Will this make Eleutheroi not start war when playing Casse?

**Calypze** · March 22, 2013, 04:41 PM

I read somewhere that someone who played Casse in the early game didn't biuld roads, and therefore the Eleutheroi didn't start war against him. Is this something that works generally when playing Casse?

Or anyone with experience in making Eleutheroi not attack you initially when playing Casse?

**Biggieboy** · March 22, 2013, 06:39 PM

What would be the point? you'd have to fight them some day.

**Boriak** · March 22, 2013, 06:46 PM

I tried the Casse campaign twice. I built roads both times. The Eleutheroi did send stacks to my borders but I responded in kind with my own troops and while both armies were facing each other, there was no war.

**Titus Marcellus Scato** · March 22, 2013, 07:33 PM

It also depends on the campaign difficulty level. On Medium campaign difficulty, the Eleutheroi are far more passive and less likely to attack.

**Petite Wolf** · March 22, 2013, 11:10 PM

Honestly, you shouldn't even need to worry about the Eleutheroi attacking you or building roads. What I do when I start a Casse campaign is send my Diplomat across to Gaul, send my boat to my harbour and disband it - make sure to send the Diplomat across before disbanding it as you won't get a harbour capable of producing a navy until you've taken southern Ireland - then spend all my money on queuing up as many units as possible. When they're built I go besiege the settlement north of my own. Ratae, I think it is? You will go in to debt in the first few turns of the campaign, but if you spend all your money in the first turn on units you should have enough to take at least one settlement, most likely two. If I remember correctly, on Medium battle difficulty you can take Ratae, Caern-Brigantae and Ynys-Mon with the same army without needing to retrain. Which is generally why I have it on Hard, as the Eleutheroi, Aedui and Arverni are simply too easy as the Casse on Medium.

But to answer your question, yes I think not building roads will help with the Eleutheroi, as I never get attacked by them at the beginning of the campaign.

**Calypze** · March 24, 2013, 04:22 AM

Originally Posted by Petite Wolf

Honestly, you shouldn't even need to worry about the Eleutheroi attacking you or building roads. What I do when I start a Casse campaign is send my Diplomat across to Gaul, send my boat to my harbour and disband it - make sure to send the Diplomat across before disbanding it as you won't get a harbour capable of producing a navy until you've taken southern Ireland - then spend all my money on queuing up as many units as possible. When they're built I go besiege the settlement north of my own. Ratae, I think it is? You will go in to debt in the first few turns of the campaign, but if you spend all your money in the first turn on units you should have enough to take at least one settlement, most likely two. If I remember correctly, on Medium battle difficulty you can take Ratae, Caern-Brigantae and Ynys-Mon with the same army without needing to retrain. Which is generally why I have it on Hard, as the Eleutheroi, Aedui and Arverni are simply too easy as the Casse on Medium.

But to answer your question, yes I think not building roads will help with the Eleutheroi, as I never get attacked by them at the beginning of the campaign.

Hmm, but you'd say the best course of action is to train troops initially, and conquer neighbouring settlements, and fix economy later?

**Entropy Judge** · March 24, 2013, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by Calypze

Hmm, but you'd say the best course of action is to train troops initially, and conquer neighbouring settlements, and fix economy later?

Those are the two basic strategies, yes - turtle or blitz. Blitz tends to be more effective, since the AI doesn't know how to deal with it.

**Calypze** · March 26, 2013, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by Entropy Judge

Those are the two basic strategies, yes - turtle or blitz. Blitz tends to be more effective, since the AI doesn't know how to deal with it.

So when playing Casse, which Eleutheroi settlement is best taking first? I don't want to take one just to get some stack from the other heading to my home province. Also should one wait out the siege or assault ASAP? If the latter, is it too risky to auto-resolve the assaults? Siege battles are pretty boring IMO, but I guess I can take a few initially if that's what it takes to get the ship sailing.

**Entropy Judge** · March 26, 2013, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by Calypze

So when playing Casse, which Eleutheroi settlement is best taking first?

It depends; personally, I play a turtling game for the first fifteen-twenty years (and yes, not building Roads does seem to keep the Eleutheroi out of my land) to get my economy mostly set, then go for ... ugh, I can't remember the names. I hit the settlement to the immediate west of the Capital, then the two or three that I need to claim 'England' (I leave Caledonia), then I finish taking Wales. Petite Wolf's strategy above (take the north first, then swing through Wales) works just as well; I usually take ... I think it's called Caer Ictis, but I'm not certain ... I usually take that first because IIRC it has smaller walls and its garrison is easier to deal with.

I don't want to take one just to get some stack from the other heading to my home province.

There are only two or three preplaced Eleutheroi stacks you need to worry about; deal with them and you should be safe.

Also should one wait out the siege or assault ASAP? If the latter, is it too risky to auto-resolve the assaults?

Depends entirely on how skillful *you* are and whether you think you can take the defenders. I usually siege a settlement for two years (8 turns) whenever I can unless I have a significant qualitative superiority. The other thing I like doing is besiege with a force that's about equal to the garrison - this will usually cause them to sally forth, which is a pretty easy way to beat them, especially if you're good with the chariots (and I'm not

). And yes, it's almost always a terrible idea to auto-resolve assaults (it's usually a bad idea to AR in the first place - you can get some *weird* results) because the defender gets silly bonuses regardless of what the power graph says.

**Petite Wolf** · March 27, 2013, 12:31 AM

Originally Posted by Calypze

So when playing Casse, which Eleutheroi settlement is best taking first? I don't want to take one just to get some stack from the other heading to my home province. Also should one wait out the siege or assault ASAP? If the latter, is it too risky to auto-resolve the assaults? Siege battles are pretty boring IMO, but I guess I can take a few initially if that's what it takes to get the ship sailing.

West or North, the choice is yours, although I prefer to head north with my army as that army acts like a magnet and they choose to go for it instead of your settlement. You should have defeated all the roaming armies in England by the time you've taken Ratae and/or Caern-Brigantae or at the very latest once you take Ynys-mon. After the armies in the field are defeated you're free to do basically whatever you want in however long you want.

As for auto resolving, I'd avoid it. You can get some really odd/bad results from it that could easily be avoided by playing the battle out. Odds are you'll find that if you do go north to Ratae, you'll encounter one of the field armies either before you besiege it or while you besiege it, and that may actually be better for you if you dislike sieges, as you'll be able to face them both in the field.

edit: Interesting... I just installed the Realistic Movement Mod and in two turns got besieged by a large force of two Eleutheroi armies that had combined in to one stack. I thought it was odd so I went back to vanilla EB movement and didn't get besieged. Apparently increasing the movement speed makes them more aggressive. Could be fun to do it like that.