Rome II - how using an empire wide strategy helps you win

• Rome 2 is a resource management game - not an army and fighting game
  
• Battles are only a game mechanic by which you:
  a) make use of your resources b) gain more resources
  
• More resources equals more armies and better armies
  
• Denial of resources to your opponents will weaken their military strength even without fighting them
  
• If you have more resources than your opponents you will have more military strength than them and you will always win

When using an integrated empire view of Rome 2 there are 4 resources.
In order of importance:

Food
Money
Order
Research

Balance your resources on the map in this priority: food, money, order
Use the character panel to maximise your research
Armies are not strictly a resource, they are a product your resources produce.

(At the highest level of game play you do treat your armies as a 'resource' - when you 'expend' your armies to achieve a strategic result - then you do a cost / benefit / risk analysis to see if is worth it)

Rome 2 Economics
Cities supply food, money and order
Cities cost order (squalor) and food
Armies cost money
Research gives you bonuses to the other 3 resources

Food:
* Your empire will fall apart without food
* You can't buy food, but a spy can steal it
* Always be in surplus
* Plan ahead and build a surplus before the buildings that use food are built
* Build 'free' buildings that cost no food
* Build low level buildings - it costs less squalor
* Build high yield - low squalor first (forget the secondary benefits until later)

Money
* You can balance money easier than food if you have to
* Plan several turns ahead to afford what you need to build (minimum 3 turns)
* Upgrade a few cities as required to build future income (but not all of them)
* Build low level buildings - it costs less food or squalor
* Build high yield - low costs first (forget the secondary benefits until later)
* Build 'free' buildings that cost no food or squalor

Order
* Troops give order inside a city
* Map characters can give free order: Generals, Spies, Diplomats, Champions
* Removing tax gives order
* Build high yield religious buildings - low food first (go for high order, high conversion first)
* Build 'free' buildings that cost no food or squalor
* Use order as a resource - bank order early to fill it up and let it run down without hitting minus 100

Research
* Buildings give research bonuses - I never build them
* Cards placed on characters give research bonuses
* Economic research gives more benefits to your whole empire than military research
* When you have more economy you have more armies and they are better
* Female characters are more important than your Generals (this is true for the whole game actually - read my section on civil war and research)

The objective of the early game is to get off to a fast start. If you get 50% ahead of the opposition by turn 5, you will be 100% ahead in 10 turns. Playing Carthage I had most of Iberia by turn 24 on normal or slightly higher settings.

Strategy for a fast start

1. Build your economic base from turn 1 or you will go broke and can't field your armies
2. Make peace treaties and trade agreements asap to secure your flanks
3. Take control of government while 'succession protection' lasts
4. Build your armies from turn 1 and smash the closest minor power - you won't run into upkeep issues as your money is going up faster than your upkeep (for a while at least)
5. Two full stack armies of basic troops will do the job - it is a numbers game to start with, not quality (read my armies section)
6. Always fight 2 on 1 if possible to minimise your losses - avoid sieges unless your next army will arrive next turn
7. Always destroy an army if possible - they rebuild from scratch not replenish
8. Destroy a faction where possible - less opponents in your area equals less armies
9. Be an opportunist - sit on the border and wait for one enemy to take a city of another, next turn you take it off them, then follow up into their home city and wipe them out
10. Use ambush - a) sit just outside a city within support range and hide b) sit an army forward and hide, sit the 'visible' army just behind it - 2 army ambush!
11. City management - build low and broad to avoid costly buildings - balance is key
12. Remember garrisons and use them to kill enemy armies
13. Understand how the AI works and set traps for it
14. Food is a weapon - starvation kills your opponent faster than an army

See the detailed sections below.

Assuming you have read a guide for your chosen empire and decided your strategy on who you will attack first. I go for someone close. With Carthage: attack out of Qart Hadasht and hit Arse. This start works best if you have two separate provinces. If you don't just build fast and light.

Turn 1 Army build: You have 2 armies
* disband the 'startup' mercenaries (too high upkeep - buy troops instead)
* build the cheapest melee and missile troops you can (immediately)
* build in different regions (if you can) and combine the 2 armies
* build up to 20 troops so you can attack with a full stack asap (14 x spears, 6 x missiles)
* send your spy to the other flank to watch for incoming attacks just in case
* position your fleet to same flank as the spy to act as a blocker
* research and get a champion next to army 1 and train (4 turns to research)

Army 1 (in the province you will be attacking from)
* build the lowest cost melee troops (usually levies or spears)
* keep building while you wait for the second army to meet you

Army 2 (in the other province)
* build 6 missile troops (usually javelins)
* run as fast as you can to the other army and combine and redistribute (14 x spears, 6 x missiles, champion)
* leftovers in second army

Result:
* You are building 6 units a turn (if possible) to the AI 3 per turn for the first 2 turns
* Add this to your start troops of about 6 (total 18 troops)
* Add this to what you build while army 2 runs to meet army 1
* you will have one full stack asap (attack if viable, siege if required)
* you will have a partial stack around 10 (support the attack or build at the border)

People forget a city is an army - it just can't move
Garrison management can win you the early game

Early city management
* You need to level up your cities to get more money
* You need to level up your cities to get more building slots to get more money, food and order
* Do it from turn 1 - if you don't you will be broke by turn 10
* Do it with your opening cash to create an income stream
* Upgrade the city on the front line that needs the garrison first, not the safe one in the back of your empire that will never fight - read your building chain - Civil Cities get better garrison (not farming cities)
* Only go to level 2 early game! - exception, I went level 3 on Lilybeaum and Karalis to block Rome (or die)

Garrison management
* The higher the city level the higher the garrison (Civil Cities level 3 get ballista defence)
* Garrison is often better than anything you (or the enemy) can build - i.e you win
* In emergencies (or as a tactic) buildings give extra garrison - read what you get and build it if needed
a) the first military post takes 2 turns (800 dollars) and gives spears and missile for free
b) same for the first training grounds
c) first barracks gives 2 x melee troops
d) level 2 barracks give elites and cavalry
I built this in Karalis (around turn 20) - Garrison was heaps better than my army - I sat an army in ambush (just in the forest) to trigger the fight in front of my city within support range and had about eight Rome armies walk into it over many turns and wiped them every time. Always release the hostages - gets the most money.

What to build early
After the level up of the city build as required:
* First temple - give order and conversion to province
* Food - only level 1 - high yield low squalor
* Money - only level 1 - high yield low downside
* Only build advanced training stuff in one city (province) - train all your armies here and run them out to fight - you only need the basic troops early and reply on numbers and stuff you can recruit anywhere

How I control civil war:
Marriage and children. Get everyone married asap. For girls, the husband is an instant free loyal General. Give the men the Barbarian Mistress for +5 chance of kids (if available to your empire). Then breed. Pass the mistress around when she has 'done her job', to help the next man. By turn 100, I have 25 or 30 family with 10 loyal generals. Too easy. Just block other adoptions and do some yourself. They need gravitas 20 to marry so just promote them (male or female) and give them 'plus 1 gravitas' cards and marry them asap.

Expect a whole province to go succession:
A some point in the mid game even if you own the whole government 85% a whole province will go rogue. Plan for it. You will have about 6 to 8 armies, so keep one or two full stack armies with your loyal general in ambush stance at a key choke point at the intersection of two provinces. Station a diplomat near the key city to watch. The rebel army will spawn. It will either rush out to attack through the ambush point and die or sit back and grow more armies. So ambush and kill or rush the city and kill. The diplomat can see what force they have for you. Took me 3 or 4 turns to squash the rebellion.

I can expand on this in detail later if anyone wants know.

Setting up for massive research bonus
Everyone thinks the way to get high research is via buildings. Yes. That will work at some point, but costs you the opportunity to build something else like food or income producing buildings. I never build research bonus buildings. I get massive research bonus through the female characters in my faction. The bonus from characters plus passive bonuses from city capitals is all you need.

Characters are the key to research bonuses
If you use my strategy to control Civil War you will have lots of characters in your government faction. The integrated research strategy now comes into play.

For every female character:
* give her a card that has 'faction wide research bonus'
* check if anyone dies and place cards on the new females you bring into our faction
* every time a male gets married - go to the new wife and place cards on her immediately
* every time a daughter 'comes of age', go and give her cards
* not enough females in your faction, adopt one then marry her off

Early game this will be only 1% - don't ignore this - 3 cards on 3 females give 3%
If you are luck and get a 5% one early this can be 8% bonus really early in the game

Mid game the 5% cards start to appear - swap them out - 5 cards on 5 females give 25%

What to research
At the start you want get a Champion asap. This will take 4 turns. Two turns to open the tree and 2 turns for the one that gives the Champion.

What next?
Everyone wants to research military to get an advantage over the opposition.
If you recognise that Rome 2 is a resource management game that uses battles to win, then Economics is more powerful to research, not military. Only get military early to get something you really need, like faster movement or unlock something worth getting that will transform your entire empire.

Economics beats Military - Why?
a) 3% bonus to a sword or spear attack is worth less than the economic ability to support 2 or 3 extra units in an army
b) the ability to pay for 1 more army on the map is better than your existing army having 5% better fighting skills
c) you get enough military bonus from the cards you put on your General in the character screen.
You can research 5% armour bonus, 5% attack for spears or swords. Sure it only counts for that army, but early game you only have 2 or 3 so who cares.
d) Speed and manoeuvrability beats 5% better fighting skills - if your army is too slow on the map and does not get to the fight in time, who cares how good they are - you just lost an important battle
e) Completing groups to get the free bonus can help you win - 3 free food early game can allow you to build one more building or upgrade that can give you 1 more whole army 5 turns from now
f) When you build economy you can get better buildings which give you more research - so when you do research Military you will get it in half the time because you have twice the research

Cities
Do not specialise - if you do and lose that city (province) - game over

Spread food, order, money buildings across your provinces.

One exception - make one province your army builder province - Only build the minimum building to get the troops you need and build them all here.

Armies
Every race has the basic troops that can win you the early game. This is fine until you run into some one that has much better basic troops. I am not going into missile horses here, that is covered by other in their guides. (In other games I handled them by buying archers with a greater range that hide behind my melee guys)

The problem troops are the Hastati and others that are dual missile / melee. Your basic spears will start to die. So adapt or die. Look into your roster and you will find the next level troops that can cover these guys. Not the elite spear, too expensive. The just a little more expensive guys - you will see who I mean. Build the required building and convert your javelins to them or whatever is needed. For Carthage it is Lybian Peltasts - basically weak Hastati. Not the Carth Hoplites!

Identify the minor power that has these problem troop type and prioritise them for elimination. Just get them off the map asap. You should go for eliminating whole factions to reduce the number of armies and variable asap. I will give up my best city to do this, knowing I can take it back off the lowlife that back stabbed me later. But I don't want to face 'this guy with the problem troops' ever again.

Raising Armies
In the early game one or two general will be doing all the fighting. They will go up in level really quickly.

Starvation - food as a weapon
Use the spy ability 'Steal Food' to starve out opponents. Go to the city you want to attack and steal food. Every time you get a promotion give it to steal food. Buy a second spy and do it in the same spot.

Example: Playing Athens. Epirus starts with Elephants and some other good troops. I killed them and took Larissa by about turn 4 or 5 using the basic Hotplites you start with. After 3 turns of starvation they were 80% dead and a walk over and so was the city. Grabbed Apollonia soon after, dead Epirus by turn 10.

High level army fast build
I worked out how to field huge full stack high exp armies very quickly. This version can be accelerated mid game with getting extra recruitment slots due to buildings. Best I have achieved is 8 troops per turn.

1. Put a Champion with each army to train them
2. All Champion promotions are for training
3. Don't use any promotions on one of your Generals after the first until they reach level 4
4. Use every promotion to raise melee recruit levels - get to max 3 or 4
5. Replace him and put him into your 'raise army' province and build a full stack exp 4 army of the troops you want (around turn 20 sometimes)
6. Send the old army back to pick up the new troops and disband / swap out as required
7. Or raise new army next to 'training general' - to taxi troops to the front line army
8. Bingo - new army of high level exp troops for no effort right on the front line

By turn 50 I was raising full stack armies of Carth Hoplites exp level 7 in 3 or 4 turns. Also had armour and weapon bonus (from captured iron city).

Mercenaries
There is a pretty obvious trick with mercenaries when attacking cities. Just before you attack, hire them. Resolve the attack and take the city. Disband them immediately so you don't have to pay the really expensive upkeep next turn. This works best in the early game when you really cannot afford the upkeep, but can work anytime you just need the extra edge in a fight.