How to get to 100BC quickly?

**ooji** · January 30, 2014, 06:02 PM

It's only 210BC and I have conquered Spain, Gaul, Germania, western North-Africa, Greece, Thrace, Antalonia, and all of eastern Mediterranean coast as Rome in VH/M difficulty. There's hardly any enemies left around. There's 2 last Sweboz settlements both under siege and Brittania to the west. To the east, Egypt is losing battle left and right and my only actual enemies left around there are Seleucid, Armenia, Baktria, and Saka. Even then, I don't think they'll last longer than 200 turns. That's 50 years maximum. There's another 60 years of nothingness afterwards. Not to mention managing every settlement takes almost 15 minutes each turn. I want to get to the imperial Roman reform, but I want actual enemies to test those units on. I don't even get to test my Marian auxiliary units because all of western Europe is secured and there's no enemy to fight with. Any suggestions?

**the man, the myth, the legend** · January 30, 2014, 07:01 PM

Give back some of your settlements to different factions making them stronger so they can fight their other enemies, don't conquer only defend, try to balance out the map so no faction gets too weak. Help your allies or even your enemies by give gifts of money. Basically make it so no faction gets too weak and gets destroyed and so that no faction gets too big so that they just steamroll everyone else. Thats why blitzing and taking too much territory too fast can lead to an easy early game and a boring middle/late game, you easily conquer the map quickly while the other factions aren't even fully developed yet. You might just wanna take it down a gear, hot rod.

edit: In the submod section there is also a submod that make the reforms happen earlier, so it's not so riduculously long, but it's not save game compatible unless the reforms haven't happened yet.

**demagogos nicator** · February 02, 2014, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by the man, the myth, the legend

Give back some of your settlements to different factions making them stronger so they can fight their other enemies, don't conquer only defend, try to balance out the map so no faction gets too weak. Help your allies or even your enemies by give gifts of money. Basically make it so no faction gets too weak and gets destroyed and so that no faction gets too big so that they just steamroll everyone else. Thats why blitzing and taking too much territory too fast can lead to an easy early game and a boring middle/late game, you easily conquer the map quickly while the other factions aren't even fully developed yet. You might just wanna take it down a gear, hot rod.

edit: In the submod section there is also a submod that make the reforms happen earlier, so it's not so riduculously long, but it's not save game compatible unless the reforms haven't happened yet.

That is what is my main priority in almost every TW game since the turn one except the times when the vary exostence of my faction is in question.

**ooji** · January 30, 2014, 08:26 PM

The AI seems to receive population boost on VH campaign setting. Even though their settlements have -4 population growth rate, they still expand their cities and stuff. I just don't like the AI upgrading all their cities to large or huge cities cause then the culture difference would take forever to change. I guess that's what led me to conquer everything so fast. I like your idea of giving back some cities. Maybe I'll make their cities Roman and give them back muhaha

**Boriak** · January 31, 2014, 07:19 AM

I suggest you press 'End of Turn' a lot.

I did this in my Roman campaign which I wanted to play historically. I skipped a lot of time at first and did not expand out of Italy. The good side is that the AI presented a bigger challenge so the campaign was not too easy. The bad side of this is that I played on VH and the AI developed a large number of full stacks.

**pokeytrev** · February 03, 2014, 11:58 AM

I don't know how you conquered so much so quickly; I honestly do not know. I try and take it slow. If I expand too quickly, I end up having factions declare war on me like crazy and erase and retake conquered cities plus interest.

**Maelbox** · February 03, 2014, 11:41 PM

It's the only problem I can find with this mod. I'm also playing as Rome and I really wanted to play historically but I was conquering far too quickly. While 2 turns per year may mess with some things, I honestly believe it is the best progression of time based on how far armies currently move, how many provinces there are, etc. 4 turns per year makes everything go too slowly.

For example, I'm only at 240BCE, but I'm already at the point of what Rome had expanded to by 200BCE. If time had progressed 2 times as quickly, and thus I conquer twice as slowly, I'd be much closer to the historical progress of Rome.

**pokeytrev** · February 04, 2014, 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by Maelbox

It's the only problem I can find with this mod. I'm also playing as Rome and I really wanted to play historically but I was conquering far too quickly. While 2 turns per year may mess with some things, I honestly believe it is the best progression of time based on how far armies currently move, how many provinces there are, etc. 4 turns per year makes everything go too slowly.

For example, I'm only at 240BCE, but I'm already at the point of what Rome had expanded to by 200BCE. If time had progressed 2 times as quickly, and thus I conquer twice as slowly, I'd be much closer to the historical progress of Rome.

I'm going to have to respectfully diagree. I think 4 years per turn is perfect (for me that is). I don't think one can say that 2 turns is better across the board for everyone. Indeed, 2 years per turn may be your cup of tea.

And you are right about not having to handicap yourself. Simply put, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. Play it how you enjoy it. If you find a way to convert everything to work for 2 years per turn, that's great; you could make a mini mod out of it and help others who share your same opinion.

The EB team won't be switching from 4 years to 2 this late in the game's lifespan, and also because EB2 will likely be out rather soon.

**Boriak** · February 04, 2014, 01:22 AM

Don't expand so quickly. Develop your cities, fight defensive battles. Let the enemy come to you.

**Maelbox** · February 04, 2014, 03:56 AM

The player shouldn't have to handicap themselves or change their play-style in order to enjoy the game. Playing defensively doesn't really align with Rome's continuous aggressive expansion foreign policy.

Swapping between 2 and 4 turns per year in vanilla Rome is easy enough, however the problem with EB is that many of the traits rely on the seasonal system to trigger, such as winter campaigning effects. I've edited the script for 2 turns per year, including the reforms (admittedly haven't actually tested if they fire correctly, but they should), but unfortunately I'm stuck because the character trait file is completely alien to me. I've never worked with traits, triggers or thresholds before, and I don't really feel like sorting through 220,000 lines of code looking for what I'm supposed to be changing.

The only thing that I found relating to changing from 4tpy is this comment:

Code:

;Mod: EBMod585 - 6/23 : new traits for aging characters - change thresholds if not 4 turns/year

Doesn't tell me what I'm supposed to do with the thresholds, and any changes at all to them crashes the entire game at campaign start.

It's unfortunate; I really think a 2TPY submod would be really ideal for a lot of people, both because it makes expansion a little more realistic and because some people probably don't want to sit through over 1000 turns doing nothing but mashing the end-turn button for half of them.

**ooji** · February 04, 2014, 10:49 AM

The player shouldn't have to handicap themselves or change their play-style in order to enjoy the game. Playing defensively doesn't really align with Rome's continuous aggressive expansion foreign policy.

Agreed. Rome was an expansionistic faction and I feel handicapped trying to play defensively to compensate for the AI's inability to present challenge.

I don't know how you conquered so much so quickly; I honestly do not know. I try and take it slow. If I expand too quickly, I end up having factions declare war on me like crazy and erase and retake conquered cities plus interest.

I go region by region and try to have buffer zone between other factions when fighting with another. I like to conquer Greece first because they become a problem in late game whereas barbarians aren't so much of an issue even in late game. Greek cities are close to each other (less distance from capital penalty) and have larger population than barbarian settlements so they become very good source of income once you stabilize the region. Going any further east without decent army is not a good idea though. Dealing with stack after stack of phalangitai army is a pain in the neck. That's what makes me dread expanding to the East towards successor states.

**athanaric** · February 06, 2014, 09:14 AM

Originally Posted by ooji

Agreed. Rome was an expansionistic faction and I feel handicapped trying to play defensively to compensate for the AI's inability to present challenge.

The Romans didn't actually expand quite so fast. Especially in Greece, they played a game of balance for a long time before actually occupying any significant territory. Also, when they staged raids or punitive expeditions, they didn't occupy the land straight away, but tried to establish local allies in the aftermath. When I play EB, I try to do the same (I did so even before I read up on Roman campaigns; I guess it's a logical thing to do). It helps to bridge the gap between actual campaigns of conquest and allows for a semi-historical timeline. Try to bribe enemies or set them against each other.

**Maelbox** · February 04, 2014, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by pokeytrev

The EB team won't be switching from 4 years to 2 this late in the game's lifespan, and also because EB2 will likely be out rather soon.

Absolutely. It would be restricted only to submod status - I wouldn't expect the main mod to become 4 turns per year. I just personally can't understand the reasoning behind it due to the pacing issues of players having massive empires before even 200BCE if they don't handicap their play, especially when there is no foreseeable downside to 2TPY beyond less accurate army movement speeds.

I think I might make a thread in the submod forum and see if anyone with experience modding traits might be able to help out.

**pokeytrev** · February 04, 2014, 08:15 PM

Originally Posted by Maelbox

Absolutely. It would be restricted only to submod status - I wouldn't expect the main mod to become 4 turns per year. I just personally can't understand the reasoning behind it due to the pacing issues of players having massive empires before even 200BCE if they don't handicap their play, especially when there is no foreseeable downside to 2TPY beyond less accurate army movement speeds.

I think I might make a thread in the submod forum and see if anyone with experience modding traits might be able to help out.

I don't handicap myself and have a hard time expanding after a certain point. I just might not be too good or something

There are a lot of different styles of play. The beauty of mods is that you can find ways to tweak them.

**Samariten** · February 06, 2014, 06:34 AM

It might not be your playstyle but try not to blitz or try another difficulty. It might be possible to tweak it from 2 to 1 turns aswell that can speed the game up. Not sure how that would effect EB script though.

**Maelbox** · February 06, 2014, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by Samariten

It might not be your playstyle but try not to blitz or try another difficulty. It might be possible to tweak it from 2 to 1 turns aswell that can speed the game up. Not sure how that would effect EB script though.

I ended up going ahead and trying to make it 2tpy to see if that balanced the pacing at all. It definitely wont be everybody's cup of tea because I do know many enjoy all the seasons in the game, but it might suit more aggressive players like myself and the OP.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ease-need-help!)

Like I said in the thread, I have no modding experience before so I don't really know what I'm doing with the mod. Everything I did was based off of Jirisys's post over on the Org:

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...s-per-year-mod

Good news is most things seem to be working properly. Reforms activate at the correct time, "Year in History" still pops-up (albeit on the winter / second turn of the relevant year), and winter campaign movement penalties seem to apply. I'd still greatly appreciate any actual modders to have a look themselves and see what I've missed that are causing a few issues. Unfortunately haven't had much of a chance to test my own mod to see if it actually does address the pacing issue, or if the game moves too quickly now.

**ooji** · February 07, 2014, 01:51 AM

The Romans didn't actually expand quite so fast. Especially in Greece, they played a game of balance for a long time before actually occupying any significant territory. Also, when they staged raids or punitive expeditions, they didn't occupy the land straight away, but tried to establish local allies in the aftermath. When I play EB, I try to do the same (I did so even before I read up on Roman campaigns; I guess it's a logical thing to do). It helps to bridge the gap between actual campaigns of conquest and allows for a semi-historical timeline. Try to bribe enemies or set them against each other.

Seeing how the AI allies you one turn and attacks you the next turn, I have long lost my faith in the AI. The only good AI is a dead one. Why waste your entire turn income to bribe single enemy when you can use that to hire mercenary army and conquer them?

**Ownager** · February 10, 2014, 01:41 AM

Not really. As Rome, Arverni have been very cooperative after the Aedui bit the dust. They chose to expand into Iberia instead of breaking my alliance. Vesontio is a good buffer from Sweboz, but soon, Gaul will need to be united again. You can hire about 6-7 good units with 20000 mnai, which isn't worth it when you can just bribe it with minimal bloodshed. Not that I like bribing. I tend to destroy the cities I buy from the AI.

**ooji** · February 10, 2014, 11:30 AM

Well on very hard difficulty, by the time you earn 20,000 per turn, AI settlements are so big that you can't really bribe them for 20,000. Your AI allies hold true to their word only if they have an ongoing war with someone else. Once they stop fighting, they'll attack you. You gave the entirety of Gaul and parts of Spain to Arverni? Well good luck dealing with them later. It just means a bigger problem you have to deal with sooner or later.