Christianity in the Western Roman Empire

[Zenobia]

I started my first game with a leader that was Christian. I built up my garrisons and changed all the cities that were pagan to Christian ones. The result was a massive rebellion and a large sea of green rebels. I was able to hold on to Rome, Carthage and a handful of other cities but these were even red faced. With no money coming in and a major negative balance, I can't do anything. All my armies are sitting in the cities, i cant move them out without a major uprising. Is this normal?

[Last Roman]

yep. my suggestion, pull back to a central position (Italy, Illyria and North Africa), disband all your feodorati units and wait until you have some money coming in, then start building up an army and go at it

[Septimius Severus]

Well, it can be if you do not work out the major problems. Let me try and help you:

1) Look at the distance of a province in, say, Britain, to Rome. There is a huge penalty there, and an easy way to prevent a lot of rebellion is to move your capital. The AI always (in my games, at least) moves their capital to Massilia because that area is closest to the center of the WRE. I'd suggest you move your capital to a settlement in that area.

2) Before you convert cities to a religion, check out the happiness scroll. If you see that a city is unhappy because the majority of the population believes in a religion different than the city has, that could be a major problem. I find converting religions much easier for the ERE; I can make it entirely Christian in a few turns because of the good economy.

3) Foedetari units are more expensive then they are worth. I prefer Limitanei because they have a significantly smaller upkeep and they can throw pila.

[player1]

The best thing at start is do keep status quo.
In cities with majority of pagans keep paganism, in cities with majority of christian keep christianity.

In few cases, it could happen that city more more people of one religions has different state religion. Change that by building appropriate temple if needed.


After, and only after you stabilize your empire, you can play Inquisitors.

[Zenobia]

The best thing at start is do keep status quo.
In cities with majority of pagans keep paganism, in cities with majority of christian keep christianity.

In few cases, it could happen that city more more people of one religions has different state religion. Change that by building appropriate temple if needed.


After, and only after you stabilize your empire, you can play Inquisitors.

I didn't have much trouble in Medieval TW as I am having right now. I have a very high negative number in my economy -7800 at least and I have disbanded some of army. With the garrisons down, the rest of my cities went rebel Western Empire. There is a huge horde of Goths bearing down on Rome and the West romans just landed a force in Sicily. Carthage is now besieged again by the berbers. I also have a city in Sardinia and one in Britain. I can't relocate my capital anywhere because every other city is rebel West Roman.

I'll play on if this is salvagable but my turn is getting quicker and shorter. I just cant seem to get out of this mess.

[player1]

Well, WRE are tough faction to play until you master to micromanage their economy good enough.

[shlaiir]

I always find that the best thing to do when you start as the Western Roman Empire is to let certain cities rebel, preferably ones with large populations. The rebelion usually ends witht the City being full of peasants or poor quality troops. Take back the city and kill the population. It will no longer rebel and you get a greater income from it. Then use the money you have to build ports, get the trade going, you should have enough troops at the start to hold back attacks. PLace garrions on the bridges.

If you want to convert the Empire start from Rome, collect a few Christian Generals together and convert each province one by one, then you have the added bonus and converted pronvinces being next to each other helping the public order.

[John I Tzimisces]

Essentially, after disbanding your armies, you have to prioritize what you want to hang onto. Italy is a good choice, as is Illyria and Africa, maybe Gaul as well, what you can, anyway. From there, you essentially have to work from the bottom up. The WRE is in pretty bad shape at this point in time, and if anyone is going to save Roma, its going to take a lot of work.

[shadowarmy75]

Take back the city and kill the population. It will no longer rebel and you get a greater income from it

You actually get less. The army upkeep it was paying was displaced to other cities becuase the population was lowered.

[player1]

On the other hand you need lower garrisons for public order so upkeep is lower.

[shlaiir]

Good point but at the beginning of the Western Roman Empire campaign you need money and stability fast. You could tone down the Army once you have stabalised the Empire and sort some income.

[woodins]

I tend to follow a similiar strategy to player1. I convert a city to christianity one at a time, to try and avoid a mass civil war. Although i am not adverse to a few exterminations if one city is too rebellious lol. I find this helps and i am alot better prepared financially for the hordes and the inevitable treachery of the ERE. For historical sake, i tend to move the capital to Ravenna.

[Legionary Jezza]

well just play along and check ur settlement details on their religions

[Aetius]

I started my first game with a leader that was Christian. I built up my garrisons and changed all the cities that were pagan to Christian ones. The result was a massive rebellion and a large sea of green rebels. I was able to hold on to Rome, Carthage and a handful of other cities but these were even red faced. With no money coming in and a major negative balance, I can't do anything. All my armies are sitting in the cities, i cant move them out without a major uprising. Is this normal?

That is one of the worst stratagies I have ever heard of.

Let cities believe what they want to believe in. All cities that aren't near the frontline, you must destroy their military buildings to prevent high quality troops when rebellions occur. Spain and Illyria will revolt alog with a couple of cities in Gaul. Britain can either be abandoned or held but it actually is very loyal and makes some good money in the beginning.

[Flotch]

easy with 1.3 :
move your capitol to Massilia as said.
destroy all pagan temples [except at syracuse and England (may be Salamantica in Spain too, I do not remember exactly)] and build church instead. Destroy all unusefull ships, but keep your armies (!!!), you will not be able to train other very soon, and you will have to fight quickly. To make money you can destroy some aqueducs (don't know the english word, the upgrades af sewers), the grow bonus is not very usefull in your situation, and you really need money).
Next turn, a message says that the world is christian
You have to loose at least 3 towns after the next 2 turns, so my advice is to leave those cities (Ravena, Mediolanum and Avaricum) without any men inside with max taxes, and bring near them as many armies as you can (do not use general to lead them , too risky). Salona will be one city where you cannot do anything for now, so leave it too. Carthago Nova will be hard to keep, do want you can (ie : games ; NB : games allow a bonus in religion conversion added to public order bonus).
The big majority of your generals are very bad governer (and general too) and pagans, so don't let them steal your money and use them as heavy cavalery only (reinforcements for example).
After the rebellion exterminate the rebels ( ), make Rome to rebel quickly ('cause of squalor, lots of men die => less money, so ) and do the same.

Now, for 1.6 and its very low bonus in public order for the peasants, I bet you cannot do this, and like I did not try , I cannot help

[Legionary Jezza]

That is one of the worst stratagies I have ever heard of.

Let cities believe what they want to believe in. All cities that aren't near the frontline, you must destroy their military buildings to prevent high quality troops when rebellions occur. Spain and Illyria will revolt alog with a couple of cities in Gaul. Britain can either be abandoned or held but it actually is very loyal and makes some good money in the beginning.

ill have to agree with u aetius that a rubbish way for a settlement plan but a good way for a civil revolt in there

[kWarLord]

i think that the best way to get your empire runnig is to preform the following strategy on several citys per turn:
move all your army out of the city but keep it vary close, change the tax rate to vary high, destroy all the millitery buildings and the tample, build a chaple or whatever and wait until it will become a rebell city, then lay a siegh on her and capture it. you will probebly find yourself slaying pesents by the thousends and wont have a major fight. when you capture the city exterminate the population and change the tax as high as you can so that the pop order will be above the 105%. build upgrades to the chaple and a lot of pesents then change the tax rate and keep doing that untill you will get to vary high tax rate.
while you are doing that, create many soldier in your eastren citys to protect them from the hordes.

[Darth Wong]

Why on Earth would anyone be trying to convert the WRE to Christianity early in the game, when your priority should be defending your porous borders and shoring up your weak economy and city garrisons? You're just barely hanging on as it is, and you want to throw the entire empire into chaos? Wait till you've got the economy and defense situation somewhat stabilized.

[Turbo]

I started my first game with a leader that was Christian. I built up my garrisons and changed all the cities that were pagan to Christian ones. The result was a massive rebellion and a large sea of green rebels. I was able to hold on to Rome, Carthage and a handful of other cities but these were even red faced. With no money coming in and a major negative balance, I can't do anything. All my armies are sitting in the cities, i cant move them out without a major uprising. Is this normal?

Conversion has to be progressive, spreading slowly. The key to Christian conversion is the spiritual powershouse Spuris who sits in a frontier town in the east. Move him back towards Rome. He alone can quickly turn a settlement from pagan to christian. Each settlement that converts to christianity will help convert neighboring regions so it helps to be organized in your conversion.

[guyyug]

in my wre games i keep religion as it is, i dont really care of what my empire believes in just as long i get money from the cities and places to recruit an army