Fresh start : questions

[R.Graymarch]

Hello

I just started the game and was looking for a "quick questions" topic but could not find any in the first pages of this forum

So I started, inspired by DanIsStoned Crete tutorial. My goal is to unify Crete. I know that I could have chosen Rome but apparently, republics are a little complicated for a start. Egypt could be a good candidate but it's not as peaceful. So I chose Crete and especially Knossos (no mods)

In my first war, I went without my feud because his loyalty was not at 33. I paid him but apparently it needs time to build up. And when I wait, my allies call me to war so I have less control on what happens. Am I too impatient or unlucky? Edit: I just notice "dominating stance" to get an opinion boost with levies up /Edit

During a reload, I managed to be at war and it was going well, except my ally occupied the province so the only option in the peace deal was to give him the province, which is not something I want. Was I just unlucky? What does it depend on? First on the province (if that's the right name)? Higher troop numbers ?

Also I did not manage to get a general, it was my ruler and I could not change that (even at peace, with levies raised)

Thanks for your help and apologises if it's very basic questions

 

[Grandpa Maur]

in the "chokopoint province" you mean?
"Capital everywhere", I'm not sure what it means

Uh sorry i miswrote.

Let's make an example. Northwwsternmost province of 'Greece region' consist of territories running north-south between the sea and impassable mountains.

Say you decide this is where you stand. Capital stays in the south. In the north, iirc, there is a territory with mountainous terrain, you create a city there, build a fort, and any Roman army going from the north can be met there, as the fort will block them from moving further south and mountains give you big battle advantage.

Capital stays in the south so long term province - or troops in it - won't starve if the siege cuts off food imports.

The fort needs to be high level, thus needs for provincial investment.

Of course you such forts need it all along your northern border. It's pretty big investment of PI.

I need to build more ships. I unlocked the best one but don't have any

Don't rush it. Fleet is huge money sink but it's better to have it as cash or invested in buildings and only build up as Romans come.

Same with that fort. You needn't build it before it's needed as it's just maintenance costs and you need economy for maintaining that future fleet.

Thanks but I think you overestimate my level ^^

You seem to be doing well, especially given you lack experience and knowledge of mechanics.

 

[R.Graymarch]

Thanks! (I'm not sure I understand everything I'm doing but people here help me a lot)

Say you decide this is where you stand. Capital stays in the south. In the north, iirc, there is a territory with mountainous terrain, you create a city there, build a fort, and any Roman army going from the north can be met there, as the fort will block them from moving further south and mountains give you big battle advantage.

Capital stays in the south so long term province - or troops in it - won't starve if the siege cuts off food imports.

The fort needs to be high level, thus needs for provincial investment.

Of course you such forts need it all along your northern border. It's pretty big investment of PI.

My capital is currently in Crete (Knossos, already a metropolis) so it's pretty south^^ But it's not connected to Continental Greece (which may be a good thing if I rule the sea of course)

 

[Grandpa Maur]

Thanks! (I'm not sure I understand everything I'm doing but people here help me a lot)

My capital is currently in Crete (Knossos, already a metropolis) so it's pretty south^^ But it's not connected to Continental Greece (which may be a good thing if I rule the sea of course)

I meant capital of the province with the fort, not the capital of whole country

 

[R.Graymarch]

I played a little. Anabasis worked very well, thank you for the tip
Rome is not attacking me so I expanded where I can, ie Cilicia (South of Anatolia). I learnt too late (but it was written in this thread) that I cannot make feudatory for countries that are not in my culture group. So, full annex (and full slaughter to get more cash and less nobles to my country). Not sure other options are better: tributary is weak and vassal takes a slot)

I still have one big group of countries on the coast and then only big players as neighbours, which may prove difficult.
Stay tuned, I may finish my first game in less than a year IRL!

 

[R.Graymarch]

I have a question about manpower
Levies are down, I have 35k in manpower. I raise my levies to make a war and manpower immediately goes down to 23k. I read the wiki page but cannot find anything on this
Do levies take on manpower when raised? If yes, does it go back to the pool when I demobilize? (only in their home region?)

Thanks

 

[R.Graymarch]

Update
I attacked Pergamon (+Thrace by proxy) and I won a big chunk in Anatolia, yeah me. From 2500 to 3000 POP. I will try to chew the rest of Thrace+Phrygia, it seems feasible
I may integrate Macedonian culture because it's my #3 POP now (so desintegrate someone else). Does the desintegration take time? Or is it immediate?

If you have any insight on this below, tell me

I have a question about manpower
Levies are down, I have 35k in manpower. I raise my levies to make a war and manpower immediately goes down to 23k. I read the wiki page but cannot find anything on this
Do levies take on manpower when raised? If yes, does it go back to the pool when I demobilize? (only in their home region?)

 

[IsaacCAT]

Update
I attacked Pergamon (+Thrace by proxy) and I won a big chunk in Anatolia, yeah me. From 2500 to 3000 POP. I will try to chew the rest of Thrace+Phrygia, it seems feasible
I may integrate Macedonian culture because it's my #3 POP now (so desintegrate someone else). Does the desintegration take time? Or is it immediate?

If you have any insight on this below, tell me

Unintegrating a culture is immediate.

Levies shouldn’t use manpower to raise but they do use it when reinforce after a battle or attrition loses. Manpower is not returned when lost this way.

 

[R.Graymarch]

Levies shouldn’t use manpower to raise but they do use it when reinforce after a battle or attrition loses. Manpower is not returned when lost this way.

Thanks for the insight. I wonder why my manpower pool sank that much. It did not happen yesterday though (I checked)

I'm a little disappointed by legions because you need to have 500 localities to enforce them and it's... a lot
I know that I could pass the law to have one legion but I'm not sure it's worth it (I would use some levy's size modifier)

 

[IsaacCAT]

Thanks for the insight. I wonder why my manpower pool sank that much. It did not happen yesterday though (I checked)

I'm a little disappointed by legions because you need to have 500 localities to enforce them and it's... a lot
I know that I could pass the law to have one legion but I'm not sure it's worth it (I would use some levy's size modifier)

It is worth it. Move your POPs to your capital region as it should already have the most integrated POPs anyway and start drilling your legion.

Go to the ledger at the cohort section and see the modifiers of your units. Military experience opens up military traditions that are the main source of unit modifiers. Concentrate those in one or two units and use them in your legions for the best outcome in your battles.

Have fun conquering the world!

 

[R.Graymarch]

Thanks for the tip

I integrated Macedonian and unintegrate Lacedemonian. Then I enacted the law for one legion: I have less cohorts (levy modifier dropped) but managed to make a legion in my capital region. I'm not sure how much I should take away from my local levy. Right now, I can afford the maintenance quite well (even with drilling. By the way, the experience depends on the size of the legion?) so I wonder if I should "dry" my capital region levy (or leave at least one cohort to do Anabasis)
For curiosity reason, I put an engineer in the legion. Is it worth building roads? I read there are a lot of advantages (not only movement speed). I assume that enemies can also use the road, correct?

Then I conquered Anatolian Trace and Phrygia. ca +700 POP reaching 3700

 

[IsaacCAT]

Thanks for the tip

I integrated Macedonian and unintegrate Lacedemonian. Then I enacted the law for one legion: I have less cohorts (levy modifier dropped) but managed to make a legion in my capital region. I'm not sure how much I should take away from my local levy. Right now, I can afford the maintenance quite well (even with drilling. By the way, the experience depends on the size of the legion?) so I wonder if I should "dry" my capital region levy (or leave at least one cohort to do Anabasis)
For curiosity reason, I put an engineer in the legion. Is it worth building roads? I read there are a lot of advantages (not only movement speed). I assume that enemies can also use the road, correct?

Then I conquered Anatolian Trace and Phrygia. ca +700 POP reaching 3700

Experience depends on the average military drill of all your standing armies. So, one unit at 100% will give you the same as 200 units at 100%.

You want to maximize your legion units as legions have distinctions and are better than any other levy or mercenary you can use.

Roads are fantastic to get more trade routes and to civilize/assimilate new territories. Connect all adjacent territories to cities and all your cities in your nation for the best effect.

 

[R.Graymarch]

Thank you, I put roads EVERYWHERE

Got lucky, there was a rebellion within Rome so I attacked "Rome" (1/3 of its POP) and took all its Asian territory
Rebellion is still on going (+40 WS for the rebels)
My POP went from 3900 to 4475

90 years to go!

 

[R.Graymarch]

I unbloked an invention on religion that helps assimilation... it goes so fast now.
In 15 (?) years, from 4550 to 5300 POP (including 2 wars) and my main culture went from 1200 to 1600 POP.

 

[R.Graymarch]

717, so 10 more years to go
I conquered a lot accross the Danube (Rome is still in rebellion, it's been decades now... "Rome" properly owns one province in Tunisia and all the rest is for the rebellion, why don't they peace out, war score is over +60 since decades) and in Anatolia.
I got the warning "do you want to be a great power?", I found that strange and I clicked "yes". Then I realised that I cannot have allies anymore (quite a good idea even if it stresses me a lot). I changed also my law in order to have several legions

I looked at my mission "matter of Greece" and was quite sad that I could not complete the tree because Egypt has some territories in Achia and Attica. So,I took a big breath and DOW Egypt. I reloaded maybe twice because of lost battles but eventually I won (Bosphor attacked me, I had to make peace with Egypt quite early in order to fight in Black Sea). So I could complete the mission tree, yay me. So I chose another tree but find strange that you cannot view the details of missions in game before accepting a tree

I'm consolidating my country, assimilating a lot, while WE and AE go down (it takes a while)

I plan to finish tomorrow and may come back for a more complete feedback and what I think I did not understand

 

[R.Graymarch]

I went till the end of the game (finally), with no big events except I DOWed Egypt again to remove some bordergore. Oh and Rome's rebellion was finally over. I finish #3 in POP after Maurya and Seleukid
This worries me a little because it seems too easy for a first run (I started as Knossos). I know that I was far from WC but for a first run, apart from the beginning (unify Crete and set foot in Greece), it went quite smoothly. Thanks again for everyone who helped me in this thread, it made a huge difference
Maybe modded version is more challenging

I got an issue with my current mission as it needed 3 new trade routes in Crete but investment did not bring any (I already had 39 iirc) and when I got more (on existing goods) it did not act as +1. Strange

I did not play the character elements: I gave enough seats for important families. When someone was disloyal, I bribed him and never look to other options
I filled almost all Greek traditions (2 trees: island+kingdoms). I wonder if should have accepted other cultures in order to get another tree
About POP, I never stopped promotions or moved population.. it seemed quite complicated to me. For building, I put the ones that seemed to make sense to me if I had some empty slots and extra cash
I never played with wonders (building new ones) or looked heavily into deities. My first goal was to conquer more or less my cultural area and convert the rest. It went pretty well as I did not blob that much: 8639 POP in 570 localities. 4439 POP from Crete, 1201 from Macedonia and 336 Cyrenaic as integrated culture. My first "unintegrated" is triballes for 351 POP, the next one are 188 and 153 POP
I imagine that the challenge is harder if you rule a really huge multicultural and multireligious empire

Not sure what to do next, but I assume, go to 2.0.4 (is it going to stay long in beta? It's been six months) and probably Invictus mod for more development

 

[IsaacCAT]

The ultimate experience IMHO for I:R is a multiplayer game. Having a Human against you is what pushes you to get the most out of the game.

Invictus is great for content, its missions are amazing and there are for many nations. It adds content for replayability

 

[R.Graymarch]

Thanks for the insight
Not sure I'm ready to try multiplayer though: I'm quite bad at the game and it would mean a lot of free time in the same time to be played
(and I don't enjoy "player vs player" too. Betraying AI, I can manage. Betraying humans, not really^^)

 

[olivenkranz]

Thanks for the insight
Not sure I'm ready to try multiplayer though: I'm quite bad at the game and it would mean a lot of free time in the same time to be played
(and I don't enjoy "player vs player" too. Betraying AI, I can manage. Betraying humans, not really^^)

You don't have to betray a human ally. That all depends on you, you know? And you'll be learning things left and right and in no time you'll catch up.