Dacia

[Rikdemedici]

Yay! we beat the Greeks, unfortuunatrely we now have to take on the Parthians. What in the DAcian armoury is good against elephants and Horse ARchers !

[Maltz]

Elephants & Horse archers... against cavalry you might want to use spears (an ocean of basic warband, with some morale boost so they won't rout easily? ) Chosen archers are excellent against HA because they are long-ranged, so you can attack HA before they even touch you. You really need to protect your archers, though.

[Rurik the Chieftain]

Yeah, against those elephants, you're going to want to drown them in flaming arrows, or use your onagers. Its quite interesting that the Dacians have access to onagers etc. while the Gauls, Germans, and Britons do not. But anyway just go by the maxim:
If it's on fire, it will frighten Pachyderms

[CrashTestED]

Thank God they included the Dacians in this game. I am glad to be able to play with my ancestors. We do have some historical problems though.... The Dacians are known as "barbarian cavalry" who fought only on horses. Every man had to have a horse, sword and armour. When war came, he took his stuff and joined the army. In RTW the Dacians have one of the poorest cavalry in the game... do not konw why...

[Nowake]

Because in real history the dacian cavalry never remarked through anything. The dacians relied mainly on pedestrian units. Of course, we're not including here the getae who lived in Skythia Minor and in the lower Danube basin.

[Craterus]

The Dacians sound like a fun campaign, but really challenging. Maybe too challenging even for me. Especially as it sounds like rushing is the only way to stay alive and I tend to sit back..

[cunobelinus]

maybe craterus it could be our next challenge wen we finsh our spain campiagn so we could have a very challengin campign and i think togther we could do it an win a campagin with them

[Craterus]

Maybe, I thought we were considering Gaul? I'm fine with either but we can discuss that some other time.

As for the Dacians, what are their elite units?

[Dromikaites]

Because in real history the dacian cavalry never remarked through anything. The dacians relied mainly on pedestrian units. Of course, we're not including here the getae who lived in Skythia Minor and in the lower Danube basin.

Well, actualy they did make themselves known to everybody living around them, those Dacian cavalrymen. For instance in August 48 BC a Dacian cavalry-only army sent to reinforce Pompey arrives too late to be of any help (Caesar had won the battle at Pharsalos). So the Dacians have fun plundering Greece (which was now in Caesar's hands) down to Athens, before returning to their home country. This means that whatever troops Caesar had left behind to secure the newly-acquired provinces were not good enough for the job.

Also one reason the Romans got so pissed off with Dacia and decided to finishit it off were the repeated cavalry raids over the frozen Danube, during winter time. In the winter of 105 - 106 AD the Dacian king Decebalus tried to force the Romans to withdraw from Dacia by means of a joint Dacian - Sarmatian massive cavalry attack against the Roman supply base, the province of Moesia (nowadays Bulgaria).

In 106 AD the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa fell to the Romans and king Decebalus, failing to organize further resistance, committed suicide soon after that. Romans only occupied the Western part of Dacia, a region coresponding to nowadays western Romania and eastern Hungary. The rest, that is the eastern half of Romania, the Republic of Moldova and western Ukraine remained outside the Roman control. The so called "Free Dacians" (Dacians outside the Roman-occupied area) together with their allies, the Germanic tribe Bastarnae and the Roxolani and Alani (Sarmatian tribes) raided the Roman provinces south of Danube several times. Acording to contemporary sources the raiders were mainly cavalry troops (which makes sense, since their main intention was to hit, plunder and withdraw back home, not conquer and stay)

Lastly, in the 3rd century AD the Romans had to put up with the Carpi, a Free Dacian tribe which had allied to the Goths and was again devastating Moesia. Emperor Diocletian finaly defeated them in 297 AD and gain the title of "Carpicus Maximus". It is worth noticing that he was not "Goticus Maximus" which means that at that time the Dacians were still the dominant partner of the alliance. The Carpi army of 297 AD was dominated by cavalry.

RTW doesn't provide the Dacians with horse archers (which would have been historicaly acurate) but compensates by giving them easy access to the [expensive] Scythian mercenaries. People familiar with the monument erected by Trajan after defeating Dacia (Trajan's Column, still standing in Rome) might get the impression that Dacian armies were indeed infantry-based. However on the column there are scenes of Dacian and Roman & Moorish (Roman auxiliaries) cavalry clashes. There could be 2 reasons for the aparent infantry-mainly Dacian army carved on the Column: first the main battles there are sieges, mountain or forest battles, where cavarly is inapropriate. We can understand the second reason by looking at the armies of the medieval Romanian states of Moldova and Walachia. They were using a very peculiar tactic, diferent from what was typical for the peoples around them: their mainly light cavalry army was actually a sort of mounted infantry: marching on horseback and fighting mostly on foot. The reason for this behavior was the nature of the terrain where the Romanians chose to fight: difficult terrain, where the technical (heavily armoured Polish or Hungarian knights) or numerical superiority (Turks and Tartars) were negated. Now, back to their ancestors, the Dacians, this was exactly the same defensive tactic adopted by them against the Romans. I would therefore side with the players who want a better selection of Dacian cavalry (too bad in RTW we don't have the "dismount" option like in MTW).

[crazybastard]

Why won't my Dacian towns grow profitable?????????
maybe it's the lack of costal port trade kinda thing
any advice??

[Craterus]

Yes, they are the only landlocked faction at the start of the game. This means they miss out on naval trade. Also, being a barbarian faction, they have poor economy by default. The best way to get rich with Dacia is to conquer, as mentioned before.

[VAE VICTUS]

how do i unlock all these factions?i have no clue please tell me,you can e mail me htg04@yahoo.com or send me a message .please im tired of only being certian factions.thanks!

[Vincent Butler]

It seems that Dacian warband are tougher than Gaul or Britannia's, my brother thinks so too. Anybody else on that? The Getai are used in the Europa Barbarorum mod, seeming to replace both Dacia and Thrace. By the way, unless you absolutely know what you are doing, don't try to put that mod on the Mac version of RTW.

[Johnsus Coolius]

Dacia is my favorite faction. You can hire immense armies of warriors to smash enemies. You start with a small territory. Your two main targets should be Macedon and Thrace. The first thing you want to do is gather an army at the Thracian border. Leave Macedon alone for now. For good measure, send a spy to the city to ensure your advantage. When you have enough men, attack! Make sure most of your big armies have a general with them, as you may often take heavy casualties and you may need to buy mercs. Continue conquest until Thrace is gone. Macedon may try to ally with you, but strengthening them is not a good idea. As soon as possible after the Thrace campaign, Go for Macedon. A good strategy for combat? BRUTE FORCE! (That's all the barbarians have) After you deal with them, the Greek might get aggressive. Take them out before or after they wage war. Against these guys, disrupt their phalanxes with huge mobs, and take 'em out from behind with cavalry, and against cavalry, you guessed it, BRUTE FORCE. By now you're probably at war with those meddling Brutii Romans. Try to keep a layer of neutral faction between you and them. Now, its freeform. CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, AND CHARGE!!!

[Gemenii XIII]

Originally posted by Dromikaites
the Romanians chose to fight: difficult terrain, where the technical (heavily armoured Polish or Hungarian knights) or numerical superiority (Turks and Tartars) were negated. Now, back to their ancestors, the Dacians

The ancestors of the Romanians were Romans not Dacians, and trust me, all my fellow Romanians say that Romanians are half Dacian half Roman. But how can this be true when Romanians speak a latin based language and has no Dacian elements whatsoever. (lets not forget what happened to the native Indians in North America)

____________________
Patria Nostra Romania

[IliaDN]

Originally posted by Dromikaites
the Romanians chose to fight: difficult terrain, where the technical (heavily armoured Polish or Hungarian knights) or numerical superiority (Turks and Tartars) were negated. Now, back to their ancestors, the Dacians

The ancestors of the Romanians were Romans not Dacians, and trust me, all my fellow Romanians say that Romanians are half Dacian half Roman. But how can this be true when Romanians speak a latin based language and has no Dacian elements whatsoever. (lets not forget what happened to the native Indians in North America)

____________________
Patria Nostra Romania

Maybe you should post this as a thread in Monastery, if you want detailed answers?