Can't conquer the whole map, need advice.

**Omanes Alexandrapolites** · 06-13-2007, 17:32

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** · 06-13-2007, 19:17

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** · 06-13-2007, 21:23

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

**guineawolf** · 06-14-2007, 04:45

if you want to be simple,then just sent all your troops charge into city's center plaza after you bring down enemy city walls with sappers.Or you can just place your troops under the command of your captain,let him in charge of the assault of the city after you bring down the walss with sappers,still the same,make sure your general always behind your troops that engage enemy(so they won"t rout,and if the general have any traits or retinue with + morale for all troops in battlefield is better)

just make sure you always keep your general behind your troops when they engage enemy.That is what i do....you dun need to order your troops to engage any enemy at city streets,just charge into center plaza(Governer villa)i never lost a battle with this tactic yet.

economy problem huh...hmmm...what is your garrison troop type(unit type)?i recommend you to place peasant as garrison at cities not at the frontline.

As Omanes said: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.

Britons does not have law temple,forget it,but you can move your capitol to center of the map to reduce the penalty of distance to capital,it will increase the Public order of most of your cities,so that you can reduce your upkeep of garrisons and reduce corruptions too,i dunno RTW version 1.5 got different map or not,coz mine one is 1.1,but i suggest you move your capital to Bylazora or Thessalonica,both of these cities very near the greece,most profitable area of the map.

hope it helps!

**JeromeGrasdyke** · 06-14-2007, 09:47

Law buildings are important - they give you public order and also reduce the amount of money you loose to corruption far away from your capital. But in general, minimising distance-to-capital is a good thing... The same thing is also true for governors with Law virtues, by the way.

I'd stay away from peasants for garrisoning towns, since peasant units have half the public order effect per soldier of 'proper' military units. Militia units - if you have them - are the sweet spot for garrisons, giving you the most public order per income... large, cheap, non-peasant units are best.

Culture penalties is something else which you might want to look at. This is down to the proportion of buildings built by your culture (Barbarian for the British I think) compared to what was built by other cultures. Knocking down stuff built by other factions and then rebuilding the buildings lessens the culture penalty, which feeds back into the amount of troops you need to garrison places, allowing you to keep more troops in the field.

And watch out for grain resources, which add growth for all cities which are in the same faction and connected to them through a trade network. Sometimes it's better not to take regions with these resources in them, and just leave them to the end.

But if you are already in major debt you may just be screwed... you could try and recover by shrinking and expanding again later - picking a number of cities on your frontiers that you are going to sacrifice, destroying all the buildings, letting them rebel, then letting the AI build them up again while you reorganise.

**Shieldmaiden** · 06-14-2007, 13:09

I'd stay away from peasants for garrisoning towns, since peasant units have half the public order effect per soldier of 'proper' military units.

Isn't that in BI only?

**Rhand** · 06-14-2007, 13:31

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in my initial post, but I'm already in the year 135 BC. That's more than 300 turns being played already. I have built everything there is to built at the moment (besides those stupid farms). I have conquered almost the whole world and there is only 1 faction left who I'm trying to conquer (The Brutii) and they have 3 settlements left, and those are Rhodos, Tarsus and Antioch (so all around Turkey).

Anyways, it seems I'm just repeating myself ;-p
I just wanted to tell you that I started all over again, this time with the Scipii, but it seems I didn't save properly before I quit my Brittisch game and I think I 'm some 10 turns back (so still with a positive cashflow and stuff like that, so I might try it again soon).