How to Be Great at Rome Total War

Build. As long as you have the money, try to make sure that all of your settlements have at least one building being produced on the construction panel.

Start building by creating whichever religious structure you want. If you have conquered a city and it already has a religious structure from a different culture, destroy it and build your own. The only exception to this is when that city's happiness rating is too low to last a turn without that building without revolting.

Build your structures in order of how many turns it will take to complete, from smallest to largest. However, if you have the ability to upgrade the city and the citizens are becoming too restless, delay whichever current structure you are building with the new one that will advance your city.

Remember that while besieging an enemy town, make your weakest troops command the siege engines you build at the town (siege towers, rams, etc.) unless they are at risk from being attacked by the outside. You don't want your best unit to be cut down by arrows before even engaging the enemy. When you've brought siege equipment, such as onagers and ballistate, try not to destroy any buildings that appear in the campaign map. When you've finally broken the gate or a section of their wall, you should group the units you plan to send in and press Shift+8 to move them into column formation. This is best for storming a city.

After conquering a city, see what the city's happiness level is before you decide what to do with its citizens by looking at its window through the space between the information scroll and the edge of the screen. If it's red, you should massacre or enslave the citizens. In that situation, massacre them. If it's blue, enslave them. If it's yellow, you could still enslave them just in case. If it's green, neither massacre nor enslavement is necessary, but then again, you are the king, so it's completely up to you.

When one of your cities is under siege, command the battle yourself, no matter what the odds. It is possible to defend a city with 21 weak Greek Cavaliers against 350 Macedonian spearmen and archers and win with 15 men remaining and your general still alive. When you're the one whose city is about to be stormed, place the troops with the strongest defence near the place where the enemy has penetrated your city, and put them into guard mode. There are all types of different methods you can attempt to try to save your city. Something that often works is to put some spearmen a few yards back from wherever the enemy has come in and let them advance. Then, order any swordsmen, no matter how strong or weak, to attack it's now unprotected flanks since it is trapped between your defending army and the gate.

Battles are often won before the opposing armies ever see each other. Always try to place your army on a hilltop when it's about to be attacked. This hill will be on the battle map as well, and the slope could be the difference between defeat and victory.

Control where your ranged units are firing. Leaving your ranged units on fire-at-will can cause them to fire and hit your own men if they are close to the enemy.

Manipulate your enemy with decoys and bait. Put yourself into win-win situations.

Take care when around chariots. Chariots on the run can still cause casualties to you by the blades on their wheels.

Use morale. Morale is as much a weapon as any conventional one, don't overlook it.

When choosing where to expand, always keep in mind two factors. The first is military, take over a settlement to make defending your empire easier, or to weaken an enemy. The second, and most important, is economics. Your main drive in attacking a settlement is to make more money, either by opening up new trade routes or merely adding more people to tax.