I haven't seen the vid but the fact that you named yourself after lugotorix of Gaul teaching barbarian,hellenistic and carthaginian kids to beat rome is the funniest thing I saw in my life I will cherish this moment man
Roman factions can be stopped only in early game , after the reforms and if Romans have lots of settlements you can't defeat them because of economy disadvantage.
You got it absolutely right with the autoresolve. Yesterday I did a game of Carthage and I attacked Messana in the second turn, knowing only the Scipii faction leader is guarding it. Used autoresolve and my elephants were all wiped out and my generals almost faced the same result.
Auto resolve only works against garrisoned generals in medieval 2 where we can get even 0 casualties. Put your low value troops before the high in the army before autoresolve. The shit troops will get all casualties
@@misterdoctor8234 Ah yes... one of the greatest Romans of all time, Biggus Dickus. A very cultured man educated by the great Greek philosopher Testicles.
I had the easiest time defeating romans with Numidia. Their units all have good morale and stamina and early (tier2) archers. Taking sicily for a base of operations on the mediterran is the best course if you come from south, since kydonia is too small to build army on. If you come from north or east, the alps are the best point, but be prepared with phanaxes for the bridge battles. If coming from east, you most likely have better cav. Just do a delayed pincer.
Ok whut, somebody should test it. I "tried" to play as Numidia few times before and I thought their units were trash. Easiest I had against romans were Greeks. With just 2 units of archers and 4-5 units of milita hoplites I could destroy roman infantry easily. (Just put them on corner. This way Romans cant flank them and infantry cant even get close to them because of very tight phalanx wall. The first romans units that routs cant reform since first thing they will do is to run out of red lines. I know its not very brave or just, but It works. It just works.)
*Looks at current Scythia campaign where 1 army of horse archers and noble horse archers has been rampaging across Dacia through Illyria and now Northern Italy, destroying 9 full Julii army stacks in the process and taking 4 of their towns. Transforming the army from raw recruits to an at least 3 silver experience ranking on all while suffering more losses from accidental friendly fire than from the Romans.* Yea, I think I'm good.
What ive learnt playing as the greeks: go for the SPQR as early as possible. Peace talks never work with Romans. Then go for the blues, the greens, then the real romans (reds). Its important that you follow it in that order. 1. With the blues gone you no longer have to worry about naval superiority 2. With the greens gone, greece safe from attacks 3. Reds, cutting the head off of the snake.
I actually ended the Romans with the greeks in 10-15 turns taking Mesana, Crotone, Tarentum, Calpua, Ariminium, Aretium, Segesta, Cagliari, Rome in that order. It was fun beating them. Most importantly what I did was to land a general in Massilia and take the city in irder to ease my quest. Battling them on two fronts really makes the AI confused. I couldn't manage to take a Julii settlement with only one general , but the northern army really did me a great favor distracting northern Italy. I played it on Ultra Hard and ended up fighting with the whole world which is a real bollocks
Parthia are al most like a counter against Rome, have horce archers fire at the infantry, while defending them with some Cataphrafcts, same tactic used for Armenia.
Which is why it might be a good reason to start hiring mercenaries around Greece to counter the Cataphracts with Bastarnae (with armor piercing weapons)and the horse archers with normal and late Roman Archers and Cretans.
@@gabork5055 I had never seen Armenia survive against wrath of Parthia and Pontus. Their early units are trash so you have to work very hard to survive as them in early game
Oh how the remastered version changes this video lol the top Roman troops can be wiped by a unit of swordsman.. idk what the Devs did with the remastered but the Romans top units are quite weak compared to the original Rome 1. On the Remastered the Green Roman faction has taken over 50% of the map and its not even round 80 yet in my game and I'm Struggling to take over Spain, France and Britain.
I find it quite easy with the Greek Cities, take them out early with your hoplites that beat their early units in a frontal clash. Plus the Greek cities generate a lot of money.
To defeat Rome, don't wait. Attack them as quick as possible with one full army in Italy. push infantry fight and use cavalry to shout them by the back (not with Greece).
Currently playing as seleucids. I destroyed the Armenians, parthians and Egyptians. I sent a fat stack with a sizeable navy to southern Italy and if it gets hairy I’ll just destroy the barracks and stables in the city then sail away.
Another thing: as Egypt, the Middle East won’t really bother you, so if you really want you can just get your whole navy and army and just head straight for Rome.
I invaded Italy as the Pontus in very early game. I started with the Julii, then crippled Brutii, conquered the Scipii then wiped out the Brutii. I find the red boys the most dangerous so they had to die first.
Armoured elephants, build two armies of 6+ units, add any kind of infantry for tunneling the walls, some cavalry for fast actions on archers and off you go. Work armies in pairs, one is regrouping strenght in the city, the other is in action on the map. Easy. I just played total domination with Carthage. Owning ALL provinces on the map with zero rebels.
Me playing Seleucids and finally dominating the east with a massive amount of income. Me: *seeing the marian reforms* Time to build those cataphract elephants >:)
Nice job! Just a small comment about Marian reforms: It kicks in after Roman's reach large city not huge city. What are you planning for next video? Edit: Sorry for the misinformation guys: it is a huge city needed of course. I had in mind large city level barracks since they provide much better troupes than small city barracks. My bad.
Once i've played a world domination Parthia campaign and conquered rome before they get the reform. Ai is not efficient in accelerating the process as we do.
hmmm I really enjoy playing a Scythia because horse archer spam is very op (and you kinda feel like a horde doing it), i also really enjoy the greek cities, they have an interesting starting position
@@hannibalburgers477 They can only attack wooden gates (Level 1 & 2 City Walls, IIRC). If they upgrade further than that, they're elephant proof. Another reason you need to blitz the Roman factions (I normally leave Rome itself until last and besiege it once I've taken the rest of Italy).
Handy Tip if you are a poor and weak faction like Spain, have a few armies made up purely of about 5 cavalry units. Station them in mountain passes where it is impossible for enemy armies to pass you without a battle. When you go to battle deployment, start your units at the top of a mountain. By the time the enemy has marched with in missile distance, sound the charge and let your cavalry plaster into their troops. They will be exhausted and wavering already and when they take a full power cavalry charge to the front, the whole army will flee. Another tip is to hold bridges. Like between massilia and Narbo Martias for example - have two spear units at the bridge entrance (if you can’t recruit spear units then pay mercenary barbarian warband) and have missile units to the left and right of the the spear units along the bank edge. (Again if you can’t recruit good middle units then pay mercenary slingers). When the enemy charges your spear warband on the bridge they will ofcourse be stuck in a huddle. Then have your missile troops pepper then from the side. As the enemy is huddled this effect will be large. Once they have lost 1/4 - 1/3 of troops or if your warband is near breaking, then send in Calvary to full power charge. If you can, once the enemy is engaged with your warband on the bridge, if the map allows, send your cavalry units around another crossing and come at them from their side of the bridge too. They are then sandwiched on the bridge
If you attack Italy first 20-30 turns, they are pretty valnurable. Greek city states can just push in Sicely and from there to Italy fast. Also Macedon with a fast hold in Appolonia and a stack with focus in cavalry can rush all over Italy (exept north Italy) and even devestate Rome with no real issues. The trick to ROmans is to not let them gain strenght. Jullii in general are weak until they gather gaul and spain. Scipii if they fail in Sicili they are no issue at all and if you stop Brutii in Epirus and Dalmatia they are pretty easy to deal too. The point is to stop fast their expansion.
Yess I completely agree, you need to rush them quick because things can get very out of control if you don't. The romans are surprisingly vulnerable at the start
@@lugotorix6173 sorry for my answer as it is mostly what you say on the video. I rushed to write it before i watch it XD. Great video by the way, the strategy with the weak core enemy cities on the back never occured to me tbh but seems pretty op
As Macedon faction I've conquered Rome, crushed Bruti faction and taken half of Sicily but Juli and Scipi are stubbornly holding onto parts of Sicily, Gaul, Spain and North Africa.
very interesting topic, how to defeat the outrageously op faction of the game. In the early stage the biggest issue, to me at least, are Roman generals, their armies sometime have 3 or more in them, they can smash into phalanxes headfirst and still cause damage and not rout.
Thank you! Yess that is true, and the romans seem to spawn generals out of nowhere very unfairly, upgrading to phalanxes with decent morale rather than relying on militia troops is definitely a priority
The Eastern General is also insanely overpowered for some reason in the earlygame. It's way stronger than what it should be, just by looking at the unit for example
Technically the hastati are replaced by auxilia, and the principes are the ones replaced by legionaries, which makes the Marian reforms slightly less powerful than how you showed it. (Because you said hastati are replaced by legionaries) But still, a nice video 👌
On another note one of the settlements you want to make sure the romans don’t have is Patavium, its the settlement with the most population growth on the Italian peninsula. Marian reforms trigger when one of the settlements on the Italian peninsula becomes a huge city in possession by one of the roman factions. As a roman faction you can actually abuse Pataviums population growth and repeatedly enslave another high population growth city like Carthage, by having Patavium be the only city with a governor. You can easily get Marius reforms in under 20 turns.
I’ve always blitzed Rome at the beginning cuz I was too afraid of them getting powerful with territory and the Marion reforms. So thank you for this. 🙏
What’s about you and backdoor jokes? ;) However, I love to play as the Seleucid Empire and kill everything in the middle east that is not silver. Then when you get to Greece, Rome really is strong and has an Empire that can rival yours, but you have an advantage: you are united, they are four factions and they all mind their own business until you get to their doorstep. I’m usally able to exterminate the brutii fairly easely (it can be a damn grind though...) and blitz the hell out of them. The real slugging match is with the scipii on the bloody sands of north Africa, but they are a joke to beat in open field if you have the right cavalry support. Most of their armies are still old pre Marian, but you could still see a chad pretorian cohort going along with a bunch of virgin hastati, and you whipe the floor with them (full cataphract and companion charge, even frontally, and you can say goodbye to obsolete pre marian units). Still, very good adviceses. This is very empyric to realize and many would not know. Well done.
hahahaa I promise they're not scripted i just have a dirty mind lol. Yess although the seleucid empire have a tricky start, once you unite them they can become very strong and are well equipped to deal with the brutii. its interesting what you said about the scipii, they're certainly the weirdest of the roman factions thats for sure
I sacked Rome repeatedly with the Greek Cities. You just have to know the proper way to arrange your Phalanxi so that they don't have any flanks to attack. In head-on battle, a Hoplite Phalanx is impervious to attack from Triarii and Cavalry, especially if Armoured or Spartan varieties are used. With Armoured Hoplites, I've even repelled frontal attacks from Parthian Cataphracts.
I’ve played Macedonia twice. First time, I charged the Hellenic nations before attacking Rome. Big mistake, almost lost the whole game but in the nick of time the Gauls and Carthage all ganged up on the Italian peninsula and saved me. Next playthrough, grabbed all of my troops and ships and took Rome. Piece of cake, barely put up a resistance. After that, the Hellenic nations were pathetic since I had the whole Italian peninsula under my control. Trust me, go straight for Rome.
Just started my 1st full playthrough as the Germans. The Berserkers are bloody hilarious - watching them tear Spartans apart might be the best thing ever XD
@@brainwashingdetergent4128 Got used to the game on VH a bit ago, now trying to complete all factions on the highest setting. Finished my Germany run by setting a whole stack of berserker bois on the army of the S.P.Q.R. It was glorious :)
@@doubledouble4g379 I've got to try this out sometime I've never beat the game with barbarians I always get bored with their lack of units and buildings.
@@doubledouble4g379 every time I play very hard 21 AI principals will slaughter 100 of my men easy on the wall. In the field it's fine but on the wall its completely unrealistic 😥 how do you do it?
i abit incorrect on the marian 'upgrade' Hastati are replaced by auxilia, which are, and i quote "light infantry with a bonus against cavalry" odd combo but ok. In general field combat IMO these are a downgrade. The AI also is terrible at mixing units. Pricipes get replaced with the early legionaries, now that is an upgrade, but a small one, these are all considered 'tier 3' (out of 5) and while pricipes are generally weaker than the tier 3 equivalent of a barbarian faction (since it's their max) early legions are not and can hold their ground. Now the 'tier 4' change from triarii to proper legionaries is an insane buff, these are the guys you need to be worried about. Not even talking about urbans and praetorians because those will destroy anything that's not a tier 5 hellenic or egyptian unit. This is where the AI's poor army management works for you, mass routing is the key, you will not win in kills a lot of the time. As for cavalry - post marian is an absolute upgrade and that can be a game-ender in a lot of cases. Cavalry cheese carry is real. The rest i agree, auto resolve is a trap. If you're playing carthrage, dacia or gaul, you MUST rush them down quickly and get that tech. Barbarian tier 2-3 units (swordsman and chosens respectively) are generally superior than roman units of the same tier (hastati/pricipes). Carthrage is an exception where even a tier 4 unit (spearmen) can lose to hastati, this is where you need to abuse elephants, superiority in numbers and be way ahead in tech. Not sure what to do with numidia, that faction seems doomed to me. Every other faction pretty much have good enough units at later-game to compete against the romans or are in a decent position to tech up slowly and focus on growth to then hit with hard units. Anything with phalanxes is just bonus points, double if defending. Chosens can handle anything pre-legionaries, the german roster can pretty much fight anything the romans can muster, and any helenic faction with a mix of phalanxes and heavy cav can make a stand against the strongest roman units. Spain has bull warriors which can compete with legionaries and maybe even urbans, scutarri are just lowkey hastati. In general, unless you're playing carthrage, gaul or dacia (and numidia i guess), you should be completely fine without putting 100% focus on the romans. You'd be surprised how empty the AI leaves it's towns after you eliminate the 'out of nowhere' big armies they have wandering up untill you reach their main military bases.
Have you ever tried a migration campaign with a roman faction? It's quite challenging and fun to go to Egypt or anatolia with an army with weak early game cavalry and no phalanx troops and fight an uphill campaign to the Marian reforms
Honestly, my best success against the Julii on M/M as the Brutii came from smashing through their armies with armies comprised of nothing but Equites. Of course, this tactic was only as successful as it was because when you play as a Roman faction you actually control when the reforms will happen and I simply chose to never allow that to occur. I also imagine my strategy was only as successful as it was because on M/M the AI doesn't get any morale bonuses. As a result it was possible for me to cause massive routs of large infantry armies by simply smashing one or two sections of the enemy line and inducing a mass panic as I begin pushing into their second line just through the sheer number of horses I was sending to attack one or two units in particular. Oddly enough the general I put in charge of those field battles was a hypochondriac. So he didn't have the greatest level of durability, but this strategy led to him earning five or six heroic victories before the Julii began to run out of troops. Though, I still say the oddest aspect of that campaign was that the Julii beat me to the lands of the Amazons.
I've got a game where I'm playing as the Greeks and beat late Rome. I stopped killing the julii so they could get stronger. And now I'm slowly taking their cities that are well guarded.
How to beat anyone in Rome Total War? 1. Take the edge of the map, start to develop great cities. (unless you enjoy being spammed with full stacks from all sides while you're trying to do anything early game) 2. Spam War Dogs and Horse Archers, early phalanx and Cretan archer combo, whatever cost effective unit you have that can spare you money and manpower early game. (but have your cheap units hold siege equipment if you know they will be hit by missiles or can't avoid towers, denarii is more precious than manpower in the long run) 3. Take your peasant armies from your developed cities and disband them in your newly captured towns, build farms and economic buildings first with a few settlements almost completely focused on military development. 4. Take the island of Rhodes and Crete as soon as possible for sea trade and Cretan Archers, place a general in Crete to continue hiring the mercenaries with the extra experience chevrons. 5. Take the richest settlements, they are usually in Greece, Rome and Egypt, but you might be surprised how much income some other settlements can add, like how in my current Julii campaign, Patavium is my highest income town (probably because of sea trade and maybe some farms that i missed might have been there from the first few turns, who knows how the A.I. builds their towns) even though it's just a not particularly big town that you will likely capture in early game. 6. Heard about a spy tactic that brings in income through corruption, in that case you can just rank up your spy army with random characters and send them to the faction you want to overtake, unrest will also go up. Haven't tried this yet, but if it works, this should be really effective along with 2-3 Assassins and maybe a few diplomats sent nagging to each faction for a few hundred denarii for map information, like Lugotorix usually does.
Easy strategy: 1. Make about 6 of any phalanx type unit. 2. Send them to Rome. 3. During combat, run to the corner of the map and form a quarter circle with your spears. Keep pressing halt every few seconds so your units won't move (and tire) even when fighting. 5. Enjoy the massacre. The enemy units can't penetrate your spears line and they just die in front of them. You can kill 1000 Romans with only maybe 50 losses cause of pillums. 6. Works against any faction.
How about making a decent army and just burn your way up the insula? Rome itself would be dicey but even if you can't hold it just hopping from town to town putting them to the sword might halt them for a while.
I wouldn’t classify any of the factions as difficult to defeat if you have trouble defeating them practice more don’t build your strategy around specific plans practice being able to adapt being able to handle counters
And elephants are the best counter for Rome because they use a LOT of sword infantry which do great against other infantry but they have a disadvantage against cavalry and almost no chance against elephants
You can even prevent the Marian reform as a eastern faction too You only need: Some (good) spys Some ships Thessaloniki 256 B.C ...and a big pandemic in the italian region is born;) With this strategie, you can fight hastati with silvershield legionairies :)
Simple they have few archers and spears, so send in your war elephants right away, can be demolished by chartage in 10-15 turns, wiping them as selucids was much much harder and took so much longer as you can't attack before you own the entire asia minor.
For me the best way I found to beat them is basically to rush SPQR with 2-3 full scale armies then plant them on the North River. The Julii will attack you from the North which will pull the nearby SPQR out of Rome as it's close enough, you let your second army deal with the Julii, you destroy as much of SPQR at the river as possible as they'll be "attacking" thanks to the Julii, then you can take Rome against minimal units. That then gives you the strongest base and units to then branch out from while the 3 Roman factions all turn their attention inwards towards you but you now have endgame level units with the top level weaponry, armor etc so it becomes a breeze.
I just defeated the Egyptians and Pontics in my Seleucid campaign and I'm now facing the Brutii in Greece. I have 4 generals each with an army comprised of 8 silver shield legionnaires, 4 silver shield pikemen, 4 cataphracts, 2 armoured elephants. All with 2 xp/gold/gold. The Romans have no chance. The Egyptians didn't.
As the Carthaginians, you can move a force (with elephants) to the middle of Sicily and wait for the Scipii to move on Syracuse (which is inevitably their first move). You can then conquer the Roman settlement of Messina while their forces are besieging Syracuse and then destroy the army besieging Syracuse (or take Syracuse if the Romans have captured it). Then you can move onto the Italian Peninsula to either take on the Brutii or eliminate the Scipii (or both). Conquer the rest of Italy and then turn on Rome itself. Once that's achieved, only the Egyptians are really a threat.
To me facing the Romans always feels like some kind of Jojo's fight where both sides just beat each other down and never let up until one eventually overwhelms the other. It usually comes with a lot of heroic victories cause you kinda need to outplay an army that you can't just brute force.
Rome army is really ridiculous even in early game. I am playing with Greek, besieging Messana that has 3 generals and 4 Hasatti inside it. I have full stack army and I can't even win the battle Half of them is hoplites. Because whenever the generals attack my troops, somehow they just rout while they have 90+ units left. I have totally no idea why this can happen. Furthermore spearment units has bonus damage vs cavalry.
The game sort of overcorrected the Germans with the berserker as a hard counter to Roman infantry. You can have one army full of berserkers with 4 gothic cavalry and take the entire Italian peninsula very early. The craziest thing I've ever seen is a full berserker army defeat elephants in Carthage in my recent play. That makes zero sense...🤯
When playing as Carthage (very hard difficulty) I always like blockading the romans, denying them expansion into the Mediterranean islands. conquering Sicily and Sardinia using them as forward operating bases for your navy and shutting down the green and roman nations from expanding anywhere. I then focus my army on quickly gobbling up northern africa and parts of Spain. by this popint the numidians and spanish are all but dead and im ready for the final show down with the red romans on land. The green and bllue romans never expand beyond there starting cities. it kind of plays out more historically accurate that way and i grind the red romans back into italy marching over the alps and into the north...sometimes even with my gallic allies.
For Carthage and Macedonia, use horses to crush their armies, Macedonian lightlancers are amazing against Hastati and quite effective against Pricipes. The same goes for the Barbarians, but Spain should save up for the Bull Warriors. Greeks should use armored hoplites in large numbers and play defensive until then. The Easterners are too far away and should crush their neighbors and establish a safe homeland before they, again, crush the Romans with cavalry.
Funny thing is i once tried to rush rome as the rebels and it worked, i used a spy to open the game and distracted the senate big army so i could conquer rome and literally yoink the massive army they got.
(not imporant which nation:) settle a huge army, and start conquering bruti both cities, once the left with one big army on greek islands) once julii and scipio have something to do on italian motherland, you can either focus on fcking scipio and sicilia, if you are cartagha / greek you do this anyway, or you go for Rome, whipe out another nation bring them into more complexity about logistics and you need to finish before the Gaius reforms, if you are a bad unit nation
Romans are weak against cav. I remember having a ton of fun wiping them out with Macedonia. Though it did get old pretty quick. Hammer and anvil is invincible. The romans greatest strength is auto resolve. They're programmed to have an advantage over all other factions.
To clarify, post marian units get massive auto resolve bonuses based on tier (auxilia ar better than hoplites, legionares almost match spartans, urbans are flat out the best unit in auto resolve)
I'm assuming in the latter scenario where you are a farther faction facing the Romans later, taking Rome would break the Roman Republic Scripting. Basically same idea as what you said, but maybe if you waited too long and you don't want to fight them all at once you could try to get them in Civil War. Idk, haven't played so late to know if this works.
You could try and do that but i believe it would take a very long time, even with large empires the ai is extremely reluctant to start the civil war. I'm not sure if I've ever played a campaign for long enough to see it happen. But it certainly is an interesting strategy, and in theory would weaken all three factions
@@lugotorix6173 Yeah, I'm guessing they wouldn't be pressured to fight each other the same way they do naturally in the late game, at the very least though it should make it so that they are no longer scripted to join each other's wars. Also if they ally to other factions they might get forced to betray or lose alliances, which is something you could exploit yourself.
Oh? Just start as the Greek Cities, rush to make armored hoplites, storm Rome itself in 25-30 turns with a full roster of armored hoplites. Quit because there is no challenge left in the game.
You should do a video on the Autoresolve. I’d be curious how we game it and how to ensure victory. I think your points that Rome has advantage and Sycthia has disadvantages is interesting and should be deep dived into.
Playing as Spain I planned on having naval invasion via the Julii lands. However, Carthage declared war on me and intercepted my ships sinking a huge chunk of my army. I had a rough time with Carthage (Gaul was easy to deal with) as they kept sending stacks of cheap infantry with some Elephants. When I manage to take the situation under control I pushed out of Spain and notice most of Gaul already under Julii control… they didn’t hit the Reforms yet but had plenty of Príncipes. I realized it was game over once I saw 4 FULL stacks of Roman forces coming from the North and a full stack of Carthage landing in the South. I had only 3 full stacks and a few stationary units in the villages… Spain roster is extremely weak man. They can’t go toe to toe against Rome.
