Guide.
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Guide.
I'm going to start a Frank campaign as my first, would anybody like to join me?
Oh yeah, I got BI!!! Should be installing later, or tomorrow.
Perhaps not a definative guide to the Franks, seeing as I only got hold of the expansion a couple of days ago. More a starting narrative.
The Franks have a starting position both good and bad in equal measure. On the up side, they are some way off the beaten track for Vandal and Hun migrations. On the down side they are close to the heartlands of four Germanic tribes (Saxons, Burgundians, Alemanni and Lombards) which sets the stage for early conflict.
A quick look at the appendices of the game instructions told me that the Saxons are going to be aiming for more or less the same lands (France and the Low Countries) as I am. Therefore I decided that the Saxons were to be the first to die.
I reinforced the army I began with and waited for the Saxons to send an army away from their capital. At the same time I began setting up agreements with my other neighbours to try and discourage any attacks from them. Its worth investing in better walls for the Frankish capital early on as it is fairly exposed.
Once the Saxons were merrily laying siege to the settlement in Frisia, I sent my army north to attack their capital, and took it before their expeditionary force could return. A few turns of consolidation and the Kingdom of the Franks had expanded to contain Saxony, Jutland and Frisia.
Meanwhile the Burgundians and Lombards were engaged in an indecisive conflict, so I began to plot the downfall of the Alemanni. Unfortunately, some wannabe Caesar posted on the Rhine decided to send the Roman Legions to attack me, causing a sharp shift in policy. I had hoped to absorb the weaker Germannic tribes before driving westwards. As it was, I was forced to set my armies against superior Roman numbers.
The Roman army isn't what it once was - think Hastati backed up by archers and town watch. The Frankish host on the other hand is rather effective. The Frankish levys by themselves are no match for Commitates, but they make an effective anvil. Their javalins combined with spears make them rather dangerous to cavalry, and they are very durable formed into a shield wall. The other key element to the early game Frankish army is raider cavalry. Okay, they aren't cataphracts, but they are cheap enough to take in quantity.
Fighting the Romans proved easier than I had feared. They had no cavalry to speak of, so I was able to outmanouvre them break up their battle line and defeat them piecemeal.
Sieges however, are a different matter. The Romans seem to have been continually adding layers to their city walls over the last 363 years, and the Franks don't start out with much in the way of siege troops. Augusta Vindelicorum was my first target. I hired some vetenary legionnaries to give my army some assault punch and used these to scale the walls and tie up the defenders whilst I rushed levy troops through a sapped breach in the wall and to the town square. The main problem with Roman cities in Gaul is the size. It takes ages to get to the town square, all the time being peppered by arrows. In later sieges I used swordsmen and axemen, but I am coming to the conclusion that levies are the best choice to assault as most of your casualties will come from the arrow towers and they don't seem to distinguish much.
What surprises me about the Romans is that once you have crossed the Rhine, its fairly easy going. I made sure that I kept on advancing, as the Roman cities are big enough and advanced enough to produce pretty decent armies if given the time. Gaul is full of mercenaries, so reinforcements are not so great a problem as you might expect. I suspect that if things got more exciting on the Eastern front, then defeating the Romans might be more difficult. I was lucky as the Burgundians and Lombards were at each others throats all the time, and the Alemmani had problems with migrating Sarmatians.
I currently hold all Gaul, along with my Germannic possesions, and I'm preparing my invasion of Britannia. I also need to evict some Sarmatians who seem intent on setting up home in my lands.
Quick summary:
Thin out the ranks of your neighbouring tribes at the outset.
Fortify your cities.
Use levy/cavalry combinations to smash the Roman frontier armies.
Expand rapidly into Gaul before the Romans can pump out new armies.
Use levys to do the fighting in sieges.
Well, you started out much the same as I did. I've got the stone wall queued in after Weaponsmith, Hall of Heroes and Cavalry Stables (not sure of exact name of the cav suppliers)
Anyway, my plan is to take the Saxons, and then launch an invasion through the land-now-known-as-Belgium (a la Schlieffen) and maybe send an army or two over the channel while I take Northern France.
Hearing that barbarian alliances tend to hold strong, I have made an alliance with the Alans, and I hope they'll keep to it as I have sent most men up to deal with Saxons. After 3 turns, I came to a battle, and then the CTD. So no more play for a while :bigcry:
Interesting to see you both go for the Saxons straight away. I took a different track.
Merged my Heirs army with the Leader (and retrained them to +3 exp) and went straight across the bridge for the WRE (well I waited till their full stuck went AWOL down south) - I think there was an early rebellion so that helped matters. Quickly took the city then, even more quickly, struck a ceasefire, which the WRE held, while I built up my forces for two other surgical strike on their fortresses up north. Waited again for their full stacks to wander off before I attacked first with my spy at the city above, then with saps on Sambrobriva. Both fell within four turns.
I should mention that I allied with Allemani early to keep my southern border at Vikus Gothi (My starting city) protected. Since Barbarian Alliances hold, it was a necessary strategic decision.
Sambrobriva fell on retaliation, but I wiped out most of the invading army, and was able to retake it a turn later with a relief force I sent up just in case. On the way I recruited a unit Graal Knights for a whopping d2k. I now hold 4 settlements.. I'll probably consolidate up north into Saxon territory and Britain, before I strike south again against the WRE.
The Franks have an excellent upgrades, and their starting city produces exp 3 units. Very, very handy.
PS. Those Comits... Damn them!
Hmmm, strange that no-one went for the Alemanni, or is it that everyone else feels they aren't worth bothering with?
My reason for not going after WRE is because I want to see it crumble without the help of a human.
I'm playing without pause (wherever possible) and no "toggle_fow" except maybe to see how the Sassanids are doing etc.
Romans in my campaign are really taking a beating. ERE has lost Constaninople to rebels. Heaven knows what the Sassanids are doing to them! WRE is struggling against the Brits, Berbers, Saxons, and my Franks.
Saxons just upped the ante a bit on my northern frontier..
I started the game by building a christian temple to upset the population.
Then on the next turned my people into a horde.
On the second turn the Lombards took tribus franki, only to discover a rather angry population, they lost the city and a large stack of rebels appeared to protect it. This was a part of my plan.
I then destroyed the Alemanni and Saxons, and sacked all the cities in Gual. I then took Burdigala, Arles, and Massila(sp), all fleshly sacked.
The Roxolani took Avaricum and Samarobriva.
I was attacked by the Huns, but because of the stupid AI I killed ~4000 of them in seige. Fried Huns.
The Burgundii took Tribus Franki, and the city revolted, again. But this time the rebels joined me. So I rebuilt the pagan temple to stop the happiness.
I have now built a large army and am invading the Burgundii, who rule the Frisii, Saxons and Chatti.
Haven't gone after the Alemanni myself to my huge regret. Tactic I have used is to hold on to Vicus Franki (sp?) and go after the WRE myself. I think the Romans were distracted by something else going on as I was able to walk into the majority of the cities almost uninvited after defeating 2 minor field armies in Gaul. Saxons have proved to be treacherous swine after breaking an alliance but, considering their target aims that didn't surprise me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Craterus
As for dealing with hordes well, I haven't had to really until late game as they simply passed through for pillaging the romans. In a couple of cases they've sacked settlements and I've mopped up after them. For me it's dealing with the hordes of Alemanni that are set on my blood. I have them bottled up in the Italian peninsular at the moment but given the riches there it's going to take a while to get them down to a level to make any progress
Franks, as expected, have decent infantry units that are able to hold the line against most other nations except the saxons possibly where I had a couple of close battles and, shock horror, a defeat against them before just overwhelming them with a comparitive tidal wave of people. Even your basic levy spearmen are reasonable with a little bit of backup. Oh yes and get the noble warriors as well as they're pretty good against most of the other barbarian style cavalry you'll meet. Just don't rely on them as your primary attack.
Welcome darsalon ~:wave:
I discovered that the Franks have to convert to Christianity in order to get paladins. They are availabe at the monerstary and get an experience upgrade at the abbey.
forget it.
ditto.
forget it.
again, forget it.
Wow! My franks campaign has turned into a real dogfight. The Saxons have been throwing stack after stack at me with no end in sight, and all their armies have units full of 6xp infantry and sea raiders. Battles have been fun, but the balance has been tipped by my newly acquired noble cavalry and heerben infantry.
The Lombardi have broken alliance and attacked Vikus Franki. Full stack. My garrison is full of 3xp peasants, so I hope it can hold in case they attack next turn before my big army can arrive to support.
toggle_fow has revealed a roman empire crumbling in the face of huge vandal and hunnic hordes. The ERE has been kicked off Greece, and are heavily involved in a murder-death-kill scrap with the Sassanids. The WRE can't seem to stop the tide of Berbers, Vandals and just about everyone else. Indeed, all the barbarian factions seem to be doing well and expanding, which should make the later game very interesting. The Vandals look like they'll be passing my way in about ten years. Unfortunately, Im piss-poor, and in no proper shape to take them on alongside the Saxons, WRE and the Lombardi.
Bring it on.
Started my campaign last night and here are my first impressions.
You have the Romans on the other side of the Rhine and you have all the other Barb factions on the other side. As far as I see there are three possible strategies:
1. Attack and unify all Germanian tribes. This is the nationalistic approach. However, Germanians were not nationalistic then. And you may have to deal with many wandering tribes including Huns. This may cause a lot of fighting but small gain.
2. Attack the Romans. Their cities are big and rich. And your final targets are in Gaul.
3. Pack your bags, move the complete tribe and invade Gaul.
I chose number 2. (Maybe 3 is more fun. I'll try next time.) I attacked the Roman town right in the west of my home (I guess it is what we call Trier today.) I started the attack as soon as most of the garrison had left the town. They came back and I took the town. Great city with stone walls. Then the Romans came to me and begged and payed for peace. All right! So I turned and attacked the Allemani. I also strengthened the walls of my home town. Now I am ready to start a new attack against the Romans.
What is new?
The towns are bigger than in the old Rome game. This gives you a better start. However, there are so many barbarian competitors that it will be challanging.
Is AI smarter? Maybe! When I attacked the Roman town ther was only the FM inside the town. Several spear units and one archer unit were outside. The gates were open and I started to dig a tunnel to get another entry. The troops outside the town marched to the town but turned before they entered to face my right flank. I had to stop the digging to build a defensive line. I send one levy unit through the gate. They managed to reach the centre, although they lost 100 men in arrow fire. I placed the at the corner of the place and expected the FM to attack. But he withdraw, the place was mine. When I thought that they all run their infantry from outside came in and entered the city centre. I send all the rest of my army to attack them. To my surprise two spear units left the place and tried to hide in the narrow streets. When I attacked the place they tried to flank me. Never saw such thing before. Nevertheless I took the town. There were no Roman survivors.~:cool:
double post!
double post!
:book:
I'm not even completely finished with my un-expansionized version (I know it's not a word)! I really need to get going, and I need to save money for new computer parts anyways.
I need new computer parts and BI, but not enough money!:embarassed: :furious3:
I was impressed with being able to use the Paladins and Paladin Bodyguard with the Franks, gave me a taste of the Medieval times during a Dark Age setting ~;) .
:book:
Hey All,
Read these posts with great interest. Got BI just a few days ago and, for some reason, chose the Franks as my first path to glory. It's going well.
Currently it's about 395, I hold 15 provinces stretching from Vicus Franki outwards to the west and south, and I just took the first of the three "homelands" that I need for ultimate victory. Bulgirida and Arle (hmmm, don't have those names right, but perhaps you know what I'm talking about: the central and southern home-cities for the Franks) are next up to go down, though they are guarded by large-sized Roman armies and I'm stretched a bit thin.
Anyway, I started off by going slowly and carefully: made an alliance with the Allemani on the first turn, then over the next few turns poked around to the east and took the two rebel towns (Vicus Marcomanni and... the one just south). At that point, apart from sending out diplomats and getting everybody and his brother to give up trade rights (and I got a few alliances along the way too: with the Lombards and Huns), I just looked around... plotting... planning... I watched the Allemani and Western Romans go at it...then eventually struck Vicus Treverorum and Colonia Agrippa while the Romans were distracted... I also took Conuntrum to the south... Note that nothing much was happening north and east of me: the Burgundii and Lombardii were duking it out, the Saxons were beating up on rebels, the Huns and Vandals and Sarmatians kept finding and losing homelands (I was never threatened by any of them, though thought I would be -- I turned off fow on occasion to check on their progress and look around elsewhere: it's an amazing sight to see those multi-stacks wandering around!).
I next moved west to Samarobriva and north to Frisia (the coastal city in Belgica) and then eventually into modern Denmark, because the Saxons had decided they could take me on...but couldn't. ~;) I also moved into the Italian peninsula after securing alliances with the Vandals and Sarmatians (who had both found homelands by that point). For better for worse, I turned next on my allies, the poor Allemani, whom I basically surrounded at this point, thus they needed to go. (Couldn't have them stabbing me in the back, now could I?) To my credit, I sent a diplomat the turn before I attacked them, cancelling our alliance. The next turn their only two cities were mine.
Since then, it's been a gradual move west and south: I've taken Ravenna and am laying siege to Roma. My homelands are within my grasp, as I mentioned. A great first campaign, which has gone easily, I'd say.
In sum, here's my advice: lay low, be opportunistic, move south and west -- the riches are there.
Cheers, Dub
Some other information that would be helpful, I s'pose:
I'm playing on M/M difficulty. I've mainly utilized Levy Spearmen and Raiders throughout my campaign, with a healthy dose of Hunters, though am starting to replace the former with a mix of Axe and Sword Heerban. Noble Warriors (advanced horsemen) are too expensive for me to make much use of yet. I've done a lot of assassinating to good effect, cutting down most of the diplomats and all of the assassins that wander into my countries. Spies have opened many of the city gates for my attacking armies. I typically exterminate the populace of captured towns. It's bloody, I know, but it's lucrative, and I'm a barbarian, after all. ~;)
Hmmm, in the turns before I needed to battle I went for the rebel provinces to the north, but was beaten by the Saxons and the Lombards.
So, at this point, I went towards Colonia Agrippa (?) but that was guarded by a full stack (including Comitatenses) and so I went for the one south and laid siege. Then a stack and another half stack appeared from nowhere. They attacked so I withdrew, only for them to chase me. So it was a stack, a half stack and the garrison vs. my half stack.
At this point, I got the CTD, but I assume I would have won/marginally lost that battle because the odds were apparently even (the half stack and garrison are poor troops).
But anyway, I been enjoying this campaign so far, I just hope I can sort the problem out.
For some reason Vicus Franki is an magnet for Spies, Diplomats and Assassins.
That could be why the public order is so low. And I am really low on cash and I need to take a town. But I can't 'cos of the all-knowing Romans.
Oh yeah, and my second son is a Christian?! Should I build a church in Vicus Franki? My two starting characters are to the west.
Horde and move west. Otherwise you'll be seiged turn after turn by Romans, Lombardi, Saxons, etc. The Franks starting position is strategically weak. Vicus Franki is a death trap.
I invaded Gaulat once (+ the Allemanii). I played strategy: vh and battles: m because that seemed to work best on ROME. It was too easy to beat the Western Romans. One or two field battles where I easily bate bigger armies. Their towns are usually defended by a family member only. Only thing that slowed my conquering down was the (un)happiness of the population. Do not have a perfect solution for that. After having conquered half of Gaul plus Augusta Vindelicorum I almost quit, because it was far too easy. Then the Saxons attacked my home town. I coul beat them! At once there was an Burgund army trying to do the same. My army from Augusta Vind. had just reached Mediolanum when I saw the first hord (Vandals). I took Med at once and then they hit me. Two armies with 2,000 - 3,000 men each tried to attack my new town. For haeven's sake I had stonewalls and lots of archers so I could destroy the ram and tower they had and killed thousends of them. But the game is really beginning to challenge me. ~:)
What is your experience?
Arghhhh! Made a terrible mistake. My setup is without time limit. Now Mediolanum was sieged by three Vandal armies with 8,000 men in total. Only one army had siege equipment (two towers and two rams). I still had lots of archers and managed to destroy the rams and one tpwer. However, the remaining tower could not be damaged by my fire arrows, regardless how many I fired at it. So one unit of Vandals after the other climbed up the latters and was killed by my guard or sword ban. Then the next one came. Due to the number of Vandals and the distance the units had to go this was a never ending story. After 2h I broke up (it was 12:pm and I had to go to bed). So I lost this beatiful town.
Ergo: Always play with time limit!
Happened to me too. I just left the game, went to sleep and in the morning the battle was over. My 4 inf units, 2 on each side of the siege tower drop off and on guard-mode had killed 3.300 men!!!~:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Franconicus
That´s usually my first priority. Take the Alemanni capitol will eventually spawn one of the three "dormant" factions - hopefully the RB´s or Slavs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Craterus
I start my WRE-war by taking the city south of the Alemanni capitol and then move north to take A.T and C.A etc until all of "France" is under my rule. From my capitol I send new units in the same trail as my original army. This way I can reinforce my fort in the alps and hold off any WRE incursions.
With all of France under control you can easily stop the Saxon incursions at the three river-crossings bordering them (if you let them take the two rebel towns south of them). At this point I hold the three river crossings north, the three mouintain passes towards Italy so the only opening is the eastern front but that´s not a worry. With 6 archers in both C.Franki and C.Alemanni you can soak up any incursions fron the east. Now I usually take Iberia and get my empire up to 14 provinces. Pushing the Saxons out of the two former rebel towns in Germany plus taking Italy will get you the 20 provinces needed to win.
I´ve played the Franks both as pagan and christian but prefer the later since I cet the uber-unit: paladins.
I don't think the RB's will appear by something happening over there. I thought it happened if/when the Saxons go to Britain ~:confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by PseRamesses
You´re right. I meant the Ostrogoths and Slavs. Thx for pointing that out. :bow: RB only emerge as a result of any faction taking Eburacum and Londinium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Craterus
I started last night, and I am planning on using the strategy to ally with most barbarian factions then move my armies north to attack the Saxons.
Thanks for the help!:balloon2:
I believe that the Ostrogoths emerge during a Goth civil war, like the ERER/WRER. Goths are the only other faction where generals have loyalty, and are therefore capable of civil wars. :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by PseRamesses
So it must be the Slavs. ~;) Maybe someone could check this though?
Simple Consolidiation strategy for keeping Vicus Franki:
1: Ally with both Romes, set up trade rights. Ally with any local barbarians you can except either the Allemani or Saxons. Your primarly goal is pushing to the English Channel as soon as possible. I grabbed the adjacent rebel province then immediately turned on the Allemani, trapped their army outside the city and destroyed it, then seiged the town.
The Lombardi and Burgundii seem to want to fight amongst themselves and you can leave them till later. If you can ally with the Lombardi, you are clear to easily annihilate the Burgundii and use the Lombardi as your horde defense. The Burgundii Horde will probably go into Lombardi terrority after you finish them off.
2: Take Vicus Saxones and push east into Burgundii territory. Take the port west of Saxones if Rome doesn't get it first. You now have a huge cash influx from trade with WRE.
At this point you've probably already won the campaign. You can take your time and finished off the Lombardi and Burgundii, although you'll likely end up having to destroy at least one of the Hordes yourself. It's not hard, you have a lot of space to play with in Eastern Europe and plenty of mercenary cavalry.
3: Head into Rome or Britain, depending on who owns what. The Celts or Romano British will eventually attack you if the take Londinium, beat them to the punch and between Vicus Saxones and Londinium you will have all the trade money you'll ever need.
By the time you head into WRE's holdings in the old Gallic provinces, you'll finally have some real melee units in Fransisca Heerbaans, who are some straight up hardcore thugs (their unit response also comically comes out sounding like "X-men!"). Two lines of FH in fire-at-will mode will utterly destroy any opposing line infantry, and you can use the otherwise weak Levy Spearmen as a cavalry screen for your Fransisca wrecking ball. A proper axe toss can easily net you 40% casualties in an oncoming heavy infantry unit and god help any skirmishers.
Your only potential problem will come from armies with a concentrated heavy cavalry (in my campaign I finally encountere the Vandals in southern France and they took out two stacks worth of decent troops before I finally bled them out) but Rome likely won't have more than one of those. Your own Noble Cavalry is decent but simply can not match all the Imperial German Guard or Steppe Heavy Cavalry, which will likely be substantially more numerous if it shows up.
For the coup de grace on WRE, send one force south to Mediolatum (sp) and hold the mountain passes against Roman reinforcements while you clear out France with whatever is left. You have plenty of space to trade for time in the old Burgundii/Lombardi areas should a horde come calling, and while you may lose a lot of battles it's fairly easy to bleed the horde dry befor they get to anything important.
Barbarian Invasion - meine HORDEN tipps
It looks that I did a complete different approach to the Franks than you guys did. Maybe because I used to play the Goths before (and won)?
The starting location of the Franks is pretty nice. Romans do not attend to attack you and so do the other German tribes around. I learned by using the Goths that it is only a matter of time until the hordes come and to qualify all the small victories you may get against the provinces around you. You may grow when you make a conventional strategy, but you will come into trouble.
I decided to turn into a horde after a few preparations. You are way ahead of the conventional hordes far in the east (Huns, Vandals und soon Sarmatians). You will invade lands FREE of any horde for a long time.
AI of Romans is to defend some key provinces. I did not figure out any of them, but here there are some:
Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Pannonia, Milano, Salona.. Okay, some are not in hand of WRE, but ERE do similar.
* What do you need to become a proper horde?
It is essential that you have eyes to see when troubles come at you. I started to make 3 additional spies and send them across the river Rhine into the WRE. Because I prefer to use archers (Frankish ones suck) and cavalry, I made 2 archers and 2 cavalry units too. I did not build ANY building, because I will forsake the city soon. While the last units will start to get build, I upgraded all of my units too. Do not bother with Rebels in you flat land, but do not expand the taxes that your city will become rebellious!
After that I made a HORDE and crossed the Rhine to fight WRE. Those meanwhile conquered Frisi and made some small army stacks between Treverorum and the Alamanni. Main goal of a HORDE is to make MONEY and to prevent WRE to fix their initial troubles and become a power once again.
I attacked some of the small roman packs and forced them back (they did not accepted the battle, so why should I?). I laid Siege at Treverorum, but I want to reach inner Gaul and loot whatever is possible!
Because defence around Treverorum is reasonable my leaders pack laid siege at Colonia Agrippa and took it by force (only 3 defending units). My first loot came into my pocked.
Having an eye on Romans packs at the Rhine, I went westwards into Belgie. Most cities behind the front line are only defended by 2-3 roman units. This calls for what I call Blitzkrieg. One important point is that you have to deal with your armies carefully, because with no city you cannot replace any losses.
Blitzkrieg
In Blitzkrieg you do not want to face big enemy armies. You will only fight them when they urge you to do so. If you have a chance you avoid them and destroy enemy cities (and money).
Make a fast vanguard out of 1 family member and 5-6 cavalry units. All infantry of yours is in other armies. Then advance like a caterpillar. The slow armies take care for enemy forces and lay sieges until the end. It is a good idea to safe a bridge from time to time when enemies are near with such infantry armies too. The top of your trek is always the cavalry army.
It works like this:
1st Your spy checks the next city. When defension is small, the city will becomes target.
2nd Using a second spy to check the next city if you think you will need your first spy to take the actual city by storm.
3rd Run to the city with your cavalry army and lay siege at it. This way they cannot build more units in there, what will happens if you need many ticks to arrive with a normal army. You can build some siege improvements, no matter that you have only cavalry. Meanwhile send a normal army that is able to take the city over.
4th When the new army arrives, replace your cavalry army with it. Best way is to add one unit of the new army into your besieging cavalry. In the same tick you move your cavalry army to the next target like told in under 3rd. Move the rest of the infantry army into the old position of your cavalry army. The siege time you used with your cavalry army and the entire siege improvements you had build are safe this way.
5th Continue with the next city. :charge:
6th Bring the besieged city down. Either by awaiting the result of your siege or by attacking with forces. Remember: As long as you own no city, you cannot replace any LOSSES. Fight when required, but pass by when possible :duel:
I did not bother in making a new home for my people before me getting enough money and bring down any potential enemy around. This way I pillaged ALL Gaul, Spain and Italy. The WRE had only 1 province left (Frisii) at the European continent. In the year 396 my fat purse had more than 200000 Denari while all the areas I pillaged where in the hand of rebels. Finally I made a new home in Italy (like I did with my Goths in the game before).
This had 2 reasons: I handled Italy with care. I was in front of all other Hordes and with my big armies there at any way into Italy they turned north and left me alone. I managed my sieges, so I took all 3 cities at the same tick and my Horde armies disappeared with this. My new home was:
Ravenna
(Temple with 3 veteran points, fully improved city, full barracks and stables)
Rome
(Complete improved city goodies, maximum smithy, maximum barracks, maximum far distance units = Onagers. No longer endless sieges) ~:cheers:
Milano
(Temple with 3 veteran points, lots of good improvements, no matter that I plundered it some years before)
This gave me a great position for the upcoming normal build up and conquer phase. I was able to build the best units while having enough money to pay for all needs over a long time. I made some forts at the entrance gates into Italy. This kept enemy Hordes away until I was ready to fight them. Southern Italy in Rebels hands was an easy match. My expansion was into Gaul mainly. If you focus for the south and Spain, you will not meet many enemies first. Only the Vandals I had to kill there.
Using this strategy gave me first a lot of money and keeps WRE most out of my way. Then I found a new, really good improved home (thanks to WRE) for the best units. Due to my pillaging before I had no big enemies close to me over a reasonable period what I used to become a big and proper power.
Check it out, it works! ~:cheers:
Sorry when my English is not that great.
Im shocked at how handy it is playing the Franks. Its easier than the Huns position! I just played a fast Frank campaign there, VH/M but autoresolving all the battles just to see how it played out.
I horded straight away and across the bridge smack into Augusta Trevorum. One turn later sacked and split up, two stacks going left to Sambrovia, two taking a detour north to Colonia Aggrippa (?). By turn 3 Colonia was sacked too, and Sambrovia was under threat. I now began a very lucrative operation - blackmailing the WRE for peace. I made 10K for a ceasefire. Next turn I broke the deal, seiged Sambrovia and sacked it. Then we headed south en masse to Avaricarum. Blackmailed the WRE for another 10K. Broke the deal next turn and seiged Avaricarum. Sacked it. Blackmailed the WRE for another 10K (Theyve given me 30K now in 3-4 turns and show no signs of running out of cash). 3 stacks are heading for Burgilda whilst one stack stays to seige Avaricarum.Once Ive sacked Arles and Burgilda Ill take Avaricarum and make it my capital, though who knows, things are going so swimmingly I might as well keep going.
Ive currently got something like 92K in the kitty, and expect to ratchet that up to at least 120K by the time Im ready to settle and more than a few rebel cities between me and my erstwhile barbarian cousins that I can expand into later or use as a buffer zone. Iberia and Italy will soon lie open to me, and and Roman armies from either can be bottled up in the respective mountain passes.
I guess my advice with the Franks would be dont waste time, horde and sack the WRE from turn 1!
Apart of the "case fire" operation you made the same apporeach like I did. I agree, it is very easy.
I get the idea that any fraction in the game has a kind of basic relations to any other fraction. No matter how they act during the game. For example:
WRE 'loves' the Franks, but will always try to bring down the Alamanni...
ERE hates the Goths. While playing the Goths they attacked me with no reason. When hording and only try to cross their lands they threated me and attacked. While starting a few ticks with the Vandals they allowed me to cross all ERE in europe without any word - until I attacked all their cities there at once!
teja, congrat to your strategy! And welcome to the org ~:cheers:
I had a more conventional approach. I attacked the town on the other side of the Rhine (Treverorum) with all available troops and it was not a big thing to get it. The the WRE wanted to make peace and gave me Augusta Vindelicorum for free ~D. The very next turn the WRE changed their minds and broke peace. It is easy to walk through Gaul as teja described it. There are only some field armies and the garrisons are small. You can easily conquer them. I used to kill the pop to get money and keep them happy ~;) .
I took the Alemanni very early to have a connection to Augusta Vind.. Then thegate to Italy is open. I formed a second invasion army and marched to Rome. Not a big deal to get the capitol of the world.
My diplomats were looking for other Germanian tribes and allied as much as possible. This is very important! When I invaded Italy Vandal and Goth hordes crossed my path. But they stayed peaceful!
I got some problems with happiness. I tried to convert all new towns to Christ but it simply did not work. It slowed my invasion in Gaul. So finally I destoyed all churches and the people were happy! I only let my southern town stay Christian (Augusta Vind and all Italian ones.)
Thanks for the welcome Franconicus
Playing the religious card in this game can be very tricky.
Early in the game you are very happy with pagan temples because of their influence while building forces (veteran point’s e.t.c.). Later in the game, when you have more and more populations in your cities an already established Christian religion offers more chances to keep the population happy.
I use having a mix of both over some time. When you start with a Christian fraction it is handy to pack as much of your family members as possible into one army stack. Use it and conquer a city you want to get and to turn into Christianity.
A longer siege will help you. Any Christian character has at lest a bonus of + 5 % converting into Christianity. As long as you are besieging a city, this affects the population around. It may cause unrest in the city against the current owner when he is pagan, but this is not the main use. When finally the city falls in your hand, a lot of people have already turned into Christianity. You can boost it, when your assassin destroys the temple just before the siege.
After the city is yours, destroy the temple and build a church, when Christianity is already big enough. When you have a chance, let your characters stay in this province for using their bonus to speed it up. You will see when time is right, when your Christian population starts to be safety problem. It is not required that your characters stick IN the city, but in the same province to make a use of their religious influence.
I use to turn most cities into Christianity early on. But some great developed cities for best military units will stay pagan for best effective forces.
Ravenna is one of those cities
It works best for Goths and offers a lot of benefits for western fractions like Saxons, Alemanni and (conventional) Franks. As long as you are unable to build big armies, you will use your family members as a big force either way.
teja,
how do you do it with a pagan nation, like the Franks? All my family members are pagan; so if they control a city they are a hurdle for the conversion.
When I conquered a new (pagan) town I killed the population, destroit all temples and started to built churches ... . However there was almost no conversion and there was a lot of troubles with rebellions. My family members never became Christian. After a while I gave up and destroit all churches.
It is more difficult, but it works. Easiest way is when in Horde mode. You only destroy the city and kill population, it turns into a Rebel city - attack and start to kill population again. The lower the population, the smaller the risk of a unrest you can not handle.
About family members you are right: All STARTING members are Pagan. But me, playing the Franks get at least 1 Christian family member later on. No matter that I never did something in favor of Christianity before.
I have no general plan how to turn provinces into other religious believings. I like Hordes, which makes you independence for a reasonable time. I like some Pagan temples, so why shall I change it in general? But I learned to do any of those changes carefully!
Once I had a city I could not hold for some ticks. I destroyed the temple, made a church and then aband it. A Rebellion rose up, what made a better defension but my former garrison formed of 1 cavalry unit. The Sarmatians took the city over and had to deal with all the unrest. Because it had not been a key city I came back much later and conquered a calm, almost christian city.
Maybe you should ask this question in a "roman fraction" thread. I never used them in BI, but romans have those problems from the beginning.
Hi
it is much easier to convert to christianity when not so many pagan provinces are adjacent to yours. Therefore it´s probably best to start this in a small peaceful coast province --> Campus Frisii or Vicus Saxones are quite good for this purpose, islands are even better.
And of course it enhances conversion very much if you convert other neighbouring provinces at the same time. Therefore it isn´t always a successful way if you take a town, burn down the temple, build a church and abandon it to leave it for the rebels. Because the small chruch can not compensate the pagan effects of more than one pagan neighbour province.
Thank you teja and Bastard.
By the way, wwelcome to you too!~:cheers:
My question here is for those of you who have played RTR 6.0. I don't have Barbarian Invasion yet. I just want to know if Barbarian Invasion is better than RTR 6.0? Sounds like a pretty exciting MOD, but being a tightwad as I am I'd rather not spend the money if 6.0 is better or as good.
@ Bastard Operator: Welcome here!
I agree to your statement about easier conversation. My story about making a Christian rebel town was a result of a bad intelligence about the Sarmatians that lead into the loss of it no matter if I made the church or not. My army was not handy and I expanded a bit faster but my forces had been able to defend. Whatever I saw it as a good chance to turn the city into Christianity without me having to solve the troubles there ;)
What you say about adjecting provinces is important and shows again the favors of Italy, Spain, Britain and similar locations for changing the religious believings, For other reasons they are fine for trading routes and small frontiers of your empire. All of this are reasons to become the new home of any Horde. For myself military and monetary reasons are more important but religious ones.
@Dead Knight of the Living
Strange that the forum rules force us to talk about such a common point in a Guide thread. Other locations should be better in my eyes.
However I do not own RTW 6.0, but learned about it's changes. As far as I know RTW 6,0 is not working with BI.
So far as I can see RTW 6,0 is a great mod that is working stable and fixed some balance problems in the original game. Some of it's changes are not after my fancy. For example Pontic phalanges should stay with smaller mens but regular ones. In history phalanx formations in eastern areas had always been recruited by people of Macedonian or Hellenic origin and those had been rare in Pontic lands....
Anybody has different ideas about how to please him well.
I for myself see the biggest changes between RTW x.x and BI in 3 points:
a) The historical context
b) The new Horde function. Sometimes it may outbalance the gameplay when you only focus on this, but using with care and fun it is great. Decide for yourself if it is of your liking.
c) The religious card. You can read about problems and changes in religion above. Do you like it? It is a difficult feature. There is no longer a technology breakthrough as Marius reforms are. In a very small base religion can be similar (Do I want to use berseks or priests?). But you better compare it in RTW with the differences between the roman fractions (Julii or Brutii or Scipions) with their special units.
This are the facts. It is on yours to decide. Ah, I forgot to say that BI is a bit expensive for an add on but it features pleases me well.
Maybe this poll will help you to decide?
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33894
I hate it to be unable to delete or edit my own posts! Can somebody do this with my post just above this?
A poll about ratings for BI:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33894
A thread about religion & converting family members into a new fait:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=35682
I forgot a new point in what's new in BI compared to RTW. Night battles!
Those look very cool, but are limited to really good commanders while others have not a change to use it.
In fact I am not convinced about it's use. You need to pause a lot to keep track about what is going on at the battlefield. It is not much of a help for armies with big large range weapon contingents. It favors melee units and to undermine city defence towers. Good for western fractions with great infantry, bad for nomad fractions. It helps to kill a single army pack of a Horde fraction, because adjoining armies not lead by those really good commanders will not engage into a night battle as they do at daytime.
I found it overall more entertaining than the RTR mod, though it certainlyQuote:
Originally Posted by Dead Knight of the Living
could use some realism tuning of its own.
I started exterminating everyone (partly to keep their revolts lower in intensity and partly for the cash to fund my church-building spree) and coverting them fairly quickly. I found it was critical to convert only after you have built up some numerous but cheap garrison forces (I used peasants just for the numbers and the cheap maintenance in addition to some real troops) and only after your offensive field-force is out of the province. All those nutcase pagan sons with their handy paladin cavalry are very useful in battle, but they just slow down the conversion rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bastard Operator
Once you've wiped out and converted some of the neighbouring provinces you'll get the neighbouring province conversion bonus (it's a problem while their pagan, but its a real boon while their Christian). My biggest problem is hordes, even peaceful ones, with their pagan family members, or local pagan tribes having a "diplomatic summit" around one of my newly converted settlements.
I am currently playing a Frank campaign and am about to try an experiment with conversion. I have conquered all of Gaul and have several strong armies able to hold all of my borders. However, before I move on Spain and Britain I want to convert to Christianity. This poses a challenge since all of my cities are 100% pagan. I recently adopted a Christian family member through marriage. He is the only Christian in my family. I made him heir and my current Faction Leader is old. If he does not die on his own soon I may kill him off with a suicide charge. The same turn that my Christian family member becomes King, I will destroy all pagan buildings in ALL of my cities and replace them with churches. There will of course be incredible unrest due to this. However, it is my hope that the cumulative effect of so many provinces flipping at once will provide massive conversion bonuses via the adjacent provinces. I am hoping that if I can keep the cities from rebelling for two to three turns that I will soon have a stable and mostly converted empire.
TinCow,
thats exactly the way I did it. I want to add that you haven´t only to get rid of your king. At the time I started the great conversion I had also seven or eight other pagan family members which are exremely disturbing when parked in your homelands. It´s best to send them westward to keep the WRE busy. Hopefully they can deflect Roman invasions since you will have very little money during those turns. This is because you´ll have to lower the taxes while maintaining large garrisons for public order.
@TinCow:
Please report about your experiences when you are able to.
However I would never want to convert my whole empire to one religion. I still want to get the benefits of all of them: Priests & Experience points
there is on one of those split screen things while loading etc, a group of men in HORNED HELMETS with axes and shields destroying a villiage.
I have search through the custom battle thing and havnt been able to find these units. Does anyone have any ideas as to who they are and who they belong to?
Alright, I converted my faction. After a second turn of revolt, two of my provinces rebelled and one reverted to the WRE. A turn later a third went rebel. Of these four provinces, two (including the WRE) were immediately recaptured by their expelled garrison. The other two were recaptured by other armies within a couple turns. The massive debt hole that I plunged into due to low taxes everywhere and church building expenses meant that I was forced to exterminate the cities that rebelled. However I am now a good 7-8 turns into the conversion and I'm back to normal. One province is still 100% pagan due to a 'faction member only' horde that I cannot seem to dispose of nor force out of the area. However, even this province remains happy despite its official christian religion.
All in all, not too bad and the mass revolt was kind of fun. Makes sense that a significant segment of the population wouldn't agree with the conversion.
As a side note, in order to keep my provinces converting quickly, I moved all pagan family members just over the border into foreign territory. The worst ones I even got killed intentionally and a few others were dispatched by rebels and enemies. Due to the low number of family members, I then got one Man of the Hour and two adoptions very quickly. Interestingly, all three were Christian and this has solved a great deal of my pagan family member problem.
Having just finished my Gallic RTW campaign, I thought I'd try their inheritors, the Franks on M/M in BI. My tack was that since they have a lot of buildings that give bonuses, I'd try to keep the peace for a while and put myself in a position where I could build some uber-buffed units. Started off with Hall of Heroes and archery range in Vicus Franki, and swooped down on the three neighboring rebel provinces before the AI could seize them. Allied with the Saxons and the WRE to give me some time to grow, and sent diplomats everywhere selling trade rights and adding to my stack of alliances. Got a transgression notice from the ERE when I made them pay me tribute for 10 turns at 1800d, but hey, it's business. Since the Alemanni had only one province, I decided to send my new army down to take them on, but their main stack turned out to have been hiding in the woods and young Rodolf was forced to beat a hasty retreat. I've been building and using assassins nonstop, though one kept missing to the point where he lost all of his skills. Urgh.
The Saxons turned on me first, attacking my northernmost province of Chatty Cathy, but they got nowhere. The WRE, seeing an opportunity, also backstabbed me, but rather ineffectually. That was fine with me, since I was running short of cash, and poorly-defended Augusta Tricovrum looked pretty tasty across the river. As I was about ready to take my siege engines in, I was attacked by the full stack of Romans. I went ahead with the siege attack, taking the gateway and allowing my cavalry and a couple pieces of infantry in; the rest were just abandoned to slow down the main WRE forces. The cav charged the main square, and I ended up winning on a TKO despite still being outnumbered 4:1 when the 3:00 timer ran out with the main force having had to run around to another side, stuck about a block from the main square. Heh.
But that left the stack outside, and after a turn or two of retraining and rebuilding (after a fine and profitable extermination to get my cash built up again), I set some hunters on the walls. The WRE stack started to run away! We couldn't have that, so all my cav went out to knock off a straggler or two. That worked, and the main force stopped, and using luring and crashing I ended up routing the entire stack with 4 cavalry, including the general. I also brought some mercs out to warcry, which helped with the routing. Fun! Took the city just to the north too, giving me at long last a seaport (well, after I built one....silly Romans). Even sillier, after I took those two cities, the WRE diplomat demanded that I become their protectorate. I told them to become mine instead, which broke off the diplomacy with an insult. :D
The Saxons continued to attack Chatty Cathy so I sent a force from several cities to wipe out their stacks and their holding in the Low Countries, leaving them just Frisia. I sent a force outnumbering them 2:1 and figured that was in the bag. I don't know if I was tired and getting sloppy or what, but the Saxon king, by himself, annihilated my entire 700 man army, including killing poor Tancred. Meanwhile, the Burgundians have used my alliance with the Lombards as an excuse to attack Chatty Cathy, and my loss in Frisia means I have no way to relive them.
And the Goth hordes, after settling in 2 spots in the ERE, have decided to go on a stroll and have razed my main economic city to the south (actually, once I knew the jig was up I razed much of it myself to get some cash). No idea where they'll go next, though most of the rest of my cities have stone walls so I'm hoping they decide Italy would be a nice place to visit.
The WRE cities for the victory conditions all look to be easily taken, since they're utterly underdefended, but I don't know how long the eastern half of my little empire can hold on. It's 390 AD and I'm about to drop from 7 to 5 territories. A lot depends on which way the Goths head.
And Hunters are a poor followup to Forester Warbands, let me tell you. Does anyone else find that they're really not interested in firing arrows, but instead keep charging targets that they should be firing arrows at? Bug or feature? I think "bug" considering they're set on skirmish and just run away after they charge, never actually accomplishing anything.
Hunters have anemic arrow range and aren't really useful as normal archers, since they can barely fire before infantry enters charge range. I stopped recruiting them entirely and depended on mercenary horse archers for that role. Francisca Heerbans are better defensive skirmishers too. Actually, you could probably get by with an army of nothing but Francisca Heerbans.Quote:
And Hunters are a poor followup to Forester Warbands, let me tell you. Does anyone else find that they're really not interested in firing arrows, but instead keep charging targets that they should be firing arrows at? Bug or feature? I think "bug" considering they're set on skirmish and just run away after they charge, never actually accomplishing anything.
Nobody likes an axe to the face.
Francisca Heerban will tear through almost any infantry enemy, especially if they get time to throw their axes first. However I've had an army of only very strong (bronze weapon and armor and 1 to 2 silver chevrons each) Franciscas get torn to shreds by horde horse archers. With no light cavalry to chase them and no archers to retaliate at range, they simply whittled the ends of my line down very, very badly. For whatever reason, Francisca Heerban do not seem to handle arrows as well as other shield units. When facing hordes with horse archers, 3-4 groups of Hunters just behind your Heerban line will deplete the enemy fast enough to protect your infantry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ordani
I want to go christian with the Franks and it's now past 400 AD and still no christian sons in my family. I paid close attention to my family and I did NOT miss the prodigal son. So when do people usually get him?
I tried accelerating this by taking some of my generals on suicidal missions to take out rebels, but this totally backfired. One of my generals survived repeated frontal charges into levy spears, saxon keels and foederati infantry in several battles - he went from no stars to three command stars in just a few turns. He's also deranged now.~;)
Related to this: Is the christian always a direct family member or can he be a recruited general or MOTH?
Look for the "Impious Franks" - Thread in the Colosseum. As player1 points out there, the religion of new family members is a matter of chances. As long as your leader is pagan, each new family members has to pass two tests, each with a chance of 30 %. This adds up to an overall chance of roughly 10 % for christianity. Not too much, hmm? ~:) So it seems you have only had bad luck during your game.
To your second question: A christian heir/leader necesserarily has to be a full member of your royal family. The recruited generals do not fulfill this requirement. However even these generals may get the chance to join your family if you succeed to trigger a Man-of-the-Hour-Event with them after an extraordinary great victory. So it would make sense in your situation to build those generals, hoping that there may a christian among them and throw him into glorious battles until he´s finally made it into the family. ~;)
Check the second post of this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=56387
[edit] Sorry for posting the same info, we were typing at the same time.
Thanks for the info. This was a Franks related question, so it didn't even occur to me to check out the Colosseum. Oh well.
So it seems that my main problem is simply family size: few children and hence not enough chances to get the christian one. I'll give recruiting generals a try.
In my experience the size of your family is directly related to the size of your empire. The more you expand, the more your family expands, either through births or adoptions. You will notice a distinct lack of births when you have stabilized your territory for a long period of time. If you then take several provinces quickly, you will receive a large number of births.
Adoptions and Man of the Hour seem to only happen when you are far below the number of family members that the game thinks you should have with your empire. As such, if you really want to try and manufacture a Christian child, you should continually kill off pagan family members to keep your birth rate up.
Interesting. So lack of expansion also contributes to my problem. For the last 10 turns or so I put all available income into building upgardes to get the best infantry and cavalry available. The Saxons and Alemanni are gone, I own everything from the northern Alps to the North Sea (essentially present-day Germany), plus the former WRE towns immediately west of the limes/Rhine river. Those lands produce some serious revenue.Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
The plan was to hold off on further expansion until I can raise two new and mean armies. Seems like I shot my own foot by doing that~:mecry:. This is all on MM to get a feel for the Franks. I might just save this one for later and start over, this time expanding very aggressively.
Like I said before, killing family members in combat turned out to be rather difficult. My assassins could use some practice targets~D .
Man, the Goths were making mincemeat out of me with their hordes; they pillaged two of my seven cities and then marched on Vicus Franki. So I pulled all my archers into the city before they got there, then had my king do a night battle. I annihilated one of the hordes by just raining down arrows on them and knocked a second down to about 1/3 size, then for good measure assassinated the family member at the head of that stack. The Goths have as a result finally decided that really, the WRE seems more entertaining so they've headed off into Gaul--hopefully leaving a trail of rebellious cities that I can claim in their wake.
The Saxons suddenly died out---I guess their invincible king died of old age or something, and so Frisia is mine for the taking....I think. Anyway, starting to get things back on a reasonable footing again after a couple turns of 100d of income.
If you intend to stay rooted in your starting province in the early stages of the game, it's heartily encouraged you plug the bridge over the Rhine right next to you ASAP with a fort and some disposable peasants. If the WRE decide to get opportunistic and break any alliance you might have with them at an inconvenient moment (say, when most of your troops are up north taking out the Saxons and won't be arriving to help in less than three turns), it's nice if they have to stop for a turn at the bridge instead of suddenly laying siege to your capital. I neglected to do this, which resulted in a strange battle of my faction leader and his forty-odd bodyguards, two Hunter units and two units of spearmen sallying out against something like a total of dozen Limitanensis, three Foederati Infantry, two Archers and one Foederati Cavalry.
Given the glaring tactical ineptitude of the AI (which seems to have serious indecisiveness issues about assaulting any semi-decent battleline nevermind the numbers it has), I pretty much annihilated the lot of them for the loss about five Warlord Bodyguards and ten spearmen.
~:handball:
But man, those bodyguards are tough. :knight:
I agree with Watchman. It is absolutely necessary to plug that Rhine bridge to protect your capital, especially if you move your field army north to take Campus Chattii. Alliance or not, the WRE will attack early.
In order to counter the WRE attack it is crucial to have sword and/or axe heerbanns, so I first upgraded the barracks and then built the stone wall. In my latest H/H campaign I took Campus Chattii first and then Frisii. After that the WRE broke our alliance and attacked my capital and besieged Campus Frisii at the same time. I made the mistake of not plugging that Rhine bridge, but managed to break the siege of my capital.
After retraining my troops I attacked the WRE city immediately west of the Rine bridge. The WRE sallied: I lost that battle, but the WRE also lost a lot of troops and called back the Campus Frisii siege army, thus ending the siege there. At that point the Alemanni attacked my capital and two turns later the plague broke out in my starting city.
The next 10 turns or so were hell, including negative finances for a few turns. I eventually managed to take one WRE town, beat back the second Alemanni attack and not spread the plague to my other cities.
This was one of the hardest campaign beginnings I've had in a while, yet it was also very entertaining.
Next I will punish the Alemanni for their aggression, then take out the Saxons and grab Londinium form the WRE. That should set me up for enough income to seriously upgade my cities an military. In my previous campaign I expanded into France, but this time I'm looking east. I know, that's asking for trouble...
.
...and trouble is named "Goths". ~;)
.
Not yet. The Goths already split and the Ostrogoths now own Ravenna. Beyond that no confrontation with either Goth faction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mouzafphaerre
Instead the Lombardi foolishly thought they could attack Campus Chattii AND get away with it. They volunteered to become my first eastern target.~D Fighting against their berserkers wasn't fun. After taking two of their provinces I now share a border with the Huns...
The Goths have been nasty in my campaign, slaughtering many of my citizens and buying flowers for many of my towns. I did beat them up a bit, and they headed off to the WRE for a while but now they're back (reduced from 2 and 1/2 stacks to 1 and 1/3 stacks--does that mean they settled somewhere, or just that they got pounded by the Romans?). Looks like another job for my general with night battle to pick off that 1/3 stack and then kill this horde.
in my franks campaign i tried out my "lets be friends" stragedy which basicly i initiate friendly diplomatic resolutions with everyone i can... first the local barbarians, then the hordes then i sent out and made alliances with the ERE, when i first started i also sent my army, small as it was to conquer the 2 rebel provinces to the east then after i had my feet strongly planted in the soil i looked for conquest, and the alemenii were fresh ripe, had only 1 province and were enemies of the WRE... and the minute i attacked the alemenii, the WRE opened negotiations for an alliance, i eagerly accepted, being a friend of rome is a great honor, i also knoticed the Burgandii had no friends besides me so i sent a diplomat and cancled my alliance, well i dont wanna be rude ;) and took there capital which was poorly defended due to there conquest expdition in the east and right now i'm marching to there last city... hopefully last faction member too.... during my war with the alemeniis I made sure there family members were dead so i didnt have to deal with an angry horde
I call my strategy 'violence and blackmail'.
First turn I gathered my troops at home to upgrade them. Then I attacked the Roman city right on the other side of the Rhine. My spy was successful and I took the town at once.
Then the Romans came and begged for peace. As I am extremly generous I donated peace and demanded two towns (Cologne and Augusta Vindelicorum) in return. They accepted and so this small campaign brought me another three towns. ~D So I managed to block the Saxons from going to France and I have the door to Italy!
I tried to make alliances with the other barbarians and enforced the capitol. I even made peace with the Alemans, because they paid a lot.~:)
Roman's armies started to hang around my towns and so I started war again. My army (1FM, 4 archers, 2 spears) marched east. I was ambushed and for this time it really looked like an ambush. My troops were marching in one line (FM in front and spears at the rear). On my left there were Roman archers and heavy inf., on my right archers and General, in front of me heavy infantry.
My army was a bit stronger in numbers.
Immidiatelly I attacked the general. After a tough fight he run away and I started killing the archers at this side. Meanwhile my infantry was struggling hard against the Roman infantry. Although I had severe losses I managed to win this battle because my FM could crush all the infantry formations after my archers had softened them.
Then I attacked the next town. The next turn this bloody general from the previous battle came again with loads of mercs and attacked me. Again I was able to beat him. But I have never seen such a bullheaded AI before.
Took the next town and again the Romans asked for peace. I accepted and received another town in France and the Italian town south of A.V..
Soon we were at war again. I took Ravenna and Rome and the rest of the Italian mainland. I controlled also all France except the two southern provinces. Romans had a huge army there and my invation operation failed. And I hadn't seen a single horde so far.
In RTW this would have been enough to win the game. Not in BI. Burgund attacked my hometown. Alemans did the same. I could beat them and took the Aleman hometown. Saxons attacked my northern town and took it. So I had to send an army from the south to punish them.
Then hordes appeared. First Vandals then Roxelans. Until now they did not attack me because my towns are very well defended. If I am lucky they will attack the Romans in France. If not they will turn north to attack my weaker cities in the north. So suddenly a new game started. I am wondering which horde will come next :hide:
Good luck with your game. Remember that it is almost enough to show enemy Hordes armies with lots of men, not quality. This will scare them off in most cases so they will move forward, leaving you alone. This works best at YOUR border! Otherwise try to make diplomaty to let them pass your lands in peace.
Hordes also seem to be adverse to forts at strategic chokepoints (which the German forests are lousy with). It doesn't matter if it's just a bunch of scared peasants sitting in there; I've watched the whole Hun horde mill uncertainly about for almost a decade before the few piddling forts I built to stall them. Mind you, just in case I plugged all the gaps in my borders I could - the idea of having a Hun stack circling from the south to besiege Vicus Franki while the armies were elsewhere wasn't very appealing, and they too can use those forest squares to hide their movement.
'Course, when they finally went and laid siege to one, I brought up an army and delivered some severe smiting on them. Say what you will about Hunters, but with the exp plusses from shrines and gold-grade weapons (courtesy of the missile-upgrading temple the Saxon capital had lying around when I took it -the Levy Spearmen could appreaciate the bonuses too) they tend to win firefights with those Horde HAs pretty handily.
I'm a huge fan of the Franks, largely because I hate factions without paved roads. I'm currently trying to horde the Franks and settle them in Britain to start. See the following thread for my experiences and discussion:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=57884
I tried doing the historically correct thing and went horde within a few turns after spending all my money on more troops and upgrades. On my way to southern France I sacked three WRE towns to build up cash reserves.
I made the mistake of taking the three target provinces over the course of several turns, which meant my treasury was drained immediately for army upkeep after taking the first city. After settling in all three places it took less than 5 turns for my cash reserves to be depleted.
That was enough time for the WRE to send armies after me from Spain and Italy. Without my horde units I was low on troops and had a hard time defending my cities while trying to improve my economic situation AND maintain public order.
And then the Lombards took over my starting province and the three sacked WRE towns my horde left behind. Between the Lombards attacking from the west and the relentless WRE I was effectively going nowhere for lack of income and enough troops to expand.
Maybe next time I try to take all of Spain first and consolidate my situation there. That strategic position should be easier to defend against the WRE.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
Just some thoughts about the Franks...
Overall, the Franks seem to be one of the better factions for an introduction to BI. They have a good solid selection of units (mostly infantry), good infrastructure, and can form a hoard. As Tincow mentioned, the ability to make paved roads is very useful, particularly once the Franks have expanded; holding together an empire with dirt roads is kinda hard. ~:rolleyes:
Although surrounded by several factions, the Franks tend not to be in immediate danger. Also, I find that starting with a single province and expanding from there is easier than starting with several and trying to keep them. One of their pagan temples provide an experience bonus to all units you produce, 3xp can be a major advantage; although the temple doesn't provide much happiness.
Also, the majority of Frankish units have a combat bonus in woods or snow... and you're in northern Europe. ~D
Levy Spearmen
Your first tier infantry unit; a decent unit with a matching price, it's worth learning to use them. They may not stand up long in a fight, but their javelins give them an advantage over other similar units. Be sure to set them an "fire at will" so they will use their javelins, otherwise they just mill around waiting for everyone to get ready; by the time they're ready the enemy is already on them. Large unit size and fairly low cost make them an alternative to peasants for garrison duty if you have the extra cash, since they can actually well... fight. <.<
Hunters
As Watchman mentioned, these are actually a pretty good unit; which is good because they are your only archers. Stats are actually pretty close to the stats for levy spearmen. While not very well armored, they have a pretty good melee attack for archers, which makes them useful if you can maneuver them to charge the enemy flanks. But obviously their main use is to shoot little bits of pointy wood at the other guys. ~;p
Axe Heerbann
Your first good solid troops, good moral and defense give the axe heerbann some staying power in a fight. Probably the best unit ability for upkeep cost the Franks have; a good choice if you're struggling economically. Add to this snow and woods combat bonuses and a shield wall, and you've got a good all around unit.
Sword Heerbann
Almost the same as the axe heerbann, the two are pretty much interchangeable in your armies. The sword heerbann has a higher defense skill, but also a higher upkeep. The sword heerbann also has the heavy weapon type instead of light. If you have the resources, go with swords; either way, they're both good solid units to use as the majority of your army.
Francisca Heerbann
These guys are expensive. Slightly higher attack than sword heerbann, with a lower defense, and a throwing axe attack... for a major increase in cost. Are they worth it? ...it depends. If you can afford the cost, the ranged attack is nice; but sword heerbann do a good enough job as it is. If you decide to use them, be sure to put them on fire at will (and watch that none of your troops charge in front of them ^^;)
Raiders
Hope you like these guys, because if you want to use calvary, this is most likely what you'll use. A decent enough unit, it also has the Frankish combat bonus in snow. For some reason these guys really seem to drop like flies under archer fire, so keep an eye on them. Obviously it's always a good idea to have some light calvary along with the army (guys in metal jackets don't run fast for some reason ~;p ) and they get an experience upgrade at the stables. You probably won't field as many as you will heerbann, but they're useful.
Noble Warriors
Pretty much standard heavy calvalry, requires a lot of infrastructure and money to train these guys. Use these if you don't want to risk the life of a family member, but you want their heavy calvary. They're strong, but you're probably better off with infantry units as the Franks.
You forgot the Paladins. Although they can be a pain - I converted one of the larger WRE towns (the one right west of Vicus Franci, whatever its name now was) to Christianity with an eye of acting as a production center for these guys... and when I finally got the prequisite Monastery level built found out they're not actually that much better as plain vanilla than Noble Cavalry with the +3 exp bonus from shrines (which, naturally, the Paladins don't get, unless you can go and replace the church with the appropriate shrine *after* building the high-level monastery - haven't tried). Bugger. But with the exp bonus from the highest-level monastery they should be good enough for field deployement.
Noble Cavalry are pretty good and well worth the price, especially if paired with Raiders for flanking and pursuit duties. I've noticed that after I started adding those guys into my armies the infantry (the trusty lineholder Levy Spearmen, who've done splendidly against all comers thus far, plus Hunters) tend to end up watching from the sidelines while the cavalry tear the enemy line apart unit by unit. Once the enemy army has thoroughly confused, tired and weakened itself trying to figure out how to approach the textbook spears-centre/cavalry-flanks/archers-behind formation it tends to be almost depressingly easy to roll up the whole lot with well-aimed cavalry assaults. The infantry are mostly necessary for mop-up work at that point, such as taking care of any pesky schiltroms that might be standing around looking all prickly.
Incidentally, is there any reason to use Axe Heerbanns instead of Swords unless you're so desperately short of cash the few dozen denar upkeep difference counts (in which case you probably have rather bigger problems anyway) ? ~:confused:
Good overview D3tr. However, you left out a major unit... and the single greatest reason for ANY barbarian faction to convert to Christianity.
Paladins
The best cavalry available to the Franks. The same base attack as the Noble Warriors, but an extra 4 charge bonus and an extra point in defense. In addition they have higher morale (Good vs. Excellent) and they do not charge without orders. Paladins are a match for any heavy infantry in the game, with the possible exception of the Sassanid, who you are unlikely to encounter. The downside is that you must have a Monastery (lvl 2 of Hermitage) which essentially means that you'll have to convert to Christianity before you can get them. However, the level 3 of that building will give than an extra experience point, increasing their stats over the Noble Warriors even more.
[edit] ack, beaten to the post again. I do think Paladins are better than Watchman gives them credit for. They certainly take a long time to get, but once you have them they are the ultimate mobile flankers. Due to their extremely high morale they will fight much longer than the Noble Warriors and you never need to worry about them going somewhere that you didn't want them to go.
As for the Axe Heerbann, I *think* that the axes are armor piercing, which the swords are not. This means that the Axe Heerbann will perform far better against heavy infantry and cavalry than Sword Heerbann will, despite the lower stats.