I want to complete Rome Total War?

[JDW]

I've owned Rome Total War since the year it came out and have not yet completed a full long campaign. All the times I've played it I've used auto resolve 90 percent of the time. I would like to complete it though and would like some basic musts if I'm going to do one last playthrough. I'll be choosing the Brutia (sorry for spelling) faction and just want to know what I must do this time to avoid getting owned in the later stages of the game. I'll be using medium settings, so should I personally fight every single battle? Should I manage my own villages and castles?

Thanks.

[Vindictus]

Auto resolve slaughters your troops unnecessarily. If you're good on the battlefield, fight them. If not, resolve them. Resolving always takes like 80-90% more casualties than I would have fought it myself.

[Blanchflower]

Auto resolve slaughters your troops unnecessarily. If you're good on the battlefield, fight them. If not, resolve them. Resolving always takes like 80-90% more casualties than I would have fought it myself.

That is not always a true statement. As I am a noob when it comes to battles, I find auto resolve very useful. For instance, in one battle, I lost 421 men but when I auto resolved the same battle, only 96 men were lost!

How do you explain that?

[darkfng]

That is not always a true statement. As I am a noob when it comes to battles, I find auto resolve very useful. For instance, in one battle, I lost 421 men but when I auto resolved the same battle, only 96 men were lost!

How do you explain that?

He explained it already. "If you're good on the battlefield, fight them. If not, resolve them."

[tudor93]

That is not always a true statement. As I am a noob when it comes to battles, I find auto resolve very useful. For instance, in one battle, I lost 421 men but when I auto resolved the same battle, only 96 men were lost!

How do you explain that?

you need some serious training
no offense though, you'll quickly learn how to slaughter the AI

[Blanchflower]

you need some serious training
no offense though, you'll quickly learn how to slaughter the AI

Yes, what you said is true. I am a noob when it comes to battles! Any tips on how to slaughter the AI?

[Samuel Pidgeon]

you should try to build up your economy autoreslove can make you lose thousands of troops you should try to fight battles on a bridge with greek hoplites as mercenaries if you can get them and use them like a shieldwall while your archers and maybe missle cavalry can slaughter them with arrows also javelins but try to kill the general that causes the AI armies morale to drop giving you a better chance of winning a battle also look for bigger cities with stonewalls and roads with big markets etc because you get loads of income from them and also by exterminating the population i play as germans sometimes best warriors are berserkers be cool if other factions could hire german berserkers as mercenaries i play RTR VII its hard but fun to play

[darkfng]

Yes, what you said is true. I am a noob when it comes to battles! Any tips on how to slaughter the AI?

Make sure that you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your troops and those of the enemy. I always right click the enemy general before going into a fight so I can see what troops he has with him.

Keep your general alive, and as long as there are no missiles being shot at him, close behind your line. Press F as often as possible to give your infantry a morale boost whilst they are engaging a closely matched opponent.

Move your cavalry around the enemy and have them charge their rear once they are actively engaged with your line.

A veteran army with a great general should slaughter the enemy, whilst an army made up the same troops with no experience and a poor general will likely be slaughtered by the same enemy. So try to have the right generals in charge of your troops and try to build up their experience via battles or the bonuses from buildings. Also try to have all the possible building bonuses applied to their weapons and armour.

Always run down and slaughter the routing enemy.

Good luck

[dude21862004]

The best way to manage your settlements is to keep them all building. Once they finish a building it gets put on the building scroll at the beginning of every turn, which makes it easy to check every settlement at least every few turns.

Other than that, auto resolve shouldn't be used unless:

A: It's a very small battle and you can just retrain your lost troops immediately.
B: You have overwhelming forces.
C: There are too many troops on the field and you aren't good enough/computer isn't good enough to do it on the battle map.
D: Your enemy is so overwhelming it's not even worth the load screen just to lose.


There are some other instances that you could do it without much of a set back, but those are the main reasons. Other than that there's not much you can do. A few suggestions are:

*Build the biggest roads you can. They increase trade, create bridges (Easiest battles you will ever find) and they get your troops to where they need to go faster.
*Try to gain Naval superiority. Not only will it give you the ability to transport faster, but you can also cut off trade and sink the ships of the enemy factions. Usually this is pretty easy to do with a half dozen to a dozen Trireme or better around the map.
*Use assassins, spies, and Diplomats. They can really make your life so much easier if you use them right.

[tudor93]

Other than that, auto resolve shouldn't be used unless:
D: Your enemy is so overwhelming it's not even worth the load screen just to lose.

nah, don't do this, the AI is stupid, if you try to fight the battle yourself you won't loose anything at all; you don't need to be a very good player to beat the AI; I'm a casual player and I play on M/M and I beat the crap out of the AI;
I was playing my roman campaign in XGM (a very good mod btw, especially for a begginer ) and 4 units of infrantry + 1 FM were on their way to reinforce my main army in Sicily that was sieging a settlement when suddenly an almost full stack of roman rebels attacked my little stack of reinforcements; I said to myself that I better fight it myself and kill as many enemies as I can before going down and to my surprise I managed to rout them with the old classic hammer and anvil tactic (against the dumb AI this always works ) and of course I got a heroic victory
I'm sure I was going to loose if I were to use autoresolve.

Fight ALL the battles ! This is the best part of the game IMO

[Bonez]

nah, don't do this, the AI is stupid, if you try to fight the battle yourself you won't loose anything at all; you don't need to be a very good player to beat the AI; I'm a casual player and I play on M/M and I beat the crap out of the AI;
I was playing my roman campaign in XGM (a very good mod btw, especially for a begginer ) and 4 units of infrantry + 1 FM were on their way to reinforce my main army in Sicily that was sieging a settlement when suddenly an almost full stack of roman rebels attacked my little stack of reinforcements; I said to myself that I better fight it myself and kill as many enemies as I can before going down and to my surprise I managed to rout them with the old classic hammer and anvil tactic (against the dumb AI this always works ) and of course I got a heroic victory
I'm sure I was going to loose if I were to use autoresolve.

Fight ALL the battles ! This is the best part of the game IMO

On what he said I was going someplace and got ambushed by an army of 321 (I'm a noob) and I only had 121 troops to fight it but by sticking my hastati in place and hammer and anviling with my equites I turned the battle that I had auto-resolved earlier at a defeat to a victory losing 3 less men and killing over 200.

[JDW]

On what he said I was going someplace and got ambushed by an army of 321 (I'm a noob) and I only had 121 troops to fight it but by sticking my hastati in place and hammer and anviling with my equites I turned the battle that I had auto-resolved earlier at a defeat to a victory losing 3 less men and killing over 200.

I think he meant a bigger difference in troops than that, like 100 of your troops against 1000 of theirs.

[Bonez]

I think he meant a bigger difference in troops than that, like 100 of your troops against 1000 of theirs.

I knew that but what I meant to show was how screwed-up the auto resolve feature is as even on small battles like that it can make you lose with a ton of casualties when you shouldn't have.

[MortenJessen]

I think he meant a bigger difference in troops than that, like 100 of your troops against 1000 of theirs.

They can be won too if you are patient..... I once entered a fight (I was ambushed) with only one barbarian mercenary unit, one hastati and one generals bodyguard. I was up against nearly 1700 Thracians. I won...... By placing my two infantry units in the far corners (one to the left, one to the right) in my end of the map (they could hide) and ran all over with my general. The enemy cant kill what they cant see and/or catch. Not fair but hey, I won 45 minutes later......

[Brusilov]

I'd suggest trying a R:TW based mod rather than play vanilla R:TW. They are far more enjoyable and there are many fine mods out there to cover a vast range of history and also fantasy worlds.

[Hurtman]

Auto-resolve is only useful if you have overwhelming odds, like 2000 men to 23 or something. Here's a tip, spearmen are horrible on regular battles but great on sieges. That's pretty much classic knowledge but it's useful. That's why Greeks and Madecon are too easy on regular battles, just flank them with the cavalry, break their phalanx formation and charge at them. Cake.

[Vindictus]

^ Wrong. Use em right and they're great for many things.

Never auto resolve unless you are sure you will win with less than 2% of your army's casualties. I had 600 men once and beat a 3500 enemy battle.

[Thracian Princess]

^ Wrong. Use em right and they're great for many things.

Never auto resolve unless you are sure you will win with less than 2% of your army's casualties. I had 600 men once and beat a 3500 enemy battle.

I'd have to agree on both counts. If used right, Hoplites/Phalanxes are amazing, and never auto resolve. The only time I auto resolve is if I have overwhelming odds, am going to absolutely crush them, and therefore can't be bothered wasting my time absolutely destroying that force. And even then a lot of the time I still fight, as I've had experiences where my overwhelming, should-be victorious forces have been defeated because I auto resolved. If I'm bound to lose, I fight and see how many I take down before I am finally destroyed, and hey, sometimes I end up winning.

[G-Megas-Doux]

Playing as the brutii is a huge advantage as you get to conquer greece and use it as a stack building power base. You can quickly build a stack in 4 turns from 5 cities in greece and move on very fast. By turn 50 you should have conquered greece and anatolia and the balkans, moving into the middle east and start on egypt. Once you have the east its a sinch. You will have vetran armies and the other roman factions will have didly sqat then its just a case of defeat them and conquer rome.

I always build my cities for order, population and trade first letting them build their own garrison as i then build the army buildings. To be honest you can win on m/m even with auto resolve.

[dude21862004]

Playing as the brutii is a huge advantage as you get to conquer greece and use it as a stack building power base.

You don't need Brutii to do that. I actually did it with the Julii, starting with all of those Greek and Macedonian cities and moving out from there while destroying the Gauls and Germania. Easiest campaign, ever.