Sweboz: slow moving stacks and hobbled characters??

Thank u for this great mod. However now I must whine about some things.

Playing as Sweboz for first time. In vanilla, Germans were a very "role play" faction which I really could get into.

Pretty disappointed with this faction's units, which seem too close to celts, but I assume that this is more historically accurate...

A few things I have noted in the campaign:

The faction has less technology tree than celts...

Their stacks seem to be slow moving compared to other factions. Maybe my imagination, or maybe because no paved roads and forests everywhere...

To make the armies even slower, my characters are all getting "hobbled" after battles which reduces their movement. What is the solution? To keep their unit out of combat? It is basically a waste of a unit =( Perhaps hobbling is supposed to represent dangers of the general fighting on foot?

The other factions all get cavalry, and those cavalry units often win my battles in early campaigns (engage enemy in front with weak infantry available at start of campaign, send general's cavalry to rear and charge each enemy unit one at a time until they are all routing).

Apart from Greek cities generals who fight in an elite phalanx, but I played a bit of a campaign with them and ***no hobbling occurred*** Are Greek legs stronger than German legs? Or is Germania terrain more likely to twist ankles?

So now my generals limp along behind my main stacks, which lay down the siege and the assault can begin the next season when the siege equipment has been built and the general has arrived! Actually it works out quite well because less chance of rationing morale decreases ;P

Overall, I am finding it harder to immerse in this campaign... I miss the berserker ambushes of unsuspecting romans... I miss the huge axe units...

Try this Sweboz gameplay guide:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...333;z-Gameplay

The wild Germanic axemen are Worgozez, who are available only as mercenaries and aren't retrainable.

See: http://europabarbarorum.heimstatt.ne...antry%20wargoz

The Germans are weak on cavalry, they don't get a decent heavy cavalry unit until 190 BC. Until then they have to rely on light cavalry and whatever mercenary cavalry they can find.

The Germanic tech tree is worse than the Gallic one - but you can take advantage of buildings and roads built by Celtic factions. For this reason it is best to avoid contact with the Aedui and Arveni early in the game, let them tech up their towns with nice walls and paved roads for you to inherit later. Initially, expand north and east (against Eleutheroi) instead of west, and leave a barrier of Eleutheroi towns between you and the Gauls so they don't attack you. Don't fight them until you are master of all Germania, and have a large army. And stay away from the Sauromatae horse archers on the eastern steppes too.

It's been ages since I played a Sweboz campaign, but what do you mean by "hobbled"? If you keep moving your generals to the end if their movement-range, they will gain the "forced marching"-trait. Do it repeatedly and it turns into "exhausted", and that really cripples movements speed. This applies to all factions, but it's more of a problem for the Sweboz, since their generals are on foot.

I don't remember Sweboz characters getting movement restrictions more often than others, infact all the really bad movement restrictions I've ever got were with the KH, not in greece(where movement restrictions are not thaaaaat bad anyway) but once on a Long cruise around the arabian peninsula to attack the selucid heartlands from behind(he was down to 0 at one Point) and one Client ruler who had conquered all of Gaul at the side of my FL and got stuck somewhere around gergovia.
I'd assume such difficulties are related to forced marching or bad health of characters. in combination with Infantry FMs having less Initial movement Points.

to your other Points:

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Pretty disappointed with this faction's units, which seem too close to celts, but I assume that this is more historically accurate...

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yes and no. they have a similar unit roster:
Skirmisher
Crappy archer with spear
Spearman with Javelins
Spearman without Javelins
Guy with Smosh weapon
Guy who so happens to have a sword
Guy on a Horse
Guy on a horse with 1337 chainmail and spear

however they use them rather differently. Celtic armies pretty fast turn out to be lots of swordsmen and slingers with th Addition of some horsies, spearmen or axemen. Lugoae filling up the stack in case of debt, Nekkid ones when one can afford them.
Germanic armies however heavily rely on their dugunthiz variants, have far more Slaxons and lack two of the most effective Gallic Units:
Slingers and lightcharging cavalry.
admitably Germanic riders are superior in prolonged melee but their Charge is just meh.

so yeah the roster is similar but it's not as good and plays rather different. but there also are upsides:
Slaxones and Chatti Jouths, while Celtic axemen are in somewhat limited supply but These guys are often present in germanic armies, improving their abilities vs "civilized" armies. Jugunthiz, are some of the most cost efficient and versitaile skirmishers ingame. Dugunthiz variants make the game more vaired and make every sweboz army unique, also having great roleplaying potential. Lugian swordsmen, nuffsaid. Germanic Bodyguard infantry may not be able to chase down Routers or Charge in the back of enemies, however they are clearly superior in sieges.

Imho the Sweboz actually make for some very good roleplaying, the seperate tribes can be played out as somewhat seperate entities once they have joined the confederation. Having to rely heavily on allied/mercenary troops once outside Germania also makes for some interesting gameplay. The Celto-germanic troops also add to this.

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but what do you mean by "hobbled"?

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I am aware of exhaustion that occurs from repeated forced march, this is something different to that. Hobbled is an actual permanent trait. First level reduces move by 20% on campaign map. Don't think it has any battle map implications. I checked the EB data folder, this trait has a second level ( I think "Lame"). I think you are supposed to retire them to be a governor when this happens, but just annoying if they were your best general in the field at age of 30 something.

Thanks for advice ppl, but in the end I decided the limited tech tree was just not fun, and restarted on an Arverni campaign I had saved from several months ago.

Also, the hobbled trait then happened to one of my Arverni generals, so it might have just been random that it occurred several times early on in that Sweboz campaign.

You may just have been unlucky with that trait in that particular campaign, maybe it's an inherited one in your royal family. The limited tech tree can indeed get very annoying in mid to late campaign (even though it's still better than in Vanilla RTW), but OTOH it forces you to be creative and keeps you from over-extending.