Revolt of Spartacus is to Difficult?

[NomadUniverse]

I've been playing through the campaigns on moderate difficulty, and while a few have given me trouble, I worked them out soon enough.

But I've made my way up to Enemies of Rome - Revolt of Spartacus, and i just cant seem to beat this level. Not only do you have to defeat the attackers, you have to defend another tribe and yourself.

I've tried several recommended methods, but nothing seems to work. I get attacked before i can build any sort of army, or all the people I'm supposed to defend get killed before I can do anything.

I've tried going straight for siege, attacked when I made the first one. Two other times I've advanced to Iron Age only to have my ally die out.

I just dont get it, you get absolutely swarmed before you have time to get any army let alone one that can defend such an attack, yet I've seen people play through it on hardest and just wall up and build up. That person said you need some luck.

As for tribute, I tried that too. Just ended up with dead allies and no resources.

[James3157]

If all else fails you could also use cheats. Not the funnest way to win in my personal opinion, but it is not impossible to win with cheats at least for single player.

[NomadUniverse]

Originally posted by James3157:

If all else fails you could also use cheats. Not the funnest way to win in my personal opinion, but it is not impossible to win with cheats at least for single player.

Been playin since it came out originally, know all the "cheats". Not looking for that.

[Marco]

Originally posted by NomadUniverse:

I've been playing through the campaigns on moderate difficulty, and while a few have given me trouble, I worked them out soon enough.

But I've made my way up to Enemies of Rome - Revolt of Spartacus, and i just cant seem to beat this level. Not only do you have to defeat the attackers, you have to defend another tribe and yourself.

I've tried several recommended methods, but nothing seems to work. I get attacked before i can build any sort of army, or all the people I'm supposed to defend get killed before I can do anything.

I've tried going straight for siege, attacked when I made the first one. Two other times I've advanced to Iron Age only to have my ally die out.

I just dont get it, you get absolutely swarmed before you have time to get any army let alone one that can defend such an attack, yet I've seen people play through it on hardest and just wall up and build up. That person said you need some luck.

As for tribute, I tried that too. Just ended up with dead allies and no resources.

I haven't played Rome/Enemies of Rome campaigns yet. Which mission is this? Early or late campaign? Because I now see EoR begins with 'Crossing the Alps'.

[NomadUniverse]

Originally posted by slow ass garbanzo:

Originally posted by NomadUniverse:

I've been playing through the campaigns on moderate difficulty, and while a few have given me trouble, I worked them out soon enough.

But I've made my way up to Enemies of Rome - Revolt of Spartacus, and i just cant seem to beat this level. Not only do you have to defeat the attackers, you have to defend another tribe and yourself.

I've tried several recommended methods, but nothing seems to work. I get attacked before i can build any sort of army, or all the people I'm supposed to defend get killed before I can do anything.

I've tried going straight for siege, attacked when I made the first one. Two other times I've advanced to Iron Age only to have my ally die out.

I just dont get it, you get absolutely swarmed before you have time to get any army let alone one that can defend such an attack, yet I've seen people play through it on hardest and just wall up and build up. That person said you need some luck.

As for tribute, I tried that too. Just ended up with dead allies and no resources.

I haven't played Rome/Enemies of Rome campaigns yet. Which mission is this? Early or late campaign? Because I now see EoR begins with 'Crossing the Alps'.

It's only one or two after that, I think the third.

[Marco]

Originally posted by NomadUniverse:

It's only one or two after that, I think the third.

Thank you, I unlocked it today. Yes, it's the third mission. I'm going to play it tomorrow and post my feedback here.

[NomadUniverse]

Originally posted by slow ass garbanzo:

Originally posted by NomadUniverse:

It's only one or two after that, I think the third.

Thank you, I unlocked it today. Yes, it's the third mission. I'm going to play it tomorrow and post my feedback here.

Be aware the enemy starts in the Iron Age with a mass of centurions, legion (possibly just longswordsmen), heavy cavalry, ballistas, and heavy catapults. You start in the bronze age with 10 villagers.

The red guys are sweeping across the map west to east killing the yellow guys. You have to kill all the red guys before they kill they yellow guys. How you do that is the big question here.

Good luck.

[Raz 89]

i beat it using only ballistas/helepolis

[NomadUniverse]

Originally posted by Raz 89:

i beat it using only ballistas/helepolis

I finally beat it just a few hours ago. I got lucky. They left a yellow town center untouched for a while and I was able to sneak out and wall off shortly after walling myself off. They all moved in along the wall and I'd finally held out long enough to amass a fleet of helepolis.

Another possible strategy is one of the yellow villagers walks into your area very early on, you can wall him in with you. as long as he stays alive and you defend, you can take all the time you like. Maybe when I go through on the next difficulty.

[Marco]

Originally posted by NomadUniverse:

Be aware the enemy starts in the Iron Age with a mass of centurions, legion (possibly just longswordsmen), heavy cavalry, ballistas, and heavy catapults. You start in the bronze age with 10 villagers.

The red guys are sweeping across the map west to east killing the yellow guys. You have to kill all the red guys before they kill they yellow guys. How you do that is the big question here.

Good luck.

OK, played today at Hard and won at 2nd attempt but it took me 1h48mins (ingame speed 1.5) and I had to micro manage like crazy. Pop limit restricted to 50 is one of many reasons why this mission is so difficult, but also represents an enemy's weakpoint at the same time.

Red will attack between minutes 15 and 19 and of course they are too overwhelming (most of their force is represented by upgraded siege weapons that can destroy towers at a distance and by tanky centurions). I concentrated on building and upgrading walls (note: I made a scout to explore the map and find the spots where wall layers had to be placed), then built additional academies, town centers, storage pits and stables. When they broke the walls from 2-3 spots, I brought some villagers to the south and built a new town center. With 35-40 villagers scattered to the west, I managed to save some and kept one building medium walls even on the shores of river fords, while others constructed new houses, farms and cut wood.

AI will concentrate on destroying the first wall layers you placed during the first minutes of the game, but at some point will send swordsmen to your new town center. Luckily, I collected many resources in the early game and built 4 new stables. All I had to do was spamming sworded cavalry. I lost many soldiers and villagers anyway, because some enemies still sneaked past my defenses, then upgraded catapults attacked my walls and new buildings many times.

Slowly, I upgraded cavalry's attack and armor. When I had 6-7 horsemen, I sent them to kill red villagers and attack legions. Both yellow towns were wiped off the map, I didn't lose the mission just because two yellow town centers remained untouched. Also, I didn't fight centurions or priests. Looks like red catapults killed their own units when detroying my buildings, this included priests when attempting to convert my stables during their first units' spam.

In the end, I slowly advanced to east to mine new gold and stone, and I razed some red buildings. AI didn't have many villagers and when I reached the north-east side of the map, where they had a few town centers and two sentry towers, I defeated red (AI resigned) by killing the remaining legions+axemen+slingers+catapults that were patrolling the area.

Back to pop limit, I think they didn't train so many units after I killed their heavies because they made a few Tool Age units as I pointed out above, despite red villagers were still mining gold to the east.

Yes, it's very annoying when an overwhelming snowball starts demolishing your main base like they were the Huns, and maybe it's a matter of luck too if you still don't lose the mission. But it's still doable. In AOE2, Saladin's mission #4 is pretty similar to this one (you have to leave your main base and build a new one at Hebron because Tiberias and Tyre will swarm it).

[NomadUniverse]

Originally posted by slow ass garbanzo:

Originally posted by NomadUniverse:

Be aware the enemy starts in the Iron Age with a mass of centurions, legion (possibly just longswordsmen), heavy cavalry, ballistas, and heavy catapults. You start in the bronze age with 10 villagers.

The red guys are sweeping across the map west to east killing the yellow guys. You have to kill all the red guys before they kill they yellow guys. How you do that is the big question here.

Good luck.

OK, played today at Hard and won at 2nd attempt but it took me 1h48mins (ingame speed 1.5) and I had to micro manage like crazy. Pop limit restricted to 50 is one of many reasons why this mission is so difficult, but also represents an enemy's weakpoint at the same time.

Red will attack between minutes 15 and 19 and of course they are too overwhelming (most of their force is represented by upgraded siege weapons that can destroy towers at a distance and by tanky centurions). I concentrated on building and upgrading walls (note: I made a scout to explore the map and find the spots where wall layers had to be placed), then built additional academies, town centers, storage pits and stables. When they broke the walls from 2-3 spots, I brought some villagers to the south and built a new town center. With 35-40 villagers scattered to the west, I managed to save some and kept one building medium walls even on the shores of river fords, while others constructed new houses, farms and cut wood.

AI will concentrate on destroying the first wall layers you placed during the first minutes of the game, but at some point will send swordsmen to your new town center. Luckily, I collected many resources in the early game and built 4 new stables. All I had to do was spamming sworded cavalry. I lost many soldiers and villagers anyway, because some enemies still sneaked past my defenses, then upgraded catapults attacked my walls and new buildings many times.

Slowly, I upgraded cavalry's attack and armor. When I had 6-7 horsemen, I sent them to kill red villagers and attack legions. Both yellow towns were wiped off the map, I didn't lose the mission just because two yellow town centers remained untouched. Also, I didn't fight centurions or priests. Looks like red catapults killed their own units when detroying my buildings, this included priests when attempting to convert my stables during their first units' spam.

In the end, I slowly advanced to east to mine new gold and stone, and I razed some red buildings. AI didn't have many villagers and when I reached the north-east side of the map, where they had a few town centers and two sentry towers, I defeated red (AI resigned) by killing the remaining legions+axemen+slingers+catapults that were patrolling the area.

Back to pop limit, I think they didn't train so many units after I killed their heavies because they made a few Tool Age units as I pointed out above, despite red villagers were still mining gold to the east.

Yes, it's very annoying when an overwhelming snowball starts demolishing your main base like they were the Huns, and maybe it's a matter of luck too if you still don't lose the mission. But it's still doable. In AOE2, Saladin's mission #4 is pretty similar to this one (you have to leave your main base and build a new one at Hebron because Tiberias and Tyre will swarm it).

Thanks for your efforts in detailing your adventure. I beat it on moderate this morning. I played through several more times, using writing and scouts to plan ahead. I ended up walling off in a specific order red left the north west TC alone. I snuck out and walled it off.

I have found they will leave walls alone if there are no towers behind them. I dont know if this works on harder difficulties but if they cant see anything beyond the walls they wont attack the walls. I was able to progress straight to helepolis and start wiping out those amassed along the wall. One of their catapults eventually got a section of my wall and only a few came through. They then attacked where I walled in yellow. I rolled out 8 helepolis and finished them off.

The generation I won on seemed different to most of the ones of that level previously. Their numbers didn't seem as large and they left one of the town centers whereas previously I'd rolled straight to Iron Age asap only to have them make their final kill as I did so.

Thanks everyone for ideas and advice. Already moved on to the next level, failed the first go but heading back in right now.

[Yup]

did video playthroughs of all the levels this one you have to turtle up for 30 min and then shoot your shot

[Yup]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-0WvGzFdhs&t=1s&ab_channel=JH

[LOVE IT!]

This mission is pretty brutal, I had to try it a few times. Here's what worked for me;

1. As tempting as it is, do NOT rush Iron Age (T4) because this will cause Crassus to send a bunch of troops your way. This happened to me twice, and I'm pretty confident the AI is just coded that way because they attacked much more quickly than the "15 to 18 minute" estimate.
2. If you build a stables and train one scout, you'll be able to see a bunch of natural choke-points surrounding your base that are formed from the trees. These are just past a couple of gold/stone deposits to the East and North of your base. There's also a little gap in the North tree-wall besides the map's edge so be sure to plug it. The AI won't target the trees, so you can entirely barricade yourself without much trouble or stone needed.
3. I had around 10 vills on food, around 10 on wood and then about 9 on gold, occasionally blitzing through some stone (e.g. at the start of the mission). I probably didn't need quite so many, but it let me get everything upgraded pretty quick and enabled...
4. The unit composition, which was a bunch of fully upgraded Ballistas (Ballistae?) with fully upgraded Hoplites/Centurions in the front to tank catapult shots. Either unit type on it's own can basically shred most of the units that Crassus will use, you only really have to worry about his siege units
5. When letting my units out, I would delete one section of the wall and then re-seal it. This didn't stop the enemy from eventually attacking my walls, but it bought me around 40 minutes which was more than enough time to upgrade everything
6. Crassus actually Rage Quit once I got near his base around the 1H mark, I think he used up his starting resources and saw that he couldn't stop 10 Centurions, 1 priest and 4 Ballista.

I also found that defending the freed slaves (Yellow) basically happened by itself once he started targetting me. To be fair I did send 10 Centurions out to raid one of his raiding parties, at which point he focused on me and only me.

Oh and I would recommend upgrading your economy + walls, but I never actually needed to use my backup chariot plan so that was a waste of 1000g