Rome Total War- Battle strategies

[Mythos_Ruler]

When attacked (say, if you're Scipio, holding NE Africa, and attacked by Egypt in Lepsis Magna, for example) and unable to meet the attacker head on, does anybody else use the raid and pillage method?

In that very example, I sent two fleet groups with 4 armies to Egypt, conquered Salamis for a base, then conquered several of the small coastal towns in Egypt, exterminated them, ran the taxes to max and left one small unit in each town. I tore down all the buildings I could after retraining as many troops as possible in each town. Free money, leave the towns underdeveloped with no population, and leave to the next town.

The senate tells me to go and retake this town or that, but I just ignore them and go on lowering Egypt's ability to produce revenue, until all Egypt brings its advance forces home. Meanwhile, the navy groups sink or reduce as many Egyptian ships as they can catch.

In the end, I don't try to hold onto the towns, just pillage and destroy, and leave the ruins to Egypt. If any of the armies survive long enough, I will retake some of those towns and repeat the process. You don't earn much from the second round, but whatever it costs the enemy to build is money he can't use to make troops. Whatever you gain is money you CAN use to make troops. Nasty business. Works, though. In ten or twenty turns, you can basically bleed an enemy to death, if his allies don't force you to pay attention somewhere else.

Just one thought.

Yep, pretty standard tactic. Some see that as cheating though, because the AI does not have the ability to do that to your cities.