Germania

[Hurin_Rules]

Just finished my first campaign as Germania on m/vh. Really fun. A few points I noticed:

First I tried smashing the Britons right off the bat. This did not work. The problem was that by attacking Samarobriva I overextended myself and invited attacks by both Britons and Gauls. I took Samarobriva, but had to fight off three major armies in about 6 or 7 turns. I defeated them all, but my army was battered and the Gauls immediately took the city back. I spent a lot of money and was back to square one.

I started again and went with the "let Trier be Verdun" strategy-- build up Trier as a defensive town to suck in the inevitable attacks by Gaul and Britannia, while concentrating on expanding into north and east into the Baltic in particular. Once I had some good incom from places like Bordesholm and Vicus Gothi, I could hold off both Gaul and Britannia. After building up a while I got Batavodurum to build a ship, landed and took Londinium. After that, the Brits slowly weakened and I turned my attention to Gaul. They were fighting the Julii so it went easier than expected. I took all of France and made some forts to guard the Pyrrennes and the Alps. Then I invaded northern Italy (taking out Dacia, which was one of the conditions for short campaign victory), pushed into and took about 2/3 of Italy, including Rome. Things slowed a bit after that as Marius' reforms meant his troops outclassed mine (and I was getting to lazy to fight each battle--autoresolve sucks!). Then I sent my fastest troops and mercenaries east to take Scythia. That took a long time, as he had stretched all the way to campus Alanni, and it took 15 turns just to get there!

In terms of tactics, chosen archer warbands are great against the Romans pre-Marius. I just set up my phalanxes and dared him to attack; if he didn't, my archers decimated his troops; if he attacked, my spears pinned him while my cavalry flanked. I hope they work on the AI for the patch, as it is pretty stupid.

Never found naked fanatics to be of much use-- too fragile. Gothic cavalry are good; I also bought some Sarmatian mercenaries but I was disappointed in their performance.