Long time RTW player needs help

[EmperorJulian]

I bought R:TW on the first day it was available, and over that time I've attempted many different campaigns both of the long and short variety. I have yet to win a single one. The game has aged certainly but M2:TW Is not coming anytime soon and I'd very much like to achieve victory -at least once- before I retire from playing this game.

Let me relate my lastest "failure" for you guys. Now this wasn't a failure in the sense that I lost all my cities and was defeated. Here is what happened, the short version anyway. I decided not long ago to start a new Long Campaign with the Julii a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm fairly good with battles, over the entire campaign (before I quit) I had won something like 200 battles and lost 6 or so (land and sea combined). So on the field I've kept up a pretty strong routine of defeating the enemy. I used to have massive problems with squalor, in which I would "lose" long campaigns due to squalor causing revolt in all my major cities. No such problems this time.

I followed a rather typical strategy for the Julii, taking Mediolanium, Patavium, Caralis and Segesta in quick sucession, and then taking on Gaul. With Gaul defeated i moved into Spain and appropriated the lands there but not before being embroiled in a long war with the British. Over a long period of time (over 100 turns) I managed to take all of Hispania including the island city of Palma, along with Gaul, Britan, Germany and finally my borders reached Scythia. At the end I held 36 regions (including Crete) that extended from Corduba to Vicus Gothi. Even after the Roman civil war began I was still drawing a large ammount of dinarii per turn thanks to my well developed internal economy. I placed heavy emphasis on developing trade and launching armies from my major cities in Northern Italy. I also built, whenver possible, all of the health and happiness upgrades I could. In all I would say conquest wasn't my primary focus, but I did a good job.

So why you ask did I lose, or rather retire from further involvement in the campaign? Well after I took Rome and Capua and used my naval superiority to keep the Scipiones in check I came into contact with the Bruti and I must say I realized immediately I had virtually no chance of defeating them. The Bruti were coming at me with armies almost entirely made of heavilly upgraded Praetorian, Urban and Legionary Cohorts (with ample supplies of Legionary Cavalry as well). Now my units were upgraded and experienced too but they consisted almost entirely of Roman Cavalry, Archer Auxilia, Auxilia Spearmen and General Units. I simply found that I was so far behind the Bruti in military strength I could see no means of defeating them head to thead. I'm not entirely sure what I did wrong, most of my cities were not of sufficient population to build the kind of upgrades required to make those heavy (2 turn) units anyway. So, there I was, 36 territories and the prospect of total and complete defeat in a short period of time, what else could I do?

Anyway that wasn't the full story. After this "failure" I decided to run a Pontic short campaign, as I rather enjoy that faction and Asia Minor. Indeed in this case I again used diplomacy to advance my position and managed to gain 12 territories, a massive trade empire and lost no land battles. Once again I "lost" around 245 BC when the Julii got 15 territories and "won." I thought I expanded rapidly, but apparently not rapidly enough. In truth I can't say I know how to win ANY campaign in RTW. It's certainly not because of my incompetence on the battlefield, but it seems I'm just not up to the task. What can I do? What would you guys recomend I do to change my tactics on the campaign map? Should I just wait it out until M2:TW? Let me know, I'm eager to hear your thoughts.

[Hader]

Well for one, you can start with the Long Campaign and not the short one, so the other strong factions dont win so easily at the start. But I think a small change of tactics is needed. In the Pontic campaign, you say you used a lot of diplomacy to gain land and that you built a good trade empire. Well, I would say focus less on your economy so much and put more into your military campaign. It isnt called Total War for nothing.

Well that is mainly for that Pontic campaign. For your Roman one, you really need to expand quickly and maybe even expand into lands the Brutii and Scipii end u pconqquering, to maybe halt their advance. This worked for me a few times.

[Somethindarker]

your first cities( the ones in italy) are the ones you should concentrate on building up militarily. after like 50 turns you can start building some fairly decent armies your outer cities should be a mix of military and economic builds. remember focus the italian cities to be military builds.also to take care of your squalor problem when your city get too messy or rioty just evacuate the garrison let them revolt and take it back with a nearby full stack, and exterminate the population that should keep them from rioting for at least 30-50 years. when the civil war hits concentrate the bulk of your armies on scipii to take them out early don't let them conquer anything take lilybeaum, caralis, carthage and those southern cities. make them get stuck with 2 or 3 provinces. or ally with carthage and give them denarii every turn(so they can take out the scipii). with the brutii ally with they're enemies and make sure you only attack when the odds are in your favor.

[Daovonnaex]

Well for one, you can start with the Long Campaign and not the short one, so the other strong factions dont win so easily at the start. But I think a small change of tactics is needed. In the Pontic campaign, you say you used a lot of diplomacy to gain land and that you built a good trade empire. Well, I would say focus less on your economy so much and put more into your military campaign. It isnt called Total War for nothing.

Bull. I'm a solid believer in the Almighty Denarius. I never build military buildings unless I cannot build any economic/health/happiness buildings. I keep all my taxes low unless I'm critically short. I fight battles with Captains until I end up with far more generals than I need. I buy rebel generals whenever I see them. I enslave all conquered cities. Before long I awash in cash and population. It doesn't take long before my military technology surpasses everyone, but even if it doesn't, I don't need it.

The Brutii came at me with three combat stacks of elite units, and I had almost nothing elite. Didn't matter. I was able to throw ten stacks of middling units and mercenaries at them in no time short. Guess who won that one? As much as I hate socialism, the USSR did one thing right--MASSIVE NUMBERS.

With low taxes, garrisons everywhere, and tons of health and happiness buildings, revolts are a thing of the past. You'll be cranking out so many soldiers that you could win the war with nothing but peasants. And anything you can't beat you can buy.

The one flaw of this strategy is that in the early game, other factions can overpower you. The key here is to fight your battles on the battle map. Make your small army go far for you, and then you'll have a nice, large base. Enslave every city you conquer. Its status doesn't downgrade, loyalty increases, and your core cities improve.

$$$$$$

[Hader]

Thats not bull, ok no need to get like that. Everyone has a different srategy ok, yotur happens to be buy your way through and mine happens to be brute force and tactics.

[Daovonnaex]

Thats not bull, ok no need to get like that. Everyone has a different srategy ok, yotur happens to be buy your way through and mine happens to be brute force and tactics.

Your method works quite well also. Apologies for the slight.

Another point, which you seemed to have touched on as the Scipiones, is that if you're Roman, expand in such a way that you check the expansion of the other Romans. One of the first targets I have as a Roman is always Carthage. Carthage is weak, and the city of Carthage is enormously useful, as it's usually well-developed, and it becomes a huge city very quickly.

If you sort of follow the Senate missions, you'll be in good shape to stop the Scipiones and the Bruti quite quickly, since the Senate is assigning you naval missions in their zone (Julii require more independent action to counter). If you lock up Carthage and a few Greek cities early on, you've effectively hacked off the limbs of your Roman competitors.

Note that this advice works well with either my economic method or with Hader's heroic method.

[Otherside]

Just so i know what Difficulty are u playing on and why where most of ur armies in the roman one made up of cav i mean being roman Heavy infantry is a must have ? the only campaign i have ever played all the way through and won was a juili one when i first got the game now whenever i start a campaign a new mod comes out so i stop at try it :-S

[EmperorJulian]

Well good points so far. First my Roman armies are not, nor were they ever majority cavalry oriented. The armies I had were a mix of flanking Roman Cavalry, Auxilia and Early Legionary Cohorts and Archer Auxilia. My armies were typically ballanced with more infantry than cavalry. This only became an issue when I came face to face with the Bruti who were attacking with much more powerful armies (Urban Cohorts) and such. Also squalor was well in hand in this last long campaign as the Julii and I never suffered any city rebellions.

As for the pontic campaign it is probably accurate that I should have headed out to attack Armenia immediately and focused more on military than economic gains (within reason of course). I will take that under advisement. Also expanding into the territory of the Bruti, that is perhaps taking northern italy and then heading into Greece might have been a better choice. As I said the Scipiones were of absoutely no threat to me as I had total naval superiority and they had no means of bringing their armies to bear. If the Bruti could be neutralized early then I would have very little to fear from the Roman factions. I did build up and develop my Northern Italian Cities the most, however I only had 3 cities capable of producing Urban/Praetorian Cohorts. One of the reasons I suspended the campaign was that there was no way for me to produce, in any reasonable ammount of time, units that could compete with the Bruti's forces.

The further idea of going into Carthage is intriguing as well, I had not thought of that, and at the end I wasn't upset about my choices anyway as I had nothing to fear from that faction anyway. I'll consider it however. I forgot to mention earlier that this is all on Hard/Hard Difficulty with RTW 1.5 (no major mods), I did change a few things like giving a few factions more starting monies and removing walls beyond the stone wall level (Epic Stone Walls are just way unrealistic). So far good points, hopefully I can win at least ONE campaign before RTW's time is up.

[EmperorJulian]

Well I can see the wisdom of getting involved in the territorial expansions of the other Roman factions. In my own case my troops were fine for any faction other than the other Romans. So that makes alot of sense from my own perspective. As for the short campaign I don't see why CA even made it such that other, non player factions can win without even engaging the player at any point. That seems somewhat of a move towards a pure annoyance factor than anything else. That being said I do focus very heavilly on trade and happyness myself, and I guess for a short campaign I really have to ramp up the military side of things before anything else. Anyway I'll see how it goes in some further campaigning

[Severous]

Hi

On m/m difficulty my Julii campaign was my first. I planned to capture 50 territories with civil war and Rome being the last move. Civil war kicked off early when I had 48 regions after a failed assassination attempt. I just managed to avoid battles with the Brutii and capture the required regions to 'win' the campaign.

I see you have no difficulties against non roman factions. So maybe expand fast against non romans and in a way that hems in the Brutii. Go for 49 non Roman regions then make Rome the 50th. You have to be strong enough to take out SPQR though.

Good luck.

[EmperorJulian]

Severous I'm thinking along similar lines for Roman-based long campaigns, it would be to my advantage to do what I must to stunt the expansion of the other Roman Factions. I do think my rate of expansion needs to be quicker, though I do attack and expand quickly my campaign usually wouldn't be close to ending before 175-150 BC rather than before 200 BC. I take time to, say, upgrade and rebuid my armies, and I'll take occasional pauses if I lose a significant number of troops. From what I've read though in the time I secured 36 territories many players had already completed the campaign.

So, in any event it seems I would benefit greatly from even more of a blitz mentality and a decision to hem-in the other Roman factions. This should at least be applicable to the short campaign, where speed and early military strength would be much needed. Thanks for the replies!

[NobleNick]

EmporerJulian,

I've read through, but see no answer to the question of which difficulty you are playing. I am going to assume you are on M/M (Normal/Normal ?) or Hard/Hard.

I've won a M/M Julii short, a M/H Brutii Short, lost a Scipii H/H short (Egypt beat me to 15), but then converted it to a long and won that. Was part of a group that won a VH/H Carthage long succession campaign (well, we stopped at like 49, because it was obvious we couldn't lose); and I am currently kicking Scipii and Brutii tush in the middle of a H/H long Gaul campaign (already eliminated Julii and the S.Q.P.R.). All of these games were played on vanilla 1.5 RTW.

With your excellent battlefield record, it is puzzling that you are losing the campaign. With 36 territories under your control, I am not convinced that you are losing; but will take you at your word for the sake of argument. Here are several things that you can think about for your next campaign, or apply to your current campaign to pull yourself out of trouble.

1.) One tactic, as a Roman faction, is to avoid civil war until you have 48 or 49 territories, and take Rome as your 50th, before the other factions have time to react. You might have to let you faction leader commit suicide in order to pull this off; but if you have lots of generals and it only happens once or twice, it might be worth it.

2.) You need money. Make sure your expansion plans include the richest regions and the wonders: Focus on getting a good slice of the Greek cities. Carthage owns a lot of gems, also. Make sure your navy is strong enough to prevent blockades.

3.) Your opponents need money, also. So deny it to them. Use fleets to blocade ports. If you can not take and hold territory, then take the enemy's best cities, raze all the buildings inside, and move your stack on to the next city. The Brutii thorn in your side was almost certainly powered by money from the Aegean penninsula. Do an end run with an amphibious invasion and take (or at least destroy) these cities.

4.) Build upgraded troops. This is one of the biggest areas I suspect you have a problem. You should, at the very least, have a foundry and the highest possible training facility for the type of troop you are training, in every city that you use for military production in the mid to late game. If you can not do this, you have a big problem: let us know and we can help you solve it. Also, go for the temples that give upgrades, too (although I think the Julii have fewer options, here, than the Brutii or Scipii). You should be able to pump out hordes of Upgraded Legionary Cohort (which are more economical than the Urbans) and Legionary Cav (which are more economical than the Praetorian). These should hold up quite well if you outnumber your enemy (which you should) or even if you are outnumbered 3:2 by Urbans and are the defender in a seige.

5.) Pay attention to economics. Give priority to economy over military as best you can and still survive. Build the highest upgrades of all economic buildings: roads, ports, markets, mines, and (with extreme caution!) farms.

6.) Pick the right faction. Yes, victory is achievable with any faction, but if I were looking for my first victory, I wouldn't try it with something like Thrace or Numida. Although I haven't played them, I am guessing that Egypt would be a good choice: Good troops; excellent starting position; great economy; and no civil war with which to deal. The Roman factions are probably the next best. Of the Roman factions, I'd pick the Scipii (good starting location, good economy, and good temple upgrades), followed closely by the Brutii (excellent early game chance to expand into a great economy).

In short, I seems you know how to use your troops well; but you are just being overpowered by opponents with superior economics and infrastructure.

BTW, I think your Julii campaign is salvageable. If you have 36 cities than you also have hope: a lot of hope. Care to email your saved game so I can take a peek?

[EmperorJulian]

Well NobleNick thanks for the reply. You make alot of good points. I mentioned above that all this was on Hard/Hard, Vanila RTW 1.5. I didn't delete my saves so the game is still there, and I could go back a ways and replay it. To be fair my troops are upgraded as I have armories in most of my troop production centers, but they're not of the right calaber and strength in fighting the Bruti. I.E. Auxilia Vs Urban Cohort = Death.

As far as "losing" goes, it was mostly my view that I could not field enough good armies rapidly enough to stop the Bruti advance. Looking at my garisons and the location of the Bruti armies (after already losing Patavium) I figured I'd lose just about all of my frontier cities, and had a good chance at losing the core of my Italian cities as well, Arretium, Ariminum etc. I didn't think the Bruti would take ALL my territory, only that they'd be able to take so much that it would be very difficult to defeat them at all down the line. Going back and taking their cities in Greece is an interesting proposition as they are mostly loitering around elsewhere.

Also I can admit I hardly took the "richest" areas of the world with my Julii campaign. Almost everything I own is in Spain, Gaul and Germany. I have a strong internal economy but no wonders or cities like Carthage. I did take Crete and in retrospect I could have done more, but at the time I was very much embroiled with Britan and I didn't see the need to even have a fleet until it was time to fight the other Romans. I did focus heavilly on Economic development which is I think what kept me going in this campaign, I never had to worry about monetary shortages. Finally as far as other factions are concerned I enjoy Macedon, Pontus, the Greek Cities, Gaul and the Bruti mainly. This Julii game was a new diversion and I enjoyed it, except for the end-game mistakes anyway.

I can send the game saves over if you'd like, you might be able to tell me exactly what you think I did wrong or can do to fix the situation, cheers!

[Daovonnaex]

If you would, please e-mail me your Julii saved game. My e-mail address is davidnystrom.tsipower@gmail.com

[NobleNick]

Auxilia Vs Urban Cohort = Death.

Bingo. You nailed it: Auxilia Vs Urban Cohort does, indeed, equal Death. In fact, Auxillia versus just about anything = Death. I don't know what these guys are supposed to be good at, since I can't even get them to stop a cav charge. Peasants pokers maybe? I don't know. My guess is that fully upgraded Scipii PEASANTS (gold/gold/2-chevron) would cream Auxillia.

There is NOTHING Auxilia can do that Legionary Cohort can't do much, MUCH better. And so, the solution is obvious: Make Cohort, not Auxilia!

Make Peasants only to keep order in cities, and make only armies composed of ONLY the following units, in roughly this ratio:

12 Legionary Cohort
4 Archer Auxilia -OR- 3 Archer Auxilia and an Onager or Wardogs
4 Legionary Cav -OR- 3 Legionary Cav and 1 General

If you know how to use cav well to disrupt the enemy lines (without losing your cav) then trade in two of the Cohort for Cavalry, to make the mix 10 Cohort and 6 Cav.

Build only in cities with foundries. Hopefully that also have a temple upgrade.

Delaying the enemy with forts, as Severous suggests, probably works (I've never tried it, but I'm sure if Severous suggested it, he knows it will work). However, *IF* you have lots of patience and skill using cavalry; then parking 1/2 stacks of Legionary cav on favorable terrain, in the enemy's way, is an excellent and satisfying way to not just delay them (easy to do), but OBLITERATE them (a bit harder to do, but certainly achievable).

I have a strong internal economy but no wonders or cities like Carthage. I did take Crete and... I did focus heavilly on Economic development which is I think what kept me going in this campaign, I never had to worry about monetary shortages.

Sounds like you did very well, for the territory you occupied. I am becoming more and more convinced that this H/H game is winable, and without that much difficulty.

So, no one in this game can build anything better than stone walls (no Large nor Epic stone walls) ?

I didn't delete my saves so the game is still there, and I could go back a ways and replay it... I can send the game saves over if you'd like, you might be able to tell me exactly what you think I did wrong or can do to fix the situation, cheers!

Anyway, it was fun as usual, that's what counts.

Well said. I'd rather barely lose a very tough game than win a laughably easy one. Still, it would be a little more fun to win; and that's what we'd like to help you do.

Please do send a saved game. Maybe your current game and one from about 20 years back. I don't know how your save with the walls mod will interact with my pure vanilla 1.5 RTW; but we can see. I'd love to view your exact situation.

I think you can use the in-forum tools to send me an e-mail with an attachment; but I will also PM you my email address.

[Severous]

A thought if you were going to try and save your current Julii campaign.

A peasant in a fort. Lots of such forts placed between your cities and the advancing Brutii. Doesnt have to be a peasant...any expendable unit. To buy you time. You need to muster something to fight defensively and hold/slow the brutii. Raze your cities if you are going to loose them. Elsewhere an invasion of weakly held Brutii cities to both boost your region count and weaken the Brutii.

If you have the cash is it worth bribing some smaller brutii stacks ? To both weaken the Brutii and gain good troops for your faction ?

PS. Does anyone know if the mods made to the game would prevent a vanilla V1.5 player using the save game on offer ?

[Hader]

PS. Does anyone know if the mods made to the game would prevent a vanilla V1.5 player using the save game on offer ?

Yup, each players version must be the same, modded or unmodded exactly like the other one.

[Daovonnaex]

Yup, each players version must be the same, modded or unmodded exactly like the other one.

Sort of...

I have night battles enabled in my RTW, which has zero impact on game save files, as the attributes simply vanish on a non-night battle version of RTW. Some cosmetic changes (new skins, unit cards, etc.) should also have no impact.

[Hader]

Its more of anything that affects gameplay, not appearence. So any mod that affects gameplay will not be compatible with vanill or any other mod not the same as it, but usually personal mods that change skins only effect appearence, so they wont affect the other players game at all.

[Yossarian]

Sort of...

I have night battles enabled in my RTW, which has zero impact on game save files, as the attributes simply vanish on a non-night battle version of RTW. Some cosmetic changes (new skins, unit cards, etc.) should also have no impact.

How do you enable night battles in vanilla RTW?