Total War: ROME II - Emperor Edition

Total War: ROME II - Emperor Edition

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DEI Rome Beginner guide
By DoktorFar
In Divide et Impera Rome can be a tough faction in the beginning when you don't know the pitfalls of the challenges that lies ahead. Here's small guide to give you some hints and ideas on what to do.
   
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Divide et Impera: Rome faction beginner guide
Epeiros will have their king Pyrrhus general of a small elite army in Taras. Pull your 4-unit army out of Beneventum and just across the border to Roma but close enough that Roma garrison will reinforce if the army is attacked. Let Pyrrhus take Beneventum as it is now undefended, and use the garrison to kill off his important troops, like his Elephants and/or cavalry. Recruit 6 units per turn for the army near Rome for 2 turns to get: 6 principes, 2 triarii, 2 accensi (slingers), 2 equities (cavalry). So 6 units in the first turn of the game, and then 6 units on the second turn: This should make that a 16 unit army (4+12). You can also hire a couple of mercenaries if you like to get to get almost a full stack army, but I don't think that is even necessary to defeat the Pyrrhus army, especially if you took out his elephants and cavalry with the Beneventum garrison, but you should have the coin to hire some mercs if you want. Recruit a couple of units for the army in Cosentia too so that it will be strong enough that Pyrrhus won't go after it. Now on the third turn you retake Beneventum with the army near Rome.

From there you can make the Cosentia army meet up with the Beneventum army on turn 4 and then besiege Taras on turn 5 and should be able to take it on turn 6 or 7 with siege ladders.

The Etruscans may send an army to besiege Rome, so you may want to raise a small army with just a few principes and perhaps a few slingers. That will be enough to make it impossible to take Rome. They MAY go after Ariminum or Asculum instead, but it's not really a big problem to retake if they capture it. In fact in that case you could go after Arretium, which have no walls as defense, which will take away their best ability to recruit units as them capturing either Asculum or Arretium is worse for them, and so finishing them off thereafter should be piece of cake, same for the Epeiros capital Appollonia, their last region after you take Taras. You can choose to satrapy Epeiros here if you like so that you won't have to weorry about protecting Appollonia and they'll also provide a bit of nice help against Carthage later on.

After defeating the Etruscans and Epeiros it could be time to look at Syracuse and Carthage. Carthage probably have not been able to take Syracuse yet. But first you should focus on consolidating your territories:

Build up your economy in your two provinces: Latium (Rome) and Magna Graecia (Taras), and enact edicts. Magna Graecia can be a great food region, providing both much food and income from agriculture with the right buildings, and later you can switch away from food and focus mainly on the agricultural income which can get really high eventually with the right build. Slave market building is a good pick for Taras as it boosts income from agriculture while increasing the tax from slaves and decreasing the unrest from slaves. I actually suggest building slave markets in ALL province capitals, no matter the specific provinces other build focus, as it gives HUGE tax income from slaves when slave pop is at max. To offset the unrest from high slave pop and because you get so much tax from slaves, you'll eventually be able to run your empire on LOW tax rate at all times, which is great for increasing populations, growth and party loyalty.

Example of Slave tax impact (With Slave Trader III and Sell Slaves edict):


A very important early source of food is the Fishing Port II port building. It's cheap, fast to build and it already gives 5 food and NO negative PO or squalor.

Fishing Port II:
9 Comments
feuder 18 Oct, 2024 @ 4:25am 
Ahh, okay, now i made, thanks bro
DoktorFar  [author] 14 Oct, 2024 @ 6:22pm 
Don't forget about agents either btw. The spy agent has a skill upgrade that massively increases the amount of money from looting settlements; be sure to put such an agent into your siege armies, so that you can get a lot of extra gold from when you capture and loot a settlement. The spy has to be attached to the army that initiates the siege for the modifier to work.
DoktorFar  [author] 14 Oct, 2024 @ 6:18pm 
@feuder Oh and btw about what you mentioned "I recently got the mod and started playing Rome to get to know it. After having to restart what felt like 100 times....".

Don't worry, we've all been there, me too. First few times getting to know the mod, we all got a bloodied nose I think. Be sure to enjoy it actually; this is the challenge for you to overcome. It's not easy and it is not boring. At some point you will master it if you keep playing and investigating your options. Eventually you may find it too easy in fact.
DoktorFar  [author] 14 Oct, 2024 @ 6:13pm 
Also Rome has access to really cheap slingers, called the Ascensii, it's like 50 gold per unit in upkeep or something, which is nothing. This means that you can prop up your armies with huge numbers of slingers, for very little money. You can use them for flanking maneuvers too, because they are pretty fast moving. have them fire into the rear or the right (unshielded) side of enemy units, which devastates them. And ALSO: slingers have good range so have your superior number of slingers target their cavalry, which can be extremely effective way to crush their cavalry early, especially when combined with your own cavalry hunting their cavalry too.
DoktorFar  [author] 14 Oct, 2024 @ 6:10pm 
You also need some proper setup for your armies. You can't just recruit only the most expensive units. Consider the good old strategy of a strong defensive battle line with with a superior number of cavalry for flanking. For example having just one more cavalry unit than the enemy is absolutely huge and devastating to them because:

1: you get to be able to counter and destroy their cavalry with your cavalry, because you have more of them.

2: Now that they have no cavalry you are free to quickly ride them round the back or sides of their units and utterly destroy them in no time.
DoktorFar  [author] 14 Oct, 2024 @ 6:03pm 
@feuder And also do not neglect your diplomacy. You gotta have allies on your sides, so right from the get go make sure to create deals with the factions you don't want to fight and which you would like on your side. As Rome I find making friends with almost all the greeks very beneficial. You can also befriend barbarian factions to the north; that way you have buffer zone to them and don't have to worry about stationing armies to defend there, and with the greeks to the east being your friends too (due to your diplomatic efforts) you can then can focus everything against carthage to the south.
DoktorFar  [author] 14 Oct, 2024 @ 6:01pm 
@feuder Slaves are one of the major tax boosters. The economic effect of slaves works just like the tax rate, so it is a huge multiplier. Therefore I suggest building the slave trader building in the province capitals, and make sure to do battles frequently enough to always have a steady influx of slaves, always choose the option to loot and enslave. Loot cities when you capture them = money and slaves.

After you beat Epirous and the Etruscans you need to spend some time in defensive mode against Carthage. If they send armies into southern italy, you should be able to defeat them as you have a great advantage there. Defeating their armies has many benefits: slaves, party loyalty, character promotion, character skill level upgrade, army xp.
feuder 14 Oct, 2024 @ 12:28pm 
Hello,
I recently got the mod and started playing Rome to get to know it. After having to restart what felt like 100 times, I looked around and found your guide. I tried it out, but after I took Taras and Epirus and started building up my infrastructure, it wasn’t nearly efficient enough for me to beat Carthage, as I always had too little money, manpower, and armies. I also raised taxes, but then I had too few people to recruit. How exactly should the cities be set up?

Also i built my armies with Triarii, Accensi, and Equites. Unfortunately, the armies didn’t perform well. Is there a better combination?
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Bobby Womack 10 Oct, 2024 @ 9:56pm 
THANKS!