Province Tips

Starting Off

Here are some tips that deal with development of a province at earlier stages of the game:

The recommended province to start any game with is Illyricum. This province is quite peaceful, has plenty of resources, offers much room for provincial development and has loyal people. My second choice would be Corsica and Sardinia: it too is easy to manage, but is very small compared to the others.

You will usually start off with building your city, and then proceeding with developing your province. This method will prove to be logical once you start building at a low budget (At harder levels of difficulty). When beginning to develop your province, I recommend that you do things in the following order:

1. Connect your city to the nearest town(s)
2. If a border town is near, connect your city to there as well.
3. Beside the town, build a trading post, and as many warehouses as possible (Or as many as your budget permits you to build.)
4. Build a port if possible. Make sure to build it so that it will be able to “Catch” ships that come in from other provinces or trading routes. If your budget permits, build a shipyard. Don’t forget to build warehouses to store trade goods.
5. Build a cohort fort somewhere near your city
6. If your province has very many tribes, than build a wall around your city, leaving out a space for a road to connect your city other towns and structures.
7. Build some farms, mines or quarries if you wish (and if you can!).

Campaign games are harder than city-only games. Don’t try to fool yourself by thinking that you’ll be just as good playing at the “Normal” difficulty level in campaign games as in the “Normal” difficulty level in a city-only game.

Trade & Industry

• Usually you won’t need to build farms, mines or quarries. They are expensive to maintain because they must use large quantities of plebs to function properly. You can be quite profitable simply by building ports and trading posts.
• If you choose to or have to build farms, mines or quarries, than you just need to satisfy their pleb requirements by slightly more than two thirds. Production will be high enough to supply one or two industries at the city level.
• Refuse the “Build Warehouse?” offer when constructing industries. Build external warehouses instead. This method will get goods to your city faster.
• Build all industries far away from tribes. Attacking tribesmen try to destroy everything between them and your city. Later, when the tribes are conquered, you may safely develop the surrounding areas.
• Don’t Forget: A gate can cut off access between your city and provincial towns! I’ve seen this error made in city depository cities.

Province Defense

• Placing buildings in front of an army will not slow the attackers. Invading parties will just demolish them. Placing them as “bait” will not work either, as invaders go straight to cities.
• If a certain army is heading straight towards your capital city (No structures/other cities in the way), than consider letting the invader enter the city. This will lower your ratings for a while, but it’ll save your whole army for a more threatening attack. Once the invading party enters your city, they become as harmful as a rioter (Point: Easy to eliminate).
• Note in the picture above the problem that one can encounter. The attackers are going to destroy a building, and then head for the capital city. That’s bad. Since one of your buildings will be destroyed anyway, place your army between the city and the structure instead of waiting on the shore like this.
• When you have two armies attacking your province, you should attack the smaller army because it will cost you less men compared to the larger army and it will boost the morale rate to a higher level. You should let the larger army hut your city because the army is equal to a rioting force. –Anonymous
• If a strong invading army is heading for a provincial town, do not stop them. After the town has been captured, you will find that the invading army has turned into a much weaker local tribe. The town can easily be captured.
• Province Walls can be built unconnected to a Cohort fort if 2+ sections are created by dragging. -Robert Bognar
• On the provincial level first build a cohort and roads to your barbarian tribes. Then from the forum assign 60-200 plebians to army duty and 400 heavy infantry. When this cohort is all hired and trained, hire all your auxiliaries and wipe your tribes out. After your tribes are gone fire your auxiliaries and plebians -Anonymous

1 Comment »

1. on the contrary, building farms mines and such add to your rating score. the gains outweigh the losses.

   Comment by Igor — July 15, 2008 @ 12:32 am

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