Has anyone played like this?

[TinCow]

I'm curious if anyone has tried out the custom rules we are currently running in the WRE PBeM.

If so, I'm curious to see how people fared, since I usually walk all over the AI on all difficulty levels, but am finding this game extremely challenging.

For ease of reference, here are the rules we are playing with:

1. The campaign ends when we conquer all starting WRE and ERE provinces[2], plus Tingi (43 target provinces). The game will award victory sooner (34 provinces), so choose to play on. Game ends in Summer 476 AD though.
2. Non-target provinces cannot be garrisoned at the end of a turn.
3. Target provinces cannot be enslaved or exterminated.
4. The following factions should not be eliminated: Celts, Berbers, Allemanni, Saxons. But if their last province is a target one, they are fair game.
5. Only full strength units, first cohorts or ships can be retrained.
6. The only buildings in target provinces which may be demolished are religious ones.

[HalfThere]

Seems like the trouble would come in needing to have large, expensive garrisons in many cities, and defending your gigantic borders against encroaching barbarians. Basically, it's economy moreso than anything else that would hamper you.

Even in my Alemanni game, where I've conquered Italy, I'm having similar problems. I need gigantic garrisons just to keep the Romans happy, and it's a real drain.

By the way, what difficulty settings are you playing on?

[econ21]

By the way, what difficulty settings are you playing on?

I think it is VH campaign/M battles.

I think you are right - the constraint is economic. The sinews of war...

[Dutch_guy]

Our PBM sounds really intimidating - read challenging - looking forward to my reign.

[TinCow]

Yeah, it's definitely economics. I managed to recruit a 2/3 stack army of the best available units for a big push. However the cost of these guys has reduced my income to about 500/turn. The key seems to mainly be using non-garrison methods of maintaining order, unfortunately good governors are few and far between in the early game for the WRE.

Is there any way to farm influence on a general without building academies?

[HalfThere]

Bribed enemy governors often have good traits, though they're expensive. Battles will build influence somewhat, though they're a relatively inefficient way of doing so. Converting all to one religion (probably Christianity) can also help. Finally, just leaving a guy in a settlement (even w/o an academy) has a chance of turning him into a good governor. There's an equal chance he'll turn bad, however.

[Dutch_guy]

I'd say there is a far bigger chance of him getting bad traits, because -especially in a WRE game - you need to keep taxes low which give your governor bad taxing traits, not to mention bad farming traits depending on your farming priorities. I find you're really dependant on your few good traited governors you get at the beginning of the game - they tend to give their offspring good traits as well.

Building academies will help, but it isn't your first priority while playing the WRE, you're far to busy surviving

So if you're in need of a challenge, play by these rules, really.

[econ21]

I don't know about BI, but in a 1.5 RTW PBM as Seleucids, my governors were all ruined by staying in towns. It was because my treasury went over 50k. You probably won't have that problem in the WRE campaign. In the end, I pulled them all out of the cities - they were doing more harm than good - and blew all my money on troops to get below 50k.

I rather liked some advice I got on role-playing Roman generals in RTR. IIRC, it said keep the young uns in Rome to get ancillaries and good traits (?) from the academy there. Then when they get to mid-20s-30s send them out as a second general in army stacks, to act as a Tribune to ride with the equites and give them more punch. Around 40s, they should be first generals in the field leading an army (but not overly risking their lives). And finally late 50s and after, they should have lots of good virtues and can be made governors.

I like it because it is both sensible from an RPG perspective and also seems rather good gameplay. Not sure it will really apply with the nightmare that is WRE though - it's probably more suited to Rome's rise than its fall.