Saw it in the bargain bin, and since i've never really played these kind of games, i thought 5 euro's wasn't too much to get acquainted with the genre. (it also packs Barbarian Invasion btw)

I'm not too sure yet how things work but i'll learn, probably the hard way.

What i did learn is

* if you take a capital, it doesn't automatically surrender.
* reinforcements aren't a good idea, since the AI manages to get my family members killed etc
* i'm running short on money, war is expensive

Might give some updates later, got some time to play probably and my birthday (so left4dead) is still a week away.

If you got any pointers/things i probably don't know yet feel free to add.

heh, yea, the AI is retarded. That's a good thing to know.

Some tricks for combat... try to break their morale. Slaughtering them in a stand up fight is expensive in manpower... but if you can engage their infantry with your own, then hit em with a cavalry charge from behind, you can break and route much larger armies. then just chase them around the screen and slaughter the crap out of them.

Lots of real-world tactics work. Hiding forces in trees. Flanking. Forcing the enemy to fight up-hill. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Seeing as I just coached my brother through RTW and played a whole lot of Medieval 2 : TW of late, I'll help you as much as I can J.

I'm mostly good at the economic aspect of the game, for some reason. I always end obscenely rich. Basically, the trick lies in giving attention to city-building and troop management.

If you don't want to bother too much with it, just put your cities on automanagement but ALWAYS uncheck the automatic recruitment box. The AI is competent enough in constructing buildings but likes to build up huge armies of useless units in your cities.

Keep in mind that apart from an initial cost (their 'price'), every unit has an upkeep cost (you can see it if you right-click them for details) that will be charged to you every turn. Better units with more experience will cost more than others. Mercenaries tend to have high upkeep too.

There are a few units that have free upkeep as long as they are garrisoned in a city. These are the "militia" or "town watch" units. Use them to police your cities, not a fighting army.

Upkeep is the biggest tax on your income, so if you're fairly certain that the city isn't going to be attacked any time soon disband all troops in there (or move them to the front) and use a few militia units to police the city, perhaps under the government of a family member.

Disband mercenary troops as soon as they're not necessary anymore (except some elite mercanaries that are hard to get and have unique abilities you can't recruit yourself - like war elephants).

The key to power is the Medditeranean. if you have a lot of cities with ports at the sea, you have to expand their trade supplies and ports as fast as possible. Silver and gold are the sinews of war, to quote one of the loading screens.


On a more tactical/military level:

- use your generals sparingly. A good gneral can make all the difference in the world when it comes to troop morale. So yeah, don't let the AI use them too much.

-enemy AI will be HIGHLY dependent of who is commanding the army. A crap-ass general will succeed in charging your phalanx head-on with his bodyguard...a 9-star general will use ambushes and flanking tactics well and rally his troops. Of course, at "normal" level you should be able to beat them regardless. They're still pretty retarded.

-remember your strength as a Roman: world-class infantry. Your core infantry troops (Triarii, Principes, Legionnaires, Preatorian and Urban cohorts) are unmatched by ANY enemy infantry in the game save perhaps Spartan hoplites. Don't bother too much with light cavalry and skirmishers and whatnot. If you manage to go toe-to-toe with an enemy army you should have the upper hand.

-Having said that, also remember your weaknesses: your armies aren't very mobile or fast. It'll be a while before you get good heavy cavalry and they're not nearly the best in the game. Look out for horse archers and heavy cavalry flanking you, especially.

-if you're being attacked during a siege by the AI with a much bigger army, and you have a few cohorts good Roman infantry in your city, never let the AI fight for you. In a city with good walls, you'd be surprised at what you can hold off with 3-4 cohorts if you bottleneck the enemy army sufficiently.

-if you don't HAVE to attack during a siege, just wait it out. Attacking the walls instead of having the enemy sally forth to you can make a huge difference in losses. Likewise, don't sally forth when you're being sieged unless you have a very good reason or a much better army. Try to scare sieging enemy armies away by sneding reinforcements from other cities.

- morale and routing work contagiously. If one unit starts routing, the units around it suffer a drop in morale as well, etc etc. Sometimes one spark is all that's need to have an enemy army on the run. Killing a general always helps too. With some other factions that have heavy shock troops (like elephants and armored horsemen) you can sometimes send an entire army running by charging head on into their main force. Experiment with it and see what you can do. Breaking morale is a key element of fighting the huge armies of gauls and other barbarians. Some units are better at scaring enemies than others, too. Elephants, priests/druids, flaming pigs, war dogs, some barbarian elite troops, flaming ammo used by archers, etc.


Erh..well...that's it for now, I guess. Shoot me any question. Oh, and look out for family members with negative traits like "expensive tastes" and so forth. They tend to have penalties on tax income, so try to use them as generals, NOT as governers. Or just send them on suicide missions if they're useless.

There are far too many pointers for me to bother typing out properly but here goes...

- spears / pikes = good defense (esp. vs cavalry) but shit at attacking.
- download and install RTR Platinum (changes the game completely)
- use light infantry offensively only
- use guard mode if you want to hold ground / buy-time
- quarantine any plagued settlements. it is highly contagious to units / agents
- use cavalry for breaking / pursuit, not fighting
- enslave the more troublesome enemy settlements
- money = soldiers, so build trading stuff and sign trade agreements
- use flame arrows to spook enemy elephants, otherwise they will pwn j00
- use flame arrows vs chariots too, otherwise brace for impact

theres loads more especially if u play RTR, but i doubt youre that hardcore

Wow, that's a big read already, thx guys.

all good points. A few more obscure ones...

If there's plague about, you can get a spy infected, then send him around an enemy's cities, causing mass death and destruction.

When taking over cities that are large, it's helpful to just slaughter everyone. It's a big chunk of cash, plus it reduces the chance the city will rebel on you.

If I remember, R:TW has cities that drop hot oil on attackers. If you're being beseiged, it can actually be helpful to encourage them to bash down your gates. Just put a bunch of infantry units behind the gates and the enemy will pour all his forces into it... you just have to hold him there for a bit while the burning oil takes him out.

Stampeding an enemy's elephants is awesome.

Another one: if you take over a city from a non-Roman culture, make sure you demolish their temples from the start and build Roman temples. So 'sacred groves' for the Barbarians, 'temples of Bhaal' with the Carthiginians, Zoroaster with the selecueds and so forth.

This will speed up the cultural assimilation of the cities and their population.

Oh and once your cities become HUGE it's sometimes impossible to stop them from rioting; in that case stacking the entire city full of units of peasants is your best option.

Don't forget that one of the more important factors for happiness in a city is its distance to your capital. If your capital is, say, in Spain, your cities in the Middle East or Russian region WILL rebel. So adjust your capital from time to time to be at the centre of your empire.

Yea...another alternative to your cities getting huge and rebelling is to build full stacks of your best forces in that city. When you're sick of them whining and being bastards, move your forces out of the city until it rebels, then move back in again. Be sure to slaughter everyone. Those battles tend to be pretty costly in manpower, but sometimes it's the only way to make a city happy and productive again.

Something i might have missed: how do i move my capital?

Also: i'm in war with the Gauls, and those bitches offered me a ceasefire when i was besieging one of their cities. I didn't feel like it, so i made a counteroffer, saying they had to give up 2 of their cities.
I didn't expect them to even consider this option, but they asked me to pay an extra 7k+ and it was a deal. I counteroffered for 4k and they agreed (reluctantly it seems).

Now, is this good or is this bad? Maybe i would have been better of taking these cities by force, generally they suffer more than i do.

Also: both cities are packing peasants and town watch. What am i supposed to do with them? Discharge the ones i don't need and just keep a few for order?

Btw i restarted since i kinda messed up my first game. Got into a war without having a clue what a good infrastructure would be. So you can imagine i never had any cash. This game i seem to be the richest or one of the richest factions (that's why i could give those gauls money). Already have bigger cities than in my previous game (so i can finally build better units and use my previous ones as bait ).

One last thing: i keep getting offers for trade rights. What does it do/mean?

Trade rights mean you can trade with another faction. It's good for your income, but also good for theirs off course. I started playing RTW again last week, and I found out it really pays to conquer Rhodos. The Colossus wonder will give a nice boost to all your sea trade. Also, since public order is so troublesome, conquering the Peleponesos with the Statue of Zeus wonder will help you in that department.

J, if you took those 2 cities with only spending some money (and assuming you don't have money issues, which is what it sounds like) you just came out like a champ. I would agree... disband those units except for what you need to maintain order. Be sure to destroy and non-friendly structures to increase public order. If they're in dangerous areas you may wish to move some real forces in (or build them) in case of a counter attack.

Trade rights improve your trade income. Overall I always accept trade rights. To me the income I get is worth the income they get.

And you can move your capital in the city details screen. Click the city, then click the button left below the construction/recruitment screen to go to the detailed city overview of public order, religion, income, etc.

Iirc the "set this city as your capital" button is there somewhere.

You can also change your faction heir if you have a particulary crap faction heir and a young rising star in your family. I only change faction heirs once my "original" bloodline is gone (ie Scipii or Julii or Brutii), just because it's cool to keep the original bloodline, but don't be afraid to do it if you feel like it.

Look out that you don't do it too often, tho. A family member who has been 'demoted' to non-faction heir will get some negative traits because of it. Sour grapes!

That's a phenominal deal. Really good I say. The best way to conquer is without fighting at all. I love using gold to buy the hearts of my enemies, albeit with a capable force behind the wallet.



Keep enough to stay in control of order, including any possible spikes of discontent.



Mechanically i dont have a clue. I assumed it was always good for you and incresed income, so i accepted whenever possible.

In line with what Derf says about it being a great deal: diplomatic relations are linked to what you do in-game. Not just towards the other factions directly, but your behavior in general.

If you exterminate a lot of cities, use a lot of spies and assassins and move armies through enemy territories without a military access agreement, your reputation will dwindle rapidly.

he first few times I played I never understood why I was always branded "very untrustworthy" when I never broke alliances, always wanted to trade/buy regions, paid a lot of tributes/gifts to other factions etc.

Then i realized it was because I had a reputation of mass genocide. I still think it's kinda lame, tho. It's not because I will utterly destroy anyone who attacks me unprovoked that I alm untrustworthy, per se. You know? it doesn't mean I will attack anyone at random, just that I will kick major ass when someone attacks me. =P

Small update:

I was busy fighting with the Gauls for a while. And the senate kept giving me orders to annoy Carthage and Greece. In the end i had to take a few Carthage settlements, while i was still busy with the Gaul. That was no problem because my economy was still running great.

But then something unexpected happened: the Spanish (allies) suddenly decided to besiege a city. I could deal with a war on 2 fronts, but wasn't ready for a war on 3 fronts. I needed a bit of time to regroup and had to postphone some of my planned captures, but in the end i managed to take the last Carthagenian city, that was 1 thing less to worry about. And i could start harassing the Spanish in their rear. Only downside was that my money had gone down from 70k to 30k or so. I was fearing i wasn't doing so well, untill i noticed i was still the 2nd richest faction. Heh.

So now i've quickly disposed of the Gauls and i'm squeezing the life out of the Spanish. I think i've assassinated half of their family tree lol. Economy is running fine again and i'm up over 100k gold. By far the richest faction, also the most advanced.

Only 'problems' i'm having is rioting cities, it is hard to keep control indeed. And i seem to have quite some relatively useless family members

Basically i'm just having to exterminate cities because i'm unable to manage them otherwise. Ah well, as long as that's the most annoying i'm doing great i think.

After defeating Spain, i'll have to reeavaluate to see what i'll do: brutii are a massive power, i'm going to see if i can bribe people to attack them maybe. don't know if that really works in the game, but it would be nice