Tips and hints thread

[Ano2]

Ave!

Since DEI has undergone a lot changes as of late I figured it might be a good idea to have a thread where we can all share all tips and hints which have helped us survive and prosper in our various campaigns. So let me kick us off with a couple I have discovered:

Food shortage? - Try untaxing your provinces one by one until the shortage disappears. Often a food shortage can occur due to large numbers of armies mustering a the same time, as well as upgrading buildings and seasonal effects. Removing provinces from taxation in the short term may help avoid unnecessary unit losses and public order hits.

No one wants to trade with you? - It is very common, especially for barbarians, to lack trading partners early on. One good way to offset this missed income is to chose the 'sell slaves' edict. This edict can provide a very large bonus income, especially when capturing more slaves in battles and sieges. It gives a massive 400% increase to slave income as well as reducing the public order impact of slaves by 2. This option can certainly help increase income until suitable trading partners can be found.

Feel free to share your own tips and hints!

[Dresden]

Great idea for a thread

[gregnaar]

Well i would welcome some tips on how to play with the horse heavy factions. I am playing as Parthia but not really utilized my superior cavalry, im just doing hammer and anvil like i would with Rome. Even the levy spearman can pin down the enemy, and then rear charge with horsemen, i have usually 4 of them in an army. Dont get me wrong i am playing on hard, and had no problems, but i feel like im missing the flavour of the faction.
Thanks

[BunnyPoopCereal]

Try Black virus diplomacy mod. For better diplomacy.

[Augustusng]

Well i would welcome some tips on how to play with the horse heavy factions. I am playing as Parthia but not really utilized my superior cavalry, im just doing hammer and anvil like i would with Rome. Even the levy spearman can pin down the enemy, and then rear charge with horsemen, i have usually 4 of them in an army. Dont get me wrong i am playing on hard, and had no problems, but i feel like im missing the flavour of the faction.
Thanks

Cavalry-heavy armies require more micromanagement, especially if your entire army is cavalry. You can use your horse archers to harass the enemy army and try to draw out units to isolate them and fragment the enemy army (not too hard with the AI). Consider turning off skirmish mode and manually moving your horse archers so you have more control over where they go, but then you'll have to keep a close eye on them at all times.

Past that, hammer and anvil still works with cavalry armies, but you have to be faster. Cavalry will have trouble in drawn-out head-to-head fights, so you'll need to bring your flanking units to bear more quickly than if you were holding the enemy with infantry. You can use your melee cavalry or horse archers as either the hammer or the anvil, depending on the situation. Horse archers (and javilenmen especially) can do a lot of damage to the rear of enemy units, and (depending on the unit) horse archers can usually beat missile infantry in close combat.

Of course, Parthia and the nomadic factions have not yet been overhauled for DeI (that's coming in 1.1 I think). I imagine that some of this advice will change when that overhaul arrives (when I'll finally start a campaign as one of the nomadic factions XD).

[Cope]

Well i would welcome some tips on how to play with the horse heavy factions. I am playing as Parthia but not really utilized my superior cavalry, im just doing hammer and anvil like i would with Rome. Even the levy spearman can pin down the enemy, and then rear charge with horsemen, i have usually 4 of them in an army. Dont get me wrong i am playing on hard, and had no problems, but i feel like im missing the flavour of the faction.
Thanks

1. Get a decent army balance. My preferred choice for Parthia is 6 Melee/shock cavalry (including general) and 14 horse archers. This is almost perfect for destroying infantry heavy factions such as Bactria or the Seleucids. This is because you can counter whatever cavalry they bring with your own, and then pretty much just shoot them to death. Due to the number of horse archers you will have, you should not run out of ammunition before they are defeated and if you do, your heavy cavalry should be able to finish them off.

2. When in open field battles, split your army into three even parts with 2 melee/shock cavalry supporting each part. This will enable you to surround the AI easily, and, being that it (the AI) is retarded, it will have no idea which way it should face or what it should do. Usually its formation will break apart and it will try and chase your horse archers around. This makes it quite easy to destroy them. Shoot, retreat, shoot, repeat.

3. Using horse archer armies requires more micromanagement than using infantry armies. You can't just make a line, allow it to engage and then only have to worry about cycle charging with your cavalry. Make sure you constantly refer to each part of the battlefield. If you micromanage well you should be able to win most battles with very minimal casualties: just try and avoid allowing your cavalry to engage the enemy in melee. The only time you should really be doing this is if the AI has cavalry, if you are finishing off a weakened or missile unit with a charge or if you are chasing down routing units.

4. The order for attacking AI units is cavalry first, then missile units, then infantry. Killing the AI's cavalry first gives you total movement domination. It means that the AI no longer has any units which are capable of catching your horse archers in Melee (assuming your micromanaging isn't very poor). Then attack his missile units with your horse archers. Again because you have so many horse archers, you should be able to win this, though you should also try and drive them away from their infantry so you can mop them up with your melee cavalry. Beware that low tier horse archer units can suffer casualties against enemy missile units because they have poor armour.

5. Skirmish mode is your friend. Leave it on, but make sure you are checking your units all the time, because sometimes it fails. Also remember to move your melee cavalry around. Since they have no skirmish mode there is more chance the enemy will catch them than the Horse Archers if you leave them unattended.

6. Build Warhorse pens/breeders in province capitals to get additional chevrons on all your cavalry units.

7. Try and rush for cataprachts/armoured horse archers above anything else. The building you need too unlock them is the royal stables (tier III military building).

8. Research ammunition supply chain early on to give you 25% more missiles for your horse archers.

9. Avoid attacking walled settlements with horse archer armies. They will do very poorly, especially against the new garrisons. This is mainly because you cannot avoid getting involved in melee fights with enemy spearmen, but also because the pathfinding in cities is bad. Instead build a dedicated siege army for tackling walled settlements. Ideally this will include an array of heavy infantry supported by 6 or 7 units of archers.

10. Attacking minor settlements is usually alright. Primarily this is because since most of the settlements towards the east of the map are not coastal, the AI will usually sally out, but in the event that they do not, recent patches made by CA allow the AI garrison to come out and attack you even if they choose to defend the town itself. The AI will calculate that you have more archer units than it does and will therefore try and rush once you have harassed it a little.

11. If you find yourself at war with another horse heavy faction (ie Steppe faction), adjust your army composition. To destroy them you will want to bring considerable more melee cavalry. I'd say about 10 melee/shock cav and 10 horse archers. Since the army builds for the AI horse heavy factions is usually 80% horse archers, you can simply charge at them with your own glut of melee cav. Horse archers go down pretty fast against Median or Noble cavalry.

12. At the start of the campaign try and avoid war with Bactria for as long as possible. They are the most dangerous faction close to you, so you want to get on their good side if you can. This usually involves breaking all ties with your starting ally which isn't really a bad thing since they almost always get dog-piled by the Steppe factions + Bactria anyway. Also on harder difficulties don't with the Seleucids until you have a secure base. Just try and opportunistically steal land off Parthava or the other eastern factions if you can.

That's about all I can think of for now.

[gregnaar]

Thanks for the tips!
When i asked the question i have already conquered a good chunk of the east, i took all of parthava at first very quick (abusing the weak garrisons at the start, shame on me ), eventually Bactria have declared war on me, but i managed to set an ambush for their main army, and after that they went down quick. But since then any faction i declare war on, just stops doing much, the seleucids conquered Egypt, but when i declared war on them, they did not attack me, just moved 10 stacks of armies back-and forth in their territorries
So now my faction leader has over 370 gravitas im at almost maxed imperium. And the power is 50-50% can i avoid civil war somehow? Should i assasinate generals with high ambition?

[Augustusng]

At that point, it's very difficult to avoid civil war. Once you hit the highest level of imperium, the chances for civil war triggering are much higher. Assassinating generals with high ambition might have helped earlier in the campaign, but at this point you should probably just make sure you're ready when the civil war hits. If your approval is low, the civil war armies will spawn in your capital. If it's very high, they'll spawn somewhere else. At 50%, I think it'll be in the capital, but again I'm not sure on the exact mechanics, just my own experience.

For future reference, if you want to avoid civil war, use military alliances instead of conquering territory or making client states/satrapies so that your imperium doesn't rise too far, and keep your approval rating above 25% and below 75%.

There is an element of random chance though, so it can happen in other situations, but it's much more likely when your imperium is at the highest level.

[mephhhh]

370 gravitas...holy...

im having a lot of trouble with food management. all the good buildings require too much food. any tips here? do i just have to convert my harbours into fishing ports and not upgrade my temples? the only temples that dont subtract from the food supply is the temple of neptune. im rebuilding all my buildings into farms right now.

edit: i actually had to abandon my roman campaign because of this. im -40food in debt and all my armies died from attrition. then the gaetuli conquered all of africa back from me. yes that stupid tiny african tribe nation on the edge of the map took africa from me. almost made me cry.

[Cope]

370 gravitas...holy...

im having a lot of trouble with food management. all the good buildings require too much food. any tips here? do i just have to convert my harbours into fishing ports and not upgrade my temples? the only temples that dont subtract from the food supply is the temple of neptune. im rebuilding all my buildings into farms right now.

edit: i actually had to abandon my roman campaign because of this. im -40food in debt and all my armies died from attrition. then the gaetuli conquered all of africa back from me. yes that stupid tiny african tribe nation on the edge of the map took africa from me. almost made me cry.

How did you manage to get down to -40?! Didn't you notice before that?

[gregnaar]

im having a lot of trouble with food management. all the good buildings require too much food. any tips here?

With the recent chages, you have to be careful, becasue armies consume food too, and food management for rome is always a pain, but yes, you should not upgrade all of your buildings, at least the ones that consume food, untill you have a steady food supply.
You dont have to build farms everywhere, and fishing ports are really bad, provide 6 food for -4 Po. Not worth it, build a lvl 2 trading port instead and a farm, farms at lvl 3 provide 9 food if i remeber correctly, for -4 Po, and even delicatessen is better than fishing ports.
So if you build have a lvl 2 settlement a lvl 2 trading port a lvl 3 farm, and a lvl 3 temple of neptune you should be alright, producing 9 food and almost no public order hit.
Last time with Rome i dedicated Africa province to food production. 4 fishing port at max lvl, 3 lvl 4 farm, 1 delicatessen, and temples and circus, i managed to Po around 100 with bread and games edict, and a dignitary, and produced around 40-50 food. Only upgraded the non food consuming settlements there.
You have to check your food supply time-to-time, and if its lower then 20, you should raze conquered settlements (or tear down everything after occupation), because you can go quickly below 0.
I hope that helps!

[mephhhh]

How did you manage to get down to -40?! Didn't you notice before that?

i had 50 food surplus so i upgraded all my lvl 3fishing ports to harbours and all my level two temples into level 3 temples and then i upgraded all my town centers and they all completed within 2-4 turns of each other.

i had 15k income...i couldnt just let it sit there in the bank and i feel obligated to upgrade buildings whenever i can

With the recent chages, you have to be careful, becasue armies consume food too, and food management for rome is always a pain, but yes, you should not upgrade all of your buildings, at least the ones that consume food, untill you have a steady food supply.
You dont have to build farms everywhere, and fishing ports are really bad, provide 6 food for -4 Po. Not worth it, build a lvl 2 trading port instead and a farm, farms at lvl 3 provide 9 food if i remeber correctly, for -4 Po, and even delicatessen is better than fishing ports.
So if you build have a lvl 2 settlement a lvl 2 trading port a lvl 3 farm, and a lvl 3 temple of neptune you should be alright, producing 9 food and almost no public order hit.
Last time with Rome i dedicated Africa province to food production. 4 fishing port at max lvl, 3 lvl 4 farm, 1 delicatessen, and temples and circus, i managed to Po around 100 with bread and games edict, and a dignitary, and produced around 40-50 food. Only upgraded the non food consuming settlements there.
You have to check your food supply time-to-time, and if its lower then 20, you should raze conquered settlements (or tear down everything after occupation), because you can go quickly below 0.
I hope that helps!

so...im not supposed to upgrade buildings whenever i can? those level 3 temples giving -4 food is a bit overkill IMO. -2food seems more appropriate to me. i need to convert all those pesky iberians and punic noobs into romans.

and yes, your help will go a very long way. im going to go reconquer africa except now i have got a seriously upgraded italy base to launch an offensive from. when i think about it i sank too much time into my roman campaign to just...let it go.

[FlashHeart07]

i had 50 food surplus so i upgraded all my lvl 3fishing ports to harbours and all my level two temples into level 3 temples and then i upgraded all my town centers and they all completed within 2-4 turns of each other.

i had 15k income...i couldnt just let it sit there in the bank and i feel obligated to upgrade buildings whenever i can



so...im not supposed to upgrade buildings whenever i can? those level 3 temples giving -4 food is a bit overkill IMO. -2food seems more appropriate to me. i need to convert all those pesky iberians and punic noobs into romans.

and yes, your help will go a very long way. im going to go reconquer africa except now i have got a seriously upgraded italy base to launch an offensive from. when i think about it i sank too much time into my roman campaign to just...let it go.

I never upgrade whenever or whereever I can. I keep some provinces as a base for creating strong armies and others I make into economic powerhouses to fuel my war against the world. And when my provinces for creating armies get too far away from the front lines I slowly change them to provide denarii and food. That way I never go down on either food, denarii or quickly pump out armies to face my enemies.

[Dresden]

Also, as noted in a post above, if you are having serious food issues you can turn off taxes in various provinces. You will probably find one that is using a lot of food.

[blow56]

The civil war is annoying, mainly because of the way it generates, all at once, a slew of armies you can't cope with. I wouldn't mind if it began as a couple of rebellious generals and their stacks and grew from there unless you nipped it in the bud, but it doesn't and that isn't a likely modding scenario. So - how do you prevent civil war? I am sure there is an edit you can do, using pfm or similar, to set the trigger so high it will never happen, but I don't know where the relevant pack is on DeI. Any suggestions would be welcome.

[Kye]

How do you keep armies if having them in cities creates a PO hit? Should they be out in the field under various stances (depending on the situation)?

[Ano2]

How do you keep armies if having them in cities creates a PO hit? Should they be out in the field under various stances (depending on the situation)?

Yes. If you want faster replenishment put them in cities, if you about to be attacked put them in cities, if you want public order leave them outside and put them in patrol stance.

[m_1512]

If your faction seems to be going broke, you can use this trick.

Send you navy around the world to discover factions and offer them trade agreements. The farther they are from you, they would mostly accept.

[FlashHeart07]

As a note to m_1512 post. As Arche Bosphorus I send a spy up to Iceni. Spies travel alot faster than navies and when you get trade with far out factions most of the map will be revealed to you opening chances for new trade agreements

[krunsh]

I would like to know more about slavery in the game. Now that there is a slave edict, it seems that there is a lot of money to be made with it if handled properly, but I have yet get a chance to play a long game since 0.95