Scipii in Europa 270BC Provincial Campaign

**Warlock** · July 25, 2007, 03:58 AM

Hello, as this is my first post here so I wanted to give my own congratulations to Darth for his supremely wicked mod.

If I had gotten wind of this earlier I would never have wasted my money buying MTW II...

I am playing VH/H on DarthMod 8.1 (without the super formations pack - just got that today). By far the easiest campaign in vanilla RTW were the brutii, so I thought I would start of there. Well my strategy needs polishing as I havent managed to make a good campaign there yet so I reverted to the Scipii, the next best (roman) thing.

The Scipii have 4 cities to start with which is a plus as far as the money goes. I originally tried gathering all the hastati I could and invade Syracuse. While this can work, especially if you attacked and play a field battle, the Carthaginians usually end up taking Messana as their elephants just smash the gates down in one turn.

So I tried going for the 3 carthaginian cities starting with panormus and this worked out fine. What annoys me is that at least the first major 5 battles are played with all hastati armies as I cant build anything else. This worked fine - I won nearly all battles (I only lost one defensive battle defending Messana from the Greeks but took it back swiftly afterwards). I now control Siciliy, Corsica, Sardinia and all 6 or so of the Carthaginian provinces in western Africa. Unsurprisingly, Numidia have begun sending stack after stack at me...

My question to my fellow strategists is this: how do you deal with early roman economy problems? I found that I have to build only economy related buildings otherwise I will be broke real soon. So basically no chance of equites until at least 10 turns in the game let alone archers. Taking Syracuse early solves this but I always lose messana to the carthaginians. I cant help but feel lucky that I won carthage's starting armies (with balearic archers, poeni infantry etc...) with only hastati (I usually put them in a line with fire at will on and use the side troops to break off and flank at the last minute. Also, Siciliy's hilly terrain gives me a big advantage in positioning my troops to defend on slopes). Has anyone tried other starting moves with the Scipii? Do you disband any hastati to start with?

Also, I am confused why the mundus magnus map does not allow Olbia (north Sardinia) to have a port even though it clearly should. Is there any way I can fix this?

**Kleomenis** · August 04, 2007, 02:49 AM

Dear Warlock i have played only with Greek cities and Thrace in vH/VH so i do not know anything about the romans, otherwise i would be glad to help u.
The A.I is great in this mod. i just love it

**atombrain** · August 07, 2007, 10:11 PM

Darth "nerfs" the Roman economy to add a challenge. So, this forces you to expand more slowly and allows the AI to build up a decent fight force to counter you.

My Advice would be to exterminate cites for the quick cash and build up your economy in 3 major cities. Or play on H/H for more money per turn. It difficult to get the Roman Machine rolling but its hard to stop after that. I can't give you a step by step because I like to play the Julii for some reason even though it frustrates me to no end (grr... those powerful Gallic Archers Woodsman with a few chevrons eat though everything!)

**aznflea** · October 20, 2008, 03:18 AM

i just played julii and i got smashed to no ends i cant hold out against a full stack with nothing but 10 hastati/principes. my economy is trash. literally trash. im having an uber hard time and my 3 best generals died in sieges.

ahh well, this is good. in vanilla the romans just march through the map and in the end if youre a non roman faction you end up battling stacks and stacks of romans who own the map with you.