Vandals (BI faction)

[frogbeastegg]

Guide.

[RabidGibbon]

Started a VH/M Campaign today.

The first thing I did was race directly west as fast as I could, eager to avoid a confrontation with the Huns. Once I felt I'd pust some distance between us, I started rearranging my Stacks. I put all the horde peasents and "Regular" army units together in a few stacks that I always kept near the centre of my Horde. The thinking here being that when I settled down the peasents would be more useful providing numbers than anything they could do in comabat, and the regular army units would be needed to garrison the cities I chose to settle down in.

I moved peacefully through some rebel lands and Lombardi before taking a left turn and crossing the alps into the western roman empire. I then attacked Meidolanieum (sp) Ravenna and Rome, timing the sieges to end similtaneously. The plan worked, although the Romans made a strong effort to relieve Ravenna.

Although Meidolanieum revolted a few turns later I've been able to take the cut off city of Tarentum, and eventually retake Meidolanieum, which essentially gives me all of Italy as a spring board to take Iberia and North Africa.

[Laman]

Only just started a game with the Vandals, the first thing i did was goin west. I'm just outside the WRE's border at the Danube. Since the amount of non-horde units is relatively small I've planned to cross northern Italy and southern Gaul, and possibly sack one or more cities on the way, but avoiding battles that I don't have to fight, and then settle in Iberia, which should hopefully be more quiet and defendable than Italy. After making sure I can defend myself there, I will first invade Africa, and take Italy last. I'll let you know wether it works.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Welcome Lofman!:balloon2:

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Welcome to the forums Lofman!:balloon2:

[Laman]

My plan worked. I sacked Mediolanum and that town in Narbonensis on the way, and once in Iberia I managed with almost no trouble at all conquer all four cities. With an acceptable economy and a strong army, my invasion of Africa was unfortunately delayed due to an alliance I had with the ERE. When going the war against the Berbers, they and ERE signed an alliance before i could assault Tingi, forcing a peace, and I didn't feel like declaring war on them again so soon. Of the hordes the Sarmatians did come, but at that time all they had left was one almost full stack, and one very small stack, so they where promptly defeated. Currently fighting the WRE in southern Gaul, but I'm training an army that I will send directly to Carthage.

[Laman]

Thanks for the welcome. Odd thing, your posts wasn't there yesterday.

[Craterus]

Started a Vandal campaign round littlegannon's house yesterday and continued it today. We will be playing it whenever I go round there.

Anyway, we went for a slightly different route. Allied with the Huns, and sacked the Roxolani. Roxolani horde attacked some of our hordes as we left the town. Those two hordes were killed against the 4 Roxolani.

We continued south into the Sassanid territory, sacking as we went along. By Hatra, we decided to cut in and take Antioch. Very poorly fought siege here and lost an entire stack of men. Decided that settling sooner than later would be a good idea. Sieged Alexandria and settled. We then marched the faction leader across to take Cyrene and exterminated the population. Then sent armies across to Crete and Athens. Couldn't make it to Athens cos of pirates and had to turn back. When we eventually got there, we sieged and massacred.

Alexandria rebelled back to the ERE (tried to enforce Paganism :sad:). In Athens, we built an army and sailed it over to take Ephesus. Began to fight the battle, but then I had to go, I only hope that we won. By taking Ephesus, we have a nice little trading square.

By wreaking havoc in ERE, the ERE rebels have appeared and taken almost half of their settlements, and we have caused them amjor problems.

Roxolani horde finally settled in the middle of modern day France and the Huns settled in south France. Goths went for Rome but were beaten and are now standing around with barely enough men (including horde units) to make a stack. The Allemanni and Saxons were wiped out. And the Celts are taking over Britain. More to come...

EDIT: Forgot to say, ERE have been entirely kicked off of Greece, apart from Salona which is looking very lonely over there...

Constantinople is being heavily guarded by a "Thracian Rebel" stack.

Sassanids have more territory than ERE now. Pretty cool.

[DukeofSerbia]

Vandals are pretty good if you like strategy burn everything to the ground.

I send my diplomats to Sarmatians and sighn alliance and same I do with Goths. My armies moved to the south (on Constantinepoles). In 3rd turn Huns destroyed Roxolani (who became horde) and Roxolani then destroyed Sarmatians (who became horde) and Sarmatians attacked Goths. I choosed Sarmatian side. I had lucky because Huns attacked ERE in Caucaus in 6th turn and in 7th they attacked Sassanids (I can't imagine what they did them).
I send spy forward and with diplomat I bribed few more diplomats. Assasin went with my faction leader. Armies movement - two went forward, two guard rear and faction leader and heir in the middle. Always put armies on bridges. My armies came to Thrace and I blackmailed ERE - 20 000 denarii in two turn. They refused. Faction leader besieged Constantinopoles, heir guard rear, one army was on border (because Roxolanii moved around) and three went to Macedonia and Achae. I sacked all three cities and earned 40 000. In way I destroyed few ERE armies. Then I sacked WR Rebels in Salona and besieged Sirmium with my best troops (ERE had full stuck in Sirmium but they waited 9 turns). I had 60 000. Whole Balkan held Rebels... ~D
I hired few mercs units, sighned alliance with Sassanids and Roxolani who sacked WRE (Noricum and Pannonia) and invade Italy. Rome, Ravenna and Mediolanum are under sieges. WRE seek truce (4 000 denarii in 3 turns)... ~D

[Dagobert II]

Hey all;

Started a Vandal campaign as well; so far it is great fun.
I first moved west to attack Iberia and sacked a cluster of
Barbarian cities east of Vicus Franki for extra coin, and thrust
directly past the WRE barrier past the Pyrenees. They naturally
sent a detachment to follow the Horde, but I served them a
sweet defeat east of Arles. Then I laid siege to Tarracco, Corduba,
and Carthago Nova. Tarraco fell, and then I met a reversal sieging
Carthago Nova. Corduba fell, but the populace was not pleased.
I was getting low on coin, so I moved a stack north, and sacked
Arles, leaving those poor folks in the bronze age. WRE sent an
emmissary seeking a ceasefire, and I argued the fall of Carthago Nova.
Fortunately, I received some elite units, and ~10000 gold. I redoubled
my efforts, abandoned Arles as per the treaty, and attacked
Samarobriva. WRE sent their lapdogs the Berbers to attack Corduba,
but their reversal left a condition of ceasefire as well. FF>> I am
allied with the Sarmatians inhabiting the Aquitane, and I have
taken Aquincum as a base to retake "the horn..."

Oh, I love the smell of a Horde in the morning. :knight:

https://img455.imageshack.us/img455/562/vandals4yb.jpg

[Bullethead]

Although billed as "moderate difficulty", the Vandals IMHO have an easier time than most other factions except maybe the Sassanids. The reason is that the Vandals can get into a position where they only have to fight 1 enemy for a long time (the WRE), and that enemy's options are limited to predictable courses. Thus, it's possible to stick with a grand plan and get into a strong position before things get crazy, by which time you should be able to deal with the changes.

My grand plan had 3 stages, as follows:

1) Create Festung Iberia and grow strong
2) Create a strong navy
3) Conquer my way along the North African coast and eventually take Rome by amphibious assault.

To do this, I immediately marched west, fighting as little as possible. Every time I crossed a frontier, I got the "transgression" message but nobody wanted to fight 6 full stacks all keeping adjacent to each other. I allied with all the Germanic tribes I met along the way, plus the Huns because they came to me, and only sacked 2 rebel villages (Vicus Vandali and Campus Chattii). Plus I fought some brigands who were in the way, and once to help my friends the Alemanni. This was mostly to get a little money and some experience for my princes. This was all accomplished with negligible loss, thanks to overwhelming numbers of horse archers against pretty much infantry-only armies. Important travel tip: Go through Tribus Chattii instead of Tribus Franki, to avoid a bad ZOC chokepoint that can slow you down several years.

Now you're in the WRE. Turn SSE and walk across Gaul. The WRE won't like you, and won't sign any deals due to all your Germanic friends, but also won't attack your imposing horde. Too bad for them, because now is when you turn on them. Divide into 3 columns of 2 stacks each, each column having at least 1 family member, and sack the following places simultaneously: Massilia, Arles, and Burdigala. This not only makes you tons of money, it creates a nice buffer zone between your main target, Iberia, and the rest of the WRE. Then send each column into Iberia along each of the 3 land routes: around both ends of the mountains and through the pass in the middle. As you do so, build forts to block these routes behind you. The best places are where the path leading to them is only 1 lane wide, but there are at least 2 places on the Iberian side so you can always have more reinforcement stacks than the enemy can bring to the assault. Leave some of your non-horde units in each fort, usually the foot archers, so the garrisons won't vanish when you settle down. Which is what you do now.

As you're building up your new Iberian home, things are fairly predictable. The WRE has no bases close to you, thanks to your devastation of SE Gaul, and now has other problems with various Germanic tribes. Thus, land-based incursions are infrequent and limited in size, so you should have no problem holding them off at the forts in the passes. OTOH, the WRE navy totally surrounds you, so you have to worry about amphibious landings everywhere (and forget getting any money from sea trade due to constant blockades). Fortunately, these too generally don't amount to much, more like suppressing brigands than real invasions, so you should be OK against the WRE. However, it's hard if not impossible to stop the war with the WRE. This really isn't a big deal, because it's not that much of a problem, and you're going to be invading them again in the future. But no matter what you offer them, they won't take a ceasefire. This could be due to some alliances still remaining with Germanic tribes, but it also seems that Vandal diplomats are depressingly prone to being "tactless" or worse, so have 0 or even negative influence ratings.

The really interesting thing about Iberia is that it has 4 provinces and you can only settle in 3 before your horde's all gone. So which one do you leave, and how do you deal with it? It depends on what's going on. You need Cardoba eventually, and it's too big a threat to be left intact with the WRE, but it's too big to be occupied profitably. Best to sack it before you settle anywhere, then let it stay rebel while you hold the other 3. I've sometimes lucked into WRE rebels owning, in which case I've allied with them and taken the other provinces. Eventually, however, Cardoba will revolt back to the WRE, and then you have to deal with it. But by then it's much easier to swallow, and your other cities will be well in the black and pumping out troops.

The rest of the game requires naval might. You at least have to cross Gibralter, even if you satisfy the balance of your victory conditions by marching to Rome overland. However, even just crossing to those straights requires considerable naval might. The WRE has a strong navy and there are TONS of powerful pirate fleets out there, too. Thus, you can't transport and maintain an army to Morocco unless you have a strong navy yourself. Thus, build that up before you make the attempt. Don't just build 1 or 2 ships and go for it, because you won't stand much of a chance.

[teja]

Good tips Bullethead.


I used my usual strategy with the Vandals and forced the Sarmatians into Horde. Then plundered all the roman Balkans but Salona, then all Italy and what was left of Gaul. Then I made a new home at the iberians eastcoast leaving the last province there plundered as a rebel town.
In consequence of this plunder tour there had been no roman fraction (but the rebellious one in Salona) left at the european continent. No WRE, no ERE. My purse nearly bursted with 270 000 Denarii made by looting only roman cities.
After I settled down I had to kill the rests of the Sarmatian Horde that became forced out of Germany by germanic tribes. I managed then to reach an easy to fortify Iberian empire with the cities Avaricum (central Gaul) and Arles (south Gaul) as key positions. You have mainly only to take care for 3 bridges then and your skilled archers can do great with this.
When the big hun Horde settled in northern Italy, I turned myself against them. Hun forces can be mortal, but they are weak after their Horde stack is gone. It was the best time to face them. While finishing them off, they became allied to the Franks and the Alemanni, but only the Franks had impressive and good forces & empires. Holding my key positions in Gaul as seen above against the Huns friends, Italy became almost mine.
In northern Africa the Berbs had still problems with WRE (Lybia and some times in Cartago, with the isles Sizilia and Sardinia as their backbone) and Rebels. From the time I settled in Iberia I used to be allied with them for good trading routes. Now I only need Cartage to finish my job. I sneaked through all the rebel Pirates and did it. Vandals won.
I restarted some ticks earlier to make a great empire not focus for the winning conditions.

About Vandal forces: I think most other nomadic fractions use to have finer units. I love the priests and heavy spearmen which are extraordinary, while archers and steppewarriors are fine. I love horse archers which are not that outstanding in Vandal ranks. As for all nomadic fractions I really miss any artillery to conquer cities easier.

[McDoogle]

there is on one of those split screen things while loading etc, a group of men in HORNED HELMETS with axes and shields destroying a villiage.

I have search through the custom battle thing and havnt been able to find these units. Does anyone have any ideas as to who they are and who they belong to?

[Dagobert II]

Hey All;

Another Note: I do find that compared to other factions, the Vandals could be considered a good introduction to the BI concept. The manual is (after all) brief, and it does outline Hordes. The Vandals do not have a
lofty territory goal, yet challenging because of the need to build a navy,
(which is their historical pretext) and their numerous enemies.

[Australianus]

Hello,
I am new to BI and have misplayed the HUNS twice. I have conquered relatively worthless settlements and made the mistake of settling. The horde disappeared. I have seen some threads talking about using spearmen to settle to avoid losing cavalry units but what if they are not strong enough to conquer a place?
What is the best way to conquer a place and yet choose who settles in it?~:confused:

[Rilder]

the vandals were my first "start as Horde" faction to start as mostly cause they had actuall infantry, to many calvary but not as many as those damn huns which have all calvary.... i hate calvary :P and the vandles were pretty fun, i sacked all the way to the Iberian Peninsula with minimul losses and absolutly no use of those damn horse archers that come with them

[GrandInquisitor]

i think i was lucky. playing as the vandals, who remain my favorite for some reason, i also went to iberia. i conquered corduba and the city north of it. really, because i felt the need for a challenge, i actually just moved there. i sacked nothing until reaching corduba. after taking carthago nova and tingi, i started consolidating, thinking that there would be some mass invasion. as the alemanni, i had dealt with huge roman, saxon, frankish, and finally hunnic incursions before feeling safe. this time, i built some armies and marched straight across the rest of north africa, iberia, and france meeting no resistance. i later found that all the horde civilizations had been crushed, and the only power left was the ERE -- which fell into civil war and shambles thereafter. i never had one major battle. looking back, i suppose i left several people too strong, and it turned into a mutual extermination for my enemies

[teja]

Hello,
I am new to BI and have misplayed the HUNS twice. I have conquered relatively worthless settlements and made the mistake of settling. The horde disappeared. I have seen some threads talking about using spearmen to settle to avoid losing cavalry units but what if they are not strong enough to conquer a place?
What is the best way to conquer a place and yet choose who settles in it?~:confused:

As explained somewhere: Do use the Horde strategy! Here are a few points:

1st Conquer and loot any reasonable city on the march and elswhere.
2nd Move into the rich Roman territories, conquer and destroy there too!
3rd Establish a path of Rebel cities this way deep into the locations you want to settle in later. These guys will not follow you and never attack your new homes. They will be poor victims for you later and a good buffer for any following Horde
4th Choose a territory to settle in away from other fractions but Romans. Good places are any peninsuars like Italy or Spain.
5th Lay siege at the same time on all 3 cities you want to become your new home. Taking those cities means you will loose all Horde units at once. Time your sieges that you will get any of those cities at the same time, so you will not miss forces when you need them!
6th You are now rich because of all the lootings and have choosen, almost well upgraded Roman cities as your home. Reestablish order and make a regular army that strikes fear in any opponets heart.

[Australianus]

Teja,
Thanks for the advice.

[Kickius Buttius]

I am trying a new strategy (for me)....I am attempting to sack every city on the map before settling. I am hoping that the need to avoid casualties, as well as sack every city and then still have time to settle, build a new army, and retake all of the victory cities from rebels, will provide a good challenge. We'll see.

[Afro Thunder]

Don't you need boats to invade Britain though? Horde factions don't start out with ships, and you need to settle in order to build a navy.

[lars573]

When I play the Vandals I tend to cover my movement with other hordes. This is to support my main focus, vandaliziing Africa. It seems that if you as the Vandals go after the Sarmatians the Huns will go after the Roxolani. So I bumped off the Sarmatians who Horded into Thracia and sacked Constantinople. Then I bumped off the Goths who sacked Moesia. Then I crossed the Danube. And avoided confrontation with the WRE until I got to Spain. Then I sacked all 4 citites in Spain. Retook Corduba and retrained my non-horde units. Built a fleet and took Tingi. Then I decided to Christianize my Vandals. For more of a challenge, especially in Corduba. I've just taken Carthage and have armies moving to Syracuse and Dimmidi. Hordes are fun and useful. :2thumbsup:

[Monarch]

Well my Hun campaign got messed up due to PC problems, instead of just re-starting and do the exact same moved, which would be boring, I decided to start afresh with the vandals.

I decided not to be a nice guy, I did alot of looting in an attempt to give myself money for settling. I sacked the first city your around, then split into two groups, one with two stacks (we'll call them group one) and another group with the remainder (group 2).

Group 1's purpose was simple, sack cities. I took a few rebel settlements with them then marching over to WRE (saking a city or 2 on the way) and terrorizing Gaul.

G2 's focus was settling. Although they probably did more sacking than g1 (bigger group after all). They cut a path from Campus Sarmartae to Rome, a line of settlements was all rebel, it was like breadcrumbs of my path. However it wasnt mindless sacking. After getting near Rome I realised the need for protection after settling from hordes while I'm rebuilding.

So I took the Horde and smashed the surrounding provinces of the italian peninsula. Creating a buffer zone, rebels are usally peasents so they would be a much weaker enemy than say a Hunnic horde should they aattack. Then I attacked Rome and for good measure, Tartenus (sp?) at the bottom of the penisula, my two provinces that I settled. Because of settling they G2 has now dispanded.

G1 have taken the toll of many sieges/battles and are now only a couple of units strong, other than making them fight longer I am pulling them back to help keep the peace in my two provinces.

My plan short term is to build up armies and public order. Then later I'll go after Sicily, then Ravanna. After that I'm going to try amphibious attacks on Corduba and Carthage.

Then I have all the cities I need as a victory condition, I'll then pick off vulnerable settlments to make the 10 count.

The freezing is back, I'm going to stick this one out but progress will be slow. I have taken Ravanna by the way now. Next stop Milan or Syracuse.

Edit: Freeze issues still are around like a bad smell, but I did manage to take Syracruse and Caralis (sardinia). Goths and Roxollani are now entering my lands, Allemmani beat me to Mediolanum (I had trade rights, I wanted to keep them so I didnt siege them), however they stuck a poor garrison in and now the WRE has taken it back, I expect some roman armies to come my way because of this.

Also I'm sieging Carthage, desperatly need the money and it's required to win the game anyway.

Edit: Freezing has been sorted, now I'm really enjoying this campaign.

I have 8 regions, but one is on autocontrol as it's in Russia, they rebelled to me for some reason. As well as Carthage I expanded in Africa and kicked the WRE out in Lepsis Magna which was fun. Now I'm going to go amphibious landings on Corduba. After that, I think I want to win with a great battle. Mediolanum has a full stack of WRE troops, I might try to scrounge together an army and siege it.

Edit: Finished up this campaign, held something like the twelve provinces (I grabbed a few whilst waiting for the boat carrying my army to reach corduba).

Basically what I did: Sacked lots of settlements, dont worry when you get the italian peninsula the factions will be queing up for peace settlements. Then eventuially got Rome, Tartenus, Ravenna and settled down. Sent small armies to take the small garrisoned Sicily and Corsics. Then sent a stack to take Carthage, Lepsis Manga and the large African province the east. Avoid the Berbers, you have no business with them. They are weak, so you could trade with them and they'dd still be pretty poor. Then a landing force at corduba, only a few units will do. I was lucky and two settlements in Russia loyally rebelled back to me, even though the nearest I had got to them was sacking them at the start of my campaign.

[Kickius Buttius]

Afro Thunder, good point on the boats. I'll have to leave islands out of my plan. I have been contentedly sacking away and never once thought about islands.

[Monarch]

If you hadn't already started I suppose you could have edited the game to give you some sort of navy.

[Ordani]

The Vandals are fairly easy unless you go straight to Rome and beat other hordes there. The primary drawback you'll find with them is the complete lack of any real infantry for the horde -- IGB cavalry will walk over entire stacks of spearmen before slapping your Chosen Swordmen cadres into next week.

As such one of the best sacking strategies is ironically auto-calcing mass peasant/spearmen.

If you want a challenge, try racing the other hordes to Rome and then defending it. I managed to kill off the Sarmatians and Goths before the Huns finally broke through and sacked Rome (again!).

[Flying Pig]

The best wat is to run as fast as you can to corduba, then take it and the rest of Spain. Then sail to Numidia, take that too, then assault Cartage and from there Sardinia and Rome. If you are short on land, burn Italy.

[Third spearman from the left]

Just a couple questions to ask as I start off my Vandals game.

In terms of religion, no one has really said much about changing it onced settled. Has anyone seen any benefits to being christian?

Does it make for a harder game given that the pagan ways are the dominant way and is there a difference in the type of Christain the vandals are? (given that they should be Arian ones)

[Good Ship Chuckle]

If you want total chaos to insue when you build a christian shire and lose control of all public order...Sure, go ahead and change religion in the barbarian steppes.

If public order is important to you, keep the religion to suit the needs of the majority of the population; pagan or christian. Keep an eye on the conversion rates of the two religions however. The pleps are fickle, and can be swayed by a number of factors: Surrounding region's religion, religion of characters in the province, and type of religious structure in the town.

In BI, religion should be seen more as a way to please the people, instead of the typical upgrades found in RTW. Just make sure the people in Rome are okay with paganism, before you destroy the Christian Basilica.:tongue3:

[Master Young Phoenix]

In my Vandal campaign I marched on Italy, took the entire peninsula, spend a few years re-building and recruiting and facing down rival hordes, then made the march for Spain and north Africa.

I'm a bit of a roleplayer though, and an aggressive and proud beligrent at that so any faction that rubs me the wrong way will be wiped of the map... I actually controlled the whole WRE territory and pieces of Germanian lands in the end because I am so often annoyed by my neighbours ;)