I've had this game for some time but never really played it more than once or twice. So I decided to load it up and have a crack at it.

Thus far I'm on what I believe are the tutorial stages (the game refers to it as the Prologue). I have liberated the city Tarquinni from some heathen barbarians. I did not exterminate the populace during the liberation, and few buildings were damaged.

In other news I also partially burned down a town during my first assault on it. Flammable ammunition stands a chance of setting fire to buildings as well as enemy troops.

Good luck. RTW is hard, I conquered half of Europe then my economy collapsed when I played it.

Already the way has become clear to me. Expansion must be relentless.

The army needs funds to run, so you must conquer. To do this you must build a larger army, conquer, gain more funds, build a larger army and continue onward, keeping just ahead of the inevitable economic collapse.

It is how I intend to play this, and there shall be no mercy. THEY SHALL FALL LIKE DUST BEFORE THE WIND!!!!

That's how I played, I was moving loads of armies around the map, conquering all in my path. It causes a collapse.

I can't find my copy, the instructinos are sitting on my desk but I haven't played it in a while....though I should really, was epic

Doesn't it have multiplayer?

Yeah - which, in a sense, is why I want to find it.

*UPDATE* Just found it, installing now

Awesome stuff! I'm too scared to play it in multiplayer with anyone right now, I need to get a bit better at it first.

I still remember the time I owned an army of pikemen and general soldiers with an army consisting entirely of cavalry (was a reinforcement army that got ambushed) and took very few losses.

i can play multiplayer monday onwards.

It's REALLY hard, and it won't let me do custom battles until I do the prologue >.< But I know how to PLAY!!!

oh yeah the prologue XD sometimes the prologue is fun once you get rid of the advisor, just to control all of the little roman penisula

Ohh i've got RTW, bit of a babe of game, that what got me into medieval and empire total war (well the whole series really). I never did that well on it, i was only like 10 or something when i played so i had a good idea what i was doing with armies but no idea when it came to the economy. I just took at slow and eveything was fine

Try going on the nile map, play as a nation with pikemen and then set up 2 units of pikemen at one end of the bridge, 2 units will kill everyone in their army... they just keep running into the spikes. *improve ai* eh hem cough cough.