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[Stworca]

I routed 6 Marian reform Roman stacks with a single Greek army once (your regular archers + Armored hoplites + heavy peltasts + general cav army). The FPS was a tragedy, but the battle sure left a carpet of bodies.

I think 8 is doable as Armenia (since we have wiped 2 at once with no loses, on more than one occasion) , but only because they're all mounted, and some armored as hell too.

Not sure if AI will be smart enough to dogpile on us, but i hope they do that. Burning Rome just isn't the same, if your road isn't paved with skulls.

[EmperorNuthulu]

 Well, If you can't pick a faction for the next lp, I've heard good things about the Roma Surrectum 2 mod. Oh and Barbarian invasion can be Fun with all the hordes and your economy sucking.

 Btw, Dacia is really easy, since you can take out Thraces, wait until macedon is weak, take a powerful macedonian city and then build awesome units. And even without that city you have the awesomness that is Falxmen. Numidia is really hard, but still doable. Although it's really boring to play as since most of the battles will consist of using lots of jav cav and then charging the enemy.

[Stworca]

It has already been decided that we pick Spain next, as it is the "toughest" one to play.

I've pointed out before, that BI is - in my opinion - a poor expansion. WRM is... wait for it.. wait for it... easy to win the campaign with. Their units have amazing, godly morale and defense.
Pick Huns apart when they are engaged in battle with one of the other Horde nations (There are plenty of those, and Huns fight everything. Todays Switzerland is where it happens most often) and from there it's downhill.

Horde-less, one-province minor factions are about the only challenge you can get in BI. Even if the AI is slightly better.

Edit : Although it surprises me how some people were naming faction "X" unplayable a few pages back, and now everything is easy. I guess They eat rocks, like us, Armenians, do.

[EmperorNuthulu]

After reading this:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=368097, I believe anythings possible in Rome total war.

[Stworca]

After reading this:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=368097, I believe anythings possible in Rome total war.

I'll pretend you've linked This

[EmperorNuthulu]

Trust me, Armenia looks like a cakewalk compared to the crap numidia have. At least Armenia have Cataphracts and good archer cavalry.

[Stworca]

Trust me, Armenia looks like a cakewalk compared to the crap numidia have. At least Armenia have Cataphracts and good archer cavalry.

Here we go again 

They have very small roster of units, but it's a GOOD selection, to name a few :

Desert infantry (notice their GOOD stamina and GOOD morale, coupled with bonuses in desert and against horses) 7 attack, 13 defense (higher in deserts and much higher against horses) compare it to Eastern Infantry.. 3 attack 10 defense poor morale, average stamina, no bonus in desert. Yet Even these can pull victory against the beloved Cataphracts.
Warez legionaries (pilum) are rather standard.
Numidian Camel riders (amazing unit when used correctly 22 defense, good morale, stamina, power charge... Scare Horses)
And.. elephant mercs
Coupled with Carthage being the first enemy (have you ever seen Carthage do anything other than die?) and decent income it's easier to pull off a victory than you think.

[EmperorNuthulu]

Yes but most of these units are a little later on, and elephant mercs are expensive. Also Egypt will attack you early on. And Carthage is quite powerful, not to mention the Scipii eventually landing.

[Stworca]

Yes but most of these units are a little later on, and elephant mercs are expensive. Also Egypt will attack you early on. And Carthage is quite powerful, not to mention the Scipii eventually landing.

I went ahead, and played as Numidia for a bit.

Number of turns : 7
Tactic used : Total Rush in all directions, mercenary armies fueled by conquer cash. Bribes. (i don't like doing it, but i wanted to make this post SHORT)
Difficult battles : 0 (there is one, where Egypt outnumbers us 6 to 1 (1800ish against our 300), but in RTW EGYPT is a pathetic joke that fields skirmishers and peasants in their armies. Dick Mountainjoy all over again, but now i have more than 1 cav)
Have i ever played Numidia before? : Perhaps for a few turns, but i believe NO. Nothing in the following presentation was planned from the beginning. I made my decisions on the run. Although i knew where all cities are, from my previous RTW plays.

Then again, for the first few minutes i was 100% sure that the westmost city was independant. It surprised me to see that it was Numidian...
Without further ado :

Spoiler: 7 turns Numidia play (click to show/hide)

Numidia Ahoy!


Turn 2 build report. (but what happened in turn 1?! I moved troops and started building roads. Aka NOTHING)


Egypt is said to attack Numidia very swiftly. So we attack Thebes on Turn 3. Fuck you Thebes.


We also advance to Thapsus, notice how it has NO WALLS


Our towns riot without troops in them, so we lower the taxes. We need another source of income.


Turn 4. Pathetic Thebes garrison


But Thebes itself gave us GOLD!


And it's fun to watch it burn. From now i'm training Archers each turn in Thebes.


With gold from Thebes we buy mercenaries... (and start building something in the west-most city.. More on that later)


..and take Thapsus, which had only ONE unit defending it. (and no walls)


Notice the army south of Thapsus. Carthage depleted a WALL-LESS city from troops to capture an indie.


We also approach the southern Indie city. (also wall-less. Without general for now, so i hope to get one from combat)


Carthage loaded their main army on a boat (probably to strike Scipii or Greeks on Sicily)


It's a perfect time to burn Carthage, but leaving THapsus undefended..? I bribe that southern "army". Greedy little buggers they were. We bribe them with gold from burning Thapsus and Thebes.


Turn FIVE. Stupid indies attacked our southern strike force with a peasants + peltasts army (how retarded are they!?) So we have a general.


And a city.


A giant Egypt stack approaches! RUN TO THE.. wait a minute.. These are PEASANTS!? The single foe in this entire stack that gave me trouble was the general himself.
A three step battle.
- Lure their cavalry away from the main stack, and gangbang on them. Make sure that it's your general or your infantry who take the beating
- Lure their general away to gangbang on him, or kite him with someone till later
- Annihilate this pathetic stack of ignorant fools (Peasant + Ranged army.. whoa.. Numidia sure has it hard)


After they are dealt with, i siege Memphis (which has stone walls, but also pathetic skeleton crew - we wiped their army you know)

Turn SIX
Another one of Our cities goes postal.


But i predict a slight change in our gold amount in a turn or two..


Our Egypt army is all kinds of fucked up (look at the troop count.. OUCH)
But..
MEMPHIS, AHOY!


Burn Memphis, Burn. Kumbaya my lord.. Kumbaya.. Come on everyone!


None of my armies is even remotely close to Lepcis Magna.. So i buy it. Because i can.


They are pissed.. But so are all my cities anyway.


What is this.. Memphis can recruit Desert Infantry!? (if i played longer, i'd have Memphis produce them for the next dozen turns)


Turn 7, the last one in this short demonstration.
Our cities go berserk.



So i move the capital east, to Siwa. Lower the taxes in western provinces (they are piss poor anyway) and increase them in Egyptian cities (VERY rich cities)
We move to Alexandria before Egyptian armies from Jerusalem and Sidon come get us.


What about Carthage and their big stack on a ship?
Well.. We sack Carthage..


And their ship was too slow.. oh.. how sad.


This is when i stopped playing.

What i'd do next is :
- Outlast Carthage army until i get some more troops to deal with them. If they try to siege the walls : All the better. ALL my units are ranged.
- Have all my west cities build ships for a few turns (the thing i was building were PORTS)
- Strike Sicily and cockblock Scipii there.
- Egypt..? With three strong cities : Alexandria, Memphis and Thebes building units for me EACH TURN, they don't have much time to arrive with their stacks and stop me. Archers from Thebes, Desert Infantry from memphis and probably the skirmisher cav in Alexandria. We'd have a strong (unstoppable) army in 5 turns.

From here Numidia has it downhill.

One thing that might surprise you is the city i bought. It MIGHT rebel on the next turn - true, but on the next turn it will also have roads, which will be an impossible improvement to my movement capabilities. It's one of the bigger provinces, so having a city rebel in exchange for a road is a good trade.

A few IF's
- If the Carthage army didn't accept the bribe, they would still do NOTHING. I had palisade build in Thapsus, and left a unit there. It would take them at least two turns to siege it (three actually, they'd need one to get to Thapsus)
- If the Magna city didn't accept the bribe... my south "army" would capture it in 4 to 7 turns.
- If Carthage didn't load up on the ship i would bleed their army in 2-3 field battles, where i shot till i'm out of jevelins and retreat.
- If Egypt bunkered up in Memphis instead of attacking us on the field.. I would probably bunker up in Thebes until i had more troops. Or.. Siege Memphis and wait till they attack me from inside. This is the only thing that could go wrong. But NOT against the AI who will always attack you with stronger forces..

Now.. let's get back to ARMENIA LP

Oi

Edit : Balls.. Playing Numidia used the same autosave as Armenia.. Thank the Stone that i used Quick Save.

[Korbac]

Edit : Although it surprises me how some people were naming faction "X" unplayable a few pages back, and now everything is easy. I guess They eat rocks, like us, Armenians, do.

For you, Stworca. I haven't managed to finish a game yet on RTW (got a bit bored as Julii after conquering most of the west and having major public order problems)

[Dsarker]

That's why you keep on recruiting troops from cities further away. Lower population = lower squalor = lower unrest.

[Stworca]

That's why you keep on recruiting troops from cities further away. Lower population = lower squalor = lower unrest.

Are you referring to Numidia? The cities had low pop (hello? Turns 1-7?), They just didn't have any garrison larger than one unit. This + distance to capital and you have yourself a city that will go postal quickly.
And They didn't have garrisons, because i needed every last unwashed unit to blitz Egypt and Carthage 

[Dsarker]

I wasn't replying to you, but Korbac.

[EmperorNuthulu]

..... Uh..... I think Stworca is one of the Rome total war developers or has played it religiously for every day of his life. I'm going with a developer.

  Also, two things for public order in general.  If it's a huge city, exterminate the populace. If it's small and naturally a little happy then leave a garrison of barbarian mercenaries/eastern ones if it can't recruit men. Or a really depleted unit. Also demolish temples that are not of your culture, and then build temples of your own civ.

[Stworca]

What you should aim for, Korbac, is a 24001+ pop city with 0% pop growth.
Should you recruit anything there, the pop will drop below 24000 and the growth will increase by 0.5%.

There are a few numbers, which - after you get there - will reduce pop growth by 0.5%. 2k, 6k, 12k, 24k are the obvious ones, but there are some between 12 and 24k.

It is a good idea to build pop growth buildings early on, but only ones which you can DESTROY later. Unless the base growth is low (like - for example - in Armenian starting cities - Kotais and Artaxarta).
In some, you should never build any pop growth, public health or any other buildings, keep taxes as high as possible and never stop recruiting units, otherwise you'll be in trouble in 10-20 or 50 turns (Carthage, Alexandria & co. are the 10% pop growth beasts)

Assuming you're playing with "huge" armies and will recruit at least 120 soldiers per turn, 0.5% pop growth at 24000 is ok. (Yup, the lowest possible!) Anything higher, and your city WILL riot.

Edit : Nuthulu is right about mercenaries. Buying mercs only to disband them in small cities is a great idea. Eastern Mercs that cost 600 and have 240 men are one of the best.

There is two crowd control methods to lower the pop in a city.
- Plague (situational, they hit randomly and you may be out of luck)
- Let it riot, retake it, exterminate (gives you gold too!)

I actually never had a campaign where i had to exterminate my own cities, with the single exception of the damn Carthage rebelling over and over.

Edit 2 : Time to play some more Armenia Total War! Back in a few hours.