New to EB. Some questions

[Boriak]

Just started playing this mod. I took a try with Romans since they seemed the easiest to get acquainted with the basics.

It's winter 270BC. I just conquered Rhegion, Taras a year before. After installing Type 3 government, Taras is giving me a hard time with public order. I've been funelling the Camillan Reserve (slingers) units from the nearest city (not sure about the name). I thought I would post a general in there as well but I'm not sure if that is wise. After conquerin Rhegion I installed a Type 4 government and then they were very happy with my general in there.

The biggest problem so far is cash. I'm still in the plus but every building costs a ton of minae and I don't know if I want to wait until the cash piles up or simply build the cheap ones. Also, Carthage has broken their teeth up against Syracuse and Messana and have now only a minor presence on Sicily. I want to take a crack at Messana but I fear my troops are not sufficiently strong. Recruiting units is also proving expensive since I want to be at least a bit historical and not spam Principes units.

I'm not asking for a secret recipe to success, just a few pointers regarding public order, using cash wisely and how to train units. Most importantly, on what time scale do I do all this. Do I train units/build structures every turn or every other turn, that kind of stuff.

[Anubis88]

Hi, welcome to the wonderfull world of EB, i will glady give you some pointers.

Let's start with the Mnai thing.
Rome is IMO the richest faction in the game, you just have to know what you are doing. The Roman units are the cheapest in the game, to rapresent the manpower of rome. If your lacking money, disband the units you don't need, especially your fleet, since it costs 1000 mnai per turn.
Also, cavalry is very expensive, so in time of peace you don't really need them.
To increse your income, try building farms, roads, ports and get trade rights from everyone you can. The greatest income comes from mines though. They are very expensive, and take a long time to build, but are worth every penny. Also try having the most competent administrators in your cities. I suggest sending one to Taras, a good one with a lot of influence and management. Influence increases public order, while a general with good management will make your income grow extremely.

For the buildings, build them once you've got enough mnai. Take a look how much mnai you are gaining per turn, and play accordingly. Rome really has a great economy, so just wait a few years, for your cities to increas population, and you'll have a lot of cash, enough even to build great fleets to protect your new provinces.

If you need any other advice, just ask.

Of course i must also ask you, since it's the first time you play EB, did you activate the script?

[Boriak]

I always activate the script. It's hard to forget; the damned thing pops up everytime I click on a city.

I have but one fleet, the one I had in the beginning. I used it to fish my spy from Sardinia (or was it Corsica?), sent my Diplomat to Epirus to get a ceasefire once I took Taras from them. Now it's there in case I need to go around some rebels.

I have two units of light cavalry, one for each army. I have one army to the south that just took Rhegion. Thinking of taking Messana before Carthage does. This army has 17 units, I think, including the general. There's another smaller army to the north in case of barbarian invasion and/or rebellion. About 10 units, I think. The rest are garrisons, a single unit in some cities, enough for them to be happy with High Taxes. Taras on the other hand has 6 units of Republican Reserves already and is still very unhappy. The only thing I can to now is to send a general of mine in there. But when I gave Rhegion Type 4 government, my general caused unrest. I fear it will be the same in Taras.

I honestly have no good general to spare. The best one is 68 years old and will most likely die within a year. That will give me two cities with unrest. My best general is on campaign. If I put him in a city so his Influence can do its thing, my army will have no general. I don't think I want to leave my army leaderless, unless I take one of the generals in Italy. But those guys have no stars whatsoever.

All in all, I think I have too few generals to work with.

One more question: one of the buildings enables me two use Freed Slaves unit. But then it says "Rebellion only". What does that mean? I had a rebellion in a province and I could not hire or train any Slave units.

[bobbin]

You won't get the unrest problems with type 3 govs so its safe to put a general there although I would recommend building type 4 there as client rulers help stabilise settlements very well.

The freed slave unit is not normally recruitable but will be spawned when a settlement revolts to another faction, hence the rebellion only part.

[Boriak]

So far I have used only my generals to garrison my city.

In Vanilla and other mods, the unrest appears if happiness in the city is below 70% (red face). Does this not apply to EB?

[bobbin]

Yes the underlying mechanics of the games are the same.

One thing to note command stars are not as important in EB and you will rarely have generals with more than 4 or 5 this is because there are traits that do a better job (command stars improve unit morale in a set radius around your general while the traits improve morale for every uit on the battlefield) so you don't need to worry about none of you generals having any stars.

[Anubis88]

So far I have used only my generals to garrison my city.

In Vanilla and other mods, the unrest appears if happiness in the city is below 70% (red face). Does this not apply to EB?

Of course it does. This has not been changed.
You must notice that if you build a level 4 govorment (amicus populi romani) you can't have your factional general in there, because he will become an impostor and cause a lot of unrest. You can however recruit an allied general, he will be expensive, a pretty large upkeep, but the city will be pleased.

Also, put your taxes on VH where you can. I really don't think there's a single city in Italy that would be unhappy( exept for taras ofcourse).

You should realise that if you attack messana, you will be at war with Carthage, so be prepared. Usually Carthage has only one army in Sicily, so if you win one victory, you could conquer Lilibeum, and later Syracuse. You will have a lot of Mnai then

[Valiant The Brave]

I have a Qeustion is it supposed to load so slow or is it mine computer?(notice it toke 30 minutes to load and didn't do it good in way of lagg.

[Anubis88]

I have a Qeustion is it supposed to load so slow or is it mine computer?(notice it toke 30 minutes to load and didn't do it good in way of lagg.

30 minutes? wow. That's long. It's definetly your computer then. I have a mediocre, 2 and a half year old laptop, and it takes less then two minutes to load

[FriendlyFire]

I have a Qeustion is it supposed to load so slow or is it mine computer?(notice it toke 30 minutes to load and didn't do it good in way of lagg.

If you have anti-virus software installed, try turning if off while loading (or configure it to ignore the RTW directory tree). Loading the game touches a LOT of files, and often AV software wants to check each one. That's the only reason I can think of for 30 minute load times... unless your disk is fragmented to hell, or about to fail...

[Boriak]

What is Grant of Land good for? It costs a ton and it gives only 5% happiness.

[bobbin]

It allows you to build massive industrial farms run by slave labour that provide a big population growth boost but also cause unrest, I tend to avoid them but with the Romans you will need to build some later in the game to trigger the Marian reforms.

[torongill]

Boriak, trust me, there will be a time when you would wish you had the grant of land. 5% of happiness seems low, but remember that you can't build pantheons and that the temples provide a limited bonus. So everything that increases happiness and public order is a good thing to have. Plus, once you control Corsica and Sardine, especially if you have a foothold in Sicily, you will be rolling in money, if you have a lean and efficient army. Also, as bobbin stated, you need latifundiae to trigger the Marian reforms, and to have latifundia you need grants of land.

[Irenaeus]

One question from me, as I'm playing as Selecuia at the moment. I get the option to build "Trade Route Scout Parties", but a quick check of the City Trade scroll shows that they have no effect on anything. Is there a use for these?

The "Grant of Land" is very useful, by the way, the city growth the Agricultural Estates gives you is helpful to achieve the Huge City status.

[Tantum eruditi sunt liberi]

I'm new to the Rome: Total War mods, but I must say, this mod is very impressive. I've tried RTR and RTR: ExRM, but this mod is completely immersive and feels incredibly authentic to such a degree, that I don't think I'll be returning to ExRM even when their new version comes out. Fantastic job to whoever worked on it. I can't wait for the next version.

I do have one question though. Why not base the mod off of BI? Wouldn't that improve the AI and so forth? By the way...loving the Spartiatai Hoplitai....epic battles on hard difficulty.

[Ludens]

One question from me, as I'm playing as Selecuia at the moment. I get the option to build "Trade Route Scout Parties", but a quick check of the City Trade scroll shows that they have no effect on anything. Is there a use for these?

They don't have any effect themselves, but are prequisite for "constructing" further trade-route buildings.

[Irenaeus]

I had a look at the Seleucid Tech Tree on the EB website, and it seems that to build the "Trade Caravans" building (which is the next level up to "Trade Route Scout Parties"), I need to build the following:

- Trade Route Scout Parties
- Type II government (or Type I)
- Coastal Clearing (or better)

Hmm, not sure about this as some of my cities have all these and I can't seem to build the Caravans, although other factions have built them. Will check this evening. Maybe it has to be exactly a Coastal Clearing but not a port?

[Boriak]

I was forced to put 7 slinger units in Taras with Type 4 government. Otherwise I would have a red face on it.

[Genava]

Why not base the mod off of BI?

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=95664
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=94861

[Boriak]

New question: when playing Rome, what unit do you usually use for garrisoning cities? Furthermore, how to garrison Type 4 governments?