My strategy

[taw]

Hi,

I've read many strategy guide, and they all propose going slow. I tried to go fast instead and wrote about it on my blog (I guess it's too long to copy and paste here, or should I paste it anyway?).

Are there any problems with this strategy? I played it with Egyptians on Medium/Medium, so maybe it won't work on VH/VH with Seleucids.

All comments appreciated. Rome: Total War is the best strategy game I've played in ages

[Prince_of_Macedon]

I'll move this to "Battle Planning."

[Entropy Judge]

I'm going to be posting things as I read them, because it's easier that way ...

I tried to go fast instead ... I played it with Egyptians

Just something I've noticed: The AI is dumb. Since it's dumb, it relies on money to hire more men and build more things. Early in the game, when they're restricted in what they can build, they're ridiculously easy to take advantage of. And the Egyptians have one of the best start locations in the game.

In a way of full disclosure I play with fog of war turned off (~ toggle_fow),

Makes things too easy. True you can't see *what* units you'll be facing, but you can see *how many*, roughly *how strong*, and most importantly *where they are and where they can go*. Makes a big difference strategy-wise.

camera movement restriction turned off (~ toggle_restrictcam).

Pretty sure you don't need to cheat to do this - it should be in the Options in-Battle.

The second biggest source of income is farming and mining. Because it doesn't depend on city size at all, it's better to build basic farming and mining everywhere you can before you build advanced farming/mining.

I've not looked into how Farming specifically affects income, but it's actually a rather bad idea: It makes your cities grow faster, and doesn't really seem to help that much. That's part of why Carthage is always a pain to keep happy. I'm not saying "Don't build farms." Rather, it seems that farm upgrades past the first are counter-productive unless you're in a poor area (Germany ...).

And in any case tax income is going to be much lower than trade income, and as higher tax rates reduce growth and public order I normally set all tax rates to Low by default. In smaller settlements it's important for the sake of growth, in larger settlements for the sake of public order.

And, with only the first level of Farms, you're usually so rolling in money that by the time PO starts giving you trouble and you need to take them off High (I usually have High or Very High taxes) they'll barely be growing.

It's important to keep your public order high, otherwise citizens can rebel damaging population, buildings, and your soldiers, brigands will spawn more often, and the whole city may even rebel throwing your garrison away. If a big city with a lot of military buildings rebels they will have a very respectable army and will be a major pain in the ass to retake.

Firstly, in my games the army gets kicked out, but nothing else happens to it. Secondly, the buildings don't seem to affect the troops that come out. I was the Scipii, and I'd taken one of Numidia's inland cities but didn't want to keep it, so after burning all the buildings, I let it rebel. Gold Armor/Weapons and 6 XP units came out.

Government buildings and religious buildings having the biggest effect, so the first thing you want to do to reduce it is destroying any religious building they might have and building your own.

Unless it gives a better bonus than your own. A barbarian faction capturing a Roman Huge City with a Pantheon to Saturn (Temple of Law) would be better off keeping the Culture penalty for the Temple, since the Happiness/Law PO bonus is better than the Culture Penalty.

It's important to have cavalry superiority, even though the cavalry won't win the battle for you.

Online, yes. And the second statement is blatantly false - it's possible to take out Greek armies consisting only of Phalanx units with Barbarian light Cavalry. Cavalry is broken in this game, and so are Archers.

So obviously bowmen shouldn't be left without protection.

Depends on the unit. Foresters, for example, have Spears, and can defend themselves adequately against light Cavalry.

The difference between defeated army suffering 30% loses refilled in the first visit to nearby city

The AI does NOT replenish its units. At least, I've never seen them do it - not in Vanilla, and not in EB.

tactics depends on range of your missile units, so usually it makes no sense at all to have multiple kinds of missile units in the same army.

Wrong. Peltasts, for example, are decent skirmishers and decent meleers once they run out of ammo, so that's a good reason to keep them. Archers are broken, so that's a good reason to keep them. Onagers crush phalanx units and are great against cities, so if you have them and like them, you should use them.

Missile troops alone are not going to win the battle.

Again, wrong. Foresters right off the bat are 11 attack, and with two temples it's possible to get them to 17 attack, which is enough to start winning battles with just Foresters.

Easy way to win a siege is having missile units and cavalry.

Cavalry are actually rather bad in a siege, unless you're baiting the AI to Sally Forth - the pathing gets icky inside the city, and Cavalry don't like to charge.

It's much much worse if they have stone walls and some missile units to man the walls. Because they're higher and protected by walls they're easily ten times as deadly as your missile units shooting at them. Add to that fire coming from towers, and reinforced games slowing down ramming a lot, and you can lose a quarter of your army before even coming inside.

Even trying to use a Ram on a Stone Wall is a stupid idea. You either use a spy to open the Gate, you go over the wall, or you bring the wall down. Ramming the gate just gets men killed.

You can obviously starve them, forcing them to attack you, but that's going to be very slow.

It's also significantly less painful for your troops. The way to do it properly is to have a weaker force doing the actual sieging, and try to get another force within Reinforcement range so you have a powerful army ready to come in when they open the gates for you.

In my last game with Egyptians I took all my armies, bought all the mercenaries I could, and expanded in three directions at once, west to Siwa and Cyrene, east to Petra, and Bostra, and north-west to Kydonia, and Sparta. Initial battles were tough, but this way I had a decent empire before anybody could even react. This plan was very ambitious, and it's quite likely that it might not have worked on higher difficulty levels, but it's a good idea to have some plan before starting to play.

It might have - the AI won't have access to any better troops than you do, and it's really stupid. It can't handle a blitz.

So go completely out of proportion, committing all your armies you can to the small part of the front where you want to achieve your objectives, like conquering enemy city, or destroying his not very strong armies. If AI has weakly protected settlement, take your big army and take it. If it has medium sized army in the field, crush it with army twice the size.

Or, get better at fighting. It's entirely possible to defeat (that is, 70%+ casualties) a 3/4 AI stack of mid-level troops with a half-stack of basic troops. Why waste money on troops who aren't even necessary?

[Roman_Wolf]

i agree with Entropy Judge.

[taw]

And the Egyptians have one of the best start locations in the game.

Yes, I've noticed. Not only they start with many cities, without natural enemies, they can produce chariots while everybody else can only make cannon fodder. I'm pondering if I should use Vanilla Balance mod for my next game or keep playing vanilla.

Makes things too easy. True you can't see *what* units you'll be facing, but you can see *how many*, roughly *how strong*, and most importantly *where they are and where they can go*. Makes a big difference strategy-wise.

That might be true against a human player, but AI is too dumb to plot surprise attacks. I don't think I ever relied on this information for strategic value, it mostly saves the effort of moving ten agents around every turn.

I've not looked into how Farming specifically affects income, but it's actually a rather bad idea: It makes your cities grow faster, and doesn't really seem to help that much.

Is there any way of getting your cities reach mid size fast so they get useful tech without getting them huge so they are manageable? I guess slavery could be used in place of PG, but moving governors around sounds like a lot of effort.

The AI does NOT replenish its units. At least, I've never seen them do it - not in Vanilla, and not in EB.

It seems to replenish. In my last game I sieged Rome with some onagers, killed 12% of them, including half of their only archers unit, and decided to that maybe I'll just wait for the rest of the troops instead of storming the city.

The next turn all their stack including their only archers unit were full.

Cavalry are actually rather bad in a siege, unless you're baiting the AI to Sally Forth - the pathing gets icky inside the city, and Cavalry don't like to charge.

I wonder if my experience is differents because I played with low unit size as a GPU-saving device. On strategy level most effects seem to be scaled so unit size doesn't matter, but maybe this affects tactics more than I thought.

It's also significantly less painful for your troops. The way to do it properly is to have a weaker force doing the actual sieging, and try to get another force within Reinforcement range so you have a powerful army ready to come in when they open the gates for you.

Keeping your troops frozen for 8 turns will cost you as much as recruiting two fresh stacks of them.

Or, get better at fighting. It's entirely possible to defeat (that is, 70%+ casualties) a 3/4 AI stack of mid-level troops with a half-stack of basic troops. Why waste money on troops who aren't even necessary?

Yes, AI is so bad that 1:1 strength ratio usually means AI will be massacred with barely any loses, and even 1:3 is occasionally winnable. Anyway my point is - recruitment is so cheap compared to upkeep that losing significant number of your troops just doesn't matter, unless they're so fancy you have very limited recruitment ability. Destroying AI armies and losing many troops is still way cheaper than waiting with troops garrissoned just in case AI decides to attack you. The whole game would be very different if recruitment:upkeep ratios were significantly higher than they are (they cannot really get much lower).

[NobleNick]

Good points by Entropy judge. (+rep)

Welcome to the forums, taw!

Yes, I've noticed. Not only they start with many cities, without natural enemies, they can produce chariots while everybody else can only make cannon fodder. I'm pondering if I should use Vanilla Balance mod for my next game or keep playing vanilla...

For now, just creeping up the difficulty and/or playing weaker factions should add interest.

...That might be true against a human player, but AI is too dumb to plot surprise attacks. I don't think I ever relied on this information for strategic value, it mostly saves the effort of moving ten agents around every turn...

I agree with Entropy Judge, that FOW=OFF does give an advantage, more so than I think you realize... but, if that is the way you enjoy playing, there's nothing wrong with it.

...Is there any way of getting your cities reach mid size fast so they get useful tech without getting them huge so they are manageable? I guess slavery could be used in place of PG, but moving governors around sounds like a lot of effort.

You are sort of between a rock and a hard place, here. The faster you grow cities early on, the more pain you feel in the mid-to-late game. And it gets worse: The AI goes hog-wild on farm upgrades, shafting you when you take them over later in the game. So...

For the cities you own at the start: Do land clearance and the first farm upgrade, and build the first 2 available buildings in the market line-up (markets add population growth). Then look to see how you are doing before going further on farms.

For cities you capture: Do slavery if you want more population in your other cities *AND* the capured city looks managable. Otherwise, exterminate large cities.

To answer your question directly, there are several ways to boost early game population:

1. Build lots of farms (disadvantage is large population and squalor later).
2. Build /upgrade markets (disadvantage is small pop./squalor boost).
3. Enslave captured cities.
4. Lower taxes (disadvantage is lost revenue)
5. train peasants elsewhere and disband them in target city. (disadvantage is that this is not very cost effective, especially on lower unit size settings.)

[taw]

For now, just creeping up the difficulty and/or playing weaker factions should add interest.

I really dislike games in which AI cheats. Extra money for AI doesn't bother me that much, as I'm most likely going to be the richest anyway, but extra morale is just too ugly. I started playing Greek Cities now, with medium unit sizes, and the early blitz strategy still works even better than with Egyptians. I lost one early battle with Macedon, well they just had much bigger army and I made more kills anyway, so I don't mind. After than it's been steamrolling with no loses (except some autoresolved naval battles). The only part where I feel I played a bit dirty was using auto-resolve for storming Corinth and Athens. Normally auto-resolve is hugely anti-player, but it somehow drastically underestimates what pain in the ass stone walls are, and it's the only case where it make sense to use.

Even if strategy level isn't that much of a challenge battles will always be, as I'm blitzing as fast as I can, so AI often has more troops.

You are sort of between a rock and a hard place, here. The faster you grow cities early on, the more pain you feel in the mid-to-late game

The real challenge is early to mid game. If I play fast enough then by the time I start having problems like that the game will be practically won, and it's just a matter of moping up.

5. train peasants elsewhere and disband them in target city. (disadvantage is that this is not very cost effective, especially on lower unit size settings.)

It surprises me that they didn't scale this one with unit size. On low unit sizes population effect of recruitment/disbanding is completely ignorable. I'm playing with medium unit sizes and it starts being slightly noticable for small towns. I guess on huge unit size it must be a major strategic factor.

[Draugdur]

...That might be true against a human player, but AI is too dumb to plot surprise attacks.

Oh, I'd seen my share of surprise attacks allright. In WRE BI campaign I just finished, I had a Celtic elite fuul-stack army landing near Samarobriva I never even saw coming...sons of *****es almost screwed me, bigtime. So, I'd reccomend playing with fow on - it can be quite fun

For the cities you own at the start: Do land clearance and the first farm upgrade, and build the first 2 available buildings in the market line-up (markets add population growth). Then look to see how you are doing before going further on farms.

Location is also an important factor. Capital and cities near it can sustain 35k+ population with very high taxes an almost no garrison. On the other hand, remote cities may be in red even with low taxes and a decent garrison (plus, these usually have culture penalty too).

The AI does NOT replenish its units. At least, I've never seen them do it

I have, in RTR. Not often, but it happens

Cavalry are actually rather bad in a siege, unless you're baiting the AI to Sally Forth - the pathing gets icky inside the city, and Cavalry don't like to charge.

Correct,especially for the light cavalry. However, heavy can be quite useful - its charge can instantly break an enemy unit even of it's on the plaza (which is normally nearly impossible). This makes pathfinding issues at least tolerable. I personally rarely do siege battles without at least one heavy cav unit, usually a general.

Even trying to use a Ram on a Stone Wall is a stupid idea.

Yup. However, it can be useful as a decoy, so the gateway towers shoot fire arrows at the ram instead at your siege towers. And since ram is less expencive to build (50p, compared to 65 for siege tower), it can pay off.
But I use this rarely, since ladders do the trick most of the time anyway.

Btw, taw, welcome

[Entropy Judge]

I really dislike games in which AI cheats. Extra money for AI doesn't bother me that much, as I'm most likely going to be the richest anyway, but extra morale is just too ugly.

So up the campaign difficulty, but not the Battle difficulty. Campaign affects the amount of money the AI factions get, as well as their aggression (I think ...). Battle Difficulty gives the bonuses to Attack/Morale on Hard/Very Hard.

It surprises me that they didn't scale this one with unit size. On low unit sizes population effect of recruitment/disbanding is completely ignorable. I'm playing with medium unit sizes and it starts being slightly noticable for small towns. I guess on huge unit size it must be a major strategic factor.

Even on Large (which is what I play at) it can be noticable, especially if you have the cash to just buy all the mercenaries in the region and disband them in a nearby town to boost its population by a few hundred.

Correct,especially for the light cavalry. However, heavy can be quite useful - its charge can instantly break an enemy unit even of it's on the plaza (which is normally nearly impossible). This makes pathfinding issues at least tolerable. I personally rarely do siege battles without at least one heavy cav unit, usually a general.

The only times I've gotten a decent cavalry charge at the plaza were in Large civilized Cities, though. In the smaller ones, since it's tucked into a corner, they don't get the room to charge (especially with the pathing issues), and they just don't like to charge the plaza proper in Barbarian settlements. I've done it a few times, but only against stationary units that were directly in front of them - if I picked a unit that was moving, fighting, or not the first unit in line, the pathing fouled up and they never charged. It is fun to break units on the plaza, though