Strategy tips for RTW:BI

[Darth Wong]

I know some people have had trouble with Barbarian Invasion, and in my second attempt at a VH/VH campaign with the Western Roman Empire (the hardest combo in the game), I'm doing so well that I think I'll share what I've learned:

1. Do not undersize your garrisons in pursuit of lower manpower costs. Instead, simply eliminate high-cost units while keeping your garrisons around a half-stack in strength. It is possible to successfully defend cities against huge attacking armies with relatively low-quality units if you know what you are doing. I generally use a mix of peasants, limitanei, and foederati spearmen for infantry, plus an archer unit or two, and one cavalry unit (plus a general if I'm lucky). I tend to keep all of my garrisons around the 9 or 10-unit level, ie- a half stack. I've tried running smaller garrisons but it's always caused too many problems. A half-stack of relatively low-end units is just about right, balancing military needs with economic ones.
2. In the early game, build garrisons first, and structures second.. Due to the effect of garrison strength on public order, and the effect of public order on economic output, you actually gain more short-term income from an increase in garrison strength than you do from building structures. In fact, in my current game I added peasants to every city for the first few turns, and didn't build anything. One side-effect of larger garrisons is that you are less likely to be attacked; the AI will tend to look for weakly defended cities first.
3. Use defense to crush barbarian factions, and offense to defeat civilized factions. The only city I took early on was the Allemani capital, and that's because it's their only city, they're a constant irritation, I had a field army nearby at game start, and they are a civilized faction, which means they will not form a horde when you take their last city. After that, I went into full defensive mode, knowing the barbarian hordes were coming. It is difficult to engage a barbarian horde in the field because of the sheer number of troops he can bring to battle. The best way to deal with barbarian hordes is at your city walls.
4. Develop ways of eliminating barbarian faction generals. Barbarian factions are infuriatingly persistent. You can kill 99% of a barbarian horde and the remaining general will wander off, bribe some mercenaries, take a lightly defended rebel city somewhere, and build up a new army. And if you take that city, he will form a new horde, which is just as huge as the old one. Killing generals in battle is difficult, especially if they engage early; oftentimes they run, and they're very hard to catch, particularly when you still have to deal with the rest of their armies. I like to catch fleeing remnants of barbarian horde factions in the field with a large force composed of a whole bunch of "disposable" generals (ie- generals whose religion differs from that of their settlement, which makes them a penalty to public order and in many ways a liability) or with carriage ballistae. Another way to eliminate barbarian faction leaders is to trap them inside a city when they attack it (more on this later).
5. Learn how to defend cities against huge enemy armies. There's no way around this. No matter what a great strategist you believe you are, you will eventually find yourself hunkered into a city with a modest garrison while a gigantic barbarian horde waits outside, numbering in the thousands. I have a few tips on this matter:
   
   - Let them take the walls. When you are vastly outnumbered, it is hopeless to try and stop them from taking the walls, especially when you restrict yourself to low-grade troops for economic reasons.
   
   - Fight them at the city square. Your men will not break and run on the city square; they will fight to the death. His men, on the other hand, will often be exhausted from running past all manner of defensive towers shooting at them, and will route easily.
   
   - Keep a peasant unit on the walls far away from the point where they assault them (separated by two towers), and when they take the gatehouse (which they will), wait till they start going down to ground level and then run to retake the gatehouse. This will cause the burning oil to start raining down on their forces as they try to squeeze through the gate, and it will also cause the gatehouse defenses to start firing again, both inside and out. Other effects of this action also include reinforcing armies stopping in their tracks (they will wait until someone retakes the gatehouse before approaching further), and of course, infantry units will try to come back up the tower or ladder in order to retake the gatehouse so you shouldn't leave those peasants there indefinitely. In fact, I often move them away, let the enemy retake the gatehouse, and then rush them in again. I've done this as much as three times in one battle. But there's one downside: with no avenue of escape, enemy troops inside your city will not be routed under any circumstances. All will fight to the death. So only retake the gatehouse if they have some other way in/out (such as a wall breach or a smashed gate or more infantry on the outside which can climb onto the walls and retake the gatehouse). Otherwise you will find that their armies inside your city are tough as hell. Gatehouses are best retaken when the enemy can take it back (so the tactic just delays his attacking army and eats up their manpower) or when you're trying to trap a fleeing enemy general. The comprehensive killing of generals is crucial to eliminating barbarian factions. If even one general escapes, he can start the entire cycle over again.
   
   - Keep your archers on the walls, ready to fire inward. Archers are of only limited value at the city square, but on the walls, placed strategically so that they will fire into the backs of enemy troopers heading toward your city square, they can unleash death on a massive scale. In a typical large city defense against a horde, my archers run dry or nearly dry of arrows, and rack up many hundreds of kills while also weakening enemy morale. They are best used to kill elite enemy troops, since even the best enemy troops will be quite vulnerable to arrows from the rear. Manual targeting orders are often necessary.
   
   - Map out the enemy's projected path to your city square. No competent city defense is complete without projecting which paths the enemy is likely to take to get to your city square. You can then position archers strategically and arrange your city square defense with knowledge of where an attack will probably come from.
6. Know which factions you can destroy most easily. The Allemani are pitifully easy to destroy, and should be dealt with immediately and offensively. The Celts and Berbers I left off till later, but they are also easy to destroy because they don't form barbarian hordes when you take their last city. But the Franks, the Goths, the Burgundi, the Huns, the Vandals, the Sarmatians, and the Slavs form barbarian hordes when you take their last city, so be careful. I've eliminated most of those factions, but I did so by allowing them to besiege my cities and then annihilating their armies when they tried to attack.
7. Walls, walls, walls. The creation of bigger and better walls should be your #1 construction priority. City-defense tactics against huge enemy armies is almost entirely dependent upon having strong walls with good defenses. These walls won't stop an enemy with siege weapons but they will eat up his manpower, and continue to do so even after he has breached them and entered the city.
8. Don't skimp on spies. The enemy is fond of using spies to disrupt public order in your cities, and this has a huge impact on your bottom line. Your own spies will ferret out these foreign interlopers and send them to the afterlife where they belong. I put one spy in every city, and the first unit I recruit whenever I take an enemy city is always a spy.

In summary, it's all about money and defense. But the money situation is not just a matter of building economic structures and shipping ports, as it was in vanilla RTW. Public order is of much greater importance in BI, and so are the methods you use to control public order, such as spies, large garrisons, competent administrators, and happiness-generating structures. But the lag time on building construction can kill you if construction is your primary means of controlling public disorder, so look at other methods. If you can't keep rioting and revolts under control, your empire will crumble no matter how great your prowess on the battlefield.

[Fire Fly]

I started a new game, since I got so fed up with my old one; no progress was being made.

I eliminated a few high end units, most of my navy, and immediately started building peasant units in all of my provinces. By turn two, some settlements were starting to go red, but I just kept on building peasant units, lowering taxes and upping taxes where I could. By turn three, I only had two settlements rebel and every single other settlement had now turned green or yellow. I quickly retook the two rebelling settlements, wiped out the traitors, filled up my coffers, and begun fortifying and building roads and ports to boast my income. I also immediately sought the destruction of the Alemanni. By turn four or five, I was already making roughly 8000 denari, after tax adjustments and the proper administrators, and had retained all of my provinces!

[wautd]

In related news, I bought the expansion today as well

[Darth Wong]

I started a new game, since I got so fed up with my old one; no progress was being made.

I eliminated a few high end units, most of my navy, and immediately started building peasant units in all of my provinces. By turn two, some settlements were starting to go red, but I just kept on building peasant units, lowering taxes and upping taxes where I could. By turn three, I only had two settlements rebel and every single other settlement had now turned green or yellow. I quickly retook the two rebelling settlements, wiped out the traitors, filled up my coffers, and begun fortifying and building roads and ports to boast my income. I also immediately sought the destruction of the Alemanni. By turn four or five, I was already making roughly 8000 denari, after tax adjustments and the proper administrators, and had retained all of my provinces!

Yes, it's counter-intuitive to construct more units when you're having financial difficulties, but when you try it, well damn if it doesn't work.

I'm on the verge of total victory in my second campaign which I played using these new strategies. Most of the barbarian factions have been destroyed, along with the Celts, the Berbers, and the Allemani. The entire western half of the map is firmly under my control and I'm making in excess of 25000 denarii per turn. I've assembled a large army with expensive high-end units at Thessalonica, and the Eastern Roman Empire has been almost entirely pushed out of Europe, with Constantinople being their only remaining settlement. When I take Constantinople, which should be in another few turns, I will win the game. And since there is no more difficult campaign than Rome on VH/VH difficulty, I figure I've beaten the best that it has to offer, so I can start tweaking the config files for fun.

PS. One more tip: the Eastern Roman Empire is fond of first cohort comitatenses, which will tear the hell out of your troops if you're still using low-end armies with units like limitanei and foederati spearmen. I like to use carriage ballistae to soften them up, since carriage ballistae essentially ignore the target's armour and kill top-end troops just as easily as peasants. They also have a devastating effect on enemy morale.

[Fire Fly]

I think, for any of us who have been keeping up with BI threads, that we understand you really like carriage ballistae.

[Vympel]

Speaking of tweaking config files, did they ever officially fix the annoying Rome thing where the cheat code to build the building queue automatically worked only once per game per city? I remember there was some sort of 3rd party cheat fix, but it never worked for me.

[Fire Fly]

Yes, the cheat codes may now be entered in more than once, which I find really usefull to do once the game becomes boring and you want to try new things.

[Vympel]

Awesome. I've always found Roman cities in the early R:TW game to be pathetically underdeveloped.

[Darth Wong]

Awesome. I've always found Roman cities in the early R:TW game to be pathetically underdeveloped.

Indeed, it's quite annoying, and if you think RTW was bad, wait till you see how pitiful your cities and garrisons and treasury are when you start play as Rome in BI. But despite all of that, I guess it's just a point of pride that I had to beat it at the hardest possible difficulty with vanilla settings. Now that I've done that (Constantinople fell to my grand army easily; it was almost pathetic), I can play around with the game for kicks.

By the way, there's a "no CD" crack available at gamecopyworld.com which I use because I fucking hate putting in the CD to play the game. It's legal in Canada, but it's illegal in the United States because the act of circumventing copy protection is criminalized by the DMCA even if you own a legal copy of the game, as I do.

[RogueIce]

By the way, there's a "no CD" crack available at gamecopyworld.com which I use because I fucking hate putting in the CD to play the game. It's legal in Canada, but it's illegal in the United States because the act of circumventing copy protection is criminalized by the DMCA even if you own a legal copy of the game, as I do.

Can't that also let you put in your own CD for music purposes if you want something new to listen to?

[Dartzap]

How do you access the cheats console?

[Fire Fly]

Hit the [ ~ ] button just below the Escape key.

[Vympel]

Does the navy in BI have any use at all? I just started a game as the ERE, and they have a few ships that look like they could use a right good kicking.

[Darth Wong]

I find that navies are not that important in BI, although it doesn't hurt to have a few. You'll get the occasional blockade, but it's not insane like it was in RTW when certain factions would be constantly blockading you.

By the way, I finished my "faster, less aggravating gameplay" mod. You can get it at http://www.stardestroyer.net/Mike/Software/BI_Mod.zip and you just unzip it into your C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\bi\data directory. It's only two text files, and the modifications are as follows:

1. Construction time for all buildings cut in half (rounded up for fractional values). Note that the cost of these buildings has not changed, so you will find that you quite often run out of money for construction even when your income is fairly healthy because you're purchasing buildings twice as often now. So you have to pick and choose where you will concentrate your construction projects.
2. All structures with a public health bonus get double that bonus
3. All structures with a law & order bonus get double that bonus
4. All structures with a public happiness bonus get double that bonus
5. All religious structures get double their normal religious conversion bonus
6. Armour and weapon bonuses altered. Under the previous system, it was impossible to get gold weapon+shield bonuses unless you had certain religious buildings. I always thought this was stupid; the quality of your armour should depend on your metal-smithing structures, not your religion. So I modified the smith structures. The basic blacksmith now gives you bronze weapon+shield, regardless of weapon type (under the old system, it depended on whether you had light weapons, heavy weapons, or missile weapons). The armourer now gives you silver weapon+shield. And the foundry now gives you gold weapon+shield.
7. The flammability setting for battering rams has been cut in half. This was done because battering rams were basically useless for any stone-walled city. Now they still have only a slim chance of reaching the door, but before, it was virtually impossible.
8. The flammability setting for small siege towers was doubled. This was done because they were almost impossible to set alight, and when I checked out the settings it turned out that they were just as difficult to set alight as the much larger medium towers that you use for large stone-walled cities (which I thought to be unreasonable; the larger towers look like they're easily twice the size of the small ones). They're still pretty hard to set alight, but it's not as difficult as before (not that this makes minor city defense that much easier since you can use ladders with minor city stone walls, and ladders are basically unstoppable).

I've tried these modified settings on a campaign and found that it's more enjoyable because you can build up your cities faster and with fewer rioting problems thanks to all of the amped-up health, law, happiness, and religious conversion bonuses. And the weapon+shield bonuses have always bugged me since vanilla RTW, so it was good to change that.

[EmperorSolo51]

I want to know if there are any scripted events that deal with the Council of Nicea, Council of Carthage, Arianism, Gnosticism, and the East-West Schism.

[Fire Fly]

I don't think there are any scripted events, but there are messages that pop up once in a while informing you of historical events. You'll recall in RTW, actual historical events never really happened, only that messages would pop up at the propper time to inform you of the "event."

My BI update:

I've successfully contained the Franks to one single region now, bound between Gaul and between the Burgundinians. I decided not to actually engage them now because I don't want them to horde. I've been sending assassin after assassins to try to eliminate the faction.

After many assassinations and open battles, I've finally destroyed the Vandals. One of my first engagements with the Vadals went horrible. I lost an entire legion of one 1st cohort, 4 plumbitarii, 4 comitatenses, 4 auxilia, and 4 sarmatian calvary units, and 3 archer units. Initially, they were the aggressors and were attacking from a hill. I decided to let them attack me instead of going to them since I didn't want to tire out my men, forcing them up a hill. I arranged my plumbitarii and comitatenses in a checker board formation with the plumbitarii out in the front and the auxillia in the rear. The archers were placed far ahead of the rest of my formation to provide preliminary fire and then I placed two units of calvary on the left and two on the right.

Code: Select all

           A   A   A

        P    P    P    P
      C    C    C    C    1st
       AX   AX   AX   AX

Initally, the Vandal army, half calvary, one quarter spearmen, and one quarter heavy infantry. They also had four generals. They approached my formation at a slow pace and then at the last minute, went on an all out frontal charge. My archer fire did diddly squat and so I pulled them back as the Vandal calvary came near. I moved my Auxillia units forward to engage and tried to hit the approaching Vandal calvary from the flanks with my own calvary but my units were just utterly swamped and their morale broke and fled. I should imput at this time that my army had no general; it only had a captain. I didn't want to put a general in because my nearest general had become a bit too ambitious for my taste and his loyalty had reached zero.

After losing my anti-calvary units, well....my army was doomed. Their superior calvary won the day for them against my mainly infantry army. After that battle, I've rethought my army doctrine and have tried to tailor my western armies to be more anti-calvary.

I'm still somewhat stuck from RTW on the heavy infantry mindset as the center piece of my armies. I guess I should pay better attention to history.

[Fire Fly]

Does anyone know how to increase loyalty? Some of my first generation family members, such as the one in Carthage and in Britain, for example, are unquestionally loyal. But...I have this seven star general who has become too ambitious for his own with a -4 loyalty. What factors, other than battle, will increase loyalty? Why did those who stayed where they were originally, become more loyal?

[Darth Wong]

Does anyone know how to increase loyalty? Some of my first generation family members, such as the one in Carthage and in Britain, for example, are unquestionally loyal. But...I have this seven star general who has become too ambitious for his own with a -4 loyalty. What factors, other than battle, will increase loyalty? Why did those who stayed where they were originally, become more loyal?

It's because he's a 7 star general. It seems to me that when your generals become too famous, they start getting a little uppity. Keep a general in a city as a governor, and he tends to stay loyal.

The way to deal with disloyal generals is to strip them of their power. Just keep him out in the field to attack rebels by himself, perhaps with a very small army of support troops. That won't increase his loyalty, but it will limit the damage if he decides to rebel on you. Do not make him the governor of a settlement, because he might take the settlement with him when he decides to go rogue on you.

In BI, it's less important to conserve your generals; you can afford to "throw them away" in a sense because you can always just manufacture more of them in Rome. Any city with a Circus Maximus can recruit "General's Bodyguard" units, which (surprise!) come with a general.

[Darth Wong]

After many assassinations and open battles, I've finally destroyed the Vandals.

You can destroy huge barbarian armies on defense more easily than on offense.

One of my first engagements with the Vadals went horrible. I lost an entire legion of one 1st cohort, 4 plumbitarii, 4 comitatenses, 4 auxilia, and 4 sarmatian calvary units, and 3 archer units. Initially, they were the aggressors and were attacking from a hill. I decided to let them attack me instead of going to them since I didn't want to tire out my men, forcing them up a hill. I arranged my plumbitarii and comitatenses in a checker board formation with the plumbitarii out in the front and the auxillia in the rear. The archers were placed far ahead of the rest of my formation to provide preliminary fire and then I placed two units of calvary on the left and two on the right.

Against a cavalry-heavy army, you want your spearmen near the front. They should be immobile when the enemy cavalry charge hits home, because then they can take a "set" position and that will be quite harmful to the cavalry charge. BI computes a cavalry charge into spearmen who have fixed their positions by "reflecting" some of the cavalry charge bonus back onto the cavalry itself. Swordsmen always do poorly against a cavalry charge in BI.

Initally, the Vandal army, half calvary, one quarter spearmen, and one quarter heavy infantry. They also had four generals. They approached my formation at a slow pace and then at the last minute, went on an all out frontal charge. My archer fire did diddly squat and so I pulled them back as the Vandal calvary came near. I moved my Auxillia units forward to engage and tried to hit the approaching Vandal calvary from the flanks with my own calvary but my units were just utterly swamped and their morale broke and fled. I should imput at this time that my army had no general; it only had a captain. I didn't want to put a general in because my nearest general had become a bit too ambitious for my taste and his loyalty had reached zero.

Open-field battles without a general are dangerous indeed, especially when the enemy has four of them.

[Vympel]

Well I've think I've hit the point of stability in my first RTW:BI game, so here's the report:

- Playing as the Eastern Roman Empire on Medium/ Medium; what can I say, I've never played any game on Very Hard difficulty or equivalent and I don't intend to start now

- One look at a Western Roman Empire starting map and I was physically ill. Even on Medium/ Medium, it looked like a next to impossible task at first glance, and the fact that the advisor pops up and says "you're playing as the Western Empire? You're in trouble!" speaks volumes. So yeah, on to the game.

- I was quite disappointed with how pathetically underdeveloped Constantinople (and the ERE in general) was compared to Rome (comparing the ERE and WRE start)- Constantinople was a far more important city than Rome at that time and remained so for as long as the WRE still existed- heck, by the 5th century, Rome was basically a nostalgic capital and the Emperors didn't even reside there. So why does Rome get to build First Cohorts, carriage ballistae etc right off the bat and Constantinople can't? Grr.

- On the flip side, the ERE is more easily defensible- you don't share nearly as many borders with migrating barbarians or already present barbarian tribes, and your cities seem to be better protected as a whole, not to mention the unrest isn't nearly as acute. You do however have less men to distribute at the start.

- You also get more money to play with, but I was still finding myself cash strapped as I tried to develop the cities on my frontiers to deal with any Horde threat. I'm currently still cash strapped (Summer, 385AD), and have yet to develop any decent cavalry capability (above equites auxilia), which I think is essential for the ERE.

I just think I haven't been very wise in the way I've developed my cities- I've focused on upgrading them all incrementally with everything rather than giving each a basic self-defence capability (Limantei, Archers, Legio Lancarii) and focusing on commercial/ religious buildings and focusing on a few to produce my armies (elite infantry and siege equipment capability centred on Alexandria, Constantinople and Antioch, with surrounding cities providing other types of troops, for example). Something to try in the next game after I just started implementing it.

- The Sassanids in the east are easily crushed; by 385AD I've taken all their provinces except Armenia (faction leaders army is on the way there) ; once that's done I anticipate the beginning of an actual real campaign in the West to destroy the barbarian threat, take Carthage from the Berbers, and finally, take Italy and reunite the Senate and People of Rome. Their attacks were largely ineffectual and easily defeated at the walls of my cities, after that it was a simple matter to assemble a small infantry force with some Dromedarii support and take their undefended cities.

- The first Horde I encountered were the Vandals, who decided that taking Sirmium would be a good idea (the following horde encounters all happened while campaigning in Sassanid territory, two things at once). Initially I tried to follow Mike's advice and gave up the walls once they reached them, holding back a unit of peasants to retake the gate once they broke through, but they could never break through my gates- as such, they would take the walls, take the gate, open the doors and they'd flood in, and I'd promptly be slaughtered because by the time they came I didn't have nearly enough troops to stop them at the town square, and retaking the gate house did nothing but trap them in without the boiling oil advantage.

Instead, I stacked my walls with what limantei and the odd legio lancarii that I could scrounge together (as well as two cominstates who were already there), and grinded their infantry down in battle on the walls. It was *extremely* close, but in the end they ran out of men before I did, and their cavalry were all that remained. They retreated and went elsewhere, which was fine by me. Better that they settle down or are crushed by someone else. If the former, I can hunt them down later with a full Roman army, Cataphracts in tow ...

- I decided that Sirmium was something of a natural target for the Hordes coming from the east (since it lacks Constantinoples large stone walls), I began to build up its defences considerably- Eastern Archers and Archers (six in total), more Legio Lancarii, Cominstates, Limantei, etc. Eastern Archers fucking rock. Their armor makes them quite hardy, and their bows are better. They really exact a toll.

- The Huns came next, and sure enough, they stopped at Sirmium. Surprisingly, their siege wasn't as effective as that of the Vandals. The Vandals surrounded my city with all their stacks and attacked, but the Huns only used two while the other two seemed to march off elsewhere. Big mistake on their part- the massed archers massacred most of their ladder troops and their entire battering ram team well before they got close, and what few pathetic Huns managed to scale the walls were promptly thrown off again by my veterans. Their cavalry retreated.

This brings to mind a funny game bug- often when a Horde sieges you, they'll have one stack on one side of the city and one side of the other, but all their siege equipment will be concentrated on one stack. If you say, slaughter every ladder unit and the ladders remain on the wall (bloody gripe- why can't we push the damn things off?)- the infantry alllllll the way on the other side of the map will march to the ladders and attempt to scale the wall- but they'll do it well within arrow shot of your defences. Easy as pie- for fucks's sake, it's such a long trip that I had time to rush all my archers to one side of the wall and massacre them as they made the trip.

- Anyway, the rest of the Huns didn't take kindly to the humiliation, so they all came to play the next couple of turns, repeating what the Vandals did before. I had no relief army to send, and didn't want to even if I had, thinking it would be crushed by such overwhelming numbers. The place was under siege for 8 of the 10 turns it could've held out, and in that time, nearly half of my men died, and they built up huge numbers of siege equipment. That was it, I thought, I would lose Sirmium. If I did, Thessalonica and Athens would be next. Or maybe Constantinople, but I wasn't worried about my capital (uber defences, don't ask. Think shitloads of archers).

Inexplicably, the Huns picked up camp and left on the 8th turn. WTF? Shit, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, I used the opportunity to retrain all my poor units in the city. A stack was still around however, and besieged my city again the very next turn? Again, WTF? Well, by this time I had built up a small force with Onagers, so I sent them up from their station in Macedonia and drove this stack away- it was the one that was depleted of its infantry in the first humiliation.

So that's where I am now. The main Hun stack seemed to pack off and look for easier targets, Sassanid Empire is about to be wiped off the face of the map, and with that I'll finally have some spare cash to build at least one full stack elite force. Maybe two, since my cities are getting richer now.

[Darth Wong]

- Playing as the Eastern Roman Empire on Medium/ Medium; what can I say, I've never played any game on Very Hard difficulty or equivalent and I don't intend to start now

It's somewhat masochistic, but there's the satisfaction of knowing that nobody out there has played a more difficult game than you have.

I just think I haven't been very wise in the way I've developed my cities- I've focused on upgrading them all incrementally with everything rather than giving each a basic self-defence capability (Limantei, Archers, Legio Lancarii) and focusing on commercial/ religious buildings and focusing on a few to produce my armies (elite infantry and siege equipment capability centred on Alexandria, Constantinople and Antioch, with surrounding cities providing other types of troops, for example). Something to try in the next game after I just started implementing it.

It is common to have "economic powerhouses" in your core cities, and military-specialized cities at the frontier. Some people even demolish military structures in their core cities and use the money to construct more economic buildings. That's going too far IMO, but you get the general idea.

- The first Horde I encountered were the Vandals, who decided that taking Sirmium would be a good idea (the following horde encounters all happened while campaigning in Sassanid territory, two things at once). Initially I tried to follow Mike's advice and gave up the walls once they reached them, holding back a unit of peasants to retake the gate once they broke through, but they could never break through my gates- as such, they would take the walls, take the gate, open the doors and they'd flood in, and I'd promptly be slaughtered because by the time they came I didn't have nearly enough troops to stop them at the town square, and retaking the gate house did nothing but trap them in without the boiling oil advantage.

That plan is designed for situations where you are attacked by huge armies, which normally means one army plus several reinforcing armies. You can't retake a gatehouse fast enough to keep a single force from getting into your city, but you can fuck up reinforcing armies by taking it, and those reinforcing armies will usually manage to retake the gatehouse so that the men inside aren't trapped. Also, you sort of need to be able to place archers on the walls where they can fire into the backs of enemy troops as they try to approach your city square. The "citadel defense" strategy relies upon heavy attrition of enemy troops en route to the citadel.

Instead, I stacked my walls with what limantei and the odd legio lancarii that I could scrounge together (as well as two cominstates who were already there), and grinded their infantry down in battle on the walls. It was *extremely* close, but in the end they ran out of men before I did, and their cavalry were all that remained. They retreated and went elsewhere, which was fine by me. Better that they settle down or are crushed by someone else. If the former, I can hunt them down later with a full Roman army, Cataphracts in tow ...

If you have comitatenses in the city, they're definitely good enough at fighting on the walls to grind down a horde. My strategies are sort of tailored to the WRE which is so poor that it's exceedingly difficult to maintain comitatenses as city garrison units. The nice thing about the "citadel defense" strategy is that when it works, the enemy army is virtually annihilated. If you can stop them at the walls, their generals and cavalry will go elsewhere, but if you can defeat them inside the city, you have a good chance of wiping them out to the last man. The destruction of barbarian hordes is particularly tricky since you must essentially hunt down and slaughter every last general, or the whole faction might come back.

- I decided that Sirmium was something of a natural target for the Hordes coming from the east (since it lacks Constantinoples large stone walls), I began to build up its defences considerably- Eastern Archers and Archers (six in total), more Legio Lancarii, Cominstates, Limantei, etc. Eastern Archers fucking rock. Their armor makes them quite hardy, and their bows are better. They really exact a toll.

I have to try the ERE sometime and see how that goes. I can't imagine it's worse than Rome though; Rome may be able to build higher-end units at the outset than Constantinople, but it can't afford them (either recruitment or upkeep) so it's kind of academic.

- The Huns came next, and sure enough, they stopped at Sirmium. Surprisingly, their siege wasn't as effective as that of the Vandals. The Vandals surrounded my city with all their stacks and attacked, but the Huns only used two while the other two seemed to march off elsewhere. Big mistake on their part- the massed archers massacred most of their ladder troops and their entire battering ram team well before they got close, and what few pathetic Huns managed to scale the walls were promptly thrown off again by my veterans. Their cavalry retreated.

No siege towers? When I was attacked by the Vandals and Huns, they always used siege towers. And they would blast any foolish defenders off the walls with the ballistae in those things.

This brings to mind a funny game bug- often when a Horde sieges you, they'll have one stack on one side of the city and one side of the other, but all their siege equipment will be concentrated on one stack. If you say, slaughter every ladder unit and the ladders remain on the wall (bloody gripe- why can't we push the damn things off?)- the infantry alllllll the way on the other side of the map will march to the ladders and attempt to scale the wall- but they'll do it well within arrow shot of your defences. Easy as pie- for fucks's sake, it's such a long trip that I had time to rush all my archers to one side of the wall and massacre them as they made the trip.

That's always amusing when it happens.

- Anyway, the rest of the Huns didn't take kindly to the humiliation, so they all came to play the next couple of turns, repeating what the Vandals did before. I had no relief army to send, and didn't want to even if I had, thinking it would be crushed by such overwhelming numbers. The place was under siege for 8 of the 10 turns it could've held out, and in that time, nearly half of my men died, and they built up huge numbers of siege equipment. That was it, I thought, I would lose Sirmium. If I did, Thessalonica and Athens would be next. Or maybe Constantinople, but I wasn't worried about my capital (uber defences, don't ask. Think shitloads of archers).

Inexplicably, the Huns picked up camp and left on the 8th turn. WTF? Shit, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, I used the opportunity to retrain all my poor units in the city. A stack was still around however, and besieged my city again the very next turn? Again, WTF? Well, by this time I had built up a small force with Onagers, so I sent them up from their station in Macedonia and drove this stack away- it was the one that was depleted of its infantry in the first humiliation.

That's rather surprising that they would go for so long without attacking. One thing to keep in mind is that it's not really the end of the world if they do take one of your cities. I've lost cities to barbarian hordes before, and I've noticed that they tend to rebel in the very next turn, because the barbarians can't maintain order. So it's usually not that hard to retake the city.

So that's where I am now. The main Hun stack seemed to pack off and look for easier targets, Sassanid Empire is about to be wiped off the face of the map, and with that I'll finally have some spare cash to build at least one full stack elite force. Maybe two, since my cities are getting richer now.

One trick I've learned when besieged is to send out your cavalry, not directly at the enemy army but well off to one flank. Sometimes this will goad them into sending small units your way, and you can usually crush these units as they approach. Of course, if they start sending massive forces toward your cavalry, you should have enough speed to retreat back to the city before they reach you. I also find that sometimes it's worth it to attack them and simply put your archers on the walls to fire at them as they move around and reposition their forces. I've whittled down besieging armies by as much as 50% by attacking them once per turn. If I can cause more attrition among their forces than they cause among mine with the siege, then I figure I'm holding my own and they'll have to either attack or break the siege sooner or later.

[Fire Fly]

Well, I decided to recall my disloyal general back to Rome and I placed him in the city in an attempt to make his loyalty rise. I had read on twcenter.net that bringing disloyal generals closer to Rome woud help, not sure if it does or not. After a turn, he recieved the tital of Magister Pelitum (sp?...+2 loyalty) and then I gave him the title of Amici Principes (3+ loyaltyl). Now, my 8 star general has a loyalty of 4.

[Vympel]

It's somewhat masochistic, but there's the satisfaction of knowing that nobody out there has played a more difficult game than you have.

Unless there's some masochistic guy out there who mods the game to be even harder

It is common to have "economic powerhouses" in your core cities, and military-specialized cities at the frontier. Some people even demolish military structures in their core cities and use the money to construct more economic buildings. That's going too far IMO, but you get the general idea.

Now there's an idea. I might experiment with putting the military specialized cities on the frontier.

That plan is designed for situations where you are attacked by huge armies, which normally means one army plus several reinforcing armies. You can't retake a gatehouse fast enough to keep a single force from getting into your city, but you can fuck up reinforcing armies by taking it, and those reinforcing armies will usually manage to retake the gatehouse so that the men inside aren't trapped. Also, you sort of need to be able to place archers on the walls where they can fire into the backs of enemy troops as they try to approach your city square. The "citadel defense" strategy relies upon heavy attrition of enemy troops en route to the citadel.

Yeah, judging from a re-reading of your first post I ballsed up my attempt to replicate the strategy against the Vandals pretty badly- my archers were caught before they got away to another position on the walls, a unit of peasants was wiped out by being too close- it was a huge clusterfuck.

If you have comitatenses in the city, they're definitely good enough at fighting on the walls to grind down a horde. My strategies are sort of tailored to the WRE which is so poor that it's exceedingly difficult to maintain comitatenses as city garrison units.

Oh there wouldn't have been comitatenses there for long if the Vandals had just waited a little longer- Sirmium didn't even acquire the ability to raise them at the time, I think they were there from the start- or maybe I moved them from somewhere else- meh, who knows. As it was, of the two units there, one was reduced to such a critical level that I simply absorbed it into another unit.

The nice thing about the "citadel defense" strategy is that when it works, the enemy army is virtually annihilated. If you can stop them at the walls, their generals and cavalry will go elsewhere, but if you can defeat them inside the city, you have a good chance of wiping them out to the last man. The destruction of barbarian hordes is particularly tricky since you must essentially hunt down and slaughter every last general, or the whole faction might come back.

Catching enemy generals was a real bitch back in my Medieval:TW playing days, but I found that the generals in vanilla Rome were easier to wipe out- if they've made a return to their less reckless Medieval ways, I could have a tedious time ahead.

I have to try the ERE sometime and see how that goes. I can't imagine it's worse than Rome though; Rome may be able to build higher-end units at the outset than Constantinople, but it can't afford them (either recruitment or upkeep) so it's kind of academic.

Nah there's no way it's worse- definitely easier on all fronts- you get more money at the start, your frontiers are more easily defensible, and you have a relatively rich enemy that's easily crushed right at the outset in the Sassanids to provide extra cash (I exterminate the populace of every city I capture, the extra denarii is just too much to pass up). You also have a far more balanced military.

No siege towers? When I was attacked by the Vandals and Huns, they always used siege towers. And they would blast any foolish defenders off the walls with the ballistae in those things.

Yeah it was really weird- I chose to interpret it as mere hubris- on paper, they had more than enough men in those few stacks to overwhelm me, but the fools attacked with a pair of ladders and a battering ram after laying siege for only a few turns. Schmucks. It's when they came back with all their stacks that they brought I think like four siege towers, three battering rams, and ladders with them.

That's rather surprising that they would go for so long without attacking. One thing to keep in mind is that it's not really the end of the world if they do take one of your cities. I've lost cities to barbarian hordes before, and I've noticed that they tend to rebel in the very next turn, because the barbarians can't maintain order. So it's usually not that hard to retake the city.

I should keep that in mind for the future- I took more losses than I was happy with in driving that lone Hun stack off with my pathetic "field army" (nothing but 2x Equites Auxilia, 2x Legio Lanciarii, 2x Comitatenses, 1x general, 2x Onagers and a smattering of mercenaries I picked up just before the battle who I immediately fed into the meat grinder). Valuable veterans were lost.

That's one thing I like about BI, actually- I really like to take care of individual formations and try to ensure they don't take heavy losses, so they can eventually become uber. In Rome there wasn't really much point- you'd get great Hastati, Principes etc, then Marian reforms would come and you've got to start all over again.

One trick I've learned when besieged is to send out your cavalry, not directly at the enemy army but well off to one flank. Sometimes this will goad them into sending small units your way, and you can usually crush these units as they approach. Of course, if they start sending massive forces toward your cavalry, you should have enough speed to retreat back to the city before they reach you. I also find that sometimes it's worth it to attack them and simply put your archers on the walls to fire at them as they move around and reposition their forces. I've whittled down besieging armies by as much as 50% by attacking them once per turn. If I can cause more attrition among their forces than they cause among mine with the siege, then I figure I'm holding my own and they'll have to either attack or break the siege sooner or later.

That's a good idea- I should put some more cavalry units in my garrisons on the frontier for that.

[Vympel]

Oh and another thing- is there any point in building Comistatenses when you get the ability to build Plumbatarii? Their cost and upkeep is identical, as is all their ability stats except for having a stronger missile rating (since those huge weighted darts are better than pilae).

[Vympel]

Whoops one more thing- how many turns do I have to play? What year does the game end?