I played Medieval a long time ago, and recently saw in GAME I could get Rome and Medieval 2 (and another game) for ￡10, and I'm really impressed with Medieval 2 - the graphics are a huge improvement, the battles look really epic now. I haven't had a chance to try Rome yet but I will do soon

The mod I'm talking about is Roma Surrectum, but I'm thinking of moving onto another mod that goes even further south. As in, Northern tip of Somalia south. Sadly, it doesn't have its own faction.

The Rome TW is a great game with two different starting position one is the beginning of the Roman Empire and the second one is about the barbarians.
Just make sure you read these guides I posted http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1118933-total-war-discussion/page__view__findpost__p__16668007, because there is a lot of useful information with game fixes or how to change a game settings.

I have not played any of these games in quite some time. I probably will when I get home. I play Rome without mods (and I almost never play Barbarian Invasion or alexander), and when I play Medieval 2 I usually play Third Age mod or Retrofit. I have all of Kingdoms and I tries the Teutonic and Crusades ones, but the other two when I attempted them did not appeal to me. I did win a Crusades campaign though.

I have been wanting to get back into this series so I will definately give one of them a go when and if I get some free time over holiday break.

I found I didn't really like Rome Total Realism that much. It may be realistic but it wasn't as fun. Roma Surrectum next

If you're done with that you should try Europa Barbarorum. I never liked RTR either, but I love Europa Barbarorum more than the original game. It's a little more difficult though, but as long as you play on medium/medium it's lots of fun.

I suppose i could give this a bump and say what ive been up to

Right now im playing Medieval 2 again and i find myself in a bit of a rush to capture the last 20 regions i need to complete the Long Campaign mode with 85 turns left, playing as Venice. Ive killed off the Byzantine Empire and can now focus on the Holy Romans and the Milans, who declared war on me a long time ago for some reason. Of course the plague had to hit and once it passed i was down to -45000, but after sacking a couple of the Roman cities, and with my +15000 per turn, i quickly got out of debt while my enemies were still in it.

Unfortunately the Pope denounced me for fighting the Romans and Milans (they attacked me first!) and called a Holy Crusade on my city Constantinople, what was once the Byzantines capital. I could easily crush the armies moving toward the city, but if you fight a crusade army it makes all the nations, including the ones I am allied with, angry at me. So instead i am going to quickly try to assassinate the generals, making them lose their crusader "status", allowing me to fight them. The Roman cities are looking empty, so i should be able to capture them pretty easily, but they have 2 large armies moving around their remaining regions, and the last 2 Milan cities are filled with peasants, so it looks like no problems there.

Capturing their last regions will give me another 8 I think, so I need to look for a weak nation to quickly take regions from, which the Turks are my best bet i think.
Well theres my game plan, think i can do it in time?

Could get a little close, but I think you have enough time. You could swing through the Holy Land and maybe round on Egypt - shifting armies by boat tends to be faster than marching them overland. Could also quickly nab places like Tripoli, Tunis, Palma, etc from your new Italian forward bases.

Thats what I was thinking of doing. Unfortunately, like I said, a Holy Crusade has been called on my city, so its not as if I have a shortage of enemies. Everyone but France and Poland declared war on me. As of right now the Mongols are neutral with me but once I take the last of the Holy Romans cities our borders will touch, most likely causing us to go to war which I REALLY do not want since they can be pretty tough. I will try forming an alliance with them to hopefully stop that but our relations are terrible, despite me doing absolutely nothing to them. Does anyone know how you can raise your relations with a nation? Even before I was denounced everyone but France and Poland hated me, even if i was nowhere close to them and never went to was with their friends.

What really screwed me up with my time is that I had 4 nations at was with me throughout most of the game coming from everywhere. The Romans attacked me from the north, the Milans from the west, Byzantine from the east, and Sicily from the south, so rather than being able to concentrate my forces in one direction, I had to split them up all around my empire. Even though I was pushing them back pretty well, they never accepted my Peace Treaties which would have allowed me to focus on one of my fronts.

To quickly deal with a holy crusade, evacuate the targeted city, however hide one or two really powerful armies in the woods nearby. Once the enemy has captured your city, the crusade will end and you can get to work taking back your city with the army you hid earlier and then pursuing peace with everyone. If you try to struggle and keep your city then you will have to deal with wave after wave of crusading armies which can be expensive.

I will keep that in mind next time. However it was a little to late to do it now. Before I knew it England had laid siege to the city, meaning I couldn't get anyone out, but they never attacked the whole time. Then 3 other powerful armies of Denmark, Holy Romans, and Spain showed up. I quickly brought my best assassins to the town and killed the generals, making the armies no longer part of the crusades. Soon afterwards, the Pope declared the crusade a failure and the armies disbanded allowing me to kill off 2 of my enemies kings.

I have also been taking regions rather quickly suddenly, 5 in the last 6 turns. I think I might make the time limit the a bit of extra time. Sicily was getting annoying, constantly laying siege to my towns with large, but poor armies (mostly consisting of peasant type troops), but seeing as how they need to use boats to attack me, i have been patrolling my navy around their towns, sinking them before they can land. Their probably getting a little short on family members now!

Does anyone know what affects your reputation? Last time I checked mine was at Dubious, but I have never declared was once against anyone, and it's making it hard to conduct diplomacy.

If you bribed a bunch or coerced your diplomatic partners much, getting "barely accepted" deals and such, this may be a good reason. I also found that having large armies move around in my border provinces dropped my rep. :biggrin: If your faction leader gained any traits because of the use of assassins, this may contribute as well. I presume him having dread or other immoral or bad traits won't help as well, although I'm guessing here. Also, no one likes the powerful or those that conquer a lot. I guess you can figure out whether or not you did such things. Being a good Catholic and chivalrous is probably best to maintain reputation. :bowdown:

There is a very effective (but extremely gamey) tactic to increase your standing among other factions. It's a bit of broken gameplay, highlighting the limitations of the diplomatic system - not quite a bug, but some might consider it exploiting... Personally I use it to level the playing field since the AI acts completely insane sometimes, regardless of how much you try to win their favor. Anyway, here's what you do:

So I started playing Rome: Total War again. My Hastati seem to break at the first sign of battle! Its like the only use I get out of them is when they are in overwhelming numbers, other wise my whole legion seems to retreat after like 30 seconds of battle. And I understand strategy and all that too, so its not like i'm getting out flanked.

What do you expect from fresh-faced recruits?! Seriously though, it is unfortunate for the Romans how quickly the Hastati break, so I always try and get at least one city to be able to train Principes because they stand firmer.

It may sound unoriginal but, if you are having your soldiers in one continuous line, try breaking it up into the "checkerboard" formation in the "Classic-Roman" style. It's effective because while your Hastati may flee easily, it is simply the most effective way to prevent any enemy soldiers from flanking you (short of having a cavalry force handy, which I never did much with the Romans) as you can draw soldiers from the second and third lines to hold the ends, while you can also draw from those ranks to help bolster any Hastati units that are being hit hard or if a line opens up from your routing men.

I recently started up a Sicilian campaign in MTW 2 (with stainless steel). Not much to report though, as it's been a fairly peaceful first eight turns, including an alliance with the Papal States and Genoa, as well as taking Bari in SE Italy.

I use exactly the same tactic as you're. :yes:

To clarify more why hastati is more likely to break than principes is a historical factor.

Does anyone have any advice for playing Julii on the hardest difficulty? If i attack the Gauls, the come over and roll right over me. If I don't attack the Gauls, I stagnate, or I'm not given the chance because they come and roll right over me. Do I just need to be very creative to take out their large armies, or is there reliable way fight them in the beginning?

I love Total War series and am really looking forward to Shogun II

My favorite mods:

Stainless Steel for Kingdoms - Definitely my favorite.

I really like the campain map in Napoleon TW too but the game is too easy. Recently I started playing the Napoleon Total Factions and Empire Total Factions Mods they are pretty fun.

Fire! And lots of it!

Seriously though, don't attack Gaul until you have at least 1 1/2 stacks plus a decent garrison in each city. I like to take that first one (the one you get a your first Senate mission) and then go take Corsica/Sardinia from Carthage and then call a Ceasefire w/ Trade. THose 4 cities are nice enough for a while. Then I wait until one of my two starting cities gets big enough to train Principes and once that happens I start pumping them out along with Hastati and maybe some cavalry if I can (but just for support/mopping up routing units --> this is a must IMO because the Gauls usually rout completely and when their units still have 50%+ of their soldiers left so with 2-4 units of cav, you can easily wipe out routing Gallic armies).

In battle, use the "checkerboard" formation mentioned above as it will keep their generally superior numbers from getting around your line if it's just a single line. When they get close enough, turn on auto-fire and shower them with pila. I've broken entire units of swordsmen/warbands just because 2 units of hastati/principes hit them with a concentrated volley of spears.

Seize Mediolanium as soon as you clear your side of the Alpines of their armies (easily routed and destroyed as per above). Garrison it tough to hold back reinforcements, while a second army of at least 1/2 stack takes Patavium either by assault or starving them out if you're low on man-power. Once you drive them out of your side of the Alps, they will find it impossible to gain a foothold if you hold the pass to the west and the north-west (NW one is done best with decent garrison at Mediolanium). From there I usually like to sail over and take Masilla as a strong fortress city to the west of the Alps.

From this position (generally as fast as you can without risking your armies, ie. don't dawdle a few turns away by waiting to see if they are sending men to your side of the Alps, because most of the time, they are ) you can begin really taking it to them as they will have lost two decent cities and by then will probably be at war with Iberia, Britons and Germans, allowing you to make powerful alliances with any of those tribes

Heres how it went:

Gaul did indeed make the first move, and not long after I started the game, too. They had attacked one of 2 of my forts I placed at the river crossings just north of my beginning cities (they attacked the left one, closest to Gaul). So, I was all "[censored]!" and decided not to stand about, even with the mega lack of man power I had.

I took Mediolanum while I had the chance, despite the huge army they had standing about; I guess guarding the western pass through the alps (I guess it was a mess up in the AI). So, after I took Mediolanum, they marched that huge army just south of the river, north east of Segesta. By that time I had an army to challenge them, and when the odds are even, I win. After completely destroying that army, they called for a ceasefire, which i obliged, but not before taking Patavia and demanding an 800 gold tribute for 8 turns (after much talking down price wise). After that, they decided to bulk up and move their armies west to Spain.

While they were bulking up, I took Massilia, put the head of my standing forces there, and advanced my economic and military technology. After some time, they declared war on Spain, my ally, as I figured they would. I jumped on the opportunity take their not-manned-enough cities of Lugdunum and Narbo Martius. For some reason, they continued the war in Spain, keeping their 2 full stacks in that area (and still do at this point in the game). So, after solidifying my claims in those two cities, I marched north to their capitol of Alesia. I have yet to play more.

I totally have the smart option of starving Alesia out, but despite their sizable force of experienced heavy infantry, I'm going to march in and cut them down for all the trouble they gave me. If I could burn down their main hall and raise a tall Roman flag I totally would.

Pre-ordered Shogun 2 yesterday. Really looking forward to it.


Also, I've no idea why, but Empire conked out on me a good while back and now it won't run. Napoleon is good an' all, but I like having America and India.

Sounds like you weren't having problems at all! Ah, going to make an example out of them are ya? Good idea

This is making me want to continue my Rome campaign in RTR that I haven't played for a month.... When I stopped, the Iberians had just made war on me for some reason by blockading Massilia. Dunno why, but my fleet has since dealt with them as my Legions push into Gaul itself. I only hope Carthage stays neutral for a while so I can pacify the Gallic tribes in peace before exacting a heavy tribute on them when they are in tatters :chaos:

This thread has inspired me to install Rome: Total War again. Not sure what faction I will play as, probably the Greeks again.

Bah, the Greeks are too easy in Vanilla! Cowering behind their shields and spears! Bah, I say!

Just kidding, it is entirely your choice but I always like changing teams to keep it a fresh game. I always use to play as Macedon as steamroll my enemies because their phalanx/heavy cav is just unfair against the AI. If you like the Greeks, maybe try the Thracians? You have to unlock them and sometimes it takes a while before you can get a game started without it crashing but once you do it's smooth sailing in my experience. They have weaker hoplite troops as well as excellent falxmen and other heavy infsntry to compliment your hoplite troops. Just a thought

Like I said, I'm doing a fresh install so I don't have any unlocks (unless I cheat, which I may do ). I like the greeks, the only thing they lack is a good cavalry. But then again, if they had that, it'd be way too easy.