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Hol-

-Derp

[NRDL]

.. how about..
Rebbecca : Which seat can i take?
..right, Friday.

What?   

[Hanzoku]

I've been enjoying this let's play and the last one, and picked up some good cavalry tactics for Rome from it. Nothing like 'SURPRISE!' every time the enemy charges my general, only to get sideswiped by two other cavalry units on both flanks and routed back into their friends.

[Zrk2]

I'd try that, but FUCKING TREES man, I can't launch a decent charge, and I can't see jack.

[Stworca]

I'd try that, but FUCKING TREES man, I can't launch a decent charge, and I can't see jack.

Do everyone a favor, good sir, and look for a trees-be-gone mod  (I had difficulties with line of sight too, big time!)

[EmperorNuthulu]

Trees can be incredibly useful though, I once hid two units of chosen swordsmen and a unit of chosen archer warband in them. I routed an entire Roman army, although it was pre reforms...

[Dsarker]

Trees can be incredibly useful though, I once hid two units of chosen swordsmen and a unit of chosen archer warband in them. I routed an entire Roman army, although it was pre reforms...

Trees are win. You get a negative morale bonus for emerging from cover, you can use them to get a negative morale bonus from numbers and attacking a flank.... So many good things. 7 stack urban cohort and a general unit survived against twenty or so full stacks of roman units, combo of pre reform cavalry, archers, and skirmishers and post reform heavy infantry. Routed and annihilated them each time.

[Zrk2]

That Ulm LP is hilarious.

[Stworca]

We started this Let's Play to face a challenge..

But the AI haven't built up fast enough, They focused on us too much. We have better economy and much better armies than most of them combined. At this moment we could easily curbstomp the AI. We won. Yet..

We started this Let's Play to face a challenge.. And challenge we shall have.

I went out of my way, to screw Spain far BEYOND Very Hard difficulty. I've Cut down basic income of all our provinces and kick-started reform unit transformation. What does it mean? ALL Roman generals are Armored now, and They FINALLY can build Urbans, and we.. With 40 fucking provinces, we barely have enough income to pay for our troops. I can not afford retraining units fast enough, even with crushing victories, and enemy armies are getting better with each passing turn, as AI bonuses are increased even further. Don't expect them to ever run out of gold, generals or units. (i've added SPQR bonuses to all non-Spain factions)

Not only that.. We take our sword, and jam it in the middle of a bee hive called Macedon-Brutii war. Both of them are happy to see us, and it quickly turns into a 2v1. Germans pull stacks out of their ass at an alarming rate, and a border with Egypt is only a few turns away from us.

Want more? : On the horizon a super-Pontus has risen. (Some of you have moaned how hard uber-Pontus is.. So i messed with the console, and Uber Pontus is what we're going to face)

I had to use all non-essential buildings in ALL cities to retrain our armies. Macedon send giant blobs our way. Sea superiority is starting to be impossible, with enemy Triremes requiring at least 3 to 1 advantage to beat them, and the next generation of enemy ships is on its way.

Lastly.. Everyone and their mom decides to rebel, and a giant tantrum is devastating our scarce income and city possibilities.

Stage 2 of Spain Total War begins, and change of LP name is in order.

Update on its way. I should have it ready today, perhaps tomorrow (if i get too sucked into Cataclysm )

Voters have decided, that we should go for the kill. This is exactly what i'm going to try to do. Still, the Romans shall live until we see some more elite troops.

Spoiler: World Map (AFTER the next update, so you may wish to not view it, if you don't like spoilers. (click to show/hide)

Aye.. We control THAT much land, yet everyone produces more units and has more income than us. Thank you for giving me the SPQR idea. SPQR mode turns everyone into a god.

We're at a stalemate. Not one of our armies is strong enough, for me to be sure that we're going to have a crushing victory.
And with the amount of enemy stacks roaming around every victory needs to be crushing.

No more detours after this. We gain the upper hand, we end the LP. It's NOT going to be easy though.

[Heron TSG]

This is going to be the best.

[shadenight123]

stworca, if there was a game where you can play as a toddler and fight off a SPACE MARINE war chapter, i think you'd play it...if just for the way you could die as the toddler.
right?...go get them i'll cheer for you!

[Stworca]

(The changes i've mentioned in the last post, are STARTING to come to life. It's just the beginning.

Spoiler: Outdated troops (click to show/hide)

We outnumber the enemies 3 ; 2, should be an easy fight. Right? Right. They will advance in two groups, and thus our usual maneuvering takes place. We dance around with our cavalry, while the infantry waits in positions.


Our wardogs have taken care of one enemy axemen unit. When outnumbering enemy, i take it as a fair trade.
Observation : Spear warbands wet themselves when hit by four cavalry units.


Unwashed barbarians are closing at our infantry, but our cav has lured some of their attention.
My entire line uses warcry. I predict a world of pain for enemy army.


Since i'm having an advantage, i've stacked my infantry in a tri-line formation. Third one being skirmishers.
It's a decent defensive line. Your lines are night impossible to flank, when you  have soldiers in reserve.
If the enemy approaches without a solid formation, you can charge them left and right.



It was all fun and games. Enemies were routing left and right..


..until our round shields got wiped out by one unit of screaming women. Without charging bonus this cav is utterly useless... 


We won, naturally, but it gave me a not-too-subtle hint that it's either Long Shield cav, or nothing. A single unit of screaming women dealt most of the damage to our round shields.


Spanish cavalry is so bad, that Sarmatian mercenaries are an extreme upgrade. Will i hire them? YES! We still have 24k gold from sacking Sicily and Capua.


Later in that same turn we have 14k gold..
In good news, we siege Londinium.


And suffer some heavy loses to their damn, unroutable 104 Chariots general, that decided to defend the city square... I hate barbarian city squares, they are extremely small, and it's obvious that AI will stack all their units on that 2x2 square..


Later on we capture Batavodurum, this time suffering even more loses. These are small, but with our income modified to be crap.. Every death is a severe loss. Especially Bull Warriors.. Do you know how many negative-income cities it takes to build a unit of bulls?! That's right.. It's not possible to build them!


Yes, some of our cities have NEGATIVE income. As in : The garrison upkeep + corruption penalty are greater than tax, trade & co incomes.
Sane thing to do would be dropping these shitholes, but we are INsane.
What is this..? Macedon has a BORDER with us?! But i haven't invaded Greece yet..


Later in that turn (and another 10 000 gold less..) i finally figure out, that scouting with my generals is not a good idea..


What should one do in such situation? Well.. I usually spread out as wide as possible (All generals are positioned at the side of the unit. Thus by having more attackers on the sides, you have a higher chance to kill the general.)


The next trick to use, is to have your general use Rally, just a second before you face the enemy. This will make him stop for a second or two, and increase the chance of his survival INSANELY.


Notice, how even though our center is weak, we have a crushing number advantage where it MATTERS! Enemy general dies.


If the unit didn't rout, i would withdraw. There is no need to fight general-less bodyguard unit.
They did rout though.


So far so good. Time to change a thing or two about this LP

Spoiler: Change of Pace (click to show/hide)

Look at this, viewer. Do you SEE? Veni, Vidi, Iterum Veni! CRETAN archers and 2 hoplite mercs. These units are insanely better than ANY Spanish unit.


I finally see how high the roman city pop is, and it puzzles me, that even with 24000+ and endless chain of process_cq They still didn't build imperial palace.
Perhaps it's caused by the negative growth. As in : The AI doesn't quene the Palace, when Their pop is about to drop?


I raise it to 28500, and hope like hell that They finally build it.
(oh, right. Notice our Gold Amount. Kick ass, is it not? Our income is legendary.)


My boat scouts reveal, that.. Seleucid Empire has been kicked out of Turkey by.. Pontus!


Also.. Remember the Assassin that we've paid 500 denarii for?
Yeah.. He failed.


Tunnel-vision Julii attack us once again. I've recorder this fight, but for some reason it was choppy... See the results two pictures below.


But there is hope yet.. Look! It ONLY took them 10 years to figure out that there are free-for-all cities north of them!


Here is our army post the battle with Julii. Julii stack has been completely wiped out. (I believe that windows was updating, that's why i had some choppiness during recording.. hmm) You missed nothing. It was one of their useless armies.


Also : Britons are down to one province. I hate their damn chariots. Did They even have any in reality? I know that Boudica was pictured on a chariot.. But..?


Further scouting into Pontus territory reveals, that They have a solid border with Egypt.. Seleucid must've been pushed FAR to the east. Finally some AI vs AI action! YAY! Naturally They will all ally the second Spain gets there.


Am i rambling? I am. But i have proof that AI defies not only game mechanics, but also basic logic.. Look at this..
A random battle against German scum.


We capture the city, but they had 2 survivors. What? Yes, general was one of them.


I autobattle it, and...



...WHAT?!

Spoiler: Beginning of the End (click to show/hide)

This is the part, where all OTHER modifications come to live.
But to see them, we first have to stick our wiener into a bee hive. We do just that. Hello, Sparta.


Looks peacefully, doesn't it?
Well, Macedon armies first have to GET to us. Notice how Brutii vs Macedon battles were limited to 20% of a stack, and a full stack was waiting for us to arrive. Yes. Rome Spain : Total War.


I need the statue of Zeus though. Some of our Cities have 1200+ soldiers in them, and still are pissed at low taxes.


Despite my population magic, Julii AI STILL has not built the god damn Imperial Palace. So i go an extra mile, and after half an hour of command messing, i FORCE them to have one. There! Start building the effin Urbans!

I actually just now noticed, that the Roman city of Arretium has...

27000 people
Lowest tier temple
No governor
Very small garrison

..Still 80% public order.

AI.Cheats.


Sheb? I have a gift for you. Yay!


Back to Sparta.. Take a guess what would happen if i auto battled it?


I actually checked. 1920 casualties, crushing defeat... ...
...
It's getting annoying to have to manually battle every single small skirmish.


I like the actual combat mechanics though, even if the AI is retarded, and on VH the dice rolls are ridiculous. Why? Rock, paper, scissors baby!
Cretan Archers (Paper) beat Hoplites (Rock)


Hoplites beat Scissors (Cav)


And Scissors.. Wait.. Armored Roman General units beat paper, other scissors and rocks.. Nevermind the above..


Sack of Sparta was like a breath of life to a drowning man. From here, we can..


We land our secondary force in Thermon, and..   ...wait a minute..


There you see the SPQR mode enabled for Macedon.
Macedon : Hey! We need more stacks!
RTW Gods : It doesn't work that way..
Macedon : But we're fighting Spain player.
RTW Gods : Oh..! Here, have free stacks.

The AI seems to be sensing our public order, income and overstretch trouble.. And so They send all their free, bonus troops in suicidal attacks against us. Just to pile up our casualties. (Actually this is a small change to AI tactics. The only one i could implement. Aggressiveness.) There is no way for them to win, but They don't really need to. The nearest Bull-Warrior, Fanatic or Long Shield Cav replacing city is 5 movement turns away..


This should be fun..

I've decided to limit the amount of fights im going to list to minimum, because we're going to have tons of them from here on onward. Only big / important battles will be mentioned at all, and only really interesting / very important ones will be shown step by step.

[Il Palazzo]

Also : Britons are down to one province. I hate their damn chariots. Did They even have any in reality? I know that Boudica was pictured on a chariot.. But..?

Il Palazzo the armchair historian to the rescue!

The Greek historian Polybius mentions the Celtic tribes using chariots at the battle of Telamon(225 BC). Note that it's a second-hand account, as he was born some twenty five years after the battle.
While there are no accounts of chariots on the British Isles from the time corresponding to the period your LP is depicting, it would stand to reason that the Celts(or Gauls if you will) in Britain would have used similar battle tactics and formations to their kinsmen from the mainland.

They certainly did have chariots roughly two centuries later when Caesar invaded Britain, as he gives a first-hand account of chariot use by the enemy.

What's interesting though, is that both sources describe the actual battle tactics of charioteers to consist of driving close to the enemy lines, dismounting and harrasing the foe before getting back on the cart and retreating. There were apparently no chariot charges in this part of the world.

Another interesting piece of military history trivia is the Germanic cavalry tactics, which was pretty much the same as that used by Celtic charioteers - dismounting and fighting on foot. Think of it next time your unit gets routed by a Germanic cavalry charge.

Also, you're a masochist.

edit:date

[Heron TSG]

Also, you're a masochist.

Perhaps a masterchist.

[Stworca]

In the next update, we fight.. Significantly Outnumbered, Painfully Outclassed and with enemy having MUCH higher ground no matter where i place my troops (The worst possible terrain). We face the toughest challenge yet. A fight that i don't hope to win. We bite more than we can chew..

For some reason my recordings started to occasionally chop, so sadly only shortcuts will be shown.

I'm working on the video as we speak. Don't expect a happy ending. People die left and right. It will still be a bit choppy at times, but hopefully.. Hmm..

Spoiler: A few info about ze fight (click to show/hide)

You see this?! Only some comic superhero could ride a bike uphill that terrain. Enemies start upstairs. Enemies are Roman.. Romans throw javelins like there is no tomorrow. Javelins thrown from high ground have severe bonuses to effectiveness and range. Roman morale will be nigh unbreakable to our pathetic, round shield crap cav.

Underlined are the Roman "RAPE" units that alone can wipe a significant portion of our army.


Post-reform spearmen on VH will waltz over our entire cav force.
Their 5 star equites are stronger than our general unit.
Their 3 generals.. balls.

We have 2 bull warrior groups, some mangled, battered fanatics, one poor general.. and tons of crap units.

If not for the terrain, it would be rather winnable, but with a 40o curve, steamroll awaits us.

Let's see how many we can take to the grave with us!

[EmperorNuthulu]

Well, you could try and outflank their entire army with yours and somehow get the top of the hill.

 It's not the most impossible thing in the world.... okay its close.