Playing Rome in RSII – A Basic Survival Guide

[Chicken]

Great News, looking forward to whenever the next chapter is finished! Take your time, there's no rush

[BlutDolch]

To the Roman Boudicca,

I notice you build your Forts on the roads. I never did this for fear it would block trade. Have you noticed any impact on trade or those little trade wagons/carts from this habit?

One Fort trick I use is the concept of a HUB. I build a Fort in a place not to block as you do, but so that a Legion can march and enter one of its choice of several cities in one turn. By this I mean it could go into one of several cities say a city to its North, South, or East. That way it protects three cities by being able to attack a besieger. I prefer field battles as much as possible over city battles.

As the Empire expands I have some 'Frontier' Forts but I stay with the HUB idea as much as possible to provide a Defense in Depth. Over time I may reduce the actual strength to 1/2 or 1/3 of a legion for those more peaceful or settled areas where Bandit Spawns provide the threat.

Just sharing an idea. No criticism intended in any way.

[Limskj]

Great guide! And yes, I am one of those who manage to beat Hannibal right at the beginning.

The route of the Carthaginian army began with the death of Hannibal.

[C-Rob]

Great guide! And yes, I am one of those who manage to beat Hannibal right at the beginning.

The route of the Carthaginian army began with the death of Hannibal.

I got my ass handed to me in the ambush but hey, that's the point.

Next I attacked him and he ran away like a .

Then I killed him in our third battle.

It was pretty great.

I'm about to add gold chevrons to his units... make him actually fear inducing...

[Ybbon]

I got wiped out, they've taken Arrettium or is it Arimium, not beaten the rebels yet, but when I have, Hannibal is toast and all the little Hannibal's will be toast too

[Beetlecat]

@limskj, at first I did as well, but it seemed far too easy to recover Italy afterward. My current game followed this guide so that the spirit of the Dire Situation that Rome faced was maintained. I tried my best to inflict lots of casualties on Hannibal, for sure, but I certianly let the ambush happen, and allowed the two northern cities to fall as I gathered troops from overseas for the big push back against the rebels and Carthage.

I think I'll go for the rebels first and then deal with Carthage. --That is unless Macedonia decides to be a pain and try to kick me off their shores first.

[Tim1988]

I've just started my first ever Roma Surrectum campaign. It sure is a tough start. I managed to defeat Hannibal's army in the first turn (I'm not sure why everyone seems to think its impossible, it didn't seem too bad to me. I just supplemented the army with the troops from Rome, formed up in 2 lines, pinned him with the first and encircled with the second, whilst using my cavalry to keep the carthaginian horsemen away. Did it with about 700 casualties (around half my troops)).

Its the Roman Rebellion that's killing me though. Having never played RS before, and not having read much about it, it came as a complete surprise when 3 of my cities revolted out of the blue, spawning about 4or5 full stacks!! Not having expected it (I thought it was a glitch to start off with until I came on here), most of my troops were up north, ready to take Genoa . With the help of some hastily recruited mercenaries, I've managed to survive an attack on Cannae, and am now readying an army in Rome to go on the offensive against them. They've got loads of Triarii though, so its going to be tough...

[Grouchio]

So is you're next chapter ready yet? We're dying to kill Hannibal!

[Ybbon]

Well I've sort of followed the guide - i.e not exactly, I'm a firm believer in Navies so I've built a few ships. I have kept Rhegion but lost Crotona and the other one on the heel of Italy. My small army around Rhegion will be probably attacked by a larger rebel force though not a really strong one - the problem is that they have quite a bit of cav. Now I could move Scipio the younger to Rhegion and merge the two but I'd then end up with a larger army but only the 2 generals as cav and that won't work against quite a few jav cav. Also they have archers and I'll only have peltasts so that is going to be a disadvantage too. Now I guess I could put the army (unmerged with Scipio's), into Rhegion, it will probably hold out until Scipio is retrained and able to come back with cav and I may find some other missile troops.

Overall though, I liked the way the guide works in disbanding extra troops and consolidating around the vital areas. Looks like the rebels have some large field armies but very little in the cities so once I beat their armies, taking back the settlements should not be too hard - and the executioners best sharpen their axes for those days, they're going to be busy

[TheAeneas]

Nice guide, and very well laid out +rep


Remarkably similar play style to my own!

[Grouchio]

Where is it? The update?

[Aristotle's Folly]

Everyone:

First, I'm very grateful for the enthusiastic encouragement. This guide will continue in the very near future. But ...

The patch is looming upon us. From what I've read about the patch, it changes gameplay signficiantly ... and is NOT saved game compatible. If I continue this, I still have to start over once the patch comes out. I had hoped it would be out by now, but I competely understand the reason for the delay.

So please bear with me and as soon as the patch is released, I'll resume this. I promise.

~ Dani ~

Edit: In the meantime, I'm going to write some topical subjects.

[Brian93]

Everyone:

First, I'm very grateful for the enthusiastic encouragement. This guide will continue in the very near future. But ...

The patch is looming upon us. From what I've read about the patch, it changes gameplay signficiantly ... and is NOT saved game compatible. If I continue this, I still have to start over once the patch comes out. I had hoped it would be out by now, but I competely understand the reason for the delay.

So please bear with me and as soon as the patch is released, I'll resume this. I promise.

~ Dani ~

Edit: In the meantime, I'm going to write some topical subjects.

Great guide, +rep

Why is there going to be a patch?

Also, one question. In my very first campaigns on Vanilla, and on various mods, I always end up 'over-recruiting'

I'm almost always the Romans (for some reason im obsessed with them, haha) and what I do is after I secure Italy, subdue/conquer Carthage and the Gauls, I blitzkrieg into Greece/Turkey and rake in tons of cash. Then I liberally recruit entire legions and huge numbers of mercenaries. This is all based on 1-turn recruitment. However, what eventually happens is that my army upkeep quickly surpasses my income from fresh conquests. Regardless of how much I develop my economy, by upgrading ports, roads, markets, capturing the Colossus, etc. I can't seem to avoid this mistake.

And now, seeing that RSII is a zero-turn recruitment mod, I get the feeling i'll recruit myself into bankruptcy rather quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love having 0-turn recruitment, but what do you recommend as a general rule of thumb for the number of legions I have at any given time?

[Aristotle's Folly]

Great guide, +rep

Why is there going to be a patch?

Also, one question. In my very first campaigns on Vanilla, and on various mods, I always end up 'over-recruiting'

I'm almost always the Romans (for some reason im obsessed with them, haha) and what I do is after I secure Italy, subdue/conquer Carthage and the Gauls, I blitzkrieg into Greece/Turkey and rake in tons of cash. Then I liberally recruit entire legions and huge numbers of mercenaries. This is all based on 1-turn recruitment. However, what eventually happens is that my army upkeep quickly surpasses my income from fresh conquests. Regardless of how much I develop my economy, by upgrading ports, roads, markets, capturing the Colossus, etc. I can't seem to avoid this mistake.

And now, seeing that RSII is a zero-turn recruitment mod, I get the feeling i'll recruit myself into bankruptcy rather quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love having 0-turn recruitment, but what do you recommend as a general rule of thumb for the number of legions I have at any given time?

Thank you.

The patch will fix some "essential" things, including a couple of CTD issues that need to be ironed out.

This is what I do for recruitment and cash balance. During the First Revolution, I recruit four Republican (red shield) legions. I remain at four legions, juggling them as best I can, until I accomplish three things:

1. Fill my building queues as much as possible.

2. Recruit six to eight navies.

3. Get my treasury up to somewhere between 50 and 100k.

During this time, I designate an equal number of Fortified and Economic Regions in mainland Italy. Remember that Economic Regions get a trade bonus; fortified regions get extra units. Usually Arritium, Ariminum, Capua, and Tarentum are fortified (although I tried an experiment with my last campaign and made Tarentum economic and it brought in buckets of money!), and everything else is Economic. Sometimes I make Cannae fortified.

I make one of the islands - the one closest to Carthage, Corsica, I believe - fortified and the other economic.

I take Genoa early on (when I defeat Hannibal) and as soon as the Greeks attack, I take Syracuse and Massilia. Geona become a trade center (Economic) and Syracuse and Massilia, when I take them, are Joint Fortified and Economic. The rest of Sicily is economic.

For my fortified regions, I build like this: temple, barracks, well, temple, blacksmith, barracks, temple, metal import, barracks, small armory, temple, and so on. You get the idea. For economic regions, I'm heavy on the trade buildings, mixed with temples and other crowd pleasers. I save the military stuff for dead last.

My goal is to Arretium and Capua "silver shields" and at least one copper chevron (for unit recruitment) ASAP.

Once I'm there, I begin recruiting four Allied Cohort legions (providing the above conditions are met). Until then, there's a lot of shifting legions back to Rome for retraining. One trick is to merge as many units as you can so that you "repair" a legion in one turn and get it back on the field.

Eight legions is all I need to safely defend my early republic, but by now the Arverni are knocking on Massilia's door about every turn or so, and I am SOOOO sick of Carthage attacking Corsica that I gleefully send four legions to the coast to take Carthage and the two cities right next to it. This nets me enough money to recruit two more legions - one Republican and one Allied - making my total legions ten.

And here I stay until the reforms occur.

In recruiting, I try to keep my treasury around 50k. However, as I close in on the reforms, I have my building queues full and I'm raising my treasure to more than 100k to pay for the legions that will replace my existing one. After the Imperial Reforms, I start building legions to replace existing legions, matching the new "imperial" legions with the republican cohorts, and auxilia legions with allied cohorts. As I recruit a "new" legion, I disband an existing one, thus keeping my military spending to roughly the same.

I hope that helps.

~ Dani ~

[Ybbon]

Ok, my advice, never ever put a really good army on a fleet and forget about it in the middle of the seas. They were supposed to relieve Caralis but got sunk instead. I'll end up just about kicking the rebels out, and maybe getting rid of carthage before the patch. Still fun to play for a bit as Rome.

[Aristotle's Folly]

Ok, my advice, never ever put a really good army on a fleet and forget about it in the middle of the seas. They were supposed to relieve Caralis but got sunk instead. I'll end up just about kicking the rebels out, and maybe getting rid of carthage before the patch. Still fun to play for a bit as Rome.

I'm really sorry, but I know how you feel. Once, during playtesting, I was moving a full legion, silver chevrons, by ship to Egypt. They were attacked by a Greek fleet (and I thought I'd wiped out Greece!) with a few less boats than my navy. Thinking I'd easily take them, I clicked auto-resolve ... and lost.

I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach as the ships sank into the sea.

Sorry, I do feel your pain.

~ Dani ~

[Valerius]

Yeah the patch....Don't think i can finish my current game in time debating on weather or not to wait until i'm done to download the patch.But then again i love new stuff lol.

[pxroman]

Ms. Folly,

Great work. Made the mod for me. Playing RSII on AX has been the best TW experience so far and your guide helped me reach the point of the whole thing, Numbered Legions.
I would point out that I got CTDs when playing with the Pre-Marian generals at the point of the reforms - When the palace is completed in Askagros, the game will crash if you already have Pre-marian GOs selected. Maybe everyone knew that but I thought I should add to the collective wisdom.

[Alexander V. Suvorov]

I see lots of informative discussion in this thread and some are indeed good ones. Here are mine.

I like to play as Rome. While expanding my frontier along west Mediterranean coasts, I always keep an eye on what happens in east Mediterranean coastal regions. The reason of doing this is to avoid the existence of "super" empire. I use forced dilomacy mod and diplomatic_stance command to force warring nations forming armstice so that none of them expands too far beyond their historical realm, i.e. no Armenia in Byzantion. Sometimes, if two nations have been at peace with each other for too long, I instigate them into fighting each other so as to reduce their military and economic strength.

[rory o'kane]

How does one use forced diplomacy, exactly?