Just rage quit my first campaign out of sheer disbelief.

Playing as the Iceni, conquered what amounts to modern day England and Wales, Scotland looks ripe for the taking and Ireland's on my list as the fuckers keep demanding nearly 3500 coin for a trade agreement which if I didn't have a public order problem on top of 0 taxes because of public disorder (turned them off to try and stem the tide, didn't help too much) I'd probably have said ok to on a good day, as you start out making 2500 a turn as the Iceni through taxes - Somehow London's a monster of a city for income despite being empty with 0 trade routes to start with.

Anyway.

Marching on what I'd guess would be modern day Glasgow, the only settlement up north with roughly 2800 guys. I get up there, my scout reveals all's clear, the garrison's poisoned and dwindling, my guys are all stupidly ranked and morale's never been higher, though admittedly they did lose their original General in glorious combat whilst fighting 3:1 odds and I didn't have any slingers.

So I siege the city, building ladders whilst waiting so, I've got 3 turns to kill. Next turn, two enemy generals appear - Between them, the general in his capital AND the garrison I'm outnumbered just under 4:1. Fuck my life.

I cancel the siege and back off a little only they follow up, the guy's fully reinforced. 2700 vs 8230 or there abouts. I figure there's no point running as he'll just follow me and maybe I get a favourable field of battle.

I thought I did, spawned near some mountain tops, had a lot of slingers and some scorpions so I start moving my guys over to this huge mountain that overlooks the entire field of battle. I spot the enemy at the base of the mountain and another chunk of it way off to the left walking along, figure I have time to get everything in position and defend this peak till the last man.

Nope, says the game. Still walking into position and I get flanked by one of the reinforcing guys, out of nowhere his army just appeared on my left flank when all there was to my left was a snowy plain, void of any tree's, hills, mountains, anything. They just immediately marched into my lines and fucked everything up, by some miracle I formed a core but by this point I've got some 8000 pissed off Scotsman running towards me and my slingers are all but useless without time and range to pick anything off.

I eventually get butchered, my general killed and my forces rapidly start routing. Final tally was 1542 losses for me with 361 captured, they lost roughly the same, my General taking out 1/3 of them on his fucking own somehow, god knows how given he was surrounded but either way.

Due to losing, AI automatically moves me back and they just follow up with a fresh general whose guys aren't even touched. My other armies are far too south and made up of mostly rookies to get north in time to stop anything, one of them's still recruiting for what I hoped would be the conquest of the Irish. Just gave up there and then - Safe to say I'll be restarting the Iceni campaign and probably making a beeline for Scotland before that happens again.

The frustrating thing was despite the introduction, there was no way I could from the Celtic Federation as everybody hated me for the war you get put into right from the bat - so constantly losing diplomatic points with all the other Iceni blooded tribes over this war I can't get out of because of the AI. Bleh.

TLDR; Curbstomped atop a mountain by randomly appearing armies.

Edit; Still, goes to show the game provides a challenge when it wants to - This was on normal as I'm still getting accustomed to what a few things do, definitely think dealing with public order plummeting's going to be my hardest problem as Squalor seems unavoidable.

 

Yeah, I was Parthia as well... noticed the pain. Start with a minor settlement, and quickly capture the other two in the province. My brother playing Athens, has a capitol city, and while I do have more gold production, is generally doing quite a bit better with just the one.

Also, just about to take out the capitol for Parthia's province, when Persia rolls in with double my forces, making me retreat. Also, kind of annoying the the other force in the province is apparently allied with at least eight other factions. All of which I'm forced to go to war with, just to try and fully-claim my own damned province.

 

Now you see why the Romans built a wall.

 

Probably, I just wish I knew where the hell the AI stuffed them outside up his jumper as my scout didn't see anything. Oh well, lesson learned, attempt number two tomorrow unless I see another campaign that interests me.

 

Did a quick restart, decided to be more aggressive with Parthia. Using army stances, got my first territory fast, then joined against a couple of factions on the side of my original ally. From what I have seen, joining a war on a request will prevent you from getting the full enemy alliance joining in, might be considered an exploit.
Settlements seem to be limited in the number of available total slots, could not find any information on the exact limits.

 

Macedon seems rather simple in comparison to the Iceni - Roughly 65 turns in and I own 2 provinces, pushing on my 3rd though not sure if completing the province is worth entering a war against 4 factions, all of which I'm trading with.

Still have Sparta and Athens protecting my south whilst Carthage and some random faction who appeared split Italy between them, all the while having 20 or so trade routes going and if it wasn't for my 3rd standing army I made just to go over to Asia, I'd be pulling in roughly 6500 a turn.

Of course, this is normal (still) as I feel like I'm still missing a lot - though I have public order sorted out at last, and learning about food now, trying to balance towns correctly.

 

Decided not to start Carthage just yet and to see what was so big about the Greek DLC. So I started as Athens and immediately declared war on Epricus. Invaded Larissa and boom, total AI retard or something. They sent their entire army to defend the front part of the city and I had my forces split. The bulk of my army was facing them but not skirmishing just yet while I had a small force of hoplites marching towards the capture point. I was fully expecting them to turn around and take the bait so that I could then do the tried and true "hammer and anvil" tactic.

Except they didn't.

My hoplites were literally on top of the capture point for the entire fifty seconds and the AI never so much as budged an inch. In the end, I won the "fight" with zero losses and somehow managing to slaughter about eight hundred of their troops in the aftermath. It was probably the most disappointing victory I've ever had in a Total War game. And it wasn't even limited to Epricus. Invade Sparta? Oh look, almost the exact same thing. I seriously hope CA patches the AI because this is going to be the most boring campaign.

And speaking of Sparta, what the fuck is up with their character models? Every single one of those troops look like goddamn garden gnomes with the giant beards and pointed helmets. They could have at least added more facial variety.

 

Tehlaziboi, I noticed the same thing about the AI in my recent battles. Somehow, during a siege the AI cannot handle more than one direction, also, their reaction to missile attacks seems to be just running around. Once I killed about 700 defenders, without losses, because they just sat there, and melted under the arrows.
Besides the AI, I think garrison needs more ranged troops, and some kind of wall around each settlement. Not much, but a simple barricade that prevents a cavalry charge into the settlement would help.
Also, the marching of troops in cities needs a bit of refinement, sometimes I got the feeling I was watching World of Tanks, with the way troops shattered fences/walls/stalls.

 

So played quite some time (150 years or so) as Roman and conquered most of eastern Europe. It is a bit too easy even on the second highest difficulty because there is really nothing that can win against simple legionaries especially if I do the battles personally (I won´t even mention the more elite units like veteran troops or praetorians) . My second and 6th Legions steamrolled trough any opposition.

I managed to hold my peace with Carthage and thx to my high culture and some spies/rebellions still secured Sardinia and Magna Graeca. My allies, the Macedons, control most of Greece while Sparta holds Sparta and Epirus and has made some inroads into the region around Jerusalem.

It is also a lot easier to get client states... The Inceni even proposed one which secures my Northern border.

The biggest problem I face now is deciding where to direct my Legions now because everybody likes my and has trade contracts with me.. I will probably expand into Libya/Egypt to have a base for my eastern expansion.

What I really miss is the AI building its own empires. It rarely expands into more than one region and Seleucid is the only noteworthy one of those who do it but even that does not expand and instead barely manages to hold onto its few cities. Especially Carthage is massive let down... It lost Tingis and its Spanish holding over 50 years ago to rebels and hasn´t managed to reconquer anything.

And the turns of the AI are getting really slow.. pretty sure I will cross the 5 min mark soon which means I wait longer than I do things^^.


And before I forgot... I have a little problem/bug A Inceni fleet blockades the last city of some Germanic tribe and I am seem unable to conquer it (can´t order my army/fleet to attack it) any idea how to solve other than attacking the blockading fleet?

@ B
I believe that your reinforcements arrived from the Irish sea.. at least its where my Scottish AI has always some troops.

And yeah squalor is the thing you want avoid at any cost which means using only big regions as recruitment centres (because only here you have the room needed for temples and social buildings) and being careful about not simply upgrading every building.
I use my smaller eastern provinces to provide a lot of food(a little tip.. it is possible to build 2 farms in one region if you start building them at the same time and then branch out into farm and livestock) which enabled my to upgrade my social buildings in Italia.

 

I've played a short campaign as Pontus before I dropped it and tried the Iceni. I managed to conquer the Isles fairly easily since the Irish had invaded Scotland and had lost half their armies doing so. I simply moved in with 2 armies while they were recovering.

What's been really bugging me though is how the marriage system works. Despite the encyclopedia saying that your generals/statesmen can get married, I've yet to find any way to do so. It's extremely irritating. I have no idea how to gain more 'characters' that I can actually use except for random events like adopting potential bastards. I miss the ability to control your family like in Rome 1 or Medieval 2.

Also, has anyone found that ranged units are simply terrible? I've yet to encounter any that seem worth their cost. It could also be the AI using them poorly though, but its hard to tell.

Lastly, a general complaint about the AI. So far, I've yet to lose a battle. I've found that it's often not even just the poor battlefield tactics the AI employs, it also their unit composition. It has a tendency to spam weak units and try to overwhelm your own, which invariably fails once I get a few decent infantry and cavalry in my armies.

Still, overall enjoying it, but as expected for a day one release, it needs a few bugs ironed out.

 

My brother and I did a restart, myself again as Parthia, him as Pontus... mildly annoyed that he started with two minor provinces, but meh.
Still annoying that trying to claim Parth forces you into war with NINE other factions, because apparently Parthava has many allies.

That said, this time I sent my general with troops south west to take the settlement just south, and sent the lesser general to the edge of the east border, and had him recruit three horse archers. Next turn I took both the southern settlement, and the one just east. Swept south again, took out that capitol, although apparently they lost the support of their former friends and their last province just below that was taken from them while doing so. I promptly took it out from under their wounded forces. also, got myself a profitable trade deal with Baktria and the guys below them.

Went west into the desert to take Bam(heh), and apparently acquired an anti-siege Wonder there. Mostly shuffled my forces onto one 20-unit+Veteran(Champion) army, but my others were building up enough that they were able to deter a siege by combining my second and third armies. Apparently my large army couldn't take on an equal-strength force from Parthava, just because of two damned groups of median cavalry. Managed to survive, barely, but lost three of the remaining four groups to desert attrition at the start of the next turn. Would have lost the last one, too, but I was at maximum movement range able to meet up with another army that was forming into max size, and able to stand just outside the desert. Level 4 tradition army saved, phew.

Regrouped, but right as I took out the capitol of the Parth region, the Dahae(green, just north-east of the starting Nisa and start as your only ally) had managed to struggle and capture Kath to their North, had apparently marched a decent army through Nisa to take the north-western settlement in Parth. They proceeded to move on to take another to the west, but seem to have stopped for now. I managed to get the one west of the Parth capitol, and aim to take Ekbatana, another capitol just west of that territory, but need to deal with a max-sized Persian army first. That's what my two maxed armies engaging them next turn are for, though.

Also, Parthava was nice enough to provide me an extra Magus(Dignitary) and Veteran(Champion) before kicking the bucket, and before I was able to produce a second of my own. Couldn't get their Ears of the King(Spy), despite the simultaneous efforts of three Agents at 68/75/95% values. Actually, I think I have a third Magus, too.

All in all, while I've had to deal with considerably more enemies than my brother over as Pontus, he has 6 or 7 territories, and 1800 income(similar army expenses), and I have 8 territories with just over 5000 income. I didn't really think about the advantage of not having to convert regions to my culture before being able to use them.

 

Yeah, I've learnt not to just randomly upgrade stuff whenever I can till I have the food and public order to support it, and even then having food left-over's kinda necessary for the replenishment of your armies.

Basically set out a strategy of having my core city, maybe 2 as my main military centre points maxing out military buildings and the town centres, everything else till it costs me too much in food/order - and then everything else is food/order/profit making, probably industry as that's where I tend to lean in Research when I'm not going into military, though it depends on the buildings/who I'm playing as.

From there it's just a case of converting everything I conquer and ensuring I always have an up-to-date military centre in every other region so I can fall back and reinforce if need be. Still learning to use dignitaries etc to the fullest of their capabilities and it's taking some learning.

Started out another campaign, this time as the Julia of Rome and re-took Northern Italy inside two turns thanks to a lucky spy poisoning the enemy General making the only army between me and the Etruscan capital a cake-walk. Lost my fleet trying to wipe out their final city and experienced my first Naval battle - Bizarre things. I lost and my Admiral fell back only to be harassed again, my Admiral and his Legion went down fighting as they took out 171 Italian Spearmen from the boarding party when they were a poultry 25.

Took the final Etruscan city 2 turns later and after their 4 fleets/armies sailing around smashed themselves relentlessly into Neapolis and failed, they were exterminated. Eyeing up the Carthaginian city to the south of Sicily to complete my second province and then settle in as I get my infrastructure sorted out before ramping up with more armies.

Tech wise I basically rushed Vet Legionaries and now find myself heading for dignitaries, not too sure what I'll go into afterwards as that should be enough to secure my short term objectives.

 

Heavy Infantry is king. A single group of heavy infantry from halfway up the tech tree can pretty much kill ten to twenty times their number in any flavour of light infantry you care to name, and the majority of garrisons are mobs, levy spearmen and light skirmishers.

Slingers are good. Dirt cheap, decent range, and surprisingly deadly - especially if you're up against unarmoured targets. For Gauls, Celts and Germanics, they're a staple until you start hitting the 'civilized' folk down south.

Navies aren't just for sinking boats. Very early on as Rome you can build a navy of an admiral with Triarii in a Quinquireme and as many Principes as you damn well please in cheap Biremes, and if you spot an undefended city you can just assault, land all your men and treat it as a regular land battle.

 

At least as Rome I can manage marriage and adoption on the Faction screen. There you can simply adopt the people of the other "houses".

 

I'm not a fan of the faction setup either. One of the things they said R2 was going to be good for was the role playing sequence stuff, but with the way it is, I honestly don't give a crap about any of the characters.

The other thing really annoying me is the fact you can't zoom out that far on the map and have to use that overlay thing.

Other than that I like the game. Just have to get used to the different atmosphere.

 

This is pretty much my main problem with the game so far. I feel no attachment to any of my generals. They're just randomly generated characters with various combat traits. There's none of the flavour from Rome 1 or Medieval 2.

Also, while it's nice to be able to specialise armies, after a point it too feels a little generic. I'd like some unique 'character traits' for armies, like having a reputation for cowardice or brutality.

I'm a little worried about this game's replayability. With the dumb AI and lack of role playing elements, I'm not sure what will keep drawing me back in like other TW games have.

 

So either I'm missing something or it's a physical impossibility for me to get Archers as Rome. I have the right tech research and everything, but I can't build a training ground which you need to upgrade to get access to archers - I can only build Fields of Mars, which is where the entirety of my melee force comes from.

 

BsuperB, build Field of Mars, then on the second level, go for Auxiliary Camp branch. That will grant you archers.

Other:
Just tried a campaign as Athens, and checked the hoplites, the spears look a bit short based on previous games, no overlapping spears to the front.

 

That is actually historically correct...it are the phalanx pikemen who have the 5 meter sarissa and create the massive spear wall. Those are the people with who Alexander the Great conquered half the world.

Play some time and you should get them..

 

Fairly certain I have an Aux camp and I still can't get Archers, just everything but them - I can't build whatever I need to get half the military buildings that effect ranged units and it's... weird. Hell, doesn't even make sense. WHy can I not build a range and the others that I forget off the top of my head?

I dunno, maybe I'm missing something somewhere - I built an Auxillary camp somewhere, I'm sure of it - and I just got access to heavy cav and something else that was melee orientated, probably auxillary infantry.