Few new questions

[blado]

I'm new to EB and I have a few questions

1. What would be a good starting difficulty?

2. What is an AAR?

3. Could I have maby a few tips since I am playing Roma?

If these could be answered then that would be great, thanks.

[Pharnakes]

1. Hard campign, medium battles.

2. After action report.

[Maeran]

Malrubius' Roman guide in the after action reports section (top of this forum page) helped me when I was starting out.

really quick guide to starting out with about any faction:

Always enable the script by clicking on a city when you first load up, allowing the advisor to pop up and clicking 'show me how'. Sooo important to EB.

get rid of any starting units you don't need, like the roman fleet at the start. They are expensive and your war are on land for now.

Build slowly and focus on getting a decent economy at first. Then take on the world.

Rebels are strong at the start. This is to make it more of a challenge. Expect to lose battles to naked maniacs.

Have fun!

[blado]

Ok thanks all. I've almost secured southern Italy and am looking towards the north soon. When should I start focusing on sicily and carthages islands?

[Karo]

I would say go to scily because the north is really well guarded by alot of men.

[beatoangelico]

my advice is: first sicily, then build a navy and take sardinia and corsica; keep naval superiority over carthage and go north

[Chris1959]

Note that attacking Massena will trigger war with Carthage. So to some extent you can determine when you wish to do this.

I always try to take Syracuse before Messana so I get a few years of extra income before the "big one".

[Maksimus]

[QUOTE=blado]I'm new to EB and I have a few questions

1. What would be a good starting difficulty?
[QUOTE]

1-VH campaign (do AI is not so good either on Hard or Very Hard) and Medium Battles (do one small part of EB community still uses VH/VH )

[Strategos Alexandros]

Hard campaign if you're a beginner though.

[Visitor13]

Wait, attacking Syracuse doesn't trigger a war with Carthage? I always thought the war started the moment you crossed the strait separating Italy from Sicily.

[Pharnakes]

NO, if you leave an army for two or three turns in messan province, or take messan then the war starts. Some people exploit this by taking Syracuse first, but that is well, an exploit.

[beatoangelico]

A useless exploit imho...you should have all the money you need after taking Rhegion and Taras

[konny]

I'm new to EB and I have a few questions

1. What would be a good starting difficulty?

Campaign: I would advise M. On every other level the rudimental diplomacy of RTW is more or less turned off.

Battle: Always M. The stats of the units are carefully balanced in EB. Any other setting of battle difficulty will seriously mess that up.

3. Could I have maby a few tips since I am playing Roma?

1. Disband the Ships.
2. Send your diplomat to the Aedui and Arverni and make peace with them. Try to get an alliance with one of them; they are at war with each other.
3. Move the northern army South and merge it with the forces in Arpi
4. Attack and take Taras without hesitation to prevent the Epeirote from spamming troops out there
5. Build "Military Pacification" (or what is it called) there and afterwards a Level 2 governement.
5a. Move your diplomat to Epeiros to make peace with them.
6. Leave a family member and some garrison in Taras.
7. Take Rhegion. Do not cross into Sicily.
8. Build a Level 2 governement there too

You don't need new soldiers until this point. Afterwards start building up your economy and military. When you are strong enough take Segesta and afterwards Massilia (if it is not taken by one of the Gauls meanwhile).

After that go for Bononia and Patavium. Watch out: Bononia has about the strongest garrison on the entire map. Use a full stack and try to starve them out.

Develop your new conquests and afterwards go for the Karthagians: An attack on Messana will immediatly trigger a war with them.

--------------

General advices:

- Unlike RTW, cavalry is very weak when fighting infantry toe to toe; and the Roman cavalry is amongst the weakest. So don't expect your family members to win all the battles on their own.

- Unit upkeep is very high in EB. So don't raise everything you can. Calculate if you really can afford that unit in the long run.

- You have to become familiar with the EB concept of governemt and recruitement. It is completly different to anything in RTW. For a brief introduction to the Roman recruitement in EB click on the image in my sig.

[Moosemanmoo]

Hmm I always start new games on medium, sometimes easy. Should I stop this and start VH/VH to break the habit?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

VH battle difficulty will unbalance the stats and cause crazy things like levies killing elites or Gesatae being literally immortal. No matter how good you are, VH (battle) is discouraged.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

Campaign: I would advise M. On every other level the rudimental diplomacy of RTW is more or less turned off.

Battle: Always M. The stats of the units are carefully balanced in EB. Any other setting of battle difficulty will seriously mess that up.

Good point. Not only is the diplomacy unfeature more useless, the AI becomes way too Total Warrish for my taste. The only problem I observe in M is that rebels don't attack abroad - well, I haven't observed the situation in the steppes actually.

Since Force Diplomacy MM has become an essential element in my toolkit I may give H a try in my next campaign.

Enough aggression occurs in M. Makedonia starts in war with virtually everyone. I had to start over three times before finding the right (for my tastes) strategy. The last time (the ongoing campaign) while I was busy extinguishing the flames that dirty old Khremonides awoke the wretched Molossos Pyrrhos invaded Pella, killed my king's firstborn and looted the sacred tombs.
.

[cmacq]

I've played it like Konny, but a little different?

Your southern army of 1 Legion should be able to take Taras on turn 2. Up arm your northern army of 1 Legion on turn 1 and move north bypassing Bononia for Medilanum. Up arm your southern army in Taras and move it on to Rhegion where they meet with reinforcements (totaling 2 Legions) brought south by ship. Make peace with the Arverni and Insubramrog should fall to your northern army by turn 4 or 5. If you don't take Medilanum quickly it may become a significant problem later on. Move your northern army south as you send reinforcements north, both to meet at Bononia (totaling 2 Legions).

After Rhegion falls, around turn 8, move your southern army north by ship to Segesta. Your southern army should arrive at Segesta just after Bononia falls. So, as your southern army besets Segesta the northern army can move on Patavium. This should make you the master of Italy and give you a power base large enough to challenge the Punes.

After both Segesta and Patavium have fallen move both northern and southern armies south by ship to Sicilia. Make peace with the Aedui. In Sicilia, use one army to beset Messana and keep the other as a reserve army until the Punes declare war on you. While you do all this raise a new northern (small) army around Arretium.

As soon as the Punes attack, advance west with the reserve army on Lilibeo. If you're lucky the Punes will come out and play and this may result in a quicker capture of Lilibeo. At the same time ship half of your new northern army over to take Korsim and next ship the other half to take Sardin. Now you can use the army that took Messana to beset Syracuse.

After you have Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica make peace with the Punes. Keep one army of about 2 Legions plus allies in Sicily to guard against the Punes and move the other 2 Legion army east into southern Italy (Taras) in anticipation of your attack on Epeiros. Meanwhile, as the war with Carthage drew to a close you reconstitute your northern army of 2 Legions and sent it west to beset Massilia. Now, build another new northern army of 2 Legions and use it to guard northern Italy.


Right: to me 1 Legion equals 1/2 Hastati, 1 Principes, 1 Triarii about 10:1 or 4860/6460 men.
also with every 2 Legions I add 2 Rorarii, 2-3 Accensi, and 1 Eqvites Romani for support; or about 8200, with a total of about 13000/14660 men for scale.

Also make sure you have a few extra units in the pipeline at all times only to serve as replacements. Do not use these replacements as line troops or everything will quickly grind to a halt.

[anubis88]

a little of topic.... Is VH/M even a chalenge to an experienced player... I mean i know that it's the best difficulty to play but i rarely loose battles on VH/VH... Im not braging or anything but the battles are still very easy.... The gaestae aren't such maniancks after all.... My elites still hold their ground against enemy units and a well placed cavalry charge routes almost anyone. It's very anoying playing against lots of archers and god forbid HA!

The point i want to make is that i would like to play the game on VH/M but i'm afraid it will be far to easy... And the general cam doesn't attract me since the units do incredibly stupid things unless you have an eye on them...

Any advice?

[beatoangelico]

I don't see the point to rush north Italy so fast and face garrisons with lots of gaesatae...Sicily is much more developed and wealthier thanks to trade, and the AI is too dumb to make a quick reaction to the player's actions, without the BI.exe probably it will sit down and do nothing after the players takes Lilibeo. And both Sardinia and Corsica can make unrealistically high trade values with Arretium, Roma and Capua thanks to the RTW engine (the more close are the ports, the more is the trade boost).
Also, after capturing Taras I would send immediatly the diplomat to make peace with Epirus and then offer trade rights. This way you can, especially if you install a level 3 or level 4 gov in Taras, you should make huge trade incomes exporting in the 2 epirotes cities.

[cmacq]

well, if you want a challenge play at near ground level and don't come up for air. It's a completely different game when you're in the middle of it and can't see everything. And...

the AI doesn't seem so stupid.

[cmacq]

At the beginning of the game Medilanum has a relatively small garrison without gaesatae, which gets ever larger and very much stronger over time.

The reason to take the north is because it can be done quick and with little lose early on. What is up with all this fear of gaesatae? By the numbers, just cut them down-to-size with the Accensi, deplete them with volleys from the Rorarii, fight them with the Hastati, finish them with the Principes, and run them down like dogs with the Eqvites.


And...
why trade with, when one can own Epirus, Macedonia, and Greece in relatively quick session? One just needs to give them a reason to attack you? Remember this is all done before any reform, as all of the Camellia troops will be replaced. So, why wait and trade only to make a more difficult fight for yourself later on? Besides, I just provided one way, one that served my overall goals, I never implied it was the best or only way? One must always set their own war-aims, determine a design with which to achieve that goal, and finally find the resolve and means to implement their design.

[Maksimus]

a little of topic.... Is VH/M even a chalenge to an experienced player... I mean i know that it's the best difficulty to play but i rarely loose battles on VH/VH... Im not braging or anything but the battles are still very easy.... The gaestae aren't such maniancks after all.... My elites still hold their ground against enemy units and a well placed cavalry charge routes almost anyone. It's very anoying playing against lots of archers and god forbid HA!

The point i want to make is that i would like to play the game on VH/M but i'm afraid it will be far to easy... And the general cam doesn't attract me since the units do incredibly stupid things unless you have an eye on them...

Any advice?

Nah... VH/M is ok..

It's just that if you want to be Alexander or Hanibal you could try VH/VH

On Alex.exe do, VH/M is the same as VH/VH and VH/VH on ALX.exe is as 2 times harder then Vanilla EB (RTW.exe based) on VH/VH - but that main advance is not because of the battle - but the Campaign difficulty - because AI is retraining troops and grouping all the time

[beatoangelico]

At the beginning of the game Medilanum has a relatively small garrison without gaesatae, which gets ever larger and very much stronger over time.

The reason to take the north is because it can be done quick and with little lose early on. What is up with all this fear of gaesatae? By the numbers, just cut them down-to-size with the Accensi, deplete them with volleys from the Rorarii, fight them with the Hastati, finish them with the Principes, and run them down like dogs with the Eqvites.


And...
why trade with, when one can own Epirus, Macedonia, and Greece in relatively quick session? One just needs to give them a reason to attack you? Remember this is all done before any reform, as all of the Camellia troops will be replaced. So, why wait and trade only to make a more difficult fight for yourself later on? Besides, I just provided one way, one that served my overall goals, I never implied it was the best or only way? One must always set their own war-aims, determine a design with which to achieve that goal, and finally find the resolve and means to implement their design.

taking Mediolanum before Segesta or Messana for me is an exploit just as taking Syracuse before Messana, cause everyone knows how passive are the eleutheroi and no one in reality would have a landlocked province without connection to other friendly territories. And beside of that, I haven't say that you should trade with the epirotes forever, but since there is no way to take greece in the first turns it's simply the better thing to do.

[cmacq]

Flexibility...

I'm not sure I get your drift? Taking Syracuse before Messana or even Lilibeo makes little sense, as one uses Messana to provoke a war with the Punes? On the other hand Syracuse is a long seige and can be dealt with at your leisure after you run off the Punes. The situation with Mediolanum before Segesta is completely different. I assume you meant Mediolanum before Segesta/Bononia/Patavium? Would Bononia then Mediolanum be OK for you? About bypassing in general, please see 2nd Punic War; follow the Punes in Italy.

Trust me its important that Mediolanum is taken out before you have two or more, full stacks of Aedui bumping around up there. Apparently, you have never followed the bad men into the woods. Well, I have, and I will never again.

[blado]

I have secured northern Italy. I took the 2 rebel towns and took the 1 Gaulic settlement. I controll 2 cities in Sicily and will soon attack and take the 3rd. I already have Corsica so I will take the bigger southern island next. Then hopefully make peace with Carthage and expand to the north. Also, when I made peace with them last time I automaticly went back to war because I owned part of sicily. If I own it all will this keep happening? (seems like kind of a bug). Also, I can only afford to have 2 armies right now. one in the north and one in the south fighting carthage, I had to send half of my northern armies south to take sicily though, so my northern frontier is kind of weak, Will the gauls start sending armies soon?



Edit: is it better to use BI with this mod? I have BI but how do I use it with BI?

[cmacq]

I have secured northern Italy. I took the 2 rebel towns and took the 1 Gaulic settlement. I controll 2 cities in Sicily and will soon attack and take the 3rd. I already have Corsica so I will take the bigger southern island next. Then hopefully make peace with Carthage and expand to the north. Also, when I made peace with them last time I automaticly went back to war because I owned part of sicily. If I own it all will this keep happening? (seems like kind of a bug). Also, I can only afford to have 2 armies right now. one in the north and one in the south fighting carthage, I had to send half of my northern armies south to take sicily though, so my northern frontier is kind of weak, Will the gauls start sending armies soon?



Edit: is it better to use BI with this mod? I have BI but how do I use it with BI?

If you have Mediolanum, no. If not, you might have a big fight with the Aedui ahead of you. As soon as you take all of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica the Punes should cave for peace. If you have 14 districts you should be getting alot of cash by now? Also don't load up on high cost units, as such as the Rorarii and Accensi can prove very useful.

[blado]

But is it better to use BI for the mod? Or does it not really matter? If it is worth having how do I get it to work with BI and can I use my old saves?

[beatoangelico]

But is it better to use BI for the mod? Or does it not really matter? If it is worth having how do I get it to work with BI and can I use my old saves?

with BI the AI is better especially with naval invasions, with vanilla RTW there's probably a bug that stops the AI factions to land troops on provinces that they don't own. Switching to BI is saved game compatible and you have to modify a few files (see https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...24&postcount=2) or install the Ferromancer's patch (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=95664)

also keep in mind that playing at VH is very difficult to have lasting peaces with the other factions. In my campaign I have to continuosly attack Carthage and destroy its fleet (or at least try to ) otherwise Sardinia will be invaded every time.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
BI's naval invasion is also buggy and random (with no logic). Check the forum for a detailed account by konny.
.