before i give the wrong impression, i have to say that i love the detail. i love the easy installation instructions, i love the fact that i had no problems starting the game and my campaign (except my launcher is faulty but i posted that elsewhere). the whole thing looks fantastic and i was immediately thrown into a battle as hannibal ambushed my stack when i tried to move it. that battle was amazing, i think the battle mechanics are highly realistic, fights last a long time, not too many casualties on both sides, the battle is won by using proper tactics, as you flank them they eventually rout from there, freeing up more soldiers to rout the rest of the army. fantastic stuff!
i had loads of questions about all the new stuff which i have to answer for myself by simply playing around a bit...
ok so i played around a little
carthage is gone from Italy, the rebellion is crushed and i'm making 30k a turn which is enough to keep building up my cities and improving my military. and i really really need a couple of pointers at this stage.
annex or citizens? there is a choice to be made. should i try to give all italian cities full citizenship as the ultimate goal? does that involve leaving them at allied level until the next tier becomes available? should i even bother building wine and trade and import stuff before they are full citizens? can i safely annex a city if they have 190% happiness? will that prevent me from ever making the citizens? what are the cons and pros of these different paths? (or did i really not read the building descriptions properly and does all the above sound like complete crap to you?)
there's loads of nice and interesting and probably useful information in all the building descriptions but they don't say which is the smarter choice. all trade stuff asap before giving the city the next oppium? wtf? should i treat those minor temples as just handy things to upgrade happiness as and when happiness becomes a problem? and why does every single governour pick up the poor with taxes trait, even though i am building academies and markets where i can? (high taxes all round)
as for characters, why are my guys not gaining any command stars? at all? my faction leader and his legion fought a dozen battles, half of them heroic victories. the guy is worshipped by his troops, which is a nice roleplaying trait, but he still only has his starting 2 stars. his 2nd in command became a political general (-2 command) so he's useless for the rest of the campaign.
do generals only develop when left outside settlements? should i really make sure that no general ever gets to govern a settlement, even only one turn? how do i make sure my guys take the right career path and how can i find out which path they took?
i badly need good generals so i recruited some tribunes but they all turn into lawyers with +management/-command traits
i have a few senators here, questors there and so on, but i would really like a comprehensive explanation of how this leadership, political career tree and governor/general career path thing works. calvin's preview has a nice illustration of it, but from what i see in my game, a lot of those traits are hidden/cut/changed. could somebody please throw me a bone here?
thank you
again, despite my annoyance about the lack of guidelines/pointers, i really do like the look and scope of this mod, i'm playing this for hours now and there'll be many many hours more, because it appears to be the single best supermod ever for a TW game
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bosje out