Best faction in Vanilla?

[Lord Reid of Britannica]

Personally i think its Macedon based on starting placement, army versatility and economic strength due to owning Corinth from the start meaning you can have massive taxes without much penalty at all.

[gollum]

I was about to whine on which grounds, but i think your assessment is pretty accurate. Indeed macedonia enjoys a number of advantages, like balanced roster (able infantry and cavalry) and perfect starting position in terms of placement. It gets a bit hectic at first, but nowhere near as hectic as with the Seleucids or Gaul. A good choice for overall best.

[ReluctantSamurai]

You left out my choice.......Armenia. Isolated starting position with rich, nearby provinces both in Pontus and Seleucid territory. Cataphract Archers, Cataphracts, Phalanx, Legionaires,......what else do you need?!? The CA are the ultimate answer to chariots. Just assign one to each chariot unit in the battle, and go on about conducting the rest of the fight. They'll be dead in minutes..........

Good temple choices that eventually allow gold status armor and weapons at huge city level. Only drawbacks, IMO, are vanilla archers (Creeshans are available once you push into Anatolia, tho') and the very strange inability to build paved roads. If one is allowed epic stone walls for a huge city, you'd think their stonemasons and engineers could figure out how to put gravel down for a roadbed and lay pavers over them?!?

[Quintus.JC]

The choice undoubtedly has to be a Roman faction.

Needless to mention they are the best in all departments. The producers unfairly over powered the Romans too much, resulting almost in their invincibility over the others. Nonetheless, as addressing to the question, the Romans are by far the best factions in Vanilla beyond all doubts.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Quintus is probably correct. If you could autorun the game with the AI controlling all factions, the Romans would win every time. Although I disagree that they are the best in all departments, they get so many 'perks' it's hard for AI-led factions to fight them on anything like equal terms.

Still.......Armenia needs to be added to complete the list, yes?

[Lord Reid of Britannica]

Yes i knew i'd forgotten some, i was doing it by memory. Pontus and Armenia...

[gollum]

The autorun would play the battles by the autocalc; in this way the Romans would win everytime yes. However, and despite indeed being hugely overpowered, Roman armies can and are defeated regularly in mp with proper play. Many of the other factions have the tools to beat them if used properly. This is all the more in SP, as the AI is much less good opponent. Phalanx factions in particular can trash the Romans pretty easily. In terms of strategy in the SP game, the Romans can get wiped out of the game by the Gauls, Carhage, Macedon, the Greek Cities and Germania - and pretty quickly too; that's because the really overpowered part of the Roman tech tree is the Marian one. Consequently they aren't that great in terms of SP while they are still small and vulnerable.

[Slug For A Butt]

For me, it has to be a Phalanx based civ which leaves me with Macedonia & Seleucia.
Although I prefer the later miltary of Seleucia, I think it's a little busy in that corner of the map early game.
The simple economic potential in the early game of the Macedonians tips the balance for me (they punish the Romans too early game ).

Shame on me. I really wanted to vote for Seleucia's 'phracts too.

[Shieldmaiden]

The best Faction is the Faction you enjoy playing the most

I reckon all Factions are interesting to play, I'll vote Julii - its my first campaign and it felt the most atmospheric and Rome-y.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

It's either Scipii or Seleucids.

Scipii because of their Armor upgrades from a temple and their ability to recruit Decere and Corvus Quinquireme.
Seleucids because they can recruit Roman Legionaries and they have Armoured elephants

[Slug For A Butt]

The best Faction is the Faction you enjoy playing the most .

I can agree to a certain extent. Although the Romans are the best factions in the game my fighting style is better suited to Phalanx factions, so the best faction for me is the best Phalanx faction.
But you must remember that we are talking about "best" faction, not favourite faction. That's a different poll.

[Caius]

Brittania and Spain, those sometimes are underrated.

[placenik]

Voted for Scythia. Great starting position with only western border being warring one, best starting unit (HA), riches of Balkans waiting for you.
If you are aggressive, you will simply roll over Thrace, Dacia, Germany, Macedon and Greece and be on roman borders before they even start fielding principes, not to mention anything heavier.

[Empirate]

Seleucia. Once you overcome the first 10 turns or so, you'll be the richest faction. You'll also be able to get to Egypt and the Aegean quickly (very good pickings). You have the most varied unit roster of all factions, including Armored War Elephants, Silver Shield Legionnaires and Pikemen, War Chariots, Cataphracts... and your archery needs can be filled by parking a family member on close-by Crete. You'll have plenty of fun battling the eastern factions, and you'll also have a great time destroying well-advanced, powerful Romans by the time you get to Italy. By that time, your Elephant, Chariot and Cavalry armies are almost the perfect matchup to destroy heavy Roman legions - or just play their game and beat them at it with your Silver Shields!
Be warned, however, that the beginning is not easy. Militia Hoplites and Peltasts against Horse Archers - I believe you get the picture. Militia Cavalry have always served me well, though!

[Quirinus]

In terms of strategy in the SP game, the Romans can get wiped out of the game by the Gauls, Carhage, Macedon, the Greek Cities and Germania - and pretty quickly too; that's because the really overpowered part of the Roman tech tree is the Marian one. Consequently they aren't that great in terms of SP while they are still small and vulnerable.

The pre-Marian Romans are not too shabby themselves. I've played many vanilla campaigns, I've never seen a Roman faction bite the dust in vanilla, ever. (Unless I wipe them out myself, of course. ) The most I've seen other factions do in Italy was capture Capua for a short time (Carthage), or Mediolanum (Dacia), also for a short while. And inevitably, they don't stay small and vulnerable - even if they sit around in Italy for the first few decades they have a tendency to explode across the map once they get started.

Voted for Scythia. Great starting position with only western border being warring one, best starting unit (HA), riches of Balkans waiting for you.
If you are aggressive, you will simply roll over Thrace, Dacia, Germany, Macedon and Greece and be on roman borders before they even start fielding principes, not to mention anything heavier.

Agreed, Dacia and Germania with their unarmoured troops are easy pickings... almost too easy. Plus, if I remember correctly, Scythia can field horse archers at barracks-level. Horse archers by themselves are scary enough. Now very low-tier horse archers....

[gollum]

I agree with you Quirinus, the AI can never do it, because he fights with the autocalc as mentioned. However, for the player, using (especially phalanxes) properly his forces the Romans can be very shabby pre-Marius. When i play Macedon, Greek Cities, Carthage or Germania the Romans are a breeze. With Gaul i tend to get heroic victory marks all over the Italian penins. - somewhat harder than with phalanxes but still easy enough, especially since the Romans are very close and one can rush them at once.

[ReluctantSamurai]

One reason (a major one, AFAIAC) that Roman factions rule in vanilla is that the AI is entirely too passive when it comes to attacking them. In my current camp (as Carthage), I'd already eliminated the Scipii, and strangled Julii attempts to take Caralis (which has them milling around northern Italy trying to figure out what to do). The only Roman faction making any progress was the Brutii, and only just.

They have Appollonia and Salona but only a very few units on that side of the Adriatic. So, to the point:

The GC have three nearly full stacks of hoplites hanging around Thermon with a 3-star general heading one of them and are at war with the Romans. Appollonia has a general and three units of Hastati. The seas between are clogged with GC fleets so no reinforcements will be forthcoming anytime soon.

So what does the AI do? It moves one stack back to Athens, one to the hill overlooking Larissa (where it stands for several turns before moving back to the vicinity of Thermon), and embarks the general-led army onto a fleet which sails aimlessly around.

Absolutely brilliant!

I guarantee if you were playing Shogun, and had only a general and three army units guarding a province, and your enemy had three stacks in a neighboring province, you'd be facing an invasion, pronto.

I've seen this repeatedly.....factions will defend themselves if attacked, but noone carries the fight to the Romans even if they have local superiority. It's almost as if there's a 'fear of the Romans' factor built in to the AI.

[gollum]

Maybe or maybe its fear of the Roman autocalc. I've seen full stacks of GCs with hoplites and all with 10 star generals get wiped out by roman hastati stacks in the autocalc and the Romans taking 50% casualties or so. early gcs stacks should be even weaker with militia hoplites being terrible in autocalc although in reality they can beat hastati and even principes if used correctly.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I know it's a bit off topic, but exactly what makes the autocalcs with Roman factions so bad? I can autocalc (at hard/hard) with phalanx and come out just fine. Looking at unit stats, Hastati & Principes have quite high defensive values but many early Roman stacks are half Velite which have weak melee stats. So what gives? I suppose there's probably a thread around here that already discusses that, so I should probably look for it........but still.......not even trying? Letting the Romans get established is tantamount to a death sentence......

And where's Armenia in the poll list so I can vote?

[gollum]

The way the autocalc works is by taking into account attack/defense/hitpoints. In this way though the phalanx "stats" are not included, but just the stats of phalangites when they fight off phalanx formation. Their stats in off phalanx are considerably weaker (which is why they aren't as good on walls). The romans are among the few factions that have good attack/defence units available from very early on. Even the barbarians have bad for autocalc early/lowtier units (spear warbands).

[caravel]

Hello,

Gollum is right here. In autocalced battles (whatever the TW game), only the raw melee stats are taken into account. Missiles, special formations, warcries, etc are not factored. This is why defensive or missile units always come off worse in autocalc against the mainly offensive Roman infantry units. This is bad enough pre marian, post marian it is much more exaggerated.

Yohei

[gollum]

Congratulations on your promotion Yohei.

[ReluctantSamurai]

This is why defensive or missile units always come off worse in autocalc against the mainly offensive Roman infantry units. This is bad enough pre marian, post marian it is much more exaggerated.

Understood. I'm just trying to tinker the game for my own benefit. I'm not a huge RTW fan (I much prefer STW) but I do enjoy RTW gaming from time to time and since I never play Roman factions, I just wanted to introduce a bit more balance into the game by making AI-led factions able to be something more than a speed bump to the Roman steamroller.

[Quirinus]

It seems to me that morale is also a huge factor in autocalc - for example Samnite mercs tend to do badly even though their stats are as good as the Romans.

[gollum]

Indeed Quirinus, i forgot to mention morale. It is also taken into account.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I still don't buy into the 'auto-calc' fear factor, if my current camp is any indication. I am by far the strongest faction on the board, and other than city garrisons, my fighting armies are seasoned, well-led, and have all the best upgrades available. So I suppose the decision by the AI-led Gauls, and the Thracians to attack me rather than much weaker targets (like Britannia for the Gauls, and the Brutii for Thrace) is more likely the infancy of the 'black knight' syndrome found in ETW. Not complaining, mind you, just noting that I find it highly unlikely that the AI logic box has anything in it related to the strength of its' proposed target or what the results of an auto-calc battle will be......because at this stage of the game, auto-calcs with my armies is much worse for the AI than one with the Romans.

[gollum]

between the AI and the player its different than between AI factions, especially if you play on high difficulties. The player is always targeted as a priority by the AI.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The player is always targeted as a priority by the AI.

As it should be. And I'm sure I'm looking at the situation as a human player would, and expecting long-range sophisticated thinking from the AI is asking way too much from both the game engine and the programming realm of possibility.

Still, the AI programming has become a very interesting topic for me (tread upon many moons ago by many others, I'm sure) and I still hold to one of my original observations that the AI, in addition to not being able to handle the campaign map, is simply too passive.......

.......and we have strayed a looong ways off-topic

[Lord Reid of Britannica]

.......and we have strayed a looong ways off-topic

At least its discussion of some sort... this place is way too dead:(

[gollum]

Actually this place has quite a few viewings - its just that discussion is a tad off. Its understandable though - most RTW players discuss a mod or something, few play vanilla.