As amazing as that battle was, I only think I won because the AI charged its 2800 reinforcements across the entire map to basically rush down a narrow street defended by 2 Legions with my General just behind them to cut down anyone that broke through - Something like 400 guys deployed vs 5080. I lost 77 to the AI's 2800 with 537 more captured before they routed. Jesus christ I thought I was screwed and honestly should have been.

Thank god they never scouted the rear held by about 60 Roarii from the garrison as I literally took this town the turn before.

Edit; Forget the Red Skull thing, seems to be whenever your army's suffering attrition outside of a siege be it starvation, desert attrition etc. Good to know.

 

Strange.. My Roman navy pretty much slaughtered every thing in its way especially transporters.. I never have the troop advantage and still win.

And yeah boarding transports wasn´t your brightest idea^^.. ramming is much more effective.

Red skulls mean attrition= Starvation, in northern regions the cold and in southern desert, you can avoid the later two by parking you armies on the streets and not in the middle of the landscape.


So I am near the end(maybe 10-15 turns to go)... and it seems like I will really lose my match. Libya seems unwilling to ally with me which means I missed Africa and all my troops are in Persia fighting against the Seleucid and its endless satraps. Should have conquered Carthage and its friends when I had the time instead of trying to play nice^^.

 

Yeah, ramming would've made more sense but it seems difficult to do when the AI's constantly screwing around with its ships, not really trying to avoid you so much as make sure the helm is always facing you so all you do is ram the front and probably hurt your own ship more than theirs.

Perfectly fine strategy, just didn't seem to work. That and none of my ships had the ram ability, though row faster is effectively the same thing so, eh. Still think I'll just auto-resolve naval battles and not bother building a fleet as odds are good I'll need the money elsewhere.

Unless I build a couple and basically stack them with Legionaries to go take the East whilst I finish off Spain, anyway.

 

So, I started the prologue campaign, and promptly got my ass handed to me. I decided to try again with a custom one, this time as Macedon.

Holy. Fucking. Hell. Hoplites are perhaps the best thing ever invented. Alexander's massive conquest? Makes so much sense to me now.

 

On an unrelated note, I've kept meaning to post it here.

Parthian Ears of the King(Spies) make me think of Braavos:
"All men must serve."
"A man is patient."(I think this is the line they use)

 

BsuperB, if the crew of a ship is missile troops, you have to first switch them to melee combat (second button from the left). Then you should be able to click on a ship and see the ramming icon. The leftmost button switches between boarding and ramming.

 

I just cannot naval battle. I don't know what it is, but even when I hold numerical superiority I get my ass kicked.

 

So finished my Rome campaign with a military victory.. managed to secure the whole of Armenia and a military alliance with Libya in one turn. Seleucid and its allies managed to be at least some challenge but I think most it came from the vastness of its territory (pretty much the whole Persian empire) instead of good troops or cleverness.


After that I started as Macedon, wanted to see how difficult it would be to conquer Persia first and then the rest of the world. After some trouble with subduing Thracia I got the money and troops that enabled me expand into Asia (Minor) and from there into Persia proper. I avoided Seleucid but otherwise nothing troubled the mighty phalanxes of Alexander's successors (especially the nomadic horsemen died to thousands before me). I was just finishing cleaning up Persia when I got Seleucid agreeing to be my client kingdom. This catapulted me into empire 3 and surprise,surprise lead to civil war. And I have no idea how to stop it this time... even if my troops weren´t all in Persia I am sceptical if I could stop those masses but with them being there and still fighting it seems hopeless for me. See for yourself.

http://i.imgur.com/bKA3e4C.jpg

 

That's very likely the point. Shout outs errwhere.

 

Hmm... I really should stop just capturing everything for myself. Just noticed my corruption is up to 13.#%. I admit to not having the tech tiers that reduce global corruption, but even so.

I'm guessing that's the main reason to make satrapies/client-states, right? Also, I feel silly asking, but if you have one of the aforementioned, does it give you true control of a province, such that you can enact policies?

 

Attrition seems to be a very strange mechanic. While I was expanding East as Rome I eventually butted heads with Macedon who at this point still only owned Pella and that other village they started off with. I slapped back their army at Pella and took it, but the interesting thing was, the remnants of their army was suffering attrition inside the last territory they had left. Bug or intentional because maybe that last village had no food?

 

Pretty sure that's the food mechanic. If they didn't have a positive food supply then they get attrition and reinforcement penalties, iirc.

 

Nope you can´t. However they count for missions/quest and the end goal.

Client States/Satrapies are pretty much useless.. its like a defensive alliance with a small money bonus. They still can and do act independently and are not really much help in a war (They don´t even have to join ifyou start it).
The only reason the create them is if you can´t be bothered to conquer the last, out of the way, province or want to have a buffer between you and you enemies while you concentrate on a other front.


I also did some testing around the civil war event (mostly to see how to avoid it long enough for my armies to come back). It seems strongly tied to the Empire 3 level because I did try several times with varying power balances (60-40, 50-50, 40-60) and it always happened the second or third turn after reaching 3. After I however ended the alliance with one of my bigger client states and sunk below the third level I was fine for at least 6-7 turns (nearly enough for my 4 legions to make it back^^) but then it happened while being on level 2. But that seems more of an random event because I reloaded, changed nothing, and it didn´t happen this time.

So if you want to avoid losing the heart of your empire to it I suggest to keep an eye on it and start moving troops to your capital when you get close to reaching the third level.

 

Didn't answer the point about corruption, but meh.(i.e. Satrapies/Client-states are essentially a source of income that does not increase your empire-wide corruption level)

Either way, I'm almost at Empire level 3 myself, so I'll watch out, I suppose.

 

Haven't noticed Corruption being too much of a problem, I'm sitting around 20% but I've also got 10% global corruption reduction from two complete tech tiers and still sitting on 8k or so a turn income wise. That said, I know my city build's nowhere near perfect and I could probably play around with a few of my larger ones to maximise profit.

I'm also running low taxes which helps a little with food/order though it's probably negligible. Outside that, I just try and hire someone who gets a reduction to corruption, but I've only seen two agents with it thus far. Not too sure how else you can battle corruption barring reductions - I made Carthage a client state back before they got crushed and I took the lands for myself, but I can't say I really noticed any significant income.

With trade routes - The income on them when you hover over them, would that be per turn or the total sum earned thus far? I'm leaning towards income per turn as somehow only making 2300 over a 84 year trade agreement doesn't seem right somehow when I'm importing nothing and exporting 4 goods. If it is indeed income, my tax income must be abysmal or someone has ridiculous piracy rates in their waters.

 

Don't know abou Rome 2, but in Shogun 2 protectorates were very useful as buffer states and proxy wars. Three of them in your borders, worh a little help of protection and money in the beggining, and you would be in an excellent defensible position.

 

Found a loophole to avoid fighting the civil war. Simply station a general/admiral on each side of your city, if the civil war event happens no/only a few troops will spam^^. I really had enough of fighting the massive troops that spam as Macedonia or a similar state because the ironic thing is that Carthage and Rome spams the fewest troops (they are the only faction were your "own" armies turn against you).

 

I had a massive glitch for the civil war in my Rome campaign. Because of the direction from which the Senate assaulted Rome, the entire map screwed up.

One of my biggest complaints so far is that the AI never builds siege equipment and always goes for burning out your gate.

 

I've seen them build siege towers.

 

They're useless in Rome, they give you barely any money and dont even trade with you, they like to get in wars with other client states as well.