Total War: Rome II

[I'm Murrin]

I'm one city away from victory. One specific city, because I'm already above the total number, and just need to complete Britannia.

I decided to do the victory the lazy way, and allied with Seleucid instead of attacking the one city in Armenia that I needed for the victory condition.

On the other hand, I also decided to take Ireland before taking the last city, to complete one of the secondary objectives.

And then my game crashed at the very end of a turn, so I've got to go do it all over again.

[I'm Murrin]

Wiktory!

In the end, there are only three factions on the map that are not either my allies, or clients of one of my allies.

167 turns played. 50 provinces controlled, 136 settlements. 5 allies.

315 battles fought. 297 battles autoresolved. I have no idea how the people who play out their battles manage to complete a campaign.

[I'm Murrin]

Second campaign, Carthage, Hard difficulty.

And damn, this is much harder. Every city I try to go over and attack has an army on it bigger than I can pull together. And the two field battles I've fought, I lost both of them decisively!

This is not going well. Note, not only have I increased the difficulty, this is the first campaign I've started since the AI improvements that makes them recruit better units and build more military buildings and tech.

[Avatar]

I have no idea how the people who play out their battles manage to complete a campaign.

Uh, I frequently don't.

I'll often change my ideas half-way through and start again. I also often run out of time, otherwise I usually mod the turn time to increase the number of turns. (Although IIRC RII doesn't have a turn limit does it?)

...this is the first campaign I've started since the AI improvements that makes them recruit better units and build more military buildings and tech.

Should play another one on normal then?

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Nah, a campaign takes long enough I'm not willing to do extra.

And you might not, but there seem to be plenty of people who play multiple 200-turn campaigns and come along to complain about the battles. I don't know where they find the time for turns and battles.

[I'm Murrin]

The second DLC pack, "Nomadic Tribes" unlocking playable factions Massagetae, Roxolani, and Royal Scythia, is completely free to download until the 29th October.

[Avatar]

Damn. Those bastards. I loved the Scythians in Rome I.

I had to edit the game files to make them playable, and eventually my hordes of horse archers covered the known world.

I strongly suspect that I have to get it now. It will take days to download.

Thanks for the heads up. Damn you.

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Interesting thing, anyone who pre-ordered the game and kept up has now received 7 new playable factions free. The game launched with 9. (Pontus was meant to be DLC but was added at launch, so I haven't counted it. The three Greek Cities were free with pre-orders. Seleucid was given free to everyone. And now the three Nomadic Tribes.)


On my campaign, I seem to have gotten over the early trouble. Have taken all of Mauretania (after the Gaetuli and Masaesyli had taken the towns from Nova Carthago), and then Lusitania. Now have over 20 food surplus (maximum growth bonus) and 5k income - not quite enough to keep up construction and recruitment, but improving.

I finally have barracks and other military buildings in Baetica, so I'm no longer stuck with low level pikemen and javelin throwers. Three armies in southern Spain preparing to conquer, one more mustering but planning to sail east. My other large army is preparing to take Syracuse, which will provoke a war with Rome (the Syracusae moved all their armies to Alalia, where they help their allies by sitting around watching the blockade instead of taking the town from the Etruscans).

I'm finding agents even more useful. Have started using the abilities that reduce public order to make regions rebel and cripple their forces, which I didn't have to do in the Normal campaign.

I'm at about turn 45.

[Avatar]

If I do get it now, I'll skip the greek pack. I'll at least wait until that is on sale.

With the addition of the nomad one, I already have my first 3 campaigns lined up: Scythia, Rome, and Egypt. After that, I'll see.

--A

[Avatar]

I caved. It's downloading now, which will probably take me a couple days. (I love Africa but our internet is slow. )

Bloody Steam...took me all day to get them to accept my money. I hate them.

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Heh. I'm thinking of taking a break from this to try out the new Batman Arkham game.

On my campaign: Took most of Spain, destroyed Rome, started trying to get alliances going because I want an economic victory this time.

Then my civil war broke out early, with about 7 stacks of army and 7 stacks of navy (far, far, far more units than I have) appearing at Carthage.

[I'm Murrin]

So at first it looked like the civil war was going to be very tough, with the sheer number of enemy units. And then a few turns in the rebels became unable to sustain all their armies and started falling apart to attrition.

They're still not a pushover because of large armies that they keep close together, but those armies are dying off slowly on their own.

[I'm Murrin]

Still going. Civil war fizzled out. I am now the Carthaginian Empire.

Had to abandon Libya by breaking the client state treaty. This allowed me to turn Athens, Macedon, and Sparta into Military Allies. I'm gaining a fair few of those. All of Greece, Macedon, and Thrace is in some way allied with me, and bits and pieces of Anatolia. I have defensive alliances with the other factions in Italy. I'm also Defensive Allies with two of the British factions.

My next steps are to take Massilia (they have no allies), then make war on the Gallic Confederation, which control most of Gaul.

At the same time I'm sailing all the way over to Bosphorus to attack Royal Scythia. That'll pitch me into a war with Colchis (controlling Caucasia and parts of Anatolia) and the Aorsoi, who have most of the northeast.

The intended result is that my allies will attack Colchis from the west while I push through from the north, leaving me with Caucasia (for victory condition).

[Avatar]

Well, to my surprise, my download only took around 28 hours, so I was playing by Sunday morning.

Ignored the tutorial, (nice to be able to do that) and started my first campaign (Normal, Normal) with the Royal Scythians, and it's been bloody hard so far.

Almost nobody has been willing to trade, and the one faction I want to kill (the last remaining region in my home province) insists on being very friendly and attacking my enemies for me. (Or claiming to.) I can't find how to turn them into a client state though so I can control the whole province.

Must say on several occasions I thought I was totally screwed, only to pull off some bloody lucky defences. (I really must set the battle time limit though. )

220 BC and I'm only holding like 5 regions and no whole provinces, and still only allowed 3 armies.

And with only one exception, I'm just fighting guys from my own culture so far. Bastards are doing just what I do...fielding hordes of horse archers. My guys experience is starting to tell though.

I think I might have to mod the turn times...my generals are dying of old age just as they get really useful.

Otherwise, bar some economic teething troubles, I'm enjoying it.

Need to up my income and population growth though, towns aren't really expanding.

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Getting a client state doesn't give you control of the province, by the way. It counts toward victory conditions but not to things like Edicts and other Province bonuses. You have to actually capture and occupy for full control.

The easiest way to get a client state is to reduce a faction down to one city left, and then either win a battle at the city and choose the chain icon instead of occupying/looting, or sue for peace and demand it as a condition (not many willing to do that without the battle).

Client states are mostly useless. Occasionally they'll follow a war target and capture things you want them to, but not often. And they get into wars on their own. That's why I had to break my client state treaty with Libya - they were at war with all the Greek factions, and some others, that I was trying to build alliances with.

[Avatar]

Haha, thanks. Turns out it's different for the nomadic culture. I can't have a client state.

I can form a confederation though, which, funnily enough, does give me ownership of the other regions that join my confederation. (They also have to be nomads.)

Oddly, that hold-out wouldn't join up when they only had 1 city completely surrounded by my territory, but as soon as they captured another city (our mutual enemies) (only after I'd barely survived a huge attack from them, effectively whittling down their forces), the chance of confederation immediately went from low to high and they signed up.

I got their 2 biggest armies, and both their cities. It also changed the name of my faction from "The Royal Scythians" to "The Horde of the Steppes" which was quite amusing.

However, I also picked up a huge economic knock. And just as I got that sorted, the Mesopotamians came along and took my southernmost city, and about 6 other factions spontaneously declared war on me. (Guys from half-way across the map at that.)

So I owned 2 whole provinces for about 5 turns, now I'm down to 1 & 3 regions. And I had to declare war on Parthia to get the last region of the 2nd province, and they look like they're quite big.

Next few days should be fun...

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Yeah, the AI changes mean the AI factions form networks of alliances pretty quickly, and those tend to go along cultural lines. So you wind up getting war declared on you by lots of different people if you make a wrong step.

I had seen factions merge into Confederations in my latest game (Gallic and Germanic Confederation), didn't realise it was something the player could do, too. Guessing it's only for same culture?

[Avatar]

Think is, the bastards don't seem allied with anybody I attacked. I suppose they could be asking them to join the war in exchange for trade or whatever.

Nobody I've encountered is willing to trade with me. I think I gotta send out a scout and find some new cultures.

Yeah, the confederation is the barbarian culture alternative to client states. Not only can you only form it with other barbarians, but they have to be of the "same blood." (The little white hand-clasp icon in the faction list on the diplomacy screen.)

I'm still hung up in the same couple of provinces. I took Samandar back from the Medes (not Mesopotamians hahaha), fought off the Parthians and some other guys starting with a P, and lost it again a few turns later.

I did take the minor city in Bosphorus, and I'm planning to take the main one if I can keep the Medes off my back. Letting them keep Samandar for now while I try for Bosphorus.

Economy is in the tank though.

--A

[I'm Murrin]

My economy always seems to struggle for the first 50 turns or so. Once I finally get some momentum and a few extra cities it steadies out, usually once I establish one full province as a food surplus area.

[Avatar]

Well, I'm on turn 100 and it's still struggling. I did notice that the Scythians are a "hard start" faction though.

Managed to find a few trade partners further afield, so hopefully that will start helping. Took Samandar back, and took the capital of Bosphorus. There's still one region left, but it's owners are the only nearby faction trading with me so I don't want to take it yet.

My biggest problem right now, apart from aggressive campaign AI is the bloody enemy agents. I've got widespread unrest, attacks, incitement, sabotage, etc. happening every turn.

Gonna try save up a few turns so I can put out some of my own and try get rid of them.

--A