Can't conquer the whole map, need advice.

[Rhand]

Hi, I'm new here and I wanted to ask advice and complain a it ;-p

I'm playing the original game (patched to 1.5) with the Britains and after dozens and dozens of hours playing, I had captured 100 regions. The only regions left to conquer were Rhodos, Cyprus and Cilicia. All three were in the hands of the Brutii while all the other factions were dead (most of them by my hands).
The year is 145 BC btw.

Everything went quite okay till now, but now I start to get some real big problems I can't solve.
For one, these Brutii are all of a sudden amazingly strong. They got those Urban Cohorts, Praetorian Cohorts etc. etc. and they have pretty amazing stats. The best units I can field are Chosen Swordsmen and in this example they have 16 stats for Attack and 20 for defence while the Brutii's forces had an average of 21 attack and 30 defence. They were in posession of Antioch (Syria) with 400 guys including a 6 stars general and I wanted to defeat them with 1500 Chosen Swordsmen including a 3 stars general. No offence, but I didn't expect a "Crushing Defeat" (I never do the battles myself, cos I don't have the time, the patience and the brains imo). And so it is with all my battles against the Brutii these days. Even with an army that's 3 times their seize I loose more battles than I win. Anyway how I can solve this? :-D

My second problem is overcrowding in cities. I have my taxes as high as possible (faces are always green/yellow), I have mostly a Full garisson in my cities and in most of them I have a Family Member as well. I've built everything except for the Communal Farms (as I've read they only increase your population). Well, when I used to have a city where the population kept growing unhappier every turn no matter how low my taxes were and no matter how many soldiers I had, I deserted the city and I recaptured and exterminated it 2 turns afterwards.
But now I can't do this anymore. When I desert a city they automatically have also a full garisson, and what's worse they all got suddenly every armor upgrade and every experience point there is to get. So I have to fight 1600 peasants with 14-16 (while the original is like 3-4) and some 200 Rebel General units with amazing stats (21-25 or something). Even when I attack with an army of 4500 men (mixed Warband, Peasants and Chosen Swordsmen; the Peasants being considerably weaker, the Warband being a bit weaker and the CS being stronger) I still get some Crushing Defeats and it really starts to piss me off !

My third and last problem is money. For some reason I yet have to find out I loose 20.000 denarii every turn. How is this possible, nothing changed compared to 20 turns ago. I got a couple more cities, my garissons in those cities grew but my armies on the field were all massacred by the Brutii so I guess that evens up. Furthermore my taxes are also the same etc. And when my cities in Italy and Greece make me 25.000 denarii, I can hardly believe that all my other cities would loose 40.000 denarii, I checked it and according to my lists scroll I should be making money and not loosing tons of them !

So now I need your advice. You got 96 settlements with average happyness, you have -57.000 denarii, you have only some 3.000 battle troops in the Middle-East and Turkey left (that's without he garissons in the cities), you seem to win only when you are 4-1, and 3 cities who just revolted against you have a full garisson with amazing stats while you have no realy response to it (yet?).

What would you advice me? Personally I was thinking about quitting cos I really doubt I can still win this now.

Thanks in advance.

[Afkazar]

Well first on the super roman units. There is an event in which the romans go through called the marian reforms. They Develop the super cohorts and drop the hasti and princpies. On how to win battles its probably best to fight em yourself. The auto resolve Feature tends to not take into account very important details. If you outnumber em 3 to 1 even the noobiest general can probably win a battle.

On the over crowding i cant really help you there. Usually I just have the army pull out let it rebel,Siege the city till time runs out and they sally forth with a weaker force.Again taking the fight using your own hands really helps alot.

On the last part it may be some generals taking some off the top combined with troops. Also when you lose settlements there tends to be a loss in income....Even if the cities generate negative income.

Have you tried to take rome? Usually to win the campaign you need 50 territories and rome. If youve already done that and you decided to play on I really dont see the entire point in that..

I rarely use autobattle. When i do its when...
1.Its clearly a victory. I need to have no doubt in my mind autobattle will win.
2.Its clearly a loss.No need to waste time when even the most competent commander couldnt win.
3.When I think the autobattle is giving my forces more credit then it should.If Id normally lose the battle but the bar is somewhat even for autobattle.(I have won Some victories like this)
4.Assualt Cities and I Have a Really good advantage.Often time I take more casualties then the AI for some reason....

If you fight your own battles you will definatly win alot more and wont be Killed by 400 Urban cohorts.

[Rhand]

Yeah, I know if I would battle them myselves I would prolly win a lot more and perhaps even have finished it already. But I'm more a manager-type then a Fighter-type if u know what I mean.

And yeah, I've conquered Rome and 50 cities like hours and hours ago. I just wanted to conquer the whole map and it seems that the Gods don't want me to do that unfortunately :(

Anyway, I think I'm goin to start all over again with the Scipii this time. Not really much of a challenge I think, but I'd love to see the map completely in my colour ;-p

Thanks for your answer btw.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Rhand,
I understand your frustration - R:TW was designed to be almost impossible to undergo a complete conquest with - especially with a Celtic (Gauls, Britain and Iberians) Barbarian faction - the Germans are slightly easier to win with due to their better unit roster.

Automatic resolution is heavily imbalanced - some units are drastically over-powered in auto-resolve compared to their battlefield ability, and others are drastically underpowered. It is often better to play the battle out since you then have the ability to use tactical flare in organising your victories - the AI simply isn't as intelligent as you in R:TW.

To prevent squalor, the best option is to simply prevent growth - as a wise fellow once said - "your war is not against squalor - it's against population growth". Population growth will always occur in even the least hygienic and well fed settlements, yet it can be slowed down by avoiding health and population boosting buildings, including farms. Sadly, though, since to get the best military units you require maxed up cities, so, in certain strategically important cities, this rule will have to be broken.

Unfortunately, your only resort against squalor, once you have it, is building heath buildings and similar happiness structures, as you have said. I do believe, however, that they do not actually resolve squalor and instead simply counter-act and, over time phase their good out by piling huge amounts of population upon your settlement creating a worse squalor issue. You could also upgrade the Governor's palace, yet that can make things worse in the long run too.

The best thing I find if the problem is too out of hand is abandoning the settlement, leaving it to revolt, and then returning to exterminate the populace. It reduces the population's numbers, yet also removes income within the settlement, so, if your desperate for cash, then you may wish to avoid this evil strategy.

May I also suggest that you try rebalancing the population. Simply train many units of peasants in your largest cities and disband them in your smaller ones. This migration moves men from the large city, that could do with less people in the populace, to a smaller one that requires the population to expand to the next level to gain better troops. If you have no small cities that require this boost, send the Peasants to their deaths - stick 'em on a boat and send them into pirate/enemy infested waters (or in your case Brutii lands). They will soon be dead, leaving you with nothing to worry about!

On the monetary side of things, as the Barbarians, poverty is almost guaranteed! They are pretty hard to manage compared to other factions (I congratulate you on making it this far - I'm too lazy too!). If you haven't constructed Markets and Ports and upped the tax rate, then this may be the time to do so. However, do try to avoid sending your populace down to red, although you can afford making them blue. It also may be a good idea to wipe your existing temples and build law boosting ones, if the Britains have them - they reduce corruption in your settlements providing you with a much higher income! Moving the capital to a centralised position does the same too for reducing corruption. Finally it may also be a good idea to kill those stinking rebels sitting on your roads and those pirates blockading your ports - they both destroy your trade further reducing your income!

Good luck with your map conquest, cheers!

[Severous]

Any chance of you hosting the saved game somewhere so I could download it?

Things to consider:

- Capital. Have you moved it to a central postion. To reduce corruption and disorder

- 'Taxes as high as possible'. If thats not 'very high' then its not high enough. You can run cities on 70% public order. Thats red face. No lower though. I sense you dont micromange so such an approach carries risk as you may not want to check every city every turn..and with so many I wouldnt blame you.

- Are you killing rebels? They could be reducing the value of road trade.

- Did you trade with any who are now your enemies? War means loss of trade income.

[Shieldmaiden]

I've just done a Briton Campaign, and using a Temple of Britannia (Trade bonus) in coastal Cities helped my income a lot.

About Barbarian Factions being difficult - Britannia is easier than Gaul and Germania for me.

Don't Autoresolve, practice your tactics.

Try using Light Chariots to flank and whittle down the enemy Infantry. Use Cavalry Mercs or any spare Light Chariots (with Skirmish off) against enemy Archers.

Prepare a battle line of Chosen Swordsmen, put Head Hurlers (perhaps Druids too) behind them and Warhounds just in front.

The enemy will be frightened by the Light Chariots and casualties. Once they're close, Warcry and use Warhounds to attack, followed by the Chosen Swordsmen and Head Hurlers.

It'll reduce Morale quickly, and usually Routs the enemy. I use Heavy Chariots (or Generals) to flank the enemy and charge into their backs too.

Note: I use Medium Battle Difficulty, I believe in a level playing field with no "cheating".

Hopefully that'll be useful for ideas at least