Sweboz Walkthrough, by Epistolary Richard

Swêbōz Walkthrough

The Swêbōz are not one single tribe, but rather a federation drawn together through common interest and mutual enemies. Despite this, they need a strong ruler to hold them together for the game of politics is not just played out in the Roman Senate or the Hellenistic dynasts. The Swêbōz begin small, with little of value within their lands – however those dark forests conceal great wealth and their determined warriors can march and fight without the soft conditions of the people of the Mediterranean.

This short guide does not seek to tell you everything about playing as the Swêbōz – rather it is a simple narrative of the first few turns of one sample game. Hopefully it will demonstrate that in each and every faction – no matter it's start position – there is both a challenge and an opportunity.

Campaign options
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A couple of things here, I tend to play with No Advice on – I imagine that most RTW players who've come to EB will do the same.

You may have heard that EB uses scripts in order to add extra gameplay features that couldn't be added by any other means and that these have something to do with the advisor and so you might think that you have to turn Advice on. That's not the case at all – all the EB specific game significant advisors will appear at the correct time whether advice is on or not. Indeed, I encourage people to switch advice off entirely – with the huge revamping that the team has done, very little of the original advice is relevant anymore anyway.

Secondly, EB changes the standard victory conditions of capturing Rome and fifty provinces to conditions that actually try to reflect the interests of the nation historically. So ignore the Short Campaign box and the victory conditions down in the bottom left hand corner. We'll be talking more about the EB victory conditions a little further down.

Swêbōz starting position

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Activating the background script
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The first thing you must always remember to do at the beginning of a new game or after you've reloaded a saved game is to activate the background script. This is simply done by clicking on any one of your settlements – the adviser will then appear, click on him and it will bring up a speech balloon giving you instructions (namely, to press the Show me How Button indicated below). That starts the script and ensures EB runs the way it's intended.

As the Swêbōz, you begin your campaign with only a single province – Swêbōlándám with its settlement Swebotráustástámnoz. We'll start off by having a quick look at the buildings inside. Several of them will appear familiar to you already – though it's always a good idea to have a closer look as their bonuses and capabilities can be significantly different from vanilla.

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The last building in the settlement appears as a throne on a platform with a '1' in the top right hand corner. This is one of the new EB government buildings – whilst the vanilla 'governor' were principally just used to denote city size – the EB government buildings represent the means by which that particular settlement is ruled. A '1' government typically denotes a 'home' government – with the populace and society fully integrated within your faction, whereas a '4' government represents a far looser hold; whilst the city is nominally under your control it's inhabitants will consider themselves to be substantively independent – which impacts both your recruitment possibilities there as well as public order.

Appropriately enough, Swebotráustástámnoz is a 'home' government – which in the Swêbōz case is the Swêborêikjám – direct rule by the Thêngáz.

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The building to its left is also new – it is the Nêrthuhárugáz, a holy island; it is a unique location within the boundaries of the province. There are many such examples across the EB map – always keep an eye out for them when discovering a new settlement.

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The last unusual building you can see there appears to be a Roman barracks. It's not, of course, it's just a building that hasn't yet had a graphic done for it yet (you'll see another example in the larger pic for the '1' government. Remember, the Open Beta is just that – EB players will finally get to enjoy the hard work put in by the development team, and you'll also have the opportunity to help make EB even better by giving feedback, identifying problems and even contributing material. If you think you can produce professional quality graphics to help fill those gaps then do please come over to the forums and offer your services; EB is always on the look out for talented people able and willing to share their work with the community.

Getting Going

As you can see, whilst they only hold a single province – the Swêbōz are most certainly geared up for war with three war parties waiting to cross into neighbouring territories and a significant reserve back in its settlement. You can see the flip side to that state of readiness if you have a look at your settlement – you're losing nearly 4,500 Mnai a turn. So, if you do nothing, you can be sure that you'll be bankrupt within the year.

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And it's not simply the case that you can tax your way out of your problems – the Swêbōz economy is not the powerhouse of other factions – there is little income there to tax.

The Economy
I'll tell you now, if you're not thinking about your economy from the very start then you'll inevitably slide into the red. As soon as that happens, your whole empire becomes as fragile as glass; troops cannot be retrained, mercenaries can not be hired and you stop being able to build the very economic infrastructure that you would need to be able to get yourself back into surplus.

For me, there are two different approaches to an initial financial crisis – expanding my empire to try and capture enough settlements to make my cashflow positive or pare down my forces and reduce my wage bill to allow me to build the trading structures I need before going campaigning.

Unlike RTW, in EB your finances will not simply take care of themselves – EB rewards players who are effective with their troops, not those who are merely extravagant.

In this case, I'm going to do both.

I decide I want to expand to the east and south first to consolidate my position before heading west where I know I'll meet the Gauls. I want my troops on the front line, not lounging around on garrison duty so I disband the garrison units in the capital as well as the troops accompanying Anushárjáz in the north-west.

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As you can see, that's helped give me a couple of turns grace, the rest must come through military expansion.

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My spies have discovered a town to the east, Ascaucalis. Whilst it is moderately garrisoned it has no walls which means my troops can sweep in more quickly. I set Atháwulfáz marching to take the town, though it will be a few turns before he arrives.

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In the south-east, Hrábnáz chances upon another town, Gáwjám-Silengoz, which is closer. With luck I'll be able to take it next turn, though Hrábnáz's forces are not so strong.

Finally, as a longer-term move I dispatch my diplomat south where I know I will find several factions, there he can establish trade rights with several of my emerging neighbours.

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Meet the Family

Before we end our first turn, let's take a moment to find out a little more about our generals. One of the most innovative features of Europa Barbarorum is the strikingly different approach to traits

The trait system:

In real life, the same experience can have different effects on different people – success in some will spur them on to greater things, in others it will lead to complacency and sloth; equally, when times are bad some will rise to the challenge while others will break under the pressure. A person is not simply the sum of his experience, rather it is how his nature has reacted to those experiences.

In EB this is reflected in two primary traits, which ever character has that reflects their nature and their personality. Let’s take a look at a few examples:

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This is Hrábnáz, our general in the south east.
His nature trait reads Sharp/Charismatic/Vigorous (whilst they’re all bundled together, they’re each considered separately). As we can read from the description he’s naturally intelligent, active and charismatic (and good looking to boot!) – a born leader indeed. However, despite this his personality has developed as decidedly negative, caring for little aside from himself.
It’s important to note at this stage that these traits don’t have a attribute impact themselves, rather they represent the potential of the character and will influence the type of traits he will acquire as he goes through the game.
By contrast here’s Atháwulfáz, our general marching on Ascaucalis:

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He’s of similar natural abilities, however his personality has emerged more positively, a brave and dedicated follower of your faction, though as the description notes an unselfish attitude is not always a boon for a military warlord.

In EB, traits not only describe a character’s abilities they also give an insight into the character’s current state – whether he’s happy in his current role or bored, tired or on his sick-bed. It’s a good idea to check in with even stationary governor characters once every few years to see how they’re doing – a bored governor can be invigorated with a turn or two out of the city, whilst a sick general might be best advised to stay put for a while.

There are several traits whose meaning is not always immediately obvious – they may be clues as to special features within the game.

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Victory conditions
As you will probably have read already, EB has introduced faction-specific victory conditions. As well as being able to read about them on our forums there are also reminders in game. The first of which is the Victory Conditions trait of your Faction Leader:

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You can also review them through the advisor by clicking on the ‘?’ button on the Faction Scroll:

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As well as listing them in the text, the advisor will also highlight any specific settlements you have yet to capture on the main map - so you can tell at a glance what is left to do.

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As well as territorial and other victory criteria, many factions also have raiding targets. They can be reviewed simply by clicking the ‘?’ button again at which point, as you can see, the raiding targets are highlighted instead.

Raiding a settlement is just a matter of capturing it and then holding it for a full turn, you can then pillage and abandon it or alternatively try to hold it; either way, even if you lose it subsequently, you will still have achieved that objective.

To War!

Turn two is summer, the height of the campaigning season so it is time to attack!

Though Atháwulfáz is still too far from Ascaucalis, Hrábnáz is within striking distance of Gáwjám-Silengoz. Comparing the two stacks I felt that Hrábnáz’s war party was too small to carry off the attack successfully and so he has hired some Curepos mercenaries (light horse).

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As he attacks I review the troops he’ll be facing and I’m glad I hired the mercs. They outnumber my forces by 50% with two units of archers to whittle down my forces.

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With this in mind I deploy my forces on a single side of the village in a tight formation so that each can support each other. Hopefully I will be able to catch their units individually and destroy them piecemeal.

Unlike vanilla, you’ll notice that the general unit is made up of infantry – historically in war the leaders of the Swêbōz fought on foot. In game terms this makes every single battle more significant to your family members, in the case of defeat you cannot rely on your general’s ability to escape the victorious enemy.

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The assault begins well, my infantry isolate and surround one of their advance unit. You’ll find that combat in EB is a lot more satisfying – battlelines actually lock together, units with high morale will stand and fight even when the odds are against them. Whilst my two units envelope the enemy unit, they stand long enough for their general to intervene.

Cavalry, though, is not the all-conquering medieval juggernaut of vanilla RTW. I throw my reserve unit into the fray and their general retreats, harried by my own cavalry.

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My infantry mops up their advanced forces, but as they follow up my own skirmish cavalry becomes bogged down in combat with the Silengoz Sáhsnotoz.

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They can do little but break off themselves and retreat to a safe distance.

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The Silengoz pull back to their town square, I begin to usual procedure of setting my troops to encircle them – walking them in order to keep them from getting tired. As I set up the first side, however, the Silengoz boil off their square and attack! My infantry are knocked back and my general goes to support, whilst my encircling troops suddenly have to run in order to get around the hall quickly enough. Within the Silengoz close enough to their town square to benefit from the morale bonus a long drawn out melee without any positional advantage could gut my units.

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Their general finally falls and once they are surrounded it is the end for the Silengoz. Still a hard fought battle and a third of my troops are left on the field.

Welcome to Gáwjám-Silengoz

We’ve taken our first settlement and Gáwjám-Silengoz is quite a prize. It is one of the stops of the Glêzostrátá – the Amber trade route from the Baltic to the Mediterranean – and the province includes Limios Alsos, a holy site for many pagan cultures.

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Gáwjám-Silengoz also includes the following building:

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This simply denotes the top level of government that can be installed (as you can see the type1 government appears in the Construction options as well, though I don’t have the funds to construct it at present).
Whilst there may be differences between the Silengoz and the Swêbōz cultures the environment and the basics of their way of life are very similar and so it is not surprising that I can fully integrate them into my society if I so choose. Doing so, however, is still a long and resource-consuming process. It would be quicker and easier to install a lower level of government, though that in turn will shape my recruitment and construction options in the future.

The Long March to Ascaucalis

To the north, Atháwulfáz is still marching towards his own target. Without roads and hindered by winter, the journey has taken longer than anyone would have thought. This is a good example of how in EB traits are used to give an insight into the current status of characters:

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Here Atháwulfáz is in autumn 272BC. We can see from his traits that he has been force marching his troops and pushing them onwards as quickly as they can go. Whilst the march and potential for conquest has only been making him more and more enthusiastic, it has had the reverse effect on his troops who are now unsure of his ability to lead them.

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One season on and Atháwulfáz has again marched them to their full extent and we can see the situation has worsened. He’s excited about the proximity of battle, but his men trust him even less. Just as a general who commands his men’s devotion can take them to the gates of hell, so too a general who does not may find his forces melt away when confronted by the foe.

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The column finally arrives and Atháwulfáz launches his assault against the Vendi – here we can see the forces are more equal, however I will have to account for his men’s lower morale.

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I take pains to keep my men together, however it is my cavalry that suffer, overextending themselves and then fleeing after losing a third of their number. Once again the regular encircling strategy flounders in the face of the AI which suddenly activates a defensive unit to slam into the marching flankers (the general and his bodyguard), whilst pinning down the other units so they can’t intervene. The fighting was intense and it looked for a moment as though the general himself would be killed as he was backed up against a wall and isolated from his men. Only the sacrifice of my cavalry kept him alive and the assault going.

This then is the extent of the Swêbōz lands as at the beginning of 271BC.

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Gains have been made against the Vendi and the Silengoz and while I’m in debt my cash flow is positive. Further expansion, though, will be difficult without installing some form of government, both to help control the populace and allow me to recruit their men for my armies.

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My family members are also being to develop their own personalities as well. Atháwulfáz as we’ve seen is eager for war, too eager perhaps and despite a victory his troops still do not have confidence in him. Anushárjáz – the general to the north-west whose troops were disbanded – is becoming a fearless raider of the Gallic lands on the Rhine; and Hrábnáz – the victor against the Silengoz – is developing as a thoroughly untrustworthy character.

With the EB trait system adding such a level of characterisation, it’s really possible to follow the ‘story’ behind your faction and its leaders.