Rome Total War Julii family Spolier

digger760 · 02-11-2004, 10:25

Ok I've actually purchased the game without getting any further in Soldiers, Heroes of WW2 (it was my plan to finish this game..like so many that have gone before it)

I am playing the Tutotial Campaign as the Julii family, i leave the battle to be auto resolved, as this aspect takes to long for me....I think the advisor has given me bad advice as my economy is struggling i have a relatively large army...but am barly able to support the upkeep cost and know dont have much money to build anymore..infact some turns i loose 2000gold

I have 3 cities..Tarentenum kept throwing up civil disorder on me so thrid time capturing it i carried out a mass killing campaign on the population..they seem much more content now and the city is actually making a profit.

I think a big problem was that i left rebels roaming the provinces unabated..not to sure if they have damaged improvements in the area...but i read in PC-Format magazine that, that is what they do..which could explain why my big cities are not generating the income that they should..its either that or my army is simply way to large for the economy that i have.

I have been asked by the senate to get the gauls to become a protectorate state..but they seem to reject the idea hands down. I don't seem to have the Miltary strength to force the issue with them..infact my army just got beaten back by a numerically superior force. So not to sure how i am going to meet the senate request on this one.

Later on i might post pics.

akots · 02-11-2004, 20:36

Prior experience with Shogun TW tells me that auto-resolving the battles is not a good idea starting from a decent difficulty level. You can end up losing a few extra troops. Sometimes, if deployed right and numerical advantage is present, the AI will just run away as soon as they see your troops, so have only to chase and kill them with cavalry. And this cavalry will really become very high-quality core of the army them. Also, building spies as many as possible is a good alternative way to keep rebels off and subjugate the citizens. Another thing is to merge "incomplete" units with few men in them into each other to keep the upkeep a bit down. But I still have to figure out how it works in RTW. Though tutorial campaign is really somewhat easy. At least as far as I have played (2 cities). Also, I have little trust in these advisors. It is probably like playing civ with governors on all the way, sure path to disaster.

Melifluous · 02-11-2004, 20:55

Ignore the senate.

They can give you good stuff but otherwise dont bust a nut trying to fulfil these 'requests'.

Money - Set all taxes to Very high so long as this doesnt cause revolt.

Also to spread the cost of your army, take more cities

You must play the fights!

The AI sucks. They will sit there whilst you hit them with artillery. Stupid stupid stupid.

Use governers to bribe armies and cities to join you.

Use assassins to remove annoying spies.

Kill kill and kill again.

Lovely.

Melifluous

Pastorius · 02-11-2004, 21:27

Gamespy has an article: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/rome-total-war/551582p1.html

edit:fixed typo

digger760 · 03-11-2004, 09:03

Here is an overview in 303BC:

184.9KB

A nice boost to my economy occured during 303BC when a member of the Julii family arrived (on route between Bovanium and Tarentum in the pic) in Tarentum to take up place as Govenor. This lifted Tarentum economry from 330 Denarii to 440 Denarii. Note the Green face on the Tarentum city bar, this is an indicator of city happiness after the mass slaughter of there citizens. (yellow = content) i guess it goes to red when really unhappy.

Here is the Garrison in Tarentum. These guys were stacked here to prevent unrest that had been occuring in recent years and are now not required, so they will be head back north to try and force the Gauls to signing a treaty that will place them as a Roman Protectorate state (as requested by the Senate)

39.68KB

You might also notice in the Top right hand sode of the picture a couple of Julii ships. These are currently blockading Greek City state ports. This reduces the income of these cities and hopefully weaken Greece.

The blue and the purple on the mini-map are the allied Roman family states. Tarquini in the top left is the Julii capital.

digger760 · 03-11-2004, 09:17

In approx year 300BC the plague struck Tarquini. Fortunately a large Julii army from Tarentum had passed through and joined up with Julii's best general who had been overseeing the day to day running of Tarquini. This army had moved north to force the protectorate issue with the Gauls so it managed to miss the plague.

However, Tarquini, population 13,000 and governed by a young but well educated member of the Julii family was affected. Prior to the plague Tarquini was generating 1000-2000 Denarri per turn. After the plague this dropped significantly. The plague lasted several years (5+ turns iirc) incomes were sometimes negative in this time. The population dropped below 10,000.

The best defense against the plague is to enforce isolation on the city, ie no units come in or out of the city, this stops it from spreading to other cities. However the Conquest of Gaul went very well and the former Gaulish town of Ravenna was in desperate need of a govenor as it was felt that it was in risk of rebelling. And after the pain of the Tarentum riots, this was not going to happen again. Thus an infected member of the Julii family was sent to Ravenna to oversea the running of the city and consquently, the plague struck Ravenna (who cares there only gauls!). Shortly after this The Julli armies finsihed of the last Gaul town (name forgotten).

So now the economy seems much better, i have been able to sav 1000-2000 on some turns and lifted the coffers to over 4000 Danarri, so have begun another mass city building stage which should further strengthen the economy.

The aim of this beginner tutorial is to capture 7 states, so with the capture of the two Gaul states, and the 3 already owned, The Julii family now own 5 states. Two more to capture (to the south i guess).

digger760 · 03-11-2004, 09:30

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by akots

Prior experience with Shogun TW tells me that auto-resolving the battles is not a good idea starting from a decent difficulty level. You can end up losing a few extra troops. Sometimes, if deployed right and numerical advantage is present, the AI will just run away as soon as they see your troops, so have only to chase and kill them with cavalry. And this cavalry will really become very high-quality core of the army them. Also, building spies as many as possible is a good alternative way to keep rebels off and subjugate the citizens. Another thing is to merge "incomplete" units with few men in them into each other to keep the upkeep a bit down. But I still have to figure out how it works in RTW. Though tutorial campaign is really somewhat easy. At least as far as I have played (2 cities). Also, I have little trust in these advisors. It is probably like playing civ with governors on all the way, sure path to disaster.

I know Auto-resolving battles is not a good idea and it leaves me to the fate of the RNG, which could mean i loose Generals based on bad dice rolls. But the tutorial Campaign is quite simple and i should not loose this one, so far i have won over 20 battles and lost about 5. If i play out the battles this simple tutorial could take me 6-12months to complete. I would rather get and understanding of city management and actually finish a game first. There is every chance that in 6 months time i would simply give up, based on the amount of time it takes to play out all the battles. I get bored of games pretty quickly (excepot for civ for some reason..it just keeps pulling me back for more).

Another issues about the real-time battles is that i am suffereing RSI from in-correct use of the mouse. So I am trying to keep mouse activity to my left hand..on a laptop (with limted key access) this would make battles very hard to execute.

On the issue of Bandit armys...I had made the assumption that these were good training grounds to give conscript units vital battle expereince (I never bothered to look at the summary of auto-resolved battles) but I would expect on the odd occasion for units to be promoted, especially when the battle is a walk over (which is often is with bandits).

I like the idea of merging units, not sure if that would reduce upkeep but it would certainly prevent the dilutiuon of veteran units.

digger760 · 03-11-2004, 09:38

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Melifluous

Ignore the senate.

They can give you good stuff but otherwise dont bust a nut trying to fulfil these 'requests'.

Money - Set all taxes to Very high so long as this doesnt cause revolt.

Also to spread the cost of your army, take more cities

You must play the fights!

The AI sucks. They will sit there whilst you hit them with artillery. Stupid stupid stupid.

Use governers to bribe armies and cities to join you.

Use assassins to remove annoying spies.

Kill kill and kill again.

Lovely.

Melifluous

**ATM I aim to keep public order at 100% for no specific reason, other than the fact that no city has rebel at this level of public order.

**I had to make sure uncontent cities were happy first, so that i could move my army to take the Gaul cities, Mass killings in Tarentum, pretty much freed me up to do that.

** As i said to akots, would rather complete a game first..and RSI is causing me a few problems.

**Stupid AI in battles->Another reason not to inflame the RSI

**Govenours->Do you mean diplomates..or can generals perform bribes as well

**hav'nt had problems with enemy spies yet.

***Killing is also good if my army has high support costs. I send them into battles, loose a few->less upkeep, win the battle. Kills 2 birds with one stone

Melifluous · 03-11-2004, 10:29

My apologies I did mean Diplomats.

I like the idea of importing the plague to newly captured cities to keep the population size down, sounds great

If you have no spies of your own, then you wont know if you have a problem with spies

Symptoms include a higher chance to revolt and a chance that they will open your gates when the enemy come calling!

Looking at the settlement details for a city (bottom left buttons on the city construction screen) will give you a lot more information on what is making your people unhappy.

RSI sucks. But to give yourself a chance of playing the game cack-handed then you can always pause the game and issue your orders, then unpause it and maybe even speed up time to get rid of the annoying wait for your troops to clash.

Cavalry makes a complete mess of Gallic armies. Period.

Also I almost fell off my chair here when I saw your army!
Was that 2 units of Principes? And one on 2 silver chevrons? Damn in the game I'm playing they could probably kill off an army 10 times their size alone! Experience counts for a lot! The little sword icon is a bonus, but experience kicks ass.

Also you can lower public order to about 75-80%, just check for the little riot icon which flashes on the building construction screen when there is a riot risk.

Faces go Green - Yellow - Blue - Red. As far as I can remember blue should be ok

If you are losing gold build more economic buildings. In order they should be Roads (increase trade and troops move faster), Ports (if you can, more upgrades Ports -> Docks -> Shipwright make more money) and Mines. Markets and Fora are a bonus.

I would personally enslave every new city that I take, it cuts the population in half and is a great way to increase the pop of your core cities (just read that slaves ONLY go to cities that have a governer/general, cool huh?)

Protectorate states? Never managed that ever in any game. If they are in a state to become a protectorate, then they are nearly dead so kill em anyways.

Melifluous

digger760 · 03-11-2004, 10:54

Units of Principles and Cherons?? I never read the manual..i guess you are talking about the units that have gained lots of experience (indicated by the gold and silver badges on the unit icon). Not sure what the sword means. Looks like i should refer to the manual.

I failed to get the Gauls to become a protectorate state..so i killed them

.

I suspected that i was running public order 100% was to high..will aim for 85% and see how i go (although i think the game will be over soon)

02-11-2004, 10:25	#1
digger760 King Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: The Fake Dog Poo Factory. Posts: 1,887	Rome Total War Julii family Spolier Ok I've actually purchased the game without getting any further in Soldiers, Heroes of WW2 (it was my plan to finish this game..like so many that have gone before it) I am playing the Tutotial Campaign as the Julii family, i leave the battle to be auto resolved, as this aspect takes to long for me....I think the advisor has given me bad advice as my economy is struggling i have a relatively large army...but am barly able to support the upkeep cost and know dont have much money to build anymore..infact some turns i loose 2000gold I have 3 cities..Tarentenum kept throwing up civil disorder on me so thrid time capturing it i carried out a mass killing campaign on the population..they seem much more content now and the city is actually making a profit. I think a big problem was that i left rebels roaming the provinces unabated..not to sure if they have damaged improvements in the area...but i read in PC-Format magazine that, that is what they do..which could explain why my big cities are not generating the income that they should..its either that or my army is simply way to large for the economy that i have. I have been asked by the senate to get the gauls to become a protectorate state..but they seem to reject the idea hands down. I don't seem to have the Miltary strength to force the issue with them..infact my army just got beaten back by a numerically superior force. So not to sure how i am going to meet the senate request on this one. Later on i might post pics.

02-11-2004, 20:36	#2
akots Nebuchadnezzar II Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Glover Park Posts: 4,459	Prior experience with Shogun TW tells me that auto-resolving the battles is not a good idea starting from a decent difficulty level. You can end up losing a few extra troops. Sometimes, if deployed right and numerical advantage is present, the AI will just run away as soon as they see your troops, so have only to chase and kill them with cavalry. And this cavalry will really become very high-quality core of the army them. Also, building spies as many as possible is a good alternative way to keep rebels off and subjugate the citizens. Another thing is to merge "incomplete" units with few men in them into each other to keep the upkeep a bit down. But I still have to figure out how it works in RTW. Though tutorial campaign is really somewhat easy. At least as far as I have played (2 cities). Also, I have little trust in these advisors. It is probably like playing civ with governors on all the way, sure path to disaster. __________________ Cujusvis hominis est errare; nullius, nisi insipientis in errore perseverare Ciceron (Marcus Tullius)

02-11-2004, 20:55	#3
Melifluous Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: In the bar with SF. Posts: 3,024	Ignore the senate. They can give you good stuff but otherwise dont bust a nut trying to fulfil these 'requests'. Money - Set all taxes to Very high so long as this doesnt cause revolt. Also to spread the cost of your army, take more cities You must play the fights! The AI sucks. They will sit there whilst you hit them with artillery. Stupid stupid stupid. Use governers to bribe armies and cities to join you. Use assassins to remove annoying spies. Kill kill and kill again. Lovely. Melifluous __________________ Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? Isn't it frightfully good to have a dong? It's swell to have a stiffy, It's divine to own a dick. From the tiniest little tadger To the world's biggest prick! So three cheers for your willy or John Thomas. Hooray for your one-eyed trousers snake.

02-11-2004, 21:27	#4
Pastorius Custard used tile Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Opening a can Posts: 3,158	Gamespy has an article: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/rome-total-war/551582p1.html edit:fixed typo __________________

03-11-2004, 10:29	#9
Melifluous Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: In the bar with SF. Posts: 3,024	My apologies I did mean Diplomats. I like the idea of importing the plague to newly captured cities to keep the population size down, sounds great If you have no spies of your own, then you wont know if you have a problem with spies Symptoms include a higher chance to revolt and a chance that they will open your gates when the enemy come calling! Looking at the settlement details for a city (bottom left buttons on the city construction screen) will give you a lot more information on what is making your people unhappy. RSI sucks. But to give yourself a chance of playing the game cack-handed then you can always pause the game and issue your orders, then unpause it and maybe even speed up time to get rid of the annoying wait for your troops to clash. Cavalry makes a complete mess of Gallic armies. Period. Also I almost fell off my chair here when I saw your army! Was that 2 units of Principes? And one on 2 silver chevrons? Damn in the game I'm playing they could probably kill off an army 10 times their size alone! Experience counts for a lot! The little sword icon is a bonus, but experience kicks ass. Also you can lower public order to about 75-80%, just check for the little riot icon which flashes on the building construction screen when there is a riot risk. Faces go Green - Yellow - Blue - Red. As far as I can remember blue should be ok If you are losing gold build more economic buildings. In order they should be Roads (increase trade and troops move faster), Ports (if you can, more upgrades Ports -> Docks -> Shipwright make more money) and Mines. Markets and Fora are a bonus. I would personally enslave every new city that I take, it cuts the population in half and is a great way to increase the pop of your core cities (just read that slaves ONLY go to cities that have a governer/general, cool huh?) Protectorate states? Never managed that ever in any game. If they are in a state to become a protectorate, then they are nearly dead so kill em anyways. Melifluous __________________ Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? Isn't it frightfully good to have a dong? It's swell to have a stiffy, It's divine to own a dick. From the tiniest little tadger To the world's biggest prick! So three cheers for your willy or John Thomas. Hooray for your one-eyed trousers snake.

03-11-2004, 09:03	#5
digger760 King Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: The Fake Dog Poo Factory. Posts: 1,887	Here is an overview in 303BC: 184.9KB A nice boost to my economy occured during 303BC when a member of the Julii family arrived (on route between Bovanium and Tarentum in the pic) in Tarentum to take up place as Govenor. This lifted Tarentum economry from 330 Denarii to 440 Denarii. Note the Green face on the Tarentum city bar, this is an indicator of city happiness after the mass slaughter of there citizens. (yellow = content) i guess it goes to red when really unhappy. Here is the Garrison in Tarentum. These guys were stacked here to prevent unrest that had been occuring in recent years and are now not required, so they will be head back north to try and force the Gauls to signing a treaty that will place them as a Roman Protectorate state (as requested by the Senate) 39.68KB You might also notice in the Top right hand sode of the picture a couple of Julii ships. These are currently blockading Greek City state ports. This reduces the income of these cities and hopefully weaken Greece. The blue and the purple on the mini-map are the allied Roman family states. Tarquini in the top left is the Julii capital.

03-11-2004, 09:17	#6
digger760 King Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: The Fake Dog Poo Factory. Posts: 1,887	In approx year 300BC the plague struck Tarquini. Fortunately a large Julii army from Tarentum had passed through and joined up with Julii's best general who had been overseeing the day to day running of Tarquini. This army had moved north to force the protectorate issue with the Gauls so it managed to miss the plague. However, Tarquini, population 13,000 and governed by a young but well educated member of the Julii family was affected. Prior to the plague Tarquini was generating 1000-2000 Denarri per turn. After the plague this dropped significantly. The plague lasted several years (5+ turns iirc) incomes were sometimes negative in this time. The population dropped below 10,000. The best defense against the plague is to enforce isolation on the city, ie no units come in or out of the city, this stops it from spreading to other cities. However the Conquest of Gaul went very well and the former Gaulish town of Ravenna was in desperate need of a govenor as it was felt that it was in risk of rebelling. And after the pain of the Tarentum riots, this was not going to happen again. Thus an infected member of the Julii family was sent to Ravenna to oversea the running of the city and consquently, the plague struck Ravenna (who cares there only gauls!). Shortly after this The Julli armies finsihed of the last Gaul town (name forgotten). So now the economy seems much better, i have been able to sav 1000-2000 on some turns and lifted the coffers to over 4000 Danarri, so have begun another mass city building stage which should further strengthen the economy. The aim of this beginner tutorial is to capture 7 states, so with the capture of the two Gaul states, and the 3 already owned, The Julii family now own 5 states. Two more to capture (to the south i guess).

03-11-2004, 10:54	#10
digger760 King Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: The Fake Dog Poo Factory. Posts: 1,887	Units of Principles and Cherons?? I never read the manual..i guess you are talking about the units that have gained lots of experience (indicated by the gold and silver badges on the unit icon). Not sure what the sword means. Looks like i should refer to the manual. I failed to get the Gauls to become a protectorate state..so i killed them . I suspected that i was running public order 100% was to high..will aim for 85% and see how i go (although i think the game will be over soon)