Lombardii (BI faction)

[frogbeastegg]

This faction needs modding before it can be played.

[Avicenna]

Well first of all, go to the 'descr_strat.txt' file in your Rome - Total War folder (it should be in [Wherever you installed it]\Activision\Rome - Total War\bi\data\world\maps\campaign\barbarian_invasion)

The Lombards will be under non-playable, so cut and paste them to be under playable. Save the file and you'll be ready to play the Lombards.

[Dt3r]

This topic seems saddly neglected...

I guess I'll give a Lombard campaign a try.

[Lorenzo_H]

lol

[Dt3r]

Well the start of my campaign certainly was interesting...

The Lombards need to take 2 provinces in the north of Italy (Venetia and Aemilia et Liguria) and 14 total provinces. They start right next to the Burgundians and the Franks, and uncomfortably close to the hoards. The starting province is poorly developed... it doesn't even have walls!

Since I don't like fighting horse archers, I figured it would be a good idea to pack up and leave. I hoarded and marched south, sacking any Roman towns along the way. Once I reached the provinces I needed I sacked them and kept going south along the peninsula, before turning around and conquering from the south on up. I had to siege the cities twice, but between the sacking and taking the city a second time the population was low enough to control and I had a healthy treasury. Also, one of your family members is Christian, so he can help keep order in Rome.


Unfortunately, just as I took my 3rd city and started to settle down the Huns entered my territory. They milled around for a turn or two, trying to decide if they wanted to attack the WRE or me. Guess who they chose... >.<


So the current situation is that there's 5 and a half stacks of angry Huns (are they ever not angry? ) around my city, and I have 3 cities with ~300-400 men each, a spy, and an assassin. Fun fun...

[Lorenzo_H]

hehe, Ill bet almost as fun as the WRE on V Hard/ Vhard. On the Second turn like 7 of your family members defect, your leader dies, the entire of Spain and Gaul defect and become the WRE rebels and like 3 of your cities get invaded. On top of all that your money goes to about -20,000 per turn. So you end up with about 4 cities that aren't rebeling and only about 5 units in each city with no money to make more.

[Avicenna]

You see, you don't just click on the building scroll, choose to make buildings and do nothing else before ending the turn when you're the WRE... precautions have to be taken.

So far I've only had 1 defection in Hard, and I've taken a half of the ERE and gotten rid of half the hordes.

[Lorenzo_H]

Eh? Yeah well I wasn't really playing with a heart intent on winning. I just wanted to a) Show BI to my older brother at the time and b) Check out the WRE. For that reason I didn't go around micromanaging.

I'll bet it still would be difficult even if you did micromanaging.

[x-dANGEr]

OFF-TOPIC!!

P.S. Will edit the post when I go back home and play a Lombard campaign, just to make it ON-TOPIC :)

[Avicenna]

With micromanagement, it's possible to keep any defections from happening (unless you're a diehard CHristian or Pagan emperor who converts no matter what). It is very difficult though, which makes it fun.

[Dt3r]

Okay, things are looking up. The Huns were a bit disorganized and only attacked my settlement with about half a stack. I sent a unit of Burgundian Lancers on a suicide run to try and destroy the battering ram, but they didn't do enough damage... however they did bring the enemy calvalry within range of my Lombard archers on the walls

I managed to run them off and break the siege. The Huns spent the next few turns wandering around my territory, as my assasin picked off a few of the weaker family members. In the end they just marched north, past my cities, past a WRE city and went over the Alps... guess I wasn't worth the trouble.

Then I send my Faction leader up north with an army to approach Aemilia et Liguria (one of the objectives)... and he dies in a flood.


So now all I have is my faction leader (christian) and an heir who is full of vices. Uh, can I have a pagan man of the hour... please?

[spong]

I have been playing as the Burgundii rather than the Lombardii but seeing as both they and the Alemanni have the same units there is little sense in splitting hairs, however, of some importance is the fact that out of these three similar factions only the Alemanni cannot enter horde mode which is an extremely useful feature for these barbarian factions and a good reason in my opinion to go to the effort of tweaking the game to make them playable.

For my current Burgundian campaign I did not enter horde mode at the start - the starting location as with many of the central germanic factions provides a very turbulent and dangerous setting but also offers plenty of political potential.
Making allies with any of the Alemanni, Burgunii or Lombardii depending on who you are playing is a very good idea as their alliances tend to hold and they provide a good buffer against other nations - one thing i noticed about these tribes is that as with the Franks they are very active in terms of agents - lots of spies and assassins roaming the map.
In my experience the Franks and the Saxons cannot be trusted - nor should they be allowed to expand because they are hugely dangerous as potential enemies - these are early priorities - an early alliance with WRE can be a sensible precaution - though they may not hold it - if all goes well it should allow you to wage war on the Saxons and Franks with little interruption - one difficulty is that the Franks are rather more difficult to stamp out because they have a tendancy to horde and are highly expansionist from the start so finding all their family members and eliminating them can be difficult - in my current campaign I have taken Vicus Frankii but there must have been a Frankish heir out in the Fog-of-War because despite slaying all the family members in Vicus Frankii they have somehow horded and are currently ransacking the WRE and Lombardii - slippery buggers.

The Alemanni/Lombardii/Burgundii forces are very diverse and very powerful when used carefully. How you organise your forces will of course be down to personal preference - i've started using a very odd method to see if it works that I don't recommend you use unless you fancy something a bit different - it does work but it has some setbacks in the early game.

My system is simply that I try to replicate a basic early fedual system in the sense that I will have a character with a personal retinue of at least household archers (lombard archers or chosen archers) and a fedual levy of spearmen (spear warband) depending on a number of factors the basic force might then also comprise of some specialist troops (usually in small quantities = 1 or 2 units) such as night raiders, wardogs, berserkers, light cavalry, artillery and mercenaries of various types (of particular use are Horse Archers) - later on the basic force might also have a unit of chosen axemen and/or golden band - in its most basic form this setup largely means a character will have in his retinue archers, spearmen and berserkers which seems quite limited - however I then expand on these basic armies by adding units of barbarian nobles who will not only add their benefit of heavy cavalry but also bring their own retinues to the army with the basic archer, spearmen setup plus any extras that seem appropriate - this gives a very flexible force that, in appropriate situations can be deployed as series of independant 'battles' on a single field.

I'll talk now about the specific unit types available to the Alemanni/Lombardii/Burgundii factions.

Spear Warband: Spear warbands will provide the basic unit for these armies they are fairly average fighters who can expect to do well against other spear armed troops especially with some support, they will destroy light cavalry and can be effective against some heavy cav - particularly lancers - but may suffer if pitched alone against chosen warlords or paladin bodygaurds - particularly the latter - their main role is to protect archers as part of the battle line and to pin enemy forces while heavier infantry or cavalry move in from the flanks or rear - their speciality is that they can form schiltron which can be useful in desperate situations or when facing a superior cavalry force but I have not found the need to use it often.

Lombard Archers: These are a good solid archer unit which can also be used as half-decent light infantry in a pinch - use caution though as they will quickly suffer against anything much better without support - flaming arrows come as standard

Chosen Archers: Similar to the Lombard archers but have some decent armour which makes them more useful as emergency light infantry and for some added durability in lengthy exchanges of arrow fire - the combination of increased accuracy and effeciency as well as durability from the armour means these are ideal troops for sieging enemy settlements - few shots are wasted so they can succesfully thin enemy concentrations on battlements while faring better than lombards when under return-fire - flaming arrow ability is on these guys too. (Note: this doesn't affect gameplay but one thing I have noticed with these chosen archers regardless of which faction you choose is that some kind of skinning bug seems to occur - the archers are all weird colours in the wrong places - you can see livery on their face and skin on their helmets! something for a patch i believe )

Barbarian Cavalry - Typical light cavalry - good for flanking and screening maneuvers but don't expect them to hit heavily and survive long against anything more than peasants and archers - anything else needs outmanevering and battle-line support

Wardogs - these are handy additions to your forces - they are rather innefective on their own but released in conjunction with a charge from other forces can be devestating in breaking up and scaring the enemy formations - when used in this way they can be useful against infantry or cavalry but they do need the support or they will suffer quickly - the weapon of fear is important here as they will help a melee turn into a rout and will do a good job of chasing routers down - they can do quite well on their own against light infantry or archers. They are a one-shot weapon in the sense that the dogs cannot be recalled once released but usually you won't have to and their persistance can be a boon - also regardless of how many dogs you lose as long as handlers remain at the end of a battle the dogs will reappar next battle.

Chosen Axemen - Excellent heavy infantry which when you get them can form a significant element of your battle strategy - their only weaknesses are arrow-fire and heavy cavalry - they will carve through most anything else unless hugely outnumbered and unsupported - with support i have even seen them destroy heavy cavalry during a gate bottleneck in a siege

Burgundiian Lancers - I have yet to find any real use for lancers other than as a cheap alternative to noble cavalry - but then they die ALOT easier - flanking maneuvers are a possiblity but they are not as fast in pursuit as light cav. - if anyone has any tips on using lancers then post them here I would like to learn

Night Raiders - Light infantry that can be useful for screening, flanking and ambush tactics in the early campaign - I don't tend to use them much though.

Onagers - same as with everyone who has 'em - mainly for sieges to obtain a breach

Lombard Berserkers - these troops are amazing - my favourite - they're cool just from a stylistic perspective as they are hulking great dudes with massive swords who spin around and send people flying - great stuff! Seriously though these are battle winning troops and hugely significant in the early game - they can be built with a Shrine of Donar (why build anything else?). They come in relatively small units and have almost no armour so keeping them away from arrow-fire is a must - they only become truly effective when in their berserker rage activated either by getting into combat or using their warcry ability - they are something of a one-shot weapon as once enraged they are ucontrollable and will run to attack any enemy unit in range - much like wardogs only far more dangerous - if you're lucky some may survive the battle allowing you to replenish the unit - they are extremely useful for breaking an enemy battle line and causing fear - especially effective if supported and are also superb (if a little unpredictable) for attacking and defending walls in siege actions - simply put - point them at the enemy and watch the carnage - use them as a spearhead for your broader battle plans but keep them protected until they can be used effectively and if you want them to be most effective give them support as they will survive longer and the attack will have more weight to it.

Barbarian Noble Cavalry/Chosen Warlord - very solid heavy cavalry for charging heavy infantry, other heavy cavalry, archers and any light cav foolish enough to get caught - the chosen warlord unit is slightly better than the nobles as they represent the cream of the crop but the nobles are still very good - they're quite durable in an extended melee due to their use of swords and shields rather than spears or lances - despite all of this they're not quite as good as the Frankish Paladins or Paladin bodygaurd so when engaging these will need to outflank, have superior numbers or have additional support such as spears, light cav or lancers, chosen axes, berserkers or wardogs


That's pretty much it for me until I progress in my campaign - I hope this proves useful to some of you.

[Mr Frost]

...Night Raiders - Light infantry that can be useful for screening, flanking and ambush tactics in the early campaign - I don't tend to use them much though...

Night Raiders cause fear to enemy infantry , Warcry {another fear hit} , have reasonable stats and armour piercing .

Thus far with the Allemanni {same units if I'm not mistaken} I have been doing the following in battles :
I put spears in the first line , Night Raiders in the second and Lombard archers behind them with war dogs after those ready to charge and cavalry ready to flank .
The Archers first soften the enemy a bit , lowering morale with fire arrows and this can often cause the enemy to attack which speeds things up , then when near charging distance I warcry the Night Raiders , loose the hounds , charge the spears and Night Raiders both at the enemy line whilst cavalry does the sensible thing .
The reason for spears first is to more cheaply absorb the enemy counter charge {cheaper to replace those soldiers} and especially from enemy cavalry but also it creates a localised numerical superiority Vs the unit engaged which is yet annother fear hit {boo !}.
Roman armies crumble and rout almost instantly before this charge with minimal losses and those night Raiders are key . Even on static defense their warcry can fear Cavalry and their mere presence scares enemy infantry , and that is allways a good thing .





As for the Burgundian Lancers , they are built purely for the charge {so charge and withdraw or have Nobles follow them in and simply plow right through and out the other side whilst the Nobles finish the job} and can be built in half the time meaning if you only have one turn you can still raise hard charging cavalry in time for the battle .

[Fate]

My Lombardii campaign hasnt been going great, i allied with all possible factions, except the WRE (why bother?). The Burgundii were the first to turn against me, the Franks i didnt ally with, and theyve attacked me, my allies in the ERE have attacked me and taken one of my cities, the Allemani, whilst allies still have a stack roaming my strip of land. My Saxon allies also betrayed me. The Vandals attacked me but theyve passed by with relatively little trouble. And the Huns.... oh the Huns, while once my allies, they too have attacked me.
The burgundii were stuck in the province east of the baltic (the general area where the slavs appear, cant remember the name) and i attacked them with a meaty stack, and as their population was only about 350, i thought id have no problem destroying their horde, but this was not so. They sended up with 5 full stacks. So now im down to three provinces, i have few armies, even fewer family members. Ive left that game for now, but im considering going back, trying to empty my towns and cities, and simply horde up. Head for the south of Italy, and build a base around there. I dont want to take the target provinces too early, otherwise ill have to deal with squalor and putting down rebellions etc.

[Fate]

My Lombardii campaign hasnt been going great, i allied with all possible factions, except the WRE (why bother?). The Burgundii were the first to turn against me, the Franks i didnt ally with, and theyve attacked me, my allies in the ERE have attacked me and taken one of my cities, the Allemani, whilst allies still have a stack roaming my strip of land. My Saxon allies also betrayed me. The Vandals attacked me but theyve passed by with relatively little trouble. And the Huns.... oh the Huns, while once my allies, they too have attacked me.
The burgundii were stuck in the province east of the baltic (the general area where the slavs appear, cant remember the name) and i attacked them with a meaty stack, and as their population was only about 350, i thought id have no problem destroying their horde, but this was not so. They sended up with 5 full stacks. So now im down to three provinces, i have few armies, even fewer family members. Ive left that game for now, but im considering going back, trying to empty my towns and cities, and simply horde up. Head for the south of Italy, and build a base around there. I dont want to take the target provinces too early, otherwise ill have to deal with squalor and putting down rebellions etc.

Okay, so i got bored last night, and decided to do it. 10,000+ in debt, I emptied Campus Burgundii and raised it to the ground as the Burgundii hordes were approaching from the east, and sent my 3/4 stack from there to Campus Lombardii. I left Carentum too, destroying all buildings and raising tax to full, sending my Faction Leaders depleted army west, to destroy as much WRE resistance as possible. When it was down to my army heading west, my stack in Campus Lombardii and an army stationed outside, i destroyed all buildings, and decided to horde.
Of course, this gave me the advantage of Lombardii being an empty rebel settlement, so i was able to sack it. I sent my horde north, through modern day germany, hell bent on destroying those who had attacked me. The Burgundii seemed to be a large problem however, as two hordes both wanting to BRING SEXY BACK Pillage and Burn the same lands tends to cause a little tension. I outmanouvered the Burgundii, passing by a force that consisted of 3 Franki family members, i attacked and destroyed them all, and got into Tribius Chatti, a Saxon settlement. I knew the Seaxe couldnt Horde, so i decided to give em hell.
I sieged Chatti, whilst a Saxon force stood nearby and simply watched, doing nothing and i sent another two stacks north to the saxon homeland thus besieging their capital, and taking out a small patrol along the way. Within ten turns the Saxons were wiped out, and their two settlements were Sacked.
I sent another force towards what is modern day Netherlands (cant remember the name of the settlement) having just taken out a force of the Franks, that contained their Fation leader and some support troops, and i besieged the Franki Capital. The faction had luckily survived as an heir turned 16 just as i killed the old leader. I sieged them out, destroying everyone, and sacking the settlement. Unfortunately, another family member must have either just come of age or somewhere in the wilderness, as the Franks are now a Horde aswell.
In the meantime, my faction leaders army had sacked 3 or so Roman settlements throughout the alps, successfully outmanouvering many superior forces. They came up, past samaraobriva (i think anyway!) to inspect the belgian province, which was a battle ground of Vandal Hordes, Celtic Forces, and Roman occupiers. This seemed to much to get involved in, so i moved my force away, hiding it in the forests of northern france. Meanwhile, my hordes moved down from the Germanic lands, with no resistance; i didnt sack all settlements, mainly because i wanted to keep the allemani quiet and there were a lot of stone walls, and i only had one spy. Eventually, i had 3 armies surrounding (though not attacking) the western most province in france (just north of the pyrenees, once again cant remember the name) because of the overall strangeth of the units, i have a better chance if they attack me, at least i get to defend. Also, 3 stacks besieging Arles, where in nearby skirmishes i managed to take out 2 WRE faction leaders in two consectutive turns!!
So the plan is to sack these two settlements, ive already got 30K in the bank, and im going to move into Ilberia, for the easily defendable strategic advantages. That way i cang et the 5 or so provinces of that peninsula, then build up a navy, and move across to sicily and then up the Italian peninsula, claiming my goal!!

[Aemilianus the Younger]

For some reason just cutting and pasting the name of the faction in the descr_strat doesnt work. is there another way to play as them?

[Fate]

It worked for me man, make sure its properly indented by tabbing, like all of the other factions.

[Laman]

Been playing with the Burgundi recently and considering they neither have a thread and are practically the same as Lombardii i decided to post some general thoughts on them. First the differences, the starting positions, their starting armies (Burgundii starts with Lancers, Lombardi with archers) and the specified provinces of the 14 needed. And a some purely cosmetic things.

There are two different strategies for these two, staying and hording. Staying is simply to create an empire in the starting area and expande from there until you can claim victory. This is more useful for Lombardi since they are closer to the provinces they need. Good things about this strategy is that there are not much problems but rebels initially and the first group of hordes will often pass to the south, however hordes are never reliable and regardless of what the first ones do, the Slavs will often march straight into your territory and cause trouble. Another bad thing is that the provinces are not that wealthy, which may cause problems when expanding into what may once have been WRE territory, depending on strength on whatever foes may be there.

Hording is probably easier, spend the first turns to train troops until you run out of money, then horde away and sack almost everything in your path, your neighbour can be turned into a horde also if you want to, they will cause even more trouble for the WRE, but unfortunately they may also cause trouble for you. My suggestion would be to head straight west and enter WRE from across the Rhine, since almost all other hordes will go into Pannonia, Dalmatia, Italy you can sack most of Gaul without worrying about other hordes. Franks may be sacked on the way if you want to create another horde, but leave Alemanni, they cant horde and they are not dangerous enough but may keep some of your enemies (read WRE) occupied.

Eventually you will have enough money to consider settling, but where? I would say, depends on how things look, but here are what I think about the various places:
Iberia: Secure but a bit away from your target, however since there also is the thing about 14 provinces, maybe not a bad idea.
Northern Gaul: "Relatively" secure from hordes (they tend to prefer the south, but do not bet on it), but close to Franks and Saxons, as well as potential invasions from whoever holds Britain (in my Burgundi game the Celts)
Southern Gaul: The Alp passes can be defended, close to the needed provinces (are most of the needed provinces for Burgundii), but a Gaul is a place where many hordes tend to end up
Alps: Can easily defend against hordes in Italy, but close to Alemanni, they should probably destroyed if this location is chosen.
Italy: If the hordes have passed, a good place, otherwise difficult to defend against hordes coming in from the east, for enemies wanting to invade from north or west, quite defendable.
Pannonia/Balkans: After hordes have passed, a relatively good spot if ERE have been thrown out of Europe. Before hordes have passed, a very bad place to settle.

And almost forgot, your hordes will be weaker then Hunnic, Vandal or Goth hordes since you wont have horse archers in them.

[Robespierre]

the lombard people have great character as a side. hording is the dilemma here; it is tough to horde at the start with no decent units, tempting to raise some berserkers first. but if you start taking provinces to make that possible, you lose the only-one-city condition for hording. in any case, it is a good plan to knock the stuffing out of the wre with some haste whilst it remains off-balance.

berserkers are wicked fun to play. as far as i can tell, they cannot swim. however while they are peaking on berserker-juice, they can forget this in their fury and need to get at the foe, and so it is possible to lose many during a bridge battle. they drown horribly. also often they can go off berserk mode , like, when surrounded by 6 units of archers. they do not have the cheap upkeep of VI berserkers either.