Oh no...oh please no

[MisterFred]

Sounds pretty similar to my Baktrian loss, which was my first campaign.

Romans are easy, and they let you learn the game quickly... but I think they're too easy. Same with Carthage. Koinon Hellenon was my first real campaign I won, and its fun and hard, especially since I only took Greek cities/victory conditions and didn't just create a giant empire. You have to not go insane pitting hoplites against phalanxes early though. Makedon or Epirus can be good if you want to command phalanxes.

But my best suggestion would have to be play Sweboz. You're isolated, so you have time to build up a reasonable start position without worrying about the big dogs knocking on your door. But you'll still eventually have to face large stacks coming up from the south, which can be a challenge with a lack of superior ranged units and heavy cavalry, the two most human-friendly types of units. Plus, you get to play one of the barbarian factions, the full development of which is one of the things that sets EB above other mods. Sweboz was my third victorious campaign, and I found it a ton of fun. Probably a bit more of a challenge for a newer player, which is to the good. Especially if you play on huge settings, and have to manage depopulation, thus making heterogenous armies of various tribal levies.

[bmer]

Ahh, I see. You know what, I will go try out a Sweboz campaign, just because I've always felt so xenophobic against the barbarians that now I feel guilty about judging them without a try. Time to give them a try.

This thread is going to turn into a giant off-topic nest...I can feel it, but anyways here goes: if the barbarians were not all that 'barbaric', how come they never made as many contributions to our intellectual history as did the Romans, the Greeks or the Carthaginians? Why were they never able to conquer and thereafter properly maintain a sizeable amount of territory? Why did they have ugly customs such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, etc.?

EDIT: by the way MisterFred, I have been reading your AAR and I think it's really very nice :D

[MisterFred]

Thanks bmer. I think I'm going to head most of the vast replies off at the pass and answer you. They didn't make as many contributions to our intellectual history because they didn't keep large libraries. Many of their languages didn't have a written form, and though their leaders (I'm speaking of European tribes here) could usually read and write, it was usually only in Latin or Greek.

They DID conquer and maintain sizable territories, the best of which were taken (or disrupted) by the Romans. Most people don't know about these confederations or kingdoms because they get cut from history courses required for compulsory education (K-12) to focus on things educators and governments think will make people better citizens. Some areas stayed disintegrated, where individual tribes held prominence, much like European Greece. A few barbarian tribes had ugly customs such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, etc., either for the same reasons other people have done such things in history (the ritual power of such these atrocities: taking your enemy's strength through their flesh, the importance of blood and using it to appease gods, much like the Aztecs), or because Romans and Greek writers made up the fact that barbarians had these customs because they were relying on rumors of rumors or trying to make them look scary people who should be killed to justify a war.

EB only mentions cannibalism in reference to the Vojinos, where there is at least some archaeological evidence to back up assertions, and reminds us that the Germans and Celts were using soap more often than their neighbors at this time.

Also, the Romans were not above the occasional human sacrifice at rare moments in their history...

[Tuuvi]

I read that it was against Celtic religion to keep written records, so that is one explanation as to why they didn't make as much of an intellectual contribution.

[vartan]

I read that it was against Celtic religion to keep written records, so that is one explanation as to why they didn't make as much of an intellectual contribution.

Perhaps it was tradition not to keep records. Just look at modern Iraq and Afghanistan. They don't have birth certificates for girls, only boys.

[Ca Putt]

since when do barbarism and expansionismus contradict each other? many great conquerers were considered barbarian by the ones they conquered not to mention that who is a barbarian is extremely subjective, consider the motto of EB "everyone is a barbarian to someone". examples would be Huns, Mongols, Macedonians, Persians, Franks, ... those who write down history often brand their enemies as evil, child eating, primitive, smelly barbarians.
on the other hand many extremely civilized people did not conquer a lot or anything at all rather were overrun by less civilized neighbors. they often get exterminated by expansionist militarisic empires who ridd the world of anything that would have shown their additions to science, technology, philosophy, literature... and claim those advances as their own.

[vartan]

The problem with the misuse of the word barbarian lies alongside (the problem of) periodization. Barbarian today was not barbarian twenty-five centuries ago. This thread's about a campaign so this extraneous topic of barbarism the concept and all that comes with it should be placed aside, in another thread.

[Tuuvi]

Perhaps it was tradition not to keep records. Just look at modern Iraq and Afghanistan. They don't have birth certificates for girls, only boys.

The book I read stated that writing was explicitly against Celtic religion, because the Celts felt that keeping written records would dull their memorization ability. The Celts did write things on occasion, but when they did they wrote in Latin or Greek and they did not write down any of their religious stories, histories, or anything like that.

[vartan]

The book I read stated that writing was explicitly against Celtic religion, because the Celts felt that keeping written records would dull their memorization ability. The Celts did write things on occasion, but when they did they wrote in Latin or Greek and they did not write down any of their religious stories, histories, or anything like that.

They felt this way not because they thought, but because they knew that records dull memory. My father used to be able to recall over 500 contact records. Now we have electronic phonebooks. His father before him recalled his own written texts. Those before him recalled whole texts, not their own.

[Rahl]

Why were they never able to conquer and thereafter properly maintain a sizeable amount of territory? Why did they have ugly customs such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, etc.?

I'm no expert, but IIRC in the dark ages many tribes especially the germanic ones conquered much land that once was part of the roman empire. The Franks where a germanic tribe and conquered was once was Gaul and now is known as France. And I think you allready see that, but France seems similiar to Franks...