Franks (BI faction)

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Originally Posted by Craterus

Hmmm, strange that no-one went for the Alemanni, or is it that everyone else feels they aren't worth bothering with?

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That´s usually my first priority. Take the Alemanni capitol will eventually spawn one of the three "dormant" factions - hopefully the RB´s or Slavs.
I start my WRE-war by taking the city south of the Alemanni capitol and then move north to take A.T and C.A etc until all of "France" is under my rule. From my capitol I send new units in the same trail as my original army. This way I can reinforce my fort in the alps and hold off any WRE incursions.
With all of France under control you can easily stop the Saxon incursions at the three river-crossings bordering them (if you let them take the two rebel towns south of them). At this point I hold the three river crossings north, the three mouintain passes towards Italy so the only opening is the eastern front but that´s not a worry. With 6 archers in both C.Franki and C.Alemanni you can soak up any incursions fron the east. Now I usually take Iberia and get my empire up to 14 provinces. Pushing the Saxons out of the two former rebel towns in Germany plus taking Italy will get you the 20 provinces needed to win.
I´ve played the Franks both as pagan and christian but prefer the later since I cet the uber-unit: paladins.

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Originally Posted by PseRamesses

That´s usually my first priority. Take the Alemanni capitol will eventually spawn one of the three "dormant" factions - hopefully the RB´s or Slavs.

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I don't think the RB's will appear by something happening over there. I thought it happened if/when the Saxons go to Britain ~:confused:

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Originally Posted by Craterus

I don't think the RB's will appear by something happening over there. I thought it happened if/when the Saxons go to Britain ~:confused:

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You´re right. I meant the Ostrogoths and Slavs. Thx for pointing that out. :bow: RB only emerge as a result of any faction taking Eburacum and Londinium.

I started last night, and I am planning on using the strategy to ally with most barbarian factions then move my armies north to attack the Saxons.

Thanks for the help!:balloon2:

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Originally Posted by PseRamesses

You´re right. I meant the Ostrogoths and Slavs. Thx for pointing that out. :bow: RB only emerge as a result of any faction taking Eburacum and Londinium.

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I believe that the Ostrogoths emerge during a Goth civil war, like the ERER/WRER. Goths are the only other faction where generals have loyalty, and are therefore capable of civil wars. :bow:

So it must be the Slavs. ~;) Maybe someone could check this though?

Simple Consolidiation strategy for keeping Vicus Franki:

1: Ally with both Romes, set up trade rights. Ally with any local barbarians you can except either the Allemani or Saxons. Your primarly goal is pushing to the English Channel as soon as possible. I grabbed the adjacent rebel province then immediately turned on the Allemani, trapped their army outside the city and destroyed it, then seiged the town.

The Lombardi and Burgundii seem to want to fight amongst themselves and you can leave them till later. If you can ally with the Lombardi, you are clear to easily annihilate the Burgundii and use the Lombardi as your horde defense. The Burgundii Horde will probably go into Lombardi terrority after you finish them off.

2: Take Vicus Saxones and push east into Burgundii territory. Take the port west of Saxones if Rome doesn't get it first. You now have a huge cash influx from trade with WRE.

At this point you've probably already won the campaign. You can take your time and finished off the Lombardi and Burgundii, although you'll likely end up having to destroy at least one of the Hordes yourself. It's not hard, you have a lot of space to play with in Eastern Europe and plenty of mercenary cavalry.

3: Head into Rome or Britain, depending on who owns what. The Celts or Romano British will eventually attack you if the take Londinium, beat them to the punch and between Vicus Saxones and Londinium you will have all the trade money you'll ever need.

By the time you head into WRE's holdings in the old Gallic provinces, you'll finally have some real melee units in Fransisca Heerbaans, who are some straight up hardcore thugs (their unit response also comically comes out sounding like "X-men!"). Two lines of FH in fire-at-will mode will utterly destroy any opposing line infantry, and you can use the otherwise weak Levy Spearmen as a cavalry screen for your Fransisca wrecking ball. A proper axe toss can easily net you 40% casualties in an oncoming heavy infantry unit and god help any skirmishers.

Your only potential problem will come from armies with a concentrated heavy cavalry (in my campaign I finally encountere the Vandals in southern France and they took out two stacks worth of decent troops before I finally bled them out) but Rome likely won't have more than one of those. Your own Noble Cavalry is decent but simply can not match all the Imperial German Guard or Steppe Heavy Cavalry, which will likely be substantially more numerous if it shows up.

For the coup de grace on WRE, send one force south to Mediolatum (sp) and hold the mountain passes against Roman reinforcements while you clear out France with whatever is left. You have plenty of space to trade for time in the old Burgundii/Lombardi areas should a horde come calling, and while you may lose a lot of battles it's fairly easy to bleed the horde dry befor they get to anything important.

Barbarian Invasion - meine HORDEN tipps

It looks that I did a complete different approach to the Franks than you guys did. Maybe because I used to play the Goths before (and won)?

The starting location of the Franks is pretty nice. Romans do not attend to attack you and so do the other German tribes around. I learned by using the Goths that it is only a matter of time until the hordes come and to qualify all the small victories you may get against the provinces around you. You may grow when you make a conventional strategy, but you will come into trouble.

I decided to turn into a horde after a few preparations. You are way ahead of the conventional hordes far in the east (Huns, Vandals und soon Sarmatians). You will invade lands FREE of any horde for a long time.
AI of Romans is to defend some key provinces. I did not figure out any of them, but here there are some:
Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Pannonia, Milano, Salona.. Okay, some are not in hand of WRE, but ERE do similar.

* What do you need to become a proper horde?
It is essential that you have eyes to see when troubles come at you. I started to make 3 additional spies and send them across the river Rhine into the WRE. Because I prefer to use archers (Frankish ones suck) and cavalry, I made 2 archers and 2 cavalry units too. I did not build ANY building, because I will forsake the city soon. While the last units will start to get build, I upgraded all of my units too. Do not bother with Rebels in you flat land, but do not expand the taxes that your city will become rebellious!

After that I made a HORDE and crossed the Rhine to fight WRE. Those meanwhile conquered Frisi and made some small army stacks between Treverorum and the Alamanni. Main goal of a HORDE is to make MONEY and to prevent WRE to fix their initial troubles and become a power once again.
I attacked some of the small roman packs and forced them back (they did not accepted the battle, so why should I?). I laid Siege at Treverorum, but I want to reach inner Gaul and loot whatever is possible!
Because defence around Treverorum is reasonable my leaders pack laid siege at Colonia Agrippa and took it by force (only 3 defending units). My first loot came into my pocked.
Having an eye on Romans packs at the Rhine, I went westwards into Belgie. Most cities behind the front line are only defended by 2-3 roman units. This calls for what I call Blitzkrieg. One important point is that you have to deal with your armies carefully, because with no city you cannot replace any losses.

Blitzkrieg
In Blitzkrieg you do not want to face big enemy armies. You will only fight them when they urge you to do so. If you have a chance you avoid them and destroy enemy cities (and money).
Make a fast vanguard out of 1 family member and 5-6 cavalry units. All infantry of yours is in other armies. Then advance like a caterpillar. The slow armies take care for enemy forces and lay sieges until the end. It is a good idea to safe a bridge from time to time when enemies are near with such infantry armies too. The top of your trek is always the cavalry army.
It works like this:
1st Your spy checks the next city. When defension is small, the city will becomes target.
2nd Using a second spy to check the next city if you think you will need your first spy to take the actual city by storm.
3rd Run to the city with your cavalry army and lay siege at it. This way they cannot build more units in there, what will happens if you need many ticks to arrive with a normal army. You can build some siege improvements, no matter that you have only cavalry. Meanwhile send a normal army that is able to take the city over.
4th When the new army arrives, replace your cavalry army with it. Best way is to add one unit of the new army into your besieging cavalry. In the same tick you move your cavalry army to the next target like told in under 3rd. Move the rest of the infantry army into the old position of your cavalry army. The siege time you used with your cavalry army and the entire siege improvements you had build are safe this way.
5th Continue with the next city. :charge:
6th Bring the besieged city down. Either by awaiting the result of your siege or by attacking with forces. Remember: As long as you own no city, you cannot replace any LOSSES. Fight when required, but pass by when possible :duel:

I did not bother in making a new home for my people before me getting enough money and bring down any potential enemy around. This way I pillaged ALL Gaul, Spain and Italy. The WRE had only 1 province left (Frisii) at the European continent. In the year 396 my fat purse had more than 200000 Denari while all the areas I pillaged where in the hand of rebels. Finally I made a new home in Italy (like I did with my Goths in the game before).
This had 2 reasons: I handled Italy with care. I was in front of all other Hordes and with my big armies there at any way into Italy they turned north and left me alone. I managed my sieges, so I took all 3 cities at the same tick and my Horde armies disappeared with this. My new home was:
Ravenna
(Temple with 3 veteran points, fully improved city, full barracks and stables)
Rome
(Complete improved city goodies, maximum smithy, maximum barracks, maximum far distance units = Onagers. No longer endless sieges) ~:cheers:
Milano
(Temple with 3 veteran points, lots of good improvements, no matter that I plundered it some years before)

This gave me a great position for the upcoming normal build up and conquer phase. I was able to build the best units while having enough money to pay for all needs over a long time. I made some forts at the entrance gates into Italy. This kept enemy Hordes away until I was ready to fight them. Southern Italy in Rebels hands was an easy match. My expansion was into Gaul mainly. If you focus for the south and Spain, you will not meet many enemies first. Only the Vandals I had to kill there.
Using this strategy gave me first a lot of money and keeps WRE most out of my way. Then I found a new, really good improved home (thanks to WRE) for the best units. Due to my pillaging before I had no big enemies close to me over a reasonable period what I used to become a big and proper power.

Check it out, it works! ~:cheers:
Sorry when my English is not that great.

Im shocked at how handy it is playing the Franks. Its easier than the Huns position! I just played a fast Frank campaign there, VH/M but autoresolving all the battles just to see how it played out.

I horded straight away and across the bridge smack into Augusta Trevorum. One turn later sacked and split up, two stacks going left to Sambrovia, two taking a detour north to Colonia Aggrippa (?). By turn 3 Colonia was sacked too, and Sambrovia was under threat. I now began a very lucrative operation - blackmailing the WRE for peace. I made 10K for a ceasefire. Next turn I broke the deal, seiged Sambrovia and sacked it. Then we headed south en masse to Avaricarum. Blackmailed the WRE for another 10K. Broke the deal next turn and seiged Avaricarum. Sacked it. Blackmailed the WRE for another 10K (Theyve given me 30K now in 3-4 turns and show no signs of running out of cash). 3 stacks are heading for Burgilda whilst one stack stays to seige Avaricarum.Once Ive sacked Arles and Burgilda Ill take Avaricarum and make it my capital, though who knows, things are going so swimmingly I might as well keep going.

Ive currently got something like 92K in the kitty, and expect to ratchet that up to at least 120K by the time Im ready to settle and more than a few rebel cities between me and my erstwhile barbarian cousins that I can expand into later or use as a buffer zone. Iberia and Italy will soon lie open to me, and and Roman armies from either can be bottled up in the respective mountain passes.

I guess my advice with the Franks would be dont waste time, horde and sack the WRE from turn 1!

Apart of the "case fire" operation you made the same apporeach like I did. I agree, it is very easy.

I get the idea that any fraction in the game has a kind of basic relations to any other fraction. No matter how they act during the game. For example:

WRE 'loves' the Franks, but will always try to bring down the Alamanni...

ERE hates the Goths. While playing the Goths they attacked me with no reason. When hording and only try to cross their lands they threated me and attacked. While starting a few ticks with the Vandals they allowed me to cross all ERE in europe without any word - until I attacked all their cities there at once!

teja, congrat to your strategy! And welcome to the org ~:cheers:

I had a more conventional approach. I attacked the town on the other side of the Rhine (Treverorum) with all available troops and it was not a big thing to get it. The the WRE wanted to make peace and gave me Augusta Vindelicorum for free ~D. The very next turn the WRE changed their minds and broke peace. It is easy to walk through Gaul as teja described it. There are only some field armies and the garrisons are small. You can easily conquer them. I used to kill the pop to get money and keep them happy ~;) .
I took the Alemanni very early to have a connection to Augusta Vind.. Then thegate to Italy is open. I formed a second invasion army and marched to Rome. Not a big deal to get the capitol of the world.

My diplomats were looking for other Germanian tribes and allied as much as possible. This is very important! When I invaded Italy Vandal and Goth hordes crossed my path. But they stayed peaceful!

I got some problems with happiness. I tried to convert all new towns to Christ but it simply did not work. It slowed my invasion in Gaul. So finally I destoyed all churches and the people were happy! I only let my southern town stay Christian (Augusta Vind and all Italian ones.)

Thanks for the welcome Franconicus

Playing the religious card in this game can be very tricky.
Early in the game you are very happy with pagan temples because of their influence while building forces (veteran point’s e.t.c.). Later in the game, when you have more and more populations in your cities an already established Christian religion offers more chances to keep the population happy.

I use having a mix of both over some time. When you start with a Christian fraction it is handy to pack as much of your family members as possible into one army stack. Use it and conquer a city you want to get and to turn into Christianity.
A longer siege will help you. Any Christian character has at lest a bonus of + 5 % converting into Christianity. As long as you are besieging a city, this affects the population around. It may cause unrest in the city against the current owner when he is pagan, but this is not the main use. When finally the city falls in your hand, a lot of people have already turned into Christianity. You can boost it, when your assassin destroys the temple just before the siege.
After the city is yours, destroy the temple and build a church, when Christianity is already big enough. When you have a chance, let your characters stay in this province for using their bonus to speed it up. You will see when time is right, when your Christian population starts to be safety problem. It is not required that your characters stick IN the city, but in the same province to make a use of their religious influence.

I use to turn most cities into Christianity early on. But some great developed cities for best military units will stay pagan for best effective forces.
Ravenna is one of those cities

It works best for Goths and offers a lot of benefits for western fractions like Saxons, Alemanni and (conventional) Franks. As long as you are unable to build big armies, you will use your family members as a big force either way.

teja,
how do you do it with a pagan nation, like the Franks? All my family members are pagan; so if they control a city they are a hurdle for the conversion.

When I conquered a new (pagan) town I killed the population, destroit all temples and started to built churches ... . However there was almost no conversion and there was a lot of troubles with rebellions. My family members never became Christian. After a while I gave up and destroit all churches.

It is more difficult, but it works. Easiest way is when in Horde mode. You only destroy the city and kill population, it turns into a Rebel city - attack and start to kill population again. The lower the population, the smaller the risk of a unrest you can not handle.
About family members you are right: All STARTING members are Pagan. But me, playing the Franks get at least 1 Christian family member later on. No matter that I never did something in favor of Christianity before.

I have no general plan how to turn provinces into other religious believings. I like Hordes, which makes you independence for a reasonable time. I like some Pagan temples, so why shall I change it in general? But I learned to do any of those changes carefully!

Once I had a city I could not hold for some ticks. I destroyed the temple, made a church and then aband it. A Rebellion rose up, what made a better defension but my former garrison formed of 1 cavalry unit. The Sarmatians took the city over and had to deal with all the unrest. Because it had not been a key city I came back much later and conquered a calm, almost christian city.
Maybe you should ask this question in a "roman fraction" thread. I never used them in BI, but romans have those problems from the beginning.

Hi

it is much easier to convert to christianity when not so many pagan provinces are adjacent to yours. Therefore it´s probably best to start this in a small peaceful coast province --> Campus Frisii or Vicus Saxones are quite good for this purpose, islands are even better.

And of course it enhances conversion very much if you convert other neighbouring provinces at the same time. Therefore it isn´t always a successful way if you take a town, burn down the temple, build a church and abandon it to leave it for the rebels. Because the small chruch can not compensate the pagan effects of more than one pagan neighbour province.

Thank you teja and Bastard.
By the way, wwelcome to you too!~:cheers:

My question here is for those of you who have played RTR 6.0. I don't have Barbarian Invasion yet. I just want to know if Barbarian Invasion is better than RTR 6.0? Sounds like a pretty exciting MOD, but being a tightwad as I am I'd rather not spend the money if 6.0 is better or as good.

@ Bastard Operator: Welcome here!
I agree to your statement about easier conversation. My story about making a Christian rebel town was a result of a bad intelligence about the Sarmatians that lead into the loss of it no matter if I made the church or not. My army was not handy and I expanded a bit faster but my forces had been able to defend. Whatever I saw it as a good chance to turn the city into Christianity without me having to solve the troubles there ;)
What you say about adjecting provinces is important and shows again the favors of Italy, Spain, Britain and similar locations for changing the religious believings, For other reasons they are fine for trading routes and small frontiers of your empire. All of this are reasons to become the new home of any Horde. For myself military and monetary reasons are more important but religious ones.

@Dead Knight of the Living
Strange that the forum rules force us to talk about such a common point in a Guide thread. Other locations should be better in my eyes.
However I do not own RTW 6.0, but learned about it's changes. As far as I know RTW 6,0 is not working with BI.
So far as I can see RTW 6,0 is a great mod that is working stable and fixed some balance problems in the original game. Some of it's changes are not after my fancy. For example Pontic phalanges should stay with smaller mens but regular ones. In history phalanx formations in eastern areas had always been recruited by people of Macedonian or Hellenic origin and those had been rare in Pontic lands....
Anybody has different ideas about how to please him well.
I for myself see the biggest changes between RTW x.x and BI in 3 points:
a) The historical context
b) The new Horde function. Sometimes it may outbalance the gameplay when you only focus on this, but using with care and fun it is great. Decide for yourself if it is of your liking.
c) The religious card. You can read about problems and changes in religion above. Do you like it? It is a difficult feature. There is no longer a technology breakthrough as Marius reforms are. In a very small base religion can be similar (Do I want to use berseks or priests?). But you better compare it in RTW with the differences between the roman fractions (Julii or Brutii or Scipions) with their special units.
This are the facts. It is on yours to decide. Ah, I forgot to say that BI is a bit expensive for an add on but it features pleases me well.

Maybe this poll will help you to decide?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33894

I hate it to be unable to delete or edit my own posts! Can somebody do this with my post just above this?

A poll about ratings for BI:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33894


A thread about religion & converting family members into a new fait:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=35682

I forgot a new point in what's new in BI compared to RTW. Night battles!
Those look very cool, but are limited to really good commanders while others have not a change to use it.
In fact I am not convinced about it's use. You need to pause a lot to keep track about what is going on at the battlefield. It is not much of a help for armies with big large range weapon contingents. It favors melee units and to undermine city defence towers. Good for western fractions with great infantry, bad for nomad fractions. It helps to kill a single army pack of a Horde fraction, because adjoining armies not lead by those really good commanders will not engage into a night battle as they do at daytime.

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Originally Posted by Dead Knight of the Living

I just want to know if Barbarian Invasion is better than RTR 6.0?

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I found it overall more entertaining than the RTR mod, though it certainly
could use some realism tuning of its own.

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Originally Posted by Bastard Operator

Hi

it is much easier to convert to christianity when not so many pagan provinces are adjacent to yours. Therefore it´s probably best to start this in a small peaceful coast province --> Campus Frisii or Vicus Saxones are quite good for this purpose, islands are even better.

And of course it enhances conversion very much if you convert other neighbouring provinces at the same time. Therefore it isn´t always a successful way if you take a town, burn down the temple, build a church and abandon it to leave it for the rebels. Because the small chruch can not compensate the pagan effects of more than one pagan neighbour province.

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I started exterminating everyone (partly to keep their revolts lower in intensity and partly for the cash to fund my church-building spree) and coverting them fairly quickly. I found it was critical to convert only after you have built up some numerous but cheap garrison forces (I used peasants just for the numbers and the cheap maintenance in addition to some real troops) and only after your offensive field-force is out of the province. All those nutcase pagan sons with their handy paladin cavalry are very useful in battle, but they just slow down the conversion rate.

Once you've wiped out and converted some of the neighbouring provinces you'll get the neighbouring province conversion bonus (it's a problem while their pagan, but its a real boon while their Christian). My biggest problem is hordes, even peaceful ones, with their pagan family members, or local pagan tribes having a "diplomatic summit" around one of my newly converted settlements.

I am currently playing a Frank campaign and am about to try an experiment with conversion. I have conquered all of Gaul and have several strong armies able to hold all of my borders. However, before I move on Spain and Britain I want to convert to Christianity. This poses a challenge since all of my cities are 100% pagan. I recently adopted a Christian family member through marriage. He is the only Christian in my family. I made him heir and my current Faction Leader is old. If he does not die on his own soon I may kill him off with a suicide charge. The same turn that my Christian family member becomes King, I will destroy all pagan buildings in ALL of my cities and replace them with churches. There will of course be incredible unrest due to this. However, it is my hope that the cumulative effect of so many provinces flipping at once will provide massive conversion bonuses via the adjacent provinces. I am hoping that if I can keep the cities from rebelling for two to three turns that I will soon have a stable and mostly converted empire.

TinCow,
thats exactly the way I did it. I want to add that you haven´t only to get rid of your king. At the time I started the great conversion I had also seven or eight other pagan family members which are exremely disturbing when parked in your homelands. It´s best to send them westward to keep the WRE busy. Hopefully they can deflect Roman invasions since you will have very little money during those turns. This is because you´ll have to lower the taxes while maintaining large garrisons for public order.

@TinCow:
Please report about your experiences when you are able to.
However I would never want to convert my whole empire to one religion. I still want to get the benefits of all of them: Priests & Experience points

there is on one of those split screen things while loading etc, a group of men in HORNED HELMETS with axes and shields destroying a villiage.

I have search through the custom battle thing and havnt been able to find these units. Does anyone have any ideas as to who they are and who they belong to?

Alright, I converted my faction. After a second turn of revolt, two of my provinces rebelled and one reverted to the WRE. A turn later a third went rebel. Of these four provinces, two (including the WRE) were immediately recaptured by their expelled garrison. The other two were recaptured by other armies within a couple turns. The massive debt hole that I plunged into due to low taxes everywhere and church building expenses meant that I was forced to exterminate the cities that rebelled. However I am now a good 7-8 turns into the conversion and I'm back to normal. One province is still 100% pagan due to a 'faction member only' horde that I cannot seem to dispose of nor force out of the area. However, even this province remains happy despite its official christian religion.

All in all, not too bad and the mass revolt was kind of fun. Makes sense that a significant segment of the population wouldn't agree with the conversion.

As a side note, in order to keep my provinces converting quickly, I moved all pagan family members just over the border into foreign territory. The worst ones I even got killed intentionally and a few others were dispatched by rebels and enemies. Due to the low number of family members, I then got one Man of the Hour and two adoptions very quickly. Interestingly, all three were Christian and this has solved a great deal of my pagan family member problem.

Having just finished my Gallic RTW campaign, I thought I'd try their inheritors, the Franks on M/M in BI. My tack was that since they have a lot of buildings that give bonuses, I'd try to keep the peace for a while and put myself in a position where I could build some uber-buffed units. Started off with Hall of Heroes and archery range in Vicus Franki, and swooped down on the three neighboring rebel provinces before the AI could seize them. Allied with the Saxons and the WRE to give me some time to grow, and sent diplomats everywhere selling trade rights and adding to my stack of alliances. Got a transgression notice from the ERE when I made them pay me tribute for 10 turns at 1800d, but hey, it's business. Since the Alemanni had only one province, I decided to send my new army down to take them on, but their main stack turned out to have been hiding in the woods and young Rodolf was forced to beat a hasty retreat. I've been building and using assassins nonstop, though one kept missing to the point where he lost all of his skills. Urgh.

The Saxons turned on me first, attacking my northernmost province of Chatty Cathy, but they got nowhere. The WRE, seeing an opportunity, also backstabbed me, but rather ineffectually. That was fine with me, since I was running short of cash, and poorly-defended Augusta Tricovrum looked pretty tasty across the river. As I was about ready to take my siege engines in, I was attacked by the full stack of Romans. I went ahead with the siege attack, taking the gateway and allowing my cavalry and a couple pieces of infantry in; the rest were just abandoned to slow down the main WRE forces. The cav charged the main square, and I ended up winning on a TKO despite still being outnumbered 4:1 when the 3:00 timer ran out with the main force having had to run around to another side, stuck about a block from the main square. Heh.

But that left the stack outside, and after a turn or two of retraining and rebuilding (after a fine and profitable extermination to get my cash built up again), I set some hunters on the walls. The WRE stack started to run away! We couldn't have that, so all my cav went out to knock off a straggler or two. That worked, and the main force stopped, and using luring and crashing I ended up routing the entire stack with 4 cavalry, including the general. I also brought some mercs out to warcry, which helped with the routing. Fun! Took the city just to the north too, giving me at long last a seaport (well, after I built one....silly Romans). Even sillier, after I took those two cities, the WRE diplomat demanded that I become their protectorate. I told them to become mine instead, which broke off the diplomacy with an insult. :D

The Saxons continued to attack Chatty Cathy so I sent a force from several cities to wipe out their stacks and their holding in the Low Countries, leaving them just Frisia. I sent a force outnumbering them 2:1 and figured that was in the bag. I don't know if I was tired and getting sloppy or what, but the Saxon king, by himself, annihilated my entire 700 man army, including killing poor Tancred. Meanwhile, the Burgundians have used my alliance with the Lombards as an excuse to attack Chatty Cathy, and my loss in Frisia means I have no way to relive them.

And the Goth hordes, after settling in 2 spots in the ERE, have decided to go on a stroll and have razed my main economic city to the south (actually, once I knew the jig was up I razed much of it myself to get some cash). No idea where they'll go next, though most of the rest of my cities have stone walls so I'm hoping they decide Italy would be a nice place to visit.

The WRE cities for the victory conditions all look to be easily taken, since they're utterly underdefended, but I don't know how long the eastern half of my little empire can hold on. It's 390 AD and I'm about to drop from 7 to 5 territories. A lot depends on which way the Goths head.

And Hunters are a poor followup to Forester Warbands, let me tell you. Does anyone else find that they're really not interested in firing arrows, but instead keep charging targets that they should be firing arrows at? Bug or feature? I think "bug" considering they're set on skirmish and just run away after they charge, never actually accomplishing anything.

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And Hunters are a poor followup to Forester Warbands, let me tell you. Does anyone else find that they're really not interested in firing arrows, but instead keep charging targets that they should be firing arrows at? Bug or feature? I think "bug" considering they're set on skirmish and just run away after they charge, never actually accomplishing anything.

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Hunters have anemic arrow range and aren't really useful as normal archers, since they can barely fire before infantry enters charge range. I stopped recruiting them entirely and depended on mercenary horse archers for that role. Francisca Heerbans are better defensive skirmishers too. Actually, you could probably get by with an army of nothing but Francisca Heerbans.

Nobody likes an axe to the face.

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Originally Posted by Ordani

Hunters have anemic arrow range and aren't really useful as normal archers, since they can barely fire before infantry enters charge range. I stopped recruiting them entirely and depended on mercenary horse archers for that role. Francisca Heerbans are better defensive skirmishers too. Actually, you could probably get by with an army of nothing but Francisca Heerbans.

Nobody likes an axe to the face.

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Francisca Heerban will tear through almost any infantry enemy, especially if they get time to throw their axes first. However I've had an army of only very strong (bronze weapon and armor and 1 to 2 silver chevrons each) Franciscas get torn to shreds by horde horse archers. With no light cavalry to chase them and no archers to retaliate at range, they simply whittled the ends of my line down very, very badly. For whatever reason, Francisca Heerban do not seem to handle arrows as well as other shield units. When facing hordes with horse archers, 3-4 groups of Hunters just behind your Heerban line will deplete the enemy fast enough to protect your infantry.

I want to go christian with the Franks and it's now past 400 AD and still no christian sons in my family. I paid close attention to my family and I did NOT miss the prodigal son. So when do people usually get him?

I tried accelerating this by taking some of my generals on suicidal missions to take out rebels, but this totally backfired. One of my generals survived repeated frontal charges into levy spears, saxon keels and foederati infantry in several battles - he went from no stars to three command stars in just a few turns. He's also deranged now.~;)

Related to this: Is the christian always a direct family member or can he be a recruited general or MOTH?