gaaaaah spqr is so hard

[Hyungoku]

damnit its so freggin frustrating

no matter how many millions of battles i win the barbariens keep spawning troops non stop.

I mean to the point where all my cities are now running out of population.

how the hell are the barbariens doing this?

bunch of cheater a.i this stinks. =(

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

no it doesn't really, you need to change your strategy a bit. Think of it like this, at the moment the barbarians are attacking your cities while their's are nice a safe and happy. Of course their cities are in a better state than yours.

Which barbarians are you fighting?

[LuiSius_ScutaRuS]

let me guess...
the DAMMED GAULS lol

[Hyungoku]

uhhh no their cities are not safe hence I've been constantly trying to invade them.

my cities have never been attacked until now.

its just that no matter how many stacks i bring, and how many arses I kick.

they will instantly have new stacks waiting to eat my tired troops alive.

lets say It took me 5 stacks to get rid of their defenses and conquer one of their city, in the next turn they will bring around 5-6 new full stacks to put a Jihad on my newly captured city.

so in my campaign I'm not really getting anywhere now.

I have about 10 settlements but its impossible to grow.

it simply does not make any sense.

how the hell are the barbariens pulling this off with their suposedly low population and economy?

and even if we supposed that they were filthy rich, from the number of troops they produced they should already have depleted their population.

and another thing is.

there is no diplomacy in SPQR therefore there is no point in thinking that there are different Factions on the map.

altho they are different in name, Gaul and Germans for example are right beside each other, trying to invade one of them is like fighting both at the same time.

( i m fighting gaul and germans by the way)

The greeks and Macedons come to bother me from time to time when they feel like it too.

[Decimus Equitius]

Yeah the Gauls and Germans And britons are in alliance together from the start. So you have to fight them both at the same time. One good thing to do would be to build a couple of forts to cut off their re-inforcements while you take their towns.

[Savage_Swede]

Well the gauls, as well as many others, have alot of bonuses. Just start a campaign with gaul and see for yourself.
And i cant understand where you get 5 stacks from. I must hold of thousands and thousands of gauls with just ONE pre-marian legion. I once fought an army of 12000+ greeks with one legion and won, kinda...
Right now im taking a break from SPQR, so im currently playing RTR and having great fun. I had been playing SPQR for so long i just got tired of fighting three, 4000 men armies every single turn. but as soon as i get tired of RTR im gonna give those gauls a lesson in manners!

[Adler]

Ditto! For me the landscape wasnt even changing in the battles as my men would march the same distance & then get mobbed.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

with the Gauls, there is a way to slow them down. Take Northern Italy and then (somehow!) put together an army and a fleet, ideally has ballista with it).

Sail it along the French coast and storm massilia (must do it in one turn, no lengthy seiges). Exterminate the population, destroy all the buildings and leave. Move onto the next coastal town and repeat. If you do this every now and again you seriuosly slow down the production of Gallic forces. Also, when you take the town, if there are no enemy armies nearby, don't destroy the barracks. Then, still remove your main army but recruit 1 ship and as many velites/hastati as you can. Next turn burn the barrcks down, move your new troops onto the ship and send them back to Italy.

Another way to slow them down, particularly the Germans, is to send out teams of one spy and two assassins to each town. When they get there spy enters the town and the assassins saboutage buildings. Always saboutage the market first, then anything else. This reduces the AI income, forces it to spend cash repairing buildings, and, if you burn the barracks, stops it producing troops. Again it buys you breathing space.

Just remember, SPQR is meant to be insanely hard for the Romans!

[Hyungoku]

thnx for all your advices i had fun trying em out
but i m still wondering
strategies like dammaging their income, do they really work.
i mean, whats the use of hurting their income if they are cheating anyways.

kinda suspecious.

i am fighting 3 wars at the same time now.

west = gauls and germans : at the cost of millions and millions and millions of roman soldier's lives I've finally pierced into their territory and am giving them hell

east = Macedon, Germans and Greeks : also at the cost of millions and millions and millions of lives I conquered about 4-5 settlements.

its still a constant struggle to keep sending reinforcements to both sides as I am always running low on ressources and population.

its weird, thre is a Gallic settlement I've been trying re-capture for a few years, when I had it the population was around 4000, after seeing them make stack after stack from that same settlement, when i captured the city the population was at 8000.

can any1 explain?

[Barkhorn1x]

Good advice tactical withdrawl!

[dorian_zuleta]

OK there are two strategies for two decisions. First you need to concentrate which way you want to expand either gaul or greece. Once you figure this out you just invade one way and defend the other. If you are the type to use a few tricks you can use the bridge near massilia and millions of gauls will die at the hands of a handful of triarii though hoplite mercs are better and missle and artillery units. You can pretty much defend that bridge at a 50 to 1 kill ratio. And just fortify every other northern pass with siimlar units and go for greece lots o' money.

Or you can expand into gaul and to defend against greece I woud follow what Tacticalwithdrawal said and follow a scorched earth policy there but Instead I would enslave the cities to replenish by Italian Cities Populations since greek cities are usually have high population then leave a small garrison to hold the city for a while one unit will suffice then when it is about to be lost destroy everything (with a bit of luck maybe the city rebels and becomes a rebel city with a huge rebel garrison). By holding the city even for a while it will generate you a small income.

Number one key is it is very difficult to expand in two directions!!! Just defend one and expand another. Hope i helped even if a little.

[lt1956]

First off what Campaign difficulty are you playing? If its hard or VH I really sugest playing Medium. AS THE OTHER 2 GIVE BIG bonuses to the AI. In SPQR the other factions get all the bonuses in RTW while the romans are cut back a bit. I usually have no issue nocking the savages back across with a couple WELL BALANCED legions. Ify ou are building FAKE legions of hastatii that is why you need 5 legions, You MUST build real LEGIONS in SPQR, or the Germans will knock you into next week. Also I suggest reading the readme and the advice thread here and in the Readme folder in your RTW folder that I provided for New players.

Alot of New players to SPQR that come fresh off the fields of the vanill find SPQR very hard. I try to make it easier by providing tips etc. Second you CANT fight SPQR like you did in the vanilla or maybe in other mods, you will lose in the end or run out of money or men. Well balanced Legion is the Key and to use Good generals NOT captains, the AI has good generals and if you use a captain you will lose most times. Also NEVER Autocalc! Play also on M/M until you win your first campaign. Second build your buildings farms etc. Believe it or not with the right strategy I have heard people complain about TOO much population. lol

Also Remember that the ROmans are ALWAYS outnumbered. The Romans rely on skill and tactics to win the day, with a bit of help from the gods. Dont forget that there are NO SUPER units in SPQR! Gaul can be crushed and bleed. what it sounds like to me is you let Gaul alone too long and they have stacks all over the place. The AI will NOT build 9 units in a queue, they will build 2-4 IF you are attacking one of their cities but never MORE than that. These stacks they have is because you let them sit a while. lol The also have good trade with Germans and Britons. And they are fully developed on their 3rd level unlike the romans.

Also It sounds like your LEGIONS are filled with low quality units and Unbalanced legions. I suggest you tell us more about your ARMIES and tactics so we can help you before your empire falls.

Lt

[Hyungoku]

thnx for the advice LT

( can u explain to me the difference between fake legions and real legions )

maybe its those " legionary shields " i see all over the map ?

anyways my armies in the campaign usually consists of mostly principes with a few triariaii, equites, archer and occasionally for siege armies a few ballistas.

I noticed calvary stinks in SPQR so i only put about 4 units max per army only to be used for either getting the back of the ennemy line, flanking and chasing down routing units.

trying to invade more than one faction at the same time might have been stupid but the greeks and macedons made me very very angry as they kept harrassing me while i was dealing with the barbariens lol.

I will post screenies to show u what my campaign looks like soon.

and yea even if i kept the ennemies busy, they somehow keep making units, i REALLY REALLY dont think they have 2-4 queue.

more like 6-7

I am playing on H/H

( its just so frustrating to fight battles manually coz even if I win every time I have to do it over and over again 100000 times a turn, it does tend to become repetitive and hard won battles sort of end up feeling worthless, but SPQR is my favorite mod and is the only reason why i still play RTW so thnx for this great mod ^^ )

[dorian_zuleta]

I think you are supposed to play on Medium Battles & Medium Campaigh as LT says. I personally play medium battles & VH Campaighn this way my armies get to kill thousands upon thousands of soldiers.

When LT says real legions he means the make up of your legions should be historical. There are a lot of threads which show how to do this. A quick reference is that my premarius legions are usually made up of 6 hastati, 5 principe, 2 triarii, 2 velites, 2 missile, 2 cavalry and 1 general. That is the basic legion that I employ. It is kind of historical and I change its' makeup depending on the weaknesses of the enemy.( example:Barbs have less armor so maybe I add more missile units, greeks more armor so more skimishers, and germans I just retrreat lol!)

My legions are pretty historical but use the threads here or in other forums to find out the real makeup and strategies romans used.

[lt1956]

In SPQR based off the numers and a real legion would be.

1 general
4-5 hastatii
4-5 principes
3 triarii

Late army

1 general
1 First cohort
9 Cohorts.

I suggest you play another game. for one you didnt read the readme or you would know that the difficulty is bugged in 1.2 patch. So medium is the correct setting for the best game. As for campaign, its your OWN fault you are suffering you shouldnt just play hard or VH when you play a new mod or game, alway start off slow and work your way up. Otherwise like in REAL LIFE you will find yourself OVER you HEAD very fast and in War it can cost you, your life!

And trust me I have spied on the AI it doent build more than what I said. but it does combine units so if you take 10 cities making 2 units a piece you have 1 army per turn if the want. I suggest you play on medium and this will limit the number of enemy you are facing. But to say the mod is unbalanced when you are playing on hard is something a child would say. Like playing adult football and saying its too hard. lol

[Hoffman]

I don't find SPQR very hard.

Back when I was playing 3.0 the gauls were an extreme bugger when I was playing the Julii. (I haven't fought them 5.0 yet)

But the key thing to do is take strategic points.
You can't just fight them in open ground and expect to make any dents, you have to use river crossings, bridges, mountains, forests and all the terrain on the campaign map to your advantage.

Maneuver is the name of the game in SPQR, build several smaller armies with Cavalry Auxilia and just attack the enemy and throw your javelins and withdraw off the map. Slowly pick away at 'em while you pull them closer and closer to an ambush.

I ought to scan my old campaign as the Julii, I literally drew out maps of Europe and wrote my plans. And it required a huge army to do it, too.

Most favored is Operation Bob, which was my invasion of Spain.
I, with the help of the Britons pushed Gaul into Spain, where they build massive armies.
I held them up at the Pyranees, and then built an invasion force totalling... 51 Legions(Post-Marian Pre Civil-War, Brutii had a bigger Army than I did too!) According to the plan in my sketchbook here. (I don't know how but I had a kick-ass economy, I was banking about half a million a turn at this point)
I lost about a third of that force in the Operation.
21 Legions broke out of the Pyranees, and held the River while the main assault force gathered off shore for an Amphibious assault rivaled only by D-Day.
30 Legions landed at 4 strategic... beaches... and captured two spanish towns before moving inland and linking up with First Army, once linked then then forced the Gauls into the Northern areas of spain where they were cut off by 4 Legions landing at the mouth of the pass at that one town and prevent reinforcements/escape.
That was a heck of an operation.
It was nothing compared to the hell of invading Carthage, though.

[lt1956]

Well I can promise in 5.0 you wont have any where near that money unless you cheat and mod the game. ;-) Same with 6.0 money is tighter, and I play a max of 28 legions all with the titles after the marius reforms.

Lt

[Freddie]

Well I can promise in 5.0 you wont have any where near that money unless you cheat and mod the game. ;-) Same with 6.0 money is tighter, and I play a max of 28 legions all with the titles after the marius reforms.

Lt

Dude money in 5.0 (brutii) is not tight! Ok it's not at Vanilla levels yet but its 200 B.C and I have 750K in the bank already.

Personally, I think the roman’s got it wrong so I don’t play with 9 cohorts + 1st cohort. I personally prefer to field more spear auxiliary units to form and hold a shield wall that will wear down the attackers before my elite legionnaires move in for the final blow.

[Savage_Swede]

May good advices Tactical. And i cant understand how one could loose againt the gauls on the field, i always use real legions and im rolling over the gauls like a tank. When i finally kicked them out of northern italy i positioned an army at the massilia bridge, mostly veterans +4 units of ballista. So many gauls were massacred every turn i could buy Bill Gates if i got a penny for every one i killed!
And thats was what i were doing pretty much i think, keep gaul out of italy. And then i spotted the 12000 greeks at Segestica or Segesta (i cant remember witch, but the one just east of northern italy.) So i moved one legion and engaged them. I killed over 10,000 of them (enough to get them out of my life for a while.)

I thought i would wait for MR before moving out into gaul, but i never got that far, we got a new computer and im trying out RTR right now.
Otherwise its near impossible to loose against one army of gaul if you do it the historical way.

1 general
5 hastatii
5 principes
4 triarii
2-3 velites
2 cavalry

You just put the hastatii and principes in shield wall, defend and fire at will, And just stand your ground.

[lt1956]

6.0 will be different. the AI is smarter in 6.0 it just may pepper your shieldwalls like it did me. lol

Freddie, also 6.0 will be tighter on money one reason is a new map with new resources, second is a one Rome, which means several fronts. Biggest problem is the Brutii campaign is the easiest in SPQR and RTW. Greek cities have too much money. also the old SPQR 5.0 map IMO had too many resources which was added by linedog which gave too much money in trade. These are corrected in 6.0.

I do agree that the romans are almost unbeatable if you use Roman tactics and correct legions. Also Freddie you dont count, your an accountant! lol You like money more than Legons. Infact I believe you only use a couple of legions right? Well that wont work in 6.0 ;-)