The Best faction?

Try it yourself if you like, not hard to run a custom battle with two units. Spartans lost as there was no way they could reach the pikeman with their spears and the AI didn't figure it out to cancel phalanx mode. So they just stood there in phalanx mode watching as pikemen cut them down.

I've played (and finish) Julii , Germania , Britania , Macedonia on long campaign... Egypt played only half (so bored)... now Armenia and loving it... Total cavalry armies.. Only hired merc infantries when doing sieging... Cataphract archers decimate most or enemy units either phalanx or swords, then the other comes charging to fnish.... Right now in heavy war with the Brutii's.... Even their cohorts can stand up to so much missiles and heave cav charge.... Loving every moment of it... Will leave Rome last until my Armenians conquer all of the lands even to the farthers corner of Britain....

Eeerr,, bck to the question, which is the best faction played.. I leave to u guys (n gurl) to figure it out.. ehek.. 'tiL then.. ~:cheers:

Romans (all three). Over the course of the campaign, they took fewer casualties.

Thrace is amazingly strong. I'm playing a campaign with the strategic map and battle difficulties on very hard, and I have wiped out Macedonia relatively quickly (so far there the only faction that has been eliminated). They use the same phalanxes as most Greek factions and only have Greek Cavalry, so what makes them so strong? Falxmen and, when affordable, bastarnae mercenaries. Statistically they don't look like much, but they serve as the bulk of my army and rarely let me down. I only use phalanxes for when I'm expecting cavalry, and the falxmen do the rest of the fighting with cavalry as support. Falxmen also protect the phalanxes flanks, and I assume there is an equivalent unit for most other Greek nations. I've yet to see if Thrace stands a chance against Romans, however.

I've never had a problem with phalanxes in battle like the others who have posted here seem to, but then again I only use them in a defensive position and against cavalry. The Greek cities have no other infantry type, however, so I see how this is a problem when playing as that faction.

I really like Carthage as they get a range of decent cav, a variety of infantry - even iberians serve a purpose (cheap expendable troops for tieing up superior infantry), copies of auxilia, and a pair of decent phalanxes (while pikes may be better a good combo of troops can do well against anything), and they get elephants earlier (albiet with out archers).

The reason why Thrace is fairly powerful is because they have good lower-level units. The falxmen are excellent, even against cavalry, and function as great flanking units. They also guard the phalanx pikemen flanks very well. Their cavalry is horrible, so I recommend just using it as expendable flankers or for chasing down fleeing generals. The reason why these units are great?

Well, most of the time that I play as other greek-based factions (I'm pretty good at the game now and know what unit selections are best), I don't bother going above tier three units (unless they are units that don't see any action, such as onagers). The reason for this is that the super-high-level units are impossible to retrain and take a long time before you can even train them. As Macedon, for example, you have the Royal Pikemen and Phalanx Pikemen. The Royal Pikemen take twice as long to train and are a few points better than Phalanx Pikemen. Plus, they don't even have a heavy weapon (light for royals). So, what's the point? I ripped through all of rome with Phalanx Pikemen, normal archers, no onagers (not advanced enough yet), and Macedonian Cavalry. These are tier 3 units and I probably beat rome faster than I would have with the royal pikemen because taking them back to my mainland to retrain would take long. Same thing with Macedonian Cavalry. They are almost as good as Companion Cavalry, just easier to retrain and more expendable. Plus, royal pikemen and other tier 4/5 units generally cost 100-200 denarii more per-turn than the almost-the-same tier 3 units.

This is exactly what happens with Thrace. Their "killer" unit, Bastarnae, are good for your kings main army, but other than that, falxmen and the phalanx pikemen will suffice you. Falxmen and Phalanx Pikemen are also the ultimate anti-phalanx since the phalanxes can hold off other phalanxes while the falxmen flank and rout the enemies from behind. They replace cavalry quite well because cavalry are horrible at flanking phalanxes because you will almost always lose some troops even when rear-ending spearmen with horses. And your anti-cavalry units are the phalanxes, so you don't have to worry about horses. Your onagers will take out elephants and no sword/axe infantry that I have seen can hold up against the front of a pike phalanx, anyway.

Your only worry is horse archers, as falxmen are unarmoured and get pelted into oblivion rather quickly. Still, you can take them out with your own archers, or , if they are far away, use onagers. If you don't have them, tire them out with militia cavalry (they are expendable anyway), and when they come back to your lines exausted, get your fresh general or another fresh militia cavalry unit to charge them.

The beauty of Thrace is that they have a good unit combo early and for a small amount of cash. Plus, they are low-tier and can be retrained virtually anywhere.

Carthage is the way to go, ok all around units, plenty of cheap troops and with an elephant charge to break up a phalnax or a legion Iberian Inf can take them on without a problem. Barbarians are probably the biggest problem for me as Carth and on the campaign map I really find myself fighting them anyway.

The game is really unballanced though, the Roman calvary is way too good and the Egyptians are completely ridiculous, why is a desert axeman so tough? Also the fact that Guals seem completely incapable of hanging on in infantry fights seems kinda ridiculous, I hate that they are easy to break.

Up till now I've played Brutii, Scipii, Egyptians, Germans and am now playing Seleucids. I love the Germans (spear warband and chosen archer warband) and am waiting to get better elephants and kata's to really start kicking arse with my Seleucid armies! :charge:

For same reason I prefer killing Romans to playing them... :bow:

I'd rather be killing Romans than being one of them, too. I got the short campaign as the Julii over as quickly as possible so that I could gain access to the other factions, without modification. Although I really liked the Romans' infantry, and I miss their expanded pre-battle speeches, I guess I'm biased towards changing history for the underdogs. For instance, it was a real hoot to conquer medieval Europe as the French.

Marius also really irritated me. Third Founder of Rome my butt... Having to abandon all my beautiful silver and gold chevrons for fresh drooling idiots right out of post-Marius academies was my greatest disgust.

Right after the Julii, I played as the Germans, who had wonderful units but the most annoyingly delicate civil management I've seen yet. (prolly true for all barbarian factions, I bet) Right now, I'm as the Greeks, who are filthy rich and have very nice buildings, and invokes the occasional giggle when a named Greek philosopher joins a family member's retinue.

Personally, I love Germania. I need Chosen Axemen and Berserkers slaughtering Romans to complete my week ~:)

But actually the best factions are probably Seleucids and Brutii, maybe Greece.

Based on my very limited experience as ive only had it for a few weeks it seems to me the romans are probably the best all rounders. Cant get enough of there heavy infantry stomping everyone.

Ive played as the three Roman factions, the Gauls, the Macedons, the Dacians and the Pontics and out of them all I would have to say the Romans probably have the best all round army. However, the Pontic cavalry is very strong and varied and the Macedon infantry was pretty damm good as well. ~:)

Roman's are really quiet lacking in the anti cav area... if u play ur cards well enough a roman army can go down really fast... and when they go down they go down hard since u'll be able to kill most of the routers (though the greeks are even worse usually)

It's funny... they have 1 decent anti cav unit... which they can only build for a really short period of time (by the time u get to triarias the Marcus reform should be pretty close)... then u get the crap auxllirias which is only good for their price values. and still goes down to most cavs....

seriously... a decetn chariot charge >>>> romans... unless they get mass cav... which as others already meantioned... is too good realtive to historical facts.... but even then most factions can still out cav them.

I kinda agree with the other guy who said that Romans and Egyptian stuff are way too good while the Gauls are way too crap... Selucid is a bit too over to but at least they start at a very bad position......... both the roman faction and the eggies start at position that's realy safe.. in the case of the romans safe + huge trade too