Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion - The Last Days of Rome

good afternoon Lisa Jones has many a true data welcome to Rome Total War barbarian invasion our it is good to be back with rome total war but this is not the wrong total war you have seen on this channel a gentleman because barbarian invasion is something else entirely now just in case you do to this so you never saw this when it was originally floating about barbarian invasion was the first do seat pack that was released for rome total war and to my mind is the most interesting do see campaign the Creative Assembly has ever put together not necessarily the best most definitely not the most well polished but the most interesting because Rome Total War was the first ever 3d campaign map total war game and barbarian invasion was the campaign where they took that foundation and started throwing every wacky insane idea they could think of asses there is so so much new stuff in here that had never been in a 3d total war game before and much of it you'll actually recognize from total ball games in the future refined versions of these mechanics would go on to return but there is just so so much stuff in there in its very earliest forms some fantastic amazing ideas in here such a fascinating little artifact in the history of total war and the second thing that's absolutely amazing about this campaign is there was so much variety in it and by that I mean that every single campaign in this game felt incredibly different there was something for everybody here if you wanted the traditional total war experience where you start off with a single city and you just slowly build yourself up expand over time marvelous you've got the Saxons you've got the Franks they're exactly like that if you were more in the mood for skipping that very initial stage and having you know a small Empire under your command at the beginning of the campaign but it's still a big challenge massive Empire right next to you for you to fight sassanids were absolutely flippin spot-on if on the other hand you wanted to actually manage a really big Empire and try and build it up make it actually work make it more profitable take on your nearby neighbors rebuild the Roman Empire that way basically role-players emperor justinian and rebuild the roman empire from the east you absolutely could do that it was a nice manageable campaign for the Roman Eastern Empire and if you wanted to you could even flippin play as hordes something of course that you are not allowed to do in medieval to total war where hordes would actually return barbarian invasion was the first Total War 3d game that actually had hordes in it so if you wanted to basically just big dinners a horde and just travel around the world smashing the hell out of things you go not you go flipping right ahead and then of course there was one other thing there was the campaign that people do not dare to speak of the campaign for people who'd had enough of winning total war campaigns and wanted to lose like really lose like they just enjoyed the sensation of a boot stamping on their face forever I'm talking of course about the Western Roman Empire campaign difficulty factor estimated heart yeah it's not kidding it's not flippin kidding this is not just a hard campaign this is to my mind the hardest campaign that has ever existed in any total war game in all of its history the only one I can think of the might be more difficult is in total war Attila which was the Western Roman Empire campaign ie the campaign that was modeled on this one that's how far into the future barbarian invasion is having an impact on the total war franchise generations of games later and they were still coming back to this well for inspiration it's a wonderful wonderful thing indeed so I'm going to have a go at this ladies and gentlemen the Western Roman Empire campaign on very hard very hard of course and there is no guarantee I'm going to win this because one of the big things about barbarian invasion is it is incredibly random playing as the same faction doesn't really guarantee the same result things can go off the rails are very very quickly indeed be you know what let's dive in and I think you'll get the picture pretty damn quickly so you begin the game and this is the very first thing that you see a storm from the east from out of the steppes comes a new menace to the world the Huns of the finest cavalry warriors the world has yet seen and their rivals or should that be victims would do well to look to their defenses this time to strengthen borders fortify cities and reinforce armies because by the heavens a storm is coming so yeah this isn't medieval to total war when the hordes you know politely state backstage until the mid and then late-game when you've got plenty of time to build up your economy build up your armies build up big castles to make sure you can defend yourselves from them no no no no no in rome total war barbarian invasion the hordes are coming from turn flipping warner and by the way it's not actually one horde it's actually TOA there's a second horde coming as well sure the game actually says hey there are people in flight but they are just a [ __ ] massive armies coming in my direction probably anyway there are a hang on there up here somewhere I think actually if I recall correctly yeah the Huns are gonna be starting at somewhere around here I think the Vandals are more around here now we don't actually know which way they're going to be going they might swing south and actually hit the eastern roman empire before they hit me which should be marvelous but it's probably more likely they're coming in my direction towards the Western Roman Empire and I know we're talking about Huns but we're not actually talking about Attila the Hun it's 363 AD we're about a century too early for a teller tillers no good to be taking part unfortunately now you might think that to hordes coming in would probably be my main priority right now but no actually that's quite low down the list of priorities because when it rains it pours and when you're playing is the Western Roman Empire it is pouring all the flippin time we've got a much much bigger problem which is if we just kind of I yeah move around the Empire here if you just kind of you know keep an eye on the little faces they're telling you how likely a supplement is to revolt yeah potential for a revolt potential for a revolt more revolt more revolt more evolved more revolt more revolt more revolt yeah that's that's quite a lot of revolt so basically the entire Empire is ready to break away and say screw you pretty much so this is good this is all good and that's not actually the biggest problem either that's a pretty major problem it's above hordes in my to do but the biggest actual problem is the economy you see I've got an empire of this size which is massively underdeveloped to represent the decline in the Roman Empire and I've only got a thousand denarii to start me off and if I just actually nip over to the financial tab here that situations not actually going to get any better even if I don't spend any money this turn whatsoever next turn I'm gonna have a hundred and thirty-eight denarii and then that's gonna be it I'm gonna be into debt so basically I'm pretty much bankrupt economy that's the big one that's the big one right there so hordes are coming my Empire is pretty much all going to revolt against me in about two terms of their about and I've got no money to fix it oh and basically no armies either I've got like you know a few troops scattered around but if I move them out of the cities they'll be even more likely to revolt I think this might actually be my biggest army that's actually out on the field right here yes six units absolutely flippin marvelous but before gets into all of that listen gentlemen let's just quickly set the historical scene because the 4th century AD is a fascinating period for Roman history this is not actually the point when the Western Roman Empire collapsed that's about a century down the line but this is where all of those seeds were sown now you may immediately notice that like you know half of the Roman Empire's actually missing so why do we not have control of all of this well about thirty years before this point in history the Roman Empire was divided into by the reforms of Constantine the Great the eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire now it's not quite as simple as all of that lots of people kind of misunderstand this it wasn't just take the empire divide it in two now there's two separate empires that just happen to share a small border over here the area I'm looking at right now in fact within 30 years of this date one guy Theodosius will actually be Emperor of both the west and the east simultaneously and even after the West collapsed within a hundred years of that Emperor Justinian if the eastern Roman Empire actually reclaimed Italy in large parts of the Western Empire and pretty much rebuilt the Roman Empire just for a little bit anyway so it's a bit more complicated than this game lays it out but for the sake of but what we need to know right now is we're just controlling the western half of the Empire and the eastern part of the Empire is allied to us but that won't necessarily last we can't exactly trust them leather judo could the bruty I say in the original rome total war they don't share map information with us for example and there's nothing tying us together as friends it is entirely possible and indeed potentially quite likely sooner or later we will go to war with each other so for the time being they're over there and they're actually doing better than us the eastern empire was a richer and had better trade it's tax revenues were higher it arguably had much less dangerous neighbors sure have the saturn is floating around ba the barbarians that came knocking on the western roman empire's door up north around germany they were arguably a lot more disruptive so the western empire is in a much more difficult position and that brings us to our Emperor say hello to Valentini honest the wrathful or as we would common in our natural history Valentinian the first or Valentinian the great this man is basically deemed to be if you like the last good emperor of the Western Roman Empire this was the last man who really took the machinery of the Western Roman Empire and put it on the offensive that was actually going out and proactively trying to recover to grab territory to secure things to actually you know reverse the decline of the Western Roman Empire after this point it was all plain defensively it was slowly falling apart it was slowly collapsing and that's our job ladies and gentlemen we need to make sure that that doesn't flippin happen let's flip and dive in there's a lot to flippin do over the first few turns because yes we've got to sort out this economic situation and probably is our immediate priority make sure the entire empire doesn't rebel so let's take terrico here in modern day Spain because this place is down at plus 20% public order despite the fact that we've actually got a governor present who has got five points and influence which is not bad at all so why is this place so flippin angry that's actually dive into this it's a combination of factors part of it is squalor because you have to represent the decline of the Roman Empire all of these cities are underdeveloped compared to how they should be versus their population so this place is a - city with a population of just over 10,000 so starting to approach the level way you might want to upgrade it to a very large city it's only got a sewer system it doesn't have public baths so squalor is quite high and as a result of that plenty these places are losing population so my tax base is going to shrink over time which is no good at all distance to capital is a major issue as well because of course yeah Rome kind of makes sense as a capital when we control the entire Mediterranean but these days not so much so we might want to actually consider moving the capital away from Rome other than that we've also got yes here we go religion so religion was a thing in this game and it was quite bloody extreme so there is an official state religion that is basically defined by what is the religion of the Emperor so in this case Valentinian is a Christian now terrico is officially a pagan settlement so as a result of that there is a ten percent drop in happiness by default as long as terrico remains pagan or the Emperor remains Christian but here's the thing the population is divided between religions as well so 30 percent of the population is Christian 70 percent is pagan and those thirty percent of people who are Christians are not keen on living in a pagan settlement so they're gonna cause trouble now that's going to actually decline over time because this place is going to slowly become more and more pagan as a result of the fact that yeah there's a pagan building in the town this guy I assume is himself yes he's a pagan so he actually provides a little bit of extra waiting to conversion rate and the neighboring regions are all pagan as well so this place will slowly over time become more and more pagan so this will absolutely decline the problem is if we kind of just look at the religion then using these symbols yeah the actual Empire is divided between Christianity and paganism which makes a lot of sense because this actually was something historically that changed round a lot the Empire was repai ghen eyes then it was rechristen eyes and then some people said hey do what you want I don't care so as a result of that yeah a very mixed Empire makes a lot of sense but the problem with mixed Empire where some people are Christian and some people are pagan you've got pagan and Christian cities is a one group brother is always gonna feel hard done by so we might need to flippin sort that out that might be one of the first things we need to do fortunately in rome total war you can just move your capital around as much as you want it doesn't actually matter move it wherever it's actually convenient to bay so on this particular occasion i'm gonna move the capital to Marseille so this just helps shore up the core Empire over here and it's gonna mean the capital is now a lot closer to Spain which would mean yes some of the pressure is taken off Spain over there it's a little bit more problematic for Italy especially down here in Tarentum and these settlements over here are well here's the thing in rome total war barbarian invasion you sometimes have to accept you can't hold on to everything some parts of the empire are gonna be lost and we'll have to go and get them back later but for the time being that might not be feasible so we'll see if i can save everything but if need be this side of the empire is maybe going to be jettisoned just to try and shore up the rest of it so let's actually go back over soo terrico right over here and these guys are now straight up to plus 50% which is much flippin better because we took most of that distance from capital away from them now if we just give them a tax cut we've got them down to blue and blue means there won't be rioting next turn because i am not in a position to actually cover the cost of rioting so that's probably a very very good thing indeed in fact actually yeah miss alia you might be able to pay a little bit more tax which would be flippin magnificent and if i just lower the tax burden around here we've stabilized parts of the core empire for now at least so i've just swung around the empire lowering pretty much everybody's tax rate to lower with the exception of yea small number of settlements who are now in a decent enough positioner to have their taxes raised like marseille itself like or gustav in della chorim over here i think possibly Pina no that's not normal they're fine so we've taken a whole bunch of supplements out of the red there are still a couple of outstanding problems like yeah Vericom is still at and certain -65 yeah they actually don't have a governor that's part of the problem and down over here cilona i think might just have to be jettisoned cuz even with a low tax rate they're at twenty percent public order and i don't know if there's anything I can do about that I don't know ever consider that too much of a bad thing because the thing is mean in the eastern empire might end up at war so potentially having a little buffer state between me in the east is actually a good way of avoiding that war because then if they do get stupid and decide to attack these towns they won't be attacking me they'll be attacking my rebels so not the worst thing in the world it should hopefully be fine might be able to hold on to a Quinn come and Jack on on some over here that one's gonna be more tricky now let's talk about the religion problem you see for the two branches of religion paganism or Christianity there's two separate religious building chains broadly the wait shakes out is the pagans get the best bonuses for their temples so yeah the awesome temple of mithras gives experienced bonus to troops trained here plus two which is very very useful indeed Christianity however which goes all the way up to level five gives ya population growth bonus together with ultimately more happiness because Christianity can get you up to population growth plus one percent 25 percent happiness religious conversion of 25 percent the awesome temple here can get you up to 20 percent plus two at level four this one get you up to thirty percent actually with Sol Invictus but Christians also get the Hermitage which is a further up to fifteen percent on top so in terms of getting happiness up ultimately Christianity is the better option but in terms of short-term benefit paganism is not bad at all because you get the awesome temple of mithras for some beautiful experience and remember experience is really powerful back in rome total war every single point of experience is plus one to attack and +12 defense so cluster experience can make a huge difference to the lower tier units and this is arguably one of the biggest most difficult decisions you have to take in the early game what do you actually try and do in terms of religion because sure things look like they're stabilizing right now but financially I can't maintain this the entire Empire is at low tax and I'm actively losing money right now okay I'm gonna be straight into debt next turn I can't maintain this at all I need to find a better long-term solution and if I could potentially get the entire empire over to a single religion so everyone's lovely and happy and I can put up the taxes and I can get rid of that minus 10% to every single pagan settlement in the Empire that'd be flippin marvelous now there's a couple of no-brainers like yeah Carthage over here is Christian and this settlement down here Leptis Magna these guys are yeah there's seventy percent Christian but the town is technically pagan so we want to be actually swapping that right now so scrap that and instead build a Christian shrine spot on the way the religion is defined by the way is if there's a religious building in the settlement this settlement will always be that religion if there's no religious building then it goes over to the religion of the governor if there's no governor and no religious building I think it defaults to whatever the majority of the people in the town believe in it just is that I think anyone know how to represent sure on that one so next turn once we've actually got this head Christian shrine built this place will flip Christian and immediately become a lots flipping happier because she had seventy percent Christian already and it's gonna slowly go Christian over time because of neighboring supplements and all the rest of it cuz yeah our neighbors over here the Berbers are also Christian so that's going to be just flippin marvelous so what I'm gonna try and do right now is basically Christian eyes pretty much the entire Empire and this is the best time to do it because say avaricum over here at the beginning of the game that's 70 percent pagan to only thirty percent Christian but with so many pagan settlements around its going to get more and more pagan as time goes there will never be an easier time to try and Christianize this place and if you try and Christianize everything simultaneously then they'll all actually feed into each other because you'll end up in a scenario where yeah this place and all of its surrounding settlements will all be Christian and as a result of that it'll flip Christian pretty bloody quickly and once it flips Christian you also immediately get rid of that minus 10% because the emperor is Christian right now it makes sense to have the Emperor and the entire Empire as part of the same religion except we can't actually possibly afford to do this I'm already down to 700 gold there's a few answers to this which is yeah the allamani right here so these guys we reward them but that doesn't mean they won't theoretically boy stuff offers because the thing is I'm a massive Empire that's got really good map information which means the AI is actually going to value that weirdly highly so what I'm gonna do is yeah just sent you over here have a nice chat to the alum anyhoo yes very much we are at war with right now and I'm going to offer them map information but I'm gonna be needing some money for that because the thing is these guys have a giant war chest to begin the game with so they're swimming in money so hopefully they'll be willing to take this map information for a thousand denarii and there we go they're actually willing to flippin do that I don't piece with them though potentially on the contrary we're gonna try and wipe them out immediately so now I'm gonna send this going north and next turn the Franks appear we might try and do the exact same thing with them sell them trade rights sell the map information it's enough money to get me going not least as yeah if I break down the actual big pagan temples I might be able to make enough money off that to actually fund yeah little Christian shrines so if I break down a temple over here that's 266 denarii and the Christian shrines only 400 so that's not too bad at all so let's star in the actual core Empire over here yeah the whole of gold we want to make sure we hold on to that so just start breaking down all of this and slapping down Christian shrines stet yes another good thing of course plenty of my actual commanders are themselves Christian so yeah just because the Empire looks really pagan it's not actually that pagan in terms of the ruling family because yeah bunch of these guys who have been sent out from Rome which is Christian so plenty of the actual generals and leaders are themselves Christian and as a result of that yeah this guy's a Christian and he's inside a pagan settlement and that's even worse because yeah that's actually governor's religion differs from settlement five percent negative to happiness and ten percent again for the governor so when there's a Christian governor present you deathly want this place to be Christian the alternative solution of course would be to just try and find a way to get the Emperor killed after naming someone who is a pagan the new emperor that's potentially an easier solution but I don't think it's the best war long term and by the way I've pretty much run out of money already so I've managed to get ya a whole bunch of Christian shrines down but we need more funding to keep it going and for that we need to tear down some more buildings cuz yeah you actually get a bit of money back when you tear down buildings I like using Spain for this because Spain over here there's no reason it's ever really gonna need to train its own troops so I just basically tear down their barracks now the problem with this of course is yeah once they've been torn down it costs a lot more to rebuild them but hopefully we'll never actually need to be training troops in Spain it never gets the stage where we're training emergency armies in Spain then things have gone so badly wrong at that point it's pretty much irrelevant now there are exceptions to this rule I'm not gonna try and Christianize literally everywhere like sorry choose here is fairly prosperous right now this guy that's running it is himself a pagan so if I demolish the temple and build a Christian shrine then what will just be happening is yeah there'll be a five-percent from him towards paganism and 5% from the building towards Christianity so the actual population won't shuffle either way I'll just have to deal with much worse religious unrest he'll be the pagans who are unhappy not the Christians so saira cute I'm going to leave be I think Britain will do the same for now cuz that's actually an island to so yeah the only guy who's actually over there is himself pagan over here placards flavia's so we'll leave Britain pagan for the time being we might Christianize it later but yeah for now we don't really need to now as for the east of the empire that's a really difficult decision you see the thing that we've got over here is yeah Conant um this place starts off Christian by default despite the fact that weirdly it is actually more pagan so I'm not sure why the games made the decision displaces Christian but whatever ah there we go confirmation this place is actually officially Christian because in the absence of any religious building or any local governor it's set by the faction leader good that's a nice thing to know and yeah this place is 75% pagan only 25 percent Christian it's gonna get more pagan over time no matter what I do just because it's got so many barbarian neighbors around it that are also pagan so it's probably best to actually flip this guy the other way keep this little bit of the Empire Pagan because I can't flip this error over here here's sirmium that's actually pagan right over there I think it's I don't know I think there's some more pagan settlements over here as well yes Macedonia I think that areas pagan too so there's just too much pagan pressure and there's none of settlements bordering each other around here so this place is going to actually remain pagan but I'm pretty much writing off Salona I can't save it so as a result of that what I'm gonna do is I'm going to knock down all of its military buildings and there's a reason for that which is in this game rebel armies can't just pull free troops out of their ass the rebel force that's generated when you lose the settlement can only be constructed out of units that are capable of being trained at the city that just rebelled so if you're about to lose a city burn its military infrastructure to the flippin ground because if you do that then there's giving nothing in the city but a giant bunch of peasants making it very easy to take back later now the problem with that is though it makes it very easy to reclaim cities that are lost also it means that you're burning your own military infrastructure down so you're either gonna be letting it yarn forward or you're gonna have to rebuild it a greater price later so it's not something to do lightly but under this particular circumstance I'm happy with that because yeah I think we're just gonna pretty much sacrifice Ilona and yeah Conant um I'm actually gonna give these ghosts I'm gonna give these guys a flippin pagan shrine why not not Mithras will give you a Chang and that was yeah that was ten no so that was five percent and conversion this one is okay that's way better okay why would I go for Sol Invictus that's only five percent and 5 percent this is still with a conversion rate but it's got temps and an awesome experience yeah Mithras is really good by the way Mithras is really really damn good so you're gonna go over to pagan next turn which should make you a bit happier which is marvelous a queen come I'm just gonna keep these guys as pagan because there's nothing I can really do just stop I mean just look at that Wow okay carats in region are you like the most pagan person who ever no hang on that's Christianity right you are apparently the most Christian person that ever Christians so favorite of God Christianity inspirational Christian yeah here's the fish in this game individual characters that had the right combination of traits and handful of good resin you could impose ludicrous amounts of religious conversion strength and it was applied to wherever they were standing so it was entirely viable as a tactic if you wanted to flip a settlement from another Empire to you by changing it from their religion to yours to just basically gather a bunch of really holy people together and then just have them stand just over the border and like I don't know the entire population of the city comes out to hear them preach or something because that city will flip to your religion and will basically be unmanageable by its owner which is just flippin marvelous no no this guy right here is like super Christian oh that's that's interesting right what I'm gonna do in that case okay change of plans I'm actually gonna flip cilona to become Christian which is going to make them even less happy but this guy might be able to sort that out so demolish that flip this to Christianity because this place is going to go like super Christian this place is okay sorry I've changed my mind you're gonna go Christian you might actually leave the Empire but you'll be a hundred percent fine this place is all okay there's potential for a revolt that I've just introduced but it's gonna be fine because next turn the amount of actual yeah religious unrest is gonna drop by like 40 percent because this guy is just gonna basically go outside and say hey guys have you thought about Christianity and everyone's gonna reply that sounds really convincing when he says it yes and once that's done I might be able to use this guy - yeah just flip all of these settlements to Christianity tone okay interesting very very interesting indeed I've also got myself yeah diplomat right here okay I'm just gonna send him over to the east and see if we can just get ourselves map information from map information so yeah we are allies with these guys but we're not exactly close friends it's you know an alliance of convenience right so now I've taken my empire that was looking stable and I've made it much worse but in the long term this is going to be better I promise I have C promise the next thing I need to do is cut expenditure massively because the reason we're so poor is because say hang on let's just take a good example right over here yeah this city right here which is a large town has no port this area of here no port doesn't actually have a poor medio LAN iam no flippin port flipping twenty thousand people are here no port the problem is lack of trade alright because trade is the moneymaker in rome total war and there's no trading going on right now so we need to find a way to cut expenditure until we can get trade rolling once we get trade rolling again we will be in good shape so what I really need to actually get rid of is yeah Navy's Navy's not that expensive but a hundred and seventy to return for just a random sorry I'm out in the middle of nowhere no that's no good at all where's the nearest port by the way there there are trillions there's no ports around him marvelous I'm just gonna send it over here cuz yeah you actually need to bring a ship back to port to break it down these guys I could just break down immediately you in fact you know what I'll actually break this guy down right now there we go so we'll get rid of that maybe I'll keep this one try room and that by ring can go they don't cost much more than each other so it doesn't really matter the thing is there's gonna be pirate fleets that we gonna show we would like triple tri room there's nothing I can do about it regardless so there's no point paying for a fleet that's too weak to actually defend me so I'm just gonna send you over here I'm gonna break you down as well this is gonna save me a fair bit of money right over here do I need to maintain hmm we're about to maintain one boat in this part of the world what about you need boats for in this part of the world probably nothing to be honest we're not going to be launching any invasion from Spain down into Africa so I'm just gonna break down this ship as well and okay I'm almost afraid to look at this but what are the financials say right now okay so I'm gonna end up with minus five hundred and sixty two next turn so this is marvelous that's that's all just going spot-on I do however need yeah I need a fleet in this part of the world because I need to consider moving my commanders about and the Berbers are going to attack Carthage I might need to bring in reinforcements having some ships floating around in this part of the world is useful and this boat needs to stay for a very similar reason you see there's one more piece of the puzzle we haven't talked about yet and that's commanders so you've got a real kind of spread of leaders and commanders inside your empire right now at the beginning of the game there are a sliding scale between utterly hopeless and just mostly hopeless you have truly truly terrible terrible leaders inside many of your cities it's worth just having a little Luke see Roundy because many of your cities are better off if you literally just take the governor and make him go stand in the middle of nowhere where he can't mess it up anymore so that's Luc's Carthage I think this is a good example so yeah a pious Flavius over here I mean he doesn't look too terrible as a starting-point influence three out of ten no command no management but yes unfortunately he is a clutter a gambler swivel-eyed up the greens this means he supports a particular chariot team which is not good because you know if you're publicly known to be associated with one chariot team then all the other fans of the other chariot teams are not keen on you so it leads to more unrest and reduce law but yeah right now Carthage is registering minus 337 gold now just as a reminder that does not mean the city is actually losing money it's just the way that rome total war records income the game simply assigns the amount of money that Carthage ought to be paid based on its size so the game says okay Carthage ought to pay 2,000 towards just troops on against them at the Carthage is a big city Carthage itself is not costing me any money it's generating all of this money it's just not making enough money to cover what the game thinks it ought to be covering if we take this commander however and make him step outside that goes up from minus 337 to plus 8 Carthage is better off with disco standing outside the flippin walls a site of course from the problem that he's got some influence said that has a negative impact on public altar so you often have to make some very difficult choices with your commanders sometimes removing them from the city will need to more money but less public order sometimes it'll be reversed you can actually get yourself more public order but less money if you actually remove them because yet there are some terrible terrible traits just until we've stabilized for the time being I'm gonna move him back into the city because Carthage right now is actually yeah Carthage is like 90% Christian so it's not gonna get any more Christian but as time goes by yeah the unrest might go down a tiny tiny amounts here's a good example Leptis magna is currently at yeah five percent public order if I get this guy to step outside that immediately goes up to fifty percent public order because without him there because he's a pagan the town is immediately Auto Christianized we makes them a lot flipping happier but it costs me about a hundred gold so as the town's gonna also Christianize when we've actually got the building down next turn I'll leave them inside so this is the sort of trade off you have to make with your commanders now here's a protip the commander you're really interested in is the guy who's chilling out over here in careless deca miss flavia's deca miss Flavius is flippin amazing Christian good honest Roman very lively extremely loyal skill bureaucrats experts on natural philosophy superior traitor and he's stuck over here in a settlement that doesn't have a port and a further 5% bonus on trade income off the little kind of a yin P real role he's been given so yeah for some reason he's chillin out over here which he really really flippin shouldn't be he needs to be moved to Rome as soon as flippin possible now ya careless is actually fine on a low tax rate that's absolutely a ok so it doesn't really need how Christian is this place not that Christian fine we need to actually give them a shrine otherwise it won't actually shift at all right you get over here can you actually get the boat no you can't get in the boat fine we'll get him to Rome next Turner because yes Valentinian the great himself this guy is very Christian focusing Christian conversion for being a Christian but 10% on top of that hear the word of the Lord he's very good at converting people so as a result of that we might want our emperor to take a little tour of the Empire in order to you know get people on site because one of the things I'm really worried about is Ravana I do not want to lose Ravana because Ravana is in Italy and it's got Legion barracks and it's got itself cavalry stables it's got a self a blacksmith this is a good training spot I don't want to lose it but right now what's gonna happen next Turner the Christian anything is gonna go away paganism is gonna start being a problem it's gonna be about the same level of problem we need to flip this place more Christian faster so what I'm gonna do is I think Rome will be fine by itself actually step you outside of Rome Rome if are you are you gonna be okay I don't really want road to rebell to be honest but we might not have a choice okay just to keep Rome safe I'm gonna move them over to monthly games which is expensive that's money I don't want to be spending but it'll keep Rome secure just for the time being because yeah Valentinian needs to move over to ravana and the reason he needs to do that is because i need this place christian as quickly and as soon as possible and don't forget back in these days you can actually move revenue around nice and easily so this guy comes with a yeah elder senator and historian this guy is currently running the shop but yeah he's got himself influence of four which is not bad it's probably best we actually continue letting him run things but yeah the extra religious conversion from the emperor is gonna be yeah look at that so now this place is gonna Christianize a lot faster which is solid so the Emperor's gonna hang out in Ravenna to help out with the difficult transition over there Mehdi Ilan iam is another concerning place to be honest that's that's concerning how good's this place right now hang on so the city is 50 percents I might need to prop this open with games you I think if I moved you over to Mehdi alar neum okay Mehdi Ilan iam will actually calm down Ravenna is at 35 I'm gonna move them over 200 even with daily games oh bloody hell okay take the head take the hit I don't want problems in assets that's too expensive how much is that yeah that's like out six six seven hundred okay Mehdi Ilan iam we'll be fine for now yeah your pagan for the time being but this place is about to slightly Christianize I'll flip these two round next turn I'm willing to accept yeah just a turn of rioting in Ravana it should be fine row is fine 2 wrentham is fine these places are not fine but there's nothing I can do about it and if this place flips it just flips this place is going to Christians yeah there's a lot to do in turn one in barbarian invasion here we go another good candidate for someone who just has to step outside and wait potentially cthugga know what is 35% public order right now there's a decent enough guy here but unfortunately he's very pagan so we're just gonna make him step outside this place drops to yeah five percent which in all fairness doesn't make the slightest bit of difference really but it makes a lot more money yeah that's due to wildly extravagant first percent penalty on taxing comer plus corruption or all the rest of it not good at all now we do have some spared troops floating around here in Spain send enough of them to terrico just to calm the place down a bit cthugga no one might be a lost cause but that's fine we've already taken out its military infrastructure and listen some of these troops down south to potentially deal with any revolt that occurs here cthugga Noah we might just lose Salim manteca that's gonna be touch and go depends how it responds to being flips to Christianity and whether we can actually recover it in time avaricum it's always difficult to hold on to avaricum is never not difficult is that anyone round here I could potentially move in that direction no but there is a very strong commander down here by the Mediterranean so yeah obsessional Trainor famously courageous enroute health logistics expert this guy's a strong military commander and him how loyal are you not spectacularly loyal but you'll do the job I'll probably actually have him start moving in the direction of picking up a handful of troops from northern Italy and get out towards the front because they say by the barbarians are is where there's gonna be trouble and in terms of troops I want to knock down cavalry is very expensive three hundred denarii upkeep get rid of some of that if we can don't really want that much cavalry floating around get rid of some of this too that's fine yeah you can see that making a really positive impact on how much these towns are being charged but it's expensive stuff cavalry we don't need all of it okay avaricum is just a lost cause I think potentially yeah if it actually causes too much rioting and we can't stabilize the next turn I will burn its military infrastructure down we'll just have to retake it so that's a lot of talk about how screwed we are and how we're all about to die now let's focus on the positives which is we need to go on the offensive because that's what this moment in history is all about for Rome Valentinian the great was pretty much the last time rome decided to get out there and try and actually kick ass and take names and that's exactly what we need to do economically we're in a hole right now and just deleting troops is not gonna do the job we need to start raising settlements as fast as possible and the first target is the Alemany over here they've got one capital it's not desperately well guarded right now we have a decent army floating around nearby these guys needs to die like as soon as flippin possible now how many troops can be potentially spare from Augusta Trevor or I'm here because this place is already only 50% it might not be a terrible idea to actually just ship troops down how much of that happiness is tighter garrison only 25% to be honest he doesn't make a huge amount of difference I might just ship some troops down is this guy competent leader by the way so she appear attacker expert infantry commander scarred good this guy competent commander is gonna be able to stand up in a fight so we can actually commit him very very nice and date in which case let's send at least a handful of troops to support him so that's not gonna make much difference is it tiny bit not much tall so this guy is yeah now got at least an okay sized army there's more troops over here we can potentially send over to obviously some might just give to you I can literally just afford why extra troop if that's what I actually needs and the other place we need to be a bit more offensive is the Celts up in Britain so down rider up here this place is gonna be a thorn in my side it's gonna be repeatedly attacking York and London here we need to take care of it so thankfully we have a decent command here he's not bad at all clackers Flavius problem is he's are all about the flippin cavalry and we don't actually have much cavalry to give to him so just by the fact he's an inferior infantry commander that's all we flippin got all right that's all we flippin guys so if I just basically take absolutely all of your troops and just step them outside yeah York is not happy at all Hainan if I lower the tax rate actually it's not that bad right ship some troops up from London I think we can just just keep your Cappy like that so this guy's got this army right here which all do del rider is not actually that well defended so I'm just gonna basically March these guys straighten up and if we can knock out dal rider straightaway that'd be marvelous and if I can actually send some more troops as reinforcements up here okay get London down to normal tax rate that's fine then I can send yeah then I can actually send those arches up a little bit more indirect fire wouldn't hurt at all so I've got two offensives on the go right now I'm moving up against the picks in Scotland and I'm moving over here against the Alemanni with my only decent army economically I'm gonna end up in a hole really really really flipping fast I'm doing here by the way no we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens there right so that was turn whoof that was turn one don't worry after this person is your turn things start moving a lot flipping faster in this game in fact arguably a lot - flipping fast do I need this poke by the way I don't need this boat this boat can just nav the hell off we don't need any more boats than what we've got here yeah that should be absolutely fine so now now we see what happens next and what happens next is everything catches fire but now we get to figure out exactly what catches fire and how bad the fire is okay let's see how bad this situations managed to get itself which is yolk has immediately been bribed by the Picts that's absolutely fine whoo dead if any body and the answer is someone who was over in Salomon - who I think was actually decent bird that's a shame some people are gonna die and it means I'm not paying their salary anymore it's not so bad and Bordeaux over here you I think we're not very good honestly I can deal with that I've managed to stave off yeah rebellion too widely just by virtue of yeah whacking on games and whatever where I can so I just need to keep things stable while things Christianize I'm just gonna basically whack games up everywhere I can because here we go things are actually looking mostly mostly okay I'm not sure why you're actually like you know revolting you want supposed to be content but okay but I bring you down to know we definitely can't bring you down to that right monthly games will do for you for the time being Alice Flavius Ravana should be Christianizing oh yeah look at that Ravana is Christianizing like crazy so Ravana hopefully could I bring you to yeah monthly games rather than daily that's absolutely fine obviously rebels to just popping up as usual you get over here get over to Rome and start managing the place and you look at that much bad in fact we actually put the tax rate up or cancel some of the games yeah cancel the games and for the tax rate up right Rome is now making a lot more flipping money and this guy I think this guy's actually pretty good right actually remind me who's currently the faction air because you know just because of writing Valentinian could just die anytime you are no you're not very good here we go deca miss Flavius you my good man are now the faction air way how much she forgot to check your yes your Christian it's very important your Christian because you're about to inherit a newly Christianized Empire now admittedly we might be about to lose northern France if we do that's fine we'll just have to go and get it back later okay candidates that we are going to lose next turn because two turns in a row of writing you lose the place cthugga no wa nothing I can really do about that one 25% happiness these troops are gonna get there in time in which case rather than actually take damage these troops are just abandon the place and then we will take it back immediately that'll be fine you probably aren't needed down here to be honest you should actually yeah head up in this direction to go and help out with any of the rest of it you actually obvious Flavius get back over here just for the time being we'll send you some reinforcements along the road you join up with them obviously what I need right now is a major peasant uprising that's just flippin marvelous and then yeah you can take care of this fine in which case is there any military infrastructure left in here yes there is spirit tear it all down we can Talavera Coomer I'm not having that place helped by Legion reason whatever that's not acceptable we'll leave the blacksmith though yeah fine so now any revolts here should be easy to put down but I won't be able to actually train any troops here Britain is fine aside from the fact we just like you know lost it but other than that it's fine so this is all okay let's just actually get this place straight back under siege we'll be able to take it straight back because yeah it was purchased not conquered so it's not properly Garrison's so we just go in there knock down these guys and then we can basically burn this place to the ground when you have the option to burn everything to the ground just to stabilize just for one flippin minutes now here's a bit of a sad one I'm not sure we're gonna be able to hold up or Gustav Trevor or I'm up here and that's a real problem because I don't want to have to burn down the militia barracks and the stables here I really would rather not how's the religious situation going it is swinging Christian next turn paganism unrest will go down 15% but that's only 65 percent that's not enough that's not a flip enough and I don't think I've got enough troops around here a you money chance no you're not hang on unless do you actually have anything here I could give you in terms of now I've no anything in terms of retinue that's a shame and also your corrupt - three from law no you wouldn't make her better commander - try and hold this place a shame but I think we're actually gonna lose or Gustav Trevor Orem - a rebellion which is a real shame the only way to avoid that would be to deploy Marcus to gamble and north and I cannot do that I must not because in terms of the economy I have to take out the Alemany now their city needs to be burnt to the flippin ground immediately so we'll just move you here put this place on the siege immediately start building all of that send any reinforcements that you can spare / - Marcus the gambler seems like this place is actually pretty calm with being Christian which is I swear I just sent you to join that guy but okay that's yeah that's fine so now this guy has got himself not a great army but it'll have to flip in dough right now it's the faction leaders that's a lot of heavy cavalry - basic spear warband lombard archers right we can probably handle that hopefully anyways and would you believe Christianity just became the majority faith in the entire walks of what I just did yeah me ah yes of course and the new guy who just showed up in Rome Rome actually has a decent army so you you stupid rebel bastards can now for factually so this seems like as good a time as they need to introduce the troops of the Western Roman Empire this is a rare example of a good army we won't be seeing many of these for the most part the Western Roman Empire does not have much in the way of good troops but thankfully Rome itself is guarded by the decent stuff so these are common 2:10 says basically they're just legionaries they act like legionaries or bring two pairs would in rome total war they are very very good they are solid they are well armored they've got a throwable they toss in before they charge they'll win most fights should put them into their flippin marvelous except we've got some problems which is yeah in terms of range the Western Roman Empire is terrible in terms of archers it's only got basic archers with an attack of five and low range they are terrible we do have have a crossbows these guys are armor-piercing which is really really nice indeed you don't get much armor-piercing range damage in this game but crossbows do get it the problem is yeah they do need a really really accurate precise straight line of sight to the enemy to actually hit them so it's kind of difficult to use them well the cavalry is actually not that bad we've also this fun unit here Catholic priests these are basically like you know motivational units they can fight don't expect them to do well they're really more about yeah using the ability chant to inspire the troops in front of them so here we go my crossbows have actually got a good shot right here add some mercenary veterinary aid so these guys are heavily armored but as soon as we actually get ourselves some proper bolts coming in look at that that actually does some real damage to them which is spot-on so basic artifice does almost nothing to them that was basic artists that did like one person's damage whereas when the bolts come in from the crossbowmen down to like a hundred fifty very very good indeed so just like there's a couple of yeah they're actually some flippin peasants coming this direction no no no no no no no no no I don't think you get to do that and yeah these hardcore rebels who are effectively yeah the Legionaries same as I've got they are just collapsing in the face of crossbow bolts crossbowmen are hard to use but when you do actually get some good hits in with them they are flippin brutal right here so yeah just a couple more rounds in on them and sperms gonna charge my cavalry at them these are heavy infantry these are light cavalry fact you know that's that's a waste let's actually just keep my cavalry dancing for the time being and these guys yeah change the target over to here if you'd be so kind and now now they're facing away from me no I'm willing to just give a little bit of a charge into their flank that should be absolutely fine and in come the pilla look at that the peeler is armor-piercing same as it ever was so yeah that's why it's doing so much damage to these guys which is beautiful I'm just gonna pull my crossbowmen back because they're very very powerful indeed and these guys are already shaken wavering and momentarily we can actually just hit them in the flank with these Cavor that will be absolutely lovely in fact you know what why even bother I can just pick them apart so yeah your indirect fire is most definitely a bit on the weak side but under the right circumstances it can do a decent job all right back over here on the actual campaign use games to prop up Italy if we need to because every single turn yeah paganism unrest is going down and down and down how is Ravenna right now because yeah Valentinian the great might want to actually continue moving around a little bit to potentially help convert media Larney and faster yeah if I have you step outside Ravana goes over to you know what I'll put you over to Daley just for safety yeah and then I'm moving you over to med Yolo Neum all right just to make absolutely sure this place flips faster cuz now yeah that's 20% drop in paganism unrest in the next day that's good so that should be Italy secure all right no problems over on it careless we will lose a couple of settlements over here in 2000 nowhere and Salamanca nothing we can do about that so I'm gonna abandon the city right now move the troops straight over to this sky which is absolutely fine he's just gonna stand by and deal with that because when this place repels there's no troop train facilities same problem actually no not same problem over here good job I noticed actually that Salamanca get rid of all of that business terrico is stable for the time being I've got a spy over here who's just gonna come and have a little oopsie I'm just gonna send him over to the front many because remember there's actually hordes coming at me right now while I'm trying to deal with all of this madness this flippin hordes coming this way which is just magnificent obviously nothing I can do about any of these settlements in northern France which is very appropriate really because this is a bit of the empire that did actually fall off so you know that's good this is all historically accurate oh yes in terms of making money the francs so trade rights they will pay hopefully a fair amount of money for because they are just swimming in money right now I'm going to try and get thousand for trade rights and they actually think that's a good deal and I'm also going to sell a map information for another thousands because they're just swimming in so much money the air doesn't seem to value it and they go for that too so spot flipping on next up head north towards the Saxons I offer them the same deal I've now actually got some flipping money which is a really strange position to be in as the western roman empire but it'll flip in dough right can I save August a Trevor Orem that's the big one now there is of course one thing I could do the old road total war trick where I could just basically spam hazards in order to reduce the population because peasants are committed I have made the decision I'm not going to do that because I consider that too much of a manipulation of the game systems if you're just using it to move population around that's fine and understandable if you're using it during this campaign to artificially reduce the risk of rebellion I think that's a bit dodgy to be honest I don't think we should really be doing that so as a result of that tragically or Gustav Trevor or on them I'm gonna knock down its infrastructure and if I can do I'll actually send some of these troops back home again just to get this place back to where it should be actually could you send me the arches would be quite useful yeah abandoned the actual city you step outside as best we can send the peasants over here as a trade for the archers this place will and amazed when I just make a bit of money out of this why not you're about to rebell I may as well put your tax rate right up screw you make a bit more money yeah this place can't be saved either right so we're about to lose our first few settlements and it's going to be yeah half of Spain most of France a fair bit of this over here so basically it's most of the Empire it sets most of the Empire Oh also let kiss Magna bladder spotted that down there good good but what we do have left over in change which is very very important is enough to get a few ports down all right if we're capable of building a port builder a flipping port everywhere that doesn't have a port should have a port okay here it comes the Empire falling apart in three two one and total flippin never mind sorry that boat needs to continue moving over towards London that's very important but as soon as that's done and also oh yeah sorry I meant just what map information with you yes let's do that too that's also important with postponing the inevitable here it's fine it's called dramatic tension it's good stuff they're actually refusing map information to me that's how close me and this guy are as Fred's marvelous and there we go in come the rebellions so fun thing when an actual city decides to repeal in barbarian invasion if you're a Roman faction anyway it doesn't just go rebel it joins a brand new faction these green cities are all allied together which is pretty darn cool away a Quinn come didn't rebel are you sure I mean I kinda feel like they should have done to be honest but okay fine whatever so it basically happens is any actual troops that are sitting inside will be kicked out and then if you want to they can actually just you know be involved with taking the city straight back again so cthugga Noah right here hasn't degenerated nothing but peasants cuz I took out their military infrastructure before we began so we can put this place straight back under siege absolutely flip into spot on so we can either starve them out or we can actually just decide to attack in fall honestly we're probably better off just yet attacking them that's fine two turns for two towers and whatever peasants will not be able to stand up to my actual troops that I've got here which will be lovely cordoba is starting to settle down because this place is getting more and more Christian and Jer the actual paganism is going down 10% Turner meaning oh wow we're at minus 8000 yeah that's because like you know about a third of my entire tax base just decided it wants to be part of an unrelated Empire so we need to counteract that that's fine that's on a hundred percent fine because a thankfully you stupid bastards decided you wanted to repeal which is marvelously good news but more importantly it's the Alemany are poor Gustav Trevor or I'm so sad we had to Buddy sack that place yeah this should be oh is that gonna be enough I know it looks like these guys have got loads but those aren't just peasants I can probably handle this also who's actually running the show uh whoever it is I can't say right okay put this place straight back under siege the troops from I'm still amazed you guys have etre belts and wonder if I could somehow actually keep these guys on board no soon if I made them the capital that would only be seventy percent as I say I could just actually spam some troops but I'd consider that cheating and you didn't go either oh wow okay I thought that was a guaranteed thing okay well in that case I think well actually just you know keep doing the Empire because why not I could do the flippin taxpayers and medial are diem is flippin really really fast that is so Christian right now Ravana is chilling out - we can move them over to monthly games get the troops back into Rome row with a population of 44,000 but going down fast can now have normal tax and yearly gains that's flipping brilliant cilona not sure we can really do much with that I don't have the troops no that's that's not gonna fly I'll send these guys north to a Quinn come and we'll come back and deal with cilona later best thing to do a job you not down oh did I forget to knock down your training facilities did you actually have some barracks over here I probably did as well right you head over to a wing come alright we'll regroup there and then this guy because this place is now like super Christian like ludicrous Christian he actually take these faces back and he can be Christianize them at the same time Ravana remedial are neum are safe for now that is the big one yeah the actual allamani capital and you just spawned an extra family member out of your ass I just saw that that's cheating so before we go in we need to actually discuss the full western roman empire army because at its lower levels it's terrible we've already discussed we've got some really good comment 210 says right here really good solid leader is great guys and the archers are terrible but their numerous they'll do the job if they can just shoot enough people in the back sadly these are your basic infantry the limit on a and they are not very good they are effectively the equivalent of town what sure levy spearmen or whatever they are yeah that's the kind of weird they're really weird which is they've got such an odd distribution of stats their melee attack is only four because these guys being your basic infantry replace the town what I know you might look at them and think oh they're historic is their basic infantry they've got a throwing thing they've got the peeler no these are not a star T they're much worse kind of with a melee attack of only four town watch packard rome total war only had a melee attack of three so they cannot kill anything for toffee they are useless at killing but they've got a defense of seventeen which for 173 upkeep is actually really really good six of that's also armor so if they're going up against like you know basic arches the dirt of armor-piercing they can stand up to that really really well they are cheap effective defense but don't expect them to actually kill anything and despite the fact that they're clearly holding a spear they are not spearmen they do not get a bonus versus cavalry really easy mistake to make this is that she also one of my favorite units despite it being kind of terrible just did make so much sense in terms of the law because the actual historical limit on a the whole point was they were supposed to just hang out on the frontier and slow the enemy down they weren't supposed to win battles they were just supposed to be a stalling and a garrison force that was designed to just you know keep the enemy busy while the real big hitters the legionaries the commenter 10 says showed up and actually won the battle so it makes such perfect sense they have tons of defense but barely any attack I flippin love that it's so well thought out so in we flippin go we have got the troops but they have got the heavy CAV they have got a lot more heavy cavalry and I don't have a single spearmen in this army so this is not necessarily the most easy thing in the world especially as yeah this guy is also brave and he hates Romans if he gets bonus command right now so first things first we've got to be knocking down this head gate no defenses in the way there are the archers so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna deploy my own archers forward as fast as possible obviously putting them in loose formation to try and now their archers now those archers are superior to mine which is going to be universally true if you're playing as the Western Roman Empire and you see any other archers you can just assume ahead of time that those arches are superior to yours cuz that's just how it flippin goes alright and by the way can you actually yeah if you can take a shot just take it right now just actually start firing on those guys beautiful they're actually stunned to retreat so just keep moving up moving up moving up and then shooting them in the back if you'd be so kind they're trying to reload they won't be able to do too much to me and yeah what have we got here now here we go no spear warband so we can shoot them in the back too so these guys are firing on me who are they firing it's actually no one by the lucrative things yes they're just backing off good so we can just actually start getting some shots in on them we've got a good angle right about here so we can start taking these guys out hitting the Spears in the back obviously hitting spearmen in the rear is an excellent way of tearing them apart so we've driven them back from the walls and my four archers are gonna get some really really good early hits in right there spot-on nothing about the spear warband by the way is I can't remember exactly how many they get I think they - she's not a foot 240 of them you get a lot of spearmen for your money so while we're just knocking down the gates here's what we need to have a think about here my limit on a are completely useless in a fight but they can hold the line micrometre 10 says are really really damn good at murdering but we've got to keep them safe cuz I don't have anywhere to heal them up around here where I'm here on the frontier the nearest legionary barracks is I don't know possibly it's in northern Italy so I do not want my comment attend says to be taking damage I need to only commit them when I'm pretty sure it's a fight they can win so how am I gonna take down the flippin cavalry cuz the limit on a are not spearmen I would like to if I can in any way use the actual archers and use the peeler but it's gonna need to be done very very carefully by the way I think you're actually about to run straight back into Archer range aren't you because if you are that'd be marvelous and while these guys aren't very good in melee they do have a miss our Tiger 4:8 with their little peeler so if we can actually get in range to hit these guys with the peeler that'll be flippin marvellous hitting these guys inside right now the gates open and they are not happy I'm gonna send in this first unit right now just to see if I can basically base them so yeah remember these guys are decent defensively they'll hold the line effectively which means they might be a really good bait to pull some of this cavalry down towards the gate so that my archers can get in some nice free heads though in come the lombard archers just gonna send my own general forward to potentially deal with them these guys out range my archers by the way so I need to be really careful with that but luckily I don't know whether I don't know where you're going right now but I'm happy to deploy my own general in bad direction cuz he's scarred so he can definitely take a handful of hits and yeah my own archers are coming in these guys are steady shaken wavering and absolutely lovely honestly I'm gonna pull my own general no actually we've got them on the run now we've got them on the run I'm gonna pull him back so we just actually get hit by any stray arrows where their cavalry still not coming up I need to bait the cavalry down here ideally wanted to tow him looks like their archers are just trying to lay down a bit of fire on my limit on a right now the bear in mind these guys have got five armor and really good defense all right they're gonna take no damage from that whatsoever but they've lost one man one flippin man so now I can just basically deploy my cavalry over here ideally finish these guys off and if that happens to bait any of their generals forward that would be great but I'd like to finish off these archers hello are you taking the bait you taking the bait no you're falling further and further back which is fine that means I can finish off these art just once and for all so no annoying shots coming in so now we've got the old rome total war strategy available to us which is if a unit gets hit by Archer fire it will respond and try and hunt down the archers the problem is my archers are very very short-range and that means I need to lay out a trap around about here we need to set up a big kill zone to luring their cavalry now the problem is oh dear their general and the other general are standing right next to each other which I didn't really want to say the best option I've probably got is a line of limit on a to basically just act as a wall they will lose but that's fine because I can have my archers over here and down over here firing into their flank and into their rear even though it's five damage and it's not armor-piercing it will help out the Commish Sanchez will be here as well they will throw in all of their peeler every single Peter we've got and then they'll charge supported by my actual general it's gonna lead me to take some losses but this is about 130 heavy cavalry from a barbarian faction it's gonna happen anyway uh-oh we've got a chosen warlord moving in a little bit earlier than I was expecting but honestly if that pulls in one wall or but not the other that's not the worst thing in the world anyone who stood on the move faster if you'd be so kind do it flippin faster I need you in position before these guys charge I need these comets ten says not in a bad position oh you guys really need to run by the way I need you to run right the hell now before you actually all the archers and not in position had the artisan not in position the archers are not in position okay he's falling back he's falling back good I was a bit worried for a second yeah I need some of the archers up here along the comet 210 says right here and I want plenty of the limit on a floating around here all of them tossing their peeler as soon as they flip in can as soon as anything comes in this direction this unit is the bait alright so you can actually just fire it to the rear and then all the others can just start firing as soon as these guys get closer hopefully that's gonna be good enough I mean I really hope it is the Western troops are not that good so this is just a question of do I have enough javelins with enough armor piercing damage to kill these guys before they basically do a terrible amount of damage to me and we've got a shot at the chosen warlord the one with a tea house all right you open fire let's see what we can do here and the arrows are actually being launched a few arrows are being launched and that has got his attention but is he actually deciding to advance or is he just pulling further back there we go alright who's actually responding who's responding here stop stop stop stop stop everything's responding that's it's not desperately good news to be honest right at this point yeah you just opened fire anything you've got a shot out open fire in fact it looks like these guys have actually got the better shot from over here which is interesting so let's see what we can actually bait out this way so we've got ourselves yeah a little bit of damage being done to the Spears more attacks coming in over there these guys guarding this area everyone is set to fire it well so the moment anything actually happens here yet all these guys are fire it well all these guys are fire it well but until these guys get right here they won't be actually tossing anything at them come on here we go come on come on come on come on come on these guys are ready to toss in the peeler in calm the first set of peeler and go go go go go go go go go go go go go more coming in the comments 10 says our possibly too far back should be honest are you actually getting beat they're not getting their shops in yet come on guys guys you're you're in rage you're supposed to be enraged right now you're supposed to be range they're not firing that's a concern okay you can fight okay they're gonna get the shots into these guys though and incomes are a lot of peanut damage over there right you close the net on these guys and as for you okay you fall a little bit back all of you guys I want you to concentrate all your fire over there my general needs to get involved too he needs to get around the back of yeah he's just cut through here used to cut through here and get around the back of here these guys are going down pretty fast actually my generals at 15 he's scarred he can take a few heads these guys have been shot in the rear it's not armor piercing damage but it's a fair bit of damage these guys are now sandwiched by my heavy cavalry these guys may not be that strong but they're eager they're holding they'll do the flippin job that general is wavering these guys at this point just just get in get in there and their leaders broken there we go very careful positioning has done the flippin job right there so one of their leaders is dead the other one is down - yeah falling rapidly good good good good good good one leader dies that was not the actual leader you guys just continue firing at anything you've got a shot up to this point lower the spear warband forward we've taken some light notes to the comet 2:10 says but not much at all which is exactly what I want to see you guys fall back by the way because your archers so this isn't really your job you guys fall back pretty quickly - I don't want you engaging any of these guys directly that's my limit on a right there we've got the last few of the chosen warlord coming in and they will take that charge all right it'll hurt them but these guys are the ones that are easy to replace and he's retreating immediately down to six just shoot him in the back at this point that's fine or peeler coming in from every flippin side our piercing damage and at this point I am pretty happy to just commit my troops yeah the comic 2:10 says we'll just actually at this point be committed they're already fleeing where's my general he's always way about that unfortunately yes cavalry pathing was not very good in this game these guys would do a good job stabbing some of these guys to death and with that we're done that battle went very well all right when you going up against our 130 heavy cavalry in narrow city streets and you've basically only got limit RNA to act as your screening force that's pretty good I'm really happy with that actually the arches are pretty much in full condition and the heavy infantry was basically untouched very happy with that actually yes and with that the Alemanni capital Falls to me and naturally we are massacring them because that is just enough to wipe out the flippin debt and by the way you guys aren't actually going to be pagan anymore you're going to be oh that's that's going to be a bit of a difficult conversion but luckily while we've just conquered them it's much more manageable so with that one faction has been eliminated already the Alemanni are just dead now you're probably thinking John that was actually pretty simple why don't you just take that army march north do exactly the same to the franks and then they'll be out of the way too so fun mechanic inside barbarian invasion you know this like you know multiple hordes heading in our direction right flippin now just right over here somewhere we don't even know where they are so some of the barbarian factions if you take out their last city they just become a Hort they just basically spawn four or five big armies and start looking for somewhere new to settle which means very often it is absolute madness to murder the barbarians because if you actually finish them off entirely they will become a much bigger problem than if you just leave them with one city which is a really good way of stopping powerful players just steamrolling everything and actually you know very nicely recreate the historical truth that Rome couldn't just send its legions to stomp on everything because one well it just couldn't but two even if it could that would create more problems than its solved because the big problem that Rome had during this period was large numbers of our barons entering the territory that Rome couldn't actually do anything about and as a result of that yeah we just have to have an uneasy peace with the Franks we don't have wipe them out but we don't want them expanding or getting too strong either because late-game Frankish armies with ally Axman are no flippin joke they will melt my armies so yeah there comes a point we have to figure out what you're gonna do to try and sabotage the Franks without actually finishing them off now that'll probably sounds manageable just you know keep them contained to a single town draw up a nice border maybe when we're able to put an army on that bridge they won't be able to get into my territory so remember there's already two hordes on the field they're just heading in this direction those two hordes can wipe out factions that are themselves horde factions in waiting so potentially the Huns can trigger additional hordes to spawn so you have no idea as the Western Roman Empire how many hordes are actually gonna end up on the map by the end of the game it starts off with two but I believe there's yeah there's the roxolani over here who can horde there's the sarmatians we can just get rid of their territory here they can horde if they're defeated there's the Franks they can hold the Alemanni can't of course which is why we just knocked them out immediately the Saxons I think can't but they're way up over here and then there's yeah there's the begun D and the LAN party over here somewhere they both can so that's about six to eight they're about so potentially if you get unlucky you can just have to face that many hordes pretty much simultaneously if there's a domino effect of hordes triggering more hordes and it's utter flippin lunacy but it's kind of why I love it because playing as the western roman empire is terrifying because you have no idea whether any give a day a new horde might just be created out of nowhere oh and better and flippin better yeah the Alemanni capital I just took has a blacksmith and I could just afford to actually give ya improve weapons and armor to two of my legionaries keeping these guys alive is critical so I am 100% doing that yes and what I am indeed into the black right now next turn hang on yeah I'm gonna be straight back into nine thousand denarii of debt because I've still lost a whole bunch of territories that I'm not gonna be able to get back immediately I might be able to temporarily actually deal with that just by knocking over a borough come in fact you know what I'll just move in there now because that's nice and simple to do that's actually just you know a single flippin picture Spearman here we go nice and easy in and just to make life a bit easier we're just gonna do a bit more population exterminating there because that's why this place is more likely to stay loyal though unfortunately yeah that little stupid action with York has cost me the opportunity to knock out del Ryder at this point they've actually managed to bring up yeah some chariots slingers and they've got some yeah gala glasses really really a hardcore infantry yeah we're not gonna be able to knock that out unfortunately that's just that's just not gonna happen we'll need to actually focus on rebuilding our troops here before we go any further north and that certainly helped out a lot bit of extra money few extra taxpayers down to minus 8,000 but sir things are still not looking good they're looking a lot better than when we started this lady's a gentleman but bear in mind this is just me trying to recover from my own bad decision-making alright the hordes haven't even flippin arrived yet nevermind the hordes triggering other hordes never mind the fact that more hordes will just emerge as the game flipping continues never mind the fact that the Berbers will attack us from the south never mind the fact that the eastern roman empire will attack us from the east never mind the fact that we'll probably have plenty more problems with rebels and public order and the bloody western empire rebels yet yeah this is this is gonna get worse before it gets better but I will say I am pretty pleased with the start we've had here I'm pretty darn happy with this not that much of the Empire has rebelled and we have successfully managed to Christianize pretty much the whole flippin thing we're on an okay footing here and once we actually successfully reclaim some of these territories and use the money we can get from burning them down to invest in infrastructure hopefully the economy will be in good shape and say hopefully because of course if I raise one of my own cities when I take it back that's my own tax payers I'm killing so that's actually a loss of money but of course the surviving tax payers will be willing to pay a higher tax rate and the money I get from raising the city can be used to invest in say trade infrastructure elsewhere in the Empire so does that work well I don't know mathematically that might work or it might not but we're going to give it a chance later gentlemen this of course is our new series on Thursday and Sunday and oh I've been meaning to get routes of our baron invasion for so long the western roman empire campaign is a thing of absolute flippin madness it's flippin what turned three and we've already managed to lose what's that six provinces six provinces have already sent to jump ship two more of them might decide to actually join in I'm in a massive deficit my troops are barely holding together I'm having to burn my own infrastructure to stop it being used against mission this is gonna be fun join me on Thursday for the continuation of rome total war barbarian invasion ladies and gentlemen I am looking forward to what the hell happens next because I suspect next time we might just get our first glimpse of the first flippin horde and that's gonna be fun shall we say but in the meantime I'm pajamas have been many a true nut this has been Rome to the war with barbarian invasion thank you very much and goodbye this disguise enjoy that those guys enjoy you as I look for a bit tuba in fair Verona we set our scene oh my god Becky look at her butt it is so big that managed to glitch inside one of the buildings elephants at the they got the chariot

Channel: Many A True Nerd

Views: 449,633

Keywords: Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion game, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion gameplay, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion WRE, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion western roman empire, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion very hard, Barbarian invasion western roman empire, western roman empire very hard very hard, Rome Total War Barbarian Invasion part 1

Id: jEPhup9MkuE

Length: 86min 30sec (5190 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2019