I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Sea Peoples gameplay showcase. I like it, the two factions both play completely differently than anyone else. Lots of new systems to tinker with!
You know, I kinda wish Aten had something else it could do with cult centers than protect the Grand Temples of other gods. I'm supposed to be a fundamentalist monotheist dammit >.<
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
A deep dive on how the new mechanics for the Sea Peoples work. Basically, they can choose whether to become settled people, remain nomads, or remain mostly nomadic but have small holdings to keep a base of operations on the map. The more nomadic they are, the better the rewards from raiding and looting cities. Once settled enough, they lose access to those looting bonuses and play basically like everyone else.
Their two traditions are Path of the Sea People and Path of the Marauder (this path is also available to other factions, Irsu approves). The Path of the Sea People gives you access to a chart that grants various bonuses depending on where you are on it, using resources and events to move where you need to be on it so as to get the bonuses you want. The Path of the Marauder adds a new resource, eminence, which allows you to do various actions before battle (such as making opposing units join your army or make a town you're besieging rebel against its former masters) or gain a massive amount of resource from exterminating regions.
I wonder if Sea People who are settled enough will start getting bonii from Prosperity instead of Collapse.
Also, I like the Idol system glimpsed - some way for nomads to worship gods?
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Samnite campaign completed on turn 134. Much longer campaign than Taras, mostly because the Samnites lack an easy way to increase their research rate and so upgrading technologies is dreadfully slow. You can actually get overwhelmed by the AI's own research speed and find yourself with the lower tier units. I found that spies upgraded with the research speed trait was your best bet to keep up, and if you're lucky, research rate retinues added to every general is likewise useful.
As far as how the campaign went, it was a difficult struggle against the Italian mainland Hellenic city-states, as they eagerly allied to fight against me. Thankfully, Syracuse and its allies kept out of that war, which allowed me to slowly gain the advantage over Taras' Italiote League. After that, it was time to fight Rome. As it turns out, the two battles to conquer the city of Rome is incredibly difficult with mid-tier units. The elite garrison defending the capital are very hard to dislodge, especially triarii, who are probably entirely OP in this campaign. I couldn,t conquer Rome with a single stack, needed a second one to join as backup for the second battle, and even then that second stack took heavy damage fighting the last defenders.
With that done though, the rest of the campaign went smoothly. I finished off Rome, allied with the Etruscan League and finished my conquest of Italy, Sicily, then Africa where Syracuse had holed up.
The Etruscan unique mechanic of summoning an army wasn't as impactful as I hoped. In retrospect, it's not surprising but that army is of incredibly low quality, barely capable of conquering a halfway-proper garrison, and its upkeep is surprisingly high for the quality you're getting. The Etruscan roster is also quite lacking, having no useful cavalry at all (had to use mercenary hippeus) and mediocre ranged. Low tier infantry is also extremely bad, but they make up for it by having superior mid-tier infantry and superb high tier (probably not the equal of Rome, but what is, really).
Something else I've noticed is that because this campaign predates the proliferation of infantry carrying javelins to throw before getting into melee combat, so infantry are heavily impacted by the lack of that early killing power, especially when facing against cavalry. It's certainly a different way of going through this game.
Next up, I'll be playing as the Insubres, a Gallic tribe of Cisalpine Gaul with a special focus on diplomacy over conquest, with a very high dipomatic bonus with all factions. Their government action is pretty basic, involving either increasing public order or party loyalty (with the risk of that action occasionally failing) and their roster seems pretty varied, with what I think are the best archers of this expansion, potent infantry and chariots, something that I do not believe anyone else has access to either. I am surrounded by other Gallic tribes, some appear friendly, others appear ready to fight at the drop of a hat. We'll see how it goes.
Edited by Resileafs on Jan 22nd 2024 at 11:56:24 AM
Tausret wins an Ultimate Victory on Turn 120, 10 turns before the end of the Sea Peoples invasion. My last VPs came when I realized I had a Hittite neighbor who held two cult centers up in NE Canaan, and promptly traded a province for an alliance. Boom! Total Diplomacy!
Taking Egypt was a bit of a grind, and I stopped at Turn 100 because the Great Wave was incoming. Instead of conquering the remaining Egyptian factions, I vassalized or allied them and then went full bore into Canaan, picking up more vassals on the way and conquering anyone who wouldn't toe the line...or Megiddo, who was holding Askellonnote . Irsu was the big cheese in Canaan, but he proved to be a paper tiger once the might of the Pharaoh was upon him.
Also: Unbreakable Queen's Guard are almost all you need, with some club-and-shield archers to spice them up (bow chariots proved to be very much "why?"). I set up my main recruitment complex in Akhenaten and was just pumping out army after army to spread the authority of the One God.
Also, I think it was probably a rather dumb move to spend as much effort on the western desert as I did. I coulda left the whole area to handle their own invader problems and started moving into Canaan many turns before I did. Oh well, learned something.
Edited by Ramidel on Jan 25th 2024 at 1:36:00 AM
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
That's actually what inspired me to finish the Tausret game.
Now maybe I'll burn the world to the ground with the Sea Peoples. Or maybe I'll spend some time looking at the Steam forum...
glances at the Hebrews threads and the Blood DLC threads
nope nope nope running away now 
Edited by Ramidel on Jan 25th 2024 at 1:51:59 AM
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Insubres campaign complete on turn 131. Fairly simple start in the extreme north of the map. I started by making a province bordering the Alps my recruitment center and using it to train good early game armies, then focused on taking the entirety of Cisalpine Gaul. From there, it was pretty simply to gradually go down Italy, occasionally pausing to fully upgrade my armies with new units once I unlocked a new tier or to drive back barbarian spawns from the north (something I think I didn't mention in my other breakdowns is that tribal full stacks can appear from various areas around the map without warning, requiring considerable resources like emergency armies of mercenaries or powerful garrisons to beat them). Once I arrived at Tarchuna, I took a longer break to fully upgrade to my best units, and with them I rolled halfway through the country, easily defeating everything in my path. Rome was already beaten for me, so I didn't even have to deal with them myself. A side trip in Corsica and all I had left to do was wait for my culture to become dominant and win the campaign.
This campaign was more fun than the first two I played because the Insubres roster was much more varied. Interestingly, their top tier sword infantry had javelins to throw on the charge, so that really increased their effectiveness massively. Using the druidic government action wasn't too impactful, despite occasional good random effects, but it was still more useful than the Samnite army spawn.
Next up, Rome itself. Because this is pre-Manipular Rome, they start the campaign with the same hoplite fighting style as everyone else before research gives them the units that they start the grand campaign with. Their government action lets them elect consuls and dictators for a few turns, giving powerful buffs to the elected general during that period. Naturally, since this is early Republican Rome, they only hold the city itself, plus a port town to give access to the sea, so it's going to be interesting to start so tiny as the Romans. I look forward to this campaign's challenges.
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Rome campaign completed on turn 147. The main reason for the campaign's length is that it takes a long time to research Camillus' reforms due to lacking dedicated research buildings outside of shrines to Jupiter and waiting until I was done with those to get on my final conquests. The early campaign was a bit tough because low-tier Roman armies are pretty bad and owning only a single province does not give you the funds to overcome your first foe easily. Kind of weird campaign overall, probably because I had some issue securing Magna Grecia due to allying with the Samnites (who died) and making Taras into my client state (had to do it twice because they attacked another client state of mine). I expected that I would then have to fight the Etruscans (especially when I had to drive them back in the early campaign) but all of the Etruscan factions ended up becoming allied with me, so in the end I only had to take Corsica (Sadly the big battle I would have fought there ended up crashing, not sure why, I think it's because the AI faction had a siege weapon they weren't supposed to) and I was done.
Getting the Manipular units is a game changer for Rome in this campaign, much like Marius' reforms were in the grand campaign. The upgraded units get pila (even triarii, surprisingly) and are far more powerful than anything outside of elites from other factions. I could have used the election mechanic better though. They would have made wars easier if I used that mechanic when they began to give quick bonuses to my fighting prowess.
Next up, I'll be playing as Tarchuna, the most powerful Etruscan faction of the time period. They start with a fairly large territory and relatively good relationships with the other Etruscan factions (and the ability to confederate them). They also have a completely unique building style, where they do not simply build stuff in their cities, they build things in their capital, and if they build the same building type in their towns, those town's buildings will increase in tier at the same time. Plus, their building tiers go up to 6 instead of just 5, making their top tier cities incredibly powerful and their economy peerless, though it naturally takes a long time, and massive investment, to get to that level (after all, leveling the main city also levels the towns, which means you pay for every building to be upgraded at the same time). Unit-wise though, they don't appear to be particularly powerful, the aforementionned six tiers of buildings making it take a while to get even mid-tier troops, but they have enough unit variation that they can at least make a good show of themselves. As for their unique government action, it's just pressing a button and getting a random bonus, nothing particularly involved. Their one massive disadvantage, for what it's worth, is that losing the capital means losing the campaign. Not sure if it will really be a danger to watch out for though.
On paper, this looks like a very different kind of playstyle than everyone else's, we'll see how it goes in practice.
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
All campaigns in Rise of the Republic complete! Decided not to post my progress since there were no other posts, but now that I've actually completed the expansion, I think it's worth bumping the thread.
Tarchuna/Etruscan League took 134 turns. By far the most interesting campaign due to the way provinces are built, and the one that led the most to snowballing. Food stockpiles could fill up and empty instantly, income skyrocketed, and armies were either incredibly long to train while being supremely elite, or they were cheap, quickly trained and had terrible morale. Elite armies with them are literally unbeatable. Their upgrade branch could only have two units trained at once, but it led to units with attack stat over one hundred, and their defense over two hundred, with armor over 150. You quite simply cannot beat an elite hoplite unit with those stats. Campaign isn't particularly hard, but it does require the AI letting you develop yourself to become unbeatable. The faction action is otherwise a mostly unremarkable but useful bonus on a cooldown.
Syracuse took 123 turns. Their main strength were in mercenaries, being able to hire units of both far off lands on the campaign map but also units that are outside of the map, like Balearic slingers, Cretan archers and Spartan Hoplites. They also have access to siege weapons much earlier than everyone else, making them extremely strong to conquer the powerful walled cities of Greek states they are surrounded by, not to mention early access to Carthage and it's wealthy port. Their government action to send expeditions gave interesting bonuses, with some control over what you might want. Fairly easy campaign, but their reliance one mercenaries makes their economy a bit lacking in the early game.
The Iolei took 143 turns. The early campaign was more difficult since they have to drive off Carthage from Sardinia and fight off the Etruscans from Corsica, but I think it was the most fun campaign of the bunch. They have a fun roster, full of powerful offensive sword units, an interesting fist weapon unit and among the best archers available. Plus, all their units (except siege weapons) have stealth, meaning that they can easily sneak up on the AI on the battle map. With high range archers, it's easy to wipe out entire units unseen before the battle even starts. Their government action was boring though, giving only a very minor military bonus on a short cooldown. Their faction bonus to cause attrition on all enemy units in their territory was also just plain useful to not be bothered by small enemy stacks raiding your land. You could just let them die off.
The Senones took 141 turns and are by far the hardest campaign of the expansion. Their roster is quite frankly inferior to others, their elite sword units not matching those of other Gallic or Italic tribes. They are like the Insubres, but worse. Furthermore, everyone hates them, to the point that my first campaign attempt failed because I was in too many wars at the start and had to retry. The trick was to use the lower tier young swords instead of upgrading to axe warriors, who had higher upkeep but couldn't match the DPS of blades. The government action was also sort of difficult to use properly because it is used to either give you bonuses on specific battle conditions or against specific cultures. Without control on which battle conditions or which culture you'll be good against for the next five turns, you can't really plan around what you want to do with it. Thankfully the cooldown is quite short. The worst part by far though is that they have no building that increases research rate. You have to make do with upgraded spies and retainers.
The Veneti took 125 turns and were the easiest campaign I've had. I took over northern Italy and Cisalpine Gaul and made friends with everyone south of me. Their superior cavalry were quite fun to use, even if I didn't quite have the opportunity to use their best units, but even mid-tier cavalry were better than top tier cavalry for other factions. You could almost play them like a grand campaign nomad faction. Government action was quite useful in the early campaign, able to either increase your economy (at the cost of other party loyalty and reduced recruitment slots) or make your armies and new cavalry recruits better (at the cost of a small public order penalty). Quite easy to just use the bonuses you need when you need them, but it did make dealing with other parties difficult because the Veneti do not have the 'secure loyalty' action. Still, easy campaign when you play the diplomatic game.
Now that I'm finally done with Rome 2, I can move on to Attila, which has, if I remember correctly, even longer campaigns. Hurray. XD Still, I'm just happy to finally play something new, with different vibes and mechanics. I am quite naturally going to complete divine victories as well, because I like to suffer. Some factions have multiple divine victory objectives, but we'll see if I go that far. Unfortunately, a little problem that Attila has is that there is no way to increase the UI size, so I have to leave my screen at a lower resolution than it can be.
I will start with the prologue, because those can sometimes be fun to do (and they tend to give achievements).
The air was filled with smoke and blood
Edited by Resileafs on Feb 25th 2024 at 2:49:47 PM
And unlike with Rome, Attila campaigns are a flat length. Even if you accomplish the objectives for a Divine Victory, you still have to last it till the end. (Partly this is because if you're Western Rome, just surviving is supposedly a victory.)
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Did the prologue. It actually makes a pretty good show of itself to properly show the menace of the Hunnic invasion, and the set piece battles were themselves pretty fun, with the last battle against Eastern Emperor Valens being surprisingly difficult.
Before I start, anyone's got mods they recommend? I think I'm going to play with Radious, it seems like a good overhaul that tweaks Attila to be more Attila-like without fundamentally changing the gameplay.
I tend to use vanilla, but that's my lazy ass speaking.
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Yeah, I was recommended on the Discord server not to use Radious because it actually breaks the game's balance by adding OP units. I'll just keep myself to a mod that helps battle FPS by reducing model quality when far away and the unofficial patch mod for general bug fixes.
My first campaign will be as the Lakhmids, a desert kingdom that is a satrapy of the Sassanid Empire. I've played as them some time ago so I'm familiar with their playstyle. Early on in the campaign, they get a dilemna that gives them the opportunity of provoking the Sassanids to war without receiving a reliability hit. The goal will be to be prepared for that moment.
I told myself I'd totally finish an ERE game but I last played Attila 3 years ago
(It's also not installed and I don't have enough disk space to install it)
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
I'm about 40 turns into my Lakhmid campaign (second try because the first time, I forgot that a leader can only convert religion once in his life and I converted to Judaism to what I thought was temporarily reduce the public order penalties, only realizing later that I couldn't convert to Zoroastrianism without sacrificing him) and I'm enjoying how different the game plays from Rome 2. I love the new city and town layouts, make for much more fun sieges, especially on defense where you can actually make good use of chokepoints and falling back. I had also forgotten that things were a lot more expensive in that game than in Rome 2. Can't upgrade everything everywhere, and unit upkeep quickly grows high if they're better than levies, especially with the unit upgrade system (which I honestly really like too). Also the game is wonderfully colorful, at least in Arabia. The color palette is way less drab than Rome 2's.
The tech tree lacks a bit of an impact, but that's mostly because I'm coming from Rise of the Republic, where just about every tech comes with 3 or 4 effects.
Yeah, techs in Attila tend to have their effects being more felt in the buildings that they allow you to build...which for a good amount of the game, you won't even be able to afford for most of them.
Aside from the corruption reducing ones, which will probably give you like at least +1000 bucks more a turn once you reach mid-game.
Edited by VutherA on Feb 29th 2024 at 11:14:26 AM
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
Got to the minor victory. I'm quite enjoying what I'm going through yet. The balance needed to keep provinces happy, healthy and well-fed is certainly difficult to strike, and I like that it's not like Rome 2 where once you've stacked enough public order bonuses, you're set for the campaign and never need to worry about if any province is going to rebel. You actually need to keep enough public order buildings around to keep people happy. Of course, those public order buildings usually require food, so that adds to the difficulty of having enough food around. There's probably some room to play around with getting the right amount of everything but still specialize provinces with what they're good at.
Combat is a *lot* more lethal than in Rome 2. Units will quickly receive major damage in battle and fall apart easily unless they're in a good defensive position and have the proper ability active, like shield wall. It's very possible for a high tier unit to get swarmed and mobbed and die to greater numbers. Cavalry is dangerous, but it also suffers a lot from that increased lethality, pulling out of active combat is likely to get half or more of the unit wiped out, so you don't want to send cavalry into combat it won't win and unsupported.
I may have expanded too quickly though. The Lakhmids' ultimate units are locked behind religion. To build your best barracks, you have to have 75% of Christianity or Zoroastrianism across your entire empire. That objective becomes harder the bigger your territory because foreign territory you take will most likely not be of your religion and will need to be converted. Unfortunately, to win the Zoroastrian divine victory objective, I'll have to convert everything I conquer to Zoroastrianism, which is going to be a very long process even with temples and shrines.
Haven't met any Huns. I imagine Attila focuses his attention on Western Europe so I feel pretty safe in my position, owning Egypt, Arabia and Mesopotamia. I'll focus on taking the Caucasus and Asia Minor soon, then I'll send scouts into Europe to find the Huns so I can play around them and avoid direct fights if I can avoid them. I'll need Italy to win the campaign at least, but for the most part I can probably colonize areas that the Huns have already gone through in Scythia and Northern Europe. They probably won't come back.
Anka Aquila
Be careful, while Attila focuses on Europe there’s still the White Huns (Hephtalites) around your area, so expect a fight in the near future.
Instead of focusing on relatives that divide us, we should find the absolutes that tie us.
Assuming the Sassanids didn't wipe them early, which I've seen happen even when I wasn't playing as them.
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
In my first attempt at the campaign, the White Huns had nearly wiped out the Sassanids at the time where I rebelled against them.
In this current playthrough, the Sassanids had a lot more success against the White Huns. They only lost minor territory and only a single Hunnic stack ended up in my territory as it fled from Sassanian armies. It was easy to finish them off.
Edited by Resileafs on Mar 4th 2024 at 9:35:16 AM
One thing I slightly dislike about the Desert Kingdoms victory conditions is that they're railroaded on religion. You usually have a choice, but "hey, I'm Lakhmid but I wanna convert to Judaism!" means you've forfeited the campaign. I don't think anyone else does that. (Says the one who goes anything but Arian as the Alans.)
I may play more Pharaoh when the update is out (played around 32 hours total recently, but was busy with work latly and now I am playing Fallout 2 yet again). But I really need to grasp all macro mechanics better (I have no issues with battles). Maybe watching some streamers will help (to bad none I watch cover it as I am hesitant to check the unfamilliar ones).
Edited by Nachtwandler on Jan 16th 2024 at 5:42:30 AM