Western Roman Empire on Legendary

Now For the Basics to start off with, you have 3 Major problems

1. as the WRE you have a Massive empire that is extremely hard to defend with the amount of money you make and the amount of armies you have at the start, it also doesnt help your massive empire has a lot of corruption that makes acquiring money a bit of a challenge,on top of that every single 1 of your provinces is on the verge of revolt even your Capital, and many lack food or the proper buildings to sustain themselves to be happy you also have major squalor problems in a large number of provinces that needs to be fixed.

2. Your 2nd biggest issue is your neighbors, sure you have the ERE as a ally but on legendary when too many wars are being fought by you the AI will almost never make peace with you even if you smash their armies so it may be wise to break the alliance with the East in order to preserve your empire they will not declare war on you and even if they do they will be too occupied with other wars to send armies against you but do try to keep your trade deal alive with them they are a lifeline to your empire in a way, but i am getting ahead of myself your main threats come in the form of germanic tribes and hordes along the entire northern frontier spanning from belgica to pannonia and east from the steppes in Particular the Huns, in britain the Picts caledonians and Ebdanians will almost certainly declare war on you nothing you can do but take those wars, in africa the Garamantians Gaetulians and Maurians can be very fickle sometimes they will play nice with you other times they will declare war on you but i found the maurians to be the most warlike of the 3 unless their leaders get bad rolls with their personalities, the best way to deal with that frontier is kill the Maurians because they hate you the most and try to play nice with the Gaetulians and Garamantians.
3. your last major problem as the Western roman empire is your Army you have 1 of the best if not the best armies in the game on par with the eastern empire and the sassanids now whats the issue with it? well in the early game the roman army is good but its not the best in the world you need to survive long enough to upgrade your military because your standard Cohors Limiteani and other units will only do so much against barbarian factions and against the huns you can expect these troops to perform as well as a wet noodle hitting a rock they will barely scratch a hun army much less give you the victory.

You can do this a number of ways but before you do anything but there are steps you need to do before you can even think of saving most if not your entire empire.

#1 you need to stabilize italy 1st its the center of your empire its 1 of the richest parts of your empire and its also the least developed most of italy has major public order and food issues develop italy with the limited funds you have (more on your finances later) and resolve the food crisis in italy. i would also suggest placing governors in italian provinces 1st including your emperor as he is a bad general and you want as much political influence as possible and use the Edict Bread and games for extra public order and food and for rome and Mediolanium demolish the Statue and the Urbs city buildings the Urbs use too much food at this stage and your empire needs some stability someplace, you want to destroy the statue so you can make a governors house or a Public forum to get a Audituorium for public order food will be plentiful in the early game but the longer you play the less food there will be because of climate change so always be mindful of your food in your provinces before building up the towns.

#2 Religion is a key factor in attila, as the Western Roman Empire you are a Catholic (Latin Christain) you have a nice bonus of being able to spread your faith to neighboring provinces however, the downside with this Faith is the churches you build have a massive upkeep cost and only provide little aid to your unhappy provinces on top of that most of your provinces have other faiths that are deeply entrenched and it will take a level 3 or level 4 church to assure Latin christain domination of the province and that is super expensive, you can do 2 different things as the WRE with religion you can Stay as a christain which is argueably the easiest option as churches cost money and the later you survive the more money you will eventually make which means church upkeep is largely negated, OR you can go Greco roman pagan which is harder because Pagan temples require food and in the late game food will be hard to come by from climate change, my course of action for ethier of these routes in the 1st few turns is to Destroy all the churches in your empire they cost too much to maintain and their build slot can be used for fixing your squalor and public order problems destroying the churches also gives you money back to improve your empires dire situation, later on though build the churches they will ensure you maintain religious domination in your regions.

#3 the easiest way to save your empire can seem insane to most people but the easiest way to do this can be destroy all the buildings in all your provinces minus italy proper and corsica and sardinia and after a few turns burn every settlement down besides the provinces i mentioned doing this will give you a large amount of money to reinvest into italy to make it rich and happy now i must give a word of warning for this when you destroy all those provinces you will suffer a famine DONT PANIC if you develop italy whether you want to save the entire empire or just the heart of your empire develop italy with farms and saniation i promise after a turn or so the famine will pass another warning is you will have revolts in all of italy but if you bring your closest armies back to italy you can deal with them rather easily, if you want to hold every province though its a lot harder as you will have to fight outside enemies as well as rebels trying to break free from your rule.

#4th Province Priority if you dont feel you can save your entire empire pick provinces you can protect, the ones that are safe are Italy, Spain, Africa for the most part, and southern france, the rest of your provinces can be attacked and raided constantly Britain is almost always a early target for Saxon and celtic raids, and soon enough other germanics and even the huns will lay waste to your frontier provinces.

In terms of your army you have 7 total armies at the start 2 in france 1 in spain 1 in britain 1 in africa 1 in pannonia and 1 in Switzerland/Austria you want to keep the army of africa and army of spain in those general regions to stamp out revolts you will need to give them some more troops though as they are small and not as effective as a half or even full stack, your army in pannonia and your army in britain are fickle choices though you will have enemies in these regions and you can ethier keep them there or pull them back to a more defensive position to regroup, to make your situation worse you have to wait a while to make any actions to begin with the western roman border armies are depleted at best as some armies only have half strength so you need to be safe about what you do with them.

Main Threat. your biggest enemies at the start are the Quadi and the saxons as well as the ostrogoths in a few turns and the jutes as well but you can expect the suebi who are migrating through france to declare war on you as well as the Geats the celts in britain and the Iazyges you want to try and knock out the quadi as soon as possible by moving your army in Switzerland/austria east to pannonia be mindful the saxons and Quadi may attack you on the end of turn 1 if the Eastern romans survive long enough they can become a major threat to you or even the sassanid empire if they survive the white huns you will have few if any friends in this campaign, sorry legendary AI is unforgiving have to accept it.

Technology. in general as western rome as you are the weaker of the 2 roman empires you want a strong military but also a strong economy i recommend researching at least the 1st few military techs that upgrade your border guards and your cohors they arent the best upgrades but they give your army some much needed boosts, as for your civil techs you want to research everything but the middle line of techs for a while at least, the middle line of techs are legacy techs which give very amazing buildings to help your empire researching the middle line will ease the tension on your empire but also disables those techs thus preventing you from building those buildings so try and avoid researching those techs untill later, focus on getting some military tech 1st as you will be at war constantly in this campaign you will not know peace for a long time.....

Resources. you have most of the tradable resources in the game but some are not as valuable and you dont need to develop 2 of the same resource when fixing squalor and food are important but in general 1 of every resource is good for trade Lead marble and wine are the best in my book though. maintain trade with the east as long as you can they are a good trade partner and help feed your economy which leads into my next topic

Money. the WRE is a powerhouse late game with its military but also with its economy you have constant immigration which is a double edged sword at best on legendary you get at 90 percent immigration a 15 percent economic boost in every province but a negative of minus 9 public order so you need to make buildings that provide public order *Theaters,Governor buildings and Waterworks* and build up the towns at least to level 2 or 3 to give more public order as well and you should be able to maintain your provinces if you also add in a church later.

Once you deal with a few factions I.E the quadians and a couple hordes you can make the choice on how to precede with the campaign im not telling you to follow this guide to the letter if you dont want to, there is a few strategies that are effective though that ive listed, if you give your military some love and your civic techs as well you should be ok and if you are strategic about how to use your money your food your squalor and saniation and your armies and navies.







Final Thoughts
A lot of these strategies may have been pulled from youtube etc i give Credit to Legend of total war for his easy strategy of destroying every province besides italy in his 10 turn legendary guide as Western rome and i give credit to those who held on to every province in the empire despite all the negative issues with that, im not a perfect total war player i still make beginner mistakes but i still try my best even though sometimes i get frustrated, if there is anything i may have missed or didnt touch on enough feel free to leave a comment on this guide im not trying to rip off anyones guide for the western roman empire im trying to give a update to it as there might always be new players wanting a starter guide for them this is truly a campaign that deserves the legendary difficulty rating i hope you found this guide Helpful and as i mentioned leave a comment if you want me to add on to a section or even make a new section i forgot to touch on Thank you for taking the time to read this and i hope you can enjoy this campaign with less stress :)