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In my 3 campaigns so far, it seems Egypt almost always ends up being the strongest AI faction. Britannia seems to do well too. Gauls start strong, but in all my campaigns I ended up fighting them , so I can't assess their strength against other AI factions.
Factions that frequently die early are the Seleucids, Greeks and Carthage.
Has that been your experience too?
Gauls are stronger than Julii Rome, for sure. They usually end up capturing a few julii cities. They also tend to make a mess of most factions surrounding them, but don't completely dominate only because they have fronts on all sides.
Egypt is ridiculous.
The seleucids are *very* weak. As in, killed by pontus weak. Spain is very weak too. Numidia is technically stronger than Carthage, but tends to not fare well. Carthage is weak, too, but doesn't die due to its large spread. The city of Carthage tends to fall immediately.
In all my games Egypt has never failed to dominate the middle east (unless i'm playing around there), gaul always do well for a while but then fall to combined british/german/julii forces about the time of the marius reforms.
Whoever is in control of greece also hold out till about the same time, sometimes falling earlier (normally greece stays a hodgepodge of macedonian/thracian/greek with the thracians normally doing the best mostly because they have the least interaction with the brutii).
Carthage does tend to fall early but carthage as a nation can survive for a while just because noone ever bothers to go take that island city they own. Numidia normally keeps that part of the map warm till the scipii get the reforms.
Besides that i've noticed dacia can do quite well. Of all the barbarian factions they seem to survive the longest with the most land mass.
Scythia almost always control russia though never really seem to expand much beyond.
Parthia unfortuantly doesn't do very well sometimes getting wiped out normally just surviving on a couple of provinces.
Pontus are the only nation i've seen consistently capture whats now modern day turkey, though egypt will eventually get up there.
Brittania and germany tend to duke it out with gaul up the top, normally britannia does ok, germany i've never seen expand too much tho.
and oh yes spain does ok from what i've seen, i've never seen them wiped out (unless i did it), sometimes they're just a couple o' provinces, but sometimes they take the whole iberian pennisula and one game i saw them expand down through and africa ending up owning everything up to carthage.
Weakest that I've seen are:
1. Numidia--try playing them and you will understand. They only survive because they are in a corner and Carthage is busy fighting the rest of the world. Egypt takes away their best territory in the first few moves.
2. Spain--Gaul usually hammers them if I don't get their first. They are in a precarious spot, as you learn from playing as them.
3. Carthage/Seleucids--While not weak in their own right, each has a high likelihood of getting knocked out early. Carthage succumbs in its fight vs. the world. The Seleucids get hammered by Egypt and opportunists.
Strongest:
1. The Roman factions since they play as a team
2. Egypt
3. Gaul
Yep, Spain is tough at first, but if you survive the original onslaught of the Julii, it gets much easier due to its location on the map. I am playing a fun campaign as Spain and have written about my experience in the guides section.
Strange to find Numidia among the 'weaklings'. From my experience from three campaigns (never as them), they always do well under the AI. Plus, there are some rebel cities you can take control of pretty quickly.
Its the Gauls that trash spain, not the Julii. If you can bribe off the Gauls armies so that they literally can't declare war on you, you can eventually get strong enough to fight. Otherwise, they will crush you.
Strong
1. The Romans (collectively) - The AI fares the best as the Brutii, in my games. The Scipii tend to do worst though they still manage to capture some territories.
2. Egypt - strongest single faction in the game
3. Pontus - They start out weak but always manage to expand. My first game, they controlled most of modern-day Turkey and a few other provinces east. In my second, I was Parthia and near them and we were allied, so they weren't able to expand that much. That said, they managed to grab Nicomedia and Byzantium and were expanding into Thrace when I attacked them.
Weak
1. Seleucids - In my first game, I also experienced Pontus creaming them.
2. Carthage - With how they are depicted in RTW, it's hard to imagine them giving the Romans any trouble at all.
3. Macedon - Dead immediately in my 2 imperial campaigns. Both were purely just the AI, I didn't help their demise at all.
The barbarian factions in the west in my games seem to be quite stalemated. The Gauls tend to do worse because they are sandwiched and have the Julii as a neighbor.
From my campaign experience
Top 3
1. Egypt
2. Brutii
3. Julli
Last 3
12. Macedon
13. Seleucids
14. Germania
Have to agree I see allot of similarities in my campaigns. Here's some highlights of what I see with some regularity...
Egg starts into the Seleucids at the latest, turn 10. Allies with Pontus (awesome faction), Parthia joins in for table scraps, and destroy the Seleucids fairly early. This is a very consistent scenario. It's a shame too because if the Seleucids could get a grip, they got great units, rich regions, could eventually make a great adversary. But the axis of Evil don't give them a moment to breathe. Now Egg, arguably already the richest starting nation, become rich times 10. They eventually dominate the East, and it's always a sure bet who your going to run into once you get out there. Same old same ole.
In the Aegean sea area (middle map) I've seen it go in different directions. This is by far the most interesting place on the map for me to watch for several reasons. Macedonia usually beats the Greeks out of the mainland. Actually the Greeks are setup for extinction from day one, and they are always sent that way by someone. Anyone actually seen them do anything? Some games I've seen Brutii wash through the whole area, even before reforms. Other times they hit a brick wall of Macedonians and seem to get nowhere.
Gaul hammers anyone in their way, but usually the Julii just manage to stay alive with the help of Senate armies until some point (reforms?) they get the will to drive into Gaul. I had to help them when I played the Brutii. Britons usually do well, eating into Germania. At some point the Gauls do loose momentum like already noted, probably when their many borders start to heat up at the same time.
My experiences are similar: the Romans are generally strong, although the Julii and Bruti do the best, Egypt is just ridiculously powerful, the Gauls do well before the Julii carve through them, Carthage and the Seleucids both slowly disintegrate as the whole world takes a piece of them, Pontus expands, the Parthians and Scythians do nothing, Thrace and Dacia do nothing.
Once, though, I saw the Greeks take all of Anatolia, kicking out the Seleucids and Pontus on their way. Other than that, this game is far too predictable - mainly because Carthage needs beefing up, the Egyptians need toning down, and that might alter things for the better.
If it's more balance you're after, you could do worse than try out this mod at TWCenter:
Total Realism Mod
Carthage is beefed up, Rome & Egypt a little weaker and game play a big improvement over the vanilla Imperial Campaign.
On the minus side, it's still undergoing development (currently v2.2) so occasionally things get a little confused and it includes a number of other mods (slowed killing speed, slowed movement, no wardogs/screaming woman/etc, new skins) that you may not like. I love them all!
Granted, in AI hands they get the opportunity to build up some trade and capture some rebel cities because of Carthage's giant bullseye, and because Egypt is busy killing off the Seleucids. Numidia doesn't get targeted early (unless the human is playing as them), because Carthage is juicier. Numidia starts with an economy in the red and finds it hard to get enough economic traction to field any real armies. They can and do take advantage of small opportunistic targets. Egypt targets Siwa early but that leaves a "buffer zone" of rebel provinces. The Scipii (after dealing with Carthage) often start taking the former rebel provinces the Numidians have acquired. While Numidia might survive awhile, it appears to be more of a lack of interest by Egypt et al. rather than any ability to defend themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzar Kaloyan