Rome Total War Babarian Invasion

 I finally got BI today *my birthday*  and it runs smoothly with the recently added upgrades to my pc .

 First impressions are very good, still got a few niggling problems that RTW had but the new additions and infinitely faster tempo of the game make it hard to notice the cracks. Also the tedioum of having to build EVERYTHING is no longer there with the Roman factions anyway as you are already highly advanced. The unit roster looks abit limited but im sure the RTR team will remedy that soon enough.

 My very first campaign is with the ERE on H/H and after about 30 years its good and bad, but plenty of fun

^^ Thats a shame

 I've given up on the ERE it was getting to messy  instead i've been trying to prop up the decaying WRE which has been much more fun, I've survived 25 years so far I deserve a medal!  I've only lost territory in North Africa and in Dalmatia and i've amazed myself in how somehow I am not bankrupt .

 So much more of an interesting challenge playing the western empire.

 With the WRE you shouldnt lose any territory except to the Western Roman rebels.

 Your first turns should be the destruction of all pagan religious buildings in cities which are safe enough to do this in, in cities where its to dangerous leave the pagan buildings but get rid of them SOON. Move pagan generals to pagan cities and christians to christian settlements to improve loyalty slightly, but you must sort out paganism soon.

 Lower tax to as low as you can without losing thousands of denarii a turn for abit (loyalty purposes), your aiming for blue faces overall, in cities where you can risk putting taxes up do it without inciting a riot or revolt.

 Purge the army, you cant sustain the army this big, so you need to get the cost of the army down to around 28,000 - 30,000 Denarii a turn, so get rid of most of your cavalry units and foederati infantry they cost to much to sustain. Get rid of much of the fleet except a couple of ships around sicily and gibraltor and sell most military buildings throughout the empire EXCEPT in key locations like Rome, and central Gaul and Carthage. Despite these purges you should still have a decent sized field army in Gaul mass it together and invade the Alemanni you can destroy this faction by taking its single settlement, gets rid of a major threat VERY quickly.

 You should probably withdraw from any conquered territory right away  as itll just drain troops and money. Just make sure you destroy all useful buildings and leave a christian church. You should be aiming at raiding, besieging, storming, exterminating, and then withdrawing. You WANT the western roman rebels to take over these abandoned settlement for 2 reasons, 1 they wont be much of a threat since they will have only low grade troops and 2, they will act as a buffer state to all barbarian invaders. They are invaluable as a buffer.

 You will almost definately suffer a rebellion within 3 or 4 turns in my experience, you'll probably lose territory in Africa and the Balkans which isnt to bad as these territories are difficult to hold anyway. Also its possible you'll lose territory in Spain and Gaul. IF this happens it should be ok because you destroyed military buildings so the rebel armies will be almost entirely made up of peasants.

 Besiege these rebel cities which are most important and take them and exterminate the population, you can make a fortune off doing this, if things get tough money-wise allow a city to rebel then retake it and exterminate them.

 Try your best to make alliances anywhere you can, try your best to keep an eye on the Rhine frontier you have to have a constant presence there as strong an army as you can because the Franks and Saxons WILL be a problem. I suggest withdrawing from Britain, (a mod im using has it so you dont start off with Britain and it belongs to the Romano-British) so you dont really need Britain as I didnt have it and survived happily.

 Assuming all this happens within 5 or 6 turns your going to be very busy, aslong as the rebellion isnt to big and you DONT have disloyal generals in charge of major armies then you should survive.  You should try breaking enemies in sieges, get archers on the walls and wear the enemy down, if you meet them on the field and lose youll be unlikely to be able to replace that army.

 Economically you'll be in trouble for awhile, just remember to exterminate cities to boost your economy, with surplus funds build trade and farming, ports etc, basic infrastructure and retrain troops.

 Hope that helps.

Hey heraclius isn't pagan is much better than christanity for the Western Romans? Most of their lands are pagan and if u can religion they will rebel and causes such a mess.

I'm thinking of buying it, perhaps even today. I have an IBM laptop (T43)

RAM: 1Gb, CPU: 1.8 Ghz. You think it will run smoothly. I'm not sure what my graphics card is but I don't think it's any good... it's only 64mb. comments are more than welcomed...

I am waging a campaign of terror in Europe.  I have taken all of the middle East, Egypt and the caucasus and turned them all into zaroastrians and have sent five sooped up armies into europe, taking cities, replenishing my forces, then destroying every building and leaving to the next place.