In Defense of "Barbarians"

[Nobody You'd Know]

This is partly speculation, but I believe "Barbarians" will have just as much a chance of creating an empire in the campaign as any other faction. My reasoning:

1. "Barbarian" units will always have more men in them than more "civilized" units, and therefore will always outnumber the opponent, even when 20 units vs 20 units. This will also make it easier to flank.

2. "Barbarian" units will be less expensive to build and maintain (and possibly require less population to build).

3. "Barbarians" will have a great advantage in the beginning of the game, because they will quickly be able to get to their highest quality units.

4. "Barbarians" will not need to make as much money because units will cost less and they won't have as many buildings to waste money on.

5. "Barbarians" will have huge armies (on the campaign map) because of 2 and 4 above, and therefore will be able to bring more units to the battle map than opponents (using the option for additional armies under AI general control).

6. "Barbarians" will be able to make all siege weapons other than onagers (right outside the city walls, when besieging a town, the building queue lets you build battering rams, sap tunnels, ladders, and siege towers - per 16 minute video).

7. "Barbarians" will, whenever possible, attack in woods and during winter, providing themselves with bonuses.

8. "Barbarians" have a number of ways to raise their morale and lower the morale of the enemy (druids, screaming women, war cry, outnumbering opponent (see 1), flanking opponent (see 1), war dogs, etc.).

8. For purposes of gameplay, CA will have made the game possible to win by any faction.

[Tamur]

""Barbarians" will, whenever possible, attack in woods and during winter, ..."

I've been wondering about the effect of climate on the Legions' performance. Do you think it will be downgraded as well as the "natives" getting bonuses?

[Colovion]

people generally didn't fight battles in the winter so I guess that would be a good way to balance the barbarian factions by giving them a bonus for half the game turns. Hmmmm

[Nobody You'd Know]

Colovion:

I believe the purpose of the devs for giving the "barbarian" factions an advantage in winter was as follows: the Gauls, Britons, and Germans grew up with cold snowy winters and were experienced in dealing with them. Compare that to the Egyptians, for example, who should have a pretty hard time in winter. You have the option of giving a bonus to the "barbarians" or a penalty for everyone else. I think their solution works pretty well.

[Raven2004]

I would like to play Barbarians but, if you had play the Demo with the Gauls, they tend to die quickly, you can get a lot of guys but they fall like flies.

Once the cap of the middle game is reached and the Romans/Greeks/Karthies could have access to their elite units, things will be very hard for the Barbies, but I trust they can still fight good on the defensive in the woods where Roman and other troops cannot get any advantage from close formations.

The feature I hate the most about Barbies is that they tend to die too quickly.

[Papewaio]

How inaccurate would that be...

Romans where great engineers... aquaducts, marsh draining, roads, seige weapons... this allowed them to have much more farmland and denser populations then 'barbarians'. They also had more specialisation in comparison with the northern 'barbarians'.

This means that the Romans had a larger population, with a larger segment of dedicated warriors that was highly mobile and backed up with some of the best weapons that could be created.

The 'Barbarians' on the other hand had smaller cities, less specialisation and a society where a large portion of the warriors where also farmers and other jobs. They had a smaller warrior caste.

One of the reasons that Hannibal could not defeat Rome was that Rome had such a huge population that could pump out legions.

[Throb]

Excuse my ignorance, so you wont be able to start off as one of the later eastern Barbarian Hordes, say like the Vandals or Goths ?

[Shoraro]

Excuse my ignorance, so you wont be able to start off as one of the later eastern Barbarian Hordes, say like the Vandals or Goths ?

No you won't. The campaign runs from 270BC to 14AD, so you're restricted to factions that were around then. Playable barbarians are the Britons, Gauls and Germans.

[Throb]

Ahh, thank you Shoraro, however when you say Gaul, German and Briton does that limit it to those 3 main tribes or will there be different Gaulish, Germanic and Briton tribes.

[octavian]

its just three factions :(

[Nerouin]

I wonder what will happen if you are the Egyptians and manage to fight your way up into Northern Europe! Your men don't ever wear shirts!!!

[Sethik]

I wonder what will happen if you are the Egyptians and manage to fight your way up into Northern Europe! Your men don't ever wear shirts!!!

Are you cold or just happy to see me?

[PSYCHO V]

its just three factions :(

Actually, I think CA have included some of the other tribes as 'rebels'. It seems the intent is to base the Gallic faction roughly on the Aedui confederacy, the Britons roughly on the Catuvellauni confederacy and the Germans very very roughly on the Seubian areas of influence / alliance.

just my2bob

[Nobody You'd Know]

Papewaio:

Inaccurate historically, but certainly feasible. If you're saying that an architecturally inferior faction can't hold its own historically, how would you explain the Mongols?

[Papewaio]

No what I was saying is the belief that Rome had a relatively smaller population is incorrect as is the idea that they had worse seige engines.

This also applies to the Mongols who had a massive population and the seige engines of the Chinese vassals.

Often the mightest states where the ones who had the densest populations which is courtesy of massive engineering and agricultural specialisation.