How can I limit the other two Roman families?

[gibbon monkey]

Everytime I play a campaing where I attack the senate, the other two families are always equal to or stronger than me, making it near impossible to actually win a drawn out war. Any advice?

[Myrmidon]

I've not played pure vanilla in so long though (most total conversions remove them) but one method is to simply be larger than both of them put together. The two families generally always expand in the same way. Julii goes up north to fight barbarians, Brutii goes west to fight hellenics, Scipi goes south to Africa.

If you can capture where they want to expand or even press on ahead and box them in they tend to not bother expand anymore in that direction. In my experience you have the most leeway with Bruti as the hellenics fight them hard whereas Africa and Europe and considerably easier for the AI to smash through.

[Imperatordavius]

i've only ever done this as the Scipii family, but my strategy for dealing with them is this

Dealing with Brutii)
1) Take the rebel city 'they' are tasked to capture. Ignore Sicily for now, divide your forces and navy into two teams. Send two family members + all your hastati to Greece and try to conquer them as quickly as possible. The key target is the Rebel City the 'Brutii' are supposed to take first.

2) After that's done, use one general to recuit mercenaries and begin conquering the rebel cities along the coast north of Italy, there are 2 provinces besides the initial one that i know of, capture them asap.

3) If you are smart spend your money building hastati to conquer carthage island city to the left of italy, and eventually Sicaly.

4) Once you begin conquering Greece, shadow the brutii army every time it moves through the country. Don't attack any city that the Brutii themselves aren't beseiging. Remember, it doesn't matter who does the most killing or actually 'captures' the city, only which factions initiates the city assault is the one who gets the city.

(You can use that to your advantage, let the Brutii kill the enemy and weaken their standing forces while you get all the glory)

Dealing with Julii)
1) If your conquering Greece then you aren't taking Carthage/Sicily/Gaul, there's very little you can do about Gaul if your focusing your forces in greece.

Trust me, i tried, doing so spread my armies too thin and unable to actually do 'anything' without suffering MASSIVE setbacks.

2) Let Julii conquer Gaul, they aren't the fastest expanders, and they will not actually invade Gaul until they have large army stacks. Once they have a large army stack, THEN and only Then, will the Julii invade Gaul.

3)By now you should have Greece (if your smart) under your complete control, and the Brutii scrambling to do anything with their army. Once you have Greece under control, you can produce larger armies with all that money, plan an army for a long drawn out fight in Gaul, and move it in to capture the territories (if they aren't julii yet) that border the rivers where the 'real' roman empire stopped before Germania.

4) By now the Julii would be moving into Spain to finish off Gaul, go after Spain and begin capturing them. Keep your army supplied with fresh reinforcements and mercenaries, you cannot stop for long.

If you do all of this, the major threat when civil war breaks out, is the Julii. The Brutii in my game actually invaded Carthage and took a city (I got the capital fortunately) and took most of Africa and was invading Egypt, when war hit.

However if 'you' do this, only the Julii will be a problem, as Civil War usual hits during Marian reforms. The Brutii like teh Senate, don't raise too many large armies, at most 1-2 per city they Hold. and obviously don't disband to update their forces, so only pre marian units for most part are their units. The Julii are your major threats though, they have territory, and updated units, and obviously large armies where your cities are, so if possible, use those territories to buy you time and get your main armies for a long slog of conquest.

Thats the best i can help you with, i plan on doing another playthrough of Scipii just to see how well i can do. It sounds easy reading but actually doing this is a chore, but unless you want to spend eternity fighting through the Roman families over territories you might not really want, then this is the best method i can say works. the other families do not attack territories that tehy themselves do not border or cannot reach with their standing forces, so boxing them in limits their strength.

[EoNightcore]

Meanwhile, if playing against the Scipii, they can be broken by taking over Carthage's cities. The Scipii will usually just expand into Numidia and then stagnate from there into irrelevance.

[Ties__]

Originally posted by >sverkerino:

Everytime I play a campaing where I attack the senate, the other two families are always equal to or stronger than me, making it near impossible to actually win a drawn out war. Any advice?

If you play as the Julii for example, you can take Segesta and Segestica, conquer gaul and make sure it's defended against the Spanish, British and Germanic people. Then you can try and take some greek settlements (You should take these settlements sooner if the Brutii are making progress) Als try to take Carthage and Caralis and if possible take Lilybaeum early on in the campaign this will decrease the expansion rate of the Scipii insanely.
As the Scipii you should either rush to kill Carthage and Numidia then move into Spain and East to Egypt this will make you stronger than the other Roman factions. You can also take some Gaulish settlements the Julii wil hesitate with expansion and they will be slowed down, you can try to conquer some Greek settlements to prevent the Brutii from expanding.
If you play as the Brutii (In my opinion best one because they get all the wonders and biggest cities of the world early on) you should rush to take Segestica and Segesta (they have mines which increase your income with about a 1000 each turn which is more than you think) then take Patavium of the Gauls and after taking Patavium take Syracuse (take this before anything else if the Scipii are making progress) and after taking Syracuse attack Macedon and Greek homeland to expand, because you took Patavium and Syracuse the expansion of the other families will be slowed down instantly and you should take over Thrace and whole Turkey next. The Julii will be stuck with Western-Europe and the Scipii will be stuck with Africa, you will have the most land and the most land to conquer. The Brutii are the easiest because of all the wonders and because they have the most land to conquer, their temples are also great. The Scipii have great temples but a limited expansion (not a lot of settlements unless spreading empire too wide), the Julii have it easy because they have the barbarian factions which are very weak early and easy to take down because their bad morale, but they also have bad shrines and the enemy settlements have low population so getting good units is hard until the real late game starts, after taking Western-Europe it will take a long time to expand to the east and the enemies will be very strong by then.


I recommend the Brutii if you want to have the easiest campaign.

I hope this helped you!!

[Ties__]

There is another technique which also works but it requires being a active leader. Get a few equites trained and send them on boats to the other Roman Factions. The AI (especially Romans) get bonuses when fighting and win battles even a player would never be able to win so take your equites (only need 1 unit) and take part in the battles, the AI would not have the same battles because you are taking part in the battle and you would never get bonuses so it won't work for the AI in that battle. You will see the AI losing a ton of battles (or take 10 times more casualties than normally) which will slow their expansion insanely and this gives you a good advantage.

[`RV|Pride]

um my adviced is just conqure and be better at battles then the ai which is easy. i never had a campign as the julii "i have over 100" that i done each time i am the most powerful owning all of spain and gual and britian and germany. i prefer if the ai gets powerful then it gives me more of a challenge. i dont think your playing right. or you taking your time which is a bad idea expand and conqure. then try to limit your allies by becoming friends with their enemies they will be forced. to cease fire.

[punished fiddle]

Divide and conquer

[SuperGorp]

Originally posted by Imperatordavius:

i've only ever done this as the Scipii family, but my strategy for dealing with them is this

Dealing with Brutii)
1) Take the rebel city 'they' are tasked to capture. Ignore Sicily for now, divide your forces and navy into two teams. Send two family members + all your hastati to Greece and try to conquer them as quickly as possible. The key target is the Rebel City the 'Brutii' are supposed to take first.

2) After that's done, use one general to recuit mercenaries and begin conquering the rebel cities along the coast north of Italy, there are 2 provinces besides the initial one that i know of, capture them asap.

3) If you are smart spend your money building hastati to conquer carthage island city to the left of italy, and eventually Sicaly.

4) Once you begin conquering Greece, shadow the brutii army every time it moves through the country. Don't attack any city that the Brutii themselves aren't beseiging. Remember, it doesn't matter who does the most killing or actually 'captures' the city, only which factions initiates the city assault is the one who gets the city.

(You can use that to your advantage, let the Brutii kill the enemy and weaken their standing forces while you get all the glory)

Dealing with Julii)
1) If your conquering Greece then you aren't taking Carthage/Sicily/Gaul, there's very little you can do about Gaul if your focusing your forces in greece.

Trust me, i tried, doing so spread my armies too thin and unable to actually do 'anything' without suffering MASSIVE setbacks.

2) Let Julii conquer Gaul, they aren't the fastest expanders, and they will not actually invade Gaul until they have large army stacks. Once they have a large army stack, THEN and only Then, will the Julii invade Gaul.

3)By now you should have Greece (if your smart) under your complete control, and the Brutii scrambling to do anything with their army. Once you have Greece under control, you can produce larger armies with all that money, plan an army for a long drawn out fight in Gaul, and move it in to capture the territories (if they aren't julii yet) that border the rivers where the 'real' roman empire stopped before Germania.

4) By now the Julii would be moving into Spain to finish off Gaul, go after Spain and begin capturing them. Keep your army supplied with fresh reinforcements and mercenaries, you cannot stop for long.

If you do all of this, the major threat when civil war breaks out, is the Julii. The Brutii in my game actually invaded Carthage and took a city (I got the capital fortunately) and took most of Africa and was invading Egypt, when war hit.

However if 'you' do this, only the Julii will be a problem, as Civil War usual hits during Marian reforms. The Brutii like teh Senate, don't raise too many large armies, at most 1-2 per city they Hold. and obviously don't disband to update their forces, so only pre marian units for most part are their units. The Julii are your major threats though, they have territory, and updated units, and obviously large armies where your cities are, so if possible, use those territories to buy you time and get your main armies for a long slog of conquest.

Thats the best i can help you with, i plan on doing another playthrough of Scipii just to see how well i can do. It sounds easy reading but actually doing this is a chore, but unless you want to spend eternity fighting through the Roman families over territories you might not really want, then this is the best method i can say works. the other families do not attack territories that tehy themselves do not border or cannot reach with their standing forces, so boxing them in limits their strength.

^ This is similar to the strategy I use. As the Scipii I take the Carthaginian territories and Greek territories first. Even try to go into Spain and take future Julii territories. As the Scipii you have a good vantage point (and stronger navy) of hogging the better part of the map thus weakening the potential of the Brutii and Julii. The Scippi can also easily wind up with all the Wonders of the World which is a helpful bonus

[gibbon monkey]

I'm currently playing as Brutii, mmaybe 60 years in. I control all of Greece, the Balkans, all of southeast France and parts of northern France. I've taken a territory in Nort Africa, mostly to limit Scipii and I'm racing the Julii to take France.

[EoNightcore]

Originally posted by >sverkerino:

I'm currently playing as Brutii, mmaybe 60 years in. I control all of Greece, the Balkans, all of southeast France and parts of northern France. I've taken a territory in Nort Africa, mostly to limit Scipii and I'm racing the Julii to take France.

The settlements of Gaul are poor, if you can limit the Julii to only taking a few of these poor settlements and little else, you're on your way to victory over the others.

However, the settlements of North Africa are much richer, if the Scipii have managed to conquer some of the prosperous cities of Carthage, they'll be that much more likely to resist your bid to become Emperor of Rome.

[Armchair Civilian]

the very simplest way is to send cavalry units out to withdraw from all shared battles, while Scippii-ing your way thru all opposition. Though why you millennials can't just LTP is beyond me.

[Nikko]

How to Win in RTW

create_unit "general name" "roman praetorian cohort urban i" 5 9 9 9 (do this a couple of times)

create_unit "general name" "roman praetorian cavalry" 4 9 9 9

create_unit "general name" "roman archer" 3 9 9 9

Congratulations! You won the cheapest way you could ever win in RTW!

[Armchair Civilian]

Would still be simpler to use "surrender_regions" if you're THAT determined to be a CUnext Tuesday

[Nikko]

Originally posted by The Winking Skeever:

Would still be simpler to use "surrender_regions" if you're THAT determined to be a CUnext Tuesday

LOL I never really got to f*ck around with "surrender_regions" but that seems like a good cheat for an all out war against rebels xD

[Armchair Civilian]

i never use it cos it's simpler just to grab all the productive lands and Marian myself next day to tuesday, leaving the other "families" producing spear auxilia at best, but yeah i spose it would :)