Rome: Total War Gold Edition

[Darkness]

This weekend I bought Rome: Total War Gold Edition for 2,50. Seemed like a nice bargain. I needed a new game to play anyway, now that I have most of the CiV achievements (134/138, and 2 of the remaining ones are bugged anyway)....

Very interesting balance between turn based strategy and "real" battle simulation.

But quite complex too, with the balance between economy and military appearing to be the key component for success in this game.

Now I already got some pointers from Shabba about burning pigs , but I am sure I will run into more issues that I could use pointers on in the future.

I tried the Imperial Campaign as the Julii last night, but when trying to conquer one of the cities in Northern Italy my army literally got sandwiched between two Gallic armies... Ouch...

So obviously that "strategy" didn't work all that well... Does anyone have some tips on how to get a good start to the Imperial Campaign?

[Shabbaman]

You're not on the highest difficulty level I hope?

I have to admit that it's quite some time ago that I tried the Julii. So I did some checking to see if my initial thought was right... The first thing you have to do is to take the two free cities, Segesta and Massilia. Starve Segesta (sieges are boring and the city siege pathfinding is enraging anyway), then rush to Massilia. As a basic pointer, go for any harbor city you can get, since that's where you get the most commerce from.

If you have taken Segesta you can build some forts and then put a token army in it. The zone of control will prevent Gaul movements.



If you have taken Massilia, you've essentially locked the northern italian cities in. This will prevent the Gauls to send in reinforcements. Also: if you just let them do whatever they want, they'd attack you anyway. So you really want to take Massilia to hamper their movement. Before you attack the Gauls you have to build a decent army, something like 8 Hastati, 4 archers, 4 velites, and 8 Principes. Take some cavalry/equites, but don't bother too much with them. If you can't get the principes yet, go with more hastati instead. And unless you're actually trying to get a city through city combat, it's probably smart to put your units into two seperate armies. Don't keep them far apart though.

[Kingreno]

I love this game. Played all civilazations and spend many many hours on it. I do recommend highest diificulty... as it tends to get too easy especially with Romans.

The Julii should get Segesta easily and then build up a few turns to get Mediolanum and Patavium. Go friendly with Britons and/or Germany and wait till they get to war with Gaul and ally with them. Hire some horsemen if they come around, and use your familymembers! Their guardcavalry is great for flanking the huge gaul infantryhordes...

If it takes longer attack the Croat and Dalmatian Rebels, there is gold there and the adriatic is decent for naval trade.

Also, as the Julii, you tend to miss vital trade income; mainly naval trade as that gives very good cash. Keep an eye on either Sardinia and Palma. Carthage usually gets hit by Numidia and the Scipii, so these are easy pickings.

The economy is tricky at the start, use townwatch or peasants as garison for your main towns, they are in no danger of attack at all so need only the MP duty. Focus one city on Infantry and the other on Cav/archers/trade.

[Darkness]

Thanks for the information.

I'm making some small progress (medium level). I conquered Segesta and Medolanium. I am now moving into position to conquer Patavium.

Question: I got a senate misson about blocking some port (Syracuse). I can get a boat there, but I don't see any "blockade" option...?

[akots]

If you point to the port building, the cursor should change into blockade.

With vanilla campaign, it is quite hard going in the beginning. Just take it easy and slow but accurately. Medium difficulty becomes very cheesy quite soon since Roman infantry is way too god both in combat characteristics and in morale when positioned properly and timely moved on battlefield. Just don't get yourself surrounded and you cannot lose even against overwhelming odds on a higher ground with a good general.

With gallic hordes and with most other barbarian hordes, the easiest way is to sandwich them between infantry holding the line (hastati and velites are OK but principes are superb) and hammer them in the back with a couple units of cavalry or hastati. They rout almost instantly and it becomes pure slaughter. Having a good general in command is a must though. In case of several large armies marching in, it is possible to give them a well fortified city with a reasonable garrison to besiege and then attack them from within the city. The AI can be easily lured to the walls and will get slaughtered by the defenses and archers. Barbarians seldom build seige equipment early in the game. Even if your sally cannot win the battle, it is going to be a draw if they don't take the city but they will lose a bunch of troops. Thus reduced army can then be defeated easily in the field with a modest Roman force.

Economy needs trade and the most income comes from port cities. Since naval combat is completely broken in vanilla, it may be not worth to build a lot of ships because they get slaughtered by AI armadas. So, it might be better to pursue the lay of the land and just capture these ports using ships only for transport. At some point it gets tricky but eventually, you can generate so much money that happiness becomes easy to maintain even in remote provinces. Also, income generating buildings and roads are of course top priority.

I don't know what is the best mod now, but I played a lot of Total Realism starting from version 5. It is substantially more complex and fixes a lot of exploits apart from being able to play all civilizations and different larger map(s). IIRC, I played Seleucids, Egypt, and Greek Cities to the end which was a great fun. It is also vey enjoyable visually with high quality graphics and huge variety of units and well thought through tactics.

Also not sure about latests patches. IIRC, community patches from player1fanatic were very comprehensive and fixed most of bugs even in the latest patches.

[Darkness]

Some quick questions:

How important is it to have a governor in all cities? I understand havin 1 in your key cities is essential, but do you really need them in all cities? If I understand it correctly you could also just queue some builds in governer-less cities.

How many peasant army units for garrison duty? If there is no threat of invasion then just 1 unit should be fine, right? As long as public order stays above 70%...

Is it better to have 1 huge army (to completely overpower enemy forces and take minimal losses), or is it also a good option to field 2 (or 3 smaller) armies and advance in multiple directions? For example, my main force is trying to conquer northern Italy, but due to the strength of naval trade, I am also considering generating a second army to conquer Sardegna...

Are spies always this slow? I sent a spy to open the gates of Medolanium, and he didnt do it (only 40% chance of success anyway), so I built a battering ram. Next turn I have the ram and attack the city, only to see the gates opened by the spy. But then the light infantry unit holding the battering ram couldn't get rid of the stupid thing and I had to enter the city with fewer men, cause they couldn't get through the gate.

Should I conquer provinces to block the advance of the other 2 Roman families (Brutii and Scipii) (so conquer the Balkan and attempt to cross to north Africa) or is it more functional/economical to rush north ASAP with my main army?