The Civil War

[guguma]

Hello to all,

I have been playing ROME for a while now and I have come to a point where I feel that the civil war will break soon, and I am concerned about it so I just wanted to learn from your experiences.

I have played the game in a sort of realistic way and not in a lame way, I did everything I can for SPQR and did not block Scipii or Brutii (I am playing Julii) from advancing. I am around 160BC and marius reforms happened early on.

I planned to conquer the carthage, gaul, spain and Nmudia so that I could keep myself away from the risk of backstabbers but I have not completed it yet and I have 23 regions in control. Although I am above average with the senate and the people i fear that I will not be able to avoid the civil war till I keep my back safe.

I have the strongest military power and I have many pretorians and urbans under my command, the thing is stupid Scipii is holding his armies just in the middle of rome and my capital, and brutii and scipii advanced fairly enough (across asia).

Many of their cities have a very small garrison but some of them have large amount of units and walls.

I came up with this plan:

I plan to create about 10 standart armies 5 strong and 5 normal. The strong armies will consist of pretorians and urbans along with some cavalry and onagers. I will deploy these by the strong cities and wait for the war to break out and in one turn I will be able to conquer this 5 cities (one of the strong cities is rome by the way). And of course I will have family members commanding them (I will use one of my many star guys to attack rome).

Other 5 armies will consist of legionnaires and cavalry and 1 onager, I will deploy these to the cities in Italy where I do not rule (3 of them) and 2 to rhodes and halicarnassus (they have wonders and weakly guarded). If this works I will be able to take 10 settlements in one turn. And at least keep my back safe (either they will have to assault me from europe) or use sea transport (but I have strong navies to drown them (maybe)).

So what do you think? Should I risk it and assault nmudia and spain to get about 5 more settlements to keep my back safe (I want to do this because armies cost an immense amount of money and I can use the garrisons guarding those regions rather than training new units), or should I immediately start working on this plan, or if you think that this plan sucks, then please give advice. Do not tell me that deploying armies near settlements before the civil war is a lame thing to do because it is not. I have grown strong enough and the senate is a pain in the ass, this deployment will just be an undercover backstabbing when I have the support of the people

If you ask for numbers and or a map I will gladly provide them.

Lets Discuss Commanders...

[Snoopy]

The best idea:

Create 5 Fullstacks and stick them right beside Rome.

After this, continue normally. Conquer Spain, Gaul, Germania, and, if your popularity isn't super low, Britannia.

By this point, your popularity should be in the dumps with the Senate. Take your 5 Fullstacks (preferably with siege equipment, and possibly more then 5 fullstacks) and besiege Rome. If you have siege equipment, immediately capture Rome before the other families can save Rome. If not, then destroy all nearby Brutii and Scipii (or senate) armies with 4 of your fullstacks while the 5th guards the city. Once it has siege equipment, move your other 4 stacks back into sieging Rome, and use the army with siege equipment to attack. Once you have Rome, stream down Italy with as many armies as possible. Once you have Italy, things should be easy-peasy. Your Roman enemies will most likely be also fighting other enemies, so you should be able to raid cities with low garrisons, which hurt their income. Then you can attack stronger cities.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Also, if you are rich enough, you will find that many of the AI armies are only commanded by captains not generals. This is a setback for them, but a bonus for you, because it makes them easier targets for bribes. So if you have enough money, just build quite a few diplomats and go roaming around the map looking for armies with only captains. I'll assure you that you'll get quite a few. If you don't have enough money, you can just click "~" on the campaign map the type in "add_money 40000" and it will automatically give you that amount of money. But I think 40000 is the maximum you can do at a time.

[piranha45]

when i played Julii, it was on on med campaign diff and very hard battle diff, I waited until the map got like this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/attac...1&d=1195354429

I had ~45 regions under my control. After I took Rome and Italy (which was right before the screenshot), about 10 turns elapsed before the Brutii utterly bombarded me with a nonstop flow of full and half-full armies. I was utterly amazed at how the Brutii armies kept flooding in; on the Faction Ratings list, I was ahead of everyone except Finances, where the Brutii had far more than I. Even though I had (unwittingly) cordoned the Brutii off many turns previously, that didn't stop their flood of troops.

I got impatient in dealing with their nonstop army flood and wrested much of Saudi Arabia from Egypt to get my win, whilst (barely) fending the Brutii off.

However, that was the first campaign I had ever played, and I havent played as the Romans since. In the other campaigns I've completed (spain 2x, gaul 1x), the Romans never lived to become very strong so it wasn't an issue.

[Panthera leo]

I took the roman peninsula with two stacks- both composed of a mix of heavy infantry, mercaneries and some cav and siege engines to do the 'one-turn blitzkreig' city attack.

Ten stacks is overkill of the highest order. If you strip your frontier garrissons of decent troops you risk being backstabbed by the enemy.

Are you playing a mod of RTW? I only ever had ten-plus stacks when i took the entirety of Asia minor-Persia region.

[Barry]

How competant are you on the battle map? If you are very competant then a half stack 'legion' will suffice outside each city, possibly 2/3 or if you have a 'consul' a full stack outside Rome. Much cheaper so you don't send yourself into the red waiting for the civil war!! Keep taking cities in Africa and Gaul, Spain, wherever you have not alreay taken without coming into border contact with other Romans. This should set you up!

[Trajan]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[The10thLegion]

make sure to strengthen your borders to the barbarians as you will be weakened by civil war, attack the most towns at once as it stops the AI from recruiting there.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

From my experience, I usually crush the barbarians before I initiate civil war. I've never yet played a Roman campaign where the other factions have started the war against me before I attacked them.

[Aristarchus]

Great going if the Julii front you have is facing into Africa and Carthage! If so, I recommend building up a massive navy, which will be needed to dominate the Scipii in Sicily and round the boot to get at the Brutii base in Greece. That will be some hard naval fighting. Without the navy you will lose Carthage at once. The worry you have, I think, will be the reach of the Brutii into the north. If they overcome all of Dacia and Germany, their engine of war could be unstoppable. So, if you can, while marching to Africa, take control of Iuvavum at least, and keep watch what is happening in Lovosice and further north and east from there.

By now I suppose you already know the result? What happened?

[Xavier Dragnesi]

By the time I started the civil war, I controlled everything north of the Greek peninsular, and had a base at Tingi in Africa, so I just did a land blitzkreig and the only really naval operation I had to do in the civil war was to ship two stacks to Sicily from Capua.

[Fishies123]

The civil war is quite challenging but not impossible. I started planning for it from the moment I started the Julii campaign by slowly building up full stack armies just near the Rome border. Once Id taken Briton out it started and I just flooded Italy with about 5 full stack armies backed up by 4 half stacks.
But then I had to take out the Brutii and Scipii which was quite difficult

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Yes, they are hard to start with. But if you reach the victory conditions (50 provinces plus Rome) and continue playing, you will find that:
1. The other Roman faction armies that are commanded by captains succumb a lot easier to bribery (the family members never do)
2. The AI in the other Romans seem to "give up" and their troop production lessens by a lot.
3. You get money a lot quicker.

[The10thLegion]

I usually play a campaign as a brutii and take nearby settlements that julii and scipii would have and conquer, well everything. Scipii and Julii only have like 3 provinces each and i only have to conquer around 7 cities.

[Fishies123]

I tried that method but i found it took the challenging aspect of the game out

[The10thLegion]

then play spqr, oh wait your signatures shows you have it. I play spqr too.

[Columcille]

show us a screenshot of your empire.

[The10thLegion]

i dont play regular rtw anymore, im relating to past expieriences.

[Quintus the Great]

for Julii

After you have conquered lots of territorys and have a pretty good income, start massing armys in northern Italy. Move any extra units from non-border territories to north Italy, and just start making more and more men. Give each army a family member, and once it is full, have it build fort. When war breaks out, you now have multiple armies waiting right there.

for Scipii

Same as with Julii, just start amassing armies on Sicily. Usually i have each settlement there focus on a certain unit amount, since they are so close. Messana- ranged Lilybaeum- Cavalry Syracuse- Infantry
Its also good to have a large navy for quick transportation to the mainland. This way, when war breaks out, in 1/2 turns you can have 3-5 full armies at Rome in one turn.

Not played Brutii to the war yet.


When attacking Rome, if you have enough armies as I've suggested, put one on each side. Lots and lots of cavalry work good when attacking
SPQR armies. Most of them are well upgraded and have at least 6 experience. Your best chance is to charge and rout one unit and hope for a chain reaction. Also, for me when I let them attack me, my reinforcements never showed up. So, I recommend you strike first.

[fourganger]

The Brutii have their own personal bank if they own Greece, so taking this is a priority. Luckily the Peloponnese is usually poorly guarded, and you can conquer the cities there fairly easily, then encamp your army on the Isthmus of Corinth and go on the defensive. They'll move against your forces there, so then you should be free to move some more armies in via Illyria.