The Last Roman way too easy

[Mononc]

AI barely makes any armies, and the rare sight of them are 10-15 units per army.
It reminds me of the TW games before Shogun 2.
With the Expedition faction, you just roll over the map, conquering empty towns one after another, auto-resolving fights. What the hell? This expansion is as boring and small as the Sparta vs Athens expansion in Rome 2.

But thumbs up for making Suebi a free playable faction. And finally fixing the XP anciliaries bug.

[Powerfulnnz Vikingcat]

I felt the same way, they mostly just make agents. Roman Empire help makes things even easier. Going the separatist route should provide a bigger challenge though.

[brandonlott938]

maby put it on the highest diffuculty if u havent done that

[Malarky Enthusiast]

Legendary and then declare independance on turn 1. You can send me a game through steam for solving your problem if you want. Im here to help.

[Legionary Guard]

Originally posted by Mononc:

AI barely makes any armies, and the rare sight of them are 10-15 units per army.
It reminds me of the TW games before Shogun 2.
With the Expedition faction, you just roll over the map, conquering empty towns one after another, auto-resolving fights. What the hell? This expansion is as boring and small as the Sparta vs Athens expansion in Rome 2.

But thumbs up for making Suebi a free playable faction. And finally fixing the XP anciliaries bug.

I felt the same way. And then I realized that my elite high-tier armies with Alexander-level tactics still get their asses kicked by Germanic militia levies because... reasons, I guess.

[Ex]

I am not having this experience. AI Usually sends about 30 units at me.

[Geffalrus]

How are you not getting jumped by every Vandal army on the map on turn 2? The Vandals can certainly be a challenge early game if you don't know that they are coming at you with a vast cavalry superiority. Once you kill that first rush things get a lot easier, of course.......but that's step for step what happened historically. The only historical oddity is the fact that the Vandals field way more heavy cavalry than the Roman Expedition does (at least until you upgrade to Equites Promoti, of course), which was decidedly not the case.

[Frumpylumps]

As the hardest starting initial challenge on legendary, Vandals, I beat the Roman expditionary force on my 2nd turn even though I was terribly outnumbered. I conquered Sardinans easily within 3 turns. Now I guess I spend the rest of the game facerolling armies and winning becomes a chore rather than a challenge.

[Geffalrus]

Open field battle or settlement defense? Did the Expedition field any cavalry beyond scout equites and the 1 cataphracti? Attila combat in general is heavily balanced in favor of cavalry superiority, so if you have a few Vandal cav units, you have something the Expedition can't really match without recruiting Foederati Cav on turn 1.

[Frumpylumps]

Originally posted by Geffalrus:

Open field battle or settlement defense? Did the Expedition field any cavalry beyond scout equites and the 1 cataphracti? Attila combat in general is heavily balanced in favor of cavalry superiority, so if you have a few Vandal cav units, you have something the Expedition can't really match without recruiting Foederati Cav on turn 1.

Settlement defense. I only remember seeing scout equites. Belesarious is easy to pick off at the begining because he tries to regroup with the reinforcements and you can catch him with your cav.

I actually screwed up and made 3 packs of war dogs because I didn't understand the unit. It would have been far easier if I had made cav, you are right. The war dogs only helped me kill off Belesarius as he was running away. He is seems hard to kill. I had 3 packs of war dogs on him as soon as he routed and they just barely got him before he was able to escape.

The other general wasn't as strong, but he ended up routing right away too because his army came in as the reinforcements and he charged into my army right away, trying to defend Belesarius I presume. Once the generals were gone, the rest of them routed fairly easily, but that was only because they would sit in my settlement as my towers were shooting them and they would not engage my much weaker force. The towers whittled them down till they routed one after one.

You are right, they only have the 4 weak pikes in the entire force, it would be even more easy with them.

[Geffalrus]

Good stuff! Sounds like you made all the right plays. :)

It does seem a little weird how cavalry weak CA made the Expedition, contrary to how it was described by Procopious. On the plus side, you can get Equites Promoti and Tagmata pretty quickly, so you can rectify the situation at least. Just, you know, a strange gameplay choice by CA. At least the politics aspect of the game is improved.

[cat. ogre. CATOGRE!]

Try playing on a harder difficulty like brandonlott938 suggested. Playing on Very Hard the AI constantly sends stacks of 3 or more armies with usually close to 20 units in each. Even when I've wiped out most of their frontline armies, within 10 or so turns they send in 3 or more stacks all 10-20 units each again. I'm around turn 100, and the AI still sends crazy stacks of troops, even in areas I thought were safe. The various "surprises" the campaign throws at you, as well as the neat roleplaying decisions that affect the gameplay make the game difficult and more enjoyable on very hard.
I've even wiped out the Vandals over 5 times now, all because the my enemies like to mess with me and are able to bring them back. Why won't you stay dead Vandal scum!?!?! Ah, they sure know how to mess with me, amiright? ;P
The AI are also very good at slowing down my front line armies with their spies. Makes it challenging to chase them down with a few of my own stacks, when one of said stacks can barely move an inch.
In this difficulty setting, it is very important give your expensive and high xp units to the armies that have the Justinian's support bonus (and make sure to check how many turns this bonus has left). Hide your other armies in the more fertile areas, unless you need them to support your front line armies. Dismiss most if not all of your troops in these hidden armies. Build up growth, market, food and other money making buildings(more or less in that order, if you can) in your armies that you hide. Only build military producing buildings in Armies that will be going to the front lines. And use the crap out of the armies that have Justinian's support. If the AI has a ton of stacks chasing one or two of your armies, I would also suggest running behind enemy lines if you can, even using one army that can flee/harass them as bait. Use the rest of the armies to liberate cities along the way, to slow the enemy armies down, and give you a better view of where the enemy armies are. This will hopefully also separate them into more manageable stacks. Use your spies to harass and slow down the main stacks, as well as to assassinate the enemy spies to prevent them from harassing your own.
It's also a good idea to create new armies at the beginning of the campaign as soon as you can, as later the additional armies from Justinian will make it more difficult and less efficient since the pop requirement goes up significantly with each army on the field.
This is of course more of a strategy for someone who wants to remain loyal to the Empire, which I would recommend to do at least one play through, for the role playing decision aspect that occurs, and the fact that your essentially playing a horde version of the ERE.