How do you do it?

[raphael]

So im playing as the WRE in the canpaign(nt sure what year it is) but its the 1 where i control gaul, spain, Britain and a little part of africa(i believe its the earliest campaign) and well, lets just say things are not going so well, im playing m/m coz im nt a very good campaign player and i lost all of Britain and gaul, im stuck with no army and negative income and revolting cities how do you guys survive? i auto resolved my 1st battle and it was 3 stacks of my army vs 1 stack of franks and i lost !!?!?!??!?!. so after that i played the battles myself and lo and behold. the morale of the legions is like the morale of peasants.. was the morale realy THAT bad? i mean come on..... after 2 secs of engagement they route im like -.- no1der the WRE declined so easily.

so, question is... how do u guys do it? any pros care to share?

[Diocletianus]

At the start of the campaign, NEVER, ABSOLUTELY NEVER auto-resolve battle because you will lost enormous ammount of troops and you need thoses agains the franks,alamani and saxons.Choose carefully each battle ground locations ( heights,bridges,etc). Plan each constructions at the start of the first turn, disbanfd some fleets.

[raphael]

ah... ok. what about the UBER low morale? how shd i counter that?

[Justinian Australis]

In a nutshell (perhaps a walnut,peanut or a macadamia)...you must MICROMANAGE EVERYTHING! I am not shouting to be rude but I must emphasize MICROMANAGEMENT! (say that in a big doomy voice from heaven sort of thing). Each save game can be different so there is no set rule to follow for each but there is a general approach you can take...

So you need to spend your first turn working out your moves. You need to look at the public order of each city that is in trouble and work out your best approach to improving it. That may be through building religious buildings or even removing them, removing certain evil governors (perhaps replacing them with more positive types ie less corrupt, different religion etc), building health buildings if that's what is off your citizens etc.

You need to have a look at your armies and then the situation along the borders. You'll have a fair few troops at your disposal in each hot spot. As mentioned above NEVER AUTO RESOLVE. Those Franks that destroyed your troops have silver chevron francesca heriskara to start with along with the kick arse Frankish general bodyguards. You may find yourself needing to shift troops around to meet each situation...you may require some horse archers to battle the Quaddi and their Sarmatian cavalry for example. Seriously, if your playing the battles yourself, with the legions at your disposal you should be able to brush aside the likes of the Franks and Alemanni with relative ease (I always have). The same goes for the Goth's who are in huge numbers but rather easy to destroy (if your playing as Julianus your legio palatinae should destroy them easily) Morale shouldn't be that much of an issue. Basically, I like to attack from the very first turn, moving troops into position and just going for the jugular.

Also never disband your armies or border troops to reduce costs as you will need every single soldier in your empire. Those border forts may seem useless with the soldiers just sitting there but they can buy you valuable time in maneuvering troops into position. Choose your ground carefully...it may not be much of a challenge but try and sucker the enemy into bridge battles. That's it won right there for you. Take the high ground where possible too and use your missile troops to advantage. You can disband most of your ships if you want. Right here on the first turn you may want to add a few extra units to the production queue to counter any losses or fill gaps that arise. If your not that clued up on the soldiers at your disposal, it might pay to have a good look at each of them in depth. No good throwing the milites at a slathering horde of wodinwiga or charging the Savaran with light cavalry.

Hope this may help somewhat. It can be very daunting this game at the best of times (I struggled for a while) but success can be achieved.

[raphael]

wow thats a mouthful! and thank you very much. have always sucked at the WRE. I can do better in battles but this is the 1st time im playing as the WRE and i must say... its in prety bad shape.... and another thing the comitatenses(or however u spell them) routed on my 1st battle before even reaching the frankish lines and im like..... ok.... lets retreat now... do comitaten..something. have lower morale than the auxilia palat.. something something.?

[Diocletianus]

wow thats a mouthful! and thank you very much. have always sucked at the WRE. I can do better in battles but this is the 1st time im playing as the WRE and i must say... its in prety bad shape.... and another thing the comitatenses(or however u spell them) routed on my 1st battle before even reaching the frankish lines and im like..... ok.... lets retreat now... do comitaten..something. have lower morale than the auxilia palat.. something something.?

If you put a captain or a low command general they will rout for sure ! Always back them with a good general or stay defense because most of the barbarians attack even when they are in inferiority

[raphael]

hmmm... i c. i think that battle i din have a gen, just a captain. will try it out. thanks!