Coming Back to RTW

[Bartholemew-Varath]

Im coming back to RTW, i was wondering if there were any campaigns (that you can think of yourself) that you might suggest i try to get myself into RTW again. I havent played RTW yet, im waiting around for something to spike my interest.

Also in the faction wise option, i would prefur something heavy and barbaric, with lots of opportunity for Expansion, trade and Total War!

[anelious phyros]

If you want Barbaric you're out of luck. You have to first beet one of the roman campaigns that they give you then they give you the other factions playable on the game. Although there are mods that let you play as all factions.

[paul_kiss]

No, you don't have to play Romans first to be able to play for Barbarians. And you don't need any mod to solve this problem.

All you have to do is simple editing a certain file. VERY simple. If you're interested, ask.

[anelious phyros]

oh, yea if forgot about that, thanks.
Dosn't it look like this -

campaign imperial_campaign
;options bi
playable
seleucid
pontus
scythia
parthia
numidia
romans_julii
egypt
gauls
germans
britons
greek_cities
macedon
carthage
romans_scipii
dacia
armenia
spain
thrace
romans_brutii
saba
slave


end
unlockable
end
nonplayable

end

[Quintus.JC]

Also in the faction wise option, i would prefur something heavy and barbaric, with lots of opportunity for Expansion, trade and Total War!

Try Germania, they'd fit into heavy and barbaric perfectly. They've got crazy infantry plus shocking cavalry and melee archers. But their trade is a bit lacking...

[anelious phyros]

Germans are pretty funny with all there shock infantry, but I liked the gauls for they're location. They start out right infront of the progressing Romans. One time I took over all of the Italian Peninsula and Sicily. It was really fun destroying the Romans.

[Bartholemew-Varath]

Now that that has been cleared up, i also think i would like something a distance from the romans, but still barbaric, although im not really really bothered about this part. It just has to be heavy and warlike.

p.s Im not new here, i have already done this ages ago, ive edited the files before, i can play with every faction apart from the Roman Senate, as i hear that faction has bugs and makes your game crash

[anelious phyros]

Well I still suggest Gaul. But Germany and Briton are pretty kick -***.
I suggest you start them do a few turns on both then decide which one you like best.

[Bartholemew-Varath]

Ive played as the Britons before, and i completely steamrolled the Gauls without advancing into Germanic territory. But the problem with this campaign was that whilst i was killing barbarians, the Romans built a load of awsome soldiers and started wiping out everything that stood in their way in the Italian Penisula, i want something near the Romans to deal with them quickly. Im not sure about the Gauls, as i dont particularly like their units, what about Dacia?

[anelious phyros]

You could Try Dacia but Macadon is pretty close to hit you on you're tushy while you're not looking.

[Caesar the IIIV]

germania is good for their units,as well as dacia

[Quintus.JC]

Germania! They're the only barbarian faction able to fend off a post-marian army. They are the only barbarian faction able to deploy phalanx troops, their chosen axemen with AP ability could cut the Roman armour to bits. Awesome cavalry and Berserkers is needless to say.

very few barbarian faction is able to fight off a army full of legionaries infantry and cavalry.

[Darkvicer98]

Well i'd say you should be either Dacia or Thrace but if you want a campaign against the Romans straight away Germania seems fitting.

[Quintus.JC]

Dacia and Thrace don't stand a chance against established Roman factions. Espeically Thrace is commonly considered to be one of the hardest faction to play as.

[Shieldmaiden]

Well i'd say you should be either Dacia or Thrace but if you want a campaign against the Romans straight away Germania seems fitting.

I'm playing as Germania and conquering Italy - its 258 BC.

The Britons and Gauls are defeated. Germania controls the Alps and the Romans are contained in Italy, being slowly crushed by experienced German spears and axes.

Rome gets in the next few turns.

I've yet to train Berserkers or the better Cavalry... but there will be other Factions to

Great fun and recommended

[Quintus.JC]

Germania is do doubt the most powerful barbarian faction. They have several different type of units with unique advantages.

Spear Warband: More powerful than the normal Warband, able to fight in Phalanx formation.
Axemen: Slightly weaker than Swordsmen, but with AP ability.
Chosen Axemen: Wild tribesmen wielding two-hander axes. Great for chopping through heavily armoured infantry, such as the Romans.
Night Raiders: lightly armed with an axe and a sheid, Night Raiders demoralises nearby enemy and is uniquely powerful.
Berserkers: Everything that frightens you about the Germans rolled into one. Huge, angry warriors wielding large axes. With 2 HP these guys are one of the strongest infantry any faction could field and should certainly be trained as soon as possible so to take full advantage of them.
Screeching Women: Female axe wielding infantry, very weak defence and extremely vulnerable to missile fire, they however have a major effect on the morale and discipline of the other German troops they are fighting alongside with.
Gothic Cavalry: These are the most dangerous of the barbarian cavalry units. Only available to the Germans.
Chosen Archers: Good missile unit, but their biggest advantage is the fact they're very useful in melee and could be used as light infantry in pinch.

All of their axemen units have AP ability so they have a big advantage against the Romans.

[Joooray]

Germania is do doubt the most powerful barbarian faction. They have several different type of units with unique advantages.

Spear Warband: More powerful than the normal Warband, able to fight in Phalanx formation.
Axemen: Slightly weaker than Swordsmen, but with AP ability.
Chosen Axemen: Wild tribesmen wielding two-hander axes. Great for chopping through heavily armoured infantry, such as the Romans.
Night Raiders: lightly armed with an axe and a sheid, Night Raiders demoralises nearby enemy and is uniquely powerful.
Berserkers: Everything that frightens you about the Germans rolled into one. Huge, angry warriors wielding large axes. With 2 HP these guys are one of the strongest infantry any faction could field and should certainly be trained as soon as possible so to take full advantage of them.
Screeching Women: Female axe wielding infantry, very weak defence and extremely vulnerable to missile fire, they however have a major effect on the morale and discipline of the other German troops they are fighting alongside with.
Gothic Cavalry: These are the most dangerous of the barbarian cavalry units. Only available to the Germans.
Chosen Archers: Good missile unit, but their biggest advantage is the fact they're very useful in melee and could be used as light infantry in pinch.

All of their axemen units have AP ability so they have a big advantage against the Romans.

I was planing on playing as a babarian faction next as well and this sounds quite good. Though I must say that I tried playing as Germania once before and it was awful. I was constantly hit by both Gaul and Britannia and had no way of advancing at all, but I was still quite new to RTW back than so maybe nowadays I'd perform better. The biggest problem I encoutered was the slow pace of my cities growth and also the lack of money, has anybody thoughts on that?
And one small question, what the hell does AP mean?

One last thing, I was planning on installing the Babarossa Mod after I finished my current Brutii campaign, because I like the changes he made, especially the prospect of seeing other faction gaining the upper hand in there region appeals to me. But the thing I was wondering about is that he also disabled the phalanx-function of the German-Spearband and if this will be a big disadvantages in the opinion the people here?

[Caesar the IIIV]

Berserkers: Everything that frightens you about the Germans rolled into one. Huge, angry warriors wielding large axes. With 2 HP these guys are one of the strongest infantry any faction could field and should certainly be trained as soon as possible so to take full advantage of them.




you cant hve these men in campaign mode,only in multiplayer and custom battle you can

[Quintus.JC]

..... The biggest problem I encoutered was the slow pace of my cities growth and also the lack of money, has anybody thoughts on that?

That's just about the biggest problems the German faces early on. They have very poor settlements with even poorer growth. Their trading is terrible and have few sea trading settlements. Their treasury is consitantly around zero. While their population growth is pityful, not helped by the fact you'll need Spear Warband early on and they needs a heck amount of people to form. Micro-management will be needed to ensure that the treasury don't go into negative every turn. Expanding and building wisely will be key to your early success. The trouble is the human player don't normally get the chance to build the powerful highter-tier units the German posses because of the poor population growth, and the frustration could lead to players giving up on them.

And one small question, what the hell does AP mean?

Amour Piercing, which gives them major advantage against heavily armoured troops.

.... But the thing I was wondering about is that he also disabled the phalanx-function of the German-Spearband and if this will be a big disadvantages in the opinion the people here?

IMO Phalanx Warband is a big advantage to the Germans, they are superior to normal warband and share similar advantage to hoplites, and that means they'll be awfully hard to be beat front-on.

Overally Joooray my friend I would not hesitate one movement to recommend the Germans, after crushing the Britons you should be steam rolling everyone else. They're great to play.

[Quintus.JC]

Berserkers: Everything that frightens you about the Germans rolled into one. Huge, angry warriors wielding large axes. With 2 HP these guys are one of the strongest infantry any faction could field and should certainly be trained as soon as possible so to take full advantage of them.

you cant hve these men in campaign mode,only in multiplayer and custom battle you can

Not true my friend. The Germans have a vast array of powerful troops that do not need barracks to be trained. Spear Warband, Axemen and Chosen Axemen comes from barracks and it's upgrades, but the others comes from other buildings, such as:

Berserkers. Becomes available after the building of a Sacred Circle of Donar in a settlement.
Night Raiders. Becomes available after the construction of a Bardic Circle(tavern upgrade).
Screeching Women. Available after building a shrine to Freyja. The temple of Fertility.
Gothic Cavalry. Becomes available after constructing a Sacred Circle to Woden, which also grants Naked Fanatics (sacred grove).

[Darkvicer98]

Dacia and Thrace don't stand a chance against established Roman factions. Espeically Thrace is commonly considered to be one of the hardest faction to play as.

Who said Thrace was one of the most hardest factions to play as? They have a good position on the map and they can recruit barbarians as well as macedonian pikemen. Dacia i understand because they start off with low level settlements and the Roman Julii and Brutii knocking next door.

[Bartholemew-Varath]

Ive played as Thrace before, i quite liked the faction to be honest, until i was hit by hordes of Macedonian Phalanxes, light cavalry and archers. My armies were large, but theirs were stupidly big, id say they'd emptied every city in Greece and Macedon to come and destroy the Thracians. I fought back perhaps 5 stacks of them, using my generals bodyguard to deal with perhaps 300 light cavalry at once. Then i used minor light cavalry to flank. But the stacks just kept coming, full waves of armoured hopilites. I lost 3 generals of the 4 that i had by the end, and i still had another stack of perhaps 800 soldiers against my weary 40 soldiers.

Strangely i never had any trouble with Pontus or Scthia, or Dacia. I had minor naval battles with Greece, and had nothing to do with the Selucids, Egypt, Armenia or places like that.

The thing that struck me about the Thracians was how such a strategic and wealthy country was such a downfall. I had ports within a few turns, but the other factions didnt, so there was no trade. Macedonia prevented road trade to the West, Scythia the stingy nomads wouldnt give trade rights, and Dacia had very poor trade. Greeks prevented sea trade, and pontus were too poor for Ports.

I liked playing as Thrace, but how exactly are they barbarians? They are more like the Greeks and Macedonians than anything else...

Well, i think i might try either Germania or Dacia, or perhaps the Britons and not get involved in Europe, and move down to attack the Carthaginians.

Im not sure about the African countries, the buildings are so unfamiliar...

[Quintus.JC]

Who said Thrace was one of the most hardest factions to play as? They have a good position on the map and they can recruit barbarians as well as macedonian pikemen. Dacia i understand because they start off with low level settlements and the Roman Julii and Brutii knocking next door.

Thrace is in my opinion the worst faction in the game. Their starting position isn’t promising, and could easily be attacked on all fronts. Despite the fact they’re able to recruit both barbarian and Greek units this is only an advantage to them early on, as Quirinus said in the Thrace guides.

I do think that 'worst' describes the Thracians pretty well. As previously mentioned, their starting position is similar to the Seleucids, but unlike the Seleucids, there isn't any reward for putting up with early-game difficulty-- they don't get cool late-game units like the Seleucids do. In fact, the power of units on their troop roster decreases with time. Their late-game units simply cannot compete with theier late-game counterparts from other factions.

As Quirinus said. Thrace is only able to recruit 6 units in total (excluding boats and mercenaries). Their most powerful infantry is the Bastarnae with 14 attack and 6 defence. And their most powerful cavalry unit has 7 attack and 8 defence. Overall their late-period units terminates their own downfall.

[Caesar the IIIV]

Not true my friend. The Germans have a vast array of powerful troops that do not need barracks to be trained. Spear Warband, Axemen and Chosen Axemen comes from barracks and it's upgrades, but the others comes from other buildings, such as:

Berserkers. Becomes available after the building of a Sacred Circle of Donar in a settlement.
Night Raiders. Becomes available after the construction of a Bardic Circle(tavern upgrade).
Screeching Women. Available after building a shrine to Freyja. The temple of Fertility.
Gothic Cavalry. Becomes available after constructing a Sacred Circle to Woden, which also grants Naked Fanatics (sacred grove).

i didnt know that

[Quirinus]

Oh, wow, I got quoted. =D


If you want a barbarian faction far away from the Romans, try the Scythians. They start next door to the grain-exporting Chersonesus, which will give you a badly-needed early population boost. I enjoyed the Scythians a lot because of their awesome horse archers. They're better and less wimpy-looking than their Parthian/Armenian counterpart, and only takes a lowly barracks to build.

And Scythian noblewomen. That unit is one of the coolest barbarian units ever.

[Abokasee]

The best "Barbarian" factions are Sycthia and Germania,

Sycthians are very hit and run, there early game horse archer is good, and there late game caverly will butcher pretty much any other factions, however they have virtually no infantry (Peaseant, Axemen Warband, Archer Warband, Chosen Archer Warband), and No siege weapons (With the exception of the typical barbarian city siege things)

Germania, are very very fun to play, spear warband are basically barbarian hoplites, axemen are great flankers in all meanings, virtually all areas of the unit tree, with the exception of Siege weapons

My personal fav faction is armenia, there unit list is balanced, infact I'll give ya a quick run down

Infantry

Peasant - Useless in battle
Eastern Infantry - Only good for holding a line, and you'll need alot, although with modding I've made them into a sort of militia hoplites
Hillmen - Not really worth the fuss but pretty good
Heavy Spearmen - Thats what where talking about! friggin hoplites!
Legionares - Yay!

Cavalry

Horse Archer - Nothing special, but good and useful
Cataphract - Yipy!
Cataphract Horse Archers - BOOYA!!!!

Missile
Slinger - Always welcome if you ask me, and its pretty cool to see roman legionaries getting there asses kicked by your "cannon fodder" army
Peltast - Why not?
Archer - Always useful, but nothing special

Siege
Ballista
Omanger
Heavy (?) Omanger

As you can see, there well balancened, in late game the entire unit rooster is filled, for every enemy you have a counter

Heavy spearmen hold that line! legionaries and cataphracts get em from behind! whilst cataphract archers **** with the cavalry

Basically, the same tactic as: Macedonian (Except the HA and the true melee infantry) Selucid (Except the HA) Pontus (Except the longer rage HA, and the melee) Egpyt (But there already strong in early game, unlike armenia who you have to build up)

You get my point

[Quintus.JC]

Scythia is a good faction to play as, with their awesome cavalry and very limited infantry (They can't even train warbands), and being one of the only two barbarian faction able to build siege engines (the other being Dacia). I howeven found their early campaign to be rather frustrating. Economy and population growth is poor, while the traveling distance is astonishing. I tried to get my family memebers from Campus Alanii to Europe and it took me forever. Also Thrace and Dacia attacked me non-stop. I gave up when some rebels from Russia with giant elephants seiged my settlement in the north. But I have to adimit it was a totally new expreience...I actually liked them better than Parthia.

[Darkvicer98]

Dacia can get a better start than Parthia because they are right next to Thrace which can be conquered easily within the first few turns and then your rockin by gettin a good income. Parthia don't have as many infantry(and good)as Dacia.

My favourite faction is The Greek Cities but since your all so familiar with them i'll describe my 2nd favourite:Numidia. They may not be very good to start off with but when the get going.....and they may not have many infantry units like Scythia but they have powerful infantry units.

Infantry:
Peasants-Basic infantry
Desert Infantry:Good Defence Unit,can hold the line
Numidian Legionaries:Roman! Good to have a roman unit in Africa.

Missile:
Numidian Javilinmen-Ok
Archers-Good
Slingers-Good fast cheap missile unit.

Cavalry:
Numidian Cavalry:Good excellent missile and combat unit that i've won many battles using only these.
Long Shield Cavalry-Good,fast.
Camel Riders-Scare horses,good.
General-Good,keep out of bad situations though.

Siege:
Onagers-Good for sieges,bad for open land.

Mercenaries:
War Elephant-Booyakasha.

[Quirinus]

Scythia is a good faction to play as, with their awesome cavalry and very limited infantry (They can't even train warbands), and being one of the only two barbarian faction able to build siege engines (the other being Dacia). I howeven found their early campaign to be rather frustrating. Economy and population growth is poor, while the traveling distance is astonishing. I tried to get my family memebers from Campus Alanii to Europe and it took me forever. Also Thrace and Dacia attacked me non-stop. I gave up when some rebels from Russia with giant elephants seiged my settlement in the north. But I have to adimit it was a totally new expreience...I actually liked them better than Parthia.

But the distance works in your favour too-- hit-and-run tactics are very viable and even somewhat necessary for Scythia. Hit an invading army with horse archers, fire all arrows, retreat.

[placenik]

Scythia is a good faction to play as, with their awesome cavalry and very limited infantry (They can't even train warbands), and being one of the only two barbarian faction able to build siege engines (the other being Dacia). I howeven found their early campaign to be rather frustrating. Economy and population growth is poor, while the traveling distance is astonishing. I tried to get my family memebers from Campus Alanii to Europe and it took me forever. Also Thrace and Dacia attacked me non-stop. I gave up when some rebels from Russia with giant elephants seiged my settlement in the north. But I have to adimit it was a totally new expreience...I actually liked them better than Parthia.

Schytian early campaign is easy, just go on Thrace on south, rebels on north (untill you reach germans), and bosfor rebels. You should take Thrace capital in first or second turn. Trouble starts when you find yourself fighting Bruti and Greeks for Greece, Julii for Iliria and Germans for north.