Some questions about the magnificent EB2

[greekpoison88]

Dear friends,

This mod is just unbelievable and makes the newer TW games look like they don't belong to the same category.

After one playthrough with the Romans of approx. 700 turns, I decided to start a new campaign and use all the knowledge I gained from the first one. However, I still have some questions about game mechanics:

1) I am at turn 80 and managed to conquer northern Italy (Patavia, Medionalum, Bononia and the one place in Luguria). I notice that Carthage did not make serious gains in the meantime and did not conquer anything in Sicily. I chose the northern route with good intention, because I wanted a big punic War with Carthage and let them build up, but like this, they would not present a real threat. Is that normal? Am I expanding too fast? I am playing on Very Hard btw.

2) Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the options after you conquer a city. In Italy, the case is clear. I go for the Socii building type always. In northern Italy however, things get more complicated. The goal would be to romanize this places as soon as possible, but what building type would you chose? Since i am not sure which way to go, I tried for the 4 provinces there 4 different approaches in order to increase my culture. I don't want 4 provinces with client rulers and I don't want 4 free cities neither. Should one go for a client ruler in the beginning and later dismantle it?

3) For me a big plus of this mod is the whole cursus honorum mechanic. As soon as someone comes of age, i put them in Rome until they are 20, then i put them under a Praetor or Consul who is campaigning and get 7.5 years of military experience for them. When they are 28, I go for the questorship and so on. Is this the best approach? Do they have to be educated in Rome or would other places bring other bonuses? I remember in EB1 i loved to educate my generals in Siracusa since they could get the Archmides ancillary...

4) I rarely get good ancillaries for my young generals. I build up Rome pretty good but I don't notice any improved regarding the education of generals (even tough I have an academy). Am I missing something here?

5) I follow the cursus honorum to the letter, however, i rarely get good governours. In all my provinces the growth rate is 0.5 and I would like to increase that with a good governour, is there something I am missing?

I have 1000 more questions but these would be the most urgent one's. Anyone willing to help me out here?

[Lusitanio]

1 - Sadly the AI is not very agressive, even if you try not to expand much, you will still have some fun battles but lower your expectations. The good news is that I have been making some tweaks on the AI and verified that giving a bit more money and especially changing the behaviour of the faction, the factions are much more agressive, so expect changes in the future.

2 - Don't know much about Roman cities or expansion, but be careful with Liguria, the revolts there will hurt you.

3 - That's a very good approach indeed. I would do the same.

4 - Ancillaries in EBII are a bit hard to get, that's normal. Usually Client Rulers receive more.

5 - Not quite, it's not easy to get good governors, keep an eye on their traits and get them educated.

By the way, welcome to the forum

[RodriguesSting]

1 - Indeed the AI is not very aggressive, but the player can help them out. I heard about people picking a faction to feed them and them turn on them by late game to have a good challenge.

2 - Free city is usually a solid option and offers the most building options, plus the chance of recruiting some garrison. It works a bit like Allied Governments, but without the commitment and necessity of a native governor. Provinces will be more useful VERY later on, and less restrictive regarding to where you can build them. So, basically, if you can build a Free City, do it. If even with a Free City the public order is too , consider an allied government.

3 - FM can acquire and upgrade education traits until their 28th birthday. It is usually good to try to acquire as many Scholastics as possible, although the very best FM won't get it (it requires Smart and Uncharismatic, I believe, a virtue and a flaw). Scholastics have chances of acquiring/upgrading Philosophy, Mathematics and, I think, Administration, every turn they spend on a settlement with an academy, and that's on top of the usual chances for the education and religious buildings. I don't see much harm in starting their military careers late, but I will always try to get the 7.5 years. Guaranteed Roman Virtue if you do.

4 - I don't remember anything that improves growth rate itself (would be kinda OP), but there are many traits and ancillaries that reduce Hunger, which have a direct positive effect on settlement growth. Philosophically Inclined is a good trait from education that does that, as well the ancillaries Philosopher and Natural Philosopher. Good Builder can also be acquired from education and one of the Roman public offices, the one responsible for buildings. Finally, EVERY general, regardless of faction or education, can get either Supervisor or Lenient, which have positive effects on settlement growth, but have some caveats otherwise.

5 - See above, I guess.

[greekpoison88]

1 - Sadly the AI is not very agressive, even if you try not to expand much, you will still have some fun battles but lower your expectations. The good news is that I have been making some tweaks on the AI and verified that giving a bit more money and especially changing the behaviour of the faction, the factions are much more agressive, so expect changes in the future.

That's very good news indeed! Just to check the situation I applied toggle_fow and noticed, that the Arevaci actually have 3 full stacks but they don't attack the neighboring rebels which are way weaker than them. On the other hand the Suebi actually did make noticable gains, so there is something to work with. I might give Carthage some huge amount of money, maybe they'll make a move :-)

[Grimmy]

It's gamey, but what I do is remove the early temples in cities that have growth issues and replace them with temples to Juno for the growth bonus.

And to accelerate them getting to upgrade, I'll not station a FM there and reduce tax to lowest for additional growth bonus.

It used to be that having an FM in a city with low taxes did bad things to their traits. Not sure if that's still true but I don't take that chance lol.

[Lusitanio]

On the other hand the Suebi actually did make noticable gains, so there is something to work with. I might give Carthage some huge amount of money, maybe they'll make a move :-)

I've started test campaigns over and over on the last two years, the behaviour of the factions is always pretty much the same. The Arevaci won't expand and neither the Boii. The Suebi really like to expand. Be careful with the amount of money you give since there's a script that takes money from the AI if their treasury is over 49999.

[BailianSteel]

Dear friends,
After one playthrough with the Romans of approx. 700 turns, I decided to start a new campaign and use all the knowledge I gained from the first one. However, I still have some questions about game mechanics:

I mentioned in the Faction Reviews thread that the Romans are a good introduction to EBII, but your experience can vary greatly even within the same culture groups. Assuming you're not strapped for time there's no better teacher than giving the other factions a spin.

1) I am at turn 80 and managed to conquer northern Italy (Patavia, Medionalum, Bononia and the one place in Luguria). I notice that Carthage did not make serious gains in the meantime and did not conquer anything in Sicily. I chose the northern route with good intention, because I wanted a big punic War with Carthage and let them build up, but like this, they would not present a real threat. Is that normal? Am I expanding too fast? I am playing on Very Hard btw.

This is normal in the Western Mediterranean, and is in fact much worse for the AI controlled SPQR, which almost never grows to be a threat until the rise of the Cohort-Legions. However there should be rival empires elsewhere, the Sweboz almost always dominate Europe, sometimes it's the Lugiones. The Pritanoi were a similar contender pre-3.5, but invading them can still prove a challenge if you chip at them piecemeal. Sometimes the Seleukides collapse, but if you're lucky then they will have created an eastern superpower to rival Roma. The Qarthadastim did grow to be a formidable naval empire in one of my 3.0 Ptolemaioi playthroughs.

I'd also argue this problem is unique to SPQR, there's plenty of conflict to be had in Greece and Asia. In particular I would argue Greece proper is bellicose beyond the point of reason. Marching an army all the way to Pella, Pergamon? Really?

2) Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the options after you conquer a city. In Italy, the case is clear. I go for the Socii building type always. In northern Italy however, things get more complicated. The goal would be to romanize this places as soon as possible, but what building type would you chose? Since i am not sure which way to go, I tried for the 4 provinces there 4 different approaches in order to increase my culture. I don't want 4 provinces with client rulers and I don't want 4 free cities neither. Should one go for a client ruler in the beginning and later dismantle it?

The big sticking point is if you want to recruit units from that city. If you don't want to recruit units from there (and care to manage the city) then build a Free City/Provincia. If you do want to recruit units from the city, go Client State, though Client State is also a good option if you don't want to look after Public Order. You could build Provincia in anticipation of the Marian Reforms, which enables you to recruit units from Provincia, but that's a bit cheesy in my opinion.

Going Client Ruler and then dismantling it isn't a bad strategy at all, but for SPQR I wouldn't bother until the "Marian" Reforms. As far as I know Free Cities are only good for governor training.

Note that the Provincia building can aid you in defending your gains. It creates a Provincia ancillary that grants Imperivm within a set of regions, this will enable you to set a defensive network for your non-Italian territory. Take care to only build one Provincia building for each...Provincia, more than one is redundant.

3) For me a big plus of this mod is the whole cursus honorum mechanic. As soon as someone comes of age, i put them in Rome until they are 20, then i put them under a Praetor or Consul who is campaigning and get 7.5 years of military experience for them. When they are 28, I go for the questorship and so on. Is this the best approach? Do they have to be educated in Rome or would other places bring other bonuses? I remember in EB1 i loved to educate my generals in Siracusa since they could get the Archmides ancillary...

That's a solid approach. You don't need to educate your Generals in Syrakousai to get Archimedes, a client ruler can get him. Take care that big cities can foster undesirable traits, and there aren't strictly bonuses from being educated in Roma specifically (comparatively Hellenic characters have an Agoge system and can get the Eleusinian trait from Athenai, and another special trait from the Delphian Oracle, though the last two aren't dependent on age.)

4) I rarely get good ancillaries for my young generals. I build up Rome pretty good but I don't notice any improved regarding the education of generals (even tough I have an academy). Am I missing something here?

Some ancillaries are rarer than others, that's normal. It might be a bit gamey, but you can transfer ancillaries between generals so they don't get lost on death. Click and drag the portrait of the desired ancillary, and drop it on the portrait of the general you want to transfer it to. Admittedly, it is pretty bad that I've kept Archimedes alive serving Qarthadast and the Ptolemaic Dynasty for over a hundred years this way, but there's no reason Grain Speculators should be so sparse. In the case of the Romani, one of the reforms demands Huge Cities in most of Italia, so what does the trick is fair game.

5) I follow the cursus honorum to the letter, however, i rarely get good governours. In all my provinces the growth rate is 0.5 and I would like to increase that with a good governour, is there something I am missing?

The Cursus Honorum itself won't make a big impact on General governorship, which is perhaps something the EBII team might want to tinker with. Compared to the Druidic system of the Keltoi this ironically puts Romani at a disadvantage in urban development.

What you want to do to foster good governorship traits is keep taxes at low or medium, and invest in construction projects where you want to raise a good governor (or move that governor to an area you want to develop.) This will bring about the Supervisor and Humanitarian trait lines that will increase the Growth rate. The Granaries (the buildings which create "Food Import") buildings will also contribute greatly to growth.

[postm00v]

About education; I usually wait untill they're at least 'Cultured' before I let them start their military career. If they haven't gotten the trait when they reach 23-24 they're off to the legions. That way they'll receive the 7,5 years of service, and will be eligible for Quaestor when they're 30-ish. The more senior offices require a character to be at least 36 (32 if you count Aedilis Plebis/Curulis), so it's not that big of a deal imo.

[Langdys]

Rapid expansion can be effective, but it can also lead to problems with managing the empire and maintaining stability. It might be worth paying attention to public order in your provinces and diplomatic relations with other factions. Interestingly, this aligns with historical events over many years. This is a fascinating topic for me as I am currently studying history, allowing me to draw parallels. Experiment with different strategies based on the situation and game conditions, and be ready to adapt to changing circumstances. Best of luck in your campaigns in Total War!

[ETXBlues]

Seeing as this got resurrected, I can say I have noticed some interested AI behavior. Some of them are aggressive beyond stupid, and others incomprehensively passive. That said, it does seem that it varies from campaign to campaign. In my Roma campaign Aedvi were be really successfully expansive, Arevaci tried, but got smashed. Sweboz got relegated to Norway/Sweden. Pritanoi always seem to try to get on the continent too soon and their armies cannot match the Gauls. They just send stacks into the meat grinder.

One thing that you are right about, Langdys, is that slow expansion is the way to go. I do wish there was a way to replenish the Eleutheroi stacks and garrisons over time. That would slow the game down for sure, and to me it plays better and more enjoyably without the most of the world being in the hands of one faction or another 100 turns in.

[Bobylikeyou]

Rapid expansion can be effective, but it can also lead to problems with managing the empire and maintaining stability. It might be worth paying attention to public order in your provinces and diplomatic relations with other factions. Interestingly, this aligns with historical events over many years. This is a fascinating topic for me as I am currently studying history, allowing me to draw parallels. By reading free compare and contrast essay examples, you will find a lot of useful information on this topic. Experiment with different strategies based on the situation and game conditions, and be ready to adapt to changing circumstances. Best of luck in your campaigns in Total War!

[Bobylikeyou]

Registered to ask, do you really think so?