Dacia

[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.

[tibilicus]

I would never be able to do Dacia. Me,barbs,no money dont mix.

[Craterus]

I'm not a fan of rushing either. I like to sit back and build up armies and then go for a big push against my enemies. With barb factions, you have to attack with anything and everything you've got, just to stay out of debt.

[pezhetairoi]

Head straight for Campus Getae is a nice strategy, while my lecturer (who also plays RTW, small world) prefers rushing Macedonia. Nice.

[IliaDN]

Maybe I will play Dacia after my current campaign.

[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!

[Franconicus]

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!

Unlock All Factions – In RTW, some factions are playable, some are unlockable and some are unplayable. This is how you unlock and play all the factions (thx to littlecheese07 of TWC for this idea).
This is from Quietus Guide:
Go to your folder, RTW>world>maps>campaign>imperial_campaign>desc_strat.txt. Simply move all the factions under the “nonplayable” and "unlockable" that you want play to under “playable”. Thus, in this list, Egypt to Greek_cities are unlockable, Roman_senate to Slave are nonplayable (it is advisable from other players NOT to touch or play the “roman _senate”) and Romans_Julii to Romans_scipii are playable. After you’ve arranged the text files, do not forget to SAVE. You may now play the new factions when you load RTW.

campaign imperial_campaign
playable
romans_julii
romans_brutii
romans_scipii
end
unlockable
egypt
seleucid
carthage
parthia
gauls
germans
britons
greek_cities
end
nonplayable
romans_senate
macedon
pontus
armenia
dacia
scythia
spain
thrace
numidia
slave
end

Good Luck!

[katank]

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!

Franconicus is right about the unlocking faction part. I recommend against hitting the Senate tab while playing Senate as it crashes the game. Also, playing rebels is occasionally glitchy.

Another friendly piece of advice is please do not post your email for spambots to crawl. It will lead to abundant spam. At least do something like htg04[at]yahoo.com which is very readable by humans but not by crawlers.

[The historian]

I've had a fun game with my ancestors even took Rome after 100 turns them praetorians are tough but it was very rewarding to crush the senate and the brutii, the scipii and julii are holding out on the islands to the west .How to do that easy take the balkans as quicly as posiible ally with scythia and germany.
i can help you with some questions ,mentioned previously in this thread
Why the dacians have balistas?because they have been in contact with the greeks and romans for quite some time and are more "civilized" then most other barbarians.
As for the cavalry most of the dacian cavalry were actually allied cavalry roxolan,carpian,yazighian,iashian cavalrymen sarmatians at origin but quickly assimilated into the dacians.

[pezhetairoi]

I have NEVER heard of Roxolans, Yazighian etc, but I'll take your word for it, since your ancestors were Dacians :-D I've only ever heard of Pannonians.

Perhaps we should give improved Sarmatian cavalry to the Dacians as buildable units in a mod. That'd give them a unit to match the Germanic Gothics. Otherwise Dacia is quite limited.

[bubbanator]

I just started my Dacian campiagn. I was being stupid and didn't think to check here about stratagies and so forth sooo....

I took what troops I had an went and attacked Tylis. Their faction leader was off trying to take some city I forget which one, maybe Thessolonica. So I take the city, their main army comes back and passes by my army in Tylis. They wander around for a few turns while I rebuild my army in Tylis and begin building a new one in my main cities. I take my army from tylis and destroy the Thracian army and send a small army to take their last city. Thrace died very quickly. Now that I have some income, I plan to expand south and west. I know it will be tough in the south, but the cities will be of infinite help.

[Gray_Lensman]

Franconicus is right about the unlocking faction part. I recommend against hitting the Senate tab while playing Senate as it crashes the game. Also, playing rebels is occasionally glitchy.

Another friendly piece of advice is please do not post your email for spambots to crawl. It will lead to abundant spam. At least do something like htg04[at]yahoo.com which is very readable by humans but not by crawlers.

The reason the Senate Tab crashes the game is your graphics card... It is probably only 32 Mb of memory. I too, had this problem until I updated to a 64 Mb graphics card...

[Coldfish]

Ally immediately with Scythia and attack Tharce...conquer Tyras and Campus Getae....after that break the alliance with Scythia and declar war to them...attack them and conquer the norther provinces...so my advice is to go and conquer in the north (Dulcius Domus) and then march in the west ocuppy Iovosice and Aquicum....about now you will starting to have a nice income...start training many troops in the capital (Porolissum) and wait for the Macedonian attack...after they will attack you ,immeditaley start an counterattack and try to ocuppy Bylazora....step by step (city by city) you will conquer macedonian cities (very important to conquer Byzantium,from there you will easly lauch an invasion into Pontus)...and greeks too....BUT i won't advance in the Pelopones too !! build a fort at the entrance in the peninsula..you will be protected by the greek invasions....hold this position until the romans (usually brutti) will be present there and attack greece...after the greeks will be weaken by the wars with the brutii....try to profit and take theier cities....then romans will aslo be weaken and push them back from Greek peninsula !!

this is my most frequent dacian strategy

[Coldfish]

Now some basic military strategies about dacians

Against Scythians use: foot archers and light cavalry

Against Greek and Macedonian phalanxes use: many archers & missile units as well as some heavy cavalry...with this, with some smart flanking moves you can destroy easly the phalanx units

Against Romans use: heavy melee troops (well trained falxmen and choosen swordsmen) you can't lose! an well trained falxmen or choosen swordsmen are no match for the legionaries and even could bravely resist to praetorians and urban cohorts!

Against other Barbarians use: combined ,well balanced units

[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!!!

[ReluctantSamurai]

You can hire immense armies of warriors to smash enemies---you may need to buy mercs---Macedon may try to ally with you, but strengthening them is not a good idea--- 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

One's rate of development, and the direction events happen on the campaign is very much game difficulty dependent. At easier settings, you can indeed hire 'immense armies of warriors' but at the higher difficulty settings, having the denarii available is a huge issue. Any worthwhile mercs aren't available at the start, and those that are (like warbands and barbarian cavalry), you can train yourself.

In my Dacian campaigns, Macedon, Thrace, and Scythia almost always gang up on me, often times as an alliance. Phalanx is a problem for Dacia in the beginning, even militia hoplites. Warbands have very poor morale, and when unit losses get high while engaging phalanx, they do what most barbarian warbands do....they rout. If Macedonia comes for you early, you have no good answer for their Light Lancer cavalry which they will create in hordes. Barbarian Cavalry can barely hold their own against them 1v1, but in the numbers of them you will see at higher difficulty, "brute force" is wholly inadequate. And until you develop far enough to build Archer Warband barracks, you have no alternative against Scythian horse archers other than to chase them around with barbarian cavalry which can get them cut off behind enemy lines if you're not careful.

Warbands are almost completely ineffective against the Greek City Armored Hoplite or the Macedonian Phalanx Pikemen, and it's suicide to try any kind of frontal assault even en-mass.

While I appreciate your enthusiasm with the game, one has to be careful with suggestions as to how to play this faction or that. As I said earlier, game difficulty settings can drastically change how a particular faction can be played, and what you will face both on the campaign map, and on the battlefield.

[CountMRVHS]

I've had some good initial luck (M/H campaign/battle difficulty) with a "Scythia-first" approach.

Attacking Thrace or Macedon early on seems to invite the other to attack you. But if you clear out of those guys' way, they may fight each other while you're snapping up the northern Black Sea ports. Time it right, and you can swing an army back to your homelands to see off any invaders.

But from turn 1, I essentially abandoned both settlements, leaving just a 1-unit garrison of Warband in each. All my other troops turned east toward Campus Scythii. Be sure to bring some Archer Warband, as they are the only effective counter to Scythia's HAs. But if you generally ignore Scythian field armies and do your fighting in the towns, where you can corner their light cav with your own cav and infantry, things should work out.

In my campaign, I took Campus Scythii and then immediately marched on to Tanais, ignoring Chersonesos as it was still rebel-held. Taking Tanais reduced Scythia to 1/2 of their starting lands, by which point they were amenable to a ceasefire.

Ceasefires are rather important for Dacia, given the fluid nature of wars in the region. And that's a great reason to play on Medium campaign difficulty: the AI seems much more ... reasonable, diplomatically. Must be something to do with the fact that they're not pumping out troops with all that free money the harder difficulties grant them (and not draining their pop into the bargain).

You can often get cash for ceasefires, in fact. This, plus the need to sell alliances and map info and trade rights with your neighbors in order to stay in the black during those early turns, means you'll want to train several Diplomats and send them around. One goes east, to communicate with Scythia (and Parthia); the other goes to Greece; another will eventually head to Italy.

With Scythia pushed back and pacified, I turned to Chersonesos and built that up a bit, then turned my attention back toward my neglected homelands. Macedon laid siege to Porrolissum with a small force, but because I'd left the south alone, they were already at war with Thrace (my ally), and thus somewhat distracted. I was able to swat them away, and then watch as they collapsed in the face of Greek and Thracian advance.

The next challenge was/is the Brutii, who were nosing around Campus Iazyges. This was problematic, as they were allied with both me and Thrace, my other ally. If the Brutii attacked me first, Thrace would drop their alliance with me, as the AI tends to side with the aggressor in such situations. Thrace was winning the war against Macedon, so I knew if they dropped our alliance I'd be vulnerable, and I didn't have enough troops to deal with the Brutii *and* Thrace.

So I attacked the Brutii preemptively, and predictably enough Thrace stuck with me. That bought me some time, as Thrace worked on eliminating Macedon with gusto, taking Bylazora and Thessalonica, while Greece moved up to push Macedon out of Larissa. (Presumably this left Macedon with that one African province that always rebels to them.)

My army against the Brutii was certainly not high-tech, but thanks to diplomacy and my Black Sea ports I was able to keep my cash around 10,000 in the treasury, which allowed me to keep improving infrastructure. My army consisted of around 4 Warband, a couple of Barbarian warband mercs, 3 Scythian merc HAs, 3 Illyrian mercs, 1 Naked Fanatics, and the general. This was enough to push the Brutii out of my region, cross over to Aquincum and take that from the Brutii, and then drive south to the Adriatic and capture Salona, which I then gifted to the Greek Cities (my ally).

Gifting provinces is another good strategy for times when you don't want to defend some small patch of dirt for the next 20 years, but you don't want to just hand it back to the enemy. But often times the AI is oddly suspicious of your gifts, so you have to sweeten the deal. Give them some cash (I included 3,000 denarii) along with the province, and they'll usually accept. It's often easier if you're giving them land that is already adjacent to their own territories. Oh, and make sure you don't have any of your own troops standing in the province (being in the city is fine), or the AI apparently won't accept.

Giving Salona to the Greeks cut off the Brutii from their province further north, and left them just Apollonia and Thermon on the Greek mainland. I fought a few more battles in the area to ensure the Greeks could hold their new possession, and then turned north to guard my own homelands.

By this time I knew Thrace was running out of things to do, so I began training and moving armies toward them. Again, they nosed into my territory near Campus Scythii, but I attacked first to ensure that the Greeks would stay allied with me (the aggressor). I just took Campus Getae from them, and one more battle should net me Tylis. I'll move toward Bylazora and Byzantium next, but I may leave them with Thessalonica as a buffer between me and Greece.

Finances have become tight - I'm recruiting mercs and native units - but I suspect taking Thracian lands will help right that ship. I'd love to get ceasefire with the Romans, but the Brutii are being stubborn, despite my superiority in the region. Well, once Thrace is dealt with I'll aim to push them back across the Adriatic.

Elsewhere, I've been fortunate. Germany is seemingly distracted by Britannia's invasion of central Gaul and western Germania, so they haven't taken a swipe at me. When Scythia expanded into some rebel territory north of Campus Scythii, I attacked them, took it for myself, and got another ceasefire. But I see that Gaul has been driven out of Italy by the Julii. Maybe I should gift some of the NW Balkans territory to Germany, as a buffer between me & Rome until I can secure Greece?

For the long term, I'm not sure exactly where I'll go. Maybe Germany, actually... slow-growing barbarian towns don't make much cash, but they don't suffer culture penalties or out-of-control unrest, either. And loyalty is a problem, as others have pointed out. I'm already considering making Scythia into my protectorate and gifting them Tanais, as I imagine it'll be impossible to hold eventually.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I've always found that gifting provinces almost always comes back to bite you later. In the shifting sands of war, an ally often becomes an enemy, and that province you gave away now needs to be reconquered. If I've taken control of a province for strategic purposes, but don't really want to defend it, I destroy what infrastructure can be burned, and let the place go rebel. Often times the resulting rebel army that claims the town can hold its own for quite some time giving you the buffer you want, but not the later head ache of having to re-conquer an ally turned enemy.

Giving Salona to the Greeks cut off the Brutii from their province further north, and left them just Apollonia and Thermon on the Greek mainland. I fought a few more battles in the area to ensure the Greeks could hold their new possession, and then turned north to guard my own homelands.

Only Romans are more untrustworthy than the Greek Cities. Can't tell you how many times those SOB's back-stabbed me even when I've saved them from extinction So I never...ever...form an alliance with them. The top three turncoats in my campaigns have been the Romans...Greek Cities...and the Egyptians.

Finances have become tight - I'm recruiting mercs and native units

Perhaps adding money along with a gifted province is not such a good idea?

Welcome to the ORG, btw

[CountMRVHS]

Thanks :) I'm more of a returning member - been probably a decade or so since I've last posted!

In the past year or two I've gotten a much better handle on the diplomatic aspects of this game (mostly via the Fourth Age mod, which I work on). The absolute highlight of that research has been an understanding of how to acquire protectorates, which can provide you with a useful buffer zone as well as a ton of cash (although in vanilla RTW I've noticed protectorates tend to pay you very little, if anything; probably a result of the lower incomes on the vanilla map compared to the mod?). The next most useful tidbit has been an understanding of how to gift provinces to the AI, which can also result in buffer zones.

I should note that these things are mostly useful to players who prefer to keep lots of factions 'alive' throughout the campaign. A player who just wants to 'win' quickly and kill 'em all won't have as much fun with these maneuvers, which take time and often lots of cash to make happen.

In the case of Salona, the calculation there was about balance of power in the region. If I let the province rebel, it's surrounded by the Brutii, and I'm sure they'll get it back soon.

At the time, I wasn't yet at war with Thrace. Thrace held 5 settlements (Campus Getae, Tylis, Byzantium, Bylazora, Thessalonica). Macedon was essentially gone, banished to Africa. Greeks held Larissa and everything south of it. Brutii held Thermon and Apollonia in the region.

Knowing that Thrace is shaping up to be the major power (and would attack me soon), I wanted to use the Greeks as a counter. Propping them up with an extra province and some cash would - hopefully! - allow them to push back against the Brutii, and prevent Thrace from gaining more land in Greece.

Of course, it's somewhat risky, for the reasons you state: it's costly, and it will strengthen a faction that is sure to be an enemy down the road. But things are currently pretty manageable, fortunately. I've managed to reduce Thrace from a 5-province faction down to just 3, with 2 of them (Bylazora, Byzantium) currently under siege. They no longer pose any real threat, so after taking those 2 settlements the time may be right for a ceasefire, which will allow me to turn my full attention to the Romans.

As for the Greeks, they have so far managed to retain Salona, and have attempted (but failed) to take back Thermon. That's fine - a stalemate, with slight momentum on the Greek side, is better IMO than a Brutii conquest of Greece.

[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?

[pezhetairoi]

Alright, I've started on a Dacian campaign and I have some insights to offer. Firstly, going for Getae is basically a waste of time since your main army is closer to Tylis. Don't even waste time trying to attack Lovosice and Aquincum. They're so undeveloped and so low in population that they simply aren't worth the effort. Secondly, the Thracians start spamming peltastai quickly, and are soon coming up with falxmen in Getae, so your best bet would be to strike hard and fast for Tylis. In my campaign I only took Tylis after 10 turns OF manoeuvre to draw all Thracian forces into the north, around Campus Getae, and even after taking Tylis my debt didn't improve. Yes, that's one thing you'll note--the Dacian debt is the most annoying thing you'll have to deal with early-game. You can't exterminate, because then the tax rate would fall crazily for a one-off injection of cash, and you can't retrain even then, because you'll be in debt. It all boils down to casualty minimising, which is difficult. Eventually I managed to lock the sum of the Thracian army in Campus Getae (idiots) and besieged them until they gave up and sallied, upon which I shot them to pieces with my archers.

As Dacia you will not get any rest from Macedon once you take Thrace. In my game, the moment I took Campus Getae a large Macedonian army marched for Porrolissum, and was only drawn away from there by my storming of Bylazora. In my campaign, the Macedonians went a little crazy on light lancers, I'm afraid. You know something's wrong when the MAcedonians behave like the Scythians and send a 12-unit army with 11 of lancers. Well anyway. I drove straight for Thessalonica after retraining my depleted grand army (still the only I had, with my western frontier under threat from Macedon, who had Segestica, my northern one threatened by Germania, who had Lovosice, and my eastern frontier threatened by Scythia, which was building up menacingly.

I turned my faction heir into a military genius in the Thessalonian plains when he came under attack from two great Macedonian armies (all of which had 11-12 lancers) which he managed to beat off with combined operations from flaming arrows, massed family-member charges (I had 7 family members with me, the sum of my royalty) and falxmen in flanks. Nevertheless, I sustained seriously heavy losses. If I recall, in those three battles I lost nearly a quarter of my army (including 2 factioners), mostly in barbarian cavalry and gaesatae, in exchange for utter victory and 2 Macedonian family members killed, which is all in all not too bad a deal. Then I played a Napoleonic style campaign that drove apart three Macedonian armies (yes, it was frantic) trying to merge, crushed the faction heir's force, and attacked the largest element after that just outside Thessalonica, drawing out the garrison and emptying the town in my victory. Thessalonica was plague-ridden so I just sent two gaesatae in.

In summary of the rest of the campaign, I fought two more great battle which later emptied Larissa and Athens for my taking, signed an alliance with the Brutii, and took Segestica which turned rebel after my capture of Thessalonica. I also took Aquincum, having earned enough money to raise a new army exclusively of nobles, falxes and chosen swordsmen and archers. I'm poised for a two-pronged attack of the Romans after I finish off Macedon in Corinth.

I think Dacia has been the most challenging campaign I have faced so far. Even when I was playing Armenia and faced my first defeat, I do not think the situation was ever as desperate as mine... One grand army of mediocre troops facing three large armies of the deadliest light cavalry ingame, saddled with monstrous 5-digit debt... At least my Armenian economy never let me down.

What paths of expansion have you Dacians tried out? Any variation from mine?

[Mountaindew]

my experiences with dacia is to immediately defeat thrace, macedonia and the brutii. its a lot of hard work, so always take control of battles yourself. like pezhetairoi said, its all about casualty minising.

my plan was to take greece, establish a nice base in greece, and launch my plans from there. starting where u started isnt good at all. a good plan (that i have found) is when you are about to be attacked by the germans or scythians from the north, porrolisium and campus gaetae are definitely theirs - concentrate on getting greece. destroy all buildings, and move troops out of towns...the money will do you good.

one thing i also found about playing greece - the plague can be annoying, when it started from Thessalonica. if you control Thessalonica, dont let nething out. if you dont, dont send ne spies to infiltrate it YET. all of greece was under the plague - one thing that dacians lack at the beginning is population, along with money. this deadly plague delayed me from taking all of greece, so i had to duel with the brutii a bit.

so once you have greece in your hands, its pretty easy from there. nobles, chosens, onagers kick ass!

[Mountaindew]

battle wise, ive found in the beginning that a mixture of cavalry + archers are effective, particularly against the greek factions. they have slow hoplites which u can shoot to bits from long range, and mass ur cavalry to drive away their missle troops.

against rome, however, its gonna be a lot harder. yr cavalry r gonna work a lot harder. all this is pre-chosen, pre-nobles. once u got chosens and nobles, then it becomes a lot easier. A LOT EASIER. especially with onagers and ballistae, u can afford to sit back and rain expendable projectiles rather than being all barbaric and charging in with nothing to fall back 2.

if only they had horse archers...damn...

thats my 2 cents...

[gmjapan]

My Dacian Campaign fell flat at the first hurdle.

I drove all available units south to the nearest Mac city. The first major engagement was going really well. Was. My units, despite having an advantage started routing. First 1, then 3, then, well the rest really. The Mac army was suddenly like a hot knife through butter.

I even heard myself say "butter" in realisation at the scene infront of me!

I couldnt recover after that (no wonga) so quit. I fully intend to start a Dacian campaign again soon though after review of some of the comments here. The challenging start position is too appealling...