Western Roman Empire (occidentalis i think)

[thebull0425]

What is the strategy to start? I looked it over, and I want a challenge, but with so much red ink after one turn, what is a man to do? Can anyone give me some ideas, suggestions, thoughts.

One I am thinking of, is disbanding units I won't be using, and maybe giving up some settlements to consolidate power. Once that is done and I can get my economy rolling, then strike out.

Thoughts?

[Incontinenta Buttox]

I have had a similar situation. the first turn is crucial with the WRE. On my first attempt it soon became obvious that I had screwed up my forst turn and I was never going to recover.

I have just started again wih a new strategy for the first turn.

1, Move all the troops in the forts in North Africa into the cities. Lower the tax rate in the rioting cities until the troops get there in the next turn.

2, Abandon Corduba in Spain. Sell all the buildings for cash, and move all the troops (except for 1 unit) to Carthago Nova. Another option is to abandon Spain completley, and ship the troops to North Africa, and gather a field army for the reconquest of Spain.

3, Disband some troops. I have disbanded the Bucellari (The ones with crossbows) as they are not much use in battle and expensive to upkeep. I have also disbanded most of the Foederati Noble Cavalry, who are also very expensive to upkeep.

4, You will notice a small fort in northern Gaul, with some units in. You can disband these, or use them to besiege the frankish capital to cause a nuisance.

5, Build land clearance in the cities that don't yet have it. Most of these will be in North Africa, and cheap happiness buildings in any rioting cities.

6, Form a field army from the troops in Northern Italy to tackle the Goths.

7, Recruit loads of Hunnic and Gothic Foederati troops in the Balkans. these are very cheap to recruit and upkeep. The Hunnic horse archers mean death to lightly armoured Goths. It's going to be a very long time before you are able to afford to recruit comitatenses.

8, Leave your powerful field armies in the balkans where they are. Or the Eastern Roman Empire are likely to attack you. You can move some of these tropps to Italy to tackle the Goths. But before long you are going to need armies in the balkans. And the balkan cities are ones you just cannot afford to lose.

9, Remember to raise the tax to high in all the cities that will allow it.

Financically it will still be tough. But as you lose troops in battle, your upkeep costs will drop. Hopefully, after the Goths in Italy are destroyed. You will start to make some money.


Hope this helps.

[mw1776]

I agree with Incontinenta Buttox. The first turn is crucial. I did pretty much what he did, but I also disbanded almost all of my cavalry/camel units. I kept a couple of heavy cavalry units near Ravenna just in case however.

If you're using the Visigoth migration script (which I recommend) you can ignore them in Italy (just like real life Honorius!). Save your units for defending against the Alemani and trying to take back parts of Gaul.

Defend North Africa at all costs even if it means abandoning Spain. Very soon the Berbers will hit you hard there and you'll need all the support you can get.

To get on your feet financially disband all non essential units. Only keep combat units near the borders and only have enough to withstand a siege if need be. Except for retaking Gaul play defense as much as possible. If a settlement doesn't border the AI you can most likely get away with having 2-3 cheap units garrison it. Use your little starting funds to build farms and public order buildings in the settlements that are red. Try not to lower taxes except as a last restort.

But, yeah, to reiterate, the first turn for WRE is crucial. However, if you play it smart by a few turns you can be making several thousand denarii a turn and will be in a position to retake all of your lost territories.

[charles the hammer]

What i did was disband all missle calvary and conquered arelate. I lost corubada and tingi to the vandals. I sent all available troops to rome to deal with the visigoths. after they were gone i had temporary peace until the burgandi came. I kept them in check with neither attacking we were both to afraid i quess. when something unexpected happened. The imperium constanti defeated the alamani making them horde. I had one army in italy. (I had one in the east fighting the eastern empire and one to help shield cartho nova and counter attack the vandals) Luckly the alamani headed north for a little while giving me time to beat the burgandi but with my army weakened and needing retraining i sent them to ravenna when the alamani came back and sacked the m town in northern italy. Constaninus came back and is one battle from destroying the alamani. I have conquered spain and africa. thank you mecenaries and my campaign is finally looking good. aetius is winning the eastern front after a devastating lost of his entire army. I rebuilt it and have taken several cities in greece. Man those easterners just keep sending stack after stack after stack i must have killed well over 10,000 easterns and their still coming in large numbers this is where i am now.

[Agelastus]

[This advice is based on only using the four turns per year script, as I consider having Rome sacked by a script a dereliction of a player's duty. Moreover, this is only from my own personal experience, and I tend to be very bloody minded about losing my cities.]

(1) Taking Arelate on the first turn eliminates half of your negative income immediately - you do have those onagers right next to it, after all.

(2) Having Rome beseiged the first turn is disastrous; build a full queue of archer units and one heavy infantry type. The Visigoths will retreat north.

(3) Losing a city is an avoidable setback. The Vandals will go for Corduba ahead of Carthago Nova in force nine times out of ten. And the Vandals are not particularly strong compared to the other powers. Using your remaining money to build units to resist a Vandal assault in Cordoba is doable. The first assault may cost you half the garrison, but reinforcements can be brought from Africa. Remeber - shieldwall is very strong in a street, and the enemy's goal is the town square.

(4) Your goals on the central front, apart from siezing Arelate, should be as follows -
(a) Ally with the Huns.
(b) Keep a full garrison stack blocking the Alamans. You have good troops in the north to do this, The Alamans are surprisingly weak when facing even semi-decent cavalry.
(c) Concentrate troops in Northern Italy to kill the Visigoths. You need two stacks, one created by combining the Rome garrison with units moved from the Po valley, the second formed from the two coastal stacks across the Adriatic. The remainder on the forces from these stacks should reinforce your Danubian and Eastern Roman frontier cities to discourage the other powers from immediately attacking..

(5) It is good advice to abandon all the forts - sitting the troops in the cities to keep them down is essential, and also allows you to move better troops elsewhere. And good troops are NOT essential to resist the early Moorish advances as their infantry is frankly crap when it comes to assaulting stone walls.

(6) Remember - depending on your casualties you are at worst three cities from solvency. And once you are solvent, economic buildings will soon get the money flowing.


.........

Now, depending how gamey you wish to be.
Rivers are your friend (think archers and Visigoths)
Sorties are your friend (think towers and AI bravery)

[Pliniux]

Very good suggestions!

[ineedatarget]

Do not abandon any city in Iberia because you needn't to do so. Just disband some troops too far away from the front like those in Africa and Northern Gaul.
You can see some troops ready to strike Constantine the usurper, rally them and finish him off in the first turn. Do not lose too many men, you must rely on this force to conquer most of Gaul. You need to split this army into 2 parts. One takes onagers and march north, the other focuses on the settlements in the West Gaul. When the southern part of Gaul had been taken, join them together and strike the northern part.
Choose to exterminate in the beginning, you have no time and army to make people happy.
Goths will take Rome soon, just make sure they can only get 2 cities before you build an army to strike back.
Fighting against barbarians from germania is simple.
1.Recruit some archers(0 turns to recruit).
2.When the battle began, use archers to shoot them. They will chase your archers.
3.Let your archers come back. The barbarians will think you are retreating and call the pursuing forces back.
4.All you need to do is to shoot their asses. Then go back to step 2.
5.Once they lost 50% of their men, they started to run away.
If you have onagers, just have a coffee and watch barbarians get bombarded.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I'm playing a H/H campaign at the moment and have been playing as realistically as possible to see if the RTW game can cope! My sig contains updated progress so everyone can follow my exploits but I'd thought I'd share the strategy here if you want to play a variant of the above tips:

Remember, this is as if you were following the ethos of the Late Roman government!

1 - never - repeat, NEVER - abandon any fort or limes frontier. Rome never ceeded territory unless it was formally given over to foederate tribes or lost in war. Reduce the main garrison limitanei to one unit, pull the others back to the main cities, and consolidate into field armies, especially in Africa.

2 - Gain Arelate as quickly as possible and move up the Rhodanus river to take Lugudunum.

3 - Disband ALL foederate and non-Roman troops immediately to save funds. This is crucial. Historically, Gothic units were massacred following Adrianople so we can follow suit here and retire/massacre those units.

4 - Retire all forces in Hispania to Carthago Nova except for a token unit in the remaining city (Corduba) which you will use to slow the Vandals down. Both cities will come under seige - expect to lose Corduba but beat back the assault on Carthago Nova - this will become the base to launch a counter-offensive.

5 - sack and massacre all re-gained cities for money. Be ruthless. You will pile in the denarii later on and be able to rebuild those cities - even Rome in time. Right now you need to forget any morality and punish those who gave in to the barbarians!

6 - wait until the Visigoths are migrating out of Italy and strung out in a long column. Hit the head and the tail together with a field army each. one from Pannonia and the other from units cobbled together in Italy itself. Then move in on the remaining stacks.

7 - Hold the Vandals as quickly as possible and build up a field army in Africa. Speed in the essence here as soon the Berbers will start hitting you from out of the desert and you cannot fight on two fronts here.

8 - once your in the black - say, within 5/6 turns if you pillage Arelate/Lugudunum/Toledo/Terraco, etc. build farms, roads, mines and trading outposts as fast as you can.

9 - if the ERE goes for you (scripts off) - use the cheap Hunnic foederates to slow their stacks down until your field armies can come into play.

10 - maximise choke-points with forts filled with single units to delay the enemy columns until your field armies can respond.

I was surprised and pleased that I was able to hold the limes in Africa (I lost a single fort to a berber attack) and have now sent a punitive expedition into the desert and sacked their main town. The Vandals have been pushed out of Hispania and are now hording into Gaul and the Imperium Constaninii. My main struggles now are with a very aggressive ERE - I am slowly building up my units to full strength to begin a full-scale advance into the rest of Gaul!

[Pompeius Magnus]

1 - never - repeat, NEVER - abandon any fort or limes frontier. Rome never ceeded territory unless it was formally given over to foederate tribes or lost in war. Reduce the main garrison limitanei to one unit, pull the others back to the main cities, and consolidate into field armies, especially in Africa.

yup
I like your strategy too - btw all steps are great.
However, your first tip is the most important.

[legio_XX]

[quote=SeniorBatavianHorse;4187263]I'm playing a H/H campaign at the
Remember, this is as if you were following the ethos of the Late Roman government!

1 - never - repeat, NEVER - abandon any fort or limes frontier. Rome never ceeded territory unless it was formally given over to foederate tribes or lost in war. Reduce the main garrison limitanei to one unit, pull the others back to the main cities, and consolidate into field armies, especially in Africa.

all is what i do haha SBH,JH,PM great minds think alike eh?

[julianus heraclius]

Ah, SBH, I like a man who takes on a challenge and resists the temptation to abandon all troops in an attempt for a quick fix. I like your strategy which is something I recommend when playing IJ. Being in debt makes you appreciate your army so much more and you have to think more creatively.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks for the encouragements, JH and PM! There is something addictive playing with field armies whose ordines slowly crumble and you know you cannot replenish anytime soon. You aren't so cavalier about throwing in those elite cataphracts anymore, that's for sure . . .

[Caesar Julianus Morelli]

Thanks SBH that helps.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

You said it!