Am I too slow?

[Davidius]

First I'd like to thank the owners/mods for a forum with great resources to this game.
Yup, I'm slow, I just found this game and even though it is 4 years old, I'm hooked.
I'm in my first game playing the Julii, where I have to conquer 50 territories and Rome.
The year is 210BC, I'm now at 20 territories, I just eliminated the Gaul and I'm heading for the Spanish next.
I have an OK cash flow and a few good armies.
My only option after the Spanish are the Britons to the north.
They already almost wiped out the Germans and look very strong, it will probably take a long time to conquer them.
Looking at my other two Roman rivals, the Brutii are to the East and have huge armies, I probably would never stand a chance to fight them at this point.
The Scipii are in Africa and they look not as strong, I might have a chance against them.
My main question is:
By the time I finished off the Britons, I think the Brutii will be way to powerful to be messed with.
Also where do I go after I'm done with the Britons? The Brutii might own the whole east by that time and the Scipii the south.
I couldn't find a post about this, but what is a good pace to conquer? like one territory every 1/2/3 years?
It also takes me an awful long time between moves, I look through every city, all my armies, spies, assassins etc.
It takes me like 30min before I press that next turn button.
Am I to slow, should I start over again and do everything faster or is there still hope to conquer the world.
It would suck to play hopeless game for 2 month just to lose.
Any comment is welcomed.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Well Britons are your problem. You've started a bit slow, and therefore you've let the Britons expand. The same thing happened the first time I played as well. I thought "Well, I have over 500 turns to complete this objective, and since it's my first time, I might as well go slowly." So off I went, and I was basically in the same situation as you are now, when I met the Britons. They had conquered all of Germany, and now began attacking me, churning out three-quarter stacks every turn. There wasn't much I could do, so I quitted and started a new game, now with the lesson learnt.

But if you want to fight on, I think the best you can do is leave strong garrisons in any bordering cities, and go fight Iberia. Try to get to the Marius reforms as quickly as possible, so you get to train the legionary cohorts, who are in most ways better than the hastati, principes and triarii. As for the civil war, don't mind them yet, best to wait till you are rid of the Britons before attacking them. They usually won't attack you until a lot later in the game.

[otakar]

It takes me like 30min before I press that next turn button.
Am I to slow, should I start over again and do everything faster or is there still hope to conquer the world.
It would suck to play hopeless game for 2 month just to lose.

I think most people start that way (Julii). I sure did and I was just as slow as you. Just figuring out the game, I was overly conservative in the beginning and would only attack with a big numeric advantage. I also left way too many troops in the garrison, eating up my cash reserves. So I never had too much money to grow quickly. A further restraint on my expansion was the lack of family members, as newly conquered provinces needed to be pacified first, so a general was tied up for a long time. When one died, it was a long process trying to send a replacement. Needless to say, I never finished the campaign, after playing on and off for a couple of years (!) I finally uninstalled the game when I was moving my files to a new hard drive. Now I started up again, this time playing the Brutii. I do not see my first campaign as wasted time. I learned a lot about every aspect of the game. It was certainly worth it.

A couple of things I did as the Julii: Sometimes you come across rebel provinces. If you do want to start a war with one of your powerful neighbors then take on the rebels. Some provinces are much more valuable than others. Look especially hard in the mediterranean. Late in the game I sent a navy to Crete and captured it. That could have been a good launching point for attacks in that part of the world, but it was also nice to have a base there for diplomatic activities. Another thing I did (late) was to bribe away armies and family members from the competing Roman factions. Much cheaper and a very quick way to raise armies.

I agree, it's a great game even years after its release. I am planning on trying the mods soon (but will probably still try vanilla BI first).

[NobleNick]

Welcome to the forums, Davidius!

I personally like to see (turns) / (territories held) be less than 4. Some folks like to go more slowly. I think you are in O.K. shape, if you are playing the long campaign.

You are not going through the turns too slowly, either. Some (very meticulous) players take most of a day to get through a turn in the later stages of a long campaign. A turn typically takes me 30 minutes (plus 40+ minutes per battle).

If no one is attacking you, I would take on the Britons if I were in your shoes; unless the Germans and Britons are fighting each other; in which case I would take Iberia, then come back for the Britons. What you want to do is get all of western Europe, and western N. Africa, so that you only have one front.

You want to develop several cities to pump out LEGIONARY COHORT (LC) (at least 3 cities), Archer Auxilia (AA) (at least 2 cities) and Legionary Cav (at least 2 cities) and at least one city which can pump out the best naval unit Julii can get (I forget what that is). It worked for me to have one city do LC and cav, one do LC and AA, one city do LC and navy, and one city do AA and cav, with all 4 of these cities clustered in and near northern Italy.

I emphasize that LC are the most cost effective infantry unit in the game, and will win you the game if built in at least moderate numbers and used prudently.

My post Marius stacks often looked like this:

1.) Field army, or army for sieging a settlement: 10 units of LC + 4 units of AA + 4 units of Legionary Cav + catapult + general

2.) Army stationed to defend choke points (other than bridges) : 8 to 12 Legionary cav + 1 to 4 generals. Always get attacked in open territory. Always run until the enemy is exhausted. Then pick the enemy apart with still-fresh cav.

3.) Army stationed to defend bridges: 6 AA + 6 LC + 2 Legionary cav. LC plug the bridge exit. Enemy stacks up on the bridge. AA, stationed mostly on your left flank, pour arrows into the enemy's unshielded right flank. Let 1 or 2 of your AA units use fire arrows. Leg. Cav are used to chase down routers.

4.) Army defending a city: 10 LC + 7 AA + 2 Legionary cav + general. One or two units of LC on the wall or on the ground near the wall for every siege tower/ladder. At least 2 LC on the ground near the gates and near each sap point. Fill the rest of the wall with AA. The enemy should lose 30% of their men to arrow fire before a single enemy man gets into the city. The LC can easily take it from there. Mounted warriors will be needed to ensure routers do not escape.

I hope this helps.

[Prince_of_Macedon]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[morteduzionism]

My only option after the Spanish are the Britons to the north.

Why? Why not consolidate what you have and develop your infrastructure before moving on? If you stretch yourself too thin, you may snap.

My main question is:
I couldn't find a post about this, but what is a good pace to conquer? like one territory every 1/2/3 years?

I play a mod with citizenship buildings(I think those are the garrisons in Vanilla). The rule of thumb I use when conquering is don't move onto the next city until you can recruit/replenish troops in the city you just conquered.

It also takes me an awful long time between moves, I look through every city, all my armies, spies, assassins etc.
It takes me like 30min before I press that next turn button.

...that's the way I do it too...

Am I to slow, should I start over again and do everything faster or is there still hope to conquer the world.

Are you having fun? If so, what's the problem? Rome was not made in an afternoon.

Besides in my experiences there're so many nuances to the game that unless you know them all going fast is a big mistake. Ask yourself this:

1. Do I want to experience all the game has to offer?

or

2. Do I want to beat the game as fast as possible?

The answers to those questions should determine your pace...

[Davidius]

Thanks for all the good help to all of you.
Here is what I did.
Nobody knows that I'm not a regular roman leader, but a time traveler.
So I went back into my time rift and entered the war a few years back before attacking the Spanish.
This time I dispended all my unused armies, that were just sitting around doing nothing and costing money.
Thanks NobleNick for giving me the tips on what armies to build, that seems to work nicely.
After a marathon of attacking, rebuilding, expanding, defending, I'm now at the year 195BC (yup, didn't get any sleep last night).
I now exterminated the Gaul and Spanish, I own Mauretabia which is my southern front line next to the Scipii, and all of Europe where my front lines are at Belgica and Germania Superior. It was a good Idea to attack the Britons in Trier, because now the Germans are still alive and hanging in there.
This means the Britons are fighting me on the east and the Germans on the west.
I managed to take Balmatia and Illyria, also Sardinaia, two provinces in Sicilia.
I got Dacia and managed to sneak an army into Propontos.
All this resulted into the Brutii not being able to expand that fast.
When looking at the graphs, only in power of the armies the Brutii is still more powerful than I am, I'm second though.
In all other graphs I come out on top .
All in all, I own 30 provinces, got a positive cash flow and a good army in the east to take some provinces before the Brutii get there.
Get some good tips, learn from history and use that time rift and it all can look very different in no time.
Now off to fight the Britons and steal a little province in the east here and there.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

That's great. You're on the right track to victory man!

[Aristarchus]

I just finished a Julii campaign and agree with the advice given by NobleNick. I used legionary cohorts as a cheap but strong garrison force, but built praetorian cohorts to fill the armies going to the front. I was worried about the Brutii, too, but once I attacked Rome, the city fell swiftly and I achieved victory before facing the green hordes of Roman brothers. I may go back just to play it out and face the challenge.

[Athreios]

In my first campagin, it looked quite the same with the Brutii having about 15full stacked armies on the field at 200BC. I (Julii too) expanded strongly as well, but seeing no chance against so many men, i quit...

The screenshot is a bit out of date, i had conquered the Germans too and parts of northern east-europe while the Brutii had all of Scythia.

Is it normal for the AI to act so aggressively?

[Selifator]

Yes, the AI has built in that it will attack you sooner or later, more likely sooner. So all of your enemies will be aggresive if they can, and add to that the Roman civil war...

[Athreios]

Hm, damn. Then i should have played it a little longer (it got boring ;-) )

[Prince_of_Macedon]

It takes me like 30min before I press that next turn button.
Am I to slow, should I start over again and do everything faster or is there still hope to conquer the world.
It would suck to play hopeless game for 2 month just to lose.
Any comment is welcomed.

I think it would be better to lose a Campaign from time-to-time. That way, you'll be much more motivated the next time around.

[Athreios]

Better to have a game where you lose heroically fighting against some mighty empire than steamrolling through all the world without challenges I find!

[Augustus Lucifer]

Agreed. Though I think the next TW game will be better, if it lets you use alliances that are kept by the AI, the difficulty should lie in the battles themselves and the conquering an enemy, not in the sheer overwhelming number of enemies attacking you.

I'm a slowpoke for the record, I like to develop my infrastructure first, and then expand gradually. Also, watch out for Briton chariots, they can be a pain in the arse.

[Benz282]

I tend to go fast in my campaigns. Early on, I focus entirely on infastructure; no military buildings (for the most part) until all economic buildings are upgraded. In the meantime, I pump out the best troops I can from whatever cities that can make them, and use my army to take as many key targets from my most powerful neighbor. I then move my capital and start upgrading the infastructure of the new territory.

From then on, things differ according to what faction I'm playing, but 90% of the troops I use in battle are recruited from the front lines (take a city, retrain, make new units to garrison, then make more, higher quality troops to bolster the field army before moving on).

[poloport]

you should play at the rate you want to, regardless of the objectives, once i conquered everithing except 3 provinces, then i gave it all to the only other faction allive, except the rebels and me, and started all over

[TuuSaR]

More you blitz and more you attack without man superiority in the beginning, the more easy the game will be later on. Troops should move pretty much all the time. Of course its not realistic, but its a game, not a Rome era simulation so never mind that. You have to think it more as a system, not a role game.

In my Julii game(where I moved fast as unit can move on), I found that dogs are simply stunningly good. Those animals won the game for me.

[Nevski]

As Julii, I always send a good army to Greece, take a town or two, to stop Brutii a little bit, and don't give them all the riches of the greek trade;
another army to take Carthage(defending it afterwards for some turns, as the desperate carthaginians trying to take their capital back, and then after some training gather troops and expand further in Africa.) - this way Scipii, with just 4 towns, stop going anywere.

Also, I think, Julii, after taking Segestica in the first turn, should head north straightaway and take the two Gauls town as soon as possible, as their armies will grow very quickly (and the delay could be costly) - and here you have a solid base from were to develop further, plus with 5 towns in proximity - traders, ports, roads, and the money will flow.

[TheTrueGreek]

whenever i play, i always start with patavium being my one and only target, it is easily the best city the julii are going to get for income and troops, and keeping it from the gauls is important