Is taking out Rome too early really cheesy?

[manager2525]

I was thinking of going for the Gauls are crazy achievement. Started with a smallish Helvetian tribe. I was going OK taking all Raetia and Cisalpine Gaul. As a house rule I try not to rush Rome. I did this once again. I had allied Carthage. Rome attacked Cartage for the territory of Carthage itself. It had already been kicked out of Sicily and Sardinia on the first war. So everyone (Carthage, Me and Ptolemies - Carthage allies) was fighting Rome. I had a big border in the Pannonian area that I had to defend. Unfortunately I was not yet ready for a fight since I could only muster around 10k men and had not caught up to them technologically. Even if fighting on the mountain passes with advantage and sending small armies to loot the roman cities in order to boost my army with mercs it was a war I could not win. Carthage and Ptolemies really did not help enough. Anyway no fear the Cartagenians could get a white peace since the Romans were no where near Carthago... wrong Carthaginian @@@ decided to sell me off to get a piece earlier (despite being far from fully sieged and going back and forth on the mountains, relieved once they were gone).
Maybe I could have turned it around but I rage quit. Started again this time with the Sennones. No house rules no quarter to Rome and 20 years Rome was no more. However after that there was really no challenge since I had no archenemy to fight down the road. The Diadochi and Mayria were to far away. Carthage never puts up much of a fight. So after all I abandoned this run as well.
Do you also have any such kind of house rules or something else you usually don't do in your playthroughs???

 

[IsaacCAT]

I was thinking of going for the Gauls are crazy achievement. Started with a smallish Helvetian tribe. I was going OK taking all Raetia and Cisalpine Gaul. As a house rule I try not to rush Rome. I did this once again. I had allied Carthage. Rome attacked Cartage for the territory of Carthage itself. It had already been kicked out of Sicily and Sardinia on the first war. So everyone (Carthage, Me and Ptolemies - Carthage allies) was fighting Rome. I had a big border in the Pannonian area that I had to defend. Unfortunately I was not yet ready for a fight since I could only muster around 10k men and had not caught up to them technologically. Even if fighting on the mountain passes with advantage and sending small armies to loot the roman cities in order to boost my army with mercs it was a war I could not win. Carthage and Ptolemies really did not help enough. Anyway no fear the Cartagenians could get a white peace since the Romans were no where near Carthago... wrong Carthaginian @@@ decided to sell me off to get a piece earlier (despite being far from fully sieged and going back and forth on the mountains, relieved once they were gone).
Maybe I could have turned it around but I rage quit. Started again this time with the Sennones. No house rules no quarter to Rome and 20 years Rome was no more. However after that there was really no challenge since I had no archenemy to fight down the road. The Diadochi and Mayria were to far away. Carthage never puts up much of a fight. So after all I abandoned this run as well.
Do you also have any such kind of house rules or something else you usually don't do in your playthroughs???

Honestly, when I reached this point I started playing MP.

 

[Terixis]

In my experience Rome is at its most dangerous when it's mid-sized 20 years into the game, when its antagonist buffs and the wealth and pops of Italia combine with your own relatively poor economy that can't support more than a couple mercs. If you wait long enough you can throw together a big enough doomstack with military techs that you can occupy the wargoal and a couple of other provinces and the AI will almost always be willing to peace out if you keep winning battles. At the start you can just dogpile them as long as your allies don't lose all of their troops in dumb battles to them.

Or just suck up to Rome and ally them and conquer Cisalpine Gaul to block them off, they'll (probably) go to Greece or Carthage instead. You can also call them into all of your own wars so they don't declare many of their own and thus don't expand but that's pretty gamey.

 

[TheBrilliantBoolean]

In my experience Rome is at its most dangerous when it's mid-sized 20 years into the game, when its antagonist buffs and the wealth and pops of Italia combine with your own relatively poor economy that can't support more than a couple mercs. If you wait long enough you can throw together a big enough doomstack with military techs that you can occupy the wargoal and a couple of other provinces and the AI will almost always be willing to peace out if you keep winning battles. At the start you can just dogpile them as long as your allies don't lose all of their troops in dumb battles to them.

Or just suck up to Rome and ally them and conquer Cisalpine Gaul to block them off, they'll (probably) go to Greece or Carthage instead. You can also call them into all of your own wars so they don't declare many of their own and thus don't expand but that's pretty gamey.

This was my strategy when I went for my first simaltaneous brennus' revenge and Bois are back in town. Granted I fought Rome, Etruria and Macedon at several points i had the advantage of high decentralisation and the chad lepontic culture which afforded me about 30k men. Only fight Rome early or late game when the advantage and initiative lies with you sometimes Rome declares on you with better tech and a mobolized army far exceeding your own. Best bet is to make them get war exhaustion so you can give up the war goal and carry on or even better white peace. Rome is intended to be powerful and is even worse in Vanilla with its levy size buff from the herritage, but Vanilla makes it easier to ally Etruria or Samnium against Rome or even ally Rome