RTW: Newb got utterly stomped as Julii, needs help. The comp cheats outrageously???

[piranha45]

I'm a first-time player of this game, got it last week. I went through the intro campaign, beat it, and started a campaign as Julii with battle difficulty set to Very Hard and the other difficulty setting set to Medium.

I had no problems at all for the bulk of the game. I had 46 provinces or so firmly under my command (all of europe, brittania, and North asia), when the senate ordered my faction heir to suicide for the 2nd time.

I figured that since I obviously had at least half the map, with egypt/scipii/brutii squabbling fairly evenly over the rest, that I'd tell the senate to **** off. I took Rome and all of Italy with no problem.

Then the Brutii unleashed an UNENDING TORRENT of near-fully-packed armies at me. All the Brutii have is Greece/Macedonia, mind you. I was quick to blockade EVERY PORT they and Scipii had, since the AI apparently isnt much for command of the seas.

I had a ton of generals, all commanding full Samnite armies. I had 2/3s of my empire cranking a constant flow of Samnites and (in my smaller provinces) War Dogs, which were brought into north italy and assigned generals in a refined process. Nonetheless, it was all for naught. I ground down dozens of Brutii army groups, but fresh ones NEVER STOPPED COMING! And not only was the Brutii inundating north Italy with its troop flow, it smacked down all my East Europe and West Asian provinces, too. I defended them pretty rigorously too, but again, the Brutii AI never ceased its barrage of blatant cheezery.

I mean, WHAT THE HELL??

Is this the intent of the game? Is this how the game runs on all difficulties? If so, does the comp cheat any less obviously in the BI or Alexander packs?


Here is my plight: The Brutii already conquered some of the Macedonian provinces from me, at this point. They started their onslaught excusively from Greece. I lost Patavium some turns after this screenshot, whereupon I quit and started typing this post.

[JamesG]

It's happened to me a couple of times when i get that far as Julii. It's always the Brutii, never Scipii (in my experience).

You just have to withstand battle upon battle. You've got campaign difficulty on medium, so they shouldn't be getting bonus money.

Build troops in all your cities every turn and send them to the front(which is probably what you are doing). Find out which cities are giving them the most income then invade it, probably by sea. You need to invade their cities, because as you destroy their armies they just get more income as they don't have to pay troops.

Another strategy that I've found crippling to the AI, land your armies next to multiple cities in Greece, and lay siege to them, or like 3 or 4 at once, then try to capture them all at once too, it's better if you have onagers, then you can take them straight away without having to wait a turn. Gives a huge hit to their income and troop production.

Brutii are just crazy in civil war

[Ephialtes The Dog]

This is the reason why I don't play on VH (very hard), not because its hard but because the AI gets such unrealistic bonuses that its just stupid. All I can say is start over a campaign of H, its much more realistic.

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

This is the reason why I don't play on VH (very hard), not because its hard but because the AI gets such unrealistic bonuses that its just stupid. All I can say is start over a campaign of H, its much more realistic.

VH battle difficulty is the only one on which someone should play, IMO.

Another strategy that I've found crippling to the AI, land your armies next to multiple cities in Greece, and lay siege to them, or like 3 or 4 at once, then try to capture them all at once too, it's better if you have onagers, then you can take them straight away without having to wait a turn. Gives a huge hit to their income and troop production.

Brutii are just crazy in civil war

Bingo. You don't even have to fight their armies if you take out their settlements. The Greek cities are very close to each other, taking over them is very simple.

But if you are to fight them on the battlefield, I've learned that in Rome vs Rome fights on the campaign, you have a good chance if half your army consists of good infantry and the other half of cavalry (generals + Praetorians or Legionaires). Although the enemy will have more infantry, you'd be able to flank them very easily. Losing is impossible with this strategy.

[Quintius Lucius Cato]

Hmm..been ages since I played RTW Vanilla, ( Normally Play Roma Surrectum these days, before that Lusteds RTW Version of Lands To Conquer) but when going up against the Brutii.. never go on the defensive, You have to put all your effort into bringing them down knock out their cities you knock out their abilities to make more soilders.

I allways had a large turn based income and often Bribed some of the Bruttii's forces also then sent them against their former masters I love how soilders loyalty is based on the deepness of their generals purse.

[John I Tzimisces]

Please tell me there are more stacks in that "unending torrent".

I count *two* that are more than 50% full.

Also...what are you using gladiators for? Use Romans, not slave rabble.

Numbers mean something, especially in autocalc...and it's not like any roman infantry happen to suck.

[movemove]

samnites and wardogs?
guys his situation is that brutii stacks are attacking him and is using all his resources to defend so I guess that if he frees up any of his forces to fight burtii in greece by sieging them, then the bruti stacks will go on to conquer the rest of his holdings to the north.

so In stad of laying siege to multiple cities, gather a decent stack that is enough to conquer one brutii citiy in greece, but before you do, make sure to full up the stack is at least like 10 or so hoplites mercenaries. capture a citiy the AI can;t Ignore, say thermon, and when you do get all the PO you can and move out 8 of those 10 hoplites to somewhere outside of the city that he AI won't target,
Now the AI should (stupidly) send all of its stacks at its former city. the thing is, legionnaires can never win in a city fight against ophalanxes.
chances are the city wall is stone, so abondon the walls.
when thermon gets sieged, you should have say, 2 hoplites missle units and a unit of legionnaires in the city. do not saly, wait to be assuallted. when they do, pull back all your forces in a single city street. position yoru hoplites so that their ranks span the entire street. have the hoplites stand in a double phalanx, that is one phalanx is directly behind the other and even if the AI manages to breach the first spearwall somehow, they face yet another.
since VH alllows AI to kill phalanxes with headon charge with cav, position a unit of legionnaires inside the first phalanxes spears, if it sounds confusion, then its basically that the legionnaires are standing in front of the hoplites but behind the tips of their spears. this way, charges get absorbed and enemies will have to fight two units at once.
behind them place your general, missles etc.
the AI will not go for your town centre, they will target your units even if it means going head up with a phalanx
this way you should win aginst inumerable odds, and when your hoplites get depleted, you have 8 more outside the city and you can always hire more. (trust me, your hoplites will last a loooong time)
after a while the AI seems to run out of stacks because it concentrated every single one on taking thermon, even to the point of sending out single units armies waiting to join a stack.
when you think the time is right, you can use the time you gained by the sending the massive stacks you trained while the bruti were bsuy with thermon.

I have done this with TSE, using ficev unit of levy pikes, 3 greek, and about 6 or so burti stacks were destroyed with heroic victories each time. (odds were usually anywhere from 1:2 - 3:20) this was in athens btw.

[piranha45]

samnites and wardogs?
guys his situation is that brutii stacks are attacking him and is using all his resources to defend so I guess that if he frees up any of his forces to fight burtii in greece by sieging them, then the bruti stacks will go on to conquer the rest of his holdings to the north.

What's wrong with samnites and wardogs? They seemed like the two most dedicated offensive units Rome has; samnites have a stronger attack (17) than anything except Urbans, and Urbans require a huge tech tree to climb before you can make them. Wardogs seem to be perfect for stocking your cities with, since they only use 50 dinarii a turn as opposed to peasants that eat 100, and they are great for taking out marauding Rebels...

[piranha45]

Please tell me there are more stacks in that "unending torrent".

I count *two* that are more than 50% full.

Also...what are you using gladiators for? Use Romans, not slave rabble.

Numbers mean something, especially in autocalc...and it's not like any roman infantry happen to suck.

My point was, the Brutii were making (a good deal) more units than I was. And I knocked out a couple dozen armies, until I started to realize they weren't slowing down in production. In a situation where my money advantage alone should have easily swamped Brutii, I inevitably got worn down and bulldozed. I used the screenshot to show how much of the map I had at the time.



Anyway everyone, I ended up going back to an earlier save game, before I went hostile with the Senate. I leisurely conquered some more Asian/Saudi holdings from Egypt to total 50 provinces, then bombed Rome. Game won, yay!


However, I kept playing long enough to check the in-game comparison charts... Brutii in fact had a weak economy, weaker than many of the other AIs. YET it had a a more powerful military than I (and all the other AIs had much much weaker armies)! So yeah, the computer does cheat. I wonder if its only the Brutii that cheat, regardless of what faction you might be...


Is there any incentive for going through the hassle of taking the Amazon village at the top of the map? I took the amazons just before I took Rome (and also just before a line of Brutii armies took the Amazons, instead of me!), but I didn't seem to get anything special for it.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Wardogs are amazing unit in clearing city streets...samnites are spearman and they suffer in attack against infantry so start using legions.

[Dracula]

Wardogs are amazing unit in clearing city streets...samnites are spearman and they suffer in attack against infantry so start using legions.

Yeah ! Wardogs are actually just an amusing unit . They can cause panic in certain cases but can't endure a normal battle .Any hastati,even spearmen auxilia will wipe them out .In my game as long as I remembered they died like pussies .

The samnites are also weaker than the ordinary hastati . I guess (though I don't remember clearly,they are designed to fight cavalry and town watch,not regular armies .

But above all,the AI has nothing to do with reality in most of the cases,especially on Very Hard .

When I played,I preferred to obey the Senate for the suicide untill the moment I could oppose their rallied forces . I mean you can put it off with few turns if the moment is unsuitable .In the mean time bring armies from far away and prepare to crash the Brutii at once on all fronts . It will cost you some few generals only to get tactical advantage .

[Valerius Tiberius]

1. build legions (you know like urbans and praetorian cav, or praetorians and legionary cav, or legionaries and legionary cav)

2. put them in boats and land near Sparta, Athens,.... just take as many cities near the sea as possible

3. destroy the brutii weaklings, plunder their cities, steal their riches, kill their men, rape their women and leave non brutii dog alive!!!!

have fun

[DaLeGiOnArY]

why not just send an assasin to atack a high level senate. when he fails,its war time w00t that means woot yeah civil war
pardon my english,lithueynian is my native language

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Yeh you can force civil war like that.

[Prince_of_Macedon]

I have a general question: when you "enable All Factions," does it screw up your ability to play online? Maybe Leonidas would know.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Nope m8, I have it enabled all the time. And mundus magnus mod too. It only affects singleplayer not online. Just go to :

RTW > Data > World > maps > campaign > imperial campaign > descr start.txt and change factions


( leave SPQR in unplayable due to bugs.) You can also change game starting year this way, myself I play in 900 BC .

[Prince_of_Macedon]

Thanks, man! I might give campaign a shot.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

Thanks, man! I might give campaign a shot.

Sent you PM with instructions. Good luck m8.

/Leo

[piranha45]

Is it only vs Roman and other well-ordered units that Wardogs are weak against? Maybe they're still good vs poorly-disciplined barbarian units?



Does anyone know of any links that thoroughly explain each unit? Like, I had NO IDEA samnites were spearmen, or even that spearmen are weak vs. infantry. Anyone know any good links for a silly newb like myself?

[Dracula]

Is it only vs Roman and other well-ordered units that Wardogs are weak against? Maybe they're still good vs poorly-disciplined barbarian units?



Does anyone know of any links that thoroughly explain each unit? Like, I had NO IDEA samnites were spearmen, or even that spearmen are weak vs. infantry. Anyone know any good links for a silly newb like myself?

You have to read the windows with explanations about the units which appear when you right click on the unit icon . And compare what is said there for the diff ones .

Wardogs are good in my exper. only to cause pannick in an army that doesn't have a general .I didn't try them much against barbarians as far as I remember .

The general idea when you read is -that sword units are better than spear ones,except for these spearmen that can form phalanx . Also the swords appeared later historically and were better weapon,especially with the roman tactic .