Iberia-Bloody Impossible

[SpawnOfEbil]

Well, your capital, Numantia is losing 4000+ a turn. The other city isn't much better anyway. The two cities you have to take are both heavily defended. All your units are really expensive in upkeep.

Sounds like a fun challenge!

[PseRamesses]

Well, your capital, Numantia is losing 4000+ a turn. The other city isn't much better anyway. The two cities you have to take are both heavily defended. All your units are really expensive in upkeep.

Sounds like a fun challenge!

It is! :laugh4:
I´m fiddeling between 1. blitzing my way out of the situation and 2. turteling: disband all units and recouperate my economy. Test runs for 10 years. It seems this is the general approach in EB. The devs leaves you with this option in the beginning of each faction which I feel is great since there´s a lot of people that just go on the rampage and would like to conquer all while there´s others, like myself, that roleplay my games.

[Forgus]

It is! :laugh4:
I´m fiddeling between 1. blitzing my way out of the situation and 2. turteling: disband all units and recouperate my economy. Test runs for 10 years. It seems this is the general approach in EB. The devs leaves you with this option in the beginning of each faction which I feel is great since there´s a lot of people that just go on the rampage and would like to conquer all while there´s others, like myself, that roleplay my games.
Nope. Don't disband anything. The units you have shuld be enough to conquer everything except carthagininan lands, raise taxes, send diplomats everywhere possible, sell map information, and in 3 years you are earning money and in 5 you can start building.
Guys, this is not hack and slash. It is ment to be a challenging game for the mind. It can be done on VH/M. I have done it. So can you.

[Count Belisarius]

Despite lingering recruiting irregularities (this IS a beta, after all), Iberia is very much a fun faction to play. Their infantry is some of the most effective and versatile in the game: fast, decently armored, mostly well-shielded, many carrying javelins, plus a war cry? It is almost unfair. You think Hannibal recruited Iberians in the tens of thousands by coincidence?

Sure, Iberian income is low at the outset. Iberia is a small, poor, semi-barbaric faction, and army units are expensive as hell to recruit and maintain throughout EB, which I personally love. It holds down army sizes and keeps the game from degenerating into a RTW:Vanilla hack-fest suitable only for 12-year-olds.

Disbanding your units, turning turtle, and gradually building your economy is slow and relatively boring (even a non-12-year-old like me likes a good bloodbath). It works, primarily because you are almost surrounded by non-aggressive rebels, and the Carthaginians are too few to pose an immediate threat, but it is not much fun. The alternative is to go on the offensive. As a matter of pure personal preference, though, I refrain from "blitzing" because I feel that it takes away from the game experience. The choice is up to you.

First thing, put as many trade/transportation/farming buildings in your queue as possible with your starting funds, because you will not have enough money to build anything for quite a while, no matter what you do. Suck it up, go into debt, and set about conquering your rebel neighbors. Given the lack of roads in Iberia, and the composition and size of the rebel armies, this might present a surprising challenge. At the very least, it will take some time.

Resist the temptation to cash in your conquests by extermination. "Barbarian" population growth is slow, and you do not want your provinces to be stuck as Towns forever. By the time you have united the peninsula south of the Pyrrenees (whatever is not owned by the Kart-Hadastim and/or the Avernii), you will have a nice, tidy little empire going, and will be pulling out of your economic slump. Pick a fight with somebody worthwhile, and you are off to the races. I always go after the Kart-Hadastim. Any people who have Hannibal Barca on their side - and lose - are too stupid to live.

[SirPoot]

The whole of Spain can be easily conquered with your starting armies...just make use of your general's bodyguards well. Once you do, just build mines everywhere in Spain and you'll have a huge surplus of income every turn. In fact, the city directly north of Tingis earns me 3k Mnai every turn...

Now the problem comes with expanding my territory beyond iberian lands. I've just snatched Africa from Carthage, and it proved easy enough, with one huge stack of Caetratii and the help of some mercenaries. What is worrying though, is that outside iberia, I simply cannot recruit any of my backbone units anymore. It implies that if I intend to expand my borders to Rome/Gaul/Greece, I'll either have to keep recruiting mercenaries along the way, or keep send stacks of iberian units out from Spain. Unfortunately, the first method is expensive, and mercenaries cannot be replaced easily and quickly. The second will take a very long time, especially when my empire gets too large, and can drain out my Spanish populations rapidly. The natives that I can recruit are not that strong either.

The most threatening point is when I expand to Scythian, Armenian or Parthian lands, if I managed to do it. All my units are at most, moderately armoured; they'll ripped to shreds by horse archers...

Finally, the highest level of settlement that the iberians can achieve is the one with 6000 population. It'll be a pain to manage when I take very advanced settlements like Alexandria, where the population simply explodes every few turns...

Can anyone give advice on how to play Iberia beyond their homeland?

[NightStar]

I gave Iberia a half-hearted try and it seems to be a faction with a tough starting position. Especially after I conquered most of spain, leaving the southern provinces well enough, I disbanded most of my troops to get out of 50k debt.....what happens, uber rebel stacks pop up everywhere and start to besiege my cities and I had no money to hire troops.....and the scattered forces I had had no hopes of reaching the besieging cities in time.

One thing about Iberia is their troops are ridiculously expensive, even the milita has upkeep of 303 mnai each turn which is higher than princeps

[PseRamesses]

I gave Iberia a half-hearted try and it seems to be a faction with a tough starting position. Especially after I conquered most of spain, leaving the southern provinces well enough, I disbanded most of my troops to get out of 50k debt.....what happens, uber rebel stacks pop up everywhere and start to besiege my cities and I had no money to hire troops.....and the scattered forces I had had no hopes of reaching the besieging cities in time.

One thing about Iberia is their troops are ridiculously expensive, even the milita has upkeep of 303 mnai each turn which is higher than princeps

You start out with two field generals plus armies. Strike at Sucum-Murgi and Arse ASAP. The S-M army the takes Baikor, Gader and Mastia while the Arse army move north to take Emporion, swings NW to take the rest of the rebel settlements in the NW of Iberia. All set and done around 268bc and shortly thereafter your economy will get back in black. Roads, mines and trading facilities are ofcourse a priority. By 266bc I had two full stacks of decent troops that will mop up all rebs and be able to sally any besieged settlement.

I also got lucky in this camp since the Arvernia hadn´t taken the two reb-settlements in the SE of France and I also snatched the three Mauretanian settlements before Karth got to it, he he. Karth refuses to accept a peace deal so Carthago will soon be burning.... but before that we´ll "show them what swords can do to their skulls!":laugh4:

[Disciple of Tacitus]

Dear Nightstar and PseRamesses,
Are you guys playing .73 or .74? Just curious. Did either of you encounter this scenrio...

Battle just north of Mastia (sp). by the river. When we zoomed to the battlefield, I was one side of the river, the computer was on the other. There was no way to cross. Had to wait out the battle for the draw. Tried to reproduce it, but couldn't get the AI to fight in the same area.

This was during .73.

I am jumping to .74 now. Was doing well enough - had taken all of Spain and was fighting over Tolosa when an uber army of 10 units of Triarii showed up.:surrender:

I am a dedicated Iberian fan, so anyone playing them or playing against them, drop me a note here and maybe we can add our :2cents: to EB.

[Kull]

Battle just north of Mastia (sp). by the river. When we zoomed to the battlefield, I was one side of the river, the computer was on the other. There was no way to cross. Had to wait out the battle for the draw. Tried to reproduce it, but couldn't get the AI to fight in the same area.

This was during .73.

Do you still have that save game? If so, please post it so I can download and take a look at it. Here's a link to a free file hosting service (http://www.axifile.com/index.php). Thanks!

[PseRamesses]

Dear Nightstar and PseRamesses,
Are you guys playing .73 or .74? Just curious. Did either of you encounter this scenrio...
.74 and I haven´t played Iberia since .73 so I´m sorry I can´t help you out.

[pezhetairoi]

Wow, uber 10 triarii eh. I pity you. My Arverni fullstack of Gaeroas and Bataroas was only able to trash 6 triarii working with 14 other Roman combined arms units because they lined up in assault column to storm across a river to attack my army (the only reason I managed to get this terrain advantage was through disgraceful retreats and ingenious manoevring around Roma) but didn't charge across to hit me, so I just attacked across and worked my way down the column...and strangely enough they didn't deploy back into full line then so I just concentrated 6 units at a time on one, routed it, then went on to the other.

[nikolai1962]

sell map information

One of my rules ever since the vanilla game is not selling map info as it gives the player such a cheesy advantage with the screwy diplomatic ai. I don't know how many people have this rule but if the game is tested including selling map info (especially as the ai is given more money via the script) then it makes a *huge* difference as to how tough each faction is to play and maybe ought to be mentioned in the FAQ.

edit: on the other hand it is great imo if empire-building starts out vary hard, gets easier past a certain point *then* starts to get harder and harder again the further you expand past your natural homeland (varying by faction).