Dacia

[frogbeastegg]

This faction must be unlocked with game editing before you can play.

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Chapter 1: Prologue

Soooooo, you have decided to play the Dacians. That probably means you are either incredible stupid or incredibly adventurous. But let’s leave this psychological profiling to Dr. Phil and rather than treating your symptoms, let’s aid them. Just a word of advice: before you play them, have some familiarity with RTW and read Kosak’s wonderful RTW guide. When you start with the Dacians, you will see that they aren’t exactly your ‘mainstream’ faction. For a full effect, I recommend playing on vhard/vhard.

Ok, enough mambo-jumbo introductory stuff, let’s get to the bone of it. You start with two provinces/cities. Notice that you have 3 family members. What a great setup! As if the develops are hinting: leave two members to govern the two cities, take the third member to war! And that is what you should do.

Your first decision is who to appoint governors and should do the fighting. I would recommend you leave the faction leader as a governor – he is a better leader AND a better governor, but having good governors is more important to you now; if you haven’t noticed, money does not exactly grow on trees in Dacia! Similarly, this should drive what buildings you choose to build (my choice was Shrine to Bendis – later on you can destroy it and get something more geared towards war).

Your second important decision is where to attack. Macedonians are way too powerful for you, so think about an alliance with them. Thrace and Scythia are slightly easier, but are still a tough battle, particularly since you won’t be able to build good armies this early in the campaign. Thus, I recommend signing alliances with the major powers and concentrating on growing your empire to the west – plenty of easy pickings there.

Let’s do it!

Chapter 2: Early Expansion

The chosen path took me first to Aquincum. On the way, a rebel army was slain giving my general 2 additional stars and couple abilities. From there, Segestica is a stone throw away.

If you have followed my advice and gone west, your emissary should by now have talked to the Macedonians and the Thracians and should have signed alliance, given them maps and trade rights, all for about ~15k dinarii. Not bad, particularly this early in the game, lol! Pretty much the only source of money for buildings! Now take this emissary to the Scythians!

Back in my home cities, economic buildings are slowing coming to fruitions. Not that I am making money, but at least not losing as much every turn.

Onward with battles for Aquincum and Segestica!

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Chapter 3: Onwards to the Aegean

By now the battles at Aquincum and Segestica are but a distant memory, if you have done everything right. Both towns fall easily even to a small army. I took them with 2 units of archers, 1 unit of phalx, 2 units of warbands, 2 cavalry units and, by the end, an 8-star general (who started as a 4-star general). I took half the population of Segestica to slavery (before you attack the town, decide which towns you want to benefit from the new population – in towns, like your capital, where you don’t want more people, simply pull out the governor temporarily outside the city).

By now you should have also married some of your daughters to some decent candidates – I personally refused probably 5 or so before somebody with at least some management came along. I seem to have plenty of skull-drudgers but few with brains. That’s barbarians for you ….

Finally, by now you should have built watchtowers at every crossing alongside your firm borders – the last thing you want is for some vagabonds to interrupt your trade or for some large army to sneak in unnoticed.

Now is the time to take Salona and Lovisice. I took Salona one turn before a large Brutii army came in its direction. It was a risk, but I needed the trade income, as well as an outlet in the sea.

Lovisice was taken by a second army – 2 units of archers, 2 warbands and a general. I found archers to be awesome in city fighting – the AI simply sits at the banner soaking in my missile fire. No complaints from me.

Make sure you rush your diplomat towards the west – there are profitable deals to be had in this direction! I built a second diplomat and sent it to the north – let the chap talk to the Germans and explore the area. He is cheaper than paying factions for their maps!

Finally things are looking up. I am allied with Thrace and Macedon (the Scythe pig refused), the empire has gone from mere tow cities to six, and there is enough money in the coffers to support the army and build buildings every turn. Take a breather, consolidate your position, allow the diplomats to do their deeds, build a few army units and explore the rebel towns to the north. On to the North!

[TCon88]

I personally went south. I made an alliance and gained trade rights from Thrace and sent an army of roughly, 1 archer, 1 falx, 2 warbands, 1 barbarian cav and my general down towards macedonia. On the way you should see a couple of rebel armies who are easily despatched and help with the experience of your units/general. After destroying them i attacked Bylazora with this army, the macedonians outnumbered me by about 130 but their early armies dont seem capable of destroying you. There hoplites and lancers are easy prey for your units, especially when flanked with the falxmen. Take this city asap and execute the population, you need the money. Now send your army down to Thessalonica, which may be a tougher fight, by taking this city you have gained good sea trade routes out of Greece allowing all that money to come flowing in.
Now its up to you.

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Certainly an alternative. The exception to this is that your new ally, Thrace, goes either after Macedonia or Scythia, so you do want to give them some room. In addition, the Romans make an early appearance and the Greeks are right there, so you may have the displeasure to battle them fairly early on.

In my current campaign, I control most of the north, except Germania, which is neutral, and am fighting some pretty fun battles against Gauls and the Romans. Just recently started expanding south.

The Macedonians are all but wiped out in my current game, taken over by Brutii and Thrace.

As for money, the map exploit makes it way too easy to gain money. I have 70k+ dinarii in the bank, all the while producing units every turn.

[TCon88]

I have taken some of your advice and expanded very slightly westwards, taking segestica and aquinicum from the rebels. I also have trade rights and an alliance with the Brutii, who are pushing in on macedonia and the greek cities with me. Im assuming that thrace will eventually attack scythia and i then intend to attack them at their capital, so hopefully will destroy thrace and macedonia soon.

[TinCow]

The hardest part about playing Dacia is the economics. This is probably why it isn't a playable faction without a manual unlock. On VH/VH you start the game with 3000 dinarii in the bank and an income of -888. That means that even if you don't spend any money at all, you'll be flat broke in 4 turns. Guess what... you've got no prospects to be profitable anytime in the near future. Sounds like fun, eh?

The key to surviving the early period of financial hell revolves around windfalls and queing. Diplomacy and aggressive expansion are the only ways you can survive. First things first, check your starting generals and stick the one with the highest management in your capital and set it on Very High tax. Stick the next best management general in the second city. Take whoever is left and scrape together ALL of the forces that you can manage. In the beginning you can leave a general alone in a city without anything else and still maintain order just fine. You should be able to get about 3/4 of a stack with your starting troops. Take them ALL and head west towards the rebel held provinces.

Also on the first turn, grab your diplomat and make a b-line for the Thracians. This single diplomat is your only chance at survival. You should contact the Thracians and Macedonians very quickly. Make trade agreements with both and Ally with them if you can. Then sell your map for as much as you can. Do a lot of haggling to get as much money as you can. You should almost exclusively go for a single lump sum. If they do offer you a decent amount of tribute, you can take it, but ONLY if the tribute is over 2000/turn. If it isn't, you won't see a penny of it since it will be eaten away by your negative income. You need spending cash and you need it now.

On the very first turn, blow ALL of your money. I recommend queing up roads and markets and spending the rest on a small peasant garrison for the second city and a few warbands and/or archers in the capital. From now on until you are in the black, spend EVERYTHING you have on any particular turn. Anything you leave sitting in the bank will disappear. You may find yourself in a huge debt hole, but without spending the money you won't have the infrastructure or the military to eventually make yourself profitable.

Continue pushing on west with your army. There are about 4-6 rebel held procinces west, southwest, and northwest of your starting provinces. Grab as many of them as you can as quickly as you can. DO NOT ENSLAVE OR SLAUGHTER THEM. They are all small and will not give you much as it is. It is highly unlikely that you will have any ports for the beginning, so most of your income will come from farming and taxes. This means you need a high population. Grab a city, garrison it with a general (they should marry-in or Come Of Age regularly) and a couple peasants ASAP, set it on low taxes to grow population fast and keep your army rolling west. Proper use of archers will help keep your casualties to a minimum. This is a necessity, since you probably won't be able to replace them for a long time. Unexpectedly large casualties in a battle can have disasterous effects in the long run.

After your diplomat hits up Thrace and Macedonia, take him into Italy. Going this way will allow you to sell your map to the Gauls, Julii, Senate, Brutii and Scipii. That's FIVE major cash infusions to build economic structures (roads, markets, farms & farm bonus temples). When you have the money, also build a second diplomat. Dispatch this one to the Germans and Scythians, then take him east around the Black Sea and into the Middle East. This will be a long trip, but you'll be glad you did it when you get the cash influx from map sales there later in the game. Your Italian diplomat should head west into Spain after he's done with Italy. Try to contact the Brittons along the way, then trade with Spain and Carthage when you meet them. Keep in mind, spend EVERYTHING when you make a trade. Try and build up a second army of warbands and archers in your capital if you have the spare cash. Do not build any sizeable force anywhere else. You need the population to grow in the other cities and you can only spare a drop in your capital. You can use this second army to clear rebels out of your provinces. You'll have a lot of them, and they will have a negative impact on your all-important income due to devestation and trade distruption. Knock the rebels off quickly, you need every penny. It would be a good idea to invest in at least 2 archer units for your rebel clean-up group. Again, you don't want to take many casualties... so use the archers for long-distance pounding before you assault them.

Fortunately, I found that your neighbors aren't TOO aggressive. You've got some time before anyone goes after you, and you've also got a lot of potential allies around. Thrace and Macedonia will eventually go to war. If you get the chance, side with Macedonia and take the Thracian ports. They will help a great deal. The Macedonians will be dealt with by the Brutii eventually anyway. In my current game, the Gauls launched a surprise attack upon my western provinces so I was unable to exploit the Tracian/Macedonian War. However, by this point I had 6 provinces (4 captured from Rebels) and I had just managed to turn profitable at about +300/turn. Whoever you end up going to war with, expand aggressively until you become profitable. Once you do, play defensively for a little bit, taking only those provinces that are strategic locations that allow you to defend your borders with fewer armies. Use your slow trickle of income to increase your populations and your income. Tech up to Chosen Swordsmen and Chosen Archers. These guys are fabulous and will stand up well in combat against most anything.

Once your economy is healthy and your armies are stable, the game is all yours. Time to start ruling the world, Dacian style. North, South, East West... go which ever direction strikes your fancy. If you've survived long enough to become financially self-sustaining, then you're probably good to go.

[edit]
After playing one for many more turns, I have yet to achieve the self-sustaining point. Chosen Swordsmen and Chosen Archer Warbands are necessary for survival, but they are simply too expensive to maintain in large numbers with finances in the black. I keep dipping into debt on a regular basis and have only managed to sustain myself by sacking large cities and selling everything that's not nailed down through diplomacy. I have even sold myself as a Protectorate twice. If anyone else has played Dacia and achieved financial success, please post how in here. Next time I play them, I plan on trying to go south into Greece. Those large cities and ports should significantly help income. As it stands now, I only have one province that is even on the water! Farming and tax simple isn't good enough to maintain a military.

[TinCow]

Your ultimate objective is to tech up to Chosen Swordsmen, Chosen Archers and Barbarian Noble Cavalry. Chosen Swordsmen are excellent infantry who can are superior to all pre-Marian Roman infantry and can fight toe-to-toe with Early Legionary Cohorts and regular Legionary Cohorts. Add in the warcry bonus and the bonus in forests or snow and you have a VERY formidable unit. Chosen Archers could very well be the best foot archers in the game. They have long-range arrows and are so heavily armed and armored that they can hold their own in melee combat as well, even against Hastati and Principes. The Barbarian Noble Cavalry is weak for a heavy cavalry unit, but it's good enough to get the job done. Combine these three units in a conventional infantry wall-archer backing-cavalry flanked formation and you should be able defeat anything but the most advanced Roman cohorts in a straight fight. The Dacians may be the only barbarian faction that can go head-to-head with the Romans in an even matched fight and win.

That said, it will take you a while to get to these units. In the early game, you will be limited mainly to warbands and archers with the occasional addition of barbarian cavalry and warhounds. Your foes will slice through these weak units with ease. As such, bring superior numbers and make good use of archers. Soften up the enemy from long range as much as possible before moving in... especially against phalanx style units as used by the Thracians, Macedonians and Germans (all on your borders). Your warbands will take huge casualties against these troops, even when flanking them (on VH/VH). If you can afford some Falxmen, they can help a great deal in flanking maneauvers, but you will probably not have a lot of these to spare.

So... fight rebels and get your generals good command ratings. Combine this with masses of warbands and archers and the occassional well-armored mercenary and you should be able to hold the lines until your elite units arrive.

[Maltz]

Dacia is poor to start, but due to their location, rich days are not far away. There are plenty of easy preys early on, so Dacia will look healthy soon. I've just played a little bit (10yrs on Vh/Vh) of it, and I have 15 provinces and a turn gross income of 30k. Hope my experience is useful to you.

1. [Macedon]

I ignored all the rebel towns, and pour all my armies south. There are four Macedon cities plus Athen, which brings quite a lot of wealth just through taxation. (I didn't exterminate any of the 5 cities.) The Macedon capital allowed me to mass produce good troops.

2. [Greek Cities]

My 2nd goal was kicking the Greeks off Balkan. Armoured hoplites + Spartan hoplite are a huge pain at the town center (and they are almost arrow-proof), but once Sparta is taken I can immediately produce Chosen infantry/archer and onager in Sparta. Good stuff! I have never used Onager so early.

3. [Rome & Thrace]

Then it was time to invade Italian pennisula. Thrace also broke the alliance with me, so I sent my 3rd army to deal with them. Brutii was soon destroyed by my 2 strongest armies, but there was a plague in Croton welcoming my best general. Just for revenge, I sent a plague spy to Rome and just arrived in Julii.
~D

***

Dacia is a very battlefield-friendly faction. While I only played 10 years, I have already about 10 cross-swords on the ground. Warband archers are quite powerful. Basic cavalry are fast enough. Warbands die slowly and is very great to mob anything up. You can retrain them immediately anyways.

Dacia has a poor tech. tree that only goes up to 6000 (minor city), so all the best units come early on.

Rush and burn; crazy expansion is the way to go! :balloon2:

[TinCow]

I have finally cracked my enemies and I am the dominant power, having Taken all of Britain, Gaul, Germany, Eastern Europe, Northern Italy and the Adriatic Coast. The Romans are on their last legs in Europe and the final offensive to wipe them out in Italy is about to begin, with Greece and Sicily soon to follow. The Brutii will be left to rot in North Africa while I take Spain and push east into the steppes to get the rest of the 50 provinces to win.

I have recently realized two things which are worth relating here.

First, the Dacian poverty is due to a lack of port provinces. It is simply impossible to make sustain a military off of a land-locked economy. Once you acquire ports, you can easily become profitable. Unfortunately, the easy pickings early in the game all lie west and north, further inland while the coastal provinces are held by very strong factions which will be much harder to defeat with your primitive early units. If you are able to take greece and defeat Thrace and Macedonia you should not experience the financial difficultes for very long.

Second, Chosen Archer Warbands are your units of choice. Produce these in massive numbers and you simply cannot lose. Place them in a long line with skirmish off, guard on, and fire at will on. If on defense, remain this way. If on offense, advance in line until in range. In both cases fire away for as long as the enemy remain out of melee. When they close, let them hit your lines. The usual tendency is to pull back your archers behind your infantry, but do not do it. Your Chosen Archers are very good infantry and can hold the line for a significant time as long as they are not flanked. If your line is charged, at more than a few isolated points, take off fire at will and guard and use the archers to melee attack the enemy line. Keep Chosen Swordsmen behind the archers. Once the archer line is engaged in melee, use the Swordsmen's warcry, then charge right through the archer line into the melee. Flank where able and the enemy will almost always rout. Unless there are significant reinforcements coming, chase the enemy off the field in massive numbers... let the archers and swordsmen swarm after them to prevent a regrouping.

Also, if possible fight big battles in the winter where your troops can get their snow advantage. Always use warcry before engaging in melee. It is often easier to defend the village streets rather than the walls. Wood walls are too easily breached to be defensible unless the enemy has only one or two rams (unlikely).

[Rikdemedici]

I am playing as the DAcians in a RTW competitin at school, and after beating the Seleucids :duel: :charge: ~:cheers: we now have to fight a team using the Greek City States. I was wondering about tactics, and what we should buy with our 1000 denarii
cheers
~:cheers:

[The Witch-King]

Greeks=Hoplites. Get lots of Chosen Archers, blast away and laugh while watching the slow, cumbersome hoplites drop like flies. Get some Noble cav too for some nicely timed charges in the back of their phalanx formations.

[Rikdemedici]

Yay! we beat the Greeks, unfortuunatrely we now have to take on the Parthians. What in the DAcian armoury is good against elephants and Horse ARchers :help: !

[Maltz]

Elephants & Horse archers... against cavalry you might want to use spears (an ocean of basic warband, with some morale boost so they won't rout easily? :dizzy2:) Chosen archers are excellent against HA because they are long-ranged, so you can attack HA before they even touch you. You really need to protect your archers, though. ~:)

[Rurik the Chieftain]

Yeah, against those elephants, you're going to want to drown them in flaming arrows, or use your onagers. Its quite interesting that the Dacians have access to onagers etc. while the Gauls, Germans, and Britons do not. But anyway just go by the maxim:
If it's on fire, it will frighten Pachyderms

[CrashTestED]

Thank God they included the Dacians in this game. I am glad to be able to play with my ancestors. We do have some historical problems though.... The Dacians are known as "barbarian cavalry" who fought only on horses. Every man had to have a horse, sword and armour. When war came, he took his stuff and joined the army. In RTW the Dacians have one of the poorest cavalry in the game... do not konw why... :charge:

[Nowake]

Because in real history the dacian cavalry never remarked through anything. The dacians relied mainly on pedestrian units. Of course, we're not including here the getae who lived in Skythia Minor and in the lower Danube basin.

[Craterus]

The Dacians sound like a fun campaign, but really challenging. Maybe too challenging even for me. Especially as it sounds like rushing is the only way to stay alive and I tend to sit back..

[cunobelinus]

maybe craterus it could be our next challenge wen we finsh our spain campiagn so we could have a very challengin campign and i think togther we could do it an win a campagin with them

[Craterus]

Maybe, I thought we were considering Gaul? I'm fine with either but we can discuss that some other time.

As for the Dacians, what are their elite units?

[pezhetairoi]

I am playing as the DAcians in a RTW competitin at school, and after beating the Seleucids :duel: :charge: ~:cheers: we now have to fight a team using the Greek City States. I was wondering about tactics, and what we should buy with our 1000 denarii
cheers
~:cheers:

Damn, i want to be in your school. Over here the only people who've heard of RTW are my fellow classical 'scholars' (counted on one hand) and those whom I've recommended successfully to the game (also counted on one hand). Hardly enough for a gaming competition... :-(

Oooh Craterus, Littlegannon, how in the world do you co-play a campaign? O_o

[Craterus]

We live in the same town, just. When littlegannon visits, if you will, my house we play the co-campaign..

We are about to blitz the Romans, playing as Spain.. Well, when he next comes over

[pezhetairoi]

ah, i see. Dacia looks awfully tough though their armies are decent. I prefer Germania. ^_^

[katank]

They aren't so bad. Attack Byzalora immediately and then Thessalonica. Don't even wait to merge all your troops into one army. Just build roads on the first turn and move everything south in two armies. The first does the attack and assaulting while the second reinforces in case of disaster or garrisons conquests.

Some luck with the spy is necessary. Exterminate to get the cash. Sell maps/Trade rights to Thrace can net you some cash.

Thessalonica is great. Build a hero hall and you can get chosen swordsmen on turn 7-8. Those buggers are tough as nails and comparable to early cohorts in melee strength. This early in the game, they are hard to stop. By that time, you should already be at Larissa and knocking on the gates of Athens soon.

Send an army of chosen swords west to deal with Thermon and then the Brutii.

These Dacians also get ballistas which is weird for a barbarian faction. Archery ranges are must-haves. They yield CAW, onagers, and ballistas for an incredible unit selection with just 1 building!

[Craterus]

It's definitely a campaign I look forward to doing.. when I get round to it..

[pezhetairoi]

haha, same here. But Spain first. Then the Greeks. Then Dacia :-D

[Craterus]

Spain is easy.. I'm doing Dacia before them but after the Greeks..

[Dromikaites]

These Dacians also get ballistas which is weird for a barbarian faction. Archery ranges are must-haves. They yield CAW, onagers, and ballistas for an incredible unit selection with just 1 building!

Historically Dacians used first Greek and then Roman engineers both to build and to siege fortresses. Their refuse to dismiss the Roman engineers in their service was one of the casus beli (reasons for war) invoked by emperor Trajan for the second (and final) Dacian war of 105 - 106 A.D. It makes sense therefore to have access to siege weapons (and also building simple stone walls would have been accurate).

[Dromikaites]

Because in real history the dacian cavalry never remarked through anything. The dacians relied mainly on pedestrian units. Of course, we're not including here the getae who lived in Skythia Minor and in the lower Danube basin.

Well, actualy they did make themselves known to everybody living around them, those Dacian cavalrymen. For instance in August 48 BC a Dacian cavalry-only army sent to reinforce Pompey arrives too late to be of any help (Caesar had won the battle at Pharsalos). So the Dacians have fun plundering Greece (which was now in Caesar's hands) down to Athens, before returning to their home country. This means that whatever troops Caesar had left behind to secure the newly-acquired provinces were not good enough for the job.

Also one reason the Romans got so pissed off with Dacia and decided to finishit it off were the repeated cavalry raids over the frozen Danube, during winter time. In the winter of 105 - 106 AD the Dacian king Decebalus tried to force the Romans to withdraw from Dacia by means of a joint Dacian - Sarmatian massive cavalry attack against the Roman supply base, the province of Moesia (nowadays Bulgaria).

In 106 AD the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa fell to the Romans and king Decebalus, failing to organize further resistance, committed suicide soon after that. Romans only occupied the Western part of Dacia, a region coresponding to nowadays western Romania and eastern Hungary. The rest, that is the eastern half of Romania, the Republic of Moldova and western Ukraine remained outside the Roman control. The so called "Free Dacians" (Dacians outside the Roman-occupied area) together with their allies, the Germanic tribe Bastarnae and the Roxolani and Alani (Sarmatian tribes) raided the Roman provinces south of Danube several times. Acording to contemporary sources the raiders were mainly cavalry troops (which makes sense, since their main intention was to hit, plunder and withdraw back home, not conquer and stay)

Lastly, in the 3rd century AD the Romans had to put up with the Carpi, a Free Dacian tribe which had allied to the Goths and was again devastating Moesia. Emperor Diocletian finaly defeated them in 297 AD and gain the title of "Carpicus Maximus". It is worth noticing that he was not "Goticus Maximus" which means that at that time the Dacians were still the dominant partner of the alliance. The Carpi army of 297 AD was dominated by cavalry.

RTW doesn't provide the Dacians with horse archers (which would have been historicaly acurate) but compensates by giving them easy access to the [expensive] Scythian mercenaries. People familiar with the monument erected by Trajan after defeating Dacia (Trajan's Column, still standing in Rome) might get the impression that Dacian armies were indeed infantry-based. However on the column there are scenes of Dacian and Roman & Moorish (Roman auxiliaries) cavalry clashes. There could be 2 reasons for the aparent infantry-mainly Dacian army carved on the Column: first the main battles there are sieges, mountain or forest battles, where cavarly is inapropriate. We can understand the second reason by looking at the armies of the medieval Romanian states of Moldova and Walachia. They were using a very peculiar tactic, diferent from what was typical for the peoples around them: their mainly light cavalry army was actually a sort of mounted infantry: marching on horseback and fighting mostly on foot. The reason for this behavior was the nature of the terrain where the Romanians chose to fight: difficult terrain, where the technical (heavily armoured Polish or Hungarian knights) or numerical superiority (Turks and Tartars) were negated. Now, back to their ancestors, the Dacians, this was exactly the same defensive tactic adopted by them against the Romans. I would therefore side with the players who want a better selection of Dacian cavalry (too bad in RTW we don't have the "dismount" option like in MTW).

[crazybastard]

Why won't my Dacian towns grow profitable?????????
maybe it's the lack of costal port trade kinda thing
any advice??

[Craterus]

Yes, they are the only landlocked faction at the start of the game. This means they miss out on naval trade. Also, being a barbarian faction, they have poor economy by default. The best way to get rich with Dacia is to conquer, as mentioned before.

[tibilicus]

I would never be able to do Dacia. Me,barbs,no money dont mix.

[Craterus]

I'm not a fan of rushing either. I like to sit back and build up armies and then go for a big push against my enemies. With barb factions, you have to attack with anything and everything you've got, just to stay out of debt.

[pezhetairoi]

Head straight for Campus Getae is a nice strategy, while my lecturer (who also plays RTW, small world) prefers rushing Macedonia. Nice.

[IliaDN]

Maybe I will play Dacia after my current campaign. ~:)

[pezhetairoi]

Hey Ilia... update! How's your greek campaign going?

[Franconicus]

Maybe I will play Dacia after my current campaign. ~:)

IliaDN, lets leave this area. Why not playing Britannia? They seem to be completely different!

[Viking]

I`m looking for company to my next campaign, and both Britannia and Dacia sounds interesting.

Dacians got all you might want of artillery, and got some good infantry.
But the britons lack completely cavalry, even the generals are cavalry, and I`m a cavalry commander..

But I`m looking for some challenge in my next campaign, so I`ll wait and see.

By the way, nobody thinking of starting an Pontus campaign?

[pezhetairoi]

pontus is...strange. O_o Maybe I'll try Dacia too, never mind Spain :-P I'll accompany Viking after Greece...

[IliaDN]

So is it some kind of poll:
Brittania
Dacia
Pontus?????

[Franconicus]

Yes, why not start a poll?

Why not playing Britannia without the permission to invade Gaul. In hard/hard this should be a chellange!

[IliaDN]

Maybe it would be a better idea to take it to the collesum?

[Craterus]

You can start a poll in the site, linking from my sig. Please start it in Meeting Hall. Or I can start it if you want?

[VAE VICTUS]

how do i unlock all these factions?i have no clue please tell me,you can e mail me htg04@yahoo.com or send me a message .please im tired of only being certian factions.thanks!

[Franconicus]

how do i unlock all these factions?i have no clue please tell me,you can e mail me htg04@yahoo.com or send me a message .please im tired of only being certian factions.thanks!
Unlock All Factions – In RTW, some factions are playable, some are unlockable and some are unplayable. This is how you unlock and play all the factions (thx to littlecheese07 of TWC for this idea).
This is from Quietus Guide:
Go to your folder, RTW>world>maps>campaign>imperial_campaign>desc_strat.txt. Simply move all the factions under the “nonplayable” and "unlockable" that you want play to under “playable”. Thus, in this list, Egypt to Greek_cities are unlockable, Roman_senate to Slave are nonplayable (it is advisable from other players NOT to touch or play the “roman _senate”) and Romans_Julii to Romans_scipii are playable. After you’ve arranged the text files, do not forget to SAVE. You may now play the new factions when you load RTW.

campaign imperial_campaign
playable
romans_julii
romans_brutii
romans_scipii
end
unlockable
egypt
seleucid
carthage
parthia
gauls
germans
britons
greek_cities
end
nonplayable
romans_senate
macedon
pontus
armenia
dacia
scythia
spain
thrace
numidia
slave
end

Good Luck! ~:cheers:

[katank]

how do i unlock all these factions?i have no clue please tell me,you can e mail me htg04@yahoo.com or send me a message .please im tired of only being certian factions.thanks!

Franconicus is right about the unlocking faction part. I recommend against hitting the Senate tab while playing Senate as it crashes the game. Also, playing rebels is occasionally glitchy.

Another friendly piece of advice is please do not post your email for spambots to crawl. It will lead to abundant spam. At least do something like htg04[at]yahoo.com which is very readable by humans but not by crawlers.

[The historian]

I've had a fun game with my ancestors even took Rome after 100 turns them praetorians are tough but it was very rewarding to crush the senate and the brutii, the scipii and julii are holding out on the islands to the west .How to do that easy take the balkans as quicly as posiible ally with scythia and germany.
i can help you with some questions ,mentioned previously in this thread
Why the dacians have balistas?because they have been in contact with the greeks and romans for quite some time and are more "civilized" then most other barbarians.
As for the cavalry most of the dacian cavalry were actually allied cavalry roxolan,carpian,yazighian,iashian cavalrymen sarmatians at origin but quickly assimilated into the dacians.

[pezhetairoi]

I have NEVER heard of Roxolans, Yazighian etc, but I'll take your word for it, since your ancestors were Dacians :-D I've only ever heard of Pannonians.

Perhaps we should give improved Sarmatian cavalry to the Dacians as buildable units in a mod. That'd give them a unit to match the Germanic Gothics. Otherwise Dacia is quite limited.

[bubbanator]

I just started my Dacian campiagn. I was being stupid and didn't think to check here about stratagies and so forth sooo....

I took what troops I had an went and attacked Tylis. Their faction leader was off trying to take some city I forget which one, maybe Thessolonica. So I take the city, their main army comes back and passes by my army in Tylis. They wander around for a few turns while I rebuild my army in Tylis and begin building a new one in my main cities. I take my army from tylis and destroy the Thracian army and send a small army to take their last city. Thrace died very quickly. Now that I have some income, I plan to expand south and west. I know it will be tough in the south, but the cities will be of infinite help.

[pezhetairoi]

I would have preferred Campus Getae: it's a shorter distance from Porrolissum, and less heavily defended. You need sea access fast. Getae also has quite a decent growth rate, so you may want to consider. It shouldn't be tough in the south as long as your infantry refrains from face-to-face contact with the phalanx. I used to join my infantry in two-unit teams as the Germans (whose axemen are identical to falxmen in some sense). Firstly I separate the phalanx by staying close to them and trying to get into their rear, then the two-unit teams come into play. I strike one unit in the flank with one axeman unit, then when the phalanx turns in disorder to point spears at that axeman unit I charge the second unit into their rear, then retreat the first unit, then repeat until they break. Then I move on the other one unit next to it. Meanwhile the same is happening all throughout the other unit teams, and my cavalry are also doing their share. It works quite well, I think. Not much of a struggle as long as your infantry stays close to the phalanx (so they stay in phalanx mode and can only walk while you run) but not close to contact them unless you are ready to.

[Gemenii XIII]

Originally posted by Dromikaites
the Romanians chose to fight: difficult terrain, where the technical (heavily armoured Polish or Hungarian knights) or numerical superiority (Turks and Tartars) were negated. Now, back to their ancestors, the Dacians

The ancestors of the Romanians were Romans not Dacians, and trust me, all my fellow Romanians say that Romanians are half Dacian half Roman. But how can this be true when Romanians speak a latin based language and has no Dacian elements whatsoever. (lets not forget what happened to the native Indians in North America)

____________________
Patria Nostra Romania

[IliaDN]

Originally posted by Dromikaites
the Romanians chose to fight: difficult terrain, where the technical (heavily armoured Polish or Hungarian knights) or numerical superiority (Turks and Tartars) were negated. Now, back to their ancestors, the Dacians

The ancestors of the Romanians were Romans not Dacians, and trust me, all my fellow Romanians say that Romanians are half Dacian half Roman. But how can this be true when Romanians speak a latin based language and has no Dacian elements whatsoever. (lets not forget what happened to the native Indians in North America)

____________________
Patria Nostra Romania
Maybe you should post this as a thread in Monastery, if you want detailed answers?

[pezhetairoi]

Alright, I've started on a Dacian campaign and I have some insights to offer. Firstly, going for Getae is basically a waste of time since your main army is closer to Tylis. Don't even waste time trying to attack Lovosice and Aquincum. They're so undeveloped and so low in population that they simply aren't worth the effort. Secondly, the Thracians start spamming peltastai quickly, and are soon coming up with falxmen in Getae, so your best bet would be to strike hard and fast for Tylis. In my campaign I only took Tylis after 10 turns OF manoeuvre to draw all Thracian forces into the north, around Campus Getae, and even after taking Tylis my debt didn't improve. Yes, that's one thing you'll note--the Dacian debt is the most annoying thing you'll have to deal with early-game. You can't exterminate, because then the tax rate would fall crazily for a one-off injection of cash, and you can't retrain even then, because you'll be in debt. It all boils down to casualty minimising, which is difficult. Eventually I managed to lock the sum of the Thracian army in Campus Getae (idiots) and besieged them until they gave up and sallied, upon which I shot them to pieces with my archers.

As Dacia you will not get any rest from Macedon once you take Thrace. In my game, the moment I took Campus Getae a large Macedonian army marched for Porrolissum, and was only drawn away from there by my storming of Bylazora. In my campaign, the Macedonians went a little crazy on light lancers, I'm afraid. You know something's wrong when the MAcedonians behave like the Scythians and send a 12-unit army with 11 of lancers. Well anyway. I drove straight for Thessalonica after retraining my depleted grand army (still the only I had, with my western frontier under threat from Macedon, who had Segestica, my northern one threatened by Germania, who had Lovosice, and my eastern frontier threatened by Scythia, which was building up menacingly.

I turned my faction heir into a military genius in the Thessalonian plains when he came under attack from two great Macedonian armies (all of which had 11-12 lancers) which he managed to beat off with combined operations from flaming arrows, massed family-member charges (I had 7 family members with me, the sum of my royalty) and falxmen in flanks. Nevertheless, I sustained seriously heavy losses. If I recall, in those three battles I lost nearly a quarter of my army (including 2 factioners), mostly in barbarian cavalry and gaesatae, in exchange for utter victory and 2 Macedonian family members killed, which is all in all not too bad a deal. Then I played a Napoleonic style campaign that drove apart three Macedonian armies (yes, it was frantic) trying to merge, crushed the faction heir's force, and attacked the largest element after that just outside Thessalonica, drawing out the garrison and emptying the town in my victory. Thessalonica was plague-ridden so I just sent two gaesatae in.

In summary of the rest of the campaign, I fought two more great battle which later emptied Larissa and Athens for my taking, signed an alliance with the Brutii, and took Segestica which turned rebel after my capture of Thessalonica. I also took Aquincum, having earned enough money to raise a new army exclusively of nobles, falxes and chosen swordsmen and archers. I'm poised for a two-pronged attack of the Romans after I finish off Macedon in Corinth.

I think Dacia has been the most challenging campaign I have faced so far. Even when I was playing Armenia and faced my first defeat, I do not think the situation was ever as desperate as mine... One grand army of mediocre troops facing three large armies of the deadliest light cavalry ingame, saddled with monstrous 5-digit debt... At least my Armenian economy never let me down.

What paths of expansion have you Dacians tried out? Any variation from mine?

[Mountaindew]

my experiences with dacia is to immediately defeat thrace, macedonia and the brutii. its a lot of hard work, so always take control of battles yourself. like pezhetairoi said, its all about casualty minising.

my plan was to take greece, establish a nice base in greece, and launch my plans from there. starting where u started isnt good at all. a good plan (that i have found) is when you are about to be attacked by the germans or scythians from the north, porrolisium and campus gaetae are definitely theirs - concentrate on getting greece. destroy all buildings, and move troops out of towns...the money will do you good.

one thing i also found about playing greece - the plague can be annoying, when it started from Thessalonica. if you control Thessalonica, dont let nething out. if you dont, dont send ne spies to infiltrate it YET. all of greece was under the plague - one thing that dacians lack at the beginning is population, along with money. this deadly plague delayed me from taking all of greece, so i had to duel with the brutii a bit.

so once you have greece in your hands, its pretty easy from there. nobles, chosens, onagers kick ass!

[Mountaindew]

battle wise, ive found in the beginning that a mixture of cavalry + archers are effective, particularly against the greek factions. they have slow hoplites which u can shoot to bits from long range, and mass ur cavalry to drive away their missle troops.

against rome, however, its gonna be a lot harder. yr cavalry r gonna work a lot harder. all this is pre-chosen, pre-nobles. once u got chosens and nobles, then it becomes a lot easier. A LOT EASIER. especially with onagers and ballistae, u can afford to sit back and rain expendable projectiles rather than being all barbaric and charging in with nothing to fall back 2.

if only they had horse archers...damn... ~:handball:

thats my 2 cents...

[gmjapan]

My Dacian Campaign fell flat at the first hurdle.

I drove all available units south to the nearest Mac city. The first major engagement was going really well. Was. My units, despite having an advantage started routing. First 1, then 3, then, well the rest really. The Mac army was suddenly like a hot knife through butter.

I even heard myself say "butter" in realisation at the scene infront of me!

I couldnt recover after that (no wonga) so quit. I fully intend to start a Dacian campaign again soon though after review of some of the comments here. The challenging start position is too appealling...

[Gray_Lensman]

Franconicus is right about the unlocking faction part. I recommend against hitting the Senate tab while playing Senate as it crashes the game. Also, playing rebels is occasionally glitchy.

Another friendly piece of advice is please do not post your email for spambots to crawl. It will lead to abundant spam. At least do something like htg04[at]yahoo.com which is very readable by humans but not by crawlers.

The reason the Senate Tab crashes the game is your graphics card... It is probably only 32 Mb of memory. I too, had this problem until I updated to a 64 Mb graphics card...

[Coldfish]

Ally immediately with Scythia and attack Tharce...conquer Tyras and Campus Getae....after that break the alliance with Scythia and declar war to them...attack them and conquer the norther provinces...so my advice is to go and conquer in the north (Dulcius Domus) and then march in the west ocuppy Iovosice and Aquicum....about now you will starting to have a nice income...start training many troops in the capital (Porolissum) and wait for the Macedonian attack...after they will attack you ,immeditaley start an counterattack and try to ocuppy Bylazora....step by step (city by city) you will conquer macedonian cities (very important to conquer Byzantium,from there you will easly lauch an invasion into Pontus)...and greeks too....BUT i won't advance in the Pelopones too !! build a fort at the entrance in the peninsula..you will be protected by the greek invasions....hold this position until the romans (usually brutti) will be present there and attack greece...after the greeks will be weaken by the wars with the brutii....try to profit and take theier cities....then romans will aslo be weaken and push them back from Greek peninsula !!

this is my most frequent dacian strategy

[Coldfish]

Now some basic military strategies about dacians

Against Scythians use: foot archers and light cavalry

Against Greek and Macedonian phalanxes use: many archers & missile units as well as some heavy cavalry...with this, with some smart flanking moves you can destroy easly the phalanx units

Against Romans use: heavy melee troops (well trained falxmen and choosen swordsmen) you can't lose! an well trained falxmen or choosen swordsmen are no match for the legionaries and even could bravely resist to praetorians and urban cohorts!

Against other Barbarians use: combined ,well balanced units

[Trithemius]

I've been helping a friend learn more about RTW by playing some MP battles with him and committing serious errors for him to recognise and exploit (I think it's more useful in learning than for me to kick him around repeatedly until he decides that RTW is boring!). I played Dacia vs. Germania and found that I didn't have to try very hard to make mistakes! I then did some tests on my own with falxmen vs. spear warbands and I could not make them win unless the odds were about 5:3 in my favour (and even then with pretty impressive casualties). The spear-warband is (predictably) very strong to the front (even Chosen Swords don't do too well) and they are large enough that it is hard to flank a line of them with an equally sized army - so what do the poor Dacians do in order to beat the Germans? I need some help for my counter-example and I am just lost! :)

[Empirate]

The answer to that lies in your own perceptions. You need to draw Phalanx units apart (Spear Warband are nothing else), then fall on their flanks. Pezhetairoi gives a good account on how to do this with infantry - but cavalry is even better. Just remember not to fight it out with them for too long: Charge into a flank or backside, then withdraw once the charge has worn off and your men have to fight in a more drawn-out melee. Also, decimating them with missiles before engaging should not be underestimated. Even from head on, when you only kill very few with each volley, it wears down morale. If they have to turn a lot to chase your units around, they'll expose their rear to missile fire, making shield bonuses useless.
Just make sure the enemy cavalry is gone before playing this game, or it could get nasty.

[bizaro]

I can't play the Dacians for some reason.

I edited the descd_strat.txt adn placed dacia under the playable factions but when I try to play them the game crushes, the same thing with thracians and other non playable factions


someone help?:help:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sounds like something got corrupted.

Reload fresh, then edit again?

Others will offer advice as well, don't jump on my suggestion yet.

[bizaro]

Already tried to reload the fresh file and then to edit again and the same problem to some of the factions. Didn't touched the senate....

I don't get it

[Roman_Man#3]

did you put the slaves as playable, if you did, it might be that

[whtdoesitmatta]

That shouldn't matter. Just make sure you delete the names when you move them to playable, and you really shouldn't have any problems.

[Roy1991]

IMO, the problem with Dacia is that you need to take the Macedonian & Greek cities fast to get your economy running.
But if you do that, you'll most likely get hit hard by the scripted plague in Macedonia.

I forgot about that in my current campaign, and all my armies (excluding garrisons in other cities of course), and all but one of my family members got infected :(

[Ozzman1O1]

anybody please help me know how to play as dacia!!!there my favoriate factoin and i have to play as dum pld gaul:help:

[Ozzman1O1]

i got same prbelm dude.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

you have to modify the factions list in the game to play. There's a stickied thread in the entrance hall on unlocking factions.

[Ozzman1O1]

thanks man,ill go easy on if e fight battle online!:smash:

[Quintus.JC]

The Dacians are certainly an very interesting faction to play as, early on they face economical problems. use your dipolimat to get trade rights and sell map info to anyone you see. Military you have generally 3 direction for early expansion. West to the weak reblesettlement which is easy picking but very undeveloped. East into Thracia. or south into Macedonia. I decided to go for the middle option. Thracia haven't got very powerful armies and also has valueble sea trading ports. Militia Hoplite will rout once hit on the flanks or rare. opposition Falxmen should be hit by cavalry, don't bother chasing militia cavalry, they'll come to you after they ran out of ammo. Make alliance with both Scythia and Macedon then take Thrace. do not masscre the population. after taking 2 extra cities you'll have some money at least to develope your economy. try to keep your relation sweet with Scythia, you have no wish to fight them, their land is remote and it would take more than 5 years just for you to reach Campus Alanni. after Thrace take Byzantium, if it is held by the Macedonians than attack Thessalonia with the biggest army you could build. don't assult the city if there is enough Phalanx troops to hold you off, wait for reinforcement from south of Bylazora. after taking Thessalonica enslave the populations and move for Byzantium and Bylazora. try to fight the Macedonians in open fields instead of cities for obvious reasons. train Falxmen in masses. these trustwrothy guys are great advantage against all other level 2 troops. possiblely the most powerful troop you can train in large town settlement. your economy should be stable now. continue your friendly relation with Scythia and you can look elsewhere, eventually with Chosen swordsmen and Barbarian Noble Cavalry you could head confidently into the Balkans, or even Italy.

[Quintus.JC]

The Falxmen are a great advantage to the Dacians early on, use them to crush your enemies!

[coalition]

The Falxmen are a great advantage to the Dacians early on, use them to crush your enemies!

yeah totally considering their stats are similarly overpowered when you look at them, ahem "level 2 barracks". the only one tht comes close is probobly the swordsmen for gaul or teh spear warband for germany.

[The Wandering Scholar]

I haven't given Dacia much of a chance should I?

[Julius_Nepos]

I find Dacia a fascinating faction to play but I've had the same problems with it that I had with Hungary in M2TW. I tend to get overrun by multiple enemies before I'm able to secure myself financially. Using some strategies I read here, I steam rolled Thrace relatively easily and was, as a result able to secure some sea trade and even send an army to Chersoneos. Unfortunately this precipitated a 3-pronged war against Macedon, Scythia and Germania that I was simply unable to survive.

I've reproduced this same deleterious situation on several occasions, each time facing a multi-stack onslaught from some combination of the aforementioned factions. It really does illustrate how the AI factions treat the human player differently than there own kind. I've seen Dacia expand and last for long periods of time, usually being crushed by the Bruti when it's controlled by the AI, for example. At any rate I'm trying to decide on a more realistic way of surviving as Dacia. I've even thought of packing it in and moving to Kydonia, at least giving me a secure base of operations, and perhaps giving me a chance to secure Rhodes as well which would be a huge boost. It's even possible if I play my cards right I could secure Kydonia, Rhodes and Halicarnassus.

I don't know how wise such a move would be, at the least it'd be exciting. I just need to get out of the three-pronged vice grip that the traditional Dacian lands provide. I wonder if anyone else has tried this? There was a recent post on faction migrations, Seems like it might be an appropriate strategy here. Cheers!

[Good Ship Chuckle]

Mass migration will certainly add to the drama of the campaign, but of all the places to found your promised land...Kydonia? If you've got the guts, go ahead, just realize that Kydonia has around 1000 pop. Thats gonna drain fast when beginning a new empire. However, if you did secure Rhodes and Halicarnassus as well, then you might stand a better chance.
Kydonia is one of those cities that you capture early on, and let develop w/out too much pressure. Really an economic city, rather than a military powerhouse. :7detective:

[Julius_Nepos]

yeah I'm thinking of Kyodnia more as a refuge. My biggest problem as Dacia is getting hammered by too many stacks and factions all at once. And I can't really seem to get an alliance with anyone. In M2TW I conquered Africa with Scotland so I'm sure victory is possible If a secure location can be found. Or more secure at any rate. The Thracians might be a better choice as defending cities, even with militia hoplites can be an easy sell, especially against cavalry armies like those that Scythia will send at you. At any rate Dacia shouldn't be impossible it's just not a faction I've ever used before.

It might also be possible to abandon Campus Iazyges and Porolissum and transfer to the Thracian realms, Campus Geatae (sp), Tylis and Byzantium to form a more defensible frontier. Given the absurd aggressiveness of the AI on hard/hard reducing the war fronts is helpful. I'll have to see how it works out.

[The Wandering Scholar]

If you still plan to go to kydonia take a few units of peasents to help with the population.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

My advice on fighting greeks with Dacia is not to engage them in the cities. The allyways cover the hoplite's flanks better, so make sure to fight them in the open field. In such case, your falxmen/barb-cav etc. can out maneuver the hoplites, and hit them in the flank. Right where it hurts! :wry:

[Hannibalbarc]

The Dacian military is very good, early on you get falxmen and archers plus babarian cav, later on you get chosen swordsmen, chosen archers, and noble cav, so really they have a strong balanced military, btw chosen swordsmen are some of the most underestimated units in rtw, they are like falxmen with armor and shields.
Well, the only thing that Dacians lack is a good economy, luckily Greece is nearby:beam:.

[The Wandering Scholar]

Dacia might be the faction for a unified front against the might of Rome. Germans are easy prey early on, out manoever them pikes like Chuckle said out in the field. Thrace to secure trade, easy rebel land nearby to earn a bit of an income... then the whole northern land is your oyster.

[Julius_Nepos]

Well I managed to have some success with Dacia by rushing Greece early on and abandoning my home territories early. The problem is when I got into "Phase II' if you will, against the Bruti, a contest that lasted many years and though I managed to reduce them down to 3 provinces I'm nearing 200 BC and I've got less than 20 regions to my name. I'd say in terms of survivability I've done well, I just need to discover how to actually expand my empire.

Chosen Swordsmen are good especially heavily upgraded and I've found I can compete with Rome when I have defensive qualities working in my favor. At this point I'm just trying to avoid the Julii as they'd probably steamroll me at this point, I even gave Pontus Iuvavum so I'd be sure not to share a border with Caesar's faction. I certainly can see how quickly the barbarian factions limitations on city advancement can be a problem. In alot of my occupied cities I have to deal with huge culture penalties as the places I occupy are often more advanced than my maximum level of technology, one reason why I've found exterminating the population the only viable option.

There is a certain charm however to the Dacian horde conquering Greece and Cyprus from much more advanced and ancient civilizations. Interesting stuff at any rate.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

I reccomend you need a decisive blow against the Romans, to put yourself centerstage. IMO, you should polish off the rest of the Brutii with a spear point attack with concentrated forces. Secure the ankle of Italy, and then attack the Scipii on Sicily or Capua.
However, this might not be possible if 1)You autoresolve your battles OR 2)Lacking decisive battlefield skills.

[Julius_Nepos]

I have enough skills to defeat the romans defensively, but against Legionary Cavalry, Legionary and Praetorian Cohorts and Urban Cohorts life can be very difficult. The Scipiones and Bruti are relatively weak so it might be possible for me to take them out relatively quickly, on the other hand the Julii can field very powerful armies and even fully upgraded chosen swordsmen have their troubles with late-era upgraded Marian troops.

At this point I'm thinking of recovering my homelands in Dacia, and then fitting out a navy and a few stacks to steamroll sicily, which I could then use a base to remove the Bruti from Bruttium and Apulia. This could also be a springboard to Carthage. In any event I'll have to deal with the Romans at some point and better to get rid of the weak ones first. I'm pleased with my progress I just need to finish things up.

[Julius_Nepos]

Well my Dacian campaign has devolved into a kind of boring, overly dramatic affair. Defeating and Fighting the Romans in the field is next to impossible. My fully upgraded armies of Chosen Swordsmen and Barbarian Noble Cavalry melt away against the onslaught of the Julii. Even in city defenses I stand to lose 40-60% of the my men fighting against wave after wave of legionary, urban and praetorian cohorts.

I'm still making progress, slowly. I took Southern Italy and Sicily, then Carthage and I'm in the process of sieging Cirta. These cities were lightly defended however and I relied on overwhelming numbers and other distractions to gain the advantage. Another problem I'm dealing with is my cities are in a constant near state of revolt. Most have a 45% culture penalty on top of distance from capital and huge squalor issues. Even with low taxes and full stack garrisons they hover around 70-75% happiness. And as I mentioned on TWC I shiver to think what kind of super-upgraded uber-armies would appear if any of my Roman possessions were to revolt.

The fact is I'm well dug in and defended but I can't really expand, I can't spare men for my field army and my revenue, despite my holdings in Greece is simply not good enough to support me. My dominions are also spread out over a large area and by bodies of water, this necessities large naval investments, including the establishment of overwhelming numeric superiority just to keep one port in contact with another. Certainly I've proven to myself that surviving as Dacia and establishing a Dacian Empire is entirely doable, the long haul is however less certain.

At this point I don't know what my next move is, or if there is a next move. I'd need at least 4 full stacks with siege equipment to even considering attacking the many stacks around Rome/Capua and for the moment I can't envisage any means of making that happen. It has been a fun campaign though. I've got 25 regions and I'm pleased with my progress at least up to this terminal point. What comes next is anyones guess.

[Quintus.JC]

Roman is very hard to take out after being establised and the Marian reforms. That's why I tend to play as a faction that can hinder their progress and posiblily destroy them early on (Carthage, Gaul.....). The Seleucid definetly could stand up to the Romans with an high tier army, The Egyptians, using their unique units maybe. While Parthia with an cavalry reliant army gonna need lots of Cataphracts to defeat the Roman legions, just horse archers isn't enough.

[Julius_Nepos]

I've been able to neutralize the Romans on more than one occasion with the Greek Cities and Macedon, and one time in the past even as Gaul. It's definitely possible, but with Dacia the problem is, like it was with other factions in RTW 1.0 (for me anyway) city management. With my armies bogged down in ineffectual garrison duty there's not much more for me to do, and even at full blitz it would have been hard to eliminate all three Roman families. Many of my cities are at the point that even with low taxes and full garrisons they're in red-face land and rioting. Not sure what I could do, or could have done to prevent that.

It is at any rate definitely doable to expand and survive as Dacia, the question I have is what to do in the long run, how to survive against the Romans and how to neutralize those massive 45% culture penalties you get when you take over cities that exceed your own limited tech-advancement and have the wrong culture to begin with. Wonder if anyones got any experience here that could shed light on that subject?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

To minimize cultural penalty you'll need to break a lot of buildings and probably "lather - rinse - repeat" a few of the cities to make them cash cows.

1. Convert some cities to your way of thinking by changing over all the buildings that you can change to their barb equivalents. Won't overcome not having the government center, but is of some help -- especially if you can reach a majority barb in some of the smaller venues.

2. You can't keep all of your cities as high recruit zones. Pick a few port cities and break all military buildings and social buildings, leaving only the economically lucrative ones. Move out the garrison and let them rebel; exterminate, then quickly repeat. You will now have a very small and easily garrisoned cash-cow city. You won't be able to recruit there for 20+ years, if ever, so don't do this to all of them. Ludicrous behavior in terms of empire building, but the vanilla game loves it.

3. Keep fighting the Romans only at defensive choke points like bridges or towns in which you have nice archer garrisons (buy every Cretan you can for range). Always sally and bait the Romans forward into your archers and towers -- you must attrit them well down or you will keep losing half a garrison in each city assault. Always have a couple units of cavalry ready for these sallies. The AI often positions its troops in front of a gate and then moves to the corner where they started on the strat map. This often gives you a chance to over-run slower movers lagging behind the main force -- onagers for example -- and reduce the threat you face in the subsequent assault.

4. Save costs by reducing your navy greatly. Yes, you will have a port or two out of the network every single turn, but the cost of this loss of trade is less than the cost of a fleet trying to cover everything. All you really need is a transport large enough not to be sunk. Go port to port as much as you can and avoid battle. Against a human opponent this would be suicide -- you'd have EVERY port blockaded. The AI is not so methodical.

5. Take Rhodes for the Colussus bonus --- you need every drachmae.

[fatherrex]

hey guys , i would like to share some of my commends on dacia .
i have play most of the factions and get victories before.
in my experience, dacia is a very powerful contury .

[fatherrex]

there is a principle indicated my thought: A series victory(valuable victory) can solve every problem.
so, not matter what faction i use, attack, attack city,attack rich city! there is ppl,$$ and(women).
when the city becomes mine, my enemy will be starved to death.

it is a strategy game, city is the strength of army.
So, i never intend to attack enemy's main force, i set camp to block the road, to choose some way to strike enemy's city.

when i play as dacia, i have never fight will tharce main force, i capture all tharce cities by 10~12 army(i can only afford this), and tharce main force became rebel army.

my suggest to dacia players

First:get the money from tharce and sythia , and then set camp to block the road where the enemy reinforcement will come. then attack the city of tharce near you, take it and attack sythia capital
.Sythia will be greatly weaken by lose capital . don't afraid to increase your enemies ,just strike then hardly and block all the roads . Remember! a weak enemy is much safe than a strong friend!
keep attack , destroy thrace.

Second,it is time to fight macedon , you will find macedon has triple or more armed force than you have.
the truth is, you may have 6 cities(poor,little ppl), and little army. and your enemy has 5~6 rich cities and both advantage in number and quality armed force.
so,avoid all enemy as possible. use camp to limit enemy's motion .
wait and seek chance to strike city, do this by your brain, to destroy enemy army is totally not necessary.
i assume you have capture the whole greece expect burtii's territory .

Third, to be continue.

[fatherrex]

i would like to say something irrelevant .when i read some replies above say pathia is not so good.

i think the most powerful country is Pathia.

With few reasons for me to make this conclusion.

i must say i play pathia quiet late( i have been playing RTW for 3 years, but play as pathia for
a month only, i was though pathia is a weak country and impossible to conquer any country even eypgy.

And now when i finish the game by used pathia in this month,i change my mind.

Horse Archer is the best unit in game
horse archer of pathia will be the best choice!

full unit of horse archer of an army is unbreakable and able to fight in enemy's territory with not support.

in my experience, i can said, an PA(Persian Horse Archer) can destroy triple of enemy with less than 1/3 self lose.

Why?

it can not be catch.
enemy's cavalry not adv. in number and quality. Before they catch PA, 2/3 is die by arrow fire.
army on foot in the front of PA, just like pigs, the only diff. is amoured or not.

there is not enemy can fight with PA in fair , PA and pathia is too powerful in game, not balance.

Every time i use PA to fight , what i need to do is:
1. Start fight( you even dont need to make any arrange)
2. set all army in one group and crush to the front of enemy(dont worry combat happen ,PA will avoid combat auto)
3. Set game in triple speed and wait for victory(usually less than 1/10 loss, 70% of the 1/10 lose is friendly fire)

easy? that's true.

PA is Fxxking powerful!

[Quintus.JC]

i would like to say something irrelevant .when i read some replies above say pathia is not so good.

i think the most powerful country is Pathia.


Reasons why Parthia isn't the most powerful faction:

1. Poor starting position.
2. Worthless infantry.
3. Utterly useless in sieges
4. Over reliance on cavalry (which isn't all bad, but does loses versatility)
5. Can't build paved roads.

Parthia in the right hands can be very powerful, although plain horse archers never worked out for me. I always needed them to be backed up by Cataphracts at least (curious they weren't mentioned in your post), but Persian cavalry is awesome though. :yes:

[Darkvicer98]

I agree with Quintus. Their poor starting position costs them alot of money as well as they have a poor selection of infantry which makes them useless in sieges. However their cavalry isn't bad but a bit more of a selection for infantry would be nice.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

I just thought this was the Dacia guide... :inquisitive:

[King_of_Pontus]

It is... But, on the topic of Parthia, they are a fantastic faction yes, but they need to be played in the right hands. Money is always a Problem so I suggest selling Map Information and seriously aggressive expansion. Seiges have always been difficult with Parthia but not any more. Instead of wasting money building seige engines simply wait and maitain the seige until the starve or come out to attack. In the open your Horse archers will destroy them. I did This with Egypt:egypt: and captured all of their places (bar Cyprus) and enslaved them :whip: Trade in slaves is Always good!

[hihappy21]

Parthia has its good sides and bad sides. It has one of the worst economies in the game especially during the beginning portions. Ironic, how its starting video is talking a lot about money. However, horse archers are quite cheep and are very useful against fighting almost every single unit in the game. However, sieges are extremely difficult with their deplorable infantry. Eastern Infantry and Hillmen just aren't good enough for difficult sieges. (That's why Armenia right know is my favorite faction... :) )

I find this really amusing how we're talking about this in the Dacia guide...

[Vincent Butler]

It seems that Dacian warband are tougher than Gaul or Britannia's, my brother thinks so too. Anybody else on that? The Getai are used in the Europa Barbarorum mod, seeming to replace both Dacia and Thrace. By the way, unless you absolutely know what you are doing, don't try to put that mod on the Mac version of RTW.

[Johnsus Coolius]

Dacia is my favorite faction. You can hire immense armies of warriors to smash enemies. You start with a small territory. Your two main targets should be Macedon and Thrace. The first thing you want to do is gather an army at the Thracian border. Leave Macedon alone for now. For good measure, send a spy to the city to ensure your advantage. When you have enough men, attack! Make sure most of your big armies have a general with them, as you may often take heavy casualties and you may need to buy mercs. Continue conquest until Thrace is gone. Macedon may try to ally with you, but strengthening them is not a good idea. As soon as possible after the Thrace campaign, Go for Macedon. A good strategy for combat? BRUTE FORCE! (That's all the barbarians have) After you deal with them, the Greek might get aggressive. Take them out before or after they wage war. Against these guys, disrupt their phalanxes with huge mobs, and take 'em out from behind with cavalry, and against cavalry, you guessed it, BRUTE FORCE. By now you're probably at war with those meddling Brutii Romans. Try to keep a layer of neutral faction between you and them. Now, its freeform. CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, AND CHARGE!!!

[ReluctantSamurai]

You can hire immense armies of warriors to smash enemies---you may need to buy mercs---Macedon may try to ally with you, but strengthening them is not a good idea--- After you deal with them, the Greek might get aggressive. Take them out before or after they wage war. Against these guys, disrupt their phalanxes with huge mobs, and take 'em out from behind with cavalry

One's rate of development, and the direction events happen on the campaign is very much game difficulty dependent. At easier settings, you can indeed hire 'immense armies of warriors' but at the higher difficulty settings, having the denarii available is a huge issue. Any worthwhile mercs aren't available at the start, and those that are (like warbands and barbarian cavalry), you can train yourself.

In my Dacian campaigns, Macedon, Thrace, and Scythia almost always gang up on me, often times as an alliance. Phalanx is a problem for Dacia in the beginning, even militia hoplites. Warbands have very poor morale, and when unit losses get high while engaging phalanx, they do what most barbarian warbands do....they rout. If Macedonia comes for you early, you have no good answer for their Light Lancer cavalry which they will create in hordes. Barbarian Cavalry can barely hold their own against them 1v1, but in the numbers of them you will see at higher difficulty, "brute force" is wholly inadequate. And until you develop far enough to build Archer Warband barracks, you have no alternative against Scythian horse archers other than to chase them around with barbarian cavalry which can get them cut off behind enemy lines if you're not careful.

Warbands are almost completely ineffective against the Greek City Armored Hoplite or the Macedonian Phalanx Pikemen, and it's suicide to try any kind of frontal assault even en-mass.

While I appreciate your enthusiasm with the game, one has to be careful with suggestions as to how to play this faction or that. As I said earlier, game difficulty settings can drastically change how a particular faction can be played, and what you will face both on the campaign map, and on the battlefield.

:bow:

[CountMRVHS]

I've had some good initial luck (M/H campaign/battle difficulty) with a "Scythia-first" approach.

Attacking Thrace or Macedon early on seems to invite the other to attack you. But if you clear out of those guys' way, they may fight each other while you're snapping up the northern Black Sea ports. Time it right, and you can swing an army back to your homelands to see off any invaders.

But from turn 1, I essentially abandoned both settlements, leaving just a 1-unit garrison of Warband in each. All my other troops turned east toward Campus Scythii. Be sure to bring some Archer Warband, as they are the only effective counter to Scythia's HAs. But if you generally ignore Scythian field armies and do your fighting in the towns, where you can corner their light cav with your own cav and infantry, things should work out.

In my campaign, I took Campus Scythii and then immediately marched on to Tanais, ignoring Chersonesos as it was still rebel-held. Taking Tanais reduced Scythia to 1/2 of their starting lands, by which point they were amenable to a ceasefire.

Ceasefires are rather important for Dacia, given the fluid nature of wars in the region. And that's a great reason to play on Medium campaign difficulty: the AI seems much more ... reasonable, diplomatically. Must be something to do with the fact that they're not pumping out troops with all that free money the harder difficulties grant them (and not draining their pop into the bargain).

You can often get cash for ceasefires, in fact. This, plus the need to sell alliances and map info and trade rights with your neighbors in order to stay in the black during those early turns, means you'll want to train several Diplomats and send them around. One goes east, to communicate with Scythia (and Parthia); the other goes to Greece; another will eventually head to Italy.

With Scythia pushed back and pacified, I turned to Chersonesos and built that up a bit, then turned my attention back toward my neglected homelands. Macedon laid siege to Porrolissum with a small force, but because I'd left the south alone, they were already at war with Thrace (my ally), and thus somewhat distracted. I was able to swat them away, and then watch as they collapsed in the face of Greek and Thracian advance.

The next challenge was/is the Brutii, who were nosing around Campus Iazyges. This was problematic, as they were allied with both me and Thrace, my other ally. If the Brutii attacked me first, Thrace would drop their alliance with me, as the AI tends to side with the aggressor in such situations. Thrace was winning the war against Macedon, so I knew if they dropped our alliance I'd be vulnerable, and I didn't have enough troops to deal with the Brutii *and* Thrace.

So I attacked the Brutii preemptively, and predictably enough Thrace stuck with me. That bought me some time, as Thrace worked on eliminating Macedon with gusto, taking Bylazora and Thessalonica, while Greece moved up to push Macedon out of Larissa. (Presumably this left Macedon with that one African province that always rebels to them.)

My army against the Brutii was certainly not high-tech, but thanks to diplomacy and my Black Sea ports I was able to keep my cash around 10,000 in the treasury, which allowed me to keep improving infrastructure. My army consisted of around 4 Warband, a couple of Barbarian warband mercs, 3 Scythian merc HAs, 3 Illyrian mercs, 1 Naked Fanatics, and the general. This was enough to push the Brutii out of my region, cross over to Aquincum and take that from the Brutii, and then drive south to the Adriatic and capture Salona, which I then gifted to the Greek Cities (my ally).

Gifting provinces is another good strategy for times when you don't want to defend some small patch of dirt for the next 20 years, but you don't want to just hand it back to the enemy. But often times the AI is oddly suspicious of your gifts, so you have to sweeten the deal. Give them some cash (I included 3,000 denarii) along with the province, and they'll usually accept. It's often easier if you're giving them land that is already adjacent to their own territories. Oh, and make sure you don't have any of your own troops standing in the province (being in the city is fine), or the AI apparently won't accept.

Giving Salona to the Greeks cut off the Brutii from their province further north, and left them just Apollonia and Thermon on the Greek mainland. I fought a few more battles in the area to ensure the Greeks could hold their new possession, and then turned north to guard my own homelands.

By this time I knew Thrace was running out of things to do, so I began training and moving armies toward them. Again, they nosed into my territory near Campus Scythii, but I attacked first to ensure that the Greeks would stay allied with me (the aggressor). I just took Campus Getae from them, and one more battle should net me Tylis. I'll move toward Bylazora and Byzantium next, but I may leave them with Thessalonica as a buffer between me and Greece.

Finances have become tight - I'm recruiting mercs and native units - but I suspect taking Thracian lands will help right that ship. I'd love to get ceasefire with the Romans, but the Brutii are being stubborn, despite my superiority in the region. Well, once Thrace is dealt with I'll aim to push them back across the Adriatic.

Elsewhere, I've been fortunate. Germany is seemingly distracted by Britannia's invasion of central Gaul and western Germania, so they haven't taken a swipe at me. When Scythia expanded into some rebel territory north of Campus Scythii, I attacked them, took it for myself, and got another ceasefire. But I see that Gaul has been driven out of Italy by the Julii. Maybe I should gift some of the NW Balkans territory to Germany, as a buffer between me & Rome until I can secure Greece?

For the long term, I'm not sure exactly where I'll go. Maybe Germany, actually... slow-growing barbarian towns don't make much cash, but they don't suffer culture penalties or out-of-control unrest, either. And loyalty is a problem, as others have pointed out. I'm already considering making Scythia into my protectorate and gifting them Tanais, as I imagine it'll be impossible to hold eventually.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I've always found that gifting provinces almost always comes back to bite you later. In the shifting sands of war, an ally often becomes an enemy, and that province you gave away now needs to be reconquered. If I've taken control of a province for strategic purposes, but don't really want to defend it, I destroy what infrastructure can be burned, and let the place go rebel. Often times the resulting rebel army that claims the town can hold its own for quite some time giving you the buffer you want, but not the later head ache of having to re-conquer an ally turned enemy.:shrug:


Giving Salona to the Greeks cut off the Brutii from their province further north, and left them just Apollonia and Thermon on the Greek mainland. I fought a few more battles in the area to ensure the Greeks could hold their new possession, and then turned north to guard my own homelands.

Only Romans are more untrustworthy than the Greek Cities. Can't tell you how many times those SOB's back-stabbed me even when I've saved them from extinction:shame: So I never...ever...form an alliance with them. The top three turncoats in my campaigns have been the Romans...Greek Cities...and the Egyptians.


Finances have become tight - I'm recruiting mercs and native units

Perhaps adding money along with a gifted province is not such a good idea?:boxedin:

Welcome to the ORG, btw~:wave:

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks :) I'm more of a returning member - been probably a decade or so since I've last posted!

In the past year or two I've gotten a much better handle on the diplomatic aspects of this game (mostly via the Fourth Age mod, which I work on). The absolute highlight of that research has been an understanding of how to acquire protectorates, which can provide you with a useful buffer zone as well as a ton of cash (although in vanilla RTW I've noticed protectorates tend to pay you very little, if anything; probably a result of the lower incomes on the vanilla map compared to the mod?). The next most useful tidbit has been an understanding of how to gift provinces to the AI, which can also result in buffer zones.

I should note that these things are mostly useful to players who prefer to keep lots of factions 'alive' throughout the campaign. A player who just wants to 'win' quickly and kill 'em all won't have as much fun with these maneuvers, which take time and often lots of cash to make happen.

In the case of Salona, the calculation there was about balance of power in the region. If I let the province rebel, it's surrounded by the Brutii, and I'm sure they'll get it back soon.

At the time, I wasn't yet at war with Thrace. Thrace held 5 settlements (Campus Getae, Tylis, Byzantium, Bylazora, Thessalonica). Macedon was essentially gone, banished to Africa. Greeks held Larissa and everything south of it. Brutii held Thermon and Apollonia in the region.

Knowing that Thrace is shaping up to be the major power (and would attack me soon), I wanted to use the Greeks as a counter. Propping them up with an extra province and some cash would - hopefully! - allow them to push back against the Brutii, and prevent Thrace from gaining more land in Greece.

Of course, it's somewhat risky, for the reasons you state: it's costly, and it will strengthen a faction that is sure to be an enemy down the road. But things are currently pretty manageable, fortunately. I've managed to reduce Thrace from a 5-province faction down to just 3, with 2 of them (Bylazora, Byzantium) currently under siege. They no longer pose any real threat, so after taking those 2 settlements the time may be right for a ceasefire, which will allow me to turn my full attention to the Romans.

As for the Greeks, they have so far managed to retain Salona, and have attempted (but failed) to take back Thermon. That's fine - a stalemate, with slight momentum on the Greek side, is better IMO than a Brutii conquest of Greece.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Kudos for trying to introduce some kind of sanity via mods to diplomacy, as opposed to the broken system presented in vanilla RTW (and in virtually every game CA has done starting with STW).

I don't completely ignore having allies, (I was actually stunned in one of my Armenian campaigns to have Macedon stick to the alliance from beginning to end~:eek:), and have never liked protectorates because they always seemed to get me into conflicts I didn't want, or wasn't ready for....

[Vincent Butler]

I typically take alliances. Many times later on it is somebody about to get wiped out and looking for help, which I could not do in time anyway. I never trust my allies. Now, I guess if you get military access, those alliances are a lot more stable. I fully expect my allies to turn on me. I am surprised in my current Macedon campaign that Scythia has not yet attacked.


Only Romans are more untrustworthy than the Greek Cities

Truer words were never spoken. Britannia is bad about it as well. But after all, the Greeks are "those masters of lies, falsehood, and perversity", so I would fully expect them to break an alliance :rolleyes:

I do not attack my own allies, except if I am Rome and ready to start the civil war. Or, as happened once, the Scipii attacked the Brutii, and the Senate ordered me to attack both factions, outlawing me if I did not hit the Scipii and investigating me if I did not attack the Brutii. I attacked both.

I never get anybody as a protectorate, either, except I had Egypt become a protectorate once when I was Macedon. Really annoying, I had all the map covered except for Egypt's settlements, they had I think seven left. But they were not violating it, so I left them be. I guess since they were my protectorate, technically I had the entire map conquered, or at least subjugated.