Rome 2 Tips and un-/under-documented features

[benjywa]

Things I would tell myself if I could go back in time 7 days:

Italics are more on thread

Characters
Champions are ace: chuck one in any main army you roll with asap
The character trees are deceptive - look them up in the encyclopedia and decide how you want to proceed
Using them is expensive - chuck spares in an army to keep them leveling when not needed
Using them is expensive - don't use them until you are sure you shouldn't be spending the cash elsewhere (dear god - the number of times I have poisoned a well only to find I should have ungraded a barracks!)

Generals
While its temping to go for bonus' pick someone in your family if possible
Do not adopt young new generals into your family - they will get awful traits (-1 gravita per turn! it goes to their head?) wait until they have 3 traits and then adopt them
Try not to make a general from a different house your main one - they will get awesomeness power which isn't good
Take a city and scatter their forces rather than battle piecemeal if at all possible - they will then come back in dribs and drabs and you can farm for levels for the 2-3 turns it takes for your army to recover

Armies
Zerg ftw - as pretty as it is to leave reserve armies and attack on multiple fronts - early game you are better making a mega army and rolling them
Don't be afraid to encircle/ siege even if you are 33% to win. The enemy may move units, you can always retreat if you don't like the look of it.

Cities
Carful you don't take cities with duplicated or unuseable buildings that you forget about
Do not expand cities unless you can afford a building (slums suck)

Trade
Sucks initially - as you take more provinces and upgrade they will bang your door down for agreements -
1 - make sure you check the amount and balance that with any cash demands - single city owner asking for 10x the turn trade up front = no
2 - if you knock someone back they usually/ may come back asking for less cash in a couple of turns
3 - oh and by the way you need sa capital to trade at all - sparta doesn't count :(

General
NEVER run out of food - its awful - everything sucks really badly.
try to keep over 1000 (750 min) per turn or you will stall and lose out massively on progress.
Look at your tech tree - some factions have good unit