Need Some Help With RTW

**Roman_Man#3** · 01-01-2007, 23:08

it seems you are going a bit to fast if you are just starting. when you take a city, take time to develop it a bit. Choose your next victim carefully. Dont always go to the closest town to you. You have just under 600 turns, which is more than enough to take the whole map. So i would suggest slowing down the pace a bit, take time to develop your cities. Food for thought.

**Carl** · 01-01-2007, 23:23

Thanks for the limit numbers, I thought I had like 200 and I was about 30-50 in when I got hit hard, (where is the turns counter located as I haven’t been able to spot it?). I was hurrying to make sure I got enough done to complete the objectives. I had only had 1 faction leader die by this point and at my peak I had 10 territories, that should give you an idea of how far in i was BTW. Your right though I think I went too fast, the guide made me suspect that, thanks for confirming it. Any tips on keeping diplomatic relations up too?

TBH part of my problem is I’ve never played any other TW game before, loving it ATM mind, just hard even on E/E difficulty. (Well not the battles, just the campaign map). Loving the combat especially, fun to take armies of half peasant and half Town Watch up against numerically inferior but much better quality troops.

Which Roman Faction is the easiest to play as in your opinion, might make it easier for me to use that one?

Thanks for the help.

**Roman_Man#3** · 01-02-2007, 00:52

i can tell you it goes to 14 ad. and two turns per year.

**Discoman** · 01-02-2007, 02:58

You also should try making an alliance with Spain and Britannia. Spain stays neutral and never really becomes a threat unless you let them be one. The Brits will eventually (well usually) end up fighting the Germans, which makes the Germania a good target after fighting the Gauls. I'd say your main mistake was going into spain. Just worry about the Gauls and remember to take the rebel settlements near the alps and southern Germany for future use.
In my opinion you weren't going too fast, you just weren't using your strength in the right places. I've gone at faster paces and took out Germany by the time Marcus Julius (3rd generation Julii) was in his 20's. Infact my orginal faction leader was still alive when I killed off the Gauls and took over France. When it comes to troops get hastia from your two starting settlements and upgrade your newer settlements economy/military strength while conquering. Use mercenaries and most importantly use calvary to flank Gaulish troops, considering they have very poor morale.
But go at any pace your comfortable with, during my first time playing it took me alot of time to take over spain, france, britain and germany. Also if you think these guys are threatning wait until you end up fighting the Brutii.

**Carl** · 01-02-2007, 16:55

I went into Spain because that was where the last two Gaul settlements where and I wanted to wipe them out, the Brittanian's and Germanics where allied AGAINST me in the campaign that went wrong.

Tried a new campaign with the Juli, taken the Gaul provinces in Italy and then Built forts at all the ways in, then gone after the Carthaginians.

Had more luck developing this time, but a big part of my problem is that most settlements only have 500-100 population after I occupy/Enslave them, so as a result I never seem to be able to get the Hastashi building up. My Best City ATM is captured carthage, as it's the only place where I can Build Priceps or Cavalry Axuillia. I did use mercenaries, but by that point my enemy was never anywhere near my main army, so it didn't matter. This time I’m sending multiple Faction members into the field and thus can split my armies as necessary. Before I only had 1, (the army leader), outside of Italy.

The diplomacy is badly borked IMHO, even when I offer an even trade (map for map), it's saying I’m being too generous and they can't accept. I’ve now got 2 diplomats with NEGETIVE influence because of that. It also makes it impossible to keep allies happy and has started a couple of wars.

Fortunatly the forts are keeping them at bay.

**Roman_Man#3** · 01-02-2007, 18:29

You seem to be doing better now, but I might suggest sticking to equites instead of cavalry auxilia. Equites are good flanking troops, and they are fast, while the Cavalry auxiliamight be fast, but they have a limited number of pila or javelins, they are bad melee. Use velites and equites instead in my opinion. After you play a while and get more experience, you should notice which sities have big populations. The larger the pop., the harsher your punishment should be. Small little towns deserve an ocupation, larger ones deserve enslavement, and the largest deserve extermination.

RM3

ps. Remember what culture they are, if they are your culture, occupy the small and larger cities, while enslave the even larger cities. Keep in mind this won't always work, so keep your ears and eyes open.

**Carl** · 01-02-2007, 20:15

Actually I am sticking to Equites, I’m not much good with missile cavalry, however it is further up the tech tree than Equties and I was using it to help show my level of advancement. Just quit that campaign (it all went pear shaped after I posted that, with a couple of big Carthaginian armies wrecking Carthage and the region south of it rebelling). Tried a quick Gaul campaign and eliminated the Julii in 5 turns, with the option of moving on to the Brutii or the rebels around me. Apart from The Roman Senate I could probably have completed the short campaign objectives in another 5 turns, but I suspect 2 or 3 full armies would be needed for Senate army

Will probably drop that campaign and go back to the Scipii now I know what I’m doing better as the Gaul’s are a bit boring to fight with and against, mostly because of the small settlement size making it hard to get anything near the frontline up to speed. Carthage has good pop cities so I can use enslavement to get my cities up to speed in a hurry.

In general I agree with you though now. Enslaving small settlements doesn’t seem to do much good for my overall population and hurts the settlement taken. I might well have to exterminate some, although I'm preferring enslave, let rebel and enslave again in the case of big cities, much more fun IMHO.

**jhhowell** · 01-02-2007, 22:41

Originally Posted by Meghas Alexandros

You seem to be doing better now, but I might suggest sticking to equites instead of cavalry auxilia. Equites are good flanking troops, and they are fast, while the Cavalry auxilia might be fast, but they have a limited number of pila or javelins, they are bad melee.

I could not disagree more. Missile cavalry dominates this game. Cav Aux can do everything Equites can, and they whittle down enemy units with javelins beforehand. The only down side is the higher tech building for retraining.

If Equites were tougher (Legionary Cav, for example), there's a legitimate trade-off to consider. But they're just basic light cav, if they do anything other than pursuit, charge missile troops, or do a flank charge to get a quick rout, they'll get chewed up very quickly. Same as Cav Aux (or the Greek Militia Cav, with whom I have quite a lot more experience).

For a new player, putting off the jav cav is plausible though. It takes some practice to get full effect from them (Carl, play a Seleucid or Greek Cities game to get that practice!).

Regarding other topics, you shouldn't need to let a city rebel once you've taken it. A large city should be manageable after one extermination, and small towns are fine to occupy as is. Bear in mind that you usually have to keep a decent army in place for garrison duty for a while, at least until your peasant/town watch numbers build up. It sounds like you may be too quick to destroy some buildings - remember you can also get rid of the culture penalty by "overwriting" the building with the next higher tech version, if applicable. Make sure you can keep the people happy before trashing the temple. Arenas can help, since you can buy games to adjust happiness. If you absolutely must let a city rebel, destroy all the troop buildings first, that way the rebels will be all peasants (playing the WRE in BI gives one some practice with this...).

As you're seeing, the Scipii are nice; I'd rate them a bit easier than the Julii (better temples, richer cities to take).

Don't worry about the diplomacy, there really isn't any meaningful diplomacy in this game. Get your trade agreements, maybe trade and/or buy maps if you want, and bribe enemy armies to taste. That's about all you can hope to do.