[Macros]

If you like TWM2, you'll love rome, its a superious game and easier to run.

and its a superior game

[Macros]

I've jsut realised someone has stolen my rtw disc, all I have is the shitting add ons!
DAMN NATION

[Mushroom]

@ Macros

If you've only played the Romans then another Civ to play I suggest;
The Eqyptians have basically got units just as good as the Romans and a few better ones (elephants/chariots) and they make money fairly easilly. They are too easy really then, though are quite varied.

My personal Favourite is the Parthians. They start off with Eqyptians and Syrians to the east. Syrians of which will be your enemy almost instantly. A little while later you eventually have to take out the Eqyptians which is no easy task.
So really one of the harder civs to start out with, though after a certain tipping point where you well and truly have the advantage on Eqypt it gets as easy as playing Romans.

However once you eventually Have the Eqyptians out and the whole Turkish penisular you can either go for east africa (then rome) or greece. Greece is good cause you earn even more money.

The only downside to playing as the Parthians is the lack of Variety in the Units.
The Parthians really do demonstratge how good cavalry really are in the game. All I'd simply do is create stacks of simply horse archers. Real Cheap, take a while to run out of arrows, easy to get, fairly manuverable. Whole stacks of that would destroy anything tacken at it.
Then after a while you'll be able to build cataphracts as well, a really powerful cavalry unit.

Eventually when take on the Romans they have done the Marius reforms and you generally need two full stacks of Horse archers (or maybe 1 of cataphracts) to take on a full stack of roman infantry, though you'll incur fairly few losses.

Its worth a shot.

[Mushroom]

Also Did anyone play the AOE2 Expansion when it came out?

Anyone notice how the Goth were a little overpowered with their new tech?

I had the strategy of building 3/4 barracks right next to your enemies base. Because of the new tech the Goths got from the expansion (units trained at least 3x faster) you would just churn out units indefinately. I'd usually go with mainly Pikemen (cheap) with a few swordsem and the Goth special unit. It was way too easy to win then.

[Macros]

Never got the expansion, AOE gets irritating after a while imo.

regarding rome, I can't find my damned disc anywhere and I tried a no disc crack and it wouldn't damned work.
Tears are near.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

I've lost my Rome disc (and expansion pack disc too) funnily enough, I suspect a thief is on the loose! It's annoying cos I much prefer it to MTW2 if Im honest, there's no faffing about with stupid merchants and repeated bloody hordes.

[Mezla PigDog]

I don't bother with merchants, apart from down in Timbuktu. Nobody ever walks far enough to seize their assets down there and they earn a packet.

The hordes kept arriving on me in my last game. When you click on said "horde" and it is only 2 units of archers, it is slightly disappointing!

[Thelomen Toblerone]

I kept finding I'd capture Jerusalem or Antioch or whatever in some crusade, then a horde would appear. During one game I withdrew from the city to let them have it and save my army, and found they just pursued my army south through Israel then ALL THE WAY ALONG NORTH AFRICA. Fucking stupid. I posed no threat to them and they wouldnt leave me alone and establish the bloody homeland they supposedly wanted so much.

[Mezla PigDog]

They are "hordes"! A horde never behaves like a normal collection of people. That is what makes them so special.

[Mentalist]

hmm I was on my first playthrough of MTW as England.

I must say, longbowmen dominate all. I crushed France, leaving them with a single holding (in Jerusalem, funnily enough), and went on to crush the Milanese upstarts. I could've easily crushed the Danes, but the bastards control the college of cardinals and my assasin wasn't quite good enough.

the Pope was onmy payrol however, so I pushed the Danes off into the northern edges of the map. I was about to crush Cicily, too, but that's when exams started and I stopped playing.

As a general rule, I use tons of longbowmen and 2-3 stacks of heavy cavalry on the flanks, with either English dismounted knights or mercenary spearmen to hold the line while my bowmen kill everything.

considering that i paid off the Pope to declare crusades on first Milan and then Copenhagen, I got some pretty badass generals leading those armies as well, with Crusader reputation.

[Morgoth]

Mushroom, on Feb 21 2009, 03:09 PM, said:

Also Did anyone play the AOE2 Expansion when it came out?

Anyone notice how the Goth were a little overpowered with their new tech?

I had the strategy of building 3/4 barracks right next to your enemies base. Because of the new tech the Goths got from the expansion (units trained at least 3x faster) you would just churn out units indefinately. I'd usually go with mainly Pikemen (cheap) with a few swordsem and the Goth special unit. It was way too easy to win then.

Nah, the goths were strong for sure, but barracks can easily be destroyed and the guys with guns (hand cannoners?) could just stand there and turn anything coming out into mincemeat. Also, not being able to build walls, well that's a reall problem.

Mind you, my perhaps most epic game was as the goths. We were six playing, two on each time on the largest version of dark forest. One team ganged up on me quite early, and seeing that my team mate was crap and I had no walls to hold them off with, they burned through my base quite quickly. Thankfully, I had already researched the necessary castle tech and had built some emergency bases in the forest. I had one at the deepest corner and sent out workers after a while to place barracks all over the place. The two remaining teams fought each other back and forth, never really gaining the advantage over the other. Suddenly an army of mine appeared, made quite a nuisance of itself and was eventually destroyed. They tried to find my base, but I took out all the scouts long before they could find the tiny path leading into my corner, and they could never send a large enough force on account of being continously attacked by the other. The screams of rage whenever a new army of mine appearaed somewhere was quite pleasant

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Mezla PigDog, on Feb 21 2009, 07:56 PM, said:

They are "hordes"! A horde never behaves like a normal collection of people. That is what makes them so special.

They're bullies, that's what they are! Why'd they have to pick on me?

*sniff sniff*

It did make it all the more delicious when I finally hunted down and killed every last one of the bastards though.

[beru]

how to kill the Timurid hord with england (and you dont have enny citys in the middle east)
1 declare a crusade
2 make ca 10 armys now free of charge (crap armys with normal longbowmen and pike mercernarys)
3 move them down
4 lose you first 10 armys and then lead 9 units of sherwood archers and 10 units of armored swordsmen to finish of the reamaining enemy (if you meet elfants try to have cannons or balistas)
5 take 1 (no need for more) city then hold it wile upgrading the towers and gettin milita to hold the line
6 fight back and forth for like 20 turns till they run out of elefants then run them over.

How to kill trets with russia
1 Dvor
2 Dvor
3 Dvor
4 Dvor
5 dissmounted Dvor
6 Dvor
7 cossac musketers

[Impirion]

My friend was watching when I attempted my first contact with the effing timurids. They appeared in Russia and by that time my brilliant generalship and the just general amazingness of the english meant I was basically in Russia too.

I had no idea about the elephants and sent a fully stacked army to deal with the damn upstarts. Bear in mind this was one of the armies that had ripped its way through all of northern europe and some of the south so it was really experienced. One minute into the battle, the mists clear and I see elephants heading towards me and I think, oh that's fine, just get my yeoman into action etc. about two minutes after this my friend is rolling around on the ground laughing because my army is in complete retreat having just had its ass handed to it by the stupid elephants.

Luckily for me, they then tried to assault a castle of mine and ran into 17 units of yeoman.... the elephants didn't survive long

[GardenGnome]

I see a few of you talking about RTW. Anyone familiar with the extended Greek mod? It's like vanilla RTW, but without the crap. And added awesomeness.

XGM

[beru]

in rtw i HATE egyptians... (you say they get elefants? in the expasion pack right?) they have ONE (yes one) unit with desent armor and rest is farly weak (ok they might hit abit but a phalanx kill them of ofen witout taking casultys at all

[Impirion]

Egyptians had a good blend of phalanxes and archers though, just get like 8 phalanxes and 12 archer units and you could rout pretty much anything.

[beru]

the selucids were the best... let me sum them up
macedonian phalanx
elefants
archers and artilery
catafracts
legioners
rich
hanging gardens of babylon
not far from collosus at rhodos
starts with one of the wonders in turky

thats it...

[Aptorian]

Mentalist, on Feb 21 2009, 09:40 PM, said:

considering that i paid off the Pope to declare crusades on first Milan and then Copenhagen

WHAT!?

[beru]

he ment arhus i think (århus for deg apt)