni, and it's immensly fun. Except that the Aedui, who are now stranded with one province seem to hate me so much they refuse a peace treaty, rather, they allied with the Romans.

[Zero1]

They were doing relatively fine in my Aedui campaign, they had conquered all of the Italian peninsular and were trying to expand north into Boii territory, until I swept down and conquered them. It was really tough and they were wearing me down, but luckily there were plenty of Samnite mercenaries to bolster my waning ranks, and I had plenty of money to pay them with, what with the mass exterminations, wild pillaging and looting and all.

[pezhetairoi]

So far as Baktria it's 260BC, the Romans have conquered rhegion, syrakousa, messana, bononia and segesta. They recently initiated a war with Epeiros over Taras. Looks like they're pretty healthy to me...

[paullus]

In my Carthaginian campaign Rome took Rhegium and Messana really quickly, and when their army went on to Syrakousai I decided to step in, and convinced (read: bribed) Epiros to do likewise. Defeated them outside Syracuse, then Messana rebelled against them, and--after a detour to assert Carthaginian dominance over Syrakousai, during which I suffered my heaviest casualties so far--then I took Rhegion.
By that time the Epirotes had gotten thrashed outside Capua, and I had to go lift the siege of Taras. Fought a huge battle outside of Cannae next (funny how that worked out), only to notice the Romans had sailed across the Adriatic and landed most of a stack on the northern frontier of Epirote territory. Now that was cool.

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

So far as Baktria it's 260BC, the Romans have conquered rhegion, syrakousa, messana, bononia and segesta. They recently initiated a war with Epeiros over Taras. Looks like they're pretty healthy to me...

Mmmm, but their conquests are too linear.

[pezhetairoi]

Well, but they can't really do much else, since they don't yet have a navy. Not one that I spotted, anyway. All they can do is up and down the peninsula. They just got into a war with the Aedui.

[QwertyMIDX]

There's no way we can get the AI to take Iberia before Gaul and Greece, it's not the way the engine works.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

Playing as Baktria, the Romans actually turned out doing really well. They took all of Germania and trapped the Sweboz in one city in Denmark. They made the Aedui and Arverni their protectorates and didn't invade them. They also took all of Sicily. So basically, they took everything from Sicily to Denmark in a straight line up.

I'm currently playing as the Ptolemaioi and they have yet to even leave the Italian peninsula, though they (curiously) bribed a bunch of cities over in Dacia and Sarmatia, so they have a bunch of empty cities with no garrisons halfway across the map. As the Ptolemies, I had beaten all of my enemies and turned all my other neighbors into protectorates, so I decided I needed a war to fight somewhere. Thus, I sent two armies across the sea to invade Rome. I took Sicily first, and thereafter I was attacked by about 6 full stacks around the area of Rhegium and Taras. Broke my way through them, and I can see about another stack and a half up by Rome. So even though they didn't expand, they still built up massive armies. If there was some way to get them to do something with those armies, that would make the game far more interesting.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

In my only really long campaign in this game, as Epeiros the romans were my allies for 40 years and did nothing, nada, zip. They didn't even try to capture the rebel provinces to the north. Then about 40 years in, they just took three stacks north and took Bonnonia and Segesta and were marching on Mediolanum (I had Patavium though), when they blockaded a port of mine, causing a war. Idiots. It's like some stupid nauarch just decided to attack a random port and caused a big war. Well it was big because I wiped them off the map within about three years after they triggered a war. But at least they had started getting active finally.

[john289]

Well, the Romani seem to be 50/50 for me, in my campaign with the Sels they started conquering Europe, but in my Sweboz campaign, they ended up as Karthadastims protectorate.

[Cheexsta]

In my Makedonian campaign, they conquered all of Italy except Taras (the Epeirotes' only city left), and only conquered Messana in Sicily. They took southern Gaul and were embroiled in a pretty fierce war with both of the Gallic factions as well as the Iberians. Full stacks were wandering everywhere on both sides.

[Lord Hammerschmidt]

In my Makedonian campaign, Rome started slow, but then became a monster. It conquered most of Karthadastim, Aeudi, Arverni, and Iberia, and made them all protectorates. It also had Sweboz as a protectorate, and was busy crushing Getia. It was scary.

[Mr Frost]

Sounds like they perform in an historically accurate fashion . There were various moments in their history where they could have stagnated and been destroyed .
Basically , it rings true that they either stagnate and are eclipsed or become a powerhouse empire . Rome wasn't the sort of cuture that was suited to modest success ; they were only capable of great success or great failure !

[PseRamesses]

Once, that´s right, once have the Romani expanded out of "Italy" in all my EB-games and I´ve played a huge amount of campaigns. IMO they are a dissapointment. However the Ptolemies have never failed in their expansions. The difference can´t be maney since both have a good economy. Maybee it´s a lack of other factions in the vincinity that makes the Ptolemies soo successful?!

[BDC]

Do all the factions start off at war with rebels? If not that might be an issue, the Romans have little contact with anyone but rebels for a while.

[PseRamesses]

Do all the factions start off at war with rebels? If not that might be an issue, the Romans have little contact with anyone but rebels for a while.

I do belive that in the next release Romani will be at war with Epirote and confronted with Pyrrhus in S.Italy. In the current game they´re at war with the Arverni but that doesn´t seem to activate any activity in N.Italy.

Btw, has any work been done on formations? In my current game my "all hastati" army was deployed in a triangle. Haven´t seen that formation before.

[SigniferOne]

Teleklos I think your experience may be in large part to 1.2, because 1.5/1.6 AI is really improved.