Britannia

[frogbeastegg]

Guide.

[Darklight1138]

Sooo, ya figure with that Island up in the corner yer safe eh?

Not quite.

Here is what I do to get started with Britannia. First off, move a few extra troops onto the mainland to defend your only city there. Ignore ireland for the moment. It's tempting, but you need the troops elsewhere in the beginning. The Gauls will attack. In every start with this one, the Gauls attacked me every time so be prepared. The germans will be open to diplomatic solutions in the beginning. Build your towns towards swordsmen as quickly as possible, then light british chariots. These two units should form the backbone of your early armies and if used correctly they can be devastating to your neighbors. I generally fight all my battles, but if you prefer to automate some make sure you have good generals fighting the battles. I'm certain you can read up about generals/family members somewhere else here.

With the practically destined conflict with the Gauls, you may have to forgo a large and expensive navy and rely on subterfuge to keeps a few ships running to ferry troops to the mainland. Once your lone city on the mainland is secure and you can afford to retrain your armies defending the area, attack Ireland. It's only a few bandits in Tara, but once yours Tara is a valuable resource. From there you can build an army in peace specifically for invading the north coast of europe while using your home island to supply the mainland during the ongoing struggle. I suggest building a temple for creating Woad warriors, as these are powerful units very early in the game even though the temples to Britannia can really help trade. Extra unit? More Trade? Better missiles? Temples will play an important role in your strategy in my opinion. If you are having trouble keeping a navy in the water, use short hops to transport troops across dangerous waters. Move ships up to Tara when it's clear. Wait till next turn. If they are still alive, move troops to Britannia in one move. Then walk the troops down to the south coast and use the same process to move to the mainland. Clever use of your navy is essential in the initial stages.
I cannot stress the importance of the Warcry in battle. The warriors of Britannia are fearsome indeed.

And ta-daa. You have a basic plan of action. I've played Britannia on a medium and hard (I ran into financial problems, my weak point. heh.) and both times this was a successful plan to start. It's my later decisions and lack of patience that cost me.

[Boudicca]

Using the chariots and swordsmen is a good idea. According to your advice, I didn´t wait for the Gauls to attack me, but struck them immediately at Alesia. This led me into a more than 30 years war with the Gauls, who stood firmly against my forces, Spain and the Julii and conquered all of Spain and the North of Italy.

During my conquest, I experienced it to be the best tactics to have swordsmen or warbands advance, leading the chariots around the flank of the enemys forces and striking from behind, after hand to hand combat had started. This usually set the enemy on the run.

I´ve also been starting to use stone slingers recently, as they can significantly reduce the numbers of barbarian infantry...especially if it does not dare to attack due to the war cries of my forces.

The most important thing to me still remains the use of an experienced General in combination with highly experienced troops.

P. S. Don´t use your light chariots in city assaults...they will get split up in the roads and surely lose their way...

[Raizen]

On my first turn, I dragged every spare person I could and headed over to the mainland, and took that city on the northwest coast (Concave something). It put the Gauls on the defensive, and I got a good coastline from which to strike at Tara pretty easily. I left a governor and a warband there and immediately moved back to the mainland. I ignored my navy and just used the one boat to ferry over the channel and head back into port.

Afterwards, I took Lemonum, Lugdunium, and Alesia (in that order), and got trade agreements with the four Roman factions. It's only 30 or so years in, but my money is coming in faster than I can spend it, and I can easily bribe armies out of the way so I can take provinces quickly. The Gauls are basically finished, and I have a good base to strike Germania and the Julii.

[DojoRat]

As Britain you should be able to handle the Gauls and the Germans but defeating Rome is a challenge. As stated above, ally with Germania and sell trade rights and map info to Gaul before you attack them in Brittany. You'll fight a lot of battles around Aleisa but you should be able to defeat them in detail. Keep your diplomats moving out to sell Alliance/traderights/map info. Aim high. I sold an ATM package to Carthage for 9600 dinar (hard/hard) and it was my first offer! Use this cash to bribe Gauls or rebels and life will be easier.

After the initial Gaulish attack I went back an took Tara. I concentrated on trade there as well as the north of England and my unit production in London and the Continent. Make sure to build the right temple. One increases trade, one produces Woad Warriors then Head Hurlers, and the third Druids.
Trade for the home front/coastal areas and a mix of the other two on the continent. Keep your fleets on "skirmish mode" the gauls have too many to start with and so it's more efficient to ferry troops and family members across the channel and run up north to hide.

Tactics early on are rather basic. Use light chariots to disrupt their formations, they will chase you, and then attack with war bands center and Woads and Swords on the wings. Use the war cry and overwhelm them paying particular attention to killing their leader. War hounds are good to chase routers/disrupt missile units as are barbarian cv.

After you have taken greater France you'll have to make a strategic decision. Where to? In my game I had three options. The Julii were fairly weak and had taken only Segesta and the northern Spanish province. So I could take them on, or continue after the Gauls in the Po valley and Spain, or attack the Germans before they hit me. I was tired of the Gaulish fleets harassing me and figured it would be good to take Milan and venice before the Romans did.

WRONG. As I went for Milan the Julii came north and the Germans got in on the game. With 20/20 hindsight I should have really knocked the Germans for a loop and let the Julii take the Po valley. I used a lot of cash bribing Roman armies but my dinar would have gone farther in Germany. Take out the German capital but anything east of that loot and leave it to rebel, you can always get it later.

After Germany its on to Rome. A whole other story.

[TimDogg]

That is the part of the story I want to hear! (Cause this is where Britania gets really difficult imho)

[froglegs]

I started using the name "froglegs" a couple years ago in a CIV 3 forum so I kept it here. They are a favourate snack of a good buddy of mine. I am new to this conference.

IMHO Britannia is the easiest tribe to play at large armies, realistic combat, very hard, very hard settings. In my first attempt I conquered Rome and 50 provinces in the summer of 217 BC. I took Tara first, then took out Gaul, Germannia, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Greece, Dacia, Sicily, Crete, and moved into far Eastern Europe.

Although I fought with all the forces of the Brits, I became very fond of the light chariots. Near the end of the game I was only using light chariots and barbarian light cavalry in my active armies. My greatest oppositon came from chosen archers. Those had to be dealt with. I never faced any post Marius Roman troops.

I then played , same level of difficulty, the Julii. In the first 15 years I was almost taken out by the Gauls. I suspended play in 180 BC holding 43 provences and a commanding lead over everybody else. Britannia was a lot easier to play.

I have restarted again at the same difficulty as the Brits just to see if it was a fluke. It was not. After 25 years of play I have only built light chariots to fight with, peasants to garrison with and barbarian cavalry. I have taken out Gaul, 2/3 of Germany and have all remaining Julii cities under siege. This almost seems too easy!

I have started several games as other tribes -- Greeks, Egypt, Germannia, Carthage for instance but they seem much more difficult to play. Has anybody else used my methods as the Brits? I am using the first patch.

[Maltz]

I just had some experiences with Britons (Vh/Vh/Huge). Now it is about 262 BC and I just took the last Gaul settlement in Iberia, and about to face the Senate army on the other side.

Britannia is one of the easier factions to fiddle around. The biggest reason, as many players have pointed out, is their light chariots. With a good number of light chariots you will dominate the barbarian world. To fight more civilized faction - especially in their cities, then you will need higher-end infantry such as chosen swordsman.

You must hate Egyptian generals - same here. These missle chariots moves as fast as any light cavalry, making them really great at skirmishing. Nobody can touch them. But they can't shoot while "driving away" from the enemy, for unknown reason. (driver and shooter are 2 separate soldiers). Therefore, you always want to team up 2 light chariots, so when one runs away from the enemy, the other shoots.

Light chariots seems to have more ammo than horse archers. This might be an illusion because of their bulky size, sometimes not everybody is shooting at the same time (slowly depleting ammo). For the same reason you wear down the enemy slower.

Oh yeah, all you need for light chariot is a pop. 2000 town with black smith (needs trader)! What a gift from the sky.

Against Gaul, Germenia and Iberia/Spain, light chariots are the early wargods because the above factions do not have long range missle units before their pop. reaches 6000. You can easily achieve X vs. 0 kill "heroic" battle results. For sure you won't wait that long; you are going to kill them before they build any chosen archers, right? If they get long range archers, then light chariots's slow kill rate will make them poor rivals of any shoot out.

The bad thing about chariot is in huge unit size I can't really tell the chariots go anywhere in the city. They get stuck at the gate and anywhere in an alley. They sometimes wander into the town square and get slaughtered. There should be a building upgrade "driving school".

This means if you probably want to train a few slingers / head hurlers for city assasult reasons (especially at the town center). Briton slingers are one of the worst slingers you can imagine, though.

For all field battle - you can really forget about swordsman, warband, slingers and all that. All you need is light chariot. Just use your patience to wear them down. When they advance, you back off, and vice versa.

Same as everybody else think, general units (heavy chariots) suck big time. They don't last for more than 10 seconds, and they are bad router chasers. I just fought a bridge battle and half of my generals' body-cargos just ride directly into the water and died. The most useless RTW general unit - Briton heavy chariot.

[froglegs]

Against enemy archers, chosen archers in particular, I take several of the Brit light chariots off skirmish mode and charge them. This tends to always route the archers although the chariots may take losses.

Against a city I normally just starve them out. However, I have taken cities by buying the required infantry for the ram. I generally use the chariots in loose formation all the time. They seem to behave better that way. Forget about crossing a bridge though. I just finished taking all of Italy by blitzing the pennsula and sieging all the cities from Rome south. Several attacked out at me -- a big mistake for them. The others I waited the 7 turns or so to get.

I always have an easier time against Rome than against Sythians or Dacians because of the chosen archers. For some reason, the Spanish ground troops give me more problems too. Part of it are the hilly battlefields. On defense several times I was almost taken out by a downhill infantry charge against my chariots in the initial setup. I had no high or even flat ground to defend. Again, most of my major battles I fight on defense. I take a crucial position or besiege a city and wait for them to attack me. Often times I am outnumbered 4 or 5 to 1 in defense. I will run my army up a hill to defend if there is not a hill to set up on. Shooting downhill seems to be a big advantage. By the way, having taken all of Italy, Germany, Gaul, and 2/6 of Iberia, by 235BC I still have only built 2 types of troops to date -- light chariots and peasants -- all this at v hard, v hard, large army settings.

The only other tribe that I have looked at that looks anywhere near this easy is Egypt -- and that is only because they are isolated from enemies and have money out the wazoo. Their troops do not seem to fight as well though. That is probably due to there being a lot of horse/camel archers to face and archers in general.

Another thing -- it seems to me that the birth rate for the royal family is a lot higher for the Brits than for the Romans for instance.

[Mountaindew]

had very little problems playing as the brits...light chariots, u rock! u just gotta love 'em! win my battles everytime.

u gotta make use of the warcries and the druid chants...they are there for a reason...by the time the enemy (specially romans) gets to my inf line, having being peppered by the chariots, they rout when my inf. charge.

hmmm...ive realised that the brits do have a tendency to give birth to royals very very much, even rivalling egypt...

yeah, the lack of cavalry is a bummer...

[tan1415]

Playing the brits in very hard/very hard level....
How do you get the Druids? I havent gotten them yet. And I have I think finish building everything.

Toughest thing is when the gauls and germans gang up on you.
Key is light chariots. They are available relatiovely early.
I like to use them as skirmisher and shoot up the enemy from teh flanks. Much better than the scythian horsearchers and other horse units. The chariot AI are relatively smart. They never get caught by infantry and when a cavalry unit catches up..the normal cav units are ussually toast vs Chariots.(Not sure why...but cav units always loose vs chariots)

In the beginning I used the Chariots to breakup large AI army so that I could destroy it piecemeal on teh battle field. Pretty cool effect. Large parts of the armies would be running around behind the chariots. The infantry would be used to finish the armys piecemeal.

Heavy Chariots...the lack of cavalry makes it difficult to exploit the holes they create when they charge.
I agree with the view that Chariots are actually elephants light. They bust open most infantry, except if they have spears.
Just make sure when they have charged that there's a followup unit to finish off the unit that was charged.(*barbarian cav are like gold) The lack of good mop up units severely handicap the chariots.
A good idea is to use wardogs...tehy are great killers. Just make sure to have a couple of units and to use them wisely. Once unleasghed they are out of control.

[Callensius]

Guide.

Don't have anything to quote but

BELIEVE me if you wanna do anything when playing with Britannia you have to use swordsmens believe me swordsmen are like the best unit, you can train them in almost the beginning of the game, once (in armour) upgraded highly skilled and with the warcry really effective as i've read here before, in Britannia you can first pepper them with a bit o' arrows from the chariots and then you can just charge them with a warcry'ing bunch of swordsmens usually the enemy will start to run, cuz, the arrows was a first moral blow, and after they're a bit shaken the enemy will runn at the first warcry'ing son of a gun believe me, o yeah also Warhounds are also effective but only in non-besieging battles in besieging battles they'll loose theyre way believe me and Warhounds are also an incredible moral blow believe me


Conclusion: Swordsmens, Warhounds GOOD!

[roman god's]

playing on vh/vh it was very difficult to get very comfrotable. with playing with the britons. (just coming off a glorious camapaign with the julii).


first you lose money in your capital and it never makes any money for you. its just frustrating. you lose all your money so quick. it's hard to build an army with no money. and you slowly get killed off by your neighbors gaul and germania later. it's just a pain in the rear




p.s. this is my 2 post.

[ajgundam5]

I expanded into Gaul and then took over Spain, by the time i was finished with that i was in a war with Germania. After wiping out Gaul,Spain, and Germania I focused on Italy. Don't start a war with Dacia bc you need all the help you can get. Wiping out all the Italian Factions will be tough but as long as u have some diplomats outside your cities ready to bribe you should be fine until you own Italy

[roman god's]

It's me again.

I've just went through 20 more turns and found that swordsman and warhounds are the bomb to use. They are the best before you get chariots and other good units. I've started a war with both the gauls and the germans.

So, far my conquests are a success. I've captured all of the german lands and most of the gaul territory. I've made alliances with both the dacians and the spanish. Because I know the julli and the other roman factions are not to be trusted.

I've got a little money and tons of land.

right later

[roman god's]

ohhhhhhhhh yeah i forgot anybody know how to get druids.


if you can

[General Carnage]

It's me again.

I've just went through 20 more turns and found that swordsman and warhounds are the bomb to use.

right later

^lmao



Anyways, I find that chariots can be used very successfully. The trick is to break up formations with skirmishers and light chariots, then bring in the heavy stuff to roll them over then wipe them out with the main force.

[Kourutsu]

Can Britons get stone walls. And I mean in native lands, not a freshly conquered Carthage.

[grapedog]

This is only my second campaign, and my first full(50 provinces + rome) campaign...

What I've done so far, is basically cut a swath down the middle of Gaul countries. I took Condate Redonum first, followed by Alesia. Then hit Lemonum and Massilia because it was really lightly defended. Then Lugdunum and Narbo Martius. I also grabbed Tara pretty early on, but that wasn't a big deal.

The Gauls never really gave me any trouble at all, only Germania has been causing any problems by attacking Alesia, Samarobriva and Lugdunum randomly. I threw up 2 forts in the Narbo Martius territory to cut off Spains easy access and one in Aquitania. Also one in the pass near Massilia that leads to Julii territory. The only Gaul outposts left it would seem are in Numantia and Mediolanium. I'm content to let them have them for now as my generals haven't been having many babies...so I'm going to call my forces home for a few turns and work on baby making and town building. I've got watch towers on the borders of Germania territory so I can see when they are coming and keep two generously garrisoned armies in Alesia and Samarobriva.

I have to figure out at this point whether I want to head east into Germania or West into Spain. I was thinking about taking out Spain first since it's a much smaller area to try and control and then I can work East towards Germania once I secure the penninsula.

Suggestions are welcome on what direction I should take, I've got 11 regions and 247 turns left. I have some good generals and thick armies and I'm ready to expand in either direction, I was just thinking Spain since it's a smaller area by far and it won't be so hard to defend.

[IrishArmenian]

The Germans will be a treacherous sort, so watch your back after Gaul is dead, or at least confined to Spain. Most of the time, those Germans attack me from behind. With a group of midsize armies containing Light chariots, Swordsmen (Chosen preferably), Head Hurdlers, Woad Raiders, Warband and Various Calvary Mercaneries, I just ripped through them like paper. The Romans, of course were different. You should amass large armies of what I stated above, plus dogs, other mercanaries, maybe some druids. Make sure you have a lot, becuase I led five armies onto the boot. One came from the North West, one from the North East, One from the South East (by way of boat) and the biggest one of them all landed right next to the Roma, herself. Using my navies, I cut off the Roman's income. I made sure to attack before the Marius reform so that I may still put extreme hurt to them via Light Chariots, Slingers and Head-Hurdlers. I wiped those Jullii right off of the boot (and the planet) with my blitz from the North, destryed the Brutti's section of Italy (leaving a few useless cities in Greece) and in about three years, after starving most of their soldiers and sabatoging their barracks, walls, et all, I sacked the eternal city. The key to Briton is to have lots of resources, or conquer a lot of places, because you must manage you money.

[Private Clark]

well...i never could get off that accursed island you start on, those rebels kicked my .

[Mookus]

I played Brittania on Hard/Hard and found that keeping my mainland city was very hard v. the Gauls and Germans. They both continually insisted on war despite my diplomatic efforts.

To counter this I retreated to the British Isles and then conquered Ireland. Then I set up two major armies with two fleets. The Gauls and Germans don't attempt to control the seas around the British Isles so you'll have free reign of the seaways. With that I would send my fleets up and down the Gaulic and German coasts, raiding any city that was poorly defended. As Gaul and the Germans begin getting into wars with Rome this becomes much easier.

Once a city was conquered I would enslave the populace to send them back to the British Isles to beef up my tax base and increase city size. The sooner you can get to chosen swordsmen the better, and every person in the population helps. Then I would wreck/sell all the buildings and retreat back to my navy. Sail off to another city and repeat, the larger Gaul/German armies who are travelling by land won't be able to keep up with your raids. Once you've done enough damage to their economies they'll be unable to raise large armies. You on the other hand will be rich from pillaging. Then I moved in and began to take mainland settlements.

[gaiusmarius8]

Hello Im quite new but am a very good player of Rome: TW and BI. I beat the game with Britannians. So lemme tell you how it is done.

When starting the game, I took 3 warbands and held them towards Tara on the Britain Side. I left them to also clean up rebellions until I got a navy. I concentrated on building the Temple for Woadies first and getting Light and Heavy Chariots. Gaul was rash in sending armies after armies to Samarobriva, my idea. Sneak behind with 1 chariot unit, while they readjust, I took another unit and cut up their generals then they would always rout ane leave. I concentrated on Germania because they had more cavalry per army than gaul and Rome. I took them out simple by concentrating warbands as a trap so Woads can cut at flanks in often fought in forests of the Germanic tribe Area. Gaul was still repelled by my chariots and now Head Hurlers. Rome though got into war with Gaul and eased my annoyence of these Barbarians. I then took sight in rebuilding my defenses. Bad Time! My economy was awry, Rome took Alesia and now I just received word of an attack on Lemonum which was the only Gaul town I was wanting to take. Rebel Pirates arised from Spain and attacked my ships worsening my situation. I decided to take Sun Tzu's proverb into consideration "You will only be victorious if you know yourself and the enemy". I sent spies to sniff out the game plan and received each attack defensively and kept going good. Now Spain was getting washed up and Thrace had gone to the west fighting Dacia. I decided to go east once again and took out the Cavalry stressing Dacians and Scythians. Now I had 2 enemies. Thrace and Julii were boring in so I decided to send assassin's to kill their people and I took out Thrace with the help of Macedon (weak though) and Brutii. Carthage was still in trying to resist Julii power which they pressed on them. I took this chance to steal Masillia, Arretium, Ariminum, and Segesta. They repelled on me and Carthage took southern tip of Spain. I set out for the biggest siege for me, to take Narbo Martius! Triarii and Principes versus Slingers, Woads, Warbands, and Chariots. I won luckily. My chariots were wiped out by Triarii but I managed to break the main line with my Woads and infected them to chaos with my Slingers and Woads. I killed their general (8 star) with my (3 star) chariot general. I took Narbo Martius soon after with little resistance and their cities started to defect and I eventually killed them. Carthage was also out by Scipii. So I had Spain to Lovosice avoiding Scipii (dealing with Numidia and Egypt) and Brutii (Dealing with Greeks and Pontus ) I then took on a harsh enemy... Armenia!

[13th warrior]

If you want to play a faction where you can sit and rack in the money, Britannia is for you, for some reason that island generates a lot of trade.
Unforunatly, they are in a tough position for conquest. they have the germans to the southeast, and with their units they will cause havoc on your leaders unit . So most wouldn't go that route, the only other choice would to go south into Gaul. though that cause problems in the long run, because of the size of their empire and the similarties in your troops .
I personally haven't really found a way to harness the trade into a profitable conquest . but there are always a chance for a lucky break.
PS. reply if you can tell me a good route to take.

[Dominic]

If you're one of those people who believe that generals should be leading their soldiers into battle (and I am), then perhaps Britannia is NOT for you. Britannia's generals ride on scythed chariots, and I have absolutely no idea how these things work. Yes, they disrupt formations, but they don't actually -kill- anyone, mostly they just push people over. Should you use them on an enemy unit pinned down by your forces, they'll likely mow down as many of your own people as the enemy. If you use them on routers, they'll keep running over them for hours, killing the routers in ones and twos. And Zeus forbid that you should try using them for a frontal charge. They're naturally frail compounded with probably low experience because they kill very few enemies per battle.

Otherwise, like the other 'barbarian' factions, Britannia gets pretty strong militarily with fewer buildings. Unlike the other barbarian factions, the Britons can develop a good economy early because all their starting provinces allow for sea trade, plus the bonus you get for building the 'merchant temples'. So while Gaul is practically identical to Britannia except that they get excellent archers, and Germania has much stronger infantry, archers, AND Gothic Cavalry (keeping in mind that all barbarian factions can build powerful units sooner), Britannia's economy makes Britannia the faction most able to zerg rush all others. Supposedly, Britannia's military revolves around the chariot, but as stated in the 1st paragraph, I find their melee chariots very hard to use effectively. However, they get Light Chariots; missile chariots, which makes them the 'horse archer' barbarian faction, and this is what makes Britannia a force to be reckoned with, or at least, outright devious compared to your infantry-intensive neighbours.

There's really nothing to playing Britannia, especially if you've played another barbarian faction already. Build > Get Denarii > Buy troops > ZOMG RUSH > Rinse, repeat. If you're a veteran of 'civilized' factions, and depending on your tactical style, barbarians can be either liberating or annoying. Generally your battles become Braveheart-esque pile-ups. You never ever have to think about such silly civilized notions like finesse or subtlety.

[Ulfang]

If you're one of those people who believe that generals should be leading their soldiers into battle (and I am), then perhaps Britannia is NOT for you. Britannia's generals ride on scythed chariots, and I have absolutely no idea how these things work. Yes, they disrupt formations, but they don't actually -kill- anyone, mostly they just push people over. Should you use them on an enemy unit pinned down by your forces, they'll likely mow down as many of your own people as the enemy. If you use them on routers, they'll keep running over them for hours, killing the routers in ones and twos. And Zeus forbid that you should try using them for a frontal charge. They're naturally frail compounded with probably low experience because they kill very few enemies per battle.

One of my fave games was as the Brits and I loved my chariots. Admittedly they're dangerous things and i lost more than one general using them to directly assault enemy formations. Seems with cavalry your general is pretty safe up until your bodyguard has been decemated but with Chariots this doesn't look to be the case. I found that they were great at mowing down retreating warriors and the chariots with archers were good for getting cheap archers early on and they have a long range.

[GoreBag]

The chariots are actually great rout chasers, but not independently. I will usually send the chariots after the fleeing enemies, being careful to choose the faster troops first (I've caught cavalry with chariots, even through wooded areas. Are chariots naturally faster than plain ol' horses?), then send the faster foot troops (slinger/woad warriors) after them as well. The chariots, if you plan it well, will run through the fleeing troops, killing some and knocking the rest down, hopefully through multiple units. Your fast troops will catch up pretty quickly when the enemy are lying on their backs, and you'll have few problems wiping everything out.

Other than that, missile-less chariots are best used as shock troops, I find. Charge your opponents from behind with them and run them over, then pull them out and do it again. Even the mere presence of them is enough to screw around with the enemy's morale, so it's not really a bad idea to have them close, even if you're apprehensive about their actual combat ability.

[Shadar]

Hm... Well. what i love about the Britons are their their army.. although admittedly not as good as some other factions. Just playing a short game on M/M with them.

The fact that i had 2 10 star generals MIGHT have changed things a little.. but that was very fun (slaughtered 4 full-stack gaulish armies in a row with that lovely army, then another 2 a few turns later) - allowed me to take over most of Gaul at barely any cost. The worst battle was losing 600 soldiers on huge size with that army. the best battle was losing 50 soldiers

My usual army was usually this: 1 general, 3 light chariots, 2 barbarian cavalry mercenaries, 3 swordsmen, 2 woad warriors, 2 war hounds and the rest were warbands. That actually worked quite well, although i really do need to test WITHOUT a 10 star general (my battles were usually really short... as soon as i charged one flank with 2 chariots and 2 cavalry the rest of the enemy army just melted away really really fast). I would probably replace everything the swordsmen and the warbands with Chosen Swordsmen later, but the warbands are STILL decently useful for absorbing tough stuff like a cavalry charge, since their huge numbers allow them to absorb a cavalry charge very well.


Their position is actually one of the better ones i've seen (and one which i love to use), since they only have ONE land border. Take that Irish province early and its very much worth it, since its decent cash, and it really helps since you still only need one army to hold your mainland city. In my entire game i never actually bothered with keeping any garisson on the islands, just used 2 little navies to clean up all the Gallic ships floating around it. This means that you can defend your mainland provinces VERY well with your standing armies without suffering much in upkeep. In about 60 turns I managed to get a very very nice income , getting enough to upkeep 3 full-stack armies to hold my 4 Gallic provinces (the 4 in the top left) and still gain 1000-2000+ denarii in profit every turn. (i didn't need to train many troops though, since i was in a consolidation/building phase. So people who rush the game might find yourself suffering a little economy-wise)

Just remember with the Britons, you can actually gain a LOT by improving your income FIRST because of the amount of trade you can get from your provinces. Plus, its not really that hard to defend your only vulnerable city on the mainland.

I would recommend to take out most of Gaul and then take over the Iberian peninsula first. Try not to go anywhere near the Romans, at all, until you've secured the Iberian peninsula. Just maintain a very weak Gallic nation as a buffer between you and the Julii. I personally reckon its too risky to take out the Romans in a fair fight - so outnumber them, and outnumber them badly. But at least you've got one thing to look foward to. The Julii are going to be the only real opposition you're going to face going down south. The Scipii are usually running around in Africa and wiping the floor with Carthage and Numidia, and the Brutii are in Greece. As a result... their armies on the Italian peninsula, and Sicily, are at best skeleton forces.

[scipio the even younger]

at the beginning only fight whe n you r sure u can win

[cunobelinus]

i found brittiania a lot of fun there chariots are there thing .dont even think about goin fro germinia they will beat u go for gaul and make friends with germinia.after u take gaul make sure u have enough men to cover ur towns dont leave them open germinia wil break the alliance well thye did with me i had row of herioc vistorys all through france i called it the road to victory i got to rome then they forced me back a bit .i completed the short campaign but not long .have fun littlegannon.