"[Insert City Here] Has called its citizens to war! You're :wub:!

[Tackowat]

Edit: It would appear even censored swear words are... censored. Oh, well, you know what it's
supposed to say.

So, I was playing a Carthaginian campaign right last night. After a few turns I've got an army and I'm ready to go to work on Italy. Forgetting this (in my opinion) unnecessary feature, I start by besieging Roma. I expect a hard fight, since there are a few smaller Roman stacks nearby, but I imagine that with some hard work, I'll be able to pull through.

Suddenly, Roma is filled with a huge stack. This, in and of itself, is okay, as I guess it makes sense that the people who can afford weapons and armour will make an effort to defend their capital, the very centre of their civilisation. I right-click and...

Ruh-roh. It seems every one of these people has had elite training and has experienced several battles. They also have some of the best arms and armour in the world, equipment of truly exquisite craftsmanship. Needless to say, my army no longer stands even the most far-fetched chance in the deepest, coldest, most sickening layer of Hell.

At this point it's too late to turn back, so I decide to go for it anyway. As expected, I am absolutely obliterated, and the Romans still has a huge, elite army, which it uses over the next couple of turns to completely destroy my empire, taking Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia from me, as well as some of my African settlements. At this point I end the campaign.

Now, here's why I don't like this feature: it makes no sense. Sure, the capital of a nation can get a boost like that, within reason. It shouldn't have units that the faction can't train yet, and it certainly shouldn't have gold chevrons. Is there no way to make this feature a little more reasonable? I'd hate to delete it completely.

[Anakarsis]

The solution is....0 turns recruitment! XDXDXDXXD

I added that and got a lot of fun, top gun armies vs top gun armies.....personally i really hate when i has to go to battle with just militia.

This way, you spend some turns building some decent barracks, and then, you can build an army in 2 turns (that is not SO unrealistic, ONE YEAR sounds like a reasonable time to assemble an army to me)

[Tackowat]

The solution is....0 turns recruitment! XDXDXDXXD

I added that and got a lot of fun, top gun armies vs top gun armies.....personally i really hate when i has to go to battle with just militia.

This way, you spend some turns building some decent barracks, and then, you can build an army in 2 turns (that is not SO unrealistic, ONE YEAR sounds like a reasonable time to assemble an army to me)

You have intrigued me greatly and I wish to learn more. Does the AI also take advantage of this 0 turn recruitment? How do I add it? Is the upkeep high enough to avoid the AI making billions of gigantic armies that are in no way realistic?

[Barend]

I think there is a way to avoid all this. There was a thread about it recently. Maybe you can find if if you search for "garrison script". I thought it had something to do with NOT clicking on the advisor and clicking n the X instead, I'm not certain though.

[gaius_caesar]

ah the good ol' garrison script. good times, good times....

[gingerbill]

yes i asked about this a few weeks ago , the simple thing to do is not click the advisor which is what triggers the garrison script . So if you dont want the garrison to appear just carry on without clicking the advisor .


http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=224620

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

The garrison script is easily edited. They are located in the xgm/Data/scripts/show_me folder.

That's one of the best things about RTW, that simple text editing can fix almost any gameplay problem out there. My personal modding of XGM has made it much more fun for me personally.

I've changed it so that low quality levy units are spawned. It makes sense that if you attack a large city capital, they could muster a few thousand militia hoplites and levy spearmen to oppose you. Don't forget that taking a large city defended by a few thousand low quality units is probably still going to result in quite a few casualties: even levy spearmen take time to dislodge from walls, and even the most elite units will get tired from killing them.

Much more realistic and fun than the Hell Legions that were originally summoned whenever one of the Doom Fortresses with a garrison script was attacked

[NinjaWJ]

It happened to me when i was besieging Syracuse. I was able to kill more than half of them but still lost. The next turn i come back again and they suddenly respawn to another full stack.

Does anyone know if changing recruitment time to 0 affects the ai too?

[Scutarii]

It happened to me when i was besieging Syracuse. I was able to kill more than half of them but still lost. The next turn i come back again and they suddenly respawn to another full stack.

Does anyone know if changing recruitment time to 0 affects the ai too?

If you change all units in the EDU to 0 turn, the AI can train 0 turn as well, although often they will stick to 1 per turn unless in overdrive or something... The garrison scripts are designed to prevent blitzing the AI's capital to cripple them (ie: the OP's example of going right for Roma). That is no longer a viable strategy on those nations that have the scripts (Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucia, Syracuse, Carthage, Rhodes). Take the time to advance steadily and build up a couple of stacks to take down the script spawned army.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

If you change all units in the EDU to 0 turn, the AI can train 0 turn as well, although often they will stick to 1 per turn unless in overdrive or something... The garrison scripts are designed to prevent blitzing the AI's capital to cripple them (ie: the OP's example of going right for Roma). That is no longer a viable strategy on those nations that have the scripts (Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucia, Syracuse, Carthage, Rhodes). Take the time to advance steadily and build up a couple of stacks to take down the script spawned army.

Good thing they didn't tell Hannibal about that. Looks like his attempt at going straight for Rome was a huge mistake, given that the Legions of Doom would spawn and annihilate his army as soon as he put the city under siege .

Of course, the current XGM wall defenses are so hilariously overpowered his entire army would be killed by them in 5 minutes, so I guess he was screwed either way. (I just did a test with the wall defenses of Rome: epic size wall defenses killed 4300 carthaginians in less than 20 minutes. I wonder why they ever invented the semi automatic sniper rifle, as Rome apparently already had a few dozen of them. With unlimited ammunition. )

[silentsam74]

So, I was playing a Carthaginian campaign right last night. After a few turns I've got an army and I'm ready to go to work on Italy. Forgetting this (in my opinion) unnecessary feature, I start by besieging Roma. I expect a hard fight, since there are a few smaller Roman stacks nearby, but I imagine that with some hard work, I'll be able to pull through.

Suddenly, Roma is filled with a huge stack. This, in and of itself, is okay, as I guess it makes sense that the people who can afford weapons and armour will make an effort to defend their capital, the very centre of their civilisation. I right-click and...

Ruh-roh. It seems every one of these people has had elite training and has experienced several battles. They also have some of the best arms and armour in the world, equipment of truly exquisite craftsmanship. Needless to say, my army no longer stands even the most far-fetched chance in the deepest, coldest, most sickening layer of Hell.

Had the same thing happen to me. I was playing a campaign as GCS and had gotten to the point that I needed the colossus boost to really start turning out armies. I had read about the garrison script but had forgotten which cities were included. So, Rhodes ended up having a full stack of super killers with mostly high experienced and armed and armoured greek hoplites. Well, i didn't have anything to compare having already known that previously the garrison there was a lone general and his bodyguard.

Luckily for me, I caught them slipping. For some reason they had loaded up the whole stack in a fleet right off the coast of Rhodes. Fortunately, I had put several thousand denarii in my navy and was able to sink their fleet and put a stop to any plans they had with their uber army.

The next time I assaulted Rhodes, I did it with a couple of onagers in my stack. No siege = no garrison!

EDIT: BTW, I agree with your idea about a weaker version of the spawned stacks. Even Rohan was able to come up with a decent garrison in the face of Saruman's assualt. But, they didn't spawn several éoreds of horsemen out of nowhere.

[NinjaWJ]

haha i like the LOTR reference

[Scutarii]

Hannibal never went straight for Rome, he marched into N. Italy. and down to S. Italy. He never had the manpower or siege weapons to actually take the city itself, so the script better represents that someone would need a very large, well organized army with ample siege support to actually take a huge city like Rome. And yes, the wall defenses are quite overpowered, but the AI is a complete idiot in siege attacks especially...

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Hannibal never went straight for Rome, he marched into N. Italy. and down to S. Italy. He never had the manpower or siege weapons to actually take the city itself, so the script better represents that someone would need a very large, well organized army with ample siege support to actually take a huge city like Rome. And yes, the wall defenses are quite overpowered, but the AI is a complete idiot in siege attacks especially...

The siege technology is only necessary if the defender has a significant portion of his forces left: how do you think the Goths took Rome in 410? Did they have better siege weapons than the Carthaginians? Of course not, but there was nobody left to man the defenses anyway so it didn't matter.

The Senate and the rest of Rome was absolutely terrified of Hannibal, especially after he defeated their 80 000 strong emergency force.

They certainly thought he could take Rome, but I agree with you that at the height of its power during either the Roman Republic or Roman Empire, no force had the siege weapons to take Rome.

I like the idea of garrison scripts for large and huge cities especially, but why JUST Rome and a few other capitals? I don't like the inconsistency. Either have all of the huge, well defended cities with it, or have none. Because it makes no sense to take say Ariminum easily, when it might have virtually the same population and defences as Rome.

Of course, it might not be possible to have garrison scripts for every huge city, because every town can technically become one, and how can you tell if it will be a huge city by the time someone attacks it, etc.

[aznflea]

rome had the population of around 1-2 million according to the history channel.

it deserves a garrison script.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Admiral guy, I agree, that's why I changed my garrison scripts so that the enemies that appear are levies and militias rather than elites. (there is maybe one or two elites to represent wealthier elites, but most of the army is not)

It's very easy to modify. The scripts are in xgm/Data/scripts/show_me if you want to make the garrisons that appear militias.

rome had the population of around 1-2 million according to the history channel.

it deserves a garrison script.

Around 1 million at 100 BC or so.

Rhodes never had a million people or anywhere near that (probably not even close to 100 000), but it still has an elite army that appears out of nowhere as well haha.

[GrandAdmiral de Ruyter]

I do like the garrison scripts but certainly not for all cities. I don't think that all cities would raise an army when faced with an invading force, but proud capital cities with lots of rich inhabitants to pay for soldiers is credible.

I also think that these emergency armies should not consist of elite troups. Militia would be better.

[Scutarii]

The garrison scripts are a) to stop blitzing. A militia army is not going to do that. and b) to represent cities that proved difficult to take historically (for example, Rhodes was famous for its siege defense, and Ptolemy got all the way to Seleucia during one of the Syrian Wars before the TSE shoved them back to egypt).

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

The garrison scripts are a) to stop blitzing. A militia army is not going to do that. and b) to represent cities that proved difficult to take historically (for example, Rhodes was famous for its siege defense, and Ptolemy got all the way to Seleucia during one of the Syrian Wars before the TSE shoved them back to egypt).

Don't underestimate levy and militia armies . A full stack of them inside a city with large walls is not easy to dislodge: remember that at the town centre they never break, either.

If you've completely crushed all of the defenses and armies on the way to the capital, and you have a full stack of decent units that can easily destroy a full stack of defending militia units, then you know what? That's not "blitzing". That's "invading" and doing a good job of it.

I wonder what the Gauls would have said if they had the internet: "omg, no fair, Caesar is blitzing his way through Gaul, we should get a garrison script of super elites in Alesia to deal with him! Otherwise he'll take all of Gaul in like 3 turns! so unbalanced lol"

And what would the Greeks say while the Macedonians steamrolled over them....and then the Romans a few centuries later. History is full of this "blitzing", good thing historical conquerors didn't have to deal with garrison scripts of ultra experienced elites.

[Scutarii]

The difference is in RTW, if you blitz well, you can conquer the Romans (Italy) in a few years just because you took Rome and killed their economic bonuses. In real life, that was not the case. The AI is incapable of defending these locations that are perfect for naval invasion by the player, so the script does it for them. The AI doesn't know that it will be crippled if this one city is lost, but the player does and can take advantage of it.