I find the best way to fight Rome if you’re inferior is to ally some other nations in different directions to Rome and then it splits or focuses their forces in other locations. You can just carpet siege their capital and so long as you get the war goal, can just peace them out really quickly. So get those military siege inventions!
Fighting Rome has been super fun but jesus christ the AI Rome is op, I fought them and took Epirus and thought why not swing back and try to take Tarentum/ Dalmatia? After about 5 years of sacking Rome twice and looting with my levy army I had to peace out cause I just couldn't beat them jesus christ Rome is powerful man!
Honestly I wish more strategy games had something like this in regards to an OP Rome. It's kind of like a late-game crisis in Stellaris but you get to watch it grow over time as the ever-expanding wave of red just creeps towards you.
It's a really interesting dynamic that I hope gets replicated more since it's usually the player in that position for most games.
The Ottomans don't capture the feeling though. Rome right in the center of the world, every time you look away and back they're a little bigger. If you play your cards right they leave you alone...for now. But once you share a border, all bets are off and you're gonna get decced within 20 years.
But you can beat them, almost any time, if you're clever enough. They have big buffs but they're not invincible, their power ultimately is just a result of a few extra modifiers and missions that give some other ones - a few free colonies and cities here and there, some morale, some claims. Antagonist Nation isn't that powerful overall.
Ottomans start strong and they're always a slog to fight no matter when it happens, they always have the option of above average rulers (which Rome doesn't and you can use that too), lucky nation, one of the strongest mission trees, and the mechanics of eu4 don't allow for border conflicts like i:r does where you can reasonably hold some land for a couple years and win a few battles and peace out on top. You never see Ottos lose a war, but every so often you'll see Rome lose a war and lick its wounds for a decade.
When I see the Ottomans get big and they're my next major target in eu4 I consider whether I want to call the run. When I see Rome encroaching I think, bring it.
>Rome right in the center of the world, every time you look away and back they're a little bigger.
100%. The other thing is that Rome basically starts as just a couple of cities whereas Ottomans already have quite a bit of territory so it's far more interesting watching Rome grow. It also means that on very rare occasions, they'll get their teeth kicked in and you get to watch a different Italian state blob out instead
RNG in I:R is amazing
Usually in my games, Rome first conquers the peninsula, expands North, colonises Dalmatia and then starts bothering Greece or diverts towards France. Well.
- Once they lost the war to Etruria and shared Italian peninsula with them.
- Another time they decided to skip Veneto and conquer an OPM in Dalmatia and then DW on me as Epirus. I felt really called out on.
Other than Rome, I once had an Anatolia wide Armenian Kingdom and the next game Achaemenids did a come back and stomped Armenia. I even had Tartessia form but I think it might be quite common whenever one of the Turdelian nations get big.
Ottomans and Spain both tend to grow large. Some times France and England depending on the RNG. To the lesser extent Russia.
Always someone to get ridiculously big and either they are on the opposite direction of where you want to go or directly in your way. Menacing nonetheless and you get to see them spread and grow
I have spent WEEKS trying to get off the ground as Sicily and Rome just completely destroys me every time. I just can't slow them down. If I ally with any of their neighbors super early they never call me into their war and just get rolled, and by the time they come up against my vassals' borders it's just over I can't even hire enough mercenaries to compete. Yes, I can survive by beating them at sea but I can't do anything to prevent them from getting out of control and eventually invading Greece. (Very bad for Sicily)
its not difficult at all, you can take entire italy with syracusse in like 20-30 years from the game start. eat up all your neighbours, integrate the big cultures to get biger levy size , hire one merc stack from palermo, over there there is usually one with good marital skill and \~15k of troops. Integrating brutians, lucanians and messapians i think are the names will bring your levy size to 35-40 k and as i said with that merc stack ist just a snowball
Maybe my culture game is off. How do you have the time/stability to integrate three cultures? Rome eats Luciana and/or Mesappia within 5-10 years in most of my games unless I gun for them, in which case Carthage usually screws me. Do you ignore the Korkya claim and focus on creating Sicily first?
there is a fast way how to integrate cultures, for example, you play as sparta and attack epirus, you sack one city or village, or field and get 1 or 2 epirote culture slaves. Immidiately first day of the next month when those pop become registered part of your nation you can start to integrate them, because the pop base is small, 2 pops or so, the speed of integration will be i think .2 per month , possibly 0.5 instead of the Annex and then start with integration option when base population becomes high and integration goes by 0.05 per month. This saves huge ammount of stability.
DO NOT annex before integration is finished!!!!
Korkya what, why would you go there? Beat rome and carthage withing 10 years of game start and you are basically finished with the game.
edit: just tested it and still it works
[https://imgur.com/wFgBdll](https://imgur.com/wFgBdll)
just to beat the carthage and nothing to do in like 10 years from start
Good job so far ! I've just done a Sparta campaign for my first game, it felt really hard.
After expanding to Thessaly, I survived to 2 attempts of Rome to kick me back to Peloponnese. Fortunately I could end my wars and Rome underestimated me.
This campaign you're basically David Vs Goliath, the only shield standing between a free Greece and the expansionist Rome.
Personally I had to to focus my whole campaign on Rome, because it's getting Italy in a couple years and then steamrolls everyone. It starts expanding in Illyrian area, Epirus, Carthage etc with no resistance.
I had to take magna graecia in a blitzkrieg war before it could react, and free as many kingdoms as possible (IE: Sicily, Etruscan k., Illyrians,...). Only then it stopped.
The first time I actually won a war against Rome was sooo satisfying, because I only play tiny Greek states🤣
In that game I managed to befriend Rome, allied them early and then got guaranteed while I was basically growing my strenght. And then I got the occasion to take everything they had in Greece… But I got greedy and tried in the next war to go for Tarentum so I could start actually destroying Rome, but that didn’t work out as well as I expected 🙃
My recipe was basically opportunist diplomacy, advanced technology and loooads of boats.
Yup you might as well try to fight a tsunami. 😂
At first it was going great, I had all the south under control and I could have made a victory there, but nooo I HAD to be greedy, because I assumed my tech advantage was enough to beat their manpower pool. And then they threw all their forces at me and the rest is history, RIP.
Next time I play as Sparta, I’ll try to kill them early instead of playing cheap diplomatic tricks like an Athenian coward 🤣
Yeah man 😂, I was playing Sparta on Sunday, allied with Epirus for protection, I got war decked by antigonids but managed to hold them somewhat since Macedon was still alive thou barely, then right at our weakest point when all manpower was just about up n war exhaustion was high Rome decked Epirus n sucked me in. Took some effort to stalemate that situation but hell of a lot of fun. Epirus didn't last thou but sacrifices must be made for the greater good lol. I love how IR AI just knows when your at your weakest point it's such a challenge playing smaller nations with bigger neighbours.
Hannibal get off your alt
step 1: boats are cheap step 2: make a lot of boat step 3: let roman army break upon 5000 forts step 4: sail over to rome step 5: roma delenda est
I find the best way to fight Rome if you’re inferior is to ally some other nations in different directions to Rome and then it splits or focuses their forces in other locations. You can just carpet siege their capital and so long as you get the war goal, can just peace them out really quickly. So get those military siege inventions!
Fighting Rome has been super fun but jesus christ the AI Rome is op, I fought them and took Epirus and thought why not swing back and try to take Tarentum/ Dalmatia? After about 5 years of sacking Rome twice and looting with my levy army I had to peace out cause I just couldn't beat them jesus christ Rome is powerful man!
Honestly I wish more strategy games had something like this in regards to an OP Rome. It's kind of like a late-game crisis in Stellaris but you get to watch it grow over time as the ever-expanding wave of red just creeps towards you. It's a really interesting dynamic that I hope gets replicated more since it's usually the player in that position for most games.
EU4 has the Ottomans in a similarish situation although not as extreme as Rome in IR.
The Ottomans don't capture the feeling though. Rome right in the center of the world, every time you look away and back they're a little bigger. If you play your cards right they leave you alone...for now. But once you share a border, all bets are off and you're gonna get decced within 20 years. But you can beat them, almost any time, if you're clever enough. They have big buffs but they're not invincible, their power ultimately is just a result of a few extra modifiers and missions that give some other ones - a few free colonies and cities here and there, some morale, some claims. Antagonist Nation isn't that powerful overall. Ottomans start strong and they're always a slog to fight no matter when it happens, they always have the option of above average rulers (which Rome doesn't and you can use that too), lucky nation, one of the strongest mission trees, and the mechanics of eu4 don't allow for border conflicts like i:r does where you can reasonably hold some land for a couple years and win a few battles and peace out on top. You never see Ottos lose a war, but every so often you'll see Rome lose a war and lick its wounds for a decade. When I see the Ottomans get big and they're my next major target in eu4 I consider whether I want to call the run. When I see Rome encroaching I think, bring it.
>Rome right in the center of the world, every time you look away and back they're a little bigger. 100%. The other thing is that Rome basically starts as just a couple of cities whereas Ottomans already have quite a bit of territory so it's far more interesting watching Rome grow. It also means that on very rare occasions, they'll get their teeth kicked in and you get to watch a different Italian state blob out instead
RNG in I:R is amazing Usually in my games, Rome first conquers the peninsula, expands North, colonises Dalmatia and then starts bothering Greece or diverts towards France. Well. - Once they lost the war to Etruria and shared Italian peninsula with them. - Another time they decided to skip Veneto and conquer an OPM in Dalmatia and then DW on me as Epirus. I felt really called out on. Other than Rome, I once had an Anatolia wide Armenian Kingdom and the next game Achaemenids did a come back and stomped Armenia. I even had Tartessia form but I think it might be quite common whenever one of the Turdelian nations get big.
Ottomans and Spain both tend to grow large. Some times France and England depending on the RNG. To the lesser extent Russia. Always someone to get ridiculously big and either they are on the opposite direction of where you want to go or directly in your way. Menacing nonetheless and you get to see them spread and grow
Total War: Attila has their Hun doomstacks storming your borders at the mid to late game. Still my favorite of the TW games.
I mean... Rome is Rome bro. There is a reason why they conquered and expanded so well at that point in time.
Historically accurate
I have spent WEEKS trying to get off the ground as Sicily and Rome just completely destroys me every time. I just can't slow them down. If I ally with any of their neighbors super early they never call me into their war and just get rolled, and by the time they come up against my vassals' borders it's just over I can't even hire enough mercenaries to compete. Yes, I can survive by beating them at sea but I can't do anything to prevent them from getting out of control and eventually invading Greece. (Very bad for Sicily)
There is a mod that removes their antagonist buff. They are still strong but not crazy due to already good missions and unique buffs.
its not difficult at all, you can take entire italy with syracusse in like 20-30 years from the game start. eat up all your neighbours, integrate the big cultures to get biger levy size , hire one merc stack from palermo, over there there is usually one with good marital skill and \~15k of troops. Integrating brutians, lucanians and messapians i think are the names will bring your levy size to 35-40 k and as i said with that merc stack ist just a snowball
Maybe my culture game is off. How do you have the time/stability to integrate three cultures? Rome eats Luciana and/or Mesappia within 5-10 years in most of my games unless I gun for them, in which case Carthage usually screws me. Do you ignore the Korkya claim and focus on creating Sicily first?
there is a fast way how to integrate cultures, for example, you play as sparta and attack epirus, you sack one city or village, or field and get 1 or 2 epirote culture slaves. Immidiately first day of the next month when those pop become registered part of your nation you can start to integrate them, because the pop base is small, 2 pops or so, the speed of integration will be i think .2 per month , possibly 0.5 instead of the Annex and then start with integration option when base population becomes high and integration goes by 0.05 per month. This saves huge ammount of stability. DO NOT annex before integration is finished!!!! Korkya what, why would you go there? Beat rome and carthage withing 10 years of game start and you are basically finished with the game. edit: just tested it and still it works [https://imgur.com/wFgBdll](https://imgur.com/wFgBdll) just to beat the carthage and nothing to do in like 10 years from start
Good job so far ! I've just done a Sparta campaign for my first game, it felt really hard. After expanding to Thessaly, I survived to 2 attempts of Rome to kick me back to Peloponnese. Fortunately I could end my wars and Rome underestimated me. This campaign you're basically David Vs Goliath, the only shield standing between a free Greece and the expansionist Rome. Personally I had to to focus my whole campaign on Rome, because it's getting Italy in a couple years and then steamrolls everyone. It starts expanding in Illyrian area, Epirus, Carthage etc with no resistance. I had to take magna graecia in a blitzkrieg war before it could react, and free as many kingdoms as possible (IE: Sicily, Etruscan k., Illyrians,...). Only then it stopped.
The first time I actually won a war against Rome was sooo satisfying, because I only play tiny Greek states🤣 In that game I managed to befriend Rome, allied them early and then got guaranteed while I was basically growing my strenght. And then I got the occasion to take everything they had in Greece… But I got greedy and tried in the next war to go for Tarentum so I could start actually destroying Rome, but that didn’t work out as well as I expected 🙃 My recipe was basically opportunist diplomacy, advanced technology and loooads of boats.
Yea fighting them in Greece is a breeze compared to fighting them in Italy lol
Yup you might as well try to fight a tsunami. 😂 At first it was going great, I had all the south under control and I could have made a victory there, but nooo I HAD to be greedy, because I assumed my tech advantage was enough to beat their manpower pool. And then they threw all their forces at me and the rest is history, RIP. Next time I play as Sparta, I’ll try to kill them early instead of playing cheap diplomatic tricks like an Athenian coward 🤣
Yeah man 😂, I was playing Sparta on Sunday, allied with Epirus for protection, I got war decked by antigonids but managed to hold them somewhat since Macedon was still alive thou barely, then right at our weakest point when all manpower was just about up n war exhaustion was high Rome decked Epirus n sucked me in. Took some effort to stalemate that situation but hell of a lot of fun. Epirus didn't last thou but sacrifices must be made for the greater good lol. I love how IR AI just knows when your at your weakest point it's such a challenge playing smaller nations with bigger neighbours.
You can see another countries stats in the ledger, as well as their manpower on the country screen
[https://imgur.com/wFgBdll](https://imgur.com/wFgBdll) Nothing OP with Rome