The (very) hardest Roman faction?

[JDarcy]

So after winning at medium and hard levels with all 3 Roman factions, I bump it up to Very Hard.

Brutii? No problem. All that money makes it impossible to lose. By the time Marius got around to reforming the legions, I was pulling in 15,000 - 16,000 per turn. Big time profits.

Scipii? A little harder, with all the distance to cover in Africa, but still not that tough. Big money to be made in Egypt and nice safe three-city 'capital' base in Sicily.

Julii? Holy crap, I keep getting my ass handed to me by the Gauls. I can usually get a jump on them in Mediolanum and Patavium, giving me a nice five-city 'homeland' as a base. But the sheer numbers of Gallic armies makes breaking through to the north or west a tough, tough slog. Massilia is usually not a problem to grab, then its two bridges make it farily easy to defend.

The past three games I started I wound up bogged down at Massilia with army after army of Gauls, then Germans etc rolling down on me. Then the Dacians inevitably start pressuring the northen border at Iavumum. Last game, just as got some momentum, the bloody greeks show up and siege Patavium with three full stacks. End game.

Am I missing something? I've tried foregoing the usual temple-paved roads-land clearance build queue for the two starting cities infavour of stables in one (first turn) and practice range in the other, to give me peltasts and cavalry by turn 4. Makes it a little easier to grab Med. and Patav., but no benefits long-term where expansion is concerned.

Thoughts?

[RabiZaher]

Keep high garrison in cities.. construct buildings that makes money ... and hold this lands until you get enough army to attack the Gallic or the faction you want to attack.. dont autoreslove Cuz you will lose lots of troops .. play all the battles .. good luck

[Supermoler]

So, this is the time to try SPQR
I tell how to unlock it

Go to rome/data/world/maps/imperial_campaign/descr_strat.txt
Move them to playable. Dont move all factions, because the game cant display all...
But if you play SPQR, never press the Senate tab in faction overview! If you do it, the game crashes
So fun to play with them.

And with Julii, its better to take north italia, then massilia, then narbo martius, then go up. Make hastati, and cavarly, town watch is waste of money
If are good in battles you can send generals to war, I had defeated a gaul full stack with 2 general bodyguard, without they die... (Warbands and barbarian cavarlies )

Good luck

[MortenJessen]

Hi there.
As Julii:
First, to ensure a little extra profit, go grap that island Sardinia from the Cathaginians. Then take that rebel town.
Then, after recruiting new troops, go after Mediolanum and Patavium. Then, at the same time, go one up north (can not remember its name) and Masallia.
Make sure your armies are well kept and retrained. Get some Triarii and Principes and both Archers and Velites. Equites are a must to hunt down any routing enemy unit. Hastati is outdated as soon as Principes comes. After that, use your Hastati to garrison forts at strategic chokepoints, like mountain passes and bridges. That keeps it running. I personally go for an all out attack on the Gauls to get rid of them. After that I, if possible of course, no game is the same, tend to mob up Iberia for the trade lanes. As always, money wins the day. With Gaul and Iberia under control, I will make it to either Britain (including their bloody islands) or Germania, and after that, the other. I tend to ignore those barbarian nations in the east, keeping only armies based on Hastati in their direction, while my strong armies takes care of my main enemies.
I hope this helps.
Y.S.
M. Jessen

[PolishHussar]

You could also just turn your starting provinces into fortresses and concentrate expansion into greece, etc..

Although I think that's against the point your trying to make.

[JDarcy]

Thanks for the advice people.

I'm about 100 turns into my latest VH/VH foray as the Julii, with far better results.

I employed a completely different strategy this time.

-Did the usual Segesta mission first turn
-Then got usual mission for Carlais. Which was perfect for my new strategy. I took everything that wasn't nailed down with me, leaving a skeleton force in Italy.
-After Carlais on turn 3, I swung south and took Lilybaum. Hardly revolutionary, but I then hopped down and took Carthage and Thapsus by turn 10. Talk about opening a whole new world of possibilities . . .

With Lilybaum, Carthage and Thapsus secure, I not only had the revenue to support my war against the Gauls, I had access to Principes and archers from Carthage (which starts with a huge population - even after exterminating them, pop. was 7500 and growing 7% per annum).

It also opens a new front in Africa ridiculously early in the game, with enough money and troops to handle both the Gallic and African campaigns without too much trouble.

So, by turns 50-60, I had Carthage reduced to Cordoba, the Numidians reduced to that isolated city near Egypt, and the Gauls reduced to Alisia., I was raking in 5000-6000 per turn, and had access to principes, archers and catapaults which greatly outclass early-barbarian troops. It helped that I had alliances with Germans as well. They took brunt of Britons as I rolled up Gauls. Now I'm about to invade Britain, then I'm afraid it's time for my alliance with Germans to come to an end . . .

An alliance with the Egyptians is also must for this strategy to work, as they then go after Parthia and Pontus, and leave you alone in Africa.

If this continues to work as well as it has so far, I plan to produce an alternative "starting moves guide" to the one that's been the bread and butter of the Julii for years.

It's all about Lilybaum, Carthage and Thapsus. Get those, and your war in Europe is vastly more manageable.

Not to mention the dent it puts in the Scipii . . .

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

Julii shouldn't be that hard, once you've got cisalpine Gaul you're unstoppable.

If you want to suffer try the thracians.

[Plant]

Or, you can simply attack whatever opposing faction from the first turn and win every single battle. Guide finished.

[TitaniumGladius]

I've finished Julii (Very Hard). Ok now that ive got my gloating done.

Its not that hard. I think its your battle tactics bro.

I suggest you take it slow, dont rush in. Wait for marius's reforms, make some propper leginaries, and play defensively. Command your armies with the family member with most stars, it makes a HUGE difference. Dont attack the barbarian armies, instead have your army stand in front of his in the campaign map and he will attack you. This will make it much easier because you can just camp on top of a hill and have him attack you uphill. Ofcourse after hes taken plenty of volleys from your archer auxillia trying to get to the hill. 270 Years is plenty. I had like 200 years left when i finished.

[dacder]

Or, you can simply attack whatever opposing faction from the first turn and win every single battle. Guide finished.

I second this

[Lucarius]

Why the big letter type ?

[TitaniumGladius]

Why the big letter type ?

The same reason why companies like coca-cola and McDonalds pay millions to rent the biggest advertising billboards.

[Medkirtys]

The same reason why companies like coca-cola and McDonalds pay millions to rent the biggest advertising billboards.

because they're lameass and can't get attention other way

[TitaniumGladius]

because they're lameass and can't get attention other way

I had something else on my mind. Fair enough if that's what you think. Though they do make immense amounts of money.

[KittySN]

The one time I played a Julii campaign, I actually tried to beat Scipii and Brutii in capturing any territories. Then I ended up with them enveloped, went after Carthage and then Greece. At this point I had way too much money and the game was boring, so I quit. Then again, campaign is ridiculously easy to begin with. You really need a strict set of house rules to have any challenge. Try some mods when you're done. EB is a fun, very realistic mod, but it's not too challenging (at least it's more challenging than vanilla). SPQR is difficult and will kick your butt if you're not campaign-strategic in the beginning. There are many other good ones too.

[KnightOfPortugal]

I find Julii campaigns often boring. Barbarian armies rout easily after some charges even by equites, and it's repetitive.

[Vice]

I find Julii campaigns often boring. Barbarian armies rout easily after some charges even by equites, and it's repetitive.

Indeed the barbarians are quite easy in the start...thats why the last time I migrated my last juli campaign all the way to Egypt for at least a challenge...and let me say most of the time they werent even the biggest deal...since I was concentrating on them so much TSE actually started to do something for once...but like all of rome's enemies they eventually fell...and when the civil war started the scippi had the eastern part of africa but were too weak to assault my western half...the brutti actually went into barb lands and gaul made alot of noise before the reforms...