Huns (BI faction)

[ichi]

rvg, I'll let some folks know that you are having a problem.

Usually the best way to contact the people who can help is by using a private message.

ichi

[Monarch]

I installed BI a few minutes ago. Chose the Huns as I like cav armies. Strategy is to head straight to Constantiople (sacking a few cities on the way), then I will expand west and try to kick the ERE back to Asai minor and out of Europe. Hopefully then the Sassadids should entertain them. I think after Constantinople I will halt for a while though and re-build armies.


I'll let you know how it turns out.

Well my plan so far has worked. The ERE are no longer in Europe. I own Athens, Constantinople and Thessalonica (sp?). I am now halting expansion. Time to rebuild my armies as my remaining hordes are basically dried up. I'm recruiting those terrible slave guys for garrisoning.

[Garvanko]

Wrong. I had my faction leader reduced to only his unit doing this. The answer lies in sacking anything worth sacking. Make much money before choosing to settle 100,000 - 200,000 denarii. Buy plenty of good units, Hun Elite and Heavy cav then raise all buildings and return to horde. Your new hordes will be unstoppable.

Interesting.

Im not too keen on hording though.

Just started a Hun campaign and quickly got an Alliance with the Roxolani - didn't want them on my backs so soon. Went straight for the Sarmatians, attacked with seven full stack army's and played a slow 'degraded' battle - took about half an hour, as I tried to kill off the entire faction. Which I did, including the family members. So imagine to my surprise when they horded straight after that!


What does it take to kill off factions that can Horde? Do you have to kill them off in the field?

Any how, I sacked the place, and went straight for Constantinople and Thessalonica. Seiged, and attacked both on the next turn. Culture penalty and economy was sorted as soon as I took Athens a few turns later. Placed forts around the surrounding area and sought trade rights with anyone who was willing. I'd already got an Alliance with the Sassanids on turn 3 or 4.

Now i think I'll work on the ERE a bit more. No need to go west for the moment - its a minefield, with the Vandals, Goths and Sarmatians all hording. Best avoid it, and let the WRE crumble like we know it can. Ive taken the city across Athens (can't remember the name), and will try to grab Kydonia before I plunge deeper into Asia Minor.

Hunnic Elites, eh? Haven't used them yet, so my apetite has been wetted.

Playing H/H, as usual. Roll on the conquest!

[The Hun]

What does it take to kill off factions that can Horde? Do you have to kill them off in the field?

Yes you do. I saw Sarmatian reduced to just Faction Leader and he took Arles!!!

I went east at first and sacked all ERE and Sassanid and killed Sassanid straight away. Then I returned and pushed Roxolani and Sarmatian before me and let them liven up europe. I finished off ERE and then began on WRE. I have not seen WRE crumble at all, in my campaigns they keep reappearing. Even this last campaign they have appeared in silly places after only having Sicily. It seems odd they have capacity to generate wealth when at war with everyone and they manage to take strong towns too easy. Anyway, they have two provinces , I killed Saxon, Marcomani and Celts before I got bored with rehording factions, so I took Rome to finish.

[Garvanko]

Well, anyway, the Sarmatians went ahead and killed themselves off in Western Europe. Shouldve just died when I 'killed' them.

I am pounding the ERE. Taken Ephesus, Ancyra, Sidon, Tarsus and Antioch. Took Caesarea, but it rebelled back to the ERE with golden Plumbatarii and Onagers etc. Left it alon while I moved in on Persia. I only need 15 provinces, plus Rome, and Ive got 12 already.

So Ive decided to hold at Antioch, and attack the WRE Italy. They look a bit weak there..

My favourite unit so far - Hunnic heavy Cav. They just roll over everything, and are well supported by the Hunnic Archers and Elites. You don't really need Infantry with the Huns, even though I like the variety.I'd have liked a specialist archer unit (I love archers), but its not a problem.

[Avicenna]

Any quick smart ideas on how to minimise the loss of your horde when you settle?
If you take a strong town, you need to use good troops but if you want to settle you lose the good troops.
Has some clever person come up with a solution??

Like other people have said, besieging multiple settlements is a solution. Another thing you could do is take Constantinople, occupy it, raze the buildings the to ground and become a horde again. This makes it vulnerable to recapture by the Huns and gives you a replenished horde to take on the Romans with.

[Monarch]

I'm bored so i'm starting a campaign to basically get as many hordes on the map as possible, I'll need big armies from the off so I figured Huns where best.

Already made Samartians and Roxolani horde. Have a couple of stacks moving in the on the Goths and remaining stacks moving in on Burgundi, Lombardi and Franks. After that, I'm going to assess money and remaining units. Hopefully, if all goes well I'll run away from the hordes I've created possible trek all the way to tackle to Sassanids/ERE, perhaps making Antioch my capital.

EDIT: From what I'm reading, is it actually possible if my armies are deploeted to take a city, settle, then the very next turn go horde again, will it give me lots of new armies?

[Razor1952]

I found the Huns great fun.

Horse archers are really strong. Don't forget upgraded herdsmen , one stack took on and killed a roman general unit. Another single unit destroyed an ERE army on Lancii/eastern archers/onagers. Lately I just build a few HA's add some herdsmen and take on the world thow in a few star warlord if you have it, otherwise I use my warlord(s) in general battle to take on the tougher tasks

As for the campaign pretty much as above.

1. Sack everything , I went west avoided the other hordes and sacked everthing from Constantinople to Spain that was roman/rebel. I avoided only I full stack of Romans in Sirmium figuring it wasn't worth the trouble.Apart from the $'s making everything rebel means you have little meaningful opposition after you settle (with an inevtiable poor army then).

2. Remember Sack first, the second sacker gets much less so beat the other hordes to Rome/Mediolanum/Ravenna in particular.

3.I used 2 stacks in different directions (nw and w) but should have used three or even four . The oppostion is really very poor.

4.Once I got 200k I retook Rome/Ravenna/Mediolanum/Tarentum and settled .

5. Money is the issue after settling particularly as you can't build ports. and trade is poor. So concentrate on economy. If you get a plague cultivate it and use it to control population. Iwould have like the opportunity to eliminate cultural penalty altogether but had to leave imperial palaces/roads/ports

6. I used a few mercs for defense here till things got better with $ and retook most of the Baltics/greece and Constantinople. Also took Sardinia and Carthage. I never went much under 100k though.

7. I built Heavy steppe spearmen but realized later they are largely superfluos I guess you need an occaional unit to run your seiges. HA and Cavalry are the way to go for most battles.
Cheaper ground troops are a waste of time. Hire a merc if you have to.( Then release it as they are very expensive upkeep relative to Hunnic units).

8. The ai is largely reactive rather than proactive so play aggressively.

[Razor1952]

I found the Huns great fun.

Horse archers are really strong. Don't forget upgraded herdsmen , one stack took on and killed a roman general unit. Another single unit destroyed an ERE army on Lancii/eastern archers/onagers. Lately I just build a few HA's add some herdsmen and take on the world thow in a few star warlord if you have it, otherwise I use my warlord(s) in general battle to take on the tougher tasks

As for the campaign pretty much as above.

1. Sack everything , I went west avoided the other hordes and sacked everthing from Constantinople to Spain that was roman/rebel. I avoided only I full stack of Romans in Sirmium figuring it wasn't worth the trouble.Apart from the $'s making everything rebel means you have little meaningful opposition after you settle (with an inevtiable poor army then).

2. Remember Sack first, the second sacker gets much less so beat the other hordes to Rome/Mediolanum/Ravenna in particular.

3.I used 2 stacks in different directions (nw and w) but should have used three or even four . The oppostion is really very poor.

4.Once I got 200k I retook Rome/Ravenna/Mediolanum/Tarentum and settled .

5. Money is the issue after settling particularly as you can't build ports. and trade is poor. So concentrate on economy. If you get a plague cultivate it and use it to control population. Iwould have like the opportunity to eliminate cultural penalty altogether but had to leave imperial palaces/roads/ports

6. I used a few mercs for defense here till things got better with $ and retook most of the Baltics/greece and Constantinople. Also took Sardinia and Carthage. I never went much under 100k though.

7. I built Heavy steppe spearmen but realized later they are largely superfluos I guess you need an occaional unit to run your seiges. HA and Cavalry are the way to go for most battles.
Cheaper ground troops are a waste of time. Hire a merc if you have to.( Then release it as they are very expensive upkeep relative to Hunnic units).

8. The ai is largely reactive rather than proactive so play aggressively.

[Andres]

Well, I decided to sack the Roxolani and the Samaritan Capitals, causing them to horde.

Then I went for Constantinople and the whole of Greece. I sacked every city and went on marching for Rome, sacking every settlement on the way.

I invaded Italy and sacked every city. I sent part of the horde to Massila and the WRE settlement next to it.

After sacking all those settlements, I besieged them again, waiting out the sieges. I occupied the three Italian cities and then I had a hard time fighting off those damn W-Romans. Meanwhile, the plague killed 3 of my family members.

I sent my faction leader to capture the city north of Italy (which controls the northerns passge through the Alps). I exterminated the population and raised all buildings.

Thnx to my spies I learned the Vandal and Samaritan Hordes were giving the Romans a hard time, giving me the change to rebuild an army in Italy. Lucky me!

The troops of my faction leader combined with my new army defeated three or four full stacks of Romans.

I sent one army to the west to conquer the coastline west of Italy and Spain and the other army to the East, for Constantinople.

The Romans were no match for my Horse Archers and they got a serious beating. Now I occupy all of Spain, except for Carthago Nova. To the East I got serious troubles with the Vandals, who settled in the regions I made "Rebel" (Constantinople and Greece). Their military might is broken and now their territories are ready for the take, so my campaign is going to end soon.

[Dexter]

Well ... found some hints here on how to play ... I only recently got the game .. Bi to.. saw the Huns and was enthusiastic to start. What i saw on normal setting *difficulty lev* ... HUN ARCHERS are elite .. no way ... kill an entire army whit only 6 archers ... ok, other "barbarians" have similar archers but it is not to difficult to kill`em all :) ... and the weakest of your hun cav - peasants on horseback as it says - is the fastest ! WRE and ERE .. LoL .. they have no chance ... only to retreat to there "great" walls ... 1200 roman dead .. only 7 huns killed ... shame on me as 2 of died by friendly fire ...
Hun infantry is only for support ... specially if you lay siege on a big walled city ... other than that ... lots of cav archers ... in RTW cav archers fire wile running ... not like Shogun and Medieval ... not that these were weak or anything like that ... can`t wait to see a Japan mod for RTW !!! ... ok ... have fun playing .. got to work ... bie-bie ..
ps. i still have not finished my oda campagne :(((((( ... work work ...

[Hun Sárkány]

I am not yet finished with the first Hun campaign, and I have met a serious problem (at least for me, who dont like loosing even 1 man in a battle):

The first few rounds were real fun, lands and lords changed places every time I pushed the next round button. Huge hordes of people running this way and that. The biggest issue was to sack the greatest cities first. This is a real pain, since you cannot be everywhere at the same time.

So I decided in my 2nd campaign to let loose only the Roxolanis and the Sarmatians. They crumbled a city here and there, but mostly fought with each other and other "barbaric" factions, occasionally venturing to roman lands...

Funny thing, since you are the strongest, many pagan faction would be all too happy to be your ally. Nevertheless I have divided my army into two, a very small 2,5 stack rampaging the East, cca 7 other the Balkans and the Mediterranean. I was most surprised that even that smaller group was never defeated. The Sassanid and ERE foot soldiers are a joke, btw. The biggest loss I had so far against them was 2 of my people... even though I had to admit that this army had had only 10 battles so far.

Yet I am quite angry about one thing, really. Sieges. I had to sacrifice at least one unit of otherwise weak spearmen to be able to hold the gates until my horse army storms the city, but this way I am slowly running out of these field-men... In horde mode, i can only have siege towers or battering rams (which are the best jokes against a stone walled city, if you don't hold the gates, your army will be fried in oil), thus I have nothing to bring down the walls...

The infantry is very weak, no match for a decent roman garrison on the walls, so I dont know what to do. I dont want to loose that many foot-soldiers every siege. I thought of making the HAs firing the guards on the walls while running in circles, but I have a hunch that it wont work against heavily shielded units behind the parapet...

The last option to me seems to be waiting out... which is risky if too many wild hordes are running the open fields behind your back. Being the first sacker of rich cities will be impossible this way... or not? Well, maybe not unless you divide your men into 6-8 armies... Hmmm... if these smaller armies were attacked while sieging, these battles would be on open fields, places for HA and cavalry... and the siege wont be broken by battles, would it? But this process is still slow, isn't it?

(just thinking aloud)

So, how do you do sieges while in horde?

[dacdac]

I have no clue how to read the rules, and thus I am spamming this forum with discussion instead of strategies.

[Hun Sárkány]

I have no clue how to read the rules, and thus I am spamming this forum with discussion instead of strategies.

[dacdac]

I have no clue how to read the rules, and thus I am spamming this forum with discussion instead of strategies.

[Orda Khan]

Sieges are I suppose, nice eye candy. Though it is quite unreasonable to expect to take huge towns and cities with the loss of only a few men, the pathfinding issues of units in towns can cause problems. Fighting in the streets is the quickest way to lose men.....and through no fault of your own. If you split your forces as you have, it is possible to lay siege to more than one city at a time. Wait it out and destroy the enemy as they sally. Sack the city, raise all the buildings and kill the inhabitants. The revenue keeps piling in, allowing you to hire some decent mercenaries that you can use if you want to take future cities.
Personally, I would wait out sack and move on until you amass such wealth that settling allows you to build excellent units (elite, HA and HC) When you are ready, raise the city and go into horde again.
In this manner, I destroyed the ERE, Sassanid and Berbers, leaving their lands to rebels. Then push all before you as you march on Rome and Constantinople.

Unless unit pathfinding is improved it is a waste of time fighting in buggy city maps

......Orda

[Orda Khan]

Some very strange editing going on in this thread

........Orda

[Hun Sárkány]

Yeah, it is maybe because I have no clue how to read the rules, and thus I am spamming this forum with discussion instead of strategies.

But, What I did:

I told you before that 2,5 stacks went east, towards Antioch and sacked everything on the way there. The biggest challange I met was a 4/5 stack Sassanid army which was sent to stop me - I suppose. Since that army got a lot of mounted warriors, I decided to drop the standard Horse Archer tactic and let loose a heavy and a light cavalry charge in the middle of their ranks. They decided to flee, and I lost 43 of my men. Their losses were 10 times as much, and this was their last attempt to try me to dissuade to sack their capital city. Hm.

In the west, I divided my armies to 8-10 smaller stacks, each of them sieging a WRE city at the same time. I was totally surprised that they had very tiny armies within these populated huge-large cities. Yet, I followed the plan to wait till they run out of food, and after many turns of success, my faction leader died. Problem is, the new faction leader is in the east, almost alone.

I am now waiting till he returns to Rome and then I'll occupy that city to settle down at last. I am not keen on sacking ERE cities, I want to conquer them while

I have only 2 remarks: 1.: the night fighter attribute I never used, I never fought a fellow horde, and the "civilized" *spits* nations were all too few. 2.: I am playing on Hard, and they still got tiny forces. I wonder if the game is broken.

[dacdac]

okay why are all my post edited? I can't fix it because i don't know what i had in the first place.

[Kekvit Irae]

This is not a forum for discussion, but rather a repository for strategies and insights into playing the faction. As noted in the forum rules, questions and comments are to be held in the Comments and Suggestions thread, and we have a whole forum for discussions on the game. We are looking more for the posts Hun and Orda are giving rather than weither or not vikings had horns on their helmets, or why one unit is better/worse than another. If a member has a question in this forum (provided it's included in a strategy post), you may answer either in the appropriate forum (Single Player or Multiplayer RTW), answer in the form of a well-written document, or answer via Private Messages. dismal's posts are a good example of what is allowed here.
While it's hard to define what's allowed and what's not, a good way to gauge how useful you strategy is both by word count (usually at least three paragraphs) and how useful it is for someone else. Battle reports are no good for other people, but suggestions on how to use your units in battle are.

[Orda Khan]

my faction leader died. Problem is, the new faction leader is in the east, almost alone.

You do realise you can change the faction heir? Leave isolated armies under the control of family members but keep the heir fairly near his Dad....and keep an eye on your leader's age too.
You should find fighting a faction in horde far more challenging

......Orda

[Hun Sárkány]

Exactly!

But for some reason I avoided battles against huge armies of the wide steppes. I realized that the casualties would be quite substantial, and I did not wanted that. It is far easier to squash heavy roman footsoldiers, there is no point in wasting man and horse on inefficient things. I mean, there is no point fighting a horde, there is no gain at all, is there?

You can only make money by sacking a city, and for that, you need to fight a medium-small army of the besieged faction. That is what you should do. Well, at least it is what seems to be good to do to me.

One drawback I found, so this should be kept in mind everyone using horse archers: the range of the Roman pilum, even upwards on a slope is longer than the distance the horse archers will keep agaisnt the enemy. This means, that the horsemen wont run away from the enemy automaticly, it needs manual management. A good, but not best option is to charge the men trying to throw the pilums, maybe your can be the quicker...


Oh, an an other tip: at start, I managed to throw a couple of factions into horde mode. They started to fight among themselves, this is a perfect opportunity to get your people "behind the frontline", that is take a longer and secret southern road, right into rich roman lands, and leave the fighting hordes behind. They will be too occupied to run after you, and you will have ample time to sack those rich cities one after the an other.

If you can, try to sack both Eastern and Western Roman cities, so the Westerners will have nearly enough resources to fight back the "barbarians" and the Easterns wont be too strong to conquer later... if anything would too difficult to conquer for a hun... I found Westerners the easier prey, but it is just me... *wonders*

[Severous]

How not to play the Huns. Have four regions, in two groups, being attacked by a horde at Constantinople, and cannot support all the mercenaries ive hired.

[Roman_Man#3]

ooooohhh. Tought situation. Good luck with that.

[Severous]

Hi Meghas Alexandros

Have turned the corner in my Hun campaign. Have joined up my regions.

Vandal horde (brown) to fight as well as send troops south to invade Italy.


Full account here:
http://rtw.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/f...&f=10,2507,,20

[Quintus.JC]

The huns really need to sack alot of cities to stay rich, their enconomy is really unimpressive, not to metion they can't even build basic ports.