House Rules

[Dumbass]

Post your house rules that you use when playing EB, to make it funner or more challenging.

[Wardo]

1. Only Family Members can capture settlements. Captains may recapture a lost city though.

That's it.

[Dayve]

No stupid armies like 15 units of gaestae and 5 cavalry, all have to be realistic to what they would have been in those times.

No city assaults unless the enemy sally on the last turn before they starve, as was what happened 9/10 times in those days.

No retinue transfer to make super duper uber generals as soon as they come of age.

No blitzkrieg. (#2 kinda takes care of that though)

'm sure a couple more'l come to me, i haven't played for a while you see so i can't remember all of my own personal rules.

[LorDBulA]

No river crossing battles. Never. Even if you are playing as Gatai and 3 roman armies are marching at your capitol and you have only one army to defend and lots of river crossing all around to use. It just kills the gameplay.
No hill camping.
Always try to use family members, dont go with captains just because its easier.
Dont rush the game.

[MSB]

No river crossing battles.

I follow that rule too. However I do it to prevent the huge amount of lag that occurs during all river crossing battles. I think that that might have something to do with my ancient computer.

• Train a wide variety of units
• Use Family Members for large campaigns. For small campaigns you can use captains. However with captains use auto-calculate.
• Don't give up on a campaign until you are either defeated or you have a complete victory.

[Lovejoy]

• Don't give up on a campaign until you are either defeated or you have a complete victory.

zomg, why? Doesn't that get really boring sometimes? :P

[NeoSpartan]

u all f*ing wierd....

My rules are:
-Attack the AI once u have an advantege.
-Fight in da bushes if ur Barbarian and the enemy is Civilized
-Fight on the uphill.
-Attack the AI armies when they are sepparate.
-Assult cities when u have an advantege.
-Try to never autocalc.
-Send familily members to rule rioting cities.
-Attack with Captains , Generals, it don't matter. There arent enough familily members anyways by the Mid-Game.

Its VH/VH the AI is stronger than u, get more $$ than u, and they gang-up against u. So u need all advantages u can get.

....maybe if I play VH/M I could apply some of the rulz u guys have.

[scourgeofrome]

Send diplomats to the ends of the earth for trade rights.
Ally with strong people I will probably never meet just for the heck of it.
Try to have a general in every city.
Try to intefere with local problems to create a peaceful world (actually, just so they won't fight so I don't have to fight lots of armies)

[Cheexsta]

Roleplay. Only do what your generals/king/monkey ancillaries would do if they were real people at the time.

Anything else goes (except cheating), really.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Send diplomats to the ends of the earth for trade rights.

Ally with strong people I will probably never meet just for the heck of it.

Ally with anyone, ASAP, you don't yet know who's going to be strong or weak.

Try to have a general in every city.

Only if it quells dissent or makes you earn more money. Use the 'leftovers' to lead your campaigns.

Try to intefere with local problems to create a peaceful world (actually, just so they won't fight so I don't have to fight lots of armies)

Always.

And add to that:
Send diplomats to obtain map information, or at least money for your own, to whatever faction;
Don't assault cities just stacked with lots of enemies inside it, except if you're forced to; starve them out instead;
Don't betray your allies;
Economy first, public order second, and health/food supply third, as a guideline for building policy;
As little army buildings as possible;
Manage everything yourself;
No autocalc;
Tax as much as possible, without causing public order trouble;
Try not to destroy your enemies completely, just for the sake of it, get ceasefires instead;
Be economical with your soldiers, try to have only the very worst acting as garrison.

And as always:
No cheating;
Use your common sense.

[MSB]

zomg, why? Doesn't that get really boring sometimes? :P

No it doesn't get boring. It is historically accurate, after all a leader could not just give up on his faction and quit to the main menu if everything was getting hard.

[NeoSpartan]

:
.....
Try not to destroy your enemies completely, just for the sake of it, get ceasefires instead;
.....
.

But I can't get the factions I AM BEATING UP to accept a ceasefire.

[QwertyMIDX]

Ever try to do nothing but autocalc?

[Foot]

Ever try to do nothing but autocalc?

I did that in MTW, focusing all my efforts on the campaign game instead. Was bloody amazing campaign, but without the risk-esque campaign map, I've never been drawn to doing the same in RTW.

Foot

[-Praetor-]

No it doesn't get boring. It is historically accurate, after all a leader could not just give up on his faction and quit to the main menu if everything was getting hard.

What happens to me is that I get bored because the game ceases to be hard. Once you obtain a critical mass of territories and resources in order to be powerful, the games ceases to be a challenge, because you know that the AI is already dead. Why still play something you know you`re going to win?

When I play as rome in every other mod for instance, once I get the entire italian peninsula, and the three italian isles (Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia)... it just ceases to be a challenge.

I actually find extremely fun to play those initial years with the Aeduii or Arvernii, when every bloddy mnai counts, and when you have to manage to make an arrow of every splinter in order to survive those messy first years... ahhhhhh

[NeoSpartan]

Ever try to do nothing but autocalc?

HELLS NO!!!! in VH the autocalc is extremely tipped to the AI.

Hell, even when the odds on the autocals screen are against me I can still beat the AI and loose VERY few troops.

Also Autocal lets the AI army get away with about a third of its troops, after u win. And don't like to have to fight the same army again and again...one time, and kill'em all.

And besides..... what made RTW stand up above other games is that u can fight the Tactical battles as a RTS, along with having a TBS for the overall Strategic campain/war.

[Tellos Athenaios]

But I can't get the factions I AM BEATING UP to accept a ceasefire.

A matter of timing really. You take some of their settlements, beat a large quantity of armies, in fact so much that there are no standing armies left in the region and that the garrisons are minimal. Then you ask them for a ceasefire - either after a bit of negotiating about the amount of money you'll have to pay, or immediately they will accept.

[Dumbass]

Or you can use the force diplomacy cheat, to make the terms more realistic like what would happen back in those days.
Ceasefire and they pay tribute to you for losing the war.
But does that cheat work in EB?

[GMT]

Or you can use the force diplomacy cheat, to make the terms more realistic like what would happen back in those days.
Ceasefire and they pay tribute to you for losing the war.
But does that cheat work in EB?

What's this "force diplomacy cheat" you're talking about? I've never heard about that one.

The only cheat I know is toggle_fow.

[-Praetor-]

A year ago, when I first played the vainilla campaign of RTW, I couldn`t understand some situations regarding the attitudes of the various factions that were at war with me.

Somehow, I thought that their proposals didn`t correspond to their current situation. (Imagin playing as romans, having conquered every carthaginean province except the Balearic Islands, and receiving a proposal demanding me to become their protectorate... only if I handed back all of their territories, and paid them an indemnization of 93412942901409219041290 denarii)

In my desesperation, I searched through the net for cheats to control the diplomacy of RTW, and found the force_diplomacy one, that in theory should force the opponent to accept your next diplomatic proposal...

But it never worked for me...

[scourgeofrome]

A year ago, when I first played the vainilla campaign of RTW, I couldn`t understand some situations regarding the attitudes of the various factions that were at war with me.

Somehow, I thought that their proposals didn`t correspond to their current situation. (Imagin playing as romans, having conquered every carthaginean province except the Balearic Islands, and receiving a proposal demanding me to become their protectorate... only if I handed back all of their territories, and paid them an indemnization of 93412942901409219041290 denarii)

Reminds of a BI campaign were the Eastern Romans did the same thing (I was the Persians and was a few cities from killing them with possesion of all the Middle East and Constantinople).

[Kull]

Once you figure things out, then go back and start a new campaign in which all battles are played using the general cam. Talk about the chaos of battle! You really need to stay back and keep an eye on things intead of doing some distant flanking maneuver. Plus it really adds a degree of difficulty to walled city assaults - it's impossible to see what the heck is going on up on those walls (much less in the city streets on the other side). Want the highest degree of difficulty with this tactic? Stick a post-it over the little mini-battlemap. Gah! Now you find out how good a general you REALLY are.

As for ancillary sharing, only within the immediate family. Dad might pass off a hot mistress and/or a talented healer to his son, but certainly NOT to cousin Silius Silius!

[johhny-turbo]

When a general dies I send his "bodyguard" straight into the enemy. I know it makes sense since you gain nothing if they live but when I do it I ignore all strategy. If I can I'll try to get them surrounded by phalanxes or make a mad dash to the city square.

They should die horribly for their dishonour!

[Cheexsta]

For those wondering: force_diplomacy only works in scripts. So if you wanted to, you could set up a script so that every time you click a specific button (ScrollAdviceRequested diplomacy_scroll, for example) that it uses the force_diplomacy cheat.

I haven't tried it yet, though I am tempted...

[Dayve]

A year ago, when I first played the vainilla campaign of RTW, I couldn`t understand some situations regarding the attitudes of the various factions that were at war with me.

Somehow, I thought that their proposals didn`t correspond to their current situation. (Imagin playing as romans, having conquered every carthaginean province except the Balearic Islands, and receiving a proposal demanding me to become their protectorate... only if I handed back all of their territories, and paid them an indemnization of 93412942901409219041290 denarii)

In my desesperation, I searched through the net for cheats to control the diplomacy of RTW, and found the force_diplomacy one, that in theory should force the opponent to accept your next diplomatic proposal...

But it never worked for me...

So you own Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and have enough money to pump out legion after legion and the game is won... I have many personal solutions to this most annoying of problems.

Firstly, you could build up a huge navy until you can only afford 2 or 3 land legions.

Or, my favourite one... Recruit 'mini-legions' as i like to call them, and post them in forts to all conquered provinces. These are my police force. They discourage rebellion, and fight rebels that appear, and since units are so expensive in EB, they drain your treasury very nicely.

Of course, no mod will ever be able to fix the problem that once you conquer a certain amount of land, the AI is so stupid that you will win no matter what, but this is why we have to limit ourselves.

So you play as the Aedui or Averni or British tribe, after 30-40 turns you have conquered your enemies, you have 10 or so cities, you have won.

[Dumbass]

So how would I create a "force diplomacy script" and make it work in the game? I would really want to have client kingdoms for once, or allies that actually help you.

[Markus_Aurelius]

In my campaigns I actuall often experience ai stupidity in the opposite manner, take my ptolemy campaing for example. The mighty carthaginians who were at least twice as powerful as i was decided to attack me and take one of my cities. I retaliate and attack the city which was taken than i decided to get my diplomat to ask them to be my protecterate and they did, making me very rich and draining them of all income.

[Orb]

u all f*ing wierd....

My rules are:
-Attack the AI once u have an advantege.
-Fight in da bushes if ur Barbarian and the enemy is Civilized
-Fight on the uphill.
-Attack the AI armies when they are sepparate.
-Assult cities when u have an advantege.
-Try to never autocalc.
-Send familily members to rule rioting cities.
-Attack with Captains , Generals, it don't matter. There arent enough familily members anyways by the Mid-Game.

Its VH/VH the AI is stronger than u, get more $$ than u, and they gang-up against u. So u need all advantages u can get.

....maybe if I play VH/M I could apply some of the rulz u guys have.

Forgive if I'm wrong, but I thought in 1.2 VH was bugged so that difficulty levels on the battlefield applied to both you and the AI.

[Thaatu]

I only play with General camera and I try to roleplay the family members. I also maintain the factions "philosophy" on expansion and so forth.

[Trithemius]

I don't play with conscious house-rules, but I do always try to have a family member leading an army (they just tend to move faster, and my military leaders often end up with Energy-related traits too). I also try not to make "cheap" armies, although I don't think it is unreasonable for my faction to adapt to pressures they did not face historically.

I don't know what people are on about with this "never camp hills/always fight uphill"!