Need some help from first campaign

[Hockey85]

Never played Vanilla and started out with DEI. Started a Roma campaign and out of no where got crushed all at once around turn 75. Im playing with the 12 tpy mod because I wanted the campaign to last longer and take it slow.

So I started off focusing on economy and put most of my focus on constructing buildings to make money, tried to balance out the different types of ports and farm type buildings. I had all my settlements well managed with generals and dignitaries and leveled them up with administrative talents for management.

I found that upkeep was like breaking me even with only one stack of troops and yet Carthage is somehow coming at me from sicily with 3-4 stacks with their allies with another stack, barbarians attacking me from land and sea with 2 stacks when their faction controls only one city, how is the AI maintaining such large amounts of troops? How am I supposed to fight on both fronts when one stack is like 5k upkeep per turn, and all economic buildings and high tax rates only granting me like a 1k per turn profit? No factions will accept trade agreements.

So I have to start over because Im screwed at this point. Any tips on how I can fight off endless stacks of enemies randomly declaring war on me and invading on all fronts when I can only sustain 1 stack?

I also am confused about how dignitaries work. I place the guy in a region and he levels up, you have to re enable his "govern provence" button every turn correct? I also noticed that every other turn when you enable him to govern the province it reduces your expected income and every other turn it will increase it?

How do I change my strategies the second time around? Send out people to discover other factions so that I get more income from trade? Focus more on military than economy to reduce upkeep costs? It seems like the ai can sustain 3-4 times as many troops as I can at a time...

[Augustusng]

No, you don't have to re-enable the "govern province" button every turn. Just click it once and you should be good to go, as long as you don't move the dignitary elsewhere.

As far as your other questions, what difficulty are you playing on? If you're on H or VH, maybe take it down one level since it's your first campaign, until you learn what works and what doesn't.

If you're having trouble with diplomacy... which Roman "family" are you playing as? One of them has a diplomatic penalty, I think... that might explain why you're having trouble getting trade agreements. It definitely would help if you sent out a spy, or an admiral with no other ships (an admiral by himself doesn't use supplies, but add any more ships and you'll have to deal with the supply system) to scout out possible trade partners.

I haven't played as Rome in quite a while, so I can't give concrete tips on their starting position, but you may have to play aggressively on some fronts to quickly gain more sources of income, and a more defensible position before the AI can build up its forces. The AI does get bonuses to allow it to field more troops than the player, and this is also why I ask about the difficulty level. These bonuses are lower on the lower difficulty levels. Either way, your Roman troops are more than a match for most enemies you'll have to deal with in the early game, so you don't need to match the AI in numbers to defeat them.

[dahooscarl]

Sounds like you did everything right EXCEPT recruit an Admiral and send him around the coast of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, snagging as many trade agreements as you can for as much money as you can. Without that your gonna be in for serious pain.

The DEI team kinda had to give the AI a bonus for additional armies since vanilla AI was absolute garbage.

[Garbad]

First off, you can use my replay packs if you want to skip the early game or see how I set up my empire.

Second, you gotta understand the AI cheats. He builds up faster than you and will randomly aggro on you if he thinks you are weak. The key to survival is creating one powerful army ASAP.

Third: I also am confused about how dignitaries work. I place the guy in a region and he levels up, you have to re enable his "govern provence" button every turn correct?
Remember to move him a little ways away from your town before you deploy. If he is too close it turns off the "govern" thing randomly. If you are a bit aways you can turn him on and forget him.

How to win:

- sometime early game I send a fleet around to get trade deals. Friendly countries early game to rome include egypt, rhodes, knoss, and sometimes a few others.
- Upgrade all your town centers to 2 and make sure you have enough food producing places in your first ~10 turns. Disband all army units if you want (the AI will rarely attack in the first 10 turns, if they do, restart)
- Once your economy is somewhat stabilized, say around turn 10-15,
- Remember to create a few governors and generals to do econ, as well as promote your people

Create your first army. It needs to be very powerful (ie, not levy troops) so that you can crush an AI stack in a fair fight. Something like:

general
3 horse
4 axemen
4 principe
4 triarii
4 slinger

Any leftover upkeep can create a second, support legion (missile troops or attack infantry). Now you are strong enough to expand, so pick a weak target and smack them.

[Dresden]

You shouldn't have to enable the govern province (deploy) button every turn. Sometimes, though, if they are deployed too near a city or other agents/armies then they will get pushed out of their stance. That may be happening.

[Irishmafia2020]

Try a campaign as Egypt to get the hang of everything - they are rich and beloved (everybody will trade with them) and their enemies come from predictable directions - once you have 100 turns with an easy faction under your belt you will be experienced enough to go back to Rome... that is my advice anyway!

[Hockey85]

Hey thanks for the tips guys, I started a new campaign and now that I understand how all the buildings and whatnot is working for Rome II/DEI I have endless amounts of cash. I did also figure out that the dignitaries were in fact not staying deployed due to being too close to the city. Moved them away and now they are working as intended.