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also dont forget spies have a good chance to open city gates -if that is the case, in battle deployment, line up a few units by the front gate, the rest relatively close to the other gates -tie them up at the main gate and pour in from the sides

No, not Rome 2, the original one. My laptop isn't up to spec for any new games. Most reviews seem to rate the original over #2, graphics aside.

Munk - how do you know if the spy will open the gate? I usually focus on one entry point and pepper it with missiles before a cavalry charge to clear it with everyone else rushing in shortly afterwards.

Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! The best total war game ever made?? - YES!!

I am The Imperator!!!! Won it as Bruti, Britiannia, Dacia, Germanina and Macedon.

I will keep a closer eye on your progress young Quaestor.

Basically smaller more advanced units will kick the arse of larger Barbarian spearmen-types

 Good that you've got to Principes, I think you can train WARDOGS, (go on say WARDOGS!), fairly early and these can easily mess up peasant units and warbands. They are not so good against chosen swordsmen etc.

You want to get each city you own to specialise in different military types from memory. Do not underestimate the usefulness of agents and it's always good to get at least one high level assassin.

Try and not miss to many senate missions as you don't want to piss them off, particularly early on.

Also keep  one army fairly central to keep on top of rebel uprisings. Spare money is good to bribe a rebel leader to your join cause with a good diplomat.

As Munk said - Send out as 4 diplomats one at each compass point to meet up with new factions and start trade. Keep one around in case the senate gets shitty. Towns that rebel a lot keep a high ranking spy in to help keep on top.

All agents have a percentage chance to succeed in their missions.

Make sure you marry off the kids when the reach the right age - You have to keep them family going and don't be afraid to promote a good general to the family if they prove themselves. They tend to be more more loyal than flesh and blood.

Don't be afraid to lower or raise taxes.

Also which family are you playing? Julli if you are having trouble with the Brits and Gauls?

Might have to reinstall on the big comp this masterpeice.

Ave Biggus Munkus!

Ave Imperator Fortean Tempora!

Playing as Julii (as in Ali G's "me Julii") on the default settings (medium difficulty).  I only have two tax-draining diplomats, two spies and two assassins (also had one diplomat die and one assasin got killed).  

Starting to crank out the principes so should start dealing to the Gauls and the Britons, last few battles I have owned them.  Finally nabbed back the town with the silver mine;  hopefully will yield loads-a-money.  But the latest setback is that one of my towns has revolted and when I tried to take it back the buggers poured a whole lot of firey sh!t on my troops as they went to storm the gate. 

Will need to look at seige towers and ladders now I guess.

regarding the revolting towns -have you knocked down the old "pagan" temples and replaced with the Roman ones - that can have a positive effect on happiness/unrest 

Thanks for the tips.  I will make sure that the town (Patavium) is suitably convinced of Pax Julii (aye!) if I re-take it and all false idols will be banned (I think I use an assasin for that, yes?).  

Thanks Munk.  I have been happily destroying the pagan shrines.

Things went pear shaped for a while - started racking up huge deficits which meant I couldn't feed my war machine or do any public works.  Towns started getting restless, all looking rather grim.  I switched everything to automanage for a few turns and slowly the money started to flow back in.

In the meantime the Gauls and the Brits kept on pummeling my towns and the Brits took back the silver mine town and the other one where I had my epic victory.

Crikey maximus! Thought my mini empire was going to fold, but the Brits demanded that I become their protectorate which I agreed to in exchange for getting back the two cities. HAH - the dumb Limeys agreed to it!! So now I have been quietly building up my legions of doom and using my assassins to knock off the Gaul leaders and the Brits infrastructure.  In that time the Marian reforms have taken place and I now have my testudo forming legionaries.

I have just launched a surprise attack on a Brit town - take that Tommy! But at the same time my big boss man "Marius the Killer" has just shuffled off (natural causes) so I have some young impetuous generals to try and stomp all over the Brits. 

It's a very frustrating and hard game now - no such thing as easy wins and I've lost a few spies, assassins and generals along the way.  But I'm going to teach those Celts that the Romanes won't eunt Domus...

Blood Good work, Emperor in waiting

Cheers!  But might be a long wait...

Well I seem to be battering off the Brits quite easily and the Gauls have all gone quiet over there (for now).  Trying to move my forces up north to make a final move on the Brits but some of my towns are going through some form of pestilence and all of a sudden lots of young bucks in the family are popping up (must have been a particularly fecund time about 16-18 years ago - no ampitheatres then I guess) which is causing angst in the cities.

I have started to kick them out with my old pre-marian units to see if they have got what it takes.

I've just lost my best assassin to old age and the new ones coming through are a bit hit and miss (and die).

Highlight of tonight's sesh is hearing a pre-battle speech by one of the generals:

"Hello. Today we are gathered here to do battle. Regrettable, isn't it? But sometimes, you know, life is like that. You have to do something that you don't want to do, just because someone is telling you to do it. I didn't want to be here myself, but then my mother told me that I'd better make a reasonable show of it all, so here we go then..." 

Fired up the Bruti again. Currently early days but I've taken Solonia and Apollona (sp?)  Have enough now to give the Greeks a good trouncing and my diplomats are whoring themselves out for trade contracts to every man and his war dog. 

Is it still playable online (and how does that work)?

Also what is your preferred faction (and why)?

I might give the Brutii a go in the next campaign (if I make it that far).

I am just about to snuff out the Britons - they have one more town.  But it's been a huge slog to get to this stage and I currently have a decent sized army spread out over my patch (most of Gaul and Britannia) which is costing heaps of shekels and my towns are pissed off with me as I need to tax them to buggery to keep it going. Now the rebel brigands are becoming more frequent so I'm clearly not doing a bunch of things right.

I'm going through spies and assassins like Swiss Toni goes through used car sales. As soon as I get them to a decent level they come a cropper.

However I've worked out that to beat the plucky Brits you have to work over their towns and units with assassins taking out their buildings and leaders. After several turns doing this (and with a spy in the town to open the door) I storm the town and mostly can move in without too much trouble.  They are actually a bit harder out in the open as they use their heavy chariots (aka Roman-f*cker-uppers).

Anyhoo only four Gaulish towns to annex after the Brits (one in Ireland, two in Gaul and one in Hispania (the capital). After that I'm going to persuade the Aucklanders that they really do like living under the yolk of Pax Julii and then give Johnny Carthaginian a good seeing to.  The rotters have been schooling me on the sea so I will have to show them some cold hard steel on land ("They don't like it up them, centurion.").

PS - this is really taking up a lot of time.  I fired up FIFA tonight (hadn't played for best part of a week) - playing Toon in playah mode and promptly drew 0-0 with Wigan (home) and 1-1 with Stoke (away).  

I wonder if things like sewers and aqueducts help prevent disease?

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they decrease squalor which increases happiness -there is also a plague that breaks out around turn 70-80 i think -when that happens, you can recruit spies and diplomats in the infected town and send them off to enemy towns to spread the plague and weaken them

This actually looks achievable 

http://worldoftanks.asia/en/news/49/28-feb-28-mar-operation-kv-220/

The worm has turned. Finally subjugated the Brits and the Gauls and have 24 regions (target of 50).  I can now recruit Pretorian Guard who are the SAS of the ancient world.

Next target are the Carthaginians who have pushed into Hispania.  There are only two Auckland towns left so will mop them up after I have pushed the Carthaginians out (they are allies of Rome so can't tread on their toes just yet).

My army is getting too much and too spread out so I need to keep acquiring towns and loot to keep up with the finances...what a never ending spiral.  War is terrible.

A few hours later: Just started on the Carthaginians.  Took their first town without any palaver.  But now the Scipii have pushed up into the Southern part of Hispania so I can see that after a few more years I will have them to my South and the Brutii to my West. 

...might have to start beefing up my navy and cranking out the Pretorian Guard to deal with these pesky Romans.

Carthaginians dealt to and one small town of Aucklanders remain.  But the Scipii are swarming up into the bridgehead town in the south (near the Gibraltar Strait).

And my old generals are shuffling off so the towns are even more restless.

And my assassins are getting thin on the ground.

Arrrrrgh!

I think my approach will need to be something like:

- try and win over the rebels and get them to fight either the Scipii or the Brutii

- form an alliance with Egypt (I have) and see if they will attack the Scipii to my south

- use whatever time I have to build up forces to the counter the Scipii and deter the Brutii

- send a small force into Scipii territory (ask permission first) and then use it to harass them or link up with the Egyptians and draw their troops away from Hispania

I would just like to add that the Pretorian Guard are oarsum - I used them to help take Novo Carthage (taking the gate by scaling ladders either side) and they just beat up the defenders.  Zooming in to watch the hand to hand combat is hugely fun.

However I think it has the potential to all go Pete Tong in a few moves (years) so I might not last the week or even this weekend.

So.  Who in WoT is NixWater ?

Dunno but I intend to play a bit as I've a few days off now.

They keep sending me plat invites when I'm already in one.

Would be a fluke for a random to be inviting me with Nix in the name.

^ Typical Southern Romans.  Not like us Northerners.

Now have 30 regions having just nabbed the last Greek city (Rhodes).  This seems to have pleased the masses no end and now all my regions are happy (for the moment).  More importantly the sacking of Rhodes has yield mega denari and I can now afford to build a barracks to recruit Urban Cohorts.

Just a couple more factions to attend to - Parthians in the far east and the Egyptians in the south east and then it's all on between the Romans.

Bit of a worry at the moment as the Scipii are marching right through my patch of Italy.  Heaps of them just swanning about as if they own the place.

They'll keep...

Well my first foray into Egyptian held land was a complete disaster - my group of 250 odd got completely wiped out.

But now the odd thing is that money is pouring in from tributes from Rome and the allies - so now I just need to beef up my towns and use Rhodes as my base to build up the fourth to final war in which we walk like Egyptians.

I'm on the up and the other Romans are on the way down, but first up it'll be the Pharaoh and I to see who is the Biggus Swingingus Dickus.

Pharaoh Nuff -

one way to steal provinces is to use your diplomats and spies to make a province so unhappy it rebels, at which point you swoop in and take it without starting a war -also-if you own Crete you can hire Cretan archers as mercenaries -some of the best archers in the game as i recall

Thanks Munk. Crete is under rebel control, so I might pay them a visit.

Will try out thr spy & diplomat approach, but the egyptians seem to have large roaming armies.

The storm has broken and it's all kicking off as all the remaining factions (Egypt, Scipii and Brutii) are larging it up against me ("we are Julii, everyone hates us, we don't care").

Had earlier formed a ceasefire with the Egyptians but then Rome asked me to seize a town.  I figured I would as I wanted Rome to stay buddies and guard my capital from the Scipii, but the dirty buggers attacked me as I was moving troops through to head off the Scipii.

So I ransacked Rome.

So now I have: 

• The Brutii in the East attacking my towns - and they are hard b@stards to knock over.
  
• The Scipii besieging me in Rome - they aren't as bad but they have a truck load of troops.
• The Egyptians pissed off with me and threatening Crete and Rhodes.
• The Scipii in the South (N Africa) where I was planning on rolling through and may still do if I can see off their counter attacks.

I have gone another twenty years but still only have 37 regions.  A very frustrating period as The Egyptians have pushed me out of their patch (but so far have not gone on for Crete and Rhodes), but more importantly the Scipii are pushing back in the South and we have just gone through a real Stalingrad type seige in Rome where a large group of several armies have tried to wrest it from my plucky lads.  I have had to send several supporting forces down from my nearby cities and they are rather  threadbare now.  We have managed to hang on very tenaciously  and currently  I have strengthened the garrison bt there are several more Scipii armies nearby.

Also the Brutii are a real bunch of hard fvckers - they have loads of Urbans which makes it hard to knock them over.  They have easily trounced me and kicked me out of several cities although I have managed to take one or two other lightly held ones of theirs.  After some serious thrashings I have just twigged that the way to best them is to not contest the walls but line up my heavy troops in the streets so that they literally have to bash their way through.  My cavalry is stationed well away in side streets and either come in to help halt a breakthrough or come around the back of the enemy.

Using this approach i have managed to take on huge forces that can't use their numbers in a confined narrow street.  Needless to say that my Urbans excel at this slugfest.

I think I have to continue my N African campaign and push through to Egypt.  If my Greek islands hold out I will use them to supply a push into the Greek mainland as it is lighlty held by the Brutii, who are more dominant in the North East where I can just hope to contain their advance and grimly fight them in the streets/trenches.  For now the Egyptians have agreed to not beat me up so hopefully we can kick on to being chums.