Rome Total War (again)

[Elfie]

Those of you that play Rome Total War.....have you ever tryed bribing family members of other factions to increase the size of your own faction?

I started doing this last night in a desperate attempt to gain more governor's for towns that were on the verge of outright rebellion. I have even bribed all of the other 3 Roman faction family members, got 2 Scipii family members on the same turn and bribed an entire Roman Senate army (with 2 family members) at the same time

I used to hunt down and kill enemy family members. I would do everything I could to ensure their demise. Now I think I was horribly wrong in my approach.

Something wierd is going on with my financial reports as well. They never match up to how much cash I actually have to spend. It always says I have 20-40k more than I actually do. Anyone else experience this also?

My current campaign is a Julii campaign. Instead of just concentrating on conquering Gaul, I sent one army into Gaul and another into Greece. The army in Greece captured most of the Greek port cities (the Brutii faction got the rest) giving me a huge cash flow.

Currently I have destroyed Macedonia, Spain, Gaul, Carthage, The Greek Cities and Pontus is a protectorate and Thrace is down to one town and REFUSES to surrender. Also, the Britons were foolish enough to attack me, I sacked London on my last turn last night

I own 4 of the 7 Wonders of the World atm, Statue of Zeus in Greece, Colossus of Rhodes and 2 Temples in what is now modern day Turkey. I am planning on sending a single army to sack and hold the town that controls the Hanging Gardens in Babylonia and REALLY want the Pyramids and Lighthouse in Egypt.

[DoctorYO]

I play as the Greek Cities, and i bribe all the time...  Epecially if the opposing general is young and has attributes that are helpful to my cause...

Then again the Greeks have the most money..  

My current campaign has me in southern italy facing Rome and the Julli to the north..

after a drawn out battle with the Scippii and the brutii (since the begining of the game they sneaked attacked me..) both factions went rebel (the same turn) after either i killed all of their leaders or something..  But their citys just went rebel all at the same turn..  Granted I was invading southern rome with Spartans so i cant blame them for running..  (at 20attack 20 defence right out of the barracks no foot soldiers can stand up to my modern Achilles and his Mermedons...)

but ive never seen 2 whole factions just crumble instantly... (let alone romans) maybe after failing in greece the Romans had them fall on their own sword.  who knows..  Now i own those citys from the roman scum and grow weary with rome and look for a peacful solution to our fighting so I may move on our combined threat the Egyptians..  Who are steamrolling the middle east...

Some hints in the early game are to slave trade all cities until your base cities hit the next level desired and you can outclass the opposing factions with superior troops..  Thats been my strat so far and I own all of greece with exception to the last thracian city.  Mycedon showed cowardice so i enslaved them.. and now pontis wants some greek steel....  my slave pits need filling anyway.

wait till they get a load of the spartans they are the best infantry in the game bar none....

Great freaking game Rome Total war... I suggest VH/VH as the difficulty setting..


DoctorYo

[soda72]

I became to popular with the Roman people and had to take out the Roman Senate and their armies after they wanted my fraction leader to commit suicide..

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by Elfie
I am planning on sending a single army to sack and hold the town that controls the Hanging Gardens in Babylonia and REALLY want the Pyramids and Lighthouse in Egypt.

NO BLOOD FOR OIL!!!!!!!

[Elfie]

Some hints in the early game are to slave trade all cities until your base cities hit the next level desired and you can outclass the opposing factions with superior troops.. Thats been my strat so far and I own all of greece with exception to the last thracian city. Mycedon showed cowardice so i enslaved them.. and now pontis wants some greek steel.... my slave pits need filling anyway.

I usually exterminate the populations of captured cities. That gives me more time to build buildings that increase public order.

I fight with low end troops until I can build the high end units. By the time I can build the high end units no one can stand up to my Hastati, Equite, and Velite veterans. One of my armies atm has no unit of less than 2 silver chevrons of experience and most have at least one gold chevron.

I thought the Greek armies were easy kills. Their most formidable units imo are their spearmen but those are easy enough to defeat. Just charge them with cavalry from the side or even better the rear. I use skirmishers to pull the phalanxes out of the battle line. Rout 2 or 3 units and the rest of the units morale drops making it easier to rout them.

Recently I managed to pull some Briton cavalry head on into a unit of mercenary Hoplites.

[DoctorYO]

Give you a example, after hitting 12000 pop in sparta or greek city on sicily I can build awesome temple of Nike (+3 experience) then combined with the Army barracks I get +1 experience for basic hoplites..  This all in gives my basic hoplites 11 attack (9 sword) and 20 defense ..  make that 12 attack(10 sword) with blacksmith.. (1 silver bar out of the barracks cant beat that) (greeks can get armored hoplites 4 turns into the game if they want which is a 9 / 22 unit out of the box.. impressive..)

thats why i go the pop rush tactics..
 

note all AI doesn't do too well vs horses or human tactics in general.. VH /VH show alittle promise though..

Do you play online vs humans?  the greeks are very formidable especially armored hoplites since they are cheap and have bonus morale they hold tough under most situations..

Most people leave their hoplite formations in phallanx but this is a mistake and very unmobile..  the key to greeks is use of the hoplites in the proper manner ..  my favorite tactic is the phallanx rush....  charge the enemy and before you get to them if timed right you engage the phallanx and the enemy gets a face full of spears and insta routes...  This also works well Impi  style (shaka / zulu) by using his bulls horns tactic which is a double envolope..  very devestating...

Be shure to leave the northern most mycedon city's temple intact for missle attack bonus upgrades.. (mine is large temple to artemis at +3 missle)

we should have an Aces High ancient warfare touney...

Ill be greece you guys whatever you want..



DoctorYo

[Elfie]

I havent played any battles online vs human players yet. I admit the Greeks would be far tougher with a human General.

My Hastati and other low end troops atm have armor/weapon upgrades and most have 6-9 experience as well. Very experienced units dont seem to take as many casualties while at the same time they seem to dish out alot more damage to enemy units.

I am just now building Urban Cohorts and waiting on my first Circus Maximus so I can build Praetorian Cavalry as well. Soon all my armies will be upgraded.  The only real bad part about waiting so long to upgrade my armies seems to be running out of infantry units to merge with my experienced units to replace battle losses. I built 10 or so Hastati infantry but they are all used up atm.

I use the auxliary skirmishers and auxiliary spearmen and Roman Cavalry as soon as they become available. This way I rebuild armies slowly and dont have to rebuild them all at once.

[Edbert1]

I am usually happy to see my oponent has many hoplites. Once they are flanked by fast infantry or better cavalry they get slaughtered, QUICKLY.

This is probably a limitation of the AI opponents though as I've yet to meet my match on the AI battlefield unless horribly outnumbered.

How do you prevent your slow hoplites from being flanked?

[Elfie]

Originally posted by Edbert
I am usually happy to see my oponent has many hoplites. Once they are flanked by fast infantry or better cavalry they get slaughtered, QUICKLY.

This is probably a limitation of the AI opponents though as I've yet to meet my match on the AI battlefield unless horribly outnumbered.

How do you prevent your slow hoplites from being flanked?

Even better....engage a phalanx with fast infantry, then hit it from the rear with a cavalry charge

[Vulcan]

Four heavy onager units make sure work of elite units (and even the odd enemy general).

Usually I have a nice row of archers, then heavy infantry so the archers can reposition if necessary behind them, with the onagers behind, and heavy cavalry to the flanks to break up charges. Just sit back and watch those onagers and archers tear up the enemy ranks.

Great tip, if a town gets too rowdy, pull your troops out, leave 1 small unit in, let them rebel, next turn retake the town and exterminate the populace. They stay well behaved for a long time and its a great instant cash income.

Current I've conquered Gaul, Briton, some of Germania, Spain, and the Spartan cities - as Juli. At war with Rome now as they wanted my faction leader to commit suicide too. The Bruti's attacked me heavily now I'm countering and ripping them apart.

[Russian]

Originally posted by soda72
I became to popular with the Roman people and had to take out the Roman Senate and their armies after they wanted my fraction leader to commit suicide..

Same. Rome couldn't control me since I got too big. All of them got killed by me.

[Elfie]

Great tip, if a town gets too rowdy, pull your troops out, leave 1 small unit in, let them rebel, next turn retake the town and exterminate the populace. They stay well behaved for a long time and its a great instant cash income.

When a town gets to rowdy for me, I pull ALL the troops and governor out and jack the tax rate to max.....GUARANTEED rebellion the very next turn

Sparta got cranky tonight and rebelled on me, my town watch units and governor made it out ok but I still ended up fighting the rebel army when it wouldnt leave me alone. The rebels wiped out my pitiful town watch, and killed all my generals body guards. So I ran my general from one corner of the battle map to another, until time ran out for the rebels.....

[lasersailor184]

Actually, I love this game so much.  No time to play it anymore though.


What I was doing when I left was this:

I had way too many territories and I had beaten Gaul and Germania.  So since I was friends with Spain and Britain, I gave them all that land for free.  But then they attack me on the same turn.

So what do I do?

I march straight up to their capitals and crush them.  Nothing is left.  I capture it, raze everything to the ground then leave no troops behind.

They demanded a ceasefire.  I felt sorry for them thinking that they were powerful enough to attack me, so I gave it to them.

[-tronski-]

I like Greece, but find the Phalanxes far too unweidly especially if the front lines start crumbling.

One thing I've never been able to do is force a opposition into a protectorate...perhaps slaughtering the populace counts against that sort of thing?

 Tronsky

[Saintaw]

Another way I found to get new generals, is to send a large army without commander (but at least one cavalry unit) & fight a lot of "small" armies with it, it will propose you (if you succeed) to turn one of your cavalry unit into a commander, this is great in the beginning!

Am playing my 3rd campaign (haven't finished the 2 before that...3rd one looks good, I own Italy, Greece, and all north western yurop), and am thinking into changing to VH/VH for the next one.

Biggest problem for me has been Egypt, they keep rebelling...grrr.

I got the game in Luxemburg, and the doc is in german (thank cod, not the game!). I have a couple of questions:

When I tell my units to charge, they don't always (read most of the time) charge that unit, but another unit nearby. Is this a bug, or is this a 'feature' ?

How do I get my units to face a certain direction without moving them?