My experiences thus far with the Boii - is AI Rome a little TOO strong?
Hello again, Larkin here. Long time RSII fan, recently got RSIII after years without touching a total war game. Thought I'd post some experiences and open up a discussion, perhaps.
I've been playing a handful of campaigns - Rome, Greeks, and in particular the Boii. I've been loving the Boii run in particular - I've had a great time negotiating alliances with Dacia and the Belgae, bringing rebel tribes in to the Confederation, and building a powerful little realm in the heart of Europe. I was eventually attacked by the Cimbri and crushed them and now my lands stretch from Switzerland to the Netherlands, from Sweden to Estonia to the Ukraine and down to the coast of Croatia.
I was of course attacked early on by Rome to take Bononia/Bologna from me and although I just about fended them off (thanks to time limit) from the first attack I knew I could not hold another, so I abandoned the settlement to them and tried (unsuccessfully) to leg it with what remained of my army and my poor heroic general (he met his end courtesy of the bloody rebels in a field near Milan). I was then able to negotiate a peace with Rome and for the next, well, few decades we were at peace.
Carthage was forced out of Iberia by the Gallaeci who took almost all of it except for the Roman colony there. The war with Rome continued but with little to no action from either side. The Romans and Greeks were also consistently at war, seeing brief Greek expansions in southern Gaul and Sicily quickly stomped down. The Selucids seemed dominant and had Parthia and Egypt on the brink with Armenia as a vassal, but then met a coordinated attack from Pontus and Pergamon and have been torn apart by the four nations. The Greeks were being crushed by Sparta, Rome and Sarmatia, losing almost all of their holdings except for Benghazi, Crete and Rhodes, Athens and Thebes. Then suddenly they launched a blitzkrieg against Macedon, who had expanded up the Black Sea and forced Scythia into a vassalship with Sarmatia. Dacia attacked Macedon too and between them they reduced them to just Chalkis and two provinces on the Black Sea coast. Dacia rules Pella, Thessalonica and Byzantium, no less! The Greeks shortly after defeated Sparta - who at one point were laying siege to Athens with a 3:1 numerical advantage - and via rebellion in Syracuse took Akragas too.
I've absolutely loved this campaign - it has totally immersed me in the spirit of the Celts (and I've done so much reading about the history as a result) and it's been a sizeable challenge. Some of the battles have been very hard, especially when I'm at a disadvantage in cavalry, or they have strong spear infantry that limit my cavalry's effectiveness. A lot of the generic Celtic infantry the Boii have are very squishy so if you don't micro well you can lose a unit in an instant. However the heavy spearmen and swordsmen are awesome (and look amazing) and I love the balance between missile and heavier cavalry. It's been really cool as I expanded to have units from other tribes etc become available - it really fits the feeling of incorporating tribes into a Confederacy and having their warriors join my own. Marcomanni, Volcae, Helvetii, Chatti, Suebi etc - recruiting them in their homelands and bringing them all together from across my realm to form an army feels amazing compared to the vanilla style 'spam 10x legionaries in any city'.
As I lay siege to the free city in Switzerland (I had hoped to keep this as a buffer against the Romans but they were refusing my peace offers and kept sending assassins at my nearby lands, so I felt obligated to take this land too), the Romans approached me with an offer of alliance. Brilliant, I thought - I can finally spend some time without having to worry about a lengthy and costly war to properly develop my infrastructure. Every turn I spend all the money I have and many provinces are left undeveloped - I have many provinces with public order issues but I simply cannot afford military expense, economic development and public order development at the same time (this is fantastic from a gameplay standpoint, as so often in TW games once you secure your starting position you can just roll in cash forever).
However immediately as I ended the turn after taking the Helvetii capital the Romans lay siege. Part of me wonders if the AI actually meant to backstab me or if they just intended to attack the city themselves, but they are not at war with the free people, so this option seems unlikely (they have not even taken Venetia from them, which is a handy buffer since I control Ilyria). The army I had in that city, close to full strength (there had not been much of a garrison) is my most veteran field army, led by the son of my most successful general who crushed tribe after tribe and won heroic victory after victory against the Cimbri and the other northern Germanic tribes. There are the most elite units I can field - Boii Champions, Heavy Swordsmen, Volcae Axemen and so on - all upgraded with their weapons and armour to silver and most of them boasting multiple levels of silver or gold experience. They were up against a smaller Roman army of Polybian cohorts, Allied cohorts, some Triarii, a Velite unit and a captain with some Equites. About 50% were upgraded to bronze, most were bronze experience with a few silver.
After 2 turns of siege (during which time I was frantically bringing my other field armies together and making some very tough choices about where to cut spending to retrain troops while also having to maintain order - again, awesome stuff) they attacked. During the battle I checked some of the Polybian cohorts' stats as I watched them marching under tower fire, being shot at by veteran Getic archers, slingers and peltasts and taking little to no casualties. My Boii Heavy Swordsmen, 3 gold chevrons of experience, unleashed all of their javelins at one cohort and killed about 3 per hit. One Allied cohort threw their pila at a Celtic spearmen unit and killed about 30 of them in one volley. The cohorts sat and threw what felt like about 6-7 volleys of pila at my heavily armoured spearmen by the gate who had their shields raised and ready and still they took dozens of casualties. Naturally I checked some unit stats and was pretty shocked to find that a generic early cohort can still have better attack and defense than some of the most elite warriors I can field, incredibly experienced and well upgraded.
I crushed this Roman army with no survivors, after I was able to rotate cavalry out through the wall breaches the Romans made and hit their other attacking groups from behind. I still lost 28% of my army despite a 1000 man advantage. I don't think I could have saved that many more if I could somehow have been more optimal in the battle.
It's about 578 AUC, and there is a named Legion - the VII - sitting in Italy that my spy has spotted. The Romans have defeated the Arverni, made peace with Carthage (who only control Algeria and Tunisia now, the Gallaeci having taken Morocco as well) and swept through the Iberian peninsular in record time. It seems they take a new province every turn. They repeatedly lose control of some of the cities in Gaul and have a 2 province Greek insurgency on Sicily. It absolutely baffles me, therefore, why they would attack this enormous Celtic powerhouse of the Boii - allied with the Belgae who control the rest of Gaul - just after offering them an alliance. Don't they have other things to be dealing with? The answer is yes, and yet their units are simply so powerful they are able to defeat pretty much anything thrown at them. I've seen small Roman armies - 8 to 14 units - easily defeating 16 to 20 unit stacks and taking a province shortly after without much loss. I can't help but feel the Polybian cohorts, at least, are a little too overtuned.
Add to that the fact we have a legion appearing what feels like 100 years too early and I am balking a little, as I saw some of those cohorts' stats and that the defence rating was hitting 60 - my aforementioned elite swordsmen manage 57 after 2 levels of upgrades and 9 levels of veterancy.
Of course, I relish the challenge, and I've mustered two veteran and one green field army to save my elites from the second siege they are undergoing. I intend once they are safe and retrained to accompany them with another new professional field army (though I am somewhat fearful of the cost - the war has only gone on for a few turns and it has already dropped my income by about 10000 per turn, approximately 1/3) to strike into Italy itself and reclaim Bononia. However, I can't help but feel that Rome has, under the AI, not had anywhere near the historical problems a player will face and has been able to progress technologically at a far faster rate and has under its command an endless tide of units that are, in my opinion, a little too good. I'm all for the legions to be among the best in the game, since of course, they did conquer the empire. But the 2nd Punic War era units - as stated, that were created out of necessity and quality was sacrificed - should not be so strong that they are able to crush in a few years the Iberian and Gallic tribes that Rome struggled with for centuries.
What do you guys think?
Oh, and if there is interest, I can update this thread as time goes by with the progress of my campaign (perhaps with pictures if people want). I'm certainly looking forward to the daunting prospect of a protracted war with Rome.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Mamlaz
And I think the city will have a positive economic balance directly.
