Rome: Total Quiz

Answer: Seleucids

The Seleucids were one of the factions that split off when Alexander's empire had dissolved after his death. They were extremely powerful in their hayday, but declined slowly due to inept leadership.

The Armoured Elephant is probably the strongest unit in the game. It takes three turns to train one set of these massive, armoured beasts. Practically nothing can stand in their way, except Phalanxes and siege equipment, but if several units of elephants charge at the same time, they are all but unstoppable.

Answer: Sardinia

Caralis sits on the southern end of Sardinia. as it is quite close to Italy, a swift naval journey can get your forces out there quite early. It usually goes unchallenged for some time, although you must be careful not to get attacked and sunk by pirates on the way.

Unfortunately, such remote island settlements grow very slowly, and offer little strategic advantage except as a naval base.

Answer: Defense Skill

A unit's overall defense rating is a general guideline to the defensive strength of the men, but a good commander looks at each trait individually, because each is useful for different purposes. Basic armour helps against any sort of damage, which is why upgrading the unit at a blacksmith is always useful. Defensive skill is only useful when fighting in melee, and shields only help when a unit is "ready" with its shield up, anticipating an enemy charge or missile attack.

Therefore, units with no shield but high defense skill may have a high "overall" defense rating, but should be kept out of enemy archer range at all costs! Their high skill won't save them from a volley of arrows! Conversely, units with large shields but bad defense skill should not be charged into close combat, they should instead be put in "guard" mode and wait for the enemy to come to them.

Answer: Swordsmen. There aren't many of them, but they can handle any of the enemy units.

As any Roman general knows, a heavily-armoured swordsman is an extremely useful unit. A single unit of experienced Legionaries can survive very well against all sorts of enemy units. In this question, cavalry and elephants would quickly die on the phalanx' spears even if they charged from behind (phalanxes can turn around surprisingly quickly when attacked), and archers would get mowed down one by one by the enemy's light cavalry.

Heavy Swordsmen, however, are armoured well enough to withstand archer volleys and light-cavalry charges, and they can effectively combat phalanxes as well, if used properly. Swordsmen are very weak against elephants and siege equipment however, and against heavy cavalry they will suffer considerable losses or even rout.

Answer: True

Roman roads were a marvel of the ancient world. They provided cheap and efficient travel throughout the massive empire. The roads were built so well, and were such an amazing feat of engineering, that they were still in use during the middle ages (and still considered the best available routes!). Personally, I tend to build roads before anything else. Quick movement is extremely important in this game, and roman roads make movement over large distances much more expedient. Some factions cannot even build paved roads, but in some cases (like the Scythians) their units move so quickly that it doesn't matter so much.

Answer: Spy

Spies are quite important, and serve several purposes which come in handy. The first is naturally for revealing land outside your borders so that you can anticipate enemy movement. The second is their ability to see the traits of enemy generals, so you can know whom to assassinate or to avoid, and whom to bribe into joining your side.

The last ability is probably the most wrongly underestimated - spies can enter enemy cities and provide a certain chance to open the gates if you attack that city. You can place several spies into an enemy city, and increase the chance of opening the gates to 100%, meaning that no siege equipment is necessary.

This saves a LOT of time in sieges, and means you don't have to lug those slow catapults around. Also, some people miss this part - you can move retainers from one character to another.

This is best used with your generals - a general who goes off to war does not need retainers which increase tax collection - these can be handed off to a governor where they can help out! To do this, place two generals in the same army, and drag the retainer from one general's info screen onto the other general's portait in the unit bar.

Answer: True

Not all traits, but some traits are likely (though never guaranteed) to be passed on to children. This means that careful consideration of candidates for marriage can be profitable, as it increases the likelihood of talented generals being born into the family.

This isn't always true though, for instance, a complete drunkard's children are actually likely to grow up sober (they see their father's condition and learn the right lesson from it...). On the whole, however, a really rotten character is often better kept far away from your cities to reduce the chance of them procreating. Sending them off to fight somewhere can be useful, or even to get themselves killed.

They can also be used for Biological Warfare (see below).

Answer: Biological Warfare

Indeed, because "Rome: Total War" features plagues that actually spread, biological warfare is a viable strategy. Cities can randomly become plagued, especially when there are many people crowding the city and its health rating is too low. In such circumstances, the plague persists for several turns, killing civilians and local garrisons. To effectively fight the plague, you are advised to keep the city quarantined, meaning don't move troops in and don't remove them, as they can spread the plague.

However, this can actually be used to your advantage - plagued soldiers can go off to siege enemy towns, even if you don't have the force to take the city, the proximity of your plagued troops can spread the plague to the enemy. The best method is to send a low-level spy to your plagued city, wait until he catches the disease, and then send him into enemy cities, spreading the plague to them one by one. Keep moving the spy about, plaguing the enemy repeatedly.

The spy may eventually die from this, but so will many of the enemy's men and civilians.

Answer: Faster build time for high-end structures

The wonders are scattered about, although most are in and around Greece. The mausoleum is particularly useful for Rome, as it is one of the only factions which can construct high-end buildings (those that take six turns to complete). Other factions, like Gaul, do not benefit from this wonder at all.
The Statue of Zeus wonder, also in Greece, is of major strategic importance, as it gives a flat increase to loyalty in every city. Extremely useful for any empire that grows so large that its outlying settlements begin to riot.

Answer: False

Definitely false! The only part of the game which really balances against larger unit scales is the amount of troops you need to keep in a city to gain proper garrison order bonuses. There are about a dozen different things that do not scale up (or down) when a different unit scale is selected. For instance, city populations still grow at the same rate, and the minimum is unchanged, so it becomes harder to recruit large armies (you tend to run out of available recruits!). Also, it becomes much more viable to transport peasants from a large city to a small one and disband them there to make that smaller city grow (as there are more peasants in each unit you recruit).

There are a TON of things influenced in tactical combat too. For instance, siege weapons become much less useful against "small" unit scales, as they are more likely to completely miss a unit of thirteen horses (the max size for horse-units in the "SMALL" unit scale) than partially hit a unit of 108 horses (the max size of a horse unit in the "HUGE" scale). Also, during sieges, the smaller your units are, the faster they can pass through the enemy gates, which makes a big difference. And of course, a large army on HUGE scale can stretch across the entire battlefield, using both sides of the map as impassable flanks... And there are several other effects as well.