Britannia

[Craterus]

Mobile missiles (missile cavalry and missile chariots) are brilliant units in RTW.
The Egyptian charioteers were the best/most experienced at driving chariots but I think it is easier to drive chariots over sand than over British and French terrain.

The heavy chariots are better at killing routing units but chariots are overly crap at this. They keep running over the routing men but they don't kill them. I recommend to send merc barbarian cavalry (if you've got some) after routing enemies because they would do a much better and faster job.

I love Britannia, it's such an exciting faction...

[MajorFreak]

Craterus had some lovely tips. There's a few misconceptions posted that i'd like to correct from other posters though.

(1) Druids are created at a 'sacred circle of brigantia.' Druids are actually a very tough nut to crack. They tend to be a priority target for the enemy, so take advantage of this (sort of like the tendency of infantry, whilst charging, to focus on the machinegun post)

(2) I've been pondering the whole "occupy settlement vs exterminate" and have discovered that taxation isn't linear to population (so that extermination doesn't affect your bottom line in the long run like you'd think)

• i'll experiment to test this, but from what i've studied population centres between 4000-12000 all seem to give taxes (at very high; no governors) of approx 1000-1500

(3) Sea trade routes are critical. I find Germania is easy to form trade agreements with and is quite friendly in the long term. And attacking across the alps like hannibal is NOT a good idea. It's better to have trade agreements with the poncy romans than not (unless you take Craterus' advice and gain alliance with paranoid Julii). Besides, those two cities have incredibly high base farming values of 4.0% and 5.5%...personally, the potential loss of sea trade with the romans makes such a maneuver highly unwise. Okay, so who to attack? Well, the spaniards are stupidly easy to defeat using Chariot Archers (preferably built at a captured Gaul-built sacred circle of Epona, and upgraded at Abnoba/weaponsmith)

• good luck finding a gaulish temple of epona. they seemed to prefer the other types. Teutatis is great for all your ground troops except druids/woad/heads

(4) Combat. I never buy Swordsmen except for the chosen kind for urban combat; Headhurlers are a mixed bag, but like all javelin-ranged units i hate them (besides, have you SEEN how long the chariot archer ammo lasts?!?! omfg!) Oh, and i refuse to use wardogs, but love running them over with chariots. yum! My optimal army is three groups of 3 chariot archers, 2 druids, 3 spears, 3 woad warriors, 2 merc cav and a general with these ancilliaries:

• Priest (of Andrasta)
• (Famous) Warrior
• Merc(enary Captain)
• (Priestess of) Brig
• (Wise) Woman
• Bard
• Druid (healing)
• one free slot for usually Witch, but bodyguard is nice too.

(5) Civil Admin. Well, not needing archery range, stables nor advanced halls of heroes, things become rather cheap indeed. Your major centre of concern, ironically, is the sea. Having some doofus blockade your best income source really is a problem. Getting "Shipwrights" is a major priority, but you'll really want to avoid building ANY farming upgrades - is that little bit extra cash going to outweight the 100gp/turn you'll need for those peasants for public order? I'd recommend getting into the habit of building "temples" to Brigandia to boost pop (don't bother with markets beyond a trading post - they don't increase beyond +0.5%) then tearing the temple down once you hit 12000 and build the next governor upgrade, and building something useful in it's place (though having a sacred circle to brig at Tara is perfect cause it's only got 1% base farming)...So, basically, it's all about Temples and Ports with market upgrades secondary and a blacksmith/weaponsmith for your core troop building centres. Corruption is based on distance from your capital. I've found that an empire stretching from Patavium up north to Mogontiacum (bypassing Iuvavum) and west to spain, the best spot for your capital is Alesia...As for where to build your temples to Andrasta? Right next to a province with a captured "teutonis"/"epona"/"abnoba", with them all bunched together preferably - preferably landlocked provinces. You can import your druids from Tara. Have temples to Britannia at every other 'Minor City' you have - except at places where you've captured some temple that you like. Your governors should only be placed at troop building centers or major trading ports.

• [i]i found, with 22 provinces, i only had about 7 governors
• Tara
• (Priestess of) Brig
• (Priestess of) Brit
• (wise) Man
• (wise) Woman
• Civil(ized slave)
• Bard
• Silk/Spice (merchant)
• open slot, usually witch, but a 'merchant' you can import all the way from a roman city is nice.
  
  Inland production centres
• (Priest of) Andrasta
• (famous) Warrior
• Merc(enary captain)
• (Priestess of) Brig
• Civil(ized slave)
• Bard
• (master) Smith
• open slot, usually witch, but a roman gotten 'overseer' is nice...a wiseman is nice, but i found them hard to come by in the later game. hoard them!
  
  coastal production centers
• (Priest of) Andrasta
• (famous) Warrior
• Merc(enary captain)
• (Priestess of) Brit
• Bard
• Silk/Spice (merchant)
• (master) Smith
• open slot, usually civilized slave (or wiseman), but a 'merchant' you got from a roman city is awesome.
  
  major coast trade zones (london, etc)
• (Priest of) Andrasta
• (Priestess of) Brig
• (Priestess of) Brit
• (wise) Man
• Civil(ized slave)
• Bard
• Silk/Spice (merchant)
• open slot, witch, but a 'merchant' you got from a roman city is awesome, especially for london.
  
  druids would be nice for governors, but they're hard to come by (even worse are wise men) so hoard them for your war generals. Besides, witches increase chance for offspring which i think is more important in the long run

(5)Agents. I've found two diplomats can cover the entire map, clockwise, if you send one inland and the other along the coast. it worked out they were within a season of each other once they reached western sahara, before dropping dead. I figure they had the most fun of any of my troops. Before patch 1.2 i found that spies would become plague carriers. Great if you wanted to include WMD in your game, but lousy when the AI got you too...i'm rather curious after the patch because i find spies tend to die instead of becoming carriers. This is important because i tended to go overkill on my counterespionage network - they're expensive to maintain! Anyways, you'll need spies and assassins. Never build watch towers, but place a spy into each fort you build (more on that later) plus have one in each of your non-britain cities (i used to have two). Buy assassins and place two per army (i used to have three)...I'd prefer to use diplomats for fort maintenace duty, but they'd probably get killed off and i'd lose the fort AND the diplomat.

• replace them once they hit 60, and strip their retinues, then send the old godgers off to spy on foreign cities - great for sieges cause the doors might be open. Do the same with assassins but try to kill the assassins off with hard missions, since they're super expensive to maintain. Don't bother doing maintenance on diplomats.

(6) Forts. Watch Towers suck. Forts rule, except do you place a peasant in them to maintain or an agent? Well, it's simple: if you have merely a spy maintaining a fort it'll never be destroyed, plus it serves as a watch tower too! I have about less than a dozen in my empire and i prefer to build them between cities early on in the game and have them at the range of an infantry movement. I tend to grow attached to these for sentimental value, and really ought to lower my overhead. But they're so darned cute! Besides, in a pinch you can shove a peasant unit in them and totally block a strategic passage for dirt cheap. However, once you're at the stage of using 'rally points' for troop building later on in the game you'll want to remove any forts enroute. By that time you'll have an counterinsurgency army running about making sure your recruits don't get bushwacked by ambushes or surprise raids.

• btw, as for peasants? exporting peasants from 'shrines of teutonis' is a great idea. Just exterminate each city you capture and build some peasants fast and then replace them with the upgraded kind later.

(7) Beer. Well, i think the last topic should be where to build those pubs. I recommend you build them only at cities where there's no governor, that way you can boost the tax rate to very high...i'm fairly certain i see a correlation between drunken ancillaries and vices cropping up when i have taverns/bardics.





so, besides the neat 'overseer'/'merchant' ancilliaries you can get from roman cities, there's not much point in ruining trade agreements with them. Place some forts in the alp passes with a peasant in them and forget about the last Gaulish provinces.

[MajorFreak]

oh, silly me. the other reason not to tick the romans off is that chariot archers tend to SUCK against armies backed up by onagers and ballistas and other nasty icky siege stuff. actually, if someone can explain how to take out a roman army on a level playing field (ie. no terrain issues) i'd be most grateful. I've become rather lazy playing brits and cruising around in my souped up chariot.

ahhhhh...the days of holding off hordes of shogun armies with a balanced army. *sigh*

[Ianofsmeg16]

OMG OMG OMG!!!!
i have a great way to kick ass against the romans using chariots.....

so there i was...in the forest in etruria(arretium) and julii attacked me...this was me moving my whole civ to rome to start anew...andthe musta been spamming hastati cos all there army was was 10 untis of (huge) hastati and 1 unit of equites. so now i had all my chariots in one army and all my infantry/archers in another, the hcariot army was facing them. I thought i was going to lose cos all i had was bronze sword upgrade and most of them had no exp but thank god for crappy ai cos the marching they did one unit at a time and i surrounde them...best way to deafeat a roman??? break his tight formation up and send in your swordsmen woh are specialists at this...HAHA praise the smeg!!

[katank]

To deal with family cav, you may need to resort to some lvl 2 HHM's or just use crap loads of your own family cav.

[Biggles20]

Hello All, this is my first post on this forum so Greetings from me!

I only started playing RTW recently (though I havent played in about 6 months because I've been away from home at Uni and without a desktop for some time).

Anyways, it seems I'm at odds with most on this forum as I seem to remember struggling on my Brittania campaign (my first ever RTW campaign). I remember that I had conquered the British Isles, as well as all of Gaul, Spain, Dacia and some of Germania and even some of North Africa, all without too much difficulty.

However, I have a few major problems. Firstly, I remember being at war with the Juli, and seem to remember having a serious man-power shortage trying to ward off their seemingly endless stream of full stacks (unfortunately they've just had the marius reforms I think) around the top of the Italian peninsula. I just can't seem to make any gains without losing them again to those damned Romans.
Secondly, I have a huge problem with my fleet of ships as even in stacks of 20 ships, the Roman ships are still far superior to mine - how the heck is one supposed to beat triremes, let alone better Roman vessels?

Thirdly, I dont seem to be able to build Woad warriors or Head Hurlers - do I have the wrong temple(s)?

On one sure and positive note that I can't believe no-one's mentioned, I solve the Britton's inherrent lack of heavy cavalry by hiring mercenary Bastanae (spelling?) cavalry. While initial costs are steep, they seem to have better morale than most units and are almost unstoppable against all but the most heavily armoured infantry - Bastanae infantry are also good if you can get ahold of them! Does nobody except me make use of them?

Anyways, yeah - please advise on how to beat Roman armies as I'm really struggling against them.

Although I won't be home for a few weeks, the time spent learning useful tips on this forum will hopefully allow me to blitz the enemy and perhaps even march on Rome...who knows???

Sorry for the looooooong post - I'm pretty tired so cant word it any better right now!

Cheers for the advice,

Biggles

[pezhetairoi]

Hi Biggles, and let me be the first to welcome you to the Org! Trust me, your thread isn't long... you should look at some of mine ;-)

Okay, firstly. The Julii full-stacks. You will have problems beating their legionary fullstacks, that is true. I will advocate plentiful bribing to remove those armies you can't fight. Assuming that by Marian times they will have 7-8 provinces (assuming, because no Roman faction has ever survived till the reforms before in any campaign of mine) it will be easy to take down their peripheral provinces to drive them into debt. If they don't, then their home provinces are there are, and if you defeat enough of their armies they will run out of population to raise any more new armies. That happened for me as the Julii against the Gauls. They kept sending 20-stacks, then slowly it dwindled to 15-stacks, then to 5-6 stacks that I just irritatedly bribed away. So it will be for the Julii. Bribe. If you've conquered so many places you must be making at least 20k a turn with full economic infrastructures up and running. Denarii were earned to be spent, so make them well-spent. Save your game before bribing any family member of the enemy, because once you fail he will never be bribable again. If you can't bribe him, then the price is simply not high enough. Save up more. You must be patient with the Julii. Don't try to make gains; just sit back and make Mediolanum-Patavium your frontier, building forts at every Po river crossing. The AI never sieges forts, so your frontier will be safe while you subtly undermine their capability for war. Meanwhile, expand elsewhere to get more money for ever more ambitious bribes. Don't fight the battles you can't win. To quote, 'Infinite gold are the sinews of war.'

If you really want to fight the Romans, lure them into bridge battles whenever possible. I recommend the one just west of Rome. For that, though, you will have to undertake a risk in transporting a full-stack army by sea behind the Julii lines. As long as you stand -on- the ford itself and allow an army to attack you, you will have a considerable advantage in merely defending the ford against any comers. When fighting that battle, simply mass your troops in a semicircle on the other end of the ford. If you cannot fight at a ford, then your battles are sure to be high-cost, but still winnable. In this case you would keep your chariots in the rear, all massed at one spot on the line. You must take the offensive even in a defensive battle if your troops are to stand up to the enemy. Stretch your line to match the length of the Roman line, and engage them along the entire length. Then, when all are engaged, hurl your chariots at weakest point in the enemy line, charging right through the enemy. Since Romans are sword infantry they will not have any bonus against cavalry/chariotry, so you can burst through them. Chariots can frighten infantry, so use that effect to the max. Charge and charge again. If you have light chariots, rain arrows. If you have heavies, then use them for their god-given purpose. After one unit routs, devote your tender loving care to the ones next to them. The more units rout in a short time, the better since the higher the chance the rest of the army will rout. Your chariots will take great maulings, but they are your decisive arm and since in one-to-one combat you cannot beat legionnaires, the only way to kill them is to make them run. After a victory, retreat and retrain your chariots. Then return for more. After you destroy a few of their stacks and you can see there are only one or two left, begin the besieging of their settlements. Keep using bribe if you can to make your life easier. Remember your objective isn't to win every battle, but to capture provinces. So if you can avoid a fight, well and good.

My strategy against the Romans is, despite all that typing, only theoretical, because as I said, I have never faced legionnaires except in the Roman civil war. Otherwise, I make Rome my first priority for conquest so they cannot get Marian reforms. Furthermore I have never played Britannia before, but I have fought them in many campaigns and squared up against Romans as Gaul, which is pretty close I daresay.

Secondly, Large Boats, buildable at shipwrights. They are your only answer (if an inadequate one) to Triremes. Don't get yourself into a naval battle if you can help it. Build only what ships you need to accomplish your transport objectives. That is the lot of a barbarian navy. They are simply -not meant- to engage civilised fleets. Not at such a late stage when they have good ships. Alternatively, if you -really- want to sink a few ships, use multiple fleets. 3 20-stack fleets of large boats will certainly be enough to destroy one 20-stack fleet of triremes. To ensure the enemy does not live to fight another day after his defeat, place each of your three fleets on one of the 8 red squares surrounding the enemy fleet, then put one ship into each remaining square. Being completely surrounded, an enemy fleet once defeated will sink and never surface again. That's the only naval trick you can use without naval battles being played out.

Thirdly, I think you have the wrong temples. Try the one for the god of war or something to that effect. Reading the long description of the temple will give you some good clue to what they can build, since it is not apparent from the description of shrines at the beginning. Alternatively, just google 'RTW + temples list' or something to that effect, and download whatever spreadsheets and PDFs come your way. I have one that is really very good--tells you all the traits, effects, bonuses, and buildable units come with each temple all on one excel spreadsheet which is a little hard on the eye at font size 7 but tells you everything.

Fourthly, there is no such thing as Bastarnae cavalry. I assume you mean Sarmatian cavalry? That's the only heavy cavalry mercenary unit I know of. Sarmatians are good starter troops for shock cavalry-poor factions like Thrace and the Scythians. But after you develop your own cavalry capability they will almost surely be outclassed by your own buildable models. Bastarnae infantry are good mainly because of their 2HP, and I regularly use them in tandem with their brother mercenaries the Thracians, as general-hunting forces. I attract the general to charge, then position them in depth right astride the enemy general's path. They can cut a bodyguard cavalry into pieces in no time.

Hope this has been useful, cheers! Take two bridge battles and see me in the morning. ;-)

[Franconicus]

Hello All, this is my first post on this forum so Greetings from me!

I only started playing RTW recently (though I havent played in about 6 months because I've been away from home at Uni and without a desktop for some time).

Anyways, it seems I'm at odds with most on this forum as I seem to remember struggling on my Brittania campaign (my first ever RTW campaign). I remember that I had conquered the British Isles, as well as all of Gaul, Spain, Dacia and some of Germania and even some of North Africa, all without too much difficulty.

However, I have a few major problems. Firstly, I remember being at war with the Julii, and seem to remember having a serious man-power shortage trying to ward off their seemingly endless stream of full stacks (unfortunately they've just had the marius reforms I think) around the top of the Italian peninsula. I just can't seem to make any gains without losing them again to those damned Romans.
Secondly, I have a huge problem with my fleet of ships as even in stacks of 20 ships, the Roman ships are still far superior to mine - how the heck is one supposed to beat triremes, let alone better Roman vessels?

Thirdly, I dont seem to be able to build Woad warriors or Head Hurlers - do I have the wrong temple(s)?

1. This is a problem we all had to deal with. I guess you hold these two Gaulish towns north of the Julii. Defend them and gather your armies there. Once you cleared the suroundings go south. You should have three independant corps and some smaler cav units as well as spies. Try to attack the Julii towns simultaneously. If a field army comes to free the town - retreat. Only fight if you are sure to win. Watch all their armies and keep them busy with your cav units. Use spies to take the towns at once. Block all their ports.
2. Avoid the sea. Might be hard for Britons but you can fight them at land.
3. Take a look at post No 62
Good luck!

[Lord Reid of Britannica]

My experience with the Britons was that i immediately emptied my island of all troops save peasants, and took Bordesholm up north. I then acquired generals quickly, built up economic infrastructure AND got alliances with both Gaul and Germania.

Germania eventually declared war on Gaul and so i supported them. Gaul asked for out alliance back and i took Condate Rendonum from them in exchange for Alliance. I then betrayed them on the next turn and took Alesia. Two Gaul settlements in quick succession without much blood spilt, and firm friendship with a potentially problematic Germania.

I now have strong infrastructure and Armies, ready to crush the remainder of Gaul, along with spare generals to lead those armies.

[thatdude123456]

Right i'm doing a campaign right now as the britons on vh/vh. does anyone agree that the germania are seriously op when compared to the britons. can anyone offer some advice on tactics to use against their damn spear warbands early in the game. currently i'm embroiled in a war of attrition with them and it seems my warband/swords simply can't compete with their spears and my cavalry/chariots are useless as they just seem to drop dead even in a flanking manoeuvre. any tips on how to smash the germanic scum?????

[thatdude123456]

also i'm not very experienced at all with barbarian factions so any help would be greatly appreciated ;)

[ReluctantSamurai]

Germania has only two settlements from which they can train troops with any regularity...Mogontiacum and Damme. All their other starting settlements, and the few they may capture have tiny populations...so they can't train units very often from them. Capture those two, and they are finished. Easier said than done, though......

I use missile fire to whittle down those spears before taking them on. Head Hurlers are a nasty skirmisher that can do the job as well as your light chariots. Don't be afraid to hire merc warbands. It's a bit expensive at first, but once you overwhelm their early roving stacks, you should have no problem taking the above two settlements.

You have great potential for sea trade...build it up and you should have enough money to attrit them. You must move quickly because if they get to Noble Cavalry and Chosen Archers, you are in deep trouble.

[Craterus]

It was kind of lucky when we got our alliance with the Julii but they didn't help us out with the Gaul.. and when we walked through their land to get to Patavium, they cancelled the alliance and attacked us..

Try and get the alliance if you can, but don't don anything that might annoy them, as MajorFreak says: They are paranoid.

[MajorFreak]

QUICK START

forgive me for not reading the guide listed in the first page. i've probably repeated alot of advice and i'll further add to repetition. But, i feel this way i can compare notes and give an honest critique later. Anyhows, on with it:

Relevant settings are medium campaign/battle difficulty; Most important issues at the very beginning are

• right off the bat, before you do anything else, disband the 2 mainland 'warbands', plus the 'slinger'
• secondly, move Cynfawr a tiny bit southwest to that 'beak' on the coast, and take the spy, plus the archer chariot at london, and send them to Cynfawr
• Take the general in europe and place him into the city there. Then move your ship due south to the coast and board that archer chariot standing near the shore. Pack them off to where Cynfawr is standing.
• move all other 'warbands' and 'slingers' to 'britannia superior' and disband them there (even the ones at london. The upkeep of troops you won't need right away is horrendous)
• at all cities queue up Brigantia shrine then Trader, if needed. At london, instead queue up a Port plus Brigantia, then Trader (roads are cute, but we won't need the movement bonus just yet.)
• Reduce all taxes to low
• queue up two diplomats at London
• Diplomat roaming...To make things simple, just send the starting diplomat towards approx location of the city, Trier.
  
  SECOND TURN
• with the diplomat, go get an alliance and trade rights with germany at Trier and then send him off to where Mogontiacum should be (the idea being to get a quick spot of the cities for future reference)
  
  THIRD TURN
• Build a boat
• Get the diplomat to Mogontiacum and then off to where Iuvavum should be.
• Now, all there's left to do is grab the shore army and unload at the irish fishing village, along the coast.
• you detach the spy first, from the unloaded army, and into Tara (25% chance to gain entry without siege gear)
• then, lay siege
  
  FOURTH TURN
• Diplomatic exodus: getting diplomats roaming around. One for italy/greece (head down south through Alesia). two for going straight east - one aimed at the black sea the other going across the top of the map. (they'll go clockwise around the map after that ending up at sahara; see earlier post for details)...i don't know what you'll do with the italy/greek diplomat (open up a bizarre at constantinopal when he retires?)
• Queue up a Trader at london, mines at Deva and Roads at Sama
• Attack Tara. You'll have enough time to pepper the enemy to death, and the new 1.2 patch lures the troops out chasing arrows enough to rout so you can get easy kills for your druids.
• Occupy option at victory screen, then build shrine of brigant plus a peasant
  
  FIFTH TURN
• You'll have a coming of age now, plus Sama will upgrade to next settlement type.
• grab the spy from tara and send him down south to europe to begin scouting/infiltrating towns (builds up his skill)...grab the other ship and send it to tara
• Now, you'll have a while before you're cranking out archer chariots so use Cynfawr to build watchtowers around ireland and britain just in case you spot a rebel force - i'd recommend setting them up along the coastline to spot ships too
• always check your diplomats...having them get "blocked path" during AI movement phase slows them down too much
  
  SIXTH TURN
• Queue up blacksmith then sacred grove at london
• shift governor from ebur to deva
• remember diplomats
• continue monitoring your spy movements and Cynfawr's tower building spree.
  
  SEVENTH TURN
• Queue up Port, Blacksmith and sacred grove at Sama...

What you'll be doing is preparing to blitz through gaul (avoiding the alps) on your way to spain - Get upgrades to large towns as a priority, plus getting a blacksmith churning out archer chariots at london. Though i'm not really sure how fast you can do this...i'll get back on this subject later today.

I think the really large issue for this "blitz" strategy is the goal of also capturing high-end gaulish temples. I wonder how long it takes till they have them. guess i'll have to use spies and stuff...oh bugger, i spied around and Gaul's still holding mamma's apron strings. looks like any blitz will have to chuck the idea of grabbing advanced gaulish temples.

you'll have 7 archer chariots built from london and sama by turn 14 to add to your current 2 units. It's a shame the AI is so stupid when it comes to sieges because that's pretty much all you'll need to blitz Gaul and slam into spain. Heck, why not build a few more, split the force in two and use your heir and good ol' Cynfawr to pincer movement south then west into spain.

• i think the seige AI problem doesn't have an easy solution, though stopping them parading in front of a mass of archers would be a good thing. not to mention giving those towers a better range and angle of attack would stop folks like me camping outside the main gates...the thought of rushing a mass of defenders hiding behind competent guard towers with only chariot archers isn't putting a smile on my face. Come to think of it, i'll bet they toned guard towers down because of the overly sadistic castles in Medieval:Total War

what really irks me is the way taxes were set up. there's no real disincentive to extermination (if pop is too high), setting tax to low, building a few cheap peasants, and continuing with the conquest a couple turns later. simply because of the law of diminishing returns that's been coded in

[Ziaelas]

Priest of Andrasta is a good ancillary +1 command, 15%movement point bonus

[Craterus]

Yea, it's quite good, all the priests have positive effects but not many increase your generals' commanding talent.

[cunobelinus]

i think they should have more traits and that in the expasion and me and craterus had a witch with one of our brittianna campagin but they seem to get all the same traits in our game i think it should be changed a bit!!!

[Craterus]

I think there are enough trait and ancillaries.. I think the XP should improve AI and give AI factions a boost against the Romans. I mean Carthage actually have a chance against the Scipii, Greece have a chance vs. Brutii, Macedon vs. Brutii..

If it was 50/50 between these it would make the campaigns more unpredictable..

I know if I play 50 years without seeing any of the Brutii expansion and then I was to toggle_fow.. I know the Brutii would be in Macedon and Greece. And I know Scipii would be in Carthage.