Epic mod, but...

[Eurolandish]

I was wondering just how balanced this mod is?

I'm loving the Romuli so far, but I haven't gotten past battling rebels of the same culture as my own yet (Senate Legions). There seems to be a lot of variety in this mod, especially with you have some factions primarily based around muskets/guns so I'm curious how a faction like, for example, the Teutonic Knights would square up against 'late era' Privateers or Faustian Reich gunners.

[Bellus88]

The Teutonic knights have good heavy infantry but they have no elite heavy unit that does a lot of damage while the Faustian Reich has gunners and their best elite heavy Infantry melee unit Forlorn Hope I think it is called is better than them. In my previous Campaign as Romuli I cheated, the Dominion can be very hard to beat if you make the wrong decisions, I started a second campaign because I used auto win cheats about 10-15 times against them, that second campaign failed and their armies over ran my conquered rebel settlements. I started a new one, on VH/VH and it is going better now, you have to make sure you take Epirus in the early game if you are playing on VH/VH.

Once the Dominion and Lao Che and taken care of your Empire won't be in danger of being destroyed or invaded, there is no mass invasion thing in this mod, that is why it is very easy once you take care of enemy factions near you, you will still lose sometimes though but you will never be in danger of being destroyed. It may not be the most challenging mod, I consider it Medium difficulty in terms of how hard it is but I play it because it is so diverse and there are many cultures in a new fantasy world.

[Double A]

I really never figured out how to beat the Uruks with my legions. Siege assaults were genuinely suicidal, and letting them sally either leaves me with too few troops if I'm in a hurry or not enough room if I'm not. Even flanking with cavalry doesn't do enough when I can actually maneuver.

Anyway, this mod isn't well balanced for certain factions - Uruks, Tahars and their elephants, and Privateers with their entire glorious rooster when gunpowder mechanics work as designed are the most egregious examples. Of course, the crazy usually balances out the crazy, kind of like Warhammer 40k. This is definitely my favorite mod for M2, or any game.

[Munkins]

Quick tip on beating the Uruks with the Romuli: At deployment, take all of your legionaries, put them into a single line, then put them into "shield wall". When you do that, each legionary unit will be packed into half the space... leaving gaps in your line. Put your Triarii (or another line of legions in shield wall) in a second rank to cover the gaps. Missile troops and cavalry to the rear. The Uruks will be mowed down by javelins on the way in, and won't be able to break the shield walls. When they are weakened, bring your cavalry around the flanks to rout them.

[b257]

I found for Tahar its best to go at them early when their elephants are spread out and not combined into one army, I also found its best to lure them into a siege as the bottle neck slows them down considerably allowing my missile units to pepper them allowing my pikes to get them into a frenzy.

[Iguanaonastick]

I really never figured out how to beat the Uruks with my legions. Siege assaults were genuinely suicidal, and letting them sally either leaves me with too few troops if I'm in a hurry or not enough room if I'm not. Even flanking with cavalry doesn't do enough when I can actually maneuver.

Anyway, this mod isn't well balanced for certain factions - Uruks, Tahars and their elephants, and Privateers with their entire glorious rooster when gunpowder mechanics work as designed are the most egregious examples. Of course, the crazy usually balances out the crazy, kind of like Warhammer 40k. This is definitely my favorite mod for M2, or any game.

I found my legionaries quite well-matched against Uruks. Sure, the Uruks are strong, but you have twice as many men per unit, the wonderful shield-wall formation, and the best combat animation in the game. Legionaries kill a lot more than their stats would indicate because of that last factor.

I generally formed a strong shield-wall of legionaries in the centre, with a couple units held in reserve just in case, and let those slowly grind the Uruks down on the defensive. I used my cavalry to take out Uruk archers and especially those horrible fireball-spewing priests and exploding bolt shooting crossboworcs. Typically, if I sent 2-3 cavalry units after one of the abovementioned and only lost 1 unit before taking them out I considered it a good trade-off...

Hammer and anvil doesn't really work against Uruks since Roman (sorry, Romuli) cavalry isn't really strong enough to crush Orcs. Even on rear-charges I'd lose a lot of cavalry. Still, worth it if the enemy is exhausted and wavering. I always let them grind against the legion shield wall for a good long while first, though. Didn't have any trouble.

Oh, and I hardly bothered with archers. Roman archers do not pack enough punch to be worthwhile. I just used 1-2 units for tactical reasons. Bring more legionaries. You'll need them.

Besides that, there's the general rule of thumb when fighting the AI in total war games: always attack. Seize their cities. Even if they have more stacks than you do, they won't really mass them against you. And if you can take out their production centres, you've made it even if you lose almost all your forces in the progress. If you fail and lose an army... well, the AI can't plan an offensive to save its life. Chances are you'll be able to raise another army before they threaten your important cities.

One good trick: if you're besieging an enemy town and 3 enemy stacks are standing nearby, one of those stacks will attack you and a field battle will ensue. If, in that battle, you utterly annihilate both the relieving army and the sallying garrison, you'll take the city automatically. No need for a costly siege assault! Then the remaining two stacks will have to besiege you. Even if they do, you'll have time to bring up reinforcements, and your odds will be much better defending a city or castle anyway. And if all else fails... raze everything that can burn, sacrifice the army, and use the tons of money you make from looting and burning the city to build a new force. Even a cheating AI will need a lot of time to turn that city into a productive troop-recruitment centre again.

[Comrade Roboto]

I found my legionaries quite well-matched against Uruks. Sure, the Uruks are strong, but you have twice as many men per unit, the wonderful shield-wall formation, and the best combat animation in the game. Legionaries kill a lot more than their stats would indicate because of that last factor.

I generally formed a strong shield-wall of legionaries in the centre, with a couple units held in reserve just in case, and let those slowly grind the Uruks down on the defensive. I used my cavalry to take out Uruk archers and especially those horrible fireball-spewing priests and exploding bolt shooting crossboworcs. Typically, if I sent 2-3 cavalry units after one of the abovementioned and only lost 1 unit before taking them out I considered it a good trade-off...

Hammer and anvil doesn't really work against Uruks since Roman (sorry, Romuli) cavalry isn't really strong enough to crush Orcs. Even on rear-charges I'd lose a lot of cavalry. Still, worth it if the enemy is exhausted and wavering. I always let them grind against the legion shield wall for a good long while first, though. Didn't have any trouble.

Oh, and I hardly bothered with archers. Roman archers do not pack enough punch to be worthwhile. I just used 1-2 units for tactical reasons. Bring more legionaries. You'll need them.

Besides that, there's the general rule of thumb when fighting the AI in total war games: always attack. Seize their cities. Even if they have more stacks than you do, they won't really mass them against you. And if you can take out their production centres, you've made it even if you lose almost all your forces in the progress. If you fail and lose an army... well, the AI can't plan an offensive to save its life. Chances are you'll be able to raise another army before they threaten your important cities.

One good trick: if you're besieging an enemy town and 3 enemy stacks are standing nearby, one of those stacks will attack you and a field battle will ensue. If, in that battle, you utterly annihilate both the relieving army and the sallying garrison, you'll take the city automatically. No need for a costly siege assault! Then the remaining two stacks will have to besiege you. Even if they do, you'll have time to bring up reinforcements, and your odds will be much better defending a city or castle anyway. And if all else fails... raze everything that can burn, sacrifice the army, and use the tons of money you make from looting and burning the city to build a new force. Even a cheating AI will need a lot of time to turn that city into a productive troop-recruitment centre again.

Yep that's my exact tactics against the Uruks. Let them come, grind them down and then attack their production cities when they've spend most of their men attacking you. However I do find full stacks of them from time to time just wandering around.

[Incredible Bulk]

I hate Those Uruk priest so much

[Double A]

I found my legionaries quite well-matched against Uruks. Sure, the Uruks are strong, but you have twice as many men per unit, the wonderful shield-wall formation, and the best combat animation in the game. Legionaries kill a lot more than their stats would indicate because of that last factor.

I generally formed a strong shield-wall of legionaries in the centre, with a couple units held in reserve just in case, and let those slowly grind the Uruks down on the defensive. I used my cavalry to take out Uruk archers and especially those horrible fireball-spewing priests and exploding bolt shooting crossboworcs. Typically, if I sent 2-3 cavalry units after one of the abovementioned and only lost 1 unit before taking them out I considered it a good trade-off...

Hammer and anvil doesn't really work against Uruks since Roman (sorry, Romuli) cavalry isn't really strong enough to crush Orcs. Even on rear-charges I'd lose a lot of cavalry. Still, worth it if the enemy is exhausted and wavering. I always let them grind against the legion shield wall for a good long while first, though. Didn't have any trouble.

Oh, and I hardly bothered with archers. Roman archers do not pack enough punch to be worthwhile. I just used 1-2 units for tactical reasons. Bring more legionaries. You'll need them.

Besides that, there's the general rule of thumb when fighting the AI in total war games: always attack. Seize their cities. Even if they have more stacks than you do, they won't really mass them against you. And if you can take out their production centres, you've made it even if you lose almost all your forces in the progress. If you fail and lose an army... well, the AI can't plan an offensive to save its life. Chances are you'll be able to raise another army before they threaten your important cities.

One good trick: if you're besieging an enemy town and 3 enemy stacks are standing nearby, one of those stacks will attack you and a field battle will ensue. If, in that battle, you utterly annihilate both the relieving army and the sallying garrison, you'll take the city automatically. No need for a costly siege assault! Then the remaining two stacks will have to besiege you. Even if they do, you'll have time to bring up reinforcements, and your odds will be much better defending a city or castle anyway. And if all else fails... raze everything that can burn, sacrifice the army, and use the tons of money you make from looting and burning the city to build a new force. Even a cheating AI will need a lot of time to turn that city into a productive troop-recruitment centre again.

Oh yeah, I've known about the adjacent garrison reinforcements trick for a good long while, and it was basically the only way I ever got to beat the Uruks in cities (and the field battles were still pretty costly). My problem is siege assaults with decent walls, though, which is something in all my ~10 years of TWing I've still never managed to get down pat. I know there are a ton of cheap tricks but they never really work for me. The walls are just deathtraps, plain and simple. That's not the issue though, because I can usually just avoid them (and I do), it's the boiling oil. The glory of shield wall is actually a liability when the enemy can just drop hot death on top of my incredibly compacted blob of units.

But utilizing my legions more sounds like a decent idea. I suppose I stuck to the generic structure I use for feudal factions too hard.

[Comrade Roboto]

Oh yeah, I've known about the adjacent garrison reinforcements trick for a good long while, and it was basically the only way I ever got to beat the Uruks in cities (and the field battles were still pretty costly). My problem is siege assaults with decent walls, though, which is something in all my ~10 years of TWing I've still never managed to get down pat. I know there are a ton of cheap tricks but they never really work for me. The walls are just deathtraps, plain and simple. That's not the issue though, because I can usually just avoid them (and I do), it's the boiling oil. The glory of shield wall is actually a liability when the enemy can just drop hot death on top of my incredibly compacted blob of units.

But utilizing my legions more sounds like a decent idea. I suppose I stuck to the generic structure I use for feudal factions too hard.

Here's a thought, try attacking their less well defended cities. They'll be easy to capture, even with advanced walls. Just bring some siege towers or something, I don't see how that should be hard, although in my campaign they never managed to get to the highest level walls. They be forced to leave their cities with big stacks in them (or at least make it easier to capture). Trick to defeating them is keeping up the pressure, send as many men as you can in their lands. Target their generals and family members as they tend to recruit a whole lot of generals. That's how I did it, by killing all their family members. You might wanna look into assasination, although I killed most on the battlefield. In the end they were so desperate to keep their family going, I saw a defected Lao Che as their faction heir .

[Double A]

Here's a thought, try attacking their less well defended cities. They'll be easy to capture, even with advanced walls. Just bring some siege towers or something, I don't see how that should be hard, although in my campaign they never managed to get to the highest level walls. They be forced to leave their cities with big stacks in them (or at least make it easier to capture). Trick to defeating them is keeping up the pressure, send as many men as you can in their lands. Target their generals and family members as they tend to recruit a whole lot of generals. That's how I did it, by killing all their family members. You might wanna look into assasination, although I killed most on the battlefield. In the end they were so desperate to keep their family going, I saw a defected Lao Che as their faction heir .

Oh yeah, less defended cities are obvious targets. Uruks are still hard to kill in streets. I was speaking more generally, though. If a rebel city has like 10 units in it I really have no idea how to crack it unless I have half a stack of horse archers lying around.

[Iguanaonastick]

Sieges -should- be hard. You -should- lose a ton of men if the target is at all well defended. That's why you can just starve them out if you have to.

But the boiling oil is one reason I never, ever attack cities through the gates. Also historical: gates, whilst structurally the weakest point, were also the most heavily defended. Avoid.

Typically, the best way I've found to take cities in a siege assault is to use ladders to attack en-mass. Go up the wall in 6, 10 places at once, try to gain a foothold, surround pockets of resistance, and just keep pushing until the enemy abandons the walls. Oftentimes they pull back to the city square/next lines of defence while they have a good few units left. You will suffer casualties, depending on how fast the arrow towers fire in particular, but against moderate defences you should be able to push through with acceptable losses.

Legionaries actually do pretty well fighting on walls thanks to their fighting animation. The throwing spears can also be helpful. Still, if a castle wall is heavily garrisoned with Uruks, you may struggle.

[Comrade Roboto]

Sieges -should- be hard. You -should- lose a ton of men if the target is at all well defended. That's why you can just starve them out if you have to.

But the boiling oil is one reason I never, ever attack cities through the gates. Also historical: gates, whilst structurally the weakest point, were also the most heavily defended. Avoid.

Typically, the best way I've found to take cities in a siege assault is to use ladders to attack en-mass. Go up the wall in 6, 10 places at once, try to gain a foothold, surround pockets of resistance, and just keep pushing until the enemy abandons the walls. Oftentimes they pull back to the city square/next lines of defence while they have a good few units left. You will suffer casualties, depending on how fast the arrow towers fire in particular, but against moderate defences you should be able to push through with acceptable losses.

Legionaries actually do pretty well fighting on walls thanks to their fighting animation. The throwing spears can also be helpful. Still, if a castle wall is heavily garrisoned with Uruks, you may struggle.

That's true, and in the reverse situation you also get a big advantage. Even with very few numbers, say 200 of yours vs 1000+ of theirs. Because most of the time the AI will go through the gates once it's broken, even if they have ladders on the walls already. They just all mass attack that gate. This is a an advantage for the player because you don't need that much men to keep their huge forces in place at the gate, which will drop oil on them continuously. They're just too dumb to not stand directly under the oil. Also the machine gun arrow towers are nice too when they are shooting the enemy. Not so much when it's you who is getting "gunned" down. At least we can avoid the oil with ladders etc...

[Malistrae]

I was wondering just how balanced this mod is?

I'm loving the Romuli so far, but I haven't gotten past battling rebels of the same culture as my own yet (Senate Legions). There seems to be a lot of variety in this mod, especially with you have some factions primarily based around muskets/guns so I'm curious how a faction like, for example, the Teutonic Knights would square up against 'late era' Privateers or Faustian Reich gunners.

I think there is a certain kind of balance. Using your example, Privateers would destroy the Teutonic Knights at range, however, the Knights have powerful cavalry and heavy infantry so if they can get into meele, they are going to rip apart the lightly armoured Privateers in little time. The Knights are among my favourite factions and I frequently use this tactic against gunners: cheap and expendable light infantry charge (order militias, clergymen and those native norselund peasants), closely followed by heavier units (various flavours of heavy cavalry and infantry). The first wave is going to get massacred and probably routed but their deaths will buy my heavier troops enough time to close the distance without serious losses and then they will secure victory.
In a similar fashion, the Paynál Empire (and the Warriors of Kukulcán to a slightly lesser extent) is technologically super-primitive (no metal weapons!) but they can spam units like there is no tomorrow, allowing them to take out much more advanced armies with sheer numbers.

[HolyBob]

This mod has a tremendous variety of Factions, each with its own lore and scenario at the start of the campaign. I wish there was a submod where you could play as the Italian rebels in France. They seem like a very important faction.

[Incredible Bulk]

This mod has a tremendous variety of Factions, each with its own lore and scenario at the start of the campaign. I wish there was a submod where you could play as the Italian rebels in France. They seem like a very important faction.

Totally agree with you

[HolyBob]

Could we potentially make that as a submod? Is there room for another faction?

[Torvus]

No, there is not. Plus TFON isn't real fond of submods.

[Comrade Roboto]

No, there is not. Plus TFON isn't real fond of submods.

And I don't think he's around anymore to ask either. Too bad because that prevents people making submods or him fixing a game breaking bug I've talked about, in late game.

[REDrake]

Well for my own use I added modifications to the mod. I added merchants (I know, I'm a heretic). But I'm not going to distribute it.
Really, when you get down to it, changing a few things is not that hard. All you need is a text editor and knowledge on what you are doing.