Most powerfull strategic postion

[-Isapostolos-]

What faction has the best strategic position in your eyes? If you look at the map (for those who have not seen it here it is: http://www.totalwarcenter.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6051 Scroll down to eldaran's post)

Anyway, IMO I think the Brutti have the best position of everyone: At the start they border with no enemies (Only Romans) and can thus choose which way they will go. The Aegaen is full with conflict and the Brutti can make very good use of that. All they need to do is side with one or two factions and gang up on the third. Once you get done with that faction you move on to next with other allies and so on and so on, until you have created the eastern empire.

If anything goes wrong you'll only need to have a big fleet to protect your Italian holdings and all is well.
So what really saying is that the Brutti can easily take advantage of foreign quarrals without getting hurt in return. This is a very strong position in which most powers in history managed to become great or even super powers (Great Britain, USA).

All the other factions have some other faction in front of them which they most overcome. The Brutti don't have that and can thus choose their fights. A word of caution though. Should any of the other Roman families fail against their immidiate enemies (Scipii: Carthage, Julli: Gaul) the Brutii should not hesitate to help them.

[crazyviking03]

I am looking at Parthia,one reason being that they start the game with no rear to worry about, they are on the edge of the map!! Added to this is the fact that in the Middle East they have rebels to north and south, to give alternative to opening war with Selucids. Next is their seemingly large province on the Steppes, with yet again more rebel factions to the north, which will allow them to bypass Scythia and enter Eastern and Central Europe with out incountering major factions.


*also added to this is the fact that my dad is from Iran, so I am going to be partial to the Persian ties to Parthia
~:)

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I think Numidia has strong postion if they can deal with Carthage who may be more interested in spain or other parts of the med.

Scythia have alot of space and if they expand west instead of south and east they might be in a very strong position.

Carthage has great areas and with good solid attack on the greek and roman holdings on sicily could really allow great expansion opportunities

Macedon and Parthia have good postions where some rebel provinces can be conquored and don't have to dive into big, damaging wars

I agree with you on Bruti, i think scipi might find it harder than the other roman factions.

Great link Iso ~:cheers:

[Blodrast]

i'm not too sure that being surrounded by romans is necessarily a good thing. It really depends how aggresive the AI is; what if the other houses feel that you're in the way of their development ?

Italy does not have a strong position in MTW, yet they always get a great fleet. However, it's not easy for them to expand (except into HRE, ofc). Same could happen to Brutii...
I would tend to favor a faction close to the edge of the map, with as much sea access as possible.

[The_Emperor]

Anyone else thinkt hat carthage should have more territory? Were'nt the Numidians theirs? (until Scipio bought them off)

[USMCNJ]

Carthage was a great merchant (navy) power, it did not have that much land, so the map is ok. As far as nubians (from what i remember) carthage just used them as forced mercenaries ("hey will pay you good money to fight for us, if you choose not to we will kill you")

p.s. i can't find the spell check on this forum. So sorry.

[crazyviking03]

I think Carthage will rely on client kingdoms, as our friend from CA stated that this kind of 'persuasion' will be in the game. So Numidia may be easily manipulated early on by Carthage.

[-Isapostolos-]

Blodrast: I think that the other Roman houses are allied with your through the whole game, until one of them thinks he can make a bid for the Roman throne. If any of the houses attack you early game they must be committing suicide. They would envoke the wrath of all the other Roman factions. Not a good idea, so if the AI has any brains they won't do that.

The factions on the edges of the map are the traditional strong factions, but most of these border to 3 or more other factions. As I said before the Brutii have no enemies at the start. Your point about the diffilculty of expanding for maritime powers is valid, but this time you can use diplomacy to make it a little easier. Just ask military acces to a neighbor of your enemy so that when you lose you will have a place to retreat to. Maybe they will even allow you to retreat to your ships now.

Besides, I believe that we can say with reasonable certainty that the the lands around the Aegean will be one the richer areas in the game. The Brutii will thus have huicy areas to expand into. I'm not sure if you can say the same for the corner factions.