Total War: Attila - How To Survive As The Western Roman Empire !
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- Опубліковано 21 лют 2015
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I made this strategy up when Attila first came out so it may not be the best but it looks at the first 20 turns as the The Western Roman Empire and has worked out for me. As well as this you may want to build army's earlier then I did if a bigger faction declares war on you !
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So basically, surrender the Empire until you're down to what it was at the end of the Punic Wars, then rebuild from scratch.
@@hugejackedman7423 we simply failed to win!
@@Cheese-qk1ft we won the failure!
@@Cheese-qk1ft thats an “oversimplified” way to say it
@@proactiveomnipresentvessel6569not paying taxes angered his god, which punished him severely
@@raptor_zero9429 the failure failed to win!
"I accidentally lost africa" LOLOLOLOL
@Provocateur ^^^^^
you can use religion Delay them
I've been trying this tactic and it's been working wonderfully well. But! I've got an improvement to this method that actually works 100% better in the initial start of the plan. I used it, and I became more powerful than I could imagine within 20 turns of the game. Use the following plan, combined with Jackie Fish's above video, and you will easily win as WRE. Easily.
You've got all armies being disbanded immediately on the first turn. This isn't necessarily the best plan because if you do this immediately when the game starts, your generals will develop bad traits that relate to their armies having disbanded so quickly. Another drawback is the amount of perceived power by other factions: the computer sees the lack of armies at the start of the game and immediately thinks you're weak and ripe for the conquering, and many factions begin to declare war on you in the beginning. You don't want this, and I'll explain why in the next paragraph. But instead of disbanding immediately, what you wanna do is slowly amalgamate your forces together by taking each army and combining them across the map into two forces, slowly disbanding specific troops along the way, until after about 10 turns, you've amassed into only two armies. Then, after another 5 turns of slowly disbanding certain troops out of these two armies, disband the generals, and all the armies will be out of play until you raise forces again.
By now you're asking, "But how will I make any money during the time those armies are still around, taking upkeep?" That's where the fun part begins. Remember what I said about not wanting other factions declaring war on you initially? Instead of making money slowly by disbanding your armies, go across your entire empire and dismantle every building until every settlement is down to a 'Tier I' settlement, and 'Tier I' jetty (if applicable). ALSO, DO NOT dismantle the fields. Only dismantle them down to their 'Tier I', but don't get rid of them completely. This takes care of the food problem, and you will never have a famine. Slowly dismantle the fields in your outlying provinces as enemy forces start to take over your bare settlements as you build up the fields you have in the provinces you keep. Dismantle everything else and leave no settlements around except the ones you've chosen to hold onto (Italia, Liguria, Venetia, Magna Graetia, Insulae Occidentalis, and Africa).
The money that comes from all the buildings being dismantled initially will give you around 120,000 immediately on the next turn. Yes, that's right. 120,000.
+Alex Alerasoul That's interesting. I've never thought of dismantling every building in every province.
+Daniel Nobingham Except, of course, the provinces you're keeping.
+Alex Alerasoul When I was watching this video that's exactly what I was thinking. Get rid of buildings that use up food and reduce armies slowly. There may be some optimising you could do by not dismantling specific buildings but a sound strategy.
Sorry man but this is too much. You have a decent garrison and it is absolutely unnecessary to burn everything down. Disbanding every army is also stupid as the only deterrent to a war against every other faction in the game is the number of standing armies you start with (which will be your only stacks for a long time).
1- Provinces: they require the bare minimum, the priority being food (grains on regions with very good or better fertility, cattle in everything else), second public order (which your main source will be Amphitheatres), then sanitation (region capital only. Burn the bathhouses down). Food is your main priority as shortage hits public order pretty hard and reduces your local income.
Everything else, particularly churches (only Roma can keep its church for recruiting priests), are to be burned to the ground. This will net a good amount of money for upkeep and infrastructure upgrades. Do not keep military recruitment buildings as you won't be recruiting anything beyond basic spears (which don't require any building) and horde levies anytime soon.
2- Early Defense: you'll be attacked right after turn 1, it's unavoidable. The first battle for Camulodunum can be won by simply killing Hengist (the saxon general) before he makes to the shore and most of his army tend to rout with little fighting. After this, you'll have several open fronts bound to be attacked sooner or later. The list of cities bound to be attacked is surprisingly short and those are your priority to improve their garrison (without causing food shortage): Camulodunum (frequent target of Jute raids as the Saxons have a tendency to be killed by the Franks after losing the siege of your province), Rotomagus (Jutes), Segontium (Ebdanians), Colonia Agrippina (Franks), Sabrata (Garamantians), Sirmium (Huns/Goths/Roxolanians) and Sopianae (Quadians). In the first 10 turns you can difuse two threats before they can grow by killing the Quadians after botching their invasion (raze their province, DO NOT CAPTURE IT) and using a general (preferably Flavius Stilicho) to tail the Suebians (which will, sooner or later, declare war on you) and levy their asses until he has the upper hand to kill them off. Recruit and keep a general in Segontium and Sirmium as a deterrent to any attacker (recruitment is not required early on). Sirmium in particular will be sieged by several different parties but not for long as starting hordes are ill-equipped to bring down walls and will bankrupt before starving out the defenders.
3- Settlement battles: they are to be fought every single time and not auto-resolved. Basic stuff for players, your infantry needs to be holding every bottleneck in your central plaza in a defensive testudo (be sure to not leave any exposed flank/rear) and barricades covering the rest, sagittarii manning the walls (no flaming arrows) and your scout equites sitting back, hidden. Scout equites are your main tool here, with good use you can win settlement battles with 5:1 odds. Remember they should be used as a hammer to your anvil and to mop up any routed units after the battle is won (leave as few survivors as possible, replenishing more of your forces and breaking the enemy offensive).
4- Politics: you start in a precarious position, with a very poor dominion (your family has a very small number of characters) and a few political slips can make your control hit rock bottom, bringing your family power with it. Flavius Honorius Augustus should be placed as governor in the very first turn to consolidate his power and Flavius Stilicho should be running errands inside your empire (killing off the Suebians should be his first accomplishment, burning down any enemy settlements as the opportunity presents itself). Watch for the governors and generals and kick them out as soon as they develop any awful traits (particularly those increasing corruption or reducing public order) and watch for Flavius Honorius as well, as he has a tendency to develop highly undesirable traits. Murder him with Stilicho as soon as something like Torturer (a very common trait for roman emperors) pop up. Distribute positions to dissipate the growing influence of characters outside your family and adopt those who have good traits (particularly trader, builder, justice or intelligence) into it.
5- Agents: you should keep them at a maximum number at all times. Spies should be used on the frontier to sabotage and kill enemy characters, priests should be used to convert and stabilize your public order and champions should be kept on armies on the most contested regions. As soon as Attila shows his hunnic ass near your territory, employ your spies to assassinate him. If done right, you won't have to face the worst of the hunnic horde and soon you'll be mopping up what's left of it.
Following these hints and holding off both separatists and your neighbors, soon your opposition will crumble due to infighting. Capture the rest of Britannia, burn down the rest of Germania, puppet the saharan provinces and it all comes down to wall yourself in the settlements to face the inevitable hunnic invasion.
Yeah don't disband the armies... Marry off your niece to a german king. Hold London, Camulondon and Belgium. Gift any territory you can to wandering barbarians you aren't at war with, they become potential allies. Try to get as many barbarian allies as you can while spreading latin christianity. You can use governors to spread Christianity to neighboring kingdoms, for instance, i had govenors spreading christianity in all of my african territories, which converted the garmatians into christians. When they become christian they start to like you more. Spend all your money trying to stabilize happiness, fight any fight you can win, it's important not to lose too much territory, don't give up too much influence/build influence with your leader. Basically, avoid civil war, maintain happiness, hold your territory, only give minor concessions and build alliances. Then you will make enough money to get 5-6 elite legions, stack them up and conquer shit.
21 turns in as WRE, defending everything. I conquered all of Britain, conquered most of Africa , and I've been defending the northeastern and eastern front with 1 army in each. I upgraded the 2 mines in the beginning, and sometimes its worth it to play a battle and wear down the enemy hordes and armies, even if you know you're about to lose, that way its easy to crush them later. I've had some rebellions , but I haven't lost yet to any rebels. Biggest issue right now is food. This is by far my most exciting total war campaign yet.
sankarikullervo I completely agree with playing the battles, even though there's little chance of winning. I've always been kind of lazy with Total War battles, but playing as the WRE has gotten me to start to get out of that. Also, it's honestly kind of satisfying in a way to take out a good chunk of your enemy's army with just a small garrison, either slowing them down or making them easier to defend against in the next siege or get picked off by your armies. Hell, I actually won a couple of times.
I abandoned the top provence of Britain and only defended Illyria, Maxima Sequanorum, Raetiaet Noricum and Maurciania with the garrisons, allowing them to fall if need be. The rationale for this: it deprives the Celts of the strength they will inevitably get from conquering those territories, and prevents them from becoming a major raiding force that will tie up many troops in Gaul. Hold the line at Britannia Superior which will be a lot easier to defend with the troops you had in Britain at the start plus garrisons. Illyria is indefensible in the early game, too many tribes want it and it'll tie up a lot of troops that you will need to use elsewhere. Use those troops to instead hold the line at Venice and the Alps. Maurciania is also fairly indefensible unless you intend to leave Carthage under-defended. North Africa cannot be safely held if you spread your efforts to all 3 provinces. With some skill, you can defend 2. The other two territories are just not that useful and are gonna be more difficult to hold than they are worth. I don't even reconquer those two until well into the game.
I prioritized Italy, Iberia, Carthage, Britain and Gaul in that order. Everything else was pretty much expendable to some degree.
Its not hard even on very hard and legendary to keep 90% of the empire and build it back up
I'm doing that... Rome has heavy troops for some reason... We can destroy an barbarian army with 3 units If we do a good use of the cavalry
It was a really cool idea to allow you to play Rome just as it is about to completely collapse. The idea of defying history by keeping Rome alive is so cool.
check out Legend of Total war. He is making a campaign as the Western Empire, Legendary difficulty, declaring war on every single faction. Its astonishing
In fairness.. (watchin it currently, turn 70 ish) .. he pulls off battle wins where everyone else would fail. Time and again, he wins where I would have been owned.
The Franks, whom you start out with a trade agreement, non aggression pact and on decent terms, will 90% of the time 'join war against' Saxons and Jutes, (both of which WRE start out at war with) for no or little payment.
Yeah thats the innate French hatred of the English. The French and English hated each other before they were French and English.
+sannguis bumb Both the Saxons and Franks are Germans. The Jutes are Scandinavian. There's no English or French there.
The English were often described as Anglo-Saxons, Anglo coming from "the Angles", which was a culture group the Jutes belonged to, and Saxons being obvious.
And the Franks went on to form France in the form of West Francia under the Carolingians.
@@justafaniv1097 what they’re saying is they’re all technically Germanic people. The franks which became “French” were a Germanic tribe, as were the invading Anglo saxxons into the British isles. So really it’s the Germanic inherent hatred of other Germans. But you’re correct that both those Germanic groups would form the foundation for the English and French nations. Ironically the inhabitants before the Germanic invasions of both areas were all Gallic so maybe they wouldn’t have hated each other so much if the Romans didn’t exterminate all the Gauls and the British isles had remained Celtic.
I just burned all my provinces besides Spain and Italy, and focused on that area. It was tough, but soon after I dealt with a few rebellions, Spain actually regained Public order, and with Spain you have some good fertile ground, which made it possible to recover completely
This is the same strategy I used in Rome Barbarian Invasion when playing as Western Romans.
Andrew Geil Some things just never change. :)
War... War never changes.
Andrew Geil In that one all you had to do was pull your armies out then wait for the rebellions. Once they did you'd attack them and take the back while sacking them. This way you dealt with the public order and overly large rebelious population by killing them and taking their money.
I went ahead and tried legendary mode with WRE. A total nightmare. I could never make it past 400 AD. Armies lost, can't keep economy going. huge amount of pressure from the hordes and rebels. My biggest complaint of the game is when your provinces rebel, they rebel with awesome units. I feel that they should not be able to rebel anything better than what you have, because if they are fellow ROmans also, how do they get to have the nice units when you do not have access to them yet.
Mods fix that rebel problem
As far as I am aware, they can only have the units that your current buildings allow for.. ?
@@Irishprice1 no they're spawning units you don't have access to yet. Like big onagers while i don't even have the damn thing even researched.
You won but your basically just Italy now/
+Damir Pryce yeah exactly man, restore pagan gods and start from Italy all over again, btw this northern France domain lasted for like few years... so Italy is definitely better than total destruction :)
You do mean Dalmatia, right? The WRE's remnants were in Illyria until around 480, but it ceased to exist as a powerful state anymore. In Northern Gaul, was a Roman rump state, a spinoff, if you will. That was Soissons.
Exactly man that's what Rome should have done in RL life
In other words, it is like Rome 2 but now you are expanding against your own territories (again).
Wish I had found this before I started my campaing. Happines is low pretty much everywhere. Mediolanum is under siege by by the Quadians. North-east Italy, southern Gaul and most of Afrika is overrun with rebels/separatists.
I'm gonna restart the campaing following this tactic.
Best of luck bro !
jmaurveg gluff I hate the quadians so much,they are the most trecherous invader Ive met so far,although they're not as strong as the vandals and ostrogoths who just throw full armies at you at turn 5.
+BATATA JOSNEY They were once my puppet kingdoms once they got 2 full stacks they just betrayed me and obliterated the areas near them.
A well thought strategy, I went for a softcore version leaving a few armies and sending them to the regions where public order is low
For the glory of Rome !
I'm nearly 200 turns in to my WRE campaign. I retreated to Britain, conquered Scotland and Ireland and defended it for around 80 turns until I launched an invasion into Scandinavia and worked down South from there. It worked perfectly well. Britain is so easy to defend and allows perfect amount of time for the other nations to settle and begin their own wars amoungts each other.
Did you give up Italy?
Absolutely
I love this plan too.
Wow, I'm 20 some turns in on hard and have not lost nearly as many territories. I made sure to keep my legions, but I also destroyed all of the churches since they cost lots of upkeep, and the happiness can be made up with other buildings.
As much of a pain Spain is with its constant rebellions (which are pretty easy to beat), it is vital to your economy, especially with the gold mines. Right now in my campaign, Carthago Nova is my richest region. Also, it is a good Idea to make your faction leader a governor. You do not want to risk losing him on the battlefield, and he will gain a lot of influence and skill as a governor, something he will not get as a general. Use spies and their "investigate corruption" action in your provinces to bring in even more money. I am currently getting between 6-8k per turn (its been fluctuating).
I have a total of 10 armies and one fleet. Most of my armies are mid sized and none are full, but they are big enough to repel any barbarian force. So far, I have lost Britannia, Northern Gaul, Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Mauretania, but I also have a more stable frontier and I have held on to most of my empire. Don't be afraid to give one of your lesser provinces as a gift to a horde, you just might gain a powerful ally out of it. I gave the Vandals a town and they have been quite useful.
Also, to anyone reading this, it is better to just let your provinces rebel than abandon them. The rebels will often hinder enemy hordes and keep them busy, buying you time or keeping them away completely. But before you let any provinces go, go ahead and demolish any buildings except for the town centers. That way, you can recover money and use it elsewhere.
It took me forever, but my Empire is finally rebounding. The only problem I really have is that much of my empire is getting wracked with plagues because I did not build sanitation soon enough.
Trusting the vandals? I'm guessing that didn't turn out well in the long haul.
Great video! I will adhere to these advice in my next campaign. I will also demolish churches to increase my income :-).
+The Golden One I smell a pagan :)
+The Golden One Graeco-roman paganism for the win
Heretic
@@weyjosh5213 Worse: apostate.
Oh relax, it's just a game
Better than my own strategy inspired by World War Z's Redeker Plan. I pull all my forces back to Iberia and use the Pyrenees as a natural fortification and place my armies in the passes. I don't abandon my other provinces, I just make the decision not to actively defend them so the hordes still have to conquer them, slowing them down. I don't build any units, upgrades or buildings except in Iberia and even then only what's affordable (I rely on my military to put down any revolts within Iberia). Then I just sit back and watch the other factions tear apart the rest of my territory while trying to keep them out of Iberia until the hordes have all settled/moved on at which point I go on the offensive to try and take back what I lost.
cool
South Africa would be proud
good plan but i go to italy instead of spain
the alps defend you from gaul forcing the enemy into 1 of 4 long distance choke points if they want to break into italy making a simultaneous strike near impossible, meaning that bottlenecks are extremely easy.
better soil which can help early game especially if you convert to paganism
better cities, rome is a great spot for a last stand because it is one MASSIVE chokepoint
the natural geography of italy makes a deep strike on rome virtually impossible meaning anyone going for rome will have to go past ravenna, genoa or mediolanum (with the exception of a sea strike)
the settlements are usually 1/2 turns away from each other so if you give each province their own legion they can reinforce easily.
the only advantage of iberia over italy is that the enemy can only come from the north-west and from the east (though even can be checkpointed by the african crossing) meaning you don't have to fortify the south or your center but play your cards right and hold carthage and the south remains unconcerned as italy
it also allows the eastern roman empire to assist if they survive the sassanid barrage
I defend Spain AND Italy in my West Rome games. (And Carthage of course.
On medium difficultly, I took all of Africa, the British Isles, Greece, Dardania, and Thracia by turn 120 and kept or retook all the beginning provinces. I took out Attila, all the Great Migrators, and all the Celts, the Frank's, Saxons, Danes, Geats, and Jutes.
This game looks so good, but my PC can only hand up to empire :(
had the same problem. this year i have buyed a new pc for i can finaly play attila total war and his mods in 2019 \o/
Timothée Toury what of do you have ?
Teriyaki Chicken Running this on ultra setting at 60fps
If it were me I would keep spain in addition to Italy. It's really easy to defense and build up your economy there.
Nice one g, I'm enjoying my campaign as WRE, every battle is a genuine struggle, havne't had tension like this since rome 1 and Shogun 2.
I simply put small garrisons in each major settlement, and used these to attack any rebels before they became strong. Then I sent one large army to slowly subjugate Germania. It was a challenge to defend Gual, though, and at time I had to fall back to the Southern fringes near Hispania and Italia.
The only way I've really made it work is to abandon every single province and use the £100000 left over to recolonise Italia. This is because the recolonised province has fine public order and you can build from there by recolonising Magna Graecia, Liguria and Veneto when your infrastructure can cope with it.
I look forward to testing out this strategy as I play my favorite faction, I abandoned pretty much my entire empire and consolidated in Spain, which is successful for me but abandoning Rome is a crappy beginning, so thanks for sharing!
Finally, a WRE strategy that works. I've tried maintaining control of all the provinces, tried abandoning everything except the islands and the peninsula, tried abandoning everything except the islands, the peninsula, and Spain. This is the only strategy where my empire is not in complete disarray by turn 10 and I can still maintain a steady income, stabilize public order, and rebuild. I've realized that I make just as much income from destroying the buildings rather than abandoning the provinces entirely. Thanks for this.
+zopiclone199 If you're good enough you can try Option Britannica but bear in mind you will have to deal with 3 - 5 full stacks even on easy difficulty and about 8 on hard. Man do those irish and those french troop spam you to death. Ideally hold ground and encircle their units while relying on the ai being a moron. If you build a line with two short wings just behind your line then you can use those to enrap the AI without it seeing them as threats to anything but its cavalry. Have fun and have fun killing the irish :D
I feel obliged to thank you. you saved my WRE campaign. I followed you advices and the perfectly worked! dispanding my armies was not really a suicide and it really saves good cash. However, i decided to keep my general in the Rhine, the one with the onager (they are hard to come by), an bring him back to Aquileia. Also, i kept my army in Africa stantioned in Carthage. It proved wise to me: I put to the sword a rebelion and then i Bllitz-conquered the only city of the Gaetulians while their army was away, and i decided to subdue them. i did the same with the Maurians and i found them both very helpfull. The Gaetulians put down on their own a rebelion on Mauretania and waged war in rebelious Tripolitana, while the Maurians crossed to Hispania (!) and they put down several rebelious armies, not to mention the cash the paid for a freaking trade agreement. All of these by just maintainig my african Legion.
Currently i m in turn 14. I 've lost Britannia, 2/3 of Gaul and half of Hispania, plus all of Tripolitana, Pannonia and Dalmatia. But hell, western africa is my bitch, i maintain now 75 advanced units, my santiation is fairly good and my income is still 5k!
Es ingenium!
Very nice ;)
Do not actively abandon your settlements, you them as buffer zones to delay the barbarians' advance while still getting money from buildings. Also destroy all churches because they leech money, build more Amphitheaters and change religion to Paganism as soon as possible. I won twice as WRE in legendary difficulty.
Also do defend battles manually, you'll lose a lot but everytime you take ~1/4 of their army with you including their onagers.
Hai Nguyen I haven't played the game yet.
So I'm shocked you can abandon a religion with a new one.
Sergio Milho yep you can. No offence though but Christianity will suck your treasury dry.
Hai Nguyen Yeah I would of sticked with christianity if they gave more public order and more culture points(if their is such a thing)
And of course if the church did not take up the treasury.
Are you Vietnamese? (Just for curiosity)
That's why Attila's a hated game, poor optimization, extremely difficult to expand (in this game it's more like you're trying to survive than expand), complicated family tree system that wasn't in Rome 2, complicated interface and buildings to organize food, public order and wealth, technologies that doesn't help you at all in complicated situations, difficulty on diplomacy etc etc
Thx alot mate, this really helped!
Honorius: Okay! We're doing alright, I guess. Better than usual. I think we might be al-
*Looks at the Rhine*
The sinews of war are infinate cash seems appropriate to this strategy since your treasury was prety amazing and congratulations on this technique you have genius total war ideas/strategy
One issue I found on my first play through on the west was disloyal characters that initiated a civil war, this was because governors ended up having more influence then the emperor which lowers loyalty. To curb this I appoint the emperor as a governor of a key province, usually the capital because it seems fitting. This way they build up influence.
I have my own plan for being the western Roman Empire
1-abandon all provinces around modern day Spain boarders but keep an iron province (which is by northern Spain), the 3 Mediterranean islands, for sea superiority, and 1 province that's right at the tip of North Africa that's right below Spain
2-bring all armies back to Spain for a defence
3-keep your best armies in all cities that touch the French Spanish boarder. I find that nearly all northern armies go that rout, only the countries inside Britain and Ireland seem to coast by the sea
3-use any armies left over to put down rebellions quick (you'll be doing this for a while) as your going to use the money from all those useless provinces to boost your economy
3- PLAY DEFENCE! Only attack an army if you think you can take them out and run straight back to your fortresses.
4-build up your first along the French boarder to prepare for the Huns
The Huns does'n passes through Italy? They just passes on the north of Italy and go to Spain?
Looking back now, the best investments I made were in governor's palaces and sanitation. Those are the first two things I build when colonizing now (Europe is pretty messed up thanks to my scorched earth policy).
I thought of something like this as well, basically giving up on everything except italia
This vid made me sub to you crazy how far you’ve come you only had a couple k back then
At first i just went extremely defensive, kept my armies and everything (difficulty was hard). Current date at the moment is 415AD and i own all my provinces still, except for Colonia Agrippina and Camulodunum, but Hadrian's wall has been re-manned for the first time in like 20 years, and most of my borders are secure with powerful armies. However Attila is now in east Germany and from what i have seen from my spies i am positively shitting myself :P
I pissed myself now i need to change my underwear brb
Well as for the raze everything strat, it does work very well after one turn most of the public order goes. If you have sent the military back to italy you should be able to crush the Italian rebellion.
If only the ancient WRE used this same strategy, maybe they would not have fallen to the barbarian hands lol
+Linh T
Naw the political elite never could have or would have agreed to this sort of approach. If the leadership didn't face an internal coup they'd face face severe challenges from regional governors and more likely than not some of the Roman Generals would march their armies on Rome/Ravenna as opposed to agreeing to disband. Finally removing the field armies would cause the Germanic tribes to become much bolder and much more aggressive. This is really a game exploit, akin to hiding all of your troops in the amphitheater to force the computer to attack your shield walls head on. But hey if it works in game well then why not, the game offers plenty of ridiculous cheats, like the AIs insta replacements or the never ending horde of Huns.... Seriously they must breed like rabbits given how many of them I've killed.
VENICE - Venetia. Vienna is in Austria =)
I went the full abandonment strategy, left genua, mediolanum, verona and aquileia to the north and 4 full armies as a buffer and the Italian province provides an excellent natural funnel if any enemy armies get through. A few years in, the barbarians and rebels will reestablish Southern Spain and most of Africa will be built back by African countries. This is an opportunity to reconquer the territory without a ton of effort using 2 or more armies. If remaining as Christians, move priests and governors around your unhappier territory. Not only can you get huge religion buffs, but the WRE also has edicts to stop immigration and improve food. These are the 3 common factors of unhappiness. Always pay close attention to what is making your province unhappy.
The Huns can be massacred in 2 ways. One is to focus on heavy testudo troops supported by crossbows and a few heavy onagers as the Huns will 99% of the time rush your position. If you keep the minimum distance of your onagers firing range on your battle line, you can put extremely accurate artillery fire into the enemy blobs trying to force their way through your men. You can wipe out dozens of their men with each artillery shot, just make sure you double up on that line and don't let their archers hit a testudo on the side. Using forts and cities to funnel the enemy will multiply the effect, so using those border cities mentioned earlier as giant forts means that a single legion can face multiple Hordes before being overrun, usually with plenty of time for you to send a reinforcing army to relieve the garrison, often resulting in the remaining Huns to retreat, just never chase unless you are still able to defend your border encase of a defeat.
The second strategy involves medium cavalry with high attack against horses. Using this setup, I was able to absolutely outmaneuver and crush the Huns in every 1:1, even some 1:2 battles. It's cumbersome if you can't handle using 20-40 fast moving units at the same time, but if you can pull it off, you can be absolutely devastating against any Horse and ranged reliant enemy. Be aware that you may have to split some formations and leave enough room to cover a lot of ground, yet just close enough to close the gap if you are trying to trap their horse armies. I've made semi circles using these gaps large enough to completely encapsulate Hun armies, cutting off their cav archers escape and only committing small detachments for their artillery. Once the Huns ranged units are defeated, the rest of their army is cake because most of their cavalry is only good against infantry.
Almost all of my provinces are basically setup the same way. Each town focuses on food and always has a garrison...always. Cities have one administration, town center, waterworks, and religious building if it doesn't have a resource.
I completed a WRE campaign on VH not too long ago. Here is what I did:
1. I kept Britain, Narbonensis, Spain, Italy, and Africa. In the other provinces I destroyed all the buildings and let them rebel or fall to enemies. I manually fought almost all these defensive settlement battles just to try to inflict casualties on the enemies to slow them down.
2. Break alliance with ERE. They will drag you into wars its not worth it. Only the trade income they give you is worth it.
3. In first few turns you can take out or subjugate the Quadians, Caledonians, Alamans, and Marcomans. You'll need to hire all the mercenaries you can and fight a few tough battles along the way. This will buy you some precious time to build up your provinces. Once this is done you will have to retreat your armies from the frontier back to northern Italy and disband the mercenaries. Keep at least one army in Britain for defense, same for Africa.
4. Destroy all the churches. This will reduce maintenance cost as well as give you money. In addition, if you are playing VH or Legendary, you need to destroy all quarries, gold veins, and rally fields. On VH & Legendary you have to hyper focus on sanitation, food, and public order. Sewers first, food second, public order third. Your recruiting base should only be Italia, Liguria, and Venetia.
5. Keep small navies with a few ramming ships at Segontium, Camulodunum, and Syracuse. Ramming ships are cheap as hell but punch above their weight if enemy transports attack, each one can sink a bunch of ships if you are skillful.
6. Build garrison building early on in Palma, Ajax and Rhegium. You can't keep armies/navies everywhere.
7. Now its a defensive game, hang on for dear life and invest in your provinces. This is more difficult than holding only Italy but this can be done. Once your economy is good enough and Attila is around the corner, build up your force in northern Italy to deal with the Huns. After only after the Attila is slain for the last time the and Huns destroyed for good can you push out again.
8. When you are ready to push out, I recommend you deal with the barbarians and norse first before turning east. You don't want to leave a flank unguarded.
Bit late comment , but what i like to do is to convert to roman graeco paganism for neat sanitation edict. Also scuttling buildings in soon to be lost provinces net a large 1 time income. Pagan temples are so much better. Player has to make sure though to not research church techs until late into the game. It is possible to hold Iberia by usingv the tactic, on 1st turn you buy mercs using armies in france and have to kill suebis, this will prevent them from harassing Iberia. Also 1 neat tactic is to ask Franks to join war against saxons, that makes them focus them not yourself.
I used this video as a guide and after surviving past turn 50 I decided it was time to start taking back the lands I had lost.
A change I would make to your video is getting rid of the churches in the first turns. Massive boost of income at a cost of public order. Replace with guard posts or other forms of public order. This is also the start of converting back to Roman Paganism.
I find puppet states help a lot. I turned the Quadians into a puppet state and they keep the Ostrogoths at bay
I pursued abandoning policy which is the most effective to build strength. Italia, Hispania, Illyria and Cartago are the most important regions to be defended, Britania and Gallia almost give you headache on defending them since most barbarians will move in. After I stabilize food and garrison I then launch operation Liberatio Europa to retake those former 2 regions and also annihilating Allemani in their own turf
I like your strategy,I will try it...I will try reducing all the armies down to the general,and keep the feoderati in the army's they are in,and try your advice.
Great vid thanks!
How to survive as the WRE: Watch LegendofTotalWar's let's play.
EASY tactic:
Me and my friend returned our armies to some core lands: France and italy and BURNED everything esle.
For one or two turns everything will be unhappy. You will have some riots shure. but they are easy.
Here is the deal. The Ai will not attack you as much!
It seems as the Ai is mostly interested in your boarders. Not any reagion within.
Except visgoths and huns.
However this gives you and easy oppurtunity to build your cities.
The burning also givs you money redo all infrastructure.
Within a couple of rounds i Had 5-10k income depending on my armies and a stabile empire
I didnt disband my armies, rather, I merged them since your armies start with half their men in each unit while you still have to pay upkeep as if you were paying for a full unit. So the first thing I did was to merge all armies so that the units were now full, this halves your upkeep cost while keeping the number of fighting men intact, second thing was to merge the armies again so that instead of maybe 2 ten unit legion you have 1 twenty unit legion. Giving you a less mobile but much more capable force. With this you can keep britannia for a lot longer and force some celts into subjugation, letting you keep the province for even longer. When the hordes start arriving in your territory: Dont be afraid to cede some to them diplomatically. This gives you a new trading partner since ceding territory gives you a MASSIVE diplomacy boost. It also gives you one less faction to worry about going around destroying the Empire. Minor regions preferably but the important thing is that they dont make war on you. You will also want to renegotiate your treaties with the Eastern Roman Empire since cancelling your military alliance makes the barbarians hate you less, buying you some time. You should still keep the trade agreement if you can though. After that you defend and build up until you have enough to take back lost lands. With this tactic I had enough to send a big fleet and a legion to Ireland to resubjugate the Ebdanians by 413. By 420 I had retaken all of my lost lands and had several legions ready for attila when he came in from Dacia.
What difficulty level you were playing? I'm playing on second to highest and I got off lightly with only abandoning Britannia and Panonia (by abandoning I mean i sold everything there and let it be conquered) and selling a lot of unecessary bulidings. Also dunno why but in my game I have 1900~ gold per turn at the start.
I withdrew to spain and built mines and sanitation and fortified the north and south choke points since it has both unit upgrade settlemnts and lots of gold n silver
I'd like to know whether this tactic still works. I've the impression one of the latest updates gives you a malus on public order in every region for every abandoned region.
i heard Carthage and the Moorish area was Rome's food machine
I would wonder if it's specially is food as history
also I heard from a old documentary
I love learning
I just consolidate in all the spain regions using the mountain pass and terrain to my advantage. Build only in spain as much as possible while keeping the hordes at bay in the rest of europe, slowly they will advance but that is fine since it is just a delaying tactic. Once they get to southern france abandon settlements to keep them from taking them and the AI is extremely slow at settling these places (incurs public order penalty but not bad since you would be building all spain up the whole time). Make a couple navys to keep spain waters protected and you've effectively created a turtle defense in spain. Research better armies then continue the steam roll.
Best part is it is the farthest point from the huns and fertility is kept high almost the entire time. Works every time like a charm!
your right .... told the others but tried to defend what was not nessessary
I survived with the WRE in legendary difficulty and it cost me tears and blood, I tried so hard many times and in some many different loads.
Seeing how all my efforts got me in a total annihilation was tough but at the end I could manage to survive maintaining a lot of provinces.
What I do was to in the first turns fought against the Suevi that are already in your lands and annihilate them, then make good decent armies and raze the cities of Africa (this coasts some turns, but is posible and looting some cities will give you a good amount of money, you should take advantage of time so try hiring some mercenaries and catapults for one turn win the city and then disband your entire army), Also in the firsts turns there is a faction at the north that is defeasible I dont know the name of them in english but in spanish they are the Cuados.
Lose all the hope in Britannia, it will be all taken by the enemy.
Use your settlements to weak enemies armies and then attack you must play every defend for advantage (some times you will be surprised at the result, every province you wanna keep must have sanity in the main city and the fishing docks and the market at level 3 are the best for food (thats because all the provinces of the game will get the lowest fertility, also life stock buildings are good but at the first the provinces with food are good) , try to kill all nomad tribes (all of them will come to your lands so you should be able to do it).
Try to pay money to the factions you need to avoid war this is very useful because minor quantities will give you some time (for giving the amount you wanna give no just a gift that is already pre established ask for something and give the amount that you wanna, then just remove what you were asking for).
Try to get some allies by being in war with their enemies, with some luck you could sign a deal. Permit rebels to have your settlements they are neutral (but for some times then they became a nation, but its a really big time).
If a faction declares independence try making them a puppy state some will get a friendship with u and a comercial treat, but remind not to allow that to the capital of a province because it can get out of control and you will be not able to end them in case you need to.
You can keep happy for a long time Dalmatia using as a shield Panoia Raetia Et noricus and the western roman empire, at the end in my game it ended invaded but I recovered it.
Your generals must be the best for leading and the governors the same. The three provinces at north Gaul will be a battle field but if you play with patience you're gonna go through it.
In my game I had the money (after ending Africa) of having 2 big armies and 1 big enough to deal with revels. Also a general ready to deploy in case of revels in Africa,
1 army in the western frontier and the other in the eastern ready to repel invasions using your own strategy skills remind that in battle you play better than the IA (no always need to be really big the army it will depend on how your economy doing). The other just put in Spain and wait to rebellions and sofocate them.
Horses are very important and the spear infantry units are really good for proyectiles use the testudo you wont regret it, will make the enemy proyectiles ineffective.
After a lot of fucking turns you will be able to invade barbarian cities and I highly recommend to burn them, also you will reconquear Britannia but this time just loot and destroy it.
Now come THE HUNS: They will violate you really hard so my advice will be to make armies attack first and kill they hordes (in my case they only sack the cities, they didnt declare me war until I did). No negociate with them just money for giving you time, they will declare war at you no matter what.
Use the campaments full spears stacks and defeat there the huns also cities work too. For the artillery one stack or 2 of horses waiting for the moment or try the catapult shoot the cavalry and you move it untill it gets out of ammo.
I think thats everything that worked for me, but was really tough, many defeats and try again.
Bye
When they came out with barbarian invasion for Rome:Total War I used the same strategy.
So basiclly loose the short term war to win the long term one? kinda dide the same but i just had 1 full army to defend the center regions who are "happy" until i had a strong enough empire to fight back.
Being fair , thx to Atilla surrounding mechanic you can easily defeat any army in early stage as Roma’s by just backstabbing em with cavalery
My strategy is a bit on the extreme side and is aimed more for those who like building empires.
Step 1: Abandon all provinces except Africa (keep all three regions intact), also disband all armies with the exception of the one army in Africa (you will need this).
Step 2: Before ending the turn gift the local region to the Suebians, maybe a gift of gold, non aggression, marriage maybe? Just don't offer a trade agreement, and end turn.
Step 3: If possible, convert to Arian Christianity(for dat food). All but maybe two cities will successfully abandon, forget about these they are of little concern, build a few spearmen in your army to combat the impending rebel army in Africa from the -500 something unhappiness, build the cities up how you like and end turn
Step 4: Defeat the rebel army, you will now have a happy army, focus on developing Africa and a defensive force, take care of the other factions in North Africa whether it be through diplomacy or war.
Step 5: Get peace with as many factions as possible, you should have 80,000+ gold, use it.
Step 6: Win.
I do find it helps to assasinate some of the other political parties, or marry them into your family but it's not that important.
You're probably thinking, why Africa? Well the huns are less likely to bother you, simple as that, it's also easy to defend if you build up an early navy since any faction that doesn't want to have peace will probably at some point cross the sea, navies > armies on water. Also marbel is good for helping you build arian churhes to both convert your provinces and gain that food which is absolutely vital in my opinion.
As for the Eastern Roman campaign thats easy, declare war on the WRE and get peace with all factions, win.
It's a good strategy but it feels pretty game-y. Do you have any strats for Western Rome that doesn't involve disbanding your entire military?
good vidoe wait fore the next one :)
I liked the video but could you go into Dominion and Control with Offices and Governors? sadly I keep running into the problem of their loyalty going down every time.
Nice plan dude..i used this and mix it with my own strategy..Frist of all i relocate all armies and merge them to huge scale legions..Second i only abandon ilyria so hordes have no place to sack..i fought every siege battle and that way i manage to cause much more casuities to enemies.After i attakced suebians and destroy them before they manage to sack or raze any settlment..From here i use the same stragety..Builting only in italy,africa,tripolitiana,massilia province,magnca graecia,sardinia province ligouria and venetian province.i have 1350 food +12000 gold per turn.till 397 i have no suebians,no ostrogoths .in spain i lost 1 city and make puppet state hispania,in france 2 cities to gauls but i offer non aggresion pact and totally lost britain.
Nice video,Keep the good work.
I tore down the churches and reverted back to paganism (you get money from that). Then I constructed Guardhouses on the frontiers and circuses in the softer inner regions. Sometimes a Guardhouse is enough to stave off an entire enemy stack. Guardhouses also helps with the unhappiness problems. Make sure to switch your governors around to where it is critical. Then I got rid of the pointless armies, but you have to maintain some of them, in order to hunt down the wandering hordes. Guardhouses can't do that for you. With regards to food, make sure to do the math. What I mean by that is that you get bonuses in some of the provinces, but because of the climate changes, the bonuses will slowly fade. You can't just construct wheat farms everywhere, that wont be enough for the later stages of the game. Didn't loose a single province this way. I even managed to go raze the enemy towns bordering my provinces.
I destroy all my churches, put some irrigation in each province with guardhouses, and use defensive garrison tactics. By turn 50, I get 20,000 plus income.
9:11, Hilarius. Haha, i was talking about the general name.
does this still work? I wonder how the world would be if they survived the western half
This has nothing on Barbarian Invasion. The *only* way to handle the multiple 5-stack hordes that randomly showed up in your land was an exploit where you do a "sally" battle from a besieged city and abuse the AI unit pathing/placement by moving your general back and forth and getting the enemy to stand under your city's towers. You then sit in front of your computer with the game on fast forward for like an hour making little adjustments to keep the enemy in range while the towers pick at them. Good times. Oh yea and you could swim, so that was fun.
Step 1, be legend of total war
Step 2, do a blitz campaign
Step 3, get bored of campaign (due to no challenge)
Step 4, get random challenges that if you don't do you lose all your cavalry
Step 5, win
Well I survived till 400. Also Celts are my vassals. I lost some profinces from Dalmatia but I keep my old regions.
I just built up in England and held Italy as long as I could before evacuating
On what difficult lvl did you play? in th 5th round, when i am not defending i lost very much of arfica and britain, usually in the 3round i am at war with 80% of the known world...
Do a method on which you keep all your territories and keep all your armies
the way I did it is I bringed all the armies from the empire to garud Italy and leted everything else burn x) and soon enough the eastern roman empire declared war at me but I killed every one and got everything back but all of them are not happy so how do I make them happy?
You dont. Just slaughter them. If it doesnt work just repeat. Or reduce taxes. Both work
I started a WRE Campaign yesterday and got to i think 398 AD or so now and my tactic was the following:
First, withdraw all troops from Africa and Britannia and then leave these provinces be. Do not abandon them nor defend them. Why? Well Rebells will soon show up and they will stand in the way of the celtic tribes in Britannia and the desert peoples in Africa. Secondly (and i think here comes what makes my strategy unique) comes the following: Destory all catholic churches. It will make you 40k gold in ONE TURN and after this, some of them still stand just at a lower tier so you can proceed to destroy them and thus you will make shit loads of money in the first 2 or 3 turns. Use this gold to build Forum and after this theatres to push roman paganism. Why? Well simply because although latin christianity is the state religion at the start of the game, it is not the dominant religion so trying to push roman paganism back to 35% and then convert to it makes just more snese besides that fact that roman paganism will give you +2 sanitation while latin christianit will only give you +1 conversion rate. What i did then was tying to hold gaul as long as possible which wasn't that hard since i had much money and a high income so i could basically afford 3 stacks of commitatenses spearmenn and Maxima sequanorum, the province bordering germania has from the start onwards a huge garrison building in it which allows you to leave this province undefended for some time.
What became a huge problem for me though was, that the Vandals only declared war on me when they were already in italy and started shattering my empire at the heart. I'll have to make a plan to deal with this.
i appoint disloyal people as governors to make them grateful and more loyal. dunno if that works
My strategy was to evacuate all my remaining armies to the islands of Corsica, Belearic Isles, Sardinia, Sicily. once i fortify and enriched these islands, i start to retake Mainland Italy :P.
Clever strat
LOL This seems like this would work so much better than running around with your armies trying to defend everyone
i played legendary. I was able to hold everything but Britain. I kept London for shits and giggles. I never saved and reloaded
john apple Of course you didn’t, you can’t save and reload on legendary
If you want you can learn from ShepherdSurvives instructions how to do it.
How do I stop the vandals from attacking ligura
you can also burn all the churches being cristian is a expansive and go pegan
i found the money wasn't actually that much, also christian buildings are better later in the game
When you started the game you PO in Italia was like plus 7.. mine is minus 14! Harder like this
I gathered all armies to Rome. And spammed turn button and scrrwed up
normal difficulty is a piece of cake
-break military alliance and access with ERE but keept trade
-try diplomacy war frank into saxons or whatever the rng god allow with traits just try to make 1 war happen between those barbarians mongriel.
-free estate to subedians in gaulle in lugdunensis turn one and give em 400 money as offer
-put 5/5 governors in france/gaulle first thing first(emperor in person in belgica)
-set all governors panem et circenses
-start remove any church (need 2x turn some are lv 2)
-use population avaiable in each province to unlock first turn zones as follow:
main region need 3 space, one for a public order thing,one another for waterwork and last one for market; if only 2 spot then for sure you can have a port upgradeable to trade port.
you always need to substan the grow and need do it fast these 3 things, waterwork need be upgrade when you can into pubblic bath for pump province grow population.
Ads zones need to have 3 spot; 1 in each for animal husbandry and another one for industry (tanner at lv 2); in main zone the public order buildings should always be a capitolum, never build forum into public order unless is rome stadium :P (no joke work this way).
This is the base you need to have in each zone for ALL the game dont even try something different (only use fountains in ads zones if you have gold production (must have 1 funtain) or if high level industry + high level animal HUS. or 2x animal HUS.
ignore churchs till post attila defeat and always go with animal husbandry in agriculture unless is a zone where there is for base salt in 1 zone and earth fertility is high.
-of the avaible army the most north need be moved on britania superior from britania inferior into the most east region so you will be able to hold ez the enemy if they came turn 1
-move also from gaulle the nearest legion into that region( need both as the first legion will jsut stay temp there till this last can enter the city; move back into britannia inferior the first one once the second enter the region).
-The second legion near the one moved into britannia superior move it into colonia agrippa; now the north is sealed for some turn.
-move both spain and africa legion towards west of north africa enemy faction, leave both legions there and be ready to attack when enough money allow it.
-move all other legions into defend stuff into pannonia (should have 2x legion remain now).
-in front of quadrians put a troop into that regions. also buy a commander and set it jsut near the city. Quadrians will attack him and you will fight into false open enviroment where in fact there is a group of houses you can use to bottleneck the enemy (on right).
You should have 3 fresh units , hq+second hq + another one use them as front line and others as backup; use cavalry to flank the weaker side and you will start swopp enemy and win it.
-start second turn you should have between 60k-70k depend how many other things you destroyed imp write all here.
-second turn fix food problem first
-second turn after food build garrisons on all the east limes from britannia superior to pannonia (no joke you should also remove stuff to make that be possible on turn 2-3 , there are some funtain to remove etc).
-the rest of 30-40k you should have fix africa first (especially eagypt) then pannonia and dalmatia.
-after all this done fix italy and brittain
you wan form defensive alliance with frank,alemans,and suebiansin gaulls (or the hell those are wrote). You want these to focus on pannonia only when attila arrive.
you need own whole afria and whole modern uk before attile born in 400 ad.
then is a builder session in pannonia and ecnonomy + library lv 2-3 (north africa x3, ratia and norticum, sout hitaly (x1) or anywway whatever zones which have 3x port or olives tree.
in pannonia build a carpenter instead a public order building you will have 1-2 legion always there till the 6 slot so it's not needed plus 2x garrison.
then from now on you are on your own way too long to write all.
Another thing you could do is destroy any and all churches exept the one in rome and you can leave your armys where they are because you will get that much money back because of there crazy maintenance also and this is a must for me is granting people who start in you territory in the beginning a territory because they will be you allies in like 10-20 turns and they will act like a police force going around your area killing any Rebellions that pop up near them
I make the island my capital and have 2 half stacks of fleets.., dont tax your capital..but put taxes to very high, in the empire..Focus on food and commerce with one shipyard..
I love Atilla. To me it was probably the best game they put out. Need to have alot of updates sadly they won't.
why is it that your unit number of your general is 120? mine is only 28?
Can you retake abandoned settlements tho???
Also do you have to reduce your tax at the start of the game??
Uganda Knuckles I don't recommend this tactic, as someone who's completed WRE, I recommend this. Right off the bat, you want to make sure you have positive food in the regions with the worst public order. Make sure you have a fleet and maybe an army at Camulodunon. Set up edicts in provinces with a lot of money for less corruption, which will help boost your economy in early game. If you can, station any free generals in places that need public order too. Add me on Steam and I can offer more advice.
Being a veteran of BI helped me a lot with surviving. I just followed my old plan of slowly withdrawing from Pannonia, and Norther Gaul. Britain is fucked so just leave that place.
I just retreated to Spain and Italy then mopped up Africa so my troops can be concentrated in Gaul and Italy.
Why does your initial map show Colonia Agrippina as non Roman...?
I'm playing Western Roman Empire on Normal i'm gonna desagree to ur strategy i've eliminated like half the great migrators and i've only lost like 4-5 city's/villages on britania
How much to abandon, and how much to aim to keep is a personal choice. But some territories must be abandoned in any effective strategy. Personally I found abandoning most of the empire to be too extreme for me; eg some comments suggesting keeping only spain, or only Italy. I started by trying to keep only spain, Italy, and north Africa, while actually attacking in north Africa. once I finally got north Africa fully controlled, and the empire stabilized, I started on expansion next. I had planned on abandoning the Balkans, all north of the alps, gaul and Britain. But I found that I managed to retain some of the most southern gaul cities.There were two downsides with even this level of abandonment (which keeps more than some advocate in the comments): #1 in the later game, the celtic factions, and whatever factions established themselves in Northern Gaul then had these regions (conquered from my empire) as an economic base to generate units to harass spain and Italy; and #2 in regaining lost cities, any that were razed take a long time to win back --- in addition to conquering the military resistance now in these territories. So I discovered that I could retain most of the starting British regions and most of Gaul; while still giving up the Balkans, the territories north of the alps, and a few of the weakest regions to defend in gaul and Britain. I have found this to be easier later in the game, as in the midgame the celts and germans never get off the ground to threaten spain.
what I did was abandon 90 percent of the empire only Italy and Sicily remained converted to roman greco paganism researched the entire tech tree then used a tower defense approach to slowly reclaim the empire trust me guys it works just be careful if you convert back to roman paganism because it uses a shit ton of food!