Guide.
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Guide.
Sooo, ya figure with that Island up in the corner yer safe eh?
Not quite.
Here is what I do to get started with Britannia. First off, move a few extra troops onto the mainland to defend your only city there. Ignore ireland for the moment. It's tempting, but you need the troops elsewhere in the beginning. The Gauls will attack. In every start with this one, the Gauls attacked me every time so be prepared. The germans will be open to diplomatic solutions in the beginning. Build your towns towards swordsmen as quickly as possible, then light british chariots. These two units should form the backbone of your early armies and if used correctly they can be devastating to your neighbors. I generally fight all my battles, but if you prefer to automate some make sure you have good generals fighting the battles. I'm certain you can read up about generals/family members somewhere else here.
With the practically destined conflict with the Gauls, you may have to forgo a large and expensive navy and rely on subterfuge to keeps a few ships running to ferry troops to the mainland. Once your lone city on the mainland is secure and you can afford to retrain your armies defending the area, attack Ireland. It's only a few bandits in Tara, but once yours Tara is a valuable resource. From there you can build an army in peace specifically for invading the north coast of europe while using your home island to supply the mainland during the ongoing struggle. I suggest building a temple for creating Woad warriors, as these are powerful units very early in the game even though the temples to Britannia can really help trade. Extra unit? More Trade? Better missiles? Temples will play an important role in your strategy in my opinion. If you are having trouble keeping a navy in the water, use short hops to transport troops across dangerous waters. Move ships up to Tara when it's clear. Wait till next turn. If they are still alive, move troops to Britannia in one move. Then walk the troops down to the south coast and use the same process to move to the mainland. Clever use of your navy is essential in the initial stages.
I cannot stress the importance of the Warcry in battle. The warriors of Britannia are fearsome indeed.
And ta-daa. You have a basic plan of action. I've played Britannia on a medium and hard (I ran into financial problems, my weak point. heh.) and both times this was a successful plan to start. It's my later decisions and lack of patience that cost me.
Using the chariots and swordsmen is a good idea. According to your advice, I didn´t wait for the Gauls to attack me, but struck them immediately at Alesia. This led me into a more than 30 years war with the Gauls, who stood firmly against my forces, Spain and the Julii and conquered all of Spain and the North of Italy.
During my conquest, I experienced it to be the best tactics to have swordsmen or warbands advance, leading the chariots around the flank of the enemys forces and striking from behind, after hand to hand combat had started. This usually set the enemy on the run.
I´ve also been starting to use stone slingers recently, as they can significantly reduce the numbers of barbarian infantry...especially if it does not dare to attack due to the war cries of my forces.
The most important thing to me still remains the use of an experienced General in combination with highly experienced troops.
P. S. Don´t use your light chariots in city assaults...they will get split up in the roads and surely lose their way...
On my first turn, I dragged every spare person I could and headed over to the mainland, and took that city on the northwest coast (Concave something). It put the Gauls on the defensive, and I got a good coastline from which to strike at Tara pretty easily. I left a governor and a warband there and immediately moved back to the mainland. I ignored my navy and just used the one boat to ferry over the channel and head back into port.
Afterwards, I took Lemonum, Lugdunium, and Alesia (in that order), and got trade agreements with the four Roman factions. It's only 30 or so years in, but my money is coming in faster than I can spend it, and I can easily bribe armies out of the way so I can take provinces quickly. The Gauls are basically finished, and I have a good base to strike Germania and the Julii.
As Britain you should be able to handle the Gauls and the Germans but defeating Rome is a challenge. As stated above, ally with Germania and sell trade rights and map info to Gaul before you attack them in Brittany. You'll fight a lot of battles around Aleisa but you should be able to defeat them in detail. Keep your diplomats moving out to sell Alliance/traderights/map info. Aim high. I sold an ATM package to Carthage for 9600 dinar (hard/hard) and it was my first offer! Use this cash to bribe Gauls or rebels and life will be easier.
After the initial Gaulish attack I went back an took Tara. I concentrated on trade there as well as the north of England and my unit production in London and the Continent. Make sure to build the right temple. One increases trade, one produces Woad Warriors then Head Hurlers, and the third Druids.
Trade for the home front/coastal areas and a mix of the other two on the continent. Keep your fleets on "skirmish mode" the gauls have too many to start with and so it's more efficient to ferry troops and family members across the channel and run up north to hide.
Tactics early on are rather basic. Use light chariots to disrupt their formations, they will chase you, and then attack with war bands center and Woads and Swords on the wings. Use the war cry and overwhelm them paying particular attention to killing their leader. War hounds are good to chase routers/disrupt missile units as are barbarian cv.
After you have taken greater France you'll have to make a strategic decision. Where to? In my game I had three options. The Julii were fairly weak and had taken only Segesta and the northern Spanish province. So I could take them on, or continue after the Gauls in the Po valley and Spain, or attack the Germans before they hit me. I was tired of the Gaulish fleets harassing me and figured it would be good to take Milan and venice before the Romans did.
WRONG. As I went for Milan the Julii came north and the Germans got in on the game. With 20/20 hindsight I should have really knocked the Germans for a loop and let the Julii take the Po valley. I used a lot of cash bribing Roman armies but my dinar would have gone farther in Germany. Take out the German capital but anything east of that loot and leave it to rebel, you can always get it later.
After Germany its on to Rome. A whole other story.
That is the part of the story I want to hear! (Cause this is where Britania gets really difficult imho)
I've mainly been using the tactics above. After a quick start at it, I'd say taking Alesia should be your first priority, as elsewise the Gauls reinforce it and its a hard battle to take. From here, Condate Regenum in Brittany should be easy to take - send it two armies, one to hold the bridge and prevent reinforcements while the other sieges it into submission.
I did it the other way around and am slightly regretting it at the moment.
I slightly delayed my rush to Swordsmen to get some boats out of London, as I found the Gauls were slightly too keen to make friends with my boat and I couldn't shake them off. A simple fleet of two boats on Seek and Destroy should keep the channel fairly safe and open. Besides, it feels wrong to be British and surrendering sea power :p
I've also found a few units of slingers are a good investment (well, its already made for you). Not only do I find the Britons with their chariots work naturally defensive against their fellow Barbarians, which means another missile unit is never a bad idea but they clear out town squares nicely as well as killing anyone too chickenshit to charge your lines.
btw - How do you people use Warcry and the Druid's chant ability? So far, I've yet to find out how to use either effectively.
I took all of Italy lat night except for the toe and unfortunately it had more to do with AI failures than my strategy. The Brutii still have massive armies in the Balkans but failed or were slow to either ferry them across to relieve their cities or land behind my line in the middle of the peninsula. I built a fort on the border of Dalmatia? and Venice and this slows them down and allows me to defend against their attacks in the open. I also have assassins taking out their captains (and family members if I'm lucky) and diplomats bribing little stacks.
I exterminate the cities I capture and knock down there temples and build my own. This makes cash not a problem but bribing Romans is expensive so i do it sparingly.
My tactics vs. the Roman armies rely on strategic movement to put my self in a threatening position so they will attack me. (Of course this army has the best troops and leader). The AI often attacks without combing groups before hand so I can often defeat them in detail. Even a unified army has trouble keeping together when I send out missile troops, light chariots and slingers, to harass their flanks. Often they send their cv chasing after them which is fine because they won't be around to flank my rush.
As the Romans advance I position my infantry in one line for the charge. If I have a druid I start him chanting and select the inf group and have them give their war cry. While they're pumping themselves up I send my barbarian cv/heavy chariots along the sidelines so to speak to be in position to double back on the Roman line or pesky skirmishers. By this time my boys are ready to go so I double click the whole group/line to a point behind the enemy line. The Roman units defend in depth in an open grid pattern so my swordsman rush smashes into and around their units. Their is a lot of feverous clicking as I send those units not engaged into the rear or flanks of a nearby unit or the enemy general if he's close. I then pick the best targets for my nonmissile cv and that usually does it. My leader I might sent in to mop up but usually I keep him close.
Again, this tactic assumes you have experienced chosen swordsmen with upgrades as the core of your army with a balance your most experienced inf chariots and barb cv. Non missile cv is essential because your swordsman can't rundown their skirmishers and they will decimate your lightly armed inf. Heavy chariots are decent flank shock troops but are too slow to be effective chasing skirmishers. I use head hurlers as well and send them in behind the rush to where resistance is strongest use them to crack the line.
Pretty soon its mop up time. The above tactics will work on the offensive but you really have to use your skirmishes to pull their formations apart. Also maneuver your inf and try to catch their line out of formation when you charge.
Chariots. A Mini Guide.
Hmmm. After such an impressive title, maybe I should think of some nice stuff to write, no?
Notes: the information I am gathering/have gathered is a compilation of my experiances and the experiances of others as recounted on these great forums. Please feel free to point out an errors I have made/left standing. Also, I am playing Rome: Total Realism (v 2.2), a very nice mod that can be found in many places. It edits out and/or modifies units to more realistically reflect the history of the time period in Rome: Total War. Therefore, this guide may be less useful than you may or may not have hoped. I also generally play on hard/hard. Enough notes.
Chariots in General
A chariot is a cart, usually with two or four wheels pulled by one to four horses. For this guide, I will refer to the chariots that the Britons have in Rome: Total War, and not other chariots. British chariots are very cartlike, according to RTW. They are boxy and have two to three people on them. They are drawn by two horses.
A chariot's value is in its maneuverability and speed on the battlefield. It moves much faster than a normal human being (ie, not RTW infantry). It is also much heavier than a human being. This gives it a strong shock value. A chariot crashing into a human body can be quite detrimental to said body. This is pretty much true in RTW, though maybe less so than in real life. When a chariot drives into a group of men, the men will probably be sent flying or just crushed. The same effects apply for women, you politically correct snobs.
And less on theoretical, dusty stuff on to... no, not the individual units yet, just more general stuff!
British chariots do not perform as well as Egyptian chariots (that don't even exist in Total Realism). I have found (at least in the Realism mod) that the general's chariots - and presumably heavy chariots, too - are not of much use. Yeah, they send troops flying, but they don't actually kill them. This may seem at conflict with my previous remarks. Well... actually, that is at conflict with my previous remarks. And so I find general's chariots to be just about useless, except for applying general pressure to an enemy or mostly harmlessly chasing routers.
Anecdote: One time, I was fighting some rebs in some woods. I had a huge advantage in [general's] chariots. They had a couple more warbands and peasants. But my general was quite good (faction leader and all). So I come into the battle thinking, "Well, time to kick trousers with my shiny chariots." But when I told my chariots to charge the enemy warbands, they would run up to the enemy dogs and... stop. Then advance a little further and... stop. They finally walked into the enemy, immediately getting bogged down and killed. Maybe because this happened in forest... but it left a bad taste in my mouth regarding heavy chariots ever since. [Lost the battle, faction leader, and two family members, by the way. Had to bribe them rebs... humiliating.]
Moral of Story:
Don't let your soldiers die. Or, use chariots wisely. Like, don't use them.
Light Chariots (Breton Light Chariots in Total Realism)
This is the first chariot you can get, besides generals. They are actually very good. They can form Cantabrian Circles, a must for skrimishing cav. They have a good stock of ammo, and are deadly accurate, and can fire while moving. Use them to harrass an enemy unit, then hunt down routers or flank the enemy. I find them very useful.
Realism Note: Breton Light Chariots haven't had their charge reduced, like the other chariots. This may contribute to their effectiveness.
Heavy Chariots (Breton Heavy Chariots in Total Realism)
Haven't gotten to these babies.... suspect they will be utter crap. Please tell me if otherwise... and then I will form my own opinion. ~;)
General's Chariots (Or whatever you call them)
As I may or may not have conveyed to your, dear reader, my opinions of this unit, let me iriterate:
They.
Are.
Useless.
Realism Note: This may be because the charge bonuses have been lowered for most chariots. Don't actually know, because I am not a numbers man.
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This concludes the written part of your SATs.
Uummm. Never Mind. :dizzy2:
Hope this helps people with questions about British chariots. I may or may not come back and append to this, depending on how loudly the masses complain about it. If I insulted or bored you to death...
I dunno, try playing outside or something.
The Britons dont have archers do they?
Nope. Though I really like their slingers, the Brits substitute for the archer.
One thing I dislike about playing the Britons is the lack of any Cavalry. You end up relying on Cavalry Mercs to fulfill that role... (Why oh why didn't you include at least 1 Brit cav unit CA??)
Heavy Chariots I find are best used to disrupt a formation with infantry charging in to take full advantage. But they are not tanks. Generals are too valuble to waste and charging into a dense infantry formation with them is a good way to get them killed.
Your main infantry line needs to be made up of Woad Warriors and Swordsmen to start with. The basic Warband is too weak in my opinion to be of much cop. Once you get the "Chosen" Swordsmen you'll really be able to give the enemy something to worry about.
Head hurlers (despite my reservations about them as a game unit) are quite effective and dangerous. Train these guys up and hold them behind your main battle line to create a hail of sickening trophies into the enemy while your infantry charge. Slingers are also of use out in front of your battle line to harass the enemy, just remember to take them off "fire at will" mode when you put them behind your lines as the enemy closes, or you'll take extra casualties.
Warcry and Chant usage
Both of these abilities are a must for the Britons. It makes you into a very rowdy and noisey sight on the battlefield but really has a shock on your enemies.
When the enemy approaches, just before you are ready to give the charge order. Get your entire infantry line to warcry. This really pumps up your infantry with combat bonuses. Then when they are done immediately charge them in... The shock of the charge should be a severe blow to the enemy battle line.
Druids should always be placed behind your line as support, as like Screeching Women they are not as good in combat as your main infantry. Their chanting helps to bolster the morale of your own units at the expense of the enemy and will make your battle line harder to break.
The one thing I cannot stress enough is Buy CAV MERCS!! Trust me you need them to fill a role that your heavy chariots cannot do very well... Chasing routers and heavy charges into compact infantry formations.
I've just finished my first campaign with the Brits, and found the light chariots the most useful unit I've used in the game...
I like to stick them in front of my infantry, and send them straight into attack using Cantabrian circle. They have several advantages over normal archers, and though I'm not too hot on horse archers, I expect over them too. F'rinstance...
1 They carry so much ammo, for most purposes you can consider the supply unlimited.
2 They're quick, so can escape any attack apartfrom a cavalry charge. They can also draw enemy units away halfway across the battlefield, then leave them to return to the fray
3 Their Cantabrian circle sends a non stop rain of arrows down upon your enemies, according to the game this is a big morale sapper (not noticed that particularly myself)
4 After I'd dealt with the Gauls and Germans, faced the Romans and their General's heavy cavalry, and found that a unit of light chariots could usually stand against a Roman general, and usually start him routing. Against infantry as well, if your chariots do get caught, they'll usally set any light inf to routing, a vast improvement on yer normal archers!
5 And this may sound like a minor point, but due to their skirmishing nature, and the fact that I always sent them to soften up the enemy before the fight, and so caused a lot of casualties, I found that most of my chariot units gained about one experience 'chevron' about every other battle, or more. Very soon I was fielding units with silver and gold experience, by the end, I had one army with three (I found having more than three light chariot units meant too much micro management and stress) units all with three gold chevrons. And those boys were awesome! (Oh, and Tthanks to the bug in the game of course, even having one chariot left with one gold chevron means you can retrain a whole unit with gold exp) The only battle where I managed to use up all my arrows, the three-gold unit killed over 400 Gauls each. That's 1200+ dead gauls using just three units - and no friendly casualties.
Mmmm.... light chariots....
Also, head hurlers rule. They do massive damage - in my experience the most kills per man than any other skirmishing unit - and sap morale quickly. They're also fast and never rout, so don't dismiss them...
The basic formation I use as Britannia is first to put my slingers up in front of my army. The enemy will do one of two things sit there and do nothing or charge. If they sit there, you move your slingers into range and pelt them. If they charge you'll get off a few volleys and the slingers will retreat, move them off to the side of your army, careful that your armys not in the way and continue pelting the enemy during hand to hand.
The next part of my basic strategy is to put all the warband in the army in a line in guard mode. Immediately behind this line are all my swordsman and woad warriors. I came up with this tactic early on because woad warriors have such terrible armor they simply cant be allowed to be attacked, however it works great with swordsman too.
Basically this setup has several advantages, if the enemy tries to overload one side of your line more than the other your heavy units that can change the tide arent locked into the front line and can be sent to attack the side where the main thrust is coming. The shock of a fresh heavy unit charging straight at the enemy after combat already been going on with the warband seems to break them every time. Keeping the swordsmen back guarantees you get the full charge bonus as the enemy is at a stop fighting the warband. Also the warband in guard mode since its so thick never seems to let a cavalry unit through it, which enhances the speed at which you kill the cavalry, especially when your unit of swordsman behind the warband comes charging through the warband.
Also I learned the hard way to never get your general involved in anything other than mopping up activities. Barbarian armies are totally undisciplined and if its an even battle will rout at the drop of a hat without the general.
Also I pick up barbarian cavalry whenever possible, the lack of cavalry is a huge disadvantage for Britannia, and I havent got them yet but hopefully the heavy chariots are better than the generals chariots.
The other problem I've run into is beating the German phalanx. I've managed to get a full cavalry charge on a phalanx units back while it was moving and the unit simply wheeled around pointed its spears at my cavalry and routed the whole lot of them. Phalanx's are kicking my behind I'd like some help with them as nothing i've done has worked so far.
re. the phalanxes, (phalanges?) you need to engage them from the front before charging from behind, and even then be ready to pull your cavalry out of their charge if the spearmen look like they're reforming.
The reason why General chariots stop when ordered to charge is often because skirmish mode is on by default. What happens is the unit will charge. When it hits skirmish minimum distance range it will stop. The only reason it finally engages is because it reaches that minimum distance at which all units will engage in combat (ever had that frustrating experience where the enemy catches your archers, and they *refuse* to quit fighting and retreat?)
Turn off Skirmish mode and General Chariots will charge properly.
I find that Chariots are a lot like a poor-man's Elephant in use. Basically, you charge them in, and follow them up with a good killing unit (like an infantry unit or cavalry). The Chariots/Elephants completely disrupt the target formation (and kill a few guys themselves), and this makes them extremely vulnerable to the follow-up unit.
I've rolled up entire Battle lines of infantry by Elephant/Cavalry combos. Very effective combo, except against well-managed Phalanx units.
The problem is that the best follow-up unit is a unit of cavalry. Unfortunately, the British don't get any except for Mercenary cavalry. Thus it becomes difficult to capitalize upon the disruptive effects of the Chariot, and the Chariots don't kill fast enough to make them useful as killing units themselves.
I've played quite a bit more, really the best way to deal with the German spearman is to pelt them with slingers and light chariots, luckily the AI is dumb so they tend to send one unit at a time. If it was a human vs. human situation of Britannia vs. Germania I dont see it even being a close contest.
More thoughts: head hurlers' use is limited. They need to be a lot closer to loose their missles than slingers, unlike javelins the head hurlers stink at lobbing heads over units. Like Roman javeliners if charged they dont seem to have time to get a shot off before they run away. If you manage to get them to work perfectly they can be devastating but 90% of the time they're fairly useless and often do something stupid and kill a ton of your own men.
I have more respect for light chariots than I used to, they can be used to take out enemy generals, and if charged by lighter cavalry while in the cambrian circle they usually take it out, they also make the enemy concentrate on them which open the enemy up to a charge from your other units. They become less useful when the Romans start bringing the heavier cavalry to battle though. Also they have an annoying tendency to act like idiots and charge randomly into the enemys lines and then just sit there waiting to get killed.
Heavy chariots are not a match for the Roman heavy cavalry, they get bogged down when they hit the heavy cavalry and get killed rather quickly. Against lighter cavalry the heavy chariots are pretty devastating.
Chosen swordsman one on one are somewhere between a Early Legionary Cohort and a Legionary Cohort in overall power. The cohorts dont attack as well but their armor is much better. Obviously Britannia's best unit.
Well thats about it, the chariots and head hurlers need some tweaking. On normal difficulty the game is definitely winnable with Britannia, I'd take out Germania first and weaken Gaul leaving a buffer between Gaul and Rome and then start going after the Romans and the Spanish peninsula.
The Light chariots are fantastic imho. The general's chariot is peculiar but decent enough for chasing routers-entire flank of a Gaul army started to rout after getting peppered with heads; general's chariot kept the whole mass moving to the "red-line"_kept running back and forth through the routers.
The head-hurlers are indecent. Good damage and break the morale of units very quickly; I place one in the middle and wait for the line to "bow" somewhere_start hurling heads into the flank. Great as flankers if you can manage them.
Slingers work well but need way too much micro-management. If behind your units they will mow a path through YOUR units ~:eek:
I remembered from playing Germania how warbands (or anything else) would impale themselves on the spears; now that I'm on the other end of the stick it seems to help if you put warbands in "guard" mode; they still run the final few steps to contact, but I guess because they are defensive they will not throw themselves onto the speerpoints. Flank with whatever you have available.
The main use for Heavy Chariots seems to be disrupting formations. I doubt they will be a mainstay of my army: expensive and 2-turn build req.
I was just trying something weird, but it worked, to my amazement (vh/vh)
In the first turns, I gathered all my troops and familymembers at the coast. I left one unit of peasants in each city.
The rest of my army sailed to the mainland. There they started their long walk to - Italy.
Once I arrived in Italy, I started besieging an juli city. I quickly captured it and the fun began. Every turn I had to fight at least one large stack of either SPQR, Juli or Gaul.
Gaul was easy to rout, and the romans send their generals allways on suicide missions so those battles were not too difficult.
Then I was lucky a few times when I catched a very small stack next to a city and lured the garrison out that way.
So I captured the two remainung juli cities on the mainland, rome and capua.
Now I am still fighting with gaul, scipi and bruti but I am slowly gaining ground.
I was losing money untill I captured Arretium and Armenium, but sooner or later you will break even.
This is not a very safe way to play, but a very challenging and entertaining one.
I started using the name "froglegs" a couple years ago in a CIV 3 forum so I kept it here. They are a favourate snack of a good buddy of mine. I am new to this conference.
IMHO Britannia is the easiest tribe to play at large armies, realistic combat, very hard, very hard settings. In my first attempt I conquered Rome and 50 provinces in the summer of 217 BC. I took Tara first, then took out Gaul, Germannia, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Greece, Dacia, Sicily, Crete, and moved into far Eastern Europe.
Although I fought with all the forces of the Brits, I became very fond of the light chariots. Near the end of the game I was only using light chariots and barbarian light cavalry in my active armies. My greatest oppositon came from chosen archers. Those had to be dealt with. I never faced any post Marius Roman troops.
I then played , same level of difficulty, the Julii. In the first 15 years I was almost taken out by the Gauls. I suspended play in 180 BC holding 43 provences and a commanding lead over everybody else. Britannia was a lot easier to play.
I have restarted again at the same difficulty as the Brits just to see if it was a fluke. It was not. After 25 years of play I have only built light chariots to fight with, peasants to garrison with and barbarian cavalry. I have taken out Gaul, 2/3 of Germany and have all remaining Julii cities under siege. This almost seems too easy!
I have started several games as other tribes -- Greeks, Egypt, Germannia, Carthage for instance but they seem much more difficult to play. Has anybody else used my methods as the Brits? I am using the first patch.
I just had some experiences with Britons (Vh/Vh/Huge). Now it is about 262 BC and I just took the last Gaul settlement in Iberia, and about to face the Senate army on the other side.
Britannia is one of the easier factions to fiddle around. The biggest reason, as many players have pointed out, is their light chariots. With a good number of light chariots you will dominate the barbarian world. To fight more civilized faction - especially in their cities, then you will need higher-end infantry such as chosen swordsman.
You must hate Egyptian generals - same here. These missle chariots moves as fast as any light cavalry, making them really great at skirmishing. Nobody can touch them. But they can't shoot while "driving away" from the enemy, for unknown reason. (driver and shooter are 2 separate soldiers). Therefore, you always want to team up 2 light chariots, so when one runs away from the enemy, the other shoots.
Light chariots seems to have more ammo than horse archers. This might be an illusion because of their bulky size, sometimes not everybody is shooting at the same time (slowly depleting ammo). For the same reason you wear down the enemy slower.
Oh yeah, all you need for light chariot is a pop. 2000 town with black smith (needs trader)! What a gift from the sky.
Against Gaul, Germenia and Iberia/Spain, light chariots are the early wargods because the above factions do not have long range missle units before their pop. reaches 6000. You can easily achieve X vs. 0 kill "heroic" battle results. For sure you won't wait that long; you are going to kill them before they build any chosen archers, right? ~D If they get long range archers, then light chariots's slow kill rate will make them poor rivals of any shoot out.
The bad thing about chariot is in huge unit size I can't really tell the chariots go anywhere in the city. They get stuck at the gate and anywhere in an alley. They sometimes wander into the town square and get slaughtered. There should be a building upgrade "driving school". ~D
This means if you probably want to train a few slingers / head hurlers for city assasult reasons (especially at the town center). Briton slingers are one of the worst slingers you can imagine, though.
For all field battle - you can really forget about swordsman, warband, slingers and all that. All you need is light chariot. Just use your patience to wear them down. When they advance, you back off, and vice versa. ~:cool:
Same as everybody else think, general units (heavy chariots) suck big time. They don't last for more than 10 seconds, and they are bad router chasers. I just fought a bridge battle and half of my generals' body-cargos just ride directly into the water and died. The most useless RTW general unit - Briton heavy chariot. :furious3:
Against enemy archers, chosen archers in particular, I take several of the Brit light chariots off skirmish mode and charge them. This tends to always route the archers although the chariots may take losses.
Against a city I normally just starve them out. However, I have taken cities by buying the required infantry for the ram. I generally use the chariots in loose formation all the time. They seem to behave better that way. Forget about crossing a bridge though. I just finished taking all of Italy by blitzing the pennsula and sieging all the cities from Rome south. Several attacked out at me -- a big mistake for them. The others I waited the 7 turns or so to get.
I always have an easier time against Rome than against Sythians or Dacians because of the chosen archers. For some reason, the Spanish ground troops give me more problems too. Part of it are the hilly battlefields. On defense several times I was almost taken out by a downhill infantry charge against my chariots in the initial setup. I had no high or even flat ground to defend. Again, most of my major battles I fight on defense. I take a crucial position or besiege a city and wait for them to attack me. Often times I am outnumbered 4 or 5 to 1 in defense. I will run my army up a hill to defend if there is not a hill to set up on. Shooting downhill seems to be a big advantage. By the way, having taken all of Italy, Germany, Gaul, and 2/6 of Iberia, by 235BC I still have only built 2 types of troops to date -- light chariots and peasants -- all this at v hard, v hard, large army settings.
The only other tribe that I have looked at that looks anywhere near this easy is Egypt -- and that is only because they are isolated from enemies and have money out the wazoo. Their troops do not seem to fight as well though. That is probably due to there being a lot of horse/camel archers to face and archers in general.
Another thing -- it seems to me that the birth rate for the royal family is a lot higher for the Brits than for the Romans for instance.
had very little problems playing as the brits...light chariots, u rock! ~:cool: u just gotta love 'em! win my battles everytime.
u gotta make use of the warcries and the druid chants...they are there for a reason...by the time the enemy (specially romans) gets to my inf line, having being peppered by the chariots, they rout when my inf. charge.
hmmm...ive realised that the brits do have a tendency to give birth to royals very very much, even rivalling egypt...
yeah, the lack of cavalry is a bummer... :help: :help:
Playing the brits in very hard/very hard level....
How do you get the Druids? I havent gotten them yet. And I have I think finish building everything.
Toughest thing is when the gauls and germans gang up on you.
Key is light chariots. They are available relatiovely early.
I like to use them as skirmisher and shoot up the enemy from teh flanks. Much better than the scythian horsearchers and other horse units. The chariot AI are relatively smart. They never get caught by infantry and when a cavalry unit catches up..the normal cav units are ussually toast vs Chariots.(Not sure why...but cav units always loose vs chariots)
In the beginning I used the Chariots to breakup large AI army so that I could destroy it piecemeal on teh battle field. Pretty cool effect. Large parts of the armies would be running around behind the chariots. The infantry would be used to finish the armys piecemeal.
Heavy Chariots...the lack of cavalry makes it difficult to exploit the holes they create when they charge.
I agree with the view that Chariots are actually elephants light. They bust open most infantry, except if they have spears.
Just make sure when they have charged that there's a followup unit to finish off the unit that was charged.(*barbarian cav are like gold) The lack of good mop up units severely handicap the chariots.
A good idea is to use wardogs...tehy are great killers. Just make sure to have a couple of units and to use them wisely. Once unleasghed they are out of control.
I'm sorry if this sounds stupid but I have a short question.
I always liked Britannia's strategic locations and stuff, but I've been avoiding playing as them since I bought Rome. (While playing as Carthage or the "beloved" Seleucids for several times.) It seems my generals got themselves easily killed, as if I am an AI! :charge:
How can I use those Britannia's chariots effectively? I mean, even though my general flank, not charging head-on or whatever, he still got himself killed in a rebel hunt battle! :furious3:
This sounds noob, I'm sure, but I really want to play them. However, I couldn't withstand the continuous loss of my precious generals. :embarassed:
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
P.S. This is my first post ~:)
General's Chariots suck. Light Chariots are paper.
You've got to keep Chariots away from the main lines. Your Chariots aren't just sturdy enough.
Light Chariots kill so slow, but apparently, the Gauls and Germans don't know how to field cavalry, let alone Archers.
It's nice to have a decent early game missile cavalry + Infantry army.
Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Don't have anything to quote but
BELIEVE me if you wanna do anything when playing with Britannia you have to use swordsmens believe me swordsmen are like the best unit, you can train them in almost the beginning of the game, once (in armour) upgraded highly skilled and with the warcry really effective as i've read here before, in Britannia you can first pepper them with a bit o' arrows from the chariots and then you can just charge them with a warcry'ing bunch of swordsmens usually the enemy will start to run, cuz, the arrows was a first moral blow, and after they're a bit shaken the enemy will runn at the first warcry'ing son of a gun believe me, o yeah also Warhounds are also effective but only in non-besieging battles in besieging battles they'll loose theyre way believe me and Warhounds are also an incredible moral blow believe me
Conclusion: Swordsmens, Warhounds GOOD!
playing on vh/vh it was very difficult to get very comfrotable. with playing with the britons. (just coming off a glorious camapaign with the julii).
first you lose money in your capital :furious3: and it never makes any money for you. its just frustrating. you lose all your money so quick. it's hard to build an army with no money. and you slowly get killed off by your neighbors gaul and germania later. it's just a pain in the rear :furious3:
p.s. this is my 2 post.
I expanded into Gaul and then took over Spain, by the time i was finished with that i was in a war with Germania. After wiping out Gaul,Spain, and Germania I focused on Italy. Don't start a war with Dacia bc you need all the help you can get. Wiping out all the Italian Factions will be tough but as long as u have some diplomats outside your cities ready to bribe you should be fine until you own Italy
It's me again.
I've just went through 20 more turns and found that swordsman and warhounds are the bomb to use. They are the best before you get chariots and other good units. I've started a war with both the gauls and the germans.
So, far my conquests are a success. I've captured all of the german lands and most of the gaul territory. I've made alliances with both the dacians and the spanish. Because I know the julli and the other roman factions are not to be trusted.
I've got a little money and tons of land.
right later
ohhhhhhhhh yeah i forgot anybody know how to get druids. :help:
if you can :embarassed:
yea i wanted to kno that too but i bet u have to get the best form of the temple thing that lets u make woad warriors
I ain't played Britons yet, but for the Gauls you need the final Temple of Epona. There is a full temple guide in the guide section if I recall, so you can find out for sure there.
Edit - Of course I meant Esus, not Epona (knew it began with E, like many great things).
The temple guide can be found in Ludus Magna section and according to that you need the Sacred Grove of Brigantia.
If you want to play a faction where you can sit and rack in the money, Britannia is for you, for some reason that island generates a lot of trade.
Unforunatly, they are in a tough position for conquest. they have the germans to the southeast, and with their units they will cause havoc on your leaders unit :help: . So most wouldn't go that route, the only other choice would to go south into Gaul. though that cause problems in the long run, because of the size of their empire and the similarties in your troops :help: .
I personally haven't really found a way to harness the trade into a profitable conquest :furious3: . but there are always a chance for a lucky break.
PS. reply if you can tell me a good route to take.
If you're one of those people who believe that generals should be leading their soldiers into battle (and I am), then perhaps Britannia is NOT for you. Britannia's generals ride on scythed chariots, and I have absolutely no idea how these things work. Yes, they disrupt formations, but they don't actually -kill- anyone, mostly they just push people over. Should you use them on an enemy unit pinned down by your forces, they'll likely mow down as many of your own people as the enemy. If you use them on routers, they'll keep running over them for hours, killing the routers in ones and twos. And Zeus forbid that you should try using them for a frontal charge. They're naturally frail compounded with probably low experience because they kill very few enemies per battle.
Otherwise, like the other 'barbarian' factions, Britannia gets pretty strong militarily with fewer buildings. Unlike the other barbarian factions, the Britons can develop a good economy early because all their starting provinces allow for sea trade, plus the bonus you get for building the 'merchant temples'. So while Gaul is practically identical to Britannia except that they get excellent archers, and Germania has much stronger infantry, archers, AND Gothic Cavalry (keeping in mind that all barbarian factions can build powerful units sooner), Britannia's economy makes Britannia the faction most able to zerg rush all others. Supposedly, Britannia's military revolves around the chariot, but as stated in the 1st paragraph, I find their melee chariots very hard to use effectively. However, they get Light Chariots; missile chariots, which makes them the 'horse archer' barbarian faction, and this is what makes Britannia a force to be reckoned with, or at least, outright devious compared to your infantry-intensive neighbours.
There's really nothing to playing Britannia, especially if you've played another barbarian faction already. Build > Get Denarii > Buy troops > ZOMG RUSH > Rinse, repeat. If you're a veteran of 'civilized' factions, and depending on your tactical style, barbarians can be either liberating or annoying. Generally your battles become Braveheart-esque pile-ups. You never ever have to think about such silly civilized notions like finesse or subtlety.
^lmaoQuote:
Originally Posted by roman god's
~:)
Anyways, I find that chariots can be used very successfully. The trick is to break up formations with skirmishers and light chariots, then bring in the heavy stuff to roll them over then wipe them out with the main force.
at the beginning only fight whe n you r sure u can win :charge: :charge: :charge: :charge: :charge: :duel: :duel: :duel: :help: :help: :furious3: ~:cheers: :book:
One of my fave games was as the Brits and I loved my chariots. Admittedly they're dangerous things and i lost more than one general using them to directly assault enemy formations. Seems with cavalry your general is pretty safe up until your bodyguard has been decemated but with Chariots this doesn't look to be the case. I found that they were great at mowing down retreating warriors and the chariots with archers were good for getting cheap archers early on and they have a long range.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dominic
The chariots are actually great rout chasers, but not independently. I will usually send the chariots after the fleeing enemies, being careful to choose the faster troops first (I've caught cavalry with chariots, even through wooded areas. Are chariots naturally faster than plain ol' horses?), then send the faster foot troops (slinger/woad warriors) after them as well. The chariots, if you plan it well, will run through the fleeing troops, killing some and knocking the rest down, hopefully through multiple units. Your fast troops will catch up pretty quickly when the enemy are lying on their backs, and you'll have few problems wiping everything out.
Other than that, missile-less chariots are best used as shock troops, I find. Charge your opponents from behind with them and run them over, then pull them out and do it again. Even the mere presence of them is enough to screw around with the enemy's morale, so it's not really a bad idea to have them close, even if you're apprehensive about their actual combat ability.
Hm... Well. what i love about the Britons are their their army.. although admittedly not as good as some other factions. Just playing a short game on M/M with them.
The fact that i had 2 10 star generals MIGHT have changed things a little.. but that was very fun (slaughtered 4 full-stack gaulish armies in a row with that lovely army, then another 2 a few turns later) - allowed me to take over most of Gaul at barely any cost. The worst battle was losing 600 soldiers on huge size with that army. the best battle was losing 50 soldiers ~D
My usual army was usually this: 1 general, 3 light chariots, 2 barbarian cavalry mercenaries, 3 swordsmen, 2 woad warriors, 2 war hounds and the rest were warbands. That actually worked quite well, although i really do need to test WITHOUT a 10 star general (my battles were usually really short... as soon as i charged one flank with 2 chariots and 2 cavalry the rest of the enemy army just melted away really really fast). I would probably replace everything the swordsmen and the warbands with Chosen Swordsmen later, but the warbands are STILL decently useful for absorbing tough stuff like a cavalry charge, since their huge numbers allow them to absorb a cavalry charge very well.
Their position is actually one of the better ones i've seen (and one which i love to use), since they only have ONE land border. Take that Irish province early and its very much worth it, since its decent cash, and it really helps since you still only need one army to hold your mainland city. In my entire game i never actually bothered with keeping any garisson on the islands, just used 2 little navies to clean up all the Gallic ships floating around it. This means that you can defend your mainland provinces VERY well with your standing armies without suffering much in upkeep. In about 60 turns I managed to get a very very nice income , getting enough to upkeep 3 full-stack armies to hold my 4 Gallic provinces (the 4 in the top left) and still gain 1000-2000+ denarii in profit every turn. (i didn't need to train many troops though, since i was in a consolidation/building phase. So people who rush the game might find yourself suffering a little economy-wise)
Just remember with the Britons, you can actually gain a LOT by improving your income FIRST because of the amount of trade you can get from your provinces. Plus, its not really that hard to defend your only vulnerable city on the mainland.
I would recommend to take out most of Gaul and then take over the Iberian peninsula first. Try not to go anywhere near the Romans, at all, until you've secured the Iberian peninsula. Just maintain a very weak Gallic nation as a buffer between you and the Julii. I personally reckon its too risky to take out the Romans in a fair fight - so outnumber them, and outnumber them badly. But at least you've got one thing to look foward to. The Julii are going to be the only real opposition you're going to face going down south. The Scipii are usually running around in Africa and wiping the floor with Carthage and Numidia, and the Brutii are in Greece. As a result... their armies on the Italian peninsula, and Sicily, are at best skeleton forces.
Actually, blitzing fast is critical as you want to get to the Romans before they reform.
Your chariot archers are powerful but are highly vulnerable to archers. Once they get archer auxilia, your chariots are toast. Their super high post-marian armor for infantry and cav will also destroy hopes of killing them through missiles.
Chosen swords can fight their early and even late legions to a standstill but you lose much of the edge in chariots.
my british campaign went well to start with and i blitzed through the gaul but problems came when i (stupidly) cancelled my alliance with the julii.. they attacked and i had to withdraw back to central gaul! i opposed the romans too soon and paid the price!
What were the army compositions? Warbands don't do very well vs. hastatis. loads of chariots can maul their cav and leave the infantry exposed to constant missile fire.
Swordsmen are also fairly low tech and powerful.
chosen swordsmen, missile chariots and head hurlers are the best troops for britain! briliant i love them!
i found brittiania a lot of fun there chariots are there thing .dont even think about goin fro germinia they will beat u go for gaul and make friends with germinia.after u take gaul make sure u have enough men to cover ur towns dont leave them open germinia wil break the alliance well thye did with me i had row of herioc vistorys all through france i called it the road to victory i got to rome then they forced me back a bit .i completed the short campaign but not long .have fun littlegannon. :duel: ~:)
Hey, you stealing on my Road To Victory?!?! Remember, it was a joint campaign! ~:cheers: ~:cool: ~D lol
i agree greg sorry
Anyway, back on topic. My recommendation for the Britons is to recruit as many Woad Warriors as you can, and then blitz the Gaul as quickly as you can. Sign a peace treaty with the Germans to prolong their attack (it should come sooner or later) and concentrate on the Gaul. If you can take a lot of their territory it will cripple them. But don't stop and give them time to recover.. Head into Spain to take Numantia with one army and send an army down to take Masilla and Narbo Martius..
When you go for Mediolanium and Patavium, be careful with the Julii they could attack, it's wise to sign an alliance with them beforehand if you can. Good luck!
Yo hi all Brittania fans! ~D I'm playing a short campaign on M/M v1.2 with this cool faction and must say Brits totaly rock! ~:cool: Yeah man their barbarian-fanatical units (Woad Warriors ~:eek: , Head Hurlers ~:eek: , Druids (their chanting is so COOL! ~:cool: )) and British Chariots make all the foes piss their pants and rout very quickly, especially if you attack before war cry. :duel: :charge:
So here's what I've learned from playing this campaign. Firstly took everything I had from Britannia Island to mainland, left only a minimal garnison (1peasants) in each town and attacked Gaul's settlement Alesia. As guys here advised I signed treaty with Germans to prevent war on two fronts (later those bastards attacked me still but I've wiped out their full stack army :duel: ). So once I was at war with Gaul I didn't stop and later Gaul faction only had 2 settlements in Northern Italy and one in the center of Spain. Now it's about 240bc in my short campaign (cause you can get all this faction's units in a short period, not like e.g. romans), I have 13 provinces (2 remaining and the destruction of Gaul for victory), (also I kicked some German ass before that.)
What about economy? First priority would be ports, roads, farm upgrades (if the fertility is high) then comes trade increasing buildings (trader, market ...)
At the beginning I only build military buildings in few town where they where needed the most, cause Brits' economy is poor at the start of the game, you need to improve it. So focus on economy at the beginning :bow:
Must mention that it is important also to build watchtowers. They are very cool for monitoring bandits' and especially enemy movement. Find a suitable location for them (mostly on a hill or road). I find forts also very useful in chokepoints (like river crossings, mountain pass). I keep in them a garnison of about 4 units (1 ranged, 1 cavalry, 2 infantry) to destroy bandits and also to defend borders.
What about army composition? Well my most balanced army as Brits would be like this: 2-4 brit light or heavy chariots on the wings of army (although I like archer chariots more) - this is the best unit of Britannia IMO, 2 ranged foot units (slingers or later head hurlers) place them in front of the army, 2 barbcavmerc if you can afford it (heavy cav is the drawback in Brits army), few units of wardogs, the rest is infantry: warband (later swordsmen and chosen swordsmen) as the main line, druids just behind them to support fighters with chanting, on the infantry wings there should be some units of Woad Warriors or Swodsmen for flanking operations, and of course the army should have a decent general. I place him behind main force in the center. Remember always to use the war cry as this improves morale and gives bonuses for attack. So that's about all I've learned while playing this wonderful faction BRITANNIA! Yeah WE SHALLlll RUUUULE! FEARRRRR USSSS! ~D Good luck everyone!
Brilliant strategy, one tip I have to add: Don't use warcry too late. It takes them a while to finish it, and if they dont finish it, I don't think it has the full effect..Quote:
Originally Posted by Grand Duke Vytautas of the Lithuanians
Good Luck everyone with one of the most exciting factions!!
but dont use it too early i ave had experince of using warcry too early and they dont use the power of the chargeQuote:
Originally Posted by Craterus
It does give a charge bonus, but the main bonus is in the attack (+4?) so you want to warcry and then charge on the advancing enemy immediately afterwards.. Timing is essential, you want the enemy to be close enough so you can engage almost immediately after warcry, but not close enough that they attack you before you finish your warcry. :duel:
Yes, thanks Craterus, got your point :bow: . Just wondering does warcry affects gives some bonuses on defence :duel: , say the enemy is charging and my unit has already finished taunting. What then? Anyway, I noticed that warcry also gives quite a blow to enemy's morale (e.g. simple peasants almost run away).
I think it adds +4 to attack but I'm not sure of it's effects on defence. I think it has a positive effect on their morale. I'm all of it's effects are positive. It's that extra before they run into battle.
By the way, if the enemy is charging at you and you've finished your warcry, I recommend that you charge straight back at them. The warcry gives a brilliant charge bonus so it's almost definite your charge will be more powerful so you'll do loads more damage.
If it is cavalry that is charging towards you, remain still, this absorbs the charge better than if the unit is moving.
Hope I've helped. ~;)
u can hardly talk craterus u are the one in our campaigns that said to charge int o the horses i taught u it absorbed it stop taking credit for stuff that u didnt no till i told u
I didn't take credit for the cavalry charge part, hence the change in paragraph. My personal tips for people are in the paragraph above. Also, you need to make sure your lines are a few rows deep as to absorb the charge better. It doesn't matter as much if you are stationary, I think the unit depth matters more. ~D ~:cheers:
Yo dude, chill out anyway, I'm just passing on the knowledge, be thankful yu have some. ~D ~:cheers:
but it think chariots are better to fight the cavalry there chariots are alrite but not as good a egpytian .i found there light chariots alot of use because they are good for rounding enemys after they rout and weaken the enemy in the fight with arrows .
Mobile missiles (missile cavalry and missile chariots) are brilliant units in RTW.
The Egyptian charioteers were the best/most experienced at driving chariots but I think it is easier to drive chariots over sand than over British and French terrain.
The heavy chariots are better at killing routing units but chariots are overly crap at this. They keep running over the routing men but they don't kill them. I recommend to send merc barbarian cavalry (if you've got some) after routing enemies because they would do a much better and faster job.
I love Britannia, it's such an exciting faction... ~D ~D ~:cool: ~:cool:
Craterus had some lovely tips. There's a few misconceptions posted that i'd like to correct from other posters though.
(1) Druids are created at a 'sacred circle of brigantia.' Druids are actually a very tough nut to crack. They tend to be a priority target for the enemy, so take advantage of this (sort of like the tendency of infantry, whilst charging, to focus on the machinegun post)
(2) I've been pondering the whole "occupy settlement vs exterminate" and have discovered that taxation isn't linear to population (so that extermination doesn't affect your bottom line in the long run like you'd think)(3) Sea trade routes are critical. I find Germania is easy to form trade agreements with and is quite friendly in the long term. And attacking across the alps like hannibal is NOT a good idea. It's better to have trade agreements with the poncy romans than not (unless you take Craterus' advice and gain alliance with paranoid Julii). Besides, those two cities have incredibly high base farming values of 4.0% and 5.5%...personally, the potential loss of sea trade with the romans makes such a maneuver highly unwise. Okay, so who to attack? Well, the spaniards are stupidly easy to defeat using Chariot Archers (preferably built at a captured Gaul-built sacred circle of Epona, and upgraded at Abnoba/weaponsmith)
- i'll experiment to test this, but from what i've studied population centres between 4000-12000 all seem to give taxes (at very high; no governors) of approx 1000-1500
(4) Combat. I never buy Swordsmen except for the chosen kind for urban combat; Headhurlers are a mixed bag, but like all javelin-ranged units i hate them (besides, have you SEEN how long the chariot archer ammo lasts?!?! omfg!) Oh, and i refuse to use wardogs, but love running them over with chariots. yum! My optimal army is three groups of 3 chariot archers, 2 druids, 3 spears, 3 woad warriors, 2 merc cav and a general with these ancilliaries:
- good luck finding a gaulish temple of epona. they seemed to prefer the other types. Teutatis is great for all your ground troops except druids/woad/heads
(5) Civil Admin. Well, not needing archery range, stables nor advanced halls of heroes, things become rather cheap indeed. Your major centre of concern, ironically, is the sea. Having some doofus blockade your best income source really is a problem. Getting "Shipwrights" is a major priority, but you'll really want to avoid building ANY farming upgrades - is that little bit extra cash going to outweight the 100gp/turn you'll need for those peasants for public order? I'd recommend getting into the habit of building "temples" to Brigandia to boost pop (don't bother with markets beyond a trading post - they don't increase beyond +0.5%) then tearing the temple down once you hit 12000 and build the next governor upgrade, and building something useful in it's place (though having a sacred circle to brig at Tara is perfect cause it's only got 1% base farming)...So, basically, it's all about Temples and Ports with market upgrades secondary and a blacksmith/weaponsmith for your core troop building centres. Corruption is based on distance from your capital. I've found that an empire stretching from Patavium up north to Mogontiacum (bypassing Iuvavum) and west to spain, the best spot for your capital is Alesia...As for where to build your temples to Andrasta? Right next to a province with a captured "teutonis"/"epona"/"abnoba", with them all bunched together preferably - preferably landlocked provinces. You can import your druids from Tara. Have temples to Britannia at every other 'Minor City' you have - except at places where you've captured some temple that you like. Your governors should only be placed at troop building centers or major trading ports.
- Priest (of Andrasta)
- (Famous) Warrior
- Merc(enary Captain)
- (Priestess of) Brig
- (Wise) Woman
- Bard
- Druid (healing)
- one free slot for usually Witch, but bodyguard is nice too.
(5)Agents. I've found two diplomats can cover the entire map, clockwise, if you send one inland and the other along the coast. it worked out they were within a season of each other once they reached western sahara, before dropping dead. I figure they had the most fun of any of my troops. Before patch 1.2 i found that spies would become plague carriers. Great if you wanted to include WMD in your game, but lousy when the AI got you too...i'm rather curious after the patch because i find spies tend to die instead of becoming carriers. This is important because i tended to go overkill on my counterespionage network - they're expensive to maintain! Anyways, you'll need spies and assassins. Never build watch towers, but place a spy into each fort you build (more on that later) plus have one in each of your non-britain cities (i used to have two). Buy assassins and place two per army (i used to have three)...I'd prefer to use diplomats for fort maintenace duty, but they'd probably get killed off and i'd lose the fort AND the diplomat.
- [i]i found, with 22 provinces, i only had about 7 governors
- Tara
- (Priestess of) Brig
- (Priestess of) Brit
- (wise) Man
- (wise) Woman
- Civil(ized slave)
- Bard
- Silk/Spice (merchant)
- open slot, usually witch, but a 'merchant' you can import all the way from a roman city is nice.
Inland production centres- (Priest of) Andrasta
- (famous) Warrior
- Merc(enary captain)
- (Priestess of) Brig
- Civil(ized slave)
- Bard
- (master) Smith
- open slot, usually witch, but a roman gotten 'overseer' is nice...a wiseman is nice, but i found them hard to come by in the later game. hoard them!
coastal production centers- (Priest of) Andrasta
- (famous) Warrior
- Merc(enary captain)
- (Priestess of) Brit
- Bard
- Silk/Spice (merchant)
- (master) Smith
- open slot, usually civilized slave (or wiseman), but a 'merchant' you got from a roman city is awesome.
major coast trade zones (london, etc)- (Priest of) Andrasta
- (Priestess of) Brig
- (Priestess of) Brit
- (wise) Man
- Civil(ized slave)
- Bard
- Silk/Spice (merchant)
- open slot, witch, but a 'merchant' you got from a roman city is awesome, especially for london.
druids would be nice for governors, but they're hard to come by (even worse are wise men) so hoard them for your war generals. Besides, witches increase chance for offspring which i think is more important in the long run(6) Forts. Watch Towers suck. Forts rule, except do you place a peasant in them to maintain or an agent? Well, it's simple: if you have merely a spy maintaining a fort it'll never be destroyed, plus it serves as a watch tower too! I have about less than a dozen in my empire and i prefer to build them between cities early on in the game and have them at the range of an infantry movement. I tend to grow attached to these for sentimental value, and really ought to lower my overhead. But they're so darned cute! Besides, in a pinch you can shove a peasant unit in them and totally block a strategic passage for dirt cheap. However, once you're at the stage of using 'rally points' for troop building later on in the game you'll want to remove any forts enroute. By that time you'll have an counterinsurgency army running about making sure your recruits don't get bushwacked by ambushes or surprise raids.
- replace them once they hit 60, and strip their retinues, then send the old godgers off to spy on foreign cities - great for sieges cause the doors might be open. Do the same with assassins but try to kill the assassins off with hard missions, since they're super expensive to maintain. Don't bother doing maintenance on diplomats.
(7) Beer. Well, i think the last topic should be where to build those pubs. I recommend you build them only at cities where there's no governor, that way you can boost the tax rate to very high...i'm fairly certain i see a correlation between drunken ancillaries and vices cropping up when i have taverns/bardics.
- btw, as for peasants? exporting peasants from 'shrines of teutonis' is a great idea. Just exterminate each city you capture and build some peasants fast and then replace them with the upgraded kind later.
so, besides the neat 'overseer'/'merchant' ancilliaries you can get from roman cities, there's not much point in ruining trade agreements with them. Place some forts in the alp passes with a peasant in them and forget about the last Gaulish provinces.
oh, silly me. the other reason not to tick the romans off is that chariot archers tend to SUCK against armies backed up by onagers and ballistas and other nasty icky siege stuff. actually, if someone can explain how to take out a roman army on a level playing field (ie. no terrain issues) i'd be most grateful. I've become rather lazy playing brits and cruising around in my souped up chariot.
ahhhhh...the days of holding off hordes of shogun armies with a balanced army. *sigh*
It was kind of lucky when we got our alliance with the Julii but they didn't help us out with the Gaul.. and when we walked through their land to get to Patavium, they cancelled the alliance and attacked us..
Try and get the alliance if you can, but don't don anything that might annoy them, as MajorFreak says: They are paranoid.
Okay, who's gotten the fancier retinue folk? i think the embalmer is a typo from egyptians. The others? dunno. Anyone else gotten the listed stuff?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinner
QUICK START
forgive me for not reading the guide listed in the first page. i've probably repeated alot of advice and i'll further add to repetition. But, i feel this way i can compare notes and give an honest critique later. Anyhows, on with it:
Relevant settings are medium campaign/battle difficulty; Most important issues at the very beginning areWhat you'll be doing is preparing to blitz through gaul (avoiding the alps) on your way to spain - Get upgrades to large towns as a priority, plus getting a blacksmith churning out archer chariots at london. Though i'm not really sure how fast you can do this...i'll get back on this subject later today.
- right off the bat, before you do anything else, disband the 2 mainland 'warbands', plus the 'slinger'
- secondly, move Cynfawr a tiny bit southwest to that 'beak' on the coast, and take the spy, plus the archer chariot at london, and send them to Cynfawr
- Take the general in europe and place him into the city there. Then move your ship due south to the coast and board that archer chariot standing near the shore. Pack them off to where Cynfawr is standing.
- move all other 'warbands' and 'slingers' to 'britannia superior' and disband them there (even the ones at london. The upkeep of troops you won't need right away is horrendous)
- at all cities queue up Brigantia shrine then Trader, if needed. At london, instead queue up a Port plus Brigantia, then Trader (roads are cute, but we won't need the movement bonus just yet.)
- Reduce all taxes to low
- queue up two diplomats at London
- Diplomat roaming...To make things simple, just send the starting diplomat towards approx location of the city, Trier.
SECOND TURN- with the diplomat, go get an alliance and trade rights with germany at Trier and then send him off to where Mogontiacum should be (the idea being to get a quick spot of the cities for future reference)
THIRD TURN- Build a boat
- Get the diplomat to Mogontiacum and then off to where Iuvavum should be.
- Now, all there's left to do is grab the shore army and unload at the irish fishing village, along the coast.
- you detach the spy first, from the unloaded army, and into Tara (25% chance to gain entry without siege gear)
- then, lay siege
FOURTH TURN- Diplomatic exodus: getting diplomats roaming around. One for italy/greece (head down south through Alesia). two for going straight east - one aimed at the black sea the other going across the top of the map. (they'll go clockwise around the map after that ending up at sahara; see earlier post for details)...i don't know what you'll do with the italy/greek diplomat (open up a bizarre at constantinopal when he retires?)
- Queue up a Trader at london, mines at Deva and Roads at Sama
- Attack Tara. You'll have enough time to pepper the enemy to death, and the new 1.2 patch lures the troops out chasing arrows enough to rout so you can get easy kills for your druids.
- Occupy option at victory screen, then build shrine of brigant plus a peasant
FIFTH TURN- You'll have a coming of age now, plus Sama will upgrade to next settlement type.
- grab the spy from tara and send him down south to europe to begin scouting/infiltrating towns (builds up his skill)...grab the other ship and send it to tara
- Now, you'll have a while before you're cranking out archer chariots so use Cynfawr to build watchtowers around ireland and britain just in case you spot a rebel force - i'd recommend setting them up along the coastline to spot ships too
- always check your diplomats...having them get "blocked path" during AI movement phase slows them down too much
SIXTH TURN- Queue up blacksmith then sacred grove at london
- shift governor from ebur to deva
- remember diplomats
- continue monitoring your spy movements and Cynfawr's tower building spree.
SEVENTH TURN- Queue up Port, Blacksmith and sacred grove at Sama...
I think the really large issue for this "blitz" strategy is the goal of also capturing high-end gaulish temples. I wonder how long it takes till they have them. guess i'll have to use spies and stuff...oh bugger, i spied around and Gaul's still holding mamma's apron strings. looks like any blitz will have to chuck the idea of grabbing advanced gaulish temples.
you'll have 7 archer chariots built from london and sama by turn 14 to add to your current 2 units. It's a shame the AI is so stupid when it comes to sieges because that's pretty much all you'll need to blitz Gaul and slam into spain. Heck, why not build a few more, split the force in two and use your heir and good ol' Cynfawr to pincer movement south then west into spain.:furious3:
- i think the seige AI problem doesn't have an easy solution, though stopping them parading in front of a mass of archers would be a good thing. not to mention giving those towers a better range and angle of attack would stop folks like me camping outside the main gates...the thought of rushing a mass of defenders hiding behind competent guard towers with only chariot archers isn't putting a smile on my face. Come to think of it, i'll bet they toned guard towers down because of the overly sadistic castles in Medieval:Total War
what really irks me is the way taxes were set up. there's no real disincentive to extermination (if pop is too high), setting tax to low, building a few cheap peasants, and continuing with the conquest a couple turns later. simply because of the law of diminishing returns that's been coded in
Priest of Andrasta is a good ancillary +1 command, 15%movement point bonus ~D
Yea, it's quite good, all the priests have positive effects but not many increase your generals' commanding talent.
i think they should have more traits and that in the expasion and me and craterus had a witch with one of our brittianna campagin but they seem to get all the same traits in our game i think it should be changed a bit!!!
I think there are enough trait and ancillaries.. I think the XP should improve AI and give AI factions a boost against the Romans. I mean Carthage actually have a chance against the Scipii, Greece have a chance vs. Brutii, Macedon vs. Brutii..
If it was 50/50 between these it would make the campaigns more unpredictable..
I know if I play 50 years without seeing any of the Brutii expansion and then I was to toggle_fow.. I know the Brutii would be in Macedon and Greece. And I know Scipii would be in Carthage.
MajorFreak, getting highend Gaulish temples is very hard. I've been waiting in my Roman games to see a Sacred Circle of Epona so I can get the really great +5 xp pantheon. Never happens in my games. I'm usually way past 50 provinces by that time. They don't quick build temples it seems.
Disbanding troops is unnecessary. Tech to port and boats. Head for Bordensholm and also ship across the channel to attack Alesia ASAP. That type of blitz would leave you as the dominant power in Western Europe.
Alesia is key as it cripples your main opponent the Gauls and also gets you a large town early on the front lines capable of producing chariot archers soon.
Here some comments about early units:
all your infantry is bad and you have no real cav. However you have some excentric unit types and there are three ways to win your battles:
1. applied psychology
Your units are made to freighten the enemy more than to fight it. With all your singing and screaming units, head hurlers and some chariots in their back the enemy sometimes is willing to route.
2. heavy chariots
they are undisiplined and hard to control. It takes time to turn them. They do not kill infantry as effective as other heavy cav, but they are very good against light cav. And they are beyond compare if you just want to break a frontline. So option 2 is to attack the flak or rear with heavy chariots, break the formation, make the enemy route and chase it with your inf.
3. a combination of 1 and 2
The Britons' line-up is in some respects indeed quite unique for a Western faction, and even more so for a Barbarian faction. Exploit this, and you will see awesome results. Your strategies work well, but if you allow I might add another one from a friend of mine:
4) Your heavy chariots are great for slaughtering the enemy cav and disrupting his infantry formations....but they fare poorly against spearmen and enemy javs. You have another option: Build armies consisting of the general and as many light chariots as you wish, maybe some heavies for protection...and you can take on almost any army westerners can field against you without a slight worry about being outnumbered 4:1. Light chariots are like horse archers, just better (because they are chariots and because they have a rather high missile attack), and no Western faction has an army that can match them.
The single weakness comes up if you face a large amount of foot archers, but the AI rarely uses them in masses. I'm feeling somewhat uneasy about wiping the floor with the Senate army while fielding only 2nd level units ~D That way, it's almost too effective. Oh, and cities you either have to starve out or wait until you have brought up some (chosen) swordsmen to clear the streets (never ever use chariots for this). But it's fun!
Actually, if it's non-phalanx, then smashing through with 6+ chariots could work.
As for killing Senate, what do you think Scythia has the luxury of doing? With lvl 1 units (Scythian HAs). Germania can also kill the Senate just spamming spear warbands again lvl 1.
I'm playing VH/VH as Britannia right now, making around 4000 denarii a turn. I'm less than two dozen turns in, but I already control most of Gaul (Cisalpine Gaul and Venetia aren't mine yet, along with the Gaullic portion of the Iberian peninsula), and I'm now making my way into Germania (and beating the crap out of them with a hundred-or-so less men, simply because my chariot generals are that good) after they stabbed me in the back.
Are you autocalcing? Chariot generals stink in combat that you fight out.
Not in my experience. With one chariot general and four or five warbands, I can easily take out that many spear warbands (along with wardogs and whatever other units are tagging along) without more than 10 total losses. Sicne the chariot general is such a "big" unit, the spear warbands almost invariably end up facing him with their phalanx, allowing your warbands to run into them from the side. At that point, run your chariot general around and run into them from the other side. It hasn't failed me yet.
a chariot general and 4 or 5 warbands?
that's far more than 100 men unless you are playing on small unit sizes.
Regular. Maybe it's different with large or huge units, but seeing as how I'm still using a GeForce2 in this day and age, that won't be happening any time soon.
And that was more of an example; I beat a full-stack Germanic army with a pair of chariot generals, 2 swordsmen, a slinger, and the rest of the half stack filled out with warbands last night.
ok that beats it. Spearmen should do it! Pure HAs though...I never attacked them with Scythia but customized a combat with an army of a couple of vanilla HAs plus two generals against what the Senate is likely to put up by the time you reach it...the infantry was easily outmaneuvred of course but my HAs could hardly shoot them to pieces because they were so busy evading their 5 general units. When they were finally killed I had too little missile cav left to effectively engage the Principes....I'm sure to have missed something but how are you dealing with this %&$§*#-load of family cav?Quote:
Originally Posted by katank
OMG OMG OMG!!!! ~:cool:
i have a great way to kick ass against the romans using chariots.....
so there i was...in the forest in etruria(arretium) and julii attacked me...this was me moving my whole civ to rome to start anew...andthe musta been spamming hastati cos all there army was was 10 untis of (huge) hastati and 1 unit of equites. so now i had all my chariots in one army and all my infantry/archers in another, the hcariot army was facing them. I thought i was going to lose cos all i had was bronze sword upgrade and most of them had no exp but thank god for crappy ai cos the marching they did one unit at a time and i surrounde them...best way to deafeat a roman??? break his tight formation up and send in your swordsmen woh are specialists at this...HAHA praise the smeg!!
To deal with family cav, you may need to resort to some lvl 2 HHM's or just use crap loads of your own family cav.
Hello All, this is my first post on this forum so Greetings from me!
I only started playing RTW recently (though I havent played in about 6 months because I've been away from home at Uni and without a desktop for some time).
Anyways, it seems I'm at odds with most on this forum as I seem to remember struggling on my Brittania campaign (my first ever RTW campaign). I remember that I had conquered the British Isles, as well as all of Gaul, Spain, Dacia and some of Germania and even some of North Africa, all without too much difficulty.
However, I have a few major problems. Firstly, I remember being at war with the Juli, and seem to remember having a serious man-power shortage trying to ward off their seemingly endless stream of full stacks (unfortunately they've just had the marius reforms I think) around the top of the Italian peninsula. I just can't seem to make any gains without losing them again to those damned Romans.
Secondly, I have a huge problem with my fleet of ships as even in stacks of 20 ships, the Roman ships are still far superior to mine - how the heck is one supposed to beat triremes, let alone better Roman vessels?
Thirdly, I dont seem to be able to build Woad warriors or Head Hurlers - do I have the wrong temple(s)?
On one sure and positive note that I can't believe no-one's mentioned, I solve the Britton's inherrent lack of heavy cavalry by hiring mercenary Bastanae (spelling?) cavalry. While initial costs are steep, they seem to have better morale than most units and are almost unstoppable against all but the most heavily armoured infantry - Bastanae infantry are also good if you can get ahold of them! Does nobody except me make use of them?
Anyways, yeah - please advise on how to beat Roman armies as I'm really struggling against them.
Although I won't be home for a few weeks, the time spent learning useful tips on this forum will hopefully allow me to blitz the enemy and perhaps even march on Rome...who knows???
Sorry for the looooooong post - I'm pretty tired so cant word it any better right now!
Cheers for the advice,
Biggles