western empire realy THAT bad?

[raphael]

my first campaign in IBFD was the WRE and i realized that public order in africa and span was REALY and by REALY i mean REALY bad like 0% public order even in low tax??? wow..... the hordes i understand like yeah they sacked rome i mean... yeah was it REALY that bad? i mean you get all of africa revolting after 2 turns and you have armies that drain your treasury....




BTW: if comitatentes...(spelling?) were the field forces in the l8 roman army then shdent they be recruited in 1 turn and the prima cohors 2 turns? why 3 and 4?


sorry im not too good at historical accuracy but its just to clear my questions

thx

[husker9.2]

my first campaign in IBFD was the WRE and i realized that public order in africa and span was REALY and by REALY i mean REALY bad like 0% public order even in low tax??? wow..... the hordes i understand like yeah they sacked rome i mean... yeah was it REALY that bad? i mean you get all of africa revolting after 2 turns and you have armies that drain your treasury....




BTW: if comitatentes...(spelling?) were the field forces in the l8 roman army then shdent they be recruited in 1 turn and the prima cohors 2 turns? why 3 and 4?


sorry im not too good at historical accuracy but its just to clear my questions

thx

The WRE was pretty much Bankrupt at this point. It didn't have half the economy of the ERE and it just had a crappy all around strategic position.

The public order is low because at this poin in the WRE history it was any ones game. Local Rulers, Generals were the one in control, not Rome.

The Further off provinces, Spain, north Africa, Britannia, Gaul, pretty much everywhere but Italy, was semi independent.

And the Armies were very expensive, it isn't cheap too keep the loyalty of your men, especially in the dark ages.

The WRE relied heavily on the Barbarians in their armies.

Hope i answered your Questions and welcome too IB .

[Joar]

I've moved this thread to its proper forum.

[wulfgar610]

It appears the Eastern half had much the same economic strength as in earlier times, although it had suferred when joined at the hip to the dying Siamese twin. The great strength was the Egyptian bread basket with three growing seasons and convenient water way down middle for low cost transport. What had created the growth in the Western Mediterrean had been the mountains of Spanish copper, gold and silver that Rome fought over with Carthage. When these mines started to give out the west went downhill.

The Eastern Roman economy suffered less from the Barbarian raids that plagued the Roman Empire. Under Diocletian's reign, the Eastern Roman Empire's annual revenue was at 2,400,000 solidi, out of a total of 18,000,000 solidi for the entire Roman Empire.[1] These estimates can be compared to the AD 150 annual revenue of 14,500,000 solidi and the AD 215 of 22,000,000 solidi. By the end of Marcian's reign, the annual revenue for the Eastern empire was 7,800,000 solidi, thus allowing him to amass about 100,000 pounds of gold or 7,200,000 solidi for the imperial treasury.[1] Warren Treadgold estimates that during the period from Diocletian to Marcian, the Eastern Empire's population and agriculture declined a bit, but not much. Actually, the few preserved figures that the largest eastern cities grew somewhat between the third and fifth centuries.[2] By Marcian's reign the Eastern Empire's difficulties seem to have been easing, and the population had probably begun growing for the first time in centuries.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_economy

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

It's not as bad as it looks - last time I played I managed to have only 2 revolts in the beginning 10 turns, and only dropped into the read once, for 2 turns.

[Flavius Vegetius Renatus]

Its how u play out your strategy in the first couple of turns that will basically set u up for the rest of the game. I think there r bunch of threads in this forum that will give u tips how to start and mangage the game in these first turns.

[wulfgar610]

Gamers that are new to the WRE panic simply because they are bankrupt and every second city is ready to the revolt. In BI you can slaughter your revolting cities for cash, unlike RTW your generals don't turn into refugee loons for enjoying a little slaughter.

[ByzantinePowerGame]

Gamers that are new to the WRE panic simply because they are bankrupt and every second city is ready to the revolt. In BI you can slaughter your revolting cities for cash, unlike RTW your generals don't turn into refugee loons for enjoying a little slaughter.

You have to do triage, pick which cities you absolutely cannot hold under any circumstances, destroy whatever you can destroy in those cities, and then abandon them, consolidating your forces elsewhere with cities that need reinforcements. I abandoned Cordoba and used the money to build a mobile cavalry force in North Africa, while using the forces to reinforce Carthago Nova.

[ByzantinePowerGame]

Has anybody ever thought of making it possible to engage in cost-free repairs of certain structures? If I have a wooden wall and it doesn't require expensive stone to be brought in from some province with a stone quarry, but rather only requires slaves (which might already be on-site) to chop some trees, process the wood, and then fashion it where it is required on the fort/palisade wall, there should be an option to do a free repair that costs no money but perhaps takes 4-6 turns instead of being done the next turn but costing 800-1500 denarii.

I think such a repair option would be an accurate/reasonable way to represent using slaves instead of using paid skilled labor or soldier labor.


That is perhaps my biggest problem with the WRE, nothing will ever be repaired until I can do a 180 turn-around on the economy.

[TW-fanboy]

That's not possible due to the game engine.

[raphael]

thanks to all who answered! i now know how to make more historicaly accurate armies