Dacia

[frogbeastegg]

This faction must be unlocked with game editing before you can play.

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Chapter 1: Prologue

Soooooo, you have decided to play the Dacians. That probably means you are either incredible stupid or incredibly adventurous. But let’s leave this psychological profiling to Dr. Phil and rather than treating your symptoms, let’s aid them. Just a word of advice: before you play them, have some familiarity with RTW and read Kosak’s wonderful RTW guide. When you start with the Dacians, you will see that they aren’t exactly your ‘mainstream’ faction. For a full effect, I recommend playing on vhard/vhard.

Ok, enough mambo-jumbo introductory stuff, let’s get to the bone of it. You start with two provinces/cities. Notice that you have 3 family members. What a great setup! As if the develops are hinting: leave two members to govern the two cities, take the third member to war! And that is what you should do.

Your first decision is who to appoint governors and should do the fighting. I would recommend you leave the faction leader as a governor – he is a better leader AND a better governor, but having good governors is more important to you now; if you haven’t noticed, money does not exactly grow on trees in Dacia! Similarly, this should drive what buildings you choose to build (my choice was Shrine to Bendis – later on you can destroy it and get something more geared towards war).

Your second important decision is where to attack. Macedonians are way too powerful for you, so think about an alliance with them. Thrace and Scythia are slightly easier, but are still a tough battle, particularly since you won’t be able to build good armies this early in the campaign. Thus, I recommend signing alliances with the major powers and concentrating on growing your empire to the west – plenty of easy pickings there.

Let’s do it!

Chapter 2: Early Expansion

The chosen path took me first to Aquincum. On the way, a rebel army was slain giving my general 2 additional stars and couple abilities. From there, Segestica is a stone throw away.

If you have followed my advice and gone west, your emissary should by now have talked to the Macedonians and the Thracians and should have signed alliance, given them maps and trade rights, all for about ~15k dinarii. Not bad, particularly this early in the game, lol! Pretty much the only source of money for buildings! Now take this emissary to the Scythians!

Back in my home cities, economic buildings are slowing coming to fruitions. Not that I am making money, but at least not losing as much every turn.

Onward with battles for Aquincum and Segestica!

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Chapter 3: Onwards to the Aegean

By now the battles at Aquincum and Segestica are but a distant memory, if you have done everything right. Both towns fall easily even to a small army. I took them with 2 units of archers, 1 unit of phalx, 2 units of warbands, 2 cavalry units and, by the end, an 8-star general (who started as a 4-star general). I took half the population of Segestica to slavery (before you attack the town, decide which towns you want to benefit from the new population – in towns, like your capital, where you don’t want more people, simply pull out the governor temporarily outside the city).

By now you should have also married some of your daughters to some decent candidates – I personally refused probably 5 or so before somebody with at least some management came along. I seem to have plenty of skull-drudgers but few with brains. That’s barbarians for you ….

Finally, by now you should have built watchtowers at every crossing alongside your firm borders – the last thing you want is for some vagabonds to interrupt your trade or for some large army to sneak in unnoticed.

Now is the time to take Salona and Lovisice. I took Salona one turn before a large Brutii army came in its direction. It was a risk, but I needed the trade income, as well as an outlet in the sea.

Lovisice was taken by a second army – 2 units of archers, 2 warbands and a general. I found archers to be awesome in city fighting – the AI simply sits at the banner soaking in my missile fire. No complaints from me.

Make sure you rush your diplomat towards the west – there are profitable deals to be had in this direction! I built a second diplomat and sent it to the north – let the chap talk to the Germans and explore the area. He is cheaper than paying factions for their maps!

Finally things are looking up. I am allied with Thrace and Macedon (the Scythe pig refused), the empire has gone from mere tow cities to six, and there is enough money in the coffers to support the army and build buildings every turn. Take a breather, consolidate your position, allow the diplomats to do their deeds, build a few army units and explore the rebel towns to the north. On to the North!

[TCon88]

I personally went south. I made an alliance and gained trade rights from Thrace and sent an army of roughly, 1 archer, 1 falx, 2 warbands, 1 barbarian cav and my general down towards macedonia. On the way you should see a couple of rebel armies who are easily despatched and help with the experience of your units/general. After destroying them i attacked Bylazora with this army, the macedonians outnumbered me by about 130 but their early armies dont seem capable of destroying you. There hoplites and lancers are easy prey for your units, especially when flanked with the falxmen. Take this city asap and execute the population, you need the money. Now send your army down to Thessalonica, which may be a tougher fight, by taking this city you have gained good sea trade routes out of Greece allowing all that money to come flowing in.
Now its up to you.

[Tzar Kaloyan]

Certainly an alternative. The exception to this is that your new ally, Thrace, goes either after Macedonia or Scythia, so you do want to give them some room. In addition, the Romans make an early appearance and the Greeks are right there, so you may have the displeasure to battle them fairly early on.

In my current campaign, I control most of the north, except Germania, which is neutral, and am fighting some pretty fun battles against Gauls and the Romans. Just recently started expanding south.

The Macedonians are all but wiped out in my current game, taken over by Brutii and Thrace.

As for money, the map exploit makes it way too easy to gain money. I have 70k+ dinarii in the bank, all the while producing units every turn.

[TCon88]

I have taken some of your advice and expanded very slightly westwards, taking segestica and aquinicum from the rebels. I also have trade rights and an alliance with the Brutii, who are pushing in on macedonia and the greek cities with me. Im assuming that thrace will eventually attack scythia and i then intend to attack them at their capital, so hopefully will destroy thrace and macedonia soon.

[Trithemius]

I've been helping a friend learn more about RTW by playing some MP battles with him and committing serious errors for him to recognise and exploit (I think it's more useful in learning than for me to kick him around repeatedly until he decides that RTW is boring!). I played Dacia vs. Germania and found that I didn't have to try very hard to make mistakes! I then did some tests on my own with falxmen vs. spear warbands and I could not make them win unless the odds were about 5:3 in my favour (and even then with pretty impressive casualties). The spear-warband is (predictably) very strong to the front (even Chosen Swords don't do too well) and they are large enough that it is hard to flank a line of them with an equally sized army - so what do the poor Dacians do in order to beat the Germans? I need some help for my counter-example and I am just lost! :)

[Empirate]

The answer to that lies in your own perceptions. You need to draw Phalanx units apart (Spear Warband are nothing else), then fall on their flanks. Pezhetairoi gives a good account on how to do this with infantry - but cavalry is even better. Just remember not to fight it out with them for too long: Charge into a flank or backside, then withdraw once the charge has worn off and your men have to fight in a more drawn-out melee. Also, decimating them with missiles before engaging should not be underestimated. Even from head on, when you only kill very few with each volley, it wears down morale. If they have to turn a lot to chase your units around, they'll expose their rear to missile fire, making shield bonuses useless.
Just make sure the enemy cavalry is gone before playing this game, or it could get nasty.

[bizaro]

I can't play the Dacians for some reason.

I edited the descd_strat.txt adn placed dacia under the playable factions but when I try to play them the game crushes, the same thing with thracians and other non playable factions


someone help?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sounds like something got corrupted.

Reload fresh, then edit again?

Others will offer advice as well, don't jump on my suggestion yet.

[bizaro]

Already tried to reload the fresh file and then to edit again and the same problem to some of the factions. Didn't touched the senate....

I don't get it

[Ozzman1O1]

i got same prbelm dude.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

you have to modify the factions list in the game to play. There's a stickied thread in the entrance hall on unlocking factions.

[Ozzman1O1]

anybody please help me know how to play as dacia!!!there my favoriate factoin and i have to play as dum pld gaul

[Quintus.JC]

The Dacians are certainly an very interesting faction to play as, early on they face economical problems. use your dipolimat to get trade rights and sell map info to anyone you see. Military you have generally 3 direction for early expansion. West to the weak reblesettlement which is easy picking but very undeveloped. East into Thracia. or south into Macedonia. I decided to go for the middle option. Thracia haven't got very powerful armies and also has valueble sea trading ports. Militia Hoplite will rout once hit on the flanks or rare. opposition Falxmen should be hit by cavalry, don't bother chasing militia cavalry, they'll come to you after they ran out of ammo. Make alliance with both Scythia and Macedon then take Thrace. do not masscre the population. after taking 2 extra cities you'll have some money at least to develope your economy. try to keep your relation sweet with Scythia, you have no wish to fight them, their land is remote and it would take more than 5 years just for you to reach Campus Alanni. after Thrace take Byzantium, if it is held by the Macedonians than attack Thessalonia with the biggest army you could build. don't assult the city if there is enough Phalanx troops to hold you off, wait for reinforcement from south of Bylazora. after taking Thessalonica enslave the populations and move for Byzantium and Bylazora. try to fight the Macedonians in open fields instead of cities for obvious reasons. train Falxmen in masses. these trustwrothy guys are great advantage against all other level 2 troops. possiblely the most powerful troop you can train in large town settlement. your economy should be stable now. continue your friendly relation with Scythia and you can look elsewhere, eventually with Chosen swordsmen and Barbarian Noble Cavalry you could head confidently into the Balkans, or even Italy.

[Quintus.JC]

The Falxmen are a great advantage to the Dacians early on, use them to crush your enemies!

[coalition]

The Falxmen are a great advantage to the Dacians early on, use them to crush your enemies!

yeah totally considering their stats are similarly overpowered when you look at them, ahem "level 2 barracks". the only one tht comes close is probobly the swordsmen for gaul or teh spear warband for germany.

[The Wandering Scholar]

I haven't given Dacia much of a chance should I?

[Julius_Nepos]

I find Dacia a fascinating faction to play but I've had the same problems with it that I had with Hungary in M2TW. I tend to get overrun by multiple enemies before I'm able to secure myself financially. Using some strategies I read here, I steam rolled Thrace relatively easily and was, as a result able to secure some sea trade and even send an army to Chersoneos. Unfortunately this precipitated a 3-pronged war against Macedon, Scythia and Germania that I was simply unable to survive.

I've reproduced this same deleterious situation on several occasions, each time facing a multi-stack onslaught from some combination of the aforementioned factions. It really does illustrate how the AI factions treat the human player differently than there own kind. I've seen Dacia expand and last for long periods of time, usually being crushed by the Bruti when it's controlled by the AI, for example. At any rate I'm trying to decide on a more realistic way of surviving as Dacia. I've even thought of packing it in and moving to Kydonia, at least giving me a secure base of operations, and perhaps giving me a chance to secure Rhodes as well which would be a huge boost. It's even possible if I play my cards right I could secure Kydonia, Rhodes and Halicarnassus.

I don't know how wise such a move would be, at the least it'd be exciting. I just need to get out of the three-pronged vice grip that the traditional Dacian lands provide. I wonder if anyone else has tried this? There was a recent post on faction migrations, Seems like it might be an appropriate strategy here. Cheers!

[fatherrex]

hey guys , i would like to share some of my commends on dacia .
i have play most of the factions and get victories before.
in my experience, dacia is a very powerful contury .

[fatherrex]

there is a principle indicated my thought: A series victory(valuable victory) can solve every problem.
so, not matter what faction i use, attack, attack city,attack rich city! there is ppl,$$ and(women).
when the city becomes mine, my enemy will be starved to death.

it is a strategy game, city is the strength of army.
So, i never intend to attack enemy's main force, i set camp to block the road, to choose some way to strike enemy's city.

when i play as dacia, i have never fight will tharce main force, i capture all tharce cities by 10~12 army(i can only afford this), and tharce main force became rebel army.

my suggest to dacia players

First:get the money from tharce and sythia , and then set camp to block the road where the enemy reinforcement will come. then attack the city of tharce near you, take it and attack sythia capital
.Sythia will be greatly weaken by lose capital . don't afraid to increase your enemies ,just strike then hardly and block all the roads . Remember! a weak enemy is much safe than a strong friend!
keep attack , destroy thrace.

Second,it is time to fight macedon , you will find macedon has triple or more armed force than you have.
the truth is, you may have 6 cities(poor,little ppl), and little army. and your enemy has 5~6 rich cities and both advantage in number and quality armed force.
so,avoid all enemy as possible. use camp to limit enemy's motion .
wait and seek chance to strike city, do this by your brain, to destroy enemy army is totally not necessary.
i assume you have capture the whole greece expect burtii's territory .

Third, to be continue.

[fatherrex]

i would like to say something irrelevant .when i read some replies above say pathia is not so good.

i think the most powerful country is Pathia.

With few reasons for me to make this conclusion.

i must say i play pathia quiet late( i have been playing RTW for 3 years, but play as pathia for
a month only, i was though pathia is a weak country and impossible to conquer any country even eypgy.

And now when i finish the game by used pathia in this month,i change my mind.

Horse Archer is the best unit in game
horse archer of pathia will be the best choice!

full unit of horse archer of an army is unbreakable and able to fight in enemy's territory with not support.

in my experience, i can said, an PA(Persian Horse Archer) can destroy triple of enemy with less than 1/3 self lose.

Why?

it can not be catch.
enemy's cavalry not adv. in number and quality. Before they catch PA, 2/3 is die by arrow fire.
army on foot in the front of PA, just like pigs, the only diff. is amoured or not.

there is not enemy can fight with PA in fair , PA and pathia is too powerful in game, not balance.

Every time i use PA to fight , what i need to do is:
1. Start fight( you even dont need to make any arrange)
2. set all army in one group and crush to the front of enemy(dont worry combat happen ,PA will avoid combat auto)
3. Set game in triple speed and wait for victory(usually less than 1/10 loss, 70% of the 1/10 lose is friendly fire)

easy? that's true.

PA is Fxxking powerful!

[Quintus.JC]

i would like to say something irrelevant .when i read some replies above say pathia is not so good.

i think the most powerful country is Pathia.

Reasons why Parthia isn't the most powerful faction:

1. Poor starting position.
2. Worthless infantry.
3. Utterly useless in sieges
4. Over reliance on cavalry (which isn't all bad, but does loses versatility)
5. Can't build paved roads.

Parthia in the right hands can be very powerful, although plain horse archers never worked out for me. I always needed them to be backed up by Cataphracts at least (curious they weren't mentioned in your post), but Persian cavalry is awesome though.

[Darkvicer98]

I agree with Quintus. Their poor starting position costs them alot of money as well as they have a poor selection of infantry which makes them useless in sieges. However their cavalry isn't bad but a bit more of a selection for infantry would be nice.