This section of the guide is going to be about various units types, their strengths and weaknesses. I will not be attempting to explain every single unit in the game, as the point of this guide is supposed to be about giving relatively simple introduction to the game, so I don't really want to cause any headaches.

Light infantry

These are, generally speaking, the weakest units in game. They serve as arrow fodder, to distract the enemy and soak them up while your actual units do the fighting. Field them only if there is no real alternative.

Spearmen

Another cheap type of units, but far more reliable than light infantry. Generally fielded by barbarian nations as the bulk of their armies. Strong against cavalry, so don't underestimate them and charge straight into them with your general, or you might get into a nasty surprise.

Phalanx

Civilized peoples' version of spearmen. Much tougher, and much deadlier. Completely devastating against cavalry.

Heavy infantry

The main bulk of your armies. Especially if you're playing as a Roman faction. Useful against phalanxes and spearmen, especially if used correctly. You can put them in loose formation and have them beat phalanxes of equal tier. Or you can put them in guard mode and have them defend while you circle the enemy and flank them with other units.

Light Cavalry

Lightly armored and fast cavalry. Great at moving down missile units and fleeing enemies. They can also be useful in taking down horse archers.

Heavy Cavalry

Heavy cavalry were the equivalent of tanks in the pre-gunpowder times. Stong and extremely useful against almost everything. You should still avoid directly charging at phalanxes.

Your generals tend to be units of heavy cavalry. While they are extremely strong, they are also extremey valuable. Remember to always keep an eye out on your general unit, because if your general dies, it might demoralize your armies and rout them from the battle.

Elephantry

If heavy calvary are tanks, then elephants are nukes. Can even charge directly at phalanxes and trample them in a matter of seconds. Nothing can stand in their way. If you see enemy fielding elephants, you better pray your missile units can inflict as much damage to them as possible, before they overrun you. Probably the biggest weakness of these units is the fact that beasts can be scared by fire. If you have archers, order them to fire flaming arrows on the elephants, which would eventually cause them to panic and run amok the battlefield, destroying friend and foe alike.

Skirmishers

The missile version of light infanty. Field them if you have no other ranged units, or if the alternative is fielding peasantry, as they can still take them down, even in melee combat.

Archers

Your main missile units. Keep them away from melee, and safe from enemy cavalry. Can use flaming arrow mode, which causes them to attack a lot slower, but their attacks become far more devastating to enemy morale. This mode is, as I already mentioned, extremely useful against elephants. A way to minimize damage from enemy archers would be to order your units to stay in loose formations. This makes the units stand away from each other and suffer less damage from arrows, but beware, because it might decrease their combat effectiveness.

Horse Archers

As the word says, mounted archers. They are generally less effective in combat than regular archers, but it's offset by their much larger mobility, allowing them to get out of the harm's way. You can order them to form Cantabrian Circle, which makes them run in a circle and fire arrows, which makes them less vulnerable to foot archers, who are generally capable of beating them in regular mode. Remember to watch out for enemy cavalry, or they might hunt your horse archers down.

Other noteworthy types of units

I originally didn't plan on including these as well, but they are a part of the game, so you should be familiarized with them.

Chariots are units with weak defense, but great for charging into enemy and causing them to panic. They also counter cavalry. They are "unpredictable" units, who thrive in chaos. Your best bet at taking them down are missile units or strong spearmen. Great units for killing enemy generals.

Chariot archers are, essentially, horse archers who don't need to fear cavalry. Fear them.

Camelry are a type of light cavalry who are extemely effective against other types of cavalry.

"The sinews of war are infinite money."

- One of those smart people from the loading screens. Probably Son Tzu or some other Shogun.


To conquer the ancient world, you need money. Money to train your troops, equip them, pay them, and transport them across the world. Not to mention build up your cities and provinces. What's the point of conquering a land, if it's filled with mud huts? There's reason Romans never really bothered to conquer ancient Germania, after all.

One thing you should know about this game that it's, economically, pretty "libertarian". Taxes are bad. You should always keep your taxes as low as possible. High taxes lead to revolts, and lower population growth. And it's just not worth it, considering that you don't even get that much money from taxes.

Your main source of income through the game is going to be trade. Trade between your own cities, and trade between you and other nations. To develop trade, you need to build and upgrade your docks, your roads, and your markets. These three things should always be on top of your priorities. Other province improvements that increase your income are farms and mines.

Farms have an another effect, and that is to increase your population growth. The more food you grow, the more mouths you can feed, after all. Besides farms, there are two more ways to increase your population in a region. First one being building templies to some specific gods, who grant you higher population growth. The other one being disbanding your armies within the province.

This second way isn't that widely known, but it can be a useful piece of information nevertheless. Let's say, you have a province with too many people, and a sparsely populated province. You can effectively transfer the population from the densely populated province by recruiting a lot of peasants (Specifically peasants, since they're pretty much both the largest and the cheapest unit in-game.) in that province, moving them to the capital of the other province, and then disbanding them there. It's an easy way to kickstart population growth in a province.

Now, a lot of people might claim how having high population growth and high population in general in this game are a bad thing. And they do have a point. High population leads to squalor. Squalor leads to unrest, and lower income. So I've seen many people recommend that you shouldn't even upgrade your farms at all, as it only leads to these annoying issues.

Personally, I disagree. There's an easy way to get rid of squalor. Get rid of the people. Once you've upgraded a city to it's maximum possible size, and the population reaches such a large number that the people are living in squalor and unhappy about it, there is a single good way to fix the problem.

Simply order your garrison to vacate the city, and let the city revolt. Once it does, order the army to besiege the city. And once you capture the city again, have the population either enslaved or massacred. This should considerably drop the city population and keep it unrest free for decades. Not to mention that pillaging the city would greatly boost your coffers, as your soldiers plunder and loot property of the rebels.

What? No one said it's a nice way of fixing the problem.

I was unsure how to properly explain just how... well, awful, diplomacy is at this game. Then I remembered this particular gem. You know what they say, a screenshot is worth a thousand words, right?

One thing you should know is to never trust any faction in this game. They will all inevitably turn on you. That one nation you saved from certain doom decades ago and have been steadfast allies with, the guy you traded with and made both of you rich through it? Yeah, expect him to backstab you at some point in some completely inane way, by sending a single ship to blockade one of your backwater ports in the middle of nowhere, or something else just as absurd. A day which would live in infamy, certainly.

This is not to say that you should ignore diplomacy entirely. You should seek to establish trade agreements with everyone possible. Another good thing to do would be to trade your map information for other nation's map information, allowing you to survey the entire map that way. And you don't need to worry about the AI finding out what you have, they know that by default anyways. So it's not like you lose anything.

Back to diplomacy. Now, there are some things that are mostly constant. If you go to war with a single Roman faction, the other Roman faction will declare war on you. And if you play as a Roman faction, then you need to take into account the Senate.

As a Roman, Senate will send you missions every now and then. First one being as soon as you start the game, and it being to conquer a relatively defenseless nearby region. Also, if you happen to lose a city to a revolt, it's almost a certainty that the Senate will give you a mission to retake the city. You should always seek to fulfill the Senate missions, as they can award you money, troops, and some popularity.

Speaking of popularity, there are two different popularities you work on. The first one being your standing with the Senate itself. As you fulfill missions, win battles and vanquish foes, your standing with the Senate will keep increasing. Eventually, Senate will worship the ground you walk on. At this point, your standing with the people will still remain pretty low. But as you keep accomplishing more and more after this point, your standing with the people will keep rising, and your standing with the Senate will start lowering. The old men in skirts getting scared of your popularity with the masses and all.

This will eventually lead to the people worshipping you, and Senate despising you. At this point, you might even get a mission from the Senate, ordering you to kill yourself. But your popularity with the people should be large enough by this point that you would be given the opportunity to march on Rome and take it for yourself.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are represented in Rome: Total War in-game, and can be seen on the campaign map. Each of them offers a specific benefit when you capture it. What they all have in common, however, is that capturing any of them greatly boosts your people's happiness in your entire country, and lasts for several turns.


Great Pyramid of Giza

Capturing the pyramids removes the penalty non-Egyptians have in cities they control that are of Egyptian culture.


Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Capturing Babylon improves all your farms in the entire world, boosting their efficiency.


Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Capturing Olympia gives you a permanent happiness boost in all of your cities, decreasing the chances of revolt. It's one of the two most useful Wonders in the game.


Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

Capturing Ephesus decreases the cost of construction of all of your temples and religious buildings.


Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

Capturing Halicarnassus reduces construction time of all of your buildings that take five or more turns to build.


Colossus of Rhodes

Capturing Rhodes gives you a permanent boost to naval trade income in all of your cities, greatly increasing your revenue. It is probably the most useful Wonder in the game, and is alone more than worth going to war with Greeks over it.


Lighthouse of Alexandria

Capturing Alexandria gives you increased naval movement in the area around Alexandria. Yes, you read it correctly. Only in the area around it. Easily the worst wonder in the game.

When garrisoning cities, the only thing that matters is the number of units. 200 peasants and 200 heavy cavalry will be equally effective on lowering unrest. Therefore, you should aim to use peasants as garrisoning units, as they're the cheapest unit around, and they tend to be in very large numbers. Always have at least a single unit garrisoning a settlement, as if they are defenseless, enemy will take them without a siege, and unrest will be much higher than usual.


Hammer and anvil is an ancient military tactic. It was the tactic Alexander the Great used in pretty much every single battle he fought and won. It's also painfully simple. To sum it up - use your infantry to engage the enemy on the front, and circle them around with your cavalry and hit them from the other side. This is a devastating strategy and, if used correctly, will almost definitively win you any battle.


If you place your units in forest, they will be "hidden" from the enemy. Cavalry and archers are also far less effective in forest.


Missile units are far less effective in bad weather conditions, i.e. rain and snow.


Units tire more the more they move. If you start a battle and enemy is on the other side on the battlefield, as much as it might be annoying, it would be smarter to march towards the enemy instead of charge towards them. Terrain plays a role as well, as units facing an enemy on the hill tire faster and are generally weaker.


The general is the heart and soul of an army. Killing a general strikes a great blow to the enemy morale, and might lead to them fleeing from the field of battle, even if they seem to be winning the battle. Battles aren't just about killing the enemy, you can also win them by routing the enemy force.