State of the Game

[easytarget]

@easytarget with Rome one minor mistake in the first 5 turns can lead to chain DoWs or to smooth sailing into NAP land.

On turn 1 Athens and Sparta don't care much for you, but they don't hate you either. If you ever start a scrap with Epirus however, they will like you more. Trade with Athens is possible as soon as you upgrade 3 resource minor settlements to tier 2. Once you trade with Athens, you can NAP Sparta (you must have a full legion by now). Once you NAP Sparta, you can NAP Athens. It's a snowball effect.

If you disband any units on turn 1 before recruiting more, you might just get chain DoWed by both of them.

Yeah, I think you and Slaists have hit on the problem, part of it was right off what I tend to do is get the peninsula under control and get rid of the Etruscans. This was not some mad expansion, I took maybe 2 or 3 provinces, but between that and starting out as Junia everyone hates me. And to that I can only say, so be it.

This will cause my initial expansion to be slower because I'm being slowed down by a lack of funds. I've had to rethink taking Carthage out because I've had to keep an eye on the Greeks and the guys they are allied with, I barely survived a wave of them coming at me. I'm not much of a fan of the way combat works in this game I'm not going to lie, I like MTW2 a lot better and even Shogun 2 better. The whole feel of battle is all wrong for me. Again, whatever. I'm just in this to see what I make of the current state of Rome 2 after 13 patches, and I've got to say I like it better than when it initially launched that's for sure. But I'm also 100% confident I will never like it as much as MTW2 or S2, the unit mix and magic button business so annoys me there will never be a fix for that.

[Slaists]

I'm just in this to see what I make of the current state of Rome 2 after 13 patches, and I've got to say I like it better than when it initially launched that's for sure. But I'm also 100% confident I will never like it as much as MTW2 or S2, the unit mix and magic button business so annoys me there will never be a fix for that.

Just forget that magic button exists. I never (almost) use it.

As to unit mix. Probably what bugs me most at this point with patches is how vulnerable to frontal missile attacks they have made pikes. I don't think we can find a historical reference to pike phalanxes being destroyed by ancient missile fire from the front. Come to think of it, Alexander was facing numerically superior Persian armies filled with missile types and we know who came up on the top. If you ask me, pikes should be vulnerable to attacks (missile and melee) from flanks and the rear, not the front.

In the current state, pikes are probably the most useless use of a slot in the whole roster of Hellenic factions...

Having said that, after since the latest missile nerf, pikes are probably the only kills AI missile units get... Pikes and cavalry, LOL...