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.