This game rocks...
I put together a quick list of tips that I got from all those forums:
Battle Deployment
You can move your men around before a battle! (dumbass)
I think this is common sense, but ALWAYS click-drag any unit of non-spearmen troops as long as possible in the deployment menu. This will increase the surface area of impact and damage to the enemy troops, and it's especially important with calvaries. HOWEVER, if the enemy troops are superior to yours, you should always try to make the formation as "deep" as possible so they can hold out longer.
Agents!
Right click on the Agent tab in the control panel and you'll be able to see all your agents, their attributes, and their locations.
Towers
Build them... (on your borders to see oncoming troops)
Face the right direction!
The way to which an army is facing in the campaign map is important. It will always be manifested in battles. If you attack an army from it's back in the campaign map, in the battle you will be at his rear. Cool, huh? :cool
Charge, don't throw?
Click on Alt to let your legionaries charge without first throwing their javelins.
Big Three Cities
1. Pick your three biggest cities to be war factories.(usually capital and two others)
2. Assign each a task of either Infantry, Cavalry, or Missile units. (All other cities trade while producing ships and agents)
Which buildings to build?
When you construct new buildings, before you click on them to place them in the construction queue, open the Settlement Details Scroll. Once you place the new building in the queue, you will be able to see the changes in form of "grayed-out" icons.
I use it all the time. It helps me determine which buildings will help me the most in a given situation.
Peasants / Squalor
You can create peasants from one city, send the peasants to another city, and then disband them. The peasants will be AUTOMATICALLY added to your latter city as population. So you actually dont' have to enslave a city to increase the population of other cities.
Now, this is an extremely effective way of fighting squalor. You basically create peasants in cities that have lots of squalor, and then transport and disband them in cities that need a pop. increase. Nice, huh?
Right click!
I hope people are smart enough to realize that you can also right-click on all the four tabs to bring up information associated with each category--Army, Agents, Cities, Fleet.
Change Capital
Changing capitals doesnt cost you anything to do, and doesnt give any negatives.
It just changes the centre point of your empire,
If you want to 'spawn' your comming of age general, or senate reward units, or marriage general, just before it happens switch capital to where u want, as soon as its done switch it back. Nice and easy.
Starve out Cities
How long the enemy city can hold against your besieging until starvation is determined not by the city population or city size but the level of its city WALL. The stronger the wall is, the longer a city can self-sustained. So normally if you want to do mutiple city conquest and don't want to waste your troops, just pick cities defended by crappy walls and starve them to death.
Available Siege Equip
The kind of seige weapons you can use depend on the size of the enemy city. So don't whine next time when you can't use a seige tower against a town.
Grouping - Formation
Once you have set up *whatever* formation you want, select *all* the units involved and 'group' them (one of the buttons on the control panel, or press 'G'). Once they are grouped, they will maintain whatever formation you set them up in (if you continue to move them as a group). DO NOT group them until they are in the formation you want.
Holding Alt key while clicking on the destination point seems to make them stay in their current formation.
War Dogs!
1: War Dogs are your best friend.
- They are cheap but effective flankers.
- They are very effective against infantry, but against missile units they are devastating because their speed and size make them very hard targets to hit.
- When attacking with the Dogs, make sure you don't let the handlers get into combat. Once the dogs are loose, send the handlers behind your lines.
- 2 units of War Dogs will usually deal effectively with even the strongest enemy units. If they don't kill them off, they will rout them and chase them right off the map.
3. wardogs regenerate after each battle.
4. Make sure the handlers stay back, after the dogs attack
5. Easiest way to lift any seige even if the enemy as out of your archers range (as you don't need them ) place a few packs of wardogs in your cities, when ever it gets seiged sally forth and launch your dogs make sure to get the trainers back inside, once all dogs are dead end the battle, then sally forth again (since you can do it as long as you have move points) and since dogs recharge after everybattle you simply let them out again... and again... and again and eventually you will kill the entire army lifting the seige dealing a blow to your enemies... nice and easy lemon sqeezy
To see Generals
Right Click on a General to see his stats, then Right click on the Army Tab to bring up all the Generals. Now left click on your other Generals to see their stats aswell.
Plagued SPies!
when there's a plagued city present, send your spies in to get them infected with the plague, then those spies becomes the carriers which u can send out to spray the plague in other cities
Reinforcements
You can only command 20 units. So if you have 18 units yourself and you have 5 units of reinforcements, you can only control 2 of those 5 until one of your units die or rout, then you can control more of the reinforcements but never more than 20 in total.
If your reinforcements are commanded by a general, you'll never be able to control them and they will engage in combat by themselves (under the command of the general).
Make sure you always attack with a general and never with a captain if you have the choice.
Bribe Generals and Governors!
You can send out diplomats to foreign lands, when they see a general from another faction make them talk to them and offer them a bribe.
Get rid of useless troops
I just got done switching my backwater settlments' garrisons to all town watch, retiring old units of hastatii, archers, equites, etc. I figured it is now saving me 2,000 denarii per turn! 2 turns was enough to recoup my investment. I would have saved even more by going to peasants, but just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Fight with Generals!
Under no circumstances should you fight with just a captain at the head of your army, unless you are sure of victory or you are simply stalling the enemy.
True, you may get to adopt a good captain on rare occasions, but this is...well, rare. The advantages of having a general with even one star are huge.
Bribing is Cheaper than Training
If you bribe enemy Armies and they want to join you they cost normally half as much gold as when you are training them on your own.
Free Look
There is a free look mode in the game which allows you to look in any direction (up/down/left/right) in a battle using your mouse pretty much like you would in and FPS ... invaluable in hillier terrain. I think it's mapped to something wierd like 'ins-shift' by default. Hit 'F1' and reassign it to something more accessable such as '¬' or '\' and use it!8)
Manage all your Provinces without the help of any Ai-Governours:
First use the City-Overview Screen (rightclick on the City Panel on Campaign-Screen).
Second sort them after unrest/order (don't know how the english term is in the game, I'am playing the german version)
ascending by clicking on the header of the column.
Now you have all Cities with which tend to revolt (order (always remember raise the temple in conquered Cities and build your own...), or just lower the taxes if possible.
Now you take a look at all Cities with a order >=130% and raise the taxes.
With this tactic you can easily keep your province stable...I suffer only once every years a minor revolt (but I'am not thrown out of town)...
Spys and Bacchus Temple
Spys left in cities with a temple of Bacchus will quickly find lovely company, and it will well be worth it in terms of their career...