Good Guide/Tips/Strategy To Playing Rome Faction in RS2?

[Captain_Deckard]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a good guide or tips article/post on how to play the Roman faction in RS2? I have no idea what to do with all the buildings and cities when I start, other than basic stuff.

Any strategy guides for the Romans?

Also, I have been trying to eradicate Christianity and bring back the old gods in all my cities, is this plausible or will it cause a big problem later in the game? I keep restarting my campaign so I haven't got that far in yet, just dealing with the revolt when Capua and Torentum turn to the blue rebels.

[neofrage]

I have just started Roman campaign a few days before for the first time, and it was also quite difficult for me to search for all information i wanted. So let me write a few tips (or personal opinions) for the romans.

1) reorganization of your armies and bringing back peace into Italy.

You need to decide who will lead your first armies and which troops he will have. Probably it is best also get all armies from Spain, Greece, and Sicilia back to the Italy. You will need a lot of concentrated power to deal fast with the 1st rebellion and with Hannibal. Most of the money you will probably spend on retraining your starting armies in Roma and building new polybian cohorts.

2) First Expansions.

Then after you deal with the 1st rebellion and you will drive Hannibal out of the Italy, you must decide directions of your expansion. Possible directions:

A) North, then northwest - Fast "Rush" of Arverni. I my opinion Averni are quite weak and I have conquered them with 2 polybian legions quite fast. Problems with this direction - Carthago will take a breathe and can start sending armies to sicily, also when u conquer most of the Gaul u will be probably faced to fight on 2 frontiers to defend the Gaul - with Gallaeci to the south and Cimbri and Belgae to the north

B) North, then Northeast - Kick the Boii. You could probably conquer them also fast, but your borders will be very poorly defensible and I think you couldnt take any advantage from this

C) East across the sea is Greece and Macedonia. They wouldnt be easy and you must build a navy to ship units there. Advantage of this is that Regions of Greece are quite rich and it could boost your economy if you conquered whole Greece with Macedonia and Sparta. Also if you conquer whole Greece, you can defend it pretty easily - North is only Dacia and from the East nobody should attack you very fast. Big disadvantage of this is that it would be very difficult to conquer Greece in this time and it would be very bloody. Also Arverni and Carthage will have a lot of time to become much stronger when u will be fighting greeks.

D) South - Carthage. Carthage will be very strong if u try to fight them on their own lands, but if u build your cities in Sicily, you can recruit your troops very nearby. It wont boost your economy so much as if u conquer greece, but Africa is very easily defendable, and while fighting with carthaginians you would probably only defend North Italy from the Celts.

E) West - Spain. I think it is the worst primary direction of expansions at all, cause if u try this you will be soon also with war with Arverni and Carthage, also u must build very strong navy to rule the Western Mediterranean and your borders will be very unsafe and hard to defend.

Personally as I did that, I recommend NorthWest and South directions. With these directions I recommend to leave your regions in Emporiae and Greece.

3) Economy.

Economy is the same with Romans as with any other faction in RS2, only with 1 exception that all your MAIN incomes are divided into all "ROMAN-CULTURAL-ECONOMICAL" regions instead of 1 capital as with nearly any other faction in RS2. So after you deal with 1st rebellion and the Hannibal, start building all buildings which have +TAX, + TRADE and + MINING in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia and Corsica. Also it is good to have at last 1 "general" in each of your cities as a governor. Each governor can help with your income when he will have traits and ancillaries with + MANAGEMENT and + TRAGE, + TAX.

4) Recruiting PRE-MARIAN.

In order to be able recruit any units, you need to decide the goverment of each region. First build a "GOVERNMENT DETERMINATION" and TRIBAL JUSTICE buildings and then you will be able to choose from 3 forms of Government:

A) Annex Region - you would probably dont get any units in this region, but only a minor economic bonus. It has changed in RS 2.6, and it is not necessary for any other government. So my opinion is that you dont need this form of government for any region.

B) Allied or Clientstate - after building this building, you can build "ALLIED BARRACKS" in this region and you would get ALLIED COHORTS and other units. This is only in Italy or maybe also ROMAN CULTURAL regions. I am not very sure about this, I havent used them very much. But in other regions outside the Italy you would get a lot of other units from Allied states like: celtic warband archer (very cheap!), paleoveneti noble cavalry (very useful addition before you get reformed legions) in the north of Italy, numudian light cavalry (pretty good skirmisher cavalry if you can use that) lybian light infantry in Africa e.t.c....

C) Citizenship - The province become "Romanized" and you can recruit there your "own faction troops". In Roma you have great EQUITES EXTRAORDINARII. in other regions and also in roma it is - triarii, polybian roman cohorts, "standart" equites e.t.c... BUT! before MARIAN REFORMS you can recruit your "own faction troops" only in the middle of Italy and in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. So it is probably better to give other conquered regions "ALLIED OR CLIENT STATE" to be able to recruit there any units.

5) MARIAN REFORMS

Marian reforms are triggered by building IMPERIAL PALACE in Akragas in Sicily. You need 24000 population to be able build the IMPERIAL PALACE. You are able to rush it fast with building POPULATION MEASURES buildings and all FARMS and all HEALTH FACILITIES to increase the population growth to the max as well as recruiting some units in other regions and disbanding them there. But it is not very smart idea to rush it this way, cause when you build that palace, you will lose the ability to recruit all of your "POLYBIAN UNITS". So it is much better to prepare for the reforms before you build that palace. I think it would be better now if I write the building tree of "ROMAN FACTION BARRACKS"

Roman oppidum organization => Roman oppidum colonization (u need REGIONAL FOCUS (and sometimes if the region hasnt got any metal source MINNERAL IMPORT => WEAPONS METAL IMPORT) to be able to build the next level of barracks) => Roman oppidum provincial (u need SUPPLY OF ARMY RATIONS + FORTIFIED OR MERGED CITY + CITIZENSHIP for the next level) => campus martius (u need MARIAN REFORMS for the next level) => Roman fortress =>>>>>> Curia Hostilia.

So in short, before the reforms, you can build only CAMPUS MARTIUS as the highest level of the barracks. AFTER the REFORMS you can build ROMAN FORTRESS. So it is much better to wait with building IMPERIAL PALACE in AKRAGAS until you build Campus Martius in a few cities.

RECRUITING:

A) BEFORE the reforms you can recruit few "polybian" units in "Roman oppidum Provincial" and Triarii avaiable in Campus Martius.
B) AFTER the reforms you have:
B1) NONE of your units in "Roman oppidum Provincial"
B2) GENERIC LEGIONS avaiable in CAMPUS MARTIUS
B3) NAMED LEGIONS in ROMAN FORTRESS

But u still dont have any AUXILLIA COHORS and CAVALRY AUXILLIA. In order to be able to recruit them u need to make IMPERIAL REFORMS.
IMPERIAL REFORMS = building CIRCUS MAXIMUS in ROMA.

After u make that u will have Auxillia cohors in ROMAN OPPIDUM PROVINCIAL and GENERIC LEGIONS will dissapear.

In order to be able recruit "SEGMENTATA LEGIONS" u need to build CURIA HOSTILIA in each city where you want to recruit them. But this is not so necessarily, "named HAMATA LEGIONS" are also very nice.

6) LEGION RECRUITMENT

Go to the directory where you installed your RS. In the RS2\Data\_Important_Stuff\AOR_maps are several maps that describes everything needed. In my opinion the most useful files there are "RS2 Map Legion AOR 25.09.2010.JPG" and "Legion_recruitment.txt"

7) Roman traits, family trees, ancillaries, Roman Leadership.

A) Families.
It is very complicated in short. You have several "ruling" families which give you your "generals". They are based on history, but as long as u will play your campaign, new family members of these families will be borning. The first ruling family are "MAXIMUS family". Other families are "hidden" and cannot be viewed, but when u will have national leader from the different familly it will switch automatically. The other families are for example "Scipio" and "Mettelus".

B) Roman leadership in short - the script is activating elections from time to time. And it is better when there will be elections to move some of your generals into some cities. They will have better chance to get some office, but its also not necessary. If u want to get some more information about "how it works" go into this topic: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...nd-Information.

I think this is the end, you wont need probably no more information until 2nd rebellion, so enjoy

[Captain_Deckard]

Thank you greatly, I really appreciate your help.

[neofrage]

np, I know its hard to find all this information somewhere in the forum or elsewhere. I would really appreciate if there would be any guide for Rome "All-in-one".

[LoGaL]

i would advise also to take your time: after dealing with hannibal and stuff, conquer italy and then start building up your economy, while playing beta i alwais used the first 60 -65 turns to develop my cities so that i could support many legionsYou need to bottle neck the barbarian scum with 2-3 cities, i liked to use massalia, then the other cities in the northNormaly i chose to take the historical route and expand into spain, then land in africa, the buildup again and attack greeceI would personally leave the barbarians for later, as it is a very difficult territory to defend once conquered and the economy boost that spain and greece give you is way betteronce you conquer spain and africa you simply need to leave and army in carthage and defend the spain border with the legions you recruit in italyi will stress it again, take your time to develop your economy or you will pay for it later when you wont be able to support massive armies

[Captain_Deckard]

What about religion? I try to replace Christianity with the old roman gods, is this something I can work at and be okay later in the campaign or not?

[LoGaL]

there is no religion in roma surrectum O.o

[LoGaL]

there is no religion in roma surrectum O.o

[Captain_Deckard]

Oh right, sorry, I was playing BI the other day and got mixed up in my mind