A mod to make the AI run on the same economic rules as me would be good too

Roman forts are your friend. Two units of Triarii can hold the gates against thousands of enemies while a few cavalry units wreak havoc from behind. Wait until the enemy is fully engaged trying to get in through the front, then swing your cavalry out the back and your extra infantry out from the sides. You can envelop the enemy easily and wipe them out.

Use that tactic to knock out the armies on the field, then fortify within reinforcement range of enemy towns to have the defenders come out to help attack the fort. Using this tactic I managed to beat Syracuse with just 12 units, conqure Tarus with 10, and capture the province north of Italy with 15.

I agree that the game is pretty unfair. I think the population system is pretty cool, but the fact that that computer doesn't seem to need to follow it just makes the whole thing a huge artificial difficulty increase.

My problem isnt that. The problem is rome starts with 3 units as their army near rome.

I need 2 turns just to literally have any real army.

You mention you need 2 triarii. Well for this I need at least one turn. That already

one turn is enough to get epirus and one almost 20/20 stack already attacking me.

Rome was one of the biggest population mobilization machines of the ancient world
I literally have 3 units as the starting army.

At the same time economic rules are different for the AI

This "difficulty" is very artificial for me. I like difficulty but not in this way.
(The pop system and supply system is good for example)

I have decided to skip the mod. Its just not a good as it was before.

Originally posted by Francisco:

I have decided to skip the mod. Its just not a good as it was before.

I have played DeI for years and with this latest iteration, the huge AI stacks against me are too frustrating to want to play this amazing mod project. I know others will disagree but this latest experience takes any fun out of feeling that I am playing a difficult but fair experience.

"All with full stacks even though me as rome cant even fully get one"

I dont know how you manage to not get a full stack of units from the start. With the money you start with and the surplus I can field at least two full stacks. If you don't make them full stacks you can still have two powerful armies and a third less not so powerful that can guard a front, for example cosentia to the south, or taras to the east, or Rome to the north, depending on what fronts you want to expand towards

I suggest moving your Beneventum army into Latium and recruiting 6 units per turn there. Do that for 2 turns and you should have a fine army that is far more powerful than Epieros' army near Taras.

Here's a screenshot where I have done this https://i.imgur.com/PIrzEve.png. That battle became easy clap.

Originally posted by RexJayden:

Originally posted by Francisco:

I have decided to skip the mod. Its just not a good as it was before.

I have played DeI for years and with this latest iteration, the huge AI stacks against me are too frustrating to want to play this amazing mod project. I know others will disagree but this latest experience takes any fun out of feeling that I am playing a difficult but fair experience. :Monokuma2_DGR:

Same for me. Played DEI since the very first version in my case.
Feel exactly the same as you. Frustration is the right word.
I dont play games to overcome frustration. I play for fun

Since it is no longer as fun as before I will skip it

Mercenaries...
first things first is always getting economy up and running, thats way harder now in this mod.
so what i do is dismis the army in south itally, create a new army (picking the free gerneral options) in the north but dont recruit any soldiers, just split the northern army in 2, and completely take northern italy(plus cisalpine gaul) in as few turns as possible. the navy i immediately send to the island the league has, and buy 2 mercenary units. take the island, disband entire navy. untill the land troops can reach genua, then reinstate the legacy, picking a free admiral and ship, and immediately take the down, disband navy again.
the rest of the money i have will be spend to get trade partners.
epirus attacks you at the start all the time? not if youre trading together.
somethimes syracuse declares war other times its begs for some scarps to go to war with my enemies so i always send my spy to steal their food so i can know when i have to start mustering an army to stop them, which wont be a big one, just 2/3 hastati is enough to survive a defensive battle in a town.

having secured itally and started trading with the most immediate threats the next turns are spend focusing on getting some money and public order. best way i found to get some money early game is by working as a merc nation, find out who has a possotive attitude to enable trade, ask for money and also offer to go to war with an enemy of them, if the enemy is far away great...free money, if its close by, dont conquer but raid instead, this gives money and diplomatic bonus so the trade partner might become an actual ally to be used as buffer later. id say help epirus with sparta, sparta wont be able to do anything to you early game and epirus alone can conquor greece, if you get sparta early on and epirus just happens to somehow fail its invasion of athens then you can easily conquer athens as well.
when in turn 10 stop trading with syracuse and start mustering an army to take sicily,

by this time i spec my tech into the army upgrades, go for the cheaper mercs, when youre finished with that mercs are cheaper than actuall drafted soldiers and way better.
but before that, just keep hiring mercs when you think its necesarry and disband them right after.
small towns can be conqured by a single general and 2 merc units, disband mercs untill the rebelion starts and the Public order is at -20, get some mercs to prepare for a defensive battle.

in this Mod you dont need a fullstack army to defeat another army, you need units that can hold a line, and good damage units that can crush their flanks.
start by sending some cannonfodders against the enemy massive line, theyll get enveloped, and now the rest of your army can surround the blob of enemies.

hope this helps

Originally posted by interfector ex plebibus:

That's why I love this mod so much, even though you are in a tight spot you have so many options to choose from. Your approach is wholly different than mine for example, but both can set Rome out on a path of victory.

"epirus attacks you at the start all the time? not if youre trading together."

Epirus literally has +100 negative relationship, starts at war with you and literally refuses any and all diplomatic moves I make. Even on easy, which I tried as a test, they refuse a peace so I really have no what idea what you are talking about haha

"small towns can be conqured by a single general and 2 merc units" - Yes. Im totally going to conquer that etruscan city with the garrison + 20/20 stack with a general and 2 mercs. Also that isnt fun at all. What you described isnt my idea of fun

No offense but maybe I understood wrongly or maybe we are not even talking the same thing or at the same wave lengh

Congrats if you somehow can win against 30 units with 2 mercs and general. But that isnt fun for me

Its just not my cup of tea.
And it kind of proves my point that this mod just isnt the same as it was

Anyway. I already unsubscribed everything and wont take much of you guys time.

Thanks for the replies

Interesting about trading with Epieros, that's the one thing that I have never been able to. Even when I make peace later when they have lost many battles and only has Appolonia left or when I subjugate them, then after looong time of peace and we have like 150-200 friendly reputation, they STILL refuse to trade.

In my experience (at least on normal difficulty) the early game isnt that bad. If you can manage to make peace with etruria and focus on epirus while drawing them into siege battles its actually pretty easy. I beat pyrrhus twice in two different saves with the small default army in southern Italy using the general and campanian cav to do repeated hammer and anvil strikes on their bunched up units (campanian cavalry are dummy strong btw). Etruria went to war with the celts in north italy, I waited for their full stack to leave the city and just declared war again and waltzed in. Once you fully control Magna Graecia and Latium the economic boosts are enough to get a full stack or at least close to one, although I have more success when i dont make full stacks bc the economic hit is pretty rough. I usually field armies around 15 ish units tops until I really get going after epirus etruria and the celts are pushed out of italy. even when outnumbered cav can turn the battle around and also wipe up the enemy in the route to make sure their army doesnt recover. Cav is your best friend, and I've had amazing success with them thus far with each cav unit coming out of a battle with like 500+ kills in the larger fights. I agree that ai advantage is annoying and unfun, but the player's potential when using cav correctly is blatantly superior to the ai. So I would reccomend spending almost none of the starting money on buildings or diplomacy unless its necessary to make peace with epirus, and use it to get some spears and at least one cav unit in each army. Also recruit dignitaries and spies too. economic buffs from dignitaries are spicy, and they dont have the public order debuff from tax improvement like they did in vanilla.

poor dude realizes the state of modern total war

My strategy is to rush destroy the etruscans at turn 2-3. You could do that with only the nearest legion and new recruits in turn 2. While strengthening my southern legion, I position near the bridge at the border and seduce epirus to attack. They are overconfident despite having fewer men as they have elite pikemen so use it to your advantage. Try to destroy that army as much as possible especially the elite ones. When the returning legion who pacified latium returned, take taras. Roman units are OP. You can seduce them to attack you just outside the city and destroy the enemy army and the garrison at the same time letting you take taras with ease. Even if they didnt, its easy to take taras as roman infantry outclass hoplites and pikes especially when they cant use their pikes and shield wall but expect heavy casualties. Cavalry and roman heavy infantry is the key. Dont bother developing yet and focus on destroying threats. No one will bother you after that so you can focus developing.