Best Campaign

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

The Romans and their automatic protectorate canceling is related to a hardcoded feature which applies to all AI controlled Roman factions - they automatically declare war upon whoever their Roman allies are at war with on the turn after war is declared, regardless of previous stances or agreements made. If a Roman faction agrees to a ceasefire/protectorate with another faction, and other Romans are still at war with it, the ceasefire/protectorate will automatically conclude the following turn.

The senate is, however, the item that is holding this system together. Destroying them gives all Roman factions full independent diplomatic status, which also can result in an early civil war.

If the senate isn't destroyed, however, there is a way out, but it's tricky. The faction has to offer every Roman faction (including the S.P.Q.R) a protectorate/other war canceling deal on the same turn, and every faction has to accept. This is nigh impossible, so you'll probably never gain a protectorate with any Roman faction at any point while the senate still lives on.



Gah! Telys sort of beat me to it. My fingers are aging too quickly!

[Barbarian]

Thanks for the info. I had considered the possibility of other Roman factions attacking me. But in this case, it wouldn't happen, as Julii can't get out of the Italy because of the angry britons, Scipii are no more, as they turned into rebels and the senate never leves the area near Rome. I could just destroy them all, but that is not my intention, just wan't to decrease their territory's to minimum and make them live near barbarians.

I will try the method of besieging all cities and ports on some faction later, but that means that it will be hard to contact and make the offer to them, the only way is to find their diplomat.

[Quirinus]

I saw it is a threat to Greek freedom, so I rejected this and assassinated the diplomat

I approve of your diplomatic style. :P

Other than wiping out the SPQR, a thread that I've read in the Colosseum seems to imply that the other factions might follow if you manage to make the SPQR a protectorate, the other Roman factions might follow suit.

[Punicus]

I decided I'm going to take a break from my campaign as Parthia, so I'll talk about that campaign later. Right now I'm more focused on this campaign, my Macedonian one. Difficulty is H/H.

Right now I have fended off Romans after a couple of close defeats and have managed to kick the Scipii out of Italy (rendering them helpless on Sicily with barely any military), captured Rome and am about to take the Julii by storm. I am also sending a stack to take care of Sicily. I'm disappointed because those defeats stalled my capturing off Rome and Italy a few years.



Lucky me, Scythia and Dacia are at war. I took advantage of the fact that they are weakened militarily and I am capturing their cities. Shouldn't be long before they're both out of the picture.

Once I'm done with the Julii, I'll send an army up north meanwhile mustering up a stack or two to begin war in Asia Minor with Pontus who have become quite a power. They've held Egyptian expansion to a reasonable amount considering how late it is in the game (241 BC).

[Quirinus]

Ooh, interesting-looking campaign you got there. I've never seen the Greeks get Sardinia before-- and trapped there, too.

How do you get the entire map revealed? I would post one of my current Julii game, but as it is now the map information in the East is outdated by about forty or fifty years.

[Barbarian]

Go into your preferences file of Rome: Total war, find a line fog_of_war (or something like that). Change TRUE next to it to FALSE. This reveals the map, and also removes the need of spies.

PS: Oh, but spies can still be used to find out exact numbers of enemy's force and for opening the gates during sieges.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Although Barbarian's method works, for a more temporary solution you may wish to use the "toggle_fow" cheatcode in the console.

Firstly, open up the console by pressing the ¬ or the ~ key. Your computer's regional keyboard settings effect which key activates the console, so if one doesn't work you may wish to try the other.

Type "toggle_fow" into the console and press the return or the enter key. The map should reveal.

Then close the console using the same key as used previously.

Repeating this action with fog of war turned off will reactivate it.

Anyhow, back to topic - an interesting campaign you've got there Punicus. I'm rather surprised at Rome and Egypt's lack of dominance and the rather different path the British have taken. In all of my campaigns they usually rampage through Gaul rather than Germania.

[Punicus]

I'm rather surprised at Rome and Egypt's lack of dominance and the rather different path the British have taken.

Yep, this one is definitely looking different than most other campaigns I've done so far. Pontus vs. Egypt is going to be interesting. I'm hoping that Pontus will be able to hold the Egyptians back until I'm ready to make my move on the Middle East and Asia Minor. If the Egyptians have 20 or more settlements by that time, they'll be spamming full stacks like nothing and I'll have a tough situation on my hands.

Anyways, I should be able to update with new pics later on.

EDIT: Here it is, an updated version of my campaign. The year is now 236 BC (five years have passed since my last post).

Take a look at the campaign map:


Here's what's going on. Firstly, I am conquering city after city in Italy, no problem there. There's only one major Julii army left, and they have two cities. I am about to engage in a major battle with them. I'm not too worried about it though. South of Italy in Sicily, we have a full stack of mine besieging the Scipii's last city (Lilybaeum - sp?). Italy is just a few turns away from being completely mine.

I have just gone to war with Pontus. I have one full stack in there with Macedonian cavalry and Phalanx Pikemen mostly. It seems they just keep on handing me gifts - firstly, they had no army in the vicinity of Asia Minor. Seems they were too busy fighting Armenia and preparing for war with Egypt. I'm hoping they will remain neutral so Egypt won't expand any more than they have. Asia Minor will be mine soon enough, as well as Rhodes which I haven't gotten around to capturing yet. From there I plan to finish Pontus off while creating some more soldiers that will finish off Armenia and Parthia, while the main stack I have in Asia Minor right now begins war in Egypt.

My only worry is the Dacian/Scythian war. We're in a three-way war, no one seems to be going anywhere. I have one stronghold in Dacian lands, with a decent military in it, however I am surrounded by 2 almost-full stacks. Not only that, but Campus Scythii is being attacked by a decent Sycthian army. I'm hoping my reinforcements can get up there in time.

That's all for now. Comments/suggestions are welcome.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

I would suggest attacking the Julii. You've already beat the snot out of them, so finishing them off shouldn't be such a big deal. Not only this, but it would open up a second front on the Dacians, which is your main source of contension at the moment.

[Barbarian]

It looks like you have all the strongest and wealthiest regions, execept Egypt.
Surprisingly, that Gauls still have so huge territory

[Quirinus]

Whoa, I've never seen Gaul fend off the Britons and convince them to expand into Germania. Most games, the Gauls are crushed between the might of Brittania, Germania, the Julli, and occasionally even the Spanish.

Anyways, here's the map for my Julii game. It is now 215 BC, and about four years after the Marian Reforms.

Quite a lot has happened since my last update. My veterans under Oppius Scarface and Valerius Scarface at the Illyrian front and the Macedonian front respectively have been pushing back the Brutii armies-- by this time, my armies are full of silver-chevroned principes. It took a while, but Valerius finally took Byzlora and then Thessalonica. Illyria took even longer-- I only captured Salona in 216 BC, and Thermon fell just before I took this screenshot. All looks well-- I have advances on all three fronts, but the Marian Reforms have start to hurt.

Other than not being able to retrain my veterans (who, faced with identical Roman troops, do die a lot), the troops made avaliable by the Marian Reforms virtually negated the advantage of veterancy I accumulated painstakingly throughout many, many battles. A greenhorn legionary cohort is already a match for my single-gold-chevroned hastati, or silver-chevroned principes. I will have to take a few more years to train up post-Marian troops. In the meantime, I am transporting the veterans of Rome and Tarentum by sea to backstab the Brutii in lightly-defended Sparta. Their faction leader is there.

But as I predicted, the Brutii don't really stand a chance. The combined military and financial might of Gaul, Dacia and Italy proved decisive.

But as this war is winding down, another major one, long looming in the horizon, looks to be flaring up. An Egyptian fleet, who has been skulking for quite a while in the Bosphorus, declared war by port blockade on Campus Getae. Just as well, I guess.

In the meantime, good ol' Tertius Victor up in Pripet decided that enough was enough, and led his army up finish off the Germans, leaving his 18-year-old son Gaius Coriolanus in charge. Just as soon as he left Pripet, the Scythians besieged Vicus Venedae and stormed it the next turn. Tertius was too late, but he took the sorry little hovel of a town back anyway, and personally (or at least, with his bodyguard) killed all three Scythian family members in the army. The Germans were put out of their miserable half-life by an army of greenhorn hastati from their former lands about five years later. Talk about irony.

Now, all the former Gallic, Briton and Spanish lands, as well as the core German lands, have Roman towns/cities, which never fails to amuse me.

One thing about both the Brutii and the Scipii-- they have no surviving Brutii or Scipii left. All their family members are adopted, sons-in-laws or descendents of them, due to assassination. =D

Though truth be told, this campaign is getting a little boring, and since I've started a Scipii campaign, I don't expect I'll be touching this for long while.


I'll post up my Scipii campaign later, I guess.



EDIT: And so... here's my Scipii campaign. I've never played as the Scipii before, so the results weren't too spectacular. I found it to be consistently challenging, though, quite unlike, say, the Brutii after the first ten years. And, unlike the Julii or the Brutii, the Scipii are not pigeonholed into expanding in one region.


It may not be immediately obvious, but I own Sicily, Sardinia, the Balaeric Isles, Crete, Rhodes, and all Greece south of Epirus and Macedonia, in addition to Punic Africa, Cyrene and a bit of Asia Minor. It is now 234 BC.

I started off the traditional way: take Syracuse, and then Carthage. I was building up Messana and then Syracuse for a long, bloody fight for Sicily but building Temples of Vulcan and troop-building facilities, but after a Carthagenian full-stack and then a half-stack were disposed with, Lilybaeum fell with a whimper. Before that I had backstabbed the Carthagenians on Caralis, which also fell without much protest.

I made peace with the Greeks after I took Syracuse-- I needed the trade. Soon after the Senate ordered me to take Thapsus, I also sent a half-stack of principes/hastati with two young family members to Greece to take Athens, because I remembered how hard the Brutii were to beat once they had been allowed to dominate and turtle in in Greece in my Julii game, and I wanted to prevent that. I was just too late. When I landed, the Macedonians were one step ahead of me and had besieged it with a full-stack.

So I turned around, and, seeing Sparta so undefended, figured that I might as well start from the bottom. The Greeks were not too amused, but they had the Brutii and the Macedonian all over them, so they agreed to peace almost immediately after that.

After a few turns,Macedonian-held Corinth, just less than a turn's march north, was looking terribly defenseless --only one family member-- and tempting, so as soon as I had built up a large-enough force to be able to feel confident about repelling the Macedonian full-stack, I attacked and occupied Corinth. After a couple of years, presumably because of the deteriorating situation up in Thessalia and Macedonia, the Macedonians moved half their stack out of Athens to send it north. Only to be bribed by my diplomat. =D So Athens too fell into my lap, albiet after a pitched battle.

In the meantime, I sent one of the aforementioned family members down to Crete, and then, once Kydonia was properly settled down, over to rebel-held Halicarnassus. Within a few months of its capture, it was raking in more than 1000d a turn, almost entirely from trade with Rhodes alone.

So I was rather reluctant to declare war on the Greeks again, especially since there was no more trade with the Macedonians. I ignored a few Senate missions to blockade Thermon and Rhodes. It was a Brutii siege of Thermon that compelled me to take Rhodes. The Brutii siege was beaten back, but still. After taking Rhodes, I didn't bother making peace again with the Greeks. The Senate ordered me to take Macedonian Larissa, so I finally took it (the Brutii could have taken it, but for some reason, a Brutii stack has been wondering around north of Epirus for ages, doing nothing). Thermon fell to a Scipii army soon after that too. That was the end of the Greeks.

In Asia Minor, Pontus attacked Greek-held Pergamum many times, until it finally fell. The Seleucids, now restricted to Sardis, was next. I bribed away a few large Pontic armies, and even gave money to the Seleucids to delay Pontus and to create a sort of buffer zone until I'm ready, but the Seleucids died without so much as a whimper anyway.

With the closing of the war in Greece, I moved my best diplomats, spies and assassins to Asia Minor. To make a long story short, I bribed Sardis, built it up, and was sending a teeny garrison to Pontus-held Pergamum just prior to bribing the city too, and the garrison inside attacked me.

Which isn't too bad, I had been gearing up for war against them anyways, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. But then the Marian Reforms happened. Great timing, Marius, good job. SO I had to make do with a dwindling army of veterans while I quickly trained up a half-stack of early cohorts from Sparta, Corinth and Athens simultaneously. I had been teching up Corinth and Athens to prepare for the civil war anyway, so it wasn't too bad.

It wasn't as bad as when it happened in my Julii campaign, though. I only had two armies of veterans (one in Africa, the other in Asia Minor), and I had a bunch of troop-training cities very close to one another (in Greece), so I could put together a legion pretty quickly. Also, the civil war isn't happening anytime soon, so this means that by the time the civil war happens, I'll have lots of post-Marian troops avaliable. Well, actually, so will my fellow Roman factions, but oh well.

Once I got past that initial weaning period, the payoffs were spectacular. With my shiny new legionaries, I attacked a large army composed mainly of Eastern Infantry, with a few chariot archers thrown in, outside the gates of Nicomedia. It was, my general's pre-battle pep-talk tells me, about a quarter of Pontus' entire military might. There was no contest. Confronted by my legionaries, the eastern infantry melted away like so much snow on a hot morning. My general's bodyguard and the accompanying Roman cavalry had a field day. The battlefield, a gently sloping hill, was literally littered with thousands of Pontic corpses all the way to the red line. The view was magnificent. I took a few screenshots with FRAPS-- or thought I did: I forgot to run the application before starting RTW.

In North Africa (a virtual backwater these days, which shouldn't happen), my lone general, after conquering Numidian Cirta, was going south to take Dimmidi when there was a Senate mission to take Palma from the Carthagenians. As there was an almost-full stack in the city and another half-stack witha general just standing beside the city, I couldn't just send some hastily put together force, so I turned back up north and conquered the island. On the way back to Numidia, the Marian Reforms happened, but I went on anyway, though I recruited a unit of mercenary elephants just in case.

There were quite a few medium-sized armies sitting around Dimmidi, most of the with generals so that I couldn't pick them off with my diplomats beforehand. I conquered and enslaved Dimmidi, and killed all the family members, with the result that Tingi went rebel. Nepte, that grubby little town southeast of Dimmidi, I had bribed a few turns back.

Cyrene I attacked with a rebel general I bribed. The Egyptians have quite a few full-stack armies in Libya that, due to the chariots in them and occasionally generals leading them, I could not bribe. The Egyptians have been trying to extort me for ages-- asking for a few hundred denarii with ther terms "Accept or we will attack". They only made good their promise the last time, which was about a few years after Pontus declared war. So now I have both Pontus and Egypt at war with me, which is definitely not ideal.

So that's the situation as of 234BC. Incidentally, when I used toggle_fow a few times before to take screenshots, I noticed that Egypt had a rebellion in Egypt a while back-- Alexandria revolted and turned rebel, and Thebes followed a few turns later. Predictably, it was crushed, and, if I am interpreting the number of population correctly, exterminated. But still.

[The Wandering Scholar]

You might have inspired me to have a Scipii campaign, which temple is it which gives bonuses to legionaires? Vulcan?

[Quirinus]

Yep, that's the temple. A large temple of Vulcan combined with an armourer, which is not too hard to get to, gives silver weapons and armour. An awesome temple of Vulcan adds +1 experience to the bargain.

The initial fifteen years or so weren't that interesting-- it only got better when I took Sparta and then Halicarnassus. It may be just me, but the vast distances in Punic Africa means that it will never be anything but a peripheral theatre for me, even after the Egyptians declare war. As soon as the war with Pontus is winding down, I plan to build another legion to send by fleet to Egypt Proper, where I plan to burn Alexandria to the ground.

[The Wandering Scholar]

wow, the Vulcan...

Yh I find punic africa to be a bore. The only good thing is it changes a load of the map to your colour.

[Quirinus]

Haha, yeah, tell me about it. Before I took the Numidian lands and the regions in Asia Minor, my empire was looking pretty pathetic, especially when you look at the impressive chain of red in Southern Gaul that is the Julii. I mean, Laconia, Peloponessus and Attica combiend barely shows up on the unmagnified map!

[The Wandering Scholar]

I have just completed a short campaign blitz with the Scipii:

Amazingly I was nearing the Marian Reforms by 260bc. I did not even enslave, just externinated and moved on. Over 120k in the royal treasury and seeing as though I was just unlockin ghte other factions I auto-calced all battles. For this I just trained infantry seeing as though it is just an all out charge by both sides. I had Syracuse churning out Siver attack/defence Hastati then Princeps and also carthage doing the same. I might try a long campaign as I found them to be a lot of fun. Plus I want them giant killer legionnaires, Gold, Gold and exp!!

[Vitellus]

My very first campaign, with the Brutii, was probably one of my best - certainly the easiest. The details are a little fuzzy, but as I recall, I quickly learned that my hastati and principes were far superior to Greek hoplites, and that was swiftly overrun. I had no scruples about nuetral or allied factions - if I wanted their cities, I attacked.

In addition, I never waited in a city, at all. I was never on the defensive. I would storm a city, occupy/enslave/sack it, depending on the population, order up a few Town Watches as garrison, then the army would roll out, bound for the next province.

n_n What I liked best was my assault in Egypt: I had 4 or so full-stack armies on fleets just offshore, and 2 more on the ground in former Pontian lands. In a single turn, all my armies disembarked, besieged the nearest city, whilst the two land armies descended through the Cilician Gates and beat back their troops, and the fleets immediately blockaded every port. The poor Eggies never recovered from the suprise assault, crumbling in about 5 turns or so. I repeated the tactic against my Roman rivals, with similar results.

That campaign lasted only until 240 BC, which is the date I selected to start the civil war.

My best campaign, in that it was a hard-fought uphill battle, however, would have to be my Gallic one. I described that one as it was in progress over in the Gaul thread in the Guides section, so I won't repost it here.

[Permenion]

While looking at all these campaign maps, I was wondering why you guys need so much tactics.. because with the unmodified totalwar it's pretty easu to conquer I think. So those mods do make it more difficult to defend your cities? And do Ai controlled factions make bigger armies, because in the unmdified rtw I have never had more than 2 huge armies of one faction...


By the way, I liked this too
I had a campaign with the seleucids and my first faction leader, Antiochus, didn't want to die.. You know what, he lived until 82 years old!!! man i really loved that guy...
In the same campaign my economy rules : each city produces about 1000 - 4000 denarii a turn. Makes me win 20 000 denarii even when building the most costly upgrades and buildings and training the best units..
Really nice campaign

[Telys]

While looking at all these campaign maps, I was wondering why you guys need so much tactics.. because with the unmodified totalwar it's pretty easu to conquer I think. So those mods do make it more difficult to defend your cities? And do Ai controlled factions make bigger armies, because in the unmdified rtw I have never had more than 2 huge armies of one faction...


By the way, I liked this too
I had a campaign with the seleucids and my first faction leader, Antiochus, didn't want to die.. You know what, he lived until 82 years old!!! man i really loved that guy...
In the same campaign my economy rules : each city produces about 1000 - 4000 denarii a turn. Makes me win 20 000 denarii even when building the most costly upgrades and buildings and training the best units..
Really nice campaign

I need defence for situation like these. When I play I don't blitz. I expand when needed. Which tends to let my enmies grow financially and in military strength. So sometimes a little effort is needed on defence.

[UltraWar]

I set up a thread like this some time ago and was told that there was no interest in this at all...

[Telys]

I set up a thread like this some time ago and was told that there was no interest in this at all...

This is my second time starting a thread of the same title. They both seemed to work decently. What was your thread titled, cause the only reason I made this was to see how other people play the game. If I had seen a thread similiar to this I would have just posted in that one rather than make another one.

[The Wandering Scholar]

I need defence for situation like these. When I play I don't blitz. I expand when needed. Which tends to let my enmies grow financially and in military strength. So sometimes a little effort is needed on defence.

That is what I am going to do, be agressive when agressed. Hmm, what is the best faction to do this with?

[Telys]

That is what I am going to do, be agressive when agressed. Hmm, what is the best faction to do this with?

Well I have my own preferences for factions. I usually play as greek cities or julii. With the julii I usually wait till the reforms before I start expanding and usually only follow senate missions occasionally taking certain settlements for strategic pruposes, to make a coherent empire or out of revenge. With the greeks I like to abandon certain settlements to avoid war at first. Usually syracuse, pergamum and sometimes even thermon. It really depends on what type of campaign you want. If you want to expand but dont want to initiate the wars the seleucids are a good choice as war with egypt is inevitable and parthia and pontus will most likely start war. Personally as the seleucids, if I was to play as them, once egypt started the war I would eliminate them. All the while trying to gain them as a protectorate which they would most likely never accept, but it never hurts to try. Once I gained the whole eastern side of the map, minus the northern territories, I would wait till the romans expanded. By then myself and the romans would have a large military and would make for a fairly entertaining war. Its hard to say what faction to pick for a fairly calm campaign. The romans are an obvious choice, but other than them everyone else has there guaranteed enemies. I really can't help in picking a faction as I am fairly bias when it comes to picking factions. I just thought I'd throw my opinion out there.

[The Wandering Scholar]

That Seleucid campaign sounds fun fun fun

[Vitellus]

A Seleucid/Roman match up is always fun, once you've given the Latins a good chance to expand and build up a military.

My war was 3 full-stack Seleucid armies fighting a holding action in northern Macedonia, slowly grinding through endless Brutii stacks to reach Thessalonica. That war was settled swiftly, however, once I landed 3 more full stacks all over the Peloponnese and devastated their logistical base. It's basically a gigantic war of attrition and manuever, especially if you try to always outnumber your enemy on the battlemap when possible, as I do. Leads to a lot of careful maneuvering with your armies to eliminate the hordes of Romans one at a time.

[The Wandering Scholar]

I suppose it would be fun with any faction when letting the Romans build up.

[nara shikamaru]

I don't have screenie, seeing as I lost any after getting my new harddrive, and I haven't reinstalled RTW yet, mostly cause it's a big tax on my comp anyway. But I do wish to share one of my most favored moments in RTW.

I was playing as the Julii, and I had conquered Segesta, and Caralis, and I think the senate either wanted me to blockade a Gaulic port, or to take Carthage, or possibly Thapsus. Well I think I was in the middle of either getting some new recruits for the job, or sending a force towards the African coast. Just as I can see my target in range, a Carthaginian diplomat comes to Arrinium(its the one that starts off as your capitol.) asking for a ceasefire, and for me to hand over Caralis. Now being the wise guy I am, I countered with a ceasefire, and giving them Caralis, for the rest of their empire, which was, Corduba, Thapsus, Carthage(I think), and that small Island off the Iberian(sorry forgot its name). I also offered either 10,000 or 20,000 denari. And to my surprise, they accepted, I believe that was the oddest thing I've ever seen, but I didn't complain, and I was able to keep all those cities, and build up to the Julii empire.

I'm sorry I don't have a screenie to back this story up, but I'm not making this up, I still wonder why the Carthaginians did this.

Anyone wanna give their 2 cents as to why this happened?

[The Wandering Scholar]

That old peach of diplomacy!!

[Quirinus]

^ It is now 260BC.

I am now playing a very interesting campaign with the Greek Cities-- at the start of the game (270BC), I began evacuating everyone from my initial starting territories to Gaul. There were some hiccups along the way: the former governer of Pergamum, Eumenes, got waylaid by a Julii navy, but by 265BC, most of the soldiers and family members have landed in Gaul. One of the armies also took Caralis along the way, because I anticipated that the trade would be crucial.

Massilia was under siege by a small Gallic force, which I defeated easily. I then laid siege to and captured Massilia within the year. My initial territories, which had been hanging on to loyalty, rebelled the turn after I set Massilia to be my capital.

I had been offering my cities to relevant factions: those in mainland Greece to Macedon, Syracuse to the Scipii and the Carthagenians, Pergamum and Rhodes to the Seleucids. Idiots that they are, all of them rejected the gifts except for the Seleucid Empire, which accepted Pergamum but not Rhodes. The turn after the Scipii rejected my gift of Syracuse, they sent an army down to attack Syracuse, though by then I had already evacuated the city. Where's the logic in that? The Romans, especially, I had been keen to keep as trade partners, but.....

As a result, I was losing money very turn after setting up a Greek republic in Massilia and Narbo Martius. It wasn't until I had less than 50 denarii left that I finally made a net profit, after taking Lugdunum. To cement my income, I took Osca, with its mines, from the Spanish.

The first ten years were challenging, to say the least-- with a rapidly dwindling treasury, lousy infrastructure (all the towns had only 1000+ population), and all four of my neighbouring factions at war with me (Spain, Gaul, Germania, Julii). I had to beat back a lot of Gallic armies using mostly lousy militia hoplites, though the single unit of Spartan hoplites helped a lot.

Now, with all my barbarian towns becoming Greek large towns, I don't anticipate any financial trouble anytime soon, but militarily, it is another matter. As of 260BC, toggle_fow tells me that the Spanish have a few medium-sized armies around Carthago Nova. The Gauls have a few good generals and big armies, though I spotted a Briton full stack cross over to Condate Redonum, which might help a little. The Germans, too, are a major problem, with it dominating central and eastern Europe as usual. Hopefully a war with Britannia will break out. But the biggest bogey of them all are the Julii. They haven't expanded past Segesta, but I spotted an almost-full-stack sitting idle in Etruria. I don't think it will decide to target me anytime soon-- I think they will go for Mediolanum first, but after that......

As previously mentioned, diplomacy isn't going very well at all. I repeatedly tried and failed to make peace with any of the factions at war with me-- the Gauls and the Spanish in particular seem to think very highly of themselves-- they have approached me a few times with demands for becoming their protectorate. I, of course, told them where to shove their demands. I did consider accepting-- it would end the wars and provide temporary respite, but in the interests of role-playing, I didn't.

The world map as a whole seems pretty interesting. The Gauls seem to have a firm footing in Illyria, and, with me acting a buffer between them and the Julii, it remains to be seen how Gaul -and the Julii- will fare. The Germans are up to their usual stuff, dominating central and eastern Europe and such.

In Macedon, it's the usual farce-- the Brutii haven't taken any Macedonian settlements yet, but it will, soon. I had hoped that abandoning my Greek settlements might yield a Macedon powerful enough to resist the Brutii, but the Macedonians seem to be a little lame in this campaign. They have repeatedly failed to take Athens, and no move at all has been made to take rebel, wall-less Sparta.

The situation in the East seems curiously static. The Egyptians are just sitting there, and so are the Armenians. Pontus has not been as successful in fighting the Seleucids, either. The Seleucids are doing fairly well-- their cities are relatively well-garrisoned, and none of them save Tarsus is under siege. Did my gifting of Pergamum to them make them stronger? It seems unlikely, but I don't think I've seen a game in which the AI Seleucids are still not reduced at all after ten years.


All in all, one of the most fascinating and unique campaigns I've started in a while.

[The Wandering Scholar]

Relocating to greek massilla. Sounds good. Possibly when you have consolidated yourself you can aim to take all greek settlements on the map?