The Hardest Faction

I've played three campaigns now, a Scippi, Germanic and Spanish. All short campaigns on VH/VH. I have to say that while the spanish campaign was pretty hairy for quite a while, it's a little dissapointing how easy the game turned out to be. Admittedly I shamelessly exploit the gliches in the AI such as it's inability to deal with forts on the campaign map, or with skirmishes and sieges in battle. It's still a really enjoyable game though, despite some flaws.

Still I'm hoping there is a faction or two out there that is a real tough nut to play with for my next campaign, so I'd like to know what everyone considers to be the hardest faction to play with. I've left the romans off the poll, and probably should have left some others off as well, but I don't know much about a lot of the factions.

Spain. Numidia is challenging, but spain is the hardest out there. I can't even contemplate beating the spanish campaign without bribes.

word on the street is Spain - and i think it has to be modded to be played.

With Spain you get fantastically crappy early game units... Iberian infantry, town militia and round shield is about it until your cities slowwwwwwly grow. Mercs can fill the gap, with money you don't have anyway. Once you get scutarii and bull warriors its pretty smooth.

No matter how hard spain is parthia is harder. Even if you cheat as the parthians your still on a shoe string most of the time.

Hmm, odd, I found both Spain and Parthia very easy. I suppose they would be hard if you tried to play them with infantry, but as long as you go cavalry, you are fine.

As Spain, kick Carthage out ASAP. Then make peace. They will agree, and likely not bother you again, as you are too far away, and they will be too busy. Then you've only got one enemy - Gaul.

As Parthia, you've got your back to the wall, somewhat literally. HA are excellent, and there are plenty of smaller factions in the neighbourhood to take on. Armenia is a good choice, as they get HA too, so you don't want them expanding.

I voted for Thrace. Poor economy to start with, as the others, but also poor cavalry. As cavalry tends to rule the game, that's a disadvantage. Especially as your neighbours tend to be quite expansionist. The only advantage they have is that the Romans (well, Brutii, mainly) tend to keep the neighbours busy. But then you have to deal with the Brutii, which can be worse.

Bh

Parthia isn't really hard. You can easily take out the Seleucids as they don't have a counter to HAs, especially in the beginning. Just be careful not to expand too fast and get into a fight with Egypt.

I've played Pontus as well and it isn't hard, either. I attacked the Seleucids then went to war with Egypt. It was even easier as we fought around Antioch and it was closer to my most well developed cities at the time. That and I completely ditched melee infantry until I got to phalanx pikemen. I tried using eastern infantry as Parthia and they're only good for ramming walls.

The hardest factions probably have a combination of bad early units, poor or stretched out starting provinces and powerful neighbors.

I choose factions differently. I choose the ones whose units I find the most interesting at the time.

Numidia. I find Spain OK once you take Corduba off the Carthaginians, you start getting money to do stuff, although I think Spain is the second hardest out there. Numidians are up against the Egyptians and the Scipii, who will beat up the Carthaginians very quickly and conquer Carthage, and with all of Sicily in their grasp have the money to start churning out units.

Spain is pretty tough, Numidia is a tough one also. Spain has the unit/towns problem and Numidia has the land mass problem. I remember in Medieval those areas were my favorite because they were big hunks of land, now in Rome thats the reason I hate them.

dont exploit the game dont use bribes all the time dont use all cav armies etc and you´ll see its not as easy :p

It's got to be Numidia - no money, vast provinces (it takes forever to actually get anywhere, since it's difficult to scrape together the money for even basic roads and still have an army), your armies consist almost solely of Javelinman and Numidian Cavalry (and the Javelinmen get mown down by anything on a horse)... Spain attacking from the west, Egypt attacking from the east, and your one stable ally, Carthage, destined to crumble and be replaced with a Roman faction to your north.

Well, Armenia is small, it practically only takes a few years for Parthia to wipe you out.

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

As cavalry tends to rule the game

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Tell that to the Romans.

Incidentally I just KNEW that was your post I was reading because of the way you always swoop in with precisely the exact opposite opinion or game experience from everyone else. It's weird.

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Originally Posted by Midnight

It's got to be Numidia - no money, vast provinces (it takes forever to actually get anywhere, since it's difficult to scrape together the money for even basic roads and still have an army), your armies consist almost solely of Javelinman and Numidian Cavalry (and the Javelinmen get mown down by anything on a horse)... Spain attacking from the west, Egypt attacking from the east, and your one stable ally, Carthage, destined to crumble and be replaced with a Roman faction to your north.

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I find it quite wierd but yes, Spain ALWAYS attacks Numidia. Every time without fail. I wonder what the Spanish fascination with Numidia is?

It's just the Crusaders getting off to an early start. ~:)

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Originally Posted by GFX707

Tell that to the Romans.

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I do. All the time. Every time they bring their infantry to my gates and get massively wiped out by my cavalry.

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Incidentally I just KNEW that was your post I was reading because of the way you always swoop in with precisely the exact opposite opinion or game experience from everyone else. It's weird.

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Hardly "everyone else". Someone else voted for Thrace. And Numidia is winning, which would have been my second choice.

Bh

Does anyone have any experience with Dacia? I started up a campaign as the Dacians and was instantly losing over 1k per turn. With finances in the gutter and no real prospects to increase income my game ground to a halt very quickly. Does this qualify as a 'hard' faction at all?

TinCow, I just voted for Dacia. I got my ass thrown back at me when I played Dacia, and I tried twice. The combination of poverty and the Mac's. Scythians, Germans, then Brutii pounding on me from all directions made life miserable. Just could not do it.

It's one thing to be surrounded, but if you got the ability to make cash (Selecuids, Carthage, Greeks) you can deal with roundy neighbours. But that situation with Dacia is just grim as hell. I had a much better time with Thrace (barbarian/greek combo was cool), with black sea access and taking Byzantium I actually had a good economy going and I could fight off everyone. Game too easy for ya's, try Dacia.

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Originally Posted by GFX707

Tell that to the Romans.

Incidentally I just KNEW that was your post I was reading because of the way you always swoop in with precisely the exact opposite opinion or game experience from everyone else. It's weird.

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The trick with cavalry is to not let them get bogged down in melee.. charge, double click to pull back, charge again... the more cavalry you have the better it is, because while one unit is pulling back, others are charging (pick isolated end units on a flank, and pick on em with most of your cav until they route, then work up the flank..) Once two or three units on the flank have routed, it normally becomes a route-fest, with the human as the winner. This is especially true if you are using a few center infantry units to fix the center while the cav is eating on the flank.

Many military historians think that Hannibal and his adherents to cavalry based warfare were 'forward thinkers' to Medieval times, when cavalry became king (because it could out-maneuver infantry and provided more tactical flexibility). I think RTW recognizes this historical fact.

Whether it contributes to the fun factor is up for debate though..

had some real fun with the dacians it's defintely a "hard" faction. Your best bet with them is to take all the rebel provinces near you and then border fort yourself in whereever possible.
I suffered my most humiliating defeat playing as the dacians, i had an entire army wiped out losing a good family member and there was actually a historic battle marker on the spot to celebrate my defeat. The worst part, it was vs Rebels... :(

Let's not forget here- Armenia is tiny. Tiny army, tiny economy, tiny cities, the only thing not tiny about them is the Carpathian mountains, which offer good defence in many cases. You are surrounded on practically all sides by factions much much stronger than you- the Pontics, the Parthians, the Seleucids and the Scythians. As a rule, the Parthians always attack you, wars usually start up when you as Armenia attacks Phraaspa. BIG MISTAKE. The Parthians practically own this settlement, even though it's technically rebel. It takes only two turns for them to conquer Media. And for Armenia it would take at least 4 or 5, meaning that by the time you are close enough, it belongs to Parthia, which means that you are transgressing and will undoubtedly cause a war, which you are definately going to be the loser of, no question.

The thing about Numidia is that although it may be hard to manage, you are in for a slow defeat which means you do have time to tips the scales in your favour. Numidia basically starts with no navy, and building one is obviously the key to defeating Spain. Egypt is not so easy though...

Numidia, pretty hard, I found Spain challenging too, but you only get one vote.

Numida

Spain is by far the harder faction than Numidia IMO. For one reason only... Rome. The hardest enemy for Spain is not the Gauls, but the Julii. The Romans always invade with general armies making them hard to bribe. Also the hastati are a hell of a lot toughter than warbands, your roundshields can't hope to take on hastati even with repeated charges, those Roman bastasrds just stand up too well to it. Another point that makes the Julii hard to fight is where you fight them at. Since they always land at Osca, you have a hard time reinforcing and retraining your men cause Osca is so underdeveloped and grows slowly.

With the Numidians, you can make peace with Carthage and keep it so you only have to worry about Egypt. The Spanish threat is little cause they bring so few troops and your light armies can take them on no problem in the desert where you have the natural advantage. The Egyptian chariot archers are a pain but with enough light infantry (i.e. skirmishers) You can hold you own.

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Originally Posted by Turin

Also the hastati are a hell of a lot toughter than warbands, your roundshields can't hope to take on hastati even with repeated charges, those Roman bastasrds just stand up too well to it.

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Er, what? I'm not trying to be insulting, so don't take this the wrong way, but if you can't defeat hastati with round shields, you are using them wrong. Round shields eat hastati for breakfast. Then they have principes for lunch. A successful cavalry charge into the rear of a hastati unit routs them most of the time. And even when it doesn't, you can usually pull back and charge again.

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Another point that makes the Julii hard to fight is where you fight them at. Since they always land at Osca, you have a hard time reinforcing and retraining your men cause Osca is so underdeveloped and grows slowly.

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A more valid point. There are a couple ways you can deal with this. Someone suggested forts, which can work quite well.

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With the Numidians, you can make peace with Carthage and keep it so you only have to worry about Egypt. The Spanish threat is little cause they bring so few troops and your light armies can take them on no problem in the desert where you have the natural advantage. The Egyptian chariot archers are a pain but with enough light infantry (i.e. skirmishers) You can hold you own.

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The problem with that strategy is that Carthage is going to fall to the Scipii. That means that unless you have pulled off the opening game quite well, you are going to be hit by another (quite powerful by that point) faction. Having to face the Romans and the Egyptians is a daunting proposition for any faction.

Bh

Numidia. Spain is tough, but not nearly the challenge of Numidia on VH/VH. The Spanish troops are not such a problem because you get good cav. Who cares about infantry in RTW? The Spanish economy gets going quicker than Numidia and is more robust once you get it going. On VH/VH you will have one heck of a time dealing with the Egyptians and their iron skinned axemen. As Numicia Carthage succumbs rapidly to the Scipii and you find yourself facing the Scipii very early. With Spain you only have to hold off the Gauls and Julii (and relieve the Carthaginians of Cordoba as soon as you can manage it. Given the choice of facing Gauls or Egyptians...the Gauls are easier to face.

Not to mention that if the Scipii make war on you, all Romans would be at war with you and they'll have tons of ships against you. Conquering and maintaining distant lands would be harder at that point.

Wow, if I just tried out Numidia and I have to say, they are super hard! Their cities are just so far apart, it takes forever to get anywhere! Plus, it's basically impossible to develop because of the rubbish economy. Numidia does train some quite cost effective units though.

On top of that, basically everyone wants to attack you, with the exception of Carthage.

If I could change my vote now I would.

Oh, and I have played Spain before, and I know what they're like but Numidia is much, much harder. And Spain does also get the best non-roman infantry type, the Bull Warriors.

All cavalry armies suck if you are using the kill rate mod. wich to me is more realistic and more fun than just taking a bunch of cavarly and gang raping units 1 at a time. It still can be done with the kill rate mod but much riskier and the price heavier.

In response to BH... Hastati do not rout that easily you can throw in your round shields as hard as you like even to their rear and they will still hold. Of course you'll loose a quarter of you rouns shields in the charge and even morewhen you pull out to charge again...

The Numidian.Poor selection of units,lack of money,surrounded by much stronger factions,moving armies around is also very difficult.

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Originally Posted by oaty

All cavalry armies suck if you are using the kill rate mod. wich to me is more realistic and more fun than just taking a bunch of cavarly and gang raping units 1 at a time. It still can be done with the kill rate mod but much riskier and the price heavier.

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As it should be. I still haven't tried the mods yet, but I am looking forward to the "moderating" influence it should have on cav. I also hope that it will strengthen the AI (a little) since it should be less susceptible to group routs.

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Originally Posted by Turin

In response to BH... Hastati do not rout that easily you can throw in your round shields as hard as you like even to their rear and they will still hold. Of course you'll loose a quarter of you rouns shields in the charge and even morewhen you pull out to charge again...

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That is not how you use round shields vs. hastati. You hit them with two units of cav at once (preferably one in the flank or rear.) No need to pull back and charge again, the infantry will already have routed. Immediately charge the next closest infantry with the cav and repeat until there is nothing left to face That is what I do on VH/VH and the Roman infantry crumbles very quickly. I take losses during the first rush or two, after that the AI is in group rout mode.

I haven't voted yet because I haven't played all the harder factions to really tell which is the hardest.

In terms of my own experience on VH/VH with the current "top 3": Numidia, Spain and Carthage, my own progess is Spain (slowest) > Numidia (took Rome in 9 yrs) > Carthage (took Rome in 4 yrs). Slowing down means the AI will produce more troops to cause more problems, so I guess it can also mean the hardest.

I would say Spain is probably the hardest. Elephant makes all the difference for Carthage, while jav cavalry is the key for Numidia. ~:)

What about Bull Warriors? Best non-roman melee infantry in the game (excluding beserkers).

hastati are deadly for round shield's they used 5 sekunds to kill off all but 1 (large units). they charged, lost most, retreat all dead and the last routing. (med-med)

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Originally Posted by aw89

hastati are deadly for round shield's they used 5 sekunds to kill off all but 1 (large units). they charged, lost most, retreat all dead and the last routing. (med-med)

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That is improper use of cav... Attacking with a single cav unit doesn't make sense...and round shield only get +2 for charge, so pulling back and charging would be about the worst thing one could do. With cav you get to attack two on one, the one in front is just a holding force, while the other hits flank or rear. It is pretty easy to do on Very Hard.

As Numidia, if you attack Carthage very early and take (just occupy) the Carthage city, the game will start to look easy very soon. (please refer to my Numidian experience in the RTW guide forum)

I guess the intuitive way is to ally with Carthage, but... ~D AI has no feeling anyways.

There are alot of ways to make any faction much harder. Most of these involve NOTdoing the things which can be considered "exploiting" some of the glaring AI weaknesses. Doing things which the Computer AI cannot handle.

Also in doing things that give unrealistic results for doing them.
Some of them are very obvious and you know you should feel guilty for doing them and others are not so clear.

Selling map information. Just do not do it. You may as well be using the give money cheat at the start. It is simply a bad game mechanic not a clever tactic.

Pause during combat. Never ever pause, not even in those moments when you yell at the screen "WTF IS THAT WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT!!??!" as your units go the totally wrong way or your archers brutally gun down 3 units of your best cavalry. :) The stupid AI never pauses, why should you? Your abilities outshine the AI by such a huge margin that no one should ever need the crutch of the pause button. Fighting the AI is like Napoleon(you) vs. a mildy retarded kid with very fast reflexes(the AI.) :)

Bribery. This is just silly. Don't bribe anything, ever and suddenly the game is alot harder.
I could see alot of variation in this policy though. When I play a roman faction I let myself bribe other Romans on occasion. The price is always very high and it is the only way to "attack" them, pre civil war that is, post civil war, no bribing. Also it is not so unrealistic to bribe outlaws, slaves, and rebels. These forces would obviously be very vulnerable to being bought off. I never do it but I could see how some would. Maybe I will start to.

Using a small unit, say of cavalry, to tie up vast numbers of AI armies. Yes, you can completely block off a mountain pass with one unit of fast cav. You can also take a smal cav army and run in circles all around the AI controled lands tying up tons of their resources. The fact is the AI is unable to handle these tactics. If the AI did this to you, you could handle the problem. However, the AI CAN"T deal with it, ever, so don't do it.

Forts. An extension of the problem above but not nearly so obvious is forts. The AI cannot handle forts. Yes its lame and yes the AI SHOULD be able to deal with them but it cannot so don't build them especailly not in mountain passes.

There are many other very clear things that should be avoided. It is safe to assume that anyone that goes out and buys this game and then reads these forums in depth is smart enough to know what is taking advantage of game mechanics and what is a "clean" game and win.

In a perfect world and a perfect game you should not have to impose any limits on yourself to have a challenging and exciting game. In the Total war games, and all games of reasonable complexity that rely on A.I., you do.

Of course sometimes brutally crushing the AI using all the weapons you have can be fun too. :)

Wow, looks like a discussion of morality. ~;)

Perhaps, the core of this kind of issue is "whether the fame matches the ability". In the past, I saw some people who are really GOOD, but they don't get recognized because of all the cocky jokers stealing the spotlight. And guess what - these jokers are deemed superstar by the equally, or more retarded. I once had a little online novel (in Chinese, my English is crap), and had a few hundred thousands words inspired by that.

Indeed, people with great ability should be recognized. We should pay a lot of respect to the genius who still achieve victory despite all the harsh self-inflicted handicaps. They deserve a bright spot on the stage. Unfortuantely, currently we don't really have a system to do that - MP is the closest thing we have. We can probably also observe a bit from one's writing and thinking, but these aren't directly linked to military talents.

How one wants to play his/her own copy of a game is only remotely related to the above issue. I think the key is to find a way to release the anger of the capables who aren't really good at marketing their deeds. ~;)

If I were Hannibal, and I had a chance to "cheat" against the Romans, throwing something they are too stupid to handle - sure I would. I never hesitated to bribe. ~D

I find all the cav based civs pretty easy to win with. This would include the Armenians and Parthians. I play them almost exactly the same. I take any local rebel towns then immediately attack my nearest small rival. For the Armenians this means eliminate the Pontics, for the Parthians it is the Armenians then the Pontics. Once the Egyptians are pounding on the Selucids, help the Egyptians finish them off and steal as many Selucid towns from the Eggys as possible. This will start a war with the Eggys but it is better early before they get large.

I do this without bribes or selling maps. I use almost exclusively cav archer armies. It is so easy as no one can catch them to kill them. After that the game is easy.

I must try Numidia next. I am in need of a good challenge.