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Thread: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

  1. #1

    Default Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    After a long time of haunting forums like this one (mostly *cough* other forums, that are now dead), I realized most Rome Total War players don't have the faintest clue how to play to the economic and administrative strengths of the 3 different starting Roman factions- at least not beyond the Brutii (arguably the simplest of the three from an economic standpoint). Therefore, I decided to create a simple guide to help players to better understand the 3 factions- especially the Scipii, the most under-appreciated Roman faction:


    Basic Overview:

    It is true that unless you're a truly atrocious administrator and empire-manager, you can almost always make up for poor economic strategy to at least some degree simply by conquering more territory- and indeed this is the strategy that even many veteran Total War players knowingly (or unknowingly) follow in their path of expansion and imperial Roman glory; much as did many of those ancient Roman leaders who lacked keen economic minds.

    *However*, if you can efficiently manage your empire, and squeeze the most out of ever last settlement; you will have a lot more money to play with to expand your empire that much faster, and you will also inevitably have an easier time finding the resources to divert to properly protecting what you already own...

    Enough said, time for some strategy...


    Grand Strategy:

    The first thing most Total War players fail to understand when playing as any Roman faction is that each of the three factions has a different overall grand strategic path, which when properly exploited can make them significantly more effective in their wars and expansion. Note the repeated use of the term "grand" strategic- there *is* a difference between specific, localized strategy to win a war against an individual opponent, and grand strategy- which can be best defined as a larger overarching plan guiding your decisions on what to build, when (and how quickly) to expand, and what types of units to train. There are three basic elements that should be accounted for in any grand strategic plan, and differ between each of the Roman factions:

    Attrition
    You read that right. That fancy word everybody likes to throw around for, basically, men getting killed. The fact of the matter is, different strategic plans will lead to different levels of attrition on your forces. The most important factors affecting this are the level of armor you decide to equip your troops with (Hastati vs. Princeps; "early", chainmail-equipped Legionaries vs. platemail-equipped Legionries; armor upgrades and the like) ; the number of missile troops you assign to your armies; and surprisingly for some players, the stamina values of your troops and your level of use of tactical reserves (defense skill decreases RAPIDLY with increasing exhaustion levels).

    Availability
    The ability of a faction to train excellent troops won't do it any good if those troops don't become available until you develop a Huge City barracks, and you never make it past a Large City (it is for this very reason that the Secleucids, while excellent tactically, are in a terrible position strategically- their best units don't become available until late-game, and they're usually either dead or already steamrolling the world at the hands of an excellent tactician who took Militia Hoplites to world domination by then... Trust me, it can be done- I made it as far as taking Apollonia once without a single unit of Phalanx Pikemen- and took Tarentum with just 2 or 3 in a largely militia army.) Although most of the Roman factions don't vary much in their unit rosters, the Scipii pose a MAJOR exception to this rule with their strictly late-game naval units, as well as their superior gladiators- which are also only available late-game.

    Growth
    There are two elements to economic growth in Rome Total War- and I'm sure if you've played any Total War game more than once you're already familiar with them: population, and money. The latter of these often gets the most attention, but the former is equally important. If you're recruiting literally thousands of soldiers in the early game to raise armies that will suffer high attrition, you're going to strangle your economy's long-term growth (the AI is famous for often doing this- but WITHOUT actually using the dozens of cheap units it recruits). Money also is of solid importance though- if you can't afford the buildings, farms, aqueducts, and other improvements to keep your population growing or happy because you're spending it all on upkeep, well you know the results which the historical Western Roman Empire loved so well- either revolt and plummeting tax rates, or economic stagnation- or both... Like anything else it Total War, you can get these either through internal growth or conquest. Like I'm about to explain, the different Roman factions also differ in which of these they do best...



    The Factions:

    Now that I've explained these three elements that I'm sure you all love so well, it's time to cut to the meat of this (not so short) guide. The three Roman factions. Bear with me- to do them justice is going to take a while...


    The Julii
    Perhaps the most popular of the Roman factions- but usually not for their potential roaring economic strength (let's face it- we'd all love to smash a few barbarian skulls now and then... Most players opt for the Brutii if they're looking for an economic powerhouse.) The Julii are actually capable of supporting a vibrant and extremely strong economy, *IF* the player knows what he's doing when playing as them. Here are the basic elements you need to know:

    - The Julii find their greatest strength in farming. You read that right, FARMING. Not trade, or taxation (though they get this indirectly), or conquest, FARMING. How, you might ask?

    + The Roman Temple of Ceres, constructable by the Julii, does several beneficial things for the economy. First of all, it directly increases farming output in more or less exactly the same manner as a farm. This DIRECTLY translates into increased income, in the same manner as a mine or trade route does. Most players forget or are unaware of just how significant this income is- in the early game; before roads, ports, and Eastern trade caravans stretch everywhere, farming often comprises 40-50% of your total income, with taxes making up 25-40% more, and the remaining 10-25% coming from trade routes and mines. Farming is a BIG DEAL, and a BIG moneymaker early in the game. Most players simply aren't aware of how important this income is because it tends to remain more or less flat throughout the game, with a slow linear increase of only one level per city size, while trade tends to grow exponentially...

    + Farms = Taxes. Not directly, but through population. In case you hadn't noticed that that tiny town with only 400 people left in it after you exterminated everyone else just wasn't producing much tax income, taxes are proportional to population. The actual equation isn't directly linear, though, if you check in the game's raws- taxes follow a stepwise curve: which means they basically follow more and more gradual slopes as population increases. Think of it this way- the larger your population, the more urbanized it is, and the more tax evasion your administration suffers from- as the largely mobile urban population suddenly isn't home in their flat the next time the Censor's local officials come round... (The Romans, as I'm sure you're aware, were the first civilization to conduct a regular census of their entire population on a regular basis for tax-assessment purposes. Taxes were collected on a regional, rather than individual, basis by the Roman government- which contracted out the actual collection duties to "publicans", private contractors who bid on the right to collect taxes in accordance with the size of the region's population in the last census.) The more food your farms produces, via the benefits of a Temple of Ceres, the larger your population will grow, as will your tax income.

    + Management. You know, those "scrolls" on your governor's character card. I'll get more into this later, but Management works in basically like the inverse of Corruption- it adds, rather than subtracts, a specific percentage to your settlement's total income- which includes farming and tax income. The Roman Temple of Ceres not only increases base income, but provides some traits/ancillaries for your characters that improve management ability as well (the Priest of Ceres provides Management, I know that for sure. I think the temple also improves a bureaucracy-type trait, though I'll have to check on this...) In a different sense of the word management, the Temple of Ceres, as a temple of farming, also provides traits/ancillaries that improve farm output even further- such as the "Agriculturalist" retinue member, and "Good Farmer" (Grower, etc.) trait- which also acts as the anti-trait of "Poor Farmer".


    - The Julii do an excellent job of GROWING (remember the AAG's from earlier?) their economy quickly, through INTERNAL growth. Because their emphasis on farming also leads to rapid population growth, they are quickly able to upgrade their settlements to higher levels. Which is important, because the territories they typically expand into are barbarian bum-F%#& nowheresvilles, with little population, less infrastructure, and none of those lovely wonders Brutii-players love so much... (Which is also why the Julii benefit a lot less from new conquest).


    - The Julii tend to suffer from higher ATTRITION than either of the other Roman factions. Barbarians are disproportionately fierce fighters relative to the value and economic output of their lands (they can recruit much tougher units for a given recruitment and upkeep cost than can more "civilized" factions. Just compare the upkeep costs on their unit roster some time to that of the spendthrift Greeks, I dare you...) What's more, wars against barbarians tend to drag on against stack after stack of cheap units because of this tendency- rather than being decided in handful of decisive battles like against more "civilized" folks. You've got to be a good strategist to minimize this as much as possible (not coincidentally, the Roman Temple of Jupiter, which the Julii also can build, provides the "Strategist" trait for characters stationed in the settlement for extended periods of time).

    - The Julii benefit from higher AVAILABILITY than their rivals the Scipii, though are heavily outmatched in this regard by the Brutii (who also have a growth-temple, and can capture a number of relatively well-developed cities early in the game, in Greece/Macedon). The Julii's ability to expand their cities quickly through farming, coupled with the relative compactness of their target barbarian territories all within a few years' march of Rome once proper roads are built (compare this to the Scipii or Brutii, who end up with territories as far-flung as Egypt and Syria), all combine to give them rapid and consistent access to their best troops. To build on this strength further, speed the process of growth of outlying towns with Peasant unit "settlers" (works best on Huge unit-scale). They also lack any unique late-game troops (excepting the Arcanii) like the Scipii- the Julii have no special ships, and can build their (relatively weak) gladiator units with nothing but a provincial Arena.


    All in all, the Julii make for a high-growth faction with a surprisingly high economic potential, once their cities are built up to the large/huge city size..

    - A final note on the Julii: The player MUST remember to build plenty of buildings of public order when his Ceres-supported cities really start to get up there in size, so he isn't wasting all that extra tax income on large garrisons... (Garrisons work well on small towns and cities, but they derive public order from the RATIO of soldiers to citizens- which means that you need more and more soldiers for a given amount of public order from "garrison" the larger your city becomes. Garrisons/taxes are never really a profitable strategy in anything beyond peasant or town-militia garrisons in early or large towns, but it just gets worse the larger your city becomes...) Once a city near the capital reaches a certain (very large) size, throwing monthly gladiatorial games OR races in order to raise the tax rate actually becomes PROFITABLE- as the cost of the games is a constant, but the increase in tax income per rate "notch" increases with city size... How's that for mass-entertainment? (Why does the city need to be near the capital for this to work? I'll explain that later when I get to Corruption...)


    COMING NEXT:
    The Scipii
    Last edited by James_Northstar; June 23, 2016 at 07:52 AM.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    (By the way, if you're liking this guide/ find it useful, don't be afraid to click the green "Add Reputation" button in the lower-left corner of my posts. That's why it's there...)



    The Scipii

    Deriving their name from Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, without question the greatest general in Roman history (for all his fame and glory, Julius Caesar never faced down and defeated anyone half as clever as Hannibal Barca), the Scipii are without question my favorite faction in Rome Total War. They're also the most under-rated, and not just because they get to face down the Carthaginians. Here's why:


    Law & Order

    No, I'm not talking about that repetitive, poorly-made show your parents (or maybe your girlfriend- don't yell at me!) watch all the time on TV. I'm talking about the "Law" factor in Rome Total War.

    Most people falsely mistake "Law" for being basically the same as "Happiness", but I CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT emphasize this enough to players- they're very different, and "Law" points are INFINITELY more valuable. Given the choice between 4 points of law, and 5 points of happiness, you should ALWAYS choose the 4 points of law. Here's why:


    CORRUPTION

    To most Rome Total War players, even experienced players, who have ever bothered to look in the "More Details" tab of one of their settlements, and seen this terrible thing called "Corruption" eating up all their income from many of their cities in the late-game; Corruption is simply a mystery. It doesn't have to be. Let me break it down for you, as I imagine NOBODY ever has for you before (most likely because they didn't understand it themselves...)

    First of all, the base level of Corruption is based on two simple, rational, easily understandable factors- not on some vague and difficult-to-predict aspect like your faction's "moral integrity" (Rome Total War in fact simulates no such thing in the long-run). Here they are:

    Distance
    The hand which can steal in the dark steals more greedily. Simply put, THE FURTHER A SETTLEMENT IS FROM YOUR CAPITAL, THE MORE CORRUPTION IT WILL EXPERIENCE. This is why you don't see much Corruption in the early-game: most of your settlements are relatively close to your faction capital. Think of it this way: the financial records, the clerks, the style of clothing important men can't (or suddenly can) afford, how regularly your soldiers are being paid- all things are all being carefully watched by your faction leader to make sure your governors, generals, officers, bureaucrats, and the like; aren't taking a little something-something aside for themselves.

    Due to the increasing difficulties of communication and monitoring the further a settlement is from your capital (thankfully, Rome Total War doesn't include any sort of annoying/ridiculous/unrealistic the-more-cities-you-have the-more-money-you-lose mechanism. It doesn't matter if you have two cities or 50 cities, corruption is based on map distance, not city-count. Too bad they couldn't have included a mechanism for travel-time from the capital determining Corruption instead: would have made Highways and Paved Roads even more useful, as well as adding a touch more realism...), theft increases with increasing map-distance from your capital (that is, absolute distance- as the crow flies- not how long it takes an army to get there). For this reason, it is often advisable to always place your capital at the geographic center of your faction's territory, to minimize corruption...

    Economic Output
    The more money there is to steal, the less somebody will notice if a couple denarii go astray here or there, right? At least, that's the way your bureaucrats and other important nameless officials (though your named characters can positively or negatively affect final corruption levels- they never directly cause corruption) seem to think. The more money a given settlement rakes in (BEFORE things like salaries, wages for your army, and devastation "costs"- which is why it's possible for Corruption to go much of the way to putting a settlement with relatively-low army upkeep costs into the red anyways...), the more of it gets stolen. I would assume that, following logic and reason, more money cannot be stolen than is actually being produced- but I've never actually done anything to confirm this (the theoretical distance a settlement would have to be from the capital would, I think, be slightly larger than the width of the entire campaign map).


    Putting it Together
    The way these two factors interact is this: Distance provides a fractional-multiplier for the PERCENTAGE of total income that is stolen at each individual settlement (Corruption, as repeatedly stated, increases with distance- and is virtually non-existent extremely close to your capital). That percentage is multiplied by the TOTAL economic output of each settlement for the actual amount that is stolen there...

    I hope you can see the implications of this- though the Julii or (as I'll discuss later) the Brutii both have faction-specific temples and geographical locations that allow them to produce a lot of money at their bases; as their empires grow larger and larger, more and more of this money is stolen by corrupt officials/bureaucrats before it ever reaches the faction coffers... The Scipii, on the other hand:


    Why You Want Saturnine Priests Guarding Your Treasury

    In yet another brilliant move by Creative Assembly back in its glory days when it created Rome Total War (don't even get me *STARTED* on how far downhill Total War has come to the days of Rome: 2... The more you start teasing apart all the little details of what made the original so great, the more you realize how the sequel was just a rushed-out half-attempt by comparison, despite its good intentions: probably thanks to the dirty, lazy money-grubbers at Sega rushing the product out the figurative production door early...), the brilliant game designers managed to get another aspect of Roman history eerily correct- the importance of the Temples of Saturn to guarding the Roman treasury...

    A little history lesson for those of you not as history-crazy as I am: the classical-era Romans traditionally relied on the priests of Saturn in Rome to guard the national treasury from thieves and would-be megalomaniac bureaucrats (this went horribly wrong during the Roman Civil War though- where it conveniently gathered a huge portion of the republic's treasury in one place for greedy and overly-ambitious imperialists and republicans to fight over, and ultimately empty out...)

    Anyways, how does this translate into the game? The Roman Temples of Saturn that the Scipii can build in abundance throughout their settlements provide that lovely, charming factor the game calls "Law". Think of it as the rule of law- criminals are prosecuted and made examples of, nobody is above the rules (not even nobles), and policies and punishments are formally put into place to try to prevent crimes before they happen...

    History again: this reflects the kind of culture that Saturn-worship encouraged, and the historical interest that certain more progressive-minded Romans (who did indeed often historically hail from the Cornelii family of Rome- which Scipio Africanus belonged to. A number of Cornelii were historically also hellenophiles: they were pro-greek culture, and sought in many other ways to imitate Greek achievements besides the establishment of a rational legal structure...) had in the establishment of law and order.


    So, enough talk, why *DO* you want Saturn's priests guarding your treasury?


    It's Not a Crime if There's No Law Against It!

    Well, this is at least something I could *imagine* somebody really saying. Cutting to the chase, "Law" is the direct antithesis of Corruption; your primary, best, and in fact ONLY real defense against Corruption stealing all your money!

    Put in more technical terms- every point of "Law" reduces the base "Corruption" modifier by a certain amount. That is, the PERCENTAGE of your income that gets stolen each turn goes down. Not terribly useful for a small town close to your capital, but for a Huge City with tons of economic production (taxes, farming, and especially in the late-game on the eastern side of the map- trade) across the map from your capital; LAW IS A RICH GOLD MINE!


    Law essentially shrinks the distance of any city to your capital
    . It imposes standards, regulation, and punishment to deter corruption just as severe and effective as you might otherwise find only closer to the center of your empire. And speaking of "severe", the Temple of Saturn (referred to in the game raws as a "Temple of Law") also has another extremely valuable side-effect besides promoting the happiness of your population... (never forget: Law does double-duty as *both* a corruption-fighter AND a positive factor for public order...)

    Any character stationed in a settlement where a Temple of Saturn (small temple level or above) can be found has a chance each turn of gaining a point in the "Harsh Judge" trait. What this does, besides making your character sound cruel and unrelenting in his punishment of criminals when you read the trait description (interestingly enough, the nearly-identical "Authoritarian" trait cannot be gained simply from being in a city with a Temple of Saturn- it normally requires crushing a riot with the Tax Rate on "Low", or inheriting it from one's father at Coming of Age. It is self-perpetuating though: meaning once they acquire the trait, it only becomes stronger- much like the drunkenness or sobriety traits...) is serve to increase "Law" by two points for each visible level of the trait, while simultaneously also increasing "Unrest" by 1 point for each trait level...

    What that adds up to is that public order INCREASES by ONE tick for each level of "Harsh Judge" (Law has a positive effect on Public Order, Unrest has a negative effect), whereas Corruption DECREASES by TWO ticks for each level of "Harsh Judge".

    I mention this trait specifically, whereas I rarely mention traits in such detail, because it is both EXTREMELY important and useful; and EXTREMELY common if your governors stick around in a settlement with a Temple of Saturn. And I mean *extremely*- a Roman character has something like a 30% chance of gaining a point in Harsh Judge each turn he sits idle (that is, not moving) in a settlement with a Temple of Saturn, and it only takes a couple points for the trait to reach its first visible "level" (the second level is reached at 3 points, the third at 7 points).


    Corruption Summary
    What this all adds up to is that the Scipii experience a much lower rate of Corruption than any of the other Roman factions due to the greater presence of the "Law" public order factor in any of their settlements featuring the Temple of Saturn. This is a HUGE money-maker for the Scipii in the late-game, where their settlements tend to be scattered all along the African coast (in fact, it's a significant factor even in the early-game: if your capital remains in Capua once you capture Carthage instead of moving to Sicily or the African coast, you will already be experience quite a bit of corruption, as Carthage is a rich city at a considerable map-distance from Capua...)

    Oh, and one last thing about corruption: you shouldn't wait until the late game or the capture of distant and rich cities to start building Temples to Saturn. Because the worship of Saturn is also the Scipii's best path to early public-order other than a garrison; and the weapons/armor upgrades provided by a Temple of Vulcan (the only other Scipii temple providing significant tangible benefits early-game) can be shared by many settlements by means of placing Temples of Vulcan at centralized troop-training centers (preferably ones where there is also a lot of mining- as a Temple of Vulcan increases the chance of developing certain positive mining-related traits and ancillaries), and retraining troops trained elsewhere if absolutely necessary; it's also the best early-game money-maker for the Scipii.

    Not to mention that you get the same absolute savings from reducing the corruption modifier by 10 percentage points in a city experiencing 10% corruption as you do by reducing it by 10 percentage points in a city experiencing 30% corruption...



    Coming Next: I'm not done with the Scipii yet, but I felt that the topic of Corruption and how to avert it with Law points (such as can easily be provided in abundance by a Temple of Saturn) was so important as that it deserved a post (mostly) to itself. I'll be discussing other topics like a grand overview of Scipii economic strategy next...
    Last edited by James_Northstar; December 02, 2015 at 02:26 AM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    Scipii Grand Strategy:

    The Scipii starting position is, well, *interesting*, to say the least. They start out with only one province in Italy, Capua; and another province across the Straits of Messina, in, well, Messina. What this means for Scipii grand and economic strategy is interesting...


    The Power of The Seas
    Fleets are one of the most under-rated aspects of Rome Total War. Perhaps this is not surprising considering fleet battles sometimes seem arbitrary, and you can only auto-resolve them. However, they are also one of the most useful tools for a powerful empire- a strong fleet can not only strange your opponents' late-game largely trade-based economy, but bypass difficult defensive terrain and strongly fortified cities to strike at the enemy heartland (if only the AI had wisdom enough to defend the natural geographic bottlenecks...)

    History Lesson: The Persian invasion of Greece failed in large part not due to the Battle of Thermopylae (which was an eventual Greek/Spartan defeat thanks to a traitor who led a portion of the Persian force through an alternative mountain pass to come out behind the Greek army), but due to their loss of the Battle of Salamis- a large and decisive naval battle off the Greek coast. The loss of naval support meant the Persians could not easily bring supplies or reinforcements to their large and powerful land army, which then proceeded to starve and desert due to attrition as the Greeks followed a sort of scorched-earth policy, and left the advancing victorious Persian army no food or shelter...

    Fleets are equally underrated in Rome Total War as they were by the Persians (the Persian empire, preferring land warfare, actually built a BRIDGE of ships across the strait between Asia Minor and Europe, rather than keep those ships for naval warfare and resupply- which probably helped to cost them the Battle of Salamis). A clever leader can leverage a strong fleet to defeat a vastly superior enemy force by dividing and conquering, which is essentially for the typically outnumbered Scipii armies...


    Scipio Africanus, where are my legions?
    These words were of course never spoken by any historical figure, but perhaps they might have been. The historical Romans lost SEVERAL entire legions to the Carthaginians under Hannibal Barca before finally defeating him in Italy. Similarly, facing Carthaginian elephants with insufficient missile and cavalry support for my infantry is the ONLY way I have ever lost entire legions in my Rome Total War campaigns. Even full barbarian hordes in Barbarian Invasion couldn't do that (although they sometimes did force tactical withdrawals with a little over half my largest force slaughtered- though usually with FAR more barbarians taken to the afterlife with them...) The Carthaginians are simply tough foes under a properly clever general (general intelligence is represented by Command stars- though maybe I was unlucky enough to encounter an early 6+ star Carthaginian general), and it would be a mistake to underestimate them...

    Facing a 'Flock of Birds'- the Numidians
    The Numidians can be even worse for a poorly-prepared Roman legion. Although they typically lack the terror-weapons that are elephants, they possess something much more deadly- Numidian Cavalry. The historical Romans described the Numidian Cavalry as maneuvering 'Like a Flock of Birds', and indeed this well-describes their exceptional maneuverability and proper tactics under a competent enemy (even AI) general.

    Proper Numidian tactics rely on hit-and-run attacks against unprepared medium and heavy infantry, putting their javelins' armor-piercing ability to good use. Numidian Cavalry are simply too fast, too agile, and have too much Stamina to catch with more traditional cavalry (short of the almost-exploitive tactic of pushing them against the side of the map, which I have nevertheless made use of many times...), and a wise general will make use of this to stay out of swords' reach of then enemy infantry, instead dealing as many casualties as possible on the vast Numidian plains and desert. Occasionally, the AI even has the sense to withdraw a Numidian force consisting largely of cavalry so it can fight again after emptying its clutch of javelins, although more often they simply follow up this tactic with a suicidal charge to the flank or rear of your heaviest infantry (who, not engaged elsewhere, can quickly turn to face them if they don't manage to on-time). Not that it matters- the Numidian territory is vast, and the AI will often spam your army with smaller "captain" stacks; wearing your men down long before your slow-moving force reaches any of their major cities... The halfway-decent and highly-inexpensive Numidian infantry, coupled with a large force of foot skirmishers and slingers, is more than capable of finishing the job if you don't come properly prepared...

    Slings and Arrows
    The best, almost hard-counter to agile missile cavalry is typically large numbers of missile troops on foot (their numbers being greater and more inexpensive), but this tactic is not always entirely effective against the Numidians' low-cost, high-quality missile cavalry- who also excel at melee combat with light troops. Ultimately, you will typically have to counter them with either larger numbers (here's where your powerful, low-corruption economy REALLY pays its dividends), or missile cavalry of your own (typically Numidian Mercenaries)- though either tactic is expensive. This brings me to the first principle of Scipii economic strategy- Attrition.


    Ye Gods, what Dastards would we command- swept to the war, the lumber of the land? (ATTRITION)
    The Scipii face heavy attrition in their imperial campaigns- far more so than the Brutii, with their Greek opponents who tend to decide matters with single, large, decisive battles (it often takes too long for the Greeks to raise a second army of hoplites in the cramped conditions of the Greek peninsula, before an ambitious and strategy-minded Roman general pours in with his victorious force and besieges their key cities- effectively halting troop recruitment). Fighting the Numidians is like facing a swarm of birds (and they will often retreat rather than face certain doom when heavily-outnumbered), whereas the Carthiganians are a bit like facing the hordes of Mordor- their cheap, plentiful armies and mercenaries, drawn from a nearly-inexhaustible recruitment pool on Africa and ancient Libya's (modern-day Tunisia and Tripoli) abundantly-fertile soil, just keep coming and coming- there's no end to them short of taking Carthage itself...

    Thus, a wise Scipii consul will bear in mind the imperative to minimize the attrition of his forces (and the resultant drain on his limited population), and will do everything he can to manage it:



    Of Chestplates and Cretians- Combating Attrition

    The best tactic available to a commander to reduce attrition is and always has been not to face his enemy at close quarters, while simultaneously leaving his own force well-protected against enemy bombardment.

    It may not seem like a very 'Roman' tactic, but historically the Romans were a lot more innovative than we originally thought. They DID NOT simply recruit large armies of heavy infantry all the time, and bullheadedly march directly on their enemy like some kind of automatons- despite this being the description of historical Roman tactics many players of this game seem to (inaccurately) embrace. Rather, the Roman army made heavy use of auxiliary cavalry and missile troops, where appropriate, going so far as to raise an ENTIRE ARMY of horse-archer cavalry in the Near East (modern-day Syria and Lebanon) during the time of the Roman Civil War. Such examples of adaptable thinking were not the exception, but rather the rule- although some particularly bullheaded Roman commanders (*cough* Marc Antony) insisted on the planning of suicidal tactics like chasing the Parthians through the deserts of their homeland with little besides heavy infantry...

    Similarly, the best tactic available to a wise Roman commander to minimize attritional losses is to make heavy use of ranged forces- particularly elite foot archers such as those of Crete- while simultaneously doing his all to harden his more conventional forces with the best arms and armor available.


    The Might of the Smiths

    The Roman Temple of Vulcan is invaluable in this regard. The Scipii' respect for smiths and their handicraft, often slowly won by long years of warfare against Numidian skirmishing forces, serves their armies well on nearly any front.

    While the armor upgrades provided by Vulcan won't quite match the effectiveness of the early experience and morale upgrades of the Brutii when facing enemies in close-combat, there are INVALUABLE when engaging on opponent at a range.

    The defensive system of Rome Total War works on a three-part foundation, as I'm sure anyone who has ever examined the unit cards has noticed: military units keep themselves alive with Armor, Shields, and that over-valued entity called "Defense Skill".

    Much like in real-life, or in the words of your military adviser, "A well-trained soldier has no more defense against an arrow or javelin than a raw recruit." While this isn't ENTIRELY true- higher quality units often possess superior quality armor to their lower-cost counterparts, there is some truth to this adage when it comes to unit experience...

    Because all an experience chevron does, when it comes to combat stats, is improve Attack and Defense Skill (there is also a lesser positive effect on Morale- most notable when comparing bloodied soldiers to raw recruits) ; it DOESN'T provide an experienced veteran with any extra protection against arrows, slings, or javelins. An experienced commander will use this to his advantage- by targeting his enemies' most experienced soldiers first in battle (though this rarely matters against the AI- which tends to eat through even its elite troops like a World War I era meat-grinder...) However, of greater importance, improving the armor of YOUR most valuable troops, especially your most experienced troops, will go a long way towards keeping them alive in battle...

    A note here: a point in shields counts DOUBLE against projectiles (slingshot, javelins, and arrows) compared to a point in armor- but shields *ONLY* protect units carrying them from threats to the front of their left side (all troops in Rome Total War are assumed to be right-handed, and carry their shields to their left sides...) They also don't protect cavalry mounts, but only their rides- making most cavalry units, even elite units with heavily-armored riders (excepting Cataphracts- which have heavily-armored horses) EXTREMELY vulnerable to missile fire, as killing either the riders OR the mounts will kill the unit...


    The Scipii, as I mentioned, face heavy attrition in their campaigns. They also face repeated battles- where there is rich opportunity for valiant units to prove themselves again and again in battle, gaining experience chevrons in the process. However, to ensure that these veterans aren't slaughtered in the next volley of slingshot (Carthage and Numidia rarely utilize archers), your best tactic is to ensure that they are protected by high-quality armor.

    This means two things: recruiting better-armored soldiers as early in the game as possible (Princeps over Hastati- and for God's sake, *NEVER* rely on Town Watch spam to win Scipii battles), and upgrading your troops' armor with the larger temples of Vulcan.


    If you do these two things as the Scipii, the benefits will snowball. Better armor for your men means you can expect them to survive more battles- which means they will acquire more experience. More experienced men can in turn be expected to perform better in combat- further increasing your mens' life expectancy. If your enemy faces you poorly-armored, as Numidians (and to a lessedr degree Carthaginians) often do, they also leave themselves intimately vulnerable to being slaughtered at a distance by your missile troops; leaving only a small force to be finished off by your heavy infantry. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS WEAKNESS!

    An enemy thinned by arrow-fire is an enemy easily broken. The main value of missile troops, even against lightly-armored foes, is not to actually kill your opponent off at a range (although if you can do this without suffering heavy losses yourself, GO FOR IT!) The main value of missile troops is to shake your enemies' resolve before they even engage with your heavy, well-armored infantry (as they should be playing the Scipii) in the first place. A unit at half or two-thirds strength recently thinned by missile volleys will break and rout much sooner than a unit at full-strength. This is essential, because in Rome Total War, like in ancient warfare, far more casualties are normally dealt by your light cavalry as the enemy flees your main force than by actual combat with your men. This is ESSENTIAL to long-term strategic success as the Scipii, and also a handy way to train your cavalry forces...


    In short, 'Arrows and Armor'- that's the secret to reducing attrition!


    Coming Next: Scipii supply-line problems, and how to leverage a powerful navy.
    Last edited by James_Northstar; December 02, 2015 at 02:46 AM.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    The Grand Fleet of Carthage
    Anyone who's ever tried to win an Imperial Campaign as Carthage knows the value of a strong navy. Without it, Carthage can't move its armies to where they are needed, protect its naval trade, or even rotate provincial governors or install agents as-necessary. What many players forget is that, as the Scipii, you have basically taken over the reins of Carthage under Roman leadership. Carthage will soon, for good reason, become your most important city- sometimes even the site of your relocated capital- and your strategic position is much the same. As you just conquered Carthage, however, hopefully you are aware of some of the perils of this strategic placement...


    Elephants Make Excellent Anchors
    If you let Carthage live long enough to start training its better elephant units (you shouldn't have- it's of particular importance to conquer the city of Carthage before they build an Imperial Palace- otherwise you'll never fully culturally-assimilate the city, and will have constant public order problems on your hands with its enormously fertile farmland fueling the growth of an immense, unruly population...) you probably became aware that the best way to defeat an elephant unit is to send it to the bottom of the sea. Or more precisely, to send it and its crew of expensive professional rowers to the bottom of the deep blue (Triremes and Quinquremes were manned by highly-trained professionals, freemen not slaves, despite the inaccurate descriptions on RTW's Dockyard buildings...)

    The Scipii would be wise to remember this lesson even after they vanquish Carthage. Not only is a strong navy important for keeping their own armies (which should even occasionally include Mercenary Elephants from the African coast) alive, it is also important for vanquishing their enemies' armies.

    The Scipii do not benefit from as large a number of recruiting centers close to the center of power in Italy as the Julii or Brutii. Their major centers of recruitment are in Carthage and Sicily; if they should loose these they will be at a strong disadvantage, for their other settlements are unlikely to reach a similar level of size and development before the outbreak of the Roman Civil War.

    Therefore, a wise Scipii leader will maintain a strong fleet. The Scipii are aided in this endeavor by their ability to construct the Temple of Neptune line of buildings...


    Neptune- Roman God of the Sea
    The Scipii worship of Neptune feels almost like an afterthought a times. It doesn't provide large public order or population growth bonuses. It doesn't provide trade or armor or experience bonuses. It doesn't even provide useful traits or ancillaries to your generals and governors. What it DOES do, is randomly provide a handful of useful ancillaries to your admirals upon creation of a new fleet at a city hosting these temples, at Large Temple level or above; and more important provide the ability to construct the Corvus Quinqureme and Decere at its Awesome Temple and Pantheon levels, respectively.


    Bigger is Better
    The old adage, only true to a certain extant with the fairer sex (hey, I couldn't resist the jibe!), after which point greater size means awkward and unwieldy; knows no such limit when it comes to the Roman navy. The Romans could never build their warships too large (maybe they were compensating for something?), and in fact neither can you.

    The chief advantage of larger warships in Rome Total War is their superior stats. Larger warships benefit from higher armor, defense skill, or attack values than their smaller counterparts; and never cost more Denarii per-sailor.

    At this point, I feel it necessary to dispel a certain myth about naval combat in Rome Total War. Unlike in Rome 2 (which highly inaccurately makes naval combat all about the survival of the marines on top- a ship which looses all of its marines will be considered "defeated" and usually turn and flee shortly before this happens), naval combat in Rome Total War is all about the survival of the rowers below-decks. Six triremes with half crew-complements pack no more of an offensive punch than three fully-manned triremes, and five half-manned triremes will lose to three triremes with full crews.

    It is for this reason that you usually want to opt for the larger warships in Rome Total War whenever possible. They typically carry the same number of men per Denarii of maintenance cost, and sometimes slightly more, so you do not suffer a loss of total affordable manpower this way in the long run. On the other hand, each sailor in a Quinqureme is better-protected than his counterpart in a Trireme, ostensibly due to the thicker hull and stronger marine complement. So you get more combat power per sailor, and at least the same number of sailors per Denarii in upkeep (with fleets, which should spend most of their time in port to shelter them from storms, and maintained even in peacetime to deal with pirates, upkeep *rapidly* becomes more important than recruitment costs)

    The Power of the Crow's Beak
    One of the major problems with Quinquremes, however, although generally considered a superior warship to the Trireme in ancient times; was its lack of mobility, and consequent difficulty in initiating boarding actions against enemy ships.

    The Romans historically dealt with this during the Punic Wars by developing the "Corvus" ("Crow's Beak")- a long wooden bridge which swung out on a hinge from the nose or sides of larger warships, and impaled the enemy deck with a sharp "beak" on the end.

    The main function of the Corvus was to secure a stable connection for a warships' sailors to board the enemy ship. Reflecting this fact, in Rome Total War the Corvus Quinqureme, which can be built by the Scipii with an Awesome Temple of Neptune, provides additional "Attack" stat compared to standard Quinquremes- at little addditional cost.

    Deceres- the Floating Fortresses
    Even better, if the Scipii invest in their temples all the way to a Pantheon with Neptune as its chief god, as well as also building a Dockyard, they gain the ability to construct the enormous Decere (or "ten")- a massive beast of a ship which benefits from both higher attack and defense statistics than its smaller Quinqureme ("five") cousins, as well as a larger crew complement- the historical version had at least twice as many rowers as a Quinqureme. The main disadvantage of the Decere is the incredible infrastructure necessary to construct it- usually limiting its practical utility in Rome Total War campaigns to the immediate vicinity of Italy, and occasionally, in campaigns featuring a particularly late Civil War, to the vicinity of the largest ports in the Near East (Alexandria and Sidon). The Decere makes up for this logistical constraint with the best cost-efficiency for naval power in the game (a single one of these behemoths can often take on entire pirate fleets- which are typically composed of Bireme-sized ships), as well as the ability to bring a larger number of sailors to full-stack naval battles where both sides are fielding 20 Quinquremes (minus one for each Decere on the Scipii side)- although such battles are an extreme rarity in Rome Total War due to the incompetence of the AI and its tendency to scatter its fleets...

    For those who have been astutely studying my earlier discourse on Scipii grand strategy, you will recognize another advantage to the Decere- improved resistance to attrition.

    The Scipii, to remind you, have relatively few major recruiting centers (places where you will likely have an Army Barracks or Hippodrome by the time of the Roman Civil War)- seriously hampering their ability to replace the rather heavy losses any Roman faction will inevitably face when its armies match up against the battle-hardened and similarly trained forces of the other Roman factions, whose generals and soldiers have until then been cutting their teeth fighting Greeks or Gauls.

    Therefore, any advantage a Scipii player can obtain in hardening their forces against attrition ahead of time will serve them well.

    The Decere provides particularly useful in this regard. Not only does it have higher stats- (usually) reducing the number of men lost in each naval battle- it also has a higher unit size, enabling a Decere to fight on for longer as a useful combat force.

    The Decere, thereby, is in many ways the First Cohort of the seas. The combination of slightly improved stats, and larger unit size, enable the Decere to serve through far more battles as a useful combat entity (before risking complete unit annihilation from a close-fought battle), at the expense of proving a logistical nightmare to retrain- in much the same way as a First Cohort on land (which, in the original game, can only be recruited in the city of Rome itself- much like Spartan Hoplites can only be recruited in the vicinity of Sparta- for those of you wondering why you've never encountered First Cohorts in any of your Imperial Campaigns...)

    Build Deceres, and build them early- so by the time of the Roman Civil War you'll have a number of these behemoths, already battle-hardened from countless skirmishes hunting pirates and the occasional marauding enemy fleet. This will save you from needing to replace as many ships in the midst of the Civil War, freeing your cities up to train fresh infantry instead- as a Decere is EXTREMELY difficult to sink when fully-manned, and it is *MUCH* quicker to retain a ship than to build a new one from scratch...


    Coming Next: More on supply lines, blockades, and the importance of Forts when playing as the Scipii.



    Regards,
    Northstar
    Last edited by James_Northstar; March 17, 2016 at 01:43 PM.

  5. #5
    BrotherSurplice's Avatar Semisalis
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    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    This is fantastic. I'm currently playing my first RTW campaign ever as the Scipii and the problems you describe are eerily similar to what I'm facing. The attrition in particular is right-on; it's why I was overjoyed to find that when my horrendously depleted army entered Alexandria, the Egyptians hadn't completely emptied the city out and I could finally get some resupply. Although I shrekked the Carthaginians and Numidians with almost contemptuous ease. Looking forward to your next entry!

  6. #6

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    (Thanks for the encouragement! It's still not done yet, though! I never did write the long-awaited third section on the Brutii, and I still have yet to re-visit the Scipii to discuss forts and supply-lines...)


    The Brutii

    "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
    ("It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country")
    - Horace, Odes -


    All Hail, Mars, the God of War!

    The Brutii' most distinctive, and interesting, temples are those dedicated to Mars, the Roman God of War. It is fitting that their other temples (Mercury, "The God of Trade" and Juno "The Goddess of Family") seem to exist almost as mere supports for the Brutii' most famous God. Trade generates wealth to finance armies, and Family helps grow cities in infertile locations and provide an unending spring of fresh generals to replace those lost in the battlefield, but it is Mars and his violent ways that defines the Brutii faction more than any other...

    Martial Bravery

    The most important benefit of worshiping Mars is the benefits to Morale his temples bring. They do this in two ways: first, by providing units with extra experience chevrons fresh out of training- more experienced troops have higher Morale and are harder to frighten in battle, as well as being more effective in killing the enemy and staying alive (which influences which side appears to be winning the battle- thus further impacting combat morale), and second by providing a direct Morale bonus for units trained at the largest temples to Mars.

    The Morale bonus, unlike Experience, does not actually directly improve the combat performance of your men- but the improvement to their base Morale rating (all units have a base number based on unit type, which gains modifiers from Experience level, a temporary bonuses from the Command rating of general leading the unit and any Morale-specific traits of the general, and permanent direct Morale bonuses from temples in the city where the unit was trained) DOES improve their combat morale- the state of a unit as "Eager", "Steady", "Wavering", etc. by making a unit more resistant to the negative combat morale effects of things such as seeing comrades die, losing their general, or feeling that the battle is going badly- and higher combat morale enables a unit to fight more effectively (or more precisely, low combat morale causes a unit to perform at below its expected level based on unit Attack and Defense stats... "Eager" seems to be the baseline at which units fight by-the-numbers, although a few units can reach "Impetuous" status and perform BETTER than expected based on unit stats...)

    Perhaps most importantly, high Morale helps ensure a unit won't break and run as quickly when hard-pressed. Often this means the difference between victory and defeat both on the battlefield- you don't defeat an enemy by killing every last man on the field, you typically defeat an enemy by causing their army to break and run. This also translates to success or failure on the broader strategic level- more men are typically killed running away from a battle in Rome Total War than in actual combat (like was the case historically on ancient battlefields), and even one unit holding out a few precious seconds longer in an ultimately-doomed battle can buy hundreds of other men the time to successfully escape from the battlefield alive to fight again in a later battle...

    Morale bonuses make the Brutii the most dangerous warriors in the game, and would make them the most powerful Roman faction in the game as well, if not for the fact that most of these brave warriors just end up sitting garrison duty in their largest cities due to the Brutii' crippling lack of ability to build temples with extra public order benefits (the cost of maintaining a large garrison and regular Games almost always greatly exceeds the extra income from temples dedicated to trade- and in cities distant from the capital without large Law bonuses most of this Trade income is sapped by Corruption anyways...)

    A Family of Violent Lunatics

    The violent ways of the Brutii are not the only thing fitting of their name (who hasn't seen "Brutii" and thought "brutes"?), they also come with a dark side just as fitting... The worship of Mars inevitably leads many of his adherents to bloody-minded lunacy. The "Bloodthirsty" line of traits begins with the seemingly-positive "Bloody" trait, which provides +1 Morale and +1 Command ability for a general, but soon develops into the "Sanguinary" (+1 Command, -1 Morale) and then the "Bloodthirsty" (-1 Command, -3 Morale) traits with continued Mars-worship. Additionally, Mars-worship also leads to the "Anger" traits, which provide a penalty to the Influence ratings of generals/governors with these traits and exclude the development of several more useful trait-lines (such as the "Optimistic" line of traits...)


    Corrupt Traders

    Worshipers of Mercury are not spared either, though. Worship of Mercury leads to the "Embezzler" line of traits- antitraits of the "Upright" line of traits (which improve Law and BribeResistance) which are in turn anti-traits to the "Corrupt" line. Thus, worship of Mercury inevitably leads to both corruption, and embezzling of funds (which hurt Law and Management ratings- in turn both reducing Administrative bonuses from Management and preventing Law bonuses from reducing Corruption...) On the bright side, Mercury-worship also leads to the "Cheapskate" and "Deceiver" line of traits- which are on the balance more positive than negative (although don't stick a Cheapskate into a city you need to grow! The bonuses to construction costs and tax income are counterbalanced by an increase in Squalor levels!)

    Family, the Bedrock of Roman Society

    The one unambiguously good God the Brutii have to worship is Juno, the Roman Goddess of Family and Children. Her worship increases the Health rating of cities- which increases population growth, happiness, and acts as a deterrent to Plague. She also blesses many of your family members with the "Fertile" trait- which leads to an increased chance of having children every year, and will ultimately help your imperial family's size to keep pace with territorial expansions and the loss of generals on the battlefield (an important aside, the Fertile trait will *NOT* lead to a significant increase in the maximum size of your imperial family- this is actually determined by the size and number of cities under your control, and reaches a sort of hard-cap at about 1.1 male family members per Huge City controlled, with an additional allowance for very small empires and a leveling-off of the cap as you reach very large empire sizes...)

    Worship of Juno is not an ENTIRELY beneficial practice, however. The large number of generals and governors she provides you with can easily bankrupt your faction if your economy is weak and you do not have the educational infrastructure and talent for micromanagement necessary to shape your governors into efficient managers capable of paying their own salaries in management bonuses (it should be mentioned that the Market/Forum line of buildings are also important to character-development, as many useful retinue and ancillaries can only be recruited in cities with high-level forums...) Additionally, the hordes of plebeians that Juno-worship will eventually fill your cities with is hardly beneficial if you don't have the recreational and economic infrastructure to match- and will easily bring even a might empire to its knees with the maintenance costs of large garrisons and low tax income. You need high-level trade and entertainment infrastructure, managed by capable and charismatic administrators, for the extra population to actually help rather than harm your treasury...


    Managing the Masses

    Huge and populous cities are a trademark of the Brutii, thanks to the bonuses Juno provides to population-growth and the concomitant aversion to plague (Ceres worship, though also beneficial from the standpoint of raw population growth modifiers, will be balanced by an increased frequency of Plagues, as the balance between Squalor levels and Health is the ultimate determinant of when non-scripted Plagues erupt and spread in your cities...) So, it's important to know how to manage them when playing the Brutii. Larger populations lead to lower public order benefits from garrisons (which are based on the RATIO of soldiers to civilians, rather than raw numbers) as well as lower per-capita tax income (which increases with population, but follows a step-wise curve, as I discussed earlier...) So, how does a Brutii player strike a balance, and keep the mob from driving his governors out of power in violent riots?

    Malthus was Wrong

    Population, first of all, will NOT inevitably grow until there is a complete lack of resources and a resultant crash in numbers. Real animal populations (and those of your plebeians) follow what is known as an "S-shaped curve", where population growth is initially slow, simply due to the small number of mating pairs producing children, but then steps up as their numbers increase, only to level off again at a larger population size known as the "Carrying Capacity" of the habitat. It is fitting to consider plebeian population dynamics in the same way as we would a herd of sheep when playing as the Brutii- for after all, the Brutii really only see the plebeians as little more than dumb brute animals to fuel their war machine to begin with... (The Brutii have an elitist, "let them eat cake" slant to their style of governing; whereas the Scipii are great administrators and generals, lovers of law & order, and Greek learning. The Julii are populist frontiersmen with a particular hatred of Barbarians and at least feigned sympathy for the plight of the working masses...)

    Carrying Capacity

    To understand the management of large cities in Rome Total War, you have to understand that, like their real-life equivalents, they have what is known as a "Carrying Capacity". This is the MAXIMUM size a population can stably reach based on factors like food availability (regional fertility), habitat space (city size is determined by the level of your Governor's Palace), and the level of adaptation to the environment (in nature, a species that can utilize a larger variety of the available types of shelter, for instance, can reach a larger size- whereas your plebeians can reach greater numbers by means of more advanced technology and capable administration...) Your cities, similarly, have a maximum size they can grow to at any given point based on the current factors affecting population-growth, both positive and negative, and will grow in number until the positive factors precisely balance the negative factors. Any increase in population beyond this point (say, by disbanding a couple dozen Peasant units in a province in an act of forced-migration) will lead to an INCREASE in a city's Squalor rating and negative population growth, whereas any decrease below this number (say, by exterminating three quarters of the population of a city recently reconquered from the Rebels) will lead to a reduction in the city's Squalor rating and positive population growth...

    Squalor

    "Squalor" is the antithesis of "Health". Whereas Health increases population growth, public order, and reduces the chance of a Plague; Squalor DECREASES population growth, happiness, public order, and increases the chance of a Plague. Squalor is directly related to a city's population size, although the relationship appears to be either step-wise or change based on the level of the Governor's Palace (so cities with an Imperial Palace will experience less Squalor than a city of the same population with nothing but a Governor's Villa, for instance...) Squalor acts to limit your population's growth, but is not a hard-cap: factors such as increasing farm output (through building farm improvements, or your governor acquiring positive agriculture-related traits and retinue), building a Great Forum, or the Greeks building a Temple to Aphrodite in a city can all act to temporarily overcome Squalor levels and restore positive population-growth to even a stagnant or negatively-growing city. However eventually, Squalor will always catch up with the new positive growth factors, and you need to be prepared for the hits to public order and loss of any happiness bonuses from population-boom (which occur when your population is growing VERY RAPIDLY) when this inevitably happens...


    Garrisons and Governors

    The most direct, but least reliable means players have of controlling public order and keeping a large city from revolting are to garrison it with large numbers of troops and charismatic or iron-fisted (those with strong Law bonuses) governors. However, garrisons can be killed by invaders or starved by a siege (even if its is broken without the city ever being directly assaulted), and governors always eventually die- whether by the sword, dagger, or of old age. More importantly, garrisons cost MONEY to pay the salaries of- even a full stack of meager Peasants will cost 2000 Denarii per season to pay... For the portion of public order you *DO* provide with garrisons, however, units like Town Watch and Peasants are *strongly* recommended unless the city is under direct threat of invasion- these units have the best ratio of maintenance costs to troop-numbers of any human units in the game (strangely the dogs in a War Dogs unit don't count towards keeping public order, though one could easily imagine use of snarling dogs to intimidate potentially-disorderly citizens: only their much less numerous human handlers count...) Town Watch are generally preferred for all but the most peaceful such settlements, as they still act as moderately cost-effective warriors in times of emergency, and are capable of putting down the occasional band of Brigands (the Rebels that randomly spawn in the countryside) in large enough numbers...


    Bread and Circuses

    The historical Romans helped to sate their masses with free public spectacles (not only races and games, but public musical and theatrical performances, festivals and parades, and even the public execution of criminals and dissidents...) and an abundant food supply (which they often freely gave away in a show of the ruling classes' "generosity"- although ultimately the large amounts of food necessary to support this were either purchased with tax-money or exacted as tribute from recently-conquered cities, so this "free" food for the plebeians really wasn't so free after all...) You should seek to do the same.

    Bread

    Although you cannot indefinitely maintain rapid population growth as farm output can only be improved so far with farm-upgrades and slaves (the logic for the population-growth benefit from slavery is Rome Total War is that the slaves work longer hours and subsist on less food than freemen-farmers...), you *CAN* delay the need to find other solutions to your public order problems simply by maintaining such a rapid rate of population growth that your cities experience the "population boom" effect- which provides large increases to public order while your population is growing at a very rapid pace. However, as discussed before, all you will ultimately be doing is pushing your Carrying Capacity to higher numbers, and making your public order problems that much worse when you *do* start to approach it...

    Circuses

    Gladiatorial Games and Chariot Races provide cost-effective entertainment for very large cities. While hardly worthwhile in smaller towns and cities where garrisons and population-boom can easily keep ahead of public order problems (and the per-capita tax rates are high enough that it is usually profitable to set the tax rate to Very High with nothing but a garrison to keep the peace), in larger cities such public spectacles are much more practical. This is because they provide the same PERCENTAGE bonus to public order in a large and populous city as a small one, whereas the same number of garrison troops will provide a smaller bonus in a larger city as the bonus is based on the RATIO of soldiers to civilians... Therefore, it is financially prudent for you to build gladiatorial arenas and hippodromes in your larger cities and throw Games and/or Races in them rather than attempt to meet public order shortfalls in your larger cities with a garrison.


    Religion, the Opiate of the Masses

    Besides providing a variety of side-benefits or downsides specific to the god, religious buildings in themselves almost always make your plebeians happier. All religious buildings provide a base happiness bonus commensurate to their level of impressiveness- so unless worship of that particular god decreases public order through the secondary effects, religious buildings will always increase public order in the cities where they are built...

    The exceptions are temples dedicated to Ceres and Aphrodite- both of which increase population growth without increasing happiness through their secondary effects and thus ultimately decrease public order through Squalor by the same amount they increase it through happiness- while simultaneously causing the settlement population to grow larger and thus receive less benefit from its garrison. However temples to Ceres also increase income from farming, and a larger population still means more tax revenue (both of which can be used to pay for Games, garrisons, or public works...)

    It's worth noting, once again, that temples dedicated to Saturn both decrease Corruption and provide public order through their Law bonuses- thus if you should ever come into possession of a city distant from your capital containing a large such temple as the Brutii, you might want to think twice before demolishing it...

    Temples are just one example of a type of public works a player can pursue the construction of in order to pacify the masses, but they are not the only option...


    Awing Them With Bricks and Marble

    The Romans had a penchant for the construction of large and impressive public buildings. These included not only temples, but also buildings such as forums and gladiatorial arenas. These were clearly built to impress- it's no coincidence that Roman architecture made use of bricks and concrete (the cheapest and sturdiest materials available) for the FRAME of a structure, but thin layers of marble (often polished to a sheen) for the walls and exterior. The intention was often, first and foremost, to impress- and only secondarily to perform the nominal function of the structure. In Rome Total War, you can do the same thing!

    Gladiatorial Arenas, temples, and even the most advanced forum in the game (the "Curia") all provide a public order bonus completely independent of their nominal functions. Simply having an impressive gladiatorial arena around, even if you only throw games in it once a year (the minimum, and free, frequency of Games available to a Roman player) goes a long way towards impressing the masses! Build the most advanced versions of these structures possible if you have the Denarii lying around, and watch your people gape in awe at the architecture (instead of the pointy spears of an expensive-to-pay garrison!) As a side-bonus, many of these buildings come with special (and very useful) retinue at their highest levels- for instance, Elder Senators from a Curia, Lanistas with a Colosseum, or a variety of special ancillaries with the different Awesome Temples and Pantheons... Most importantly, these bonuses are completely independent of population size, meaning that, unlike the bonus from a garrison unit, the happiness bonus from a small provincial arena works just as well for a city of 6000 as it does for a city of 30,000.



    Brutii Grand Strategy

    The Brutii start the game with an obvious enemy- the Greeks (both the Greek Cities and Macedonians, although one can be played off against the other, at least for a time...) However, their campaign starts to feel a bit more confusing after conquering Greece and Macedon. In which direction do you expand next? Which are the most dangerous enemies? There are really two directions you can take your game, and they both have their benefits and drawbacks...


    Repeating History

    Historically, the Romans focused on subduing the Thracians after conquering Greece and Asia Minor (the west coast of modern-day Turkey, inhabited by Greeks long before the Romans arrived, and until the Turkish conquests over 1500 years after...) They were a fierce and proud warrior-people, largely barbarian in culture but with Hellenistic influences from Alexander the Great and centuries of trade with the Greeks. Although they were a difficult group to conquer, and their lands offered the Romans relatively-little immediate benefits, they occupied a strategic position between Macedon and Asia Minor and along several major trade routes through the Bosphorus (the region bordering the exit from the Black Sea). They also could have posed a major raiding-hazard to more "civilized" Roman holdings in Macedon if they had been allowed to persist in occupying these lands free of Roman rule...

    The same patterns hold true for your own campaign as the Brutii- the Thracians will prove a nasty and difficult people to conquer, as with nothing more than a Militia Barracks they can train the Falxman unit: which are cost-effective and EXTREMELY dangerous units to face with pre-Marian legions. Your main advantage will be shear economic prowess and numbers, and the Morale benefits of Mars-worship will prove immensely important in preventing your legionaries from turning tail and fleeing from these fearsome warriors...


    Egypt First

    The other option available to a Brutii would-be Imperator is to cross the Eastern Mediterranean and head straight for Egypt. Although it is possible to conquer your way down the coast, passing through Levant (modern-day Syria, Jordan, and Israel) on your way to Egypt proper, and likely neutralizing a large number of freshly-conquered Egyptian holdings along the way (as the Seleucid Empire, almost invariably, collapses due to a dogpile-war by this point in the game...) this is STRONGLY advised against. Egypt herself is home to the Pyramids- which will reduce the culture penalty in Egyptian-culture cities, and is thus IMMENSELY useful for maintaining control of the remainder of Egypt's possessions. Additionally, if you go straight for the jugular and take control of Egypt, the remaining Egyptian cities will likely be too weak to seriously resist you for long (if you have made rapid progress in your conquests thus far), and may possibly even be gobbled up by a vigorous Pathrian Empire if the Parthians have been doing well so far in the game... This is *very much* to your advantage if it occurs- sit back and smile if it does. Because soon enough, you'll be coming for the Pathians too- but hopefully not before they sprinkle a few of their new conquests with Trade Caravan or even Spice Road stops, which you cannot build yourself, but will prove incredibly lucrative later on in the game...

    A note about the Egypt First strategy. While it does require a daring and ambitious crossing of the Eastern Mediterranean with a couple large armies and an at least moderately-strong flotilla of ships to have much chance of working (it would be unwise to pack such a large number of ships into a weak fleet, and risk losing them to pirates or even a storm...), it will also provide you with some of the most fertile provinces in the game relatively early on- giving you the chance to establish Roman culture and order in these cities before their populations become unmanageably large for a conquering army to hold without exterminating. Not only this, but it helps ensure that you take control of these provinces BEFORE any of them sprout a Royal Palace- which would make it impossible for you to ever fully culturally-assimilate your new conquests. If you should fail to conquer an Egyptian city before this point, and for any reason (say, a slave revolt) lose control of the Pyramids, you are going to be in MAJOR difficulty trying to maintain order in your un-assimilated cities, which will be extremely populous, distant from your capital, AND of a foreign culture. Much better to conquer the cities early on, so you can impose as much Roman culture on them as possible...

    Finally, Thrace isn't really such a menace if you ally with them early on against the Macedonians or Greeks. In fact, they can act as one of the most loyal and useful allies in the game. Whether a quirk of the Thracian faction's AI, or more likely the simple logical outcome from the fact that the Thracians will usually find themselves with their metaphorical hands full dealing with Dacian and Scythian invasions, leaving them no time or manpower to attack Rome- the Thracians will rarely attack you if you act as a loyal ally towards them. This means not sending spies against their cities (or at least not getting caught doing so), not assassinating their characters (or, once again, at least not getting the blame for it pinned on you), and most important of all, declaring war on any factions who attack them (of which there should be plenty). Given these conditions, the Thracians will likely eventually form a comforting blue screen to your north, protecting your norther border from more aggressive barbarians while acting as a relatively friendly, relatively Hellenized ally that you can eventually conquer the cities of, securing a bounty of invaluable Odeons and Lyceums in the process that you would normally be incapable of building yourself (Odeons and Lyceums are special Greek-only public order buildings, much like gladiatorial rings for the Romans; except that they cannot hold Games; and provide generally-positive poetry, music, and speechmaking-related traits and retinue to your governors instead of gladiators and Lanistas...)



    Brutii Endgame

    If you have studied this guide, and learned the strengths and weaknesses of the different Roman factions (as well as many general concepts that will help you understand any faction), then by the time you conquer Greece or subdue Macedon the world should likely be your oyster. The Roman Civil War should be approaching- and let it! In fact, you would be wise to speed its advance with a few additional conquests in Pontus (northern Turkey), the Levant, or the Crimean Peninsula (the piece of land sticking out into the northern end of the Black Sea- valuable for trade and the exportable Grain resources in the general vicinity). Trade is one of the Brutii strengths- and the rich internal trade routes of a large empire will be invaluable for funding your success in the approaching Roman Civil War...
    Last edited by James_Northstar; June 23, 2016 at 08:48 AM.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    I hope this guide has been helpful so far. Look for expanded explanations, small revisions, and other little improvements from time to time...

    And now, I present the last major section: on forts, supply-lines, blockades, and the end-game (including the Roman Civil War...)

    - Northstar
    Last edited by James_Northstar; December 02, 2015 at 02:53 AM.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    Controlling the Countryside

    If you've been following thus far, you've learned how to keep law and order in your cities- to wisely balance use of garrisons, games, great temples, and governors to keep your urban populace from revolting. Excellent, that's one step on the path to victory! But historically the cities of the Roman world actually only made up a very minor component of the cultural landscape- much of the populace resided in small villages and town outside of the major provincial capitals (what all the in-game cities represent). Similarly, although cities are important centers for trade and development in the game- your empire's prosperity is *vitally* dependent on maintaining peace and safety in the hinterlands as well...


    A Handful of Spice, a Boatload of Brigands

    Alright, you say- you've got my attention. Now, why should I care about the countryside so much when all I need to maintain provincial ownership is control of the cities?

    Here's the first reason why- wealth attracts thieves, and the vast majority of your trade income must pass along discrete, and therefore vulnerable routes in the form of roads between your cities and ports (the only exception to this is trade in provinces with absolutely no Roads built- which never amounts to very much...) Any interruption to the flow of goods along these routes- say by a band of feisty Brigands looking to get rich off robbing your merchants and raping your farmers- and you lose all the trade income form that route.

    What this, most directly means, is that you have to keep Brigands and other hostiles OFF OF THE ROADS. If a unit of Brigands, or say an invading Barbarian army (or even smaller raiding-party) happens to station itself along one of your roads, you will lose ALL of the trade income that would normally flow along that route (merchants always take the most direct route between two cities for land-based trade, so it doesn't matter even if there is an alternative route they could theoretically utilize instead...) and the bureaucrats who keep your coffers won't be very happy.


    Historical Context: Pax Romana vs. Medieval Chaos

    The Roman Empire historically enjoyed a long period of relative peace which we now know as the "Pax Romana" (loosely meaning 'Roman Peace' or 'Peace of the Romans'). It wasn't that the empire was not at war for much of this time- indeed the doors of the Temple of Janus (the Roman God of Boundaries) on the Palatine Hill, which were left open during times of war and only closed in times of peace, were said to only be closed for approximately 80 years during the Pax Romana! Rather, the majority of people across the majority of the empire lived in peace and security, whereas wars were largely relegated to foreign wars with most of the conflict occurring only very near to the frontier or outside the borders of the empire, and a series of garrisons kept the peace domestically. These garrisons not only limited border incursions by foreign raiding-parties, they also stopped brigands and highwaymen from attacking merchant caravans and travelers between cities, allowing safe long-distance travel throughout much of the empire. This is in stark contrast to the later "Dark Ages", where small foreign warbands often crossed the countryside burning and pillaging as they went (wars of the Dark Ages were often decentralized, rather than consisting of a few large set-piece battles), and a man could not even safely travel to the next city without risking being mugged or murdered for one's goods by highwaymen lying in ambush!

    If you wish for your own empire to resemble the Pax Romana rather than the Dark Ages, you need to institute your own system to keep the roadways clear of robbers and the farmlands safe from roaming bands of brigands. An effective system has two components to it...


    Forts and Watchtowers- the Value of Bricks and Mortar

    Most players have made use of forts and watchtowers on rare occasions- mainly temporary forts while on campaign against a powerful enemy to protect their armies on the march, and watchtowers along a few of their borders to keep an eye on particularly dangerous rivals. However, fortifications such as these serve another extremely important purpose most players neglect- they are essential to maintaining open trade lanes and domestic peace and stability throughout your empire. Each type of fortification fills a specific role...

    All Along the Watchtower

    Watchtowers are vital. While cities, armies, and even agents all exert a line-of-sight across nearby territory, they cannot cost-effectively keep tabs on *all* of your empire. Much of the countryside lies outside of the direct sight of cities, and in areas where your armies and agents will not regularly march (this holds particularly true for the vast expanses of the North African territories, and the Steppe in the northeast portion of the map). However, just because you can't see the that brigands won't appear there- and if you allow yourself large blind spots, your less densely settled regions will rapidly fill with brigands that will sap most of your income by cutting off trade and devastating (burning and pillaging farmland- visually represented by blackened spots on the map) the countryside.

    The best way to prevent this is by setting up watchtowers intermittently throughout the countryside- such that you can see all of the territory all of the time. A daunting task to be sure- especially in expansive regions like North Africa- but watchtowers are permanent structures, so you only have to do it once, and with practice you'll quickly develop a feel for the most efficient layouts of watchtowers to accomplish this...

    Finally, also note that Watchtowers can be used to keep an eye on the seas as well as the countryside- indeed one of their best uses is to keep a lookout for foreign naval-invasions and Pirate fleets along sparsely-populated coasts (such as the long coastlines of North Africa) so you can spot and potentially respond to Pirates BEFORE they attack your transport-fleets (potentially sending a large army to the bottom of the sea), blockade your ports, or simply sit on your naval trade routes (this effect works the same as stationing a unit on a road to block land-based trade- no trade whatsoever can bypass the hostile force, although naval trade routes are EXTREMELY sensitive to the precise placement of a fleet- many times a fleet will not be blocking a naval trade route when it *looks* like they are sitting right atop the trade-lines, making this effectively only a concern at naval choke-points like the Strait of Messina...)


    Keeping the Fort- Forts and Garrisons

    Watchtowers will allow you to know where enemies and brigands are disrupting the peace, but without forts and mobile field forces, you won't be able to anything about it. Therefore, you need to set up a system of forts throughout your territory to keep the peace...

    There are three basic uses of forts- as passive deterrents to rebel/brigand activity; as defensive infrastructure to control choke-points, mountain-passes, river-crossings, and other areas of particular strategic importance; and as bases for your mobile field forces for responding to border-incursions and brigand activity. Let's break these down one by one...


    Symbols of Control- Forts as Deterrents

    A little-known fact about forts is that they act as passive deterrents to rebel and brigand activity. The simple presence of a fort, no matter how strongly or weakly-garrisoned it may be, will reduce the appearance of rebels and brigands in the surrounding countryside- ostensibly because they act as highly visible symbols of imperial control and authority.

    Although I have never personally been able to determine where the effect is based on proximity to the fort, or if the under-the-hood formula in the game is based on a simple count of the number of forts in a province (I tend to always space my forts out fairly evenly- for reasons discussed later), there is a definite and observable inhibitory effect of forts on brigand activity- a fact briefly touched on by your campaign map advisor in one of the many advice prompts you probably, like myself, initially clicked through without noticing...


    Controlling the Choke-points: Forts as Defensive Structures

    Although more relevant to border-control and defense against major invasions than to maintaining domestic tranquility; perhaps the most obvious use of forts is to control areas of strategic-importance such as river-crossings, narrow mountain-passes, and other choke-points.

    An army simply left idling on the campaign-map will exert a Zone of Control on directly adjacent terrain and prevent enemies from passing through the map tile they occupy, thus allowing them to severely delay or block altogether the movement of nearby hostile forces through strategic choke-points. A fort augments this purpose by allowing a much smaller (and less expensive) military force to perform this function without risk of being immediately crushed- an enemy will have to lay siege to the fort and construct battering rams first (unless, of course, they travel with catapults, elephants, or ballistae) in order to assault and then travel beyond the fortification.

    Additionally, some unit-types such as archers are incredibly more combat-effective when fighting from behind the walls of a fortification- a battering ram must be slowly wheeled up to the fortification walls by infantry, whereas on an open battlefield they can be quickly crushed by a cavalry-charge (if they don't have friendly spearmen or heavy infantry to hide behind). It's too bad Creative Assembly didn't provide a mechanism to upgrade forts to stone walls like with cities, or this effect would be even more devastating...

    Note that this could potentially be used to great effect in stopping raiding-parties, which by their very nature rely on entering your territory undeterred, damaging the countryside, and then leaving again before you can muster a force to destroy them (if only the AI were smart enough to utilize such tactics intentionally rather than by accident...)


    Of Limitanei and Comitatenses: Marching Bases and Mobile Field Forces

    The historical late Roman Empire made use of two types of soldiery- Limitanei, which were local garrison troops and border-guards, and Comitatenses, which comprised the major field-armies of the empire. You would be wise to learn from this strategy, which was actually highly cost-effective at what it set out to accomplish (provide a long-term defense against rebel activity and border-incursions...)

    The Limitanei: Cost-Effective Garrisons

    The historical Limitanei were not meant to win major set-piece battles. Rather, they were meant to act as cost-effective frontier guards and garrison forces: men who would rarely see major combat against a determined and well-trained foe. Similarly, when seeking to maintain provincial control and protect your more permanent borders, you cannot afford to make use of your most expensive unit-types to garrison every little border-outpost and provincial fort in your empire. Instead, you should seek out units with low Upkeep costs for their combat-effectiveness...

    Units like Town Watch are particularly well-suited for this purpose: they can be retrained almost anywhere you have a basic Barracks (and thus do not require the construction of more advanced and expensive military-infrastructure), and actually can be surprisingly dangerous in combat after having gained several experience-levels (each experience chevron adds 1 point in Attack and 1 point if Defense Skill- for a unit with initially low stats like Town Watch that represents a very large proportional increase in combat-effectiveness...) Although they have poor Morale and will not hold up well in combat with elite infantry and heavy cavalry, you will rarely encounter these units in Brigand and raiding forces- mainly they will come up against Town Militia and similarly weak rebel/brigand units.

    Note, however, that there are *strong* regional differences in the types of rebels/brigands encountered- in North Africa you will generally come up against generally-weak Carthaginian-influenced infantry and light cavalry (the latter of which your Town Watch will gain a minor bonus against due to their short stabbing-spears, although the bonus is not as large as with spear units with the label "Combat Bonus against Mounted Units" on their unit-cards... Conversely, sword-armed units gain a minor combat bonus against all spearmen- examine the game "export descriptions" for more detailed and complete information on all the minor/unlisted combat-bonuses built into the game...) whereas in Germania you will encounter some of the strongest militia-type units in the game (namely the "Spear Warband", which can form a phalanx and are thus farm more deadly than the basic Barbarian "Warband" unit, which is also a militia-level unit you will find in many Brigand/Rebel forces in Barbarian territory...) Generally the culture that inhabits a region at the start of the game determines the type of Brigand/Rebel units that will spawn there- thus beware of regions originally inhabited by factions with very strong low-level units, as they will be much more expensive and difficult to control with low-cost garrison forces...

    A final note: Wardogs make excellent garrison forces. Although they are initially quite expensive to train, they have very low Upkeep costs (the lowest of any standard unit in the game, in fact) and require no retraining to replace losses unless some of the actual handlers are killed in combat (which you should ALWAYS make an effort to keep OUT of the fray, as the dogs never break and rout on their own, but will run and flee if their handlers are ever routed...) Additionally, the dogs are highly resistant to fatigue (unit fatigue is based on the handlers only), frighten the enemy (and are fast enough to hunt infantry down when they break and run), and number of dogs in the unit has some resilience to loss of handlers- you can initially lose a few handlers without a reduction in the number of dogs that spawn with the unit in battles, at least on the larger unit-size game settings (the reduced unit-strength on the unit-card initially only represents loss of handlers, rather than dogs...) Against the Peasants, Skirmishers, and poorly-trained light infantry/cavalry that make up the majority of Rebel/Brigand forces, Wardogs are *highly* effective, especially when accompanied by Town Watch to protect the handlers from light-cavalry charges...


    Comitatenses: The Mobile Field Armies

    Whereas Limitanei-type units can be relied on to mop up the ragtag mixture of Peasants, light infantry/cavalry, and skirmishers that generally comprise Brigand/Rebel armies, and even more often to simply sit in a fort and collect Upkeep-pay (your forts will fall into disrepair and disappear from the map if ever left without a garrison at the end of the turn- thus it is often much cheaper and easier to station a very low-Upkeep unit to maintain a fort, even if it will pack virtually no punch in combat and only march out to engage when it can return to the fort the same turn as the battle, than it is to periodically rebuild forts after battles... Combat-depleted units of mercenaries at very low strength and Wardogs are particularly cost-effective for this purpose...) sometimes you will encounter a substantial foreign invasion, or an army of Brigands containing much better-trained units that will eat your small forces of Town Watch, Wardogs and the like for breakfast... Worse, you can occasionally suffer from the gladiator-uprising event: where a large army of elite Gladiator units will spawn near one your larger cities with a gladiatorial arena, generally following prolonged riots or a failed attempt at rebellion!

    To deal with such major threats (although, in the case of the gladiator-uprising event, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: try not to let any city containing a gladiatorial arena reach the point of riots or rebellion in the first place!) your Limitanei-type forces simply won't cut it. However, it would cost far too much in Upkeep to station large and well-trained armies everywhere in your empire in place of the kind of low-cost units I advised using as "Limitanei" type units...

    The solution, rather, is to maintain a handful of larger and better-trained field-armies at centrally located cities or fortifications (cities will benefit from the at least minor Garrison-force benefit to Public Order that such a sufficiently large field-army will provide in all but the most mind-bogglingly populous cities, but you also risk losing portions of your expensive field-armies to Plague this way... Consider that the risk of a Plague, except for the scripted ones, increases with the population-size and decreases with the Health level of a city: thus you should make sure you have *at least* an Aqueduct, and perhaps also a governor with traits that improve Health-levels, if stationing your field-armies in your largest cities... Stationing a field-army in a fort is always the safest route...)

    Units in a field army can and should be comprised of higher-quality units: Legionary Cohorts instead of Auxilia and Principes instead of Hastati. Since these armies will only be called upon to meet the most dangerous threats, you can afford to make use of unit-types that you only have the infrastructure to retrain in a handful of cities... (time spent upgrading a Barracks or Stables is time *not* spent building a bigger Forum or Port, constructing an Aqueduct, or improving your Farms- all of which directly or indirectly benefit your economy, and provide you the funds to train and maintain better armies- hence why you shouldn't have the military-infrastructure to train these units in all but a handful of your cities in the first place, until very late-game when all of your cities are fully-developed...) Your field armies should have plenty of time to march back to these cities between battles, as they will only be called on to meet major threats, and not the common riff-raff.

    This is not to say that you can't use Legionary Cohorts to slaughter Rebel Peasants, for some truly amusing overkill when your field armies lack greater threats to deal with- but this *may* leave you unprepared to face a major threat such as an unexpected naval invasion, when your elite field-army is in the far-corner of its dedicated area of operations (or at least far from a road- when those Rebels predictably retreated from the face of certain-death...), dealing with a group of Brigand Peasants that could have easily been dealt with by your local forces of Town Watch and Wardogs...


    A final note on field-armies: they do not need to comprise full stacks, or anything close to that. Even if your field-armies are intended to fend off that two-stack army of Parthians containing numerous Cataphracts you're just *SURE* is coming for Jerusalem at some point, or a major Gemanic invasion because you haven't gotten around to subduing Germania just yet, you can usually afford to station smaller detachments of well-trained troops throughout your empire to deal with threats that are smaller, yet still too dangerous for your local garrison forces, and only merge several of these detachments together in the face of the LARGEST of invasions or uprisings... (not coincidentally, this is *precisely* how the Roman Empire used its Comitatenses in real life...) This will increase response-times to major threats, as it takes time to gather together smaller detachments from across your empire, but it will allow you to get away with fewer (and therefore either less expensive in aggregate, or even *more* elite and well-trained, i.e. Urban Cohorts instead of Legionary Cohorts) elite cohorts.

    Well-positioned fortifications at choke-points between your borders and cities will be *essential* to buy you the time you need to marge together several smaller divisions when making use of the above strategy. You may lose a few cheap and easily-replaced Limitanei-type units this way (when an overwhelming force attacks the fort guarding that mountain-pass or river-crossing), but they are well worth the response-time they buy you. Only note that enemy armies can carry siege-weapons or Elephants with them to quickly break down wooden fort-walls as an effective countermeasure to this strategy... (although the enemy may not know you are busy assembling a large response-force by merging several smaller detachments, and still decide to starve-out the fort's garrison rather than risk men on an assault anyways...)



    Peace and Prosperity, or Devastation and Destruction- the Choice is Yours!

    The strategies outlined above, if properly-applied, will go far towards maintaining peace and order throughout your empire (and therefore keeping your coffers full: remember that Brigands cut off trade routes by blocking roads, and Devastation to farmland takes a LONG time to recover from- during which time it negatively impacts your income...)

    There are several nuances I have not properly discussed that you will learn from experience- for instance Devastation only occurs when a hostile army is allowed to remain in place for more than one turn (I only note this so you don't expect to move your own raiding-party into foreign territory, and see immediate results by the next turn. The end of the Rebel turn that Brigands spawn on counts as one turn, therefore you must kill or move them immediately on your first following turn, or they will begin to create Devastation!) and only has a noticeable impact on income when it occurs in farmland terrain (marked "High/Medium/Low Fertility" on holding the right mouse button over terrain with no army/agent selected, with the effect on your income being proportional to the fertility of the terrain devastated- protect your "High Fertility" farmland at all costs! Conversely, allowing rebels to devastate "Wilderness" type terrain such as desert wasteland or unfarmed steppe will have virtually no impact on your provincial income...) you will learn most of them with practice. Although the basic campaign of Rome Total War is forgiving enough on the lower difficulty-levels that you can still win while largely neglecting your countryside in most cases, you will have a *much* easier path to victory if you take proper precautions to protect your valuable rural areas.

    Finally, mastering these skills is ESSENTIAL for the Roman factions (particularly the Western Roman Empire) in the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack- as your economy is much weaker, and you work with actual "Limitanei" and "Comitatenses" units that are best-used for *precisely* their historical purposes when adopting a defensive strategy... (although, when playing as the Romans, you are often better off adopting a highly-offensive rush-strategy and crushing your Barbarian and Nomad neighbors very early on using your considerable early-game forces: before your neighbors become so powerful as to be unmanageable- especially in the case that they pick up everything, form a Horde, and migrate into your territory...) The skills of rural control and protection are also nearly as necessary in the original game when playing as factions with much less powerful economies or less cost-effective unit types than the Romans: such as the Seleucid Empire (Phalanx Pikeman are decently powerful, but not cheap, and much less effective than similarly-priced Legionary units...)



    Until next time, this is Northstar. Conquer your foes, and build an empire that could stand the test of time- and outlast its historical counterpart!
    Last edited by James_Northstar; December 12, 2015 at 03:50 AM.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    Great stuff, Northstar, thanks for posting!

    I know it's a tremendous amount of work, but I'd love to see your thoughts on other factions, such as the abovementioned Seleucids, or barbarians. Certainly a lot of the issues are similar to what you've already mentioned, so these wouldn't need to be as long, but it would be very interesting to see what you have to say about Carthage, or Parthia, or whomever.
    One of the most sophisticated Total War modders ever developed...

  10. #10

    Default Re: Roman Economic Strategy: A Guide

    Some of those would be quite interesting to write about, but their economic principles remain essentially the same- with the exception that as the barbarians you really ought to either try and crush your more civilized neighbors quickly, before they build up to the Minor City level at most locations, as you will NEVER fully culturally-assimilate such cities as the barbarians (and barb factions are particularly bad at city-management anyways due to their lack of Academies and the propensity towards drunkenness incurred from their unique cultural buildings) or accept that your civilized conquests will be extremely unruly and try and focus on conquering other Barbarian tribes instead, waiting as long as possible to conquer your civilized neighbors so they will build infrastructure you can't for you, such as paved roads and higher-level temples and markets...

    Still, I might try writing a strategic guide or two on some of the other factions, particularly the Secleucids (who are the true military heirs to Alexander, and awesome if you can survive the early game as them...) when I find the time...
    Last edited by James_Northstar; September 13, 2016 at 02:20 PM.

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