Starting a new campaign - a few pointers, please?

[K.Wiz.]

I'd like to wish you all happy holidays, and especially good health! I come to you, in this Christmas vacation, with a request for advice.

So I'm about to (re)start my campaign with Rome, after not having played the mod in over a year. While I do have a good understanding of the game's mechanics, I'm afraid I will need a few pointers on how to start one.

While I do wish to play with factions other than Rome, I wish to first finish it (at last) with this nation. What would be the most appropriate settings to start the campaign with? is Hard/Hard a good idea? I seem to remember, from previous discussions, that playing the game on anything less than hard will make it rather dull and unchallenging.

Second question: I have previously played using the roman leadership model. It has served me well, it adds a tactical dimension to the game (and gives you some insanely overpowered commanders). I would like to know, however, if there is a way to disable this leadership model. Shuffling commanders all over the map, making sure to keep them withing a town's distance at all times was all right while the fighting was only happening in Italy. Unfortunately, this is not the case when going overseas, so i would feel a lot more comfortable with it disabled. I would be very grateful is someone could point out a way to remove this feature.

Third question: I remember fighting Pyrrhus in the beginning of the campaign, using a sneaky tactic - having him attack me over a bridge. I bunched up all my forces in front of the passageway, Pyrrhus was quick to charge and, luckily, about a dozen pila met their mark in his face, killing him instantly and assuring my victory. Does this strategy still work?

Observation: I had not picked up playing the game when I finally upgraded my computer due to the still awful, awful loading times it had. Luckily, with an even newer machine, I managed to fix this issue. A solid state drive reduces the wait considerably.

I would like to thank you in advance for any advice. Once again, I wish you all happy holidays, and good health!

[Fanest]

I play on hard(campaign)/medium(battle) difficulty because i dont want for AI to have special morale and attack bonuses in battles.

I think that u can disable leadership script in RTR launcher

There is no bridge on a map where u fight Pyrrhos, besides there is so many generals in his stack that u have to be extremely lucky to target the right one - Pyrrhos. Even then with new balance (fewer units in roman early inf. units) its much much harder to win this battle. I managed to win it yesterday without reloading (playing it first time) but at great cost and i didnt even managed to kill Pyrrhos because he ran away ...

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=115580345
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=115580281

What i noticed is that there is no greeting message when u start roman campaign and that i always have to use toggle_fow after script showing these battles at the beginning of the campaign ends.

Have fun playing new campaign and merry xmas to u too.

[K.Wiz.]

So, yeah, apparently, there's a button for this. I apologize for my, em, marginal thinking. The battle with Pyrrhus took place over a river because it did not happen in the first turn, but in the third or fourth - I ran away from his forces, repeatedly. I've decided to play with no leadership, on hard/hard.

Edit: does clicking the option for the leadership system, and then choosing "No", suffice for turning off the leadership system? Or do you also need to push the "Save" button? Doing so shows me error no. 12, and it does not seem to deactivate otherwise.

[Post Hoc]

I have tried playing with leadership off but my generals and governors seem to worse than when i had Leadership enabled. I remember hearing that turning off leadership is bugged. I do not know if this is true or not. My advice is to play with leadership on, it takes time to learn and is a little to much micro management for my taste, but it is really awesome once you get the hang of it.

This is from the Roman Leadership System page - "Disabling the roman leadership system (UNTESTED, AT YOUR OWN RISK).
If you have started a campaign and find the system not to your liking, there is a way to make it "die out".
Open the file descr_character_traits.txt and search for the phrase Roman Leadership Trigger Section. Select and delete all subsequent triggers until you arrive at the phrase Spy Trigger Section. Without triggers, new characters won't receive the traits involved in the system. To get rid of fro, the start, you also have to remove all references to the system in descr_strat.txt"

[Maurits]

We believe that the RLS is a great addition to the game. We're open to suggestions for its improvement, but have decided to remove the launcher option to disable it since it is one of the central elements of our vision of the Roman campaign.

[K.Wiz.]

I have managed to successfully deactivate the roman leadership model. My main issue with it is having to keep track of where everybody is, and the horrendous travelling times required in order to reach certain destinations. However, I'm still not decided in this regard. Will keep you posted, because I still have not managed to play enough to get past Pyrrhus, a fight which I plan to exploit in the dirtiest fashion, by first retreating and then shuffling along the map until I catch the guy in a bridge fight.

Edit: I've decided to stick to the leadership system - at least in the beginning, it still has more advantages, and there's no shortage of imbeciles to carry spare appointments.

[Vangar]

I prefer a hard/medium setting, because harder combat difficulty doesn't mean that the AI gets any better but instead recieves magical morale boni which means his peasants will never retreat and beat your legions into a pulp XD

[Stath's]

yes, but since A.I. does nothing smart or dangerous on the battlefield, it really needs those bonuses.

[Vangar]

yes, but since A.I. does nothing smart or dangerous on the battlefield, it really needs those bonuses.

True, but RTR comes with some AI improvements, at least I think so. Some of the old exploits don't seem to work anymore at least.

While you are right, on the other hand I just don't like it when the enemy features supermen and inflicts serious casaulties to troops they really shouldn't endanger at all. So, it's kind of a question what you like, having the enemies skirmishes act as spartans fighting of your 2000 men or reach the point in the game where you can slaughter anybody eventually. Though I think because of the political system RTR introduces it really slows down your advancement plus wars on multiple fronts keep you busy

[Vangar]

Regarding the strategy map, I'd like to share some experience with you, maybe it helps developing your strategy.

I tried Carthage, I'm still playing on H/M but it is a tough one. First, Carthage starts with a humoungous sum of money. I spent this sum to improve my infrastructure and settlements, only recruiting few troops. It didn't take that long until the whole world declared war on me, literally every ally turned on me except the Arverni and this is only a matter of time. Without any trade, the upkeep costs kill me, I can barely afford two armies holding my ground in iberia and sicilly.

So at least with carthage I think the policy should be aggression, aggression, aggression. Crush everyone near you as fast as possible (the massyli (sp?) in africa and the !§!"Z$)Z$ "Independend Dynasties") and place conuest before anything else. Public baths and roads don't help much when everyone is trying to get to you.

You armies will be rediculously expensive, so it's maybe best to scrap your fleets except maybe two for troop transport. I haven't seen AI fleets at all though they may have a few because rome invaded sardinia at one point. It doesn't really help that riots are a serious problem in the outskirts of the empire and a militia able to control the population AND avoid raiders attacking will cost a decent sum of money...

[Mausolos of Caria]

I thought with Carthago I had the most stable and most successful economy in all of my RTR campaigns, to be honest I didn't scrap the fleet but buit new ones to move troops in my vastly stretched empire. The Romans attacked Corsica of course, so I conquered Genoa twice to keep them busy on the mainland where I can recruit cheaper Celtic troops and retrain them locally. As for fleets, there were loads of Roman and Greek ones who tried to bring troops to Africa (especially the Romans).
On Sicily you are right that you must attack your enemies soon. The advantage is that you only need troops in the frontier settlements, because there are no ways past them. You should however take Messana or Syracuse quickly, otherwise you'll face a really hard time. In Africa indeed you have to connect your territories at first by defeating the western independent Numidians. I ignored the Massyli for a while because they don't do that much
In Spain I just advanced up the coast all the time until I made the mistake of declaring war on the Lusitani because they had attacked my allies in South Iberia. That got me in a very expensive war with them, but if I had just ignored them, the Lusitanians would have probably occupied all those southern lands and then attacked me with a much higher income themselves.

Riots are indeed a problem in Southern Spain, although I handled the situation the same way I did everywhere else. And of course income is never enough, but that's RTR VII

[Vangar]

My Carthago campaign runs a lot better now, but I still have to support large bodies of troops since I strted to invade italy. And since I was pointed at the tax mechanics of RTR public order should be a bit better now

[K.Wiz.]

Quick question, because I can't figure it out off the top of my head now, can the combat difficulty be changed after the campaign has started?

[Maurits]

I think that can't be done, I wouldn't know how to do it. You could experiment with combat difficulties in custom battles, though