Tips for New Players

By Magog

 

After playing a few games as a newbie, and seeing the mistakes that other newbies frequently make, I thought it would be helpful to provide a list of key things for new players to remember.

 

Protect your King

 

Quite often a new player will rush into combat with his King, only to have him killed and suffer a big loss in influence and leadership as a result. This can be a crippling situation for an inexperienced player. Your King is certainly a strong military leader, and for an advanced player can be a tremendous asset. However, for a starting player I strongly recommend leaving your King safely in his capital for your first game. After you gain some experience in Fall of Rome and understand the mechanics of battle better, you can experiment with using your King as a military leader.

 

Only fight battles you know you can win

 

One of the most common mistakes for a new player is to initiate an attack on a population center or enemy legion without sufficient strength to win. When attacking a population center, if your legion’s value vs. population center is not at least as high as the population center’s defense, do not even attempt the attack. Preferably, you should have at least twice the defense of the population center, or more. It is not so easy to plan legion vs. legion combat. If an enemy legion lands on top of you unexpectedly, you may have to fight, whether you want to or not. Therefore, it is a good idea to keep your military consolidated unless you feel quite certain you will not be under attack. Be wary of separating your starting brigades into multiple groups, or separating your high ranking leaders to go after an unusual sighting.

 

Use your nobles wisely

 

Another thing that new players do is not send enough nobles to an enemy population center when attempting to Usurp Control, or fail to consider using an Incite Rebellion instead of a Usurp Control. While this is not a disastrous mistake, it does waste resources and orders.Keep in mind that a controlled population center is twice as hard to take over as a neutral population center. For this reason, while a Baron can easily Usurp Control of a neutral village, he will likely fail to Usurp Control of a controlled village in an enemy region. The solution is to send multiple nobles. If you send two Barons to that same controlled population center, they could likely take control if one issued an Incite Rebellion order and the other attempted to Usurp Control. The Incite Rebellion order executes first, and if it is successful, the following Usurp Control order will be much more likely to succeed, as the population center is no longer controlled! For this reason, issuing an Incite Rebellion order followed by a Usurp Control order is a much more effective way to take control of an enemy population center, as opposed to a Stir Unrest followed by a Usurp Control. Lastly, keep in mind that two nobles might not always be enough. You may need to send additional nobles to Stir Unrest, or to account for the possibility of one of them being poisoned.

 

Don’t get agents killed on futile missions

 

Starting agents are weak. Sending them on difficult missions to assassinate enemy characters is risky, if not outright suicidal, and I have seen many inexperience players lose agents in this manner. Stick to training them, or if you must assassinate someone, target weaker characters, such as low ranking leaders or nobles. Once your agents advance to level 10 or higher you can attempt more difficult targets. And, when you do send agents on a mission, make sure you use enough of them to succeed. If you want to assassinate an enemy character, it is best to use three agents. The first agent should do a Diversion order to increase the other agent’s chances of success, the second agent should Poison the target, as this weakens the target and makes him more susceptible to assassination. Then the third agent can issue an Assassinate order to finish off the target.

 

I hope these tips help make your first Fall of Rome game more enjoyable!