My Roman campaign

[Apex]

Hi I play Romans VH/VH.
As you can see I take my time, no steam rolling. I have advanced very slowly and systematicly, focusing on building my economy and defending my borders. I really enjoy this campaign, I've gained many experience for my troops, all by fighting on battle maps. No Autoresolves. Almost all of my cities have governors with management between 8-10 and many positive traits and ancillaries. All cities are on Very high taxes.
It's far away from being called an Empire but I'm on the best way.

This mod really unlocked a lot of options in battle tactics and cities micromanagement the game offers. I enjoyed to keep my armies a bit underpowered to come up with new tactics how to win a Heroic battles.

Last 5 years I've been fighting Greeks, which rule the world now. But they are getting beaten pretty badly. I've just completly pushed them off the mainland Greece and Macedonia. However this doesn't seem to affect them much since they have a huge Empire and keep going east-south.

With Gauls it was pretty fun. After I pushed them off the Italy I stoped at Alps and let them grow and improve. Then came maybe 2 decades of constant attacking but they got badly beaten every time. Now it's been roughly 10 years they stoped attacking. They just gave up. All of their northern cities are on max size, they have several full stacks but they just don't attack anymore. Got scared??

It's been more ridiculous with Carthaginians. Since I pushed them off the Sicilly very early on the game. I took all their islands but they never came back to attack me, never launched a counter attack!? They focus all their energy on Iberia where all their armies are.

Share your Empires and experience.

[Praetorian121]

Nice AAR.

[Mogan]

Holy crap, what's up with the Greeks! Also, is that Illyria occupying Dacia, while Dacia is in Gaul? I've never seen anything like it!

[Apex]

Holy crap, what's up with the Greeks! Also, is that Illyria occupying Dacia, while Dacia is in Gaul? I've never seen anything like it!

Yep, Greeks went completly mental they are insanely rich and can afford a lot of full stacks. In five years of my campaign against Greece homeland I deployed 4 newly recruited legions and most of them are in silver chevron experience by now. I fought 11 Heroic battles. It's been really nice.

Thracians (Dacia) was doing pretty well early on game. They stretched all the way from balkan to Gauls. Bet when Illyrians allied with Greece and destroyed Macedonia they turned onto Thracia and this small poor region is all what left for Tracians.

[Boom S]

Apex, nice campaign. get us some snaps of your battles when you fight the next large one. would like to see those.
cheers.

[Apex]

Apex, nice campaign. get us some snaps of your battles when you fight the next large one. would like to see those.
cheers.

I'll do some following days.

[Apex]

Apex, nice campaign. get us some snaps of your battles when you fight the next large one. would like to see those.
cheers.

Some pics from an awesome battel I just fought. I'll post comments to pics soon.

To be continued..

[Quinn Inuit]

Definitely an unusual game. I'm glad you're enjoying the challenge, and welcome to the boards!

I'm surprised the Greeks did that well, but I'm not displeased with the overall disposition of regions otherwise. Definitely need a trade nerf, though. The next version will be more balanced.

How's the composition of the Greek stacks? Is the AI producing reasonably balanced armies even at this stage of the game?

[Apex]

Definitely an unusual game. I'm glad you're enjoying the challenge, and welcome to the boards!

I'm surprised the Greeks did that well, but I'm not displeased with the overall disposition of regions otherwise. Definitely need a trade nerf, though. The next version will be more balanced.

How's the composition of the Greek stacks? Is the AI producing reasonably balanced armies even at this stage of the game?

The Greek armies are almost exclusively HI phlnx, very few missile and almost no cavalry. I've fought battles against 20 phlnx units!! Very nice heroic victories.

The reason why the Greeks are so succesfull is that I moded unit_descr file and deleted light_spears, short_pike from all Greeks units and added swords as secondary weapon. So now they fight as phalanx with longer pikes (but not very long), 3 rows pointing forward. Sorry if you think I am ruining your work to make it more realistic but Greeks using only light_spears suffered penalties when fighting other infantry and were so underpowered that I did't need elite soldiers to beat their Elite hoplites or Athenians or even Spartans. Even when playing VH. I just wanted them to use their swords (as they would have in real) when engaged from flank or rear. As well I increased price and upkeep for my Legionaries since they are hugely overpowered. But they were in real, I know. That's why I keep only 5-6 units of them in each legion.

[Boom S]

you sound like a concerned father whose son isn't doing as well as hoped in college.

[JaNuZ99]

woah that is a cool campaign, and on vh/vh no less, pretty cool.

[Caesar Augustus]

Nice campaign

I'm a bit concerned by your epic treasury though, but I believe we're going to have a similar economic system to FOE (in that some buildings will have both positive and negative economic effects), which should help with this sort of thing.

Are you playing the latest version (3.5.3)? I'd assume so, but thought it worth checking.

Quinn - for the record, the Greeks are doing very well in my campaign, but are throwing skirmishers and thureophoroi at me with a couple of units (literally 2/3 per full stack) of hoplites. Is there a way we can get the AI to have just a few more per army? I know that for economic reasons hoplite use was diminishing during our time period, but surely they still formed the core of a Greek city state's army?

[Quinn Inuit]

The Greek armies are almost exclusively HI phlnx, very few missile and almost no cavalry. I've fought battles against 20 phlnx units!! Very nice heroic victories.

That's reasonable, given the AI personality. What's the normal/elite hoplite balance, though?

The reason why the Greeks are so succesfull is that I moded unit_descr file and deleted light_spears, short_pike from all Greeks units and added swords as secondary weapon. So now they fight as phalanx with longer pikes (but not very long), 3 rows pointing forward. Sorry if you think I am ruining your work to make it more realistic but Greeks using only light_spears suffered penalties when fighting other infantry and were so underpowered that I did't need elite soldiers to beat their Elite hoplites or Athenians or even Spartans. Even when playing VH. I just wanted them to use their swords (as they would have in real) when engaged from flank or rear. As well I increased price and upkeep for my Legionaries since they are hugely overpowered. But they were in real, I know. That's why I keep only 5-6 units of them in each legion.

That's odd. A hoplite phalanx as-is should be able to take almost any non-Mac-phalanx unit in the game on head-on.

They'll only use swords properly if you give them the phalanx ability--shield wall is bugged in that regard. And we haven't given them phalanx for a reason that, TBH, I forget. That was one of the earliest major changes we made...might have been Candelarius, even. I guess there's a lot of demand for it...

Quinn - for the record, the Greeks are doing very well in my campaign, but are throwing skirmishers and thureophoroi at me with a couple of units (literally 2/3 per full stack) of hoplites. Is there a way we can get the AI to have just a few more per army? I know that for economic reasons hoplite use was diminishing during our time period, but surely they still formed the core of a Greek city state's army?

I think so. If the Greeks are doing well but not using hoplites, then either we've got hoplites overpriced or they've conquered a bunch of new regions and can recruit thureophoroi there, but not hoplites yet.

[Apex]

[QUOTE=Quinn Inuit;7748561]That's reasonable, given the AI personality. What's the normal/elite hoplite balance, though?

Before I invaded Greece (Macedon) homeland the majority of their army were regular hoplites + some Athenians, Corinthinians and other better units. But since I conquered Athen and Sparta I face mostly Levy hopl. and eastern units like Persian phalangites, sparabara that can be recruited almost anywhere.. although there can be still found some regular hoplites. However on south-east in Egypt they have some stacks full of experienced Greek elite units. But it takes long time before I meet those.

[Apex]

That's odd. A hoplite phalanx as-is should be able to take almost any non-Mac-phalanx unit in the game on head-on.

They'll only use swords properly if you give them the phalanx ability--shield wall is bugged in that regard. And we haven't given them phalanx for a reason that, TBH, I forget. That was one of the earliest major changes we made...might have been Candelarius, even. I guess there's a lot of demand for it...

Hmmm,I guess it doesn't make you very happy but I really just wanted them to use those bloody swords. If I hadn't changed those light_spers they would have used swords immediatly when engaged. In that case it wouldn't be any phlnx fight at all. That's why I prolonged those pikes. As a result I probalby created a super faction?!Hmm?

[Apex]

[QUOTE=Caesar Augustus;7748304]Nice campaign

I'm a bit concerned by your epic treasury though, but I believe we're going to have a similar economic system to FOE (in that some buildings will have both positive and negative economic effects), which should help with this sort of thing.

Well, my treasury is doing so well because I have superb governors in almost all cities. And teyt are on Very high taxes as well. Each family member spends his teenage in Rome where they gather traits and ancillaries. I carefully exchange ancillaries between family members based on their traits to make each member specialist for a particular city. In Syracuse for example I have a governor with +60% Trade (but on VH it's only half, I noticed) and 10 management. He adds 3000+ each turn. In one city with mines in Illyria I have a guy with +55% mininig + 8-10 management. And so on..

Are you playing the latest version (3.5.3)? I'd assume so, but thought it worth checking.
I'll check the version out.

[Apex]

[QUOTE=Apex;7749720]

Nice campaign


Are you playing the latest version (3.5.3)? I'd assume so, but thought it worth checking.
.

It's v3.3

[Apex]

[QUOTE=Caesar Augustus;7748304]Nice campaign

I'm a bit concerned by your epic treasury though, but I believe we're going to have a similar economic system to FOE (in that some buildings will have both positive and negative economic effects), which should help with this sort of thing.

QUOTE]

I was thinking that It might be actually pretty helpful to lower the trade all over the Italy and Greece. Since the very first turn I've never been in debt and managed to have a building under construction every year in every city. Historically, great buildings were usually financed from military conquering campaigns and pillaging conquered cities. Like Colloseum was financed by gold taken from Jerusleum. Most of the regular income tax was spent on military upkeep I believe.
As well the taxes should be re-balanced I think. If you compare a town with 2000 people and a city with 20 000 population there should be 10 times difference in tax income.
Although we could leave current super-trade cities untouched. To have something worth fighting for. Rome, Syracause, Carthage, Athens.
In which file can I change it? If?

[Domitan]

Hmm are you useing the latest version as you seem to have recruitment options i just dont have like those archers?

[Caesar Augustus]

Nice campaign

I'm a bit concerned by your epic treasury though, but I believe we're going to have a similar economic system to FOE (in that some buildings will have both positive and negative economic effects), which should help with this sort of thing.

I was thinking that It might be actually pretty helpful to lower the trade all over the Italy and Greece. Since the very first turn I've never been in debt and managed to have a building under construction every year in every city. Historically, great buildings were usually financed from military conquering campaigns and pillaging conquered cities. Like Colloseum was financed by gold taken from Jerusleum. Most of the regular income tax was spent on military upkeep I believe.
As well the taxes should be re-balanced I think. If you compare a town with 2000 people and a city with 20 000 population there should be 10 times difference in tax income.
Although we could leave current super-trade cities untouched. To have something worth fighting for. Rome, Syracause, Carthage, Athens.
In which file can I change it? If?

I think the problem with Italy and Greece is the number of cities in a comparitively small space. For example as Rome you will never have a financial worry as long as you've got control of the whole peninsula.

I don't know about tax though - I'd assume that that it's worked out as an amount per person and then scaled up by the population. I don't know enough about the game mechanics to really comment on this though. I do know, however, that tax will be boosted in the next version. This will be to show that farming income was historically more important than trade income during our era.

I think there already are a few "trade hub" cities which are much more important economically than others, but I don't know how we could demonstrate that in game other than through a massive nerf on all the other cities and then a resource which would provide a big bonus to that region. The only problem with that would be game balance, and how much work would be involved.