Playing Rome in RSII – A Basic Survival Guide

[wvswem]

Thanks for fixing the pics, it helps to understand some of the things you say in your guide. Once again thanks.

[Aristotle's Folly]

This guide is fantastic. I would personally -love- some insight on the "Big Rebellion" since I've recently hit a couple road blocks economically. Here's to hoping this guide goes that far. If not, it's still great.

Well, I'll need to pick up the pace a bit, but I'm hopeful we can do that.

I ran into one problem and one snag. The first problem is the update, which will not be save game friendly. I'll have to work around that, but it's doable.

The snag is the trait system in RSII. There are some things I just cannot figure out, and some of the information which has been posted on this forum is flat out wrong (like raise the influence of a governor to have them made heir - it doesn't work consistently, I tested it).

So I started communicating with DVK109 about trait design and how it works. I've learned a bit more, which I'll share with the forum, of course. But traits are now key to playing RSII since the failure to raise good faction leaders has a dramatic effect on your economy.

I just need about three free hours to put this stuff together.

Thanks for fixing the pics, it helps to understand some of the things you say in your guide. Once again thanks.

You're welcome, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

~ Dani ~

[SgtPepper]

Well it's sunday isn't it, you have all the time in the world .

Aside from that, eagerly awaiting the new update.

[Smokey Bacon]

In the Roman campaign I started recently I held on to all starting regions. I beat Hannibal and the Carthaginians fell back to genoa. After beating the 1st rebellion I owned all of southern italy and took syracuse from the greeks who accepted peace quickly after. I then pushed north ending carthaginian presence in Northern Italy. I tehn concentrated on my economy and taking the rest of northern Italy. As I was planning my next move Macedon attacked me, which helped me mae up my mind quickly lol. First I took Edessa and Appolonia but then was held in to place by constant attacks from Macedon. Slowly the tide of the war began to change and I pushed them back even further taking their capital and Thessalonika, they won't accept peace though so looks like they will have to be assimilated into the glorious Roman Empire. Oh and about the time I took Macedon's capital I attacked the Carthginian city below Emporia.

[Espadas:Benson]

How far will this guide go? Up into the reforms? more? =) MORE!!

lol it really is a good guide, and maybe it could have several sections: Part 1 is the begining; Part 2 is when and how to activate and adaptto the imperial reforms; Part 3 would be the rebellion.

just an idea! Also a Table of Contents might be nice =)

[Aristotle's Folly]

How far will this guide go? Up into the reforms? more? =) MORE!!

lol it really is a good guide, and maybe it could have several sections: Part 1 is the begining; Part 2 is when and how to activate and adaptto the imperial reforms; Part 3 would be the rebellion.

just an idea! Also a Table of Contents might be nice =)

There is a Table of Contents in the first post. (Yes, there is, I checked ... )

There are two more posts for the first ten years, plus I've written a "special topic" on traits, governors, and faction leaders, with some kind help from DVK109. I just need to get the pictures together for that.

Where we go from here is up to the forum and it's members. If people find it useful, then I'll continue to update, playing through my campaign. If not, then I go can onto something else.

As I said in a previous post, one of my coworkers is sick and I'm working a lot of hours right now. Usually my job isn't that demanding but this week it has been; it will let up in a couple of days.

~ Dani ~

[Dull_Gladius]

This guide is fantastic. I would personally -love- some insight on the "Big Rebellion" since I've recently hit a couple road blocks economically. Here's to hoping this guide goes that far. If not, it's still great.

[Julius Barca the Great]

That's very helpful. I have often wondered whether or not to demolish buildings. Thanks for clearing it up.

[The Noble Lord]

One of the best guides ever on playing RS 2.0 mod. Job well done Aristotle .

[Dramatic Cat]

Whilst playing SPQR, RTR and the original Vanilla game I noticed that what impacts more on the cultural difference penalties are the Temples. In RTR you can build about twenty temples in a city, so I demolished every temple not belonging to my faction and put one of each kind between the building of more important buildings. This, though, does not work in RSII.

Shame, the only thing to do is to exterminate the popluation.

[CliffBarney]

See the Carthaginian navy? I need to keep my navy moving and DO NOT fight them. If I fight them, I lose. I don't move my navy, they attack me and I lose. Every time. Since I can't afford to lose those armies, I keep moving these boats every turn.

Dani, I just keep wondering why you're so overly concerned with your little navy. I did the exact thing you recommend -- i.e., use my navy to evacuate the army from Emporeia(sp?) so that my best general and his army can fight Hannibal, & later the rebels, in Italy. But I built up my navy a little bit at the get-go. After all, ships are cheap to buy and cheap to maintain; I think I built 3-4 new triremes and joined them to my navy. Then I didn't have to worry about the Carthagenian fleet any more -- in fact, I went hunting for them! I don't think I ever lost a sea battle.

Shame, the only thing to do is to exterminate the popluation.

I guess I can never get anyone else to believe this, but population = wealth. You should never depopulate a city you've just conquered; you basically just want to reduce the population in that place 'til the unrest from your conquest dies out, right? So you enslave the population instead, and all those thousands of people get scattered around to all your other cities. I can't remember having more than one turn of rioting in a new city, and that rarely. I never lost a city to rebellion because I couldn't control the rioting. If you destroy the unhappy buildings (tax buildings, certain military buildings mainly) and then build a 1-turn 5% happiness building (such as a shrine) that usually does the trick. It does help a lot to have a 4+ wreath governor ready to take charge.

My two cents worth.

-- Cliff in Virginia

[Town Watch]

phew, played some of my Roman campaign at H/H. Had some really hard battles, even though I killed Hannibal and destroyed his army in Italy. I took control of Cisalpine Gaul. In the beginning I decided to abandon the Spanish province, because in a previous attempt at a M/M campaign, MY PROVINCE GOT BRIBED, needless to say I was pretty flabbergasted, so I decided to abandon the province so that I wouldn't lose my army as well as the province!

I get attacked by some pretty substantial armies from Macedon as well in Greece. I wonder how I'm going to deal with them. In any case it's definitely so that I have to fight every battle personally, otherwise I get really creamed. I'm so used to auto-resolve against rebels, pretty much always, that now I got a hard time adjusting to this because indeed the free peoples rebels are honestly quite formidable.

I remember taking Genoa and the province from that to the north. I moved a full stack Polybian army to defend a river crossing, I believe I had: General, 4 velites, 4 triarii, 8 cohorts, 3 cavalry units. I fought a full stack free peoples army at the river crossing, killed them to the last man when they finally routed, suffered 60% casualties in the army. I remember one of my front-line cohorts suffered like 180 casualties while causing something like 30 against some kind of Gallic cavalry unit in sustained melee nonetheless, my dudes didn't rout though! Truly gone are the days of easy river defense battles! Even so my infantry does remain pretty inexperienced despite all the battles I've won, it's probably due to the fact that that they're not killing very many enemies in battle and are suffering pretty big casualties in line fighting, and only get substantial kills when catching routers.

I had to recruit a few allied cohorts and bolster my army there, but the free peoples brought another full stack which was decimated at great cost as well. From the third attack I had to retreat! I also attacked Carthage with 2 similar full stacks (silver/silver upgrades) I took exterminated Carthage but that didn't break their back at all. They brought more armies and re-took the city.

The mod is really hard though which is a good thing ! I wonder though if you get a little bit less armies when playing 1-turn recruitment campaigns? Playing is starting to feel like a bit of a chore since at the moment I feel like I have to fight literally every battle against massive stacks to conquer stuff and retain my territory.

I might have been a bit too impetuous I admit, in invading Carthage in a revenge attack since my troops there died, I certainly wasn't at my peak per turn income at that point, so I probably should have waited until I gained more troops, still I consider the price worth it, Carthage was humbled despite a loss of some troops on the field. I probably should have attacked Macedon first though!

[Marcus_Vipsanius]

Thanks for clearing that out. 'Hygiene' buildings have a huge positive effect, so I always start with building those + some temples + towns patrol watch.

[Brusilov]

Devasation does clear up after a while. You can also get devastation if an enemy army is within one of your regions and not laying siege to a settlement.

The way to deal with spies and assassins is to have several of each in a settlement. I also recommend the use of spies to see what is happening in a settlement prior to a during a siege. I've not done this sometimes only to find that plague has broken out during the siege...... The result is that I have a nice field army out of action for quite a few turns (and considerably weaker as well).

[Bucle_CT]

Is still possible (in RS2 I mean) to spawn plague into a city by putting an 'infected' spy into it??

I haven't tried this out since I started mi actual campaigns in RS2 and lately I'm not having much time to play and test.

(Sorry if it's a bit off topic)

[Drowsy]

Is still possible (in RS2 I mean) to spawn plague into a city by putting an 'infected' spy into it??

I haven't tried this out since I started mi actual campaigns in RS2 and lately I'm not having much time to play and test.

(Sorry if it's a bit off topic)

Hell yes! Though some might consider it an exploit as the AI goes into passive mode once u start rotating your 15 spies between there 8-10 settlements, and is generally picked apart quick by its neighbors. I only do it vs factions that have betrayed an alliance or Macedon to keep them in check and equal to the power of Dacia.

[Bucle_CT]

[...] I only do it vs factions that have betrayed an alliance ....

...revenge is a dish best served cold....

[toluas]

Thanks for sharing all this with us, AF!

[Aenima]

I killed Hannibal and destroyed his army in the first turn. Playing H/H, unit size large. Attacked with Nepos' army and the AI decided it would hold back after 7 or so of its units, allowing me to carve up its attacking force and the legendary Barca with it. The other units hid in the trees and I have to admit that the rest of it was hard fought, but in the end I emerged victorious, albeit barely.

Hannibal dead on the first turn and the army relatively intact? Result

Only thing that I need to learn now is how the bloody hell all these bonus/ penalty buildings work. I can never tell if making something will give me the bonus or penalty that the brackets go on about!

[Brusilov]

Only thing that I need to learn now is how the bloody hell all these bonus/ penalty buildings work. I can never tell if making something will give me the bonus or penalty that the brackets go on about!

It's quite easy really - if the number has a negative sign before it ('-') then it's a penalty, otherwise it's a bonus.

As an example - in the following there is a 20% penalty to the tax income (shown as -20%) and a 5% bonus to happiness (shown as 5%):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Most temples have a penalty and a bonus.