Kevin's Watch

That reminds me - I've never even seen the Macedonians yet, that I can remember, and yet I know they haven't been defeated...

They're just east of Italy, they should be fighting against the Brutii, it you go south of Germany/south-east of Gaul you should find yourself in Peloponnesia with some Macedonian phalanx/cavalry armies to fight.

I must just have missed the 'Faction destroyed' message, then. I already have everything between Germania and Greece (except for a few pesky Thracians).

See if they turn up on the faction info screen (the one with the graphs). That'll be a sure way to know.

Do you know which factions are playable? So far I have the Seleucids and the Carthaginians on my 'start campaign' menu, but I've also outlived Pontus, Parthia, Numidia, Macedon and Dacia....

Yeah, those vicars made a few of what should have been terminal errors. I was thinking it would be good to have another team playing the barbarians.

I'm just getting to grips with the campaign at the moment. I keep taking an army out of a city, then losing it to a revolt a couple of turns later. I might start again, as I'm pretty banged up and a long way from help. Annoyingly, some barbarians have blockaded my capital's docks and the game crashes whenever I fight them off. I'll try it with the 1.1 patch later.

I haven't ventured online yet, but I'm really bad at RTSs in general. I had a go on Dawn of War the other day and got a royal spanking. My starting position was in the middle of a river, and I got attacked on two fronts before any of my allies could reach me.

Egypt, Seleucids, Carthage, Parthia, Gaul, Germania, Britons and the Greek Cities are all playable.

SPQR, Macedon, Pontus, Armenia, Dacia, Scythia, Spain, Thrace and Numidia are unplayable.

If you finish the Roman campaign (even the short campaign will do it) it'll unlock all the playable ones for you. Otherwise you have to personally eliminate individual factions to unlock them.

Nav, military presence seems to ba a major factor in public order. A city with no soldiers is always unhappy; you need at least a few good units in there to keep it. That's why bargaining for cities is a risk - I bought two Thracian cities, and they come without a garrison. One of them lasted long enough to build some Town Watch, the other rebelled after a single turn, and I never got it back (was busy with Dacia, and Scythians got there first).

I actually had three units of town guard, a light infantry regiment and a general in there and they still kicked me out. The problem was that I was put under too much time pressure by the senate and so left on a mission before I was ready. Having read up on the game I now know that the senate will sometimes deliberately overstretch you so that every now and then you'll fail and be weakened. I'm gonna ignore them and consolidate for a bit.

Don't ignore them too much, if you do they'll outlaw you and you'll be at war with the senate and the other Roman factions.

You sure? I only do about one in every five Senate missions (probably less), and I've yet to be outlawed.

Just thought I'd mention that I'm getting my very long awaited copy of Rome Total War tonight. Yahoo! Been waiting for this for ages!

The Total War series has totally spoiled other RTS games for me.

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I really need to go and get it, as I've been meaning to for months. O.O

I've just been a bit apprehensive...

I did, after all, waste far too many hours immersed in Shogun: Total War. =P

I destroyed Rome the other day. For some reason the senate had a fortress full of soldiers in the province but only 3 units in Rome itself. They disbanded once the city was taken.

I've noticed the same in my game - Rome is always empty, but with a huge army right outside. Does the Senate have family members, or just the City?

They have lots of family members, you can see some of them in the senate, they always fill the spots they don't give to any of the factions.

Yeah, Got it. Damn, the earlier ones were brilliant, but this one makes them look rubbish.

Worth the wait.

So, I just want to be clear on this, if you complete any imperial campaign, it unlocks the other playable faction for you to choose from?

And do the ships work the same way that they did in Medieval? i.e. you have to have a ship in each "zone" of the sea in order to transport armies etc?

Damn, far too little sleep last night.

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Yes to the unlocking thing, don't know how ships worked in Medieval though, never played it.

Thanks.

Re Ships:
Basically, if you wanted to transport an army by sea, you had to have at least 1 ship unit in every "zone" of the sea between your departure and destination points.

How do you move armies by ship in Rome then?

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Put em in and move the ship.