Chapter I: Introduction
"
I speak Greek to God, Latin to the state, French to the women, German to the merchants, Spanish to the legions and Arabic to my horse." - Julius IV Thanas, Augustus.
(with apologies to Karl V.
In the year 1444, the great Roman reforms were finally complete. The state had been utterly transformed and carried into the coming age of the renaissance. Rome was once again the leader of Europe. The heaviest changes had been made to the province administration - they were now once again administered by a state bureaucracy, with local nobles having most of their powers stripped from them.
The Roman legions had been reformed as well - with the armies of the nobles being standardized and taken over by the state. The basic unit was now the 1000-men strong cohort milliaria again. The highest point had been the handing out of the eagles. A full legion now had 8000 infantry and 4000 cavalry in 12 units, a half legion - employed in areas where a full legion could not be supplied over the winter or the summer - was 6000 (4k infantry, 2k cavalry).
Not all regions of the realm had taken to this change. Some, especially in Sweden, North Africa and France, had rebelled. (That is my explanation for the errors the converter has produced and I am sticking by it).
Reconquest of these areas was of the highest priority. Already spies were working hard to undermine those traitors.
At the same time, those nations that had not managed to centralize were still stuck in the medieval model, namely of one overlord nation controlling multiple vassals. Thus, the nation of Saxony was now this:
lording over dozens of vassal nations like:
The same was the case in England:
whose Queen had converted to Judaism (and would therefore most likely be deposed quite quickly)
Orthodoxy however reigned supreme:
Let us look at the Roman Empire in more detail:
As shown by our name, we are an Empire. This is by far the best government form for most of the Game, for we reduce local autonomy at a steady pace for no cost.
Our cultures are Greek (Hellenic, really - actually it should better be Latin but the game does not recognize it) and German as the accepted secondary culture (of course). Our advisors come from Italy (administrative advisor), Germany (diplomatic advisor) and the romanized part of Persia (military advisor).
Diplomacy. Better known as "they hate us cause they ain't us".
Our economy is going strong. So strong that our surplus is enough to build a new building every month or so.
Trade. A large part of the game is centred around trade. One needs to control trade to have a truly global empire. Luckily, we do so.
Technology. Typical Western culture.
Ideas. The fun part of the game. Let us check our national ideas:
The pax romana is nice, I guess.
HOLY SHIT. This is a massive bonus and should essentially allow us to diploannex any nation we want.
....I get the slight feeling that the Roman ideas are a bit overpowered. I mean, typical nations have such a massive bonus in the last tier and we got it as the third one.
...Yep...
OVERPOWERED.
Wait, stability bonus of 20%, production bonus of 20% and tax bonus of 10%? Is this empire run on steroids?
MASSIVE ROIDING CONFIRMED.
Our missions and decisions:
Why would we ever want to restore the Byzantine Empire and Greece? Hello. We are an expanding nation, not contracting. The less said about those two sad remnants of our history the better.
Religion. One territory in africa still believes in its myths. They will be converted.
Our military. Dominated by the Spanish traditions of light horse and pike/halberd infantry so far.
We don't have any subjects.
But we have a giant Navy:
"English Navy you say? More like English cutter service, am I right?"
Some recently conquered territories in Africa and Russia discovered new goods:
conforming to the African stereotype I see.
conforming to the Russian stereotype I see.
Indian cotton is threatening our wool industry:
But we decided to do nothing for now and not restrict free trade.
Speaking of trade, let's check how we are doing so far:
DOING JUST FINE.
In Persia, a new Islamic sect broke out:
I thought we had crushed them all. We need to redouble our efforts there.
Meanwhile, France was just loyal:
We need more administrators. Culture can wait.
Due to our advisors and starting tech we reached the next level in just a few years (the wait time was needed because I needed to redistribute the giant army on the frontier):
Let's take a look at the frontiers of the Empire:
Rhine/Danube/limes (ignore french traitors)
The Northwestern frontier
The east - note the eternal Mongol enemies at our border. RAR. ROME SMASH.
The beautiful Egyptian border.
The less beautiful North African border which will need cleanup - and we need to pacify the desert tribes there.
Africa is a mess. We lost all coastal provinces there.
And in the north, swedish and Bjarmian traitors had broken free.
But first, we have to pick an idea:
TL, DR: Here we go. Let's discuss general playstyle etc. below.
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So, here is how I would like to play at first:
- Pick the religious idea first, because exploration will need a few more decades by which time we'll have the second idea group already opened up.
- Crush the Mongols.
- Crush the traitors
- Leave the rest of Europe alone (except for diploannexing if possible).
- Focus on high stability.
And with regards to the new world, I would suggest the following:
Become a gentle overlord and partner. I mean, the Aztecs have to go (because human sacrifice and all that) but with regards to the other tribes, if possible, I would actually like to honour their territories and help them with technological advances. My goal would be indigenous allies, who are not genocided but uplifted to the Roman level of tech.
(If you want another way I would be comfortable with genociding them but I kinda want to try this out first. Especially because there would be no ingame need for land because any settler could already settle in the whole of the Empire.)
I kinda want to find out if such a playstyle is possible. IMO it would be more interesting than the old Europe conquers the world scenario (it would probably drag us into lots of wars to defend the native territory but hey, for what do we have the legions if not to use them).
Unsure of what to do with India. I might leave them alone entirely. We don't need the money after all. I'd rather focus on the Mongols and china.
Please comment on that below.
