Total War: Rome

[htismaqe]

I know most people here don't give a shit.

And I know those that do have already played (and moved on from) Total War: Rome TWO.

I have a Mac,so all I got is the original, which is fine with me because it's a ****ing great game.

I did some modding to make the AI play better and make some gameplay changes like slowing down city growth and stuff.

I'm kind of a history nerd so rather than conquer the entire map, I like to play to the "50 provinces and conquer Rome" mark. I like to take a screenshot of my empire, just to see what my empire would look like in a history textbook.

I finished my first full campaign today as Macedon.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Hey WhiteWhale, after much effort, I've gotten XGM working on my Mac!

I can't wait to play it.

Awesome. I love it. Macedon is my fav faction.

I'll play as Rome if I want to just wreck everyone. The initial challenge is hard but after you build up the cities and start pumping out legions it's steam-roller city and can become very boring and redundant.

The only thing that I dislike is that after a while enemies start spamming stack after stack. Playing on higher campaign difficulty can be annoying because you will need to fight 5-10 battles per turn.

[htismaqe]

Macedon is my favorite faction on Vanilla. I think I'm going to play XGM as the Greek Cities this time, just for a change of pace. I want to use phalangites AND hoplites together.

[htismaqe]

By the way, I finished my Gallic campaign. It was horribly boring.

Right off the bat, I knew I had to secure my borders so I attacked the British settlement on the mainland, the Spanish settlement in the Pyrenees, and the rebels at Massillia. I shored up my defense in Mediolanium and Patavium in hopes that I could stall the Romans long enough to give myself a two or even one-front war.

It worked...TOO well.

Within the first 20 years, I had conquered the entire Iberian peninsula, all of Britannia, and had reduced the Germanic holdings to just two territories in the very east, near Scythia.

I had conquered 32 of the required 50 territories with spear warbands and javelin skirmishers. By the time I conquered the Julii and Rome, I only had 2 or 3 cities built up enough for level 2 troops and I didn't own a single city outside of Italy that could build level 3.

I beat the entire campaign without ever getting to use the Gallic uber-archers.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Macedon is my favorite faction on Vanilla. I think I'm going to play XGM as the Greek Cities this time, just for a change of pace. I want to use phalangites AND hoplites together.

The cool thing about XGM is that you can play as several different Greek city states rather than just pretending they were all ruled by Sparta.

Also, Macedon doesn't use sparta's symbol for a flag. That annoyed me in vanilla but the faction was a fun play through.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

By the way, I finished my Gallic campaign. It was horribly boring.

Right off the bat, I knew I had to secure my borders so I attacked the British settlement on the mainland, the Spanish settlement in the Pyrenees, and the rebels at Massillia. I shored up my defense in Mediolanium and Patavium in hopes that I could stall the Romans long enough to give myself a two or even one-front war.

It worked...TOO well.

Within the first 20 years, I had conquered the entire Iberian peninsula, all of Britannia, and had reduced the Germanic holdings to just two territories in the very east, near Scythia.

I had conquered 32 of the required 50 territories with spear warbands and javelin skirmishers. By the time I conquered the Julii and Rome, I only had 2 or 3 cities built up enough for level 2 troops and I didn't own a single city outside of Italy that could build level 3.

I beat the entire campaign without ever getting to use the Gallic uber-archers.

Those archers are ridiculous. The right temples and training locations and they are totally broken.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by WhiteWhale

The cool thing about XGM is that you can play as several different Greek city states rather than just pretending they were all ruled by Sparta.

Also, Macedon doesn't use sparta's symbol for a flag. That annoyed me in vanilla but the faction was a fun play through.

Yeah, I actually think I'm going to play the Pergamon provincial campaign.