These cause you to forget earlier techs and thus lock out the construction of key infrastructure which is far more valuable, especially where sanitation is concerned.

While on the subject of religion, my very strongest piece of advice when playing the WRE is DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT research ANY of the religious techs.

If you don’t like the idea of demolishing churches, bear in mind that you can always increase your religious output and shift your city-development focus later in the game, but initially it is not a good investment and will hinder more than help. This money could be far better spent maintaining aqueducts and paying for other vital improvements. In the early game, food is much easier to come by while fertility is high and is the better option as a currency through which to maintain order.ĭemolishing the churches will not only hugely increase money immediately – as demolition puts the value of the buildings in money into your coffers, but it also removes significant maintenance costs for the buildings. You can far more easily suppress disorder through classical architecture – amphitheatres, theatres etc, which cost food to maintain, not money, and provide far larger bonuses to civil order than religious buildings. The maximum religious penalty in regions in which the dominant religion is not strong – in this case, Latin Christianity – was recently increased to -6 per province, which is wearable, especially as it will take some time for Latin Christianity to decline significantly enough in those regions to give you a real headache. This may sound counter-intuitive, but religious buildings cost money to maintain and are not really worth the investment – certainly not in the early stages of the game. One slightly radical way to do this is to destroy every single religious building in your empire in your first turn, except for the one in Rome itself which is already capable of building priests. Initially you need to focus on improving the amount of gold you earn per turn, otherwise, it will soon become impossible to fund armies and pay for vital city improvements. The WRE begins with 68 regions, many of which are already in a state of rapidly declining order and on the brink of disease, but they also present huge possibilities with regard to economic development. Take a good half hour to go through all your cities and regions and check out the position of your armies and the state of your economy. The first thing to do is study your empire in some detail.

Attila total war map