The Best Faction

[edwardusbenedictus]

What do you think is the best faction to play as?????

your views and experiences please...........(i'm quite out of the game due to certain probs with my comp, so i'm sort of laid out of it for the time being!!!!!!)

mine was Roman Scipii
Liked the blue color and the dog emblem.......
legionaries are cool :duel: ......... ofcourse the cavalry sucks :charge: ......... but the the Decre (ships) are cool..............
Dreadnoughts of the Roman era................(Temple of Vulcan highest upgrade+Highest port upgrade)
the sea is your Capitaaan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~:cheers:

[aluenser]

I didn't play all factions yet, but I really like the Seleucid Empire.
Great cavalry and phalanxes.
Germany, Carthage and Macedonia are very nice, too.

Grettings

[Akka]

Well...

Scipii are a very powerful faction (they have the Roman units, the most powerful sea units, and the best temples of the game), and has a very interesting starting position.

Greeks are just fun to play, if you like the phalanxes and want to impersonate Greece ^^

Seleucids have the most varied and interesting selection of units of the game, but their starting situation can be a little hectic.

Egypt is unique and as the strongest and easiest starting position.

[Spartiate]

I really enjoyed my campaign as Carthage after bitching about how weak their units were in the early game.Their campaign stops being fun after you defeat the Roman factions however(IMHO).

Thoroughly enjoying playing as the Scythians at the moment as i love their Noble_Horse_Archers and their run of the mill Scythian_HAs are a cut above the other first tier eastern HAs giving you a much needed edge in their early campaign.Cash is an issue with them until you can get down into Greece and city seiges are a killer on your horsie units.

[Khuyildar]

I find Germania very interesting. They have some really powerful units like Berserkers, Gothic Cavalry, and Chosen archers + the Spear Warband pwnz everything the other barbarians have in the early game. After wiping the Gauls, the game turned boring for me though.

[eeyoredragon]

The Germans - nice unit roster, best barbarian actually, and lots and lots of big battles in the field which is great if you play on huge.

The Greeks - Spartan Hoplites, need I say more?

The Seleucids - Their varied unit roster brings a lot of fun, but it gets a bit boring when you've destroyed all your neighbours (Pontus, Greece, Egypt, Armenia and Parthia).

Carthage - Yes, their units suck ass. So what? Makes great battles where you have to rely on tactics instead of uber soldiers. Yes, their starting position sucks and they have no roads. The first battles, where you are attacked by everyone but Santa Claus and the seven dwarfs, are great fun. But after you've conquered Numidia (which is a pain in the ass, mark my words) it gets really interesting.

Out of the Romans it's hard to say. Really depends on what you want to play. My personal favourite is Scipii.

[Praylak]

Carthage - Lots of good gameplay moments here. Really enjoyed the troop line up myself. Weaker low end, but very good high end. Rough start, powerful midgame to end.

Thrace - Good fun. Had some of the most memorable battles with them. Phalanx and Flaxmen, ah yes.. I dig the barbarian greek influence thing they have going on.

Germania - Berserkers killed them all, what a unit. The phalanx ability for their spear warbands just didn't feel right. The discipline and cohesion required for such a formation, I don't know. Screeching woman felt more historical and "right" then that. But I know little of their history so for all I know maybe they did use the phalanx.

Greece - yes, they are gravy.

Seleucids - How can you not like a faction that has it all?

Pontus - I love their cavalry selection.

Wow, thats allot of "best faction". And to think I was going to add more..

[The Hun]

Scythia.....None of the others are interesting
Also do not waste horses on seige when starving out city is just as easy

[Tricky Lady]

Mmmmm the Scipii blue :smug2:

[edwardusbenedictus]

Mmmmmmmm another Scipii fan.

[Maltz]

I have played 12 factions so far, finishing a long campaign and a couple of short ones. Others I stopped playing when I feel "the rest should be very easy and boring".

In terms of overall excitement, so far I find == Carthage == & == Numidia == the most fun to play because they offer me a chance to challenge great foes, like Egypt & Rome very early on. Dacia is also fun for the same reason because I can challenge Macedon & Greeks first. The most unsatisfying would be Spain, Parthia and any clan on the edge, because there was no choice of expansion direction - and expansion takes a long, long march. Argh...

In terms of battle, I don't like any clan that uses extensively phalanx. Maybe its my stupidity, I experienced tons of frustration using phalanx in VHard. They can't stop anything and they are too slow for anything. I don't really care about unit ability because they seem to make little difference - if I don't rout the AI in 10 seconds they will be dead anyways. So I think speed is really the key to victory. Roman factions, general barbarians and any mass cavalry clans offers very great battlefield here.

So far I like Carthage, Numidia & Dacia most. ~:)

[Rosacrux redux]

so far I haven't played any "barbarians" yet, and I haven't touched the Africans (Carthago, Numidia) either. So, here goes:

- Greeks
I had to mod them to give them at least the prodromoi cavalry (macedonian lancers?) renamed as Thessalian cavalry in their case. Now they are great, great, GREAT fun to play, with all those hefty phalanxes and the Cretan Archers (did I mentioned I gave them Cretan Archers recruitable too? In Crete, of course, only). Very interesting starting position, great challenges in the early game. If you take the historical route (and try to take out the other Greek factions instead of steamrolling into Rome ASAP, as many seem to do) it is really challenging too. Provided you got the Total Realism Mod installed - vanilla game is too easy anyway.

- Seleucids
Incredible selection of units (definitely the strongest armies overall, at least in the hands of a human player they are better than the Romans) and the most interesting starting position (spread out territory, many enemies who'll attack on the go, no easy defendable position, no bottlenecks no nothing). Needless to say more.

- Macedon
Since I am a phalanx fan, I have to put these guys into it. They got also the great companion cavalry and the early clash with Ze Romans poses an interesting challenge (especially since they'll probably be at war with the Thracian and Greek Cities at the same time too).

I am finishing my Greek campaign (TR Mod) and then I'll go either for Carthago or for Ze Germans (considering starting position-unit roster-potential enemies the latter should be the easiest "barbarians" to start with... is that so? Or are the britions easier?)

BTW I HAVE to complain :furious3: about the abomination the "Egyptian" faction is in the vanilla game. An extremely overpowered abomination, I might say. The TR Mod nerfs them down a bit (and adds the historially correct names, in most occassions - allthough the "ethnic" cavalry, axemen and bowmen are still 90% of their armies and extremely strong for levy troops), but they still dominate the eastern portion of the map easily, unless the human player gets on them.

edited to add

btw Malz, phalanxes are an incredibly powerful tool, if you learn to use them in the proper way. Phalanx can be used in two ways: in conjuction with mid or heavy cav. or in a true combined arms system. In the first case, the phalanx wall (and that's the way you should advance them, as a wall) pins and the cavalry kills off. In the second occassion, you need archers en masse, to pepper the oponent, until they either come to you (fall into the phalanx wall, after taking decent losses, then either the phalanx routes them or you have to start the chain by taking out one of their pinned units with the 1-2 cav. you'll bring along) or are ripe for the phalanx advance (if you haven't seen 12 Spartans tear apart and route in no time a 3K roman army, you haven't seen anything). Your cav shall take care of the remainders and the routers (and the units too fast to be caught by the phalanx).

[footman]

u know who defeated hanibal? the scipii family!!!!!
they are great, they stand for the greatest military power of roma, so they can produce full attack/defence armies....

and blue is nice....

but julli has the empiral color, "red"...so i actully use julli instead of scipii

[Octavius Julius]

I like playing as the Julii cos they are red and red is the accepted colour associated with the Romans historically.

Also, with the Julii you can have a general named Gaius Julius...so you can pretend that you are the great Gaius Julius Caesar himself! Another cool name they have is Augustus Julius, and that way you can be Augustus Julius Caesar.

I think the Julii are the hardest to play from the three Roman factions due to really low funds. This makes the game less boring and more challenging.

There is nothing more exciting than seeing a great long line of Legionary Cohorts preparing for battle against some rugged horde of Germanians.

"Men, I am a true Roman, of the old style. I believe in discipline, dignity and duty!"