Dacia

[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.

[pezhetairoi]

Hey Ilia... update! How's your greek campaign going?

[Franconicus]

Maybe I will play Dacia after my current campaign.

IliaDN, lets leave this area. Why not playing Britannia? They seem to be completely different!

[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.

[pezhetairoi]

I would have preferred Campus Getae: it's a shorter distance from Porrolissum, and less heavily defended. You need sea access fast. Getae also has quite a decent growth rate, so you may want to consider. It shouldn't be tough in the south as long as your infantry refrains from face-to-face contact with the phalanx. I used to join my infantry in two-unit teams as the Germans (whose axemen are identical to falxmen in some sense). Firstly I separate the phalanx by staying close to them and trying to get into their rear, then the two-unit teams come into play. I strike one unit in the flank with one axeman unit, then when the phalanx turns in disorder to point spears at that axeman unit I charge the second unit into their rear, then retreat the first unit, then repeat until they break. Then I move on the other one unit next to it. Meanwhile the same is happening all throughout the other unit teams, and my cavalry are also doing their share. It works quite well, I think. Not much of a struggle as long as your infantry stays close to the phalanx (so they stay in phalanx mode and can only walk while you run) but not close to contact them unless you are ready to.

[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.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Kudos for trying to introduce some kind of sanity via mods to diplomacy, as opposed to the broken system presented in vanilla RTW (and in virtually every game CA has done starting with STW).

I don't completely ignore having allies, (I was actually stunned in one of my Armenian campaigns to have Macedon stick to the alliance from beginning to end), and have never liked protectorates because they always seemed to get me into conflicts I didn't want, or wasn't ready for....