Newbie needs help! :)

[unmerged(139882)]

Heya guys! I just bought Rome and Vae Victus last night... I played a few rounds, but I still am... Confused about many things... If anyone has any answers to my questions, it woul dbe greatly appriciated.

1) I do not want to play off as a major force, so I decided to head for the British Isles. I choose the person in Modern day Scottland. I was wondering, which would be the best force to play as on the Isles??? (During the first scenario, At the very first starting date)

2) How do you increase population?? It says I need a population of 10, and Civilization rating of 50% to take over nearby barbarian states. So how do oyu make the population increase??

3) How do you increase Civilization?? (Same reason as above.)

4) Can these states change governments? Or are they stuck as Military tribes?? If they can change, how can I change them?? (Supposedly for a King... I do not like Republics. I am thinking a Dictorial Monarch, or any Monarch really. )

5) Would these forces even be good as playing as? I was going for a more "Defencive" game. I was planning on conquering the Isles, and amassing a large Navy for defence. Lol.

6) What religion blessing should I try to do for the first few times? If I wanted to expand farther?

7) What does appointing regional governers do? Does it do anything good? Who should I appoint to be a governer? For some reason in my game as Macedion, two of them seemed to want to rebel? Could it be because their ambitions where to become the King?? Or are there other reasons? Who should I avoid appointing as governer?


8) Officers always complain that no one in their family has any important rank, and my stability decreases... T_T How do I appoint someone to an "important rank"? I appointed them to Bodyguard for the Cheiftan, but they still complained? What should I do?


These are all of the questions I can think of right now, and if you do not mind if I ask more later, it would be greatly appriciated! And thanks for the answers!

 

[Darkwind3.0]

1-They're mostly equal, I think. As the Pictii you could probably colonize Ireland, but you're far away from anything even remotely civilized and everyone who matters hates you. It's mostly the same with the other two, except you're slightly less isolated (with, if I remember, a better civilization value) and have an opportunity for immediate conquering.

2-Population increases automatically over time. You can trade for Grain in the province for +3% growth (and, if the province you trade with has a higher civ value than yours, you get extra civilization growth too). Civilization increases automatically too, but there's a decision roughly yearly that increases civilization by 1 for tribes (at a cost to popularity and loyalty) and, as said before, trading with high-civilization provinces also increases your civilization.

3-See 2.

4-Get 50 civ in your capital, get a Pious tribe leader, call the Druids to your council and tell them to get out because this is a republic now. If you're lucky and did this as a ruler with the requirements for the Dictatorship decision, jail the 5 most important and deep-seated Populists and tell the senators to get out because this is a monarchy now. Be ruined, though, because this spikes your Tyranny hugely, so people (and nations) will view you less as an enlightened despot and more as a baby-eating scourge upon the face of the planet to be utterly destroyed and humiliated.

5-Atrebates has a connection to Britain, so land forces can attack you if you don't control the seas completely. It's possible to take over the other two nations in Britain, but keeping Atrebates from colonizing it would be hard unless you play as the Catuvellauni.

6-Don't. If your chances are below 50% in the first few years, don't bother. When you begin getting bonuses to your strength, chances, etc. then go for them. If you wanted to expand, go for the pop-growth one.

7a-All sorts of nice things, which I can't be bothered to fully remember right now. I believe it decreases revolt risk and increases taxation and research values (not to mention making good events more likely).
b-Yes, see 7a.
c-People with high Finesse. martial supposedly helps on frontiers, but I'm not sure of that, and I'm fairly sure Charisma (as always) helps with events.
d-Not much of a question. More of a statement.
e-That helps it, as it lowers their loyalty, which is the core of the reason why governors try to rebel. Loyal troops and various traits also decrease loyalty. Bribing increases it (I remember as a game as Armenia I once played, I was getting 50+ gold/month (playing after Tigranes conquered the Seleucids) and roughly every other month I'd have to give some official or general gold so they didn't rebel, as my king was insanely unpopular despite, or perhaps beause, he had roughly one in every three coins in existence).
f-See 7e.
g-See 7c.

8-Those are Clan Chiefs. Check if anyone in their family has a title. If not, check if they have anyone else in their family. Either way, just give up on maintaining stability above -3 except in those brief times when you stab a pig to prove your country is stable enough to declare war seconds before doing so. The events for tribes seem rather broken and unbalanced to me, since they happen regardless of whether or not the Clan Chief has the fertility of table salt. By the way, just appointing the Chief to some position won't do. You need to give one of their (often non-existent, as mentioned before) family members a position as bodyguard, general, governor, naval general, pretty much anything.

Edit: Oh, and for those of you masochistic enough to try maintaining stability and think you have (ie all of your chiefs have proven themselves to be men rather than robots from the future), there's an event that can happen where your chief thinks his family has been slighted for who knows what reason. Yeah, more stab hits. Playing as a Tribe is awful. This is why I suggest using the Druids to get to a Republic.

I certainly don't mind if you ask more, if you're willing to put up with my long-winded replies.

 

[unmerged(139882)]

Thank you very much! It was very useful!

Just one more question... How do I get the druids to do that? The tutorial did not go much into depth of that... T_T Hmmm a Republic? I guess it will have to do.

I just do not like playing as the "Overally rigged forces" because it makes the game too easy. Lol. Any suggestions on who to play as?

 

[Darkwind3.0]

It's a government decision, "Allow the Druids to enter the Council" or something like that. +6 stability, +10% omen power (or chance, I can't remember), -10% research. You can find it in the same window you get the Council (for monarchies), Senate (for republics), or list of tribe chiefs (for tribes).

Mostly in this game there seem to be a few major powers and many minor powers, with not too many medium powers (generally due to their proximity to major powers). You might want to try Pontus (tip: annex both Bithynia and Tylis for a +5% bonus to taxes) or the Bosporan Kingdom. Illyria might be interesting too, since they might become a major power after colonizing, or perhaps Macedonia because, whatever the game says, they have four provinces while every other "major power" has at least twice that, in which case it would be a good idea to try and unify Greece for some awesome research (Greece is a very civilized place, and civilization provides a bonus to research).

 

[unmerged(119342)]

Greece also gives good manpower when united.

 

[Ablamor]

Try Armenia

 

[unmerged(139882)]

See, thats the thing. I LOVE GREECE, Rome, Carthage, and Persia. Its hard to choose between them, and ontop of that, they all seem to be rigged... Thats why I wanted to try the British Isles, to be isolated and to play as barbs... Lol. I never knew it would be so hard to just become a Monarchy though... Plus you get sooo many redicoulus negative events. Its not even funny.

 

[kunadam]

It seem I should give this game a try.
Just one question what does Via Victis! add to the game. Should one buy it right from the beginning?

 

[Melichai]

Yes, Vae Victus is mandatory for a good EU Rome experience. Dont play Rome without it installed.

Just be careful playing the barbarian factions - its a very difficult game with lots of bricks thrown in your path because the medditeranean rim was the place to be for up and coming powers of the era. The game tends to reflect that, with Barbarian factions being small and not so powerful or even stable.

Im currently giving Massilla a go. A civillised greek Republic, allied with Rome with plenty of potential to expand through colonialism in southern France and most of Spain once you stop the tribute to Rome. So far its been hard as nails with it taking 10 years before I could get around to fielding a fleet and my army being limited to 2000 men. Trade of course being the only real way to make money.

Its interesting though.

 

[unmerged(119342)]

Two thoughts come to mind:

1. Armenia is a good nation to play as I have now taken 4/5 of the map playing this upstart "minor". I took the whole map as Pontus, which is another good one to try. My next country will be a Greek minor if I VV play again. However, there are some new games out there, and all my old favorites are crying for attention too.

2. VV 2.1 with mods is the way to go. Rome 1.3 is just not refined enough for the overwhelming majority of players. If you read the posts, you will see this is the general consensus. I started with Rome 1.3 and got VV as soon as it was released. Then I patched it when the 2.1 version was released. I like the 1.2 Mod Collection the best.

I have had a happy crash-free gaming experience even with my crazed editing of saved games. I like to try bizarre social experiments and non-historical "what if" scenarios. My only lasting gripe is the exit game crash, but you get used to it.

 

[unmerged(139882)]

What do dsiciplines do? Do they increase the efficiency of your units??? Is it worth setting my law to one that lowers my Freeman to Civilian count by 5% and raising my Heavy Infantry discipline by 20%?

 

[unmerged(139882)]

Alright. So I decided to start my first actual game as Armania (Spelling). I was just wondering a few more things...

Should I get my government all settled first? (Like choose what laws I want to enact and what not). For example in my game, I had chosen the law that does a -2% Freeman to Civilian with a +20% discipline to Heavy Infantry. So should I do that first? Or is the -1 stab worth it?

Should I mass Heavy Infantry, or Malitia? Something tells me the Heavy Infantry, but I wanted to see what you guys would say first.

How do you defeat the Selucian (Spelling) Empire?! They declared war on me within the first 20 years, so I had to restart. Is their any ways to prevent this? Or is it just luck??

Thanks for all the help earlier!

 

[Darkwind3.0]

1-That really depends upon what you're focusing on and personal preference. With that law, for example, you would want to use it if you want to have Heavy Infantry as the core of your forces and don't care about research. If you want an advanced, mobile army, don't use that law, it's backwards for you.

2-Heavy Infantry. Be sure to try and match them 1:1 with archers for some extra punch. The Heavy Infantry take the hit while the archers deal it.

You could, alternatively, focus on cavalry. You would want Horse Archers for barbarian and rebel duty, and if your enemy comes at you with huge forces of militia, as they get a huge bonus versus those. Use Cavalry for the elite enemy armies. Don't forget to mix in a few foot armies, too; horsemen aren't good at sieges, since apparently fighting on horseback prevents you from starving out enemy fortresses (I guess they eat horse droppings?)

3-You can kiss up to them, try to get on their good side and probably backstab them when you're stronger than them. You could also force a confrontation immediately--they start at war with Egypt. Get as many men as your forcelimit allows, put them under a good general, and declare war. With any luck, the Seleucids won't have men to react, as they'll be busy grinding away at Egypt, and you can take a province or two.

Oh, and for your earlier post, Discipline, if I remember, raises the damage your troops deal. The more Discipline, the deadlier they are. I think Experience might work in reverse, lowering morale and unit loss, but I'm not sure. And, once again, whether you want to enact the law depends upon what you're looking for.

 

[Ablamor]

Recruits a lots of heavy infantry, archers and some cavalry and declare war the first on the Seleucids as soon as they enter war with someone. Try to recruit light infantry as mercenaries, 2k per unit to siege province behind you and use your biggest stack to destroy their army. If you fight a general with 9 or 8 martial you might wanna assassinate him also! You might wanna check my Aar for some tips

Then you conquer them and divide their territory in two and you get ready for round 2. Always make the first move and don't forget that they will eventually come back for you. So it's all about being ready to wage war until they are no longer a threat. Then you can pretty much rule the world ^^

http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=385435