Considering to play Romani with historical progression.

[jughurta]

Hey what a great mod this is! I love historical accuracy so I love EB! but I think it was kinda easy to play Romani on Hard campaign difficulty. In startup description it says moderate where you select faction, but it could as well say easy. Anyway first time i did some rapid expansion and did not historically expand as to the real life timeline, but much more and kinda early so got uber powerful very fast, and AI didnt oppose me much. (at least not before i started invading Greece) Carthage was very easy to eliminate, did not have a great fleet etc. so i consider starting a new game now on VH.

So was thinking of playing a new campaign and instead progress in a historical manner. The yearly "news updates" is an awesome feature and will help me with keeping track of historical things.
Thing is, it will be kinda hard to simulate a historcal progress, because of game mechanics. Macedonians might be annihilated by Epiros or Koinon Greeks before any Roman Macedon war occurs. Also some faction might declare war early on such as Ptolemeyos did to me last time. However they did only invade Leptis after i ahistorically invaded it early on.
The Carthagininans wont accept a peace treaty after you take Sicily and not even after taking the all their cities, but I could ofc treat all punic wars as one long one and just try to relax a bit after the first, raid them and take slaves etc. Maybe they would be more active in Iberia too on VH settings? Gauls in North might be very sedate, or fighting eachother instead, or maybe not if the aggressiveness of AI might be more directed towards player on VH setting? Is this the case or not?

Also romans did fight gauls, ligurians etc. in north Italy before colonizing and subduing it, so I could just "raid" the towns there and move back so they rebel and go back to previous owner. It will bring much mnai if choose to enslave them. Early on I won't have Family members to run the provinces anyway. I think this is one way of playing historically, and at the same time bring much needed mnai to the treasury in the beginning.

Another thing would be roman allies along coastal towns that was not part of Roman empire before later. These are all in the "rebel" faction and only way is to conquer or bribe them and get the entire province, but I could install an Allied government type there after that. However the game treat is as part of my empire and would require me as a player to keep order there and perhaps garrison them, a locally created allied general who cost a bunch of mnai, and then i might have to spend mnai on certain buildings there as well. But that would give good trading options and also be kinda historical (which is my goal now) but i havent found any online source as to where these allies existed, apart from a few notable ones such as Syrcause and the Italian allies so if someone knows more please tell me.

So have anyone else tried playing the game like this? I wonder what experiences people have then.
Thanks for your attention

[QuintusSertorius]

You won't get anything like a historical progression, suitable for a roleplaying style on VH campaign difficulty. In fact you won't if you don't restrain yourself, thus the roleplaying restriction you have to self-regulate.

As to a roleplaying guide for the Romani, I wrote one a long time ago: Guide to Conduct Becoming of a True Roman. It was written for 1.1, so some of the specifics on the overpowered factions might be different, but it's otherwise sound.

[jughurta]

You won't get anything like a historical progression, suitable for a roleplaying style on VH campaign difficulty. In fact you won't if you don't restrain yourself, thus the roleplaying restriction you have to self-regulate.

As to a roleplaying guide for the Romani, I wrote one a long time ago: Guide to Conduct Becoming of a True Roman. It was written for 1.1, so some of the specifics on the overpowered factions might be different, but it's otherwise sound.

Great guide, thank you! Many of the thoughts i see we share, such as the progression of the wars and expansion, for example I did the same to Massilia and had a client ruler there, and I waited to invade Carthage mainlands and towns like Segesta. So I use many of your house-rules when i play. I see it might be a problem playing on VH mode because I see some of the factions going very expansionist into the vast "free" Eluthorai territory, becoming quite too large to what would be plausible, I would try some more and see if it goes out of control. It would be fun to see what happens on VH anyway, but that might take away the historical plausability and even force me into fielding way more legions than rome had. However I wont stick to the exact same scheme as you did in your guide, for example I wont bother using the console commands to recreate historical situations, but instead just play it out like it is when the game is not doing it historically. The composition of a game-army though, into for example 2 legions and support units as with your setup is a great idea! I like to fill up a full stack when I march around the map, and would perhaps make some adjustments perhaps if i have some free space in a stack i fill it up with some Leves or slingers.

[Boriak]

You can try playing the game historically, but the AI will not.

My Roman campaign is somewhere near 185 BC and half the world had been eaten my Ptolemy. So this definitely won't be a historically accurate annexation of Egypt...

[QuintusSertorius]

Well, that's exactly my point. If you don't take steps to influence the AI, you won't get a historical game. You'll get the usual snowballing into a handful of super-factions.

[Perdiccas]

here a couple of ways to intervene to keep down the super powers:
it's technically cheating or playing god, but it could make mid and late game more fun.....

give weaker factions money
use move_character " " to transport one of your armies and fight some of the superpowers stacks... not with the intent to conquer but just to slow them from taking other factions.
use move_character to conquer a city and give it to a weaker faction.

[QuintusSertorius]

Of course you can also use Force Diplomacy to make a strong faction give you a city, which you then use FD again to give to a weaker one. Recommend you save and reload afterwards, as it often CTDs if you don't.

There are non-cheating ways to keep down the superpowers too: spies and assassins. Put spies in their frontier settlements and sabotage happiness-creating buildings. While revolts are unlikely, you will force them to lower taxes and possibly recruit/station more troops, which ties them down.

[jughurta]

Having some great battles now With this VH campaign setting I'm even getting some resistance at Sicily in 1st punic war. However this setting could be a pain later on when some factions goes uberblob superpower-mode. But at that stage i dont think the 10k extra cash makes that much difference anymore. So i have no problem with AI going flat on budget and dont need to use the cheat codes for that. I have no problem building up strong economy either, so can field a lot of legions soon. And to destroy everything inside some barbarian settlements gives cash as well. I mean romans did plunder some places and then moved on.
In contrast to my previous game, the Cartaginians even captured a town while my army was replenishing back on the mainland. I do set up legions somewhat according To Quintus' thread and replenish with new recruits coming from the towns. Its a fun way of playing, so thanks for the tips. I have used allied city-state government in the south of Italy and use them to provide some allied unit types instead of using mercenaries. These i use to strenghten the legions. I dont know how historical that is, as I read the allied units made separate camps in real life, but on the battlefield its nice if all are present. I might put them in a an own supporting stack also with allied general. Would be fun when enemy attack it and massacre them while my legions comes into the field as reinforcement

I was thinking of not doing anything with Syracuse, and Massilia for that sake, but I changed my mind. These were roman allied states, even though Syracuse was a shifty one. Hiero, kinda smart ruler in Syracuse helping the side whom he believed would win during the 1st punic war and Romans accepted because they needed help with supplies. It was later besieged and conqured during 2nd punic war but i think it was after Hieros death, am i right? However due to game limitations all free city states is at war, so one could only bribe them and getting them over without fighting. So I am sieging them and thus deriving from history in order to install government type IV which in turn would be closest to historical facts. For example Massilia was a semi-independent ally from before the punic wars, until the Caesar campaign, but in game setup it's Elutheroi (at war) like the rest, so my best solution was to just conquer them and install that allied government. I could just let Syracuse revolt by tearing down the temples etc. if i want a historical siege later on.

[QuintusSertorius]

I do set up legions somewhat according To Quintus' thread and replenish with new recruits coming from the towns. Its a fun way of playing, so thanks for the tips.

It also cuts the ties to the homeland; you're no longer turtling around places you can retrain your armies, instead having to plan ahead, with reinforcements stationed close to the front for when the time arises.

[jughurta]

Indeed. Im also thinking I might not be able to do this the way i considered in the first place. The historical expansion thing can be quite messy. You see, the Aedie gauls and Getai are encroaching upon free towns in the north areas, Illyricum and Cisalpine Gaul. I might have to fight them earlier than historically. However i could just fight them off and then leave and go back, and I also needed two of these northern provinces to get Polybian reform, so i captured them maybe a bit early, because it was before the date of 2nd Punic War. (i havent got to that date yet) Otherwise they would just have been buffers between my raids and the warring Aedie gauls. So deriving a bit already. I think it will derive more and more from real history im afraid.

Also on the contrary to popular belief its possible to use diplomatic actions and get agreements also on VH mode. Its just some nations that seems never to surrender or anything, such as Carthage.
So as far as I have experienced you can control expansion by just leaving and walking home, but not who you fight with and how much troops you need to deploy in the different fronts. Now Greece would be interesting. Im thinking of raiding the Epirus earlier than historically. They are fighting much with Macedons, and then Macedons might be dominant there and I could fight "macedon war" vs. Macedons instead of Epirus perhaps.

[Boriak]

You can always make your own history...

[jughurta]

You can always make your own history...

Yeah eventually it will boil down to that ^_^
Since now so much stuff happens with the AI i need to take Greece faster than i expected, and to finish war with Carthage by conquest alone, since they will NEVER surrender! (they listen to Churchill's speak?)
the Ptolemaics might get it and it will be very bad if they do, they did take most of the Seleucid empire already before 240 BC.