Rome: Total War is Out

[Flip McWho]

I'm on medium difficulty and I've only conquered south of france. Its about 240 BC for me by the way. Different speeds for different folks I suppose. I'm slowly working my way through the gauls now. I don't like leaving the cities on auto governor so I'm running into problems with not enough family. Need more babies.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

I read somewhere that you can adopt into your family, think it was on the Total War site !!

That would help to ease the situation of not enough babies not sure if thats right though but Im sure Ive read it !!

[Arnelos]

Yes, you can adopt new members into the family.

Of particular note is that if you play a battle with a captain rather than a family member and you win a "heroic" victory, that captain becomes a general and a family member (and typically gets a command bonus in the process ).

That gives you an incentive to go after those straggler rebels and brigands with a few spare units, just to see if you can pull off a major victory and get a free general.

[Arnelos]

Oh, and someone wanted screenshots...

My Brutii armies marching through a Gaulic town (this one was in Northern France, I think).

Keep in mind for this shot that I'm playing the campaign with a lower number of men per unit because I started the campaign before I realized I could even increase it. Oh well, everything else I've done is at "large" or "huge".

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Yes, you can adopt new members into the family.

Of particular note is that if you play a battle with a captain rather than a family member and you win a "heroic" victory, that captain becomes a general and a family member (and typically gets a command bonus in the process ).

That gives you an incentive to go after those straggler rebels and brigands with a few spare units, just to see if you can pull off a major victory and get a free general.

WHAT!! Woot I'm going to have to try this. I just had a nice little battle against the Gauls where my faction leader crushed the Gaul King, kind of neat. It even left behind one of those sword icons that signify that a famous battle took place there.

[Arnelos]

Campaign map for a good while back. Right now, I've already conquered Rome, but back when this shot was taken, these were my holdings in Greece, Macedonia, and Southern Italy as the Brutii.

NOTE: All screenshots had to be shrunk to 800x600 to fit on Apolyton and are originally 1024x768. If things look a bit blurry, that's why.

Anyhow, this is what the strategic map looks like (if a bit more blurry than the real thing):

[Arnelos]

Now, when you fight a custom battle and turn up the unit numbers to "huge"...

As for context on the image, I set up a siege of a Gaulic town much like the one I'd fought with Brutii units at some point a while back. I set up this one with Julii (red) Romans because they're easier to distinguish from the green Gauls and red Romans just look cooler, to be honest.

Anyhow, total units in this battle were just under 6000 (about 3200 Gauls and 2600 Romans). I bombarded the snot out of the Gauls with heavy onagers (with fire shot) and archers before entering with the legionaries and finally with cavalry.

Anyhow, first shot of that battle of the legionaries marching over where the archers' work was visible:

[Arnelos]

A few very brave (but exceedingly stupid) Gauls...

[Arnelos]

Seperate Battle. Romans vs Germans in a snowy pine forest.

------------

You know... Roman Triarii are only useful if their spears are faced toward the oncoming cavalry...

[Arnelos]

Ok, last screenshot.

This one is as much of a wideout shot as I could get from the Rome vs. Gaul batttle I posted further above. You can only see about 1/3 of each army here (well, you can see the majority of the Gaullic Army, but most of those are lying on the ground dead).

A key for those not familiar:

White Unit Shields: A unit in rout. Those are all Gaullic units running away, of course, with a few still hanging on (barely) as the Roman legionaries march forward being covered by massed archer fire from behind them.

Blacked Corpses: That's where the heavy onager fire shots landed. Yeah, those things do some serious damage if they actually hit something (they generally just wildly fly into random trees or patches of ground).

Anyhow, the Gaullic rout:

[Kassiopeia]

Dammit, Greece is rich.

Those Cohort selections, do you get them when you group the units or something? I don't use them too often.

red Romans just look cooler, to be honest.

Which is why I chose the Julii.

[Arnelos]

Final stats of the Rome v. Gaul battle with the screenshots above:

Romans
Men Deployed: 2605
Survivors: 2408

Gauls
Men Deployed: 3277
Survivors: 0 (100% casualties actually aren't all that unusual in sieges, but are relatively unusual for field warfare)

I have to admit that I stacked the odds, though. The Gauls aren't so great with missile fire and I fielded a Roman army with LOTS of archers and artillery. Even giving the Gauls a bit of a numeric advantage didn't help in the slightest.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
Those Cohort selections, do you get them when you group the units or something? I don't use them too often.

I use them pretty extensively, especially as the Romans. The main utility is that it saves time and it keeps your lines (of multiple units) straight. The first (saving time) is always useful. The second (keeping things orderly) pays off if you're playing the Romans because legions fight better when they're in that box formation (at least until they run out of pila and they aren't under threat of missile fire.

That said, there are some extremely annoying characteristics to the unit grouping. The most annoying of all is that if your group of units is facing north and you tell it to move south, the units on the left and right sides will cross each others' paths in order to end up on the left and right sides going the other direction (rather than just turning around and letting the formation be a mirror image).

That's normally not so bad, but with slow-moving, bulky, and obstacle-forming artillery units, it's an absolute pain.

[Kassiopeia]

I use them pretty extensively, especially as the Romans. The main utility is that it saves time and it keeps your lines (of multiple units) straight.

Oooooh. Gotta try it.

The first (saving time) is always useful. The second (keeping things orderly) pays off if you're playing the Romans because legions fight better when they're in that box formation (at least until they run out of pila and they aren't under threat of missile fire.

My legionaries are pretty often running at the enemy, and then formation isn't too big an issue. I do box them up when they stand behind a gate or a wall that's about to go down, but only a single unit'll fit in the space and the unit is usually pretty easy to line up on its own.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Arnelos

That said, there are some extremely annoying characteristics to the unit grouping. The most annoying of all is that if your group of units is facing north and you tell it to move south, the units on the left and right sides will cross each others' paths in order to end up on the left and right sides going the other direction (rather than just turning around and letting the formation be a mirror image).

You need to use change unit facing with the < and > keys.