Money 'Issues' Leading to Corruption and other Negative Traits

[Passion]

I say 'issues' like so because it isn't really too much of a problem being filthy stinking rich, ooooh bad bad me with all my monies!

I have recently rediscovered RTW and set out with the Julii. 20 turns down i'm swimming in gold, I lower taxes to normal to be greeted by useless accessor, I raise them to go over the 50k threshold and everyone's fingers become sticky!

The purpose of this thread is to determine what other members do with their gold.

Personally, I take my time in a save, I don't rush - I turtle. I don't attack unless I am attacked. The Senate hate me but hey i'm a nice ruler, with sticky fingers because I don't constantly churn out troops. I have Segesta plus my two starting cities and a decent stack capable of defeating anything the Gauls think will do the job, despite them not attacking me so I don't need to have more troops to go on the offensive.

Why am I being forced to recruit more, keep taxes high and my people poor? I could give away my 3/5k profit per turn but where is the logic in that?

[Napoleon The Emperor Of Europe]

I say 'issues' like so because it isn't really too much of a problem being filthy stinking rich, ooooh bad bad me with all my monies!

I have recently rediscovered RTW and set out with the Julii. 20 turns down i'm swimming in gold, I lower taxes to normal to be greeted by useless accessor, I raise them to go over the 50k threshold and everyone's fingers become sticky!

The purpose of this thread is to determine what other members do with their gold.

Personally, I take my time in a save, I don't rush - I turtle. I don't attack unless I am attacked. The Senate hate me but hey i'm a nice ruler, with sticky fingers because I don't constantly churn out troops. I have Segesta plus my two starting cities and a decent stack capable of defeating anything the Gauls think will do the job, despite them not attacking me so I don't need to have more troops to go on the offensive.

Why am I being forced to recruit more, keep taxes high and my people poor? I could give away my 3/5k profit per turn but where is the logic in that?

I see.

You have more armies,meaning when you recruit more ,you will have to keep paying for your army.Your Taxes will be the cause of that.And your people will remain poor.Have you already upgraded your cites buildings?That would do some work to help you.

What I do,is conqer ,trade,build alliances,and keep a low tax rate

[Jaguara]

I do get large surplusses at times, but not usually over 40K. This usually occurs just before my cities hit the Large/Huge size - after that spending money is not a problem.

I play a very aggressive game, trying to optimize efficiency wherever I can.

Early building emphasis is on city growth, with one or two centers for building troops. I have 1 or 2 generals designated as "builders" (with approprate traits & ancilliaries) who then run around my empire like madmen (filling the build queue in the cities they visit). I am very reluctant to build anything without my 30-50% discount - especially on large/huge cities. I also have 1-2 trainers - who accumulate my unit training aux, and who run around between my designated training cities (also filling the queue). If an emergency arises and I need cash, I just withdraw from my savings account (remove a few items from a build queue).

My training cities are always training - whether I need the troops or not. If I have too many troops, well, why am I not at war?

[Guyus Germanicus]

I have recently rediscovered RTW and set out with the Julii. 20 turns down i'm swimming in gold, I lower taxes to normal to be greeted by useless accessor, I raise them to go over the 50k threshold and everyone's fingers become sticky!

The purpose of this thread is to determine what other members do with their gold.

I share your pain to a certain extent. Usually, for me, it takes alittle while before I work up to the serious money bag stage. And each faction varies a bit on how much they tend to accummulate. The Brutii can be swimming in dough once they are fully established in Greece, and if they manage to grab Rhodes as well.

Personally, when the money becomes a potential corrupting influence on my faction members I do a couple things. I try to keep the treasury balance a little below 50k. Someone has said that 50k is the threshold for when the AI tests your faction members more frequently as to whether they should acquire a bad money trait. And that at the higher money levels the test increases in frequency. I guess I'll take their word for that, but I think it's actually a little below the 50k threshold. In truth, I don't know.

My first order of business is to tie up treasury funds by scheduling out into the future my building projects. That subtracts from the bottomline quickly.

When money is easy, I bribe diplomats or rebel faction members. If I can replace the money I've spent on bribes quickly, I don't mind coughing up a large amounts on a bribe.

I may buy mercenaries rather than recruit units from cities, depending on the need of the moment. If I'm swimming in cash and one of my cities is growing slowly, I'll buy a bunch of barbarian mercenaries (in the case of the Julii) and disband them in or near the city that needs the population growth. Recruiting a lot of home grown troops can be counterproductive if you're trying to grow your cities past the next administrative threshold.

I also give cash gifts to allied factions, especially the non-Roman ones. I don't know if this actually builds any goodwill within the game logic but I do it anyway. If an ally has his city beseiged by an enemy, I may try to bribe the enemy away on my ally's behalf.

Of course, you can slow your treasury growth down by changing the nature of your building strategy to emphasize military buildings rather than farms, markets, infrastructure and ports. But then you flirt with acquiring bad character traits for your faction members acting as governors.

I always like spending money on Cretan archers and mercenary slingers whether I really need them at the moment or not. They will come in handy later. So, if you've got the cash, send a general on a mission to Apollonia and Crete in the years 262 BC, 252 BC, 242 BC and 232 BC (if you haven't had the Marius event yet.) you can acquire one Cretan at Appollonia and two on the island of Crete. Just remember to send your general in a 4-5 ship fleet and have an escort fleet of at least 3 ships as back up. The pirates are thick in the waters around Crete. Oh yes, and when you land your general on Crete, don't dock your fleet west of Kydonia amd have him step off the boat there. He'll likely get ambushed by a small rebel army just outside the city. Instead, move your fleet around the south side of the island until you get to a point just east of Kydonia before you have your faction member land. Once you buy your mercenaries, don't let the faction member linger over a turn. That rebel army waiting in ambush west of Kydonia will attack you. Get back on the ship and get out of there.

The reason the Julii do well in the early game with cash is the close proximity of their early cities. Capture Segesta, Patavium and Mediolanum and you have a star formation of five cities in close proximity to each other. You have no distance from capital penalty of any significance. You have a star shaped web of trade routes. And three of those cities have port capability. (Segesta doesn't usually grow enough to become 'port-able' (no pun intended) until many years down the road. I often use the population of Segesta as a recruit feeder for my other cities so I goose their population growth at Segesta's expense. I figure I'm not losing much doing that to Segesta since it's such a slow grower.

I don't know if you've noticed this in your Julii games. But my experience has been when playing the Julii that in the mid-game or late-game my allies the Brutii and Scipii like send lots of small little armies to run around in my territory. They'll plant themselves on bridges blocking my troop movements and just making a general nuisance of themselves. So, to counter that I build a series of forts separating my territory from the Senate and the Brutii. Then I station a few extra units in these forts so when necessary, I will move the extra units out to the adjacent gameboard squares around the fort to block access into my terriroty. That keeps my home territory clear of 'friendly' non-faction units. Having an ally block my roads and bridges costs me movement points. It will cost you some extra money to build the forts and recruit the extra units, but it's worth it to me to keep my roads open.

I also invest in lots of spies to light up the game board so I can see what's coming. Stationing spies in the mountains north of the Alps to keep an eye on the goings on in Germany and Gaul gives me some advance warning of any barbarian treachery or sneaky armies poking their nose through the Alpine passes to attack my Cisalpine cities.

It may even behoove you to build forts on certain high spots where rebels frequent. It beats having to send armies up steep mountain sides to eliminate them. And it supposedly discourages the appearance of bandits in the vicinity of the fort.

Anyway, there's a few thought for you about spending your extra cash. Hope it's helpful.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I used to fret quite a bit at the 50k-100k-150k limits for corruption trait checks....not any more. When I'm making 10k-30k per turn, there's no way I could possibly spend all of that, so I don't even try. If I get governors with corruption traits...so what?!? The losses from corruption are only a speedbump in my bi-yearly income. I've had games with Eastern factions like Armenia and the Seleucids where my bank account was in the millions of denarii.....

THE single most important trait I look for mid-to late game in a governor, is high influence to help with population control. Give him a few ancillaries to help with that, and that's all I need...if I need a governor at all, that is. If you tend to turtle or build up slowly you will aquire a bunch of bad traits for your governors anyways, like 'Cowers Behind Walls'..."Useless Assessor"..."Poor Farmer"..."Indifferent Builder" and a whole slew of others. [The traits feature is a nice idea taken to absurd excess, IMHO, anyways]

Bottom line...for many factions making huge amounts of money without worrying about corruption or bad traits is the way to go.

[Sabazios]

@Guyus Germanicus
if i send an FM to crete, i always send one or two units of hestati with him and just capture crete, recruit some mercs and go on to rhodes.

[Passion]

There are some great responses to digest here.

I like the idea of filling up the construction pannel to shift those funds. Usually I just set one new building, wait until it finsihing constructing then select another.

Mercenary recruitment also seems like a very good idea, if not to flesh out my forces, to populate my cites. I doubt that there will be culture penalties to this, I doubt the game is so indepth.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I see that noone cares much for my solution

I'll just repost these screenies from a different thread, and you judge the effectiveness:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1293806361
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1293806411

Note the amount of money I have in my treasury....and that virtually all of my cities are at ZPG with the populations happy and content

[Passion]

You have an impressive Empire. I would hate to see the traits of your family members though! Which for me is one of the main parts of the game. It annoys me no end when I get FM with bad characters. I certainly agree that they have gotten carried away with the whole trait thing, but still I must be seen as the kind ruler, must!

[ReluctantSamurai]

I would hate to see the traits of your family members though!

Fair enough. So 1 million denarii further into the campaign from the previous screenies, are these guys:

The Good...

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1300833722
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1300833803
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1300833873
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1300833956
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1300834010
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834062
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834122
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834376

The Bad (or not so good)...

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834215
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834251
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834304
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834442
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834480

And the Ugly...
http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1300834535
(all four of those guys standing there next to Athens are pretty much the same)

Out of about 2 dozen or so family members, only about a half dozen are completely trashed, with another 6 or 8 in the 'OK' category. The rest are like the first bunch...either out in the field kicking butt, or in a city keeping the peace.

My point is that obscene amounts of money doesn't necessarily mean that your entire family tree is trashed. It all depends on how you use them.

Mercenary recruitment also seems like a very good idea, if not to flesh out my forces, to populate my cites.

I never use mercs as garrison for three reasons:

1. Mercs are expensive and I'm like that "Downright Miserly" fellow that often plagues family members...I want my money's worth out of them, so they stay out in the field fighting.
2.You run the risk of getting them caught in a plague, and since plague is a random event that can hit even the most healthy, content city, you end up with partial units that you have to recombine since you can't add replacements by training.
3.Mercs usually have very good combat stats as recruited. With a pile of exp chevrons they can become truly terrifying. One of my favorite mercs are Bastaerne. Tough enough as they come....but one with 9 exp is truly awesome to see as they carve their way through even elite formations.

Anyways...just my 2denarii

[Passion]

Your family members are quite decent, except for Gaius the Morbid :)

Even your good generals have seemingly bad traits though but they don't seem to make much of a difference. I suppose it is just a personal thing, what different players feel is important.

[Morgoth101]

I agree with Passion- most of your generals are pretty decent. I wish my generals turned out to be half as good as yours(except for Galerius!)
One thing, though- when i start with a roman faction, 1 of the 2 starting cities(Ariminum, Capua, and Croton, usually) go down into negatives pretty early. I've tried everything, but it doesn't work. It slows down productivity quite a bit. Does anyone else have this problem?

Oh, and ReluctantSamurai? You could give the ancilleries that the 'bad' generals had to others, right? Just saying.

[Myth]

One thing, though- when i start with a roman faction, 1 of the 2 starting cities(Ariminum, Capua, and Croton, usually) go down into negatives pretty early. I've tried everything, but it doesn't work. It slows down productivity quite a bit. Does anyone else have this problem?

I used to have it when I recruited more troops than needed. Your starting armies with perhaps a few Hastati later on from a non-primary settlement are enough for your conquering needs early on. Build +pop and +trade buildings in your settlements and soon you will have more denarii than you know what to do with. Your performance will vary based on faction and chosen straregy though.

For example as the Brutii the other day I rushed for Sicily and took both the greek and cartagenian settlements, making the Scipii attack Greece proper instead. That slowed the aquisition of Athens, Sparta and Corinth but I still got them, even though the Scipii got Arretum. Still a fun game though and I am using slavery to boom the two starting cities in Italy and already I'm way more developed than exepcted fro the year.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I agree with Passion- most of your generals are pretty decent.

The point I was trying to make is that exceeding the 50k-100k-150k.... checkpoints for corruption, doesn't automatically lead to every one of your family members being trashed. Some will...that's the price for having so much money that I can build whatever armies/fleets suit my whims, or bribing every single opponents army if I so wanted. But if you noticed the ages of some of my better generals, most were in the 40ish range, which means they've been around for at least 30 years...a testimony of proof...so-to-speak, that my system works. This is, of course, not to belittle folks like Passion who like to micro-manage their family members to get the optimum qualities. Admirable if you have the patience to go that route....I don't so I just make the best with what I have.

You could give the ancilleries that the 'bad' generals had to others

Something I always do. That's the reason those four generals are standing next to Athens (the current capital). They are holding ancillaries for 'soon-to-be' family members, and as disposal for ancillaries I don't want. Eventually, when I run out of desireable ancillaries to save, I'll either send those guys out on a suicide mission, or build a villa (aka fort) nearby and let them live out the rest of their lives 'enjoying the finer things Athens has to offer.'

@ Myth

even though the Scipii got Arretum.

Is that Arretium, and if so, has the 'Blood War' started already?

[Jaguara]

Well, I have NEVER had the kind of money that ReluctantSamurai boasts of...

But then again, he is in 113 BC in those pictures. I just played a Brutii campaign (because I never had before - oh and yes it was on VH/VH)...I had taken the entire map in 216 BC. My finance at that point was 796K. I had low finances until around turn 80 (never going over 160K, and usually being MUCH lower, dipping as low as 0 in turn 80) and by turn 96 they went exponential.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Question though...from your screenshots, I realized you can see all provinces, and a lot are held by rebels...are you able to see the whole map? Do you have a trick to turn off the fog-of-war? (Forgive me, I tend to play vanilla and am completely ignorant of hacks/codes/edits & mods)

Like him, I have never had the patience to try and micro-manage traits...though I do manage key ancilliaries (especially ones with discounts to unit training or building costs...but also ones with +MGMT or command).

I have never gotten my head around all the triggers for bad traits, and I usually don't bother trying to figure it out. I "try" to keep tax rates up, and I "try" to keep governors only in cities that are building things and/or training units. But no matter what I do, most of my governors become useless pretty fast lately. Perhaps I shoudl look into this, as there is probably one simple thing I am doing "wrong" that is killing their management skills. You wouldn't be impressed by many of my generals/governors though I do have a few decent ones...most are mediocore.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Pretty impressive to blitz the map in 54 years 0^0 Completely the opposite to my play-style...although I do blitz in stages after I've consolidated gains....

are you able to see the whole map? Do you have a trick to turn off the fog-of-war?

First, I should explain that I always play with FoW off. I've played every faction numerous times, and I've modded the game extensively, so there's not much new I'm going to learn. I rarely ever finish a campaign...take 50 provinces...I just play until I get bored and then start another game. I began playing with the FoW off in order to see how the AI functions with the changes I made to the game, and how the AI handles AI vs AI conflicts. It's been quite an education to watch.....

Edit the preferences.txt file in the Rome Total War directory. 9th line down...change Fog_Of_War:True to Fog_Of_War:False

I have never gotten my head around all the triggers for bad traits, and I usually don't bother trying to figure it out.

There is already so much micro-managing regarding cities/loyalty/squalor etc., that I could never bring myself to add one more item to the list. It always seemed that no matter what I did, my city governors always acquired bad traits. This happened irregardless of temple choice, keeping monies below 50k, or occasionally moving the family member out of the city. So I just gave up the attempt. It can be done...I've seen folks manage generals to get maximum traits, but it takes far more work than I'm willing to put in. I personally feel that the whole traits aspect is grossly overdone...but that's just my opinion.

Perhaps I shoudl look into this, as there is probably one simple thing I am doing "wrong" that is killing their management skills.

I don't have any set way to develop my family members...I just work with what the AI gives me. If a member comes with good field generalship qualities, that's where I put him. He will never see the inside of cities much until he reaches the age of 50. Field generals, if successful, tend to acuumulate a lot of influence as well as command stars. This makes for an excellent governor in high population cities, or cities with heavy cultural penalties. In the above screenies, my Athens governor is a good example of this. What do I care if he's lost all his management skills and command stars, the only thing the good "Roman" citizens of Athens respond to is his 10 laurates of influence. So Athens is happy, profitable, and is at ZPG.

If a member is more suited to city stewardship, that's where I put him. Load him up with whatever ancillaries he needs, and put him in a city with a temple that grants + traits (for the Brutii the Temple of Juno rocks!). I occasionally will have a good governor do a short tour-of-duty to clean up rebel stacks or fight an invading faction. I've never done any statistical analysis, but I believe this keeps him from acquiring too many bad traits. That's what I do with my members, at any rate.

Oh, and as far as the rebels holding a lot of provinces, most of those in the Middle and Far East are my doing, as well as those north of Macedonia. One of my staples to stay away from multiple-front wars is to create a swath of nasty rebel-held provinces between me and potential enemies. To get them into the "nasty" category, I will hold a city until it gains enough population to require the next level of governors building. I then burn everything to the ground and high-tail it as far away as I can get.

Hehehe.....the Julii have wasted three entire armies trying to grab Porrolisum in the above campaign. They sent a wimpy half-stack the first time and got trounced in their siege attempt, sent a bigger stack the next time...took the city but got tossed out the following turn with heavy losses. The third time the AI sent a stack led by a general, but command stars don't mean squat when the population is in rebellion waiting for the next level of governmental building to get finished. So they got tossed again and the general got killled [Bastarnae can be quite nasty with a bunch of exp chevrons and gold armor] So having the FoW off can be quite entertaining..............

I did a similar thing to the Parthians in the Middle East. Won't have to bother with them ever again.....

[Jaguara]

Pretty impressive to blitz the map in 54 years 0^0 Completely the opposite to my play-style...although I do blitz in stages after I've consolidated gains....

Thank you for the compliment.

We all have our styles and preferences. I do stop to consolidate at times, but basically I just keep my armies moving forward, often on multiple fronts. (BI forces you to go slower because of the conversion requirements - playing the Sassanids was driving me nuts because of this.)

I have not played every faction, but basically all of the default-playable ones. I fooled around with a few of the minor non-playable factions - but most were too shallow to keep interest for long...and the Armenians & Scythians were basically just like playing the Parthians anyway...except with better infantry

Anyway, I usually play to the bitter end. Often I will allow one major enemy to grow strong, and so the game ends with a major series of engagements. For western factions, this is almost always Egypt, for Eastern ones it usually ends up being the Julii. In my games neither the Brutii or Scipii usually end up doing much. Sometimes the Brutii will get Greece, but that is about it. In the screenshot above, it was obviously Egypt (the two provinces left were both under siege and fell on that turn.).

Right now I am on a short BI kick. Mostly I find it annoying, to be honest. Playing the Hordes holds very little interest to me...and I find the technique of "Our AI sucks so the only way we can make it a challenge is to throw an absurd amount of units at you" to be more than a bit lame. Also unit-variety is poor, IMHO. So, I will probably go back to vanilla or try a mod soon (or try to get MTW working on this ancient machine of mine). Any recommendations on a decent RTW mod?

RE: FoW

Well, I figured that was how you had gathered the information about Seleucid survival conditions...at this point it would probably be more fair to the AI if I turned off FoW as well, since I know the map pretty well. Though I am assuming the AI needs to "discover" territories like a player does. Also, then they would see me coming...and maybe be a bit better prepared. Lastly, it might be nice to not have to worry about putting up the 10,000 watchtowers that I do (I am a bit OCD when it comes to uncovering the map. I will often even task a useless family member to run around the desert planting them)

You know, you did teach me something already though. I always thought influence was useless except for the Roman senate thing. I thought management was the only skill that helped a governor. Don't ask how I missed that.

At this point I do not worry about traits at all, I just let what happens happen. If they kill their management, hand off the ancilliaries and off to the front they go. I don't even know which temples are good or bad to have a governor with - I just deal with what I get. Still, I might start paying a bit more attention to this in future games as a means to hold my interest. I do agree that traits are overdone, though. A few traits is interesting, but it is not uncommmon to get generals with a list of 20-30+ traits...that is just insane.

I could probably do that short tour-of duty thing, it sort of makes sense. I always just made sure something was in construction all the time in a managed settlement. I also kept small field armies (with a low-grade general) in each region to take care of rebels...perhaps I should rely instead on using my governors to keep them fit, as you suggest.

That makes me wonder though...have you noted anything that reduces the odds of a rebel army popping up, or is it totally random and out of our hands?

I am curious to hear your thoughts...

[ReluctantSamurai]

and the Armenians & Scythians were basically just like playing the Parthians anyway...except with better infantry

Oh the heresy! If you've browsed around here a bit, it isn't too hard to see who my favorite faction is...

...and you should look a bit deeper into unit rosters....Armenia and Scythia both have a uniqueness that goes beyond the infantry, and either have some of the most devastating units in the game.

at this point it would probably be more fair to the AI if I turned off FoW as well, since I know the map pretty well. Though I am assuming the AI needs to "discover" territories like a player does. Also, then they would see me coming...and maybe be a bit better prepared.

For me, I learned quite a lot about game mechanics with the FoW off. And the AI is not under the influence of FoW on the campaign map, AFAIK....

I don't even know which temples are good or bad to have a governor with - I just deal with what I get.

It's a good idea to study the various temples to see what traits they pass, what ancillaries they give, and what they can do and not do for you. There's an excellent d/l guide in the Ludus Magna that will explain all the nuances better than I can.

I could probably do that short tour-of duty thing, it sort of makes sense.

Like I said, I have no proof that this helps. It's just an observation that keeps coming around....governors that do that short tour, seem to acquire less bad traits.

have you noted anything that reduces the odds of a rebel army popping up, or is it totally random and out of our hands?

There is a numerical setting that alters the frequency of rebel stacks appearing. It's been quite awhile since I've changed it...I'll have to look it up. One of the things playing without fow has shown me is just how bad random rebel stacks are for the game. Some folks like to train up-and-coming generals on them....but it really sucks for the AI. Certain areas are far more prone to getting them than others, and this can simply squelch that faction from doing anything for the whole game...or until they are wiped out. The barbarian factions get them more than others, particularly Germania, Scythia, and Britannia.

In any case, several things happen to the AI:

It's programmed to go after rebel stacks above all other considerations, even to the point of breaking off sieges, or chasing them in provinces not even their own. Worst case scenario I ever saw was the Germania faction down to its' last settlement which was under siege. Outside of town was a decent 4-star general with half a stack, and inside of town another half stack. The besieging army was quite small and could've been easily driven off. But...the AI decides that that general was better off chasing a rebel stack that was a short distance away...and so the last city falls. Pretty bad AI work, if you ask me. And to add insult to injury, that general went rebel when his last city fell, and he was killed on the very next turn by troops from the city.

Then, of course, there's the 'pound-the-hapless-peasants' routine for battle stars. I've seen the initial SPQR army general get six or seven stars for pushing a lone rebel town watch around for a number of years. And if a rebel stack gets pushed up against the edge of the board, or worse, into a corner, then the attacker will just stand there forever staring off the 'edge of the world'.

So yeah, I don't like random spawning of rebel stacks And there's another excellent discussion of this in the Ludus, btw.

[Jaguara]

Oh the heresy! If you've browsed around here a bit, it isn't too hard to see who my favorite faction is...

...and you should look a bit deeper into unit rosters....Armenia and Scythia both have a uniqueness that goes beyond the infantry, and either have some of the most devastating units in the game.

I only meant that after having played the Parthians, that the challenge of these armies would be quite similar. In fact, when I looked at their units many moons ago, I would have prefered to have played one of these over the Parthians. Sort of like the Macedonians over the Greeks...but you play the Greeks for the challenge of having to deal with slow infantry/crappy cavalry/basic archers.


Thanks for the other info as well.

I will consider removing the rebels almost altogether. I think they do a lot more damage to the AI than to me. Early in the game I ignore them most of the time and late in the game they are just an annoyance and easily dealt with - only costing time (I never use auto-calc). Late game I might have 5-6 pointless battles with rebels in a turn just to get to the one real battle against a real foe. The only time they are nasty is when you are moving a general solo into an ambush...but again, I suspect that happens to the AI much more often than to me (since this almost never happens to me, and I see the AI runnign solo generals around everywhere.).

I will eventually look into the temple thing...I have seen guides on this around, I just never studied them.

Thanks again for the info.

[Brandy Blue]

There is a numerical setting that alters the frequency of rebel stacks appearing. It's been quite awhile since I've changed it...I'll have to look it up.

How to do this is on this thread:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ghlight=rebels

I don't know if it works with BI, Alexander, or mods.

Edit: My bad. That thread shows how to do it for BI. This one is for regular RTW: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ht=rebel+spawn

[ReluctantSamurai]

Those would be the ones......

@ BB

[MajorFreak]

alot of stuff in this post obsolete

well, i love to play brutii. my tactic to keep at the 10k treasury intake per turn is to take greece and macedonia as quickly as possible to avoid the idiots building too many farms...it's the farms that are the game killer for me. Once i secure this area i turtle, make alliances and slowly expand around the mediterranean clockwise keeping to the cost. I tend to leave thrace untouched until i reach Antioch. After the early game i take a settlement one at a time and consolidate until my treasury is stable.

• The priority is avoiding healing/farming temples on anything but low point farm provinces (the yugoslav region say) and suck up the "poor farming" traits...price of doing business.
• Next priority is having a healthy number of spies, one for each town, with diplomats and assassins at frontier points - diplomats for bribery (awesome for spending cashola)
• Then there's the obligatory barracks community...i found that having two cities pump out units continuously for army creation does the trick.
• Next but certainly not least is having an arena in each community to help spend any surplus (just keep it to level 1 arena in cities where you have ancillary creation to avoid the annoying animal trader, lion and gladiator stuff)...once you get to 170BC or so it's really nice to hit 'monthly games' to eradicate that annoying surplus in gp.

The trick to avoiding farms is judicious use of enslaving to pump up a single population center (avoid enslaving really small towns tho) early on. Once greece gets conquered i find having 6 stacks of old style troops (hastati, etc) on the north frontier river crossings does just fine draining some revenue - DON'T DISBAND THEM ALL just because that dude marius ruins their party! that'll slay your balanced budget like none other.

I'm around 150BC with a balance budget edging into negative (going to invade thrace in the next few turns...they have some nummy theatres and ares temples) with 6 old style infantry stacks, 4 cavalry stacks (for rebel bashing), 1 merc stack full of hoplites and cretans, 6 stacks of modern legionary infantry units, and one stack of super elites with my mission rewarded first legionary cohort units. I think i only have about ten units of those mars spec ops troops but i placed them in segestica for future use against seiges...mmmm urban warfare...can't wait.

Most of my game consists of ancillary hoarding with my younger generals trying for 'hale and hearty' trait at the juno temple city...and waiting for those times when rome decides i get a "major exotic unit" (which in practical terms has me reloading the game alot to get what i want. lol) - speaking of which, this is where assassins becomes really handy: RTW tends to give you the same results after the 2nd reload unless you do something new before hitting end turn button.

oh, and as for that spy generation centre. I find lots of 'wages' helps keep revenue tied up and keeping them young and not dying (aka losing those yummy courtesan imports you got from the hinterlands) is easier if you have sparta cranking out spies on a regular basis until you have greece full of <35yr spies.

i just love diplomats bribe ability...haha. that and 'daily games' are my savior when the treasury looks like it'll break that evil 50k barrier. (i so hate the 'corrupt' trait...vicious circle really)

hmmmm...i think the single most important thing i've learned NOT to do is disband all my old style units once marius arrives.


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REBELS
yeah...the answer: diplomats bribe rebel stacks to avoid having the AI chase them.
As for my rebels. love them. That and knowing how to generate the right ancillaries to make super speedy generals with cavalry stacks.

• all towns listed assumed to have 'market', 'hippodrome', 'legion barracks', 'archery range', 'blacksmith', 'public baths' and maybe lvl1 farming but nothing more
• sparta as scriptorium town with no temple to get all 8 ancillaries: librarian is the rarest
• another town with temple of mercury plus lvl1 academy: for the 'freeman' ancillary
• Corinth mars temple+ with the army barracks, for 'quartermaster', plus a star4 general to get the 'drillmaster' when training infantry
• crete kept at governor's villa and barracks with mars temple to get 'wrestler'
• great forum town with foundry but with no temple to get all 8 ancillaries: 'treasurer' being the most important...it'll have to be a port city that'll get you the "merchant" class ancillaries. Foundry for that all important 'armourer' guy when you most need him
• bylazora is that zeus temple: great for getting 'carnifex' and it's lesser cousin 'magistrate'
• apollonia has the juno temple+ for the all important 'priest' and 'physician' - pretty much the most important reason i play brutii.
• rhodes i like using as the place where i have a lvl1 odeon for that 'orator'
• Then there's Larissa, without an academy but everything else (except evil farms)...in fact, don't have any academies except the ones listed above.
• then there's the barbarian land 'intrepid explorer'
• 'oracle' i find the most difficult to generate
• once i clicked to the faction leader getting 'herald' and 'elder senator'/'tribune of plebs' aides it was like printing money. lol

oh right, where was i? oh yes, speedy generals. So the 'priestess of juno, physician, chirugeon, quartermaster, geographer, drillmaster, intrepid explorer, and armourer' eat rebels for breakfast, especially on 'autoresolve' when you have a stack of cavalry along for the ride.

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NEG TRAITS
well, with the treasury all balanced, all i really worry about is that 'hypochondriac' trait. Since it's the same temple trigger that gives you the 'hale and hearty' trait the answer is kinda simple: reload, assassinate another target, hit end turn, cross fingers (do you really care about 'bad taxer/trader' if your daughter marries or a son is borne?)...and don't worry about "feeling poorly" trait...it'll only stick once you get to worse ranks of that trait type.

[ReluctantSamurai]

yeah...the answer: diplomats bribe rebel stacks to avoid having the AI chase them.

Definitely a useful solution and one that I use as often as I can. But......

...you cannot be everywhere at once to do such bribing and it really, REALLY hurts in AI vs AI conflicts, not to mention the drain on barbarian economies such as Germania or Scythia to be taking losses dealing with the absurd number or rebel spawns instead of fighting each other.

Better, IMHO, to simply do away with them.

The priority is avoiding healing/farming temples on anything but low point farm provinces (the yugoslav region say) and suck up the "poor farming" traits...price of doing business.

I applaud your patience to micro-manage for traits. You are probably a much better leader in that respect than I. But I've tried to show that farm upgrades and growth temples are not the evil everyone makes them out to be. My style leads me to reduce micro-managing as much as I can so I can concentrate on what's fun for me......fighting battles.

I guess that's why I still will fire up a Shoggie game occasionally after all this time...........

[MajorFreak]

nice...but how? i can't stand the interface issues when arranging troops on the battlefield in shoggie 1...and the graphics tend to glitch alot. someone found a work around?

but why farm upgrades? See, to me, having a builder character with 8 growth boosting ancillaries come in and then leaves gives me the benefit of a low pop imperial city...something you rarely see with farm upgrades and pantheon of Juno buildings...Yes, on the one hand using farms/Juno you'll get marius in no time flat...yet, i found it impossible to maintain a balanced budget that way and soon enough i had corrupt and adulterous generals creating havoc in my settlements.

[MajorFreak]

it's now 100BC in this game i'm playing that, for the first time, i know alot more about ancillaries and traits than i did before (thanks to you guys)

What's changed from my last post?
1) Byzantium has this sweet Pantheon of Ares giving +4 morale...I've pretty much made it my sole production facility, albeit on a small scale now that i have about a dozen stacks of modern infantry plus 4 small cavalry stacks (oh, and one stack of high experience pre-marius troops) and 1 stack of elite infantry. That soaks up most of my revenue so i get about 10-20k per turn surplus (that's with yearly games/races)

2) I have 4 mars production facilities, albeit without the coliseum building (i found i truly didn't need/want the lions/gladiators there specifically) just the plain arena. Since i had larissa as the artemis temple (and capital) i had thermon, thessa, corinth and athens routing troops there...absolutely amazing when you need to generate those comfy revenue sinks quickly.

3) I didn't need a temple of governing to get carnifex/magistrate so i actually got rid of any temple at bylazora...plus have a drop in revenue every once in a while helps. =) ...A general at a rowdy city is great with Physician, Herald, Orator, Satirist, Carnifex, Praetorian Guardsman, Librarian, and Elder Senator

4) speedy generals switched out the armourer for a herbalist, (Priestess of Juno, Physician, Herbalist, Chirugeon, Quartermaster, Geographer, Drillmaster, Intrepid Explorer) now that i got a temple of bendhis up north...and oh my gawd i'm using them as shuttle service for non-speedy units back and forth - really helpful for getting peasants out to frontier zones for garrison duty and depleted units back to the Ares temple for healing (keeping those stacks draining revenue)

5) there's something else about money problems: just keep sending a general into allied territory and eventually you'll get a "financial investigation" mission from the senate which will gank huge sums from money...haha one time i had a -200k deficit and loved every minute of it. lol

6) The biggest issue is preventing boredom - with almost 40 males in the family tree it's hard not to rampage with my infantry stacks. It helps that the teenagers are going for hale and hearty, plus the speedy generals who have hale and hearty are zipping around with courier duty and rebel smacking...My only shortage in ancillaries are 'soothsayers' which is keeping me occupied at the end of each turn having useless generals run away from a single rebel stack up north.

I just don't see myself getting overwhelmed with all the micromanagement now that i am no longer trying to get ancillaries by shoving them into the capital and hoping for the best...it just seems to kinda flow. The trait hunting is confined to just one city; the spies get generated from sparta and leapfrog north and end up in Tylis (which seems to generate courtesans and dancers 24/7); my speedy generals can courier, rebel smack, and act as attack generals all in one; My diplomats keep me supplied with recruits so no sweat about losing my ancillaries...i think the ironic thing about all this is i started the game wanting to make the perfect administrators - and i only have three or four, simply because i generate too much income to warrant focusing on cash cows. (a perfect administrator would be Physician, Treasurer, Elder Senator, Librarian, Oracle, Priest of Mercury, Scribe, and Freeman Clerk)


I think the main reason i try to have all my cities at Very High tax bracket is that it's the ability to lower the taxes without worrying about it, when you need that extra temporary safety valve for revenue. (which is why i avoid farms whenever possible...kinda hard to maintain yearly games/races, low garrison numbers, and an imperial city with <15k people all in one)
*shrug* I dunno...I just found that cities with large farms invariably got stuck in a situation where i was forced to use max garrison numbers and STILL need monthly games - and forced into low tax rates unless i had a perfect administer (and had to worry about keeping him incorruptible) - That and having populations balloon out of control faster than i could generate revenue sinks like army stacks.

mmmm...yah. there's something else too: It's not the cities revenue that is important as much as family number pop cap increase...I'm finding the rumor is correct on this forum about ~2 males per province gained is the max pop hardcoded. That's where my mindset is this game: hardly any academies and hardly any farms. hardest thing is resisting the temptation to BUILD EVERYTHING! just wanna click on it...just wanna click on it

[ReluctantSamurai]

yet, i found it impossible to maintain a balanced budget that way and soon enough i had corrupt and adulterous generals creating havoc in my settlements.

That's the part I quit tearing my beard out over...I just max out farms to get to the highest population possible (except for the grain bonus areas like Carthage, Memphis, etc.) and get as many cities to ZPG as possible. Cities at ZPG don't need governors. I don't even care about corruption (and sometimes corruption runs in the black!) and all that...I get decent to very good family members, regardless. Mid to late game, I look for family members with high influence to control problem cities. These are usually field veterans who have rarely seen the inside of a city. At 50 yrs. I start looking for a city that needs their influence and hand over field ancillaries and such to an up-and-comer.

nice...but how? i can't stand the interface issues when arranging troops on the battlefield in shoggie 1...and the graphics tend to glitch alot. someone found a work around?

What sort of glitches? I run WinXP and the only problem I have is that I need to Alt-Tab to exit the game. Other than that it runs smoothly. And of course the graphics are dated compared to later TW games, but I care far less for graphics than I do game-play, and an intelligent AI that can hand you your head if you get careless.

[MajorFreak]

ah, you probably don't have a nVidia graphics card then.

but...uhm...i'm a bit confused. "ZPG" = zero population growth? what's that got to do with money issues, etc? What's ZPG got to do with "don't need governors"? ohhhhhh...your whole schtick is keep young generals outta cities period, without bothering with the whole balanced budget thingy. I suppose, but why not just let the AI control the cities then?

[ReluctantSamurai]

ah, you probably don't have a nVidia graphics card then.

Correct. I have an ATI card so I guess I can't offer any solutions......

ZPG (or Zero Population Growth) eliminates one of the biggest mid-to-late game headaches...that of unrest and rebellion. If a city's population is no longer growing, then squalor, and hence unrest, come to a complete halt at that city. If it can be done without the use of a governor, so much the better...you won't be subjected to some of the nastier traits a governor can accumulate, at least when they are youngsters.

I tried letting the AI manage cities....didn't like it. I want certain buildings at a certain time...whether barracks or law & order. Can't trust the AI to recognize what's needed. And the AI never managed to get a city to ZPG in all the games I tried using it. So....I micro-manage that aspect until the majority of my cities are at that state. Browse through a few of my screenies...you'll see what I mean. The treasury for my last Brutii campaign was in excess of 4 million denarii. I posted snapshots of many of my family members to show I had far more good to excellent (IMO) members than trashed ones.

[MajorFreak]

hrmph. all i know is that some cities are still prone to unrest and rebellion with ZPG simply because of far flung empires...i swear it's the farm level that shifts it over the edge...although i'm not too sure about that: would a foreign imperial HQ produce enough unrest to outweigh max farming influence on population? remember, high population tends to make garrison size a problem once you run out of slots to add more troops. Besides, isn't squalor going to be a problem if you're alot past the 24k mark?

[ReluctantSamurai]

all i know is that some cities are still prone to unrest and rebellion with ZPG simply because of far flung empires

Distance to capital does affect unrest but if a city is at ZPG with at least 80% loyalty, it will not rebel. Some cities have a hard-coded unrest % built in...like Jerusalem (30%), Patavium (30%), and several others which I can't recall off the top of my head. There are, of course, enemy spies to deal with as these can lower loyalty. You'll notice in this screenie that the "good citizens' of Scallabis aren't exactly crazy about Carthaginian rule. However, that city has been mine for a good number of years and because of ZPG, I've never had a rebellion there:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1293806196

i swear it's the farm level that shifts it over the edge

Farms, per se, do not directly affect unrest. They contribute to a higher growth rate, of course, which raises squalor, which contributes to unrest, but if you can ZPG the city none of that matters.

isn't squalor going to be a problem if you're alot past the 24k mark?

If you have the desired ZPG, population size doesn't matter. You've essentially frozen squalor and unrest. I've had cities over 30k that were ZPG with no rebellion in the making. Here's a screenie from a Carthaginian campaign:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1293806277

I will dig up the city info for Carthage if you'd like, but given the date, and Carthage being one of those grain-bonus areas, that the population of my capital (Carthage) is well above 24k. Thanx to ZPG I have no worries about rebellion.

would a foreign imperial HQ produce enough unrest to outweigh max farming influence on population?

When you capture a foreign city, it's best to convert as many buildings to your culture as quickly as possible to reduce the culture penalty which can be sizable in many cases. If the temple is nothing that's very useful, that's always a good place to start. Tear it down and replace it with something of your own. If you capture a town soon enough, several upgrades of the governors building will help a lot. The further from your capital, the more important law & order buildings become.