How to Survive as the Roman Expedition

**jthomp72** · June 27, 2015, 09:05 AM

Currently trying my luck at The Last Roman, and the first few turns seem to be killing me. The Vandals come at me with way more troops than I have, and the quality isn't just levy troops like before. Anyone have any tips for surviving at least the first few turns and establishing a foothold in Africa to continue forward with?

**Darios** · June 27, 2015, 09:17 AM

You have to kill their generals during battle. By doing this, the Vandal soldiers will lose morale and melt away. The easiest way to do it is with archers. Once they are routing, make sure that you mop up as many as possible because the Vandals won't be able to muster a new army before you can take their open cities. After then, the rest of the campaign is a cakewalk.

Kali Tixi! (Good luck)

**nameless** · June 27, 2015, 01:43 PM

https://chronicles.totalwar.com/Name.../chapter/29212

There are two options.

1. Engage the Vandals and if you're good you'll whittle them down but this takes a long time.

2. Cat and mouse, engage on two fronts and have the Vandals chase after you while you gobble up cities that are left undefended while they are chasing one stack. This is the fastest and eventually the ERE will send reinforcements that can garrison the cities you conquer.

I finally finished this game on VH and will try separatists. Wish there were more missions though

What I did was I had about 4-5 legions serving as economic cities so it was just one general and I placed them in Africa and Sicily, far away that they wouldn't have any rival issues. Soon by the end of the game I had 3 full armies on the attack and raking in 10,000/turn.

It's true that when you attack the AI is slow to respond but once you take a few cities the AI will start launching massive counterattacks and the Ostrogoths gave me a scare when I attacked Roma. The Langobards were interesting to say the least.

**Jezza93** · June 27, 2015, 02:56 PM

It took me a few false starts I must admit. My starting tactic is to immediately take the two closest cities and then regroup outside the Eastern of those two. Let your troops regroup and recruit a few more men then head north until the Vandals attack you. At first I had to retreat from their first attack as they outnumbered me 4-1 and attacked from 3 sides. But thankfully my army of Belisarius first defeated two stacks in the following battle, then was attacked by a third after as well as the survivors of the first two stacks. Barely any of the army survived but that did allow me to wipe out 3 vandal stacks. John the Armenian then managed to destroy the fourth stack and the next turn mopped up all the Vandal remnants. After that it was just a matter of pushing North.

**jthomp72** · June 28, 2015, 08:03 AM

Thanks! I think I might have gotten a bit unlucky too as I had a decent ERE Garrison in one of the battles and they....well they just stood there at the corner of the map while the Vandals sent tons of troops against me.

**Jezza93** · June 29, 2015, 07:33 PM

Originally Posted by jthomp72

Thanks! I think I might have gotten a bit unlucky too as I had a decent ERE Garrison in one of the battles and they....well they just stood there at the corner of the map while the Vandals sent tons of troops against me.

Yeah I got that,so I deployed my line in front of them. Just as the enemy neared my boys the ERE charged in.

**Chlodwig I.** · July 01, 2015, 04:43 AM

I had no problem as Loyalist but as Seperatist
i was bancrupt after 4 Turns, not sure how you are expected to survive as seperatist.

**Caligula's_Horse** · July 02, 2015, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by Chlodwig I.

I had no problem as Loyalist but as Seperatist
i was bancrupt after 4 Turns, not sure how you are expected to survive as seperatist.

I only recently figured it out myself, and it took a couple of tries.
The trick is to spend a turn or two buying any additional troops you might need that require a military building to recruit (I got 3 cavalry units per army; I later added some extra spearmen, but you don't need a horde structure for those), and to liquidate any horde structures you have, as well as dismissing your unit of cataphracts (400 per turn per unit is unacceptable at this stage of the game). This ought to give you a war chest of some 20k to work with, and an income in the -3k or -4k range once you (immediately) take the first two towns, which is manageable, barely.

Then you start conquering and you don't look back; forget about holding territory, in the time it takes you to stabilize one province, you can capture two more; I lost two towns to rebels, during which time I took a whole new province and two thirds of another one. You're going to need all your money just to absorb the your negative income for the first 5-10 turns or so, so don't build anything just yet. Repairing structures damaged when a town was occupied is fine though, as its quite cost effective (usually pays for itself in less then a turn, so long as you didn't sack the town). Converting to Arian Christianity also helps slow down the rate of revolt. Embezzling funds through politics can also be a small help.

You're going to be outnumbered by the Vandals 2 to 1 for two or three major field battles; I found I could win without too much trouble by supplementing my inferior cavalry with a unit or two of spearmen per flank. Resistance more or less falls apart after that, especially if you can get the Berbers and/or Sardinians to join you against the Vandals (allying with the Berbers will also help with the Moors later, as some spawn in and near Berber territory). Use captives to replenish if the rate of conquest threatens to slow, and ransom them otherwise. Once the Vandals are no longer in play, head back and recapture anything lost to rebels. Then, stabilize your provinces, and get ready for the Moors; I found I had some 5-10 turns of breathing space between wiping out the last rebels and the invasion, which was plenty.

Once the Moors are dealt with, you're good to go; I recommend going after the Berbers (backstab them if you made an alliance) and Spain next rather then Italy though; Italy tends to put you on a collision course with Justinian, which is about as powerful as all the rest of the maps' factions combined. Best to keep your distance from the ERE for as long as possible.

**Dunadd** · October 19, 2018, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by Caligula's_Horse

I only recently figured it out myself, and it took a couple of tries.
The trick is to spend a turn or two buying any additional troops you might need that require a military building to recruit (I got 3 cavalry units per army; I later added some extra spearmen, but you don't need a horde structure for those), and to liquidate any horde structures you have, as well as dismissing your unit of cataphracts (400 per turn per unit is unacceptable at this stage of the game). This ought to give you a war chest of some 20k to work with, and an income in the -3k or -4k range once you (immediately) take the first two towns, which is manageable, barely.

Then you start conquering and you don't look back; forget about holding territory, in the time it takes you to stabilize one province, you can capture two more; I lost two towns to rebels, during which time I took a whole new province and two thirds of another one. You're going to need all your money just to absorb the your negative income for the first 5-10 turns or so, so don't build anything just yet. Repairing structures damaged when a town was occupied is fine though, as its quite cost effective (usually pays for itself in less then a turn, so long as you didn't sack the town). Converting to Arian Christianity also helps slow down the rate of revolt. Embezzling funds through politics can also be a small help.

You're going to be outnumbered by the Vandals 2 to 1 for two or three major field battles; I found I could win without too much trouble by supplementing my inferior cavalry with a unit or two of spearmen per flank. Resistance more or less falls apart after that, especially if you can get the Berbers and/or Sardinians to join you against the Vandals (allying with the Berbers will also help with the Moors later, as some spawn in and near Berber territory). Use captives to replenish if the rate of conquest threatens to slow, and ransom them otherwise. Once the Vandals are no longer in play, head back and recapture anything lost to rebels. Then, stabilize your provinces, and get ready for the Moors; I found I had some 5-10 turns of breathing space between wiping out the last rebels and the invasion, which was plenty.

Once the Moors are dealt with, you're good to go; I recommend going after the Berbers (backstab them if you made an alliance) and Spain next rather then Italy though; Italy tends to put you on a collision course with Justinian, which is about as powerful as all the rest of the maps' factions combined. Best to keep your distance from the ERE for as long as possible.

I had planned to accept peace with the Sardinians whren they offered it, but they then took Carthage without having fought the Vandals at all, while i'd beaten the Vandals in a tough battle. So i went to war with the Sardinians too - and no matter how many times i wiped out the Vandals they'd reappear for dozens of turns on end. And the Vandal Separatist faction had far more troops than the Vandals did. And my main army got diseased from a town i took early own, so took ages to get it back up to strength (plus massive losses in battles with the Vandal Separatists in some battles). And just when i thought i'd finally stabilised things with control of two provinces and both field armies back to full strength, 6,000 plus Moors attack Belisarius' army. Not played that battle yet, but i doubt it'll go well.