Is it just me or is the game progresses really slow? High Unit Upkeep and Conversion costs

[nameless]

Played the WRE several times on VH and just gave up. Need to simmer and think about how to tackle that one.

On the other hand, decided to give the Saxons on VH a try. I was surprised that it costs 7000-8000 to convert a captured town when I tried invading Britain so I decided to forget it and focused on Europe. With the Norsemen allied to me in the north I decided to destroy the Franks and conquer Europe for myself.

Campaign is going well but despite having 2 provinces I'm still stuck with 2 armies and I realized as I tech up the unit upkeeps increases. Like when you upgrade a Levy unit into a medium unit the costs go from 44 to 180! I mean I would understand it if the unit was awesome but the stats don't seem to be all that massive to me to justify the costs. Even worse you can't even go back to those older units.

So I'm still going with the campaign but despite upgrading my provinces as much as possible I'm barely trickling in money (like 200-400/per turn) and fortunately I have enough farms to handle the climate change so that's not a problem.

And then you got issues with immigration...what is that and how does one control this?

EDIT: @INSERT USERNAME HERE Oh I was able to accumulate up to 15000-30,000 cash so I'm not doing too bad but I'm going to have to maybe start adding skirmishers into my army to lower the upkeep but it's just so damn expensive for a "medium tiered" unit.

[Insert Username Here]

Oh ya the cost to convert towns in Britain is ridiculous. As for making money as the Saxons at the start you pretty much have to trade with everyone south , east and north of you or raid and sack Britain or any one else.

[Slaists]

It seems, the unit upkeep is there by design. See what Bart CA says here:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ame./page10#99

Basically, it feels, you should forget about military tech until the civil tech is maxed out. Otherwise you won't be able to afford armies.

[Chlodwig I.]

Great idea to wait till Tier 3
With receiving the "Great Power" malus on dipliomacy just for of tech research, which makes it almost impossible to make any agreements.

Or the Immigration Malus which causes extrem Unrest... I had a village on PO +20 with +5/turn 4 turns later it was suddenly at -28 because of suddenly popping up Immigrant Malus
And I Had to build a complete stack to prevent the PO from falling any further which consumed directly 2/3 of my income. So now I'm waiting till that malus goes away so that I can
continue really playing the game and not just sit and wait.

I have all the the time -4 for taxes, -3 to -6 for Religion -1 to -17 for immigration -1 for Empire etc.laces to
In a Complete Region I have from 9 Available Building Places 3 Main buildings 1 PO+, 1Sanitation, 2 Farms and 1 Religous building, 1 Trade Recource
Without only 2 of 3 Areas, I wouldn't be able to keep the PO positive without having a big stack in the area... which would directly consume most of the income.

[craziii]

It seems, the unit upkeep is there by design. See what Bart CA says here:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ame./page10#99

Basically, it feels, you should forget about military tech until the civil tech is maxed out. Otherwise you won't be able to afford armies.

used the pfm and lower the cost. the differences in cost is just too huge. 40 to 180 is just nuts. it is the next tier, it isn't like it is the final tier, elites.

learn to use pfm and adjust the game to your liking

[kamikazee786]

I wouldn't say the game is slow. I sent a few spies around the world to see what was going on and it really was quite amazing !

I'm at 403 AD as the persians and already roman separatists have risen up in Iberia and Britannia, Gaul has risen up in France and another faction called Italia has risen up in Italy and has take everything from Rome down to Syracuse.

The huns have burnt everything down from where they start all the way into Germany on one side and are now attacking me from the caucus mountains, the vandals have attacked Constantinople like 4 times being pushed back each time and the eastern roman empire has abandoned all of greece and the balkans to the invading visigoths and has sent stacks upon stacks of elite balanced armies to fight with me over anatolia and the rest of modern day turkey.

For the first time i feel challenged, im being pushed back by the ERE after several successful campaigns and the Huns are menacing my northern borders, sanitation, public order, religion, conversion costs and the headache of the other families who keep trying to out do my family is really really keeping me on my toes and making me love this game.

CA have done well and wiped the shame from their faces !

[nameless]

Yeah I'm beginning to see that.

Though the advances in the tech tree...I dunno it's minimal and you need to focus on sanitation and public order. I have however kept the civil tree ahead of the military but now that you posted that when I get back to the game I'll focus on the civil tree.

As the Saxons I have Hearth Guards and Medium Spearmen with Medium Saxon Cavalry in two armies so it should be good enough for the time being as I slowly expand but this campaign is super slow compared to RTW2.

[Ataegina]

this game discourages the good old "spam and steamrolling" tactics from previous games. If you go like that previous games and start building armies after armies, you get bankrupt and all the other negatives effects aswell........ But i really like it, adds more realism because...... armies and wars are a very expensive thing.

[T-Duke]

this game discourages the good old "spam and steamrolling" tactics from previous games. If you go like that previous games and start building armies after armies, you get bankrupt and all the other negatives effects aswell........ But i really like it, adds more realism because...... armies and wars are a very expensive thing.

This

[zowrath]

This is the kind of game where you can easily just expect 6-8 turns a night, max. If you rush this game, then you'll have issues. I reckon quite a few of the newer fans will not be too pleased about the pace, but I am. :-)

[maxstill]

Playing as the Ostrogoths, blitzkrieged trough the ERE, I have no issue, just sack and use all the money to build public order buildings, now I have a huge empire and 4 tributary states, the game is still dirt easy if you manage public order, yeah kinda hurts a little bit on the economy side, but I can still afford 4 full stacks wich is more than enough to wipe everything off the map, I make about 5000 per turn as far as money goes, and I've tech-ed all the way to Legio in my military tech.
It is a tad bit slower than other TW iterations, But the A.I. maintains the same level of intelligence, that of lobotomized rats.
Problems with diplomacy?
Can't get trade cause of imperium level?
No problem, get tributary states, about 4 of them and you never have to touch economy again, basically the focus of the game has shifted from money hogging to public order stacking, it's still the good ole' TW.

[swoosh so]

Research the reduction in unit costs in military first, increase the cunning of your generals every chance you get for a further reduction and user retainers for yet more reduction its just high of you don't build to reduce it.

[JustCrabbe]

OP,

I've found that setting up 'autonomous horde colonies' can help immensely. I create a horde army and hide it in the corner of the map or in some isolated area. I build it purely for economy and use them to maintain war hordes which are used to sack, subjugate, liberate and raze.

If you want to play a traditional game.. I'm not sure I've not really played one yet.

[Greasy Dave]

As others said above you willneed to be more thoughtful about your game play. For instance fielding mixed tier armies. Raiding and sacking. You cant play this game like you played rome 2. Which imv is awesome. I love all the incressed costs because now i actually have to think when i play. I truly hope ca dont get cold feet and nerf them

[Lugo]

Not a fan of the tech tree.. too many hoops to jump to get certain units. This means 1-2 region AI's most likely won't ever field their elite stuff. 70 turns in the Geats are power rank 7 but 90% of their forces are nordic band/war dogs.

Playing as the Saxons.. I was pumping out tier 3 stuff before I even had access to tier 2s in other categories which seemed a bit silly. Some of the buildings tied to certain units don't make any real sense. But I will say elite saxon javs are ridiculously strong

[judarud]

Playing as the Saxons.. I was pumping out tier 3 stuff before I even had access to tier 2s in other categories which seemed a bit silly.

By that do you mean that you completely jumped tier 2? Or that you had say, tier 3 infantry before you had tier 2 cavalry?
Because if it's the latter it actually seems pretty reasonable to me.

[the_mango55]

As a Visigoth in Roman Africa, I haven't bothered to convert any city except my capital of Carthage itself.

The only penalty seems to be that without converting you don't get all your garrison and can't upgrade your settlement.

[Arimahn]

As a Visigoth in Roman Africa, I haven't bothered to convert any city except my capital of Carthage itself.

The only penalty seems to be that without converting you don't get all your garrison and can't upgrade your settlement.

Wrong-culture settlements tend to cost extra food.

[Candy_Licker]

Was able to test this game a bit, how do you control Roman settlements as barbarians?

I captured Cologne, but it's not going anywhere. I get a huge immigration penalty, which causes high unrest. High unrest kills any population growth (pretty ironic that immigration actually prevents any population surplus) Without the surplus, I can't consruct the buildings that I need to get the settlement going. It's a vicious cycle that prevents any progress. Will immigration go away, will there be an assimilation that stops this? And wow, it's horribly expensive to change settlements to your culture / colonise. I'm supposed to pay 7000 gold to transform a stone settlement to a wooden barbarian one

[Cayo_Julio_Cesar]

OP yes ineed, it's a really really slow game compare to all it's antecesors.

It really really really punishes you from expanding rapidly, at the same time most of the game is spent defending against armies.

Honestly it's a shame, because the playstyle requiered for playing this game can become very tedious for some players like myself (I an take 1 slow defensive campaign, but not all of them), it's shame because it definitely has the best battle and campaign AI of the series.