Rome: Total Peace

[PatrickCocoa]

OK, loving the Rome: Total War on the Macintosh (thanks Feral, Sega, and the Creative Assembly). So as an experienced RTW'er, I started out a campaign as Egypt (on Very Hard/Hard). I've now got 28 provinces including all of Asia Minor, Armenia, the Levant, Babylon, Rhodes, Crete and Cyprus, and, of course, Egypt.

Now I'm thinking, why expand further? I'm not quite up to Alexander's empire, but as Pharoh, I'm doing better than any of my predecessors (including that slacker Ramases III). Why don't I cut down my army and spend my time building roads, academies, sewers, growing my cities, and generally improving the lives of my children/subjects? I've stayed out of Greece itself, my only real threat is the Brutii, maybe I can just bribe their armies (1/2 stack of Brutii cost about 50,000, I've done it a few times already). Or maybe they'll be happy with Greece and Italy.

Why keep expanding and fighting? Let me know what you think.

 

[Turbosatan]

OK, loving the Rome: Total War on the Macintosh (thanks Feral, Sega, and the Creative Assembly). So as an experienced RTW'er, I started out a campaign as Egypt (on Very Hard/Hard). I've now got 28 provinces including all of Asia Minor, Armenia, the Levant, Babylon, Rhodes, Crete and Cyprus, and, of course, Egypt.

Now I'm thinking, why expand further? I'm not quite up to Alexander's empire, but as Pharoh, I'm doing better than any of my predecessors (including that slacker Ramases III). Why don't I cut down my army and spend my time building roads, academies, sewers, growing my cities, and generally improving the lives of my children/subjects? I've stayed out of Greece itself, my only real threat is the Brutii, maybe I can just bribe their armies (1/2 stack of Brutii cost about 50,000, I've done it a few times already). Or maybe they'll be happy with Greece and Italy.

Why keep expanding and fighting? Let me know what you think.

You must keep expanding mate, because otherwise the poisoned blood lines of the Ptolemies will -- in Gibbons' words -- crumple into a foetid & ever shallower pool of intrigue, incest & corruption. You know Cleopatra married her father then her brother, right? You do not wanna go down that route; the damage to your self-esteem as progeny of Megas Alexandros could not stand it! Imagine what the kids would look like! Eeeewwww...

Or like, you'd just get a bit bored I suppose.

What's the date? Have the Marian reforms happened? Sometimes if I'm roleplaying someone historically opposed to the Romans & they're having a bit of a dawdle stuck on their silly peninsula I give them a bit of a fillip in the form of a few "add_population "Rome" 5000" & a few cash-bursts, just to get their reforms moving so they can field decent troops; going up against the might of the Roman Consular legions backed by the resources they have gained from bashing various barbarians is for me the highpoint of a vanilla RTW campaign. Actually gives me something to look forward to long after, say, ETW or MTW1 campaigns reach the tipping point of "whack-a-mole", inevitability & boredom stage; I find the final challenge of a strong Rome to be almost irresistible to take on.

Of course, I am incredibly dull so when I'm playing the Eggies I don't train any archers (the AI hardly uses them & certainly not in the mass-fire role that the player does) & try to reign back on the chariots, so your mileage may vary.

 

[PatrickCocoa]

a foetid & ever shallower pool of intrigue, incest & corruption.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Well, OK. But I've played many campaigns and conquered almost everything I've seen. In this campaign (on VH/H) I was wandering around Cappadocia looking for some Selucids to slay when some Pontics (who I wasn't at war with) jumped up and attacked me. I killed every one of them in that battle, then turned on their cities and laid them to waste, just because they annoyed me.

Now I want the world to see the kind, compassionate Pharaoh. I have a nice tidy looking empire for grade schoolers to study in a few thousand years and want to see how the RTW engine handles peace.