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Thread: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

  1. #1

    Default Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Did a bit of searching and found some advice on how to start building provinces as an early Rome.

    But, I have tried 4 different games and everyone so far my butt is handed to me by my enemy to the east and north. They overwhelm my Army.

    My last battle I was fighting elephants.. and they had a 3/4 stack with more than a 1/4 stack as their backup, and that is just the nation to the east.

    The army to the north has almost a full stack.

    I start amassing my army within a few turns, but they suck my income down tremendously.

    I haven't played in quite awhile (obviously there has been some changes in the past year).

    Only sub mod I am using is the faster battles. But the numbers alone grind me into the ground.

    Help?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    It takes a few turns for Epirus to get rolling, so you have just enough time to wipe out the Etruscans.

    I do not build much of anything the first few turns except an army. The key is to attack North as soon as possible. Recruit and hire mercenaries and attack.
    You will find that they have not yet built much of a stack, and you should be able to beat their troops and garrison.

    Then replenish and move South and combine with the few you already have to meet Epirus. Two units of slingers or missile troops of your choice and save them for when the elephants are in range. Target the elephants exclusively and they become a non factor very quickly.

    You will own the peninsula by turn 10 or 15 depending on how you do it.
    For me the trouble comes in trying to be ready for when the filthy Carthaginians show up.
    Last edited by struckat; July 12, 2019 at 01:32 PM.

  3. #3
    gary's Avatar Domesticus
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    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Ok... what you need to do is bring the army in the south, north and combine it with that of Rome, then and recruit more troops, leave the settlement furthest south as you cannot really hold it without getting flanked. As well as this, start to build a small navy and use this navy to blockade or interceopt any troops coming from the mainland from Eperus, so they cannot support the other force in southern Italy, Deal with the land army first then, once you have destroyed this land force, you can turn your attention to Eperus. The navy is a good way stopping italy from being overrun. To the north you may loose a settlemt or two but fighting a war on twe fronts is hard, so you need to deside what is most important.
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  4. #4

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Are you playing on normal/normal?

  5. #5

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    I used @struckat 's method and so far, so good. I took the north fairly easily, but Epirus had a 1/4 stack army by turn 3 or 4, and wiped out my southern army but didn't go any further.

    I beat Epirus's first 1/2 ish full stack, and now I am narrowing to take the last region in Italia with his barely kept together army.


    Yes, normal / normal.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    In this Mod and probably in all Total War games moving quickly is more important than anything. I only play Makedon and is all about that. After 10 turns I usally end holding hellas(without crete) and full macedonia with the help of mercenaries ofc. Move quickly, set your position and remember to use your money wisely.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Quote Originally Posted by BooBooLovesAll View Post
    I used @struckat 's method and so far, so good. I took the north fairly easily, but Epirus had a 1/4 stack army by turn 3 or 4, and wiped out my southern army but didn't go any further.

    I beat Epirus's first 1/2 ish full stack, and now I am narrowing to take the last region in Italia with his barely kept together army.


    Yes, normal / normal.
    I neglected to say that sometimes I do bring the southern starting troops north for that first battle.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    First and foremost, I highly recommend that you do not play with faster battles. That favors the AI over yourself, as you have less time to flank and destroy the enemy before your troops take casualties. You, the player, have the advantage the longer the battle draws out, as you take less casualties per unit of time. Time which you can use to maneuver your own ranged units into shooting the enemy's unshielded backs, as well as time for your own cav to destroy enemy ranged units.

    Secondly, the others are giving you good advice, but another tactic you can use is to quickly crush the north of Italy with everything you can throw together including mercs ASAP, then as your attention shifts south, secure the north's towns with small, specialized garrison armies. Early on, enemy troop quality of the northmen is very low, so a garrison force composed of a small handful of phalanx units and just enough cav to mop up the enemy ranged units is all you need. I prefer six hoplites, and two cav, which includes the general. The hoplites available do very well in the narrow, confined streets, and draw off the 4th class of citizen. If they're still not enough, you can also have these defensive fights in the north come down to the Triarii after the other units are used up first. Just make sure to rotate out your units since exhaustion is a factor by having your phalanx units operate in pairs.

    Once you deal with the Etrusicans, you will have a short period of peace in the north where you can focus on Epirus. Once Epirus is done, you will have time to build up the northern garrison of phalanxes I described. By the time the other northmen attack, your small, cost effective phalanx garrisons will be built there, while you deal with Syracuse and Carthage to the south as you see fit.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    "First and foremost, I highly recommend that you do not play with faster battles. That favors the AI over yourself, as you have less time to flank and destroy the enemy before your troops take casualties. You, the player, have the advantage the longer the battle draws out, as you take less casualties per unit of time. Time which you can use to maneuver your own ranged units into shooting the enemy's unshielded backs, as well as time for your own cav to destroy enemy ranged units."

    Yup, I am aware of that. Thing is a battle lasting 15 plus minutes doesn't interest me, my average with the fast battles are 10 minutes. Doesn't sound like there is much of a compromise.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    I would say that the primary thing that you give up by using the faster battles mod is the ability to fight consecutively. You will win a single battle, but take more attrition due to the units simply killing each other faster within whatever span of time it takes to pull off a tactical move. Short term, it is more convenient in that the battle is over quickly, but attrition between battles will be worse in the long term. The small-garrison I suggested would benefit less from cycling out hoplites and taking advantage of an exhausted enemy, while taking more losses before any of the free skirmishers get into position to shoot into the enemy's back as well. But worse, the losses may be large enough that the units do not replenish fast enough for the next incoming attack the following turn. Additionally, and as another example, a single army will be far harder pressed if it's taking on three other stacks one at a time using night battles, as each night battle would incur more casualties than without the faster battles mod.

    It's possible that though you are enjoying the convenience of shorter battles, it's at the cost of greater difficulty overall, and that you may have been continuing a single campaign rather than having gone through four if you did without the faster battles mod.

  11. #11
    ♔Greek Strategos♔'s Avatar THE BEARDED MACE
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    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?


  12. #12

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    I wonder, if there is somewhere the mod that would give AI Rome some more hard time (like it seems to happen to player as Rome) - in my game as Athens/Hellenic League I watched "Punic wars" ending somewhat about ~100 years ahead of time, which is a bit "too much". Hell, as any Hellenic nation I have to rush to backstab Epirus just to ensure that Rome wouldn't land in Apollonia and conquer it, because having Roman city right in my "metropoly" is a bit too extreme.

    I like my campaign to be variable - meet different nations and cultures, not a race of carpet sieging behind Roman legions, which run deep into Afrika/Spain/Gallia/whatever else without even a semblance of local resistance or any sign of manpower or economic problem, despite the fact that whole Italy may be lost. I mean, I get it, why exactly has Rome won in history, but I'd sort of appreciate variety of outcomes (same reason, why I wasn't happy when played Imperator: Rome in 1.0 version and watched overblobbing Rome EVERY damn game).

    Right now best global situation would happen if I play as Epirus and deal with Rome pretty early.

  13. #13
    Jake Armitage's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Try Age of Hellenism submod

  14. #14

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    There is an official submod that removes autoresolve bonus for major faction. Time still expands but it is a lot more random whether it dominates or it remains stuck in Italy. It adds a lot of replayability in my opinion, I can't play without it

  15. #15

    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Quote Originally Posted by BooBooLovesAll View Post
    Yup, I am aware of that. Thing is a battle lasting 15 plus minutes doesn't interest me, my average with the fast battles are 10 minutes. Doesn't sound like there is much of a compromise.
    <Nod> But you could also just use the speed buttons to FFWD during "inactive" (not actively maneuvering) phases of the battle.

  16. #16
    kapouchet's Avatar Laetus
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    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    Regarding military recruitment buildings, so far I have been sticking to the policy of having None in Latium and auxiliary barracks in every other province so far. I have some difficulty reading all the unlocked troops, but does building regular barracks unlock other troops in Latium or simply boosts the core troops and garrison?

  17. #17
    Jake Armitage's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Playing as Rome, I lose three cities and my capital is sieged within 10 turns. Um, help?

    it's a vanilla tooltip problem.
    when the units are too many the tooltip wil disppear.
    you can check what you can recruit by right-clicking on the building icon.

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