Thrace

[frogbeastegg]

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

[Tzar Kaloyan]

There are some excellent guides on how to succeed in RTW in general. You would do well to read them! There is no point of repeating any of them here; instead, let me tell you what I did to succeed for Thrace in the short campaign on very hard/very hard – I advise you to always play on very hard as anything else will be a tremendous waste of time. The AI is hardly challenging!

As Thrace, you start in little corner on the Balkan peninsula, south of Scythia, east of Dacia and Macedonia. Since I have already played for Dacia (and shared my thoughts in the guide there), the region was very familiar to me. So, first order of military business was capturing Byzantium from the rebels – it is a very profitable city. To do that, move your spy to reveal where the city is, take the Auxiliary Cavalry from your capital, merge it with the army of your heir and move to Byzantium.

In your two cities, raise taxes to max and set roads in the building queue. Your diplomat should move to Dacia (north-west) to sign an alliance and sell maps and get trade rights. I did not want war with Dacia at the moment. You are done for turn One.

Turn Two: move your Spy in Byzantium. He will reveal the presence of 2 Hoplites and 1 Peltasts. Most importantly, he will give you a 32% chance to open the gate when you attack, this same turn! In my case, it worked and I saved a turn of siege.

The battle for Byzantium is of medium difficulty. The Peltasts were at the gate and were quickly over-run by my general’s cavalry without any loss of life on my side. Then move the Auxiliary Cavalry to irritate the two phalanx units. My missile troops managed to reduce the enemy count. Use your falxmen to finish the job. I am sure somebody on the web has written at length about fighting with and against phalanxes in RTW. I haven’t looked for it, so I had to invent my own way through experience. Here is my approach:

Use the two units of falxmen to attack the phalanx from two opposite sides. The unit that is facing the phalanx will face a very tough time, so make sure you pull it back a little just as they engage it. The unit attacking from behind will do most of the killing. Don’t waste your time charging with your general – I did that and even attacking in the rear cost me immediately 3 dead horsemen. The phalanx is really tough on cavalry.

All in all, if you lose more than 50 men in capturing Byzantium, you probably didn’t manage the battle right. Normal losses should be about 35-40. Upon capturing the city, you don’t need to enslave or kill the population as there are only 2,000 or so of them and they won’t give you much trouble.

For the next couple of turns, move your diplomat to talk to the Dacians and your spy towards the Macedonians. Build a second diplomat. Money should start flowing quickly, as I am sure by now you have built roads, mines or land clearance in various of your cities.

I offered a packaged deal to the Dacians – alliance, trade rights and map information. After some haggling, they agreed on 4-turn tribute at 750 per turn. Not rich, but accomplished the goal of an alliance.

Use your faction leader to put a couple of towers, particularly on the border with Macedonia. Putting towers on the boarder and on ‘blind’ spots in your territory is always a good move – it prevents surprises from enemies and it also allows you to spot if rebels are disrupting your trade routes.

Since we are talking about family members, let me also offer this advice – manage their retinues well! If you have a management-improving retinue on a family member you are planning to use as your conquering general, then the retinue won’t be helping you most of the time! Instead, transfer it to a governor you plan to keep inside a city. Second, give your young family members some chance to sit in a city and get married. The last thing you want is to have no heirs!!! Ensure the future.

On the other hand, if you have enough children already, it may be a good idea to start working on a young general early, if that particular family member has no good management characteristics. I got a youngster, Ziles in 268 BC, that had bad management vices, so I decided to turn him into a general and use my aging leader as a governor!

My plan was to concentrate at first on the easy targets – the rebel-controlled cities in the Mediterranean. This will allow me to get the buildings to produce quality troops, as well as to give my enemies a chance to produce quality troops as well! After all, what fun is there to win easy victories!!! For this plan to work, I needed a port in Byzantium.

Just as I made that plan, a large Pontus army disembarked right next to Byzantium. I sold them maps and trade rights, hired mercenaries right there, moved an army from the capital and prepared for their obvious attack. Pontus signed even an alliance with me, but I was not fooled! A diplomat was sent to sign a hasty treaty with the Macedonians and to hire a rebel army in their territory. Macedonians agreed to an alliance and paid 4,000 for maps and trade rights. Scythians paid 5,000 for maps and trade rights. Thus, fairly early, I had a huge war chest, but very little in terms of hirable troops.

Next turn the Pontus besieged Byzantium. You already knew it, so, I am assuming you are prepared for it. I bribed two more armies from Macedonian territory (note: it is much cheaper to bribe rebel armies than it is to build the same army or to hire mercenaries!) and took them home.

Over the next 3 turns I stalled with Pontus, bribed a couple of rebel armies every turn (got lucky with the rebels) and managed to convince Pontus to accept ceasefire. The following turn I see Pontus went to war with the Seleucids. One would think they will need their strongest army and the faction heir for that war, but he continued to stand right next to Byzantium! After giving him 2 more turns to reconsider, I attacked.

Why wait so long you will ask? Well, try attacking that Pontus army and you will understand. He had 2 units of heavy cavalry in addition to the general’s bodyguard, there was also a unit of light cavalry, archers, peltests and a 5 units of spearmen, if I recall correctly. All this force was lead by an able general. When I finally attacked, I had 4 militia hoplites, 3 units of Thracian mercenaries, 4 units of peltests, 2 illirians, and 5 units of various cavalry. The odds were 4:3, but with Pontus on the defense (and sure to take a hill), I felt they had the better force. The battle started hard (AI on the hill), but the AI showed no initiative! My missiles ran supreme, routed 3 spearmen before the fight even started, my 3 cavalry units ganged on the unprotected general and killed him and once the hoplites finally showed up on top of the hill, it was all over. Man, does the AI do a poor job fighting: it lost over 600 men while only inflicting 122. So, don’t be afraid of the AI! Attack!

From here on, you should be strong enough to build up. The Thrace economy is excellent and Nicomedia and Crete are easy picking. Keep the war away from your money-making cities and decide who will go after next. Overall, of the three factions (other than the Romans) I have played in campaigns with, Thrace is second in terms of starting difficulty (Dacia was easier, Spain was quite hard). Enjoy.

[sapi]

Pontus is fine as long as you sign an agreement before they cross to your territory. You must keep your eyes on everyone, despite solid alliences at the beginning, (in my game) macedon, daicia and sycthia attacked me, breaking my allience. In fact, only the pontic people stayed true. It really helps if you ally wiht the greeks (after taking some of their good territories :) ), as this surrounds the macedonians for an easy kill. Their cavalry are your main problem, as your phalanxes are hard to get and nowhere near as strong as the macedonian ones. You need numbers to succeed.

I'm currently working on getting rome allied to me so i can pound daicia and sycia in peace!

[Maltz]

From the reply and view counts, I guess Thrace is rather an unpopular faction. Indeed, Thrace does not have a lot of "character". It sits between prosper and barren; its hybrids between the barbarian and Greeks. There is no ultimate killer unit in Thrace, meaning if our campaign is dragged too long and the enemies develop well, Thrace is gonna suck and sink. Yep, I can't think of a reason why people will be a Thrace fan; perhaps they were Imagawa fan in STW. (same color)

The bright side is Thrace is quite powerful early on. The 2nd level melee infantry is falxmen, powerful attack and decent defense. Can't really beat them easily! The 1st level ranged unit is peltasts, not bad for melee as well. 2nd level ranged unit is archer, which is quite standard. The 1st level cavalry is jav. cav. (militia cavalry). Missle cavalry is always useful - you better learn it. As you can see, with a mixture peltasts-falxmen-archers-militra cavalry, your army is very healthy. Numidia only has peltasts and jav. cav. and we could survive.

I just played as Thrace for about 5 yrs. Same as Dacia, I ignored all rebels and poured all my starting army south to get rid off Macedon. There are a few hard battles, but generally speaking any able-minded, brave-enough player can handle them. AI Macedon has a killing weakness - its cavalry is way faster than its phalanx. So there are always 20-30 seconds to defeat cavalry first, then kill the pikemen next. Any 2 unit can kill a pikeman. The key of avoiding casaulty - I am sure you already know - is not to charge face-on in the first place. charge from the side/back instead.

*** some updates ***

Now it is 9 yrs into the campaign and I own 18 provinces: the entire Balkan up to the point of Dacia territory, plus the former Brutii. Dacia had some last big battles with my new clan leader, which are very exciting. Scipii is about to lose Capua. Senate army got a plague from somewhere... poor.

For all Greek towns I just "occupied", because there is no cultural penalty. (Good to be in the greater Greek family!) Falxmen saved a lot of days, while the addition of archers certainly helped sieges a lot.

***

There is certainly some fun factor in Thrace, just uncharacteristic. Not very easy, nor very hard to play...

[HopAlongBunny]

Pretty standard Greek faction.

The falxmen are pretty nice; if you can get anything pinned to your phalanx they are even better

Macedonia comes after you early and their cavalry is annoying; I lured a huge stack of mainly lancers into a bridge battle_that was the end of the cavalry and the end of my problems

Scythia doesn't put up much of a fight; odd when you think of how good HA's can be in this game-there seems to be a steady supply of HA merc's on the steppes.

If you play a long campaign go after Brutii sooner rather than later. If you've taken out the Macedonians and Greeks there isn't anything else for them but YOU Given time, their army will be huge when it arrives. When playing as Greece I went for Brutii almost immediately_do the same as Thrace and mid-game will be much easier.

Very nice infantry line-up and seems to have all the tools.

[EAGLESQUAD]

i liked thrace because u can easely rebuild the byzantum empire. scythia is rather peacefull.. and just bribe when a army comes near campus gatea.. this also counts for dacia army. when macadinia attacked i took bylazora, wich for i had to figth my falxmen vs much calavery. than i signed peace, i let the macadionans as a border between brutti, greece and me. in the beginning i took byzantum and nicomedia and let the pontic sign a ceasefire. than greek attackd nicomedia.. i let them pay.. and now im gana attack all turkeys harbor/citys/// (pergamum, sardis, halicarnus) 2 wonders + very rich.
i like thrace because of ther pikemen wich are defencive great. and there ( forgot there name: they look like tracian mercanairys but a bit stronger and they can be build) they are good attackers.. (or pikemen in the mid and they + falxmen on the sides to flak.
i now have a rather small empire but im very rich. soon ill take out dacia and thessalonica. thracia is very fun to play with

[guineawolf]

Pretty standard Greek faction.

The falxmen are pretty nice; if you can get anything pinned to your phalanx they are even better

Macedonia comes after you early and their cavalry is annoying; .

i agree with this="Macedonia comes after you early and their cavalry is annoying",yeah very annoying.I still remember at my early campaign how my general being slaughter by lancers on the conquest of macedonia,and that cause my militia hoplites army start to rout....and lose the battle...completely assasinate of my 3000 thracian light infantry...

about the choice of falxmen and bastarnae:falxmen got 0.87 lethality/13 attack while bastarnae got 1.00/14 attack,it seems that bastarnae is better flanker,
and falxmen got 170 upkeep/500 while bastarnae got 130 upkeep/790 only.
But bastarnae take 2 turn to produce while falxmen take only 1 turn.
falxmen got better defense status while bastarnae got 2 hitpoints.For long term,i will choose bastarnae....
and most importantly falxmen got 8 morale while bastarnae got 10 morale....
it just the falxmen can be produce by militia barrack while bastarnae need army barrack to produce.

[Quintus.JC]

Thrace is possiblely one of hardest faction to play as. sourrounded by hostile nations with a relatively weak army. Thrace really isn't the ideal nation.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

If I have to say one thing about the Thracians, is that their color scheme is terrible. That baby blue really doesn't suit their warriors. I find their falxmen to be quite laughable when they're dressed in what looks like bedtime pajamas. When I look at it up close to my moniter, it burns my eyes.

From a purely asthetic stand point, I find Thrace to be the worst. Even beyond the Pink Panther Parthians.

[Quintus.JC]

Bedtime PJs. man, you're funny.