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conscript your population. They hate it. Anyway, this type of unit WILL
drop like flies. This type of unit don't do anything. They don't rout your
enemies because the fighting terrain or land is too crowded anyway. Only
you can conscript this type of unit.

Slingers-These just suck. The projectiles they fire have a very limited
range and they don't do real damage like the bowmen and the horesebowmen
does. They are expensive too. They are more expensive than heavy infantry
and less expensive than auxilaries. Also, they are plebs. How good can a
pleb throw stones anyway? How much denarii do you have to spend to support
a pleb slinger army? If you spend 3 denarii, you raise about 5 plebs. That
ratio is not very inviting. Just don't train the plebs to be slingers.

That is about it for the units. If you encounter any new units like units
from present day turkey, the northern provinces (i.e., the 8 hard ones on the
hard level) and North Africa, please send me a message in the gamers' forum
or via mail. My Id# is indicated at the end of this guide.

8:What To Do When You Receive A Promotion

When you receive a promotion, don't take it unless you have about 10,000
denarii stored up in your personal treasury. If you don't have the funds,
just review in another 10 years. Start increasing your income so that the
expenses and the revenue (or taxes) are equal to each other. When you do
have the funds, just move to the province east of Illycrum (in the file,
casear2.txt, I recommended the province, Illycrum to start your city) and
so on and so on until you win the game.

9:If You Want To Ask Me Something

If you have any suggestions, questions or comments, send me a message in the
gamers' forum or send me a mail message. I go to the gamers' forum daily.
Usually, I go to the forum at about 9-10:00 p.m. Pacific time everyday. My
Id# is 75277,3173. My name is Mr. Boboli (nickname, though). If you have
questions about any RPG game like Thunderscape, Star Trail, Blade Of Destiny,
Star Trail, TES:Arena, Lands Of Lore, Darksun, Ultima VII part 1 and 2,
Menzoberrazan, Dragonlore, Might And Magic:Darkside Of Xeen, Magic
Candle III, Bloodstone, Ravenloft:Strahd's Possesion and Ultima VIII, just
ask me. I think I have played many other games, but I forgot their names.
Just ask me and chances are, I have played the game. Also, if you want, ask
me about any 'money' simulation game or construction sim. I love those
games and chances are (again), I have played them. Also, games that involve
empire building like Civilization is known to me. Again, don't hesitate to
ask. I'll answer your messages or mail promptly. I'm Mr. Boboli in the
gamers' forum and James Wang just about anywhere else outside that forum.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this guide. For one thing, I know I have
enjoyed writing this guide.
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Comments on the Strategy Guide by Sorin Cristescu (cristesc@horus.ens.fr)

I was very pleased to see someone posted a guide to Caesar 2 and enjoyed
reading it. However, after conquering about 13 provinces (beginner : 4 and
normal : 9) I found I disagree with you on many topics.

[...]
>2:A 'Perfect' City

First of all, I don't think there is a "perfect city". Anyway, I hope it isn't.
I found there was a way to build a very thriving city and win easily within
about 20 years most of the time on normal level. Then, as the difficulty
increased, "culture" rating was getting more and more difficult to match and I
was beginning to alter my first vue of an ideal city so as to reduce housing
and fit more and more entertainment and religion. However, this is expensive
and I can afford it only because I spared from previuos levels. So what I mean
is noone should bother to build the "perfect city" on every level. If you build
always the same city, the game gets REALLY boring. Actually I was happy to find
there was more challenge as the throne came closer. I cannot succeed anymore
with the old city schema.
First of all, when playing, I also wnat to get a grip of the atmosphere, to
feel like living in that epoch. What I mean is I won't build a city where all
roads are replaced by plazzas. It's unrealistic, it's like playing the game in
a contest and trying to get the most out of everything at any price. This
"most" isn't needed at normal level. I feel doing this (replacing all roads by
plazzas) is like using the settlers cheat in Civ. And yes, I got 64 land value
when I wanted it, by building normally, with roads, no with plazzas (I put
plazzas only at crossings). Then use to build a lot more temples and to put
only as many fountains as are needed (a fountain has a 6 squares radius).
Markets and praefectures limit land value only two squares away so on the third
square I put housing since building them too far away has a major drawback :
they aren't as effective, less people benefit from market access and security
respectively. I agree a high security level is good (I build internal security
only, I heven't needed more yet, I've only built walls once in order to see
what palaces look like. But you can still earn lots of money without palaces.
I agree industries are a problem since they limit land value 4 squares from
them. On the other hand, workers (little walker factories produce) recruit
other workers in the next land square and they have a limited life span. If you
put housing too far away, your industry won't get enough workers to run at full
capacity. So I accepted "low value" zones, popular zones near industries, where
workers live. These zones are also near praefectures since rebellion level
tends to be higher. I mention though that I never had a single rebellion while
playing on normal level. I only had rebellions while playing on beginner,
because of lack of skill (mine). The clue to not having rebellions : 0%
conscription, 4%land tax and high security, generally good city services (even
the poorest housing in my towns have water, baths, grammaticus and entert.
level >=1).
I never (almost) build barracks. If you have no walls (I don't build them
either, they are useless; I only build them when I want everything to be nice,
for my aesthetic need), barracks are as good as praefectures, only more
expensive and more difficult to place since they require more place and badly
affect more land.

The largest expedinture ISN'T my army. I submit local tribes early on and
afterwards I reduce military spending to about 10 (first provinces)- 25 Dn per
month whilst I can spend up to 80-100 Dn per month in plebe and up to 250 Dn
per month on myself ...:-). I use mostly heavy infantry, with a slinger
centuria (60 people). This slingers aren't really indispensable but I think
they add a little to my force : they lower a bit other's moral. And besides, as
they can be trained really fast, I don't pay them full time : If I have say 90
plebe working on the province level (say a farm, a mine, a career) one month
before the combat i let 30 working and train 60 as slingers. They return to
their work afterwards. As i always have large stocks of supplies from my
province industries, this "intermezzo" doesn't affect me.
What are your favourite combat tactics ? What are your proudest wins ?
After trying a few tactics, I saw the defensive one worked best for me : I put
my men on one side of the map (the furthest possible from jet-arms unit of
enemy), organised as turtles, turtles forming a triangle (you need at least
three turtles) and with a line or column of slingers inside the triangle,
protected by the infantry. Then I wait. Every enemy I encountered ends up by
attacking my turtles in melee combat (I feared that archers would stop at a
distance and start "raining hell" on my footmen, but they stupidly charged !
This was the first time. Since then, every jet-arm unit I encountered did the
same !). Using this tactic I have nearly three times less casualties than my
ennemy when starting with approximatively the same force. While not trying to
establish a record, I was able to beat 600 greeks with only 500 men (you must
know greeks aren't a weak ennemy) and I won a battle with 240 men against 420
(these were from Galia- present day France, if I remember well) !

>5:Raising An Army
>
>Only raise an army when the 2nd year pass on normal level or 3rd year on
>easy or novice level.

I raise an army on the first year. I can testimony it does no harm (it isn't a
big army, though) - normal level.

>Build one fort and raise only one cohort. You don't need two.

I generally agree with this, but when you have enough money and you can afford
it, in the last two or three missions before becoming an emperor and if the
terrain is difficult (like Britannia - present day England+Wales) - you may
build two forts to avoid pillage of your province when you cannot be in time
where it is needed.

>Slowly raise
>your army to about 600-700 legionaires (heavy infantry...).

One rarely needs that many soldiers (normal level, again). Most of the time
210-240 heavy inf would do. Supplement with 60-120 slingers trained at the last
moment and taken from the province level. With this army, if you start with
weak tribes and build up your morale (most important !) you can pacify all your
tribes (add some auxiliares for strong and prosperous tribes).

>When you receive a promotion, don't take it unless you have about 10,000
>denarii stored up in your personal treasury.

I don't agree with this either. I want to get promoted as quickly as possible,
in order to experience more provinces the same evening of play :-). You
definitely that much money the first 6 or 7 promotions, 2000-4000 will do the
job. Later on you can control your promotion time very accurately by looking at
the oracle. I simply build up every rating and let culture as the last one, a
few percents under the required threshold and when I consider I accumulated
enough money I just pile up a few more temples or circuses, etc. Ten years is a
lot of minutes even on speed 10

>have the funds, just move to the province east of Illycrum (in the file,
>casear2.txt, I recommended the province, Illycrum to start your city) and
>so on and so on until you win the game.

I think you meant Illyria. It's a good province to start, east to it is
Macedonia, I think. Haven't tried it yet. I found Sardinia is an easy province,
too.

Do you think of assembling an FAQ for this game ?

--
Sorin Cristescu (cristesc@horus.ens.fr)