United rome vs 3 families

[Persian Horseman]

do u guys thinks Rome is stronger to defeat/(or win with) united or when divided into 3 families?

the reason i ask is that, i used to think united rome was harder to defeat cuz bigger, but after playing a couple of campaigns i think that, if they r 3 family members, Rome is protected by the SPQR army, so it wont be lost easily and the rest of italy has 3 different families each concentrating on one side of the fight.

so which ever way u want to enter italy, u hav to fight ur way thru. but in a united rome, it seems that if Rome is busy for example fighting the gauls in the north, then they hardly have any units in the south, so if u attack from there, u can easily conquer all the cities in the south before any force is there to oppose u.

wat do u think?

so easier or harder? which one?
also when choosing romans or when fighting against them.
gonna start a campaign now and trying to decide which one i shuld go with.

[DARTH VADER]

If you want my opinion, difficulty is not higher or lower but has different flavour and thresholds of increments during the campaign.
As you say by having in the start of campaign valuable steady allies, safe borders and mutual targets is a good thing and unique.
On the other hand by starting alone you have the problems of having enough economic standalone power but multiple fronts war soon occurs and this is maybe the largest handicap to this.

Then the advantage of 3 familes becomes a huge disadvantage as you witness civil war with powerful romans. (But this is the different flavour of challenge which the unified roman campaign does not give and becomes identical with all other factions.)

So DarthMod gave you both possibilities to enjoy more!

[Angel]

Basically using common sense its easy to tell what advantages and disadvatanges for United Rome and 3 families. Hopefully this comment wont hurt anyone's feelings as I am just proposing an opinion, and I do apoligize if so.

These are the Advantages as I see in United and 3 families.

United Romes allows you to have more income than usually, no annoying senate( im not sure if theres senate in darths mod, United Rome) and You can make alot more men. Hence more generals. Its more realastic and you dont have to fight yourself later on, (3 families). Gives you a way more challenge and makes you decide your fights. No Auto. Auto will hurt your men power and you start to lose ground fast. You have to be flexibly in ways you never experience.

3 families, this is good for newbies, amaerturs, and people who arent that great. This is great if your starting out on RTW or even on DM 8.1. This gives you the taste of what youll be facing when starting as greeks or other factions. Rome is the only one who haves 3 families thus giving them supreme power. 3 roman fronts taking greece, gaul, carthage. Those 3 factions have alot of men and money. Those 3 factions out, will be easier to conquer more. Civil war will be another challenge as well, but itll make it more interesting, cause you'll be facing your oppoents who have the same units as you. Maybe not expierence and income but same units.

Now here are the Disadvantages

United Rome is for expert and pro players. Why i say that because you have to fight 3 fronts. Those 3 factions are diffcult and not easy to win. THis forces you to take battles less and try to conserve your stregnth. Makes you decide better on what to do and make dipolmacy. Also, you have no to help you. Senate is there for little resistance. Good chance you can bankrupt and lose italy.

3 families alot easier than United Rome. you just have to face 1 front and expand your empire. True you dont get much income, but i rather live with 2000 denari an turn than -2000 with united Rome. It doesnt give you much an challenge and might be easy. The challege is playin the civil war. But its gets bother some killing armies after another after another. Auto, battling, but you knowing that if you lose well i still got italy or the senate will help me.

This what I think of the United and 3 families, my apoligize for the spell erros. To bad got no spellcheck
Thank you

[Ldvs]

I like the flavour provided by the 3 families struggling to expand their territories. What makes me choose this scenario over the united Rome is the civil war.
Angel, when you're saying that united Rome is more realistic it's untrue since two civil wars occurred under the Republic (and they were damn bloody!). They were even what caused its demise. Other than that, you're right, you only have to fight on one front at the beginning which makes it easier (despite a relative lack of income). However in the end, the united Rome is piece of cake while with the 3 families, if your 2 opponents expanded well, you're likely to have some serious fighting ahead.

[Persian Horseman]

thanx a lot for all ur feedback, however no one answered whether its easier or harder to face the romans united or 3 famillies as enemies.
any comments?
im thinking maybe facing 3 families is tougher as they would have concentrated on their side instead of having their forces spread across their lands.

[MemphisTiger26]

I think that it would be great if you had 3 familys not allied and still have the senate giving them missions b/c then they would not be at each other as much as you would think b/c they would still be trying to expand!! But Is this possible to do??

[Angel]

LOL My apoligizes for not awnsering the question. United is easier and 3 families is harder to face. But if your play smart on the 3 families and you live at the end and play your cards right... theres a way to beat it. Just Force the 2or3 roman families to fight each other. Make allies with one and try to beat one to the dust. You make even get lucky and have 1-2 families to fight. In begining for your campaign and if your close to one of the families than try to just do a beat down on their land. Dont let them conqured and just slauther them. 2 families is much easier than 3. Especcially civil war breaks thro. Also LDVS, I know there were 2 civil wars. There was the Ceasar becoming power. And Octavian and Mark Antonys. Now to script that into the United Rome will be difficult so Thats why i didnt add this in. And most mod who have United Rome dont have 2 civil wars. Now 6.1 SPQR has civil war but its agianst SPQR which is different. Whole point of doin an civil war is to take Rome or become as ONE! Hence Civil war. So hopefully this has anwser your question.

[Ldvs]

Also LDVS, I know there were 2 civil wars. There was the Ceasar becoming power. And Octavian and Mark Antonys. Now to script that into the United Rome will be difficult so Thats why i didnt add this in. And most mod who have United Rome dont have 2 civil wars. Now 6.1 SPQR has civil war but its agianst SPQR which is different. Whole point of doin an civil war is to take Rome or become as ONE! Hence Civil war. So hopefully this has anwser your question.

By the two civil wars I meant "Sulla vs Marcus" and later "Caesar and successors", but you got the point

On topic, yes the three families are harder to face, especially if you set the campaign level to VH, since they'll get unlimited funds.
I generally try to knock one family off at the very beginning of the game before they become too powerful.

[Node]

i dont understand how im supposed to win against gauls, since their troops are so much stronger than my hastati (too early to have an economy to afford principes and triarii) they just form a huge line and demolish it. manipular formation doesnt work. at all. the cohorts on the front line just get surrounded and overwhelmed and get picked off.

Sounds like the best (dumbest) strategy is just to form a hugeass line just like them. How stupid is that?

[Angel]

Right right forgot about the marcus and sulla civil. Sadly the first born legion got slauther, but meh thats not the point. Hastii are LIGHT INF! Barbs are hvy inf. Makes sense to me why these barbs are slauthering younge 16+ kids. Thats why you should build prince and tiarr. I know you cant cuz of money. Well next time restart campaign and build an stronge economy. Once that starts flowing focus on units buildtime, and chose your fights with your younglings. Manipular does work my friend, it depends how YOU use it. Formations are there for assiasstance, not telling you what to do. Also the I believe the Roman Manipular was made for Legionaries, not hastii,princ,tiarr. the Early Rep Formation is.
v v
h h h h h h
p p p p p
t t t t
S S
G
H is hast, P is princ, T is tiar, S is slingers, V is velites, and G is gen.

Also they had Equites on wings. This formation was used for sending hastiis to batter and loosen the nme lines. Once they are deplented or start routing and getting slauther, the older boys come in. Principe. IF Principe cant do the job, which means your in deep ****, than Tiarri was next in line. So thats the Early Rep Formation. Agian Formations are made for you to beast people. They are made for assiasstance guiding. YOU have to grab the mouse and click on the nme. Cover the gaps. Support your frontline. Flank. These are keys you need to win the barb horde. GOOD LUCK! :tooth:

[DARTH VADER]

The maniple system is inserted mostly for AI. If a human player is unable to use it, no-one is forcing him to achieve his victories with a simple line system.
After all, everybody has his style.

[Angel]

I thought I was using the maniple correctly because I was deploying my legionaries in sequence. On the First Replay I think I played correctly because I just concentrated on Darth's left flank. I know from recent battles HEAD ON agianst Phalanxe pikemen is just asking yourself to shot your foot. So I figured ill just stab his men on the Left and hopefully he'll turn his pikemen and thats was my trap . He had alot of cavalrymen but Mine was a tad better i think. Ofcourse My aux and My legionaries throwing there pilums helped.

[Node]

This is stupid. Killing Phyrrus with one army is impossible. If you send both your armies to kill him, the gauls will overrun you. If you dont kill Phyrrus, the gauls and the greeks will overrun you. Boring.

[Persian Horseman]

why do u think thats boring?
what difficulty r u playing with? with its vh/vh then yeah, i guess it can seem quite pointless.
i have just started a roman campaign myself on H/H.
its so far so good.

as u said, u only have 2 armies. the one on top, i quickly sent it to conquer northern italy, arririum, segesta, then i sat there for a while. meanwhile, my southern army went and conquered all the other cities in the south avoiding tarentum and Phyrrus' army. the greeks sent a couple of half stacks at my cities but i defeated them (not using my main stack, but by gathering up all the other leftover hastatis from around italy. which made another half stack for me.
by now, all of my cities r either yellow or blue and im in more than 30,000 debt.

i was afraid of pissing off the gauls but on the other hand i saw that i cannot take on Phyrrus and his godly army. so i continued conquering the rest of southern italian cities, all except rhegium, cuz if i went so far down, the Phyrrus army will be left unchallenged. i still wanted to keep my main army with the faction leader nearby to at least challenge him.

after conqeuring all those cities, i was still not making money and losing even more money. so i thought, hell, like this i will lose eventually, so i quickly rushed to patavium, and attacked the city (only siege one turn) and fought the half a stack in the city. had quite a few casualties but it had to be done. next i marched the army to medolonium which was even bigger than patavium. i needed the money. the forrester warband raped even my triarii but i finally got the city.

after adding those 2 cities, now i have for the first time started making money. about 3000 per turn. will take me at least 10 more turns to get to positive territory as i still owe heaps.

but just as i did that, i saw the Phyrrus army starting to march north towards one of my cities. im thinking about attacking tarentum directly instead of trying to defeat the godly army. but the problem is that the city itself also just received half a stack of units from syracuse. a ship just unloaded them and they even include spartans.

by that time it was 3am and i went to sleep. will continue after i hand in my assignment on thursday. but its very interesting and im thinking a lot to myself about what i should do. i hope the gauls give me a few turns, cuz my northern army is some what spread across northern italy trying to keep all the cities happy and stop them from revolting. i need the tax money.

my little half stack wont b able to fight much against the god enemy but might slow them down a bit. as long as rome doesnt fall, there is hope.
hope i didnt bore u all too much
this is far from boring! this is CHALLENGE!

[Shaggy1973]

Glad you like it P H, but in all honesty I wasnt too happy with Gaul's aggression, ideally I would rework the campaign to provide more of a threat from the North and catch the player between a rock and a hard place..... even more challenge

[Persian Horseman]

hahaha, shaggy, u really r pushing the limits.
even like this people complain about the hardness and u want to make it even harder. hehehe
well, ill download the map if u do end up doing it.
now tell me, how wuld u go about killing the GOD army in south on H/H?
want to see ur strategy since u know the map like that back of ur hand. :tooth:

[Bumbar]

I just started playing this campaign today for the first time. I didn't manage to defeat phyruss's army in 1 on 1 fight with Emperor's army, but I didn't even attempt it many times after I saw their cretan archers can take out equites in 1 on 1 fight. What I did was let them capture rebel city north of their starting location, east of Rome, since they moved their army in that direction right after the game started. I avoided them with my emperor's army and built another 3/4 stack of Hastatis (I queued 3 hastatis in each town on first turn before cash ran out). After they captured the city I attacked it and captured their army inside the city. Whenever another greek army approached to help them break the siege I chased them off with hastati army. On last turn Phyruss tried to break the siege and I managed to defeat him by rushing to city gates when battle started and blocking the exit, so I fought their units 1 by 1. I still had some losses, mostly due to onagers who were firing over city walls in my tightly packed troops and elephants who actually managed to make quite large clearing outside the gates before I killed them, but I still had more than enough troops left for further conquest. This was done on h/h, but based on my casualties I reckon same strategy should work on vh/vh too.

P.S. I also tried to ambush them on way to that city, before they attacked it, but they never fell for it and either stoped right infront of my army or attacked it without falling in ambush every time.

[Persian Horseman]

u want to make ur life hell?
tell the AI to control everything from taxes to contruction.
the AI has the incredible ability to change my 50,000 plus income per turn to sth like -10,000 within just a few yrs. its amazing how all that money can b blown away.
treasury of 500000 to -200000.

[Brother Stephen]

UR seems to provide for a very exciting campaign. I play at H/H. It took 20 years to eradicate the greeks from Italy, patience and much sacrifice is required. :hmmm: One army can hold the north against Gaul and Macedonian incursions whilst you engage with the Greeks and their reinforcements. Its now 239BCE and Corsica is taken , Sardinia has been won and then lost , Syracuse is mine and the Carthaginians have stacks around Panormus - wheel up the onagers and ignite!

[Persian Horseman]

i am also playing the same campaign on H/H.

MOST INTERESTING thing in my game was that, i quickly used my southern army to blitzkreig most of the southern italian cities except tarentum. after i did that, the phyrrus army moved north to attack my city. weakened from the fighting and still hugely in debt, i couldnt face him and was too far to catch up to him. so instead of trying to save my city i marched on tarentum, destroyed a half stack with a unit of spartans along the way and sieged the city which contained another half a stack.

i guess phyrrus quickly panicked and started to march back, but quickly the following turn i attacked and took the greek city, but suffered heavy losses in the street to street fighting. plus, since i still made huge losses, i couldnt retrain my depleted force. afraid of having my faction leader trapped, i ordered only him and his bodyguards to leave the city and seek refuge somewhere else.

i was thinking maybe i can give them a bloody battle and lose tarentum, and eventually send some more units to slow and weaken it over time but dont let my faction leader to die. BUT suprisingly, the phyrrus army didnt attack me. he kept marching around my city for a few turns. then i got a message that macedon and greece were at war. within a few more turns, a greek diplomat offered me peace, and then a boat came and took phyrrus away to fight the macedonians. (how ironic since half of his army is macedonian)

anyway, few turns later i just wanted to see how tat army was doing so i used the toggle_fow cheat (didnt look anywhere else and it was purely for checking him and not cheating overall) but i think his army was destroyed by the macedonians who now control nearly all of greece.

so thats what happened to my phyrrus.

currently, i own all of italy, half of gaul. peace with greece, and cartahge. macedon attacked me a couple of time but i survived. around 240bc i think and very short of money.might make pics later.