Rome Total war help

[Quillan]

As the Julii, once you have Mediolanium and Patavium, you can hold Italy against the gauls. Build a fort near the end of the pass from Massilia and garrison it to stop them. In the meantime, head east by ship. Kydonia on the isle of Crete and Halicarnassus both start as rebel. Scarf them up. You'll need to let the grow a bit, perhaps, before you can build a port there, but once you do they make tons of money. Halicarnassus controls a wonder (the Mausoleum) that will shave 1 turn off the construction times of buildings that take at least 5 turns to build. Grab Rhodes, since the Collossus gives a whopping 40% (!) increase in naval trade. You might also want to grab a few other provinces there if you can. This area will finance your later expansions.

Once done with that, leave enough stuff behind to be able to defeat rebels that appear and defend against potential invasions from the other factions in the area, and head back to Europe. While this was all being done, the towns of Iuvavum (north of Patavium across the mountains), Salona (opposite side of the Adriatic and south of Ariminum) and Segestica (pretty much due east of Patavium) all start as rebels, so you might have the opportunity to grab one or more of these with the forces you left to stop the gauls. The Senate will want you to take Caralis from Carthage; you can do this or not, it's your call. I tend not to; I don't want to get into the war with Carthage.

Next take Massilia and Narbo Martius from the gauls. Both are coastal, and once you build ports they'll make some money.

In the long run, develop your economy. NOTHING makes money like sea trade. Build ports, then shipwrights, then dockyards wherever possible. You want roads (all the way to highways) to make troop movement easier, but they enhance trade too. Build the market buildings. And, you'll want Jupiter temples almost everywhere.

[Jules]

Thanks for everyone's advice.
I've started scouting east with my agents and ships, swapping maps with whoever I meet along the way. The Scipii control all of Sicily now and have armies in North Africa. The Brutii are moving slowly against the Greeks, having only taken Epirus.

Are things like alliances and trade agreements permanent, or do they expire eventually? I'm wondering how you get experience for your young diplomats when the old ones have negotiated everything already.

Oh, and what's the avg. life expectency of your characters? My faction leader is over 50 now. How soon do I take away his retinues and ship him off to the home?

Trade revenue seems to be the key in this game. You can expand your farms, but then your population grows faster than you can control. I think I'll take the Illyrian provinces next. There be gold in them there hills!

[Jules]

On second thought, maybe I don't need to do that if I have military access through the other factions' territory.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Jules
Are things like alliances and trade agreements permanent, or do they expire eventually? I'm wondering how you get experience for your young diplomats when the old ones have negotiated everything already.

Alliances do not expire, but they are pretty worthless. A computer player will attack you eventually, as long as you share a land border, even if you are allied. An alliance is really only good for making the occasional joint assault; you'll still need to protect your borders with allied states (except the other Romans, who won't betray you until the endgame).

Trade rights do not expire either, and there is absolutely no downside to them, so negotiate them with everyone you can.

As far as diplomats go, I'm not sure how great influence is for them, and it seems to only be awarded fairly randomly. I do know that if they spend time standing around in foreign lands they tend to get good retinue members like "foreign hostage" and "linguist."

Oh, and what's the avg. life expectency of your characters? My faction leader is over 50 now. How soon do I take away his retinues and ship him off to the home?

I believe that nobody dies of old age before 60. Of course, sometimes they get killed by the occasional plague or assassin.

Trade revenue seems to be the key in this game. You can expand your farms, but then your population grows faster than you can control. I think I'll take the Illyrian provinces next. There be gold in them there hills!

Make sure to keep the gold in your treasury fairly low; building up a million gold treasury makes your family members corrupt and decadent. I don't remember what the exact number is that sets it off, but try ending every turn below 20k or so. You can queue up buildings in your major cities to take up excess cash, then cancel them from the queue when you need a big sum (say, for bribery).

[Cyclotron]

By the way, I'd recommend snatching up as much of Greece as you can before the Brutii get it. At the very least, go for Athens and the two cities south of that (and crete too); that way you can have several productive provinces and only one small land border near Athens.

[Jules]

Well, money's pretty tight right now. Don't think I'll have 20K for a while. But I'll keep that in mind.

btw, I see why the Brutii haven't done much against the Greeks. Their cities are heavily defended (hoplites = phalanx, yikes!) and some have stone walls. I haven't fought over anything greater than wooden ones yet.

I did run into a wimpy barbarian phalanx when taking Salona, though. I drew it into a narrow street with a unit of hastati, then had them run away while my general's bodyguard took it from behind. Suffered zero casualties and obliterated the hoplites. Wow. I'm assuming the Greek ones are better.

[Cyclotron]

Greek hoplites are marginally better, but are still vulnerable to the same tactics. The best way to defeat them in a street is to get on both sides of them, throw all javelins, then charge their front and rear together; hastati are easily replaceable!

Actually, stone walls are very, very good for you as the Romans. Hoplites on stone walls can't make a phalanx, and principes especially can beat them handily on the walls. This really goes for all opponents; Roman troops are great on walls, and once you get legionaries with the Marian reforms, there is simply no better unit on a wall - and on a wall, the enemy has no opportunity to flank you. As the Romans, I find stone walls much, much easier to deal with than wooden ones.

Of course, elite phalanxes (armored hoplites, spartans, royal pikemen) are simply better than your principes, so you just have to take them on with overwhelming numbers. Arrows are pretty useless, but javelins can be effective even against the big guys, so make sure you use all your pila.

[Lodi]

Medieval 2 Total War seems very promising as well.

[TheStinger]

My systems will never be able to play that unfortunately

[DrSpike]

Did you buy Shoggy yet? I saw it for a mere £5 the other day.

[TheStinger]

I've already got Shogun, I really like it, but can never win a battle when I have to take a river crossing

[DrSpike]

The best solution is to make sure you defend those provinces.

On a more serious note you can take them, and the best way to practice is by playing the pre-made tactical battle with a river crossing - I forget the map name.

[Guynemer]

I can't get the Total Realism 6.2 to work. It always CTD as soon as I start the program. Any ideas?

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Guynemer
I can't get the Total Realism 6.2 to work. It always CTD as soon as I start the program. Any ideas?

What version of RTW are you using? RTR 6.2 only works with the 1.2 patch. If you have 1.5, get RTR Platinum - you can find it over at twcenter.net (there's a sub-forum devoted to RTR Platinum).

[Guynemer]

Thanks Stuie.