Faction with decent infantry (besides Romans)?

[Excalibur Bane]

I wanted to play my next short campaign with a faction that has some good infantry that can compete with the Romans, but there really doesn't seem to be any good ones with a quick glance at the unit chart. :embarassed:

I don't count hoplites or any unit that can form a phalanx as decent infantry, they are simply too painful to control to be worth playing a faction with them. Gaul looked promising, but the only-roads tech limitation and no stonewalls thing, that rather dumbs things down considerably. Any way to mod this so they could get the maximum tech for roads? I would love to do that. :dizzy2:

What do you guys recommend? I'm also looking for a faction with some decent missile units that have a good long range.

Thanks in advance. ~:)

[Magraev]

The Egyptians seem to be the answer you seek. Good heavy inf (axemen) and the best bowmen in the game.

The Seleucids might be cool for you too, but it takes forever to get to the silver shield legionaires.

[Theodoret]

The Spanish are okay, if you are not averse to modding the game to make them avaliable. A combination of the Gallic and Carthaginian lines. Same problems as the Gauls when it comes to tech capping. The Thracians are also quite interesting. Yes they do have the phalanx, but they also have falx-armed troops who are utterly deadly in combat.

Magraev is right in that the Egyptians have both excellent infantry, and good missile units. On the other hand they do have phalanx units (guess there is no getting away from them).

[Bob the Insane]

Good heavy inf (axemen)

Shiver.... Scary man in only a skirt with the armour stat as an Armoured Hoplite?!?! :dizzy2:

[Excalibur Bane]

Hmm. Spanish sounds good or maybe Dacia. Where do you get a mod to unlock all the factions?

[Boohugh]

Although I havn't played with them yet, the Germans have some pretty fearsome infantry. They are mainly very big axemen that scare the enemy before cutting them into very small pieces ~:eek:.

[Akka]

Well, if you don't want to use phalanxes, you remove about a third of the available infantry units of the game, so... ^^

[The_Emperor]

Phalanx infantry makes for some of the best infantry in the game. If your unwilling to use them then your choice is pretty limited to tell you the truth. I have played a few campaigns as the greeks and in some instances it is worthwhile removing your Hoplites from Phalanx formation... (A flanking charge of Hoplites in standard formation into the side of rear of an enemy can be devastating)

The Barbarian factions tend to have good infantry (the Britons and Germans), but when it comes to competing with Rome's late infantry you will find it hard. As has been said the Desert Axemen with their "invisible armour" is ok for Egypt, but you will still have Phalanx spearmen.

In reality Rome has the best infantry in the Game, with Phalanx infantry running a close second.

[Red Harvest]

If you want some pleasant phalanx experience, take Germania for a spin. For whatever reason I'm finding their spear warbands easier to wield than the other phalanx units I've tried. You won't have much else early on... so you have to get good at using the phalanx units (grab whatever cav mercs you can and put them just behind each flank.) You get practiced facing various Gaul and Briton armies.

[Sin Qua Non]

Germania will also give you the option to warm up to the phalanx, since they have good close infantry as well as spear warbands. So if you play them and still decide that the phalanx is not for you, then you still have a good selection of units.

I just finished a Spanish campaign. Once you get settled, the Scutari/Bull Warrior combo is rather potent.

[Theodoret]

Hmm. Spanish sounds good or maybe Dacia. Where do you get a mod to unlock all the factions?

You can do the mod yourself, its easy (even I managed it).

Find your Rome:Total War folder and open it.

Select Data>World>Maps>Campaign>Imperial_Campaign

Find the file descr_stat, make a back up of it and put it somewhere where you can find it (I have a backup folder in my TW directory). Now open the original file in Notepad.

You will notice that there are a list of factions split up into Playable, Unlockable and Nonplayable. Simply cut and paste the Non-Playable factions you want into the Unlockable section.

[Colovion]

Yeah I'd say to go Germans - I'm using them now and I love them. The Greeks were nice, but their whole infantry line was Phalanx - the Germans have a weaker phalanx to use in the beginning of the game and then you will get some other infantry like axemen, berserkers and whatnot to flank with. I'm with Red Harvest on that I think they're easier to control. I just staved off a 940 unit assault of my 600 man garrison and lost 4 men while killing every one of them. Needless to say my General gained 5 Stars and a load of Virtues.

[troymclure]

Dacia has pretty good infantry IMO. They have all the standard barbarian infantry including chosen swordsmen plus they have falxman. all in all a pretty good infantry combo

[Colovion]

Dacia has pretty good infantry IMO. They have all the standard barbarian infantry including chosen swordsmen plus they have falxman. all in all a pretty good infantry combo

Falxmen are very fearsome. My Romans were slaughtered by them once when I underestimated how amazing their attack is - playing with them online is great because people generally do the same thing. ~D

[Tamur]

I've haven't had terribly good success with Chosen Swordsmen, but the Falxmen are very, very scary, agreed. The Brits are a blast if you like chariots as well ~:)

[Red Harvest]

Agreed, those falxmen are killing machines.

[Basileus]

falxmen killing machines?, i used them when i played thrace very hard and on hard and they where useless :\ when the ai uses them on hard and vh they seem to do good of course heh getting the attack bonus

[Red Harvest]

falxmen killing machines?, i used them when i played thrace very hard and on hard and they where useless :\ when the ai uses them on hard and vh they seem to do good of course heh getting the attack bonus

Could be, I haven't tried my hand with them yet, but I found they were very effective at soaking up my cavalry attacks in very hard.

[Colovion]

Well I've beaten full Macedonian phalanx armies with purely Falx and Cav - only 5 Units of Cav. THis was online so it had nothing to do with penalties etc... they also are hard for Romans to defeat if used properly.

[hoof]

Red Harvest, given the stats boost the AI troops get on hard and above, I'm not surprised your guys got chewed :)

If you want a good environment to compare troops with in a fair setting, play on Medium tactical difficulty.

[Red Harvest]

Red Harvest, given the stats boost the AI troops get on hard and above, I'm not surprised your guys got chewed :)

If you want a good environment to compare troops with in a fair setting, play on Medium tactical difficulty.

That's hardly fair...the AI is so weak that it needs the VH boost. ~D If I restricted myself to medium I would have been done with RTW in about a week. :sad: The difference I was seeing is that the falxmen stood up to the cav rush better than most infantry does and anything that can stand up to some cavalry is a plus in RTW. (The Egyptian desert axemen also do pretty well, with their cast iron skin and all.) Part of the reason the falxmen look good is that they usually are accompanied by chosen archers, so I end up having to hit the falxmen in less than opportune circumstances because I'm trying to deal with those blasted archers.

[bighairyman]

German infantries have one of the highest attack points in the game!

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Greece- although all their infantry are phalanx infantry, armored hoplites and spartans make kickass heavy infantry when you take htem off phalanx.
carthage is ok too.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

I enjoyed playing as the Armenians with their heavy spearmen and legionaries. Couple those with cataphracts and cataphract archers and you can give anybody a hard time. :charge:

[Ism8000]

Selucid Good Heavy Inf. also Armena is a good faction to play challange? Yes :duel:

[Excalibur Bane]

Well, I initally tried Dacia but the unit variety left something to be desired. So, I saved it, and switched to Germania. Oooooh, I love it. Those axemen and naked fanatics are killer. I haven't gotten any of the missile units except basic skirmishers yet but I'm really enjoying the faction. A couple of things would improve that though:

1) Something better then simply dirt roads, it's way too long to move governors and armies around the borders of your empire. Or a movement bonus as I mentioned in another thread.

2) Fortifications. This is a real problem. It's compounded by the above even more, because it only takes a turn for the AI to build a decent battering ram, smash down the gate and kill the defenders before I can bring in any kind of reinforcements from my northern or southern armies. At least with stone, you have a wall to put your skirmishers/archers on and gates to pour boiling oil on the enemy and let's not forget the autocannon ballista/arrow towers. ~D
I know it wouldn't be historically accurate to allow them stone anything, but it would make it more fun. Same with the roads.

3) Learning facilities. Another problem. I rarely get any retinue members, except the local priest. Or the village idiot. Or a rebel turncoat. That's about it. Barbarian factions should have their own form of learning structures, like a campfire stories circle or something. :dizzy2:

Otherwise, I'm having a blast. Sure beats having to do those stupid senate missions all the time.

[LittleRaven]

If you want some pleasant phalanx experience, take Germania for a spin. For whatever reason I'm finding their spear warbands easier to wield than the other phalanx units I've tried.And the reason, of course, is that German Phalanx units have a base unit size of 60 instead of 40 like the Greek ones. This means the phalanx actually has a bit of staying power to help make up for its lack of mobility.

After having such luck with German phalanx units and such a miserable time with the Greek ones, I tried modding all phalanx units to a base size of 60.

Whoa. Greece becomes pretty deadly. A unit of armored hoplites on a wall simply will not die. I may have to tone that down a bit. But it does give Carthage some decent infantry. The Sacred Band are now a force to be reckoned with.

[Red Harvest]

And the reason, of course, is that German Phalanx units have a base unit size of 60 instead of 40 like the Greek ones. This means the phalanx actually has a bit of staying power to help make up for its lack of mobility.

After having such luck with German phalanx units and such a miserable time with the Greek ones, I tried modding all phalanx units to a base size of 60.

Whoa. Greece becomes pretty deadly. A unit of armored hoplites on a wall simply will not die. I may have to tone that down a bit. But it does give Carthage some decent infantry. The Sacred Band are now a force to be reckoned with.

That is what I've been saying since the demo. Phalanx units need to be of larger size to make them more durable and present a reasonable frontage. I've not yet modded the units, although I intend to. Of course cost and upkeep need to be in proportion to size as well.

[Chimpyang]

If you mod the game Macedonia is one of the easiest and most fun factions to play as long as you take out the romans quickly. If you don't then try Briton, it's very hard to get going but once you produce troops it's fun conductioon mass inf charges.

[Akka]

And the reason, of course, is that German Phalanx units have a base unit size of 60 instead of 40 like the Greek ones. This means the phalanx actually has a bit of staying power to help make up for its lack of mobility.

After having such luck with German phalanx units and such a miserable time with the Greek ones, I tried modding all phalanx units to a base size of 60.

Whoa. Greece becomes pretty deadly. A unit of armored hoplites on a wall simply will not die. I may have to tone that down a bit. But it does give Carthage some decent infantry. The Sacred Band are now a force to be reckoned with.
I played Greece with the "large units" settings, which means 80 people per unit, and I was always surprised to see others complaining about them, because I found they were incredibly powerful.

So, well, perhaps that it's, in fact, that ^^

[LittleRaven]

I played Greece with the "large units" settings, which means 80 people per unit, and I was always surprised to see others complaining about them, because I found they were incredibly powerful.

So, well, perhaps that it's, in fact, that ^^No, I play on the large setting as well, and when hoplites only had 80 men, they definately were not quite up to the task.

Don't get me wrong, they aren't hopeless. But they aren't nearly as good as they should be, considering that the Phalanx is the bread and butter of the Greeks. All the problems of the Phalanx (and they are legion) are especially painful for the Greeks, because that's what they have to rely on.

Now in my game, Greek phalanxes have 120 men. They're much more dangerous. In fact, possibly too dangerous. I'm thinking about setting the base size down to 50, at least for the armored and Spartan variety. But I consider it a big step up from what it was.

[Akka]

Hu, well, then I can't really understand the complaint.
'cause I always felt the phalanxes were killer...

[Colovion]

I had no problems with the Greeks once I figured out how to use the Phalanx troops - then it was cake against almost all units. On Large Settings. It made me very angry for a while though.

[Osbot]

I personally think Thrace is scary. They have phalanx units, they have falx and they have the uber dreaded bastarnae. Those guys are simply put nasty. This is a combination of units nobody else can really match. Your phalanx presents a front very few factions can safely engage head to head, and the few factions that CAN do this, have no answer to your bastarnae which will just chew them to pieces once on a flank. You also cover your phalanx weaknesses with the bastarnae, anyone who tries to flank your phalangites are going to end up with a whole lot of bastarnae up in them ;p

[Red Harvest]

Hu, well, then I can't really understand the complaint.
'cause I always felt the phalanxes were killer...

Not really, super easy to flank for the smaller types. They disorder easily as well, and they are slow in phalanx. I couldn't get sacred band through any defended holes in the wall on VH. And I had one that did succumb to a heavy cav frontal charge despite having a poeni phalanx next to them also taking the charge. Some of this was VH, but my cav were not having trouble on VH...so the conclusion was obvious.

I play on "large" unit sizes so the smaller phalanx units are 80 man, while larger are 120. The issue is relative scale. The small phalanx has lower frontage than other units. From what I can tell historically phalanx units operated more as a wing (left, right, etc.) That is difficult to do in RTW until you spend a lot of time learning the quirks of carefully controlling your phalanx, and the AI can't do it at all--it just isn't programmed that way.

It would be interesting if CA could allow you to group up to X number of phalanx units into a sort of continuous wing (and the AI would need the same ability.) It wouldn't be easy to program, because it would still need to be subject to being split through losses, charges, disorder or terrain. You wouldn't want it to be overdone and be a super unit. On the other hand, they would still have considerable vulnerabilities such as the risk of being flanked, and turning them as a group would be very difficult since they would have to slowly wheel. It could also be made slow to pull a unit out of this formation. This would better reflect phalanx warfare.

Of course, I had also hoped that the Roman AI and player formations could be set up to do standard pre-Marian legion formation attacks as well. Sort of an automatic mode where the player could intervene to deal with specific threats while his/her army carried out traditional Roman velite...hastati...principes...and even triarii attacks against a the main body. Manipular line extension and all that. Then again, you need something that resembles a normal legion to make the force disposition reasonable, and the training set up doesn't allow you to buy/build a whole legion at once. Also, you need slower kill rates to make the battle fatigue and line swapping a factor.

In summary, I was hoping for something that took the fundamental control of historical armies to the next level. I was hoping that you could give control of sections of your army to the AI and expect it to do a competent (if not stellar) job of performing its assigned task.

[Akka]

Well, sorry Red Harvest, but you playing in VH invalidate the complains you could have about the phalanxes.

Of course that the cavalry isn't as affected by the VH mode than phalanxes : cavalry is for charges and attack, and they bring the fight to the enemy. As such, the AI having a +7 bonus to attack, doesn't change much : it's the AI which is being charged.

But for phalanxes, which have to defend against charge, the +7 in attack DOES make a world of difference.

[Red Harvest]

Well, sorry Red Harvest, but you playing in VH invalidate the complains you could have about the phalanxes.

Of course that the cavalry isn't as affected by the VH mode than phalanxes : cavalry is for charges and attack, and they bring the fight to the enemy. As such, the AI having a +7 bonus to attack, doesn't change much : it's the AI which is being charged.

But for phalanxes, which have to defend against charge, the +7 in attack DOES make a world of difference.

Nope, not invalidated in the least. My cav aren't getting +7 when I'm using them to mop the floor with phalangites.

The relative unit size is having a big impact for phalanx units facing other infantry, VH or not. I did a fair bit of testing in the demo at medium and saw the exacty same problem with plalanx unit size, and commented on it at the time.