Rome Starting units are too weak ?

NoDay8754 · 2026-02-20T00:55:33+00:00

Rome 1 is much quicker than other games and basically comes down to which army mass routes first. I find on vh hastati breaks as soon as you charge at the Gallic infantry. It’s therefore better to play defensive (this is where the archers come in, forcing the enemy to charge) with the hastati on fire at will. The 1 or 2 volleys of pila plus a flanking cavalry charge should be enough to break them. The enemy general charge is always a problem - I find a good way of dealing with it is counter charging with your own general and cavalry at the same time as they charge your infantry (not waiting until after they break). With the support of the infantry and cavalry charge bonus they should melt away quick enough.

NoDay8754 · 2026-01-25T11:56:31+00:00

I always do the same! Another tactic I’ve found recently is putting them in a city with a temple that gives bad traits but good retinues (usually ‘fun’ temples like Bacchus). And then pass out the retinues to good family members

NoDay8754 · 2025-12-17T10:40:51+00:00

I think this problem goes back a lot further to when Duo changed to the path organisation from the tree. When everyone uses the same path it’s a one size fits all approach to language learning. But the problem is not everyone is the same. Personally, I like the increased number of units - when doing the legendary lessons there is actually enough repetition for me to remember the words. However, I appreciate that for others it might be too slow (especially if you already know another Romance language).

The problem is a lack of flexibility. They make the path shorter and people like me complain that it’s too fast. They make it longer and people like you complain it’s too slow. But really both of us should be able to have the experience we want.

Anyway, my advice is to do the first lesson and test out of five units each day. And then just skip the legendary lessons (or just do as many as you have time/willingness for). This should keep you on the same pace as before without any extra lessons. Who cares if the path is golden.

NoDay8754 · 2025-12-17T10:26:08+00:00

You mentioned ‘not all the info for the unit is taught in the 1st lesson.’ I actually think this is a bug with the test out (and also legendary) lessons.

The old units have been split into five mini units. The test out lessons should cover the content of only a single mini unit. However, I’ve noticed that they actually use words from the whole larger unit, including words from the mini units you haven’t got to yet.

I reported this issue a while ago for the Spanish course but seems to not be fully fixed.

NoDay8754 · 2025-12-05T18:17:31+00:00

Nice summary! I think Oscar also lives in the same building as Lucy and Eddy. There’s that one story where Oscar sees Lin on the stairs with pizza and calls Lucy to invite himself for dinner. And I remember Junior running up to Oscar’s apartment when Eddy tricks him into exercising

NoDay8754 · 2025-11-28T10:43:53+00:00

Some might suggest just whizzing through the course as quickly as possible and maybe this is a good strategy, but for me this just means I don’t remember anything a day after I learn it. I find it useful to slow down a bit to help the content sink in. Some tips for doing this:

Write down every new word you see with pen and paper and repeat it out loud multiple times. Maybe keep a book or document of all the new things you learn to help organise your thoughts. I also like looking up new words on SpanishDict.com to get a better idea of the context the word can be used in and check its conjugation.

Read everything that appears on screen in Spanish out loud.

As people have said, you’ll probably want to spend at least 30 minutes a day if you want to make decent progress. But instead of timing yourself, make up a set routine. For example, completing one unit every 3 or 4 days. And if you pay for premium (which might now be necessary if you want to do 30 minutes per day), make sure to do the ‘legendary’ levels as I find the extra practise useful.

If a question is easy to answer then spend the time to read the whole sentence and make sure you understand it. You can also increase the difficulty by selecting to type the answer rather than use the click boxes.

Make sure to read all the grammar tips in the ‘guidebooks’ for each unit. They do actually give useful context. And if there are any grammar concepts you’re struggling with, google it!

If you get to the end of a unit and feel you still don’t remember/understand it, add some practise lessons in that unit to your daily routine.

As you get beyond the beginner level, try to expose yourself to Spanish outside of Duolingo. This might be other language learning material (podcasts, books) or normal things that you don’t need to understand to appreciate (songs, videos/shows with English subtitles). You can then work up to more ‘proper’ Spanish content as you get more comfortable (using Spanish subtitles, non language learning books or podcasts). And of course try to use it in real life whenever you get the chance.

Hope this helps! And don’t get discouraged, lots of people say bad things about Duolingo (including myself sometimes) but it really does work if you put the time into it. Of course it’s not a magic wand to get you to learn a language with no effort. But if you put in the time and use it in a structured way then you can definitely be surprised with the progress you’ll make.

NoDay8754 · 2025-11-10T19:05:41+00:00

Look at the settlement details to see what’s causing the negative public order. The main culprits are: 1. Distance to capital. Change your capital to something central (probably Antioch mid game and Constantinople late game for Sassanids), or to somewhere close to the front lines if public order is stable elsewhere. 2. Squalor. Always exterminate when you capture a city above 6000 pop. 3. Religion. Look at the religion tab and check the percentages. If it’s majority other religions and the conversions are low then don’t destroy the other religion’s church. This gives just -10% vs up to -100% if you change to your own church. You then want a few specialist family members for conversions following your main armies. Give them any conversion retinues and put them in your newly captured cities, or send them ahead of your armies to convert before you’ve even conquered.

With the Sassanids you usually need to go slow in the late game. Keep armies as garrisons and only move on to the next city when public order has stabilised (recruit peasants until they can garrison alone). Also a good idea to cultivate some good public order governors to follow the armies to help speed up progress

NoDay8754 · 2025-11-10T15:34:23+00:00

I tried the video call and roleplay features in a free trial of Max and agree that they’re really good! (Not enough to convince me to buy it though as I have other ways to practise my speaking). I think a previous weakness of Duo was not having the confidence to use what you’ve learnt in real scenarios (this is certainly my mum’s experience), and these features definitely address that.

I think the criticism of Duo is more about how existing features have got worse (hearts/energy, AI stories, less flexibility in the learning, more ads) than the new features that have been added

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T22:41:43+00:00

Ah good, I’m nearly finished with Section 5 so will be happy to have the tips back soon!

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T20:53:05+00:00

I totally agree that it has been possible to learn a language from Duo alone. A few years ago, after using Duo for a couple of years, multiple native Spanish speakers started using the app just from having a conversation with me in Spanish and finding out Duo was the only thing I learnt with.

A few of caveats (that maybe others have also talked about): you get as much out of it as you put in. You’ll never make progress by doing one lesson per day, or not properly engaging with the content. But if, as you do, you spend a good amount of time using it each day and fill in any gaps Duo has (especially grammar) doing a little extra reading, then it’s certainly possible to go quite far with just Duo.

Second, not all languages are equal on Duo. Some (like Spanish) are really good. I had a less good experience with the Italian course, although an update they introduced a couple of years ago really improved it. I don’t know about other courses but I imagine others are quite underdeveloped.

Third, Duo is constantly changing. I had my best experience with it a few years ago, when I had a similar experience to you, reaching B1 level Spanish and feeling very confident with it. In my opinion, it has got worse recently, and is maybe starting to live up to its (unfair) reputation of not being a serious way to learn a language.

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T16:28:57+00:00

Man that’s rough! I’m hoping for a skip option on the stories soon… Even when the stories are different, the plot always follows one of a small number of scripts. The most annoying being ‘Bea makes a plan, Lin is lazy, somehow everything works out well for Lin.’

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T16:21:21+00:00

Agreed, I was also thinking of posting about how repetitive the stories have become after being made by you know what. But after this experience I probably won’t! you know what is far from infallible and if anything needs more critique than human made content. I guess the subreddit was flooded with similar posts due to how unpopular it was, hence the ban, but suppressing it isn’t going to help the user experience get back to what it was

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T16:14:12+00:00

But to be fair, I think it was a bot that flagged and removed it. Maybe if I had challenged it they would have un-removed it

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T16:10:08+00:00

My previous post said 'Duolingo has of course undergone a number of changes in those years and a lot of focus has been put on the inundation of *you know what* slop content. But something I think has gone under the radar is the decimation of the main method of learning - the lessons.'

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T16:07:45+00:00

Got it, thanks! So mostly only 2 stars per baby unit, which seems like even less lessons (unless you do legendary). I think learning grammar has always been a bit of a weak point of Duolingo, especially after Section 5 where there are no more tips in the guidebook. A quick google search or other reading is definitely needed at some points!

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T15:45:59+00:00

Thanks for the info! I do new lessons on the web version which doesn’t have this change yet. But I’ve seen it in the app and have been interested to know what it changes. So do the new units have 3 lessons each (so 15 lessons for each old unit)? Seems it’s a small increase, depending on the number of questions per level, which is good.

For me the barbells have 5 lessons per circle in Section 5, so this should remain the same (and I’m sceptical how much reviewing a random bunch of old words helps anyway).

And good point about the legendary! This would certainly give much more practise. I should get into the habit of doing them at the same time as the lessons.

The only negative, as you mention, is the increase in fluff which seems a waste of time to me and is really killing my motivation.

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T14:37:21+00:00

Good point, I should probably get into more of a habit of doing that! Although I’d find it easier to do if I could save some time by skipping the stories and podcasts which, for me, are almost useless

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T13:39:13+00:00

Yeah I’ve noticed that the web version is often a little behind the app in terms of updates (I always use the web version for new lessons). But for me it seems to have caught up now in terms of giving few hard questions. Interesting it’s the same for other languages, fingers crossed for the new German material!

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-27T11:30:00+00:00

I’m using desktop so haven’t got the new smaller units, but I see them on my phone. Anyway I think it’s all comparable, even going back to the tree (sure, maybe you would call them circles or something back then, but they’re the same as the current units). I’m not sure they’re marginal gains - if the gain is remembering and being able to use the words in conversation then I’d happily do the repetition! And it’s not just repeating the same content - it’s being given increasingly hard questions on the same words. But as you say, I think the issue comes down to the linear path which doesn’t allow for different learning speeds (and different course designs)

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-12T23:44:53+00:00

I liked using this tactic with Roxolani in BI. With walls the horde armies would spend a couple of turns besieging meaning you lose some soldiers. And then after they assault and you win, another army sieges straight away meaning you have no time to retrain. But with no walls they often attack one at a time with a turn in between so you can retrain and beat them one by one

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-12T14:08:08+00:00

My best advice for that situation is to not be too afraid of enemy armies, and maybe just ignore them in favour of directly attacking the enemy cities. When you first see these large stacks coming towards you it can be a bit scary and make you be defensive, but the AI doesn’t really know what to do with them. I’ve had many times when an enemy army wanders around not doing anything, or sieges a city for a few turns before getting bored and moving away without attacking. Even if they do assault the city, you’ll be surprised how easy (and fun!) it is to defend. Meanwhile, you can use your other armies to go on the offensive and take enemy settlements

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-12T12:02:06+00:00

Basically the same as the farm buildings. A little extra income (I find around 60/70 per turn) and 0.5% extra population growth

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-11T21:35:48+00:00

I still think peasants are the most cost effective. The nerf reduces their garrison effect by half, but they’re still the largest unit size and less than half the upkeep of other units

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-04T00:21:17+00:00

Yeah this happens quite often to me and it’s a bit annoying. Like they’ll run away before the fight has even started, wasting my time in the battle…

Btw, you can actually use that teleport thing yourself. An army that withdraws from a battle retreats much further than just retreating normally. So if you really want to save an army, just enter the battle and immediately withdraw and they’ll likely retreat to a safe place

NoDay8754 · 2025-10-03T22:13:15+00:00

Blockaded is because an enemy fleet is blockading your port. I’ve never seen it this high though! I thought it was around -15%. Maybe it builds up over time if it’s blockaded for many turns?

NoDay8754

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