Most of the wonders have a passive bonus effect if one captures the settlement it is located in.

I don't know if they are all portrayed on both the strategy map or the actual battlefield, but I quickly found Stonehinge and Hadrian's wall both on the strategy map and the battlefield since they are the only two in England. . There are a few--- like Hadrian's wall have no game bonus effects at all, but are still called wonders.

By messing around with the custom battle generator and choosing a land battle, I was able to bring up a battle map for both Stonehinge and Hadrian's wall. I think both were outside the playing area, but you could see them. One would just have to get lucky to actually have a battle near by in the campaign.


Anyway below is a screen shot of Stonehinge. Next is a list of the particular wonders and what their bonuses are--if they get one. Lastly is a strategy style map with all of the locations marked.

Here's Stonehinge on a battle map



List of bonuses given for capturing the settlement where the particular Wonder is located.

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/31lw7b/the_complete_list_of_wonders_and_their_effects/

Strat map locations:

https://imgur.com/gallery/13WJywJ

Cheers

Thanks F/O, good stuff.

I played to turn 20 in my WRE run last night, and to sum up, status quo.

Public order continues to be a concern (burn churches right?), but militarily we've held our own. Britain is quiet, and Spain and Africa as well. But the Rhine and Danube fronts are aflame. I've knocked out several hordes. The Huns are lurking, but have yet to attack me.

The ERE is crumbling. They just move their stacks around without actually accomplishing anything. One unit moves this way and the next moves that way, over and over. Seems the AI is broken only when you need them to actually play well Our alliance has only benefited them, but that trade income is vital.

I'm trying to get my infantry upgraded, but I only have a couple of troop producing provinces, and they are back from the front. No sense building up the frontier since it would hurt to lose an important city. I'm relying on levies and mercs for my cavalry, and I've gotten several Hunnic units like their horse archers integrated in to my armies. Finally managed to get Emperor Honorious the Chicken-Hearted in to the fray. Compared to Saxons, this run as WRE is much more tricky politically. So it's vital to get him either killed or winning battles. I need to complete the take over of the British Isles to free up a Legion.

I also need to get my Roman-Paganism increasing faster. Those buildings are slowly coming online so hoping the spread picks up pace.

F/O, I'm sure you are enjoying your Saxon run, but I'm hoping you give WRE a go soon so we can compare notes. Would be quite interesting, not to mention helpful

I'm going to make an effort to finish this evening. It's interesting that having played several times as the ERE, I came to depend on the WRE for a lot of income besides trade. They were constantly asking me to attack some faction in the British Isles, Gaul, or some other far flung place that I had no hope of ever coming in contact with. They would usually offer a payment to do so, which I would naturally negotiate to a higher amount. Then after 10 to 20 turns, I could get a peace treaty from most of those distant factions since we never came in contact

Cheers

OK cool, it could be quite instructive if we each had a game going with the WRE. You can maybe avoid my mistakes And visa versa.

I've made it to the year 402 and the Huns declared war. Was able to fight off the first wave with little trouble, but I know more fearsome stacks will come sooner or later. Of course being at war with the Huns makes everyone love you, since everyone else is also at war with them. Their army composition is amazing in the field, but a handicap in settlements. The first attack they made was on one of my small frontier towns. Four units against 16, all cavalry. By deploying in the entrance to the keep in testudo with archers behind we defeated them. I sent my light melee cav off to hide in the woods, and they chased down routers. The key to fighting the Huns is surely avoid field battles. Testudo is effective against their rain of arrows.

Should be interesting having entered war with them this early. The ERE continues to erode, down to 24 settlements. I help them when I can, but they do a poor job of not only defending themselves, but I watch them continually waltz right past one of their lost settlements without any attempt to reclaim it. Their idea of war seems to be shuttling units around the map.



Same here with the ERE. In addition, 3 or 4 times I've asked them for money with nothing in return. I've gotten about 5000 ducats off them this way.

My public order is still getting sorted. I made the mistake of not knowing what the Capital building line was. I've sorted it now, but I wish I had been building these from the start. Even still, half of my 60-odd regions are in the green and getting better.

I'm struggling with the religious conversion. I've built many theaters and the sort, but I'm gaining only .2% per turn at the mo (29% overall, need 35% to convert) Celtic paganism is a problem. I really need a Roman paganism event or mission for a boost. Perhaps vassalizing the Picts and the Caledonians was a mistake religiously.

The Franks attacked me, but they already regret it. Made their capital a war coordination target and my minions are invading. They should have just minded their own business.But I guess that's what Barbarians do, attack the Western Roman Empire.

Overall I think it's going well. My main concern aside from religion and the Huns is immigration. So far it does not appear to be a problem, but I believe it will be before too long. According to the statistics I've only captured two settlements, though I've made a number of vassals. More or less my gameplan has been to hold the line while sorting the WRE's internal issues.

Immigration is really bad for the WRE. A constant -9 to public order and that hurts. But I finally cracked it by flipping to Paganism. Getting to the required 35% is hard. Watching my generals and governors get + state religion bonus slowing it down even more was tough to take. Once I flipped on turn 65 things started looking rosy indeed. By 409 the ERE had lost Constantinople to the Visigoths. So I bit the bullet and invaded from the west. That seemed to light a fire under the ERE who had lost all of Macedonia, Dardania and Thrace to the Visigoths. Our pincer invasion worked great, ERE reclaiming 6 regions while I took Corinth another and province in Macedonia. It's my first real expansion in the entire run, aside from Ireland which I had to eventually raze. I reckoned that any new territory taken would only further dilute my religion soup. Actually, now that I've been through it I can see that if you want to play the WRE and flip religion, reducing the size of the empire would help quite a bit. 65 turns is a long time, particularly when I was so focused on it.

I wonder how it might have been different had I stayed Christian. Christianity is very expensive. Even the level one church costs 100 ducats per turn. Even if I maintained one level 1 building in each province, that's 2000 per turn in church upkeep. And surely you'd want to go with some higher level ones in select areas. Offsetting it to some extent presumably, is that public order might have been far easier to control, resulting in less income lost to penalties. F/O if you do indeed play WRE, it would be interesting to compare if you stay Christian. I still think Paganism is probably better in the long run economically, but much more painful in the early game, when you need as much going for you as you can get.

The two Roman Empires holding Greece and the Balkans gives the ERE one less front to fight on and they are doing much better. War with the Huns is intense. Stack after stack come pouring through Pannonia. I have no less than five legions on that front. Using spies, I misdirect some of their stacks, allowing me to pick them off piecemeal, while assassinating any of their generals who have accumulated a few stars. I admit I was somewhat fearful of what the Huns would be able to accomplish against me, but we've more than held our own. The AI doesn't seem to do a good job of replenishing when a horde, or maybe it's all of the misdirection that prevents them from doing so. And now I no longer have the -10 morale against Huns so they're going to have to step up their game I just got a Hunnic deserter sort of household and gave it to Stilicho and he is now a Hun Hunter with a massive +15 morale against them.

Anyone just starting a WRE game needs to decide early what to do about the Emperor. He has some bad traits and is very young. You have to either kill him off or get him heavily involved. To do neither will lead to rebellion. I decided to keep him and he is doing OK. But he has had to fight many battles to become so. Stilicho was heir, but he actually loses influence most turns, so I named another as heir. I don't expect Honorious to die anytime soon, but you never know. Attila himself is out there somewhere.

One thing I don't like about Attila is that there are no good options for dealing with prisoners. All of them result in something bad. I've just killed all of them and got some bad traits out of it. Expected, yes, but to take either of the other options weakens the armies in the field. Honorious now has a trait that gives -2 PO across all provinces. I considered assassinating him when he got it, but I've stuck with him. That -2 came at a difficult time when so many provinces were struggling under rebellion and disorder.

The WRE is a really fun run. True, I am playing on normal, which makes it so much easier. On harder difficulties it would be extremely difficult to hold the original frontiers as I've managed to do. This game is about the fall of Rome after all.

The two halves of the Roman Emppire once again present a united front, after the defeat of the Visigoths




This shot will not mean much to anyone but me, but it shows the public order in 411. It was a serious struggle to attain this, at times all of this was red. Since flipping, even the remaining red ones are now trending up. The territory in Macedonia was just taken within the past couple of turns and will soon come good.

When I first played the campaign as the WRE, I found that it helped tremendously to just abandon Britannia Inferior and to knock down all of the buildings (except the main settlement) so you can get some badly needed money. That way you can concentrate on holding Britannia Superior and I was able to hold it just fine with 2 full armies. And yes, ask the ERE for money a lot!! I've found that I can usually get 1,000 talents out of him every 5 or 6 turns.

I've kept a Legion in Britannia, but just one. I had hoped that once the islands were secure I could transfer it to more active fronts. But the threat from the Geats and Danes have forced me to keep it there, as well as needing to maintain order and have a rebel squasher. I had taken and occupied Ireland, but it was very difficult to keep under control so I razed it and took the PO hit. That also helped a bit getting the required Paganism to flip by reducing my Celtic paganism percentage. Caledonia and the Picts continue to be good vassals, not making a fuss. Caledonia actually helps by sending stacks to various targets, but the Picts have done nothing the entire game. They just sit there turn after turn.

Holding Britannia was a strategic decision. It certainly would have been better for religion and public order to have abandoned it, and free up a legion to help elsewhere. But from my Saxon run I saw that would have left me open to constant raids in to Gaul and Iberia. So I've kept it mostly to avoid that threat. Britannia hasn't been too lucrative, and a bit of an order problem, but it has enabled me to concentrate my legions in other areas as well as giving me a port to maintain a navy there.

Played a bit more last night to about the year 415. Five years until Attila takes the reigns of the Hunnic hordes. We've beaten back whatever they've thrown at us, and for the past couple of years the Huns seem content to stay away. Africa blew up when Garamantia declared war on me. They immediately asked for a peace, so not sure why they declared in the first place. But I shifted Hilarius' Legion there to join the Africa Legion and we won easily, but I razed the smaller region after it was taken by rebels and kept the city, I also shifted another Legion to Gaul and back-stabbed the Seubians who we had given Romagnus to on turn two. Their opinion of the WRE was falling fast and was going red so it was a pre-emptive strike. Plus the salt resource will be handy when fertility is gone. Unfortunately they still exist as a horde and will be back before long I am sure.

The ERE made peace with the Huns, and I took this personally. After all I've done for them. And looking at their relations it was very friendly. Are you kidding me? In truth, it's probably best for my campaign. I don't think they ever engaged one another, and this should free ERE to focus on the Sassanids and their minions. They've been making gains against the ERE on their eastern border, so strategically it's good. But from a role-playing perspective I find it reprehensible! Actually, the ERE hasn't helped me in any way militarily and I would like to break our alliance, but keep the trade agreement. Would breaking the alliance put the trade agreement in jeopardy? Perhaps I should have reunification under the glorious banner of the WRE as a long term goal? All that territory with the correct buildings!

The next phase of the campaign will be to take the war to the Barbarians to the north. Most of them have declared on me at one time or another. But now I'm free to go on the offensive and what better targets? My Imperium just went up when I defeated Garamantia, and I can field two more Legions. I plan to build them and set them loose in Germany. If I can take the lands to the north that would secure another front, and I can pivot to the east, tidying up the lines and bringing all of my European Legions abreast to face the Huns and other eastern threats. I think strategically it makes sense, but it will all be wrong culture, wrong religion, wrong buildings. So it is a big project.

And that's if the Huns don't raze the whole thing first. In this run, I think my success in fighting the Huns has held them in check. It's hard to compare from the Brittania-bound Saxon run as my world-view extended only as far as the English Channel. By the time my Saxons landed in Iberia, everything had been raised from Gaul to the Bosphorus. All of Italy, Gaul, Germany, the Balkans. All of it gone at the hands of the Hun. So far in this run I've seen just one settlement razed by them. Perhaps once Attila arrives they change gears? So perhaps invading the Barbarians is a foolish move. I could probably eliminate the threat by just waiting for the Huns to crush them all. But what fun is that? I think we should re-write history and have Honorius lead the expedition into Germany.

What difficulty are you playing the WRE campaign on DBond?


I tried to play it on normal but even that was too much for me. I was able to win it on easy though.

This is Normal. I knew how hard it was supposed to be -- Legendary start! -- so I did this one on normal.

The first 5 years or so are very tough between fending off all the attacks from the Germanic and Celtic tribes while dealing with the massive public order and sanitation issues. If you can make it past 400 AD though, you will have some breathing time to build up and solidify your empire before the Huns start encroaching. Even before the Huns declare war, they will be moving their armies all over the frontier for raiding. That of course causes big hits to your public order and food.

Very true. There are many issues you have to deal with as the WRE. I'm now in 415 (20 years in, for those who aren't acquainted with Attila) or thereabouts so luckily I've waded through that opening stage and have popped out on the other side in good shape. I still have issues to deal with, and fertility is soon to take another drop. Plus Attila will become leader. But the Empire is stable and well defended, economy is prosperous. Things look good, but it's been a struggle. Most challenging TW campaign I've ever played I would reckon.

I've played harder ones, but that's due to difficulty level, like my Legendary Cordoba implosions in AoC, but none that have so many challenges to overcome. I don't know if you've read through the thread, but my decision to turn my back on Christianity and restore the glory of the Old Gods made that initial stage even more difficult I do believe.

Yes, I read that and I admit that I have never bothered with that feature of changing your faction's religion in either Attila or Rome 2. I just never saw any compelling reason to do it.

Hey guys.

I finally completed the cultural victory for the Saxons late Monday night and started a WRE campaign last night. I spent a good part of yesterday watching some Youtube videos
looking at different play-through strategies for the WRE. There are some pretty radical strategies out there. One guy actually disbanded most if not all of his armies. His theory being that
since he was not going to defend Gaul, England, or any eastern territories bordering on the ERE's domain , he could save money not having to support armies that weren't going to be needed for a long time. He basically pulled in his borders to Iberia, the Italian peninsula, and North Africa. All of his key avenues of approach had a settlement with a guard house which beefs up
the garrison forces by an extra 3 melee units for a total of 780 troops. The only cost for these extra troops is 10 units of food per turn. The next tier for this structure gets one another mellee unit and an archer unit for 10 more food per turn. I wasn't aware of this structure since the ERE doesn't get it.

I sort of combined some of the ideas that I viewed. I pretty much drew a new frontier boundary that leaves the areas mentioned above unprotected--other than whatever inherent garrisons they have. I do fight the last ditch garrison battles, just to whittle the enemy A.I. down--especially if they are perennial migrating armies who don't rebuild their forces much. With a little luck, I can usually take out close to double the number of my free garrison troops---where if I auto resolve, I might only get 50 or 75 kills. This is really a key element to the start of the ERE campaign.

I am not changing religions---to much stress for me. From every resource I've read----regardless of cost, Latin Christianity is the best religion--game-wise that is. I was pretty much accustomed to the church costs from playing as the ERE although they are Greek Orthodox.

Anyway, I'm only 7 turns in, but things are going as planned so far, and I haven't lost anything yet that I am planning to keep. I've got all the keeper provinces under control except 2 and I should have them moving in a positive public order direction within a turn or two.

I did not disbanded any of my armies. It remains to be seen--if doing that would a have been a good idea. Other than a battle early on where I caught the Suebians close by a settlement with two of my initial small armies, and eliminated them, I haven't fought any battles but last ditch settlement defenses with basic garrison troops. If I had disbanded say 5 of the 7 armies I started with, I would have been saving 5k to 6k per turn. Just five turns would have given me an extra 30k to spend on building up my provinces. If I go 10 more turns without needing any more forces, that's another 60k to spend.

I guess time will tell.

Cheers

Good luck and keep us up to date on your run. I also play out all of those seemingly hopeless garrison battles. Testudo is effective. Many times my 400 men have routed armies 2.5 times their size. As you mentioned, I have made heavy use of guardposts in my frontier settlements They have proved their worth and it's +3 to PO with no upkeep or food cost. It's the level 2 one that costs food, the encampment.

I'm glad you're staying Christian so I can maybe gauge the differences. What difficulty did you choose?

I am also interested in how you get on with the factions in Britannia, whether or not they harass, raid and sack you.

Duh, you;re right, guardhouse is 10 food.

I'm playing on normal difficulty.

Various settlements are getting attacked and sacked all over--one or two almost every turn. I did successfully defend Londinium with its garrison, but nothing has been repaired. Negative public order went over 100 at some point, so there's a rebel army that prowling around and growing every turn. The most activity has been in the area just east of the Italian peninsula across the Adriatic--where the Goths and Huns tend to congregate. One Germanic tribe (the Quadians) kept sacking something of mine every turn, but in doing so, they were losing a big chunk of their armies. They finally had enough I guess because the ruler finally offered peace along with 900 gold . I asked them to throw in a trade agreement and amazingly they agreed. Now we're big buddies.

Right in between Gaul and Germania, I still have an undefended province that is totally unscathed. It's named Maxima Sequanorium, There's no damage, nobody around it, and if it's been attacked, I must have beat them off with the garrison and whatever was damage repaired itself over time. I believe it may have rebelled once, but some roaming faction wiped out the rebels, so they are gone.

It's right on my present arbitrary border, so if it lasts that way for another 10 turns or so, I'll move out my perimeter to include it.

One last note. I just got an announcement about the council of Carthage.of 397AD. All Christian factions get a plus 10 public order bonus and a plus 10 Christian influence factor for 3 turns.

That's what having an organized and over bureaucratic religion can do for one.

Cheers

Disbanding the armies is really a radical way to go. In fact, I go the opposite route and start hiring those cheap German mercs like the slingers, archers and pikemen to bolster my Roman armies from turn 1!


As far as the civil strategy goes, I start building and upgrading the sanitation buildings right away. Nothing is worse than fricking disease and pestilence spreading from city to city because some of your settlements have a sanitation value of -5 or higher!
Farms and other food producing facilities are also high priority since the public order hit for having negative food can go as high as -20.


Industrial buildings are luxuries and those can wait until a few years later after you've stabilized the situation.

Sanitation was the first thing I set right in my WRE run. That 40k treasury on turn two was mostly spent on that. If there is one thing that I think the Romans have far better than the barbarians it's sanitation. Early on I concentrated on other buildings in the cities, so built up sanitation in the towns. But now, the cities have taken over the sanitation workload. I have many that are sitting at like +14 and can go much higher. That is one thing that Romans need not worry much about, comparatively. Plus as a pagan I get another +2 global sanitation and a further +2 from an edict, but I don't need to run that one at the mo.



Yes, Pannonia right? That has been the cauldron my entire game. I've managed to hold it and fortify it aside from the center region which was taken by a horde who I then made an entirely useless vassal, but if there's one province that might have to be given up Pannonia's the one. But if you can hold it it helps keep valuable provinces like Venetia and Liguria safe. By now I've built the towns and cities up several levels to help withstand the onslaught. Holding the western bank of the Danube is important I think. But not easy.


As for my WRE run.... I've begun the offensive to the north. The Danes declared on me along with their allies, Geats and Alans. So three Legions led by Honorious were started north and we've taken Frisia and two of the Germania regions. I'll try to push through to Jutland and then wheel to the east along the southern Baltic coast.

I took Crete from the Western Roman rebel as I wanted to make it a naval base. I was excited to finally capture Roman buildings. But upon taking it over it said the ERE's Municipium was not the same as WRE's Municipium! Wut? So it costs over 3000 plus 5 turns to make it my Municipium. Madness.

Attila waltzed in to Pannonia in 420 and was soundly defeated and killed for the first time. I've kept count and that's now 14 Hun stacks we've destroyed and many more damaged. But they keep on coming. I concentrated early on raising the cunning level of my generals to enable night battles and it pays off when the Hun stacks gang up. Combined with spies it's working well. Every turn I have several Hun stacks in view and not once in this entire game have I seen any AI faction engage the Huns, despite the fact that everyone's at war with them..

The Huns have 8 full stack armies at all times until you get the event message that Attila has died and that the Hunnic hordes are dissipating.

Part of me will be sad when I have no more Huns to fight

I want to share how I set up my military recruiting. Unlike the barbarians, the Romans need military-specific buildings -- barracks, stables, archery ranges, siege construction. You could I suppose build these all over. But because this game has auto-replenishment and anytime, anywhere upgrades with no requirement for the recruiting buildings to be present, you only really need them for recruitment. Once they're built the Legions can fan out and you're good to go.

In Liguria I built the barracks line and the cavalry line. In Venetia I built the archery line, gotta be for crossbows right? And in Dalmatia I built the siege line and another barracks line. So a new Legion starts in the capital for spears, melee and cav. Then they move off toward the front stopping to recruit crossbows and javelins in Venetia and finally stopping in Dalmatia to add an Onager and fill out the infantry. The second barracks in Dalmatia is used to speed replenishment from all of the battles along the Danube. Depleted Legions can fall back one province and refit. This system has worked great, it allows quick Legion building and has saved money by not building this stuff everywhere. In just a few turns a complete Legion is built and at the front. I still have a few barracks scattered about -- one each in Spain, Britannia, Africa and Belgica, just in case. For the first 50 turns or so I relied on mercs for my cav. But finally got the buildings up and running. Onagers took a while too and I relied on mercs and was able to capture a few, including the Huns large onagers which are awesome.

Aside from the convenience factor of this march-to-the-front assembly line, I did this because I knew that if things went to sh!t, that these were the regions I would fall back on. Even if my empire shrank to just a few provinces I would still have my high level recruitment infrastructure.