Overview
This is the ultimate WHOOP ASS guide to the WRE. It involves NO F***** QUARTER and slaugthering everything in your way. Especially all those pesky barbarians who think they can betray you in a time of crisis. Also this guide will lead you to be fully Christian!This walkthrough was played in vanilla and gives you achievements.
Faction Mechanics
Ahhh the Romans. My favourite factions since always. You can never go wrong with a good amount of Roman heavy infantry with the famed legions. LEGIO, AETERNA, VICTRIX
Hold up!!! What do you mean, spearmen? Limita-what? Oh boy, we have to talk…
The WRE is not what you would think of when you talk about a Roman faction. They went through some serious relationship issues with their barbarians dolls and their christian followers. Their army has changed (and not to the better) and you have to do with what you get. Their mechanics are basically worthless after round 10 and if, only make you life harder.
1. Only used in early game (when there are still hordes)
2. immigrants? to the cross with em! This will boost your economy AS HELL in mid game, but more about later. You do not need to consider this in early game.
All in all, the WRE has nothing to talk about when it comes to Faction Mechanics. It’s just good old fashioned total war, as it is supposed to be.
Before you start (provinces, diplomacy, technology)
Originally posted by Flavius Honorius Augustus, ca 395 AD:There we are, a broken mess, a shadow of our former glory. My brother took the eastern part with those crazy Persian people and I, great Flavius, got the bad part. At least, that’s what I tricked him to believe, haha. There is way more to kill over here. GG
At the start of the game your map will look glorious. But be prepared to get abused for at least 8 rounds. You will loose so hardcore you wish to quit, but no! You will keep on going – here is something that will keep you going:
You have a big empire, thats for sure. Can you manage all it? Nope. After a few tries I came up with a prioritization that worked for me.
The crossed out regions ( ” X ” ) you will loose and abandon. Now this does not mean that simply leave it without a fight. More to that in the opening moves below.
The yellow marked provinces you have to defend, they will be the key to your financial success. Defend them with all you got -> this includes A LOT of mercenaries. In these provinces you put your governors at the start of the game with the focus on public order (also skill them accordingly).
The blue marked provinces should not be a big issue to hold. They include a) your capital, b) provinces with food shortage and c) all provinces with the resource “wine”. The latter will improve public order AND give you food and therefore is quite easy to handle. b) can be handled quite easy as well, since you have olives which give massive food bonuses.
The red marked provinces are the second priority after you stabilized yellow and blue. In my experience it doesn’t matter how exactly you start with it, it will always end up in one or two revolts. Simply crush those with your garrison legions (see opening moves).
Very very easy. They all hate you anyways and will declare war very soon. Just try to get as many trade agreements as possible. As said, they will betray you anyway and you are in a constant state of total war (lol actually true for once). DO NOT declare non aggression pacts. They will start marching through your territory and backstab you HARDCORE. If hordes cross your border, you need to destroy them fast. A horde is easy to destroy and will save you so much pain later on.
It might be tempting to rush the Christian ideas which give public order. Unfortunately, that’s not how this works, that’s not how any of this works. You have to rush towards the first technology, but if say “rush” i mean it will take at least 20 rounds… afterwards you need to improve your military! There is no special recipe for success here, but as romans I would push towards better infantry and range units.
Here is my technology at round 30 with the history of that I researched first.
Opening moves (armies, battle tactic, building)
Originally posted by King Julian, ca 394 AD:I like to move it, move it, you like to move it, move it, he likes to move it, move it, she likes to move it, move it. You like to? BURN IT ALL DOWN
I like the smell of dead barbarians in the morning. And cries of the enslaved. It reminds me of money. But I think you readers are looking for something more helpful. Here is what I consider a good start with my armies. Before we start, one more thing –> Axe infantry is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ OP. They will destroy whole Roman units with ease. If you find an enemy army with a lot of axes, always try to autosolve the battles. If that doesn’t work, retreat into a city and gather reinforcements.
You ABSOLUTELY need to destroy those Suebis. Here your faction mechanic plays into your cards. Horde recruit units to destroy them with their own people. muAhahA, pure genius evil. After that you move one army to Rotomagus and disband the second. There you will build a garrison as well and should have enough time to rest a bit, since you still occupy Britannia.
Tactically replace your army in Britannia back to the port of Camulodunum. Even build a garrison there. Try to keep em at bay as long as possible, don’t give up Britannia without a fight. Dont use your faction heir or emperor, since this general WILL die gloriously in defence of the empire. Don’t recruit units, use mercenaries since at this stage of the game, they are much stronger than your own.
You have one enemy on the eastern front (for now). Try to combine your armies there, recruit some spearmen and try to vassalize him. After that retreat to Aquileia, where you build up a garrison and military wharf to defend the city from all assaults. its important to mention, that if you see an opportunity to whip out a horde or an enemy army, take it. I realized it is very smart to work with two armies. One small and one main –> set the main army to ambush and use the smaller as bait. even if the ambush fails, the enemy army is now within reach of your main army and you can easily destroy them.
In Spain and Africa you will disband most of your army (especially high upkeep units). Here as well, only try to hire mercenaries if necessary. They only act as safeguard and public order improver rather than fighting forces.
My situation at round 10 with public order marked
When should you fight and when not? The basic concept here is, that defending cities is REALLY good. Only in the rarest opportunities you should sally out and attack. Your shield walls combined with tight city streets is just awesome. The only dangerous thing is axe infantry, always focus those with ranged units! the basic concept is always to lock enemy infantry and then spring your cav trap. IT IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT! Don’t try to use your cav to early, let the enemies tire themselves and then charge. Here is your battle plan. It works in a similar way for defending cities, but you have wait way longer until you reach phase 3.
This basically sums up all battles in Attila, except for the mongols.
a: What a beautiful aqueduct.
b: Maybe we should tear it down because of Christianity?
a: sorry what?
b: you know, because it is Pagan and stuff
a: GTFO, you fanatic *roundhouse kick*
I will guarantee you, Christianity is a pain to build, but actually not that difficult. However, you will have to reduce all churches and monastries to rubble at the start of your campaign. They offer too little rewards for their massive upkeep. Do this on round 1-3 since some buildings take longer to reduce. This will increae your cashflow (around 30K in round 2) and reduce upkeep at the same time $$$$$$$$$$.
Round 1-3: Focus on food production (easy-peasy farms)
Round 3-10: Focus on public order (see below)
By default you have at least -5 from taxes, -5 from religious unrest, -4 from difficulty settings, and at this point about -1 / -2 from immigrants. This sums up to about -16 public order BY DEFAULT !
To counter this you need, in every province (expect for those with governors, armies or wine resource):
Governors House +9 Public Order
Auditorium / Amphitheatre + 7 / + 15 –> Always the first building !
Waterworks and later reservoir + 1 / + 2 –> never build latrines
this equals to somewhere between +17 and + 26. Issue solved for now.
Your emperor is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and cruel and that will lead to an additional -2 / – 3 public order. You should be able to cope with those with technology, political situation and so on.
And this leads me straight to the last point. Despised by all but the most c***-old players, you need to deal with politics in Attila. You need to win battles with both emperor and heir in order to secure gravitas. As soon as you have enough gravitas try to adopt a governor with your heir. Try to assign your governors and general always to lower tier offices to balance out their influence. The occasional attempt to gather support by your wife helps as well.
Rise like a phoenix (mid stage military, income, get ready to roll)
Originally posted by Flavius Honorius Augustus, ca 400 AD:They said it couldn’t be done. They said it isn’t feasible. What a bunch of sissies
It doesnt really matter what kind of troops you build. It more depends on how you use those buggers. My default layout for the professional armies (not the garrison legions), looked something like 1 general, 4 cohors, 4 cav, 4 spearmen, 4 skirmisher and some mercenaries depending on the region. The battle tactic hasn’t changed, BUT you actually have to build two fleets starting at around a) the time you loose Britannia and b) the time you loose Dalmatia. This actually holds off the AI to cross since you can easily destroy their transport fleet (like SUPER easy). See Britannia for example at around round 20 in my campaign.
They will always try to sneak past you like in Aquitania and Sicily. There you just have to raise an army for two rounds and defend the ♥♥♥♥ out your city. This is actually quite easy.
By this point EVERY province had a positive public order and i could start concentrating on commerce. More about that in the section below.
One additional note: Britannia factions will not make peace with you and neither should you! My main focus point at this point were the two purple marked strongholds. Try to hold these at all costs since you are pretty much done for if you loose them. Luckily i managed to grab a non-aggression pact with the vandals which saved my middle part of the north eastern front.
Crush the revolts in Africa by this point and vassalize the factions. This will grant you more trade partners and a buffer.
Funny enough, the more provinces you loose the better for your economy. The bigger your empire, the bigger the penalty for corruption –> smaller empire, smaller penalty. After a few tries i realized that the way to win Attila WRE is to NEVER stop building. You cannot win this campaign by Military Force alone.
Do you remember those 4 provinces that you governors are looking for? by round 20 these 4 provinces made me together over 10k. My net income never went below 8k my whole campaign, but at this specific points was around 12k.
Round 11 – 30:
What you are looking for in general is the following order:
- Trade jetties (in provinces with Wine)
- Gold veins (duh, cuz obvious)
- Theatre (+1000 income is just OP)
- Farms (acutally give you a lot of income as well)
- Food Markets can be a quite good option as well if public order allows it
At around round 20-30 you also want to start building barrack to recruit higher tier infantry.
At around round 30 my empire was completely stable, the main wave of invaders fought off, the economy rising.
As you can see my borders changed almost nothing compared to round 20. This is exactly what is necessary to secure your survival, DONT expand except from the occasional punitive expedition. Build up your armies and wait.
The end times (hunny hunny bye bye, Christianity)
Originally posted by Unknown, because dead:Huns, what huns?
Aaaah the most enjoyable topic. What could possible go wrong?
Some of the more attentive reader might realize that up upon now I never spoke about Christianity. Now, you, Mister or Miss, are very correct. The first 30 rounds are completely given on the topic of stabilization and nothing else. Theatres, Amphitheatre, that is all very pagan, isn’t it? Yes it is. But since the give ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of money AND public order, who cares. I started my conversion on round 37 and it was absolutely NO problem whatsoever.
Here are the basics:
- Build column / statue carvers in Genua and Pompaelo +4 state religion
- Build churches in town. NOT in cities
- In pentarchy see you can build in cities
- Switch one or two central governships to christian mission
And thats it, thats all you need to know. You will loose the religious penatly in no time.
At this point you will start suffering from immigrants penalties. Just upgrade your governors seat, theatre and sanitation building. That should solve the issue.
From now on, you should no longer have any issues. To win against Huns, you basically only need your agents. Harass armies and kill their leaders. Then send in your armies.
Therefore I will show you a few more screenshots on how my campaign ended
