My next game?

[Skullheadhq]

and your quite lucky that he decided to retire for some time.

lol retired

[Duguntz]

Sweboz... there is no other faction worth a good campain... SWEBOZ! and send your warriors to burn Barbaropolis... 3 or 4 times... and about barbarians, you already played with them, and got smaked. why not playing something worth now?

[Unintended BM]

Gauls, Aedui are easier at the start. Those are always fun games. Plus, they probably have the best economy out of all of the barbarian peoples. They get paved roads and stuff. Their elites beat the crap out of just about anything. Crazy naked dudes and heavily armored swordsmen will easily conquer anything in Europe. Their reforms are really easy to get too. Just build a lot of markets and temples, then build up your population growth and expel some big cities, and you can get your best troops pretty quickly.

[Qvintvs]

Play as Hayasdan:
1. Some of the worst infantry units in the world.
2. Poor economy.
3. Good cavalry, that you will not get until, maybe, 200 BC thanks to poor economy.
4. Arche Seleukeia has access to troops that are better than yours, and they will attack you as well.

It is still possible to win through, unless you dare to VH/VH once again.

[pikeman]

VH AI has rabies, I'm not going to do it again.

[artavazd]

Play as Hayasdan:
1. Some of the worst infantry units in the world.2. Poor economy.
3. Good cavalry, that you will not get until, maybe, 200 BC thanks to poor economy.
4. Arche Seleukeia has access to troops that are better than yours, and they will attack you as well.

It is still possible to win through, unless you dare to VH/VH once again.

Armenian medium sword infantry, are solid infantry units, on par with principes. Armenian noble infantry, are an elite unite that are on par with other elite unites. This faction is far from having "the worst infantry units in the world."

[DaciaJC]

I would strongly recommend playing the Getai/Dacians. Great starting position and plenty of fun-to-use units. They aren't particularly challenging to play as, though.

[Macilrille]

Wow! Somebody cast a necromancy spell and got FL back ;-) WB
Getai's economy is not too great, consider that he got kicked as Rome. For an experienced player Getai is easy and fun, for a newcomer, any faction whose economy starts off by going - is not so fun.

[ximxim]

Play as Hayasdan:
1. Some of the worst infantry units in the world.
2. Poor economy.
3. Good cavalry, that you will not get until, maybe, 200 BC thanks to poor economy.
4. Arche Seleukeia has access to troops that are better than yours, and they will attack you as well.

It is still possible to win through, unless you dare to VH/VH once again.

I'd suggest Hayasdan as well, but for basically exactly the opposite reasons. :)

The economy I've found is rather good, with lots of provinces having access to good mines. The infantry is not that bad, the basic Caucasian Spearmen is a better version of the Pantodapoi, Persian Hoplites are very decent mobile line infantry, and the caucasian archers are not too bad. Can't speak for the cavalry, as I have a houserule not to use them.

Personally I've found the medium infantry pretty bad, not sure I'd want to compare them to principes (worse swords, worse defence, worse formation, much more expensive etc). The noble infantry is worth it's cost, though.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Saba isn't in the options? What is wrong with the Saba? Rrrrrrr...
Parthia is fun if you can get used to the horse-archer management, but Epeiros isn't bad either.

[Macilrille]

Guys, he is a Newcomer, Haysdan is the only campaign I have ever had to restart and Saba is the only one Fluvius has. Those two and Pontos are perhaps the most difficult ones and you guys ask a guy who got kicked in the much- much easier Roman campaign to try it...

Not very fair on him. Let him get some experience first, we all had to in order to suceed in the difficult factions.

[Andy1984]

Carthage would be an obvious choice:
- most of your provinces are secure, as long as you keep the Ptolemaioi at bay (which shouldn't be that hard)
- a really strong economy thanks to naval trade and the possibility to expand your economy vastly by conquering the iberian peninsula
- syntagmaphalanx :)
- a wide selection of both heavy cavalry and heavy infantry: learn to use your cavalry.
- elephants :)
- the possibility to keep everyone at bay with a fleet (which is hard as a nomad or a northern barbarian)

Another reasonable choice would be another attempt at the Romani, given that you want to try again off course.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Actually, just waiting for Makedonia and the southern Hellenes to fight it out will result in an economic crisis of the likes Greece faces today. The best thing you can do with Epeiros, is blitz Greece from the start to save your rapidly failing economy.

Not so, taking some of the northern Eleutheroi towns will allow you to gain some cash. Pella should be taken at the start, but in my experience the southern Greek towns are always much too well defended for a direct attack early on.

[Tiberius Claudius Marcellus]

Epiros FTW. You get to spam Phalangitai Deuteroi and Toxotai. When funds are available, you get to spam Elephantikoi. I made a post a while ago when i beat my Epiros campaign and had enough money to screw around with a full stack of Elephants. It was hilarious to smash full stacks of gold chevrons with it.

Overall, though, Epiros is strong enough to win. Take Pella first round and stalemate the Maks. Put all other troops across to Taras and fight the Romans until you take Rome. Once that's finished, porcupine in Italy and re-focus taking Hellas. Kill all the pretended Greeks and then strengthen against the Getai, taking whatever territories you need from them. Then, march on Anatolia and roll across with full stacks. Fortify it all when you can, and swing south to sack every single Egyptian city in the holy land and along the nile. This will nerf the yellow death. Destroy every single improvement, massacre the people, pillage all the wonders (Including the Jewish Temple AND Alexander's Tomb) for beaucoup bucks, and then drop the taxes to low and evacuate. They'll rebel, but the people will be pissed when the AI raises the taxes. Don't try to keep the territories. Once you annihilate the yellow death, your other cities should be well up to par and you can smash east into the Seleucids, if they're even still alive.

G/L and good winning!

[Zradha Pahlavan]

What's also fun is a naval invasion of Carthage. Indian elephants versus African elephants is an interesting contest.