Whats the best way to start as Rome?

[Boomtwack]

Carthage keeps launching huge invasions so im stuck always defending against carthage and the Etruscan league

[Axlw]

Appease Carthage until you can conquer the Etruscan League, and while doing so make allies of Sparta and Athens. When you defeat the Etruscan League, wage war on Epirus to gain a bonus with Athens and Sparta. Once Epirus is defeated, move on to Syracuse.
It may not work for you, but that's how I started mine.

[Wayz]

Nail the etruscan league as fast as humanly possible blockade the island first turn but dont attack just leave them cutting off trade.
take the two italian cities in the first 3 or 4 turns (dont auto battle and use all missles before advancing (in short be a dirty camping coward)
then take the island and move on syracuse hopefuly by that point they are at war with carthage and you can catch them unawares...that is usualy a tough fight though and will give you a bad rep but you need it!
the faster you get all of southern italy the better, it is the best place for a military base.
i build training and a temple of mars in the city and spread the barracks and workshops in the towns and ALL my troops are trained there from then on.
i also use "meaningful resources" mod which gives me iron in southern italy so maybe not the best military base if you dont use this mod.

[Wayz]

Oh and reseach cohorts as fast as possible takes about 8 turns to get there i think maybe a litte more.
will cost you civil development and much needed cash at the start but is worth it to get to the reforms faster ,

[realist123]

Get military access to Syracuse and maybe trade. They are friendly to you. Then park an 8-10 unit army in front of Syracusae. In my game Carthage didn't attack Syracusae with my army in front of the settlement, leaving Syracuse alive. If you want a morale bonus, just in case, put the army in fortify mode. This will make Syracuse strong and they will take care of Carthage, in my game; thereby, protecting your south. The rest should be easy. This is on normal but it might work for higher difficulty too.

Also invest in Italy/Italia moderately/highly so you earn more money to support your armies, before going after anything besides the Etruscan league, like the barbarians to the north.

EDITED: The settlement you want to park in front of is called Syracusae, not Syracuse.

[Falaris]

I find that taking full provinces is a huge advantage. You can usually take the area north of Rome - Velathri- the first turn. Use your spy to poison the army outside, fight it, then capture the city. After capturing - same turn - recruit two more hastati and one more velites, next turn go north to the border to Arimenum, recruit again, and on the 3rd turn, capture Arimenum. If all goes well, you now have a nice solid foundation, but now you need to consider your next step, and in addition, I contend that Carthage must be destroyed.

Your most obvious course of action is to look west and capture the last Etruscan city, Alalia, which you've hopefully listened to earlier advice by Waywardz and blockaded. At this point you share two provinces with Carthage; war with them is inevitable, and Carthage must be destroyed.

One question is what to do with Syracuse. It's a tossup wether they're at war with Carthage or not at this point. If they are, it gives you a nice casus belli for war with Carthage, which must be destroyed. However, if you are fortunate, Carthage has captured Syracuse, meaning you can capture that back, completing Magna Graecia without going to war with an ally... but that may take patience you don't have. Also, Carthage must be destroyed.

Now, about all this 'carthage must be destroyed' bit. In Rome, during, between, and before the Punic wars, it was common for most Senate speeches, regardless of subject, to end with "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" - "Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed." Rome cannot become great as long as Carthage stands. You simply can't let Carthage have Karalis and Lilybaeum. Fortunately, those cities are easily conquerable (Although you may want ballista for Karalis - I like going for Ballista as soon as possible, but cohorts are good too, but at this point you can have one or the other but not both.).

You may want to take the political hit and take Syracuse, if Carthage didn't solve that problem for you. But what about Carthage itself? The problem is, Carthage is surrounded by their allies, Libya and New Carthage. Capturing Carthage locks you into permanent war in North Africa, and it's a pain to fight there. You may capture carthage, raze all the buildings there, and simply.. leave, and hopefully get a peace treaty at some point and focus your attention at Gaul before some local warlord unifies the whole place and becomes a real problem. That is basically what Rome did, and it is quite a valid strategy in Rome II as well, but regardless: HOW you deal with Carthage decides your options later, but Carthage MUST be dealt with.

(Edited for readability)

[Axlw]

Originally posted by realist123:

Get military access to Syracuse and maybe trade. They are friendly to you. Then park an 8-10 unit army in front of Syracuse. In my game Carthage didn't attack Syracuse with my army in front of the settlement, leaving Syracuse alive. If you want a morale bonus, just in case, put the army in fortify mode. This will make Syracuse strong and they will take care of Carthage, in my game; thereby, protecting your south. The rest should be easy. This is on normal but it might work for higher difficulty too.

Also invest in Italy/Italia moderately/highly so you earn more money to support your armies, before going after anything besides the Etruscan league, like the barbarians to the north.

That's not a good idea in my opinion. Syracuse is essential to completing one of the Italian provinces.

[MANWHATADONGA]

Falaris is right go for cohorts first Syracuse can wait till taken that cathagee town with iron bit of luck Cathage declares war on you her allies have never gone to war with rome jump across take cathage and rest of that provance Maga Carter iron gives you reduce unit recuirtment cost build armolur enginer work shop blacksmith to improve armour weapons buildtemple that decrease unit recuirment costs further at the monment i have 1/2 price units recuirtment.It is hard we have different mods Meaningful resources pack is amust

[TheScotsman]

Well all the above is good advice but not for legendary difficulty. The problem when you hit the hardest mode is simple the ai can spawn and field maybe 3 full stack definately 2 full stack armies per small nation of just one province. Now imagine this bonus to the bigger empires you can quickly see its these buffs that are making it more challenging even if the AI is dumb.

I have found carthage one of the hardest factions in vanilla rome 2 simply because the starting captial of the major factions is on par with the smaller ones "if im not mistaken carthage was a dominant trading power at the begging of the game". Also you have as many as 3 fronts to defend at the get go with pretty much your back against it.

I play with mods in particular mods that allow sacking of cities (you are not forced to take it over) so i can pretty much ruin there frontier provinces and they spend money on repairing usually. This is pretty much just as effective as blockades however magic floating armies is a game killer (civ v i blame you).

If you are lucky you can take sicily island (leave syracuse) and launch raiding parties on carthage itself (i wouldnt reccommend trying to take carthage at an early stage due to having no technological aspects unlock to reep the benefits.

[realist123]

Originally posted by Axlw:

Originally posted by realist123:

Get military access to Syracuse and maybe trade. They are friendly to you. Then park an 8-10 unit army in front of Syracuse. In my game Carthage didn't attack Syracuse with my army in front of the settlement, leaving Syracuse alive. If you want a morale bonus, just in case, put the army in fortify mode. This will make Syracuse strong and they will take care of Carthage, in my game; thereby, protecting your south. The rest should be easy. This is on normal but it might work for higher difficulty too.

Also invest in Italy/Italia moderately/highly so you earn more money to support your armies, before going after anything besides the Etruscan league, like the barbarians to the north.

That's not a good idea in my opinion. Syracuse is essential to completing one of the Italian provinces.

It worked very well for me on normal. I have a huge foothold with Rome now, by being Syracuse's friend, and I have a lot of northern European provinces now.

Taking out the Etruscan league and getting all their territories I assumed to be implied in my earlier post.

Threatening to defend or defending a friendly faction with your faction and riding their dominance wave also worked on legendary for me with some other faction.

I make enough cash on normal with complete provinces in northern Europe and the islands to the west of Italia, I don't need the island to the bottom of Italia.

For the game's ultimate objectives I think Alliances count towards territory too, so it is not like you need Syracusae settlement. Plus you can betray them last if need be.

[mcoffm]

Rome 1

[MrMCPut95]

Focus on the Etruscan League first, and improve your diplomatic ties with the Greek States (minus Epirus because nobody likes them.) and the African tribes south of Carthage. When I moved on Carthage itself, they were useful allies for helping me defeat Lybia.

[MANWHATADONGA]

great advice from every one no trolls

[garravesh]

Be prepared for the eventual DOW from the Western Phoenecians.

Be prepared to take the Etruscan lands quickly.

I would not worry about the army reforms. Getting war dogs from your aux units is a better choice. They can run down any early units easily. had 5 war dogs in my early army and released them on the slingers and javelin troops..the whole army roputed before they got to me.....they continue to be the best counter, IMO, to early land units.


In your port build some more fleet units..the cheap javelin chuckers. maybe 3-5 more. they are good at countering any land units that in boats


Focus your ever growing desires for more land towards Liguria and east toward illyria.

Karthadastim has to tend to her own borders against Carthago Nova, Libya and a few other minor nations. Use that fleet you create to keep her from landing troops on Italy.

Expand northward and you will find that the gauls, germans and celts are not friends to each other and most often you can play on their joint animosity.

By the time you seal off Rome from the barbarian north and destroy the Etruscans you can then turn your eye to the South to help create Mare Nostrum.

Keep an eye out for enemy nations with no allies and that are close to your borders as they are key to gaining territotry early on.....wait to long and you risk the coalitions of celts, germans and gaul creating small empires fo their own .

In the east Macedonia, the birth place of Aléxandros ho Mégas will be at war, most likely with Sparta and Athens. Epirus will be a memory. Try to get the neutral illyrian cities on the coast before the foes who vanquished the lands of Alexander of Epirus can get organized.

The best way to destabilize new territory is to incite riots and slaves revolts. Early on use your hrenchmen and women on the Etruscans until they are experienced. then turn them loose on your futures area of conquest and soften them up.

Oh I forgot to add...make sure you consult with the vestal virgins for wisdom in your course of actions as well.....never let the fire go out!! :P

[Yang]

I will tell you what i did way back on my first roman campaign and what i learned.
I attacked the etruscan's mainland territories asap.
Then i kinda left corsica or sardinia - i cant remember which one is the smaller northern - one for a bit then attacked it.
Meanwhile i had non agression pact and trade with syracuse.
Carthage declared war on me - big mistake for them. I attacked the south island-to-the-west-of-italian-mainland and then attacked Lilybaeum the same turn and from there got carthage. Eventually they asked for peace (this is skipping ahead like idk 15 turns maybe) and trade and i think no-agression.
Then i attacked Syracuse (after breaking all my treaties with them)
Then i had a bit of a financial depression. That's basically the early bit of my first campaign.
WHAT I LEARNT
when defeating factions, go on a roll & leave nothing out- i shouldn't have left the etruscan island alone for a while and i should have pursued Carthage and gotten spanish holds.
One territory factions (like barbarians but im talking syracuse here) can raise huge crap-to-ok armies quickly despite being one territory. Take em out quickly
DOnt try the barbarians. (yet)
A bit of strategy does good. CArthage had one fleet guarding both their island and lilybaeum territories. I attacked their island. theyrushed troops there. I sent another army to take lilybaeum. They rushed back. I took carthage. They just retreated west.
Take on greece soon.
get trade agreeements- good early game, bad late game as loads of factions are destroyed. By then though, most of those destroyed factions should be destryoed because you decidded that you like the look of their territory ;). Trade agreements give you some more dosh. Send you spy (soemthing Scapula) to scout the east meditarranean for factions to trade with. Egypt trade cost quist a bit, but does help you a lot in the long run.