Rome campaign help

[Suthseaxe]

After finally getting through the installation I started playing this mod. Firstly, I noticed there's no single battle where I can practice. What's with that? Secondly, I start with two massive armies in my territory and only one army to fight it (which cannot fight either of them alone). I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do. I fought the army which isn't hidden but my enemies wouldn't break, so I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to fight them. Does anyone have any advice?

[Evalation]

Your starting full stack is pretty much doomed to either get defeated, or take very heavy losses. The best thing you can do after the first fight is bring in the troops you have in greece, sicily, and spain. Bring those troops together and form a new army, if you still have the funds you should retrain and train as many troops as you can from Roma to get the upgrades.

It will not be easy, the southern italian states will soon rebel agianst the roman rule and you will be forced to deal with them in the south, and hannibal in the north with his African/gaulic army.

Playing as Rome in this mod is very unforgiving, especialy if you dont know what your doing, however its still a very fun and entertaining, and unique experience that only this mod gives to the roman player. Hire Mercenarys whenever possible to fill out your stacks, train in Roma to get upgrades and when bringing your army together try to avoid the rebel stacks that may try to get to your capital.

I hope I helped a little, goodluck and if you have any other questions just post them here.

[SD_Man]

Fear the Rebels? Please elaborate because Im already shivering under this thought.

[Evalation]

Fear the Rebels? Please elaborate because Im already shivering under this thought.

I wouldnt say fear, more like avoid if you arent strong enough to take them on untill you get your army pulled together from your far away provinces.

[High Fist]

Concerning money: Bump taxes up to very high across the map where public order allows. Only build buildings in Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and Rome. This is because the southern cities may rebel, but they're chosen at random so you never know which ones.

Rome, Arretium and Ariminum are the only places you can recruit soldiers in, so do you're best to defend them. Keep pumping out cohorts and f you're running low on funds recruit them instead of building.

Also, abandon Spain and Greece completely; no way you're gonna hold them. Best to just take all the soldiers with you rather than leave a garrison.

[Primative1]

I managed to hold onto Emporie in Spain.

Also I took my starting army back to Rome where I built a forge to armour up my troops and built up a second army to deal with the rebels.

There are many different ways to play this.

Go for it, if you up then start again.

[Primative1]

Capua always rebels, so be ready for that.

[tungri_centurio]

all the above and dont worry about the greeks in syracuse,they dont attack you.and let hannibal siege a settlement,so dont attack on the first turn, he sieged most of my campaigns arrimium,let him take the city,and take on the other army that is not so strong,by that time you shoud have all availeble troops near rome ,bring scipio over with a boat from spain not on foot,and when hannibal has taken the city, siege him and starve him.thats what i did in my first 5 play's with rome.then just rolling up the roman rebels from capua to the south. its a hard start but when finnished whit the rebels you have a nice campaign ahaed

you can also leave one unit in emporia and send the diplomat to the galliaci tribe,if you dont plan to go that direction.ask for ally and give emporia to them,it creates a good buffer that holds carthage out of gaul but you have a verry strong galliaci tribe when you wanna take spain later on.

what difficulty do you play, 0 or 1 turn recruitment,what garrison script? good luck and have fun

[Suthseaxe]

I'm not sure what 0 turn is, but I have that selected (!) and currently on hard campaign/medium battles. I would have gone H/H, but I have heard enemies get attack bonuses and such on hard. It's good to know the starting stack is more or less doomed. I thought I was doing something wrong when none of the enemies would flee!

[trenktas]

well the starting army is not that doomed. i always reinforce it with 3 units for a full stack, send couple units to the city hannibal attacks first. then its not that hard, in battlemap u have full stack and a few ally units. with your infantry move towards enemy infantry and with all your cavalry move towards ally. hannibal usually uses all of its cavalry to attack ally, and when u show up close to the ally, they are already engaged, just charge. u get small losses, ally more, then just charge enemy infantry from behind. i usually loose only about 300 from my stack and most ally. but then just merge what u still have, usually its still close to a full stack, more than enough to defeat second army. or u can wait one turn, retrain your troops and go with a strong full stack.

[High Fist]

1 turn means you can only recruit one unit per turn, just like in vanilla. 0 turn means you can fill the entire recruitment bar and all units will be recruited (that's why it's called 0 turn, it basically takes no turns to recruit many soldiers).

0 turn gets a lot of enemy stacks. Too many for a lot of people's liking.

I'd also advise you play on medium difficulty cause you'll be seeing a lot more enemy stacks on hard. I play M/M and I find it just perfect.

[Suthseaxe]

I'll take your advice everyone. Thanks! I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be "historical" that I defeat him in Italy first thing (I don't know much about the Punic Wars; I'm more of a medieval history man) but I have been researching and it seems Hannibal was in Italy for a while! Let's see if it works.

[Ovidius Empiricus]

Well, I'm not sure the modders had any particular course of action that you were "supposed" to take, but I always kill Hannibal the first turn. Don't worry about the other army for now, led by his lieutenant or whatever; in my experience, after Hannibal's death, he just retreats to defend Genoa. That isn't actually what happened historically, but I think the game for Rome is much better after that. And Carthage must be destroyed anyway. Get as many troops as you can from Rome and the other towns in the north. The army starting out in the field might have a bunch of slingers and such, which won't be of much use since this battle is just a real meat grinder, so replace them with cohorts or cavalry. Do what you can to kill Hannibal as soon as possible. While everyone else holds the line, take some cav and a couple of cohorts/triarii around their flanks. If you're getting harassed on the way and a unit needs to sacrifice itself defending the other flankers, the most important thing is to focus the rest on Hannibal. Keep pressing forward no matter what, until he is surrounded and dies. The Carthaginians suffer a massive loss in morale (because he was such a great 10-star general), so they will be much easier to rout. Their infantry aren't quite as good as yours anyway, but you stand no chance of an actual victory as long as he's alive. Even when you do, it means heavy losses for you. Still, it's better than possibly losing a city or two when he decides to go on the attack if you decide not to confront him. Fighting him isn't something you can avoid, and waiting several turns isn't going to change much about it. For example, waiting while you build a foundry in Rome and upgrading all your units takes too much time. It is something you should do right away, but by then, you've lost; and it's also a waste, because those troops are still going to suffer a lot of casualties even with the upgrades. I let the green units I start out with suffer those casualties, not my new recruits with all their experience and shiny weapons/armor.

[Bosje]

I add cav to the first stack and take on Hannibal. Drive away all those pesky missile cav: if you catch any of em, pile more cav on top. meanwhile all infantry is engaged in a big slugging match. Hannibal either comes out to help his own cav, or he stays with his infantry. Wherever he is, smash all remaining cav and your general into him.
Then it's a tight and cool fight. If your general dies, you lose the stack. If Hannibal dies, you win the battle with many casualties. His slingers must be killed with cav (painful losses again). your own slingers can move around behind him, slaughter enemy infantry in the back. roll up the line from one side using those slingers. routers can be run down by remaining cav, you get the picture. retrain polybians. My advice: abandon greece but keep emporiae. dont move into northern italy quite yet. crush rebellion asap and you may have 2 good stacks after that. polybians + allies, with xp and at least bronze upgrades. And whatever you left in spain and on sicily/corsica.
Then stabilise.
get an infrastructure up, trade stuff, move into northern italy but be sure you can defend what you conquer. I like having one legion in the north for defense. (it can take massilia at will). one legion split in two stacks to hold corsica and southern italy/sicily. (on standby if syracuse needs a spanking)
the greeks usually attack by then. massilia and syracuse are yours. (i wait for them to betray me)
now you have the money to do what you want. if, at this point, you found yourself fighting greeks, macedon, averni and boii, you overextended yourself and you are in trouble.
if, on the other hand, you built up a little economy and thought carefully about expansion, you should be fine