Britannia

[The_Emperor]

One thing I dislike about playing the Britons is the lack of any Cavalry. You end up relying on Cavalry Mercs to fulfill that role... (Why oh why didn't you include at least 1 Brit cav unit CA??)

Heavy Chariots I find are best used to disrupt a formation with infantry charging in to take full advantage. But they are not tanks. Generals are too valuble to waste and charging into a dense infantry formation with them is a good way to get them killed.

Your main infantry line needs to be made up of Woad Warriors and Swordsmen to start with. The basic Warband is too weak in my opinion to be of much cop. Once you get the "Chosen" Swordsmen you'll really be able to give the enemy something to worry about.

Head hurlers (despite my reservations about them as a game unit) are quite effective and dangerous. Train these guys up and hold them behind your main battle line to create a hail of sickening trophies into the enemy while your infantry charge. Slingers are also of use out in front of your battle line to harass the enemy, just remember to take them off "fire at will" mode when you put them behind your lines as the enemy closes, or you'll take extra casualties.

Warcry and Chant usage

Both of these abilities are a must for the Britons. It makes you into a very rowdy and noisey sight on the battlefield but really has a shock on your enemies.

When the enemy approaches, just before you are ready to give the charge order. Get your entire infantry line to warcry. This really pumps up your infantry with combat bonuses. Then when they are done immediately charge them in... The shock of the charge should be a severe blow to the enemy battle line.

Druids should always be placed behind your line as support, as like Screeching Women they are not as good in combat as your main infantry. Their chanting helps to bolster the morale of your own units at the expense of the enemy and will make your battle line harder to break.

The one thing I cannot stress enough is Buy CAV MERCS!! Trust me you need them to fill a role that your heavy chariots cannot do very well... Chasing routers and heavy charges into compact infantry formations.

[Fridge]

I've just finished my first campaign with the Brits, and found the light chariots the most useful unit I've used in the game...

I like to stick them in front of my infantry, and send them straight into attack using Cantabrian circle. They have several advantages over normal archers, and though I'm not too hot on horse archers, I expect over them too. F'rinstance...

1 They carry so much ammo, for most purposes you can consider the supply unlimited.

2 They're quick, so can escape any attack apartfrom a cavalry charge. They can also draw enemy units away halfway across the battlefield, then leave them to return to the fray

3 Their Cantabrian circle sends a non stop rain of arrows down upon your enemies, according to the game this is a big morale sapper (not noticed that particularly myself)

4 After I'd dealt with the Gauls and Germans, faced the Romans and their General's heavy cavalry, and found that a unit of light chariots could usually stand against a Roman general, and usually start him routing. Against infantry as well, if your chariots do get caught, they'll usally set any light inf to routing, a vast improvement on yer normal archers!

5 And this may sound like a minor point, but due to their skirmishing nature, and the fact that I always sent them to soften up the enemy before the fight, and so caused a lot of casualties, I found that most of my chariot units gained about one experience 'chevron' about every other battle, or more. Very soon I was fielding units with silver and gold experience, by the end, I had one army with three (I found having more than three light chariot units meant too much micro management and stress) units all with three gold chevrons. And those boys were awesome! (Oh, and Tthanks to the bug in the game of course, even having one chariot left with one gold chevron means you can retrain a whole unit with gold exp) The only battle where I managed to use up all my arrows, the three-gold unit killed over 400 Gauls each. That's 1200+ dead gauls using just three units - and no friendly casualties.

Mmmm.... light chariots....

Also, head hurlers rule. They do massive damage - in my experience the most kills per man than any other skirmishing unit - and sap morale quickly. They're also fast and never rout, so don't dismiss them...

[duncan36]

The basic formation I use as Britannia is first to put my slingers up in front of my army. The enemy will do one of two things sit there and do nothing or charge. If they sit there, you move your slingers into range and pelt them. If they charge you'll get off a few volleys and the slingers will retreat, move them off to the side of your army, careful that your armys not in the way and continue pelting the enemy during hand to hand.

The next part of my basic strategy is to put all the warband in the army in a line in guard mode. Immediately behind this line are all my swordsman and woad warriors. I came up with this tactic early on because woad warriors have such terrible armor they simply cant be allowed to be attacked, however it works great with swordsman too.

Basically this setup has several advantages, if the enemy tries to overload one side of your line more than the other your heavy units that can change the tide arent locked into the front line and can be sent to attack the side where the main thrust is coming. The shock of a fresh heavy unit charging straight at the enemy after combat already been going on with the warband seems to break them every time. Keeping the swordsmen back guarantees you get the full charge bonus as the enemy is at a stop fighting the warband. Also the warband in guard mode since its so thick never seems to let a cavalry unit through it, which enhances the speed at which you kill the cavalry, especially when your unit of swordsman behind the warband comes charging through the warband.

Also I learned the hard way to never get your general involved in anything other than mopping up activities. Barbarian armies are totally undisciplined and if its an even battle will rout at the drop of a hat without the general.

Also I pick up barbarian cavalry whenever possible, the lack of cavalry is a huge disadvantage for Britannia, and I havent got them yet but hopefully the heavy chariots are better than the generals chariots.

The other problem I've run into is beating the German phalanx. I've managed to get a full cavalry charge on a phalanx units back while it was moving and the unit simply wheeled around pointed its spears at my cavalry and routed the whole lot of them. Phalanx's are kicking my behind I'd like some help with them as nothing i've done has worked so far.

[Fridge]

re. the phalanxes, (phalanges?) you need to engage them from the front before charging from behind, and even then be ready to pull your cavalry out of their charge if the spearmen look like they're reforming.

[hoof]

The reason why General chariots stop when ordered to charge is often because skirmish mode is on by default. What happens is the unit will charge. When it hits skirmish minimum distance range it will stop. The only reason it finally engages is because it reaches that minimum distance at which all units will engage in combat (ever had that frustrating experience where the enemy catches your archers, and they *refuse* to quit fighting and retreat?)

Turn off Skirmish mode and General Chariots will charge properly.

I find that Chariots are a lot like a poor-man's Elephant in use. Basically, you charge them in, and follow them up with a good killing unit (like an infantry unit or cavalry). The Chariots/Elephants completely disrupt the target formation (and kill a few guys themselves), and this makes them extremely vulnerable to the follow-up unit.

I've rolled up entire Battle lines of infantry by Elephant/Cavalry combos. Very effective combo, except against well-managed Phalanx units.

The problem is that the best follow-up unit is a unit of cavalry. Unfortunately, the British don't get any except for Mercenary cavalry. Thus it becomes difficult to capitalize upon the disruptive effects of the Chariot, and the Chariots don't kill fast enough to make them useful as killing units themselves.

[duncan36]

I've played quite a bit more, really the best way to deal with the German spearman is to pelt them with slingers and light chariots, luckily the AI is dumb so they tend to send one unit at a time. If it was a human vs. human situation of Britannia vs. Germania I dont see it even being a close contest.

More thoughts: head hurlers' use is limited. They need to be a lot closer to loose their missles than slingers, unlike javelins the head hurlers stink at lobbing heads over units. Like Roman javeliners if charged they dont seem to have time to get a shot off before they run away. If you manage to get them to work perfectly they can be devastating but 90% of the time they're fairly useless and often do something stupid and kill a ton of your own men.

I have more respect for light chariots than I used to, they can be used to take out enemy generals, and if charged by lighter cavalry while in the cambrian circle they usually take it out, they also make the enemy concentrate on them which open the enemy up to a charge from your other units. They become less useful when the Romans start bringing the heavier cavalry to battle though. Also they have an annoying tendency to act like idiots and charge randomly into the enemys lines and then just sit there waiting to get killed.

Heavy chariots are not a match for the Roman heavy cavalry, they get bogged down when they hit the heavy cavalry and get killed rather quickly. Against lighter cavalry the heavy chariots are pretty devastating.

Chosen swordsman one on one are somewhere between a Early Legionary Cohort and a Legionary Cohort in overall power. The cohorts dont attack as well but their armor is much better. Obviously Britannia's best unit.

Well thats about it, the chariots and head hurlers need some tweaking. On normal difficulty the game is definitely winnable with Britannia, I'd take out Germania first and weaken Gaul leaving a buffer between Gaul and Rome and then start going after the Romans and the Spanish peninsula.

[HopAlongBunny]

The Light chariots are fantastic imho. The general's chariot is peculiar but decent enough for chasing routers-entire flank of a Gaul army started to rout after getting peppered with heads; general's chariot kept the whole mass moving to the "red-line"_kept running back and forth through the routers.

The head-hurlers are indecent. Good damage and break the morale of units very quickly; I place one in the middle and wait for the line to "bow" somewhere_start hurling heads into the flank. Great as flankers if you can manage them.

Slingers work well but need way too much micro-management. If behind your units they will mow a path through YOUR units

I remembered from playing Germania how warbands (or anything else) would impale themselves on the spears; now that I'm on the other end of the stick it seems to help if you put warbands in "guard" mode; they still run the final few steps to contact, but I guess because they are defensive they will not throw themselves onto the speerpoints. Flank with whatever you have available.

The main use for Heavy Chariots seems to be disrupting formations. I doubt they will be a mainstay of my army: expensive and 2-turn build req.