Nice video, some feedback for anyone interested: there won't be any risk of civil war/secession if loyalty is -10 or better. At -11 there will be at least 1% risk. Secure loyalty offers the best loyalty boost for the amount of money spent, if there are 3 rival parties you can use the option twice for the same price, the third time during the same turn will increase its price (other political intrigues gold and gravitas cost increase after using them, for example: you promote a character to tier 2 and it costed 560 gold, if you want to use it again in the same turn the cost will increase. Each time you use it, the cost goes up by a tier. It goes back down one tier per turn). It's not possible to perform certain actions if the target is a general or admiral or wounded or on a mission, so if a rival party loyalty is -25, you can secure loyalty (+10) and then send one character from that party as emissary and gain +5 loyalty, leaving it at -10 (no risk). If you send the emissary first, and there are no other available characters for that party, you won't be able to secure loyalty. An easy way to get the marriage buff: select an opposing party character and have them get married. Then try to entice their new partner to join your faction (you need to use a character with 2+ cunning than the targets authority). The loyalty penalty for enticing only lasts 2 turns and the marriage buff is permanent and offsets the negative. I always promote women first (if they can't be used as general) since they only have 4 promotions and the last one grants public order to all settlements and helps with corruption. Only promote once per turn, unless you have a lot of cash to throw away and a great loyalty cushion. Of all the traits a party has, two are set from the beginning to that party, one of them will be randomized every new game while the other is always there for that party: for example, in a vanilla grand campaign as Rome, the Cornelia family always has the thirst for power trait, the other party trait is random as well as the leader trait. Finally, i suggest trying to leave only a character to each opposing party, their leader. Entice any other character to join your party. I usually do this either at the beginning (protected from civil war for 20turns) but it's not necessary. And don't be afraid to provoke them: check the map and what regions they control, set up one or two armies to take it back and provoke them. If they are already in the negative loyalty, it will be easier. Sometimes doesn't work but you can keep trying (costs increases tho).
@@happycompy Why is Xenophobe and Bigot bad traits? And pro Barbarian good? Especially considering what ultimately caused the fall of Rome? Sounds like the cucks at Creative Emsembly projecting their liberals views onto the game.
99.99% agree with that man, I like to play this politics in the campaing. I would like to add that I farm huge amounts of loyalty by sending them in diplomatic missions. It also gives +5 loyalty, and it stacks up to +20, and lasts for 4 turns decaying only 1 per turn instead of ending at new turn. Is expensive, but if you manage a good economy is 100% sustainable. Also have in mind that sending them as diplomatic earn gravitas too, depending on the end of the mission. Usually goes arround +8 gravitas up to +20 i think, if they return with a settlement or 5000 gold reward. Any outcome will boost gravitas, and improve your relations with that faction unless it goes wrong. Note that if the mission goes bad, the enemies of this faction will like you a bit more lol Once the party leader or other members have a big gravitas amount (+-250) i recommend having them killed, by assassination or sending alone into battle. You will have a penalization of 30 loyalty, decaying 3 per turn (so 10 turns), but easy with secure loyalty + more diplomatic missions will compensate it for sure. Assassination is only available if the leader is not from you own family... but far better choice if you can Also, i dont recomend promote other party members only yours, in my opinion, 2 loyalty in exchange for 1 gravitas per turn is not a good trade in medium-long terms. Send diplomats and you wont have to worry about loyalty, and you will have a lot of bonuses like money, +2 xp for cavalry recruits, free settlements... but tbh, can also have bad outcomes like a small penalty on trade income... but not a big deal, the loyalty is our goal and far worthier. If they get killed during the mission, just imagine that he was caught raping a goat and everything is fine lol dont worry, their loss is your gain, free reset of gravitas. Also, I heavily support the idea of not being afraid on provoke the secession. It will remove all their influence, giving it to your party, and you can set up a trap very easily by approaching armies previously and, indeed, raising the army yourself so they dont spawn with a bunch of elite units to fuck your rear up x). Dont use an army with traditions accumulated, you will lose this army forever. Just raise a brand new one and let him enjoy his freedom for a short while. Good hunt and smash the opposition! lol
There have been other good guides too! Republic of Play's from 2017 still holds up for the most part, just minus the family tree which didn't exist at the time.
@@happycompy Hi, would be nice if you can make a guide about confederations. Seems impossible to find reliable info about it. Would be cool to form a great confederation led by the Arvernii.
@@SilverSoulxd Its pretty easy, trust me. First of all, having good relations is good, but try to have only the "non-agression pact" and "trade agreement", if they have defensive alliance or military alliance, they will be a lot harder to be convinced. Like flirting a woman, you must make them desire to be friends with you, which (no joke) means having powerful armies and fleets on the field. Also, if the faction is in danger, either by nearby enemies or food shortage, they will be more easier to entice and join in confederation. Let enemies punish them just a little bit. Finally, you can add good bribes in gold when proposing the confederation. If you have all in line, instead of having to pay you can make them pay up to 5000 gold to join you. Overall, also keep in mind that few factions wont join you not even offering them huges amounts of gold (not even 300k or higher) despite having good relations. Dont know why, maybe some trait makes them super independent and proud... Oh, and just in case, you can only join confederation with those factions who share blood bonds, and not all cultures can make confederations. Only happens between gauls, britons, east-celtics (tylis-galatia-triballi), numidians, etruscans, germanic, celtiberian, and dacians-thracians, being the last the only exception to culture requisition. Also keep in mind that making a confederation with a faction who has enemies, will create an important dislike between you and their enemies, and if they are strong enought wont hesitate to declare war and march upon your new cities. Plan it well!
"Politics can be a confusing mess, so much so most people just give up on it entirely" Just like Real Life am i right? Seriously though this is a MUST make video, cus NO ONE to my knowledge has ever dove into this system. Now maybe make one for Attila as well? Its similar but diffrent.
You are my hero. I love playing Rome 2 but the politics always frustrated me so much. But thanks to this video it will be so much easier to manage. Thank you
Nice Video, works on legendary as well. Some additional thoughts... 1. Don't let faction leaders die in battle, you will get a massive loyalty penalty (-30 I think). 2. Diplonatic Mission is the most important action. It is cheap, especially in the early game, boosts diplomatic relations, sometimes you can win a ton of cash or even a province and later on it's also a nice way to get rid of characters without negative loyalty. Always use it. 3. Kingdom is the best form of government. Only Empire is better. Secure loyalty is mandatory. (Kinda silly that the other forms are pretty useless) 4. Sometimes it is better to let a civil war happen. Sometimes you have no funds to take care of politics. After you won a civil war you get the buff again which prevents civil wars. (Won a Campaign with Rome in Rise of the Republic on legendary with 6 Civil Wars :D ) 5. Securing loyalty by edict is free loyalty. Again this is mandatory on legendary difficulty.
I can imagine a very complex and cool politics mechanics if CA made a Game of Thrones Total War or in Three Kingdoms 2 which is more focus in the ROTK where politics are made deeper and more complex than in actual history
First thing I learned by going through the politics of the historical Three Kingdoms vs the novel, is that real life politics are always more complex and unpredictable than fictional adaptations.
@@talixius Yo, CK3 is a massive game with so many options as a ruler on running a country, duchery, kingdom, or empire. Its really fun. I love that game.
This is an excelent guide. Well done! Personally I simply don't have armies or fleets with other parties' generals, never marry them, and only send them on diplomatic missions. The cool thing is that on civil war they'll have no forces. And over time my family tree would grow, they'd be at 1 character per party and as such I always end up on the 95-ish% control of the senate. Civil Wars do become an issue in the late game due to the Imperium level. But at that point just swarm the rebel province before they rebel and you'll have no trouble. I think it's a shame CA didn't represent the Cursus Honorum. It was in Rome 1 and it could have been expanded upon. It would connect great with the current system in Rome 2.
Marrying them is actually interesting since you can give a free promotion to their partner and using that character as well as a diplomat. I tend to this scheme: when a character from other is a good general or I have been forced to use him due to lack of available generals, I give him promotions until the point that I still can Entice him. So, the party is pissed off for the Entice, but happy for the battles and promotions which the character earned. It normally gives me a loyalty surplus. Another scheme is this (especially as Romans, Hellenics and Carthage): promote all the available women in other parties (make the male characters to get married in order to make women appear). When they reach maximum level (thus, lot of loyalty bonus) kill their husbands, and marry the woman with one of your own characters (your character must be quite important, since a maximum promoted woman has high gravitas etc). You get the promotions bonuses and the polítical marriage - killing her husband= loyalty surplus. Besides, if she's a young woman she still can give children to your probably older male character (who has probably got divorced from his aging wife in order to carry out the scheme). This is quite machiavellic, but it works great. Then you can Entice her into your faction in order to obtain her gravitas and use her for other political actions such as Praising, Raise Support, Embezzlment... Take into account that the woman who was the wife of your male character will be part of Other Nobles now (unless she was born within the family), so you should adopt her in order to prevent her forming a new political party. I've seen some mad things during my campaigns such as sons adopting their mothers, ex husbands adopting their ex wives...politics are really fun if you understand and are somewhat machiavellic in this game, I don't get the hate for this system of Rome 2.
Concerning the civil wars, I normally let them trigger just for fun, but I can keep at bay even parties with the worst traits, it's all in the mechanics if you do it properly. The Imperium level is a mess. I prefer playing tall, and I don't get why client states and satrapies increase your imperium. It should be like in Europa Universalis, where if you liberate vassals your stability and researching cost are lower, since you have a smaller and more efficient country.
The game will not assign to provinces random parties. The province is assigned depending from which party is the general that conquer it. You can use that to avoid civil wars by capturing towns with your own party generals.
I don't think so. I've seen a province "owned" by a political party during one turn and the following one owned by other party. Besides, even though you only conquer using your own family generals, some provinces still will be assigned to other parties. I think the most important measure is the influence of each party. The higher it 's, the more provinces it 'll have, proportional to your empire's size. But yeah, when a secession/civil war is about to start you definetely must look to the political map in order to see which provinces are going to rebel.
This is not true my friend. The province assignment doesnt depend on the conqueror, depends on the overall influence. If you let a party have 50% of influence, it will have arround 50% of your provinces. This cant be shown on early game, but when you have a lot of provinces under control its easier to see the distribution and how it changes due to the flux of influence between parties. Sometimes the distribution needs to be reset and they change the province. I agree on using your generals because this will earn them XP and gravitas after each victory, but sadly it doesnt mean that the province will be yours politically speaking
Not true. First half of my grand campaign as Sparta, I had only family generals. Still, one party got 4 towns in Spain and second got one province in Libia. And all of it was conquered by my Basileus
@@alejandrop.s.3942 you are making a circular argument , I used some other parties generals to do the fighting now I am on shit situation politically and I am close to the bottom. I thought I need to protect my heir and leader from dying so let's just assign random characters as generals, now they have gotten too powerful and influential and control most of my provinces, everyone has negative loyalty and more gravitas then me but at least I control Rome that's prob a given :D So the op is right it won't assign to random parties , it is very much dependant on which party the general that conquers it but not 100% , what you are saying is like 5-10% chance of that not being the case but most of the time it is the case
Cue in the 'wtf i love rome 2 politics now' -reaction after understanding what the lightning symbol means and that generals dont generate gravitas. Now suddenly everything makes sense. Had two civil wars this far on my first ever rome campaign. They are a blast though but i can imagine it getting tedious by the time you get your 5th or 6th one.
My first time through: Politics? I have no time for Politics, Rome has an empire to make. *is suprised later that there is a civil war with one faction holding all the food producing settlements, thus starving my army* Ive started my thrid one (its better than my last two attempts, I'm close to 200 turns with only one Civil War currently going on with only two settlements left to reunify) hopefully this guide helps me in the future.
Completed multiple campaigns on Legendary difficulty. Literally had to be told on stream how to get up the political affiliation map. Great guide and I'll definitely be taking some tips from it for future runs, but a strong reserve force tends to be a solid enough political tool for me haha.
That doesn't surprise me unfortunately. There is next to no explanation given for the political system. I'm thankful CA reworked it from the mess it was on release, but they never went back and explained the thing in game lol. It's Paradox-level bad UX.
@@happycompy Exactly! They overhauled the game years into release and didn't say anything useful about the changes they made, so all that effort was wasted leaving players confused.
@@happycompy i just kill off the bad group with an early civilwar to have just one weak and loyal "opposition" with one ignored admiral, scouting for trade sea partners like a spy,unit. im fighting with my actual family member to raise their skills faster so that i can promote them to get gravitas and buffs. i try to have only inner-family armies and if i have other-family-armies to use trash for them. noone can stop me to send 3-4 of these guys to death in a battle, if i can own the army at the end. if i get a daughter, i can sel....i mean marry her to a free family member to have one more general....after 2-3 generations, you are fine. the actual political systems are complicated, where you have to get something between 50-60% to get good traits, like Attila......in my opinion Rome 2 politcs is just the question how to get to 100% in a faster way....you will get there, but when....
One time I sent my rival faction leader into battle to intentionally assassinate him without paying the money to do it. Went out like a boss and his party’s loyalty went up after his death for some odd reason.
Thank you so much for this video, I had no idea of some of the politics systems that you mentioned. It really is a shame that CA didn't include this as a tutorial video in their game. As you end up enjoying the game so much more when you aware of these details.
Thanks for the quick overview. I started playing Rome 2 again after a long hiatus. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything and thankfully it was pretty simplistic. I'm glad you showed what you want to essentially do with it. I've been promoting the women to get those -5% corruption bonuses that they get at max career and using high stat ones to embezzle. I'm playing Macedon and those early turns with low public order can be manageable with some of the missions. Even removing taxes from a province a few turns should the instability cause issues. Something that wears off over time and you can move that army stack if you need to. The missions to gain favor with other countries can sometimes help immensely instead of spending so much money on preventing wars or creating trade allies. The better the diplomat the better it goes. Sometimes you get lots of money or research bonuses that make research go faster when doing it. Just to name a few great options for using politics not mentioned in the video. For anyone reading the comments.
*My guide to politics* - subscribe to the mod that increases loyalty across the board. Then, ignore politics. I get that people apparently enjoy this element of the game. I personally do not. It's just a spread sheet of -1 here, +5 there, to this and that. It's literally just a spread sheet. And, most of the actual gameplay you as a player have control over just involves spending money. It's not fun. Just tedious reading "oh this guy has low loyalty, I better click a button to change that to +5 instead of +1". Add to that the horrible UI of Rome 2 and misery is sure to follow.
Dude, the game is too easy without a challenging late game civil war and dealing with other parties' BS. I try to prevent civil wars, but they're actually the funniest part of the campaign imo.
@@alejandrop.s.3942 But, that's only because someone like you _needs_ a late game challenge. By the time the campaign has progressed to that point, I am ready to start another and just want it to be over with. Challenge is one thing; Tedium is another. There's nothing interesting or organic about it. You know it's coming. You know why it's coming. Thus, you spend most of the mid game preparing for something that is inevitable (in a sandbox game). You need to be forced to play a certain way. People like me do not and find challenge in other ways.
@Viscous Goo , actually, civil wars are not inevitable. The few civil wars I had I let them trigger because I really want the challenge. I tend to play tall (I normally fulfill objectives thanks to military allies) and I'm pretty good dealing with the political system, and I enjoy doing schemes with several turns in advance, such as preparing a political marriage or whatever.
Thank you mate!! Politics has always been my weak point and made me lose so many campaigns..I can now master this game and conquer the all world! Your wisdom is much appreciated, we can now feast and refresh out throats with ale! 😂
Thanks so much! Very much needed guide, as the game itself offers no explanation as to how it works. I've only ever used the minimal tools to keep loyalty above 0 before because I had no idea how to maximise the characters and politics.
Politics is actually pretty fun. Couple more points: Don’t feel obligated to marry all your family members. You’ll wind up with a huge family tree and get bogged down each turn trying to figure out what to do with all of them. I’d say two reproducing couples per generation will be good. You can always hire a politician if you need one. Send rival family members on diplomatic missions to raise loyalty. Regardless of the outcome, you get the loyalty. They only get gravitas for successful missions. But sometimes diplomats are killed. You don’t want your own family members killed during a diplomatic mission. Let the other family members die for that. When other family members get to big for their britches, assassinate them. And then send their cousins on diplomatic missions to get that loyalty back up. Never use the secure loyalty button. If you’re doing it all right you’ll never come close to needing to use that option. Let the Civil War happen. Do what the video said. You’ll be warned when it’s coming. No reason you can’t smoke the rebels in 2 or 3 turns.
I consider myself a master of campaining in Rome 2 (in pvp I will suck, for real) and learnt nothing new because I use politics in every single campaing I do, but this guide is 100% accurate and recomendable and will lead you to a proper management of your faction's politics. And remember, some parties will be hard to tame depending on their traits, if they are bad dont hesitate to set up traps and wait for the secession to annihilate them in a secure way. Once you master this tech, you can take your time, wait for the 10 turn-protection to expire, and finish the last rebel army to have another "10 turn bonus loyalty". When you defeat a secession you earn a bonus of 30 loyalty, decaying 3 per turn which means 10 turns. This way you can have up to 20 turns without secessions. If you kill them quickly and earn the loyalty bonus called "overcame secession" while having the protection on, its kinda wasting this bonus. Tip: If you set up the secession, be sure of raising a brand new army, it will be lost forever and with it, his traditions and troops become enemies. New army, party leader as general or admiral alone so they dont spawn an army with elite troops, and keep at least 1 decent army near the contested provinces for a quick reaction. Conquer everything except 1 region, harass them constantly so they cant muster new units and when the protection is about to expire, finish them to enjoy the bonus. From now on, you will mock at rebellions instead of shitting on xD
Boo, dont ever just promote people, If you use them in battle and they win and then you promote them you will have everyone on your side for a long time. Its super easy not to go under 0 but if you do provoking a civil war and taking out the problem family in battle and instituting a new family powerbase is so cool
Yes! If a party secedes it will vanish completely from the politics screen. Eventually, a new party under a different name with different traits will spawn.
so after buying rome 2 and not touching it for almost a year i decided to give it a go (no mods cause i preffer to play vanilla first to see whetver i will hate it or not )amd i must say im actually enjoying everything the game has to offer , from the army limits to the political system , the campaign has a nice slow pace to it and there is no sense of having to rush towards the endgame , i mean it took me several decades to capture cisalpine and raetia et noricum , also i cant remember the last time i had so much fun with total war lmao
Amazing video! This helped me greatly understand this system and has me wanting to jump back in a give it a shot! Thanks again maybe we will see more guide videos from you.
Good sir, after more than 700 hours I have learnt things here to truly fine tune politics. I knew enough to half ass it, now this looks fun! Lastly, do take care! It has been a while since the last video, best TW content creator☝
HappyCompy, are you sure that characters that are leading armies don't gain gravitas? Because there are traits that give some gravitas per turn and those work even if the guy is a general, so I was wondering if you tested it yourself. To add some pro tips, the edict that gives party loyalty can be the most cost effective way to gain loyalty, depending on how expensive the political interactions like "secure loyalty" or "send emissary" and such are, and promoting other party's member isn't necessarily a great idea because they'll start gaining free gravitas by doing nothing. It might be worth it if you are already making enough gravitas yourself or if you promote only one of them. Promoting your own party members upsets the other parties only temporarily, so it can be done somewhat safely (and should be done while the civil war protection is still active).
I only promote other characters from other parties if I plan to Entice them eventually or if I'm really struggling with loyalty and desperately need a boost through the free promotion or whatever.
Thanks for this guide! The video was detailled, yet easy to understand. Next time I'll do a Grand Campaign (probably with Pontus), I will pay closer attention to the politics-system and try to play around with it a little more. It looks fun. What I like is that once you get into it, it still seems somewhat intuitive - and it allows for some roleplaying. In my recent RotR-Syracuse-campaign, I actually had a pretty costly civil war in early midgame shortly after uniting Sicily. Surprised the heck out of me of it happening so soon, never experienced it starting so early. Half my territory rebelled and what was worse was that my second-best army, which had already won me some really important battles early on in the game and I thus was emotionally invested in, rebelled as well. Also my fleet rebelled which I had used some turns earlier to sail my main army to Africa to invade Carthage, which I had to ferry back in forced sailing in the hopes of it not getting attacked at sea. So I really had some work to do in order to win this civil war, but it was a lot of fun.
Thanks for the video explaining this. One thing that confused me is this: if generals gain no gravitas and victories give you loyalty from the faction whose leader won the battle, why do I want opposing party members as generals *away* from the frontlines. Don't I want them in the thick of it, winning battles to generate loyalty?
They will generate loyalty yes, but they will also generate gravitas for the opposition, which will lower your political influence. Better to secure loyalty in other ways and let your own generals get the glory (and influence).
@@happycompy Ah so victories give the general gravitas and you loyalty, but generals don't generate gravitas if they're just sat there doing nothing. Got it, thanks. Does this also apply when the general has their first "level up" and you select one of the bonuses? All the first-choice bonuses have a +1 gravitas per turn modifier; is this modifier only effective when they're not generals?
40 hours of failed campaigns and politics now I'm trying to learn the game the proper way from the economy to the politics here is to hopefully 1 successful campaign :d
Guys, can you please help me out? First of all, thanks for the video, it really taught me how politics work! Then, I've followed some hints I saw in the comments. I started to invest in my household, and I'm up to some 30-40 members. The generals I use for battles, I start to train them as soon as they come of age, and then replace them for younger ones once they get are around 40 years old. So, my family has around 800-1000 gravitas. The opposition party has around 200 gravitas (with 4 members). But the opposition has 40% influence! That is crazy. I'm late game, taxes are low, I have 200+ surplus food, and the third opposition party is always loyal, but they have 0% influence? The 40% influence party (second party) is always going disloyal, it seems the game is forcing them to become disloyal AND having high influence. What is wrong? I'm playing with Saba. Hashish tribes (disloyal and always going on the negative): 200 gravitas. Marib Nobles: 200 gravitas, with 0% influence. Sabaen dinasty (player's faction): 1000 gravitas with 60% influence. Turn 190. I'm missing two regions to win the game through cultural victory. I'm still playing as kingdom, haven't switched to empire and have not had a civil war yet, but it's getting difficult. Thanks so much!
Huh didn’t think about sending them into the middle of an ocean, if civil war is inevitable I either send an army while I stall for time or create an army next to the rebelling territory. If I’m lucky I can take out the starter army they begin with and quickly sweep through the place. However I think if you leave an army that is being lead by another family (say you control Magna Graecia and you send an army under a different family general there, there is the chance they could take that territory while either losing control of their prior territory or holding it can gaining two full territories easy), make sure they are place in the territory they hold. Besides if one or two families rebel then I’m sure you can part a few territories of your own to allow the one that is either the most loyal or that stuck with you to put down the rebellion. This is coming from a guy that had 5+ civil wars during their first play through (had some forewarning about the civil war issue, made it easier to be ready to counter).
Politics in this game is stupid. I just have my family members literally do all the fighting. And when a party gets too pissy to control. I just isolate their province, kill off everyone but the leader, let the province rebel. And then I’ve got 2 or 3 stacks ready to immediately retake it all in a turn or 2. Then I’m good again for a while.
Another option when it comes to politics is to maximize the size of your family dynasty. This serves two options: you still have a lot of members able to provide gravitas for your party and are also able to completely demilitarize opposing parties and monopolize army control. I focus on promoting my children as soon as they are able to take office and marrying them off as early as possible to ensure they have the highest number of kids. Keep in mind that one marriage in a turn is 20 gravitas, the second in the same turn is 22, and the third is 44, so be careful to split up the marriages. If you have enough children, you should be able to control all your field armies with your family while still maintaining a massive base of political power. The promotion of families does affect loyalty for the other parties but civil wars are virtually unavoidable at higher difficult settings, anyways. A good idea is to keep tabs on opposition loyalty and to station armies outside of cities when you see that their loyalty is reaching critical levels. You can basically just wipe out secessions in about one or two turns with this strategy. Also, when you have enough cash to flaunt, just spam the “Secure Loyalty” intrigue if you really cannot be bothered to deal with civil wars. Another thing to do is to change your government type to “Empire” and use the “Provoke” option for a chance at immediately starting a civil war when you want it to.
08:13 after repeatedly watching 10x i still dont get it how he formulated it: why would you ever remove your family from control of the capital, in non-peace times? why would you ever remove opponent generals from trash-stacks?
How to deal politics: Step 1: Don't. Step 2: Station an Army in every province Step 3: Annihilate any family foolish enough to rebel against your tyrannical regime. Repeat until end game.
The political system is fun as hell. Early game "empire divided" I was Gallic Rome conquering the Latins. I had two One germen and one Italian family helping me with my campaign. Every thing was going fine. After about 10 victories I marched down the Peninsula took Rome and fought at the battle of Brundisium. I tried to take the city with a coalition force just out numbering my enemies by only 800, 5400 to 4600. I lost the attack and lost both my generals in the fray. Both political parties seceded and took parts of Germany and Italy from me. I had to reorganize and put down the rebellion with the help of 3 new families. They since went on to conquer all of Italy and modern day Sicily and destroyed the Pretender Romans. Right now Im in good with all 3 families but Ive yet to expand my borders into Germania or the East or even the Iberian. Time will tell if the Republic will hold, or be plunged head long into civil war and ripped apart just at the apex of its power. Great narrative gameplay thats one was so fun to oust the tratiors and bring in to the fold 3 new factions and have them confiscate the rebel lands.
I always quit playing Rome 2 when I get one of those stupid civil wars. For once I decided to see if I can do something about it. And I just saved my campaign thanks to this video. I blew 20k on marriages to bring faction loyalty up and reduced my civil war chance to 7%. I had no idea there was this much strategy to the political system. I had always disregarded it because there's nothing like it in previous Total Wars.
8:29 "strip army away from family members to let them generate gravitas" but stripping army away also reduces their loyalty right and abilities right? I don't even dare to remove people from command now...
But if I perform actions that deplete gravitas won't that in turn decrease my influence? I'm taking over the world 🌎 but have yet enough influence to change from a republic to an empire 👑.
Nice video, some feedback for anyone interested: there won't be any risk of civil war/secession if loyalty is -10 or better. At -11 there will be at least 1% risk.
Secure loyalty offers the best loyalty boost for the amount of money spent, if there are 3 rival parties you can use the option twice for the same price, the third time during the same turn will increase its price (other political intrigues gold and gravitas cost increase after using them, for example: you promote a character to tier 2 and it costed 560 gold, if you want to use it again in the same turn the cost will increase. Each time you use it, the cost goes up by a tier. It goes back down one tier per turn).
It's not possible to perform certain actions if the target is a general or admiral or wounded or on a mission, so if a rival party loyalty is -25, you can secure loyalty (+10) and then send one character from that party as emissary and gain +5 loyalty, leaving it at -10 (no risk). If you send the emissary first, and there are no other available characters for that party, you won't be able to secure loyalty.
An easy way to get the marriage buff: select an opposing party character and have them get married. Then try to entice their new partner to join your faction (you need to use a character with 2+ cunning than the targets authority). The loyalty penalty for enticing only lasts 2 turns and the marriage buff is permanent and offsets the negative.
I always promote women first (if they can't be used as general) since they only have 4 promotions and the last one grants public order to all settlements and helps with corruption.
Only promote once per turn, unless you have a lot of cash to throw away and a great loyalty cushion.
Of all the traits a party has, two are set from the beginning to that party, one of them will be randomized every new game while the other is always there for that party: for example, in a vanilla grand campaign as Rome, the Cornelia family always has the thirst for power trait, the other party trait is random as well as the leader trait.
Finally, i suggest trying to leave only a character to each opposing party, their leader. Entice any other character to join your party. I usually do this either at the beginning (protected from civil war for 20turns) but it's not necessary. And don't be afraid to provoke them: check the map and what regions they control, set up one or two armies to take it back and provoke them. If they are already in the negative loyalty, it will be easier. Sometimes doesn't work but you can keep trying (costs increases tho).
Amazing tips!
@@happycompy Why is Xenophobe and Bigot bad traits? And pro Barbarian good? Especially considering what ultimately caused the fall of Rome? Sounds like the cucks at Creative Emsembly projecting their liberals views onto the game.
99.99% agree with that man, I like to play this politics in the campaing. I would like to add that I farm huge amounts of loyalty by sending them in diplomatic missions. It also gives +5 loyalty, and it stacks up to +20, and lasts for 4 turns decaying only 1 per turn instead of ending at new turn. Is expensive, but if you manage a good economy is 100% sustainable. Also have in mind that sending them as diplomatic earn gravitas too, depending on the end of the mission. Usually goes arround +8 gravitas up to +20 i think, if they return with a settlement or 5000 gold reward. Any outcome will boost gravitas, and improve your relations with that faction unless it goes wrong. Note that if the mission goes bad, the enemies of this faction will like you a bit more lol Once the party leader or other members have a big gravitas amount (+-250) i recommend having them killed, by assassination or sending alone into battle. You will have a penalization of 30 loyalty, decaying 3 per turn (so 10 turns), but easy with secure loyalty + more diplomatic missions will compensate it for sure. Assassination is only available if the leader is not from you own family... but far better choice if you can
Also, i dont recomend promote other party members only yours, in my opinion, 2 loyalty in exchange for 1 gravitas per turn is not a good trade in medium-long terms. Send diplomats and you wont have to worry about loyalty, and you will have a lot of bonuses like money, +2 xp for cavalry recruits, free settlements... but tbh, can also have bad outcomes like a small penalty on trade income... but not a big deal, the loyalty is our goal and far worthier. If they get killed during the mission, just imagine that he was caught raping a goat and everything is fine lol dont worry, their loss is your gain, free reset of gravitas.
Also, I heavily support the idea of not being afraid on provoke the secession. It will remove all their influence, giving it to your party, and you can set up a trap very easily by approaching armies previously and, indeed, raising the army yourself so they dont spawn with a bunch of elite units to fuck your rear up x). Dont use an army with traditions accumulated, you will lose this army forever. Just raise a brand new one and let him enjoy his freedom for a short while.
Good hunt and smash the opposition! lol
@@dragonworldraid9738cool!
Good to know!
Finally... after almost 10 years of playing this game... maybe I'll understand the politics :D
Same here lol
The moment you understand politics in games they become unemmersive. ;)
Haha the same here!! Really great video many thanks.
@@legiohysterius4624 what are you talking about
@@darthrevan454 politics in real life are something nobody seems to understand so if it's realistic you would not understand it.
And it only took 9 years for someone to finally explain it
Only
There have been other good guides too! Republic of Play's from 2017 still holds up for the most part, just minus the family tree which didn't exist at the time.
@@happycompy Hi, would be nice if you can make a guide about confederations. Seems impossible to find reliable info about it. Would be cool to form a great confederation led by the Arvernii.
@@SilverSoulxd Its pretty easy, trust me. First of all, having good relations is good, but try to have only the "non-agression pact" and "trade agreement", if they have defensive alliance or military alliance, they will be a lot harder to be convinced. Like flirting a woman, you must make them desire to be friends with you, which (no joke) means having powerful armies and fleets on the field. Also, if the faction is in danger, either by nearby enemies or food shortage, they will be more easier to entice and join in confederation. Let enemies punish them just a little bit. Finally, you can add good bribes in gold when proposing the confederation. If you have all in line, instead of having to pay you can make them pay up to 5000 gold to join you.
Overall, also keep in mind that few factions wont join you not even offering them huges amounts of gold (not even 300k or higher) despite having good relations. Dont know why, maybe some trait makes them super independent and proud...
Oh, and just in case, you can only join confederation with those factions who share blood bonds, and not all cultures can make confederations. Only happens between gauls, britons, east-celtics (tylis-galatia-triballi), numidians, etruscans, germanic, celtiberian, and dacians-thracians, being the last the only exception to culture requisition.
Also keep in mind that making a confederation with a faction who has enemies, will create an important dislike between you and their enemies, and if they are strong enought wont hesitate to declare war and march upon your new cities. Plan it well!
"Politics can be a confusing mess, so much so most people just give up on it entirely" Just like Real Life am i right? Seriously though this is a MUST make video, cus NO ONE to my knowledge has ever dove into this system.
Now maybe make one for Attila as well? Its similar but diffrent.
RepublicOfPlay did one video exactly four years ago.
The Jeffery Epstien joke caught me off guard. Nice one!
Dang it i understood nothing
You are my hero. I love playing Rome 2 but the politics always frustrated me so much. But thanks to this video it will be so much easier to manage. Thank you
Glad I could help Jorge!
I love how you're keeping the community of this great game alive, thanks!
My pleasure!
Nice Video, works on legendary as well.
Some additional thoughts...
1. Don't let faction leaders die in battle, you will get a massive loyalty penalty (-30 I think).
2. Diplonatic Mission is the most important action. It is cheap, especially in the early game, boosts diplomatic relations, sometimes you can win a ton of cash or even a province and later on it's also a nice way to get rid of characters without negative loyalty. Always use it.
3. Kingdom is the best form of government. Only Empire is better. Secure loyalty is mandatory. (Kinda silly that the other forms are pretty useless)
4. Sometimes it is better to let a civil war happen. Sometimes you have no funds to take care of politics. After you won a civil war you get the buff again which prevents civil wars. (Won a Campaign with Rome in Rise of the Republic on legendary with 6 Civil Wars :D )
5. Securing loyalty by edict is free loyalty. Again this is mandatory on legendary difficulty.
Did not know that gravitas was multiplied by ambition. That’s highly useful.
I can imagine a very complex and cool politics mechanics if CA made a Game of Thrones Total War or in Three Kingdoms 2 which is more focus in the ROTK where politics are made deeper and more complex than in actual history
First thing I learned by going through the politics of the historical Three Kingdoms vs the novel, is that real life politics are always more complex and unpredictable than fictional adaptations.
Fellow political intrigue enjoyers.
Try the game Crusader Kings 3.
@@bzoner16 Wait Until You See The Mayhem That Are Paradox Games
@@talixius Yo, CK3 is a massive game with so many options as a ruler on running a country, duchery, kingdom, or empire. Its really fun. I love that game.
Simple and straight to the point. Dankeee~
This is an excelent guide. Well done!
Personally I simply don't have armies or fleets with other parties' generals, never marry them, and only send them on diplomatic missions. The cool thing is that on civil war they'll have no forces. And over time my family tree would grow, they'd be at 1 character per party and as such I always end up on the 95-ish% control of the senate. Civil Wars do become an issue in the late game due to the Imperium level. But at that point just swarm the rebel province before they rebel and you'll have no trouble.
I think it's a shame CA didn't represent the Cursus Honorum. It was in Rome 1 and it could have been expanded upon. It would connect great with the current system in Rome 2.
Thanks for watching Wolf! That's a great strategy 👍
Marrying them is actually interesting since you can give a free promotion to their partner and using that character as well as a diplomat.
I tend to this scheme: when a character from other is a good general or I have been forced to use him due to lack of available generals, I give him promotions until the point that I still can Entice him. So, the party is pissed off for the Entice, but happy for the battles and promotions which the character earned. It normally gives me a loyalty surplus.
Another scheme is this (especially as Romans, Hellenics and Carthage): promote all the available women in other parties (make the male characters to get married in order to make women appear). When they reach maximum level (thus, lot of loyalty bonus) kill their husbands, and marry the woman with one of your own characters (your character must be quite important, since a maximum promoted woman has high gravitas etc). You get the promotions bonuses and the polítical marriage - killing her husband= loyalty surplus. Besides, if she's a young woman she still can give children to your probably older male character (who has probably got divorced from his aging wife in order to carry out the scheme). This is quite machiavellic, but it works great.
Then you can Entice her into your faction in order to obtain her gravitas and use her for other political actions such as Praising, Raise Support, Embezzlment...
Take into account that the woman who was the wife of your male character will be part of Other Nobles now (unless she was born within the family), so you should adopt her in order to prevent her forming a new political party.
I've seen some mad things during my campaigns such as sons adopting their mothers, ex husbands adopting their ex wives...politics are really fun if you understand and are somewhat machiavellic in this game, I don't get the hate for this system of Rome 2.
Concerning the civil wars, I normally let them trigger just for fun, but I can keep at bay even parties with the worst traits, it's all in the mechanics if you do it properly.
The Imperium level is a mess. I prefer playing tall, and I don't get why client states and satrapies increase your imperium. It should be like in Europa Universalis, where if you liberate vassals your stability and researching cost are lower, since you have a smaller and more efficient country.
@@alejandrop.s.3942 good stuff! Very cool ideas.
Learnt a bunch with this. Despite just over 600 hours in the game I never really went to deeply into the politics.
nothing to be proud of...
"we will have to Jeffrey Epstien him" LOL
Nice! Going to help with my play through with Sparta!
Warrior of Sparta! I'm honored :)
@@happycompy pleasures all mine
"we'll have to jeffery epstien him" 😂
The game will not assign to provinces random parties. The province is assigned depending from which party is the general that conquer it. You can use that to avoid civil wars by capturing towns with your own party generals.
I don't think so. I've seen a province "owned" by a political party during one turn and the following one owned by other party. Besides, even though you only conquer using your own family generals, some provinces still will be assigned to other parties.
I think the most important measure is the influence of each party. The higher it 's, the more provinces it 'll have, proportional to your empire's size.
But yeah, when a secession/civil war is about to start you definetely must look to the political map in order to see which provinces are going to rebel.
At least in Dei it doesn't work like that
This is not true my friend. The province assignment doesnt depend on the conqueror, depends on the overall influence. If you let a party have 50% of influence, it will have arround 50% of your provinces. This cant be shown on early game, but when you have a lot of provinces under control its easier to see the distribution and how it changes due to the flux of influence between parties. Sometimes the distribution needs to be reset and they change the province.
I agree on using your generals because this will earn them XP and gravitas after each victory, but sadly it doesnt mean that the province will be yours politically speaking
Not true. First half of my grand campaign as Sparta, I had only family generals. Still, one party got 4 towns in Spain and second got one province in Libia. And all of it was conquered by my Basileus
@@alejandrop.s.3942 you are making a circular argument , I used some other parties generals to do the fighting now I am on shit situation politically and I am close to the bottom.
I thought I need to protect my heir and leader from dying so let's just assign random characters as generals, now they have gotten too powerful and influential and control most of my provinces, everyone has negative loyalty and more gravitas then me but at least I control Rome that's prob a given :D
So the op is right it won't assign to random parties , it is very much dependant on which party the general that conquers it but not 100% , what you are saying is like 5-10% chance of that not being the case but most of the time it is the case
This is the best politics guide i've seen since i started playing in 2014.
Thank you!
Love the way you have the rome 1 sound track playing well played
it's the GOAT
It was useful video but the loyalty can actually go down to -10 without the risk of a civil war
You're right, thank you for the correction!
Cue in the 'wtf i love rome 2 politics now' -reaction after understanding what the lightning symbol means and that generals dont generate gravitas. Now suddenly everything makes sense. Had two civil wars this far on my first ever rome campaign. They are a blast though but i can imagine it getting tedious by the time you get your 5th or 6th one.
My first time through: Politics? I have no time for Politics, Rome has an empire to make. *is suprised later that there is a civil war with one faction holding all the food producing settlements, thus starving my army*
Ive started my thrid one (its better than my last two attempts, I'm close to 200 turns with only one Civil War currently going on with only two settlements left to reunify) hopefully this guide helps me in the future.
3359.4 hours into Rome 2 but never understood politics, finally tryna learn😂 rip my time
i am proud of myself that i have figured out how the politics system works on my own
Set them back during times of peace, wait you’re not actually constantly fighting
What we all needed💯💯
Thank you LA 😍
Completed multiple campaigns on Legendary difficulty. Literally had to be told on stream how to get up the political affiliation map. Great guide and I'll definitely be taking some tips from it for future runs, but a strong reserve force tends to be a solid enough political tool for me haha.
That doesn't surprise me unfortunately. There is next to no explanation given for the political system. I'm thankful CA reworked it from the mess it was on release, but they never went back and explained the thing in game lol. It's Paradox-level bad UX.
@@happycompy Exactly! They overhauled the game years into release and didn't say anything useful about the changes they made, so all that effort was wasted leaving players confused.
@@happycompy i just kill off the bad group with an early civilwar to have just one weak and loyal "opposition" with one ignored admiral, scouting for trade sea partners like a spy,unit.
im fighting with my actual family member to raise their skills faster so that i can promote them to get gravitas and buffs.
i try to have only inner-family armies and if i have other-family-armies to use trash for them. noone can stop me to send 3-4 of these guys to death in a battle, if i can own the army at the end. if i get a daughter, i can sel....i mean marry her to a free family member to have one more general....after 2-3 generations, you are fine.
the actual political systems are complicated, where you have to get something between 50-60% to get good traits, like Attila......in my opinion Rome 2 politcs is just the question how to get to 100% in a faster way....you will get there, but when....
One time I sent my rival faction leader into battle to intentionally assassinate him without paying the money to do it. Went out like a boss and his party’s loyalty went up after his death for some odd reason.
hahahahaha that's awesome
I just came back playing this game and the politics is driving me crazy.
I legit had no idea what the politics were, I saw someone click Secure loyalty, so always clicked that.
Personally I always just provoke the other parties until I'm running an oligarchy. Just simplifies my politics in mid-late game
Smart move tbh.
They could at least have added the option to turn off the politics.
More options are always welcome in strategy games!
Thank you. The game itself does such a bad job explaining this!
Love the Jeffrey Epstein line lmao.
Me almost gerting full council strength without nowing how 🤣🤣
"So, anyway, I started winning battles only with my generals".
Well i enjoy having Civil Wars in Total War Rome II at least that's my excuse for having so many 😆😆.
Thank you so much for this video, I had no idea of some of the politics systems that you mentioned. It really is a shame that CA didn't include this as a tutorial video in their game. As you end up enjoying the game so much more when you aware of these details.
Agreed!
Thanks for the quick overview. I started playing Rome 2 again after a long hiatus. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything and thankfully it was pretty simplistic. I'm glad you showed what you want to essentially do with it.
I've been promoting the women to get those -5% corruption bonuses that they get at max career and using high stat ones to embezzle. I'm playing Macedon and those early turns with low public order can be manageable with some of the missions. Even removing taxes from a province a few turns should the instability cause issues. Something that wears off over time and you can move that army stack if you need to. The missions to gain favor with other countries can sometimes help immensely instead of spending so much money on preventing wars or creating trade allies. The better the diplomat the better it goes. Sometimes you get lots of money or research bonuses that make research go faster when doing it. Just to name a few great options for using politics not mentioned in the video. For anyone reading the comments.
Im new to the game and i can see after a just minute this video will help immensely, thanks
“We’ll need to Jeffery Epstein him” 😂☠️
*My guide to politics* - subscribe to the mod that increases loyalty across the board. Then, ignore politics. I get that people apparently enjoy this element of the game. I personally do not. It's just a spread sheet of -1 here, +5 there, to this and that. It's literally just a spread sheet. And, most of the actual gameplay you as a player have control over just involves spending money. It's not fun. Just tedious reading "oh this guy has low loyalty, I better click a button to change that to +5 instead of +1". Add to that the horrible UI of Rome 2 and misery is sure to follow.
Dude, the game is too easy without a challenging late game civil war and dealing with other parties' BS. I try to prevent civil wars, but they're actually the funniest part of the campaign imo.
@@alejandrop.s.3942 But, that's only because someone like you _needs_ a late game challenge. By the time the campaign has progressed to that point, I am ready to start another and just want it to be over with.
Challenge is one thing; Tedium is another. There's nothing interesting or organic about it. You know it's coming. You know why it's coming. Thus, you spend most of the mid game preparing for something that is inevitable (in a sandbox game).
You need to be forced to play a certain way. People like me do not and find challenge in other ways.
@Viscous Goo , actually, civil wars are not inevitable. The few civil wars I had I let them trigger because I really want the challenge. I tend to play tall (I normally fulfill objectives thanks to military allies) and I'm pretty good dealing with the political system, and I enjoy doing schemes with several turns in advance, such as preparing a political marriage or whatever.
Thank you mate!! Politics has always been my weak point and made me lose so many campaigns..I can now master this game and conquer the all world! Your wisdom is much appreciated, we can now feast and refresh out throats with ale! 😂
I'm glad it was helpful for you! Good luck on your campaigns.
the best way to avoid problems with opositor it is by sending them to war and die
One more thing, don't ever press the usurp button. It's literally shooting your own foot.
Yeah some of the intrigues are useless
Thanks so much! Very much needed guide, as the game itself offers no explanation as to how it works. I've only ever used the minimal tools to keep loyalty above 0 before because I had no idea how to maximise the characters and politics.
Agreed, the game is horrendous at explaining the political system to you. I'm glad this was helpful to you man!!
Politics is actually pretty fun. Couple more points:
Don’t feel obligated to marry all your family members. You’ll wind up with a huge family tree and get bogged down each turn trying to figure out what to do with all of them. I’d say two reproducing couples per generation will be good. You can always hire a politician if you need one.
Send rival family members on diplomatic missions to raise loyalty. Regardless of the outcome, you get the loyalty. They only get gravitas for successful missions. But sometimes diplomats are killed. You don’t want your own family members killed during a diplomatic mission. Let the other family members die for that. When other family members get to big for their britches, assassinate them. And then send their cousins on diplomatic missions to get that loyalty back up.
Never use the secure loyalty button. If you’re doing it all right you’ll never come close to needing to use that option.
Let the Civil War happen. Do what the video said. You’ll be warned when it’s coming. No reason you can’t smoke the rebels in 2 or 3 turns.
Great tips!
I consider myself a master of campaining in Rome 2 (in pvp I will suck, for real) and learnt nothing new because I use politics in every single campaing I do, but this guide is 100% accurate and recomendable and will lead you to a proper management of your faction's politics.
And remember, some parties will be hard to tame depending on their traits, if they are bad dont hesitate to set up traps and wait for the secession to annihilate them in a secure way. Once you master this tech, you can take your time, wait for the 10 turn-protection to expire, and finish the last rebel army to have another "10 turn bonus loyalty". When you defeat a secession you earn a bonus of 30 loyalty, decaying 3 per turn which means 10 turns. This way you can have up to 20 turns without secessions. If you kill them quickly and earn the loyalty bonus called "overcame secession" while having the protection on, its kinda wasting this bonus.
Tip: If you set up the secession, be sure of raising a brand new army, it will be lost forever and with it, his traditions and troops become enemies. New army, party leader as general or admiral alone so they dont spawn an army with elite troops, and keep at least 1 decent army near the contested provinces for a quick reaction. Conquer everything except 1 region, harass them constantly so they cant muster new units and when the protection is about to expire, finish them to enjoy the bonus. From now on, you will mock at rebellions instead of shitting on xD
I love this tip! Absolutely diabolical.
@@happycompy Thanks for reply :D Glad u like it, and happy to add something to this good and needed guide
Boo, dont ever just promote people, If you use them in battle and they win and then you promote them you will have everyone on your side for a long time. Its super easy not to go under 0 but if you do provoking a civil war and taking out the problem family in battle and instituting a new family powerbase is so cool
if a party seceded and started a civil war will the party dissappear ? as of commenting this one of my political party is at -5
Yes! If a party secedes it will vanish completely from the politics screen. Eventually, a new party under a different name with different traits will spawn.
@@happycompy Thanks :D
so after buying rome 2 and not touching it for almost a year i decided to give it a go (no mods cause i preffer to play vanilla first to see whetver i will hate it or not )amd i must say im actually enjoying everything the game has to offer , from the army limits to the political system , the campaign has a nice slow pace to it and there is no sense of having to rush towards the endgame , i mean it took me several decades to capture cisalpine and raetia et noricum , also i cant remember the last time i had so much fun with total war lmao
Hell yeah man! That's awesome to hear.
There's something to understand? Just get your influence high and keep the factions loyal so that there's no civil war.
Perfect tutorial: funny, logical and detailed
Thank you J River! Glad you enjoyed!
Amazing video! This helped me greatly understand this system and has me wanting to jump back in a give it a shot! Thanks again maybe we will see more guide videos from you.
Thanks for the feedback Cody, I'm glad you found it helpful!
I actually found the politics to be fun, engaging and quite beneficial. Making your way through it can really embellish your playthrough.
Learned something new, ambition. Nice
Thanks for the video its very helpful. Politics is a game in a game lol but I love this game since been playing rome total 1 .
Glad I could help! Agreed, it's a game within a game hahahaha
Is there a way to destroy opposing factions or will your family members keep creating new factions?
They will always respawn.
Good sir, after more than 700 hours I have learnt things here to truly fine tune politics. I knew enough to half ass it, now this looks fun!
Lastly, do take care! It has been a while since the last video, best TW content creator☝
Thank you so much Zubi! I will be back eventually :)
HappyCompy, are you sure that characters that are leading armies don't gain gravitas? Because there are traits that give some gravitas per turn and those work even if the guy is a general, so I was wondering if you tested it yourself. To add some pro tips, the edict that gives party loyalty can be the most cost effective way to gain loyalty, depending on how expensive the political interactions like "secure loyalty" or "send emissary" and such are, and promoting other party's member isn't necessarily a great idea because they'll start gaining free gravitas by doing nothing. It might be worth it if you are already making enough gravitas yourself or if you promote only one of them. Promoting your own party members upsets the other parties only temporarily, so it can be done somewhat safely (and should be done while the civil war protection is still active).
Good tips! Yes, all things being equal (meaning no traits), generals do not generate gravitas passively but statesmen do.
I only promote other characters from other parties if I plan to Entice them eventually or if I'm really struggling with loyalty and desperately need a boost through the free promotion or whatever.
Thanks for this guide!
The video was detailled, yet easy to understand.
Next time I'll do a Grand Campaign (probably with Pontus), I will pay closer attention to the politics-system and try to play around with it a little more.
It looks fun.
What I like is that once you get into it, it still seems somewhat intuitive - and it allows for some roleplaying.
In my recent RotR-Syracuse-campaign, I actually had a pretty costly civil war in early midgame shortly after uniting Sicily. Surprised the heck out of me of it happening so soon, never experienced it starting so early.
Half my territory rebelled and what was worse was that my second-best army, which had already won me some really important battles early on in the game and I thus was emotionally invested in, rebelled as well. Also my fleet rebelled which I had used some turns earlier to sail my main army to Africa to invade Carthage, which I had to ferry back in forced sailing in the hopes of it not getting attacked at sea.
So I really had some work to do in order to win this civil war, but it was a lot of fun.
"you with me so far"
me: above zero got it
Thanks for the video explaining this. One thing that confused me is this: if generals gain no gravitas and victories give you loyalty from the faction whose leader won the battle, why do I want opposing party members as generals *away* from the frontlines. Don't I want them in the thick of it, winning battles to generate loyalty?
They will generate loyalty yes, but they will also generate gravitas for the opposition, which will lower your political influence. Better to secure loyalty in other ways and let your own generals get the glory (and influence).
@@happycompy Ah so victories give the general gravitas and you loyalty, but generals don't generate gravitas if they're just sat there doing nothing. Got it, thanks. Does this also apply when the general has their first "level up" and you select one of the bonuses? All the first-choice bonuses have a +1 gravitas per turn modifier; is this modifier only effective when they're not generals?
You saved my campaign in 2023. Thank you!!!!
You are very welcome!!
I prefer Crusader Kings 2
3:26 24 karat joke for a TW guide
very good video!!
40 hours of failed campaigns and politics now I'm trying to learn the game the proper way from the economy to the politics here is to hopefully 1 successful campaign :d
Good luck!
@@happycompy thank you :)
I managed to become a 100% dominant party state thanks to your tips hahaha
Nice work!
"In times of peace on the other hand..."
Wait, what?! How?? I mean: Has he been playing the same game as me? ;-D
I like the politics in Rome 2 but the UI really is dreadful
Agreed
I understand it... it took me 5 years but i figured it out
lmao better late than never my man
This is a perfect and straight forward tutorial. Well done!
Glad it was helpful Jordan!
What does Gregory Epstein him mean is that a mechanic in Rome
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey epstein…he he
I am the senate
It's treason then.
Guys, can you please help me out?
First of all, thanks for the video, it really taught me how politics work!
Then, I've followed some hints I saw in the comments. I started to invest in my household, and I'm up to some 30-40 members. The generals I use for battles, I start to train them as soon as they come of age, and then replace them for younger ones once they get are around 40 years old.
So, my family has around 800-1000 gravitas. The opposition party has around 200 gravitas (with 4 members). But the opposition has 40% influence! That is crazy. I'm late game, taxes are low, I have 200+ surplus food, and the third opposition party is always loyal, but they have 0% influence?
The 40% influence party (second party) is always going disloyal, it seems the game is forcing them to become disloyal AND having high influence. What is wrong?
I'm playing with Saba. Hashish tribes (disloyal and always going on the negative): 200 gravitas.
Marib Nobles: 200 gravitas, with 0% influence.
Sabaen dinasty (player's faction): 1000 gravitas with 60% influence.
Turn 190. I'm missing two regions to win the game through cultural victory.
I'm still playing as kingdom, haven't switched to empire and have not had a civil war yet, but it's getting difficult.
Thanks so much!
Huh didn’t think about sending them into the middle of an ocean, if civil war is inevitable I either send an army while I stall for time or create an army next to the rebelling territory. If I’m lucky I can take out the starter army they begin with and quickly sweep through the place. However I think if you leave an army that is being lead by another family (say you control Magna Graecia and you send an army under a different family general there, there is the chance they could take that territory while either losing control of their prior territory or holding it can gaining two full territories easy), make sure they are place in the territory they hold.
Besides if one or two families rebel then I’m sure you can part a few territories of your own to allow the one that is either the most loyal or that stuck with you to put down the rebellion. This is coming from a guy that had 5+ civil wars during their first play through (had some forewarning about the civil war issue, made it easier to be ready to counter).
Politics in this game is stupid. I just have my family members literally do all the fighting. And when a party gets too pissy to control. I just isolate their province, kill off everyone but the leader, let the province rebel. And then I’ve got 2 or 3 stacks ready to immediately retake it all in a turn or 2. Then I’m good again for a while.
Another option when it comes to politics is to maximize the size of your family dynasty. This serves two options: you still have a lot of members able to provide gravitas for your party and are also able to completely demilitarize opposing parties and monopolize army control.
I focus on promoting my children as soon as they are able to take office and marrying them off as early as possible to ensure they have the highest number of kids. Keep in mind that one marriage in a turn is 20 gravitas, the second in the same turn is 22, and the third is 44, so be careful to split up the marriages.
If you have enough children, you should be able to control all your field armies with your family while still maintaining a massive base of political power.
The promotion of families does affect loyalty for the other parties but civil wars are virtually unavoidable at higher difficult settings, anyways. A good idea is to keep tabs on opposition loyalty and to station armies outside of cities when you see that their loyalty is reaching critical levels. You can basically just wipe out secessions in about one or two turns with this strategy.
Also, when you have enough cash to flaunt, just spam the “Secure Loyalty” intrigue if you really cannot be bothered to deal with civil wars. Another thing to do is to change your government type to “Empire” and use the “Provoke” option for a chance at immediately starting a civil war when you want it to.
08:13 after repeatedly watching 10x i still dont get it how he formulated it: why would you ever remove your family from control of the capital, in non-peace times? why would you ever remove opponent generals from trash-stacks?
2:43 discord ping lmao
Yes this is what I need better understand in the game. I really don't play around with that much besides just marying everyone off.
The civil war update made me stop playing Rome 2. The update even affected old savefiles. It was a sad time.
How to deal politics:
Step 1: Don't.
Step 2: Station an Army in every province
Step 3: Annihilate any family foolish enough to rebel against your tyrannical regime.
Repeat until end game.
I don't want to be bothered with any of this crap. If I wanted to play with these types of mechanics I would play CK3 and not this half baked crap.
On my game the total gravitas of the characters of my clan is not equal to the influence though, i don't understand
If only the maps were moddable in Rome 2, and the cities didn't have limited building.
Excellent guide. Much better tutorial and for new players it'll help a lot!
Glad you think so Medjay!
@@happycompy np
I wish more tw had stuff like this really adds to the management side of the game
Agreed. Luckily Three Kingdoms, Thrones and Attila have similar systems!
@@happycompy and thanks to your mod list 3ks gets pretty good been loving 3k for its campain and those mods really enhance it
@@ryanadams2610 glad to hear you're enjoying 3k man! 🎉
@@happycompy shame ca dropped had they fallowed through it would have been easily one of the best and content heavy title in the series.
@@ryanadams2610 completely agree
It feels Great to SEE that one party have that one settlement, like
"Weak parties Will be banished"
Bro i fucking love your videos, so helpful.
is there any chance you can teach us how to make extremely high profit (cash) cities/provinces?
Hahahhaha thank you! Currently replaying Rome 2 and I've just murderized an opposing party in a brutal civil war because I thought that is the way :D
The political system is fun as hell.
Early game "empire divided" I was Gallic Rome conquering the Latins. I had two One germen and one Italian family helping me with my campaign. Every thing was going fine. After about 10 victories I marched down the Peninsula took Rome and fought at the battle of Brundisium. I tried to take the city with a coalition force just out numbering my enemies by only 800, 5400 to 4600. I lost the attack and lost both my generals in the fray. Both political parties seceded and took parts of Germany and Italy from me. I had to reorganize and put down the rebellion with the help of 3 new families. They since went on to conquer all of Italy and modern day Sicily and destroyed the Pretender Romans. Right now Im in good with all 3 families but Ive yet to expand my borders into Germania or the East or even the Iberian. Time will tell if the Republic will hold, or be plunged head long into civil war and ripped apart just at the apex of its power.
Great narrative gameplay thats one was so fun to oust the tratiors and bring in to the fold 3 new factions and have them confiscate the rebel lands.
That's an awesome story! This is exactly why I enjoy political systems and character dynamics, it creates fun emergent scenarios.
I always quit playing Rome 2 when I get one of those stupid civil wars. For once I decided to see if I can do something about it. And I just saved my campaign thanks to this video. I blew 20k on marriages to bring faction loyalty up and reduced my civil war chance to 7%. I had no idea there was this much strategy to the political system. I had always disregarded it because there's nothing like it in previous Total Wars.
THank you for sharing! I'm glad you were able to save your campaign!
3:26 lol
8:29 "strip army away from family members to let them generate gravitas"
but stripping army away also reduces their loyalty right and abilities right? I don't even dare to remove people from command now...
But if I perform actions that deplete gravitas won't that in turn decrease my influence? I'm taking over the world 🌎 but have yet enough influence to change from a republic to an empire 👑.
This vedio helped me a lot and I m a rome total war 1 & 2 player, thank you, I'd like to watch a campaign gameplay by you, Egypt if you would
3:23 actually lol