Rome Total War: A Winning Strategy

c0y0te

OK - so I've been playing this for a few weeks now and have created the following strategy which will get you from your humble beginnings of a single settlement, through the imperial campaign and right up to the doorstep of Rome itself.

There are three key phases to the strategy as follows:-

Phase 1: Growing Pains
Phase 2: Kill 'em all
Phase 3: Rome will fall

Each phase requires a slightly different strategy as follows:-

Phase 1: Growing Pains

This early on in the game you need to grow your population, and build your tech tree without getting too worried about management of settlements and territories. Therefore you need to use the following key elements of strategy to ensure your success:-

1) Split your army up into 2 key groups, each led by a general.
2) As you take each settlement, make sure you 'ENSLAVE' them, which will transfer populations to each currently owned settlement (as long as they have a goverener).
3) Transfer your generals/governers from the capital to each settlement as your armies move onwards, ensuring each one gets the population boost from subsequent conquests.
4) Take on all roman senate missions, earning you nice cash in the early stages.
5) If a senate mission causes you to go to war with a faction, simply send a diplomat and negotiate peace a turn or two later if necessary (to protect your borders at the early stages of the game).
6) At each settlement build the following key structures:-

Markets/Forums - to promote trade

Ports/Dockyards - to promote trade and build fleets

Roads - to promote movement

Farms / Mines- to promote revenue

Barracks/Archery/Stables etc. - to promote military units

7) Trade is vital - so get those ports and markets built which will ensure a nice tax revenue every turn.
8) Diplomats are key - send them across the lands negotiating trade agreements and alliances where possible, with everyone at this point of the game excluding those you are currently at war with (intentionally).
9) Manually manage each settlement (do not use AI) and build specific units/buildings rather than letting the computer decide.
10) Set the AI spend policy to approx 60-70%, do not let it auto spend all your money each turn (for any later references to auto managed settlements).
11) Build and deploy SPYS and DIPLOMATS with each army - this is vital for later on.
12) Develop the FORUMS tech tree until the point when you can recruit assassins - which again will become vital.
13) Use your fleets of ships to blockade the ports of whichever faction you are currently at war with - this will seriously hinder their trade and soften them up for when you come get them (phase 2!!).
14) Do not be over ambitious at this point. Settle for 6 or 7 well run cities and when you have a nice wad of money, and decent sized armies and fleets, you are then ready for phase 2...
15) Always attack rebel bands and smaller armies - it helps gain experience points for your generals.
16) Keep an eye on moving out your family members to the front line towns/cities as they enter the family. There is no point leaving them at home.
17) When in battle mode, if you have won the victory and are presented with the option to 'END' or 'CONTINUE' - choose 'CONTINUE' and chase down the enemy general. If you kill him before he leaves the field of battle, your general will gain nice experience points.
28) Rememner to retrain your armies at each settlement every opportunity you get. Keep your ranks up.


The above method allows you to build about 6 or 7 reasonably sized settlements, with population growth and taxes which ensure you turn a profit each turn. Your armies have now grown to decent sizes and your settlements have walls and buildings which will help defend sieges for a number of turns before you can rush reinforcements to them when needed.


Phase 2: Kill 'em all

At this point you need to concentrate on knocking over at least 2 factions before you can assault rome itself. This requires you spreading your resources thin on the ground and moving your capital around. A careful eye on settlement management is also necessary. Use the following guidelines:-

1) Pick a specific faction and work them over, do not go after multiple factions at the same time if you can avoid it.
2) Use your diplomats to ensure you are never fighting wars on more than 2 fronts.
3) Send in the spies to get experience points on enemy armies and settlements.
4) Sent in the assasins to kill generals and units, and also to sabotage enemy buildings, again to build experience points.
5) Ensure your armies always have spies, diplomats and assassins with them - they will both serve offensive and defensive purposes.
6) Plan your route of attack to eliminate a faction (e.g. choose a direction) and then relocate your capital close to the front lines. This will help when new family members are needed to manage outlying settlements that have been conquered.
7) Again - do not AUTO MANAGE any settlements at this point. If you do you will end up with city revolts and no free money in your pockets each turn.
8) Auto-resolve battles when possible, even if the odds are against you; Well trained roman battle troops usually come out on top
9) Take note of the terrain around your front line settlements (e.g. bridges, mountain passes) and ensure your armies build 'WATCH TOWERS' every time they move. This makes spotting the enemy easier.
10) Deploy spys and assassins on the approaches - helps to soften up the enemy before they get to your settlements.
11) Ensure you leave town watch and some regular troops behind in the settlement when you go out on the attack - to keep the populations in order.
12) You will start to notice many settlements begin rioting and civil revolts will occur - worry not, this is part of the strategy...
13) Progress settlement by settlement until you have too many settlements to manage (e.g. not enough governers) and are feeling a little stretched on the money side. Now you are ready for phase 3.

Phase 2: Rome will fall

So - now you have lots of armies, but you are stretched all over the map and feel nowhere closer to assaulting rome because your budget it taken up each turn with trying to keep the settlements happy and free from civil revolts. Fear not - for this is a key part of the third phase.

1) At this point you need to change from ENSLAVING each new settlement, to MAKING AN EXAMPLE of them. In other words - put them to death:). This will get you lots of cash, and at this point you don't need to grow your populations anyway, for you are now on the conquest trail and what you really need is money, not population.
2) With money all things are possible, bribing enemy armies to join you, bribing enemy and neutral towns to join you, paying for mercs in the field to help out your armies under pressure etc.
3) When using mercs - remember to get rid of them once they have served their purpose (they are expensive to keep around).
4) So - each time you approach a new settlement this time you need to send in the spys to suss the defence out, send in the assassins to take down the generals and more importantly, send in the diplomats to bribe them over to your side.
5) Again, keep moving your capital to the front line of the assault to keep fresh family members pouring in.
6) Let your established settlements go into riot mode, as long as you have a sizeable troop/army setup there (which you will have been retraining on a regular basis).
7) As each city revolts, you will then re-engage the army in a siege, and then assault after the first siege engine is ready. Then when you put the population to the death you will earn a whack load of money to support your front line assaults. In addition (before rome turns agains you) the senate will likely reward you for doing this with even more cash!!
8) As you take each front line town in your march to Rome, leave behind troops and generals to guard your rear. These should be used to get experience and keep trouble from your back door.
9) Keep producing spies, diplomats and assassins at these front line settlements - they are invaluable in your quest.
10) More money = more bribes = more recruits to support your armies at the front, without the need to march them all across the map. Simply bribe the army in front of you, and then turn them around to join you in the assault of the next town. Then leave them there to manage it afterwards and produce additional troops/agents as needed.
11) At this point in the game most of the settlements you take over (close to rome) will be well developed, so no additional building will be necessary to enable troop retraining.
12) This threat-bribe-takeover strategy works like a charm as you progress to rome, even when the senate declares you outlaw and the other roman families come after you.
13) Your diplomats defuse most situations by bribing their way out of trouble before your army arrives a turn later.
14) Keep the home fires burning (city revolts, army reassualts, population put to death, major money in the bank each time!).
15) When you get to rome itself, simply draw out her armies into the field, and bribe them to your side.
16) Surround rome with two diplomats and your armies, and you cant fail. As long as you have money in the bank, you can defeat rome without much bloodshed.

Hope you find this useful. Any questions - feel free to ask. I've taken down Rome using this approach and its fun doing it once you get the hang of the slash and burn approach in phase 3. Getting there is the tough bit. Don't over extend yourself at the start of the game, concentrate on growth and tech tree first, then money and conquest later and never underestimate the importance of trade, fleets and agents.

c0y0te

BadCharlie

Nice one it must have taking you some time to type up.
I never used spys or assians or dipos but i do now.

Also rome demanded me to kill my own leader. I dont know what i did but thats what they wanted me to do. I said no and all the factions waged war on me. I sent up my dipo and bribed the first few armys. Then ran out of dosh. But so far im winning all the fights against the romans, with only a loss of about 200men max. Im still fighting ALL my battles takes a long time but good fun.

Maximilian

Only a cruel despot would play the game like that. For shame. Think of the poor plebs!

c0y0te

Despot? :rolleyes:

Well - that's why I call it my 'slash and burn' tactic!! Tis the most effective way to move on your enemies without having to wait for reinforcements from home. And since its impossible to govern your settlements effectively once you grow beyond 15 or so, why bother? Let 'em burn I say, let 'em burn! :cool:

If anyone has questions on points of tactics or strategy for this game feel free to ask. I'm pretty well versed at this point (I hope!).

c0y0te

Maximilian

Good strategy vs Chariots? Heavy Cav seems to do the job, onegers if the buggers are stationary. Not sure how the other units fare though.

LoBo

I'm playing as the Britons and their missile chariots in a cantabrian (sp?) circle are brilliant Had a battle where every other unit I brought to the field lay dead or had run and the chariots survived another ten minutes in 4x speed (until they ran out of arrows) circling the whole battlefield and taking more casualties than the rest of my savages put together.

Must train a lot more of them

So far I'm warming to the game after being initially underwhelmed by the new non-risk-like campaign map. Not playing with AI governors though..

c0y0te

Regarding AI Management- I've avoided it totally as it usually just screws up things in the medium to long term. Consider that any settlement without a general/governer will auto default to normal tax rate anyway (even if you have set it to low) and you begin to wonder why you would use AI management at all.

As for chariots - usual thing is to draw them out.Co-ordinated chariots can be tough to deal with, but if you lure one or two units away its possible to slaughter them in a pincer movement with heavy cav or even light aux from behind with some supporting 'stronger' unit in front to take the initial charge.

The special ability 'cantabrian circle' is very effective, however you need to have a few units doing this to make a large impact on chariots while they are held up dealing with frontline troops.

So in summary - always split your forces into at least 2 core groups on foot, and at least 2 or more groups on horse. Lure the chariots away from the main force and use one foot group or horse group to engage them at short range, and the other horse group to engage them from behind on charge, with WEDGE engaged if possible. That makes mince meat out of them quickly. If prolongued battle ensues, use horse archers to kill em while they are engaged in the melee from a distance.

c0y0te

Pugsley

I never have had much problem with chariot archers usually, but whats the handiest way to deal with elephants? I just cant seem to stop the nelli's splatting my whole front line, their absolute gits.

c0y0te

There are really only two effective ways to deal with the old oliphants...

The best way is to use flaming pigs (no -I'm not joking). If you research your tech tree enough at your city, you will see this unit. Basically this is a sure fire way to scare the **** outta the nellies. Your pig handlers get close enough to smell the nellies, then set afire their pigs and turn them loose (cover the poor sods in tar/pitch and then throw the match!). The pigs do HUGE damage because the nellies panic and mash anything in their path - which is usually the enemy troops. The flaming pigs are also useful for throwing even the best trained troops into chaos, and causing their ranks to fall apart for a period of time - which your horse troops can take major advantage of.

The only other decent way to talk down the old nellies is from a distance with archers/missiles etc. This is nowhere near as effective as the pigs, and usually involves sacraficing one or two units of your own in the front lines to engage/delay the nellies while you pound their drivers with arrows/spears.. but it does work.

Given the choice - use the pigs. They are double the value because they don't just scare elephants ****less and cause them to panic in the ranks, they also disrupt standard groups/cohorts/units etc.

Only major drawback is that its a one shot deal. You set your pigs on fire and point them (fire and forget!), because once they run their course they burn up and die, so your unit is gone at that point. Still - fierce handy and you can always have the BBQ afterwards with lots of roast pork for the victorious troops

c0y0te

BlitzKrieg

Well i had the honour of claiming this glorious game on saturday for 20 quid. (Praise be to god for gametron) so my weekend turned into an epic campaign for roman glory. I was meant to eat...and go see a film with friends. but i missed all this due to the addiction created by total war games. (see other post for cries of joy as this one is for strategy)


reading your strategy i couldnt help but scratch my head at amazment at how i absent mindidly did almost all of that without thought to different tactics.




except for Rome itself. I was lucky that they marched to me first and i caught their army on the boarders of latium. An epic battle over the river resulted in my greatest victory (800 versus 2 full roman armies, god bless flaming catapults)

Sadly i have played the game 2 whole days straight (only got 4 hours sleep, and missed the start of my seminar) and i have yet to get a proper siege from either side. Whenever i attack so few of their men remain that its a matter of ramming the gate down and taking the plaza. Whenever they attack they dont bring any siege equipment to the field.

c0y0te

Well - to answer the factions question - the good news is YES, you can play as all of the factions.

The secret is, as you defeat a faction, it then becomes available to you for the next time you 'start' a campaign (be it imperial or otherwise).. so go conquer all those nations.

c0y0te

BlitzKrieg

c0y0te wrote:

Well - to answer the factions question - the good news is YES, you can play as all of the factions.

The secret is, as you defeat a faction, it then becomes available to you for the next time you 'start' a campaign (be it imperial or otherwise).. so go conquer all those nations.

c0y0te

thats wierd...i got carthage but i never conquered them?


do the other roman factions count as part of your faction when it comes to conquering the enemy? Cause i think the Sicii conquered the carthage.



If so SWEET! Brutii have the greeks on the ropes (and me for that matter...)

p.s what year does the campaign end? 14AD?

c0y0te

You have conquered a faction when you take all their remaining settlements. A message telling you as much will be displayed once you do it.

If you are unsure of whether or not you have conquered a faction to date, try to start a new game / campaign and see which factions are available to you. If there are more than the three romans - well there is your answer:)

btw.. I tried to play as one or two of the other factions against rome.. and its a totally different game. Different units, different challenges (depending on the territory) and basically great replay value.

This game gets 10/10 as far as I'm concerned. It's damn near perfect!.

As for when the campaign ends - I'm actually not sure. It ended for me when I'd conquered rome. Not sure of a specific date though. Wasn't paying enough attention:)

c0y0te

Pugsley

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Sadly i have played the game 2 whole days straight (only got 4 hours sleep, and missed the start of my seminar) and i have yet to get a proper siege from either side. Whenever i attack so few of their men remain that its a matter of ramming the gate down and taking the plaza. Whenever they attack they dont bring any siege equipment to the field.

Im currently playing as the greeks (and currently the most advanced, richest, and largest nation \o/ ), and I have had a good few decent siege's, particularly when the buggers just arrive by sea behind my main armies and started laying siege, have had soem good fights there, with a mad rush back to my city to save it, many a time the 2 militia hoplites I garrison at each town have had to fight off an army of over 200 men (they usually do quite good at it too....).

c0y0te

It's actually quite tough playing as one of the desert region nations due to large distances between settlements making trade difficult, and reinforcements slower. On the other hand - you get elephants with some of them and this is worth the fun:)

c0y0te

LoBo

I won the short campaign as the brutii and it unlocked all the other factions (I only destroyed the greek cities).

Suits me, unlocking belongs to consoles

Pyr0

I noticed a nice way to fight off sieges against you,I have at least 2 archers units and a cavalry unit and two or three good infantry units in my outer cities (if your playing using arcade mode with archers you will not run out of arrows),place your achers on the walls or behind them(if you only have stockade walls)the most obvious thing to do is target their heaviest infantry units with your archers,but sometimes it doesnt work very well so its better to attack the cavalry as it's easier to take them down with archers.

If you get rid of the enemy cavalry or most of the unit has been destroyed,lead most of your infantry units (and put them in phalanx mode if possible)outside the city leaving one unit right up agains the lenght of the gate and the rest in formations about three lines deep close to the unit guarding the gatehouse.When the enemy archers come into play (if the comp has them) bring your cavalry outside the city using the back gate (as the comp tends to attack from the front) and when the archers attack your infantry the enemy tend to set their infantry on you aswell,yeah you will lose a few men but while they are fighting away and the archers are left unguarded lashing arrows at your men,then you strike at the archers with your cavalry and when the archers have been killed or routed (chase them down)smash the remaining enemy infantry with a rear assault and the day should be yours......well in my numerous cases anyway.

Pyr0

c0y0te

The same can be said for actually conducting a successful assault on a city. Using multiple entrances / gates rapidly increases your odds of success because you can rush the horses in and out of the entrances forcing the defenders to move around in divided formations.

Additionally should you breach the city in two places and enter - you now have the defenders pinned down from both sides.

c0y0te

BlitzKrieg

One way to break sieges without any losses is if its on normal difficult to order your troops to sally out of the city. But INSTEAD OF sallying just put all your archers on the walls and pick off all the enemies in the field. (either destroy them or pick them off until they run away)

most of my cities have 4-8 archer units (Depending on importance) and a back up of 4 cav units (One being a family member usually). If the city is in a notable difficult position throw in a few legionares in case you cant sally in time and need to stop towers...


If you use this tactic the enemy never have the ability to attack a city (No siege weapons!) meaning all your units are protected.


The only problem with this is that it depends on who is leading the attackers. Family members tend to be smart enough not to enter firing range of my archers and then just wait it out.

This tactic works brilliantly against all the gauls. But not so much with Brutii family members, armies led by captains are easy prey.



Campaign:

First go. I'm Julii, i have all but 3 states of Gaul and Rome, Some Brutii territory aswell. Only 2 states in Italy remain out of my control (Scipii and Brutii capitals.) Only Gaul and Brutii are at war with me mainly cause neither accept my offers of ceasefires...sigh.


I really like the catapults in this game. FIREY DOOM!

Pugsley

Blitz you put 4-8 archer units per city? bit overkill dont you think? I usually have 2 milita hoplite units per city, and use my armies to do the rest of the defending (with all the extra money I can sustain quite a formidable army, or 4 rather formidable armies in my case).

As for rushing cities, I usually have a few cavelry, and maybe 2 Hoplite units, along with about 3 units of Creten archers (madly power unit....), and then send the the rest of my army (usually about 4 or 5 units of various hoplites) to one of the side gates, ram open both gates then just walk the infantry to the middle point while my archers pelt the front door defenders for a bit. By the time the archers are nearly out of ammo (about a quater to a fifth left) I get them to stop firing, and rush the Cavelry and extra hoplites in, then I just trap the last of the resistance in the middle flag, and use up the rest of my arrows, by the time Im out of arrows there shouldnt be enough men to put up any sort of respectable resistance. However against larger cities the best way in is 2 sappers at the front area then a ram at the side, works a charm I have found.

BlitzKrieg

the idea with the large number of archers is that i usually fake a sally to make sure my besiegers do not have the ability to use siege weapons so i have this huge wall dividing me and them and i dont need to sacrifice a single man. BUT i need to make sure i have enough ammo to convince the other side to F*ck off or die. Patavium in north italy is always beinging sieged but the Brutii loose in excess 500 men in each attempt while i loose max 20 (archer misfire and their archers). the result of this has been an overall much harder strain on their military and budget.


For Besieging i always have 1-2 catapults in the besieging army. I choose two points in the walls break them and charge my cavalry through the one least defended. While archers and legionnares keep their men occupied at other end.


on the offencive i have 3 specific cities to punch out armies thus they tend to be bankrupt while all my other cities make a fortune each to pay for them. (Patavium pays for my cavalry and earns -2000 a turn. but both Segesta and Aritium earn +2000 each to cover for this) When a army conquers a city it stays there until i punch out my archer defence and then hunts out any traces of enemies in the provence before returning home to be repaired and sent out again. Very simple. The clever part is choosing which states to take. I spy every city until i find the one that will hurt them most. (With Gauls it was Alisa which had a +600 turnover unlike most of the other cities which had +100 or -300 due to blockade.) the result has been a unorganised under equipped Gaul ripe for plucking.


Is it possible to make a faction your protecterate? what happens if you agree to be a protecterate?


but i still hav'nt found a siege where a *substantial army is within the walls...maybe the Brutii capital will proove a challange.

Pugsley

There about 2 hours ago I sieged a Macadon (think thats it, one with the orange upside down arrow on a black backround), and they had a defence of oevr 800, albiet it was their capital, but they still put up a decent enough fight, but once the walls went down the wall of various hoplites, along with 6 generals body guard units (thats over 100 elite heavy cavelry.....), I just utterly walked over them, wiped out quite a few rather expensive units, I lost 300 men I think that fight, albiet most of the deaths were to the towers, but I didnt do to bad considering the strength ratios were 3:2 (to me) and they had a rather strong wall (second highest by the look of it) and I had no catapults.

However probably the best moment of my campaign so far was defending successfully against a 600 man army, with just 2 units of militia hoplites, and 1 unit of hoplites, and just wooden walls between us. The forces strength wise was 3:1 to him, and I managed to fight him off with a nice rear flank, I placed my 2 militia hoplites a bit down from the gate on 1 side, and my proper hoplites on the other side, a good bit back from the gate so they wouldnt get archered (only very low walls....), once the walls went down his entire army charged at my single unit of Hoplites, I then moved my militia up behind his entire army (there were 2 units of archer in there too, good for cutting up) and just cut him to pieces from behind,as to retreat he had 160 militia hoplites to run past, which literally spanned the whole street, out of the 600 men about 20 survived, and I only lost 80 men (50 of those were from the hoplites he charged), proof that brute force cant win every time

c0y0te

Yup...city defending is mad fun:)

You have to hand it to the developers - they did a great job with this game.

c0y0te

BlitzKrieg

Well i have just discovered the beauty of bribing besieging armies


my battle with the gauls is over with only 2 cities left in their control (both on different sides of france) My battle with the Brutii has turned to my favour with the greeks joining in from the east and my troops from the west.

The fortunes i made from gaul made it possible to bribe the 3 huge brutii armies besieging my cities and have them take two Brutii cities to the south.


Now tonight i shall finish the Brutii and gauls tonight and try and organise my nation. (Its a tad messy with some cities over developed and others under developed.)

c0y0te

Trust me on this...

Let the large cities revolt and burn, then let your army march back in and take the city, and put everyone to the death. Then you get loads of cash, then you can bribe even more armies in your path and turn them to your advantage.

The key is not just to bribe them to disband.. that's just a waste of money. Bribe large enemy armies with family members to join your ranks, then you get a purpose built, general led army of men on your side, by your side without any transport issues or delay.. which means they can then do a 180, and attack ahead in combination with your own army.

It's nasty, but it works. MONEY = OPTIONS... remember that, so let the cities burn, and let the rebels die at your hands each time you take the city back.

c0y0te

Pugsley

Once a town gets to large city status, the next time it revolts I just put the lot of em to the death, as one it gets to large city, you have more or less everything you will need, so just cull the population so their happy more or less, works a charm. As for bribing armies, I have to say I rarely bother, I usually just stomp em into the ground and carry on, even though I have 400,000 or something money, I just hoard it just incase

BadCharlie

Started playing the game again yesterday "Set to Hard". Im in the year 175bc and have over 2million in dosh, thats right 2mill . Would have alot more but i go around buying armys instead of figthing them. But when i do fight i have yet to lose "i fight all my battles not computer". Some of my citys are making over 7k a turn. But most of them bring in around 3k to 6k. I do have a few citys that are - but no more then 1kmax. What i have done this time around in the game is inslave all the citys i take. When building up the citys i never clear the ground or build them better farms "this in return makes the population rise very slowly or slower". I keep a family member in each city, have about 30family members at this time with 27 citys. I have yet to be turfed out of any of my citys due to revolts i think my policys must be working .

Also citys you take over i normaly knock down some of there buildings "mostly the one that you follow a god and build my own temple type".

Hope this helps some of yee out there if you want lots of dosh.

c0y0te

Interesting tactic there... the only potential problem I see with that is that it takes quite a while to grow/develop as a result, and if you keep all your family members in cities, then gradually they wil die off of old age over time and you will run into issues I think.

Still - if time isn't your concern, and you can keep bribing other factions family members to join you I guess this could keep you going for a very long time.

Maybe you could starve out rome instead of taking it on in a battle

c0y0te

BadCharlie

Well i normaly have 2 big armys on the go if i can. As for family members i have not had any problems of yet. If you need more just bribe them it does not matter what faction they are they will join you "But There faction leader will never join you so dont even try".
I cant wait to start attacking rome. I was just about to attck them, rather then wait for them to kick me out of the factoin when the german faction attacked me. So it will be another 20years or so before i have them killed off.


**Edit There is a bug in the game. When you get a little over 2.2million in dosh it then brings it back to 75k again**

Pugsley

Its 175 BC and you only have 26 cities? Im on 320BC and im on 24....... I also have 3 substantial armies on the march with an average income of about 21,000 a year. Albiet Im only playing on normal, but you should still have far more than 2 armies, the only problem Im having with my armies is healing my spartan hoplites, as theres only 2 cities that can build them (that I know of, sparta, and the bottom right city on the island just south west off the shore of italy), so having to run them back there when they get down to 40 odd men is a bit of a git, however I have more pumping out constantly to make up for it from both cities constantly shipping them in to help finish off Rome, killed all families but the Brutii familty now, the S.P.Q.R were a bit of a shame, wiped them out in 3 years with my faction heir's army (my leader was off conquering north africa, most succesfully).

I just took them by surprise and took 2 of their cities on the turn I landed my army on Italy, which was nice. However the Brutii are putting up very heavy resistance, with 2 full armies keeping my armies in the north busy (they have no spartan hoplites.... just onagers and armoured hoplites, and 8 family members between the 2 armies). Best thing about playing as the greeks though, is nobody will dare charge your army, spartan hoplites can even stop an Elephant charge in its tracks (backed up with flame arrows, they can do armoured nelli's pretty well too), so it leaves your lovely Onagers to pelt away at the entire enemy force's as they try to skirmish you down a bit, and considering my entire front line has 2hit points eachm and a defence of 12 or so, they rarely kill more than 10 with skirmishing, but which time my Onagers will usually have about 150 kills each (in 1 fight an onager got a whopping 230 kills). Anyway, greeks rock [/RANT]

BadCharlie

Pugsley wrote:

Its 175 BC and you only have 26 cities? Im on 320BC and im on 24.......

Errr what year do you start at ? My game starts me on 270bc so in 95 years i think im doing good.

Any ways out of money due to bug and citys are starting to lose dosh on me just when i needed it.

bizmark

the game doesnt allow you to play on after you have taken rome and the 50 states thats a pain in the arse

BlitzKrieg

Just an update on my campaign. I hold all the land from gaul to greece and much of the northen plains except for 1 british provence and 6 german provences. I have over 1000000 denari's coming in allowing me to seriously splash out on a military budget.


my pride in joy in tactics have been.


-finishing off the brutii i bribed the brutii heir into joining me and had him kill his father and brother

-The fact i have not been an aggressive state to any nation. I have either responded to an attack (Gauls, Brutii, Greece) or come to the aid of an ally in danger. Never have I been the aggressor hence none of the other nations gang up on me (i think the 10000 denari bribes help that).

-The Decia i wiped out in 3 turns. I built 6 well equipped armies (Urban coherts heavy catapults, preatorian cavalry archers and general.) and placed one at each city that was closest to a certain Decia city (They had 8 provences going from north greece to north poland) then i built small occupation forces to keep order in my future lands. 4 archers 3 cavalry. after a while they got into a fight with my allies and when the allies ask for help i gladly accepted. AND in ONE TURN i had taken 4 of his cities. by the second i had his 5th and 6th and in the third turn i moved my initial force on to his 7th provence moving my occupation forces into the cities that had abandoned. with the 7th provence i killed the last of the family line and his eight provence turned to rebel and then to my ally.

i felt very happy after that.


Now its the Germans. Whom are a real pain in the ass. They have the spearmen of the greeks but the numbers of the gauls and are prooving difficult to defeat.

i'm 14 provences away from victory...

c0y0te

Have any of you tried to play this online yet?

I was talking to a friend of mine who has had his life sucked away playing this game (like most of us), and he tried his hand online after he had defeated the imperial campaign. He reckoned he was pretty decent and well prepared....


...you guessed it...


.... some 9 year old (or similar) handed him his arse on a plate in a pitched battle involving about 6000 units. He was totally devestated :cool: , not just because he was slaughtered, but because he was beaten by some snotty nosed kid who knew the difference between online play, and AI in single player mode.

Anyone else tried this yet?

c0y0te

BlitzKrieg

i dont want to touch online until i get some proper practice in.


might hook up a network and have a few friendlies first.

Pugsley

Errr what year do you start at ? My game starts me on 270bc so in 95 years i think im doing good.

O sorry about that, turns out it was actually in the 200's, sorry. Im currently on 221 BC, and I have 40 states udner my control, playign rather aggressively atm, wiped out the SPQR in 3 turns, followed by the Brutii family 5 turns after, then the gauls 4 turns after brutii, and the Dacians the year after wiping out the Gauls, currently workign on bringing down Germania, however the problem with takign Germania is the dense forests mean moving an army is slow, so it may take a while to trudge through them, and now my empire is getting rather vast Im having to leave larger and larger garrisons at captured towns, however at the current rate, I should have all 50 towns taken by 210 BC

BadCharlie

Jee thats fast.

I started again as i was so pissed off with 2million of my dosh just going up in smoke. Playing it in hard again and still enjoying the game. I dont get to play it each night but every second day i must get the most out of the game before HalfLife 2 hits the stores.

Pugsley

Just finished up there, took the final city at 214 BC. In total my campaign had some bumpy moments, I started by doing a mad conquering run, which I simply couldnt sustain, so I calmed down and took 3 towns only in a period of about 20 years, then my king went over to carthage and I scattered my family in groups of 2 or 3, and tried to keep as many fully functional single armies as I could (about 1000 men, including at least 3 siege units, and 2+family members). I took the whole of italy in about 4 years, on my first day of landings I took over 2 cities with 1 army alone, this army then continued north, taking every city from the southern tip of italy the whole way up the the north west coast of france, once army was responsable for the capture of about 15+ states, the power of Spartan Hoplites, heh (it was 1 of the 2 places I could recruit them, so I built 400..... and 4 catapults, and 320 archers, and 2 family retinues.....).

I was quite happy to finish the campaign before the head of this great crusade died of old age, he was 65 years old when I finished up, and his stats were rather impressive, with capped Command and Influence with a nice 6 management too his retinue also had the full Experience level of 9 by the time he was only 45 years old, that man earned his stay, along with a bribed roman family member who made his value 10 times over. By the end I had conqured about half of spain, (the north east half), wiped out the numidians utterly (whole bottom left of the map, from map edge to coast), 2 of the islands in the meditteranean, one had 3 states on it, other had 1, the one with 3 states coudl recruit Spartan hoplites, so it proved quite an important island in the logn run, for the exporting, and retraining of Spartan Hoplites, as well as my assault on Rome (it was just off the south coast of Italy). I had also taken all of france, the whole way east to just past Denmark.

50 states may not sound like much when you start, but when you approach the game end, it truely is a collossal area of land, I could post a few screenshots if I could get a jpeg to under 100k to attach (only have MSpaint ya see, min size you can get with it is 127k). Even though that campaign gave me a good 50-100 hours of gameplay Im really thinking of starting another, that game takes addictive to a new level, Civ2 was addictive, but the lack of good battles made it quite mind numbing, this game just have everything you need to let time pass by for long long periods per sitting, I doubted this game for a good while, but looking back, it really is unbelievable once you get a campaign on the go.
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On a final note, the greeks rock, I recommend you all try them, hoplites (particularly Armoured + spartan) can stop anything, Spartans can even take down an elephant charge no bother to them, and take on most heavy infantry (and even general bodyguard) with their swords which makes them particularly effective for putting on a keep wall during siege defence, and at 2 wounds per person, these guys have a staying power to be proud off, and makes them virtually immune to archery fire, if you put them just behind your gate, the enemy better have a 2nd way in, as I have seen armies of over 600 men fall to just 80 Spartan hoplites behind a stone walls gate with a bit of burning oil pouring down on the traffic jam, and the guys at the back push the front row into a rather vicious wall of spears, it isnt uncommon for a single squad of these guys to kill over 400 without losing a man, and armoured hoplites can hold a gate equally effectively, one unit of Armoured held a gate against 500+ egyptians (i had another armoured, and 2 militia units on the walls fighting off siege tower + 2 ladders), including a Chariot squad, and didnt even lost 20 by the time the enemy had been faught off, and their general killed. (oh and onagers are fun too)

[/rant]
Anyone else got any tales to tell of finished campaigns ?

BadCharlie

Congrats

Have not finished it my self but am trying the Greeks at the moment my self. My guys dont seem to kill all around them not like your self but maybe im just not using them right.

Also this game reminds me so much of civ but in the fights you get to control. There is so much to this game.

Pugsley

The best formation I have found for the greeks (for a large army) is a solid front row of hoplites, that form a sort of omega shape, see attachment for my usual formation, however for optimum performance it requires a hefty 7 units of hoplites, but from experience its almost unbreakable with armoured/spartan hoplites at the front row (quite thick ranks at the front, 4 usually, 5 or 6 if theres nelli's, about 3 thick at sides is usually enough though), as much siege as you have right behind the front row, then dense rows of archers directly behind the siege units. The cavelry at the back are mainly used if the enemy tries to get around behind you, send ure cavelry + family members to greet them. If you have no cavelry you may want to bring in the wedge's to the back, to form more of a circle shape, but then your sides will have to be a bit thicker as they will have no support. But with onagers pelting the enemy force, they have to either charge full frontal (which is good for you), use their onagers to pelt you down (this formation is weak to onagers, so dont use it if they have a lot of them), or just sit back and scratch their hoop, in which case you can move your mormation slowly to them to bring onagers into range. Its a very slow formation to move about, but I have found it to be particularly effective, especially late game when you have a lot of armoured/spartan hoplites.


Oh and another tip if your badly outnumebred and only hav 2 or 3 units of hoplites and nothing else, fall back to the map corner, or the edge if the corner isnt available, and just form a V shape (if you get a corner it should be 2 squads at near right angles), can be very hard to charge you even if they outnumber you as you have no vulnrable flanks (which hoplites are VERY weak at, except spartan ones, who are fine swordsmen when need be).

Sherifu

Played as the Juili family.
I am plagued by the Gauls but luckily their light infantry can be run down quite easily by my heavy cavilry once they are routed and flee. Have being playing it for a few weeks with no ending in sight :rolleyes: The generation cycle of the family is a bit annoying. They die off and you have to wait a bit to get more family members, then they come in a spurt. Its hard to expand your teritory if there arent enough family members to go round. I find the missions from the senate distracting and the reward isnt worth it. The blockade is easy if you have a fleet near by.
Another handy way i get money is from the Greek cities, a handy cycle has formed:
1. Senate orders me to blockade Greek port.
2. I declare war on Greeks and blockade port.
3. Greeks approach me for peace.
4 I demand 10,000 denari
5 They pay. Peace for a while. Repeat from 1.

This has happened 3/4 times.
Buying cities has backfired for me. They took my money, gave me the 2 towns. Before i could properly defend them, they attacked. Damn Germanians.

It takes a lot of patience to finish

RKM