Tips for choosing faction post patch 15

[Neric]

I finally have some free time at hand, so I would like to give Rome 2 another go in the Grand Campaign - I don't want to play Rome and the Augustus Campaign seems to be focused on the Eternal City.
Cause I haven't played for some time, I can't really decide which faction I should play. I would like to see a diversity of foes in early and midgame and have a flexible roster myself, so I can try some army builds. Because of this I have narrowed it down to one of the Greek States, Macedon, Ponthus, Carthage, Egypt, Parthia or Bactria. Should some of these be avoided because of changes in the last patch or can I start flipping coins ?

Thanks in advance
Neric

[Hooahguy]

I've heard that Bactria has a rather diverse roster and enemies. You go up against nomads, eastern and Greek enemies early on so maybe that is a good start?

[Slaists]

I'd suggest giving Anthony in IA a try.

The campaign is not as much about the eternal city as it might seem. Anthony starts at war with Parthia and all its satraps while having a good number of client states himself. So, you can have fun beating up the East; holding your line in Greece against Octavian and then, once the East is pacified, turn around to conquer Italy.

Rome actually has the most varied roster in the game due to it's auxiliary system. As Anthony you have easy access to Cretan archers, Rhodean slingers, Syrian armored archers [the best tool against the Easterner horse archer armies], elephants, Persian cavalry (shock and archers) and even Noble Horse (if Galatia betrays him); and that's just the best auxiliary units that come to mind.

You'll want different army compositions when you fight against the Easterners and Rome. In the East you'll rely more on foot missile units to defeat horse skirmishers and archers. In the West, you'll want more Roman infantry and probably the best shock cavalry you can get your hands on. Dacian peltasts are nice against armored Roman opponents as well. I used Illyrian auxilia (stealthy, armor piercing troops) extensively too.

I had fun with Anthony; played to the victory screen without getting bored.

For the Grand Campaign, of the ones you mentioned, probably the most diverse roster is available to Egypt (Seleucids have even more diversity I believe though). Carthage can achieve good roster diversity through hiring lots of mercenaries which are made affordable through the proper techs + dignitaries embedded in armies.

p.s. at some point in my campaign, my client: Judea, grabbed a few regions in Latium... They didn't get to grab the Eternal city though; Octavian managed to push Judea back into the sea.

[Kamakazi]

I had a blast in my Parthia campaign. I was just doing a royal Scythia but my SSD crashed and there goes my save file so I have to start all over. But royal Parthia is a fun faction if you like to micromanage a lot of fights. Horse armies require an indepth command

[easytarget]

Ouch, I didn't even know it was possible for an SSD to crash.

[Neric]

I decided to start two campaigns - GC with Bactria and IA as Anthony. The starting position of Bactria is interesting for me, since my Iceni didn't make it so far and the last time I played in this region was as Sassanids in Barbarian Invasion.
Also Slaists convinced me to give IA a try - just sounded good and it seems the gameplay is different enough to the GC to give it a try. I haven't bought the AddOns, so there might be something new in it for me.
Still want to see how the original vanilla game plays out after the last changes, so there I am

[hoom]

I haven't managed to get very far with Bactria yet due to patches coming out shortly after I've started out each time but it has all the promise of a varied campaign with great units of most classes & a strong strategic position once established. (though I imagine it generates a probably rather boring steamroll slog to the West with super-elite armies late game)

It doesn't have such a well filled out roster but Syracuse has the basics for fairly wide variety of playstyle & a challenging initial position.

Pompey in Augustus Campaign has similar starting position but does spend a lot of time fighting other Romans with the fairly boring Roman roster.

One day I'm going to actually give Carthage a go, have so-far been put-off by the Client states which seems like a big PITA.

[Slaists]

I decided to start two campaigns - GC with Bactria and IA as Anthony. The starting position of Bactria is interesting for me, since my Iceni didn't make it so far and the last time I played in this region was as Sassanids in Barbarian Invasion.
Also Slaists convinced me to give IA a try - just sounded good and it seems the gameplay is different enough to the GC to give it a try. I haven't bought the AddOns, so there might be something new in it for me.
Still want to see how the original vanilla game plays out after the last changes, so there I am

If you don't have all the add-ons, some Roman auxiliaries might be missing. For one, without the raiders pack, Illyrian and Dacian auxilia is probably not available; at least their best units.

p.s. If you play as Anthony, Syrian armored archer auxilia is a God-sent unit to fight the pesky horse archers and skirmishers in the East. Don't under-estimate regular auxilia spears too. They're affordable and have great armor. I used them as a disposable screen to shield the archers while the latter annihilated horse skirmishers. Just a few legionaries in those Eastern Roman armies to kill the occasional Eastern spearmen unit.

[Kamakazi]

Ouch, I didn't even know it was possible for an SSD to crash.

Yea I haven't had much luck with twr2 campaigns as of late

Sarted Ardiaei Campaign got 65-75% to win -- patch game wont work
Started Ardiaei Campaign again got 50% through to win ---- Patch game wont work
Said ok guess Ardiaei wasn't meant to be at this time (they are my favorite faction) Started Royal Scythia campaign got about 70-80% though - SSD crashed lost all save files

Note to self save to cloud.

My SSD would work up till I logged in then I had 3-30 seconds before I either got a total crash or it froze to the point I had to restart it.... Not a happy camper. So I just dropped my OS on my 2T HDD (which was the slave drive) and now im doing RS again.....

[easytarget]

Well, fingers crossed the hardware holds up for you. Can't necessarily say the same about what CA will do to your saved games when the next patch comes out.

[hoom]

So having finished my Pompey campaign, I find myself in similar circumstances of looking for a new campaign.

I'm thinking probably one of these:

• An Iberian faction (but not sure which)
• Always liked the Boii, but looks like a pretty challenging position & I haven't had much success with Celtic factions in Rome2
• Dunno if I can handle Baktria
• Maybe Carthage in Hannibal at the Gates?
• Or Syracuse (via the excellent & recently discovered http://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/faction.php, they actually have a particularly well filled out melee spear roster as well as the generic Pike & strong Thorax Sword which gives option for several interesting varieties of army makeup)

Edit: Oooh, Tylis is actually looking pretty tasty.
Thracian Warriors and a variety of Gallic Sword & Spear units.
I had a good time with the Odrysian Kingdom & its powerful Thracian Warrior/Peltast combo but it really suffered from lack of Spears so that extra variety of Sword units and Spears should make them a very much better balanced faction.
Might be too soon after that Odrysian Kingdom campaign though.

[Kamakazi]

Averaci is fun

[Neric]

So far I'm having fun as Bactria. I decided to keep good relations with Parthia and the southern factions and expanded to the north. Since the nomads aren't liked by Bactria this seemed reasonable enough. I'll try to break up the diplomatic bloc of Parthia and some other factions when my economy is built up while waging war against the Roxolani...

[hoom]

Yeah, thats one of the cool things about Baktria: You get the ability to have legit strong native horse archer armies and then its backed up by a solid range of Hellenistic line infantry for when you need those.