How to reach historic Roman boarders? (Before end date)

[striderhce]

A while ago I posted on province loyalty and I think that I now mostly understand it. However I’ve played three Rome campaigns and every time I’ve not even been able to conquer Spain or France let alone Britain before the end date. Can anyone explain what I might be doing wrong? I’ve tried to prioritise assimilation but pop happiness is always a problem for me even with buildings and low AE. I’ve tended not to use the integrate pops mechanic so maybe that’s the problem?

 

[Pro]

You need to be willing to accept aggressive expansion to match Rome's borders. Rome in real life expanded aggressively.

I would recommend that you focus on boosting your pop happiness. Always make sure you have the bonus for surplus fish in your capital. It gives +8 freeman happiness and much of your non integrated culture population will be freemen. Take get the formulaic worship innovation early on. It more than doubles starting conversion speed. Focus on innovations that give unintegrated culture group happiness, and switch to the oratory idea that gives the same as soon as you unlock it. Build great temples and grand theaters for the conversion and assimilation bonus, the increased province loyalty and the happiness bonus. And finally get the wonders the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Artemis Temple in south western Asia Minor early on. One gives 0.08 stability per month and the other +5 unintegrated culture group happiness. Finally make sure you have praetor with high oratory and high statesmanship. It helps a lot in managing aggressive expansion. I would make sure to give a couple of governorships to high oratory characters to have good candidates for praetor.

 

[Gomissar]

I'd recommend integrating larger cultures. The way I see it, +integrated culture happiness % inventions are there to integrate more cultures while keeping the baseline happiness around 40% or so, because your integrated pops are going to be 100% happy most of the time. You also get a lot of useful traditions from integrating some cultures, for example you can easily get Punic and barbarian traditions by integrating Punics and Gauls from the Northern Italy
But yeah, you should be fighting non-stop to get historical borders. Don't get too focused on missions and waiting for the truces to expire, focus on other regions in the meantime

 

[Battlex]

I'd recommend integrating larger cultures. The way I see it, +integrated culture happiness % inventions are there to integrate more cultures while keeping the baseline happiness around 40% or so, because your integrated pops are going to be 100% happy most of the time. You also get a lot of useful traditions from integrating some cultures, for example you can easily get Punic and barbarian traditions by integrating Punics and Gauls from the Northern Italy
But yeah, you should be fighting non-stop to get historical borders. Don't get too focused on missions and waiting for the truces to expire, focus on other regions in the meantime

What do people mean by when they say integrating cultures let's you get miliatry traditions for that group. From what I see you still need to unlock them via your own miliatry tradition tree

 

[stratigo]

Historic Roman borders of the empire at the end date of the campaign, or the borders by the territorial height of the empire a century and a half later?

 

[Gomissar]

What do people mean by when they say integrating cultures let's you get miliatry traditions for that group. From what I see you still need to unlock them via your own miliatry tradition tree

Yeah that's what I'm talking about

 

[striderhce]

Historic Roman borders of the empire at the end date of the campaign, or the borders by the territorial height of the empire a century and a half later?

Id love to get the empires borders but I am currently struggling to get to Roman boarders at around 20BC hahaha

 

[Pro]

Id love to get the empires borders but I am currently struggling to get to Roman boarders at around 20BC hahaha

So how's it going? Has any of the advice here been helpful? Anything in particular you're struggling with right now?

 

[Pelthis]

I kinda succeeded by getting historical Roman borders (but no Mare Nostrum achievement I don't get what happened, maybe I didn't notice a sh*tty tiny island somewhere), my own run was focusing on Gaul/Iberia early on as tribes are a real pushover. And by the time I got them all, I unlocked Imperial Conquest and so I can sweep stronger powers in a single war.
You just have to be ready to go until 100AE and prepare some side armies to crush provincial rebellions.

 

[religiousphanatic]

or you can use infinite military exp for OP traditions and simply chew entire map like people who are posting WC do nowdays

have seen a guy having 80 discipline , like wtf. ofc he did fast world conquest

 

[EricMN93]

In my case I did what many people have already commented, always being at war.

1-Take advantage of the claims that Roman events give you.

2-Do not wait to create claims, when you are at war with civilization A you already have to create a claim with civilization B and so on.

3-Watch the aggressive expansion (less than 50), I recommend the pacifying diplomatic posture, it makes the aggressive expansion go down faster.

4-Focus on military inventions, especially to unlock the legions, once achieved, focus on inventions that help reduce aggressive expansion and inventions that help different cultures and religions to be happier.

5-Integrate the culutras with many pops, my recommendations:

Etruscan, Macedonian and Punic culture

 

[Rubidium]

What do people mean by when they say integrating cultures let's you get miliatry traditions for that group. From what I see you still need to unlock them via your own miliatry tradition tree

You do, but you need to have a certain number of integrated pops to be allowed to take the tradition that unlocks them (once you've taken the tradition and unlocked it, you can kick the no-longer relevant barbarians to the curb, but you need to have X number of pops of the right integrated culture to be able to take, e.g. "Embrace Italo-Greek influence" in the first place).

 

[Pro]

3-Watch the aggressive expansion (less than 50), I recommend the pacifying diplomatic posture, it makes the aggressive expansion go down faster.

This goes counter to your advice of always being at war. Aggressive expansion decay is disabled while at war. (Just decay though, the percentage of current AE reduction, other flat AE reductions are still active). Because of this I tend to go for bellicose stance for the reduced AE impact instead. I also try to avoid constantly being at war. It's better to have several wars at the same time followed by a period of peace to allow some of the AE to decay.

 

[Surimi]

Create as many claims as possible. Claims have a huge effect on AE gain.

There are many oratory advances which give bonuses to AE reduction and impact. Jupiter's omen also gives a fairly big boost to AE reduction. You can stack all this up to bleed off AE very quickly.

You don't need to worry too much about unlocking legions with tech, because I'm pretty sure you can unlock them via event. I would focus on controlling AE first, then think about military buffs later.

 

[olivenkranz]

Create as many claims as possible. Claims have a huge effect on AE gain.

There are many oratory advances which give bonuses to AE reduction and impact. Jupiter's omen also gives a fairly big boost to AE reduction. You can stack all this up to bleed off AE very quickly.

You don't need to worry too much about unlocking legions with tech, because I'm pretty sure you can unlock them via event. I would focus on controlling AE first, then think about military buffs later.

You need the tech, the event only will happen if you have it.

 

[Battlex]

You need the tech, the event only will happen if you have it.

Which tree is the tech in

 

[Pelthis]

You need the tech, the event only will happen if you have it.

Nope. In my last Rome game, I had only the one legion tech unlocked and I still had the Marian reform event which unlocked me the law for max legions without having teched up the "cohort" thing.

 

[EricMN93]

This goes counter to your advice of always being at war. Aggressive expansion decay is disabled while at war. (Just decay though, the percentage of current AE reduction, other flat AE reductions are still active). Because of this I tend to go for bellicose stance for the reduced AE impact instead. I also try to avoid constantly being at war. It's better to have several wars at the same time followed by a period of peace to allow some of the AE to decay.

This goes counter to your advice of always being at war. Aggressive expansion decay is disabled while at war. (Just decay though, the percentage of current AE reduction, other flat AE reductions are still active). Because of this I tend to go for bellicose stance for the reduced AE impact instead. I also try to avoid constantly being at war. It's better to have several wars at the same time followed by a period of peace to allow some of the AE to decay.

At some point you will have to be at peace, yes or yes, in these moments I take the opportunity to improve my economy and my armies. All destined for war, even in peacetime

 

[striderhce]

So how's it going? Has any of the advice here been helpful? Anything in particular you're struggling with right now?

I tried a new campaign today (I’ve basically quadrupled my hours on IR since Marius) and went pretty crazy expanding. It was going well but stability broke me and one of my parties got 0 support somehow.

 

[striderhce]

I kinda succeeded by getting historical Roman borders (but no Mare Nostrum achievement I don't get what happened, maybe I didn't notice a sh*tty tiny island somewhere), my own run was focusing on Gaul/Iberia early on as tribes are a real pushover. And by the time I got them all, I unlocked Imperial Conquest and so I can sweep stronger powers in a single war.
You just have to be ready to go until 100AE and prepare some side armies to crush provincial rebellions.

Thanks, yeah I think that’s the only way to do it otherwise you just don’t have the time to let AE go down before wars.